This past Sunday afternoon, after Katrina had already made a mess of South Florida, Gladys and I watched the news as the killer storm made it’s way across the Gulf, with its eye focused on the gulf coast. We, along with many of you and countless millions of others across the country, watched with the sadness and concern of storm- taught experience as pictures of traffic-clogged interstates played across the screen.
Even after the mayor had ordered the people to evacuate, as the storm continued to bear down on the city, we watched as reporters made their way down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, and stopped in bar after bar that was still open. I still remember Gladys calling to me and saying, “Gene, come listen to this.” The reporter had just interviewed a man and asked him why he remained behind, why he wasn’t evacuating?” The man sitting at the bar answered, “They have warned us and tried to scare us many times before, and it has always been a false alarm. I’m not leaving.”
Gladys said, “Gene, that’s just like what the Bible says.” In 2 Peter 3 we read “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.’”