Article January 28, 1980 Issue

We can stay above the flood

JOHN K. DANIELS

Noah saw the flood before it happened.

He noted, one might say, the rapidly growing indulgence in material pleasures and expanding forms of wickedness that threatened to engulf mankind in total mental darkness. He discerned the swiftly diminishing role of spiritual values and the impending disappearance of allegiance to God, who is Life itself. Looking at his time, from a modern perspective, we might say he built the ark because he knew it was impossible for humanity to totally withdraw from God, and that a cataclysmic awakening to His presence was sure to come. Noah was led to safety, not because he got a special message from a god who helped some and abandoned others—God's wisdom and intelligence are available impartially to all every moment. He was saved because he kept himself awake to the demands of spiritual sense. The spiritual sense that maintained his obedience to God's law, in the midst of wholesale reliance on the false gods of materialism, lifted him above the floodwaters—before they rose.

The story of the flood teaches us at least two lessons. One is that regardless of how far humankind seems to sink into the mental darkness of materialism—and it does seem to do this from time to time—it can't evade the light of Truth forever. The fantasy of pretending that light is not present can last only so long, and the degree to which the awakening to light is cataclysmic depends on how deep the illusion of darkness is. The large-scale plagues, storms, wars, inflation, depressions, and famines that disturb mankind's sleep, when it gorges itself on materialism, are messages not from God, but from the false gods that lead mankind into such floods. Seeing through their message is simple and direct: Truth is—to error—a consuming fire; and, though the false gods may writhe in their death agonies, they don't have the power to put this fire out.

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