When the cargo ship New Carissa was wrecked in a gale off the coast of Oregon, there was no loss of life. The twenty-three members of the crew were lifted to safety by helicopter. There was still one terrible problem: The ship carried 400,000 gallons of fuel oil. If that oil escaped and washed up on shore, it would leave a black film of oil over a hundred miles of Oregon’s coast-a major disaster.
Deeply concerned about the possible oil spill, experts on shore considered all their options. One solution they considered was to build a road across the sand dunes and from there a pipeline out to the ship to pump the oil off. However, oil was already escaping her tanks. The experts involved decided on a speedier solution: They would burn the oil. Every bit of oil that they could burn would be oil that would never reach the shore.
Naval explosive experts set the charges they hoped would ignite the oil. They had to work in a hurry because a storm packing sixty-five-mile-an-hour winds and twenty-five foot swells was approaching. When the plunger was pushed, the explosives ignited, but they failed to penetrate the thick steel of the oil tanks. At this first attempt the oil did not catch fire.
Stronger explosives were flown to the site, and the naval experts tried once more. This time the explosives ripped into the tanks and the oil was set ablaze. The ship became a towering inferno of flames and black smoke. The ship burned for three days, sending up flames as high as three hundred feet and at last breaking in two.
When the flames burned out, inspectors found 135,000 gallons of fuel left in the bow section. The fire had burned over 200,000 gallons of oil, but what was left still threatened to spoil the shore.
The failure to get rid of the oil by burning is like a bitter lesson that many people must learn about themselves. Once a person becomes convinced that God hates sin, the natural response of their heart is to try to balance out the evil that they have done by doing good. However, in the course of time, if they are honest with themselves, each one will make a startling discovery: Despite all their best efforts they will find the black tendency in their hearts to do that which is hateful in God’s sight just as strong as it ever was.
This is exactly what the Bible says: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing? not one” (Job 14:44Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one. (Job 14:4)). Or, “Though thou wash thee with niter, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before Me” (Jer. 2:2222For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God. (Jeremiah 2:22)). Self-reformation may provide a temporary, false sense of comfort, but before long that which is in the heart will come out and all the best efforts will be worth nothing. There is no power in men to make themselves more suited to the presence of God, but there is power in the Savior to make the vilest clean.
God knows the sinfulness of our hearts far better than we do ourselves. He can forgive and cleanse the worst of sinners because of the great price for sin that Jesus paid on the cross of Calvary.
After the burning of the ship, there was still the wreckage of the bow section, with very much oil, left to threaten the shore. The fuel that remained had become so thick that once it was scooped up by a coffee cup it couldn’t be poured out.
Experts now formulated a plan to rid the coast of the bow section and all its oil. They would tow the bow 250 miles out to sea and sink it in water that was several miles deep. The temperature is so cold at these depths that it would preserve the oil in almost a solid state, ensuring that it would never leak out and do any more environmental damage.
They ordered what was reported to be the strongest rope in the world. It had to come all the way from Holland. Using this rope, the tugboat Sea Victory, after several days of pulling, dislodged the bow from the sand bar and started towing it out into the open water.
When the ship was fifty miles out to sea, a winter storm developed and the rope broke. The bow section of the New Carissa was carried by the currents back to shore and ran aground at Waldport, Oregon, still leaking oil. The rope was reattached, and this time the weather cooperated and the ship was hauled out to sea.
Demolition experts first tried to sink the ship by lowering explosives onto the hull from a helicopter and then detonating them by remote control. It didn’t work. Then a navy destroyer shot eighty rounds at the ship with one of its medium-size guns. The ship still refused to sink. So the navy commander ordered a submarine to torpedo the ship.
The torpedo struck the ship, and the New Carissa with all that troublesome oil was on its way to the bottom of the sea. At the bottom of the sea the oil would never rise and trouble anyone again.
The gospel—God’s good news to man—declares that all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God will have their sins forgiven. “Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” God will take all the sins of those who trust in Jesus and cast them into the depths of the sea where they will never rise again. After the Lord Jesus paid the penalty for sins at the cross, He arose from the grave and then a number of days later ascended into heaven. A songwriter beautifully wrote:
See Him now in glory seated
Where thy sins no more can rise.
Now is the time when God is offering to the world a free salvation through faith in His Son. It is reported in the book of Acts (which is in the Bible) that when the glad tidings based on the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus were preached, “some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not” (Acts 28:2424And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. (Acts 28:24)). To which company would you belong?