This talk was delivered at a youth club in Sunderland in July '08
Deep Impact - who will be saved?
We are going to watch a clip from a movie called deep impact. The world is being threatened by a huge meteor that is heading for a direct impact on the earth. A plan to destroy the meteor into little pieces has failed - the 'Messiah' rescue mission - and now the world is threatened by 2 meteors. So the President makes a statement.
Watch clip from 'Deep Impact' - 0:57:48 - 1:02:24
Every nation in the whole world has to make a plan - the Americans are planning to save a million people. But who should they save? How would you decide?
So 200,000 people are chosen who can provide their skills, expertees and professional abilities to the new world, and the other 800,000 are chosen randomly by a computer from the population under 50 years.
Is that fair?
Of course, this story is a glorified version of the old chestnut - if you and 3 friends were in a hot air balloon, and the balloon was coming down becasue their was too much weight - who should survive and why?
It is interesting that one of the most common objections that I have to people being Christians is that it just doesn't sound fair. Why should God let some people into his heaven, but not others?
I don't know if you have ever seen this symbol before (to download the pdf, click on the image)
. Any ideas where you would find it?
Of course, you would see it on the back of an ambulance - in fact medical services and physicians have used it as their logo for centuries. It seems rather odd, don't you, that medical services should be marked our by a snake on a stick.
In the second book of the Bible a story is recorded where God's people Israel are being over-run by a plague of snakes who are biting and killing people. The story also tells us that the snakes have been sent by God as punishment for the peoples rebellion against him. The people are desperate so Moses asks God to help. God tells Moses to make a bronze snake, put it on a pole and then anyone who looks at the bronze snake on a pole will be healed and live. Some do, and suffer no ill effects, but many don't. They are so dedicated to there rebellion against God that they would rather handle it themselves, willfully don't take a (free) look and so die as a result. It is an amazing story.
However, it is not a relic of history.
In John's gospel, Jesus says these words
''I assure you, I am telling you what we know and have seen, and yet you won't believe us. But if you don't even believe me when I tell you about things that happen here on earth, how can you possibly believe if I tell you what is going on in heaven? For only I, the Son of Man, have come to earth and will return to heaven again. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a pole, so that everyone who believes in me will have eternal life.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that eveyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.' John 3:11-17
Jesus says that just like the snake on a pole, he too would be raised up on a pole - or a cross, and he too would be the mens by which people are rescued from their rebellion against God. And all people have to do it look to him for their rescue, to believe in him.
It is interesting - if 'Deep Impact' were to be true, how many people do you think would turn down the offer of being one of the chosen million? Not many I should think - only those with a death wish or who were crazy would turn it down. But millions, even billions of people turn down the rescue offered by Jesus on the cross. And all they need to do is believe.
Of course believing will lead to changed behaviour, just like those who had a place in the ark had to claim it - but Jesus' rescue is not limited. It is not decided upon by lottery or special ability. It is a gift to those who believe
So - who will be saved? It could be you!