John and Judith were a young couple, very much in love with each other and planning to be married in the spring. They were traveling along the interstate highway on January 26, 1978, and the weather that day was very bad. As they traveled south, they ran into a blizzard. The blowing snow and fast-forming drifts made driving very hazardous. John pulled the car off the highway onto the shoulder and stopped. They waited hoping the weather would improve after awhile.
At 2 a.m. Civil Defense workers spotted their car and offered to help them. The young couple turned down the offer, saying they had plenty of fuel and would wait. But the hoped-for better weather never came. No additional offers of help came either. They had passed up the only offer of help and paid a terrible penalty for doing so.
John kept the engine running so they could stay warm. But slowly carbon monoxide fumes seeped into the car. They began to get sleepy. At the last moment they realized some thing was wrong. John turned off the engine and cracked open the window. But it was too late; they dropped off into a fatal sleep and never woke up.
Poor John and Judith had turned down the only offer that could have saved them. How sad this was! And yet how many people are doing the same today with a more vital issue. In the gospel message they are warned of the danger of carelessly going on without Christ in their sins. How many say, “We will wait"? They have no sense or fear of judgment. But how terrible it will be to wake up one day in a lost eternity.
Twenty hours later John and Judith were found dead in their car a sad witness to the folly of waiting too long.
Dear reader, the Lord Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and He died to save you. You need Him NOW! Do not put off His offer of salvation.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
ML-03/05/1978