Noah’s Neighbors & the Moral Barometer
By
Dean T. Olson
One of the most powerful
earthquakes ever
recorded struck
Japan in March
2011. It was so
powerful that it
moved the entire
planet by
shifting its
axis over 6
inches and
shoving Honshu,
the main island
of Japan, 13
feet to the
east. The tremor
was so violent
that it actually
sped up the
rotation of the
planet and
shortened the
length of that
day.
As one of
the most
powerful ever
recorded, the
Tohoku earthquake
devastated the
region and
demolished the
Fukushima
nuclear plant
leading to a
deadly release
of
radioactivity.
18,000 people
died or are
missing. Fears
of a meltdown of
Japan’s nuclear
power plants
wrought by the
damage from the
quake spiked
sales of iodine
pills in
America. At the
same time,
bloodshed and
violence
escalated in
Libya and Syria
and threatened
to rend the
shabby
dictatorships
across the
Middle East.
Meanwhile
bees are
mysteriously
disappearing and
frogs are
mutating
accompanied by
massive die-offs
of birds and
fish at widely
dispersed
locations around
the world.
Mysterious
sounds emanating
from the heavens
and the earth
are reported
worldwide.
And the
sale of doomsday
bunkers
continues to
surge. What is
going on?
I don’t know any
more than you
do. But I have
some suspicions.
To understand
what is
transpiring we
may need to pull
our Bibles from
those dusty
boxes in the
attic. I don’t
say that lightly
because
suggesting that
we may be
witnessing
Biblical
prophecy
unfolding is to
risk the
sideways glances
of friends and
neighbors who
assume that
early onset
dementia has
blunted one’s
faculties. Such
prejudices are
not without
merit based on
the folly of
misguided
date-setters and
millenarians who
perennially, and
incorrectly,
predict the end
of world.
Before you scoff
ask yourself: If
we were Noah’s
neighbors before
the Great Flood
would we have
recognized the
fulfillment of
prophecy? Would
we have realized
the degree of
our descent into
immorality and
ungodliness?
Would we have
snickered at the
lunacy of Noah’s
feverish,
colossal boat
building and
scoffed at the
seemingly
tortured logic
that drove him
to obsessively
assemble pairs
of animals and
ready his craft
for sailing?
Would we have
continued to
deride his faith
and piety even
as the rains
began and the
waters rose?
One thing is
certain: In the
panorama of
biblical
narrative one
factor
consistently
portends God’s
wrath; mankind’s
profligate
descent into
immorality and
depravity. To
put our present
state of affairs
into context we
need look back
only a couple of
generations for
a revealing
moral barometer.
For those of us
old enough to
remember there
was a time in
America
when divorce was
less than half
the rate it is
today. Having a
child out of
wedlock carried
a social stigma.
There was very
little
“recreational
drug use” and
the everyday
participation in
the drug ritual
was confined to
a small, pitiful
minority of
outcast addicts
subsisting on
the margins of
society.
We remember when
you had to learn
things in school
and teachers
cared less about
your self-esteem
than they did
about whether or
not you learned
math, history
and English.
There was no
such thing as
school shootings
or predatory
teachers bedding
their students.
And the anarchic
jungles that
pass for many
classrooms today
were
inconceivable
given pervasive
discipline
accompanied by a
liberal use of
corporal
punishment by
teachers and
administrators;
discipline and
punishment that
were supported
and often
similarly meted
out at home.
More
importantly,
parents then
were the adults
in a familial
relationship
rather than
abdicating their
responsibilities
by trying to be
an indulgent
friend to their
children.
The “we” I refer
to are the aging
baby-boomers;
those of us in
or approaching
our 6th
decade of life.
As children we
lived through
the Cold War in
the ‘50s and
‘60s and endured
the ludicrous
“duck and cover”
drills that we
were assured
would protect us
from being
vaporized by the
detonation of a
Soviet
thermonuclear
warhead. More
significantly
for the
portentous
present our
generation
witnessed the
greatest moral
convulsions in
American
society. As
teenagers in the
‘60s we lived,
and many of us
participated in,
the ground swell
of liberal
trends
manifested in
extremes of
moral relativism
and such
self-indulgence
as free love,
unbridled drug
use and an
overall
hedonistic lack
of personal
responsibility.
In the decades
since our
nation’s left
turn in morality
has created a
pockmarked
cultural
landscape
littered with
the detritus of
decency,
probity, and
righteousness.
Liberalism grew
into a social,
traitorous
cultural and
political force
that ultimately
bullied our
political
leadership into
a disastrous,
ignominious
withdrawal from Vietnam. More darkly, liberalism was
the mechanism
behind human
catastrophes
like the
destruction of
the black family
under the
misguided
socialist effort
to forge “the
Great Society”
and institute
income
redistribution
under the guise
of welfare.
The bible tells us “You will know them by their fruit.” Among the fruit
of liberal
madness are a
chronic urban
underclass made
up of racial and
ethnic
minorities
plagued by
hopelessness,
addiction and
violence.
Liberalism’s
moral relativism
also stoked the
now-insatiable
demand for
mind-altering
substances that
saps human
potential,
destroys
individuals and
families,
corrupts our
culture and
makes criminals
of recreational
drug users who
are often
otherwise
law-abiding
citizens. And
the most evil
manifestation,
the poster child
for evil
incarnate,
euphemistically
labeled
“pro-choice,” is
legalized
abortion that
has killed more
than 50 Million
babies since
the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade
decision in
1973.
Our freefall to the depths of immorality has a hand
maiden in
liberalism. But
liberalism is
not the cause.
It is merely a
tool; a
manifestation of
a much more
destructive
force. A force
whose very
existence we
feared only two
generations ago
but now widely
deny in our
headlong rush to
embrace all that
is secular
hedonism. That
force is evil.
Liberalism brooks no acknowledgement of evil in the
nature of man. A
case in point is
the European
Union and the
broader effort
to forge a New
World Order. The
dangerously
naive theory is
that a New World
Order is a
panacea that
will magically
get humanity
working in
harmony and
unison to usher
in unparalleled
peace and
prosperity while
avoiding the next
otherwise
inevitable
catastrophic
world conflict.
The utopian impulse for one world government casts a
long shadow.
A staple
of the liberal
agenda for more
than a century,
the catholicon
of one world
government is
supported by the
panoply of
secular
progressive
notables
including the
late liberal
media icon
Walter Cronkite.
When it was
pointed out that
one world
government was
contrary to
God’s plan for
mankind he
mocked the
entire concept
stating, “I’m
glad to sit here
at the right
hand of Satan.”
The biblical
parallel to this
nostrum is the
story of the Tower of Babel
from Genesis. A
superficial
understanding of
this story
implies that
God’s anger over
man’s rebellion
to his authority
stemmed from
efforts to
unify the humanity of the generations following the Great
Flood. The
Babylonians
strove to create
an ideal state – their
version of a new
world order -
predicated on a
visionary system
of
religio-political
and social
perfection
by speaking a
single language
and attempting
to build a tower
to reach the
heavens.
A more nuanced
understanding is
based on God’s
omniscience
regarding the
base instincts
of man and the
machinations of
the source of
evil - Satan.
That
understanding
acknowledges
evil’s latent
and manifold
influence on His
creation. God
frustrated the
Babylonians by
casting humanity
to the four
corners of the
Earth, confusing
their language
and instituting
tribal
diversity. He
knew that one
world government
creates the
conditions for a
synergistic
increase in the
power and depth
of mankind’s
dark impulses
leading to
unrestrained
evil.
And the LORD said,
Behold, the
people is one,
and they have
all one
language; and
this they begin
to do: and now
nothing will be
restrained from
them, which they
have imagined to
do
(Genesis 11:6). We
don’t have to
look far to see
the evidence,
albeit on a
smaller,
regional scale.
It is manifested
in the murder of
tens of millions
during Stalin’s
purges, Mao’s
Cultural
Revolution and
Pol Pot’s
killing fields.
In spite of
these lessons
the symbols of
the European
Union include a
headquarters
building modeled
on the Tower of Babel and a statue in front of their
administrative
building of a
woman riding a
mythical beast
based on End of
the Age
symbolism
described in the
Book of
Revelation.
The
ancient pagan
urge did not die
at
Babylon.
It has coursed
amid other
hidden Satanic
trends all these
centuries to
reemerge in new
wraps as the
Purpose-Driven Church, the New Age Movement, and the Emerging Church. These heretical doctrines are
steeped in
occultism and
pantheism and
are leading
millions away
from the
salvation of
Jesus Christ by
substituting
mysticism and
contemplative
spirituality for
Christ’s shed
blood at the
Cross. There are
an estimated
forty million
adherents to the
Emerging Church in the U.S. who subscribe to the belief
that Jesus
Christ isn’t the
only way to
Heaven; that
Allah of Islam
is the same as
Krishna of
Hinduism, who is
the same as God
of Christianity.
In their view,
many religions
lead to Heaven.
Are we the
contemporary
incarnation of
Noah’s
neighbors? I
don’t know. But
I do know that
the human
condition
appears right
for the
outpouring of
God’s wrath. In
his famous
"Evil Empire"
speech in 1983,
the always
prescient Ronald
Reagan framed
today’s moral
battle:
“The
struggle now
going on for the
world will never
be decided by
bombs or
rockets, by
armies or
military might.
The real crisis
we face today is
a spiritual one;
at root, it is a
test of moral
will and faith.”
The evidence that the final
pieces are
falling into
place for the
end of the Age
of Grace leaps
from the daily
headlines. I
hope to share
with you some of
that evidence in
the coming
weeks. Those of
us blessed with
the gift of
spiritual
discernment via
the Holy Spirit
may feel a tug
of nostalgia for
what is passing.
That is why it
is important to
keep a proper
perspective by
remembering that
every
distressing
event that
occurs moves us
ever closer to
our blessed hope
in the Rapture.
We are the
generation of
humanity that
will witness
some of the most
spectacular
miracles ever
seen as the
final chapter of
the history of
mankind plays
out before us.
With
that end our
omnibenevolent
God will cleanse
His creation of
the stain of
Satan’s evil and
restore us to a
proper
relationship
with Him.
Maranatha!
Dean T. Olson
Omaha
watchmanshiningalight@gmail.com