"...and this world certainly has disasters ahead of it." These words are part of the last paragraph of this post. Now how did I know that? Well....you would first have to ask that question to the multitudes of faithful ministers from many decades past who preached that from their pulpits....or if you look you will find plenty of Christians who knew this....or you could go to God's word yourself. It's too late to ask Billy Graham or R. C. Sproul but you could read some of what they had written on this subject. I will add this because it is part of the original biblical scenario. We need our pulpits to implore of their congregations to admit to God in our prayers....our rebellion to Him at worst....or at best our dalliance and presumption upon Him.
The following post is about two years old. If you were to take away the prospects of world war....and a worldwide global economic collapse.....and any other man-made or natural disaster that may come about in this violent and chaotic age we are living in.....if you ignores all that and just consider the cultural and technological age with artificial intelligence and drones and the total lack of privacy....you...I don't believe....would be able to look forward in any way to the future. Add to this the war that is surely ahead along with the pending New World Order....and you must....if you are a Christian.....no matter how financially secure you are.....plead for the Lord Jesus to return soon. Much of the church was like this a few decades ago but we have assimilated into the culture. I don't expect the average visitor to these posts to agree with me....but we are currently in a downward spiral....and I do believe that each and every day more Christians are girding up their loins for what appears to be ahead.
I have a few peripheral fascinations in life and one of them would be the Titanic. I never saw the James Cameron film. Oh I did pay for a ticket and sit in one of the comfortable seats with every intention of watching the movie but I walked out about a half hour into the film as its message started to unfold. I watched the 1958 black and white A Night To Remember when I was a child.....and I watched it again for the umpteenth time last night.
With a little research I came up with this quote from the main female character in the Cameron film..."....there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me...in every way that a person can be saved." It put in my mind a real life quote from the sinking of the Titanic. I've written about this before. John Harper was a British Baptist pastor and passenger on the Titanic. He was headed to America as a guest preacher with the possibility of accepting a call at a famous American church. He was travelling with his six year old daughter for he was a widower. After he placed his daughter in a lifeboat it is reported that he shouted "women, children, and the unsaved into the lifeboats."
It is also reported that as he swam up to other people, and as hypothermia was setting is, he challenged them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. There was a meeting of survivors in Ontario, Canada a few years after the disaster. One man stood up and testified how John Harper swam up to him twice as he was holding on to debris and said "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." John Harper....with no life vest for he had given it to another....sank to his death. The man giving this testimony was rescued by a returning lifeboat. He told the gathering this..."I am the last convert of John Harper." Yes, I walked out of Cameron's film and will never view it.
I believe that the sinking of the Titanic was a message to Britain and to America. Everyone thought that the great ship was unsinkable. Two world wars followed. The space shuttle Challenger had a multi-cultural crew...male and female...scientist, military and civilian...Caucasian, Asian, African-American...Christian, Jewish and Buddhist. Those iconic pictures of the breakup of the Challenger are still hard to look at.
We don't seem to learn from disasters of the past but we do sometimes learn when we are in them....and this world certainly has disasters ahead of it. May the church begin to prepare.....and be encouraged with the same words that Paul gave those on his stricken ship.....only to us they point to eternal life...."Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship,"
The following post is about two years old. If you were to take away the prospects of world war....and a worldwide global economic collapse.....and any other man-made or natural disaster that may come about in this violent and chaotic age we are living in.....if you ignores all that and just consider the cultural and technological age with artificial intelligence and drones and the total lack of privacy....you...I don't believe....would be able to look forward in any way to the future. Add to this the war that is surely ahead along with the pending New World Order....and you must....if you are a Christian.....no matter how financially secure you are.....plead for the Lord Jesus to return soon. Much of the church was like this a few decades ago but we have assimilated into the culture. I don't expect the average visitor to these posts to agree with me....but we are currently in a downward spiral....and I do believe that each and every day more Christians are girding up their loins for what appears to be ahead.
I have a few peripheral fascinations in life and one of them would be the Titanic. I never saw the James Cameron film. Oh I did pay for a ticket and sit in one of the comfortable seats with every intention of watching the movie but I walked out about a half hour into the film as its message started to unfold. I watched the 1958 black and white A Night To Remember when I was a child.....and I watched it again for the umpteenth time last night.
With a little research I came up with this quote from the main female character in the Cameron film..."....there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me...in every way that a person can be saved." It put in my mind a real life quote from the sinking of the Titanic. I've written about this before. John Harper was a British Baptist pastor and passenger on the Titanic. He was headed to America as a guest preacher with the possibility of accepting a call at a famous American church. He was travelling with his six year old daughter for he was a widower. After he placed his daughter in a lifeboat it is reported that he shouted "women, children, and the unsaved into the lifeboats."
It is also reported that as he swam up to other people, and as hypothermia was setting is, he challenged them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. There was a meeting of survivors in Ontario, Canada a few years after the disaster. One man stood up and testified how John Harper swam up to him twice as he was holding on to debris and said "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." John Harper....with no life vest for he had given it to another....sank to his death. The man giving this testimony was rescued by a returning lifeboat. He told the gathering this..."I am the last convert of John Harper." Yes, I walked out of Cameron's film and will never view it.
I believe that the sinking of the Titanic was a message to Britain and to America. Everyone thought that the great ship was unsinkable. Two world wars followed. The space shuttle Challenger had a multi-cultural crew...male and female...scientist, military and civilian...Caucasian, Asian, African-American...Christian, Jewish and Buddhist. Those iconic pictures of the breakup of the Challenger are still hard to look at.
We don't seem to learn from disasters of the past but we do sometimes learn when we are in them....and this world certainly has disasters ahead of it. May the church begin to prepare.....and be encouraged with the same words that Paul gave those on his stricken ship.....only to us they point to eternal life...."Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship,"
