Living Aboard the Titanic

 

For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it. (Job 33:14)

 

Because God is love, He is a Communicator. It could not be otherwise. The One who created us and knows in every instance what is best for us will not fail to reveal both Himself and His plan to all who are open to divine instruction. As we read in Job, He may speak in one way, or in another, but He will speak! He will not keep His creation in the dark. If this is true generally, how much more so concerning the perilous times of the end of the age, when deception and disaster shall loom on every side.

 

Those who study the details of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 cannot escape an eerie sense of destiny shrouding the entire tragic event. The sinking of the Titanic is a disaster that has grabbed the world’s attention like almost no other. There have been larger maritime tragedies that have not garnered a tenth of the interest of the Titanic. We are closing in on the 100^th anniversary of that disaster, and our fascination shows no sign of abating. The latest movie version set numerous box office records, books are still being written about the event, and exhibitions of Titanic memorabilia draw huge crowds and excite enormous interest.

 

Over a dozen years before the ship’s sinking, the entire incident was “predicted” in the form of a novel. In 1898 an unknown author named Morgan Robertson wrote a novel about a fabulous Atlantic liner, far larger than any that had ever been built. The ship was filled with rich and apathetic people. It was wrecked on a chilly April night on an iceberg. Fourteen years later a British shipping company named the White Star Line built a steamer almost identical to the one in Robertson’s novel. The new liner was 66,000 tons displacement; Robertson’s was 70,000. The real ship was 882 feet long; the fictional one was 800 feet. Both vessels could travel at speeds of up to 24-25 knots. Both could carry about 3000 people, and neither had enough lifeboats for their sizable list of passengers. But this was not too important because both were labeled “unsinkable.” Robertson called his fictional ship the Titan; the White Star Line called its very real ship the Titanic. Oddly, someone had placed a copy of Robertson’s novel in the Titanic’s library, apparently as a practical joke![1]

 

Perhaps the greatest reason for linking the Titanic with destiny are the numerous “if only’s” connected with her demise. Consider the following list:

 

•          If only the Titanic had heeded any of the 6 ice messages it received its final day.

•          If only ice conditions had been normal that night. (The floating ice field in that part of the ocean at that time of the year was a once in one hundred years occurrence)

•          If only the night had been moonlit…

•          If only she had seen the iceberg 15 seconds sooner – or 15 seconds later…

•          If only the water had been slightly rougher, creating the usual splash around the iceberg and making it more visible…

•          If only the ship had hit the ice any other way…

•          If only the lookouts had been provided with the customary binoculars..

•          If only she had carried enough lifeboats…

•          If only the California, which was anchored ten miles away, had figured out that her rockets were distress signals…

•          If only the rivets of the ship had been made with the proper amount of slag.

 

 

If even one of these “if only’s” turned out the other way, every life may well have been saved, but all went against her. Everything that had to happen for the maximum number of lives to be lost happened. It seemed as though some great cosmic conspiracy had determined to bring down the mighty Titanic.

 

Where was God?

 

Did God have anything to do with this? The answer is, of course! If not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without the Heavenly Father being somehow involved, surely a multi-ton ocean liner carrying a couple of thousand people is not going to sink to the ocean while God is taking a nap! We must keep in mind that God’s involvement does not necessarily imply His perfect will. If God’s perfect will was always carried out, there would be no sin, no crime, and we would live in a paradise on earth, as Adam began. This is how it is in heaven, and this is why we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). There are no tragedies in heaven, directed or allowed by God.

 

Because we live in a fallen world, and because sin has worked its way into the very fabric of our universe, the rains of suffering and tragedy fall upon both the just and the unjust. We could not, for example, point to the Titanic’s sinking, and infer that everyone who died on that ship was a terrible sinner. To quote our Savior, unless we repent, we shall all likewise perish. There are times, however, when God makes good use of tragedies to speak to us about pride and rebellion. The sinking of the Titanic is one such an event. It further speaks to us of the last days; in fact it speaks so clearly about these days that one can’t help concluding that it may well be a special sign and warning to that generation who shall see the portentous events predicted by our Savior for the end of the age.

 

Parable of Things to Come

 

As we look more closely at the details of the demise of this mammoth ship, we shall see a number of parallels to what Jesus assures us will be the situation of mankind in those days leading up to His triumphant return. Might God not be speaking to us? We would do well to heed the warnings.

 

A Doomed Ship

 

As the Titanic sailed out of port that promising April day, in all her beauty and majesty, little did the passengers realize that they were on a doomed ship. Considering the weather and ice conditions that existed, the captain’s desire to set a speed record, the arrogance of the White Star Line, the lack of lifeboats, the failure of the captain and crew to practice proper lifeboat drills, the absence of binoculars for the lookouts, and all the other factors that were already in place, destruction lay inevitably, unalterably ahead. To purchase a ticket on the mighty Titanic was to buy a 66% likelihood of your own death. The ship must perish. All the rich and fine ladies and gentlemen on the ship, who were used to luxury and ease, had purchased for themselves a night of terror and screams, of heart pounding fear, and for many, the last night of their lives.

 

In like manner, the world in which we live is very much a doomed ship. We have defied and mocked our Creator, murdered our unborn babies by the millions and reveled in sexual immorality. We have left the churches empty and packed out the theaters and stadiums, entertained ourselves with mindless sitcoms satiated with sex and vulgarity, have made wealth our god, and the obtaining of it our religion. It should come as no shock that the Almighty is displeased with His creation.

 

The Bible speaks of a period of time at the end of the age that will be catastrophic. Jesus called it the tribulation, saying:

 

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be (Matthew 24:21).

 

Isaiah describes this terrible time thus:

 

For behold, the Lord comes out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth will also disclose her blood, and will no more cover her slain (Isaiah 26:21).

 

In Revelation, we read about this time:

 

So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God (Revelation 14:19).

 

We can shrug these verses off as poetic imagery and argue that God could never get really angry with His creation. Many do just that. But those of us that believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God cannot dismiss such passages so easily. Believing that God says what He means and means what He says, we conclude that there will indeed be a terrible time of tribulation for our world in the last days. We can no more escape it than the Titanic’s passengers could have escaped their night of terror. The night is dark. The ship is moving far too fast. And there is ice ahead.

 

The Good Life

 

The Titanic represented incredible wealth and prestige. Her cargo included a priceless copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and a list of passengers collectively worth two hundred fifty million dollars. As the ship sank, it’s contents included: 15,000 bottles of ale and a drink called “stout”, 30 cases of golf clubs and tennis rackets for Spalding, 30,000 fresh eggs, 5 grand pianos, a cask of china for Tiffany’s, a case of gloves for Marshall Field, Billy Carter’s new English automobile, and the Ryerson’s 16 trunks, along with thousands of other items too numerous to catalog. They have been rusting, rotting, and dissolving on the ocean floor for over 90 years now.[2]

 

Many of the first class passengers knew each other well. They were exclusive members of the wealthy elite in America. They partied together, and traveled the globe together, turning up in those elite vacation spots that catered to people who never had to ask, “How much?” They attended to their businesses at home, but enjoyed the good life, traveling abroad frequently, and always in the most luxurious means possible. In the case of trans-Atlantic travel, this could only mean the Titanic, now that she was available.

 

The Titanic itself was spared no luxury. Every room contained electric lights and heating, which was no small thing in 1912! The ship boasted two libraries, a squash court, and even a swimming pool. First class guests paid $4,350 per room, which would equal $40,000 today.

 

Today, we live in a time of unprecedented wealth. This wealth has come upon us gradually and so we are not properly grateful or even aware of just how wealthy we are. In America in 1930 the average life expectancy at birth was 58 years for men, 61 for women. Today it is over 75 for men and women. Until the 1930’s the average manufacturing worker toiled nearly 50 hours a week with few rights or benefits. Today most workers have employer-paid health insurance, vacation days, sick days, personal days, and retirement pensions.

 

In 1940 most Americans were renters, and most households had neither a refrigerator nor central heating. 30 percent lacked inside running water, most furnaces and stoves were fueled by coal, and wood was the second most used fuel. More than a fifth of Americans lived on farms, less than a third of which had electric lights and only a tenth had flush toilets. In 1940 one in 20 Americans had a college degree; 50 years later one in five did. In 1945 most households did not have a telephone. Today over 80 percent of households have VCR’s, most have DVD players, and nearly a half have personal computers. We have more possessions, more leisure time, better health care, and work at less exhausting jobs than ever before. And we are headed for a titanic disaster.

 

Religion and Prosperity

 

There is something about the nature of wealth that tends toward apathy and spiritual unconcern. The great Puritan preacher, Cotton Mather, in describing how the Puritans had been blessed by God, only to turn away from the Author of those blessings, said, “Religion begot prosperity, and the daughter devoured the mother.” America, like the rich, complacent passengers of the Titanic has forgotten God. We have declared His laws to be antiquated.

 

When the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law forbidding homosexual sex, one of the reasons they gave was “we think that our laws and traditions in the past half century are of most relevance here. These references show an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex.”[3] This “emerging awareness” is another way of saying we are changing our minds on what constitutes lawful and moral behavior.

 

According to a new Gallop poll, 39 percent of Americans believe homosexual marriage should be recognized with the same rights and benefits as traditional marriage between a man and a woman. It's important to note that just seven years ago, only 27 percent believed the same thing. But perhaps what is even more discouraging is the level of approval for homosexual marriage among members of "Generation Y," those Americans aged 18-29. On the heels of the Lawrence v. Texas sodomy case, 61 percent said homosexual marriages should be valid.

 

In our wealth and our ease we have decided that strict moral prohibitions are antiquated and backward. We are progressive; we are enlightened. America’s Christian mooring have indeed produced a prosperous nation, but our prosperity is killing us. Like the first class passengers on the Titanic, we laugh and dance and play while our ship is heading at full speed ahead towards our own destruction.

 

Surely Jesus’ warning to the church at Laodicea applies to much of nominal Christianity in America today:

 

You say, “I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing” and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked… I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed (Revelation 3:17,18).

 

Unbridled Arrogance

 

The one word that was heard so frequently in connection with the Titanic before it was launched was “unsinkable.” Everyone was boasting about this enormous ship with its 16 watertight compartments. Why, you could smash a hundred-foot gash in her side and she would still stay afloat! When the news reached America that Titanic had been involved in a serious accident, America’s adoring press was so sure that this symbol of modern technology was virtually indestructible, that the Wall Street Journal ran an article that read:

 

The gravity of the damage to the Titanic is apparent, but the important point is that she did not sink. Man is the weakest and most formidable creature on earth. His brain has within it the spirit of the divine, and he overcomes natural obstacles by thought, which is incomparably the greatest force in the universe. [4]

 

It was a nice, encouraging paragraph about our ability to overcome all natural obstacles, but it had one glaring error – the Titanic at that point was at the bottom of the ocean!

 

When one of the passengers was just boarding the ship, she asked a crew member if the ship was truly unsinkable. She was told, “God Himself could not sink this ship.” Indeed this was the prevailing mindset in the shipping world of that time. This was the reason it was not considered important to have enough lifeboats for all the passengers. The ship couldn’t possibly sink; the lifeboats were antique carryovers from a more dangerous and primitive age.

 

Our world today feels much the same way. All will admit that we have our problems, but we have our most brilliant minds working on these things. We will eventually solve the problems of pollution, overpopulation, nuclear proliferation, racism, AIDS, poverty, and drugs. If we can just do a little more research, give our children a little more education, attend a few more seminars, pass out a few more condoms…

 

We are not going to solve our problems. What the idealistic humanists fail to account for is the depraved sinful nature of man. Educate a wicked man and you have an educated sinner. He may sin in more sophisticated ways, but in the end he will be far more dangerous to society than his uneducated peers. Research and development may do wonders for the field of technology, but it cannot change a man’s heart. Only Christ can do that.

 

Two important aspects of God’s “job description” is that He (1) “resists the proud, but  (2) gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5). Proud people, proud nations, and proud planets will eventually experience divine resistance. In the last days our world will experience a terrible period of tribulation that will be the full expression of God’s resistance toward a people so proud they have forgotten their absolute dependence upon their Creator.

 

Secular pundits laugh at Christian evangelicals who try to warn of impending judgment. The only God they will endure is the bland syrupy deity of the new age, who loves all and judges none. A stern God of holiness, such as the Bible portrays, is a joke to them. Convinced that their world is unsinkable, they are descendants of Lot’s sons-in-law who, when their righteous father-in-law tried to warn them to flee from the wrath to come, were sure that Lot was “joking.” When the fire began to fall, no one was laughing.

 

Warnings Given

 

The icy field that proved the demise of the mighty Titanic came as no surprise to the Captain and crew. They had received warning after warning telling them of the ice, the nature of its dispersal, the location, and the importance of going slow and keeping a sharp eye. In fact on the night of the collision and sinking, 6 warnings were sent by wireless to the Titanic. The fifth one told exactly where to expect the iceberg. The sixth one was interrupted by the irritated operator Jack Phillips, who told the sender to “shut up.” He had important messages to send, messages from rich and famous people who would not countenance any delay over silly messages about icebergs.

 

Still the ship plowed ahead full speed in the dark and quiet night, steaming toward her date with destiny. Captain Smith was evidently intent upon setting a speed record for a cross-Atlantic trip, and could not be bothered with numerous warnings given by timid souls. On board people played cards, never realizing that they would never see the morning. Why listen to warnings when your ship cannot be sunk?

 

It is always the nature of God to warn before sending wrath and judgment. Because God is love, “He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” (Lamentations 3:33). His supreme desire is always that men would repent and turn from the rebellion and arrogance that call for God’s resistance and wrath. For this reason He says of Israel:

 

Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them  (Jeremiah 7:25).

 

God uses colorful language here to show Himself setting His alarm to go off very early in the morning so that He can get up and get His prophets off to an early start in warning Israel of impending judgment. It was so in Lot’s day, in the days before the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, and it is true in our day. Throughout the world God has raised up ministries and voices to warn our rebellious world that there is a Judge of all the earth who is about to arise and scatter His enemies. The world laughs and ridicules such voices, of course. They always have. Talk of holiness and judgment and wrath have never been considered socially acceptable. Yet for the sake of the few who will listen and heed God endures the scorn of the many who will reject. At the last, the words of Ezekiel will be as relevant as the day they were penned:

 

And when this comes to pass surely … they will know that a prophet has been among them (Ezekiel 33:33).

 

One of the primary means God is using to warn the world of the terrible times to come, is the rising field of Bible prophecy. Never, in the history of the church, has there been as much interest in Bible prophecy as there is today. When Hal Lindsay wrote The Late Great Planet Earth in 1969, it seemed to portend a great awakening in the church to the teaching of the last days and the return of Christ. Lindsay’s book became our nation’s best-seller over the next ten years, after the Bible. Movies were made about the rapture and the tribulation. Seminars on eschatology began to appear in the church. It was as if the church of Jesus Christ had wakened from a long theological sleep, and discovered the power and the truth of Jesus’ simple statement: “I will come again.” (John 14:3).

 

Today that  trend shows no sign of letting up. Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkin’s Left Behind series has sold so well that it has startled even the secular world. I was asking about one of these books at our local Wal Mart store, and was told that they could hardly keep them on their shelves, they sold so fast. Most secular authors would drool over the prospect of selling as many books in a lifetime as these books have sold in a decade. Even people with little interest in church or Christianity can be found reading this series.

 

When Jesus does return, we may find that there are a few small points of theology that weren’t quite correct in the series, but they have been a tremendous instrument in the hands of God to awaken and warn the world that the time is drawing near. Terrible tribulation awaits all who will not bow their knees to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

 

Sudden Destruction

 

 The Titanic’s destruction and sinking was a sudden and totally unexpected event. At 11:20 Sunday evening the ship was humming along beautifully, making its top speed of around 24 knots, and in perfect shape. All the passengers were comfortable, the rooms were warm and the water was as tranquil as a pond on a still summer evening. By 2:30 a.m. the ship was two miles under the ocean’s surface. Had the ship sunk more gradually there would have been time to have made all sorts of improvised lifeboats and flotation devices that would have saved hundreds of more lives. But time was one thing there was little of. From the striking of the iceberg to the sinking of the ship there were three short hours.

 

The first hour was pretty much spent in denial, which left two hours for two thousand people to try to find a way to save their lives. Because the captain had disdained serious lifeboat drills, the crew was inexperienced and awkward at getting the lifeboats off the ship and into the water. Two lifeboats were never properly launched. Most of the people who found themselves thrashing about in the cruel, freezing waters of the Atlantic, had, three hours earlier, been sleeping warmly and comfortably in their beds, with absolutely no clue as to the terror that lay just ahead.

 

So it will be in the generation that sees the outpouring of God’s wrath in the last days. Paul writes:

 

For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, "Peace and safety!'' then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape (1 Thessalonians 5:2,3).

 

Jesus warns:

 

And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all (Luke 17:26).

 

Notice Jesus’ emphasis upon business as usual. He declares that just before the outpouring of God’s wrath, people will be eating, drinking, and having weddings, just as it was in Noah’s day. In other words life will be very, very normal right up until the determined time of tribulation. News anchors will be relating the evening news every night, McDonald’s will be selling Happy Meals, people will be packing out Wal Mart stores on Saturdays, and little children will be griping about school right up to the point when the four horsemen of the apocalypse begin their fateful ride. After that nothing will be normal.

 

Refusal to Take the Crash Seriously

 

Titanic’s fateful brush with the iceberg was hardly a crash at all. There was a slight jarring sound, so slight that some didn’t feel anything. Hardly anyone took it seriously. When the ship was brought to a halt, to check for damage, one of the passengers asked a stewardess why the ship was no longer moving. The stewardess replied that she wasn’t sure, but she thought that the ship had some of her paint scratched off by the brush with the iceberg, and the captain wanted to stop and get her painted, so she would look good when she steamed into New York harbor.

 

During that time there was a loud argument between a passenger and one of the stewards. The passenger’s cabin door had jammed and he had force it open, doing damage to the door. The steward was sharply reprimanding him for destroying Titanic’s property, and told him that when they got to New York he would have to pay for the door, and might even be arrested. Little did he realize that the door, the cabin, and the entire ship would be at the bottom of the ocean within three hours.

 

When the captain ascertained that the accident was extremely serious, he gave the order to begin launching the lifeboats. The problem was, almost nobody wanted to get into them. The first lifeboat had a capacity of 40 persons, but carried exactly 12 people. As the boat went down into the ocean one of the crew thought to himself, “If they are sending the boats away, they might just as well put some people in them.”

 

When 2^nd officer Lightoller called for women and children to get into the boats, there was little response. Why trade the bright decks of the Titanic for a few dark hours in a rowboat? Even millionaire John Jacob Astor ridiculed the idea, saying, “We are safer here than in that little boat.” Indeed the mighty Titanic seemed immensely safer than the small, frail, little lifeboats. But in truth those lifeboats were the only hope anyone onboard had for survival. Every empty seat in a lifeboat was a death sentence for someone on board the Titanic.

 

But then, the Titanic could not go down; she was “unsinkable.” If you’re convinced you’re on an unsinkable ship, you are not going to be too quick to leave her, especially after a crash that seemed more like a light bump in the night. Many who had the opportunity made no attempts to secure a place in the lifeboats. One overweight woman nearly cried, and shouted, “I’m not going to get in that little boat. You can’t make me get in that boat!.”

 

In today’s world, nearly all recognize that we have problems, but few realize the extent of those problems. Politicians talk about the problems of the Social Security system, the budget deficit, the stock market, and world terrorism. But most remain upbeat that all these problems can be fixed if we’ll just apply their particular solutions. For the Democrats that usually means raise more taxes; for the Republicans, spend less money.

 

But we have problems far greater than our economy. Our nation, and indeed our world, is facing a moral rot like we have never seen before. Our problems are far greater than the level of unemployment or rate of inflation. We have turned our backs on God.

 

Time Magazine once quoted Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1954:

 

I believe no one can read the history of our country … without realizing that the Good Book and the Spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses…Whether we look to the first Charter of West Virginia or to the Charter of New England or to the Charter of Massachusetts Bay … the same objective is present: a Christian land governed by Christian principles. [5]

 

Since Mr. Warren declared our national Christianity, a wave of pluralistic, non-judgmentalism has invaded our land and banished our Bibles and prayers in the public sector. Even the Ten Commandments have been deemed too controversial to grace a federal court. We have ex-communicated God.

 

Our problems are severe and they are not going to be solved by a politician’s slogan or a presidential decree. Our world has just been through the most bloody century in the history of mankind. In the 20^th century more people were killed in war and through bloody government purges than at any other time. For all our sophistication and enlightenment we have emerged more bloody and more deadly than our barbarian ancestors.

 

Our “bump” will come. Like the Titanic it may start out as something seemingly insignificant, but tragedy and destruction will loom in its shadows. People will run to the caves and the mountains, “for the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Revelation 6:17).

 

Not All Ignorant

 

Although most of the people aboard the Titanic were blissfully ignorant of the fate that awaited them, this was not true of all. Within a short time, a few men quickly realized the awful truth. While their fellow passengers threw pieces of ice chunks at each other on deck, these men carried a terrible secret – the ship was as good as sunk.

 

Shortly after the brush with the iceberg, crewman Samuel Hemming noticed whistling sound coming from an open hatch. As he came near to investigate he noticed a powerful current of air  rushing out of the open hatch. Hemming knew enough about ships to recognize instantly that they had a very serious problem. The air was being displaced by a tremendous torrent of water that was evidently pouring into the ship from down below. The damage from the iceberg was clearly much worse than anyone realized.

 

Captain Smith learned of his ship’s true condition from Mr. Thomas Andrews, the ship’s brilliant builder. After a brief investigation, Andrews recognized the terrible truth: the ship had almost no chance to stay afloat for any length of time. When fourth officer Boxhall asked the captain if the ship was in serious trouble, Smith’s reply was, “Mr. Andrews tells me that he gives her from an hour to an hour and a half.”

 

2^nd officer Lightoller had his own unique way to gauge the severity of their predicament. Lightoller would check the steep narrow emergency staircase that ran from the boat Deck to the lower deck of the ship. The water level was quickly climbing the stairs, and the more he looked the more he realized that the ship would soon be gone. While Lightoller checked the stairway, passengers in the first class section were still playing bridge.

 

Thus, in the midst of unconcerned passengers who were absolutely convinced that their ship was unsinkable, a few men went about their business in the grim knowledge that tragedy of the worst kind lay inevitably ahead. These men weren’t throwing chunks of ice or playing cards. They did their best to do their duties, despite their heavy hearts and bleak future.

 

As with the Titanic there are a people who are in the know today. They do not represent the most intelligent of the populace, or the most sophisticated. The ones possessing the surest knowledge of the future of our world are the lowly evangelicals who read the Scriptures and take them seriously. They have read the prophetic warnings, looked at the world around them, and concluded that the fulfillment of the prophecies is surely at hand.

 

Many people are under the delusion that Christ’s coming will be such a divine secret that it will take everyone on earth by surprise. Not so. For most, the rapture of the church will come as a thief in the night. But for the believing, prophetically aware Christians, it must not be so. Paul writes:

 

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief (1 Thessalonians 5:4).

 

Many people think it the height of presumption to suggest that Jesus is coming soon. They are certain that the coming of Christ, if it happens at all, will not be an event that anyone will anticipate. They are wrong.

 

Jesus asked the question, “When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”

(Luke 18:8). Jesus expects and desires to find a people on earth who will have been looking for him. As our heavenly Bridegroom, He would be insulted to return for His bride, and find she is careless and unconcerned about His appearing. He looks for an eager bride, who will have been crying out, “Maranatha, Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

 

Throughout the body of Christ, there are to be found believers today who eagerly look for their Master. They love the prophetic passages that promise His return. They long for the time when He shall appear in clouds of glory to set all things right, and to reign over an earth that is flooded with righteousness, peace, and joy. They long for their Lord to be glorified as King over all the earth, in such contrast to His first appearing when He was vilified and murdered. The world has seen the Lamb, soon they shall see the appearing of the Lion!

 

The Sounds of the Perishing

 

What does death sound like? Its sounds can vary from a rattle in the throat to a scream of terror. When the Titanic finally sunk swiftly and silently into the depths, many hundreds of people were still clinging to the ship. All the lifeboats that could be loosed were now in the water, and so they waited for the inevitable end. There was no one under delusion now – all realized that their doom was certain.

 

Finally the great ship, after protruding into the air at nearly a 90 degree angle, slid swiftly under the water. As many hundreds of passengers got their first taste of the 28-degree waters, there arose a collective scream that those fortunate ones who had made it into the lifeboats were never to forget.

 

The sound was horrendous. Individual voices were lost in a steady, overwhelming clamor. To Fireman George Kemish, in boat 9, it sounded like a hundred thousand fans at a British football cup final. To Jack Thayer, lying on the keel of boat B, it seemed like the high-pitched hum of locusts on a summer night in the woods back home in Pennsylvania. Survivor Eva Hart said, “The sound of people drowning is something I cannot describe to you. It is the most dreadful sound. And there is a dreadful silence that follows it.”[6] Colonel Archibald Gracie wrote, “...there arose to the sky the most horrible sounds ever heard by mortal man except by those of us who survived this terrible tragedy. The agonizing cries of death from over a thousand throats, the wails and groans of the suffering...none of us will ever forget to our dying day.”[7]

 

These were the sounds of the dying. Of those who clung to the ship to the end, only a handful survived. Most thrashed about in the frigid waters, experiencing a level of cold that they had never known in their lifetimes. It mattered little whether they had on a lifejacket or not. Most of those who died did not drown; they succumbed to the cold within a very short time. Those in the lifeboats listened as minute by minute the screams lessened in intensity. In twenty minutes there was dead silence.

 

As horrible as these sounds were, there is coming a day when the entire universe shall hear a sound far worse – the sound of the damned as they first experience “the everlasting fire.” Jesus declared:

 

The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:41,42).

 

We seldom realize how horrible and how intense will be the regret of the damned. Many have dismissed Jesus’ stern warnings about hell as colorful and poetic language. Keep this in mind: God does not lie, nor does He exaggerate. Jesus is not overstating the case, just to scare people into God’s kingdom. He who is the way, the truth, and the life is speaking the truth here. When the damned are cast into the lake of fire, and suffer their first taste of the agonies of hell, there shall arise a cry such as the universe has never heard before. Perhaps the word that shall reverberate in the minds and hearts of the lost is “Deceived!” They shall then realize that all their proud sophistication, all their puny pleasures and their intellectual arrogance were nothing but a web of deception cast by the master-deceiver, Satan.

 

Worthless Wealth

 

One of the ironies is that of the millions of dollars of treasures and cargo aboard the Titanic, nearly all of it was lost, and in their time of desperation, every bit of it was worthless. The gold and silver jewelry, the large currency bills and fat bankbooks, the fine dresses and expensive wines were all headed for the same destination as the ship itself – the dark, silent ocean floor.

 

John Jacob Aster was the richest man in the world at the time. He was the “Bill Gates” of his day. Yet at the time the ship was listing dangerously, and showing signs of her impending doom, Aster’s wealth was of no avail. Aster would no doubt have spent his millions on a single rowboat (worth maybe $30 in those days) but there were none to be bought. The world’s richest man would have to suffer the same freezing waters as the third class immigrants who had spent all they had for their opportunity to come to America.

 

When a famous or a rich man dies, and the question is asked, “How much money did they leave behind?” the answer is always the same – “All of it.” Paul writes, “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out” (1 Timothy 6:7). Any sensible person, with an eternal perspective, should be able to see that amassing large amounts of money is not the goal of life. Money is useful, to be sure, but the greater treasure has to do with relationships. All our wealth, all the treasures we hold so dear, will one day be taken from our hands.

 

I love music of all types and kinds. I enjoy big band music, easy listening music, classical music, gospel music, and even Dixieland jazz. Over the years I have put together a fairly large collection of CD’s of these different styles of music, mostly instrumental. But I have never been able to get my kids to appreciate the finer types of music. They think I am hopelessly out of touch with the modern world.

 

I can imagine how it will go after my wife and I depart this life. My kids will get together and start sorting through our things, and when they get to my CD collection, they will probably be saying things like: “I don’t want these things, do you want them?” “No, I sure don’t want them, how about you?” Finally the CD’s will go in the trash, or be sold at a garage sale for a quarter apiece, and that will be the end of this wonderful music collection which I have lovingly gathered over many years.

 

Such is the way of life. Our riches may not descend to the bottom of the ocean, but they will most assuredly depart from us (or more properly we from them). Invest your life, your energy, and your time in people, and you will have a treasure that you can take to heaven with you:

 

I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings (Luke 16:9-NIV).

 

Not All Lost

 

Though many died that cold morning, a remnant was saved. While there are some discrepancies about the exact number of people on board, one official count lists a total of 2201 (passengers and crew) of which 711 survived and 1,490 were lost. This represents about a one in three chance of survival for all aboard.

 

While the sinking of the Titanic was the end for two-thirds of ship’s passengers and crew, it was merely a “night to remember” for one-third. In fact it made them celebrities, although such status wasn’t always a blessing. Many of these survivors lived on to see two world wars, man’s first trip to the moon, and the Viet Nam war and the Watergate scandal. They had been “saved.”

 

In the Last Days not all will be lost. Jesus encourages us to: "Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man'' (Luke 21:36).

 

The story of Noah was clearly a prophetic type of the last days, as Jesus instructs us. “And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man” (Luke 17:26). The most encouraging verse in the entire story of Noah’s flood contains these simple, but powerful, words: But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis 6:8).

 

In the midst of all the wickedness and moral decay, here was a man that was living in the favor of God. So will it be in the last days. We live in the Biblical “perilous times” that Paul referred to. Our world stands on the edge of an abyss; the tribulation and Armageddon lurk in the wings. Unparalleled misery and destruction await an unsuspecting generation. A curtain of darkest night is drawing over us. Is there any hope? Will any be spared?

 

The answer is an unqualified yes, for the word of God has declared “God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9). In every Biblical account of God’s judgment there has been a way of escape. For Noah, it was an ark. For Lot it was an escape to the mountains. When Jericho was destroyed by Israel, Rahab and her family were spared by putting a scarlet cord in the window of her house.

 

How precious those few lifeboats became in those final hours of the Titanic! While at first many saw them as “dangerous,” after the ship’s condition became known, and it was evident to all that the ship could not survive, the lifeboats became the most precious commodity of all. Far more important than gold, jewels, or money, those sturdy little wooden boats were the difference between life and death. Their worth was inestimable. Those who found a place in one lived; those who didn’t perished. The lifeboats were not comfortable; the people on board weren’t getting the luxuries they enjoyed on the Titanic, but they were safe.

 

It is the gospel of Christ that is our only hope. It is the “lifeboat” that can spare us. It is “the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16). Stephen Ambrose tells a fascinating story of a unit of the Screaming Eagles from the 101^st Airborne Division in World War II in his book Band of Brothers.[8] One of the men he writes about was a tough, mean paratrooper named Wayne “Skinny” Sisk. Wayne was a very hard man who killed easily and often. In Germany after the war was over, Sisk and two others were sent by an officer to take a Nazi general out and shoot him. As they went to the designated area, the other two got cold feet. They knew it was illegal to simply shoot a prisoner, without a trial. Wayne had no problem with it, however. After telling the general to run for it, he shot him down.

 

Wayne had been told by another soldier that when the war was over and he was a civilian again, all the Germans he had killed would climb into bed with him and haunt him the rest of his life. This proved prophetic. After returning to the U.S. and changing his army khakis for flannel shirts and blue jeans Wayne was miserable. He had constant nightmares, he couldn’t get along with anyone, and he was constantly depressed. Without any direction and without friends, his future looked bleak.

 

He was staying at his sisters house, when his little niece, four years old, came into his room. She had heard her parents talk about how miserable uncle Wayne was and wanted to help. She told him, “Uncle Wayne, if you would ask Jesus into your heart He would forgive you for the bad things you’ve done, and you wouldn’t have those nightmares anymore.” Wayne, touched by the little girls sincerity, and sensing that behind the simple words lay his only hope, sent the girl out of his room. Kneeling down by his bed, he asked Jesus Christ to forgive him and change him.

 

Some forty years later, in the 1990’s Wayne wrote to his former commander, Captain Winters. He told how that from that point on his life was changed. He had gone on to seminary and become a minister, had married, had children and now grandchildren. This man so mean and tough that he would fight the slightest provocation told his captain, “Since that time I have only licked one man, and he needed it.”

 

What kind of power could change a man’s life so? It was not the power of a four-year-old girl; it was the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is God’s good news that brings the forgiveness of sins, the healing of emotional scars, the indwelling nature of Christ, and the gift of eternal life. The apostle Paul was so enamored with the gospel that he spoke of it constantly, sometimes calling it “my gospel.” He referred to it as: “the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust” (1 Timothy 1:11). Jesus is our lifeboat and His gospel the good news that we do not have to perish. We can be saved.

 

Room for More

 

While the Titanic’s inexcusable lack of lifeboats insured that many lives were bound to be lost, many more could have been saved than actually were. One of the saddest chapters of the entire tragedy was what occurred, or more precisely what didn’t occur among the 20 lifeboats as the ship succumbed to the ocean.

 

The lifeboats launched earliest were not much more than half full. If every lifeboat had been full, instead of the 703 survivors, there would have been 1,178. 475 more lives would have been saved!

 

But the half-empty boats that were launched were not the real tragedy. Far worse was what happened as the boats sat still and silent and watched the mighty Titanic slide under the water. Officer Lowe in boat 14 had a mind to row back and try to save some of the poor souls thrashing around in the ocean, but decided it wouldn’t be prudent to do it just yet. The crowds of overeager swimmers might swamp their small boat.

 

Lowe thought it best to wait for the freezing, drowning, passengers to thin out, and then go back when things were more manageable. By the time he did go back and reach the site of the sinking, they found only 4. Lowe had miscalculated how long it would take to row to the scene, how long to locate a voice in the dark, and most of all, how long a man could live in water that was 28 degrees. There had been no need to wait until the crowd thinned out. He should have left immediately.

 

In almost every other boat a tragic scenario was being repeated: a timid suggestion to go back, usually by a woman, a stronger refusal and suggestion that they would all be surely swamped and perish, usually by a man, and nothing done at all by anyone. Of 1600 people who went down on the Titanic, only 13 were picked up by the 18 boats that hovered nearby. While around 700 sat safely in their little boats, 1,500 screamed and thrashed and died in the freezing waters of the Atlantic.

 

The parallel is so obvious that it hardly needs to be stated. Every person who has truly experienced the new birth through faith in Christ is “saved.” We don’t hear the term “saved” as much as we used to but it is a good term and a Biblical one. We find this expression permeating the book of Acts, as the apostles used this simple word to encompass the wonderful work of grace that Jesus accomplishes through the new birth:

 

•          And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved (Acts 2:21).

 

•          And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation'' (Acts 2:40).

 

•          And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved  (Acts 2:47).

 

•          Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

 

•          But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they (Acts 15:11).

 

•          So they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household'' (Acts 16:31).

 

Once saved there remain a few simple observances for the new Christian to practice. He is to abide in Christ, grow in grace, love and fellowship with his brothers and sisters in Christ, and seek to bring others into this condition of being saved. It is not enough for us to simply enjoy our salvation and develop relationships with other Christians, as important as these are. We must share the good news.

 

It comes down to this. If we truly believe that any person who dies without Christ is eternally lost, and separated from God, and will be punished for their sins in a lake of fire, we will have to act upon that belief and make every effort to save as many as we possibly can. The fact that we cannot save the whole world, or even a small part of the whole world, must not dissuade us. We must do what we can. Watching the lost perish from the safety of our little lifeboat is not an option. We must act!

 

This does not mean that every Christian should immediately quit his job and sign up for the mission field. Nor does it mean that we must all spend several nights each week knocking on doors and telling our neighbors to turn or burn. We will be most efficient at expanding God’s kingdom among men by filling our place in that field that God has ordained for us. Whether it be teaching Sunday school, giving generously to missions, working diligently in an evangelistic crusade, writing articles or books, building homes and sharing the love of Jesus in Mexico, going on a short term missions trip, ministering in prisons, visiting nursing homes, or whatever else our creative Heavenly Father has prepared for us, we must do it! One thing we cannot do is to stay home every night, watch television, eat pizza, and sleep. Let us be up and about our Master’s business. We may not prove to be the world’s greatest evangelist; we may not have a dozen dynamic testimonies to share on a Christian television show, but we can and we must be faithful.

 

Paul writes about his own personal motivation as he laid his life on the line every day for the sake of “God’s elect”:

 

For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all… (2 Corinthians 5:14).

 

John Harper

 

The 1997 movie Titanic was wildly popular for several reasons, one of the main reasons being the fictional love story that served as a centerpiece for the tragic tale. There is another love story, this one true, that is far more amazing that that of Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater. The real love story is the story of the love of God which ensured that one of God’s best men was onboard the fatal ship, in order to faithfully testify of the saving grace of Jesus to the doomed passengers and crew.

 

John Harper was a beloved Scottish pastor who had been preaching in America in the last year. Perhaps the greatest meetings of Harper’s shortened life had been held at the great Moody Church in Chicago. Harper was originally scheduled to do meetings for one week, but so anointed and effective was his preaching that the meetings were soon extended. By the time he was done he had preached for three straight months there. The Christian magazine, Life of Faith, referred to these meetings thus: “His services were attended with such rich blessing that the visit lengthened into three months, the Moody Church passing through one of the most wonderful revivals in its history.” Considering the many years D. L. Moody had overseen that church, this is quite a commendation!

 

Ironically, it was these meetings that led to Harper’s untimely death. So greatly was he loved by the people of Chicago that he had hardly returned home to Scotland when he was invited for a second visit to the Moody Church. They wanted him for three more months. Harper loved revival too much to turn down the offer. Originally he planned to sail on the Lusitania, but, as providence would have it, the decision was made to delay a week and sail on the new ship called Titanic.

 

While there were no video cameras to record the last hours of the great ship, no tape recorders or cell phones to give us an electronic account of that historic night, we can be thankful for the details supplied by the 700 survivors. Before the accident John Harper was seen on the deck of the ship, leaning against a rail that fateful evening, sharing Christ with one of the passengers. Whether that man surrendered to Christ, only eternity will tell.

 

Once the warnings began to ring out, Harper wasted no time in getting his daughter, Nana, to an upper deck captain with instructions to get her in a lifeboat. She was indeed one of the survivors, and returned to Scotland where she grew up, married a minister, and lived a long and useful life of service to the God of her father.

 

From that point on John  began his “ministry” to the doomed passengers of the Titanic. He was heard to urge the women, children, and unsaved to go to the lifeboats. Feeling it a waste for believers who already possessed the gift of eternal life to take up precious space on the crowded lifeboats, he never gave thought to trying to find himself a place on them.

 

His unselfish behavior contrasted sharply with many of the panicking passengers, rich and poor. An American banker managed to get a pet dog onto one of the boats. A youth and an adult man tried to sneak into the lifeboats wearing women’s clothing, only to be discovered and forced out.

 

Not only did John Harper make no attempt to get into the lifeboats, he even gave away his life jacket to another man. When the mammoth ship slid quietly into the cold ocean waters, Harper’s ministry did not cease. Though without a life jacket, and thrashing about in the freezing waters, he continued to urge men and women to come to Christ. While most of those in the water were screaming John had more important things to do.

 

A year or more after the sinking of the Titanic, a young man testified of how he had met the passionate preacher in the waters. As people were screaming and dying, he saw John Harper drifting near him. Harper cried out, “Man, are you saved?” The young man knew he was in no condition to meet his Maker, and answered sadly, “No.” Harper immediately replied with Scripture: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" Acts 16:31).

 

After that they were separated, and Harper disappeared into the darkness. But as God’s mercy would have it, within a short time they came within each other’s sight once again. Again Harper asked the question that he had asked in various forms countless times throughout his years of service to His Lord: “Are you saved?” Once again that answer was given in the negative. Again Harper cried out, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31).

 

John Harper succumbed to the freezing waters shortly after that. As best as anyone could tell, those were his last words. The young man, however, floating on a spar of the ship, was eventually picked up by one of the lifeboats and rescued by the Carpathia. He testified later: “There, two miles above the ocean floor, I did believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for my salvation. I was John Harper’s last convert.”[9]

 

The night of the sinking of the Titanic someone had heard John Harper remark, “It will be beautiful in the morning.” The beauty he saw that morning was far more than he had expected. Far more than a pretty sunrise or blue skies or fair winds, John awoke that morning to see the fair presence of the face of His Savior. As he stood in the presence of the One he had loved so dearly and served so passionately, there were no tears or pity; there was no regret. In his thirty-nine years on this turbulent planet, John Harper had finished his race, he had kept the faith, and was now rewarded with the presence of Jesus. “For to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).

 

The question may be asked why God would allow such a choice servant as Harper to be on that doomed ship, especially considering that his first plans involved taking a different ship a week earlier. Perhaps John Paton, John Harper’s friend put it best:

 

Some of us can well imagine him in these last awful minutes on board the doomed Titanic, standing amidst a group of stricken, repentant souls pointing them to the Savior he had loved and served so well, and helping them to seize their eleventh-hour opportunity. God has not many servants whom He could trust with such a service, and that, to me at least, is the explanation of our brother being on board the Titanic instead of on the Lusitania as he had at one time planned.[10]

 

How differently God looks at things than we do! Perhaps John’s presence on the Titanic was not a tragedy but an honor. God, in His great love and compassion for all people, was determined to have a faithful witness of Christ to the lost and perishing in those last hours, and chose one of His choicest servants, John Harper for the task. This is the true love story of the Titanic. Even in the midst of tragedy God’s man was on the job, testifying of the love and grace of God.

 

Iceberg Ahead

 

Destruction lurks cruelly in the darkness ahead for our world. We will face a titanic tragedy that will not involve thousands, but billions of lives, if you take the book of Revelation seriously.

 

We have built our world on the wrong foundations. Our structure looks spectacular and sophisticated, with our high-tech gadgets and our impressive achievements in almost every field. Yes, we have developed in almost every area except morality. Our technology has far outpaced our morality. In industry and science we are geniuses; in morals we are pygmies. While we build spaceships that can put men on the moon, and perfect surgeries that can add decades of life to a man or a woman, we still play our dirty little games with sex, and mock our Creator as irrelevant and unnecessary. We slay the innocent and turn murderers loose. We expose our children to blasphemous and filthy movies, and are puzzled why they seem so out of control. Judgment lies at the door. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are preparing for their destructive ride.

 

On the Titanic a single pair of binoculars might have prevented disaster. Had they enabled the lookout to see a mere hundred yards further, it would probably have been enough time to miss the iceberg entirely. But of course unsinkable ships don’t need such things. No need for precautions when you have made yourself invulnerable.

 

And so we laugh at the late night comics as they spew their sexually suggestive humor across our once innocent nation. We snicker at the bits of nudity that slips its way into even our “family movies.” We chuckle at the ridiculous caricatures of evangelical Christians and especially preachers as they appear as buffoons on our sitcoms. And we maintain our politically correct silence as expectant mothers sneak into well-furnished clinics to sacrifice their babies on the altar of convenience. God’s anger steadily builds, yet we have no clue. America is prospering; all’s well with the world.

 

We have forgotten our total and absolute dependence upon God. Isaiah cries:

 

Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless (Isaiah 40:21-23).

 

 

The knowledge of the future plays a tremendous role in your perception of the present. If all Americans who called themselves Christians were to truly believe the book of Revelation, and understand just how close we are to its fulfillment, things would be vastly different.

 

Premonition

 

On the Titanic there was one lady who did have a strange glimpse into the future. Survivor Eva Hart was a small girl when she was a passenger on the Titanic, and lived many years after that. She told how that her mother had a premonition of disaster before and during the entire voyage. Many decades later, Eva told a rapt audience this story:

 

When the news came that we were to travel on the Titanic my mother was absolutely horrified, which was quite unlike her,” Ms. Hart told the convention audience on Saturday morning. “She used to say afterwards that something had come over her. I shall never forget the moment when she looked at my father and said, ‘That’s the ship they say is unsinkable.’ He put his arm around her shoulder and said, ‘No, my dear, that’s the ship that is unsinkable.’ And her reply to that was, ‘That is flying in the face of God!’ She was so frightened and so apprehensive that, when we boarded the Titanic, she made a vow -- which she kept, and without which I would not be sitting here, talking to you -- that she would sit up all night, every night, and sleep in the daytime.[11]

 

Thus it was, that when the Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. that Sunday evening, Eva’s nervous mother was dressed and fully alert. Eva related:

 

My father and I had gone to bed. My mother was sitting up, sewing, and she felt a very little bump. She knew perfectly well that this was the ‘something’ she had been waiting for.[12]

 

When the “bump” occurred she swung into action, making sure that she and Eva were on one of the first of the lifeboats lowered over the side:

 

My mother pulled my father out of bed and then woke me and told me to get dressed,” Ms. Hart said. “My father went out to look, and when he came back my mother didn’t even ask him what the trouble was -- she knew perfectly well that there was trouble. My father picked me up, and we took the lift up to the boat deck. Then he took us straight to a lifeboat and told us to stay right there. I think my mother and I were probably among the very first people to be put into Lifeboat 14, because we were there -- and we were there because of this premonition my mother had.[13]

 

No one needed to coerce her into the boats. She gladly took her place in the small boat with her young daughter at her side. Her “prophetic” expectancy had prepared her well for the disaster to come. When it was time to escape, she was ready.

 

When we consider just how much our Lord had to say about the last days, surely He must want us prepared as well. Those of us who find ourselves living in the fulfillment of prophecy cannot afford to be ignorant.

 

How precious were those relatively few lifeboats in this time of disaster! Though they were not elaborate, nor especially comfortable, they were well able to do what they were designed to do – form a life-saving barrier between frail humanity and the freezing, cruel ocean.

 

The gospel of Jesus Christ is our lifeboat. Jesus does not promise that the life in Him will always be fun or even easy. But He does promise that we will be saved: gloriously and everlastingly saved from the greatest danger a man or woman can ever know – the wrath of a holy God. The gospel is the good news that leads one from darkness to light; from the flames of hell to the glories of heaven.

 

Just as They Did

 

One of Jesus’ more puzzling statements occurred when He spoke of a tragedy contemporary to their day. A tower in Siloam had tragically collapsed and killed 18 people. Apparently some of the Jews of the time considered that these unfortunate individuals must have been great sinners, and thought this would explain how they happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Jesus asked, “Do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:4,5).

 

On the surface it seems like Jesus was telling them that if they didn’t repent they would all have towers fall on them. Of course that is not what He was saying. Jesus was saying that there are really only two ways to die: either in your sins, or in God’s grace. He was saying that regardless of whether you die in the collapse of a tower or on your bed in old age, the ultimate tragedy is to die with your sins not forgiven.

 

The same thing could be said of the Titanic. Apart from the grace of Christ, every death would be a tragedy. Those who survived the Titanic were considered “lucky” but in truth they merely were able to delay the inevitable for a few years. Even the little girls such as Eva Hart, who died in 1996 at 91 years of age, living an extra 84 years beyond the Titanic, eventually still did die. And her spiritual state at her death was far more important than the number of years that she was able to live on earth.

 

Frederick Fleet was the lookout who first sighted the fatal iceberg. He was 25 years old at the time. When the Titanic was about 500 yards away, Fleet caught a glimpse of the huge shadowy figure, and immediately rang his bell and phoned to the bridge, with the simple message, “Iceberg, right ahead.” As the ship was sinking Fleet was ordered to get into one of the lifeboats as a rower, and thus survived the disaster.

 

Fleet continued to work aboard the large ocean liners for the next 24 years, retiring from the sea in 1936. Living in England and working at various jobs he lived an unremarkable life, at times becoming so financially desperate that he sold newspapers on the streets. In December of 1964 Fleet’s wife died, and at the age of 76 Frederick Fleet hung himself from a clothesline in the garden of the house he shared with his brother-in-law. He had escaped the peril of the sea, but he could not escape the despair that fermented within his own soul. In his fifty-two bonus years since the Titanic, he had failed to find the One who brings peace to the troubled seas of the heart. He was as much a victim as those who had succumbed to the waters of the Atlantic in 1912.

 

The Ultimate Tragedy

 

The real tragedy of life is not a matter of dying too young, or dying in a dramatic fashion; it is dying “in your sins.” A long life is no blessing if Christ is not in it.

 

John Harper drowned with 1,500 others on April 15. 1912. He was only 39 years old. By rights he should have been able to look forward to another 35 or forty years of meaningful living. Instead his life was cut short. His death was not a pleasant one. His strong Christian faith did not make him immune to the piercing pain of the 28 degree waters. At the end, without a life jacket, he probably thrashed numbly about, and then felt the panic of trying to breathe only to have the freezing salt water filling his lungs. As he would have instinctively tried to take another breath, it would result in more of the same. For about two minutes he would have been in a terrible agony of vainly trying to breath a substance man was never intended to breathe.

 

But then it was over. As death mercifully quieted his frantic thrashings, John Harper found out by experience that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The pain of drowning was immediately replaced by the pure pleasure of the Master’s presence. This man who had preached Christ to the very end would surely have heard the One he loved so dearly say to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant…” The body of Christ had lost a valuable member. But John had fulfilled his mission, and the Titanic had had a faithful witness offering God’s forgiveness and the gift of eternal life to all who would listen and heed.

 

Last Words

 

Officer Charles Lightoller told of one other amazing phenomenon that occurred as the Titanic sank. It had to do with the last words of the perishing. He stated: “What I remember about that night- what I will remember as long as I live- is the people crying out to each other as the stern began to plunge down. I heard people crying, ‘I love you.’” [14]

 

When I read Lightoller’s statement it called to mind a similar phenomenon that occurred in our own time. During the terrorist attacks known today by the date 9-11, we had a bizarre look into the face of tragedy and death that we had not had before. This was a major tragedy where many of those facing their own death were able to make cell phone calls to loved ones in the minutes they had left. One after another surviving husbands, wives, and mothers reported the last words of their loved ones. They were nearly all identical. When the time of death appeared certain, there was no talk of business concerns or hobbies, or bank accounts. The words were simple and terse: “I love you.”

 

When our lives are spent, when the swift hands of time write “finis” upon our brief sojourn on earth, it is relationships that count and nothing else.  Jesus made relationships the foundation for all morality declaring that the two great commandments were to simply love God with all we have and to love our neighbors as we do ourselves. Our success will be eternally evaluated not upon the money we have made or the achievements attained, but upon the relationships we built: first with God, secondly with our families, and then with those others God brought into our lives.

 

Surely our world is not so different than the Titanic. We boast in our accomplishments, confident that God Himself couldn’t sink our ship. The iceberg looms ahead, yet so few see it. We who are Christ’s look for a deliverance unlike any other deliverance in the history of our planet. We look for our Lord Jesus to snatch us from the earth and take us to Himself. This is traditionally known as the Rapture of the church. We are not given the exact time for this great event, but we are given signs to indicate its nearness. Having read our Bibles and our newspapers we can only conclude that Jesus’ coming draws near.

 

Until that day we will work. Like John Harper we will proclaim salvation to all who will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We will invest our energy, our time, and our money in eternal things, because we are convinced that in the end, it is the invisible things that are eternal. All the physical “stuff” of life is a tool at best or an illusion at worst. As the darkness descends and evil multiplies, may the Spirit of God raise up an army of John Harpers who will count their life as nothing in comparison to the beauty of Jesus Christ, and His glorious gospel.

 

End