Remember the DUCK! Your guilt has found you out!
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
I read this story the other day, and was riveted by the statement – “Remember the duck!”
Richard Hoefler’s book Will Daylight Come? includes A homey illustration of how sin enslaves and forgiveness frees. A little boy visiting his grandparents as given his first slingshot. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit his target. As he came back to Grandma’s back yard, he spied her pet duck. On an impulse he took aim and let fly. The stone hit, and the duck fell dead.
The boy panicked. Desperately he hid the dead duck in the woodpile, only to look up and see his sister watching. Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing. After lunch that day, Grandma said, “Sally, let’s wash the dishes.” But Sally said, “Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Didn’t you, Johnny?” And she whispered to him, “Remember the duck! So Johnny did the dishes.
Later Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing. Grandma said, “I’m sorry, but I need Sally to help make supper.” Sally smiled and said, “That’s all taken care of. Johnny wants to do it.” Again she whispered, “Remember the duck.” Johnny stayed while Sally went fishing. After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally’s, finally he couldn’t stand it. He confessed to Grandma that he’d killed the duck. “I know, Johnny,” she said, giving him a hug. “I was standing at the window and saw the whole thing. Because I love you, I forgave you. I wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.
Steven Cole
My purpose in publishing this blog is simple. Too many people I know, have voices inside of thier heads, just like the sister in this story, blackmailing them into oppression and slavery because of a past sin they committed. Sometimes these voices are from demonic spirits, other times there are very real offended people that constantly remind us of our past failures, and doom us to a lifetime of bondage – IF WE LET THEM!
If we mess up, we need to fess up. First to God, then to the people we have sinned against. There is freedom in it.
1 John 1:9 (AKJV)
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we don’t, we fight spiritual law working against us:
Rom 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
Remember the duck!
Although this has nothing to do with this blog, I thought it was funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iysXkTgNhrU
Karl Menninger, the famed psychiatrist, once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75 percent of them could walk out the next day!
Today in the Word, March 1989, p. 8.
Heard another story that is heartbreaking:
This headline appeared in the Grand Rapids Press: “Convict Tells of a Torture that Time Can’t Change.” The article described a newspaper reporter’s interview with a man who had been convicted of killing his wife. Here’s how the writer described the scene: “He leans forward from his chair. For a moment he says nothing. Finally he comments, matter-of-factly, ‘I’ll never be the same. I have no illusions about that. I still have to live with it.'” Since he was being considered for parole, the prisoner was asked by the reporter if he deserved to be let out. He responded by saying, “Out? I lost a wife, and I can’t replace her. It’ll always be on my mind, because no matter what, I still bear the final responsibility. There’s no amount of time I could do that would change anything. I could do 100 years or 1,000 years; how do you set a number for something like that?”
Grand Rapids Press.
Great headline – ‘A torture that time can’t change’. This is fact, time can’t change the guilt this man had for murdering his wife, and he is correct, 100 or 1000 years in prison could not atone or pay for the crime he committed – but the blood of Jesus can, and did.
It took an infinite God to die upon the cross, to pay an infinite debt that all of us owe for our sin before the courts of heaven.
There is no sin too great, no secret too sick, that God cannot forgive it, and the precious blood of Jesus does what no earthly thing can do – cleanses us from the guilt and shame of what we have done.
How I see soldiers that have committed horrible atrocities in slaughtering innocent villages in genocide get free?
Only through the cross and blood of Jesus.
I know a man that opened fire with a 50 calibre machine gun upon a village of civilians killing everything that moved, then court martialed and dishonorably discharged from the military. This caused him to be plauged with PTSD and horrible nightmares. He is now totally set free, and now serving as a sucessful owner of a construction company.
Only through the blood of Jesus.
A preacher I like, Mark Hankins, did a great job preaching upon the power of Jesus shed blood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytng0Ibm0zE
Let’s pray!
“Father, forgive me where I have sinned against you. and give us the courage and wisdom to ask forgiveness of those we have sinned against. I ask, knowing I am heard, for I ask in Jesus name!”
For those of us that like to listen and watch, I uploaded this on Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kn3TfB1Ukw
If you don’t know God yet, you can!
He loves you, and has provided a way for our forgiveness through Jesus: https://www.chrisaomministries.com/2017/02/27/do-you-want-to-go-to-heaven/