Sermon Illustrations
Town Ignored Signs of Impending Disaster
In 1903, a mountain fell on a town in the Canadian Rockies. The town of Frank, Alberta, was buried under 100 million tons of limestone. At least 76 men, women, and children were killed.
It was the rich seams of coal in Turtle Mountain that caused people to build a town under its shadow. The desire for coal led residents to ignore the regular tremors in the rocks above them. In fact, miners counted on the tremors to knock loose seams of coal and make their work easier. Days before the disaster, the mine had become "virtually self-operating in that all the miners had to do was shovel up coal as it fell from the ceiling."
Even the local Blackfoot nation did not like to go near the mountain, referring to it as "the mountain that walks." But the town ignored all these warnings. Just after 4:00 a.m., April 29, 1903, an enormous piece of Turtle Mountain, 3,000 feet long and 500 feet thick, broke off and tumbled into the valley below.
The exact number of dead will never be known. Of the 76 known dead, only 12 bodies were ever recovered.
So also many ignore the plain warnings of Scripture to their own peril.