Lessons from Disaster

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 4, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 14.

Lessons from Disaster

The uncertainties of life, in a sinful world are daily brought to mind in some unlooked-for disaster. A despatch from Helsingfors, Finland, of the 4th inst. says: “It is feared that eight hundred fishermen, with their families, who are afloat in the ice in the Gulf of Finland, are doomed to perish. A fortnight ago about one thousand persons, who had with them their horses, were fishing off the East Land when the ice parted and was driven by a storm into the Baltic Sea. Later the ice split, the wind changed to east, and yesterday a block on which there were 200 persons came ashore at Frederick-shavn. The fate of the others is unknown.” But this is only an incident in the history of earth’s changing career. Yet men in general refuse to heed the lessons thus brought before them. The fast-approaching culmination of it all is that it will be “burned up.” “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” Wisdom admonishes us to heed the daily, hourly lessons of disaster, and to prepare for a permanent home. The disciples of Christ, the true learners from His Word, can say in faith, “Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”