It's A Jungle Out There

It's a Jungle Out There

Jack wanted to give Rose a trip to any destination of her choice. “The sky’s the limit,” he told a delighted Rose.

It’s a big, wide, and wonderful world out there, but Rose had known for a long, long time the one place she would go, had she the opportunity; she’d dreamed of going there for years.

Rose had read the articles, and the pictures of the place fascinated her. The National Geographic hypnotized her as she read and saw the blazing color photos of the place where trees sweat 199 gallons of water a year and the forecast is always, “Rain today.” Yes, Rose’s dream vacation was the rainforest of South America, the largest one of the six left on the planet. It’s in those six that we find 30,000,000 species of the world’s animals and plants. Those six rainforests take up only 6% of the earth’s surface, yet contain more than half of the world’s plants and animals. A rainforest is a jungle on steroids.

True to his word, Jack bought the tickets and off they flew to the most exotic place Rose could think of. Her dream had come true.

Going into the outskirts of the jungle that is the rainforest, they rented a cabin and all was well, at least for the first day. On the second day of her dream come true, Rose and Jack, staffs in hand, took a hike into the layered jungle of the sweating trees, the flora, the fauna. It was a new world for both of them.

They hike for a while, several hours, and now it’s time to go back to the cabin to rest up for their next jungle expedition. They start back and hike awhile, but after several hours, they should see the cabin or be in it. They don’t see it; it’s not there; it’s not anywhere. Something is wrong, terribly wrong.

They don’t know where they are or where the cabin is. Rose wants Jack to consult the map. But there’s a problem: Jack left the map in the cabin on top of the bureau. However, he knows the map like the back of his hand; he’ll lead them back with his mental map.

Holding Rose’s hand, Jack takes the lead on their trek back home. But after more hours, something is still wrong. Jack doesn’t know where he is, and by now they both know that Jack doesn't know. Jack and Rose are lost.

What’s happened is that Jack is remembering the map all right, but he’s remembering it backwards. Jack thinks he’s going north, but he’s going south, away from the cabin, hours and hours away, mile after mile away, so far away that no one will ever think of looking for them there.

Night is crashing in on the jungle and darkness in the rainforest brings out the predators, the snakes, and the insects. Rose is terrified. They huddle together and listen to the cacophony of sounds the jungle is broadcasting at full volume. The jungle is watching, waiting.

Daylight comes and they start out again, still going south into a forest so thick that they can hardly see what’s beyond the next leaf. They hear noises, fierce sounds. The only weapon they have is a small knife. Going around the next large, leafy plant, there they are, huge wild pigs that roam in packs to tear their prey apart and, today, they are on a hungry hunt.

Neither Jack nor Rose has been in this position, in a jungle staring at wild, vicious pigs. Jack takes his knife, leaps over a fallen tree branch, charging the pigs and yelling at the top of his voice. They scatter; they run. Jack has saved the day.

Another Stygian night of terror falls. Exhausted and dirty, they huddle together and try to sleep. The jungle is both awake and alive with sounds, with movement, with famished predators on the prowl.

They wake up. They start out again. Same song, same verse, heading south.

Time passes and now it’s the fifth day. Rose is hysterical; she says she’s giving up. But just then, they hear a sound, a sound like a helicopter or an airplane, a search plane. They look up. Nothing. They realize that the jungle is a trickster. They’re hearing things. There are no planes, and not one helicopter. There never were. The jungle and their minds have tagged-teamed to play a joke on the hopelessly lost.

Another night, another day pass.

Day seven and it’s on that day that Rose gives up, finally, completely, absolutely. Her mind exhausted, her body done. She has had enough. Last night Jack fought off hordes of insects with his fists and flailing arms, or at least he thought he did.

He’s always been the encourager. He’s kept them both going in spite of the jungle, in spite of the blame game she’s been playing all along. But now, he, like she, has given up. He’s going to quit, she’s going to quit, and they have agreed that if they ever came to this moment, they would to do the unthinkable: suicide. Neither animals nor snakes will kill Jack and Rose. They will die in the jungle, but the jungle will not have the satisfaction of killing them. Not this Jack, not this Rose.

Jack pulls out his knife to begin cutting his veins as Rose watches. But before the knife slashes skin and vein, Jack pauses and thinks. He decides that he will do the deed, but not now, he wants to do one more thing, but it won’t take long. He doesn’t want to die like he is, dirty and all. He must clean up; he must go to that river just ahead and wash off and then they will do the last thing they will ever do on this earth. They cannot endure another night, another day, another hour, another minute. One more second is too long.

They stagger toward the river and then they think they hear something. Sounds like a motor churning water, but it’s the jungle’s trick again. But no, it isn’t. It’s a boat! And there’s a man in it! They stagger into the water, each yelling, but they’re so weak, both voices don’t carry, the motor is too loud; they’re heading out into the deeper waters, knowing there may be snakes and piranhas in the river, but they keep on going and keep on yelling, “Over here, over here, help!” The man goes on, hearing nothing.

That’s it. This blasted jungle where trees sweat water by the gallon has crushed their one last hope. They have nothing left. It’s over. They turn back towards the shore to clean up to do the deed. But then they hear something again. The man has turned back. He did hear something and is coming to investigate. Lunging again, they half walk, half swim toward the boat. Now he sees them and rescues them, taking them north, upriver to the cabin, then to the hospital.

Later, Jack and Rose learn that the waterway they stumbled into was one of those rarely travelled; the man “just happened” to be on it that day at that time when Jack and Rose went to wash up before ripping their veins.

Today, Jack and Rose are fine, they’re back home, but the relationship they once had is dead. It died in the jungle, that infernal jungle in which Jack was so sure of the way home. Oh, they’re friends all right, but just friends.

Jack had no map, but Jack thought he knew. He went by his instincts and his instincts led him further and further into the dense jungle toward death. He’d left the map, the authority, in the room.

Because of that, Jack had to walk and hope, walk and go by first this feeling and then that one. Interesting, isn’t it? When Jack told Rose he knew the way home, he was sure and his certainty gave Rose a feeling of peace because, after all, Jack did know the way. He said he did; he promised he did.

Jack isn’t the authority, the Map is. He was sincere, but sincerely wrong. Rose had such a feeling of peace about it all, at peace that her Jack knew the way, at least at first she did. But her feeling betrayed her because her peace wasn’t the authority, the Map was.

We hear that, don’t we, from Christians: “I know it’s the right thing to do; I have a feeling of peace about it.” Not just individually, but believers collectively go by their feelings. But feeling isn’t the believer’s Map.

Ten out of the twelve Jewish spies had a feeling, they felt fear and concluded, “We can’t stand up to the giants in the land.” They didn’t have a feeling of peace about taking the land. Their lack of peace wasn’t the Map. Their Map should have been God’s words: “Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ ² I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ³ Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey.” (Exodus 33:1)

They had the Map, but the scared spies left it on their bureau back in their tents. It’s easy, every day, in the routine, to leave the Map on the bureau and go out into the jungle to hack our way through it with our mental map of feelings, desires, our likes and dislikes. It’s even easier to leave the Map on the bureau when a crisis comes, like, say, it came to Israel to test their loyalty to the Map. Tests come to us and to churches to test our love and loyalty to the Map and the Cartographer.

In every life, in every church the issue is always, ”Whose map are we going by?” Not the pastor’s map, the elders’ map, the deacons’ map, nor the map of the biggest giver. They are not the Cartographer. Christ told us about the Map, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word [the Map] that proceeds from the mouth of God.” He says in John 10:31: “. . . and Scripture [the Map] cannot be set aside.”

If the leaders of a church refuse to go by the Map, they lead the defenseless sheep into the jungle and there’s a jungle out there with predators to devour the church, false teachers are in the jungle, waiting to make merchandise of the sheep, lead them into false doctrines, and use them.

When night falls, the leaders light their torches, but that’s the problem—the torches are their torches, not the Map. The prophet said something about that in Isaiah 50: “¹¹ But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment.”

There is always a crisis of authority in our lives and in the life of any church because there’s a jungle out there.

Whose map? A map, or the Map?

Dr. Mike Halsey, Pastor

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