The puffer is a very mysterious creature of the sea. Since there are over 100 species of this fish, it is known pretty much over the whole world, and is sometimes called globefish, or swellfish. It looks like a normal fish in shape until it is frightened, excited, or annoyed. Then it is able to swell into the shape of a ball by sucking water or air into a sac located on its belly. The sac swells inside the puffer's tough, elastic skin like an inner tube inside a tire. A big man can stand on a swollen fish without harming it. When the fish feels safe again it will squirt out the water or release the air, returning to its normal size.

The puffer fish is equipped with special teeth which are fused into hard, pointed structures that look like a parrot's beak. These teeth, coupled with massive chewing muscles, enable the fish to savagely tear apart crabs, clams, oysters, corrals, sea urchins, and starfish.

Because puffers have fewer bones than other fish, they are not as rigid, and they are not able to push against the water in a swimming motion. Rather, they drift slowly through the oceans, waving their fins in a propeller-like motion, making them appear more like helicopters than fish. With its lazy, almost feeble way of swimming, the puffer fish would appear to be harmless. However, one species is among the most deadly of all fish in the world.

In Japan, this fish is called the fugu. The intestines, liver, and other internal organs of this fish are extremely poisonous. If just a tiny speck of these organs is left in the flesh, the eater could die—often within minutes. About 60% of fugu poisonings prove fatal. The victim loses feeling in his arms and legs, cannot speak, cannot move, then cannot breathe. Extract of poison from a medium-size fugu in the form of a white powder weighing less than one tenth the weight of an aspirin tablet has the potential to kill thirty people. Fugu poison is 1250 times deadlier than cyanide. A lethal dose is a mere one milligram—about the amount that could be put on a pinhead. There is no known antidote.

In spite of the great risk, fugu is a delicacy in Japan. The raw flesh of the fugu is particularly desired. It is customarily sliced very thin and arranged in exquisite patterns of flowers or birds. For this the Japanese pay as much as $200.00 for a plate that serves four. Now the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the importing of fugu, which can be ordered in a New York restaurant for about $160.00 per meal.

Hundreds of people have died in recent years from eating poisonous fugu. For many, the elegant, death-defying event is a status symbol. When eating fugu, the diner puts his life in the hands of the chef. All fugu cooks must be licensed and take intensive courses, written exams and serve an apprenticeship. In spite of this, deaths continue. In January 1975 Mitsugoro Bando VIII—one of Japan's most gifted actors—died of paralysis and convulsions after eating fugu. He took a chance and paid the ultimate price.

You may think it foolish that people would take such a chance, knowing it could mean certain death. Yes, it is sheer folly, but perhaps you, dear reader, are being much more foolish by taking a chance with your never-dying soul. The Bible tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Still many cling to their sins, often "dressing them up" to look attractive, just as the fugu is made to look so harmless, thus deadening their senses as to its dreadful consequences. Eternity lies before each one of us. To pass from this life in our sins means certain eternal death in hell (Revelation 20:15).

But the Lord Jesus Christ has made the supreme sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 9:26) by dying on the cross of Calvary and shedding His precious blood which cleanses from all sin (1 John 1:7). To be washed in that blood, one needs to trust completely on Christ as his only Saviour from sin. As the sinless Son of God (2 Corinthians 5:21), He alone is able to save the sinner. All who confess their sin to Jesus (1 John 1:9) and believe on Him shall be saved (Acts 16:31).

Don't play with death any longer. The consequences are too great. Take the "antidote" God has provided for sin's poison. Trust Jesus now as your personal Saviour. In doing so, you will be defying death—eternal death—choosing rather eternal life with Christ in heaven. "He that believeth on the Son [Jesus] hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36).

—M.S.J.