DO 20805/85

1. GOD'S WORD SAYS, "AND THEY KNEW NOT UNTIL THE FLOOD CAME & SWEPT THEM ALL AWAY. They married & were given in marriage‚ they builded, they planted‚ they reaped, & knew not until the Flood came & swept them all away!" (Mat.24:37-39)

2. I'LL NEVER FORGET WHEN AARON GOT THAT VERSE ONE NIGHT. We were parked at a truck stop overnight, & this truck stop also had a bar where they went in & tried to witness to the guys. And this bunch cursed'm & even the owner finally told them to get out, that they were annoying the customers. And Aaron prophesied, got the Scripture about these wicked people: "And they knew not until the flood came & swept them all away!"

3. SO WE WOKE UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT & I HEARD THIS NOISE, A VERY FAMILIAR SOUND. I've often gone out in rowboats fishing & you can hear the water lapping against the side of the boat. But I wasn't in a boat, I was in the Cruiser! I would have been very glad then if it had floated, but it didn't, because it was a flood! And I'll tell you‚ I was never so thankful to get an engine started in my whole life! Thank God it was a truck chassis & the motor & everything was mounted very high, the ignition system & the alternator & all were clear up still out of the water.

4. THE WATER WAS ALMOST COMING IN THE DOOR ALREADY, already lapping against the side of the Cruiser, I think it had actually come in over the first step inside the door. But thank God the ignition system, the alternator & spark plugs & the distributor that distributes electricity were high up. They don't have those any more, everything's computerised now, everything's electronic. They don't even have moving parts like that anymore. I wouldn't know how to fix a car today, it's a whole different thing! But the water had not yet reached any of the electrical connections—if it had, we would've been sunk & the Cruiser would've been sunk & that would've been it! We might have been able to swim out of there, but that's all!

5. BUT BOY, I THINK THE SOUND OF THAT MOTOR THAT MORNING WAS ONE OF THE SWEETEST SOUNDS I EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE! I revved that thing up & I tore out of that flood as fast as I could go! I felt like I was driving a ferry boat! It turned out that the truck stop we had chosen was down about six feet lower than the level of the highway in Louisiana. If you know anything about Louisiana, it's notoriously low & gets flooded fields. That's why they grow so much rice there. The night before I was sleepy & decided I wanted to get to bed quick & get up early the next morning—we'd driven for miles &miles & miles—& I hadn't taken notice of that as I drove down off the highway into this truck stop. But I sure noticed it the next morning! It was just barely beginning to be light, thank God, & I woke up. I also noticed how quiet it was, so quiet. The night before the dogs were barking, the chickens were making noise, but you never heard anything so quiet as a flood, believe it or not! Now there are raging floods where the water is tearing along fast, but the creeping type of flood where the water level just gradually rises is the worst kind of a disaster‚ because it sneaks up on you without any warning at all, you don't even know it, especially when it's in the night.

6. I'LL NEVER FORGET WHEN EVE GOT OUT OF THE BED ONE NIGHT IN ARIZONA & PUT HER FEET OVER THE SIDE OF THE BED TO THE FLOOR & STEPPED INTO SIX INCHES OF WATER! The dike of the irrigation ditch had broken & they had started irrigation water during the night & our whole yard & house was flooded with about six inches of water! I'd put all my memory books & photo books in the bottom of the couch in the front room‚ one of those old bed divans that opens out & where the bottom is built to hold the covers right down next to the floor, & they were all soaked, a total loss! But thank God we were still alive. That's not as bad as sticking your foot out of bed at night & standing on a scorpion or a snake or something like that! But it ruined a lot of stuff. Floods can really sneak up on you before you realise it, it's a real sneaky thing.

7. "AND THEY KNEW NOT UNTIL THE FLOOD CAME!" That was such a fitting prophecy that Aaron gave regarding the people of that place & that truck stop etc. The flood came & swept them all away‚ & I was very thankful to the Lord that it didn't sweep us away! It ruined our Rambler‚ though‚ our car. We usually brought along kind of an escort car with our big camper so we'd have some smaller car to run around with. It didn't pay to run around in a 27–foot-long camper that weighed five tons, ten tons loaded, & that only got 4 or 5 miles to the gallon, so we usually brought another car. Mama Eve‚ you know, was always running around shopping or making bookings or provisioning. She was really an expert at it, she had a lot of faith, God bless her, & she wasn't happy unless she had a car & a driver.

8. BUT THE ENGINE WAS IMMERSED BECAUSE IT WAS A VERY LOW-SLUNG CITY-TYPE CAR WITH ONLY ABOUT FOUR INCHES CLEARANCE. It was really a prototype of its day, very streamlined & very low-slung, quite modern in its day. The engine was soaked & everything was soaked & water got into the transmission & ruined it. After we got the Cruiser up on the highway all the men went back in & waded back through the water & we had to push the Rambler out. Then we had to tow it for a long ways because we couldn't get it started, until finally it got dried out enough to get started. But then the transmission burned out because it got full of water instead of oil & the thing was a wreck. The last we saw of the Rambler, as you recall, it was sitting up on top of a hill at TSC, a total wreck, used by the guards as a place to sit down in out of the sun & the rain‚ just a guardhouse.

9. THE FLOOD CAME & SWEPT IT ALL AWAY! Well, you don't ever want that to happen to you, do you? When the flood comes, you want to be ready, ready with your fleebag at a moment's notice if you have to move & are told to go or come or whatever you're supposed to do! Be ready!