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Hurricane Katrina - Judgment of God or Freak of Nature?
By Dennis PollockL Hurricane Katrina is considered the third most intense hurricane ever to hit the United States, but in terms of human tragedy, it is probably the worst ever, with the possible exception of the Galveston flood of 1900 (which killed over 6,000 people in a few hours time). US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as "probably the worst catastrophe, or set of catastrophes" in the country's history, referring to the hurricane itself plus the flooding of New Orleans. Within a day articles began to surface on the Internet and elsewhere, declaring that this was no doubt a judgment of God upon our wicked nation. Various reasons for the display of God’s displeasure were cited, with the U.S. pressure put on Israel to yield land to the Palestinians being one of the more popular. Liberals and secularists see such talk as patent evidence of the ignorance and stupidity of fundamentalist Christians, and scoff at the idea of an angry God being directly responsible for such misery and death. I have never felt particularly comfortable attributing a specific tragedy with God’s displeasure upon our nation. I am not a prophet and have no special insight into the mind of God when it comes to applying cause and effect to natural disasters. Being keenly aware of the wickedness of our nation (which does not require any prophetic gift to clearly observe) I must admit that it is tempting to immediately label such disasters as judgments of God. But I generally restrain myself. There are a few Biblical principles to consider in these cases. Let me list a few of them: Principle #1 – The Idea of God judging a nation is not unbiblical. The Scriptures are filled with such cases. Israel would be the quintessential proof of this. When God established a covenant with the people of Israel, He not only allowed for the possibility of judgment, but actually promised it, in cases of national disobedience. King Solomon knew this well. In dedicating the new temple to God, he prayed a lengthy prayer and acknowledged the possibility of Israel’s failure to obey God’s commands. In His mind misery upon Israel could only mean one thing – Israel had sinned and displeased their God. He stated: Or if Your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against You… (2 Chronicles 6:24) He also assumed that lack of rain could only mean God’s displeasure: When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You… (2 Chronicles 6:26) Lack of rain was not merely a matter of bad luck, the wrong types of clouds, or freak weather; it was coming from a holy God who was judging His errant people. Defeat in war was more than a result of poor planning, inferior weapons, or lack of good leadership; God was trying to get their attention! The prophet Jeremiah, in like manner, declared that absence of rain, which to the agriculturally dependent nations of those days was about the worst thing that could happen, was something that was totally under God’s control: Are there any among the idols of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Are You not He, O Lord our God? Therefore we will wait for You… (Jeremiah 14:22). Some might suggest that Israel was a special case, being in covenant with God, and that He might judge them, but pretty well left the other nations alone. In truth the only people that would suggest such an idea would be those who have never read the Old Testament, and especially the prophets. Egypt, Babylon, Ammon, Edom, and Assyria were just a few of the nations that God spoke judgment to. The conclusion is simple. If the Bible is to be believed (which it most definitely is!) God can and does judge nations with national tragedies. Not only is it possible for an individual to so offend our holy Creator as to provoke His wrath and unleash His hand of destruction, so too may nations invite a corporate release of His fury. Principle #2 – God’s judgments are often the result of a “lifting of the hedge.” The concept of the lifting of the hedge comes from the book of Job. At the beginning of the book Satan is accusing Job of serving God for his own ends. When the Father tells Lucifer of the faithfulness of his servant, Satan quickly responds: Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face! (Job 1:9-11) God grants Satan’s request, lifts His protective hedge, and Satan is allowed to attack his household with terrible violence and destruction. After a series a devastating blows, and allowing Job to spend some time arguing with his “friends” over the cause of his misery, God lets Job know that it is not his place to question God, restores the hedge, and gives Job many more years of blessings and favor before his death. This hedge of protection is also referred to by Joshua and Caleb when they attempt to convince the Israelites that they can easily take the land of Canaan with God’s help: Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. (Numbers 14:9) In Joshua and Caleb’s eyes, it would be no contest. These heathen nations could not possibly withstand Israel. The hedge was down; they would be easy pickings! The reason this is significant is that we need to see that in many, if not most cases God’s judgments are not a matter of Him standing on a cloud with a “judgment death-ray gun” zapping people and nations at will. The sovereign God of the universe simply lifts His hand of protection and allows destruction and misery to come in and do their deadly work. Demons no doubt play a part in this, as they can never go beyond the command of the sovereign God. For this reason Jesus told Peter, “Satan has asked for you, that he might sift you like wheat.” Satan wanted Peter and the other disciples, but could not just come in at random to bring his destruction. Jesus thwarted the malicious plans of the evil one with this simple truth: “but I have prayed for you.” It is an awesome thing to have the ultimate Intercessor pleading your case before the Father. If Hurricane Katrina was indeed God’s judgment on our nation, it is not necessary to think that He was pounding New Orleans with His heavenly fist. He may have simply removed His hedge and allowed the fierce malicious spirits to stir the winds at will. In any case we have to wonder why God would continue to protect our nation from disasters when we mock His name, murder our unborn, and parade sexual immorality without shame. Principle #3 – Natural Disasters are predicted for the Last Days When you study the “signs of the times” that Jesus predicted would indicate our nearness to His return, you can’t help but recognize that nature seems to be allowed to run amok. Jesus describes:
In the book of Revelation we read of terrible hailstorms, and an earthquake that will level mountains. All nature is in an uproar. And yet it is more than nature. God is involved. At one point the sun’s blistering heat is driving men nearly insane: And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory. (Revelation 16:9) It seems that nature is going into violent contractions; birth pains that will increase in frequency and intensity until the very day when our Lord returns. Planet earth, unable to bear the increasing lawlessness that covers her surface and saturates her atmosphere, will writhe in ever increasing pain and anguish until her Creator / Redeemer comes to put an end to rebellion and causes “righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” If these are indeed the last days (and there is every indication that they are) we should not be surprised to experience violent hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and tsunamis that eclipse anything we have known before. Relief effort will follow relief effort. We will still be aiding victims of one disaster when the next tragedy hits. Eventually the greatest series of calamities and wars the world has ever seen will be concentrated into that period of time Jesus referred to when He declared: For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be (Matthew 24:21). Our Response The wicked are not the only ones that ever experience tragedy and deep suffering. Just as God’s rain falls upon the just and the unjust, so too is it with pain and misery. When the godly suffer deeply their first response is to evaluate their own lives. Is this pain a chastening from God? Have I opened the door for Satan to bring this misery? This may not be the case at all. But God’s people realize that it could be the case, and therefore dare to ask these questions. If their consciences tell them that there is no flagrant sin that has gone unrepented, they move on to deal with the problem as best they can by God’s grace. But if their conscience does convict them, they deal first with the sins in their own lives before addressing the specific means and ways needed to heal their pain. While we talk about slow government intervention and blame “mother nature” for her violence, America’s greatest need is for a little spiritual introspection. Whether God caused the hurricane or not, one thing is for sure. He most certainly permitted it. He did not protect us from it. He who hurled the stars into the skies with a word from His mouth, said nothing to Hurricane Katrina, but calmly allowed her to smash into New Orleans and the surrounding areas with unprecedented ferocity. Would it not become us to gather together in national repentance for our sins, and ask our Father to show mercy to our nation? On March 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for national repentance, arguing forcefully that the Civil War was a judgment from God upon the United States. In this incredible document he stated: And insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins…? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God. We have … vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us.
It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. More than 140 years have passed since the words were penned, but they were never more relevant than today. |
