They Ignored It

Narrator: Chris Genthree
 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 10
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On July 31, 1976 a terrific storm raged in the Colorado mountains causing a tremendous flash flood on the Big Thompson River. After it was all over, 145 people were dead or missing.
One newspaper article had this headline:
“THEY WERE TOLD, THEY IGNORED IT, NOW THEY’RE DEAD!”
This article stated: " ‘Warnings issued Saturday night by law enforcement officers failed to persuade some people in the Big Thompson canyon that a killer flood was approaching,’ Sheriff Bob Watson said Sunday.
" ‘Some people were very reluctant to move — we couldn’t excite them enough,’ Watson told reporters. The Sheriff said that some residents and visitors in the canyon found it hard to believe that ‘a previously quiet, gentle-moving stream’ could quickly swell to the point where it could take their lives.”
How sad to think that 145 precious souls have suddenly passed into eternity! But it is sadder still that many lost their lives simply because they ignored a warning.
Saddest of all, however, is that many, many people living today will perish and pass into a lost eternity without Christ the Saviour, without hope, — simply because they ignored the warnings of coming judgment.
O, unsaved reader, come to the Saviour now and be saved.
God has warned of greater sorrows,
He has told of judgment sore
Which will fall on Christ rejectors,
When the day of grace is o’er.
But His only Son once suffered,
He for us the judgment bore;
Those who come to Him are sheltered
By His blood, forevermore.
ML-05/22/1977