I’m going to Mexico with a group of students from UAM. We are leaving in 10 days. I’m getting calls everyday about whether or not we should go.

It seems that somewhere in Mexico there is a drug war going on. Those who have the drugs are angry at those who want to enforce the drug laws and so there have been some assasinations and random shootings. Now, mind you, this isn’t occuring all across Mexico but the way it’s being reported you might think that they are killing people in the streets all over the country.

I’m grateful for all the help but I need some solid answers. I need to know if it’s safe to cross the border during the day. I need to know if the highways are passable or are there bandits waiting for my arrival. Can I stop and get fuel anywhere or should I avoid certain towns?

People have printed out articles and given them to me. I have been given emails with video clips attached from World News Tonight. I’ve seen the memos from Arizona State and the University of Arizona warning students not to go to Mexico for Spring Break. I’ve had phone calls and personal visits. You’d think this was a big deal or something.

Is it a big deal. Lives are on the line and people are concerned and they should be. I’m about to carry the most precious cargo on earth into another country and people are trying to safeguard the students and myself. I am grateful. I assure you, I will not cross that border unless I have assurances that those students will be as safe as is resonably possible.

But look, there is a much greater danger lurking at our doorstep. It affects every man, woman, boy, and girl that we see. It is the immanent danger of someone leaving this life without knowing Jesus as their Savior. If anyone dies before they receive the forgiveness of their sins through the blood of Christ then they will spend an eternity separated from God. Do you understand what I am saying?

Everyone you see is an eternal soul wrapped in an earthly shell. Death is going to take everyone of them. Noone you see will escape, barring the rapture. All of us must stand before a holy and righteous and just God and give an account of our lives. We will have no excuse for our sin. There must be a payment for all that we have done. There are two ways to pay for our sin. We can accept the payment that Jesus made on the cross by asking Him to forgive our sin and take control of our lives or we can spend an eternity separated from God in a perpetual state of burning and falling through utter darkness with no hope of rescue.

Hell is a real place. Hell was created for the devil and his angels and it enlarges itself, daily, to accomodate those who must enter. Look it up. People are going there every day. Do you really believe that? Do you honestly think about the fact that the people around you may leave this place and go to that place where there is no rest, no comfort, no love, no light, no hope; where “the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”

Have you seen the movie Titanic? Do you remember the scene where the boat has vanished beneath the water and all the passengers are in the water thrashing and screeming and no help is anywhere to be seen? Can you imagine sitting in a lifeboat, just a few hundred yards from that spectacle? People did. They sat in the boats until the noise died down and then they went in to look for survivors. They waited because they were afraid that there were so many in the water that they would be tipped and drowned themselves.

We are sitting closer than a few hundred yards from souls who are in much more dangerous circumstances. They are on the verge of disaster. At any moment they may slip out into eternity. People die all the time. What are we waiting for? They aren’t going to affect our eternal status. They can’t hurt us. We have the cure for the most dangerous ailment of the human race and we are sitting on our hands. We aren’t talking. We watch spiders fill our baptistries with cobwebs and undertakers fill our patures with headstones and we stand idly by.

If hell is real and death is real then we better do something. There will be blood on our hands. I do not want to stand before God speechless because I cannot explain how I knew of grace and mercy and did not share it with those who were in greatest need. Lower the lifeboats and row into the mob. We cannot save them all but He can.