I once read the biography of a man by the name of
Rev. John Harper.
It was a short but powerful book ("the Titanic's Last Hero", or something to that effect). I wept like a baby and prayed God would make me that sacrificial in spirit. I just now looked him up on the Titanic's passenger list. The web page doesn't have a lot of information about him personally, but the biography I read consisted of some of his own words, eulogies and letters written about him after his death, and what happened that night on the Titanic, and what he did, according to passengers who survived, including his niece and his little daughter. He without hesitation put her and his niece on the life boat and remained on the ship - knowing he was sending his child away an orphan (her mother had died a few years prior in childbirth). So what did this deeply devoted Christian man who was totally sold out for God have to say about who should be on the life boats?
"Get the women, children, and the unsaved into the lifeboats!"
He could have made use of the opportunity to get on the lifeboat... after all, who was going to take care of his child? But instead, those who were were picked up later by rescue ship said that he gave away his life jacket to someone who wasn't saved... and spent his last minutes pleading with people to accept Christ.
I think the unsaved and the children should be the first ones on the life boats. And I'm not sexist, but I think the women should be next after them, and here's why: men are supposed to protect and provide for women. That is the role that God has given him. If I were a man, I would take the same position. There's an unselfishness about it that is nonexistent in cultures that haven't been touched by Christ. I mean, can you visualize a ship full of Muslims going down and them putting the women and kids on the boat first? Their oldest sons,
maybe... "Sorry Fatima... You've always been my favorite, but..."
It's one thing if a woman volunteers to stay in order that someone else can go, but for some reason, any other arrangement feels...
cowardly.
I'd rather have my last testimony be ====>
this. <====== God help us all.