Stubborn, 84-year-old Harry Truman, who owned a lodge by Spirit Lake on Mt. St. Helens, has become a legend. When Mt. St. Helens first began to show signs of volcanic activity last March and April, officials tried to get everyone to leave the danger area. Only a few people refused to move out, and Harry was one of them. Harry said he wouldn’t budge for man or mountain, and he kept his word.
The Whiting family, who were close friends, tried to get Harry to leave the mountain and come to their home. “It was useless,” said Mrs. Whiting. “Harry was determined to stay on the mountain rather than relocate.”
“This is home to Truman,” Harry repeatedly told officials, “and I’m gonna stay here!” Harry had lived there ever since he started his Spirit Lake Lodge in the 1920's. “If the mountain goes I’m going with it!” he said. “I stuck it out 54 years and I can stick it out another 54 years!”
Most people today are strangely like Harry. This world is home to them, and they don’t like to think of moving from it. But God warns us that this world is doomed for judgment, just like Harry’s mountain was doomed to explode. God has “appointed a day in the which He will judge this world in righteousness.” Acts 17:3131Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. (Acts 17:31). Harry had lived on the mountain so long he just didn’t believe it would explode. Today people deceive themselves in the same way concerning the judgment of God. They say, “The world has been going on like this for thousands of years: nothing is going to change.”
But God says that they are “willingly ignorant.”
But Mt. St. Helens did erupt on May 18 in a terrible explosion! Rob Smith, the last known person to see Harry, said, “There’s absolutely no chance Harry survived.”
His good friend, Mrs. Whiting, said, “It all happened too fast. There was no chance—no chance at all!” The wall of hot gases and steam struck Harry’s home within seconds. More than 30 feet of mud and debris covered the 40-acre resort where Harry lived with his 16 cats. The once-serene Spirit Lake was a boiling, muddy mass emitting gases.
What an end to all Harry’s boasting! We might well say, “What a stubborn old man!” But are you being like Harry? Are you stubbornly making this condemned old world your home? God says, “Flee from the wrath to come.” Have you done that yet?
God offers you a way of salvation from the coming judgment. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16). Remember, too, that God says, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation.” Hebrews 2:33How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; (Hebrews 2:3).
ML-11/23/1980