3 Signs You Could Be Seconds From Disaster!

 From time to time, I like to watch National Geographic’s docuseries, Seconds From Disaster, especially the episodes covering airplane crash investigations.

As the series illustrates, man-made disasters often stem from seemingly minor and easily overlooked errors. Most often, they’re caused by a chain reaction of such errors, any of which could’ve been avoided.

Once there was a manufacturing defect in a jet engine’s turbofan. Over the years, and after 40,000 hours in the sky, this defect developed a stress fracture invisible to the human eye. Flight after flight, this hairline fracture grew, but maintenance crews never noticed. Finally, one summer day in 1989 at 37,000 feet above the earth, the fan ripped apart and shattered. Like rockets, these shards of titanium tore through the engine and the tailfin of the aircraft, severing the hydraulic lines and rendering the aircraft nearly uncontrollable. As the plane lurched toward the earth, the pilots summoned every ounce of flying skill they had to guide it to a crash landing in an Iowa cornfield, saving the lives of 184 of the 296 people on board.

A hairline fracture — unnoticed and uncorrected — led to 112 deaths.

So it is with our spiritual lives. Little things can lead to big disasters if uncorrected.

We can easily get distracted and take our focus off God. We can allow certain lusts to get a foothold in our minds. We can tell ourselves we’ll do something wrong “just this once.” As one turns down the wrong path, and continues to follow it, it becomes increasingly difficult to turn back. As God’s Word tells us, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump” (1 Cor. 5:6; Gal. 5:9).

Like a hairline fracture, a sin that seemed so innocent at the beginning can grow until it threatens one’s whole spiritual life.

Sin allowed into the congregation can spread until the whole congregation is spiritually sick and dying.

The Apostle Paul, too, compared this spiritual disaster to a physical one, one that he experienced more than once in his life. Writing to Timothy, he spoke of those who, “concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck” (1 Tim. 1:19).

Man-made disasters usually have early warning signs that go unnoticed. What about spiritual matters? What are some of the warning signs that we could be “seconds from disaster”?

1. Exalting Oneself

In Deut. 8, as Israel stood poised to enter the Promised Land, God gave the people this warning:

11 Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today,

12 lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them;

13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied;

14 when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God…

17 then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’

18 And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth.

All that we have comes from the hand of God. We truly own nothing; we are caretakers and stewards of God’s possessions. We accomplish nothing on our own; we only use the abilities that God has bestowed upon us. Yet we humans often forget these things and begin to think of ourselves more highly than we ought (Rom. 12:3).

As King Solomon warned, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16:18).

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon would learn this the hard way. First, God warned him, but he didn’t heed the warning. Then, about a year later, as we read in Dan. 4,

30 The king spoke, saying, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?”

31 While the word was still in the king’s mouth, a voice fell from heaven: “King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: the kingdom has departed from you!

32 And they shall drive you from men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make you eat grass like oxen; and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.”

In the Book of Acts, King Herod didn’t learn this lesson, but became an example to others. The king had quarreled with the neighboring people of Tyre and Sidon, until they came and sought to pacify him. We read in Acts 12,

21 So on a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them.

22 And the people kept shouting, “The voice of a god and not of a man!”

23 Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died.

No matter how smart, good-looking, athletic, or pious we think we are, we really aren’t all that. We’re just human beings, “dust and ashes” in the presence of God (Gen. 18:27).

2. Losing Focus

In Yeshua/Jesus’ parable of the sower, some of the seed the sower scattered fell among thorns. He explained, “Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful” (Mat. 13:22).

Letting other things come between us and God is a form of idolatry. Trials and tribulations, the storms of life, can distract us; friends and family can distract us; work, money, and bills can distract us; toys and hobbies can distract us.

We cannot let that happen. Those things are not bad, but we have to keep our priorities straight.

As Jesus taught us, “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Mat. 6:31-33).

If we keep our priorities straight, if we put God first and obey Him to the best of our ability, He will take care of the rest.

Of course, sin can distract us, too. Satan makes sin out to be as sparkling and glamorous to us as possible. He wants us to lust, to long for instant gratification, to long for “the passing pleasures of sin” (Heb. 11:25) more than the Kingdom of God. Partying, drinking, illicit sex, pornography, drugs — they’re supposed to be as enticing as possible, but they lead only to emptiness. Their only purpose is to distract and destroy.

Whatever the distraction might be, it leads us to the same place. When we’re distracted, we begin to open our Bibles less. We begin to pray less. We begin to think of God and His ways less. Over time, the light in us begins to flicker and go out. If we don’t heed God’s warnings and make a course correction, we could end up worse off than ever.

As Pet. 2:20-21 tells us, “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.”

3. Trusting One’s Own Heart

Since man first took off into the sky, many planes have plummeted and crashed due to pilot error. In bad weather or low visibility, with no visual point of reference, pilots can get disoriented. In these circumstances, they have to trust their instruments over their own senses. Failure to do so has resulted in some fliers flying nose-up into a stall or nose-down into the earth without realizing their error until it was too late.

In our spiritual journey, we, too, have a flight instrument that we must trust over our emotions and personal feelings: God’s Word. Prov. 3:5 tells us, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”

Emotions and feelings are not gauges of truth. As Jer. 17:9 tells us, “The heart is deceitful above all things.”

There is never a time to trust our feelings over God’s Word. There is never a time to think that we know better than God, or that we have better judgment than He.

In 1 Sam. 15, God commanded King Saul to destroy the Amalekites and all their possessions, but Saul thought he knew better. He spared the Amalekite king and plundered their possessions. He trusted his own judgment over God’s command.

Samuel the prophet rebuked him, like warning lights and alarms trying to alert a pilot before he crashes, but Saul refused to correct his course. Instead, he made excuses and tried to justify himself.

Samuel reminded Saul of how far he had fallen, “When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the LORD anoint you king over Israel?” (1 Sam. 15:17). But Saul refused to listen.

God gave Saul many more years, but having started down the path of destruction, he refused to turn from it. He sought to kill David out of jealousy, tried to kill his own son Jonathan for protecting David (1 Sam. 20:30-34), murdered the priests of God with their families (1 Sam. 22), and invoked God’s blessing on his actions (1 Sam. 23:21). Finally, on the eve of his death in battle, realizing that God had left him, he turned to the counsel of demons (1 Sam. 28).

This is the way of trusting one’s own heart and desires over God. Does this happen with us? Sadly, it happens all the time!

Let’s consider 1 Cor. 5. Paul began this passage by writing, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles — that a man has his father’s wife!” (1 Cor. 5:1).

The Corinthians were very tolerant. They welcomed this sinner with open arms.

What was Paul’s response? Did he praise the Corinthians for welcoming a sinner into their midst? Let’s see.

“And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (1 Cor. 5:2, 6).

Well, it doesn’t sound like Paul praised the Corinthians’ tolerance, does it? No indeed.

On the contrary, he exhorted them, “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:4-5).

Do God’s people today follow God’s Word on this matter, or their own judgment? Let’s look around us for a moment.

Couples shacking up and living in sin? Folks committing adultery, divorcing their spouses, and remarrying with nary an action taken by the congregation? Sodomites and crossdressers welcomed in the congregation while still practicing these sins? These things really happen in self-proclaimed churches of God!

Of course, the congregations have excuses for this, just like King Saul did. There’s always an excuse. Always a reason we should follow our own judgment over God’s.

Folks say we should welcome sinners. I agree! Repentant sinners, those who have changed their way of life, must be welcomed.

Did Yeshua/Jesus show love toward sinners? You bet! And what did He tell them? Did He tell them to carry on and that He loved them anyway? No! He said, “Go and sin no more!” (John 8:11).

The unrepentant must be banished from the congregation, not just as a wakeup call to them, but as a warning to others.

Blatant, ongoing sin within the congregations of God is the leaven that will leaven the whole lump. It’s the hairline fracture that will spread until it brings about disaster.

Refusal to confront sin in its early stages will result in worse sin further down the road — a disaster that could’ve easily been prevented by taking swift action.

Whether in our own lives or within the congregation, wanton sin cannot be tolerated. It must be expunged. We must trust God’s judgment over our own, and His Word over our own desires.

In the end, these three warning signs of spiritual disaster all boil down to one thing: idolatry. They show that we’re valuing someone or something more than God. That we’re breaking the greatest of the two great commandments: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mat. 22:37; Deut. 6:5).

If any of these alarms are going off, let’s heed them and change course before it’s too late!