Ron Hutchcraft Ministries

Monday, May 12, 2008

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Over the years when people ask me where I live, I sometimes have answered with the name of an airline that I have flown a lot. Actually, a significant part of my life has been spent on airplanes, or in airports. And when there's a disaster in the air, you know, or an airplane problem, for those of us who fly a lot, it makes us think a little bit. And for all of us, whether we are flyers or not, there are some images of certain airline tragedies that I guess will be forever imprinted on our memories. One of those was that jet airline crash in the Everglades where the entire plane and all its passengers just vanished in that swamp. But for one man, there's another image related to that crash. According to one news report, he had used his identification to help his friend purchase a ticket for that flight. The friend didn't have sufficient ID with him at the time. So, the man who bought the ticket watched his friend and all those passengers boarding, and he said, "I cannot forget their faces." And then he was quoted as saying, "If only there had been some sign given of what was going to happen. If only I had known to warn them."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Getting Passengers Off the Fatal Flight."

Now, obviously if anyone had advance warning of the outcome of a fatal flight they would do everything possible to keep the passengers from going. Seldom do we have such a warning. But when it comes to where people around us will go for eternity, we have all the signs and all the warnings we need. God tells us, for example, in 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9, that those who have not obeyed the Gospel of the Lord Jesus will, "Be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord."

You see, without the Savior, no one we know can get to heaven, and the only alternative is hell. Our word for today from the Word of God, Proverbs 24:11, "Rescue those being led away to death, hold back those staggering towards slaughter. If you say, 'But we knew nothing about this,' does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay each person according to what He has done?" If you know people who are on a flight that leads to death, your responsibility is so obvious. You rescue them! If you look around at most of Jesus' followers today, we're not in rescue mode! There's very little sense of a life-or-death urgency about introducing those around us to Jesus. Which leads us to ask, do we really think that people we know will be lost forever if they don't know Christ? Do we really believe that they're spiritually dying?

Someone suggested to me recently that most Christians are practical universalists. In theological circles a universalist is someone who believes that everyone will eventually make it with God somehow. Practical universalists probably don't believe that; they believe that people must have the Savior to go to heaven, they just don't act like it. They act like the people they know will somehow make it without Him. So what about the people you live with, you live close to, the people you work with, the people you go to school with? The Bible clearly teaches that sin has a death penalty, that Jesus died to pay that penalty, and that we will pay the death penalty for our sins if we don't accept the payment Jesus made in His love for us.

The people around you are on a flight that ends in eternal death and we have the information that could save them! Isn't our responsibility very clear? Rescue those being led away to death; begin to pray daily by name with life or death passion for the people around you. Ask God for the words; ask Him for the opportunity to tell them about your Jesus. You know where their Christless flight is headed. You can see their faces. Be the one who gets them off that fatal flight and on the one that will take them to eternal life.

It could be as we've talked about this today you've realized in your own heart that you may very well have never gotten on the flight that goes to God's heaven. Maybe this could be your day to do what the Bible says, "Cross over from death to life." You just say, "Jesus, I have no hope but you. I've never really acted on this, but I am yours beginning right now. I've believed in you before, but I don't belong to you. I want to beginning today." We'd love to help you cross from death to life and into His waiting arms, if you'll just go to our website. It's yoursforlife.net. I hope you'll go there today, because Jesus gave His life to save yours.