Jesus warned that "as it was in the days of Noah" so should it be also at the time of his coming. God decided on change at the time of the Flood and His programme involved sweeping away everything of the past and making a fresh start with a small group of faithful men and women. We have the authority of His Son for the assurance that the process will be repeated at the time of the end. How do we stand, who (like Noah) have been warned of God?

WHERE IS OUR TREASURE? Have we made the same mistakes, understandable in them but inexcusable in the enlightened, as our contemporaries in the world? Have we allowed ourselves to be distracted by the clamour for change or no change? Has the talk of constitutions and of bills of rights, the news of 'necklaces' and Casspirs, the economic stagnation and the unemployment, diverted our minds from the stark realities, the true realities of our situation? Have we reverted to thinking that life consists in buying and selling and getting gain, in sowing and reaping, in marrying and giving in marriage, as Noah's neighbours did? Have we, in our busy-ness and in our concerns for the present, forgotten the world's need for real change and unwittingly, by revealing where our treasure is, showed where our hearts are also?

If so, warns the Master, we need to remember Lot's wife. The change, when it came to Sodom, was swift and devastating and totally unexpected. So shall it be also in the day of the coming of the Son of Man. Let each one of us, therefore, moved with godly fear, work to the salvation of our house and forget the distractions of the present, compelling though they may seem to be. Otherwise we can have no place in the age to come.

R.L.