Shipping Forecasts, God Guidance
A few years ago we were fishing north of the oil rigs about ninety miles east-northeast from Peterhead for prawns and fish. It was October and fishing was good, with a large fleet of boats at work.
Up to Wednesday night it had been a lovely week of weather, but that night the forecast was for storm-force winds on Thursday night. With the sea so calm and the fishing good, we, along with a lot of other boats decided to carry on fishing. Some of the fishing boats that never normally came out that distance went away in. We fished until six o’clock on Thursday evening when we heard the shipping forecast—severe gale 9 to violent storm 11: a very, very bad forecast.
We arrived into Fraserburgh on Friday morning after a good pounding. The wind was so strong that the boxes on the pier were going everywhere. There were some record wind speeds recorded in different parts. We heard in the harbor that one of the boats we were fishing along with, and were only a couple of miles from us, when we began steaming in, was missing with all aboard feared drowned. After an air and sea search failed to find anything, it was called off. Another tragedy with parents losing sons, wives losing husbands and children losing fathers—yet warned.
God is giving many warnings to
sinners. “Blow the trumpet and warn the people” (Ezek. 33:3). How can we escape from the judgment to come? “Jesus, our deliverer from the coming wrath” (1 Thess. 1:10).
The captain of the Lussitania (a passenger liner sunk by a German submarine, just prior to America’s declaration of war against Germany and its allies in World War I) is a fitting story of one who rejected a warning. He received a message while in New York that his great ship would be torpedoed before he reached Britain. He laughed at the idea, but it was true. Do not reject the warnings from God!
Up to Wednesday night it had been a lovely week of weather, but that night the forecast was for storm-force winds on Thursday night. With the sea so calm and the fishing good, we, along with a lot of other boats decided to carry on fishing. Some of the fishing boats that never normally came out that distance went away in. We fished until six o’clock on Thursday evening when we heard the shipping forecast—severe gale 9 to violent storm 11: a very, very bad forecast.
We arrived into Fraserburgh on Friday morning after a good pounding. The wind was so strong that the boxes on the pier were going everywhere. There were some record wind speeds recorded in different parts. We heard in the harbor that one of the boats we were fishing along with, and were only a couple of miles from us, when we began steaming in, was missing with all aboard feared drowned. After an air and sea search failed to find anything, it was called off. Another tragedy with parents losing sons, wives losing husbands and children losing fathers—yet warned.
God is giving many warnings to
sinners. “Blow the trumpet and warn the people” (Ezek. 33:3). How can we escape from the judgment to come? “Jesus, our deliverer from the coming wrath” (1 Thess. 1:10).
The captain of the Lussitania (a passenger liner sunk by a German submarine, just prior to America’s declaration of war against Germany and its allies in World War I) is a fitting story of one who rejected a warning. He received a message while in New York that his great ship would be torpedoed before he reached Britain. He laughed at the idea, but it was true. Do not reject the warnings from God!