Undertow

Sunday, August 20th, 2023

by Ken Pullen

A CROOKED PATH

There have been three occasions in my life when I could have easily died. In order of least severe to the greatest of coming closer to death than at any other time were; getting hit broadside in the car I was driving by a driver who was speeding and did not stop at a country roads intersection, being fed and eating a meal loaded with such a level of deadly toxins I was incapacitated in a matter of hours, found unable to stand, to speak and in the worst condition of my life to that point, found after many hours of being alone remodeling an old house by my sister and an aunt, and they having to pick me up and carry me to a car and rush me to a nearby hospital, where I was in intensive care for three days, and the emergency room doctor that took care of me told my sister, and me later, that had I not been brought in when I was I would have surely been dead by sunrise the following day.

While the food borne experience was one I will never forget and brought me close to death it did not compare to the time I was brought the closest to death. Caught in a severe undertow in the Pacific Ocean at Mission Beach, California, when I lived out in Southern California during the mid-1970s to the early to mid-1980s.

Without belaboring all the details of how this happened, I was at the beach that particular day, taking some visitors from where I had grown up and they knew me from in the Midwest. We thought it would be a lovely idea to take everyone to the beach to experience the California sunshine, and beautiful weather just a bit north and west of San Diego, and experience the vastness and wonder of the Pacific Ocean for the first time in their lives.

Everyone was in the water, at varying depths, and I was keeping an eye on them aware of the power of water, as well as making sure they were having a very enjoyable time. It happened within mere seconds. From blissful fun in the sun and sea, relaxing, laughing, and joyful to the undertow making its presence known.

One moment it wasn’t felt. The next it was. Growing stronger by the second. I yelled to those closest to me who were visiting to get out and onto the beach, and in the next instant, I was snatched under and pulled out into the ocean.

I was simultaneously pulled down swifter and with more power than I had ever imagined or experienced while also being pulled out further into deeper waters. I was keenly aware within seconds that I was in grave danger. That I could die. Because the power of that turbulence was so mighty that it thrust me so deep into the sea if I opened my eyes all I could see was a darkness I had never seen before, whilst being unable to breathe, then being pushed upward, opening my eyes, the salt sea water burning my eyes I could begin to see a distinct yet vague intensifying light as I was propelled towards the surface, to break the surface for less than a second, gasp, getting little air in and more seawater than necessary air, being pushed down deeper, darker, and ever further out.

In less than a matter of minutes of this, at the point, I was both convinced I could die while also convinced I was going to fight with every fiber to remain alive, I was carried out hundreds and hundreds of yards.

My mind, working, while my mind was also attempting to determine what to do in order to physically survive, though any and every effort on my part was futile. In vain. I was the most helpless I had ever been in my life. No control. Pitched into icy cold deep darkness, unable to breathe.

At one point upon breaking the surface momentarily, as the undertow power lessened a bit after being pulled into very deep waters, I heard a voice, and in a moment through burning eyes saw and heard a lifeguard who had come to attempt to rescue me.

He threw me a yellow nylon braided thick line with a small floating device on the end, yelled to me to take hold of the line, and not to take hold of him, and “swim as you’ve never swum before, or else we’re both going to die out here!”

And I did. More fatigued than I ever had been in my life, and I was used to very physically demanding work as my job at this time was new home construction. Intense physically demanding work from early morning, shortly after sunrise until late afternoon every day, five days a week. I was not in need of a gym membership or lifting weights or some other regimen. I was in my mid-20s. Six feet two inches in height. With a much smaller waist size in a pant than presently needed.  Yet pushing out a strength I only mustered up by my sheer will to live, and by the power and grace of God to give me that strength, that perseverance, and to save my life that day.

I was dragged to the beach eventually. Unable to stand. Unable to move. Gasping for air. More physically drained than ever in my life.

I lay on that beach on the hot sand for many minutes before being able to speak coherently, to see clearly, to catch my breath, to be able to sit up…and look out over what appears the endless expansiveness of that body of water stretching to Asia.

What triggered this memory from over forty-five years ago? I watched and intently listened to a sermon this morning given by the now-retired English pastor, Rupert Bentley-Taylor, who still preaches on occasion in his church in Bath, England, as he and his family are visiting America. It was a sermon of power that greatly touched and impacted me [it will appear here on ACP once it has been edited to where I can post the sermon without the whole service attached].

In pastor Bentley-Taylors sermon, one which is rarely heard in America as his words were truly guided by the Holy Spirit, in the Word of God, not having as the main concern appeasing and pleasing people with words they want to hear to make them feel good, but in speaking, preaching words from the Word in which people need to hear to make them hear, acknowledge, humble themselves, and submit in praise to Almighty God! No appeasement. No people pleasing. Only serving God words, words to truly help people, words of joy and love and hope — the truth from God’s Word as delivered by a man of God to people in need of hearing the Word of God, rather than words they deem acceptable, timely and what they want to hear. Which for the most part at this time in America, and in England, all of the United Kingdom, are no longer the Word of God — but the words of appeasing people pleasing man.

So, what did pastor Bentley-Taylor utter to stir thoughts of my undertow experience, nearly dying? What did he say that isn’t heard much from pulpits in America, England, Scotland, Ireland, or Wales these days?

He mentioned hell. The eternal lake of fire. The lake of eternally burning sulfur. The Lake of the Second Death. Going on…forever and ever without end.

In searching for an image to include here I found the one above with the accompanying sentence attached to it;

Is hell and the lake of fire real, and should we take it seriously?

Oh, take it most seriously, more seriously than any other thing in this life, in your lifetime. For hell, the lake of fire is very real and to be taken most seriously!

In my heart and mind, as I heard pastor Bentley-Taylor preach today, I envisioned that endless eternal lake of perpetual pain and suffering one of being caught in an eternal undertow. Rather than a darker than dark icy cold one wherein a person may eventually find a lifeline thrown to them, and a voice yelling to hold on as they were going to work to save your life, rescue you, pull you to the safety of the shore, in the eternal lake of fire, there is an eternal undertow. A darkness unlike any other. Isolation unlike any ever experienced or imagined. An isolation of painful dimension and duration. Without measured dimensions and without end. A burning, a suffering intolerable to the human mind, and to the lost, unbelieving human spirit and soul that has rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, attempted to deny God, mocked, scoffed at, spit upon the inerrant infallible Word of God, and will come as a result to the wrath, the condemnation, the just judgment of God.

Eternally pushed down, tossed about, pulled further, deeper downward, darker, hotter, ever more isolated. Endlessly. Eternally.

In God’s just judgment. Just as in His just judgment, in His without end or our being able to define by human terms and understanding His great love for us, for those who hear Him, come to truly know Him. He saves those, rescues them who believe on His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who have been transformed, renewed of mind and spirit, born anew by the power of the Holy Spirit made into new creatures from the inside, to serve the Lord, to be disciples of the Lord, to be the people of God. The elect. The remnant.

This has been part of my Sunday morning, part of this Lord’s Day. Words, the Word of God, experience, and understanding I will carry with me into every day of the coming week, should the Good Lord bless me with a continuance of days.

Perhaps you do not desire to be caught in the eternal undertow. There is but only one solution. One answer. One source. One Way to that Truth, that Life, to be held and kept in that Light.

The Lord Jesus Christ. The One True God. The Holy Spirit. To be rescued and nourished by the Word of God. To then come to know and understand the will of God. Daily in this turbulent deadly sea of life…

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

John 3:36

And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image; these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone.

Revelation 19:20

And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Revelation 20:15

But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

Revelation 21:8

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

John 3:36