JUMPING
TO DEFY LAW

Topics: Defiance; Disobedience; Rebellion; Ten Commandments

References: Deuteronomy 4:1; 30:16

Jan Davis, sixty, a professional parachutist, was BASE jumping when she fell to her death. Her husband, who was filming the jump, and several reporters were stunned when Davis crashed onto the rocks. She was jumping off the thirty-two-hundred-foot granite cliff, El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park, California, when her chute failed to open.

She and the other jumpers knew that BASE jumping was illegal in Yosemite Park. The law was passed because six people and numerous others had been injured in Yosemite due to BASE jumping. The five jumpers, including Davis, were protesting the park’s restrictions by proving the sport is safe. They knew the law, but they deliberately chose to defy it. Davis paid for that disobedience with her life.

In a similar way, many people think they can deliberately violate God’s law. Eventually they learn, sometimes the hard way, that God’s laws exist to protect us.

—Jonathan Mutchler, “Parachutist Perishes,” PreachingToday.com