The Power of Choice
I was watching a re-run-on television recently about Mount St. Helen near Portland, Oregon. You remember how it blew its stack on May 18, 1980. It remains the deadliest volcanic event in U.S. history. Fifty-seven people were killed; two hundred homes, forty-seven bridges, fifteen miles of railways, and 185 miles of highway were destroyed. It measured 5.1 on the Richter scale and reduced the elevation of the mountain from 9,677 feet to 8, 363 feet, leaving a mile wide horseshoe shaped crater.
I was watching a re-run-on television recently about Mount Saint Helen. Its eruption on May 18, 1980, was one of the greatest volcanic explosions ever recorded in North America. A total of fifty-seven people and thousands of animals were killed in its blast. Giant trees, boulders, highways, railroad tracks, bridges and houses were no match for its merciless air blast. It reduced to ashes an area of some two hundred square miles. It decapitated the mountain from 9.677-feet to 8, 363 feet. Its volcanic cone was reshaped into a horseshoe crater.
As unforgettable as the apocalyptic pictures are to this day, the Bible take away for many people was the stubbornness of one-man name Henry Truman. Though warned many times to flee the area and did everyone else he refused to leave.
When the smoke and ashes finally settled there was no evidence that life once existed. The tragedy is that he did not have to die. He was warned in time. Some might say “It was an awful thing what that massive explosion did to that man, but the irony is that he chose to ignore the warnings and lost everything.
It is this same inescapable danger that Gid is warning us all abbot in Hebrews 2:3. “How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?”
God says, I am providing a way for you to have life for all of eternity instead of death, heaven instead of hell. If you ignore it, you will not escape. The word God uses here, SALVATION, suggests something that is life-or- death.
For us, the word Savior has a capital “S.” and only one person qualifies: Jesus. He knew you were under a death penalty and the only way you could escape that penalty was to go to the cross and let him absorb all the hell of all your sins, The one and only Son of God loved you so much that he was brutally crucified and totally cut-off from God the Father, so you could live. That is a Great Salvation.
He is your only hope of coming out of this world alive. Gpd says, if you ignore his warning just as Harry Truman ignored the warnings about the rumbling volcano you will not escape, Because of what Jesus did, you don’t have to be judged for your sins.
One of the most important verses in the Bible John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Jesus is your way out He’s your savior reaching to you in the wreckage, but you must grab his hand with eternal trust. The danger is neglecting Jesus, not just rejecting Jesus, Hell is filled with people who meant to turn to Jesus someday, but they passed up one too many opportunities, They waited too long. That is why the Bible says, “Today, right now, is the day of salvation.”
Respectfully,
Dr. Robert Bryant