Donald gulped down his breakfast and picked up his beautiful new kite with its long, strong string. The weather was perfect, and he could hardly wait to get outside so he could fly it. Just then his mother came into the kitchen with a worried look on her face.
“I’m sorry, Donald,” she said, “but I’ve got to go on an errand, and I’m waiting for a very important phone call. I need you to stay in and wait by the phone. When it rings, please answer it and take a message for me.”
Donald was disappointed, but he obeyed. He loved his mother, and he also loved the Lord Jesus. He knew that obeying was right and pleased the Lord. The Bible says, “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord” (Colossians 3:2020Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. (Colossians 3:20)). So he sat quietly by the phone as his mother went out.
After a while he got tired of just sitting and began to wonder how many times he could wrap the string of his kite around the telephone before it rang. He tipped the phone over a little so he could slip the string underneath it and began wrapping it around and around the phone and the receiver . . . once . . . twice . . . three times . . . four times. . . .
After a while when he had used up almost all the string and was still counting, the telephone suddenly began to ring. His mother’s important call! Horrified, he realized he couldn’t answer the telephone because of all the string wrapped around it. Desperately he tried to pull the string off, as the phone continued to ring and ring. But the string was wrapped too tightly around it.
Our sins are just like that string wrapped tightly around the telephone. The more sins we have, the longer the string, and Satan just keeps wrapping it tighter and tighter around us. Our sins have made us helpless captives. The Bible says, “His own iniquities [sins] shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden [held tightly] with the cords of his sins” (Proverbs 5:2222His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. (Proverbs 5:22)). Crying about our sins and struggling to get free from them won’t do any more good than it did Donald.
He was crying and yanking at the string. But before he was able to get it off, the phone stopped ringing. Donald sank down on the floor beside it, crying. He had been so foolish. He had failed his mother, and there was nothing he could do about it now.
Donald didn’t have anybody around to help him out of his trouble. But there is Someone who can cut your cords of sin and set you free right now. If you will just come to the Lord Jesus who loves you and tell Him you are truly sorry about your sins, He will cut those cords and set you free forever from the guilt and penalty of sin. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:3636If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. (John 8:36)).
Would you like to be set free? Will you come to the Lord Jesus? He died to save you from your sins. “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3).
ML-09/24/2000