Ever since the creation was cursed in Genesis 3, there have been numerous sad illustrations of what it means to live in a fallen world. In 1665 London was ravaged by plague, but on 2 September 1666 in a bakery in Pudding Lane a fire broke out which ended out destroying about 80% of the city. Surprisingly few lives were lost – about 16, it is thought – but it has gone down in history as the Great Fire of London. In true Puritan style, Thomas Brooks preached a 300 page exposition on the subject, based on Isaiah 42:24-25, ‘Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey? So he poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle; it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand.’ Whatever else might be said about them, the Puritans knew their Bibles and were thorough.
On All Saints Day (November 1) in 1755 a great earthquake devastated Lisbon, and was followed by a series of huge tsunamis. Where there was not floods of water, there was fire. 80-85% of Lisbon was destroyed, and perhaps 40,000 people lost their lives. All of Europe was stunned, and in far-off Virginia, on 19 June 1756 Samuel Davies preached on Isaiah 24:18-20, ‘He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble. The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken. The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again.’
In recent times our part of the world has witnessed a series of disasters – unprecedented flooding in Queensland and Victoria; an earthquake in Christchurch; and an earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear radiation in Japan. So far, there have been no reports of pastors reaching for Isaiah 24 or 42, but we must surely ask how Christians are meant to respond to such disasters, and also, if possible, to understand them in the light of God’s sovereign will.
First of all, we are to be people who empathise with human suffering. We are to ‘weep with those who weep’ (Rom.12:15). If we cannot do that, we had best close our mouths and say nothing. We are not to rejoice when our enemy falls (Prov.24:17) but seek to do good to all (Gal.6:10). Whatever else we understand or think we understand, we have the obligation to relieve suffering as much as we are able.
The second thing is to realise that all things come from God who does all things well. The Christian response is not that this is simply the result of the forces of nature or that the devil has done this. Those things are true, so far as they go, but God is not just sovereign over good things but over all things. ‘Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?’ (Amos 3:6b) ‘Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?’ (Lam.3:38) God declares His sovereign power and purpose in all that takes place: ‘I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things’ (Isa.45:7). We may say that His judgments are unsearchable and His ways inscrutable (Rom.11:33), but we cannot say that they are not His. God is at work, even in floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear accidents.
The final point to make is that all disasters are to teach us the lesson of the seven bowls of God’s wrath in Revelation 16. We are fallen and fragile people, and the various afflictions recorded there are meant to arouse people to repent and give glory to God. Jesus specifically forbids us to draw the conclusion that those who perish in disasters – whether man-made or ‘natural’ – are the worst sinners (Luke 13:1-5). However, He does say that such disasters are a call to repent or we too will perish (Luke 13:3, 5). By nature, we tend to believe that this world is what we can be sure of, whereas the next one is uncertain. By grace, we learn that it is the other way around. It is the kingdom of God that cannot be shaken (Heb.12:28). And in the words of Augustine of Hippo: ‘He will be the goal of all our longings; and we shall see him for ever; we shall love him without satiety; we shall praise him without wearying. This will be the duty, the delight, the activity of all, shared by all who share the life of eternity … For what is our end but to reach that kingdom which has no end?’
With warmest regards in Christ,
Peter Barnes