The Duck Story

            Out for a walk in a park one evening I noticed a large gathering of ducks making a lot of noise. Generally you see one or two but not this many. But there she was-there was a lady with her children feeding the ducks. There was a lot of movement and a lot of noise.

          The lady’s children were terrified of the noise and movement of the ducks. The mother was trying hard to get her children more acquainted with the usually very docile creatures.

          Then one of the ducks caught my eye. It had its mouth partially open. The mouth seemed to be in a fixed position. Then I noticed a plastic wrist band was stuck in its mouth. The wrist band was around its neck. Apparently the duck bit down on the plastic band it flipped back over his head.

          It was obvious the band could not be taken off by the duck. Unlike all the other ducks, he was completely unable to put any food into his mouth. It also became apparent that he could not remove the band, he would eventually die.

          Realizing this, several attempts were made to catch the duck to remove the band, but to no avail. Then I enlisted some of the passersby to assist in catching the duck -most showed no interest at all the situation. Finally one man got involved. We tried to catch the duck, but the duck ran away. We made a number of attempts but they were still unsuccessful. Then the duck ran under a fence so there was going to be no way to help him.

          Reflecting on that experience the thought came to me of how hopeless that situation was for the duck. Without help from another he would surly die. And yet he continually resisted any effort to get help. He was consistently opposed to any kind of outside help. He had a situation that eventually would have been fatal, yet resisted help.

          So too is it with fallen mankind. Seems to be a parallel situation. Mankind is in a fallen state and so often people refuse to acknowledge the fact and actually resist any help from God. Man can not-due to Adam’s fall-can not restore himself or fix his problem by himself.

          He must get help from God. This is the primary reason why Christ became man, becoming the God-man to provide us the help we needed to restore us to God’s favor and grace. And yet so many resist his help and the result is death spiritual death and an eternity without God.