THEY FOUND A BODY

At 1:20 PM on Friday, May 7, 1915, the commander of the German Submarine U20, Walther Schwieger, sighted the RMS Lusitania in the Irish Sea. He ordered ordered the submarine to submerge five minutes later to a depth of 36 feet. At that depth, out of sight, he would prepare his attack on the British behemoth. It was WWI, or as they called it then, The Great War. England and Germany were going at it, big time.

Observing the Lusitania through the periscope, Schwieger didn't think that U20 and the Lusitania would be in a line which would render his attack effective.  Then, RMS Lusitania turned.  Seeing the opportunity, Commander Schwieger brought his submarine into position. From 765 yards away, Schwieger ordered his crew to fire one torpedo. There is an account, unverified, that the officer he ordered to press the button to launch the lethal weapon refused to do so. No matter, someone pushed the button. 

It ran through the waters at a depth of 10 feet, full speed ahead. Its journey into the history books had begun.

BOOM!

The result was a direct hit on the 787 foot long, 31,550 ton Lusitania and its 1,949 passengers and crew. 18 minutes later, the RMS Lusitania sank beneath the waves of the Irish Sea. (Three years earlier, the RMS Titanic had taken 2 hours and 40 minutes to sink from hitting an iceberg.)

That one torpedo killed a catastrophic total of 1,198 men, women, children, and babies. Only 38.5% survived, even though the Lusitania contained lifeboats which could hold 2,605 people, more than enough to save all on board; the Titanic had taught the world a lesson. Crewmen were able to launch only 6 them successfully.

MACABRE SCENE

For weeks after the sinking, hundreds of bodies washed up on the Irish shores:

"A pitiful little group of men and women, many bandaged, some on crutches, besieged the Cunard Offices (the company that owned the Lusitania) in the seaport town of Cobh, Ireland. Grieving mothers wandered the town, looking for their children.

A report stated, that one parent, frantic and in deep grief, distributed this message: 'Lusitania – missing baby; missing a baby girl, fifteen months old. Very fair curly hair and rosy complexion.'"

Bodies pulled from the sea were laid out in as dignified display as possible so their loved ones and relatives could identify them. The US consul in Cobh, Wesley Frost, recalled seeing “five or six drowned women with drowned babies in their arms."

THEY FOUND A BODY

Some time later, a body washes up on shore, and the question of where he came from is easily answered. He was clutching a piece of wood in his hands and on the wood was one word: "Lusiatania." For whatever reason, he was not able to get into a lifeboat or one of the collapsible life boats or one of life rafts. For whatever reason, he was not picked up by the many ships and boats which came to the rescue. He grabbed his own conveyance, that piece of wood which would be his life raft. But, the raft on which depended failed him.

THE MANUAL

As high as the stakes were at 2:12 PM on May 7, 1915, when the German torpedo hit the Lusitania, they're higher when it comes to one's eternal destiny. And many are the pieces of wood that can't carry us to the shores of heaven's gates.

There are those who tell us that we can build our own life raft to heaven. They give us the instructions of its assembly. As one instruction manual says, its construction is a step-by-step procedure:

1. Hear
2.  Believe
3. Repent--feel honest regret for wrong doings
4. Confess--admit mistakes (How many? I can't remember them all.)
5. Try your very best not to do them again (Good luck with that one.)
6. Ask Christ to have a part in your life--John 1:11-12. (Read John 1:11-12 and you'll see that it says nothing of the kind.)
7. Remain faithful.
8. Present your body a living sacrifice with ongoing commitment.
9. Ask for His lordship and guidance throughout your life.

We see that according to the manual which I've quoted verbatim (except the personal comments in parentheses) there are 9 steps involved in building the raft. According to the instructions, the steps never end until you die; you have to spend your life building it; as it says in Step 9, "Ask for His lordship and guidance throughout your life." The manual presents a feel/work/try/remain/present/ask plan that's years in the construction.

No grace there; it's lordship salvation on steroids, The manual is rife with what man can do for God to be saved. It's filled with self-promotion.

God has written His manual, the gospel of John and it presents, not 9 steps, not 8 steps, but the same 1step 99 times just so we'll get it: believe. No works, no feeling, no trying, no remaining, no presenting, no asking. Salvation is not based on what man can do for God; it's based on what God has done for man.

God's plan is without cost to us. Man's plan builds a costly, albeit, deadly raft indeed.