Featured Natural Disasters and the Will of God

Sometimes God allows certain situations to change men's heart.

 

QF,


I look first at Amos 4;
6 And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

7 And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.

8 So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

9 I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

10 I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

Then in speaking of God's providential dealings with mankind:
Psalm 148:8
Fire, and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy wind fulfilling his word:

Blessings and curses upon a land are all under God's control....

28 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.

3 Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.

4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep

11 And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee.

12 The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.

 

They fall under either His decretive or permissive will. We don't know which.

 

It is what it is...

....by this I mean that if it were not for the bad in this life, we'd have nothing to look forward to in heaven, knowing heaven will bring us a new and improved body that will not know sickness or death, and I'm quite sure a world without disasters.

It rips my guts out to see people snatched from this life in the midst of a natural disaster, but, it also tears at my heart when young and old alike suffer from a long term or short term illness; or are here one minute and gone the next by way of a massive heart attack or accident or senseless killing.

I don't have an answer, but, I do know He does, and all of left to pick up the pieces after these things strike down mankind, need to not lose faith. Instead we need to remember that regarding this life, we are but sojourners, are days are already numbered, and heaven is our destination.

With that last thought in mind, I am reminded of the greater good and the reason we've been saved and allowed to walk about in His Name. We must not fail to share the Good News, because that person you lead to Jesus today, may be with Him later that evening.

We must go make Disciples.....NOT FIGHT AMONG OURSELVES OVER THE VALIDITY OF TONGUES....whether Calvin had all the answers...which church is the most favored by God....the evils of the new praise music....which version of the Bible God approves...which form of baptist beliefs is the right one...were OT saints born-again....should we go to movies...political activism....or Rick Warren [who will be accountable for his works and words], etc., etc.???

We are toooooooooo caught up in the flesh and our own EGOs to do what the Master called us to do in Matthew 28:16-20. It is not about how you straightened out the pastor in his errors? It shouldn't be about winning a DEBATE on this board. A board that will one day mean nothing in comparison to heaven? It will not mean anything to God or those who go to hell when you stand before God and tell God and the great host of witnesses that you exposed trolls on the board; helped to rid the church of a bad deacon or pastor here and there?

When are we going to get it? This life does not revolve around US?

The fields are white unto harvest. And our number-one job is to PRAY that he will send workers.

Natural disasters should be a WAKE UP call to the church to get about doing the work of the Master, and leaving our foolishness behind us.

 

If God sends rain on the fields of the good and the evil, can he not also send disaster upon the good and the evil? The disaster will try all who undergo it, and it will make manifest and strengthen the faith of the faithful and expose the faithlessness of the faithless. All are appointed to die once and then face judgment. Some die sooner and some later. It is only by God's grace that any of us alive today. None of us is guaranteed another day. Let us live every day for our Lord and Savior.

 

The reason there are natural disasters is that this is a fallen world, and God has permitted it to remain so.

One thing that has always troubled me is, why does God not intervene more often.

 

I have heard Pat Robertson blame such disasters on sin and judgment as well which I believe is horrendous.

What many forget is that Satan is the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4) and that he is also called the "prince of the power of the air" (Eph 2:2).
When God permitted Satan to try Job, I believe it was a tornado that Satan used to destroy Job's property

"And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee." Job 1:19

Revelation 13 also makes clear that the beast has power of elements of weather, Rev 13:13, power of which was given to him by Satan. Rev 13:4.

Furthermore, part of the curse of sin was that it also affected the natural order of creation (Gen 3:17). The world is winding down. As creation gets older and less stable, weather patterns become increasingly chaotic.

Some even blame man for self-made weather controlling systems (HAARP).

Thus to blame God for all the "natural disasters" is bogus when there is no possible way to determine if God chose to implement judgments prior to those that will be meted out during the tribulation, or if Satan, under the permissive will of God, acting of his own destructive tendencies, or whether the disaster was a result of natural occurrences with unfortunate consequences.

 

God permitted that to happen in Ok, and He also ordained that His people should get involved and become part of His solution to this problem!

 

I believe it is wrong for believers to speak about natural events as if they were not under God's absolute control.It betrays wrong thinking and is unbiblical.
God has created all the elements of the universe and all the scientific laws,,,,gravity, magnetic fields etc.
If there is an appointed time for everyone's death...there is an appointed means as well.
A tornado,earthquake, tsunami, works as effectively as a heart attack does to bring that about.

 

What Icon said. :applause:

 

Scripture and verse that shows natural events are always under God's control.
If that were true, they would not be called "natural". Just because God permits it, doesn't mean He is controlling it.

In Job is one example of the permissive will of God.

"And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord."

God allowed what Satan did to Job, but did not control what he did to Job. God established boundaries of what Satan was allowed to do, but did not control what Satan did within the boundaries he was given.

The logical conclusion of that type of reasoning is that God is also the author of sin. If the Bible says that God can not look upon sin (Habakkuk 1:13) then it naturally follows that sin operates independent of God. The sovereignty of God require that He is not in contact with things that are cursed. Sin has cursed humanity and all of creation. Gen 3:17. And thus God has permitted the earth and humanity to run their course in the direction that sin pushes it.

 

The LORD has made all for Himself, yes, even the wicked for the day of doom.

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

When the whirlwind passes by, the wicked is no more, but the righteous has an everlasting foundation.

Since God ordain ALL things, including the weather, there is no such thing as a "natural" disaster. He may take His people at the same time as He takes the wicked, but they each have a different end. The elect to glory and the unbeliever to await final judgment.

 

of course the Tornado in Ok was under the sovereign control of God, for he allowed the storm to cause it to occur, but are you saying that God directly ordered it to strike and kill those children?

 

While you're sitting here debating a naturally occurring storm, perfectly normal in nature, do you have a CLUE about the humans here who are hurting kids? The number of kids abused, murdered, legally kidnapped by the corrupt government, and you're worried about whether or not a TORNADO is a sign? Seriously?

If you want to help the people who were victims of the tornado, get out here and work.

If you want to help the PEOPLE, preach the word.

That's about it. The why doesn't matter. Be more concerned with unnatural acts from humans than perfectly natural acts of nature. How about those who shut their doors to those needing help when it was in its way? You worried about that at all? Does that bother you or are you more concerned with sitting there wondering about whether little babies crushed to death was some type of sign?

Do you know how utterly JERKY you sound right now?!

 

God being sovereign does not mean that He controls and forces humans and creation to act without will or designed function.

The first verse (Prov 16:4) merely shows that what God created, He created for Himself. That does not state that He forces creation or humans to operate without will or choice. When He says "even the wicked for the day of doom", God's counsel created a punishment for those who reject him (and yes, God can be rejected, "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me" (Isaiah 1:2)). God set in motion consequences for rejecting Him. Setting forth the boundaries of those consequences does not mean that God forces those against their will to deliberately reject Him. When a sinner rejects God and ends up in hell, he is following the boundaries that God ordained for judgment.

The second verse, (Prov 10:25) has nothing to do with God controlling events, it is a general principle that if a wicked person gets caught in a whirlwind, he dies and in comparison to a righteous person, has no hope beyond his death and the righteous have an everlasting foundation.

Third verse, Eph 1:11, one of the most misused verses in SG and Calvinist followings. God working all things after the COUNSEL of His own will does not mean that God controls the acts of men and creation.

There is a classic argument from atheists "Can God throw an immovable stone at an unmovable object" and the answer is no, because God's counsel created the laws of physics, and God does not do what is out side of the laws that He created to do. God can not sin because His nature repudiates it. It is impossible for it is simply not part of His nature. God can not do what is not in His nature to do.

That being said, God's counsel involved creating a world and then giving man dominion over it. He counseled through His will that man lives by breathing, that life flows from blood, that rain brings forth plant life, the sun gives heat and light. God also gave man a choice in the Garden of Eden and man disobeyed him. God gave judgment and created the boundaries of judgment and redemption. His counsel provided man with free moral agency, thus it is not beyond God's sovereignty that man chooses Christ because man is operating within the counsel that God established in creating free will.

When God works all things after the counsel of His own will, He is operating through the boundaries that He Himself created for man and nature. Since God transcends boundaries, He may choose to work beyond those boundaries (miracles from our perspective). It is far more a demonstration of God's sovereignty when He chooses to act against boundaries that govern universal principles because it gives contrast between what is created and the Creator, and such a demonstration is precisely why nature and man are permitted to act independently of His intervention and control. Such is not a conflict with God's sovereignty, but a compliment to it.

God created the world and with it boundaries on how it operates. When a tornado or hurricane strike, the weather is acting according to the laws that God ordained and when the conditions are met for a storm, it occurs without God having to force it to happen. However, as with the example of Job, there are times when God has permitted Satan to control the weather. The permissive will of God in allowing Satan to afflict Job by using the weather does not conflict with God's sovereignty. Jesus made it clear that the weather is permitted to act on its own in John 3:8:

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

Therefore you can not blame God for causing the storm anymore than you can blame God for being the author of evil and sin.

 

I agree. How trifling of Job to consider the will of God in wind that killed his children.