Six-year-old Tony and his eight-year-old brother Mike were flying kites near their home in California. They were in a field next to where a bridge was being built. The construction workers had just finished digging a hole in that field two feet wide and 28 feet deep for one of the bridge’s supports. Then they had gone home for the day, leaving the hole uncovered.
Tony didn’t know about that dangerous hole. He was enjoying flying his kite when he stepped back and suddenly found himself falling down a deep hole. Mike’s screams soon brought their father rushing to where Tony had disappeared. Frantically he called 911, and soon firemen and paramedics arrived.
For Tony it had all happened so quickly — one moment he was flying a kite, and then suddenly he was trapped in a deep, dark hole with no way to get out.
Work to rescue Tony began immediately. One of the men was lowered into the hole head first. He found Tony alive, but he was so wedged in that he could not be moved. The rescuer also found that the walls of the hole were not very strong. Fearing that more dirt would fall in on Tony, he signaled to be pulled back out of the hole.
Special equipment from the telephone company was then lowered into the hole. The paramedics and Tony’s father were able to talk to him. They did their best to encourage him and to assure him that he would soon be rescued.
Then a large drilling rig with a three-foot auger arrived and began to drill down into the ground eight feet away from Tony. They drilled down 30 feet and then began to dig a tunnel across to where he was trapped.
Not until midnight, seven hours after Tony had disappeared down the hole, was he brought out. By then there was a crowd gathered around the hole. They started clapping as a rescuer appeared with Tony in his arms. Tony was carefully put on a stretcher and into a helicopter so he could be flown to a hospital.
Are you in danger? Tony didn’t know he was in danger. One second he was flying his kite, having fun, and the next second he was falling down a hole he hadn’t known was there. Thankfully his brother was there to let others know about his problem. Today, we want to let you know that you are in danger. If you don’t yet know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you are headed for a dangerous place called hell. There was help for Tony, and there is help for you, too, if you will receive it.
Tony didn’t know it, but the hole was there waiting for him before he even entered that field that day. And we don’t know it until someone tells us, but sin has been in this world for about 6000 years, and we all fall into it, because we all sin. The problem is that no sin can go into heaven, with a holy and loving God.
Just as no work or money was too much to do to save Tony, so nothing was too much for God to do to save us from going to hell and to take us to His wonderful home in heaven. God gave His only Son to die for us, because He loves us so much. Listen to this amazing verse: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that [whoever believes] in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)).
I hope you have believed in God’s wonderful love!
Messages of God’s Love 3/17/2024