The Dutch people have labored for decades in seeking to prevent the flooding of their lands by the construction of dikes, dams, and canals. Over the years dikes and dams were built to reclaim usable land. Still other dikes and dams were built to prevent catastrophic and devastating flooding from the seas.

It was the devastating flood of January 31, 1953 that pushed the government to again tame the sea. The '53 flood took out 100's of dikes, 400,000 acres of land were severely flooded, and 1,835 people died! That was enough! The Dutch Delta Plan began the building of miles of dams and dikes. The Delta Plan constructed dams that would prevent such a flood again - well not quite. The dams were designed to reach three feet higher than the flood of '53. The calculated odds of the waters exceeding that three foot level were one in ten thousand over a hundred years period.

The greatest dam of the Delta Plan would span 5 miles wide, composed of 65 piers each weighing 18,000 tons, with steel gates 17 feet thick and 130 feet side. In an emergency they would close to prevent the seas from again delivery the devastating punch of 1953. When they closed, these gates would experience enormous pressure, fighting 77,000,000,000 cubic feet of water.

Yes, too often it takes a catastrophe before dams are constructed and many times people still don't take the necessary step to totally prevent the devastation that comes with such grand floods. There are floods that come from nature's forces, but there are also Satanic floods, such as hit Job and his family. There are moral floods, and there are financial floods, and there are emotional floods that almost overwhelm and indeed many a time do overwhelm the souls of people. We call those floods by such names as bankruptcy, divorce, death, arrest, rape, drugs, and the list goes on.

God has built in some dikes and dams to prevent the devastation of His people. The laws and Bible principles found in His Word are designed by God to prevent many of the disasters which come our way, disasters which could have taken men like Joseph out when facing the temptation of Potiphar's wife, which could have destroyed a man like David as he was overwhelmed by the floods of Saul's endless anger, or which could have stopped those three Hebrew children who faced the fiery furnace. Joseph, David, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were able to close the flood doors

It is as we come to know, understand, and apply the precepts and principles of the Word of God that we are also able to close the flood doors which exert hundreds pounds of pressure over spans, far more than five miles wide across our lives. Those laws are built to project far above any possible flood height, for Satan will always see that his temptations surge higher and higher. Taking time to read God's Word, hearing it preached from your local church pulpit, listening to Christian radio, and reading Christian books are all part of God's "Divine Delta Plan" for His people. Don't neglect such investment in hearing God's truths else years from now "the flood of '53 which took away person A, or wiped out congregation B, or destroyed family C" will be what is remember years into the future!