Who are the REAL Heroes?

by Michael Aprile

People like to have heroes, because it allows them to live vicariously through them.  Most of us generally realize that we will never be heroes in the sense of the firefighters that help people out of bad or impossible circumstances.  It is good to appreciate these people who risk their lives everyday for us.  As I thought hard read Scripture and meditated on the subject of heroes, I came to some startling discoveries.  I would like to share these with you here.

We have all been faced, in varying degrees, by the seeming tragedy of the 9/11/2001 terrorist acts.  We like to give events like this names like "terrorism," however, these acts are just flat murder.  Murder goes on everyday in this world, even from the beginning of time (see Cain).  Unfortunately, murders have not, and will not, end with the one on 9/11/2001.

Something that always accompanies murder is death.  There have been no murders, past or present, without death.  Though we do not expect murders to be commonplace and acceptable, we have come to accept that death is at least a possibility, if not a probability, for everyone, in common.

Ask yourself this question, "What hero could save us from impending death?"   The bravest of firemen in the 9/11/2001 act, were able to snatch probably hundreds of people from immediate death, probably without a thought for their own safety and a keen sense of duty.  However, try as they will, these same firemen were helpless to save those same people, or even themselves, from eventual death.

You might be asking, "What is your point?"   My point is aimed directly at heroes, as we make them.  The title of this article is "Who are the REAL heroes?"  To understand this, we have to get some perspective, which is one thing I don't believe Americans, or other peoples of this world, have yet developed.  From the terrorist organizations' perspective (if I may, for just a second), those ridiculous and selfish terrorists who lost their lives (supposedly for Allah) were the heroes.  This belief was obviously and painfully reflected by the people who were dancing in the streets over our disaster on 9/11/2001.  These people believe that those terrorist pilots took their own souls into God's sanctuary and were rewarded eternally.  The truth of the matter is that these men are now doomed, for eternity, to the fires of Hell.

Of the people who died on the planes, as victims, and those who did not escape the buildings (be it the Towers or the Pentagon), they were one of two cases.  Either they were saved through the grace of God, though belief in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, or they were not saved, in their disbelief and have the exact same doom throughout eternity as the those terrorists.  I realize that this is a harsh reality, and hard to swallow, but it is the truth (according to Scripture).

This concludes that the real victims of these tragedies, and the real tragedy itself, is those persons who did not come to believe in Jesus Christ alone for their eternal salvation.  This group includes, once again, both the terrorists, and all those particular victims, either lost in the buildings or who escaped from the buildings, who did not come to trust in Jesus Christ alone for eternal salvation.  If we are to mourn and be sad for anyone, it should be for these people.  It is too late for all the victims, except those unbelievers who escaped the buildings (if any of them dare to still not believe).  These unbelievers should be acutely aware of their need for salvation from final and eternal death, by now.  They should immediately repent and turn toward the Lord and He is faithful to secure them.

Now you might want to say to me, "You can't believe that those people who did good things and were good people were not somehow instantly translated into Heaven and eternal salvation."  Scripture points out that the things we do may start out as things we do good for others, but the more we do these good things the more we are really doing them for the glory and good feeling we get from it.  This is just human nature.  Even heroes would admit this, if honest.  In Scripture, doing good things to try to get into Heaven is called Asceticism.  This does not please God or fool Him.  It also reveals that the only truly good acts, in this life, come as the fruit of God's Spirit within us and not directly from us.  The fruit of the plant does not generally make the plant good, but it does reveal good in the plant.  The Scripture reveals that the only good thing is God.  If we see any good in a person, it is also of God.

Okay, you ask, then "Who are the REAL heroes?"  The real heroes, not to take away from the bravery of the firemen and all who have helped and given their lives, are the pastors, evangelists, and individual Christians who influenced those people who died in the terrorist acts, and any others, to come to know Jesus Christ alone for their salvation.  These genuine heroes knew that these people would someday ALL die and meet their Maker, and when that occurred, they would have to give an answer to why they refused to believe and trust in Christ.  These heroes gave up a life of being comfortable in a world of sinners and disbelievers, not being able to participate in the lusts and pleasures that are their natural desires also as human beings, so that those victims would not be doomed, upon their death, to the ever-consuming fires of Hell.  This is a different type of giving up their lives (such as the life that Christ gave for them).  These unsung heroes, unrecognized (for the most part) by the world or news media, cared so much about the inevitable victims of eternal death that they told them about eternal life and the escape from death that is only possible through Jesus Christ and that is readily available to all ... thanks to a God that loves us so much.

Go to a Christian church near you and find out how you can be saved from the catastrophies to come in this life and actually escape death in the eternal life to come.  Meet the REAL heroes there.