First Church of God - Little Paint

This past weekend will be one to remember for many long-time residents of Eastern Kentucky.  The Appalachian Mountains, which for years seemed like a natural barrier to devastating tornados, proved vulnerable.  I have heard several people comment that they always thought the hills would protect them.  Now with millions of dollars of property destroyed and lives lost, we can no longer say “It cannot happen here.”

One question that always comes during these times of tragedy is, “Why did God let this happen?”  People are always looking for a reason to make sense of times like these.  All kinds of half-Biblical explanations arise at this time.  “It is God’s judgment .”  “God would have spared people if they had been praying.”

I find great difficulty in both of these statements.  We need to understand some solid Biblical facts. The first is God’s creation has been corrupted due to sin. Check out Genesis 3.  The perfect environment of Genesis no longer exists.  The natural occurrences of our environment, though somewhat predicted, cannot be controlled.  Therefore, storms arise under the right circumstances in different places.  To say God purposefully directs a tornado to a specific place as punishment creates problems for those who are God fearing and are affected by it.  I am certain that West Liberty and Salyersville are not modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah’s that God needed to destroy.  At least with Sodom he sent two angels, gave a warning, and promise not to destroy it for the sake of a few righteous.  We must be careful to tie natural disasters to God’s judgment.  To believe this is to say that when let loose, God’s judgment is indiscriminant as to a man’s spiritual condition.  We could then paraphrase the passage that says that it rains on the just and the unjust to say, “Judgment falls the same on the just and the unjust.”  Can you see the problem?

Secondly, I am sure many were praying.  I watched a video of the tornado and you could hear a woman praying and rebuking the tornado.  She was even speaking in tongues.  Although the tornado passed over her home it did destroy other homes.  Were the prayers of others not heard by God?  I guess it depends on who you talk to.  Ask someone who was spared destruction and they would comment, “God had mercy on us.”  Ask someone who lost everything except their life and they might comment, God had mercy on us.”  So which prayers were answered?  Who was God really watching over?

We need to realize that in this world, tragedies will occur.  We cannot blame God for not stopping natural laws of physics on our behalf every time we are in danger.  We cannot blame God for our own decisions that put us in harm’s way.  God is not going to stop the laws of force, speed, and kinetic energy just so someone can drive drunk at ninety miles an hour on a curvy road without a seat belt.  If we choose to build a home in a hurricane-prone area and it is destroyed, is that God’s fault?

Let’s be careful about trying to blame God for every disaster that occurs in our lives.  What we need to realize is that God is there for us in every life situation with the promise that “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Let’s continue to be the church ministering to the needs of those affected by the tornados in our area.

See you Sunday,
Pastor Jeff