My friend Clyde Black was a boy in the fields in Axtell, Texas with his dad on May 11,1953. The sky went dark that day. Looking across the fifteen miles toward Waco, Clyde heard terrible sounds and saw a huge funnel cloud. His dad said, "That cloud is tearing up Waco." He was right. The F-5 tornado with winds up to 260 miles per hour took the lives of 114 people that day.
As the angels prepared to rain fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, they sent Lot and his family out of the plain to the mountains. But Lot made one last plea. "Let me stop in the plains at the little town of Zoar." Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by raining sulfur and fire that day. Lot and his daughters escaped with their lives, but his wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.
When Abraham awakened, he saw the devastation of the cities of the plain. Thick smoke rose as if from a furnace. Was it a natural disaster? No. God destroyed the cities, but he remembered Abraham and preserved Lot's life.
When I listen to the myriad opinions about God these days, I sometimes hear people say, "I like to think that God is only about love, joy, and peace. God loves unconditionally. He would never judge sin." It is true that God is love. He is also holy. God loves us too much to leave us the way we are. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. Jesus took our judgment once and for all. When we turn from our sin and believe in Jesus, we will be saved. But those who reject his love and continue in their sin will not be saved. Don't look back. Turn from sin and trust Christ today. Follow him to the finish. You will never regret it.
