S.H.

On a rainy Friday in May 1889, one immense sound echoed through the valley east of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It was not a bomb or an earthquake. It was 20 million tons of water exploding through a dam fourteen miles upstream from the city. Within an hour, a wall of water destroyed the city and its people.

Only a few years before, a newspaper writer, trying to attract people to the area, wrote about how beautiful the city was with its scenery and mountains, its streams and its citizens. But one rainy Friday was going to change all the scenery.

When another writer went to his typewriter the day after the dam burst, he wrote something very different: "God looked down from the hills surrounding Johnstown today on an awesome scene of destruction."

What went wrong? Were there no warnings?

Miles up the valley from Johnstown was a 700 acre lake called Lake Conemaugh. People worried about it and the earthen dam which held it in check. But no one listened to them.

But on May 31, 1889, John Parke became even more alarmed. The 23 year old man who was employed as an engineer began noticing some cracks in the dam. Rain had raised the water level almost two feet above normal. The water was dangerously high. He and a group of men began working to reinforce the dam and clear the spillway.

But when water began coming through the cracks, he left and rode his horse to the towns below warning everyone to run to higher ground for safety. Some people listened but others ignored him. Parke rode to the signal tower to warn the telegraph operator to send the alarm. But the flood had already hit the telegraph lines into Johnstown. As Parke rode back to the dam, church bells rang to warn people of coming danger. But still many made no move to safety.

At 3:10 P.M. the dam which was 72 feet high and 300 yards wide, disappeared. A wall of water rushed out and began its destructive journey to Johnstown, 14 miles away. It uprooted and destroyed everything in its path. Farms, trees, locomotives, houses, and people were all carried along to death and destruction.

Warnings were ignored, danger signals were allowed to pass without notice. But when people saw the flood coming, they knew that they were helpless.

Zedekiah had many warnings but ignored them all. He was more worried about what people would think of him than of what God thought of him. The Bible is God's message to men. It tells of what God thinks of sin. It warns about coming judgment (John 3:36). It urges boys and girls to accept Christ as Savior (Acts 16:31). Yet sadly, many ignore the warnings and, as Zedekiah did, perish in sins. What will you do with God's Word?

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