Ninety-Five Years Ago, the World Asked “Why?”
by Douglas W. Phillips, Esq., April 20, 2007
“Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:4-5)
Ninety-five years ago this week, the world was asking fundamental questions: “Why would God allow thirteen hundred people to perish in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic ice fields?” We are told that the weeks after the R.M.S. Titanic sank, the churches in America and England experienced the largest attendance up to that point on the twentieth century. People were looking for answers. They were looking for hope and meaning out of tragedy.
Ninety-five years later, the men and guests of the Christian Boys’ and Men’s Titanic Society gathered on the anniversary of the disaster to remember the lessons and the legacies of the sinking of the Titanic. And there are many.
One of the great legacies of hope which was recognized in 1912 and remains significant today is the stunning message that God is sovereign over all things. Man cannot build unsinkable boats any more than he can flee God’s sovereign decrees (Daniel 4:25, 34-35). God, not Satan, controls the universe (Isaiah 46:9-11; Daniel 4:17; Hebrews 1:3) and has determined the beginning and the end of man (Deuteronomy 32:39; Hebrews 9:27; Ephesians 1:11-12; 1 Peter 2:8). He has decreed that even the wrath of man will work the praise of God (Psalm 76:10). He and all of His ways are just (Deuteronomy 32:4).
The London Baptist Confession of Faith explains the comprehensive and undeniable providential sovereignty of God thus:
God who, in infinite power and wisdom, has created all things, upholds, directs, controls, and governs them, both animate and inanimate, great and small, by a providence supremely wise and holy, and in accordance with His infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable decisions of His will. He fulfills the purposes for which He created them, so that His wisdom, power and justice, together with His infinite goodness and mercy, might be praised and glorified. Nothing happens by chance or outside the sphere of God’s providence. As God is the First Cause of all events, they happen immutable and infallibly according to His foreknowledge and decree, to which they stand related. Yet by His providence God so controls them, that second causes, operating either as fixed laws, or freely, or in dependence upon other causes, play their part in bringing them about.
Consciously or unconsciously, many modern Christians think and talk as if events happen by chance. Alternatively, they conclude that Satan is the author and supreme guiding hand behind all calamity — as if God has no authority, no plan, and no ability to thwart him. They believe that man is free to act autonomously from his God, and God is bound not to interfere with man’s autonomous will. They insist that their God would never allow people to drown or college students to be shot. They forget that this same God decreed and carried out the death sentence by drowning, not merely thirteen hundred Titanic victims, but the entire population of the earth — perhaps millions — saving only eight souls (Genesis 6:7-8; 7:21-23). They forget that this God decreed the death of the first born of Egypt (Exodus 12:29), that he repeatedly prophesied death and judgment to those who break His covenant (Leviticus 26:14-25; Deuteronomy 28:15-63), and that His Son is coming back with a sword (Revelation 19:11-16) and will cast into everlasting punishment all those who reject him (Revelation 20:11-15).
They have created a God of their own choosing — one that makes them feel comfortable, one that suits their personal sense of justice, and one that they can place in their pockets and take out when it is convenient. In so doing, they rewrite the doctrine of the Atonement, and turn it into a cute Bible story, instead of one of the defining principles of life. And that principle includes the fact that by His very nature, God could not look the other way when man sinned (Psalm 11:4-6; Romans 2:3-11). This is so because He is a just God who requires bloodshed for the remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22-28). Consequently, God could not give Adam a free pass (Genesis 2:17; Romans 5:12-14; Ezekiel 18:4). There was only one hope — an infinite, holy sacrifice (1 Peter 1:19) which would suffer unimaginable pain and die a horrible death (1 Peter 2:21-24; Hebrews 12:2). Yes, the loving, kind, and merciful God who makes salvation a free gift of grace to man (Ephesians 2:8-9) demanded the execution of the only innocent man in history (Hebrews 4:15; Hebrews 9:14-16) — the God-man, Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity (Hebrews 1:1-3; Romans 8:3-4).
Not only have modern professors in Christ divorced the sovereignty and justice of God from the love of God — they have sought to create a God of their own choosing. But they have done more. They have redefined themselves as little gods being the authors of their own destiny. They have exchanged the complex mystery of human responsibility and divine sovereignty for a mess of autonomous pottage. In so doing, they not only believe that God is incapable of calling them, but that they can resist Him when He draws them. In the end, they have adopted a shamlessly high view of themselves. When it comes to judgment, fundamentally, they do not believe that they have done anything worthy of death. They are just not “that bad” (Romans 3:10-12; Isaiah 64:6). And they think God would be unfair to bring (for his Glory and the good of His elect) calamity or hardship into their lives (Romans 9:13-16; Amos 3:6). They have forgotten that their sin (through their father Adam) brought death and suffering because He broke the law of God (Romans 5:12). They forget that God would have been unjust had He not sentenced to death all of mankind (Romans 6:23).
Consequently, modern man is incapable of interpreting modern events. He blames everything, but himself. He asks all the wrong questions, and consequently he gets none of the right answers.
Once upon a time, the men of Jesus’ day sought to find meaning in the midst of calamity. The Lord Jesus Christ, Creator of Heaven and Earth, taught them how to respond to calamity. Jesus said:
Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. (Luke 13:4-5)
This settles the question with resounding clarity: Judgment may be coming (Deuteronomy 32:41). Repent, or be counted among the dead (Jonah 3:9-10, Joel 2:12-14; Psalm 85:4-7).
I fully agree with the analysis and application of this passage by the president of Answers in Genesis, Mr. Ken Ham, who wrote yesterday:
Jesus was reminding people that every person will one day die, and that they need to be ready! Those who were killed by this tower in Luke 13 didn’t know that when they arose that morning, it would be their day to die. The Lord Jesus, in saying “unless you repent,” was reminding everyone that they needed to be sure they were ready to face eternity. This is the most important lesson for all of us to consider during this tragic time in American history, and to be reminded of what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 10:9: “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
When Titanic sank, the wiser Christian commentators applied a two-prong analysis. First they asked: Have we done something to merit the displeasure of the Lord that he would allow such calamity to fall upon us? Second, they asked: How is God glorified, even in the midst of this tragedy? As to the first, they recognized that human arrogance had supplanted faith. As to the second, they acknowledged that the Lord had left a testimony that pointed to the Savior — “women and children first,” which reminds us that “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”(John 15:13). These two observations prompted repentance and provided hope and encouragement that continue to inspire men ninety-five years later.