Insightful Musings on theScriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good evening, dear ones.

Becki and I were about to go out for our walk/jog this morning when I felt the air and made a day-altering decision. I decided to lay aside my work pile again and run to the mountain to play a bit in the snow. Timberline is exactly 61 miles from our house. I made the trip in about an hour and fifteen minutes. Not too bad. The lighting was in an out. But I had a great round of exercise. I wasn’t there more than about 2 hours. I made some stops on my trip home—checked on a guy at Zigzag that I did sawmill work for several years ago, picked up Thano’s chainsaw that was in a shop for repairs in Estacada, bought eggs from a friend, then called in at the farm where we buy milk and cream. Back home before 3pm. I even picked up the mail from the mailbox at the end of our driveway.

Good night.

Love, Dad/Ray.

The irony of this picture cannot be mistaken. Solomon apparently knew something about bird-netting. It can’t be too much different from the fish netting I’ve done with locals in the islands—where we stretch out a line net of about 300 feet in length over a fish-traveled reef—the net being about 6 feet wide/deep—having floaters laced into the top edge and lead weights along the bottom edge. It was typical to place the net by swimming with mask and snorkel. A common strategy is to then leave that spot and circle back around and try to herd the fish toward the net. Another style is to place the net from a canoe and just leave it overnight. But I’ve seen nets torn up too badly with that approach from sharks being caught—perhaps while they’re attempting to snatch the fish. The point is that stealth is required to catch a bird or fish in a net. And what could be more ironic than for a bird-brain bird hunter to be caught in the very net he put out for catching birds?!—or for a fisherman to be caught, tangled up, and drowned in the very net he put out for catching fish?!

A criminal always presumes at the outset of his crime that he can be so clever with his plan so as to beat the system and avoid being caught. That’s why he does it. The very nature of crime is typically to catch someone else by stealth and take what they have without being detected. A criminal knows his actions are morally wrong—he may even have heard in Sunday School that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline” (Proverbs 1:7). Nevertheless, he figures that God is probably off running some other part of the universe and doesn’t know, or isn’t looking. His bird-brained NATURAL SIN NATURE deceives him into thinking he can catch a good life his own way—with not a clue that that very notion entraps and confirms him in the certain destruction of his own making. You know—SIN really is stupid!—especially when it is so clearly identified—and so clearly extricated by God’s grace (the Biblical Gospel of Christ).

Enter David with his first lines from Psalm 32: “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit” (Psalm 32:1-2). This is a good time to shout, “HALELUIA!!”—because that is exactly what the Biblical Gospel achieves! In the eternal scheme of things, how could there be a more blessed blessing than that?!