What a wonderful vacation camping! The national forest near Mount St. Helens was the most beautiful place Mike Moore had ever been. He knew that there had been predictions that the mountain would erupt, but he and his family thought they were a safe distance away. A safe distance?... hardly! At 8:32 a.m. on Sunday morning May 18, 1980 the mountain erupted! Landslides!... hot gasses!... floods!... suffocating ash! These and other experiences faced Mike and his family! They had to get out — but how? The roads were destroyed! There was only one thing left to do... walk.
They trudged mile after mile down the Green River trail — seven miles through swirling, choking clouds of ash. There seemed to be no escape. But then when they had just about given up hope, they heard a helicopter. Frantically Mike and his wife waved their arms. They were seen... and rescued.
Why were they rescued? Because they signaled for help. By their actions the helicopter pilot saw them and knew that they needed to be rescued. He was able to save them.
There is Someone who is able to save you if you will admit you need to be saved and ask Him. The Lord Jesus Christ wants to save you. He is completely able and just waiting for you to ask Him. He wants you to see your great need as a sinner, and that it is only His work on the cross that can rescue you from the punishment you deserve for your sins. Won’t you stop trudging mile after mile in your sins. Look at the cross! Look to the Lord Jesus and accept Him as your Saviour! “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Romans 10:1313For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13).
David Johnston was also near Mount St. Helens when it erupted. For him it was a job, not a vacation that put him there. He was a geologist for the United States Geological Survey. He was stationed at a camp six miles away from the mountaintop, and he knew the mountain was a time bomb, ticking away. But his job was to record what goes on just before an eruption so that scientists could learn more about volcanoes. He told his friends, “I’m sitting on a powder keg, but nobody knows how long the fuse is.” To his parents he wrote, “The volcano will give a warning before it erupts, with enough time to evacuate the danger area.” Perhaps that was why there was no panic, only excitement in his call that morning. His last words were, “Vancouver, this is it! This is it!” But there was no time to evacuate the danger area. The super-hot gases traveled at 200 miles an hour. His body was never found.
Reid Blackburn’s job was not so dangerous. He was photographing the mountain from a campsite eight miles away. Surely, that was a safe distance. He took four pictures of the explosion and then ran for his car. But it was too late to escape. Four feet of ash covered the campsite and extended another ten miles beyond it. His body was found later in his car.
But what do the experiences in this story have to do with you and me? David Johnston said that Mount St. Helens was a “time bomb.” We know from the Bible that time is ticking away for this world’s destruction. One Bible verse says, “Flee from the wrath to come.” Matthew 3:77But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? (Matthew 3:7). But where can we flee? How can we escape? There is only one answer — flee to Jesus Christ! Just as the safety of Mike and his family depended on help coming from above, your safety also comes from above — from Jesus who died so that you could be saved. Won’t you accept His salvation now?
ML-08/25/1985