WAS IT A "NOVEL" IDEA?
Morgan Robertson had a story in his mind that had to come out. So he wrote a book. Not an epic; it was only 50 pages long. But it seemed to him to be a good story — touching heartstrings while prompting readers to ask where the age of industry was really taking us.

The tale went something like this. A giant luxury liner, the largest ever built, sets out on its maiden voyage from England to New York, carrying — among thousands of others — many rich, famous and important folks. At its christening, the ship was touted to be unsinkable. But alas, she strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic and plunges to the bottom. To make matters worse, loss of life was great — and seemingly unnecessary because there were not nearly enough life boats for all the passengers.

Sound familiar? Consider these other similarities. The Titanic and Robertson's liner both sailed and sank in April. The boat in the story was 800 feet long and carried 24 lifeboats; the real ship was 882.5 feet long and had 20 lifeboats. The Titanic displaced 66,000 tons; the liner in Robertson's book displaced 75,000. Each ship had three propellers — a unique configuration; most other large ships had four. The boat in the book was traveling 25 knots when it hit an iceberg; the Titanic was doing 23.

So you tell me — why did Robertson bother to call his book a novel, a made-up story, a work of fiction? It probably had something to do with the fact that he wrote it in 1898 — fourteen years before the Titanic sailed or was even conceived. Oh, yeah. One other thing. The name of the ship in Robertson's book was . . . the Titan. Does that chill you?

That's not all. Robertson later wrote a book entitled Beyond The Spectrum that described a future war fought with aircraft that carried "sun bombs." These weapons were so incredibly powerful that one of them could destroy an entire city. And the flash of light that accompanied them would blind anyone who got caught looking. The war in Robertson's book begins in December . . . started by a Japanese sneak attack on Hawaii.

I was telling a friend about all of this over lunch earlier today and his comment was, "If there's anything else this guy wrote, I'd sure like to read it!" How about you? If there was detailed, inside information that might give you an edge in living (I mean REALLY living), would you search it out? Would you bother to take a look if the librarian pulled it off the shelf and handed it to you?

Have you considered, recently, that the Bible is such a book? No, I don't mean the Bible gives a precise description of every "sun bomb" and sinking ship that's going to disrupt your life. But it IS true that God has more than proven His predictive powers in those pages — to the point that we would be foolish not to give serious attention to whatever else He has to say.

And what else does He say? Among other things:

"I will NEVER leave you nor forsake you" (Joshua 1:5).