The beach was almost deserted because it was a cold evening, but a couple of swimmers could be seen in the water. One was a man who came to the beach every evening to swim two hundred meters. The other was a woman swimmer.
When the man finished swimming his lap in one direction and was turning to swim back, he saw that the woman swimmer seemed to be in trouble, but she was heading farther out to sea. He swam towards her and asked if everything was all right. The woman replied that she was becoming very tired.
“Then turn back,” he told her.
To his surprise the woman answered, “No, I’m heading in the right direction.”
The man explained to her that she was confused on her directions and that she was actually swimming farther away from shore. But the woman insisted that she was right.
Feeling his responsibility in this serious situation, the man changed his tone of voice and pleaded with her to believe what he was telling her. He assured her that he would swim alongside her if she would turn around to swim back. He finally convinced her to turn back, and together they swam towards shore.
When she saw the beach, the woman gave a cry of relief - she was safe! We can only imagine how thankful she was to her rescuer as she thought of what the end of the story might have been if he had left her swimming in the wrong direction.
Many of us have our minds made up that we have our lives headed in the right direction. We believe that at the end of this life we will enter God’s heavenly home as long as we lead a good, clean life and are kind to people and helpful to those who are in need. But the book that God has given us, the Bible, would tell us that we are headed in the wrong direction! Certainly there is nothing wrong with living a good, clean life and being kind and helpful to others, but according to what God tells us, that is not the way to reach heaven. The Bible tells us there is only one way to be allowed into heaven. If we choose to go another way, we must face the sad result that we will never reach that beautiful shore and will be lost forever.
This is the way the Bible teaches: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth to die in our place, that “whosoever [believes] in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man [comes] unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6).
Like the rescuer in the story, we plead with you to turn back -change direction - and follow the Lord Jesus. He is the One who loves you and died for you, and He never told a lie nor deceived anyone. If you will come to Him by faith, believing that He died for your sins, you will be certain of reaching the shore of heaven when your life here on earth is over.
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).
ML-12/21/2003