|
KNOCKING ON HEAVEN'S
DOOR #7
SAVED BY SATELLITES
My friend Warren Judd, who works here at this same
media campus as the Voice of Prophecy ministry, tells some pretty hair-raising
stories from his experiences as a Christian television producer. Just
a few months ago he and some fellow technicians were all geared up to
arrange for a big TV uplink over in Romania. Some evangelistic meetings
by our broadcasting friend, Mark Finley, were going to be beamed all over
Europe, and so they were setting up all the gear, the satellite dishes,
the transponder equipment — and a lot of other big words I don't really
know.
Well, at the very last minute, complications set in. Murphy's Law exerted
itself big-time . . . and there was a huge pile of EXTRA equipment down
in Miami that simply had to be shipped to Bucharest, like, right NOW.
But for some reason, there was just no way to ship it directly by air.
Either prohibitive cost or customs regulations or something. The only
solution was for a PERSON to literally fly from Miami to Bucharest in
person, and take this gear as their luggage. And there was something like
a three-hour time frame. That's it. So Warren Judd was frantically on
a cell phone. He called some Christian friends he knew who worked at our
denominational field offices for Southern Florida. Was there anyone there
who could drop everything, instantly, rush to the airport, and fly RIGHT
NOW to Bucharest? Actually, one of the secretaries had relatives in Romania.
But could she pack in 20 minutes? Yes, probably. And to make a long story
short, in just a couple of hours she was on an airplane for Romania, with
all this high-end television hardware as her check-in luggage. That was
an expensive plane ticket but a lot less than it was going to cost otherwise.
Then when the gear arrived in Bucharest, Warren tells some more exciting
stories about hurricanes blowing satellite dishes off roofs (almost taking
a couple of his guys with them) and a whole lot more. Working in Christian
media can be a breathtaking experience, if you live through it!
Well, why do I share these stories of derring-do and dashes to Miami International
Airport? That kind of work, that frantic effort, is simply one tiny piece
of the machinery of telling our fellow man and fellow woman about this
Person called Jesus Christ.
We've been studying together for over a week now a
rather important four-word spiritual truth: "Jesus is the Door."
Maybe you remember a strange little Old Testament story found in the book
of Numbers. The Children of Israel were walking around in the desert,
complaining and carrying on, and generally not acting very spiritually
mature. And all at once, there were snakes in the camp. Not just two or
three, but thousands of them. They were everywhere. You couldn't move
three feet without stepping on one. It was like a horror scene out of
Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark. And these were poisonous serpents,
it says, there in chapter 21. People were dying all over the place.
Well, notice the answer God provides:
"‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can
look at it and live.' So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a
pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the BRONZE
snake, he lived."
Notice that people who had a life-or-death dilemma had just one thing
they could do. Look up at that bronze snake on the pole . . . and live.
And here in the Word of God, Jesus Christ makes a similar claim. "I
am the Way to God. I am the Door. I am the Resurrection and the Life."
Over and over we read in the Bible that if you want to live in heaven
someday, if you want to be with God for eternity in a restored Eden .
. . you'll have to go through Jesus. Salvation comes by walking through
THAT Door, and ONLY that Door.
Here's the point, and why I began with those airport stories about satellite
dishes blowing off roofs. Friend, there are many things that can lead
a man or a woman up the path TO that Door. If a person hasn't accepted
Jesus as their Savior, there's that FUTURE Door out there for them. Maybe
real close, perhaps a long ways off. I don't mean a long ways off in terms
of God wanting to be distant from them, but they simply might live in
a time or place or culture where the miracle of even encountering the
story of Christ might be a herculean thing. Requiring blood, sweat, and
tears on THEIR part, and perhaps on someone else's part too.
But what are some of the things, or avenues, that could get a seeker of
truth TO the Door? Well, you have satellite dishes on hurricane-swept
roofs, for one thing. Listen, the only reason Warren Judd flies around
the world with his cellular phone and sleeps in airport terminals and
is absent from his wife, Jan, for several weeks at a time, while he sets
up these global uplinks . . . is because those uplinks often take a person
up TO the Door. The uplinks themselves aren't the Door. A satellite dish
never saved anyone. Even the sermon ON that satellite dish never saved
anyone; it doesn't matter if Billy Graham is the preacher. Only JESUS
is the DOOR — but a sermon by Billy Graham, or Mark Finley, or — I hope,
once in a while, Lonnie Melashenko — can be the instrument to help TAKE
a person up to that Door.
And I think it's important for us to keep this perspective all the time.
A church is a wonderful institution; Jesus Christ Himself established
the Church. He called it His BODY. In other places, His Bride. Church
attendance each week is a vital thing, a necessary, powerful, beneficial
exercise. Many, many people have slipped into the back door of the Church,
and heard something said or sung or prayed that took them up to the Door.
But the Church is not the Door. The Church can't save us. Only Jesus can.
Here at The Voice of Prophecy we've got something I praise God for every
single day of my life: our Discover Bible Course. These lessons are incredible!
Step by step, they lead a searching person into Bible truth. The great
central pillars of the Christian faith are explained. Correspondence students
or on-line visitors can learn to read their own Bibles using Discover.
And yes, praise God, these lessons are a proven way to be led, step by
step, up TO that Door which is Jesus Christ, the only way to salvation.
But the lessons are not the Door; you can't be saved by doing Bible lessons.
I would even say this: good deeds can be a way to get
TO the Door. Many people, maybe not for the best of motives — or maybe
they ARE good motives — get into a pattern of taking the cup of cold water
to a stranger, visiting an orphanage, caring for the sick and suffering.
Is this where salvation can be found? No! Friend, Jesus is the Door, not
good deeds. But often it's happened that in the quiet living of a good
life — a life inspired BY Jesus even if we didn't SEE Him there at the
orphanage — a person eventually finds themselves standing right there
at the Door. And they walk through.
I guess it could be said that there's a road leading up TO the Door, and
that the road also continues on the other side. Heading for a city called
the New Jerusalem. And Bible stories and prayers and Voice of Prophecy
radio sermons can be wonderful tools for the road on both sides. I believe
many non-Christians have been helped by this very radio ministry, over
the past seven decades, to walk up to the Door. Pastor Richards, and then
his son, Pastor Richards, Jr., and now during my brief assignment here
as God blesses . . . we've often invited our listeners to walk through
that Calvary doorway into eternal life. So this ministry, while not being
the Door itself, has sometimes brought people there.
And then on the other side . . . we're there too. So many of you who are
Christians join us in studying the Word. Sometimes you write to us and
we debate this or that Bible verse in Christian love. That's a huge thrill
for us — and sometimes a nail-biting challenge! We love it! But we're
praying for you; you're praying for us. We're studying together, maturing
in our joint adventure, our travel on the road BEYOND the Door marked
Jesus Christ. We're already saved, to be sure; heaven's party for us began
the moment we said "yes" to Jesus. But the sermons and the weekly
visits to church and the prayers are just as needful here on the "saved
side" of the Door. Still, those things, those wonderful things —
radio sermons and home Bible study groups and the offerings you give to
the Lord — are not the Door. They don't save us; only Jesus does.
C. S. Lewis spent YEARS as a determined atheist — reading books, dialoguing,
arguing, attending lectures and giving them. For him the road up to the
Door was a long one, an agonizing journey of inner turmoil. He finally
conceded, bloodied and bowed, the existence of God . . . but he still
wasn't a Christian. Things were pushing him toward the Door, but he wasn't
there yet. One day, on a bus, riding to the zoo at Whipsnade, it quietly
happened.
"When we set out I did not believe,"
he writes, "that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached
the zoo . . . I did."
At long last, he had walked through the Door.
|
