If you want to see how much God is angered and offended by sin then look at the cross, because it was there that Divine love and justice met in one momentous catharsis of Divine judgment. There can’t be and there isn’t any human solution to our estrangement. How can God be seen to be just before an onlooking universe and overlook sin. He cannot! How can He love and yet punish? How can God love humanity and yet find a way that does not compromise His justice? There, at the cross we see love and justice passionately colliding and resolving themselves in mutual satisfaction. This is a glorious truth. God hates sin but loves the sinner.

We have yet to deal with the biggest lie, but today’s meditation is a close second. Let me ask you the question. What roll do you think God plays in the world’s tragedies? None, Some, or all? I heard the story of a group of ministers at a prayer breakfast just after a Californian earthquake. They all agreed that God had nothing to do with the shifting plates, the collapsed freeway, and ruined buildings. They were sure that God had nothing to do with this disaster. We live in a fallen world; earthquakes just happen according to certain laws in the natural order of things. Yet surprisingly when one of the ministers closed the meeting with prayer, he thanked God for the timing of 5am when few cars were on the freeway and the sidewalks were empty. They all said, “Amen.” So, did God have anything to do with the quake or not? Are these “acts of God” as listed on insurance policies, or is it “hands off” as nature follows a natural course of events?

The first question we must ask; is God in control of natural disasters? That nature was affected by ‘the fall’ is stated in Genesis 3:17-18 where the ground was cursed. When God passed sentence on Adam’s disobedience and rebellion, He also cursed nature. Sinful humanity would not be allowed to live in a sinless paradise. Romans 8:19-22 informs us that the entire creation is groaning and awaiting its redemption. Joyfully Revelation 22:3 declares that in the new earth, there would be “no more curse.”

Everyday we see results of the curse (Notice that this is God’s curse) – weather, tidal waves, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, drought, and floods. It seems that all of these are on the increase as 1,000s are killed by powerful upheavals of natural forces. As I teach in Science and Geography at school, the immediate cause of an earthquake is a moving plate/fault beneath the earth. We have already discussed how this is the most probable explanation for the flood; the rapid movement of tectonic plates and the exposure of large amounts of water to the underlying magma as most of the water “came from the deep” as superheated steam, being shot into the atmosphere and condensing as rain for 40 days and nights. The immediate cause of tornados and hurricanes is the wind and temperature patterns over the oceans. Remember when Jesus commanded the lake to “peace be still,” it was a demonstration that nature was under His dominion; He was the second Adam. On the basis of the curse on nature, we would have to conclude that the ultimate cause of these ‘natural’ events is God!
Stay with me on this.