Sunday, March 13, 2011

God and the Japan Tsunami of 2011

#prayforjapan Twitter screenshot
Elsewhere on the internet, someone expressed revulsion at another's status message calling on Japanese people to repent and be saved.

Q: Is it as some claim that it was because of their great sinfulness that Sendai and whole towns in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, Japan were wiped out? After all, that's what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sexual immorality and perversion (Genesis 19:1-29, Jude 1:7).

A preposterous unbiblical claim. First, only God knows why he allowed a tsunami to hit them so hard or why the residents near Fukushima nuclear plant were exposed to radiation leaks and reactor core meltdowns. Second, Jesus said about the incidents of his day (Galileans whose blood were mixed with their own sacrifices, and the victims of a tower collapse in Siloam) that this did not mean that the deceased were worse sinners than others (Luke 13:1-5a).

They were not more guilty than others. Rather, Jesus said that all deserved the same fate (Luke 13:5b-8)

Q: Is this a sign that the world is going to end (in 2012)?
No one knows when the world will end, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father (Mark 13:32).

But daily news of nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and famines and earthquakes in various places must remind us that the end will definitely come (Matthew 24, Mark 13). Therefore, surviving a disaster or merely not being at any risk of being in one does not give us licence to merely sit around and be mesmerised by the horrific photos on our laptop or telly screens and congratulate ourselves on our good luck; God has granted us another day of life so that we have the opportunity to start believing in him.

Q: Look at all the death and destruction, grief and pain. How can you say there is a God?
But why do you say all this is bad? Where do you find your reference of good and evil? Why do we, globally, historically, even have such categories?

Surely human wisdom and experience percolated through the ages should have been desensitived us to all this pain and suffering. After all, that's part of life in this world, isn't it - everyone dies; stuff happens. Yet, we persist in considering all these things as calamities and insist on something more...perfect.

This is because God has set eternity in the hearts of man (Ecclesiastes 3:11). There was a time when there was no suffering, when the forces "of nature" did not kill humans, but Adam and Even, representatives of the human race, rebelled against their Creator, fancying themselves to be God, and the world descended into chaos, rebelling against them as they rebelled against God. And here we are now. But this is not the end, because there will come a time when there will be no more mourning nor crying nor pain for those who repent of thinking themselves as God and who turn from making up the rules to their own lives to obeying him (Revelation 21).

Q: How can a good God have done all this? How can Jesus claim to love us if he allows all this to happen?

How can God allow suffering and evil in the world? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

We pray because God is the only person who truly loves mankind and who is really in control.

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1 Comments:

At July 28, 2013 10:42 pm , Anonymous Anonymous said...

guess aboriginals in Australia were really good at the time of this biblical claim to a world wide flood to survive it. HANG ON it says in genesis 7:21 something different(all flesh on the earth expired),so Australian aboriginals are lying about the age of their existence. what do u believe?

 

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