As I awoke in the early morning before sunrise, the Lord spoke these words to me, “A man can spit out the bait but he can’t spit out the hook”. Then He continued. The things a man entertains that Satan has put in his path are only bait. Inside the bait, whether it be drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, pornography, or sex, there’s a hook. Man may call the hook an addition but God calls it sin.
Man may quit doing something but only God can take the hook out of his jaw.
A man must swallow his pride and swim into the Lord’s hand because only He can deliver a man. When someone who goes through a 12 step program like AA, he is referred to and even refers to himself as a “recovering alcoholic”. When he gives his own personal testimony, he states “I am an alcoholic” because he knows he is always a drink away from fulfilling his nature of addiction. What he doesn’t realize is that there’s a hook in his jaw that only Jesus can release.
Only God himself can deliver a man from his sin and his sin nature. A man that rejects the voice of God and the voice of wisdom gets hooked early in life and from that point is never able to grow spiritually because he can only feed from what his master feeds him, which is flesh. Satan feeds his captives flesh in this life but they’ll feed him their flesh in the life to come.
Only through repentance and true humility will a man come to the Lord God Almighty and through total trust and complete surrender will he be delivered. Only the creator has the ability to deliver. Without total and complete surrender, the hook will always remain and the enemy will ultimately reel that person into his kingdom.
Every man ever born since Adam’s fall has been born with a sin nature. Man with a sin nature lives in a stock pond trapped and fed only what 
the owner of the pond gives his captive fish.
The Lord is standing on the shore of the pond with His hand in the water. Each of us must swim into His hand on our own accord. He may not always be standing on the shore or you may not always know where to swim.
Opportunities to be free from the captivity of the pond may not always exist. Some fish resist swimming to the master until they get so fat from the enemy’s food, they can no longer resist the hook in their mouth.
It’s time to swim to the shore and come to the Master. He’ll remove you from the stench of the rotting flesh in the stock pond.
He’ll transplant you from a stagnant pond into a river of life where you can grow stronger as you’re free to swim 
upstream following Him. You’ll be free to grow as you eat what He feeds you and strengthen yourself as you resist temptation.
The choice is ours to make and only we can make that choice. Each “hooked” fish must swim while he has the strength to resist the hook. There will come a time when a man can either no longer resist or no longer want to. So swim to Him while you still can. It will take the combination of both to make it into his hand.
There are many fat fish on the bottom of the pond that have been fed flesh for a number of years who now couldn’t even swim off the bottom if they wanted to. They’ve eaten from their carnal desires for so long, they’d rather die on the bottom of the pond with a full belly than make any effort of being transplanted and given a change of menu.
Surrender while you can. There will come a day when you either can’t, don’t want to, or can’t hear the Master’s voice to know where to swim to.
Today is the day of salvation. Today He’s standing on the shore. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” 2 Corinthians 6:2 If you think tomorrow is the day of salvation, the Bible would have said it that way. Tomorrow may be the day the belly is too full, the strength gone, and the voice out of range.
Hebrews 4:7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
A full belly and a hardened heart are a dangerous combination. Fat-bellied fish live on the bottom of the pond where it’s dark and filthy. They may not like the filth but it’s dark where no one can see them and they like the food. They enjoy the menu…flesh.
One day the pond will be drained and all the fat bellied fish that once lived on the bottom where it was dark and murky will be exposed and harvested. They’ll be as vulnerable on that day as a fish out of water, flopping in the mud, gasping for air. Will you be one of those fat-bellied fish.
The choice is yours. God’s has His hand in the water. He’s waiting for you to swim to Him.
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