Sheep and Parachutes

"Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth." Psalm 31:5 (KJV)

Abraham Lincoln once asked a group of people,

“How many legs would a sheep have if you called its tail a leg?”

They eagerly replied, “Five!”

He responded, “No matter what you call the tail that sheep still only has four legs”

In this day where relative truth reigns and situational ethics are the norm, it might do us all well to remember his illustration. You can call black white and white black or evil good and good evil but that will never change the truth. A generation that lives their lives without truth will soon find that the consequences of their unbelief cannot be escaped. Let me illustrate.

You may have heard of the law of gravity. There is a popular legend that states that Sir Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell on his head. He then thought about the simple act and came up with the theory of gravitational pull. Perhaps like most legends this is partially true. Newton might have watched an apple fall to the ground and understood that there had to be something pulling it from its branch and accelerating it from zero to the speed that it hit the ground but his brilliance came from understanding there was more to it than just an apple falling to the ground. What if this law of gravity extended far beyond the apple tree? What if it reached into the sky and touched the moon. What if there was a gravitational pull that was universal to all objects? By applying this truth to the world around him, Newton began to understand the interactions of even the ocean tides.

Your teachers may have instructed you in the way that gravity works and even explained why but you can’t see it! Having chosen to deny the very existence of gravity you live your life as if there are just random occurrences all around you. One day you climb to the top of the Empire State Building in New York and declare that there is no such thing as gravity and you believe that you can fly. Jumping from the rail you feel the undeniable truth of gravities attraction on your body as you plummet to the ground.

“No matter what you call the tail that sheep still only has four legs.”

We often approach truth this way. We believe that it is definable and that we are the judge of truth because it varies from situation to situation. This belief has led many to climb to the height of humanism and declare there is no God! We have cast away the law of God and disbelieved the consequences of sin. We are falling from the pinnacle of our own choosing inevitably headed toward the rocks of death and all the while we choose to deny the only thing that can save us.

Imagine if a loving God followed you to the pinnacle of unbelief and placed a parachute on you. Imagine if by His loving grace He told you all you had to do is believe Him and pull the cord. Imagine that all the way down as the law of sin held you in its grasp God called out,

“Trust me! My grace is sufficient for you! Only believe!”

But you refused to trust in His Salvation plan. You refused to turn from your pride and rebellion believing instead the lie that there was no law, no rocks, no death, no judgment. Your denial would not change the truth of God’s law anymore than denying the Law of Gravity would change its truth and the end would be death.
The Psalmist cried out, “Into your hand I commit my spirit: you have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.”

The last part of that verse declares another of God’s names, “el emet” The God of Truth! He is unchangeable; His Word declares the future and holds our every moment. When we commit our lives into His hand, we are saved! The fall of man has taken place. We jumped off the precipice long ago and lost control of our destiny. Believing a lie we are damned, but God, in His loving grace, has provided a parachute, a way of escape. Believe Him! Trust His Word! Accept His Grace! And be saved!