 GCO Mission and Goals | GCO Ministry Testimonials | Projects | Resources/Donations/Contact | SEARCH | |
The Broken Levees: Lessons for God’s Church
Presenter: Kevin D. Paulson
Location: Manhattan, NY, USA
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2005-09-16 20:32Z
Type: Editorial
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/rar/pau-levees.php
Images of flood-ravaged New Orleans continue to pound from television and the printed media. Footage of poverty-stricken crowds seeking admission to the Superdome, heartsick loved ones torn apart by the surging waves, chemically-suffused and sewage-laden torrents befouling the quaint and quixotic city—all have been presented before America and the world.
Are there any lessons for the people of God?
No Seventh-day Adventist familiar with inspired predictions of the last days cannot recall Jesus’ statements about “distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25). Every year, it seems, we have a record hurricane season, with multiplied additional disasters such as fire, flood, and the cataclysmic Asian tsunami last winter. Ellen White declares, in words as relevant as tomorrow’s news:
The restraining Spirit of God is even now being withdrawn from the world. Hurricanes, storms, tempests, fire and flood, disasters by sea and land, follow each other in quick succession. Science seeks to explain all these. The signs thickening around us, telling of the near approach of the Son of God, are attributed to any other than the true cause (1).
And in words even more ominous, she writes of how these accelerating disasters will eventually be blamed on the people of God, who refuse to honor the Sunday-sabbath (2).
But aside from the obvious prophetic significance of such tragedies, I believe two great lessons—among others—can be found amid embattled New Orleans. Lessons whose meaning dare not be lost as the final events draw nearer:
1. Procrastination can be lethal. “I’ve been hearing this is gonna happen for my whole life—how could they not have a plan?” asked a New Orleans resident named Reginald Bell as he dropped off candles to a neighbor (3). It is a question few have ventured to answer as the waters slowly recede.
For years, civil authorities at all levels knew such a disaster was possible in New Orleans. Many urged for decades the strengthening of the levee system, whose bulkheads not only lacked needed reinforcement but were only high enough to withstand surges from Category Three winds. One television report, not many months ago, included an interview with one New Orleans official who said—in all seriousness—that the “only thing” they could realistically do if a major hurricane and consequent flooding struck the city, would be to “build an ark.” But unlike the antediluvians, residents of the Big Easy had no such option.
As seems typical of the human condition, those with the means and power chose not to act. Had the city’s levees been reinforced with concrete, had they been built high enough to withstand Category Five surges, the destruction that followed Katrina would likely have been averted. But for whatever reasons, such measures kept getting postponed. And the folly of procrastination now oozes along the thoroughfares and defiles the landmarks of a once-proud city.
What about us? Are we, the members of God’s end-time church, any less foolish? Haven’t we—like the people of New Orleans—been warned for years of the coming crisis? Shouldn’t it be obvious that the signs of our Lord’s return have never been so numerous or decisive? With all the hurricanes and similar disasters in recent years, it should have been Priority Number One for residents of the Gulf Coast to prepare for a storm of Katrina’s magnitude. But it wasn’t. What of ourselves? Is preparation for the crisis of the ages our most important priority, before it strikes at last and finds us unready?
2. The lesson of the broken levees. In the final moments before disaster struck, New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas watched in consternation, with his security guard, as the waters of Lake Pontchartrain ate away at the levee system. While Katrina was still 14 hours away, Thomas returned to the city’s hurricane war room and announced, to anyone who was listening, “The water’s coming into the city” (4).
The warning came too late. And for many in God’s church, such warnings have also been coming late. The levees established by the Lord to protect His church have been breaking for years, and the floodwaters of compromise and apostasy have been coming into God’s city. Where are God’s faithful watchmen? Why has the trumpet of warning gone so rusty with disuse?
Ridiculing the lifestyle and worship standards of Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy has become a popular sport in contemporary Adventism. Articles, sermons, and classroom lectures abound which seek to sabotage the protective shield God has provided against worldliness and destructive self-indulgence. In New Orleans, only one levee needed to break in order to undermine the entire system (5). So in the spiritual realm. “Even one wrong trait of character, one sinful desire cherished, will eventually neutralize all the power of the gospel” (6).
My prayer for each of us is that the day of final reckoning will find our hearts barricaded by the hedge that protected Job (Job 1:10), which—unlike the broken levees of New Orleans—stands invulnerable to natural and spiritual buffetings alike, offering an eternal refuge to the “called, and chosen, and faithful” (Revelation 17: 14). GCO
References
- Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 408.
- ________, The Great Controversy, p. 590.
- Christian Parenti, “The Big Easy Dies Hard,” The Nation, Sept. 26, 2005, p. 6.
- “The Lost City,” Newsweek, Sept. 12, 2005, p. 43.
- Ibid.
- White, Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 53.
© 2005 by GreatControversy.org. GCO grants permission to individuals, wholeheartedly encouraging them to copy and reproduce documents and files appearing on this site, in an unaltered state, and for non-commercial use, unless otherwise noted. All other rights reserved. Other groups or entities wishing to reproduce these materials are encouraged to contact us with reproduction requests.
