How many of you children have ever seen an eel? Raise your hands. Oh, my! not many have. An eel looks very much like a snake. When the fisherman pulls one out of the water, it wiggles and twists and crawls around on the ground just like a snake.
Baby eels are born way down deep in the Caribbean Sea. The mamma and daddy eels go down there from Canada, the United States, Norway, Sweden, France, and Africa. After the babies are born, the daddies and mothers go back home and leave them there. At birth the babies are wee little things, so thin you can almost see through them. But they have tremendous appetites. They eat all day long and most of the night. As they grow, they get round like a pencil, When they are grown, the daddy eel is about three feet long and the mother is about six feet long. I do not know why the mother is so much larger than the daddy unless it is that she chases him and makes him behave.
Though the babies are born in salt water, they love to live and swim in fresh water. When they are large enough, they start for home. They go back to the same place where their fathers and mothers came from. You see, children follow in the footsteps of their parents. Do you have a daddy and mother who pray and read the Bible and go to Sunday school? If so, be sure to follow them. The Lord Jesus wants to save you, too, as He saved your daddy and mother.
One day the Lord Jesus said to some men, “Follow Me....” He wants you to do that, children. Learn to trust the Lord Jesus as your own Lord and Saviour. Then let Him guide you into the place where He can use you for His glory.
No one knows how the eels know the way back home. They have no chart or compass. Their parents have already been gone a long time. But the God who made eels gave them an instinct which tells them how to find their way down in the dark sea water, and so they start back to the country from which their parents came. This same God will give you the gift of eternal life if you will accept the Lord Jesus and let Him be your Saviour to keep you from the dark ways of sin.
Eels can travel very fast through water. They never seem to get tired. Sometimes they will swim as far as 10 miles in one day. This is a long way to swim through the water amid so many enemies. Sometimes it takes them three years to reach their homes, for it is a long, long way from the Caribbean Sea to the fjords of Norway. Sea gulls attack eels, some kinds of fish eat them, and fishermen catch them; so usually only about one-third to one-fourth ever reach their home.
The eel’s skin is smooth, but down in the skin there are lots of tiny little scales so small they can hardly be seen. In among the scales there are mucous glands which cover the eel with slimy, slippery, slick mucous. No doubt you have heard the expression, “slippery as an eel.” This slick covering enables the eel to get away from its enemies and also to swim quickly in the water.
Sin is slippery, too, boys and girls. It can slip its way into your life when you least expect it. Only the Lord Jesus and His Bible can keep you from sin. Be sure to read your Bible every day.
Eels are found in many of our rivers and lakes. When winter comes and ice fills the streams, the eels go way down to the bottom of the deep waters and bury themselves in the mud. There they stay for a long time until the nice, warm spring sunshine and the warm rains cause the ice to melt. I have been told that eels are much disturbed by noises and especially by thunder. It seems that when they hear thunder, they think rain is coming and with it lots of bugs, worms, and other living creatures will be washed down into the stream for them to eat. So they come up looking for food.
Some fishermen, knowing this about eels, play tricks on them. They go down to the stream with drums or anything that will make a deep roaring sound. They beat on them to attract the eels’ attention and get them to come up from the bottom of the stream because they think they hear thunder. Then the fishermen use their nets or fishing poles and catch a fine lot of eels by this trick.
This reminds me of the clever schemes Satan uses to get boys and girls to go astray into sinful paths and wicked ways. He, too, will put on all kinds of performances to make little folks and big folks, too, think that they will reap a harvest of goodness, happiness, and blessing by obeying his call. But he has his evil helpers ready to trick and trap those who follow him. He gets them wound up in bad habits which hold them fast and trip them in such a way that their lives are ruined. I do hope that you who are reading this story will not listen to Satan when he calls. You listen to the Lord Jesus instead and trust Him, because He died to save you and lives to keep you from Satan’s harmful and evil tricks.