Rope of choice

TRUE STORY....

This story was told by a pastor's friend who was a guest one Sunday in the pastor's church. After a brief introduction of his friend, the pastor led his friend to the pulpit area so that the elderly man could speak:

"A father, his son and a close friend of the son were sailing off the Pacific Coast one day when a storm took them by complete surprise. The storm surrounded the three so quickly that they thought they'd not be able to get back to shore in safety. Although the father was an experienced sailor, he was no match for the forces of nature and in short order, the storm-tossed boat tipped and bobbed, and the wind and waves tossed the three into the churning ocean."

The elderly man paused for a moment, and looked toward two teen boys who had seemed fidgety and bored at the beginning of the service. The old man noted that the boys now seemed quite interested in his story, so he took a sip of water and continued...

"The father managed to grasp on to the boat and scramble back aboard, and quickly reached for a rescue line to toss out for the boys. As he readied himself to throw out the line, this is where the father had to make the most excruciating decision of his life - and with no real time for deliberation! In the ever-increasing violence of the storm, every second counted and the boys were far separated from each other by the rolling sea. The father knew he would only be able to get the rescue line out once and drag it back in before it was too late and one of the boys drifted too far out for saving. Should he throw the line to his son? Or his son's friend?

The father was almost frozen with indecision, but realized that his son was a Christian while he knew his son's friend was not. With that knowledge then, the father acted immediately, shouting, "I love you son!" while throwing the rescue line in the direction of his son's friend.

By the time the father was able to pull the teen to the boat, his son had been swept away into the darkness of the storm. The son's body was never recovered."

The elderly speaker glanced again to the two boys he'd noticed before, and they were sitting much straighter in their pew, attentively listening as never before.

"The father knew that his Christian son would step into eternity with Jesus and could not bear the thought of his son's friend going into eternity without Jesus, and this is why the father didn't attempt to rescue his own son. Instead, he sacrificed his son so that another boy should live."

His point stated, the elderly friend of the pastor walked away from the pulpit and sat himself down, while the pastor, judging that his congregation was deep in contemplative, emotional thought, decided not to extend any lengthier sermon. He thanked his speaker friend and told the congregation he would be welcoming them again into church a week from this day.

No sooner had the pastor ended the formalities than the two boys went over to the elderly speaker.
"That was a nice story" said one of the boys, while the other finished the sentence, "but I don't think it was too realistic for a father to give up the life of his son when the father couldn't know if the son's friend would ever become a Christian." The other boy chimed in, "Yeah - how would he know that he didn't just save a boy who would never be with Jesus in eternity, anyway? Then he'd have saved the wrong boy!"

"You've got a point there," said the old man, "and I can see how you might think the father made the wrong choice, but..."
He paused, looking down to the Bible he held in his lap for a moment, then looked back into the boys' faces, "I can tell you that the father made the right choice, and one similar to the choice God made in sacrificing his son, too...
...you see...
I was the son's friend."
"He saved others; Himself He cannot save..." Matthew 27:42