Posted on 09/02/2005 10:17:06 AM PDT by dukeman
This weeks events along the upper Gulf coast reminded me of the Asian tsunami last Christmas. People will question God about the devastation. The following two articles are pertinent and I hope they help you.
Mercy for the living
The deadly tsunami should drive us to our knees in repentance | by John Piper
From pulpits to news programs, from The New York Times to The Wall Street Journal, the message of the tsunami was missed. It is a double grief when lives are lost and lessons are not learned. Every deadly calamity is a merciful call from God for the living to repent. "Weep with those who weep," the Bible says. Yes, but let us also weep for our own rebellion against the living God. Lesson one: Weep for the dead. Lesson two: Weep for ourselves.
Repeat: Every deadly calamity is a merciful call from God for the living to repent. That was Jesus' stunning statement to those who brought Him news of calamity. The tower of Siloam had fallen, and 18 people were crushed. What about this, Jesus? they asked. He answered, "Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:4-5).
The point of every deadly calamity is this: Repent. Let our hearts be broken that God means so little to us. Grieve that He is a whipping boy to be blamed for pain, but not praised for pleasure. Lament that He makes headlines only when man mocks His power, but no headlines for 10,000 days of wrath withheld. Let us rend our hearts that we love life more than we love Jesus Christ. Let us cast ourselves on the mercy of our Maker. He offers it through the death and resurrection of His Son.
This is the point of all pleasure and all pain. Pleasure says: "God is like this, only better; don't make an idol out of me. I only point." Pain says: "What sin deserves is like this, only worse; don't take offense at me. I am a merciful warning."
But the topless sunbathers amid the tsunami aftermath in Phuket, Thailand, did not get the message. Neither did the man who barely escaped the mighty wave with the help of a jungle gym and palm leaf roof. He concluded, "I am left with an immense respect for the power of nature." He missed it. The point is reverence for the Creator, not respect for creation.
Writing in The New York Times, David Brooks rightly scorns the celebration of nature's might: "When Thoreau [celebrates] savage wildness of nature, he sounds, this week, like a boy who has seen a war movie and thinks he has experienced the glory of combat." But Mr. Brooks sees no message in the calamity: "This is a moment to feel deeply bad, for the dead and for those of us who have no explanation."
David Hart, writing in The Wall Street Journal, goes beyond that and pronounces: "No Christian is licensed to utter odious banalities about God's inscrutable counsels or blasphemous suggestions that all this mysteriously serves God's good ends."
These responses are foreseen in Scripture: "I killed your young men with the sword . . . yet you did not return to Me, declares the Lord" (Amos 4:10). "They cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give Him glory" (Revelation 16:9).
Contrary to Mr. Hart's pronouncement, the Christian Scriptures do indeed license us to speak of God's "inscrutable counsels" and how He works in all things for mysterious good ends. To call this banal and blasphemous is like a bird calling the wind under its wing wicked.
Jesus said that the minutest event in nature is under the control of God. "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father" (Matthew 10:29). He said this to give hope to those who would be killed for His name.
He Himself stood on the sea and stopped the waves with a single word (Mark 4:39). Even if nature or Satan unleashed the deadly tidal wave, one word from Jesus would have stopped it. He did not speak it. This means there is design in this suffering. And all His designs are wise and just and good.
One of His designs is my repentance. Therefore I will not put God on trial. I am on trial. Only because of Christ will the waves that one day carry me away also bring me safely to His side. Come. Repentance is a good place to be. •
____________________________________
Tsunami atheism
Disaster and mass loss of life disprove only the manmade god | by Gene Edward Veith
Some see the dead bodies on television and say, "If there is a God, surely He would have stopped this. It happened, so there must not be one." But the tsunami does not disprove the existence of the God of the Bible. It only disproves the existence of the kind of god we make up for ourselves.
"The God I worship would never punish anyone," we hear. "The God I believe in doesn't care who we have sex with or how we worship or how we live our lives. My God is not so judgmental." Well, that God does not exist. The image of a nice deity who looks benignly down from heaven, wanting us all just to have a good time, is a wish-fulfillment, a fiction we might make up so we feel better.
The God revealed by the Bible is not that way at all. He is a consuming fire. His ways are not our ways. He can be full of wrath, wiping out nations and devastating His own people. At one time, He went so far as to tsunami the whole world, sparing only a single family in an ark (and in His mercy said He would never flood the whole world again).
The God of the Bible is not like us, and not at all the sort of deity that we would make up for ourselves. And yet, whether we like it or not, He is real, and the world displays that reality. It is a hard world, one of cancer, heart attacks, senseless accidents, and—the tsunami.
We think the death rate of 150,000 in the tsunami is horrible, and it is. But the death toll is going to rise higher. Before too long, the number of the dead will reach 6.2 billion. Everyone now alive will die. The death rate is 100 percent. And no one knows when or how death will come, whether in youth, the prime of life, or old age; whether it will come suddenly, as with the tsunami or a heart attack, or be drawn out and painful.
The old theologians believed that ordinary human reason can know—recognizing the order in the universe and the testimony of one's own conscience—that God exists. Reason, however, cannot tell us very much about God or His disposition toward us. For that, we need His self-revelation. That is, we need what He has given, His Word in human language, the Bible.
The Bible reveals that the God behind all of life is indeed frightening, but that He also is righteous. Moreover, He loves us. That was news to the ancient pagans, who assumed that the gods were capricious and cruel. God's goodness, though, is often hidden in this fallen world, which is indeed a realm of sin, suffering, wrath, and disorder. He will indeed eliminate all evil and suffering, but that comes later, when the dead will rise to a New Heaven and New Earth. In the meantime, we live in a vale of soul-building.
What is missing in most people's conception of God is that He does not just look down from heaven on the human condition. Rather, He joins it. The Second Person of the Trinity became Man. God Himself suffered hunger, poverty, and physical pain. He Himself died unfairly in the prime of life. More than that, in a miracle as stupendous as the creation, He took upon Himself the sin, guilt, and afflictions of the world. He atoned for them all in His death on the cross.
Jesus explained that senseless disasters, like the fall of the tower of Siloam, are not due to the sins of the victims, and yet such horrors should awake us to our condition and drive us to repentance. And to those who cannot help but ask, "Where is God in the midst of all of this suffering?" Jesus told us where He would be: hidden in our suffering neighbors. •
Not news. This is religion, and belongs in that forum.
This hurricane is not the action of some deity. It is not a "warning" or a "call to repent." It is a natural disaster. A dozen or so hurricanes happen each year. This was a big one, and it hit a large city.
This has nothing to do with religion, but your post does. Send it to the Religion forum.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
news
No, I'm sorry, but it is not news. There is no news whatsoever in your post. It's religious opinion, and does not belong in the news/activism area.
I have no problem with your posting it, but it belongs in the religion section, not in news.
However, perhaps you'll point out some new information that is contained in your post that is news about the Katrina disaster. I might change my mind.
Your right. God doesn't make natural disasters, and the quote is a complete misinterpretation of what Christ was trying to say.
There's been a lot of that around here this week. That's OK, since it's the opinion of some people. It remains a religious issue, however, and not news.
Free Republic has a forum for religious discussions. This is the News/Activism forum. It's hard enough to keep up with genuine news, with all the postings.
decaf
2 excellent Christian relief organizations:
Southern Baptist's NAMB: http://www.namb.net/
Samaritan's Purse: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/
good sense
The Southern Baptist Convention in particular makes a great response to this type of disaster. They are well equipped and have legions of trained volunteers. And they get there quickly...
Such a simple point that is so tough to remember.
I subscribe to WORLD magazine. It contains the most insightful essays on current events.
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