The Land-Crab's Sacrifice: Willingness to Lose All

Our Lord Jesus taught a radical principle in Matthew 5:30: 'If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.' The evangelist Teava of Samoa illustrated this truth through the strange conduct of the land-crab, called 'mali'o' in Tutuila and 'tupa' in Rarotonga.

This creature burrows deep into the soil but journeys nightly to the sea to bathe in salt water. When its legs become defiled by contact with filth during passage through tall grass, the crab experiences such vexation that it willingly wrenches off the offending limbs—sometimes losing two or three legs, occasionally all eight. It then drags itself painfully by its nippers alone until reaching safety in its burrow, where the legs slowly regenerate, though never to their original form.

Teava's profound application: 'Were we as willing to part with our favourite sins as this crab is with its defiled limbs, there would be little doubt of our reaching heaven!' The principle stands immutable: whatsoever opposes Elohim in the heart must be abhorred and cast out absolutely. All sin and temptation must be resisted; the outward act of any sin must be avoided. For some temptations war against our very possession and enjoyment of Christ, against peace in life and comfort in death, against time, eternity, and all our hopes.