Beware the Orange Peel

Englishman Bobby Leach was the first man to survive a Niagara Falls barrel plunge (though incidentally, a woman- Annie Taylor- had achieved the same ten years earlier) in 1911. It took him six months to recover from the two broken kneecaps and broken jaw- but he survived. In 1926, he slipped on an orange peel in New Zealand, and died as a result.   

In the Final Destination franchise of films, a group of American teenagers on a school trip to Europe narrowly avoid a plane crash. Death, having been cheated of its intended prey, spends the rest of the films attempting to reclaim them in bizarre and gruesome ‘accidents’.

The fifth chapter of Amos’ prophecy declares:

Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

Some of us have had close encounters with death; some even claim near-death experiences. Yet it will claim you in the end, for it is the penalty imposed on all Adam’s heirs. So keep on taking the vitamins, jogging in the rain and keeping Covid-free, but you’ll die eventually. Death will claim you, for you are its to claim. Rather, hear these words from the Lord Jesus, who boldly calls out to our dead and dying race:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24)

If our deserved deaths are sure and inevitable, how surer still are these words of life? Tomorrow, you may slip on that orange peel, so be ready. 

Image by esudroff from Pixabay