While channel surfing recently, I happened upon “Titanic.” I have seen it before and wasn’t much of a fan, but the effects are so great I stayed with it, and before long I was into it. There is an incredible scene that takes place right before the boat is about to take its death plunge to the bottom of the ocean. People are scrambling here and there, conniving ways that they can get off of the ship and to safety. People are trying to lower the lifeboats. Mayhem is occurring all around. At one point a girl makes her way to a lifeboat and is debating whether or not to get inside. She cannot decide as the lure of being with her true love is keeping her on the ship. She has one foot in the boat and then pulls back. Her mother who is already in the lifeboat cries, “Get in the boat!”
I quickly saw the parallel here to our lives on Earth and to eternity. The Titanic, as you recall, had deep lines of class, race, position, and wealth all woven into the storyline. But the ensuing struggle for survival had a way of leveling the playing field. When the ship is going down there is no class, no gender, no nationality, no race. It is every person for himself. No amount of money was going to buy anybody out of the fate of a watery grave. Only if you were fortunate enough to find your way on to a lifeboat would you be saved.
That’s the same way it is on this ball we call Earth. We have the opportunity to travel around, enjoying life, doing whatever we want to do. We don’t concern ourselves with the future; we choose not to think about it. But when death comes knocking, there is nothing that can release us from that fate. Death is that great divide between mortal life and eternity. Once you cross over you can’t come back. Your eternal fate is sealed once you die. And death is no respecter of money, class, talent, or social position. Fortunately, there is a lifeboat to get into; our savior is Jesus Christ.
If we believe in Jesus, He will take us to safety. He will protect us and give us salvation. The only problem is, we have to get into the lifeboat so we are safe when the ship goes under. The message of Christ is clear, He wants everyone to get in the boat. But as on the ship, people want to do their own thing. They don’t want to be confined in that narrow, small, restricting cramped boat. They think they have a better way.
Look around. People are dying every day. They choose to hang onto a ship that is destined to sink to the grave, rather than choose life. They choose of their own free will to die in eternal separation from God. Don’t choose to go down with the ship. There is another way. The most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16 tells us;
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
God so loved us that He gave us Christ to be our lifeboat and keep us from drowning.
Heed the Cry! Get in the boat!
See you on shore.
