We have just returned from a five-thousand-mile, round-trip train ride to visit friends and relatives. Our return arrival was twenty hours late. This was due to an accident of a westbound passenger train that passed our eastbound train in the night. The westbound train had gone about a hundred miles past us when it sideswiped the back of a freight train that was pulling into a siding. A few people were hurt in that accident, but even though it didn’t involve our train, we were held up several hours for security reasons. Then later that afternoon, we passed several freight cars that had derailed as the result of a track washout four days earlier.
All this brought me back to my boyhood days, remembering the railroad track behind our house. Those were the days of the big, bellowing steam locomotives. They were fueled by coal, shoveled into the boiler by a “fireman,” and smoke would belch from the stack as the engineer pulled on the throttle to pick up speed. The locomotive’s large drive wheels were turned by long piston rods that clanked as they moved back and forth.
Modern trains have sealed wheel bearings, but the freight cars in those days had journal boxes filled with grease next to each wheel. If the journal box ran dry, then what was called a “hot box” developed, and the wheel would burn off of its axle! This was the cause of two train wrecks in five years and within three blocks of our house. In each case, a “hot box” caused a wheel to fall off, and the crippled car caused the cars behind it to pile up on top of it.
When my father went on a business trip back then, he traveled by car or train. On one particular train trip, I went to the station to pick him up, but the train didn’t show up. The ticket agent said that the train had been wrecked about forty miles away, but he had no details. I drove home, praying to the Lord for my father’s safety. Soon a taxi drove up, and my father got out, safe and sound. He told us that his train was made up of the locomotive, two baggage cars and the passenger car he was in at the end. He said, “I felt a hard jolt, and the car stopped. I got up and walked to the front of the car, and I could see all the way down the tracks! There was that big locomotive and the baggage cars, lying on their sides alongside the track.” He learned that a pickup truck had pulled in front of the engine and had gotten caught under the cow catcher and wheels, derailing the front part of the train.
Each of us is on one of two trains that travel in opposite directions. One is called “The Salvation Train,” and its destination is heaven. It can never derail, for the Lord Jesus said, “My sheep . . . shall never perish” (John 10:2728). The fare for this train has already been paid! It is a gift from God, because He sent His only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who paid the price when He died on the cross. “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:2424Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)). All that is required for you to come aboard this train is to admit that you are a sinner and believe in your heart that Jesus died for your sins.
The other train is called “The Destruction Train,” and its destination is in the wreckage of hell fire. It is a long train, filled with those people who have ignored God’s love and rejected Jesus’ death on the cross as their fare to heaven. Satan is the conductor on this train, and he is attracting men, women and children by offering them the “riches and pleasures of this life” (Luke 8:1414And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. (Luke 8:14)).
Won’t you accept the Lord Jesus as your Saviour now and come aboard “The Salvation Train” while there is still time? This train will be leaving soon, for the Lord Jesus is coming anytime to take home to heaven all who are on “The Salvation Train.” The “all aboard” announcement has already been given. Are you on board?
ML-03/31/2002