Category: florida

Posted in bedroom, florida, tampa

FL man swallowed by sinkhole: "A loud crash, then nothing"

Posted on by elizabethprata

I wasn’t going to report on the man in Florida who was sleeping in his bed at 11:00 at night and was swallowed by a sinkhole that opened up under his bedroom. The hole swallowed all the bedroom furniture and the man. The only thing the brother found after he heard his sibling scream was a bit of the mattress sticking out.

Because after all, I’ve reported and reported on sinkholes over the years and how many times does one need to report on the phenomenon to have people understand that the very ground under our feet is not as solid as we think, but Jesus is the only solid rock?

But this event in Tampa yesterday is a bit unusual. For one thing, the house did not collapse, not even yet, a day later and the hole getting bigger. Second, the man disappeared in an instant. It is the first time I’ve really heard of a death that has resulted (Likely death, though hope is severely diminishing as the family waits for word). And the worst part of this terrible tragedy is the feeling of utter vulnerability. In bed we are undressed, unconscious and totally unable to defend or counteract what may happen. It is the one time in the day when we lay down and trust that we will wake up the next day.

Except for some people, they do not wake up. We are all unfortunately used to stories of home invasions with death through violence, or death through illness during the night. But this, this, seems beyond the pale.

Except it is not.

No man is guaranteed a tomorrow. This concept is encapsulated in the verses from James most explicitly:

Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain, (And yet ye cannot tell what shall be tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and afterward vanisheth away.) For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, and if we live, we will do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.” (James 4:13-16 Geneva).

Every moment of our lives depend on God. This goes for the saved and the unsaved.

The ground under the house is a chasm, the man said. The officials are quoted as saying:

“Bill Bracken, the owner of an engineering company called to assess the sinkhole, told the AP Friday that he “cannot tell you why it [the house] has not collapsed yet.” He added that the earth below was a “very large, very fluid mass.” “This is not your typical sinkhole,” Hillsborough County administrator Mike Merrill told the AP Friday. “This is a chasm. For that reason, we’re being very deliberate.”

I think of the chasm that is under every person. Jonathan Edwards spoke of it in his classic sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. I am not relating this to the man in the sinkhole, but to the fact of death coming to every person:

“The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him. They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion. The scripture represents them as his goods, Luke 11:12. The devils watch them; they are ever by them at their right hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back. If God should withdraw his hand, by which they are restrained, they would in one moment fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is gaping for them; hell opens its mouth wide to receive them; and if God should permit it, they would be hastily swallowed up and lost.”

“The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ. — That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.”

Whether the end comes because of a normal means or whether it comes eerily like the way described by Edwards, your end will come.

“As a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear him. For he knoweth whereof we be made: he remembereth that we are but dust. The days of man are as grass: as a flower of the field, so flourisheth he. For the wind goeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the loving kindness of the Lord endureth forever and ever upon them that fear him, and his righteousness upon children’s children,” (Psalm 103:13-17, 1599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

Man is frail. We do not go on forever, notwhithstanding our lengthening years via medicine and artificial means.

“For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower falleth away. But the word of the Lord endureth forever: and this is the word which is preached among you.”(1 Peter 1:24-25 1599 Geneva Bible)

The flesh shows the weakness of our nature.

If there is any message to be taken from the weird story of the man in the sinkhole it is that- we are going to die. Sometimes today, sometimes tomorrow. Sometimes in usual ways, sometimes in unusual ways. I wrote about that notion here- So many creative ways to die: the story of George Millet and the ink eraser.

So the ultimate point is, are we ready for eternity? Every person has one. We will live forever either in heaven with Jesus, or in hell without Him. When these weird things happen, or when a ‘celebrity’ dies (like Bonnie Franklin yesterday) the first thing I think of is “were they saved?” I hope the unfortunate man in the Florida house was saved. I hope that his grieving brother thinks on eternity now that it came to his house.

We know the Lord is everlasting,
“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! Amen and Amen.” (Psalm 41:13)

But we messed up the earth with sin-

“The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.” (Isaiah 24:5)

Therefore those who are not cleansed from sin will go into everlasting punishment. Those who are cleansed of sin through his grace, repentance and submission will go to everlasting peace-

[On Judgment Day] “Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, and say, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go into everlasting pain, and the righteous into life eternal.”

PLEASE PLEASE consider these things.

“For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: behold now the accepted time, behold now the day of salvation.”(2 Corinthians 6:2)

THAT is the lesson of the sinkhole.

Posted in florida, salvation, signs in the sky

Another meteor-fireball, this one in South Florida

Posted on by elizabethprata

In the wake of four unexpected and spectacular astronomical events this week, comes another. By the way, the Weather Underground blog says that “The odds of the largest meteor strike in 100 years occurring on the same day as the closest asteroid approach in 15 years are about 1 in 200 million”.

Earlier this week, an asteroid flew by earth at a mere distance of 17,000 miles, very close. It was the closest fly-by in recorded history of a non-satellite nature. In addition, on the same day no less, three major meteor sightings occurred. The one that happened in the Russian Urals was especially interesting, being the largest meteor to crash to earth in 100 years, injuring 1,200 people and causing absolute panic. The two other meteor sightings occurred in San Francisco and Cuba.

It should be noted that there is no ongoing meteor shower the earth is passing through. These space rocks just appear and suddenly they are crashing down on our heads.

One thing to notice especially of the Russian Meteor is the suddenness of its appearance. With all the satellites, NASA money to roam Mars, and telescopes looking at and radios listening to space, the Russian meteor snuck by them all and boomed into land before we could say Boy Howdy. Now if that doesn’t bode ill for the Tribulation, then what does? It made me think of Revelation 8:10-11,

“The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.”

Or Revelation 8:8,

“The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.”

These events will occur in the time of the Tribulation, the 7-year period where Jesus punishes the world for its sins via His wrath in a series of judgments from 7 Seals, 7 Trumpets, and 7 Bowls. It has not begun yet but one can certainly see the suddenness of a burning mountain thrown into the sea could easily be a undetected meteor appearing out of nowhere.

Another meteor shower has occurred, this time in South Florida. They are calling this one a ‘sporadic’ meteor, because it is not attached to any known meteor shower happening anywhere earth. In other words, it appeared out of nowhere, all on its own. This just in:

Possible meteor shower sighting in South Florida
“Some South Floridians reported seeing bright, flare-like objects disappear into the sky Sunday night, in what resembled a meteor shower. The Coast Guard’s command center starting receiving reports of a possible meteor shower at about 7:30 p.m., said Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Sabrina Laberdesque. Laberdesque said the Coast Guard could neither confirm nor deny whether it was, in fact, a meteor shower. The Coast Guard sent out a helicopter to check on a report of a flare but found nothing. Laberdesque said there were no injuries and no boats in distress after the reported sightings. The Broward Sheriff’s Office also reported receiving several calls from locals claiming there were “lights in the sky.” On Friday, a meteor exploded about 15 miles overhead near the Russian town of Chelyabinsk. More than 1,100 people were reportedly injured.”

NBC Miami reported,
“South Floridians who happened to be looking in the right place at the right time Sunday night saw one spectacular light show – possibly a sporadic meteor. People called in, describing the flares “as orange or red fireballs in the sky,” Laberdesque said. The display was limited to the sky: No injuries were reported, Laberdesque said. A sporadic meteor is basically a rocky object that comes from the asteroid belt, said Mike Hankey, operations manager for the American Meteor Society, based in Genesee, N.Y. The group logged 27 reports within about the first two hours of the event, he said. “This is a lot of reports to come in quickly,” Hankey said. Gauging by the reports, it happened somewhere over the ocean. “These fireballs are common,” Hankey said. “It’s rare for any one person to see one more than once or twice in their lifetime.”

http://media.nbcmiami.com/assets/pdk449/pdk/swf/flvPlayer.swf?pid=_yneGWiWDuuR

View more videos at: http://nbcmiami.com.

They reported seeing it from Jacksonville to Key West, pretty much the length of all of Florida. I looked at the video, it IS pretty spectacular!

The most interesting part, to me, is where the newscaster says that because of our newly heightened awareness of meteors, that fewer people were scared, and more people correctly identified what it was. The citizen observer being interviewed confirmed this.

Are they becoming so jaded, so quickly, that seeing a spectacular sight that only occurs once or twice in a lifetime is now an “Oh, well, ho-hum, another fireball streaking across the sky”? I hope not.

The power of a creator God to alert His people to His presence should never get old, and hopefully would have the intent it should have: inquisitiveness toward the Gospel.

Pastor JD Farag reported that this indeed is happening. He is a pastor in Hawaii who gives a weekly prophecy update on Sunday evenings. He said that more non-Christians than Christians are seeking to know why it really does seem like it is nearing the end of the world. They sense that the things we have been saying are true and want to know more. This is a praise to the Lord, who seeks His sheep with all diligence. (Matthew 18:12).

As the gap between saved and unsaved grows ever wider, the fence-sitters will soon lose their standing and have to choose a side to settle on.

Source

The unsaved are looking up and seeing meteors. We Christians are looking up to watch for the coming of our Lord and Savior. May He come soon to collect His sheep! You can join us, by being saved today:

Posted in end time, florida, ocna mures romania, prophecy

Sinkhole in FL opens to 100 feet wide within minutes

Posted on by elizabethprata

From Highland Today, Interim Emergency Operations Management Director said ‘this was the biggest one he’d seen’. I’ve written about the phenomenon of sinkholes several times before. Here is an essay from Nov. of this year with scriptures plus some context reporting on additional sinkholes titled “Experts worried about increase in sinkholes“. In that piece, it was reported that ‘Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state’s second largest multi-peril home insurer, told a state Senate committee during a hearing on the sinkhole issue that the number of claims being made to the company has more than doubled since 2005.” Premiums are up 30%. Last June I wrote an essay called “Is the Earth Cracking Up?” which explains further my thinking on the biblical implications of sinkholes’ increasing appearance. By the way, another sinkhole opened in Ocna Mures Romania on December 23, where the town is in a state of emergency.  Below is a story excerpt with photos from this latest sinkhole in Florida:

“About 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Luis Hernandez felt the soil trembling beneath his feet. “He had to run that way,” said his wife, Orpha, pointing to the east behind their three-bedroom mobile home. He heard air coming up, “Whooo, whooo, whooo,” Orpha approximated the noise, as if underground air was rushing to the surface. Luis knows because he looked at the clock on his phone – in just five minutes, a 100-foot wide sinkhole opened in the sand, gulping pots with palm trees and ligustrum hedges and catley guava. By Friday, they’d rescued all the nursery plants from the one-acre plot, moving them to the adjoining nine acres. But the hole had swelled 20 feet wider, and at 4 p.m. Friday, the circular mouth was an estimated 140 feet across. “This morning, there was just a little water in it,” she said. But by late afternoon, water was three feet deep and rising in the center of the hole.”

Within five minutes, the hole was 100 feet wide, said Hernandez. The owners had to run to escape:

By Friday afternoon, several feet of water had accumulated in the bottom of the sinkhole. The couple owns Florahome Nursery, and they had plants on the area of the property when it caved in:

A wall of sand and soil shows the division of one of several tiers of ground where a sinkhole opened up, which had increased to 140 feet wide by Friday afternoon:

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js