The Titanic Ship
The Titanic1 ship was one of the most fascinating fabrications of man. It was built to the peak of human expertise so much that it was boasted of as unsinkable. As a result, it was arguably the hugest man-made mobile object of its time.
But as Vance Havner2 puts it, it is the only thing that the only thing it ever did was sink at the first attempt. It dampened the confidence of man in his discoveries and achievement. It taught humans to allow for error and be cautious of airing boastful imperfect perfections. It taught man probabilistic approximation, and not assertive accuracy is the best he can attain in his all-world estimations.
The ship was boarded by different classes of men spanning a variety of works of life. Those who travelled first class had a 40% better chance of surviving the colossal wreckage than those on board other classes. Many are likewise tricked by Mammon that the more money one has in possession, the greater such’s chances of weathering adverse life occurrences. Corona proved that wrong, brethren. Both the rich and poor were trapped equally.
In fact, most of the revenue was raised from sales of third class tickets. Here, there were less crème de la crèmeof the society. The first- and second-class decks were packed with business merchants; world nobles; made entrepreneurs, renowned academics; famous journalists; adventurously curious tourists; accomplished industrialists. There were divorcees and singles; there were pleasure seekers and those who wanted to satisfy their curiosity. The ship was boarded by the fearless and the coward. Since aboard, most people shrank as death stared them in the face while others braved the tumultuous incident.
Furthermore, it was a time of life when information technology was not yet widespread. As a result, there was misinformation about the Titanic’s situation asea. In the end, nevertheless, despite the diversity of the profession of those aboard and the diversity of social strata, just one unified collection of events existed as a list, containing just two mutually exclusive records. The passengers were either recorded as saved or lost!
Sciences confirmed the saying of Isaiah in Isaiah 40:22 that the world is spherical after about 500 years of needless inquisition. Needless because accepting the word of God would have sped up technological advancement. As it were, all men are like passengers on the bow-like boat of this spherical world, sailing towards destination heaven. It is full of all sorts of men: believers and unbelievers, married and unmarried, divorced and singles, sinners and the righteous, rich and poor, man and woman, lame and well, mad or sane, crippled or able-bodied, black or white, literate or illiterate, cultured and barbaric, loving or unloving… However, the ship crashes along the way for any as in death. Or it may reach its destination as one spared to see Christ’s second coming. Yet, in heaven, just like the titanic record, only one record shall be held valid: lost or saved.
More so, this record is singularly held by God to save space and administrative time. While the save have their names written in the Lamb’s book of life, pathetically, the losts’ names have no record. To be saved is to find your name written in the book of life; otherwise lost (Rev 20:15). Apparently, because, like the Titanic ship, the losts’ count would outweigh the saved. Thus it is more economical to keep this sparse list. When the list shall be read, the status with which you board the ship of life shall only matter if you make the saved list. Gain the whole world, dear merchant; amass all the fame that there is, dear sister; you are a living-lost as far as your name is missing in the Lamb’s book of Life.
More so, the only known fact is that almost all aboard assumed they made the saved list since the ship was erroneously and somewhat foolishly conceived to be unsinkable. Thus, the shipbuilders’ imagination informed their creativity, and their creativity informed their willy, which sustained their folly. Folly because, like the tower of Babel, the Titanic was built by men who wanted to make names for themselves and challenge God’s ability in perfectionism! To understand this, think if the ship had survived, what rebellion against God it would have inspired among mortals.
If only the passengers and crew knew that everything on earth was given to man to dominate and skillfully use. Thus he can manipulate trees, iron metals and all resource input to build and construct structures. But unfortunately and deliberately, the sea on which the ship sailed was never kept under the controlling whims of men. This sea typifies our circumstances in that they are as uncertain as to the waves of the sea. This brings us to two metaphorical representations: the world as the Titanic ship and our events surrounding our daily lives as the waters on which it sails.
O how we can build our towering life as formidable structures, but they soon crumble faced with life billowing circumstances! How we frame things, but God determines the outcome! How we scheme only for God to disappoint us because He has the whole world, not just a segment of it, in control! We plan fragmentally, and God purposes things wholistically because He is the all in all who can consider all factors at once. Little wonder, the wisest of all Jewish kings concluded, “There are many plans in a man’s heart, Nevertheless the Lord’s counsel—that will stand (Proverbs 19:21).”
The Lost List
Lost Fact
Based on the facts available to the shipbuilders, experiences and expertise informed them that this mammoth structure can never be whelmed by water. The quality of material inputs into the construction process was also contributory to this belief. If only they had allowed for a bit of failure due to human error and not make a boast that claimed more than 1300 lives. It is the same today for those who believe there is no God – in thought or act. I wish you do not boast and assert the inexistence of God or heaven. Many build their lives assuming they can reach the peak without God. Yes, this is possible. Bad news: despite the humanly laudable successes you may record or the influence they may generate, God just has one label for you: a fool.
For saying in your heart or depicting in your acts that there is no God, God has blot your name out of the Book of Life. For the book of life has no space for fools since “…honour is not fitting for a fool (Proverbs 26:1).” Would you, with probability, as little as it can be, consider the possibility of heaven? And if this little allowance turns out significant? What if the negligible fact turns out to be the more dominant and realistic after all’s said and done? Have you enough grace to be included in this list so as not to end where the excluded ends?
Everything, every time and activity invested in recovering this lost fact – the existence of God and the soon-coming destruction of the earth (the current ship sailing us to eternity) – will turn out eternally profitable.
Beging by believing in His being, that His face you may see! Can’t believe? Pray to Him to help your unbelief.
Lost man
A man who has lost the knowledge of the existence of the one true God is also lost himself. So popular may be the man on earth. So well-written in with a golden ink may this man’s name in the good books of men. So reputable, he may be another with a bunch of good works. You may hold great treasures greatly moderately or scarcely. So long may be your life like a Methuselah, yet you know not the giver of life. A builder you may be, artfully crafting and skillfully executing some successful schemes of life. But if building on sand and not the solid rock which is Christ, that solid rock says you are a fool. Worthy of pity are you! We frequently hear of stray babies, and we often find them if they are not kidnapped. What shall we say of a lost man? The metrics that account for a baby being lost are not the same as accounts for the lost man. The missing man’s name is only missing from the book of life. Is your name written in or missing from the Lamb’s book of life? You are lost indeed.
Honestly, the names of those written in the book of life have been since before the world’s creation (Revelations 13:8, 1 Peter 1:20). Yet our beloved brother Peter informed us that our upbringing and birth in this sin-soiled world have made us stray sheep of God’s fold (1 Peter 2:25). It, therefore, took a Lamb-like, or better put, a man-like Shepherd to come to restore us to God and re-engrave our names where they originally belonged. “How do I know my name was once written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and was erased cos I strayed?” you may ask.
Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice…, and they follow Me (John 10:27).” Is your heart titling towards repentance? Is there any prickling in your soul, telling you you have missed the mark? Or a burning question about salvation and the degraded state of Christianity around you? Or there is any cord of remorse in your heart? This is the most evident proof that you were once His sheep. But you have wandered away and are now being called through this seeming means. If you respond to His call for repentance and forsake the current popular death-headed way you are currently plying, your name would be again written in the saved list! Would you come back home lost man? Hear Jesus’ voice, o stray sheep, and follow.
Lost Acts
Considering David’s rendition in Ps 139, one may not be mistaken to imagine that the book of life is a spreadsheet or timesheet where the detailed tasks of men have been detailed to the minutes. These details also have corresponding boxes next to them ticking out whether or not that which is written about us was undertaken and eventually executed according to God’s specification by us.
It is not sufficient to do those things we have been appointed to do according to how we perceive them. We must do them according to how Christ Jesus stipulates. For example, done acts such as prayer, charity and fasting can be lost if it misses the secretive stipulations of Christ Jesus. A charity may be done for show, prayer for recognition and praise, or fasting to be seen to be devout. But Jesus said the reward for these is such reputation earned for them from men. Therefore, they will amount to lost acts in the book of life.
This, I suppose, was one of the reasons a book called the “Acts of the apostles” was given in the bible. It details selfless services undertaken by our older brothers. It contains acts of men that God could project worthy of the reception of the Holy Spirit. How they suffered without grumbling! How they fasted for no human reward nor material supplies! How they preached Christ face-to-face with death and jeer! One may well say this book is an excerpt of the book of life!
Consider your works, brother. Then, match them against Jesus’ prescription in Mathew 6. Do they measure up? Or instead, constitute lost acts? It does not need to be so any longer. It pays to repent of those dead works now. Then and only then can God begin to maintain your acts against your name in the book of life!
Lost acts may well lead to lost stature.
Lost Stature
Dear Christian, what is your prayer life like? Prayer for a show? Fasting to be known? Charity for a pose? When done, even when God directs it, and these acts have been allotted to you. If not done according to the pattern laid down by Christ, their checkboxes are ticked as undone. That is, they are as good as undone. Why wait until the first and the well-known charitable but showy Christian is revealed in heaven, to be the least? And conversely, the unknown due to scanty charitable acts, yet done to stipulations, becomes the first on the day when all the works of men shall be revealed by fire?
Now, Paul, being well-equipped with the truth, was kind enough not to conceal it from us. He said our works will be tested by fire (1 Corinthians 3:13). And if built with combustible materials such as wood, straw and hay (1 Corinthians 3:13). If crafted with things appearing to keep a form but void of content and durability, our loss of them shall be as one who passes with his belongings through fire. The sympathy needed to assuage the sense of such misfortune will be infinitely more than required to console those bereaved by the Titanic.
If we suffer the loss of our eternal investments, shall our earthly giant first not come out at last as eternal least last? Shall our reputable stature not be diminished into littleness. Oh, ask Mr Lot, once a mayor of Sodom. How he lost everything! Given we accomplish all our heavenly-appointed tasks on earth. But done to earn vainglory. Shall we not find ourselves in heaven with lost lots like Lot though we make the saved’s list! Consider your ways, dear Christian and repent of dead works.
