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THE SCIENCE OF GRACE #15
BRINGING BACK MONTE
It’s one of the most stirring, moving stories I’ve
ever read – and the recent book, United By Tragedy, is even more a personal
blessing because I have come to know some of the people. But on September
2, 1998, Swissair Flight #111, bound for Geneva out of JFK International
Airport, crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia. All 229 people on board
were killed. And a Christian father named David Wilkins later teamed up
with the wonderful writer Cecil Murphey to pen this spiritual account
of the tragedy where he lost his 18-year-old son, Monte.
We could reverently use this story for weeks here on the radio, but today
as we continue to study in God’s Word about the amazing gift of grace,
there’s just one small piece of the saga we want to share with you. Swissair
and its partner airline, Delta, of course, were also in anguish, and standing
by, ready to help the families of victims any way they could. A Delta
representative, Sheryl Johnson, got in touch with Dr. Wilkins and his
wife, Janet, at their home here in Southern California. “Do you want to
travel up to Nova Scotia?” she asked. The parents both knew they had to
make the painful trip; after some discussion, siblings Darren, Yvette,
Dan, Shannon, and Marci all decided to go too. And this Sheryl Johnson
said to the grieving family: “If you want to go, we’ll arrange everything.
Our job is to make sure you don’t have to worry about anything. You tell
us who is going and we’ll take care of everything. We can have you out
of here tonight and in Nova Scotia tomorrow.”
And that’s exactly how it happened. That evening, September 3, two vans
pulled up and took everyone to the airport. No one had to pay for plane
tickets or worry about connections. That was provided. Luggage: all taken
care of. Boarding passes: all set. Local transportation: already handled.
The lodging was free. Toiletries and other personal care items were graciously
in place. Even cash – U.S. and Canadian currency – was quietly put into
their hands when it was needed.
And all along the trip, Delta representatives, skilled at handling these
moments of such raw anguish, were just THERE. They knew what to do. “We
never saw the inside of a terminal,” David Wilkins writes later. The Delta
personnel wisely kept them separated from the prying camera lenses of
the media. When it was time to get on a plane, they went through private
entrances and had cloistered, private seats up in first class where they
could grieve and heal without interference. When they arrived at Halifax,
the same generous, gracious, royal treatment was ready there too. Hotel
rooms: all set. Transportation, privacy, counselors, ministers, handkerchiefs,
Kleenex, everything.
And you know, as we read this story here at Voice of Prophecy, one thought
came to mind: how lovely an illustration of the unlimited power of grace.
Grace covers everything. It handles everything. It solves everything.
It rights all wrongs, repairs all hurts, restores all losses.
Most of you regulars know that we’ve spent three weeks now – and two more
to come, I’m glad to say – on a new series entitled THE SCIENCE OF GRACE.
I have to tell you that this new book, United By Tragedy, could be a wonderful
third textbook for us, but we’ve really been getting most of our script
“threads” from the Bible and also a recent Adventist Review special issue
on the theme of grace. And a writer named John Fowler describes for us,
in clear biblical terms, how grace – on God’s side – is a powerful, unlimited
gift.
Here’s II Corinthians 9:14:
“In their prayers for you [men’s] hearts will go out
to you, because of the SURPASSING GRACE God has given you.”
How about Romans 5:17?
“For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned
through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s ABUNDANT
PROVISION OF GRACE and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through
the one Man, Jesus Christ.”
And this John Fowler concludes in his own words:
“No sin is too great to be forgiven; no person has
gone too far to be brought home by God’s grace when that person approaches
God in absolute surrender and faith. ‘Whoever comes to Me I will never
drive away’ (John 6:37) is the divine promise and provision.”
Maybe you remember back in November of 2003 the furor
when a 54-year-old truck painter named Gary Ridgway confessed to being
the infamous Green River Killer. The families of victims broke down in
anguished sobs as this rapist and murderer stood in a Seattle courtroom
and said “Guilty” 48 times. “I killed so many women [over a 20-year period]
I have a hard time keeping them straight,” he admitted to prosecutors.
Newsweek described him as having the distinction of being “the serial
killer convicted of the most murders in U.S. history, ahead of John Wayne
Gacy, who killed 33 young men and boys in Chicago in the 1970s.”
What really broke the hearts of people in Washington State was that prosecutors
had plea-bargained away the death penalty in exchange for details on some
of the killings. It was the only way to get closure for some of the heartbroken
families, but now Mr. Ridgway will never face his own execution. And with
the state having a rule regarding proportionality in punishing, district
attorneys are afraid Washington will never again be able to use death
as an ultimate punishment – for anyone. How could any other killer get
lethal injection when this man strangulated 48 innocent women, and just
got life in prison?
And so we ask, here on this Friday: is grace truly unlimited? Could this
Green River Killer come to Jesus, fall to his knees at the foot of the
cross, and have all 48 killings be forgiven? Could he get a mansion in
heaven someday, next to the thief on the cross? According to God’s Word,
yes. Because grace is unlimited. And if we think that somehow, some way,
someWHERE, the mighty river of grace has to run out – if not for the Green
River Killer, then for Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler – we should remind
ourselves what a preacher named John the Baptist said. He was down by
a river too, called the Jordan, and when he saw Jesus coming toward him,
he cried out:
“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin
OF THE WORLD.”
I can’t get out a set of moral scales, and adequately
explain to you how the death of my Savior, Jesus, on that cross, on that
Friday can cancel out the Everest of sins, all sins, every sin, every
kind of sin, every manner of sin, every life of sin . . . that has ever
happened on this soiled old planet. I can’t explain it. But when the Bible
has John telling us that grace is unlimited enough to take care of the
whole thing, friend, I have to believe it. Most importantly, I have to
believe that it’s enough for me. My concern is really not for Mr. Gary
Ridgway; it’s for one E. Lonnie Melashenko. In five-and-a-half decades
of life, I have done some things I’m not proud of. I’ve failed those I
love. I’ve broken God’s law and messed up His blueprint. But Jesus is
the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.
You know, whenever you and I are tempted to think, “This time it’s too
much”; “that person has gone too far”; “now, for sure, my enemy cannot
be forgiven,” or when we simply look into the mirror and lament, “Surely
MY case is lost” . . . let’s remember that grace is an unlimited, never-ending
fountain flowing from the infinite heart of God. You simply cannot get
to the end of this rainbow and find darkness beyond it. It can’t be done.
And yet, I think I need to go back to this tender story of Dr. David Wilkins,
whose boy was destroyed on that dark September night in the cold waters
off Nova Scotia. Yes, the people from Delta and Swissair were so very
kind to his family. They handled a seemingly unlimited number of painful
details. Their generosity seemed to know no bounds. But after all of the
memorial services, you know what? Young Monte Wilkins was still dead.
In fact, out of 229 victims that awful night, only TWO corpses were even
somewhat intact. The rest of these precious people were just blown apart.
They were gone. And what good is amazing grace then?
Well, friend, let me say that if grace has unlimited power anywhere, then
it has it here for sure. Why do we have the promise of the resurrection
in God’s Word? Why does Revelation 20 describe a glorious day when the
sea shall give up her dead? Why do we have the guarantee of a reunion
when we will meet the Lord in the air, along with those who have fallen
asleep in Jesus? Listen, we only have those promises because Jesus had
the raw strength and the determined love to go up on a cross and give
Himself for us. And grace truly IS unlimited – meaning it can even beat
the violent death of a plane crash – only because of the cross. If I ever
come on this radio and talk about grace like it’s some kind of soft, gentle
cloud – just the tender touch on a weeping cheek, nothing more – then
I’m a fool. Unlimited grace, the kind that conquers death, was forged
from nails through the palms and a crown of thorns on the brow and the
triumphant Friday afternoon cry: “It is finished.”
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