PODCAST
Helpless!
July 26th, 2011
Romans 11:25-32
Alaskan squirrels are smaller than their stateside cousins, and they are very curious. My wife phoned to inform me that a squirrel was in the wall, scratching in desperation to get out.
How could a squirrel get into an inside partition of a house? I determined it was in a vent pipe. There was no danger to us or the house, but it would be unpleasant for the squirrel without food and water. I lassoed the vent pipe and climbed the slick, snow-covered metal roof. What could I do to free the squirrel? More on impulse than a preplanned action, I fed the end of the rope down the pipe. It tightened as the squirrel climbed out. The freed squirrel squinted in the bright sun light, nodded at me, and jumped off the roof into the snow.
All of us, like the squirrel, were trapped by our transgressions. We are unable to save ourselves. God lets down a line of salvation to us, it is “so that he may have mercy”; and mercy has meaning because of our bondage.
