SBCWitness

Tuesday morning, at about 5:45 am, I awoke to the sound of loud beeping that was coming from our smoke alarm. As I opened my eyes, I saw smoke slowly rolling into our bedroom. Half-asleep, I immediately shot up and ran just a few feet away into our 9-month old son's bedroom, where the fire was burning. I was shocked to see a fire about the size of what you would see burning in a fireplace. Fortunately, I remembered that my son was in our bed because he woke up a few hours earlier.

My wife quickly called 911 and I ushered our sleeping baby boy out of our room (which is located adjacent to his room) and into his mother's arms. I then grabbed the fire extinguisher, cut the safety cord, and ran back into the baby's room. In the 1 minute it took from the first time that I saw the fire, as well as the last, the flames were now reaching the ceiling.

As one is spraying the contents of a fire extinguisher into a room that is engulfed by flames, he doesn't anticipate the volume of smoke that is inhaled and blocking his sight. You often hear of the effects of fire, but not of smoke. I sprayed as much as I could in about 5 seconds before I couldn't breathe or see. I could literally feel smoke burning the inside of my nostrils.

I ran out of the house and approx. 2 minutes later the fire department came to the rescue. After breaking the front door down, they then shot about 90 gallons of water into our baby's room and ended the threat.

Upon walking back into the house, my wife and I saw how soot covered the entirety of our home. As we entered into the baby's room it was evident that had our son not been in our bed he would have suffered at least from smoke inhalation.

In God's divine mercy and providence, our baby boy Jackson, woke up at 3:30 am and we laid him in the bed with us. 99% of the time I usually wait for him to fall asleep and then gently place him back in his crib.

However, that night, as I waited for him to fall asleep I had a strange peaceful feeling and decided that I wanted my son to sleep with his parents that night.

All I can say is that $40,000 in structural damage as well as thousands of dollars in property damage/repair/cleaning later, the entire family is safe. The baby has been checked by a doctor and is fine.

However, the real eye-opening part of the entire experience is that I got a slight taste of Hell Tuesday morning.

Fire is hot. Smoke is hot. And the damage they can do together is breathtaking.

Our church has baptized 7 adults over 18 years of age in the past 2 months. We are in the middle of VBS this week and Jesus is being preached. Over the past few weeks we've noticed how little attacks have been going on in the church that haven't before.

I am confident that Satan's demons are attacking our church. A fire during VBS - which happens to be the most important week of the year for my job description?

Make no mistake about it, brothers, if you preach Christ unapologetically Satan and his demons will attack you in some way, shape, or form. It may be disasters, it may be through gossip, it may be through unruly selfish church members. Whatever it is, the Devil has no dealings with a lukewarm church. If you are preaching Christ, hold on.

I had a taste of Hell on Tuesday morning. Hell is real. It is a place of pain. It is a place of suffering. It is a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. And a lot of people are going to spend eternity there and God has called every believer to do what he can to preach Christ.

Hell is real. People are going. Preach Christ and hold on.

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