"Lessons from the Unsinkable Ship" - Pastor Doug Batchelor

encourage you to come and to stay you know i love the i love the sea um two different times in my life i've lived on boats once in the mediterranean once in the caribbean my father had actually three boats in the backyard of our house when i was a kid he had a yacht he had we had a little ski boat and i had a little 16-foot sailboat called a sunfish but i've always been fascinated with the sea and even the bible is really a book that begins and ends talking about water and you get noah's flood you've got noah's flood and you've got all the way to the sea of glass in the new earth jesus there's five different experiences that take place on the sea you've got where the healing took place you have where a couple of different storms at sea so i've always been fascinated with the sea and some of you know a few years ago i began looking into the titanic i was actually preaching a sermon on the titanic before the titanic was rediscovered a message called the unsinkable ship now this is going to be a little different from what i normally do because i'll be bringing out some what i think are biblical lessons along the way but um would you like to hear an amazing fact there's a story that was written i've actually got a copy of the book here in case you think i'm making it up it's up there on the screen it's called the wreck of the titan this is uh pretty phenomenal the wreck of the titan was written by a seaman by the name of a morgan robertson his story was about a book called the titan and in his story the titan is a book that is sailing from new york to england in april it encounters an iceberg pyramid-shaped iceberg it strikes the iceberg it's on its maiden voyage and all of the elite of the world are on the boat uh it sinks and one third of the people uh survive and two-thirds die um incredible things also as he goes into describing the titan look at the similarities between that and the titanic the titan is 800 feet long titanic was 882 feet titan is 90 feet wide titanic with 92 feet top speed 25 knots titanic 23 knots it had 19 water tight compartments in uh morgan's book to make it unsinkable it was advertised as being unsinkable titanic at 16 water tight compartments it was using the newest technology and had three propellers titanic had three propellers capacity on the boat was three thousand capacity on the titanic 3200 number of people on board 2000 titanic 2228 but they had underestimated the need for lifeboats and they only had 24 lifeboats on the titan there were 20 lifeboats on the titanic notice this sailing from new york in april both ships were believed to be unsinkable both ships were encouraged to break speed records during their maiden voyage across the atlantic both ships sank after striking a pyramid shaped iceberg uh 400 miles from new finland both were on their maiden voyage as i mentioned both ships uh had the most famous people on the titan and titanic only one third of the people survived here's the incredible thing robertson's book the wreck of the titan was never published every time he gave it to publishers they thought it was too unbelievable to ever be taken seriously and here's the incredible thing that book i just showed you is a reprint the original wreck of the titan was written in 1898 the titanic story happened in 1912. now what are the chances some thought that he was a clairvoyant or a prophet and he never he said it just came to him in his mind and he wrote out this story and it perfectly was reproduced or almost perfectly in history even the names titan titanic both based on these giant greek gods so i've wondered sometimes if the reason the story was so outstanding is because it's like god was trying to give a message to a generation it was before world war one and everybody thought that man's ingenuity and men's industry could solve all of the world's problems so here was this greatest ship in the world it was a larger ship at the time it was built just to give you perspective now the largest ship in the world anyone know what it is it's called the symphony of the sea i think it's carnival cruise lines built it it's actually twice as tall as the titanic 30 percent longer than the titanic and twice as wide as the titanic but back when the titanic was built it was the biggest ship in the world and after it sank it remained lost and sort of a mystery to history for oh about 80 years robert ballard was searching across the atlantic and it's only recently come out that he was really on a secret mission for the u.s navy you wonder how can anybody get the expensive equipment that was needed to map the north atlantic thirteen thousand feet down well the navy had lost two submarines called the scorpion and the thresher and they said we will help subsidize your searching for the titanic if you find these missing submarines because we want to know if it looks like from the wreckage they were struck by russian torpedoes see the russians were even being suspected of all kinds of things back then it turns out they did find the scorpion and the thresher they were not hit by russian torpedoes so while he's doing they said if you find our submarines what you do between the two we don't care and so he mapped the space between them with a special sonar and he found the titanic they were looking on the video camera one day there on the ship i just showed you and all of a sudden into the view came this boiler laying on the sea floor he had studied the ship so long he knew right away that's it wasn't long before soon the bow of the ship came into the camera view and they were ecstatic he made several trips down in a special deep water submersible developed by the navy called the alvin and some of you have heard that james cameron when he made the movie of the titanic he actually went down it's a very long trip it's very tight quarters you want to make sure that uh you've taken care of all of your personal needs before you go down there because you'll be in there like six or eight hours in the time that you go down there and you come back to the surface james cameron went down 30 times in filming the titanic i've got a little trivia and amazing facts for you today you can actually visit the titanic if you want to fifty six thousand dollars and there is a team they've gotta wait until several people sign up they will take you to the titanic and you know it's gradually decomposing now uh actually i should say rapidly decomposing now uh someone was going to a robert ballard book signing event and they said you know we got a pastor that preaches about that and he said i know i've seen the program and so he gave me a signed copy of his book on explorations he's discovered several wrecks i just wanted to show that to you to show off i said now i feel more important but titanic was built it started in 2000 i'm sorry 1909 it was about two and a half years in construction which was record building for the time it was part of three ships called in the olympic class uh one was the britannia one was the olympic and one was the titanic and uh it was called the millionaire special because on this ship they had all of the latest and the greatest there were several millionaires on the boat isidore strauss who owned macy's guggenheim john jacob astor you've heard of the unsinkable molly brown margaret brown who is the silver heiress and and many others were on the boat a ticket back then i think the first class cabin by today's standards would have been a hundred and twelve thousand dollars for a ticket according today's economy it wasn't cheap to sail on the titanic they pattern a lot of the the lobby in the design after the ritz hotel um and um all the workmanship and the wood and the glass that they put into it was just phenomenal ornate luxurious they spared no expenses it had a swimming pool had a barber shop library smoking room several very expensive restaurants a gymnasium which i think one of the first to have some of these things on the boat at that time when the ship sailed it happened with a lot of fanfare because they said you know biggest ship in the world they've now built a ship to be unsinkable now there are rumors that are not true a lot of you know urban legends go out about the titanic that are just not true some say that the captain said the boat was unsinkable he didn't say that but white star line did state without qualification we place absolute confidence in the titanic we believe that the boat is unsinkable they had promotional flyer for the titanic it claimed as far as it is possible to do so these wonderful vessels are designed to be unsinkable now one person it's only a second account said they heard the captain when he was being interviewed by a reporter regarding the ship he said god himself could not sink this ship and that one lady her name was wolf who overheard that said she could never sleep through the entire voyage because she just felt like he was inviting the judgment of the almighty by saying that some other things you might find interesting about the titanic is the entire time the titanic was in service it was on fire a fire broke out it was an electric ship instead of you know having the kerosene lamps that so many had in that day and in one of the rooms the fire broke out in one of the electric rooms they found that when they opened the door to try to treat it it would flare up so they shut the door and they re-routed the electricity through other panels that they had they never were able to extinguish the ship and so one little bit of trivia is a titanic is the only ship in history that was on fire the entire time it was in service uh this was captain smith actually had a stellar record in um sailing working for white star lines this was to be his final voyage it was sort of his swan song he wanted to go out with glory it's part of the reason some believe that he and israel were not deserved or strauss bruce ismey they were trying to break a record crossing the atlantic and they were going much faster than they should have been going through dangerous waters but they were so confident because the titanic had these 16 water tight compartments that could be done electrically some ships had compartments but they had to shut the doors and manually close off the hatches they had buttons where they could press and close all the doors and the waterproof separation chambers did work everything operated but they had not anticipated how much damage would be encountered and so off it went and everything was picture perfect kind of reminds me of 911 it was such a beautiful day everything was they say peace peace before sudden destruction have you ever heard the expression it's always calmness before the storm calm water clear skies beautiful weather everyone was enjoying the trip and um off it went now while the titanic was sailing uh this is still in the early days of modern communications uh guillermo marconi had developed what they called the marconi wireless it was radio so when you do texting on your phone you could thank marconi for that they had this early marconi wireless on there that was basically sending morse code messages to other ships and other stations but as they were crossing the water the millionaires that were on the ship were sending all these greetings they wanted everyone to know we're on the titanic to all of their friends and other people to to let them know um you know they're enjoying themselves i've got a friend that sometimes when i'm you know like out floating around on the boat off of hawaii by myself and i got my phone with me i call him just to let him know what a wonderful time i'm having and say wish you were here oh you know out here the waving palm trees in the sand and the surf and what are you doing today and so i've got a friend and so they were doing this they were calling uh their friends but the problem was there were so many messages some of them were checking their stocks and their investments and the poor radio operator just had stacks of messages and greetings and things he was supposed to convey back and forth and as they're trying to break a record in crossing the atlantic several messages came from other ships now they would report the location and the other ships would quickly the navigators would quickly be able to calculate how fast they were going uh based on where they first reported in and then when they next reported in and they would say you need to slow down you know there's a report of ice ahead and they had six different messages that came in that warned them that there was ice off new finland and they needed to slow down and the last message that came in the radio operator on the titanic told the radio operator on the california uh i am busy would you please shut up shut up he said twice well this was like 11 38 p.m on april 12 and it hurt his feelings and so he um turned off his radio he was supposed to go off the air at midnight everything else was quiet there were no other reports the seas were calm their ship was sort of stopped in the ocean because the captain thought it was too dangerous to go without seeing the icebergs very smart but a few minutes later when they struck the titanic the radio was off and nobody was listening you know god gives us warnings through the course of our life he may do it through friends through family through close calls that we have trying to get our attention might be through a doctor giving us warning and sometimes we're just so bent on doing what we want to do and going our way we're basically telling the lord don't bother me don't bother me don't bother me and you can get to the point where you grieve away the holy spirit the bible says that he that closes his ears to hearing the law he will pray and god will not listen if we refuse to listen to god as he's pleading with us along the way the day may come where we call and the radio's off and so the bible says now is the time to listen now is the time to hearken the day of salvation and god gives us signs and he gives us warnings and we need to listen to those warnings amen well now the wireless operator by the way was uh jack phillips that was on the titanic that night and uh he was so preoccupied with all the messages that were coming in that when the california and they may have also had some wireless interchange with the carpathia when they finally did strike the iceberg nobody was responding at that point well up on the lookouts nest someone had neglected to give them binoculars i don't know if it would have made any difference but they were supposed to have some binoculars problem was it was very calm night and the way that you spot icebergs on the ocean at night and it was a moonless night is because the water of the ocean if there's a little bit of wave dashing up against the iceberg creates this bioluminescence and it kind of glows around the base you see a white line shining and you know there's an iceberg but when it was almost glassy calm they didn't see anything so unlike even some of the paintings you see there is no ripples on the water it was just so calm that by the time they saw the iceberg they had 60 seconds to respond now you ever heard the expression about trying to stop a train it's equally hard to try and stop an ocean liner if you go online don't do it right now some of you are always texting there's a youtube that shows uh an ocean liner that did not stop in time when they were trying to dock the boat and they couldn't reverse the engines in time it actually plowed nobody got hurt but it plowed right into the pier and into all a business on the pier because those things do not stop easy and this being one of the biggest ships the biggest ship in the world at the time they quickly cranked and radioed back to the bridge iceberg dead ahead well when they got that message the man that was manning the bridge at the time captain was not at the bridge i understand he was in the dining commons this was the most dangerous part of the crossing and it was at night and there's a time the captain really should have been at the bridge they concluded in the later trials um he made a mistake if he had just left the boat with the throttle wide open and turned they probably would have survived if they had just stopped the engines and plowed into the iceberg they probably would have survived but what happened is he put it in reverse and tried to turn well the the rudder won't turn it if there's no force going over the propeller so that basically made the boat kind of crab and it wouldn't turn very quickly into the iceberg and it hit it right at the bow and below the water line it just like a can opener it began to cut right through the steel some of the first people to die were the people that were in the bow shoveling coal i mean it just came pouring in and it cut through water department number one number two number three number four and waters is pouring in five six and some of the people up on the deck there were young people that were up in the deck and they were so close to the iceberg that some of it popped and exploded a few pieces landed on the deck when they hit it and the kids were up on the deck playing soccer with the ice that was floating around up there the boat shuddered most people somewhere asleep at this point some of the novelty was gone you know 11 40 at night they went to bed and a lot of people in third class were asleep and they never even felt some people who later reported that survived it they said they felt something shake and that was all in the dining hall they just saw their dishes shake and they continued on eating then eventually the engines were shut down they wondered what happened they went up on the deck and said oh look this is a big adventure something happened and of course immediately the crew their natural reaction is be calm don't worry everything's under control you know when that first plane hit the first tower during 9 11 some of the port authority radioed to everybody you can go back to your offices everything is fine everything's under control of course that was before the second plane hit the devil said don't worry be calm nothing's coming oh they've been talking about jesus coming for years peace peace well the ship plowed into the iceberg as i mentioned some of the ice went up on deck and eventually it was dead in the water as they were trying to evaluate the damage reports began to gradually make their way from the bow of the ship to the bridge that water was coming in these various compartments the captain quickly summoned the ship's designer thomas andrews was up he was on the maiden voyage and he began to do some scribbling as the reports came in and with a very somber uh tone he said the boat is going down and the captain said what do you mean the boat's going down it's unsinkable what about the compartments he said you know one or two but not six what had happened is as the water began to flood the various compartments the weight was pushing the nose down the watertight compartments did not go all the way up they just went like one deck above the water line and so the water weight pushed it down and it was pouring over into the subsequent uh watertight compartments and then it would get lower and it would fill another compartment and it was just a domino effect was taking place and there you've got sort of a an illustration to help you see what was happening the lines did not go all the way up separating it and so it began to flood the compartments and the weight differential also was tearing things apart well here the radio operator now this is actually a photograph from the titanic radio operator he was frantically sending out messages and it was just crickets i think a message did reach the carpathia but they were too far away to get there in time and you've got to understand they had way too few lifeboats on the titanic but they had the legal number because back then when a ship had an accident or it was leaking it was never such a catastrophic leak sometimes they would take a week to sink and so what the lifeboats were supposed to do is basically ferry people from one boat to another that was their rescuing they never expected that everybody on the lifeboat everybody on the ship was going to need their own seat on a lifeboat and so um they started doing the math they realized we don't have near enough lifeboats if someone doesn't come to shuttle these people to offload these passengers we're going to have a maritime catastrophe and it was an hour after they first struck the uh the iceberg before they sent up the first flare they just waited too long sometimes we wait it's like you know they used to have these little fireboxes now they got the other little arms for fire how many of you remember when they had the little hammer in the glass it's in the event of fire you break the glass and you pull the alarm some of you treat prayer that way you wait until there's a fire then you break the glass and you you pray but we should be praying all the time they waited too long before they sent up the flare not only that different flares meant different things they had one flare that they used for celebration and they had one for distress the crew had not been trained and they sent up the celebration flares so some ships that were off in the distance they saw and they said what's that all the titanic they're celebrating you remember when moses was up on the mountain and joshua said it's the noise of war in the camp and moses said no it's not the cry of those who are crying for being overcome neither is it the voice of those who cry for victory but it's the voice of those who party that i do here and they they were so sure that everybody in the titanic was just having a party that they didn't understand the gravity of the situation they couldn't get anybody to get into the first few lifeboats or they struggle to get very many people in the lifeboats one lifeboat could hold as many as 60 people i think the first few were launched away with about 20 about half full now you have to understand what would you do you think oh how dumb could they be but here the captain is telling the band play something cheerful um there was one young man that overheard the captain consulting with the crew and thomas and he said the ship is going down and he said we better do women and children first and then boys do the best you can to take care of yourselves they went around told everybody to put on their life jackets now the life jackets back then were these canvas colored blocks of cork or balsa wood that were anything but a fashion statement they're nothing like the ones you get on the airplane now where you just pull something and it deflates this big bulky blocky uncomfortable things and the crew just carrying two of them you know will fill your arms the crew are trying to distribute these things and they're walking up to these millionaires in the first class you know they're wearing their evening gowns they're they've just come out of the card room and they've got their tuxedos on they're saying wouldn't you put this on they said no and i could put that on and the music's playing and they thought there's nothing serious is happening and then the crew is going up and down the halls they're trying to wake people up and tell them there's an emergency and um they just couldn't grasp the urgency of the situation because you know they'd come by and they'd knock on the door and say i hate to disturb you but if you please come out up on deck we haven't had an incident and they'd open the door say sure i'll be right there they shut the door they got back into bed how many of you have heard false alarms before like somebody crying wolf oh yeah you know it's like people that live in hawaii they got these uh tsunami alarms and they you know every time there's an earthquake in ho in alaska the tsunami alarm goes off in hawaii and some of the people that live there get so tired of hearing it they go yeah another song alarm and they don't listen to the warnings how many times have you heard someone say i found the day and the hour for jesus coming come on you've heard people say they picked the date for christ's coming haven't you what do you think the devil does with the church because of that pretty soon i'm not saying anyone knows the day of the hour but pretty soon when people say jesus is coming soon they say oh yeah we've been hearing that for years right and so because there was no urgency they did not take the warnings very seriously and what would you do someone here you're on this beautiful luxurious warm lit boat and the music is playing and the crew are saying ma'am can you take your children you can't take your husband we want you to get into this little boat and push off into the dark cold sea would you want to do that can you understand the reluctance i said i'll stay with the crowd let someone else go first no i'm not i'm not ready yet nobody wanted to get in the first few boats so often you know a pastor makes an altar call and people look around saying i'm not going for anyone else going forward i want to accept jesus but i don't want to be the only one you know or there's some warning and we our hearts know that there is something true but we're afraid to leave the crowd some people hear the truth and some i've been in this church all my life i've followed this religion all my life why would i get out of the big boat into the little boat i'm going to stay with the big church the more popular church instead of the one that may be different people are afraid to do something different first few lifeboats pushed off just about empty well i shouldn't say jeff's just about empty and they told the band to continue playing i'll say more about wallace hartley he's in the middle there were seven band members they all perished they were actually very dedicated they were following orders they were told play something cheerful so they're playing they called it alexander's ragtime ragtime music this is cheerful and there you have they bring their champagne out on deck and they're just watching it all unfold and the people didn't understand the desperation i think i told you they sent off their first flower flare an hour later it was only about 2 hours and 45 minutes between the time they struck the iceberg before the ship went down which is extremely fast no time for another ship to come alongside first lifeboats pushed off and this is a pretty accurate rendition you can see the bulky life preservers that they're wearing and some of the lifeboats would not go back and pick anyone else up because they knew there were only 710 that were saved over 1500 perished they thought we'll never have enough for everybody if we go back to try to get survivors they'll all swamp the boat like ants and capsize it and we'll all perish so they were afraid and when the boat sank they could hear all the people crying now you probably have heard and i don't want to bear this out but um this the tragic story that as the weight from the bow began to go deeper and deeper and the back was still buoyant the ship actually split in two from the forces it ripped the back section flopped back down again and then the front began to sink and pull the back down below it below witnesses say there was just a deafening roar it's like living under a train because all the gear and everything began to slide and move and the boilers under the pressure were exploding and and there's a terrible cacophony and suddenly this confusion took over everywhere the one young man that was listening to andrew's tell the captain the boat was going to sink one young survivor he and he said women and children first and nobody was talking about gender equality back then he went back to the cabin and he put on a shawl and some of his sister's clothes and he managed to get on the ship and he survived there's a few interesting facts you might want to know there were 13 couples that were celebrating their um honeymoon on the titanic this was captain smith's final voyage titanic had four elevators three in first class one in second class none in third class most of the losses who do you think it was the crew the highest percentage of those that perished were actually the crew then third class in order to keep the third class that were mostly immigrants that were traveling some of them only paid eight dollars for a ticket from mingling with the first and the second class they left some of the gates closed to the stairwells where they couldn't get out at the time the titanic was made the whistles were the largest that had ever been made they could be heard at a distance of 11 miles unfortunately the nearest ship was just beyond that um when the ship was traveling at 20 knots it took several miles for it to stop and that was i mean when the engines were shut down so people said why didn't they go climb up on an iceberg when they got into the water well there were no icebergs around by the time the ship had stopped it had gone way past them the other thing is the sides of an iceberg are just like a greased wall in the water there's no way that you can climb up the sides of an iceberg one witness said that um when the ship went down uh first it was absolutely quiet uh and then as people began to kind of bomb to the surface people thought you know when the ship goes down the vacuum would pull everybody down very few people went down with the ship most people were able to float to the surface because it went down very slowly in fact they say that the ship traveled 10 miles an hour from the time it sank until it reached the bottom it took 20 minutes to reach the bottom sinking and so it it wasn't didn't go down quickly most people were able to swim away what overcame them was the cold isidor straus the co-founder of macy's died with his wife ida he tried to get her to get into a boat she said i've been with you for 50 years i'm not going to leave you now i remember sharing that with karen she said boy that was stupid i thought i thought she'd say of course doug i'd want to drown with you she said well he's going to take care of the grandkids it was daniel buckley who disguised himself as a young lady and he got aboard he survived so when the water came down as i mentioned everything was broke and um i had a friend i was actually the pastor of a man some of you heard of the andrea doria his name was john mcqueeny he had been raised seventh-day adventists his pastor was a seventh-day adventist his father was the seventh adventist pastor and i knew his father too and his mother and he said he left the church for a while and he was on the andrea doria partying dancing when it was struck by another ship and it sank and similar to the titanic it began to just bend like this and go down and he described it's kind of horrible to hear him talk about it and maybe i shouldn't say too much but he said he can remember just the sound of people's bones breaking as they slid down the deck he was one of the few that was rescued from that but he said after that experience said god got my attention that i lived through that and he he came back to the lord that sometimes it takes a crisis to do that the first ship that arrived came two hours later and it was a carpathia but at that point i think there was only one person that was retrieved from the water alive this is somebody who saw what was going to happen and they went and drank some whiskey i'm not recommending that i'm just telling you what happened which evidently thins out your blood a little bit and i think they were on the one of the last boats that was launched capsized and some people were found clinging to the keel of that boat this is an actual photograph of those boats that could hold up to 60 people and how empty they were by the time some of the boats did roll back and to look for survivors they had waited too long i think there was only one or two survivors that were picked up from the water uh by lifeboats who came back one reason that molly brown became famous is because um the crew were afraid to go back and she kind of took control and said you better go back and pick up some people and so one or two of the people went back uh was because she had gone back the titanic was part as i mentioned the three ships there's the titanic and the britannia sorry the titanic and olympic together a little another amazing fact see how they got four smoke stacks if you ever see a painting where they're going through the ocean they got smoke coming out all the stacks one of them was a baloney stack it was just for the aesthetics it had no smoke coming out of it i think they had some air that vented but they wanted to make it look symmetrical so they put an extra stack on it all to make it look good but um the last mo stack i think it's the the one furthest in the front is actually just artificial the one who should have been called unsinkable was not molly brown it was actually violet jessup who was a stewardess that's what they called him on the titanic it's kind of combination nurse butler and uh when the titanic sank she was very involved in trying to guide people to the lifeboats encouraging the women to get in some of them refused she got and said i'll go with you they handed her a baby and and uh she was praised for her heroism the interesting thing is she was also on she worked for white star line she was on the olympic when it was struck by a warship at sea and she survived that then she went to work on the britannica britannia which during world war one had been turned into a hospital ship it struck a mine in its sink and she was on that and the ship actually hit her in the head when it sank she she jumped over and it went down to here in the head she said if it wasn't for her thick auburn here she probably would have been knocked unconscious but she was able to push away float to the surface and survive and she was a christian it makes me think of the verse in the bible that said a thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand but if the lord is your habitation no evil will befall you that uh you are unsinkable if god is on your side um that was just another uh painting of violet jessup a recent story that uh kelly maurer actually shared with me you know she's a pianist who comes to our church was regarding wallace hartley he was a band leader i knew that but when he first got the invitation to work for white star lines he almost said no because he had just become engaged to his sweetheart maria they talked about it and they said look it's a great opportunity you'll work with some great musicians you'll get to see other parts of the world maybe you should do it and so he was the band leader on the titanic to show her love for him she had a silver plaque engraved that for his violin that he was put on the violin to remember her until their wedding day and one of the few bodies most of the bodies of the titanic were not recovered i think i told you all the musicians perished um they played to like the very end near the end when they saw that their lifeboats were all gone wallace said you know we probably ought to be playing something a little more appropriate and they began to play hymns including the hymn near my god to thee when they did find his body like any musician he wanted to save his instrument he had stuck his violin inside his music case and these are actual photographs of the music case his violin was sold it was the most expensive art artifact from the titanic sold for 1.45 million dollars and there on the violin you can still see the engraved plaque from maria which reads for wallace on the occasion of our engagement from maria so there was no question of who this was you know the bible says he's engraved his love for us on the palms of his hands amen there's another famous preacher on the titanic by the name of john harper john harper was a baptist from scotland i believe and he had had an evangelist had a lot of wonderful youth revivals raised up a church he had been invited to come to the moody bible church karen and i are actually friends with a former pastor of the moody bible church erwin lutzer and in chicago it's been there founded by dwight moody and he was on his way across a very godly man and there are several accounts that when they realized the ship was sinking that uh john harper went from one passenger to and gave away his life preserver matter of fact there was a jewish rabbi catholic priest and the john harper protestant they were all testimony said they all three gave away their life preservers to others and as he'd go from one passage to the next he was sort of frantically saying are you saved man do you know the lord because they realize there's no help coming and he would repeat acts chapter 16 believe in the lord jesus christ and you will be saved and he was doing everything he could to lead others to christ and so for years after the titanic people would tell the story about how john harper was leaning against the railing as the ship was going down leading others to christ and a pastor in canada was telling the story of the titanic like 20 years after the titanic sank and an old scotsman in his congregation stood up and he said that's not entirely accurate and the pastor said excuse me he said i was on the titanic would you want to hear the story and he said please there's a small church and so they had this old scotsman came to the front he said let me tell you what happened he says i was a lost pagan i was on the titanic and he said and i had been drinking that day and when they struck the iceberg i was in the bar and came out like everyone else all the lifeboats had pushed away and i realized that we were doomed i decided to jump in the water before the boat went down and try and swim away thinking that the vacuum of it would pull me down and he said it was horrible because the water was so cold that it gives you the opposite sensation he says you feel like you're burning and you can't move your limbs because you're so cold and he said after the boat went down he said it was terrible he said you know we just soon it was quiet and then people began to bomb to the surface and there was screaming and crying and cursing and praying and husbands calling for their wives and parents calling for their children because a lot of the third class children perished as well and he said it was he said i felt like i was in hell he said gradually they began to die off and he said i was shivering violently but i was still alive he said and i was clinging to a deck chair one of these oak deck chairs floated to the surface and he said even though the water was very calm those of you who know the ocean there's always a swell on the water never stops these long rolling swells that go by and he said there was a swell and he said all of a sudden someone else floated up next to me clinging to some debris and he said it was the evangelist john harper he said who i knew who he was when we were on the ship and he said he looks at me and he says with a shivering voice he said man are you saved and he said i don't know he said believe in the lord jesus christ and you'll be saved he said then another ocean swell came kind of pulled us a little bit apart i said a few moments later he said he came back again he said are you saved yet he said i don't know he said again believe in the lord jesus christ and you'll be saved he said after that he was overcome and he drowned and he said there with thirteen thousand feet of water beneath me i asked jesus to save me he said i am john harper's last convert so uh the um tragedy of the titanic you know you and i i just remember when uh bonnie called me 9 11. the day before i had been flying american airlines and some of you know that amazing facts went to new york in 1999 and we did an evangelistic meeting focused on new york city we brought our evangelist to the top of the world trade center three times and prayed over the city we were standing there three times praying over the city and growing up in new york city it was very emotional for me when you know i turned on the news like all of you and you saw these apocalyptic images of the world training center falling and we all felt vulnerable there was we're at big church attendance next week um in belfast ireland the grief when they learned about the titanic this ship that they had built sinking on its maiden voyage was compounded because 16 of the mechanics who had helped build the ship were given an award they had some kind of contest or lottery and they allowed them to be on the maiden voyage you know there was even some some mercy that was mingled into the tragedy with 911 you know those buildings could have had as many as 50 000 people in them so it's a tragedy that 3 000 died it could have been much much worse the titanic actually had room for 3 000 passengers but they were underbooked because it was their first voyage there was a little over two thousand um but of the sixteen mechanics that were invited on the maiden voyage they all went down they were all lost most of them went to the same protestant church in the same town and the week after the disaster they had already booked an american evangelist pastor was going to come preach uh in this protestant church and uh it's quite a difficult task to suddenly know that you're supposed to speak after there's been this terrible tragedy and you don't know what to say i've i've had a similar situation before and you just got to know someone described in belfast men would be walking down the street they'd see each other they'd shake hands they'd hug they'd cry they'd part and they never speak a word and so the pastor now stands up in this congregation and he's supposed to preach to this congregation they've got you know all these new widows and orphans and dignitaries from around the british empire there to help comfort and and he picks his sermon title the unsinkable ship and when i first was reading about this i thought oh that is really bad taste he is going to rub in how they brag that their ship was going to be unsinkable and make everybody feel even worse but as i ran on i realized he wasn't talking about the titanic he was talking about a little fishing boat covered with splinters and barnacles in the sea of galilee that was in a terrible storm but the boat was unsinkable because jesus was in the boat you know the disciples thought they were going to save themselves once they realized jesus was in the boat he said where is your faith it says they tried to row they tried to bail they couldn't do anything to save themselves and the lightning flashed and then they saw jesus was in the boat and what did he do he woke up he spoke one word and it says peace be still in english but in hebrew it's one word it's shalom which means peace be calm be still and at the word of christ all of a sudden the waters were calm and became glassy and they had peace now i don't know what kind of storms you bring to church today um i don't know whether the lord has given you warnings that you've noticed and you're looking to find that peace but the only thing that's going to get you through the last days the only thing that is going to make you unsinkable like violet jessup is if jesus is in your boat if he's the captain of your ship and you know before we close the service today i'd just like you to pray about making the decision to ask jesus to be your pilot to ask him to be the captain of your ship i'm going to invite our song leaders to come out and to lead us in a song now the song you're going to sing is a song that is very popular with both the british and american navy you'll notice it's talking about peril on the sea but it's filled with spiritual significance for every believer as we're going through the ocean of life let's stand together as we sing i believe it's number 85 is that right [Music] is [Music] is [Music] see [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] is [Music] how many of you have never sung that song before filled with scripture did you notice and allusions to different stories in the bible because we're all all about sailing through the sea of our lives and the only one who's going to get us safely across is jesus jesus told the apostles cross over he didn't tell him they wouldn't have storms on the way he said cross over and if god tells you to do something he'll help you do it amen is christ the captain of your boat how many of you would like to say lord jesus savior pilate me is that your prayer dear father in heaven lord i pray that each person here might respond to the speaking of your spirit right now and if there are some who have not made that decision to believe in jesus christ and be saved to accept him as their lord and their master to be willing to repent of their sins and accept your power to be new creatures and live a new life lord may they do that now you give us warnings along the way lord and sometimes we think our time is unlimited help us remember that life is terminal and today as we hear your voice we need to to listen to the warning to get to the lifeboat and to accept christ be with each person help us know how to apply this message i pray that we'll seek first your kingdom and bless this church lord that we may be witness for you bless those who may be watching right now through television or online touch their hearts as well and we pray that jesus is first in our lives we thank you and pray this in christ's name amen please be seated for just one closing

Channel: Daily Hymns

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Id: 9EKCwAdfCuY

Length: 52min 56sec (3176 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 21 2021