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From: emery@fluke.UUCP (John Emery)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: The Story of a Captain and his passengers
Message-ID: <1543@vax3.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Nov-85 15:03:30 EST
Article-I.D.: vax3.1543
Posted: Tue Nov 26 15:03:30 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Nov-85 19:01:51 EST
Distribution: na
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 50




This is the story of a captain of a very large ship.  This ship sails
through many rough waters and endures countless stormy nights.  The
passengers are many and the room aboard is plenty.  The people aboard
are from every walk of life.  Everyone on board has a one way ticket.
The ship sails on day and night and the passengers have only heard of 
the destination. 

Yes, once long ago, the captain showed himself to the fathers of the
passengers and told them face to face about the beautiful, wonderful
place that the ship was heading towards.  Since then the captain has
not been seen because he is busy keeping the ship on course.  Yet each
passenger has his very own cabin with a speaker in it.  That captain
talks to each passenger over the speaker even though not all of the
passengers listen.  He speaks to the passengers to comfort them, 
especially during the storms and to give them hope and encouragement 
about the ships destination.

The captain's father designed the ship and the captain himself helped
his father build it.  There is much room aboard the ship for the passengers 
to move about freely.  Aboard the ship the passengers can do anything they 
please and go anywhere they wish.  The captain's father built guard rails
around the ship to prevent any passenger from falling into the waters
below in case one of them went too far towards the edge of the ship.

There is a sad part to this story.  Many of the people aboard do not
trust the captain.  They ignore his voice over their cabin's speaker.
Some feel the captain is lying to them about the destination, believing
he is guiding them in the wrong direction.  Others do not have faith 
that the captain is able to keep the ship on course.  Still others believe
that their fathers made up the story about the captain and that the ship
is just sailing by itself.  They believe this even though the ship survives
countless stormy nights.  "It is only by chance we survive," they claim.

Some of the these passengers change.  They start listening to the captain's
voice and to the people aboard who trust the captain.  Others eventually climb 
over the guard rail and jump into the waters thinking they can make it on 
their own, never to be seen or heard from again.

One day the ship will reach its destination.  By the time it gets there, only
those who listened to and trusted the captain will be left.  All the others
will have jumped off the ship, lost forever. The captain will then show
himself to the  remaining passengers and take them by the hand off the ship 
into their new home.  They will never have to worry about stormy waters again.
They will finally meet the architect of the ship, the captain's father.

John Emery
fluke!emery