The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night
after night they display knowledge. (Ps 19:1-2 niv)
It appears that there is nowhere that is
safe from the devastation that the creation can delve out. Even if you are in church, you
had better know that your continued existence upon this planet is not in you own hands. On
March 18 '94, a tornado raged through GoshenMethodistChurch in Alabama, even as children
filling a pew were waiting to sing in an Easter pageant. Shattered windows and a wall of
brick toppled upon the innocent unsuspecting youths.
One moment, the air was filled with the
music of "Jehovah Jireh," which means, "the Lord will provide." The
next thing you know the sound of wails echoed amongst the percussions of flying debris.
The tornado managed to rip away the
entire side of this low-slung modern brick building and blew the steeple into the parking
lot. Pieces of pews and the chairs that had been occupied by children were left littering
across the lawn. Tombstones that had stood in the cemetery behind the church for more than
100 years were snapped in two.
Worshippers recalled how they heard wind
against the church, and then the lights went out. "At that minute, things started
hitting the side of the church, and something came through one of the windows,"
remembered Carol Scroggin, who was leading the program from the altar. "I just
started to scream, 'Everybody get down!' . . . People were screaming, but it happened so
quickly there wasn't much time for reaction."
After loosing much of her growing
congregation and her own 4-year-old daughter, the Rev. Kelle Clem could only ask,
"Why?"
About six miles away from this incident,
the UnionGroveMethodistChurch was demolished by a tornado. The 75 worshippers of the
congregation had escaped to the basement to avoid injury.
See, the day of the LORD is coming
--a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger-- to make the land desolate and destroy the
sinners within it. The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. I will punish the
world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the
haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless. I will make man scarcer than pure gold,
more rare than the gold of Ophir. (Isaiah 13:9-12 niv)
Fifteen people were killed in Georgia by
the tornado calamity. "It just picked everything up and just twirled it around and
then the ground looked like it was just coming up all around," testified Barbara
Turner. "And then before you knew it everything was just -- everything was clearing
out of the way. Everything just turned to rubble."
Turner, her 10-month-old granddaughter
and four other relatives attempted to ride out the tempest while crouched in a chimney.
Though they all survived, they wound up across the road in a ditch.
All-in-all 43 people were killed as
these dozens of tornadoes ravaged east from Alabama through Georgia.
Then on April 23, 1996, the devastating
tornadoes returned, this time to Fort Smith and Van Buren, Arkansas. While leaving four
dead, the twisters ravaged the communities that they touched down on.
"I had three years in Vietnam and I
had never known the type of fear as last night," assured Bill McAdams, who surveyed
what little was left of his home.
On May 28, 1997 the worst tornadoes in a
decade killed 32 in Texas, while wiping out an entire subdivision. More than 50 homes in
the Double Creeks Estates in Jarrell, Texas were leveled by several twisters. "It's
not there anymore," said sheriff's deputy R.B. Raby. "I don't know of anything
anyone can do. It's just a flat, vacant field."
Nineteen ninety-eight brought more
devastating tornadoes to the country. Meteorologists revealed that they had no warning
that a tornado was on the way before, on March 20, a deadly twister tore through the South
killing 11 and injuring 80 in Georgia, and killing two while injuring 21 in North Carolina.
The Georgia Tornado tore through a 10-mile stretch in the northeast part of the state.
Forty-one houses, 29 mobile homes and
eight chicken houses were destroyed in Hall county, the hardest hit.
"We've got a pretty devastating
situation," assured Hall county Sheriff Robert Cass.
"There wasn't even anything on
radar," said Elaine Sexton of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. "There
wasn't anything anybody could have warned us on.
"I can't tell you how humbling this
day has been for me. I've never seen anything of this caliber and I hope I never see it
again."
On January 18, 1999 tornados ripped
through Tennessee. Eight people were killed statewide by the twisters and at least 100
were hurt. In addition, at least 600 homes were damaged.
But the wrath of the elements was not
through with the Midwest that year. On May 3, 1999 tornados ravaged Oklahoma and Kansas,
wiping out whole neighborhoods, killing at least 46 people and injuring hundreds.
“It’s real chaotic,” exclaimed Sharla Findley, director of community
relations at hillcrest HealthCenter in OK City. “We’ve gotten so many patients
in I don’t know who we have here.”
“I got lost in a neighborhood
I’ve driven around for 10 years because there’s no landmarks anymore,”
testified Sgt. Jody Suit of Del City. “Out of one square mile, I’d say about one
fourth of it is gone.”
Indeed, the National Severe Storms Lab
in Norman indicated that the tornado might have gotten a mile wide at times. “This is
the worst storm disaster I have ever heard of,” declared Gov. Frank Keating of the
F-5 classified tornado. This classification describes the most powerful tornado there is,
with winds of more than 260 mph.
This and other twisters tore up more
than 60 miles of flat countryside. “This is crazy,” assured Eric Peterson of Hayside,
Kansas after a twister pushed a tree into his bedroom. Indeed, this was the deadliest
tornado to hit the region since 1947.
The devastation was so dramatic that, on
May 6, Roger Hanes declared, “The emergency people came out here and told us that
after we were finished taking what we could find, they were going to cart off what they
could and then just burn the rest. They said there’s no place in the world to bury
all this stuff, so they’re going to burn it.”
The Atlantic coast was pounded by
hurricanes in 1998, the worst in 200 years. The onslaught of storms, that left a
staggering trail of death and destruction across Central America and the Caribbean caused
millions of dollars of damage. “People have to face up to it. The insurance industry
has a major problem,” William Gray at ColoradoStateUniversity in Fort Collins, Co.
assured.
In addition to monetary loss, the death
toll was catastrophic. In September of 1998 there were four hurricanes at once –
Georges, Ivan, Jeanne, and Karl – for the first time since 1893. The worst of the
storms, Mitch, produced sustained winds blowing at 180 mph and gusts estimated at more
than 200 mph. Mitch was estimated to kill over 10,000 people.
There was a great earthquake. The sub
turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the
stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong
wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed
from its place. (Rev 6:12-14 niv)
In July 1995, the Eastern and Midwestern
potions of the country were experiencing an unprecedented heat wave. In Chicago, Mike
Boehmer, assistant administrator for the medical examiner divulged, as the multitude of
dead bodies continued to pour in, "We're calling this a weather-related disaster.
This is something we've never seen before."
By July 17, as many as 300 had died in Chicago,
and many of these deaths were attributed to the scorching sun. "I've never seen
anything like this in my life," proclaimed Dr. Edmund Donoghue, the medical examiner
for CookCounty.
Alva Rodriguez, who was unable to
resuscitate a 95-year-old neighbor declared, "When I die, I know what hell is like if
I go there."
By July 18, 376 people had died from the
heat. "We're devastated by what has taken place," lamented Tanya Mitchell, a
spokeswoman for the Department of Aging.
"I've never seen so many dead
people in a short period of time," declared paramedic Tim Walsh. "I've responded
to hundreds of accidents and shootings. That's one at a time. . . it's so disheartening.
You wouldn't be human if you didn't think so."
The disaster resulted in 456 dead. That
was more than double the people killed in the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, more than seven times
the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake and nearly double the amount of people killed in the Great
Chicago Fire of 1871.
The fourth angel poured out his bowel
on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were seared by
the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but
they refused to repent and glorify Him. (Rev 16:8-9 niv)
If the summer's blistering heat wasn't
enough, there was the frigid cold. During early February 1996 the Plains and Midwest
states were devastated by an Arctic cold front that brought temperatures to as much as 60
degrees below zero. This shivering cold broke temperature records that had stood for a
century.
On February 3, hundreds of thousands of
people went without power because of ice breaking power lines. "Hell's frozen
over," assured co-owner of a Detroit convenience store and bait shop Devil's Den, Jim
Davis, on February 3.
By February 5 the cold had moved into
the Deep South, imperiling Florida oranges, bursting pipes in New Orleans and freezing
fishing boats to their moorings in North Carolina. By this point, the cold front had
caused 80 deaths.
And if the cold of the winter of 1996
wasn't enough for the Midwest and South, the Pacific North West had its own trauma to
offer up. During late January and early February Oregon was hit by the worst winter storms
in 30 years, causing massive floods as thousands fled from their homes. At least eight
people died because of the disaster. Governor Mike Lowery called the flooding
"clearly the most expensive disaster in the history of the state -- at least $300
million, at least 2,600 residences lost." Therefore, President Clinton offered
federal assistance to the beleaguered state, promising he would help storm victims with
the cleanup "until it is finished."
* * *
In the summer of 1994, mankind got an
opportunity to witness the effect that occurs when a star from the sky collides with a
planet. On July 16, 1994, the Hubble telescope got a good look at a fiery crash of a comet
plummeting upon Jupiter. "We are extremely lucky to see this impact," related
David Levy who was one of the two who discovered the comet to begin with. "It's
something that happens once in a thousand years."
What happened was an explosion that
created a fireball and rising plume of hot gas about 1,200 miles wide, or about half the
earth's side. The next day, fragments of the comet continued to batter the planet as new
pockmarks and blemishes proliferated on Jupiter's cloud-covered surface.
The explosion created by the comet was
the force of 6 million megatons of TNT. This is 400 million times as powerful as the bomb
dropped on Hiroshima, and 600 times as powerful as the combined destructive energy of the
world’s entire known nuclear arsenal.
If a comet or asteroid the size of the
one we have been watching this week were to hit the earth," related Rep. Ralph Hall,
"it would cause a major global catastrophe."
The fact is that on March 23, 1989, a
1,000-foot diameter asteroid missed the earth by only six hours. This was a near miss.
Astronomers did not see the heavenly body it until it passed.
"Astronomers tell us that each day,
an asteroid the size of a house passes within the distance between the Earth and the
moon," Hall continued. "Each month, one the size of a football field passes
within that distance."
Indeed, on May 19 an asteroid about a
third of a mile across passed within 279,000 miles of earth. This in astronomical terms is
called a near miss. This heavenly body was the largest ever passing so close, coming
closer to earth than all but five other objects ever detected. If one of these celestial
rocks were ever to hit the earth the debris and soot from the fires created at the impact
site would form a dense cloud that would surround the earth and plunge it into darkness
for week or even months.
"As a result, most plants
die," Hall said, "the things that eat those plants die, the things that eat them
die, and so on, and so on." The result would be mass extinction.
The third angel sounded his trumpet,
and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on
the springs of water -- the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned
bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. The fourth angel
sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third
of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light,
and also a third of the night. (Revelation 8:10-12 niv)
With that in mind, the government began
to make plans for a remedy. Hall initiated a 10-year, $50 million program to identify and
catalog "all comets and asteroids that are greater than one kilometer in
diameter" and on course to cross the orbit of the earth. The plan would be to hit the
intruder with a nuclear missile.
Let's see, the humanist thinks he can
stop a flying object that has the power within its mass and inertia 400 times greater than
the world's entire nuclear prowess? That's like trying to stop a Mack Truck with a
peashooter. It sounds like a waste of 50 million bucks to me. And what will mankind do
when he fails in his attempt to save himself?
Then the kings of the earth, the
princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in
caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks,
"Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne above from the
wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?"
(Rev 6:15-17 niv)
In spite of all his technological
advances, man is just as vulnerable in the hands of his environment as he has ever been.
The efforts of the modern Nimrods, coming in the form of scientists, to shelter him from
the hand of God have proved to be just as ineffective as the Tower of Babel and the city
of Babylon.
On September 19, 1999 it was reported
that the ‘90s produced the most costly disasters in US history. According to the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, seven of the 10 most destructive hurricanes struck in
the ‘90s. In 1998 alone the United States faced seven of these multi-billion-dollar
disasters, the highest number on record.
But the destruction we have witnessed to
date is nothing in comparison to what the future holds for those who continue to rebel
against God. What will be the fate of the humanist when God unleashes His awesome power? I
daresay man will be as helpless against his environment as the rebellious Romans were.
The rest of mankind that were not
killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop
worshipping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood -- idols that cannot
see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual
immorality of their thefts. (Rev 9:20-21 niv)
Don Wigton
is a graduate of the prestigious music department at CSULB where he studied under Frank
Pooler, lyricist of Merry Christmas Darling, and sang in Pooler’s world renown
University Choir alongside Karen and Richard Carpenter. During this time Don was also the
lead composer of the band, Clovis Putney, that won the celebrated Hollywood Battle of the
Bands. After giving his life to God, Don began attending Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa to
study under some of the most prominent early Maranatha! musicians. Subsequently he toured
the Western United States with Jedidiah in association with Myrrh Records.
Eventually
Don served as a pastor at Calvary Chapel Bakersfield to witness thousands of salvations
through that ministry. As the music/concert director, Don worked for seven years with most
major Christian artist of that time while producing evangelical concerts attended by
thousands of young people seeking after God. Don’s Calvary Chapel Praise Choir
released the album Let All Who Hath Breath Praise the Lord on the Maranatha! label.
The next
years of Don’s life were spent as the praise leader of FirstBaptistChurch in Bakersfield
during a time of unprecedented church renewal. Don teamed with the leadership to
successfully meld the old with the new through a period of tremendous church growth.
During this exciting time, Don’s praise team, Selah, produced the CD Stop and
Think About It.
Today Don is
the leading force behind Wigtune Company. This
webbased project located at www.praisesong.net has provided several million downloads of
Don’s music and hymn arrangements to tens of thousands of Christian organizations
throughout the world. More music can be found at Don's Southern
Cross Band website at www.socrossband.com.
The book Holy
Wars represents Don’s most recent effort to bless the church with biblical
instruction and direction in praise and worship. This heartfelt volume is an offering not
only to God’s people, but also to God Himself.
An Incredible revival is occuring
in Northern India and Nepal. CLICK
HERE to find out more!
More Wigtune Blogs
This second of five books looks into a pivotal moment in American
history that corrupted her soul. It was a time when the United States was coming off an
era of prosperity created by the sound economic policies, patriotism and faith of Ronald
Reagan. However, during the '90s a president without scruples took the reigns of a house
united and tore it asunder. As a result we live in a divided America
on the brink of judgment.
Click Here to
purchase the E-book edition for only 99 cents!
We pray that these materials have provided
all of you with untold blessings!
"I might not be a religious
man myself but I know good music when I hear it, and this is very good! . . . I don’t think that I have ever given such high
ratings to so many songs before. But the fact is that they are well deserved
because the music is amazing. Simply wonderful religious ballads and they
really get to your heart. . .everytime." Fredrik Cole: Trax In Space
was formed as a service to the body of Christ to encourage scriptural
worship. To accomplish this goal Wigtune Company offers free contemporary Christian praise
and worship music, contemporary Christian rock and hymn mp3 and chart material along with
a free on-line worship study book for personal devotions, Bible study groups, Sunday
schools, pastors, music ministers and ministry training. In order to bridge the gap
between the old and the new the worship study book gives solid theological and
historical support to the use of traditional Christian hymn-singing in conjunction with
praise chorus singing.
Click on one of the links below for praise and worship, praise
tabs, worship chords, praise chorus mp3, hymn stories, pro tools studio, worship leader
materials to enter into the area of the Wigtune site that interests you !
was formed as a service to the body of Christ to encourage scriptural
worship. To accomplish this goal Wigtune Company offers free contemporary Christian praise
and worship music, contemporary Christian rock and hymn mp3 and chart material along with
a free on-line worship study book for personal devotions, Bible study groups, Sunday
schools, pastors, music ministers and ministry training. In order to bridge the gap
between the old and the new the worship study book gives solid theological and
historical support to the use of traditional Christian hymn-singing in conjunction with
praise chorus singing. 
Vision Statement 
Wigtune Story 
Check out this powerful Southern Cross song! 
