For almost a month one storm after another had brought record rainfall. Temperatures higher than usual had melted much of the snow in the mountains. Lakes and reservoirs were filled to overflowing, and still the rains came. Rivers ran deeper and began to overflow their banks.
Higher and higher the water crept. Highways and railroad tracks were covered, and then washed away. Houses and other buildings were pushed off their foundations by the force of the water. Some farmers put their livestock into barns, only to have the floodwaters come ever higher and destroy both barn and animals. Other farmers drove their animals to hilltops where they were safe.
As the days passed and the storms continued, warnings went out in every news report telling people of the danger and urging them to get out of the low-lying areas. Groups of men went from house to house and from one farm to another, warning people to flee.
So it was that men stood at the door of a cabin on Bull Creek, waiting to rescue its elderly occupant from the rising waters. They told him that the river was rising so fast that he must leave immediately. But he refused their help as he answered them: “I have lived in this cabin for many years. The river has never risen above that peg on the wall, and it can’t happen now!”
The rescuers knew that the water was going to rise yet more and would surely cover the very ground on which they were standing. Finding that their warnings were in vain, the men went boldly into the cabin, caught the man up in their arms and carried him up the slope to higher ground. Here he was not only safe from the floodwater but could also be fed and cared for.
What was their astonishment and dismay when they saw the man running back to his cabin! They raced after him, but before they could overtake the man he was back inside. Now again the rescuers were at his door. There was no answer to their knocking, nor to their urgent calling. They tried the door, but it was locked. Then with shoulder to door they tried to force their way in. Again they failed.
The river had continued its rapid rise and now was almost to the cabin. As the rescuers continued their pleading, they looked up and saw a “wall of water” bearing down on them. They ran for their lives. From the safe, high ground they looked back and saw the current hit the cabin with such force that it was torn from its foundation and smashed to pieces.
What must have been the thoughts then of the foolish man who had locked himself inside his cabin. He had just insisted, “It can’t happen now”-but it did happen! In his self-confidence he lost everything—not just the cabin, but his life as well.
A worse flood is coming on this poor world. God’s judgment is soon to fall on all those who turn a deaf ear to the gospel of His grace and on those who neglect that free salvation which He offers in and through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Long ago God said, “Behold...and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you.” The work that God did was to provide a way by which sinners can be forgiven and made fit for heaven. The way of salvation—the only way—is by faith in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:3131And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31)). But “if ye believe not...ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:2424I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. (John 8:24)).