In May of 1940, German forces were on the verge of capturing the entire Allied army. Nearly surrounded, British and French soldiers fought their way to the coastal town of Dunkirk in a desperate bid to escape, but there was no place to go. Trapped between the sea and advancing German army, there seemed to be little hope.
Yet hope came in the form of the British citizenry. The British Admiralty put out the call for every small craft it could find to help stage an emergency evacuation. Yachts, fishing boats, motor launches, tug-boats, any vessel that could pull men off the beaches. Despite constant attack by German bombers, this motley fleet managed to rescue more than three hundred thousand men and bring them back to England. Winston Churchill called it a “miracle of deliverance.”
One of those that answered the call was a sixty-six-year-old retiree named Charles Lightoller. He navigated his small motor yacht to the battle and he crammed more than 120 soldiers on his ship. He then piloted the dangerously overloaded vessel back across the English Channel, dodging bombs and bullets all the way.
Why did he do it? Why take the risk? Perhaps his zeal to rescue as many men as possible was driven in part by memories of a harrowing night at sea nearly thirty years before. A night of tragedy. So many people in need of rescue, yet the lifeboat were only half full. Lightoller had heard the cries of the dying in the water and felt the despair at not being able to do more. It was a night he could never forget when more than nine hundred people perished in the icy North Atlantic. Lightroller may be retired but he had once served as the Second officer on the RMS Titanic.
I've noticed over the years that those called out of the world and denominationalism, then to be the most energetic when telling other about the one true church of the Bible. Maybe it comes from the same place as Lightoller. When you lived in the despair, seen the confusion, know the pain that comes with seeing so many lost, you know you can’t just sit idly by when there is something you can do.
It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.
1 Timothy 1:15-16
Only when we realize the desperate state sin has put us in and the “miracle of deliverance” granted to us by the cross of Christ, will we have the courage to put out into the world to help save others. People ungrateful for their salvation are not going to be evangelistic. Only people that realize the terrible fate that awaits those lost adrift in the sea of worldliness will answer the call to come and help rescue the perishing. Those that have been saved, should be concerned about those that have not been!
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