Headline: “Smoke will keep pouring into the U.S. as long as fires are burning in Canada. Here’s why they aren’t being put out.”
Not long ago, we were seeing pictures of the New York skyline where the sky was a very eerie orange color. Several walking the streets were not merely wearing covid masks, but gas masks to keep from breathing in the air.
· Last that I saw, more than 100 million Americans are under air quality alerts (from Wisconsin to North Carolina).
Even more recently, we’ve all noticed how at times our own local sky seems unusually hazy. It has been noted that our own air quality has been compromised to some extent.
We know that the reason for all of this is the unusual number of wildfires in Canada.
· Apparently, there are more than 500 active wildfires raging in our neighbor to the north.
· At least 10 countries have deployed their own firefighters to assist Canada in putting out the fires that are threatening communities where residents are scrambling to evacuate.
· Some of the fires are actually of such a nature that officials have no choice but to leave them burning.
· How could this be? Why would they intentionally let the fires burn unchecked?
Briefly, we will compare why sin is so hard to slow down / stop to the way that some of these Canadian wildfires are so difficult to stop.
(1) Some of the fires are in extremely remote areas.
· Sometimes we think we are a lost cause—we and our sin are so remote and so unimportant that nobody would think to help or to rescue us.
· Not true! God loves us and knows how to rescue! (John 3:16; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 2:9)
(2) There are not enough resources to fight all the fires.
· Even with help from around the world, there is not enough manpower to fight the powerful flames.
· Similarly, we can’t fight sin alone, but the Lord has blessed us with all the resources we could ever need: The Word (Ps. 119:25-32); the Church (1 Cor. 14:12; 1 Thess. 5:11); the Spirit (Eph. 3:16); and the Christ (Rom. 8:34).
(3) There have not been enough prevention tactics to decrease the number of fires.
· Planning and resources should be utilized before any fires start to help prevent catastrophe.
· We must create “defensible space” by studying and knowing the Word (2 Tim. 2:15) and surrounding ourselves with faithful Christians (Rom. 11:2).
