"Watch me!" Adam McGuire shouted to his two companion surfers. The three boys were floating a hundred yards from shore. Lying on their stomachs on their surfboards, they were watching the incoming waves and selecting what looked like the best to ride. Over their heads the sun shone in all its brilliance. The yellow strands of the Australian beach stretched out in either direction as far as their eyes could see. Occasionally they would catch glimpses of the brightly colored sails of windsurfers racing along with the wind. Farther out, near the watery horizon where the gently curved line of the blue ocean met the deeper blue of the sky, fishing vessels were dragging their nets along.
With a thrust of his hands into the water, Adam propelled himself in front of the wave he selected to ride. He waited for the prime moment which would give him the most momentum, and stood his tall, lanky, seventeen-year-old body upright on his surfboard. With knees bent and arms outstretched for balance, he rode in front of the crest of the wave. By shifting his weight on the board he zigzagged up and down the height of the wave. At the end of his ride, he skillfully turned the front of his board into the wave and kept his balance as the wave passed. In the trough which followed he lay down and propelled himself back to his friends.
"Adam," one of his companions shouted, pointing, "look at what's coming towards you!" His friends dug their arms into the water and paddled frantically away from Adam toward the shore.
Adam turned to look in the direction his friend had pointed and froze. Swimming directly for him was a shark whose large dorsal fin projected out of the water. There wasn't time to flee. Within moments he could see the shark's cold unfeeling eyes and he recognized it as a tiger shark. He had seen many of them hanging on wharves, caught by fishermen. There was a mad rush of water as the shark, swimming swiftly, neared him. The whole length of its body broke the surface and the great jaws opened, revealing rows of massive, triangular teeth. Adam didn't have time to think; he only had time to react. At the last second Adam rolled off his board into the water. The teeth of the shark clamped down on the board with a loud crunch. The board snapped in its bite.
The slow-witted shark realized that it wasn't the board it wanted, and began to circle around Adam in the water. "It's twelve feet at least," Adam thought to himself as he watched it circle him. With a flick of its tail, the shark turned and darted towards its prey. Adam felt a deep pain in his side as a piece of his flesh was torn away. Wounded, Adam knew he didn't have the strength to resist another attack. Hopeless and helpless to defend himself, he watched the circling shark.
Suddenly, from somewhere out of the vast expanse of ocean, a school of dolphins came darting around it. They began thrashing about the shark. They darted in the beast's face. They swam over it and under it and around it and behind it. The shark became so distracted by the dolphins that it forgot about Adam. Adam found his broken board, pulled himself up on what was left of it, and paddled to safety while the dolphins kept the shark occupied. He required extensive surgery for the bite in his side, but he lived to tell the tale.
On a beautiful day, while doing something he loved, Adam McGuire came within a hair's breadth of losing his life. If it had not been for the timely help of his unusual rescuers, he would have been torn to pieces by the shark.
Life may be beautiful to you, and you may be doing exactly what you like doing and enjoying it very much. However, if you are living your life without a personal relationship with Christ as Lord and Savior, no matter how beautiful and lovely your situation appears, beneath the surface there is trouble—even terror—ahead. You may not see it, and you may not recognize it, and you may not expect it; nonetheless it is there and it is coming your way.
You and I, and all other people with us, have inherited a fallen nature from our first father, Adam. Because of this fallen nature man likes to choose his own way and never choose God's way; this makes him a rebel in the eyes of his Creator. And because he is a rebel, there is certain trouble ahead.
You may never have thought of yourself as a rebel before God, but it is true. Read what God says about us all: "There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable.... Destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes."
This is God's estimate of the entire human race, His estimate of the rich—the poor—the educated—the ignorant—ALL. You may have prosperity, health, everything you desire, and because of your comfortable circumstances find it hard to believe that God could possibly be displeased with you. But these verses are as true of you as of the derelict in the gutter. "There is no difference: for all have sinned."
Because of sin, death, that event dreaded above all others, has entered the world. Death in all its unpredictable and varied forms, whether it be by shark attack or heart attack, is in the world because of sin. And after death comes the judgment. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment."
God in grace has made a way that man can be delivered from death and judgment: "The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world." "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The gospel tells us what God has done in a day of grace so that we might not have to meet Him in the judgment.
You may never have even considered looking to Christ to save your soul, but it is the only way to be delivered from the power and consequences of sin. If you would escape from death and the judgment to come, you must come to Christ. "There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."