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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Speaker 2: 0:20

All right, welcome to another week of the Daily Blade. I am pumped to have you guys here. So I, like many of you, love history. So it's literally an endless supply of information and stories and in particular I get caught up in a lot of like specific time periods and people groups. So the rise and fall of the Roman Empire I love that the westward expansion and exploration of the United States, and then there's all the conflicts with the American Indian tribes. And, as a Choctaw Indian myself, I like hearing about how my ancestors used to live. I'm also a Celtic mutt, so anything to do with the Irish or the Scottish I'm here for, and I love the history of the greatest game yes, the greatest game ever invented, and that is baseball. So I love hearing me some stories about the greats like Stan Musial and Ted Williams and Babe Ruth, and then anything to do with my favorite players from the 90s and 2000s like King Griffey Jr, yadier Molina, randy Johnson, so on and so forth. But I'm also drawn to the dark tragedies of history and namely, since I was a kid, I had a tremendous interest in the shipwreck and subsequent sinking of the RMS Titanic. So, as most of you at least tangentially know about at this point.

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The Titanic set out for her maiden voyage on April the 10th of 1912. It was billed as an unsinkable ship and it was the largest and most luxurious ship that had ever been built up to that point in human history. But on April the 14th 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg on the starboard side and this was a catastrophic wreck that led to the sinking of the ship in the early hours of April the 15th. Roughly 1,500 people died in this tragedy, with only just about 700 survivors. So there's been a lot of ink spilled and documentaries made about how and why this you know leviathan of a ship actually sank.

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But this week we're going to focus on real-life stories of courage and sacrifice from the tragic shipwreck and sinking of the Titanic, many of which I bet most of you are unfamiliar with, and we're going to talk about how they relate to similar stories from the Word of God. And I'm just going to tell you from the beginning here all these stories that you're going to hear this week are great and incredible for one reason or another, but Friday's episode may change everything about how you view evangelism. So do not miss any episode this week, and especially not Friday. So if you've seen depictions of the Titanic, you know post-iceberg strike, whether in film or in art, there's one thing that these images have in common that might just go right over your head, cause it did for me the lights of the Titanic are still on, even as she's sinking. And the story behind this is incredible, because when the Titanic set sail, it did so with a few dozen engineers, electricians and boiler makers, and they were led by the chief engineer, joseph Bell, and the team was charged with running the massive steam engines, the pumps and the generators that powered the entire ship.

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Now, when the Titanic struck the iceberg just before midnight on April the 14th 1912, the lower section of the ship, where the boilers and the engines were that, began flooding immediately. So at this point, joseph Bell and the rest of the crew had a decision to make that would really directly impact the lives of over 2,000 people on board Abandon their posts or stay at their posts. Now you might be thinking well, it's every man for himself right now, at this point, right, and that they would, you know, eventually just try to save themselves, or maybe immediately. But that's not what these men did. They stayed at their posts, knowing that it would almost assuredly lead to them all losing their lives. So why in the world would they do that? To give the people of the ship the best chance possible to survive. So the engineers knowing that they were going to die, they did everything in their power to keep the electric generators running. And what this did? It actually accomplished three things. Number one the lights remained on, which allowed the passengers and the crew to see in the pitch black of night. Secondly, the water pumps kept going, so this delayed the sinking of the ship. And thirdly, the wireless radios remained usable, so this allowed for the distress signals to be dispatched. More on that later this week.

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And what was the result of all this? It gave the crew the critical time required to save as many people as possible. So these men stayed below so that there could be hope above. And this reminded me of the words of Jesus that we see in John 10, starting in verse 7. So Jesus again said to them, starting in verse 7. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. Just like the good shepherd, these men stayed behind, and not, for, you know, vain glory or some illusions of grandeur, but to serve others, to sacrifice. They willingly laid down their lives so that others may live. May we have the courage to make the same decision if presented with that opportunity.

Speaker 1: 5:11

Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go. If you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review. Stay sharp.