REFLECTIONS
September 25, 2005
 
 
When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone,
but the righteous stand firm forever.
Proverbs 10:25
 
 
Preparing for the Storm
 
Have you ever seen anything like it? Two record hurricanes affecting such densely populated areas within a few weeks of each other, gridlock on the evacuation highways, lines at the gasoline pumps only to find none available. What’s going on anyway? Well I certainly don’t know more than anyone else, but with all of the wind, rain and flooding, I can’t help but wonder what it might have been like in Noah’s day.
Back then there was no radio or TV to broadcast the danger of an impending storm. There was only God’s word for it. The world then was too busy to listen—that is except for Noah. I think even Noah must have been a bit baffled by God’s instruction because, as near as I can tell at that time in history, the world had never experienced rain. Now God was telling Noah to build a big boat to prepare for the consequence of sheets of water that would be falling from the sky. “You say what!?” we might hear him say.
The Bible says that God spoke only to Noah perhaps because he had given up on everyone else. God knew that even if TV broadcasters and government officials had been around then to relay evacuation warnings, no one would have listened. Back then it would have been received like science fiction or bazaar words of alarmists.   The world did not listen to God. Noah did.
Now I’m not worried about the world coming to an end from these recent floods. God promised that he would not destroy the world that way ever again. But that doesn’t mean that we should not be preparing for the storm.  Remember the warning that the end times will come “like a thief in the night.”
Maybe this time the world will listen to God. Maybe this time we will hear Jesus’ words, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
This is the message that prepares us to weather the storm. And if we share the message in whatever simple ways we can, we will be helping others to weather it too. Many of them may choose not to listen—but some of them will.
 
“You are the light of the world,”
Richard Ì


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