By Elizabeth Prata
Man loves to explore. Man loves to ponder on disasters, especially the RMS Titanic sinking in 1912.
Stockton Rush is the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, a company that develops and manufactures deep-ocean submersibles. His ‘Titan’ submarine vessel carries passengers to deep water expeditions if you can pay $250,000. They carry passengers to explore the deep water hydrothermic vents in the Azores, they’ve been to the wreck of the Titanic, to the Bahamas, or if none of those suit, a paying customer can design their own expedition. The Titan sub can go to 13,123 feet deep. The Titan began its sea trials in 2018, and took its inaugural journey in 2021.
This week, the Titan submerged for an expedition to the wreck of the Titanic. The ship lies at the bottom of the north Atlantic Ocean at a depth of 12500 feet.
It launched this past Sunday with 4 passengers and CEO Stockton Rush, captaining the vessel. The BBC Reports:
Researchers aboard the Polar Prince – its mothership on the surface – lost contact with the crew shortly after the Titan began its dive. There is limited oxygen on board, and it is estimated that supplies are set to run out by around 10:00 GMT (06:00 EDT) on Thursday. Banging noises have now been detected in the search area, but it is not known where they are coming from or what they mean. US, Canadian and French agencies are working together to locate the submersible, and the tour firm OceanGate says it is exploring all options to get it back safety.
The plight of these 5 souls has captured the world. The irony of exploring the Titanic, which was said to be unsinkable, and now their own vessel has been either entangled in the wreckage or otherwise unable to regain the surface../shudder/. The dark, oppressive, murky depths…the loneliness, the fear.
My thoughts of course go to eternity. I’m sure theirs do too. Man’s plight is so much worse than being lost at the bottom of the sea. Man, in his sin, is separated from God and when his flesh expires, his soul will got to a wrathful eternity. His body will be fitted for enduring all the wrath, pain, punishment in fire for their sins against God while they lived in earth.
I think of Paul, chained to his jailer, a captive audience.
The Gospel Is Preached
Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brothers and sisters, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. (Philippians 1:12-14).
The guards rotated every 8 hours. Paul had many in which to pead for their soul.
Paul was also at another time under house imprisonment with a guard living with him. (Acts 28:16)
Paul had a captive audience. He preached and preached. He sang hymns. He preached some more. Man’s true plight is not the earthly circumstances, in prison or captive in a deep-down lost sub. It’s our imprisonment to sin and the distance from God. It’s our eternal future in wrath.
When the actual Titanic ship was sinking, preacher John Harper was in the water. He swam from drowning victim to drowning victim. He preached the Gospel. He pleaded for their conversion. One man said for Harper to go away from him. After a short while, the man floated by Harper again. He asked Harper to say again about the Gospel, and this man converted and was saved. He was saved from His sin because he converted, even as John Harper himself was losing consciousness and sank beneath the frigid waves himself. He was John Harper’s last convert.
Few were found alive and plucked from the water, but this man was. He was George Henry Cavell. In Hamilton, Ontario, afterwards George testified that he was John Harper’s last convert. Harper had used his last breath to plead for George to repent and believe.
I am praying the five souls on board the sub Titan are found in time and their stricken vessel is raised successfully. Time (and oxygen) is running out. It’s a race against time to save them alive. But it’s always a race against time for a sinful human to repent and be TRULY saved before the number of their days expires. One never knows the days allotted to a person before God calls them to eternity.
My deepest prayer is that there is one Christian on board the Titan who is boldly proclaiming the way of Truth to the others. Like Paul, the Christian would have a captive audience in which to preach, pray, and sing the glories of Christ. This is the true salvation. If they are raised to the surface alive then they will enjoy the rest of their days serving Jesus before their translation to heaven. If they’re raised inside a sub that had become a tomb, then if they wrote their last words on paper, we might be able to rejoice they are alive in God’s heaven. Even if they are never found or never raised, those fleshly bodies if they converted, will be resurrected and reunited with their soul in heaven for all eternity.
People are never more eager to hear about Jesus than when death looms and eternity awaits. I pray the Lord stationed one Christian in the sub. Even just one…
Further Resources
the-end-time.org 
My prayer joins yours for their eternal salvation.
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