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February 17

Dr. Harold Bosley of New York City was one of the better–known preachers of the United States some years ago. I heard him preach in Toronto and remember one striking illustration he used. His wife said to him that their fourteen–year–old son was going to have a party in their home and was inviting twenty of his friends. What do you do with that many fourteen–year–old boys? Bosley thought a good film might help. He finally located one that he judged would entertain the boys— The Birth of a Volcano —and it did. It showed the beginnings of a devastating volcano erupting in Mexico. Before it blew, a peasant was shown working in the fields as the mountain began to warm up and heave. In the middle of the picture, a little girl was seen running in terror from the molten lava. At that point, Bosley’s son turned to him and said, “Can’t you stop it, Dad?”

And Bosley mused, “How do you stop a volcano?”

How do you stop a volcano?

In effect, that’s the question being asked by the thinking leaders of our world . . . for surely the mountain is beginning to heat up and heave, and at any time the lava could flow.

See how the following Scripture fits. Looking down the avenue of time, Paul writes in a letter to Timothy: “There will be terrible times . . . People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good” (2 Timothy 3:1–3).

And the list goes on.

How do you stop a volcano? Human beings cannot—obviously. Yet as I was pondering that question, it came to me that the Easter story had begun with an earthquake, a violent one as Matthew describes it. “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone . . . The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said” (Matthew 28:1–2, 5–6a).

How encouraging for today. He lives!