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How pilots responded when their jet engine erupted in fire: A Good Friday reflection · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's good Friday, April the 3rd, 2026, and this is Denison Forum's Daily Article podcast.
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Chris Elkins, nearator.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today's Daily article is authored by our chief vision officer, Dr. Jim Denison.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Delta Flight 104, with 272 passengers and 14 crew, had just departed so Paolo's Guruless.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: International Airport on Sunday, when flames shot out from its left engine.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Passage is screamed for the pilots to turn around the jet.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: They immediately declared an emergency, shut down the affected engine, and circle back to the airport, landing safely shortly after their departure.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: video from inside the cabin shows passengers erupting into applause and cheers when the aircraft came to a stop.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: No injuries were reported.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine yourself inside that airplane.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you could speak to the pilots, what would you say to them today?
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or a year from today?
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's come back to that thought and it's good Friday relevance in a moment.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was once given a ticket for what the officer claimed was an illegal left turn.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I disagreed, but an attorney convinced me that the chances of winning my argument in court were ill.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I paid a fine and received deferred adjudication by avoiding another ticket for six months.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I also avoided what is known as a final conviction.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was by the grace of my attorney friend.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: He advised me prior to my hearing drove me to the courthouse, led my case before the judge, and negotiated the mercy I received.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: He would not let me pay him
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine that I had committed a capital offense and had been sentenced to death and that the court somehow allowed my friend to die in my place.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: In that case, his sacrifice makes logical sense.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: My penalty was death, so he died to pay it.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, I was accused of committing an illegal left turn.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: For my friend to die to pay for my crime would make no logical sense at all.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have never committed murder or otherwise done anything for which the sentence is death.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why then, in attoning for my sins, did Jesus have to die for them?
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: We call this day of Holy Week, good Friday.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though I can assure you that no one present on that day called it that, the earliest use of the title is in text from around AD 1290.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Oxford English dictionary suggests that good in this context refers to, quote, a day or season observed as holy by the church.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: etymology aside, humanity has an excellent reason to call this day good.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: On this day, Jesus suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, stated in 1 Peter 3 verse 18, but why did he have to die to do so?
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sin cuts us off from the Holy God who from Acts 17 verse 25,
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: and leads eventually and ultimately to death, stated in Romans 6 verse 23.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you cut a flower from its roots, the flower will die.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The debt incurred by sin, therefore, must be paid by death, either ours or someone else's on our behalf.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: But since every other human except Jesus has sinned as we have, they have their own debt to pay and cannot pay hours according to Romans 3 verse 23.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I have $100 and $100, I cannot use my money to pay your debt as well.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is one reason the gospel so adamantly demonstrates Jesus' innocence with regard to his trials and conviction revealed in Luke 23, verses 14 and 15, and John 18, verse 38.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: If he had committed sin, his death could not pay for our sins, but because Hebrews 4, verse 15 reveals that he was tempted as we are yet without sin, he had no debt of his own to pay, and thus could pay hours.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, there's another question, why could God not simply forgive our debt?
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you run into my car on the street, I can forgive you without requiring your death or even that you pay for the damages.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, the judge in my case had the power to dismiss all charges.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: If he wished, he could simply have forgiven me and my alleged misdeeds.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he could not do so and do his job.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: The policeman who issued my ticket was as convinced of my guilt as I was of my innocence.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: The judge had no way to satisfy the demands of justice, while ignoring or forgiving might legal debt.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Bible says that God is both love in 1 John 4 verse 8 and holy in Isaiah 6 verse 3 and Revelation 4 verse 8.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: With regard to our sins, how is he to be both?
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Billy Graham expressed God's quandary this way.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: If God were simply to forgive our sins without judging them, then there would be no justice, no accountability for wrongdoing.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: God could not be truly holy and just.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if God were simply to judge us for our sins as we deserve, there would be no hope of salvation for any of us.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: His love would have failed to provide what we need.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Graham explained the answer.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: The cross is the only way to resolve the problem of sin.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: At the cross, God's love and justice come together.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: If the judge in my case had pronounced me guilty and then paid the fine himself, he would have been loving and just.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was no other logical way for him to be both.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine that someone died physically in your place, perhaps a soldier shielded you from a grenade that would have killed you, or a police officer stepped in front of a bullet meant for you.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Would you go a day of your life
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: if they somehow came back to life, what would you do to express your gratitude to them?
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bishop, Fulton J. Sheen noted, unless there is a good Friday in your life, there can be no Easter Sunday.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: You and I will have all of eternity, thank Jesus for this day.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: But remember, eternity starts today.