The Titanic's Unheeded Warnings
IllustrationHistorical AccountAnalogy★★★★★WHEN the Titanic went under, three messages had been sent that said to watch out for the icebergs. Because everything looked all right, the folks taking the message never passed it on. They never sent the warning out to people who needed to hear and, as a result, over fifteen hundred people lost their lives. The folks who knew kept quiet.
Another tragedy of the Titanic was that the lifeboats, designed to carry people away from the sinking ship, were only half full. People who had made it to safety in the lifeboats didn’t want to turn around and go pick up people who were dying. They didn’t want to take the risk of panicking people flipping over their boat. So the people who were saved and safe kept on going.
Fifteen hundred people didn’t have to die, but they did. The folks who were saved didn’t want to go back because it was risky. Sharing the gospel has risks—the risk of rejection, the risk of being made fun of, the risk of being called “holier than thou,” the risk of being called “Reverend,” the risk of being avoided, the risk of being asked questions you don’t know the answer to.
Yes, there are risks, but when someone is dying, offering them the gift of salvation is worth the risk.
The point
The Titanic tragedy illustrates how timidity and fear silence warning voices and prevent rescue, paralleling the spiritual cost of failing to witness. Risk is inherent in rescue.