When will we listen and do something about it?

The late Harold Wilson, former Prime Minister and leader of the U.K. Labour Party, said, "A week is a long time in politics". This must have been so for the Eurozone leaders when they met in Brussels to find a solution to the Euro crisis. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said, "If the Euro fails, Europe fails." There is an inevitability to her words, which may have prompted her fellow national leaders to pull back from the brink of total collapse. They agreed on a bailout plan initially for Greece but also for other tottering countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland, which also had major debt problems. Many newspaper financial commentators were sceptical about whether this plan would be implemented in time; they had heard euphemisms before, but now they wanted to hear words that would work. One lady said that they were kicking the can down the road. We understand her words to mean that, at some point in time, someone has got to pick the can up. Though battered and damaged, it had to be addressed; there was no point in kicking it further down 'Debt Avenue'.

When I worked as a travelling preacher in Cornwall, the locals would say that if it rained for two weeks, there would be floods, and if it didn't rain for two weeks, there would be a drought! It was inevitable! It always puzzled me why an area with so much rainfall could not conserve it in reservoirs for the tourists that often triple the county's population when the sun shines. 

Management of the earth's resources is vital, as the world's population is around 8.3 billion, and over one-half of them live in poverty without access to clean water. Every human being depends on water; our bodies are approximately 60% water, and we cannot survive for many days without it. In many places in Africa they have to go to where clean water is available, fill their cans, place the vessel on their heads, and carry it home, sometimes over a great distance. Share Africa is a Christian charity that helps village communities in various ways, including by paying for books and children's education. They also put wells in villages so they can pump water into a storage tank for families to draw water from, saving them a long walk to the river. Other charities do similar things and are commendable for the hard work they do.

Death is the great leveler

 

To walk up through the ash is hard work but it is possible to hire sticks to give help as the way is difficult to the summit of Mount Vesuvius in Italy.  It is worth the climb as one gazes into the crater of the volcano where steam or smoke is emitted and one simply hopes that it will not erupt while standing on the rim.  It did erupt, of course, on 24th August 79AD.  It exploded with great intensity and sent ash and clouds upward into the sky and the nearby cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii were buried under the debris. Thousands lost their lives. The cities were excavated by archeologists hundreds of years later and it is a sobering experience to walk amongst those streets and into houses which were once thriving but now only reveal the rocklike bodies of people who died under the ash and poison gases.  

One young man of seventeen years of age named Pliny saw it happen and described what he experienced.  He wrote that you could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants and the shouting of men; some were calling for parents, others for children or wives, trying to recognise them by their voices.  For many of the people it seemed that the universe had been plunged into eternal darkness for evermore.  Thankfully a good number did escape by reaching the harbour and getting on boats indeed many thousands were saved in this way. 

Are you listening to God's voice? - Acts 10

Daily Bible Reading - Acts chapter 10

Acts 10.36 

‘preaching peace through Jesus Christ – He is Lord of all’

Cornelius was a soldier in the Roman army. He was a centurion, which meant he looked after 100 soldiers. They were part of the Italian Regiment based in Caesarea. Lots of soldiers lived in this town. The Romans used this town as their military base.