They Lingered Too Long!
by Jimmy Tuten
Truth Magazine Volume 24: Number 27, p. 433, July 10, 1980
Over the holidays I was in the home of a dear friend who is in
the publishing business. He showed me a beautiful volume on Pompeii
that his firm was responsible for bringing into being. I marveled
at its magnificent color photographs depicting the city's ruins and
fantasized over what the city must have been before that dreadful
day in the summer of A.D. 79. What was once a showplace of culture
was buried beneath tons of hot, wet ashes and cinders that were
sprayed over it by the eruption of Vesuvius. For almost seventeen
hundred years it was forgotten and its actual existence was
questioned by many. Having been discovered, its testimonies to
grandeur are ours to behold. The most important thing about
Pompeii's ruins is what they tell us about the people of that day.
It is a fact that numerous individuals lost their lives in the
destruction who needed not to have lost their lives.
Archeologists found that most who lost their lives at Pompeii
did so because they lingered too long, trying to prolong enjoyment
of what they were doing or trying to salvage their valuables. One
publication tells us, "The excavator's shovels revealed all manner
of family tragedies, scenes of mothers, fathers and children caught
in absolute extremity. Mothers were found still holding their
children in their arms, protecting them with the last bit of veil
as they both suffocated. Men and women were dug up who had gathered
their valuables together, got as far as the city gate and there
collapsed under the stony hail, still clinging to their gold and
precious things. At the threshold of one house two young women were
found who had hesitated until it was too late, intending to go back
into the house and salvage some of their treasures. Body after body
was found at the Gate of Hercules, bodies all heaped together and
still encumbered with the household gear that had grown too heavy
to drag any further" (Gods, Graves, And Scholars). What a lesson to
learn!
God's Word reveals a far greater destruction to come than that
experienced by Pompeii, a destruction involving those who obey not
the gospel (II Thessalonians 1:7-9). The certainty of this destruction
cannot be denied, yet rather than flee to the arms of safety,
people linger in sin. The same things that caused many to perish in
Pompeii, devotion to loved ones and earthly possessions, are
causing people today to linger in disobedience to God's Commands.
They will die in the destruction of the world because they are
outside of Christ (II Peter 3; Romans 6:1-6, 17). Nothing should keep
us from obeying the gospel (Matthew 10:37-38; 6:19-20; 16:24-26).
Learn a lesson from the destruction of the beautiful, proud
city of Pompeii. Flee from a life of sin that you might escape the
wrath of God upon the disobedient. "How shall we escape, if we
neglect so great a salvation?" (Hebrews 2:3). "Watch therefore, for ye
know not what hour your Lord doth come" (Matthew 24:42).
"Careless soul, why will you linger, wandering from the fold of
God? Why so thoughtless are you standing, while the fleeting years
go by."