The Old Man and the Sea

Many years ago, some preachers decided to charter a boat at spend the day fishing. It is pretty easy for us to justify taking a day to go fishing fish-- after all, Peter was a fisherman. and how are we really to appreciate what it is to fish for men if we don't fish for fish every once in awhile? so we went out on the bay for a half day of catching fish... or in my case, watching other people catch fish.

The captain of our fishing boat was a grizzled, salty sea-dog looking man who looked for all the world like he stepped out of Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea. He couldn't have looked any more like a seaman if he would have a wooden leg, a parrot on his shoulder and been carrying a bottle of Old Spice! There was once thing that made him different. His voice box had been removed after a battle with throat cancer, and he breathed through an artificial opening that had been created in his throat by a surgeon.

That captain is forever burned in my memory as the ultimate object lesson in the obvious difference between the way we should live and the way we do live. Several times during our expedition I saw our captain steering the boat with his elbow while he struggled to hold a cigarette to the hole in his throat to smoke. He had lost his larynx to cancer, and yet he insisted on doing the very thing that caused his disease in the first place-- smoking cigarettes! He and his family had gone through so much because of his cigarette-induced disease, and yet he had gone back to the very behavior that probably would have cost him his life one day. I say “probably” because tragically the captain died later that same day. He had taken another boatload of fisherman out that afternoon when his boat capsized and sank when caught in a sudden storm. The captain drowned when he could not keep his head up high enough out of the water to breathe.

How many of us continue in the same behavior that once almost destroyed us? I am not just talking about the heart patient that survives delicate surgery only to go right back to eating cheeseburgers and fries. I talking about those who have been rescued from Satan’s clutches only to return to the very things that threatened them. Paul says this to the Ephesians--

21 Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth
that comes from him,22 throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of
life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.23 Instead, let the Spirit renew
your thoughts and attitudes.24 Put on your new nature, created to be like
God—truly righteous and holy. (Eph 4:21-24, NLT)

Watching a man so intent on destructive behavior that he would smoke through a hole in his throat is one thing. To return to the life from which Jesus died to rescues us is worse