{"id":23833,"date":"2013-08-18T11:01:09","date_gmt":"2013-08-18T09:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/?p=23833"},"modified":"2013-08-18T11:11:54","modified_gmt":"2013-08-18T09:11:54","slug":"the-old-man-and-the-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/story\/the-old-man-and-the-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"The old man and the sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"waves01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After a few of the usual Sunday evening hymns, the church\u2019s pastor once again slowly stood up, walked over to the pulpit, and gave a very brief introduction of his childhood friend. With that, an elderly man stepped up to the pulpit to speak, \u201cA father, his son, and a friend of his son were sailing off the Pacific Coast,\u201d he began, \u201cwhen a fast approaching storm blocked any attempt to get back to shore. The waves were so high, that even though the father was an experienced sailor, he could not keep the boat upright, and the three were swept into the ocean.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The old man hesitated for a moment, making eye contact with two teenagers who were, for the first time since the service began, looking somewhat interested in his story. He continued, \u201cGrabbing a rescue line, the father had to make the most excruciating decision of his life\u2026.to which boy he would throw the other end of the line. He only had seconds to make the decision.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The father knew that his son was a Christian, and he also knew that his son\u2019s friend was not. The agony of his decision could not be matched by the torrent of waves. As the father yelled out, \u2018I love you, son!\u2019 he threw the line to his son\u2019s friend. By the time he pulled the friend back to the capsized boat, his son had disappeared beyond the raging swells into the black of night. His body was never recovered.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

By this time, the two teenagers were sitting straighter in the pew, waiting for the next words to come out of the old man\u2019s mouth. \u201cThe father,\u201d he continued, \u201cknew his son would step into eternity with Jesus, and he could not bear the thought of his son\u2019s friend stepping into an eternity without Jesus. Therefore, he sacrificed his son. How great is the love of God that He should do the same for us.\u201d With that, the old man turned and sat back down in his chair as silence filled the room.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Within minutes after the service ended, the two teenagers were at the old man\u2019s side. \u201cThat was a nice story,\u201d politely started one of the boys, \u201cbut I don\u2019t think it was very realistic for a father to give up his son\u2019s life in hopes that the other boy would become a Christian.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you\u2019ve got a point there,\u201d the old man replied, glancing down at his worn Bible. A big smile broadened his narrow face, and he once again looked up at the boys and said, \u201cIt sure isn\u2019t very realistic, is it? But I\u2019m standing here today to tell you that THAT story gives me a glimpse of what it must have been like for God to give up His Son for me.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYou see\u2026.I was that father, and your pastor was my son\u2019s friend.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a few of the usual Sunday evening hymns, the church\u2019s pastor once again slowly stood up, walked over to the pulpit, and gave a very brief introduction of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23833"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23843,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23833\/revisions\/23843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebanesesaints.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}