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On October 16, 2007, one of the two remaining survivors of the Titanic sinking, died. Barbara West Dainton died at a nursing home in Camborne, England, at age 96. She was only a year old when the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg, and taking about 1500 souls to a watery grave.
There were so many tragedies surrounding the sinking of the Titanic. Paramount among them was the belief it was an unsinkable ship. This belief was so firmly held that many of the passengers refused to board the lifeboats even as the liner was going down. They were sincere, but they were sincerely wrong, and many lost their lives as a result.
Unfortunately, too many people today believe that so long as one is sincere in his religious beliefs that God is pleased with them. Granted, one must be sincere, God is never pleased with a hypocrite. Yet one must be sincerely right in one’s religious beliefs and practices.
Jesus made this crystal clear when He said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”‘(Matt. 7:21-23). Are you trusting in sincerity alone to get you to heaven? Or are you doing the will of the Father in heaven?
Travis L. Quertermous
Dexter church of Christ
Dexter, MO