This world is a beautiful place, full of wonderful things to look at. It can also be a terrifying place, full of unexpected dangers. Visitors at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans found out both how beautiful and how terrifying it can be.
The main feature of the aquarium is a 400,000 gallon shark tank. The water in the tank, twenty feet deep, is as clear as any water you might find in nature. Large glass panels provide guests with an excellent view of the sharks. The tank houses one of the world’s largest and most diverse collections of sharks, some as long as ten feet. A replica of an oil rig, covered with barnacles, sits in the middle of the tank. Around this oil rig the sharks swim constantly.
On August 8, 2002, ten visitors had an experience they will never forget. The aquarium was running a special promotion. They were allowing guests to walk across a 38-foot-long catwalk that crosses over the open top of the tank. Six adults and four children were strolling on the catwalk, watching the sleek and beautiful creatures beneath. Suddenly there was a loud crack, and the catwalk broke in two, plunging the walkers into the shark tank!
One moment the people on the catwalk were admiring the sharks, and the next moment they were terrified. (“Beautiful-and terrifying.”) Everywhere you look, whether at an aquarium exhibit or a newborn baby or a field of flowers, you see incredible beauty, because it is all the handiwork of God who is great in wisdom and power, BUT you also see evidence of a great fall. Sharks can be lethal, even babies die, and the flowers of the field soon fade. Because of this great fall, unexpected and terrible things may happen, as in that sudden plunge into the tank of sharks.
At first there was a great deal of splashing as the persons who plunged into the tank overcame the initial shock. Several worried that the splashing would excite the predatory instincts of the sharks, but the adults quickly realized that they could pass the children in the water to bystanders. The glass walls of the tank extended three feet above the water level. The adults swimming with children in their arms were able to pass the small children up over the tank wall, but they were unable to escape that way themselves. They swam to the oil rig where they could stand, holding their heads above the water. For fifteen minutes they clung there, watching the sharks swimming around them with their sharp, triangular teeth very visible. At last, the aquarium workers extended an aluminum ladder out to the oil rig, and the adults were able to climb out.
Like the people who fell into the shark tank, we too face death, even though it is not so obvious or so imminent. Because man has fallen into sin, death has entered the world, and death is the “king of terrors.” Evidence of it is all around us. Every community has its cemetery. God does not want us to be comfortable with the idea of death: He wants us to realize that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)), and those wages are full of misery. He wants us to realize the trouble sin has brought us into so that we might turn to Him for salvation.
To deliver us from all the misery sin has brought us into, God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into this world. When He was here, “He went about doing good,” sometimes even raising the dead. One time in His journeys He entered a town called Nain. The name of the town is thought to mean “Beautiful,” but even in a town called “Beautiful” there is still the terror of death. As the Lord Jesus came that way, He met a funeral procession. Pallbearers were carrying the body of a young man, the only son of a widow, down the road. The widow’s heart was broken with sorrow.
“When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, weep not. And He came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And He said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And He that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He delivered him to his mother” (Luke 7:13-1513And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. 14And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. 15And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother. (Luke 7:13‑15)).
The same Lord Jesus who showed compassion to this widow and raised her son from the dead is ready to show compassion to you and to save you from your sins.
The people in the shark tank were all rescued; the widow’s son was restored to life, and the Savior of sinners is offering to save you too! “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:3131And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31)).
You MUST BELIEVE on Him if you hope to escape the consequences of your sins.