July 10, 2013 (Wednesday)
Johnny Carson trained his studio audience to respond when he said, “Boy, it was hot today.” The audience yelled back, “How hot was it?” Then Carson might say something like, “It was so hot today that the cows were giving evaporated milk,” or, “It was so hot today that I saw a chicken lay a hard-boiled egg.”
It’s really hot these days. But not as hot here in Rockport as in other places. I’ve seen temperatures rise to 116 or 118 in Central Texas. And in Arizona..wow! Wanda and I went to the Phoenix Zoo in the month of June and even though it was early morning, all the animals were hiding somewhere in the shade. Years before we took our family west in the summer and tried to make sandwiches at a roadside park in Needles, California. We tried, I say, but had a hard time because the bread dried so fast it hardened like toast in our hands before we could make a sandwich and eat it. Hot, I say, I say, boy, listen up, pay attention,it was hot! We were in the Mojave desert.
The weather always gives us something to talk about. Remember Noah? He loved to talk about the weather. He had one forecast: “Rain!” No one believed him, but it finally came, and flooded the whole earth. Only Noah, his family and the animals in his boat made it through alive. The people of the world had become so immoral that God decided to start fresh with Noah and his family. Judgment finally came. The people had laughed at Noah when he warned them. They stopped laughing when judgment came.
Growing numbers of people laugh at the idea of judgment today. Judgment is certain. “How certain is it?” It is as certain as death. “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27 KJV).