The $64,000 question that seems most pundits are asking these days is: was what occurred in Louisiana, recently Nashville, and the other national disasters a cosmic mistake… a roll of the celestial dice? Was nature running wild while God was helplessly watching? How could a loving God allow such a thing to happen? And if He did allow (or cause) this to happen, then is He truly a loving God at all? Can God be both loving, omnipotent (all-powerful) and sovereign concurrently? On Bill Maher’s HBO "Real Time" program few years ago, he and others had the unabashed audacity to suggest that this was all President Bush's doing; that somehow the selfless relief efforts by thousands of volunteers helping those hurt most by this disaster was nothing short of a “racist act” by rich white people against poor black people. Preposterous! (Can liberals cease to be politically jaded for a moment on anything without using tragedy as a punch line for their biased agendas?)
What is the answer? How are we as Christians to respond to others when national disaster by phenomenal acts of nature happen? Can we love our neighbor and bring help and aid to them in the midst of their severe loss and still point them to the God of all creation as a witness to the gospel? The obvious short answer is yes.
God is Lord over all His creation; even hurricane Katrina—and He will accomplish His plans for His glory, even through this devastation and tragedy. God was not sleeping and He was in the storm.
So contrary to the Open Theists (Libertarian Free Will); the environmentalists; the sociologists; the politicians; the pundits; the racists; and the theological liberals – the following verses below are what the Scriptures teach about “Mother Nature” and Heaven’s Dread Sovereign. Mother Nature does not have a free will; she does not act of her own accord or desires; she does not engage in lugubrious augury; and with certainty, does not by chance target coastal cities known for their debauchery as an indiscriminate prejudicial judge. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no random occurrence by nature in this world—catastrophic or otherwise. Mother Nature's got a Father.
of our holy God over all nature in this world,
and then fall to your knees in humble worship!
“Are there any among the false gods of the nations that can bring rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Are you not he, O Lord our God? We set our hope on you, for you do all these things” (Jeremiah 14:22).
“I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:7).
When Jerusalem crumbled and Jeremiah saw many people that he loved captured and killed, the weeping prophet lamented with these profound words: “Who has spoken and it has come to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? Why should any living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins? Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord” (Lamentations 3:37-40).
Elihu exhorted Job that God was not absent from, but truly is, Lord of the storm: "From its chamber comes the whirlwind, and cold from the scattering winds. By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen fast. He loads the thick cloud with moisture; the clouds scatter his lightning. They turn around and around by his guidance, to accomplish all that he commands them on the face of the habitable world. Whether for correction or for his land or for love, he causes it to happen" (Job 37:9-13).
In chapter Job chapter 38, the Lord answers Job by sovereign interogation saying: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me! Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who enclosed the sea with doors when, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; when I made a cloud its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and I placed boundaries on it and set a bolt and doors, and I said, "Thus far you shall come, but no farther; and here shall your proud waves stop? Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?” (Job 38:1-13).
"Who has cleft a channel for the flood, or a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land without people, on a desert without a man in it, to satisfy the waste and desolate land and to make the seeds of the grass to sprout? Has the rain a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb has come the ice? And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth? Water becomes hard like stone and the surface of the deep is imprisoned” (Job 38:25-30).
We need not look any further than those profound words from God’s Word. As we pray for and be of assistance to those who have been left destitute by this hurricane, we must also come to rest in the sure immutable unwavering truth that nothing can thwart God’s plans, purposes, and promises over His creatures and creation. In His wrath and in His mercy He will be glorified; for there is no injustice with God (cp, Romans 9:7-23).
In the end beloved, the issue comes down to this: are you prepared for eternity if your soul was required of you this hour; if a hurricane devasted your town? (cp, Luke 13:1-7).
Love your neighbor as yourself…
As the Day draws near,
Steve
