Ron Hutchcraft Ministries - Radiation Rescuers - #6410

Friday, August 5, 2011

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World events? I mean, even the ones as tragic and dramatic as Japan's quake, and tsunami, and nuclear emergency. Well, they tend to get pushed off the front page by the next big story. And these days, it looks like there's a next big story just about every day.

But, you know there are going to be lasting effects of all that happened in Japan. I think especially of those workers at those damaged nuclear power plants. I mean, they had to know that something bad was happening to their bodies and their futures as they worked in that radiating place, but they continued to go in there. They also knew that lives were at stake in their efforts to contain that invisible killer that was leaking from those plants. So they risked it all.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Radiation Rescuers."

You know, that shames me when I think of the times that I have "chickened out" on my life-saving assignment because I was afraid of something bad that might happen to me. My life-saving assignment is to go in and tell other people about the Jesus who is their only hope for eternity. "Oh, but you know, I'm afraid they might not like me as much." "I might goof it up." "Maybe they'd write me off as a Jesus-freak." No. No. No, there's no danger of me losing my life, but I might lose a little personal ground. You know?"

I'm thinking about a visit I had to the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial a few years ago. I was privileged to go there with a police officer who had been one of the first responders on that awful day, when so many people died as that building was detonated early that morning. My friend told me about how he was one of the rescuers that ran into that building. And when they did, they knew they were the only hope for some trapped survivors. But I've got to tell you, they weren't without fear. As they looked at the structure above them, as my friend did, he could hear it creaking and he started thinking, "Man, this thing could come down on top of us at any moment." And so he said to his chief, "I think we're going to die here." And his chief replied, "Then it's a good day to die, and a good way to die."

Well, I drove away that day with a new sense of what it means to be a rescuer of lives that are in the balance. In one word—self-abandonment. Like some quiet heroes who were willing to go into that nuclear plant that was broken, and abandon themselves so other people could live. Or like the September 11 rescuers at Ground Zero, charging into the rubble of those fallen towers, knowing they might never come out alive. And, above all, like the only Son of God, abandoning all the glory of heaven for the blood and the brutality of a cross for me so I could live.

And here am I—and so are many of my fellow Jesus-followers—too often wimping out on delivering the only message that can save people we care about from an unthinkable eternity.

Now, our word for today from the word of God, Proverbs 24:11 . It commands us to "rescue those being led away to death." Jude 23 from the New Testament: "snatch others from the fire and save them." Those are life-or-death images. Which give all those who belong to the Rescuer a life-saving responsibility.

There's something to be more afraid of all right. But something to be more afraid of than what will happen to us if we tell lost people about Jesus. It's what will happen to them if we don't.