Trapped! A Modern Day Metaphor of the Deadly Price of Sin

In April 1992 Christopher Johnson McCandless, a young man from a well-to-do family, hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. In the wilderness he found an abandoned bus, which he converted easily into a temporary home.  Now he could live off the land, read books, journal, and enjoy the serenity and quiet life the great outdoors of the Alaskan countryside offered.  

After a few months of living his dream, he finally came to the realization that he missed people again and it was time to return to civilization and start his life afresh.  So he began his return home but the shallow, slow-moving river he had walked across months previously had swollen into a raging, deep water death trap.  He was trapped on the wrong side of the river.  Unsure what to do next, he returned to the bus.  

For the next few weeks, he made the best of it hoping the river would become passable again, but each trip to the waters only heightened his fears.  Eventually the wild game he was eating disappeared and he began to starve. He scoured the local foliage and found a plant root that was cookable and it filled his empty belly.  But after too many meals of the root, he became deathly ill and learned the plant was actually poisonous and was slowly killing him.  Not many days later, at 23 years old, the abandoned bus became his coffin. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter.

His story is a powerful metaphor of the lure of worldliness and the consequences of sin in this life. His desire for the solo frontier life took him far enough away that by the time he was ready to return, he was trapped.  He was trying to survive in an environment he had no place to be, had no intentions of staying, but he had separated himself too far away from the people he needed who could have helped him. What a tragic unnecessary death. The irony is the root plant, which he thought was good for him and was going to save him, became the very poison that took his life. 

How many people and how many times has sin done that to people?

Return home before it's too late! Sin has taken you far enough away! You think you're safe but has the river risen beyond passibility? God warned Cain when he wanted to kill his brother Abel out of anger and jealousy, "Sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you but you must master it." (Gen 4) The Apostle Paul said, "Hold fast to that which is good; reject every kind of evil." (1 Thess 5:21)

I memorized the following poem many years ago. It has often reminded me of what the temptations of sin will produce.

Sin will always take you further than you were willing to go,

cost you more than you were willing to pay,

and keep you longer than you were willing to stay.