For the past week the eyes of the world have been riveted on south Florida, on the ruins of that once-beautiful condo complex in Surfside that collapsed on Thursday, June 24, 2021.
Our hearts, our thoughts, and our prayers go out to the families and loved ones of the injured, the dead, and the missing still lying within that towering ruin. Especially do we pray that if indeed some still survive, they will be found and their lives spared.
But as with many such incidents, spiritual insights can be derived from this tragedy. Our Lord often drew His object lessons from the world around Him, frequently from examples of diligence and carelessness familiar to the life experiences of His hearers. As we contemplate the destruction of that beachfront building that now lies in shards and tatters, lessons both practical and spiritual press to our minds.
Neglected Warnings
While the cause of the Surfside building’s collapse remains under investigation at the time of this writing, and may take months for the full story to emerge, evidence has surfaced over the past few days that raises serious concern as to the building’s safety and what seems to be failure on the owners’ part to address structural weaknesses that for the past several years threatened the building’s integrity. As early as 2018, engineers warned that leaking water was producing “major structural damage” to the building’s concrete and structural slab [1]. Photographs taken 36 hours before the building fell showed “standing water all over the parking garage” [2], with cracking concrete and corroding rebar also observed [3]. In fact, condo owners were reportedly facing $15 million worth of assessments, scheduled to begin days after the building’s fatal collapse [4].
As late as April, a letter warned condo residents that “damage to the doomed building’s basement garage had ‘gotten significantly worse’ since an inspection about two and a half years earlier and that deterioration of the building’s concrete was ‘accelerating’” [5].
Shifting Sands
What is more, for some time there appear to have been concern on the part of scientists as to the danger of “building on the shifting sands of a barrier island like Miami Beach, especially with rising sea levels. That may not be the reason for this collapse, but it remains an engineering challenge in the region” [6].
Too often, it appears, decisions as to where cities, homes, and similar facilities are constructed can be influenced more by popular demand and the desire for access to the ocean, business opportunities, and choice vacation spots than by safety considerations. New Orleans, Louisiana, site of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2006, has been called by some “the inevitable city in the impossible place” [7].
Lessons
Again, we don’t yet know all the facts. But from what we know already, it appears that warnings were slighted and misjudgments rendered in both the original construction and the maintenance of the Surfside building that now lies in a heap of rubble. And it’s difficult not to see lessons here for the spiritual journey of God’s end-time people.
In our own lives, it is all too easy to ignore spiritual and other weaknesses until they become seriously hazardous and often embarrassing. Many, for example, fail to make corrective adjustments in personal health practices until faced with a medical crisis. Other destructive habits, such as sexual immorality of one sort or another, are pursued until the indulger is caught and his/her reputation threatened. Sometimes tragedies like the spiritual or physical loss of a loved one become necessary in order to jar us into an awareness of ultimate reality and the need to get right with God.
And what about our institutions as a denomination? As with the warnings given to the owners and residents of the Surfside condo complex, many of the faithful for decades have warned the church of the egregious doctrinal and moral compromises that continue to undermine the spiritual integrity of certain prominent educational and other facilities owned by the church. Too many who have issued such warnings have found themselves ignored, slighted as “critics” and negative voices we would rather not listen to. This doesn’t mean, of course, that a constructive and Christlike spirit isn’t needful when pointing out faults within or outside the faith community. But even a bad attitude on the part of those who bring us unpleasant information doesn’t relieve us of the imperative of investigating and addressing a problem.
Do we need disasters like the burning of the Battle Creek Sanitarium and the Review and Herald Publishing Company over a century ago, to arouse us to our peril? The ruins of that 12-story Surfside condo building should serve to admonish us that credible warnings need to be taken seriously—individually and corporately—before it is too late.
The shifting sand problem noted in one of the above reports regarding the construction of buildings on barrier islands like Miami Beach [8], reminds us of a well-known parable told by Jesus of two men who built their houses on rock and on sand, respectively (Matt. 7:24-27). Perhaps the man who built his house on the sand chose his location for reasons of pleasure or personal convenience, much as buildings and businesses today are at times constructed with a view to monetary or other advantages as opposed to structural safety. But the folly of those who build in such places is replicated too often in the lives of professed Christians, who pursue their religious lives with a view to spiritual comfort and fulfillment rather than faithfulness to Bible truth. Let’s remember that the one who Jesus said built his house on a rock had done so because he had not only heard the teachings of our Lord, but was living in accord with them as well (Matt. 7:24). By contrast, the one building on the sand was doing so because, while he heard the teachings of Jesus, he chose not to adhere to them (verse 26).
Conclusion: “And Great Was the Fall Of It”
Watching the surveillance video of the Surfside condo collapse gives me chills every time it’s been shown on television. I can’t help but recall the words of Jesus regarding the house built on the sand, when He declared:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that
house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it (Matt. 7:27).
The parallel with the Florida tragedy may not be exact, but the object lesson is clear. Our personal and corporate life as God’s people must be alert to those incidents of neglect and compromise that can invite spiritual loss and calamity. If not, like the residents of Surfside, we too may witness—and become a party to—disaster of a personal or institutional nature, and be constrained to lament in our grief that “great was the fall of it.”
Let us ponder soberly, as we witness the ruins of that Surfside building: Are the floodwaters of sin and apostasy collecting within the basements of our hearts? Do we see cracks appearing and widening in the citadels of our own souls? Perhaps in our educational and other institutions as a people? Are we turning aside warnings of spiritual peril, individually and collectively?
Thankfully we have God’s promise that despite the ordeal of terrible loss and the departure of the majority as the final crisis nears, the church will not fall [9]. Our task is to make certain, through the grace of God and our own diligent effort, that we as believers will likewise stand unshaken and unmoved.
REFERENCES
1. Matthew S. Schwartz and Brian Mann, “Surfside Official Told Residents Their Building Was Safe, Despite Engineer’s Warning,” NPR, June 27, 2021 https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-miami-area-condo-collapse/2021/06/27/1010710735/surfside-official-told-residents-their-building-was-safe-despite-engineers-warni
2. Sarah Blaskey and Aaron Leibowitz, “Two days before condo collapse, a pool contractor photographed this damage in garage,” Miami Herald, June 28, 2021 https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article252421658.html
3. Ibid.
4. “Condo owners in Surfside building were facing assessments for $15 million worth of repairs,” CNN, June 28, 2021 https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/miami-florida-building-collapse-06-28-21-intl/h_1ee4982df58788bc96be96e690871f30
5. Kyle Bagenstose and Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, “’Significantly worse’: doomed Miami condo’s concrete deterioration was accelerating in April, condo letter says,” USA Today, June 28, 2021 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/06/28/miami-condo-deterioration-worsening-april-letter-says/7790478002/
6. “Cause of Miami Condo Collapse Unclear, But Experts Say Barrier Islands Present Risks,” NBC-6 South Florida, June 25, 2021 https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/national-international/cause-of-miami-condo-collapse-unclear-but-experts-say-barrier-islands-present-risks/2480509/
7. Mark Peterson, “New Orleans—the Inevitable City in the Impossible Place,” University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture,” Aug. 28, 2019 https://www.uaex.edu/business-communities/ced-blog/posts/2019/August/New-Orleans-the-Inevitable-City-in-the-Impossible-Place.aspx
8. “Cause of Miami Condo Collapse Unclear, But Experts Say Barrier Islands Present Risks,” NBC-6 South Florida, June 25, 2021 https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/national-international/cause-of-miami-condo-collapse-unclear-but-experts-say-barrier-islands-present-risks/2480509/
9. Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 380.
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan