Harrison Okene unexpectedly found himself in a hopeless situation earlier this year. He found himself on the bottom of the ocean, in a small air-pocket in his overturned tugboat, sunk by a rogue wave. Harrison was in total darkness, disoriented, all alone, and dressed only in boxer shorts in freezing temperatures. For 60 hours, he fumbled in total darkness, trembled due to the cold, listened while fish were consuming the bodies of his fellow crewmen, and waited for his oxygen supply to run out.
Then when his oxygen supply was just about gone, an amazing thing happened. A rescue diver appeared. Harrison was given oxygen, led to a decompression chamber, and gradually raised to the surface. Snatched from the jaws of death. What seemed like a hopeless situation only proved to be the setting for his salvation. Now Harrison lives to tell others of how he was saved.
Have you ever felt spiritually hopeless? Have you ever felt that you were beyond the reach of God's saving grace? Then let me remind you of this. If a drunken, incestuous father (Lot); a lying harlot (Rahab); a murderous adulterer (David); and a persecutor of the church (Saul/Paul) can be forgiven and held up as examples of great men and women of faith, then there's hope for you too!
Try an image the joy and relief Harrison Okene must have experienced when he reached out and touched his rescuers hand! Hope from hopelessness! Likewise, imagine the joy and relief that is experienced by the sinner who reaches out and takes hold of the Savior's hand! Hope from hopelessness!
To those of you who have been saved by God, and now have life; tell others about it! Tell how God rescued you from a hopeless situation and gave you hope! "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!" (Psalm 107:2).
- Steve Higginbotham preaches for the Karns Church of Christ in Knoxville, TN. He may be contacted through the congregation's website at
ttp://www.karnschurch.org
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