Gilbert Troche, an off-duty San Pablo (CA) police officer, was on the way home from the movies with his family when they saw a woman on the side of the road in Livermore crying hysterically.  “She was holding her baby kind of against her shoulder, so I stopped the car, I jumped out, and I went over to her,” explained Troche.

The woman handed her baby to Troche.  He saw that the baby’s cheeks were turning blue – a sign that the baby was choking.  Troche began doing back thrusts on the baby and coaching the mother to do a finger sweep in the baby’s mouth to try to clear the airway.  Troche looked back at his family in their vehicle and instructed them to call 9-1-1.  Troche kept performing the back thrusts.  After 2-3 minutes, the baby coughed, threw up, and began to cry; the airway was clear.

“I definitely don’t feel like a hero,” Troche told KRON-TV.  “I think anybody in that situation that had seen her there as distraught as she was would have probably tried to do the same thing,” Troche said.

I think the mother would call Troche a hero, don’t you?  He responded at just the right time and helped a struggling child.

There is another Hero who responded at “just the right time” to save each of us from death and destruction.

Because of our sins, we are under the sentence of death (Romans 6:23).  We are helpless and hopeless in our sins without outside intervention (see Romans 5:6-10).

But God loves us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to our rescue (John 3:16; Galatians 1:4).  Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that we can be saved (1 John 4:9-10).  He “gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (Galatians 1:4).  Only Jesus could save us, for only the sinless Son of God could pay the price for sinful humanity (1 Peter 3:18).

God will save and give eternal life to those who place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  He will continue to cleanse from sin those who continue to walk in the light of His Word (1 John 1:7-9).

“In the fullness of time” or “at just the right time” – God sent His Son to redeem us from sin so that we might be adopted as children of God (see Galatians 4:4-5).

The right time to accept His offer of salvation and eternal life is now.  Won’t YOU?

-- David A. Sargent

* Information gleaned from “Off-duty officer saves choking baby in Livermore” by Michelle Kingston, KRON 4, San Francisco, CA, www.kron4.com.

David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

Archived issues of Living Water can be viewed and accessed from our website at: www.creekwoodcc.org