Love and Hate
Copied from the sermon notes of Pastor Don Elmore
November 18, 2018
Scripture Reading: Genesis 3:15
California has just experienced another crisis. It has just seen its biggest outbreak of wildfires—it broke all past records. Some 750,000 acres were burned, about 9700 homes destroyed with 57,000 more in danger, and 74 and climbing, lives lost, with about 1,100 individuals missing. There could be as many as 300 or more lives lost before the fires are under control.
Here is what the November 10th U.S. News & World Report wrote about this devastating event:
“Throughout the American West, trees already short of nutrients because of crowding are suffering from a four-year-old drought, the worst in 300 years. Bark beetles have attacked the weakened trees across much of the West, killing up to 70 percent of them in some areas. In San Bernardino National Forest, beetles have ravaged half a million acres so far. When fire does break out, the crowding allows flames to leap treetop to treetop in a fast-moving crown fire, as happened in parts of Southern California last week.”
California had a six-year drought at the end of the 1980s. Now it has suffered through another multi-year drought. That state also has a $38 billion deficit, the worst of any state in the United States.
What is happening in California? One disaster after another is striking California. These deadly disasters are repeatedly labeled the “worst ever!” With all the disasters that have struck California the past few years, it’s as if the state is under a CURSE.