The Frog and the Kettle
(A Reflection on last Sunday’s sermon)
By Manju B. Yu

The sermon last Sunday, shared by Pastor Butch Yu, in his subject “The Love That God Hates” reminded me of a modern day parable called “The Frog and the Kettle.” It is a parable that tells of a frog if put into a pot of boiling water, will leap out right away to escape the danger. But, if the frog in a kettle with water is cool and pleasant, and then it gradually boils, the frog will not become aware of the threat until is to late.

The parable of the boiling frog gives us great insight into how we can easily embrace a sinful lifestyle. We slowly find ourselves accommodating the world without realizing how much we are becoming like the world. We need to pay attention not just to obvious threats of worldly desires but also to a more slowly developing ones.

To love the world, according to Charles Finney, “is to make worldly things the principal objects of desire and pursuit. ?? To love them, and desire them more than to love God and man, to be more anxious to obtain them, and spend more time in their acquisition, than in efforts to glorify God.” The love for the world is an ever-present danger even for Christians today. We are not exempted to the temptations and growing trend of self-indulgence. Believers are not from Mars; we face the pressures of pleasure, profit and power, which are in itself an attractive risk that many Christians take.



Let us be careful friends not to be blinded by the desires for earthly things. Yes we need the basic possessions in life, but we need not pursue them and forget God while we obtain them. This is where your blessing becomes a curse for you. Many people live for the moment; we look after the things that will not satisfy us. Let us not forget that “When we pin our hopes on what this world has to offer we are in as much the same situation as the frog in the story. We may have a good time in cool waters, but before you know it, Satan we’ll have you for dinner “ Frog Leg Stew”.

The solution: I like what Pastor Butch quoted in his sermon: “Love for Christ is the answer to love for the world…when a Christian is occupied with the Lord Jesus the attraction of the world wane. Christ delivers us from occupation with the world.” The greatest need is to love Jesus, because in loving Jesus we can combat worldliness. When you love Jesus with all your heart, there is no more room for the world and what it offers. As Jim Elliott has put it and sums up the message well. "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." ¹

1 Jim Elliott was a missionary who died at the hands of the Auca Indians.; Frog image from, eacherexchange.mde.k12.ms.us