Was God in the Tsunami? 

There was a time, not long ago, when we referred to any natural disaster, such as a hurricane, flood, fire, earthquake, or tornado, as an ‘act of God.’

We assumed without question that God controlled the destructive forces of nature. The term is still used in insurance policies for insuring property. The idea was that such calamities were events in God’s providential government of the world. Whenever the Bible refers to God’s judgments in the Old Testament, or speaks of Him as a Judge, the meaning is generally not referring to a final judgment, but to God’s providential government in the affairs of men and working of nature. It refers to deliverance for the righteous and punishment for the wicked—in this life. 

Ps. 75:6-7:  “No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt a man. 7 But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another.”  God executes judgments all the time, silently, invisibly ruling through His Providence. Political changes, revolutions, elections, wars, and natural disasters result from the righteous judgments of God. 

Ps. 105:5-7: “Remember the wonders [God] has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced, 6 descendants of Abraham his servant, O sons of Jacob, his chosen ones. 7 He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth.” God doesn’t have a throne on earth; His throne is in heaven, from which He orders the affairs of men and natural phenomena to bring about His sovereign will.  

If a natural catastrophe can be a judgment of God, so can blessings and deliverances be judgments. When David prayed that God would judge between him and his enemies, he was asking God to deliver him and to destroy David’s enemies: 

Psalm 7:1-13: “O LORD my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, 2 or they will tear me like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me... 6 Arise, O LORD, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God; decree justice. 7 Let the assembled peoples gather round you. Rule over them from on high; 8 let the LORD judge the peoples. Judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, according to my integrity, O Most High 9 righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure. 10 My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart. 11 God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day. 12 If he does not relent, [God] will sharpen his sword; He will bend and string his bow. 13 He has prepared his deadly weapons; he makes ready his flaming arrows.” 

It’s quite clear here that David wants God to judge between him and his enemies HERE AND NOW. If God will search David’s heart, He will see that David is the innocent party, has been upright and blameless, and that his enemies deserve to be overthrown. David expected that God would intervene on behalf of the righteous and save the upright in heart; and in David’s case He did...repeatedly. This is not speaking of a final judgment, but of the daily judgments of Providence: “He expresses His wrath every day.” 

God’s Judgments Are Unfathomable:  In Psalm 36:6 David said to God: “Your judgments are a great deep.” God’s decisions and judgments are unfathomable to man. We don’t know why God does things as He does unless He tells us. As a chosen nation Israel had prophets, men who spoke God’s thoughts, to tell them (and us) that such-and-such a disaster was a judgment of God. But we have no such people among us today. We learn from them natural disasters are God’s doing, but we don’t know why unless God chooses to tell us. He hasn’t seen fit to do that; only He tells us that His judgments are always true and fair (Ps. 19:9)—the right people get punished and the right people are saved. We have to leave that with Him.

That brings us to a crucial question: Why do His judgments sweep away the innocent with the guilty? This question has haunted the media lately, and they keep asking different religious leaders where God is in all this. 

I have been very disappointed at the answers of religious leaders to the question, “Did God cause the Tsunami”?  Some have said that God had nothing to do with the disaster—as if any earthly event of that proportion could occur without God’s involvement. When asked the question, Franklin Graham hemmed and hawed about God being love and the necessity of accepting Christ as Savior; in the end he basically said that Satan caused the Tsunami and (apparently) God is only involved in the relief efforts. God only does nice things; everything bad comes from the Devil. Graham may be an excellent evangelist; but if that’s his answer, he’s a pretty poor Bible student and theologian. 

While evangelical leaders are making lame, unscriptural remarks on the disaster, one Jewish writer seems to have gotten it about right. Jeff Jacoby,

columnist for the Boston Globe, wrote the following: 

“An online poll at Beliefnet.com, the popular website on religion and spirituality, is asking what role God plays in natural disasters like the Indian Ocean tsunami that has devastated much of Asia. The poll offers five options:  

 
        (1) God is punishing us.  

        (2) God is testing us.  

        (3) The earthquake and tsunami were sent by God, but we don't know what the purpose was.  

        (4) Although I believe in God, the supernatural had nothing to do with this tragedy.  

        (5) God doesn't exist; disasters like this are just forces of nature.
  
   “As one who believes in a God of both creation and history [Jacoby continues] -- a God involved in the lives of individuals and nations, and without whose existence our own existence would ultimately have no purpose -- I voted for No. 3 [that God sent it, but we don’t know why]. So did 29 percent of all who have voted so far.
  
But the runaway winner, at 51 percent, is No. 4 -- God exists, but He had no connection to the tsunami. Insurers may call such catastrophes ‘acts of God,’ but to a majority of Beliefnet's respondents, that is only a figure of speech.” 

Actually I have some sympathy with the majority of Beliefnet’s respondents and with Franklin Graham, I suppose: I’d like to think that Satan, not God, was responsible for this horrible devastation. But Scripture won’t allow me to believe that! As benign and God-friendly as they sound, such answers don’t please God because they misrepresent Him and make impossible any whole, true conception of Him and His work. Several have spoken solemnly of the Tsunami as a ‘disaster of biblical proportions’; but they haven’t accepted the biblical view—that God sent it. 

Biblical writers are at pains to affirm that God is responsible for natural disasters. I grant that Satan, with God’s permission, has some power over the elements: for example, Satan caused Job’s tragedy by a series of calamities—but only after God gave him permission. The ‘fire of God’ destroyed his cattle and servants; Chaldean raiding parties completed Job’s losses; and a ‘mighty wind from the desert’ killed his children. But only by the express permission of Jehovah was Satan allowed to touch Job, his family, or his possessions. So far as I know this is the only time Satan was credited with any great power over the elements: and even then it was only with God’s express permission. Behind the scenes we see that Satan caused Job’s misery, but only so far as God allowed. We’re not for a moment allowed to forget that while God protected Job with a ‘hedge,’ Satan couldn’t touch him. In the Bible Satan is nowhere represented as the source of natural and political disasters. In fact the opposite is the case. 

In Disasters, Invasions and ‘Natural’ Catastrophes God is always spoken of as the cause. 

Isaiah 45:5-7:  “I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, 6 so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other. 7 I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.” I hardly know how words could be clearer. 

Amos 3:2-6: [Speaking to Israel, Amos says:] ”You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins. 3 Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?  4 Does a lion roar in the thicket when he has no prey? Does he 5 Does a bird fall into a trap on the ground where no snare has been set? Does a trap spring up from the earth when there is nothing to catch? 6 When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it?”   

The point of this series of rhetorical questions is to show that there is a cause for every effect; and when the effect is a natural disaster or invasion, God is the cause. The Devil, demons, and evil men may be God’s instruments in some cases—indeed they often are; but God is the cause. 

God’s rule over the World must accommodate the free choices of rational creatures. While Satan has much power in this present age—so much that he is called the ruler of this world (John 12:31), the god of this age (II Cor. 4:4), God certainly over-rules:  Ps. 103:19-22 says,  “The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. 20 Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. 21 Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. 22 Praise the LORD, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the LORD, O my soul.”  

So we see that even in its rebellion this is God’s world; the weather is God’s weather, and the Devil has very little to do with it. In fact, Satan is God’s Devil; he can only do what God permits him to do. So if anyone, attempting to justify God’s ways to man, says that God is not responsible for disasters such as the recent one, disasters that sweep away innocent and guilty alike, he is not representing God as God’s Word depicts Him—that is, as God depicts Himself. However we look at it, however we rationalize it, however sinful man may be tempted to judge His Creator, God says of Himself: “I create calamity” (Isaiah 45:7). 

I realize that this gives some rebellious people a case against God, but God does not need to explain Himself. He is God. We are mere creatures, and sinful, needy, mind-darkened creatures at that. Those of us who love Him are yet perplexed by many of His ways. But we know that He is good and that all of the “judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (Ps. 19:9).  And finally:  

Isaiah 26:9:  “When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.”

I hope this will help with the perplexing questions that arise as we experience and observe God’s rule on the earth and among the nations.

God has revealed all He wants us to know: for the rest we are to trust in His love and justice. 

Let’s pray: Lord, we gladly leave the hidden things in your care; we who know and love you, are content to know only what you tell us. Amen.