Tag Archives: pyroclastic flow

It’s Not a Joke

A joke is designed to cause amusement or laughter, especially a story with a funny punchline. If you have a friend who is sarcastic, it may be hard to determine when they are serious or simply pulling your leg. Based upon the words of Moses, Lot may have had a tendency to joke around. Subsequently, as Lot goes to warn his future son in laws, they don’t believe a word of his story.

And the [two] men asked Lot, Have you any others here—sons-in-law or your sons or your daughters? Whomever you have in the city, bring them out of this place,13 For we will spoil and destroy [Sodom]; for the outcry and shriek against its people has grown great before the Lord, and He has sent us to destroy it, Genesis 19:12-13.

One of the best practical jokes I ever played was cruel and unbelievable. Jeanette, Debbie, Stephen and I used a game of Truth or Dare to fake Stephen’s death. On this particular evening, Hope who had a crush on Stephen and his white shirt, so when a similar bloody white shirt was found in a nearby woods and Stephen was nowhere to be found, Hope thought Stephen was dead or wounded. As a group of us slowly walked back to my house, Stephen ran around the woods, sitting on a lawn chair on my back deck as we arrived.

And Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, Up, get out of this place, for the Lord will spoil and destroy this city! But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be [only] joking, Genesis 19:14.

As for Lot’s conversation with his two future son in laws, they break out laughing. Based upon Moses’ words, he leaves them to die in Sodom, forcing his daughters to find other men to marry. Despite having a sense of urgency, Lot closes the door, seeing these two alive for the last time. While the Bible is full of unbelievable events, this pyroclastic flow that leveled Sodom and Gomorrah was no joke.

by Jay Mankus

A Volcano in the Sky

There are certain things in life that have fascinated me. Some of these things are good and wholesome while others are unwholesome like my obsession with volcanoes. Perhaps, this all began in my childhood as one of my neighbors grew up near Mount Saint Helens. After the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens, this family showed me pictures of how beautiful this part of Washington state was before this natural disaster.

And after the seven days the floodwaters came upon the earth or land. 11 In the year 600 of Noah’s life, in the seventeenth day of the second month, that same day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up and burst forth, and the windows and floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And it rained upon the earth forty days and forty nights, Genesis 7:10-12.

According to Moses, the springs of the earth burst forth prior to the first rain event ever on earth. If you believe that Yellowstone National Park contains a super volcano in the form of the Yellowstone Caldera, this was likely when the first eruption occurred on earth. As the volcanic ash blocked out the sun, this could have triggered a global flood and set in motion the tectonic plates that tore apart Pangea to form the earth’s 7 continents.

Then the Lord rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of the heavens. 25 He overthrew, destroyed, and ended those cities, and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. 26 But [Lot’s] wife looked back from behind him, and she [b]became a pillar of salt, Genesis 19:24-26.

Whenever you try to describe or grasp the hand of God, it’s nearly impossible to do without divine knowledge and insight. However, after recently reading Genesis 19, the brimstone and fire from heaven seems to be similar to a modern-day pyroclastic flow. While Moses doesn’t mention an eruption, I can visualize some sort of volcano in the sky , situated above Sodom and Gomorrah. However, this tragic event happened, it’s a warning to continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, Philippians 2:12.

by Jay Mankus