by Gary D. Gibbs

On January 1, 1997, northern California was inundated with water. It came from everywhere. Melting snow, rising creeks, and swollen rivers conspired together to soak this land.

I shouldn't have been taken by surprise, since I was raised in Louisiana. There we know what rain and floods are all about. There were periodic floods in my hometown of Baton Rouge, but the effects were usually minor because of the superb levee system. The levees along the Mississippi River seem as large as the mighty river itself. In fact, next to a city that sits on terrain flatter than a tennis court, the levees are the highest "hills" around. They're southern Louisiana mountains, if you please. They're big because they're built to be strong.

But here in my new home we had to contend with a massive amount of mountain snow melt and small, weak levees. Within a few days our valley resembled a vast, inland sea. Over 290 square miles of land went scuba diving. The numbers aren't all in, but right now there are 16,000 homes either completely damaged or destroyed. And the price tag for this wild water? A whopping $1.6 billion.

by Doug Batchelor

The Great Basin bristlecone pine can live more than 4,000 years and is believed to be one of the oldest living trees on the planet. Found on lonely mountain tops, some of these ancient evergreens have weathered thousands of years of intense freezing wind, pounding rain, scorching sun, and violent electrical storms. How do they manage to survive such harsh, adverse conditions? They send their roots deep, wrap them tenaciously around a solid rock, and hang on.

God's people will need to practice those same survival skills in the days just ahead. Jesus said that a terrible time of trouble would come upon the world just before His return and that it would be more intense than any other in the history of this world. "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved." Matthew 24:21, 22.

by Doug Batchelor

In the early 1500s, the Aztec empire was one of the most powerful and sophisticated civilizations in the western hemisphere. However, within one year's time this mighty nation of over two million people was conquered and enslaved by just six hundred men. How did it happen?

The Aztecs had a prophecy about Quetzalcoatl (kèt-säl´ko-ä-tal), a legendary feathered god-king who was light skinned and bearded. It predicted that he would return to Mexico from across the sea and that he would come in the clouds from the east to save them.

Well, in 1519 Spanish galleons arrived in Mexico carrying a group of conquistadors led by Hernando Cortez. When the Aztecs saw these ships with their billowing sails, they thought it looked like clouds. Cortez heard about the Aztec legend from some Indians who lived on the shore and decided to use the situation to his advantage. He astutely assumed the mantle of deity to befuddle superstitious King Montezuma II.

by Doug Batchelor

Shortly after becoming a Christian, I was hitchhiking from Palm Springs to Los Angeles to see my mother. About halfway there I caught a ride with a kind, middle-aged Pentecostal lady who was very pleased to hear of my conversion. As we drove along, she asked, "Have you received the Holy Ghost yet?"

I was a little surprised by the question because no one had ever asked me that before. "Well, I think I have," I said slowly. "I have certainly felt God's Spirit in my life. The Lord is helping me make so many changes, you know-like giving up drugs, stealing, lying, cursing, and much more."

"No, that's not what I mean." she said, looking a little frustrated. "Have you received the baptism of the Holy Ghost? Do you speak in tongues?"

It struck me as odd that she seemed far more interested in whether or not I had experienced an ecstatic utterance than she did in the fact that I was having victory over the old sins that had held me captive!

by Bill May

Sales were plummeting in a department store in Iowa. Worse, the sales manager had resigned in discouragement. The owner placed the assistant manager in charge and spent most of his time worrying.

One day he said to the assistant, "I wish you would move this huge inventory of raincoats. We have oodles of them. Most are not in very good condition. Some are cracked. Some soiled. A few are good, but they take up a lot of space. If we don't get rid of them, we may as well throw them in the river. Please see what you can do to move them."

"Leave it to me," his assistant replied. "I'll run an ad that will move them."

Next morning while reading the paper, the owner saw this ad from his own store: "We have some bad raincoats which we must move. Some are soiled. Some are cracked. A few are good. If we can't get rid of them, we may as well throw them in the river."