Sky diving! Thrilling, exciting, dangerous! Jumping from a plane at heights up to 13,000 feet, free-falling almost two miles before pulling the cord that deploys their parachute, sky divers risk their lives with every jump. Sometimes they lose.
One who almost lost was Frank Farnan, a sky diver of twenty-five years experience. He was practicing aerial formations when a teammate, also free falling, hit him in the head and knocked him out.
Falling, spinning, helpless, upside down and unconscious, Farnan was on the way to a sudden death.
Another teammate, Eddie Turner, saw him upside down, his arms "flapping in the wind like a rag doll." At first he thought that he was trying to open his reserve chute, but then Turner realized that he was unconscious. He began a desperate plunge to try to catch up with Farnan.
Breathless seconds passed. Now Turner was below Farnan. Spreading out his arms and legs, he tried to slow his own fall enough to catch Farnan. Still the two men fell at the same speed. At the last moment, another diver "flew" under Farnan and "stole his air away from him," and Turner was able to grab him.
Quickly he pulled the cord on Farnan's chute and then his own. The two chutes billowed out above the hurtling men less than ten seconds before they would both have crashed into the ground.
Farnan, helpless and unknowing, was falling straight to death. Many, many people are going about their daily business or pleasure just as unconscious that they are falling too—falling straight toward eternal death. They are helpless, too, and unable to save themselves.
Someone must come between them and the end that they are racing towards—someone conscious, in control and able to save.
Who can that be? It can only be the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave His own life to avert that dreadful end for every one who will receive Him.
The picture fails a little here. Farnan did not know he was being rescued; he was saved unconsciously. You must consciously believe and receive. And Eddie Turner's courageous act almost cost his life, but not quite.
The Lord Jesus gave His life. He actually went through a horrible death to save you and me.
From a hospital bed, Frank Farnan thanked Eddie Turner for saving his life. Have you thanked the Lord Jesus for giving His life for you?