LightGrams
January 12, 2023
Volume 27, Number 2
Few things are as whimsical as finding a message in a bottle. How many bottles containing messages have been cast into the ocean is unknown, but occasionally we hear of someone finding one. A famous movie starring Paul Newman and Kevin Costner was produced in 1999 on this idea. It wasn’t a huge hit, but the $30 million budgeted resulted in $118 million at the box office.
Troy Heller, then a resident of Louisville, Kentucky, was only 10 years old when he tossed a bottle into the Atlantic Ocean at Vero Beach, Florida. Last week that bottle was fished out of the ocean at Sebastian, Florida, not many miles away. The note placed inside the bottle was still legible, even though it was 37 years later, and it gave enough contact information to help locate Heller.
“It’s something you never thought would happen,” Heller said in a UPI story. He now has it framed alongside a photograph of him tossing it into the water back in 1985. The note may not have given directions to a buried treasure (as stereotypical messages in bottles usually do), but for Troy Heller it was a treasure to be reunited with those words, written when he was a boy.
I don’t recall ever writing a message on paper to place inside an ocean-bound bottle; I have only been to the ocean a few times in my life. But on numerous occasions I have verbally flung words that later returned to me, and some of those times I was not happy to see their return.
In 2 Samuel 12 God sent the prophet Nathan to rebuke King David for his sins with Bathsheba and her late husband Uriah. Nathan opened the conversation with a seemingly true story of a rich man who stole his poor neighbor’s only young lamb, a pet, and then slaughtered the lamb to provide a meal for friends. David’s anger boiled over upon hearing this, and he shouted, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die” (2 Samuel 12:5).
When the prophet responded with “You are the man!”, David felt the impact of his words that had been flung back at him. He, the king, had stated that the just penalty should be death; is that how God would see it, too? After David confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord,” Nathan revealed God’s will: “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die” (2 Samuel 12:13). But there would be consequences of his sin that would haunt David for the rest of his life.
David’s son warned against loose lips and evil thoughts: “Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king, nor in your bedroom curse the rich, for a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature tell the matter” (Ecclesiastes 10:20). The tongue is capable of so much harm that we must be constantly on guard against the words we carelessly speak (see Matthew 12:36; James 3:1-12).
Paul stated a God-given principle in Galatians 6:7: “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” It’s not just seeds Paul had in mind; words also can be sown in the ears and hearts of others. One day we may see those private words revealed to others in ways that bring harm or injury. May God help us all to seek better control of our tongues!
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Copyright, 2023, Timothy D. Hall. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New King James Version (Copyright, 1990, Thomas Nelson, Inc.).
“LightGrams” is produced by the Central Church of Christ, 2722 Oakland Avenue, Johnson City, Tennessee, 37601, and is written by Tim Hall, minister. It is sent free of charge every Thursday to all who request it. To subscribe or to receive more information, write to “[email protected]” (our E-mail address), to the U.S. mail address above, or call (423) 282-1571.
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