Tsunamis
&
Other
Tragedies
America woke up to the reality of terrorism on September 11, 2001. Together we watched the World Trade Towers crumble to the ground. We saw the wreckage at the Pentagon and heard the heroic story of United Airlines Flight 93. Approximately 3,000 people died in those attacks, but that number pales beside the over 200,000 people who perished in the Indonesian Tsunami at the end of 2004.
Why
does death sometimes occur on such a massive scale? For that matter why do horrendous personal tragedies strike
relatively innocent people?
A little girl is raped and murdered by her mother’s boyfriend. A young mother is killed when hoodlums throw a chunk of ice from a bridge. A sudden heart attack deprives two toddlers of their strong and loving father.
1) Moral Evil Differs from Natural Evil.
Moral
evil is deliberate evil committed by rational agents. The evil that human beings knowingly do to each other comes first
to mind, but we should also include sins against God and the harm done by the
devil and his legions.
Natural
evil is the harm that is done by non-rational agents. The devastation caused by an earthquake is one example. Another is the economic damage a rancher
suffers from predators. There is
nothing morally wrong with a pack of wolves tearing into a flock of sheep. The sheep may bleat in confusion and pain,
but the wolves are simply acting according to their nature.
2) Moral Evil Depends on God.
If
there is no God the distinction between moral evil and natural evil
evaporates. Everything is a part of
nature. Human beings are only animals
who act according to their natural dispositions. Sometimes, like guppies, they eat their young. Some-times, like robins, they care for
them. If people are only animals, there
was nothing morally wrong with the horrifying attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon. We cannot deny that
murderous hatred is a part of human nature, at least for some people, so human
wolves attacked in accordance with their nature, and bleating, human sheep fled
in panic from the carnage.
Our
hearts instinctively rebel against such a caricature of Terrible Tuesday. We know that the vicious actions of
September 11 were morally wrong. Our
hearts may be fearful, grieving and angry, but that is not all. We also have an inalienable sense that the
terrorists violated a higher standard, a standard of justice, against which all
human actions must be measured.
Therefore,
it is foolish to conclude from horrendous injustice that God does not
exist. If there is no God, then the
murder of thousands was not unjust; it was merely unpleasant. On the other hand, if mass murder is unjust,
then we must ask, "Where does God fit into this picture?" The Bible has a great deal to say on the
subject, but I will confine myself to some basic principles.
3) Human Suffering Is a Result of Sin.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they lost the guiding influence of God’s Holy Spirit both for themselves and for their descendants. Left to ourselves, we naturally center our lives around our own desires. The result is that all of us “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The sin at the core of our being is the cause of all the moral evil we commit.
The
fall of Adam and Eve also brought natural evil upon humanity. When God created them, He told them to fill
and to subdue the Earth (Genesis 1:28). They were supposed to extend the beauty and
harmony of the Garden of Eden to the rest of the world. They lost this ability after the fall (Genesis 3:17-19). If Adam and Eve had not sinned, they and
their descendants would have been able to tame the wild world outside the
Garden. Natural events, such as earthquakes
and hurricanes, might still have occurred, but they would not have been natural
disasters to mankind.
4) God Is in Control.
Natural
evil and moral evil are under God’s sovereign control. He can prevent or permit both of them.
Most
of the plagues on Egypt looked like natural events (Exodus 8-10). Frogs, biting
insects, livestock diseases, boils, hail and locusts were all common in
Egypt. On this occasion, however,
disasters struck and departed at the word of Moses, the man of God, and they
were more severe than anything Egypt had ever experienced.
Moral
evil is also under God’s control. 700
years before Christ, God sent the Assyrian armies to discipline His chosen
people, Israel. Through His prophet
Isaiah, God said, "Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger and the
staff in whose hands is My indignation.
I send it against a godless nation and commission it against the people
of My fury to capture booty and to seize plunder, and to trample them down like
mud in the streets. Yet it does not so
intend, nor does it plan so in its heart but rather it is its purpose to
destroy and to cut off many nations" (Isaiah 10:5-7). Here, and
in many other places, the Bible teaches that God uses even the evil actions of
ungodly people to fulfill His purposes.
God’s control over the world provides an excuse for many
to blaspheme His name whenever disaster strikes (Revelation 16:9-11), but His sovereignty should inspire us to give
thanks. If God did not restrain both
kinds of evil, our world would be one long nightmare for all people in all
places at all times. This will, in
fact, take place shortly before Jesus Christ comes again to judge the world (Revelation 6-19).
5) God Has a Long-Range Plan.
God intends to bring “many sons to glory” (Hebrews
2:10). Everyone God saves will be “conformed to the image of His Son,” the
Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:28). Before
the foundation of the world, Jesus, the eternal Son of God, basked in His
Father’s perfect love (John 17:24). In order for us become like Christ, we also
must experience the glorious Fatherly love of God. We experience God’s love when He saves us from the dreadful and
just consequences of our sin. “By this the love of God is manifested in us,
that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live
through Him. In this is love, not that
we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for
our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). Therefore, God permitted Adam and Eve to sin
in order that He might more gloriously demonstrate His love toward a multitude
of their children. For this reason, He
endures “with much patience vessels of
wrath . . . to make known the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy,
which He prepared beforehand for glory” (Romans 9:22-23).
6) God's Immediate Purposes Are Normally Hidden
from Us.
We cannot discern what God is doing in history unless He
tells us, and when we make guesses on our own, we are usually wrong. As we think about the collapse of the World
Trade Center's towers, we need to keep in mind the words of Jesus. "Do
you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed
them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you
will all likewise perish" (Luke
13:4-5). According to Moses, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God" (Deuteronomy 29:29). Terrorists, tsunamis and personal tragedies
strike both the nice and the nasty among us, and God does not tell us how these
individual events fit into His overall plan.
All we know is that they are a part of God’s decision to permit a
limited degree of horrendous evil in His creation.
7) Our Proper Response to Tragedy Is Trust.
In 586 BC the Babylonians reduced Jerusalem to a heap of
rubble. The prophet Jeremiah had been
predicting this event for several years, and when it came, his grief was
overwhelming. Most of the people he
knew had been killed or captured, and his beloved temple was destroyed. Out of his despair came the book of
Lamentations. He wrote, "My eyes fail because of tears, my
spirit is greatly troubled; my heart is poured out on the earth because of the
destruction of the daughter of my people" (Lamentations 2:11). He felt as if God had stopped listening to
his prayers (Lamentations 3:8 & 44). In spite of his anguish, however, he did not
rebel against God. On the darkest day
of his life, he penned these words: "This
I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.
The Lord's
loving-kindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your
faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul,
'Therefore I have hope in Him.' The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
to the person who seeks Him" (Lamentations
3:22-25).
8)
Seek Comfort and Strength through Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins. He rose again to give new life to all who
trust in Him. Now He sits at the right
hand of God the Father, where He serves as our high priest. Through Him alone we have access to the
throne room of God. "Therefore, since we have a great high priest
who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our
confession. For we do not have a high
priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted
in all things as we are, yet without sin.
Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so
that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:14-16). Won’t you come to Him?
©
Dr. John K. La Shell Grace
Community Church 1290
Minesite Rd. Allentown,
PA 18103 610-398-9250 www.gracecommunityallentown.org