I live on a farm.  One of the things I learned rather quickly is that farm animals don’t act or think like humans.  I know that sounds profound, but I wish to make a point about this later.  From the beginning of our move to the farm we have raised goats.  We have had as few as three and as many as eighteen.  They can multiply rather quickly - often a female will have twins.  I raise goats for two reasons – first, for agricultural tax purposes, and second, for my grandkids’ pleas­ure.  Our grandkids like to pet and chase the goats, and especially, they like to hold the young ones.  I have learned that goats like to get out of their penned area; it seems that their mission in life is to be where you don’t want them.   
Like cows, goats think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, and that can lead to trouble.  Once in a while a female goat will get her horns caught in the fence and she cannot ex­tract herself.  I have learned to call to them at feeding time (in goat language, of course), and they reply, and come running to the gate.  I can always tell when a goat is in trouble by the desperate call it makes.  Even though she calls back like the rest, you can hear a sense of misery in her call; so I walk along the fencerow until I find the goat in distress.  Thus begins the tedious task to ex­tricate her from her predicament while thinking that she should have known better!  I will pull, then push, then pull some more.  The goat will let out several death-curdling wails as I try to get her horns untangled.  The entire time I am working, she is not cooperating.  As I pull, she pushes; as I push, she pulls.  She does not make things easy for me.  I say to the obstinate goat, “Hold still Goofy.  I’m trying to help you.  Just relax and let me do the work and I’ll get you out of the mess you created for yourself.  All I’m trying to do is help you and you’re not letting me.  You thought the grass was greener on the other side of the fence, but all it got you for your trouble was this tangled mess.”   However, since I am much bigger and stronger, and since I know how to maneu­ver the wires in the fence, I finally release the goat, sometimes getting my hands bloody in the process.  And then, without a thank you, she runs back to the other goats as fast as she can.  The saddest part about the entire episode is that she may repeat this foolish act on another day, and I will start the process of freeing her again just as before, because I care for her.  

This story has taught me some important spiritual lessons.  While partaking of the Lord’s Supper one Sunday morning I was reminded again of the importance of being set free because of the cross.  Just as my goat was freed from its hopeless condition, so our Lord has set us free from our sinful predicament.  The scripture says, “All we like sheep (goats) have gone astray, (head in the fence) each of us has turned to his own way” (Isa. 53:6).  Because of our inherited sin nature, we purposefully poke our heads through the proverbial fence in search of sinful pleasures and be­come caught in the entanglements of this world.  And there we are – caught, hopeless, and in need of salvation.  There is nothing we can do to free ourselves.    However, a powerful and lov­ing Father knew of our condition and sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross to set us free from the penalty of sin.  Remembering this great thought at the Lord’s Supper is what the supper is all about.  His blood was shed to set us free because He cared for us.  Thus we break the bread and drink the cup in full recognition that our redemption was paid for at a terrible cost by a loving Savior. 

Another lesson is relevant to my story.  One would think that the goat would cooperate with me as I helped her out of the fence, but she didn’t.  She fought against me every step of the way until she tired and submitted to me.  Only then could I get her untangled.  We like to think that we can cooperate with God in the salvation process.  We cannot.  The Bible says that we are dead in our trespasses and sin.  The last time I checked, dead people cannot save themselves; in fact, they cannot do anything.  They’re dead.  That is why the Bible says that it is “by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph.2:8-9).  Jesus has completed the work on the cross.  Our natural tendency is to fight against what God has to offer because the sin of pride keeps us from submission.  As long as we keep working at trying to free ourselves from the entanglements of sin, we will remain “caught in the fence.”  It is only when we submit and accept by faith God’s plan of salvation that we will be set free.  As long as we struggle, thinking that we can free ourselves, we will never be free.  Only Christ can set us free (Gal. 5:1).  My goat struggled and wailed.  The only thing she got for her troubles was a bloody neck and a tighter fence wire.  Just like b’rer rabbit and the tar baby, the more the rabbit struggled, the more entangled he became.  I was the only one who cared for and who came to save the goat.  The other goats were certainly of no help whatsoever.  All they did was butt at her in her hopeless situation.  I am the one who came seeking her, not the other way around.  Jesus said, “No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him…” (Jn. 6:44).  The goat had to submit, however, before I could help her; and I even bloodied my hands in the process.  Jesus bloodied his hands and His feet on the cross as the spikes ripped through His flesh.  But the job on the cross was completed when Jesus said, “It is finished.”  And just as I felt a sense of satisfaction when the goat was released to join the herd, so much more must it greatly please the Lord when sinners are set free from the penalty of sin, death, and judg­ment.  Also, as a believer in Jesus Christ, I have learned that even now He continues to untangle the messes that I have made in my life as I present them before Him; because His promises are perpetually and forever true:  “Come unto me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28; Jn. 6:37)).  As believers, we should encourage one another to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2).  Let’s not purposely stick our head in the fence!    

One final thought.  I did not expect the goat to look at me and say, “Hey, thanks!  I couldn’t have done it without you.”  After all, she is a goat.   But I do wonder if those of us who have been set free remember to continually give thanks for so great a salvation.  The psalmist reminds us to “come before Him with thanksgiving” (Psa. 95:2), and to “enter His gates with thanksgiving” (Psa. 100:4).  The Apostle Paul encourages us to be thankful as well (Phil. 4:6).  I attended the funeral of an elderly Christian man recently, and the preacher made a comment that really im­pressed me.  He said, “Ray never got over his salvation.”  What he meant was that this man had a deep, profound, and on-going appreciation of the fact that he was now a saved man.  Since he had been saved later in life, he knew what he had been before, and what he now had become in Christ Jesus.  Thus, he never got over the fact that Jesus had saved him.  Those who knew him best re­flected on the fact that he always gave thanks and praise to the Lord for his salvation. Christ had set him free, and he was continually grateful.  Are we missing out on being continually thankful that we have been saved and set free?  We, too, should never get over it!