1 Misunderstood Message

Exploring the world by boat had been their dream for years, so when a forty-foot sailboat was offered for sale, the Russian husband-and-wife team sold everything they owned and bought it. After outfitting it, they left from the Pacific coast of Russia and six months later were sailing up the northwest coast of the United States. Suddenly the weather took a turn for the worse. The man listened to the marine weather forecast.

Misunderstood Message 2

In previous travels he had picked up a smattering of English enough to en able him to understand the words "wind" and "storm," but most of the message was meaningless to him. He didn't understand what the English-speaking people all up and down the coast understood clearly that this was going to be a major storm system, lasting several days. There would be winds gusting up to seventy-five miles an hour-hurricane force. Confident that he could ride out the storm and unaware of its predicted severity, he passed up harbors where he might have found safety.

This Russian's predicament is not so different from a danger many people are in today. God's Word, the Bible, tells of judgment to come. However, for one reason or another, the message gets so garbled up in the hearing that men don't realize the severity of this judgment. God's judgment against sin is severe. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). People who choose to live in sin and never come to Christ will be sent, when they die, to a place of outer darkness where they will suffer forever and ever.

To save sinners, the Son of God went to Calvary's cross where He was crucified. Don't let the message of the impending storm of God's anger, which is certain to fall on every person who has not accepted Christ, become garbled and meaningless to you. Rather, turn to the Lord Jesus as the only Saviour of sinners and find that one safe harbor where you will find protection.