The Bomb That Was Too Big
The BBC reports,
On the morning of 30 October 1961, a Soviet Tu-95 bomber took off from ... the far north of Russia.
... World War Two had placed the US and USSR in the same camp, but the post-war period had seen relations chill and then freeze. And the Soviets, presented with a rivalry against the world’s only nuclear superpower, had only one option – to catch up. Fast.
... The Tsar Bomba was no ordinary nuclear bomb. It was the result of a feverish attempt by the USSR’s scientists to create the most powerful nuclear weapon yet, spurred on by Premier Nikita Khruschchev’s desire to make the world tremble at the might of Soviet technology. It was more than a metal monstrosity too big to fit inside even the largest aircraft – it was a city destroyer, a weapon of last resort.
... [The] Tsar Bomba unleashed almost unbelievable energy – now widely agreed to be in the order of 57 megatons, or 57 million tons of TNT. That is more than 1,500 times that of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined, and 10 times more powerful than all the munitions expended during World War Two. Sensors registered the bomb’s blast wave orbiting the Earth not once, not twice, but three times .... Some scientists began to believe it was too big ... If the bomb was as powerful as intended, the aircraft would have been on a one-way mission.
The power of the bomb persuaded nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov to renounce nuclear weapons
A bomb too big to fit into a plane and too powerful for a flight crew to get out of its range of destruction is just too big, too powerful!
Likewise, there are some sins that are so destructive that we dare not commit them for fear that we will not be able to escape what we’ve unleashed.
On the top of that list is the sin of adultery! The power of this destructive force is so great that it should lead us all to denounce it!
Not even a king is protected from the destructive forces of sexual promiscuity. Remember, it was the great sin with Bathsheba that undermined the house of David.
"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body" (1 Corinthians 6:18).
"Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge" (Psalm 51:4).
Man Robs Bank To Get Away From Wife
KANSAS CITY, Kan. Associate Press reports:
A 71-year-old man who said he robbed a Kansas City, Kansas, bank so he could get away from his wife blamed his actions on depression.
A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Lawrence John Ripple to six months of home confinement and 50 hours of community service.
Ripple went to the Bank of Labor — a block from the Kansas City, Kansas, police headquarters — last September and gave a note to a teller saying he had a gun and demanding money. After he was given money, Ripple waited for police.
Court records indicate Ripple wrote the robbery note in front of his wife and told her he would rather be in jail than at home.
“Better to live on a corner of the roof (or in prison!) than share a house with a quarrelsome wife” (Proverbs 21:9).
Who hasn't attempted to avoid facing their problems? But the real lesson here might be the punishment meted out to Mr. Ripple, and how well it fit the crime. But rather than allow him to escape his dysfunctional home life, the judge sentenced him to six months of home confinement! Perfect!!
Sometimes God puts us in circumstances we can't change to force an inner change in us. It's not that the punishment fits the crime as much as the challenge fits our need to grow and mature as a believer.
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance" (James 1:2-3).
Are Alarms Going Off In Your Life?
A Pennsylvania man is reminded every day that he wasn't as smart as he thought:
Jerry Lynn told KDKA-TV that an alarm clock he lost inside the wall of his home rings at 7:50 p.m. each day — during Daylight Savings Time — and at 6:50 p.m. otherwise.
Lynn says he tied the clock to a string in September 2004 and lowered it into the wall through a vent in his Ross Township home. Lynn set the alarm hoping noise would help him drill a hole in the right spot through which to pass a TV cable. But the battery-operated clock fell off the string and has stayed inside the wall ever since.
Lynn has been unable to retrieve the clock and figured the battery would eventually die.
So far, it hasn't.
Are any alarms going off in your life? Do you find yourself dealing with the consequences of past mistakes; little annoying reminders that you weren’t as clever as you thought you were? You can avoid this in the future by doing one simple thing: heeding godly wisdom.
Don’t spend your life waiting for the batteries of past decisions to finally run down.
“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” (Psalm 119:105).
“The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7).