Ed and Jan were a happy Christian couple. They had both accepted the Lord Jesus as their own precious Savior and loved to tell others about Him, so they kept a box of gospel tracts beside the front door. As they went out the door, they would pick up a few tracts to take along with them.
One day as they were buckling their seat belts before driving to Pembroke, Ontario, Ed said, “You know, Dear, I think the Lord would like us to take a lot of these tracts with us today.” So he went back into the house and picked up a big stack of gospel tracts. Each tract had a picture of a train with a vista dome (a dome with large windows for sightseeing) on top.
As they drove along, talking about the stack of tracts, Ed remarked while looking at the picture, “Don’t you think it would be fun to go across the country on that? You could see for miles around, looking through that glass dome top.” Jan agreed, and she added that the Canadian Pacific vista dome train would probably be traveling at that very moment on the track that they would soon see beside the highway on which they were driving. But they thought that since it was such a fast train, it was unlikely they would see it.
It wasn’t too many miles farther, as they came over a crest of a hill, that Jan said, “Look, Ed! What’s that?”
“It looks like the vista dome train lying on its side on the track!” As they drove closer, they saw that was what it was. “Do you think anyone is alive?” they wondered as they stopped their car and started toward the overturned engine.
“Wow! I almost fell. Be careful. This stuff is slippery!” said Ed, looking down to see his feet in a pond of asphalt that covered the track and all the ground around it for quite a distance. Just then they saw a strange-looking man come from behind the train. He looked strange because he was black from asphalt covering him almost from head to toe, and he had streaks of blood running down his face, chest and arms.
“What happened to you?” Ed asked the man covered with asphalt and blood.
“I was driving my tractor trailer truck full of asphalt down that hill, and the sun was glaring in my eyes so that I couldn’t see the train coming. When I did see it, it was too late to back off from the track, so I gunned it to try to get across the tracks before the train got to me. I made it over in the tractor, but the engine hit my trailer and spilled my load of asphalt all over the ground.”
By that time another truck had stopped and took the injured truck driver to a house at the top of the hill to get cleaned up and bandaged.
Ed and Jan made their way through the gooey asphalt with their first-aid kit and the stack of tracts, still wondering what they would find in the train.
Happily, soon they saw the conductor climbing up out of the overturned train. “Are you hurt?” asked Ed and Jan together.
“Not badly,” replied the conductor. “This morning I prayed for the Lord’s safe keeping, as I always do before I go out on a run. The Lord has graciously kept me in safety, and I think all the passengers as well.”
Soon the passengers began to climb out of the train. Ed and Jan gave each one a gospel tract. Because the tracts had a picture of a train on them, the people thought the railroad company had sent them, so everyone took one. The Lord Jesus had kept them safe during that frightening time and the gospel tracts told them how He would keep them safe for all eternity.
Among the last of the passengers to come out of the train were several young boys who were crying.
“Our mother is waiting for us at the next station,” they told Ed and Jan, “and we’ll never get there. What shall we do?”
Ed and Jan assured them that God had already proved His care over them by not letting them get hurt in the train, and He would continue to take care of them. The railroad company was planning to send limousines to take the passengers to their destinations. “But best of all,” they told the boys, “God will take care of us for all eternity. ‘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’” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)).
The boys said, “We don’t usually think about God, but we’re sure going to say our prayers tonight and thank Him for all He’s done for us.”
If you were to come as close to death as those boys did, would you be wondering where you would be if you died, or would you know for sure that you would be with the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven? You can know for sure. John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24) tells us, “He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, [has] everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation [judgment for his sins]; but is passed from death unto life.” If you believe on Him, you already have eternal life. You don’t have to wait until you die to start enjoying the eternal life that the Lord Jesus gives to everyone who believes on Him.
Messages of God’s Love 8/13/2023