Baby and the Beautician
Luke 13:22-30
In 1977 I decided to become a licensed boat captain. It was during that time that I had the opportunity to meet a man named “Baby”. He got the nickname because when he was in the second grade, he had to quit school and go to work to support his single mom and his brothers and sisters. Baby went to work on a commercial snapper fishing boat as a second grader. Baby became the skipper of a boat when he was only 14 years old. He was a natural at boatmanship. He graduated from snapper boats to work boats such as cable layers, ocean going tugs and oil field boats. He had navigated all over the world and had handled boats up to 300 feet in all sorts of weather and sea conditions.
Baby was running a standby boat in 1977 when the coast guard started requiring an official license for the captains of such. It was during that time that I had the privilege of trying to help him pass the exam. You see, since he only had a 2nd grade education, reading and test taking were very difficult for him. In fact he failed every practice exam he was given and then when the real final exam came, he failed it as well. Baby just could not read and comprehend the test well enough to pass it. Baby could not pass the academic requirements to get a license, but it was more than obvious that he had a thorough and intimate knowledge of the sea and had many living experiences to prove it.
During the time that I knew him, he related some stories about his adventures at sea. I remember two of them very well. Once, as he was headed out of the Mississippi River in bad weather, the boat he was in charge of started acting tenderly, meaning it did not respond to rudder or power commands like it should. He took the deck hand with him to look for the problem after putting his first mate on the helm. Upon entering the engine compartment he found it flooding rapidly. Water would soon reach the air intakes of the engines and shut them down. He found the cause, a large hole in the bottom. He sent the deck hand to get a mattress out of the berthing compartment while he started the emergency pumps. When the deckhand returned with the mattress, he put it over the hole and then made the deckhand stand on the mattress with the instructions that if he got off, they would sink and probably die. After taking the helm again, he was able to maneuver the boat back to shore where he beached it until repairs could be made.
On another occasion, he was moored near an oil rig on a standby boat when the weather turned horrible. Now a standby boat does exactly as the name implies. The boat is to standby an oil rig, usually on a mooring buoy, until the last person is evacuated in the event of an emergency. It is a safety measure to prevent loss of life in the event of bad weather or other emergency. Well, during this bad weather, Baby had the boat going full speed ahead into the wind in order to take the strain off the 1” steel cable that he was moored with. The wind and sea was so fierce that it caused the cable to snap and fly back to the deckhouse knocking out windows. Folks, it takes a lot of force to snap a 1” diameter steel cable. He had to maneuver in that terrible weather until the wind subsided and he got get back to the oil rig. He fought the sea for hours and was blown several miles from the rig before he could return.
Well at the same time Baby was struggling to prove his ability academically to obtain a license, there was a beautician getting her license. She had claimed, as part of the documented sea time requirement, experience at the age of 4 on her daddy’s runabout. The limit of her experience was on a boat less than 26’ long and she had never been out of the sight of land. However, having some college and being relatively intelligent, she had no problem in passing the exam. She got her license on the first try. Baby made several attempts to get his and only after the coast guard gave him a practical exam on a supply boat was he able to acquire his license. He was able to demonstrate his intimate knowledge of the sea by his ability to handle the boat, navigate from rig to rig, holding it up in the sea, and handling emergencies as they arose. He demonstrated his genuine intimate knowledge by proof of action rather than academics.
Question:
With whom would you rather go to sea, Baby or the beautician? Which one had the genuine relationship with the sea? Which one could count on intimate knowledge to assure deliverance from danger? Who had the intimate knowledge and who only had the head knowledge of the sea?
Jesus addressed the issue of head knowledge verses intimate knowledge in Luke 13:22-30. (Read)
The person asking the question was probably referring the promised remnant of Israel. That person must have had some knowledge of the Scriptures for God had said many times that a remnant would remain and be saved. However notice what Jesus replies to the question of “Lord, are there just a few being saved?”
Rigid Requirement: Jesus set forth a rigid requirement. It has several components to its rigidity.
Restricted Path: “enter by the narrow door”
1. A narrow door is the only way to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is the only way to be saved. Jesus said in John 14:6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.
2. In John 10:7, Jesus said “I am the door of the sheep”
3. In John 3:3 Jesus said “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven”
4. There is only one way to heaven. You must be born again by trusting in the shed blood of Jesus Christ alone for salvation.
Required Diligence:
1. Jesus used the word “strive” as the required diligence for entry. Strive is the same word we use for agonize. It requires diligence and perseverance. It was used of the effort exhibited in athletic competition.
2. The response to the question of your eternal salvation is the most important decision you will ever be faced with
3. To illustrate this issue of striving and the importance of the decision consider this. Suppose you are in the 4th quarter of the championship football game. Your team is behind by 2 points. Your team has the ball on the opponent’s 35 yard line. There are only 3 seconds on the game clock. Your team’s quarterback has been injured and cannot pass for a touchdown. The opposing team has shut down your running game. The only possible way to score is by a field goal. You are the field goal kicker. You are called aside by the coach and given the task of either winning or losing the game by the effort you put forth in kicking the field goal. You alone have that responsibility. I guarantee that you will STRIVE.
Restricted Time: There is a restriction as to the time allowed for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus uses the illustration of the master getting up to shut the door. There will come a time when the door of opportunity will be closed for a lost person. A time is coming when he will no longer feel the pulling at his heart by the Holy Spirit to lead him to salvation. That time is known only by the master. We are told in Isaiah 55:6 to “Seek the Lord while He may be found”. No one is guaranteed another heartbeat. None of us know when our last heartbeat will occur. Many people think that they have all the time in the world to make the decision to accept Jesus Christ. To coin a cliché, “if you snooze, you lose!” Dear friend, do not wait until it is too late! You don’t know the time that the master will shut the door. You don’t know when your heart will stop beating!
Restricted Entry: Notice that the entry into the Kingdom is restricted. Verse 24 tells us that many will seek to enter but will not be able. Why is that? First of all, I bet if you asked all the people entering the local Wal-Mart if they wanted to go to heaven, you would not find any that say no. If a person believes in any sort of Hell, they do not want to go there. Only those who do not believe in Hell or who believe that it is not a place of torment would be willing to go there. Secondly, II Peter 3:9 tells us that God’s will is that none should perish but all should come to repentance. Many people will be restricted and not allowed to enter heaven because they have waited too late, did not think God was serious about Hell, or trusted in another way to gain entrance.
Request of the Rejected: In verse 25 we see the request of the rejected. They say “Lord open up to us.” They request entrance after the time has run out and the door is shut. Notice the reply of the master: “I do not know where you are from”. When the opportunity for salvation is passed, there will be no way of gaining entrance into Heaven. Jesus warned of this in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. If you recall, the rich man wanted to have his thirst quenched by Lazarus. In Luke 16:26 Abraham responded that there was a great chasm fixed that separated Heaven from Hell and there was no crossing over.
Rationalization of the Many: The rejected offer rationalization as to why they should be allowed entrance into heaven. Notice what they say. “We ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets.” They claimed that having a meal with Jesus or listening to His teaching qualified them for entrance. If we put it in today’s church we might hear something like this: “I came to every covered dish supper the church had; I came to church every Sunday; I listened to every sermon preached. I sang in the choir; I gave a tithe; I worked at every church work day.” Dear friend, knowing Jesus as personal Lord and Savior does not depend on what you have done, but on whom you have trusted. Many people may be able to tell you that Jesus is the son of God but have not put their trust in Him for eternal life. Such rationalization is met with final and absolute rejection by the master. “Depart from me all you evildoers”
Results of Rejection: The place of eternity for the rejected is Hell. It is characterized by a place where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. It will be a place where the lost will see what they have missed. The rejected will “see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God”. Imagine what it would be to be on the outside looking in. Imagine being in a place of constant torment as described in Luke 16 and seeing the joy and happiness to which you could never experience. Part of the suffering of Hell will be seeing what you could have had but chose not to have!
Priority of Entry: In verses 29 and 30 we see the order of entrance. Coming from east and west and north and south denotes the gentiles entrance into the Kingdom. To the Jew who asked the initial question, this must have been a surprise. Birthright had nothing to do with the order of entry. Many people consider their birthright, that is who were their parents as a reason that they should be included into Heaven. They say things like “my parents were charter members of this church, or I was raised in a Christian home.” Such reasoning has no more validity for salvation that being born in an oven makes you a biscuit. In fact, being raised in a Christian home could give a person the idea of being good when in fact they must recognize their own sinfulness before salvation can occur. Also look at the phrase “some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.” It is said that C.H. Spurgeon said something along the lines of this: “it is easier for a drunken reprobate to enter heaven than a good man.” It will be that some of the last to hear the gospel will be the first to accept it and that some of the first to hear it, and who have heard it all their lives, will be the last to accept the immutable truth of “you must be born again”.
Summary: This message started with a real life example of the intimate knowledge of the sea by a man with a 2nd grade education compared to the intellectual knowledge of a college educated person. Only the true intimate knowledge will save in time of danger. Only an intimate knowledge of God through Jesus Christ will save you. All the head knowledge in the world will not do a thing for you when it is time to answer the question that God may ask. He may just ask you “Why should I let you into My Heaven?”
