THE GREATEST OF ALL FOOLS

By Lahry Sibley

Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me.

Most folks who would call themselves Christians would have no contention or argument
regarding the above Scripture. God did not make salvation complicated. He did not make it a
great effort on our part. In fact, we did not have anything to do with it. While we were yet dead
in sins, He revealed His salvation for those who would grab hold of this one way, one truth, and
one life. Salvation has come to us in the Son of God, Yah’shua.

If you’ve known me for any time at all, surely you are aware that I really like “illustrations” or
parables. Jesus often used them to present the things of God is such a way that ordinary men
like you and I could understand them. Illustrations help us to take the principles of God and
understand and apply them to successful living down here where the rubber meets the road.

I have been reading a work by a man named Meade McGuire. It’s called “The Life of Victory”.
What a refreshing, healing, and comforting work it is. One of the chapters in this little book is
called “In Christ”. Most would say, “amen” to the life of victory being found only “In Christ”. But
how can I illustrate this in such a way as most anyone could grasp a hold of it and never again let
go? Well, in this same chapter “In Christ” brother McGuire gives probably the best illustration I
have ever read or heard about. Let’s pause for a moment and see what he wrote……

“In the first chapter of Ephesians Paul enumerates some of the blessings secured
to those who are in Christ, declaring that "in Him" they are blessed, chosen,
accepted, redeemed, heirs, united, and SEALED with the Holy Spirit.

It is evident that while Christ enters into His children as a divine, living
personality, He also surrounds them as a heavenly atmosphere. It is thus that He
becomes a well of separation between every true believer and the world, and He
not only separates, but protects, so that no evil influence from without can harm
him.

The diver puts on his specially prepared suit, and goes down into the water, an
element in which he could not live. But he is surrounded with an element which is
continually supplied and renewed from above, and which preserves his life. In a
similar way the child of God is born from above, and his home is there. But for
the present he is in this earthly element in which he cannot live. His life therefore
depends absolutely upon that which is continually supplied from above. That
element is Jesus Christ.”

Oh my! Since I read this, my mind and spirit have been in a whirl. There are just so many things
about this illustration that are “enlightenment” from above. Though his paragraph is brief, it is
not incomplete. Yet there is much meat we can hang on the skeletal outline.

We live in an ocean of air. We are created to live in it after birth. Adam was created to live in the
physical atmosphere of the Earth and at the same time in the Spiritual atmosphere from above.
Most folks understand that if a man is plunged beneath the surface of the ocean for more than a
couple minutes or so, that man will die. Why? Because man is cut off from the air he breathes,
and without the oxygen contained in the air, man’s physical life cannot continue living. Few
would argue against this fact. It is a certainty most have witnessed from afar. We have read
about folks drowning from the time we were of an early age. I remember a classmate drowning
when I was in the 6th grade. There may be a reader here and there who have lost loved ones to
drowning. Drowning brings forth death, a state of no return before judgment day.

That said, most also understand that man has invented an assembly of mechanical parts that
when properly assembled and put about the man’s body, man can live for a time underwater,
and yet maintain his life from above the water.

The first of these inventions was the hard hat diving suit. The helmet or hat was made of bronze
and the suit of a water proof canvas. Each piece was fitted with a connection collar so that the
helmet and suit could be connected with a man inside, and sealed, making the inside water
proof. This equipment was first designed with fire fighting in mind (another exploration of
thought we will not pursue at this time), and it’s use underwater was in reality an afterthought of
it’s original purpose.

The suit is fitted with a hose able to accommodate the intended depth of the dive, and the
opposite end of the hose fitted to a high pressure air pump capable of pumping life supporting
air to the diver submerged in the suit. As long as all parts were in fitted properly in place and
operating as designed, the diver in the suit could work in the alien world underwater of an
indefinite period of time.

The suit was fitted with weights on the chest, back, and feet, to help overcome buoyancy. The
helmet was also fitted with a steel cable attached to a power wench. This way, the diver could be
elevated into the air, and then slowly lowered beneath the surface to the ocean floor. Once on
the floor of the ocean, the diver had some freedom to move about and he could accomplish work
while there. When his chores were concluded, a signal was sent to the surface and the diver was
wenched back to the surface that he was created to live in, his own home turf.

A person working in such a suit in the ocean depths has limitations. There are certain laws that
must be kept in order for sustained life in this alien world. The air pump must continue to work
properly while the man is sealed in the suit. The water seal of hose and suit must be maintained
for obvious reasons. The diver has limited visibility, so he/she must be very careful how they
move about. The helmet usually has a small window in front, and two small windows on each
side for the diver to see through. There are many blind spots. So the diver must be very careful
in moving about. He knows that should he enter places where his lifeline could become
entangled, the wench from above may not be able to pull him free and he could not return to the
surface. He must take care not to tear the suit or the air hose on surrounding sharp surfaces.
This would mean that some of the air meant for him to breath would be lost into the sea.

The diver also knows that the air hose must never be cut, and the steel cable attached to his
helmet must always be attached. When anything damages or interrupts the integrity of these life
keeping equipment pieces, certain death is soon to follow. Many have seen movies depicting
such a tragic loss. It is a terrible death for the diver, and a fearful tragic thing to witness by the
folks on the surface. Selah.

Now, lets take this picture in mind into the spiritual realm. Man was created to live in the
atmosphere of the Almighty God. He knew only good. He had no concept of evil. But man
violated the spiritual law of God in the natural realm. He ate what was forbidden, and was
plunged into a world of sin and death, much like a natural man falling into the sea with a stone
tied around his neck, plunged to it’s depths and certain death. He was without hope in his death.

Sin plunges every man into the depths of evil and death. This is an alien world that man was not
created to live in. Spiritual death is eminate and certain. Since only God can resurrect the dead,
only God can put spiritual life back into the dead soul of men.

We are not brought back to life in the world we came from. We are brought back to life in the
world of sin, that our sinful choice plunged us into. We find ourselves alive in an alien world,
much like the hard hat diver. The cross of Calvary is our lifeline, to sustain life in the alien world
and to take us up to heaven when our purpose in the alien world is concluded. Jesus life, the
Holy Spirit is the air we breath. As long as all is intact, we are safe to move about in this alien
world of sin and degradation, but like the diver, we have limits. We know that anything that
endangers our connection with the life giving air from above is our enemy. So we avoid those
places and situations where what protects us might be compromised.

Now we all “bump into things” mostly because of carelessness or oversight on our part, or
carelessness on the part of others, or both. We can damage the integrity of our life support, but
not lose it’s protection and life giving support. Sin destroys the integrity of our life support. Sin
quenches the Holy Spirit and cuts off the life giving air from above.

Most divers carried a knife with them. If they became entangled in sea weed or other
entrapments, they could use the knife to cut free from these things. The Word of God is sharper
than a two edged sword!!!

But no diver in his right mind would reach above his head and cut the hose that supplied the life
sustaining air. That would be suicide for sure.

Willful transgression of God’s law will cut off the Holy Spirit and His life giving power, and
plunge the saint into certain death, much the same way a diver would quickly die underwater in
the alien world of sea creatures if he cut off his airline. Before he could be wenched to the
surface, he would be dead.

How insane and suicidal is the act of sin. I want to share with you, what a man once wrote about
sin….. if I may…….

Sin, I repeat in addition to anything else it may be, is always an act of wrong judgment. To
commit a sin, a man must for the moment believe that things are different from what they
really are; he must confound values; he must see the moral universe out of focus; he must
accept a lie as truth and see truth as a lie; he must ignore the signs on the highway and drive
with his eyes shut; he must act as if he had no soul and is not accountable for his moral
choices.

Sin is never a thing to be proud of. No act is wise that ignores remote consequences, and sin
always does. Sin sees only today, or at most tomorrow; never the day after tomorrow, next
month, or next year. Death and judgment are pushed aside as if they did not exist and the
sinner becomes for the time a practical atheist who by his act denies not only the existence of
God but the concept of life after death.
The notion that the careless sinner is the smart fellow and the serious minded Christian,
though well intended, is a stupid dolt altogether out of touch with life will not stand up under
scrutiny. Sin is basically an act of moral folly, and the greater the folly, the greater the fool.

So we see that a man submerged into a world not his own, and then commit an act that would
server his life support in that alien world, is a FOOL! Sinners, are fools. But the worse sinner of
all, is he/she that has been resurrected from the dead and placed into the life support of grace
and then server their connection to grace with the awful sin that still brings forth death.

Saints and sinners, sin always wins. Sin plunges man into an alien world of death, a world he
was not created to live it. All have sinned and plunged into death. Without someone to resurrect
us, how hopelessly we remain ever dead.

But God in His mercy did not leave us in death. He sent us a Savior, to resurrect us from a life of
sin and death, and to place a protection of life around us, that we may live, even though we are
yet in this alien world. Dare a man be such a fool, that once resurrected and protected would
throw off his protection and return to the certain death once again, never again to be brought to
life? The man who sins is a fool. The man who sins once resurrected and placed into this life
support system of faith, is the greatest of fools. Selah. - Lahry