Reclaimed

When I was a student at Tennessee Temple College, I had a good friend who lived off campus.  I went to David R.’s house often and became an adopted son.  I went with them to their cabin in the mountains of North Carolina for Thanksgiving in 1968.  On the way to Bryson City, we drove through Polk County, Tennessee.  Just past Ducktown, we drove through the Copper basin, an area that looked like a desert!  50 square miles had suffered complete vegetation devastation because of the copper mining and the copper production.  Since the 1850’s the copper ore had been burned to remove impurities, one of which was sulfur dioxide.  When the sulfur dioxide mixed with rainfall, it produced acid rain.  Trees died, vegetation was destroyed, and birds and animals vanished.  Topsoil eroded choking the Ocoee River with runoff killing the fish.  As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but bare dirt.  A man-made desert landscape resulted.  TVA, Bowater Pulp and Paper, and BIT copper manufacturing worked for 50 years to restore the environment.  A scar so big that it could be seen from outer space was gradually reclaimed.  Trees grew, songbirds returned, and wildlife thrived once again.  Hey, the devastation and ultimate reclamation of the Copper basin is like the change in a sinner’s soul when Jesus Christ enters in!  Evil gives way to a new life in Christ.  Paul said in II Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”  Have you been reclaimed by Jesus Christ?  Don’t live another minute in sin.  Let Jesus reclaim your soul.