A large daily newspaper carried a picture of a hero, John Kohl, who had just received a medal and a plaque from the Federal Railway Administration.
The hero, we were told, was a 42-year-old train engineer with many years of experience. One day he was at the throttle of a 62-car freight train, traveling about 20 to 25 miles per hour through a town in Pennsylvania. Always watchful, his keen eye spotted an object down the track. Immediately he sounded warning whistles and began an emergency stop. The crew gazed in speechless horror as it became clear that the “object” was a little two-year-old girl playing on the tracks.
Startled by the terrible screeching sounds of the train’s brakes, little Jeanne jumped up and began to run clumsily - not to safety, but down the tracks!
There was no time to lose since the train couldn’t possibly stop in time. John coolly climbed out of the cab and quickly picked his way down the front of the engine. Hanging on with one arm, he leaned dangerously forward. With his one free arm, just at the right moment, he roughly swept the little girl aside so that she sprawled on her tummy beside the tracks. She was safe, but very upset!
It was another 200 feet before the train finally came to a stop and brave John Kohl could get off the train. He ran back to comfort the little girl who was sitting up by now, crying pitifully.
Suppose someone who had seen the whole thing were to come along and scold John, bawling him out for swatting little Jeanne so roughly. You would certainly tell such a person to stop talking nonsense. You would say, “Didn’t you see how that rough swat saved her life?”
We who speak to children about God are sometimes told much the same thing. People say, “Don’t frighten or upset children by telling them what the Bible says about sin and judgment to come.”
God’s Book has told us about future events again and again, and when we read that there is punishment ahead for sinners (children and adults still in their sins), we had better tell the whole truth so that even children may “flee from the wrath [punishment] to come” (Matthew 3:7). We know that “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23), and that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). We also know that “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). These truths are something like the rough slap Jeanne received. We need to know them in order to run to safety. Run where? And to whom? Why, to the arms of Jesus!
John Kohl was told, “You can measure the distance between life and death by the length of your arm.” In the same way we can measure that distance between eternal life and eternal death by Jesus’ mighty arm to save. Won’t you come to Him, confessing that you are helpless to save yourself? That verse, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7), can then apply to you, and you can know the forgiveness and comfort of His arms of strength. “When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6).
ML-09/24/1995