Double yellow lines on the highway mean stay on your side. When we think about that, all that stands between the other person and us are two yellow lines. If one crosses over, there can be tragic consequences. Just two yellow lines and the other persons’ willingness to heed the warning, protect us.
Spiritually, we have yellow lines as well. Yellow lines mean there is a restriction. We must stay on our side. Our side is strait and narrow (Matthew 7:13-14). We are bound by God’s law and our willingness to obey His law. If we cross over the boundary there are serious consequences (1 John. 3:4). Our eternal soul’s salvation hangs in the balance.
Consider, as in driving, when someone crosses over the yellow lines there is an accident and the innocent are hurt. So it is with sin. When we choose to sin someone who is innocent is hurt. For example, consider the person who commits adultery. Their innocent mate is destroyed. Also, when a man gets drunk and his family does without food because he spent all their money on the bottle, the innocent are hurt. Additionally, when a man gets drunk and he comes home and beats his wife and children, the innocent are hurt. By the same token, when a drunk hits another head on, the innocent are hurt. Similarly, when a parent abuses a child, the innocent are hurt. Likewise, when a man beats his wife, the innocent are hurt. Therefore, the person crossing the yellow line may walk away from the accident but the innocent do not. It may take months, if not years, before the innocent are ever fully recovered. Some don’t. No one escapes the hurt of sin, neither the guilty nor the innocent.
Further, just as the yellow lines were meant to keep us on our side of the road, therefore safe, so does God give us His law. His law is called the perfect law of liberty (James. 1:25). Liberty is the freedom to act within prescribed restraint. Today’s thinking that liberty means we have permission to do what we want to do is false. That is license. For example, God gave us His marriage law for man’s good. He who made us knows we operate best when one man is married to one woman for life. The only exception is when one crosses the yellow, that is, commits fornication. Then the innocent has the right to put away that guilty mate and thus remarry (Matt. 19:9). But again, sin, crossing the yellow line, caused the crash. God said, “Stay on your side of the road.” Moreover, God has said drunkenness is sin. He did not make us to be drunk. Our bodies were not made that way.
Happiness does not come from crossing the yellow line; only sin, misery, death and destruction. In reality, our greatest happiness is when we are obedient to God’s perfect law which gives us liberty.
It is important that we realize, that we not only must to be careful with our driving, we must to be careful with our soul. Stay on God’s side.
Rickie Jenkins
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BUZZARD
If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6′ x 8′ and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10-12′. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.
BAT
The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkably nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and painfully until it reachessome slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.
BUMBLEBEE
A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.
PEOPLE
In many ways, we are like the buzzard, the bat and the bumblebee. We struggle about with all our problems and frustrations, never realizing that all we have to do is look up. Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, but faith looks up. Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly and trust in our Creator who loves us. May your troubles be less, your blessings more, and may nothing but happiness come through your door.
Copied by Kenneth E. Thomas