Psalm 119:174-176 I long for Your salvation, O Lord, And Your law is my delight. Let my soul live, and it shall praise You; And let Your judgments help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep; Seek Your servant,…NKJV?
How Far Will You Go?
The city of Fargo is situated in Cass County of South Dakota. In 1996, ‘Fargo’ became the title of a Coen brothers film, which was in fact filmed totally in Minnesota around their fictional version of the small town of Brainerd, which like a multitude of other small towns in the mid west, also claims to be the birth place or lodging place of the fictional lumberjack of legendary fame, Paul Bunyan and his famous blue ox, called babe. That however, is a whole other story, “Yah, you betcha!”
Winning the Oscar for best actress in the film 'Fargo', it is the actress Frances McDormand who stars as Marge Gunderson, a seven months pregnant police chief whose affable, folksy demeanor and fantastically dippy dialect, hide an exceptionally smart investigative mind. The film, set in a landscape, like ‘Siberia with family restaurants’ is so strange that that it just has to be fiction! However, 'Fargo', this particular Coen brother’s film, backed by a haunting Norwegian fiddle playing a folk number called ‘The Lost Sheep,’ does in fact begin its black comedic story line with these printed words on the screen “THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.” Of course, none of it is true. I mean none of it! The place, the characters, the events, the kidnappings, the killings, the snow and of course the ransom money, hid and buried in that same white flat, never-ending snowy landscape. Yet, five years after the release of the film, Ms. Takako Konishi, a young Japanese woman, arrived in the Fargo area and just a few days later, was found dead in the snow.The inquest declared that a combination of various drugs, but predominantly the biting cold, was in all likelihood and most probably, the final cause of her death. Prior to Ms. Takako’s sad demise, exceptionally poor communication with many people of the area and even the police, led them all to believe that this sad, mad little Japanese woman, was in fact looking for the fictional lost ransom money from the very fictional film, which was left buried in the then, ‘brought in and even made overnight, just for the film’ equally fictional snow! It was three weeks after her death however with the arrival of her suicide note at her parents house in Takako’s home country of Japan, that the real story of a broken-hearted and jilted young woman, arriving in America in search of her married American lover, would also reveal a double intent to either reunite with him or kill herself in the process. Ms. Takako came to Fargo with the intent to kill herself.
This poor lost little Japanese sheep was culturally, emotionally, psychologically and in every way most exceptionally isolated. Beware of that. Beware of isolation. Lost sheep, are sheep that have wandered away from the safety of the fold and are open to every cold-hearted and self-destructive lie that the enemy will most definitely throw at them. I am of the mind, that all suicide is demonic in its source. The devil methinks, takes great delight in sheep doing away with themselves in front of his gleeful gaze.
Now tonight, if you are plagued with thoughts of worthlessness, feelings of abject loneliness, of utter and stark, snowy landscape covered set Siberian cold, chilled to the very bone hopelessness and thoroughly believe, that it best that you remove yourself from the sad and sorry scene of your own life, then I want to tell you right now, that of a certainty, all you will accomplish, is the giving of pleasure to the macabre and dark vulture-like voyeurism, of the mad monster from hell, the devil himself.
No! This shall not happen! For I say to you tonight, in the mighty name of Jesus, that He is the Good Shepherd and He has been out looking for you, Oh lost sheep of His, and as you read these words, HE HAS FOUND YOU! Now, right now, HE HAS FOUND YOU! Now He places your sorry carcass over his broad shoulders and lifts you from your cliff ledge. Now He carries you from your pit. Now He is taking you home and if you listen, you can hear Him singing! You’re not singing I know that! Your not supposed to be singing just yet! You will though, yes you will but not yet. Even so, listen to Him! He is singing and He is rejoicing, because He is taking you home to be with Him, right where you belong. I am not talking about heaven here, no not yet, I am talking about back home to the fold, back home to the place of His greener pasture, back home to still waters, back home to sunshine vales of love, back home to protection, back home to provision, back home to a the place called ‘FOUND.’ You have been FOUND tonight no matter how far you’ve fallen, not matter how far you have strayed, and He is rejoicing over you with singing! Get ready for comforts I say, get ready for caring, get ready for wine and for oil and plenty, plenty party times, for they are coming I tell you, they are coming!
To the rest of us, wondering at how sad a person can get to want to take their own life, I say this tonight to you, “Do you know of any lost sheep out there? Out there in the snow, looking for treasure that does not exist? Do you know of any lost sheep out there, out there in the heartbroken wastelands, empty cold and lost? I know you do, I just know you do. So, tomorrow then, you had better go and get them.”
Listen:- "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!' I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance. Luke 15:4-7 NKJV
Pray:- Find it Lord! Find Your lost sheep. Find it Lord, search the cold and lonely wilderness, search behind every rock and search under every sorry, scraggy tree. Find it Lord, ransack the dark ravines, climb the cliffs and trudge the night long dale. Find it Lord, find Your lost sheep and then place it on your shoulders and bring it home rejoicing. Amen.
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