Matthew 24:38,39,42” “For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man… Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”
The Californian steamer was 1,500 miles from the port in Boston when a crew member saw light flares a few miles away coming from another ship. Various attempts were made to contact the vessel, which seemed to be heading further off in the other direction – to no avail. At 1.40 am, the lights disappeared definitively. Only a few hours later did the Captain discover what he had accidentally witnessed. Neither he nor his First Officer had taken the lights seriously. They hadn’t realised how fortuitous it was that they were in the vicinity. They themselves had hardly moved all day because of the proliferation of icebergs, and their delay had put them in a position – without realising it – to witness a historic event. The crew didn’t think that those lights were, in fact, distress signals; otherwise, they would have taken the 9-mile detour to help out. The sinking ship had sent out numerous SOS signals, but the steamer’s radio operator was fast asleep the whole time whilst on duty. And so, from the bridge, the Captain and his right-hand man unwittingly witnessed the sinking of the Titanic.
You probably saw the Hollywood blockbuster which so visibly depicted the disaster. People continued to dance, drink champagne and stuff their faces, blissfully and tragically unaware that the ship had already begun to sink. Similarly, today, people we love and spend time with are living their lives without realising how precarious their situation is if they are ignoring God. What will we do about it today?
Lord, I choose to be alert. Use me today to help awaken others to what’s going on. Amen!
A few years ago, I recorded a sermon called The Satanic Lullaby on the topic of being alert. Check it out here.
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