The U. N. a Modern Noah’s Ark?

OCTOBER 1952 saw the completion of the United Nations capital in New York city. The project took five years to build and cost some 67 million dollars. In describing the General Assembly building, the last to be completed, Life, November 5, 1952, likened it to “a kind of Noah’s ark for all species of men from all parts of the earth”. Is this comparison fitting?

Noah’s ark served to bring together those persons who at that time were sincerely interested in a better world and they worked together harmoniously. The ark they built served Jehovah’s purpose of preserving all that took refuge in it, bringing them safely through the flood to begin life anew in a cleansed earth.

Can the same be said of the United Nations organization and its capital? Not by any means! The worst enemies of a righteous new world, faithless, power-hungry hypocrites, both totalitarian and democratic, have made it their refuge, and, far from being united, not only is it divided into Eastern and Western blocs, but there is division within each bloc.

And instead of the United Nations organization’s serving as a place of refuge from Jehovah’s fury at Armageddon, it is, to use Jesus’ prophetic words, a “disgusting thing that causes desolation”. (Matt. 24:15, 16, NW) It is a disgusting thing in God’s sight because it is considered lofty and is idolized by men. (2 Chron. 15:8; Luke 16:15, NW) And it causes twofold desolation: first, it desolates the people’s hope and faith in God’s kingdom, posing as a substitute for it; and, secondly, all who accept the substitute of the United Nations in the place of God’s kingdom will have their lives desolated at Armageddon, the expression of Jehovah’s vengeance foreshadowed by the flood of Noah’s day.—Matt. 24:37-39; Rev. 16:14, 16, NW.

Instead of the United Nations organization’s being a modern Noah’s ark, it would be more fitting to term it a modern tower of Babel; for, like that ancient structure, the U. N. is a symbol of man’s lack of faith in Jehovah God, his vain ambition, his futile efforts to unite, his confusion.

Not the United Nations organization, but a new system of things being created by Jehovah God, is the modern counterpart of Noah’s ark. Today men are taking refuge in it by seeking Jehovah, meekness and righteousness, and by associating themselves with the servants of Jehovah who are already functioning as a new world society, under the new system of things. Those who take refuge in it will be preserved just as surely as were those who took refuge in the ark Noah built.—Zeph. 2:1-3, AS.