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The army
was advancing. A soldier stationed on the ridge was signaling when a bullet
struck him and he fell, a crumpled heap, into a shell hole. |
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This soldier
had been a sailor before going into the army. He was proud of his strength,
contemptuous of the weakness of others and cared only for his own interests.
Now his strength was turned to weakness, and as the weary hours dragged by
there seemed little hope of rescue. His line had been driven back, and he was
all alone. |
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The effort
of supporting his body and preventing it from sliding down into the water at
the bottom of the shell hole exhausted him. About |
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Near dawn
shelling began again. One shell fell so close behind him that the explosion
nearly blocked up the hole in which he was. The water rose to his chest. Now
for the first time it was possible to wet his parched tongue and soothe his
raging thirst, but, should he fall asleep, drowning was inevitable. |
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Running through his mind now came
the strains of a song cheerfully sung on former occasions: "Where do we
go from here, boys?" Gradually the words became pointed and the thought
was impressed on his mind: he was going somewhere and soon.
"Where?" And again, |
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"Where?" |
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His body
was trapped in the mud, his strength was gone and his careless soul was on
its way out. Out he was going, naked and stained with the sins of thirty
years, into the presence of a holy God with nothing to plead and no one to intercede.
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The terror
of death fell on him, and he made frantic efforts to escape from what seemed
to be his grave. Again and again he called out for help. No answer. I cannot
die, he thought. I am not ready to die! |
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No method
of approaching God offered itself. "What can I do? I must do
something!" he said desperately. |
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Into his
mind now came an answering thought: "Call
upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee." |
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Not recognizing
this as a reply to his question, he still kept muttering, "What'll I do?
What'll I do?" |
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Again came
the thought: |
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"Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will
deliver thee" |
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(Psalm
50:15). |
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"Who should
I call? It must be God. The sentence must come from the Bible. But if it is
God, He must be speaking to His own people - not to me. I don't know
Him!" |
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Something
must be done soon, but how to begin? Where is God? At last he began to form
his request: "O God, if there is a God, and if He can hear one out of
the ten thousand that are crying to Him this morning, and if He will listen
to such a voice as mine, hear me. If this is in the Bible, and can be
stretched to cover me, this is my day of trouble and I am calling." |
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This done,
panic began to recede and sleep was falling upon him when he heard someone
say, "Who are you, buddy?" |
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"7th
Battalion," he replied. |
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A period
of silence, and then again: "Where are you?" |
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He roused himself
to answer, "Over here." |
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Finally
two men, crawling over the mud, reached the place where he was trapped. Their
combined efforts dragged him out of the shell hole. They tried without
success three or four ways of carrying him back to their post, but were
compelled to stop because snipers fired as soon as they raised their bodies.
They had to leave him to try and make his own way out. After pointing to the
dressing station more than half a mile off, they returned to their own posts.
The wounded man could not lift his body from the ground, so he lay on his
face and, by digging his elbows into the ground, he dragged himself forward a
foot at a time. |
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Several
times an airplane passed overhead, machine-gunning the front lines, but each
time it reached a point above the crawling body the firing ceased. Was this
due to the need to reload, or was it due to the promise, "I will deliver thee"? At last he reached a point where
other soldiers could see him, and with a final effort he raised his body and
shouted. When next he came to himself, he was in a base hospital. |
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One of the
first things he did was to ask for a Bible and look for the promise that had
proved to be so true. He was told he would find it in Psalm 50, verse 15, and when he turned to it and read it, he was
deeply interested in the concluding words: "And thou shalt glorify Me." He resolved to do this as
long as he should live. |
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As he said
many times, "It is better to walk to God in health and strength than to crawl
like a worm through the mud to His feet!" |
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It's the grandest theme - |
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Let the tidings roll |
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To the
weary heart, |
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To the
sin-sick soul. |
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Look to God in faith, |
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He will make you whole. |
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Our God is able to deliver you! |
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"The
blood of Jesus Christ . . . cleanseth us from all sin." |
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1 John 1:9
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From: http://home.comcast.net |