Rescue

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is `the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.' Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:8-12).

How could a person be drowning and not realize it? How could a person be struggling to stay alive in shark-infested, freezing ocean water and not realize the danger he is in?

Yet many, perhaps even most people alive on the earth today are slowly dying in such an ocean, and a great many of them don’t even realize it. Yes, there are those who know that they cannot swim, and are panicking every time that they slip beneath the surface and take a gulp of salty water; these are the people who are wrestling with guilt or the trauma of tragedy, and realize that they need help or they will not survive. But there are many more who are slowly going numb from the freezing water and do not feel the life slipping away from them; there are many who do not see the shark slowly approaching unseen, just below the surface—these are the people whose lives seem to be going along just fine, although they do not devote much thought to matters of conscience or to the fate of souls after death.

There are many people who are dying every day in the ocean of their sins.

The tragedy is that rescue is available. There is a strong hand reaching out from a large boat that desires to pull them from the ocean to safety. That strong hand belongs to Jesus, and the lifeboat is His Church. But while there are those who are drowning who are grateful for the offer of rescue, there are so many others who do not realize the danger that they are in and dismiss Jesus’ hand as unnecessary. They don’t realize their need for rescue.

Jesus rescues us from three things. The first is drowning in the guilt of our sins. Each of us has a conscience—the conscience is God’s gift that warns us of spiritual danger. When we do something that hurts others or puts ourselves at foolish risk, our conscience tries to warn us of the danger. When we ignore our conscience, it nags us with feelings of guilt over what we have done. As we fill our lives with selfish and self-destructive behaviors, our burden of guilty feelings grows. Often, we try to alleviate the burden by trying to make up for our mistakes, but there are never enough words of sorrow, never enough expensive gifts, that can remove the memory of what we have done. Eventually, we feel as if we are drowning in guilt, unable to know a moment’s peace.

Jesus rescues us from guilt. Jesus suffered far more than we can imagine to settle the scales for us, to make up for what we have done wrong. Jesus did this on the cross, and He did it so that He can forgive us for our mistakes and lift our load of guilt. Jesus rescues us from drowning and breathes new life into us.

The second thing that Jesus rescues us from is the chill touch of death which wants to drag us down into a watery grave, never to resurface to see light and the warmth of life once more. People fear death. People fear dying because they don’t know what to expect afterwards—will they go to some kind of paradise? Will they be punished for their mistakes by being reborn again into a new body, suffering life after tragic life until they "get it right"? Will they cease to exist altogether, rendering everything that they have accomplished in life meaningless? The fear of the unknown brings fear of death.

Jesus has revealed to us what happens at the time of death. Those who believe in Him as their rescuer will be brought to heaven to live in the warmth of God’s love and care forever; those who had no relationship with Jesus at the time of their death will be rejected by God and sent to hell for eternity, a place that contains no warmth, no comfort, no happiness, a place that is characterized in the Bible as a prison of unending suffering and anguish. Jesus assures us that death is only to be feared if we reject Him as our Lord and Savior; Saint John writes, Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son (John 3:18).

The third thing that Jesus rescues us from is the control of the great enemy, the devil. Satan rejected God and was thus ejected from the paradise of heaven; in retaliation, this spiritual terrorist dedicated his existence to luring humanity away from God, because the only way that he could hurt God was through hurting God’s human children. He does this by telling us lies, by contradicting or misinterpreting what God tells us is good and right. Satan is like the great shark swimming unseen beneath us, whose mouth is full of lies like row upon row of jagged teeth, eager to eat away at us until we can no longer distinguish between what is helpful or harmful, true or false, right or wrong.

Jesus faced the great enemy head on during His life among us. Satan tried to trick Jesus into abandoning us through several temptations, concluding with the temptation to come down from the cross before He had suffered the price for every human sin. But Jesus resisted Satan—He resisted the enemy by quoting the Scriptures to him and by seeking strength from His heavenly Father through prayer. Jesus rescues us from Satan’s attacks by giving us the Holy Bible as our defense against falsehood, and by enabling each of us to pray to God directly for strength in the face of the jaws of temptation.

Saint Peter said, Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. Salvation is rescue—rescue from guilt and hell and Satan. And Peter tells us that this salvation only comes to us in one way—through Jesus the Son of God, anointed and set apart to be the Savior of all mankind. There are two reasons why Jesus is the only one through whom we can be saved:

First, Jesus is God’s designated representative. When Jesus’ true glory was glimpsed by the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, God the Father said of Him, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!" (Matthew 17:5) Jesus is whom the Bible is all about. God inspired the many writers of the Old Testament to write about only two things: why we need a rescuer and who that rescuer was going to be. God had the prophets write these things so that when Jesus arrived among us in the clothing of humanity, people would understand why it was so important to listen to Him. Jesus’ words reveal God; Saint John goes so far as to name Jesus as the Word of God. Jesus said, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father... Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me (John 14:9-11). And after Jesus rose from the dead and returned to heaven, God inspired the writers of the New Testament to preserve Jesus’ words for us and to show how the life, death and resurrection of the Lord has meaning for each and every one of us. God reveals Himself to us through Jesus alone, and the Bible was given by God to allow people throughout history to personally listen to our divine rescuer.

The other reason that Jesus is the only name by which we find salvation is that Jesus did what no other teacher has ever done. Jesus not only taught us about God and what He expects from us, Jesus also did the work of saving us from our guilt, eternal damnation, and the lure of the enemy. Jesus did this work through the shedding of His holy, innocent blood on the cross for our sins; Paul writes, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding (Ephesians 1:7-8). John tells us, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:1-2). Jesus did what no other great teacher has ever done. The Buddha, Muhammad, Confucius, Joseph Smith—none of these men gave their lives to save the souls of others. They may have been influential teachers, but all of them told their followers that each man has to make his own way through life, each person has to chart their own course and fix their own mistakes. In the end, each of them said "get out of the water or you’ll drown!", but none of them personally pulled a single victim out.

Our world is filled with people who are drowning in guilt, who are sinking into the clutches of everlasting death, who are being chewed to pieces by the devil’s vicious attacks. Satan’s messengers are everywhere: they advise us to visualize our goals and work hard to attain them, and we can be successful. We are told not to worry about the future, but to live each moment to its fullest before old age and death confront us. We are told that no one has a patent on spiritual truths, that there are as many ways to find God—whoever He is—as there are individuals (and if you choose not to believe in a Supreme Being, well, that’s okay too). Two-thirds of this world’s population have no idea who Jesus Christ is, or what He did for them in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, or what He wants to do for them today. Two-thirds of the people in our world have no idea how to get free of guilt, how to face death without terror, how to resist the constant urges of their human nature to indulge in every kind of selfish and self-destructive behavior.

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. You and I have that name. You and I have been rescued from sin, hell and Satan’s domination. If your best friend was sick and her car wasn’t working, you’d help her get to the doctor’s office, wouldn’t you? When people are in need, you offer your help, don’t you? I invite you to take stock of the people in your life. Do you have a friend who is tortured by years of guilt? Do you have a relative who fears the approach of death? Do you know a co-worker who struggles with addictive or compulsive behavior? Do these people know that Jesus holds out His hand to rescue them? Do they believe that they have done wrong in their lives, but that all can be forgiven by faith in Jesus’ blood? Have they heard that a life without Jesus is a life of suffering without comfort, ending in a death without hope?

If they haven’t heard of Jesus, if they don’t know what He offers to those who are dying in the ocean of their sins, can you in love abandon them to death? Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. You have Jesus. You have hope for the future. You are given strength for the day. May our Lord Jesus move you to reach out with Him, in love, to those who are perishing.