Hi Friend,

On May 18, 1980, the most disastrous volcanic eruption in the continental United States occurred on Mount St. Helens in Washington State.  Rumbles had been coming from it for eight weeks and an ominous bulge appeared prompting warnings from scientists that a catastrophe was about to occur.

The eruption blew down 150 square miles of timber worth about $200 million, caused an estimated $222 million in damage to wheat, alfalfa and other crops as far east as Missoula, Montana, and buried 5,900 miles of roads under ash. Clearing them cost another $200 million. The blast created a 20-mile log jam along the Columbia River that blocked shipping between Longview, Washington, and Astoria, Oregon. Volcanic mud carried by the river choked the harbor of Portland. Officials estimated that the ports lost $5 million a day until dredges could clear a new channel through the silt.

Closer to the mountain, the eruption blasted twelve miles of the once pristine north fork of the Toutle River into a lifeless moonscape where herds of black-tailed deer, bobcats and cougars had once lived among the valley’s hemlock and Douglas fir.  Now Elk wandered in hopeless confusion through the ashen desolation. The river and its source, Spirit Lake, once teemed with steelhead trout and Chinook salmon. All were destroyed by the eruption.

Harry Truman was a crusty 84-year-old who lived with 16 cats at a recreation lodge near Spirit Lake, about five miles north of the peak. He refused to leave telling national television audiences, “No one knows more about this mountain than Harry, and it don’t dare blow up on him.”

There is an arrogance in humans who refuse to see what is right before their eyes.  Once a group of Pharisees mockingly asked Jesus for a sign that he was the Messiah.  As if raising people from the dead was an insufficient sign, Jesus answered, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’  Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.” (Matthew 16:2-3)

It is a human characteristic to ignore impending disasters in the face of clear warnings.  It’s called the “Normalcy Bias” because it’s the attitude of people who, facing a disaster, underestimate the potential for it to take place. It has never happened in their lifetime so it never will happen. People with a normalcy bias have a problem reacting to things that they have never experienced before so they don’t adequately prepare for a calamity.

In New Orleans experts had warned for years that the levees were in danger of giving way.  Yet when Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 hurricane approached, nearly 2,000 people died because they refused to evacuate even when buses were waiting to take them to shelter.

During the years leading up to WWII a tragic example occurred in Germany when, not only the Jews, but the entire free world refused to believe Hitler was a threat. Winston Churchill spoke in vain for Britain to maintain its defense level. Yet the socialists in power undermined British security to the point that Britain could not defend itself without American aid.  Britain was forced to resort to a Lend-Lease program with the U.S. ultimately losing her status as the economic superpower which she had enjoyed for over 150 years.

Barton Biggs, in his book, Wealth, War, and Wisdom, described what happened:

“By the end of 1935, 100,000 Jews had left Germany, but 450,000 [remained]. Wealthy Jewish families…kept thinking and hoping that the worst was over.

Many of the German Jews, brilliant, cultured, and cosmopolitan as they were, were too complacent. They had been in Germany so long and were so well established, they simply couldn’t believe there was going to be a crisis that would endanger them. They were too comfortable. They believed the Nazis’ anti-Semitism was an episodic event and that Hitler’s bark was worse than his bite. [They] reacted sluggishly to the rise of Hitler for completely understandable but tragically erroneous reasons. Events moved much faster than they could imagine.”

People are slow to believe that national trends can lead to disaster. We tend to trust the government to remain stable even though we don’t trust the leaders.

But a disaster is coming and the signs are all around us.  The Apostle Peter warned that in the last days scoffers would appear saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” (2 Peter 3:4)

Some people look at the world and claim it has always been this way, therefore nothing will ever change. They refuse to believe that God will ever judge mankind.

But Peter continues, “They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water…”   (verse 5)

Interesting, that the very people who claim everything is constant, forget that the world had a beginning. Even the atheists must admit that there was a time when the world was radically different.  Something changed, and that change had a cause.

Whether or not they accept God as the causal factor in the creation of the world, they have to admit there was a time when the world that we know did not exist.  Things don’t continue as always; chaos does not produce structure and once again belief in an intelligent creator is shown to be the rational thought.

The same Creator who warned the Pharisees about the coming catastrophe is the one who provides a way of escape.

Until next time,

Jim O’Brien