Transcript
Turn your Bibles, please, to the book of Judges, chapter 6. Let's turn to chapter 6 and begin reading at verse one.
And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains.
So it was, whenever Israel had sown, the Midianites would come up. Also the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey.
For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts. Both they and their camels were without number. And they would enter the land to destroy it. So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.
And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because of the Midianites, that the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them,
‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage. I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. Also I said to you, I am the Lord your God. Do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But you have not obeyed My voice.
There was nothing at all about the call that came into the Dallas police helicopter unit last October 18th that, for a moment, suggested the astounding experience that the two pilots had. Corporal Paul Stokes and Corporal Brian, the two pilots, were called out to chase down a suspected drunken driver in West Dallas.
As often happened on the overnight shift, they lifted off in their helicopter to help track a runaway minivan. By the time they reached the scene the chase was almost over. The minivan had pulled over to the side. The ground officers had arrested the driver. But before they could reach the passenger in the vehicle, he ran into some brush and tried to hide.
Corporal Stokes was operating the searchlight in the helicopter, and he soon located the hiding suspect and caught him in the spotlight. That's when the suspect jumped out of the brush and ran in the direction of Fish Trap Lake.
What happened next was very much like a scene straight out of an action movie thriller. The suspect ran into the lake, which had been drained the previous summer and appeared to be dry. Reserve officers Michael Freeman and John Woodrow chased him through the edge of the lake bed. Then they noticed something strange. The lake was actually filled with mud, and the suspect was beginning to sink.
The two officers ran into the lake bed but then turned back immediately, knowing the danger of wallowing in deep mud. Officer Freeman kept on. And by the time he had reached the suspect and handcuffed him, he was up to his knees in mud. As he tried to bring the suspect in, they suddenly began to sink very fast. In a few moments they were both up to their necks in mud.
Now Corporal Stokes in the helicopter had radioed for a fire truck with a rescue ladder. But he and Corporal Brian knew that they might not have time to wait for it to arrive. And when Officer Freeman told them by radio that he was losing the feeling in his legs and was having trouble breathing, they knew they only had minutes to plan their strategy.
They hovered the helicopter and removed one of the doors. Then they flew the helicopter out across the muddy lake bed till they were only inches above where the two men were up to their necks in mud. Stokes reached out for Officer Freeman to catch hold of one of the helicopter skids. But just about then Officer Freeman fainted from weakness and fell face forward into the mud.
That's when Corporal Stokes got out on the helicopter skid and balanced himself face down on the helicopter skid. And somehow he managed to get his arm around the officer and to pull him up. Meanwhile Corporal Brian was trying desperately to control the helicopter. Helicopters are all right, but two men hanging onto one helicopter skid dangerously unbalanced the helicopter.
The helicopter began to roll, and Corporal Brian almost called to Stokes to jump because he knew that if the helicopter rolled over they'd all be dead. But somehow or other he managed to control the helicopter. And they flew Freeman to the shore, dropped him on the ground where he could be attended to by paramedics. And then, as if they hadn't had enough, they performed an encore. They flew the helicopter out again. And once again Corporal Stokes grabbed the handcuffed suspect and they brought him to safety on the edge of the lake.
When the two men got off of duty about 6:00 a.m. they didn't say much to each other about that incident. And it wasn't until hours later when Corporal Brian was watching the news on the television that the full impact of what had happened dawned on him. He said later, “I was watching the news and I said, I don't believe what I did. I mean, what in the world were we trying to do?” Brian is himself a member of the Army Reserves, and he told the media, “I've done some crazy stuff with helicopters in the army, but nothing like this.”
Well, almost nobody does anything like that. And that's why during the year these two men were recognized as the Aircrew of the Year by the Airborne Law Enforcement Association at its annual convention in California. The article in the Dallas Morning News which carried the story was accompanied by another photograph showing Corporals Brian and Stokes standing beside the helicopter. And the name of the story was one that any headline writer would be proud to claim as his own. The headline said, “Quicksand. Thinking Quick, Sam.”
Thank you. And this morning, my friends, I would like each of you to do a little bit of quicksand thinking. Doesn't it ever seem to you that your experience of life is a lot like being trapped in a bog that is filled with quicksand? Does it seem to you that the problems and difficulties and frustrations that you have to face are dragging you down, down, down? And sometimes you can barely keep your head above the mud.
Well, if your experience in any way resembles that, you may have something in common with the children of Israel. And you may need to grab hold of the rescue rope. And you may be surprised to discover that those last words are in fact the title of my message for you this morning. Here they are again, Grab Hold of the Rescue Rope.
Try to imagine with me this horrible scenario. Suppose that later in the year a vast army came from the western coast of Mexico. There are Midianites there and they are all armed with sophisticated high-tech weapons. They sweep east and north from Mexico. And because our government is not able to do anything about it, they invade Texas and New Mexico and Arizona. And they sweep as far north as Wichita Falls.
Everywhere they go they collect the crops that are being harvested on farms. They break into the stores and they break into private homes. And they take away all of the appliances and conveniences and valuable personal property that they are able to carry with them. And then after three weeks of this they retreat back to western Mexico.
Now that's bad enough. But suppose the following year they came back and did exactly the same thing. And the next year they came back again and repeated the same thing. Don't you suppose that a lot of people would move out of Texas and even out of New Mexico? And the south of our cities and towns would look like ghost towns?
Can you imagine a scenario like that? Well you can imagine it at all. You can sort of put yourself in the place of the people who lived in the northern section of the land of Israel. You see one year there was a gigantic invasion by nomads primarily consisting of the Midianites. Now the Midianites were actually descended from a son of Abraham and his second wife Keturah. And they were accompanied by the Amalekites, other nomads from the east.
Then they swept into the land of Israel and they might have been described as a high-tech army because in a very early period of biblical history they used camels to power their invasion technique. You can imagine the advantage soldiers mounted on camels had over the foot soldiers of Israel. And they stripped everything before them.
What was worse is that if you looked at the territory that they had invaded it almost looked like a plague of locusts had descended upon the ground. There were so many of them. There were so many troops. There were so many tents. It just about covered the plain. And then when they left they had destroyed the crops that Israel had grown. They had taken the sheep and the donkeys, the oxen. It was a terrible experience.
But the next year they were back again. And the next year they came back again. And the next. And for seven years this invasion was repeated again and again. Is it any wonder that the children of Israel lived a fearful and defensive life? There was no way to fight these people on the level ground.
And so the Israelites constructed hideouts and strongholds in the mountains. They used the dens, the caves and all of the other strongholds. When the invaders appeared on the horizon they retreated to the mountains making what few things they could take with them to hide with them in those holes.
Do you think I'm exaggerating when I say to you that the experience of the nation of Israel was a lot like being caught in a bog filled with quicksand? And with every invasion that came to them they sank deeper and deeper and deeper. And the wonderful fertile land which they had tried to cultivate was like a ruin and a wasteland.
Let me pause right here. Are you aware that there are actually probably thousands upon thousands of people in the United States of America who live lives that are a struggle simply to survive against the problems and difficulties that they face? And I'm not necessarily talking about losing your house or losing your property or losing your money. You can be very well off and you can be absolutely swamped with difficulty.
In your home your marriage may be coming apart. Then at work you may have to contend with difficult supervisors and uncooperative fellow workers. With your relatives or even with your children there may be tensions so thick in your whole life. Are you wondering what's happened here? I don't know how to handle it. What am I going to do? Simply to survive.
Now just for a moment this morning if that in any way describes your personal life experience it is possible that there is a problem between you and God. It is possible that something is wrong between you and the Lord. Was there something wrong between Israel and God? You bet there was.
The opening words of our passage tell us that the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. Because of the evil that they had done God delivered them into the hand of Midian.
You know I find this story shocking. The thing that shocks me is that it took seven years of these disastrous invasions before the people woke up, before they turned to the Lord.
Let me tell you one of the most surprising lessons I have learned in my forty years in the Christian ministry. I have learned that there are Christians who are walking away from the Lord. They know they are doing what God doesn't want them to do. And God brings trouble after trouble. And they still don't turn.
There's a comic strip. It's a funny strip that has a prehistoric theme. One of the characters in this comic strip is a big fat cave woman and she often carries with her a very heavy hoe. And she cannot stand snakes. I mean she just simply cannot stand them.
And I guess the guy who got that idea out of the book of Genesis. And every time she comes across a snake she takes that hoe and goes wham, wham, wham. Well the snakes of this comic strip had come to recognize what this woman was like. And so whenever a snake kind of sneaks up in the direction of the woman and they see her coming they try every little trick in the book to fool her or to get by her without being noticed.
And sometimes she is fooled for a minute or two. But when she figures things out and knows that there is a snake in front of her they get wham, wham, wham. But there are Christians who are so hardheaded in their disobedience to God they make a plan, plan, plan. But finally Israel woke up and they cried out to the Lord because of the Midianites.
I want you to notice in the rescue, by the way. The first thing He does is to send them a prophet with God's word. And the prophet came to Israel and the prophet said to Israel, as we have read.
May I suggest something that is very, very important. The first step, you can't be delivered from the quicksand of your own problems. You have to face the problem now.
There may be some people in this audience who are not prepared to understand what I'm going to say next. I'm thinking of a person like that. If I were to ask you are you absolutely sure that you're going to go to heaven and your honest answer to me would be no, you're not. You hope you will go to heaven but you're not absolutely sure that you will.
And if that would be your answer then the chances are very good that you do not yet have the comfort of the true spiritual family of God. And if that is true then God wants you to understand clearly. Then He's not asking you to repent of your sins to go to heaven. He's not asking you to work or earn your way to heaven. He's not even asking you to pray a prayer.
He wants you to understand that when the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins then He paid for all of the sins that you would ever commit. He paid for your eternal salvation with His own blood. And all that is required in order to go to heaven is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the free gift of eternal life.
Jesus said, “Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.” And again Jesus said, “He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment but has passed out of death into life.”
And this morning if you're not sure that you're going to heaven you can be sure this very moment. Only believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
But most of you I assume are already born again Christians and it is possible that through your personal sin you are stuck in a quagmire of difficulties. Let me say to you that before God can deliver you from those difficulties you must face the sin and be prepared to repent and return to Him.
There was a girl who ran away from home and she began to live a life of sin. Her mother asked a friend to search for her daughter. This friend of the mother took photographs of the mother's face and beneath the face on each photograph this friend wrote the words come back, come back.
And then he went into the section of the city where all the houses of sin tended to be and in all of these places he put up the pictures with the words on them. The young girl happened to go to one of these places. She saw the picture of her mother. She began to cry and for a few moments the tears prevented her from reading the words.
But when she brushed the tears away she saw written on the photograph of her mother's face the word come back. So she left the places of sin. She went back to her house. She put her hand on the doorknob and hesitated momentarily. Then she rang the bell. Her mother opened the door and embraced her. And her mother said to her, “Oh my child, the door has never been locked. This is the day I have been waiting for.”
My neighbors and friends this morning you may have been away from the Lord. You may have been in sin. But the door to God's presence has never been locked and He loves you.
Don't you see what God is saying to the nation of Israel? He says I loved you. I delivered you from slavery and I destroyed the Egyptian army that pursued you. I drove out the enemies before you and I gave you the land. I told you I wanted you to worship only Me. Don't worship the gods of the Amorites. But you didn't obey.
What's the bottom line of this message this morning my friends? The bottom line is come back. And like the Christian friends it is not until we see in the face of our loving Heavenly Father. It is not until we hear his words saying to us come back. It is not until we are prepared to return to Him that we are prepared to grab the rescue rope.
But God is eager to send the help that will lift us out of the quagmire in which we had fallen through our own sin.
I know a very remarkable story. Somewhere around the end of the 19th century an English family went into the countryside and their children went into a pool to swim. One of the little boys in the family began to drown and the son of the gardener jumped into the pool and he rescued this little boy. The family was very grateful for this and they said to the gardener is there anything that we can do for your son? The boy would like to go to school. So the wealthy family invited the little boy and paid for his education. It just so happened that the little boy who was rescued from the swimming pool was Winston Churchill who became the great Prime Minister during World War II.
Years after the incident when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister he attended a conference in North Africa and after the conference he contracted a very severe case of pneumonia and he was apparently dying. They sent for the best doctor available. They brought in a man named Dr. Alexander Fleming who was a famous British microbiologist and who had actually discovered penicillin.
Dr. Fleming came to the side of Prime Minister Churchill. He attended to him and Churchill recovered. After Churchill recovered he said this to Dr. Fleming, “Rarely has one man owed his life twice to the same rescuer.” For Dr. Alexander Fleming was the son of the gardener who had rescued Churchill from drowning.
If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ this morning He had already rescued you from eternal hell and you will never never go there. But He is prepared to rescue you again and to pull you out of the quicksand into which your sin has led you. And if you are willing to take the prescription of our great Physician, if you are willing to repent and come back to Him, He can heal your heart. He can restore your soul and He can take your fractured life and put it back together again.
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me. See at the portals He's waiting and watching, waiting for you and for me.
Come home, come home. You who are weary come home.
Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling, O sinner come home.
Shall we pray? If there is any unsaved person in this audience this morning, Father, may they trust this morning in the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life. And if there is any believer who is away from home, bring them home today. We ask it in Christ's name.