The last chain clanked into place as Mike secured the load in the trailer of his big over-the-road freightliner. He slammed the doors, checked his "hazardous materials" signs, and mopped his sweat-drenched brow. Joe, his driving buddy, ambled from the company office with the papers on the cargo.
All things in order and on their way to their distant destination, Joe remarked, "We'll sign out over at the motel in a jiff and be out a this burg by—".
"Not so fast there, buddy!" interrupted Mike. "Remember, I've a batch of laundry to dry first. Can't afford to leave all my shirts behind. Aw c'mon! It won't take that long!"
Some time later, Joe sauntered into the hot and humid Laundromat. He had been pacing outside in the coolness while Mike waited for his clothes to dry. Across the room Mike called, "Ten minutes more— only ten. It's a promise."
Like an explosion, at that instant a horrendous crash shattered the air.
White-faced, the young men thought of their rig safely parked on the wide, wide thoroughfare beyond the access street where they now were. Surely not!
It was. Tortured, twisted, steaming, smoking, the wreckage of an old model, heavy automobile was almost welded into the rear of their rig. Mike's quick eyes swept the scene and he inwardly breathed a prayer of thanks that the "hazardous material" signs seemed undisturbed. Immediately he called the Fire Department and the Police, and within minutes screaming sirens heralded the arrival of the city's emergency equipment.
Quickly they extricated the driver, only to find that it was too late. He had been killed instantly. His passenger was rushed to the hospital, but to be declared, "Dead on Arrival."
The street was extra wide, traffic very light. There seemed no reason that the horrible drama should have happened. There were no signs that they had even tried to stop the car, speeding in excess of sixty-five. Why? Only God knows.
Heartsick, Mike and Joe sat on the curb after the wreckage had been hauled away. Joe kept saying, "Ten minutes, man! Only ten, and we'd have been gone! Why?"
At last Mike rose heavily to his feet. "Come on, we've a report to make. Then we'll have to pull that load back until we can get the cracked axle repaired. Can't be changed now. What's done is done. You might say that those two had an appointment with death. Now—let's get trucking'."
Appointment with death! It's an appointment that you too must meet. And there is another, far more serious. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." Hebrews 9:2727And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27). The Judge for that occasion has already been appointed, "because He (God) hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead." Acts 17:3131Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. (Acts 17:31). Who but Jesus was raised from the dead? Why not make His acquaintance now? What story on earth can compare—that the Judge should die for the condemned? Yet that is what Jesus Christ did on Calvary's cross. "For Christ... hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." 1 Peter 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18).