Professing Christians are often offended at the idea that natural disasters are sent by God. But isn't that what the Bible teaches? Welcome to the Conquering Truth. I'm Dan Horne. I'm Jake 100 Wit. I'm Charles Churchill. And I'm Joshua Horne. A hurricane struck the United States a couple of days ago. And as I was looking at the headlines and, you know, in CNN and Fox News, they both express it in terms of the fury of the hurricane and the wrath of the hurricane. There's this natural response when we see the power of something that's so far beyond what man can do is to give it an emotional response because we do understand that there's judgment in there. But the world wants to say that judgment is not from God, but the Bible shows and teaches that it is from God. So why is it important that we see it as coming from the hand of God? A lot of people are. Maybe they have a natural inclination towards seeing that, but a lot of people these days really resist it. You even see Christians where they're saying, I saw a lot of people saying something like this, it was God ordained it, but he ordained it before time began. It has no relation to what people, anyone did. It couldn't be judgment on anyone. But I mean, that's just a very modern view that's against the view of generations past, everyone, virtually everyone thought it was judgment from God. Even non-Christians saw it as judgment by their God, their idol. But everyone understood that it was controlled by God. And so for us now to say, no, there is an all-powerful God, but this is outside of his control. He has no reason for doing this. It doesn't work. And it creates a real problem, and it really redefines the nature of God. And I think people don't realize that. Because if God is sitting back, and he chooses not to do anything about it, and it wasn't deliberate, then it means that he doesn't care. He doesn't care if people die. The problem that you have is either he sent it because he cares or he doesn't care. And so you can't say God is a God of love and say he didn't have anything to do with it, because why did he have all the people die? If it's judgment, you say because it was just. If it's that he just didn't bother to do anything, you have to say he didn't care. Our worldview can defend it. You know, Arminian or Openthias can't defend it. You know, they'll say, well, God didn't decree it. Well, you have to defend why he allowed it. Right, because he is still God and it's not, like when we're doing something and we're working and we're trying to say stop something bad from happening, it takes away our resources, it takes away our energy, it takes away, but God has, he's infinite in all those things. So it's never a case where he goes, well, I'm just too tired. I can't do it. You've redefined God to say that he's just too tired and he can't do it because it doesn't deplete his resources. I mean, for me, one of the real problems is when you think about wrath, we really think about it poorly and we end up making God really simple. You know, I mean, there's this part of it where, I mean, and particularly when you think about wrath, you think about judgment. Because when you think about, like, a person who owns a large business or a father, every decision they make are part of their judgments. You know, I mean, every, whether it's, and even the decisions they make that you would say are out of having to, but their anger against some issue, their anger isn't without thought. their anger isn't you hope it's not right i mean and this is part of it is as humans there are times where we do let our anger overwhelm our thoughts and drive our thoughts But God is never controlled by his anger. God's anger is never something that overpowers him. His thoughts are always driving him, what he does, what he is the one who is in charge of what he does. And so his goodness is always a part of his decision. His holiness is always a part of his decisions. And so many of, I think, what we're going to talk about here in the beginning is we've made God lower than man when we think about these things. Or lower than creation, at least. Right. I mean, and simpler than most men we know. I mean, whereas a great man who rules over an area, when he makes a decision, even if you go, he's going to do something to judge, that judgment has aspects of goodness in it. That judgment is it's going to be good for others. It's going to cause others to fear. It's going to deal with a problem that's going on. There's so many aspects to it. And so there's a real problem. Our current explanation for things is to stop us from actually thinking about the complexity of God and the greatness of God. and how he reveals himself to us. And we actually need to move, instead of shutting down our thoughts, we actually need to look and say, what does scripture say? How should we think about God so that we can understand what wrath actually is, what judgment actually is? It's really important as you think about the wrath of God, and like you said, that it's reasoned, right? It's not just that his emotions overcame him. And one of the reasons that I think that people don't want to think of it as the wrath of God is that God is angry with the wicked every day, and he's constantly choosing not to display that wrath But we don't want to think of it that way. So we go, the world displayed this wrath because it can't be God's because if it's God, then why didn't he do it yesterday? And the answer is because he's merciful that we deserved it yesterday. Right. And I think there are a lot of verses in scripture that talk about this. I mean, I think one of them that I love to go through is Psalm 10, 3 through 6. It says, For the wicked boasts of his heart's desire. He blesses the greedy and renounces the Lord. The wicked, in his proud countenance, does not seek God. God is in none of his thoughts. His ways are always prospering. Your judgments are far above, out of his sight. As for all his enemies, he sneers at them. He has said in his heart, I shall not be moved. I shall never be in adversity." And so here it's talking about the way the wicked lives his life. Because of his pride, because of his heart's desire, he does not think about God. God is not in his thoughts. Very similar to Paul's comments in Romans 1 about they don't want to retain God in their knowledge. And so because they have no desire to retain God in their knowledge, God's, the things that God is doing, it's like a child who the parent's trying to put these things in his way to stop him from sinning, and the child is acting like those things have nothing to do with him, like those things should not be communicating to him at all. And even, you know, where it says his ways are always prospering, instead of looking at the things that God is doing in the world, instead of looking at the things that God is putting between him and his sin, he's just going, his focus is on himself, his desires, how he, what he can get in the world. And so I mean, but the problem is, is the church has become like that in many ways today. Many people who are in the church, they've gotten to the point where their God's judgments are so far above them. They're not even in their mind. They don't even consider them. And I think that, you know, Tae Kwon said before that you have the open theists, you have the Arminians, and they're basically saying God's thoughts aren't higher. They're saying what the wicked say. That should be frightening, right? Because God's not saying that this is what the righteous do when they're, I mean, he goes, this is what it looks like to be wicked is that you say God isn't involved. Well, an open theist is saying God's not involved. An Arminian saying, no, God can't do these things because that would steal the freedom from man. I mean, and God's saying, that's really wicked. And I think we forget how wicked that is to take God out of His place, take Him off the throne, and say there's something else there, whether it's the will of man, whether it's Mother Nature, you're saying something else is there and God is not on the throne. the comment that Joshua referenced. I saw the same one where someone went, it was decreed before the foundation of the world, but it has nothing to do with what's going on in the world. Because it wasn't that God knew what was going to happen in the world. Right, that God's decree is completely unrelated to anything that he's doing or that's happening in the world. And so you can even, you have the open theist, you have the Arminian, and you have the pseudo-reformed. And that's basically a deist view, right? I mean, that's a deist view, even though they might pretend like they're reformed, but in the end, It's a deist view. It's saying that you're the clockmaker that wound up the clock and then it just runs out, so he's not responsible for it. None of which is the biblical view of God. There's a verse on the biblical view of God a verse that we've referenced quite a lot in recent episodes Hebrews 11 verse 3 by faith who understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God So that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible And when you look at it's not just talking about the framing is not just creation But it's how God is ordering all of the world that everything that's happening in the world is is framed by the Word of God and that the things that we see visibly were ordered and were made from things that were invisible. So God is directing the things that happens that is according to his plan. And it comes down to as simple as all things work together for good, a verse that probably every Christian knows. Well, that can't be true. That's a lie unless God ordains even the hard and difficult things. If he doesn't ordain the hurricane, then he can't say that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. And this verse says that faith gives you understanding of this. And so when we hear these things and when I read these things about the people going, no, God can't do that, and you look at—and prominent preachers say this, right? I mean, this is the prominent view. I mean, I didn't pay that much attention recently, but with Katrina, it was horrible what people were saying. I remember the tsunamis that wiped out 100,000 people, and all the Christians were really—quote-unquote—Christians were really fast to get on television, on radio, and saying, God didn't do this, it was just a natural thing. Well, that's rejecting one of the basic things that faith gives you. It gives you an understanding that God is sovereign over these things, and he controls these things, not the other way around. Because when you sit down at the dinner table and you pray and you thank God for the food you're about to eat, when you say, God, we thank you that this food came from your hands, that is such a... It was from his eternal decree that he decreed it. Right, you know what I mean? I mean, when you pray that prayer and if you mean that, you can't turn around and go, but the storm You brought this food to my table, you brought this to our family, you've clothed us in clothes, you've given us a home, you've done all these things, all these things you have done. Yeah, Job addresses that, you know, he was like, we just accept the good things and not the bad. Right. Right, and you have to see God in all of it. And I don't think we realize that we use all this pagan language and have no idea that it's pagan language. You go to traditional religions, and most traditional religions are animism, which the idea of animism is that you animate an inanimate object, right? So the world is Mother Nature. It's not God that sent the storm, it's Mother Nature that sent the storm. Well, that's the most common form of paganism. And you see that language, that the world did it. Well, that meant that the world is animated, that it can do those things. And it can't do those things. So I don't think we look and we see what a deep streak of paganism we have in this country, and the way that we behave, and the way that we think, and the way that our news media is. Because this is the same thing as a person going out into the woods and going, oh, that leaf fell down there. That means I'm going to have good luck tomorrow. It's exactly the same thing as saying that Mother Nature is the one that caused the storm. This streak that you're referencing in the cultural thought of this Mother Nature type old superstition is also quite foolish because, I mean, at least then they were consistent enough to say, now we need to make an offering to the wind god to stop this from happening. But now it's Mother Nature's doing it, but we just say that and we can't do anything about it. Or they'll talk about global warming, which is the other way that – I mean you see a huge number – and there are… Well, the earth is getting back at us because we're hitting it up. Right. There are pagan overtones to it. There's a mix of science and kind of a neo-paganism. built on top of... It's about as scientific as the historic medicine man's are scientific. Right, I mean, and so, but on top of it though, right, because they'll turn around and they'll go, you know, we've done this, this is because of our sins, the earth is punishing us, the earth is, you know, taking out its fury on us, this is our fault, we have... We are God, we made this happen. Right. Earth is also God, it made this happen to us. And that's why... We angered it, that's why. Right. And I mean, the people watching this, but I mean, that's just one of the most foolish parts of the whole climate change thing is to say that the hurricanes are because of climate change. There's been hurricanes since people have been over here. They've been recording hurricanes. Oh, I saw a person on Twitter the other day. They were going to proof that it's, it's proof that it's global warming because the cost of repairing after hurricanes has gone up. have more stuff. So you've built more things and you've built bigger cities and so it's you know I mean it's like you're just going this is your this is the scientific but that they literally meant that to be a scientific argument no question they were really adamant. They don't actually make the better scientific argument which is the number of people who are dying has decreased dramatically over the last hundred years which is why the cost of damages goes up so much because The houses and building the houses is a lot more expensive because you have to put in all this other safety stuff that wasn't there a hundred years ago. And so, yeah, it did go up, but that's not a testimony of global warming. If anything, it's a testimony of our building codes and a real desire to protect life. I'm not even saying that it's wrong. I mean, it's a real desire to protect life, but that's why the costs go up. And it's easy for us to read what was happening back in the Old Testament or in the Greek culture or the Roman culture and go, how could they be so stupid to bow down to a rock? But we have to understand this is the same thing. And Isaiah kind of mocks it in Isaiah 44, 14 through 18. He cuts down cedars for himself and takes the cypress and the oak. He secures it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a pine, and the rain nourishes it. Then it shall be for a man to burn, for he will take some of it and warm himself, yet he kindles it and bakes bread. Indeed, he makes a god and worships it. He makes a carved image and falls down to it. He burns half of it in the fire. With this half he eats meat. He roasts the roast and is satisfied. He even warms himself and says, I am warm. I have seen the fire. he makes into a God his carved image. He falls down before it and worships it, prays to it, and says, deliver me for you are my God. They do not know nor understand, for he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see, and their hearts so that they cannot understand. The people are doing this are as foolish as the people saying that, and a lot of them are professed Christians, are saying God cannot do that. But people are saying that, I mean, their eyes are shut, just like the pagans, just like the person who's bowing down before a stick and saying, this is my God, just like Aaron looking at the golden calf and saying, this is the God that led us out of Egypt. This is just blindness to reality that's right there. If God didn't do it, then God isn't God. And it's basically the exact same argument that Paul makes in Romans 1. I mean, as you go into Romans 1, if anyone's even thinking about it with this episode tonight, is Paul starts off with, the wrath of God is revealed. You know what I mean? So he's like, God's wrath is revealed against all ungodliness. And then he starts talking about how that man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. And then in Romans 1, 24 through 26, therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature." And so, I mean, Paul in Romans 1, I mean, the argument is in that same line as what was in Isaiah. I mean, he's telling you man isn't fundamentally different. Man hasn't changed. This is what man is, is man does not want to see the wrath of God. Man does not want to see what God has revealed of himself to him. And so he hides it. He buries the truth. He makes God like man and like animals and like other parts of creation. He tries to worship creation instead of God. And because of that, God darkens his understanding. So man's understanding becomes darker and darker until he turns him over to a debased mind. You know, as I was reading this passage this afternoon, I'm looking at it going, you know, you look at what happens in America, and you go back 150 years, and everybody would say, yeah, hurricanes are from God. And this says, if you forget that, then you get homosexuality. We should recognize this isn't like some side issue of our culture. This is a central issue to our culture. We serve the creature. When we say that the creature is the one who shows the wrath, when we say the creature is the one that does the hurricanes, when we say it's because we've burned too many fossil fuels, that is, God then says, fine, you want to act like the creature's in control. I'll show you what it's like when the creature's in control. And you get vile passions. And I think it's really easy for us to think, oh, this doesn't matter that much. You know, we're just trying to give people a good impression of who God is, and God is going, no, this is really serious. As we talk about that the mother nature can't do these things, that the earth can't do these things. It is worth noting that there are times where the Bible talks about the earth doing things, right? It groans, waiting for the revelation of the sons of God. Christ says, if you didn't praise me that the rocks themselves would cry out. And so we do see that, but one thing that you see when that language is used, like in Leviticus 18, 26 through 28, you shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you. For all these abominations the men of the land have done who were before you, and thus the land is defiled. lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you." The land did vomit it out, but that's because it was God's judgment and it was his time, right? He told Abraham in 400 years after Isaac, that's when the Canaanites will be vomited out of the land. the world was working in alignment with God's judgment, and it's never separate. So you always have to, even in the anthropomorphic language, he's always saying that the world's doing what I want it to do based on my judgment. So even that language, you can never take it and just go, oh, the earth is working on itself. The land has decided that it's gonna cast them out. So even when God does assign it and does say that this is such an offense to the land, it casts them out because God decreed that it would cast them out. And part of it is we've just forgotten what it means to be a lord. I mean, when God says he's a lord, he's not just the lord of people. He's the lord of the earth. He's the lord of the seas. He's the lord of the armies. He's the lord of all these things. And so when he's saying, everything serves me. And so when he says that the land, like you said, it's a ridiculous idea to pretend like somehow the land is like operating against God. God is the lord. He says that over and over and over again throughout scripture. And land can't sin, so all it can do is obey God. So when it's doing this, I mean, that's the problem that you get into, that the world just did this. Well, all the world can do is obey God. I've never seen a rock, like, levitate itself. All it can do is fall down. All it can do is obey the laws of God. That's all it can do. It requires man and it requires, to be animate, to be able to violate the commandments of God. We've gotten to the point where we have divorced ourselves from understanding the purpose of God's judgment. That we've gotten to the point where like the people, where the church has become like those who have their eyes closed. Where we go, like the phrase in Psalm 10 where it says God's judgments are above him, The Christians sometimes use that phrase, like, God's ways are just above us, but they mean it in a sense of going, there's no way we could even begin to think about them. But when you look at Scripture, Scripture actually says these things are for us to understand God. They're for us to hear from God. It's like when a father disciplines a child in front of the other children, sometimes the children don't know everything about that child's punishment. but they see the punishment and there are things they can understand about it and there are real things they can turn from. They can recognize that their father is someone who judges. All those things are relatable that they can understand. If a father is good and he does things in those ways, he doesn't do them without thought. He doesn't do them without purpose. And so part of it is the church needs The church has spent years denying the ability to understand what God is doing in the world. And we really need to change that. We need to work to say, how can we understand the Lord? How can we understand our Father? How can we know what His actions and judgments mean? It's really important when we think about, you know, it kind of starts with his judgment. I mean, God is like super explicit, right? I mean, if you want a proof text for how he's the one that sends the storm, it's Deuteronomy 32.39. now see that I, even I am He, and there is no God beside me. I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, nor is there anyone who can deliver from my hand." God is explicit. It's Him doing it. And you have to start with that viewpoint. Whenever there's anybody that dies, whenever anybody's born, whenever anybody's wounded, whenever anybody's healed, it's always because God did it. He is the first cause of all things. There is nothing that happens that He did not do. And we can go into the whole thing about how he's not the author of sin, but he did all of it. His decreed of will decrees every single thing that ever happened. And so you cannot say that the storm came and killed the, you know, the storm that we got caught in was a couple of weeks ago and it killed like 300 people now or something. He killed every one of those. And you have to start with that belief, and you have to start with that understanding. And Israel refused to believe that. That's why they were judged. That's why they were removed as the people of God, ultimately. In Deuteronomy 32, where he's saying that, he's saying, you don't remember who I am. Deuteronomy 32, 15-19, But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked, you grew fat, you grew thick, you were obese. Then he forsook the God who made him, and scornfully esteemed the rock of his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy with foreign gods, with abominations they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear. Of the rock who begot you, you were unmindful, and have forgotten the God who fathered you. And when the Lord saw it, he spurned them because of the provocation of his sons and daughters. When we don't remember that God kills and God makes alive, that's provoking to God and that is asking for his wrath. That's what he connects to in Deuteronomy 32 when he says he's going to come and judge Israel and he's going to wet his glittering sword and he's going to kill them and destroy them and bring the Gentiles in. The whole context of that is they refuse to believe that it's God doing it, which is exactly where the church is today, which is pretty frightening because that's what God said he judged them for. And he does this for an example for us. And it's something where, you know, it's not just that God ordained it, but it's that God is sending these things to send particular messages to nations at particular times. It's not just random, it's not always the same generic message. When you look at Isaiah 1, it says this, Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot, even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment. your country is desolate your cities are burned with fire strangers devour your land in your presence and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers so there isaiah is picturing uh israel as just a body that's just completely beat up completely destroyed because god was chastening them again and again till they were covered with wounds and they were not listening and how does he chastise a nation well it can be through natural disasters it can be through wars it can be through know plagues there can be a lot of different ways that he does it but to just say it's coming from mother nature to say it's just God's you know eternal decree that isn't there's no lesson in it for us you're going to end up as as the people in Isaiah's time where you are covered with wounds and bruises and putrefying sores I think you know as we go through this we're going to get into what are the different reasons that God sends because you know you also can't be too too simplistic about it either. And to, because people always want to say, well, you don't know what God's, you can't know God's mind. Well, God wants us to know what he's doing, but it's not just, he's always doing the same thing. He's always saying, you know, he's always about to judge you in that way that it's simplistic either. You can't, he's not always sending the same message. You have to actually pay attention to, to the times, to what's going on. And before you just start to declare, here's what God's doing. And you can, I mean, there is a general message that he almost always sends, which is you need to repent of something, but what the details are get to be a lot harder, but there's almost always, he's doing it because he's trying to bring our attention to something, or he's just decided he's done because he does destroy nations and does sometimes just say I'm done. And so, yeah, we need to, to remember that and to think about that. And we need to remember when we go. I mean, this should be very hopeful. It's really easy to listen to this and think, oh, this is, you know, mother nature did this. Now we're saying God did that. This is horrible. But you understand if God did it, you can repent and you can fix the problem. If mother nature did it, it's insolvable. The one has zero hope. The other one says that you have a father, a God who controls the world, who loves the world so that he said his only begotten son. that he actually wants people to repent, he wants them to turn from their wicked ways, that he calls them to do these things. And he's not doing this purposelessly. He's doing it deliberately and intentionally because he's going to accomplish something. And the idea that God is controlling it rather than Mother Nature is not a testimony of lack of hope. It is the only source of hope. It is the only thing that gives a possibility to say, these things can actually be solved. What we need to do is repent and humble ourselves before God. I mean, I think what you just said there in a lot of ways is there's a reset that needs to happen with a lot of the world about what the gospel is. Because people have lied, and they've started off going, God owes everyone love. And there's this saying that, I mean, I think I heard someone say, you know, there's the saying people say, you say the quiet part out loud. There's a better saying, it's kind of like you say the ugly part up front. The ugly part up front is, we're slaves. You're going to be a slave to a sin, or you're going to be a slave to righteousness. But there's this, man has no power in the universe. Man has no power over where- What do you mean that's not the ugly part? That's the glorious part. But what I'm saying is- Because somebody a lot smarter, more merciful, more loving has that power. That's what's the good news. And like what you said is, there's this part of it where Everything else is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Everything else is going, no, we just have to serve the demons of the world, or we have to serve the madness of the world. But once you come to God, then there's just part of it where you go, I'm a slave, but he's a good Lord. He's faithful. He's the only faithful thing there is. He's the one who's honest. Even to those who do not believe in his name, he is faithful. He is still good. And so there's this part of it where when you don't have that, you have this ridiculous fantasy that people have made up that there's some sky god who owes them something when they know that's absolutely ridiculous. But once you accept the truth, you can then begin to see the goodness of God. But if you don't accept it, you're just left wallowing in your own whims and your fantasies and the fantasies of others, and it's horrible. And the church has really, we've allowed that lie to be perpetuated. We have moved ourselves from seeing ourselves as a creature who owes a duty to our creator to seeing ourselves as somebody who is a creator, and that we're a free agent. Because even though we didn't create ourselves, we all know that, we go, it's random and chance that there is no creator that we have to answer to. And so this is the heart of the problem. And this is why they want to say storms just come in randomly, and it has nothing to do with God. Because if God sent the storm, there's a creator we have to answer to. So we have a list that we kind of want to run through some of the different reasons that God sends judgment. That's optimistic. Run through the list. Joshua's always so hopeful. Well, there's a list we will plod through of different reasons that God sends disasters on us. And the first one is one that we've been Touching on pretty heavily so far and that is that is judgment and that is clearly spoken of in isaiah 29 verses 5 through 6 Moreover the multitude of your foes shall be like fine dust and the multitudes of the terrible ones like chaff that passes away Yes, it shall be in an instant suddenly You will be punished by the lord of hosts with thunder and earthquake and great noise with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire And there you have the things that we would label natural disasters, maybe a forest fire, maybe a bad storm. But God's saying, no, this is me destroying you with these natural disasters. And he's judging. And it's not just the natural processes at work, but it's the God behind them who is sending these things to punish them. You know, I kind of said earlier, judgment, I think, gets thrown around sometimes. And judgment can be used in different contexts. It's not wrong to call judgment, punishment, a form of judgment. But it is just a form of judgment. And judgment is broader than punishment. In this particular verse, it really is punishment, which can be which can be a temporary punishment to get you to move, or it can be like you said, I'm done with you, and I'm punishing you and destroying you. But I mean, there is this part of it where I think we do need to broaden in our minds the concept of how broad judgment can be. Because judgment is God saying, here's what I'm going to do. Here's how I'm going to accomplish this. And sometimes He strikes you to warn you, and sometimes He strikes you to destroy you. Sometimes He strikes your enemies and you see His judgment. And even though it was purely for your good, it still causes you to fear, even though it was a blessing to you. And so, I mean, I think all of those things we should look at. They are the judgments of God, and it is broad what He does with them. It's really important for us to remember, right, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And when you remove the calamities that are in the world, the natural disasters, what you're really doing is removing fear of God. That's what you're trying to do. What you don't want to do is announce, you know, God just sent this hurricane in that wiped out billions of dollars worth of stuff. Because people might fear God then. That's why Christians don't want to say it. And God's saying, this is the path to salvation. Because if God can't send a hurricane that kills a few hundred people, then how can he cast everyone into hell except for a few, which is what he says he does? Narrow is the path that leads to life and there are few who find it. And he's going to cast multitudes into hell for eternity, but he can't send a hurricane that causes a few people to drown. But he can send billions to hell for eternity? It really makes God to be very different, and it makes the judgment of God to be different. It makes what is just to be very different. If you say that it's unjust for him to send a hurricane, then obviously it's unjust for him to cast people into hell. But yet we want to hold that he cast people into hell, but we say he can't send a hurricane? It makes no sense. We wouldn't say that it was unjust for him to kill an innocent man, Jesus Christ, either. Right. Right. Jesus Christ had no sin, and yet he was in his perfect justice. And again, because by faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God and the things that are visible are not made by the things that are seen. And so the invisible thing is the important thing. So the reason it wasn't unjust is because of why he was doing it. On this earth, it looks unjust. He killed an innocent man. but not what he was doing in the spiritual realm, not what he was doing in making the new heaven, the new earth, not in what he was accomplishing with it. So I think when we're thinking about how God uses these disasters as punishment, we need to be you know, to keep a few things in mind, to not be too quick to apply this where it shouldn't be applied. And one is, there's times where people go and talk about things as judgment, when nothing really happened. It was just, it was just, you know, life playing out. Like, like sometimes you'll have like, or even like the hurricane. So they say like, however, like 200 people died. But now, this doesn't apply to this situation, because you can look at the pictures and see there was major damage. Unexpected things that would be hard to deal with. But you have something, like if you have an ice storm, and it knocks out power for five million people, and then they say, you know, a hundred people died. Like, okay, would those hundred people have died anyway? Because there's a point where you get to these huge numbers, and it's like, well, they make it sound horrible. And I'm not If 300 people drown, that's a real thing. But they definitely do want to fearmonger and make things seem like they're a lot worse than they were. Because in a way, it can be miraculous that only 300 people died, perhaps. So there's that question of, is it actually a judgment or is it just your Thornton thistle, something that's not even really noteworthy? And we don't want to fall into fear of events that are not even intended to be punishments for us. Because that does happen at times. Right now, I mean, I do think when you look at the language that's used around storms, that storms and scripture are, I mean, they're a judgment of God. But we can inflate it and make it much greater than it really is. I mean, I think that, you know, people talk about like a heat wave coming through and all these people died. that's a lot of that is just they didn't do what they should have done, right? They didn't drink enough water and they worked outside. Well, guess what? If you act like a fool, you know, it's not really related to the heat wave, which I think is your point. If you build a bunch of houses right next to the ocean and then the ocean comes like it does every few years and washes them away, Not saying there's no judgment there, but it also is very tied to cause and effect. It's judgment of foolishness, not necessarily judgment of a sin beyond foolishness, but judgment is. Right, and I think that's the breadth with which people need to think about some of these things, is there are all these different types of events that God is, if the ocean comes in and washes certain houses away every few years, and you don't take that into account, you don't deal with that, You should expect that, you should expect that to be, like you said, your foolishness is being judged. But I do think there's another, I mean, there's something else going on there, right? Because the government's guaranteeing that they will rebuild those houses. I mean, it's a transfer of wealth, because through flood insurance, a transfer of wealth from the poorer people to the richer people. That's what flood insurance essentially is, so that people can build... Or the government flood insurance program. which is pretty much the only flood insurance in the United States. That's left, yeah. Because they wiped out all the other ones. And so it's a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. That's what it is. And so does God judge that? I mean, when those houses are destroyed? Yeah, he does. Because that is foolishness that we allow that to be done. And we deserve judgment for that. Because in the end, the nation gets judged for voting for those policies, for voting for that injustice to be allowed effectively. Right, that the poor are oppressed, because that is what a lot of the flood insurance stuff is. There's taxes that are going to pay for flood insurance so that the rich can have homes right on the beach. And another thing to keep in mind, too, is there's a lot of passages that bear on judgment. There's a whole book of the Bible, the book of Job, that people reference a lot as kind of the counterpoint to it. And it is valid, where the book of Job has some natural disasters, some enemy attacks, some really bad disasters happen in his life. And his friends spend the whole book saying, you must be a wicked man because God did this to you. Job spends the book eventually complaining about it. And in the end, God did it for a purpose, but it wasn't to judge Job for a wicked life that he had lived. That wasn't the purpose. So we, you know, so that that is that is a point and there's a lot of that we need to be keep in mind that we shouldn't you know if our neighbor's house gets blown away by a tornado we shouldn't be out there saying you must be a wicked man because your house got blown away because that that that would be directly violating the book of job on the other hand we can't be looking saying well sodom and gomorrah maybe they just got unlucky by that storm of hail and brimstone you know i mean there's there there are things you know you we shouldn't look and say well black death killed half of the people in europe you know they probably who knows that they should have even taken a lesson from that i mean there are things that are that are clear where god is working on a national level particularly because when it's an individual it can be harder and but a national it is a In some of these judgments, like in Isaiah 29, where you're looking at God is actually wiping out nations. And so when a nation's wiped out, you can say that was punishment of that nation to wipe them out, right? I mean, at that point, you know. And I think a bigger category is warnings, because God sends a lot more warnings, and he sent warnings for a thousand years to Israel before he finally wipes them out, Israel being the northern kingdom. And so when you look at that, we should recognize that, yes, there is a point where God says, I will send earthquakes and storms, and I will send armies in, and I will do all these things to destroy you. But he does other things with it a lot more. And when we look at that thing, what everybody should do is take a warning. Everybody should take a warning, this is what God does to sin. And so God can send up a storm up through Appalachia, and it doesn't mean somebody in California shouldn't go, what is God doing? They should, because God doesn't judge the whole nation to wipe it out. He sends warnings, and those warnings doesn't necessarily need to be towards that specific people. I mean, there's, and Christ himself deals with that in Luke chapter 13. There were present at that season, some who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered such things? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them. Do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelled in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." And there Christ is saying exactly that. You see these horrible things that happen to this small group of people. Don't say those must have been horrible people. Say, unless we all repent, we will all likewise perish. And I think what he specifically says is, don't think they were worse than everyone else. It wasn't that they had to have, but they were sinners. There were sinners there. I mean, among those who were done, there were sinners. And God's saying, just because, I mean, it's like when you see one of your children, and I spanked one of my children, and another child goes, I didn't get spanked, so I'm righteous. That's not the lesson he should walk away with. That is not the answer. I mean, you know what I mean? And that's how we should think about it, is there is real judgment in the world. There are real things happening. God is dealing with things. And the takeaway very often is to increase your fear of God, like you said, for your fear of God to increase, for you to go, God judges. God is doing things in the world. And I'm not there. I'm not privy necessarily to know. But my takeaway I can always take away is, I need to turn from sin. And I do think as we think about judgment, we should also be looking at what the Bible says about sin and then saying, okay, are these things present that aggravate the circumstances? And one thing that clearly as a nation, generally we worship our government as God. And these are judgments on our government. You know, we were in the midst of Helene, and you look at that hurricane coming through, and you look at the inability of the US government to do anything, the inability of the NC government to get its act together, because there were real serious problems with their response. But the real problem with their response is we look towards the government as God, and that's judgment, that we look towards the government as God. And you see this with Katrina. You see this over and over again with hurricanes, where everybody's looking to the government going, the government will save us. And the answer is the government doesn't save you. It's not really what it's good at. It's not what God designed it for. It designed it to wield the sword, which is to constrain evil. And so can they go in and stop looting? Yes. Can they go in and feed people? Not very well. It's a lot better for neighbors to feed their neighbors and for other people to come. It's far more effective. People do it with far greater wisdom. When you try to shift charity to the government, the government is horrible at charity because it just wants to give stuff away so it can go, look at how many billions I gave away. Look at how much I care. And the only measurement of care is money. Well, the measurement of care for an individual is did you actually help their needs. And it's unfortunate how many, you know, conservatives are complaining, you know, why isn't FEMA acting? Why aren't they helping people? Instead of recognizing, you know, that even in this, you know, hurricane in the mountains that, you know, I mean, we can look at it and see that the church is the one that is getting the credit for a lot of things, and that's actually better than the government getting credit for helping people. I was on a Facebook group out in an area in the mountains, and a guy on there was saying, you know, if you want to help, what you need to do is go talk to the Christians. You know, yeah, they want you to sit through a devotional before you help, but they're the people who organize, they're the people who have a thousand people a day out there helping people. you know, not the government. So, and everyone is, oh, Lord, the government is not acting, instead of saying like, no, we can be, you know, thankful that the church is having an opportunity to help people and to, you know, show that, you know, so that the glory goes to God and not to the government. Yeah, so another example of why God brings disasters on his people in Psalm 83, verses 13 through 18. Oh my God, make them like the whirling dust, like the chaff before the wind. As the fire burns the woods, and as the flame sets the mountains on fire, so pursue them with your tempest, and frighten them with your storm. Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek your name, oh Lord. Let them be confounded and dismayed forever. Yes, let them be put to shame and perish, that they may know that you, whose name alone is the Lord, are the most high over all the earth. And so, God sends these things so that he causes people to be frightened. He causes them to see and say, there is a Lord God that rules over all the earth. And when you see that storm and you have all these newscasters that are out there standing and pretending like they're being blown away and stuff, and some actually got hit with things this time, so it was more real than a lot of the newscasts are. they're all about, no, we should be frightened of the storm, instead of we should be frightened about God, because God's the one that sent the storm. And it's important for us to see that, because God is saying he even kills people, right? He kills people so that other people and that even they will know that God alone is the Lord. And one factor in this is that when God is doing an event, one event, sending a hurricane, he's doing a lot more than one thing. Yes. You know, so It can be – if you have a city that's wiped out by a volcano, we can say that was judgment on that city. And we can say that other things are judgment as well, but we can't forget that it's working at a lot of different levels. There's people there who are miraculously preserved. There's people who look and see the destruction and become Christians. There's people that, you know, are Christians and they see the destruction and they repent of sin. There's people that, you know, are hardened and bring greater condemnation on themselves because they are seeing God's hand at work and they're refusing to act. There's people who see, you know, the love of Christ or the love of the brethren and Christ working through the church. So there's, I mean, there can be many, many things. So it is down to each individual person. even, that what is God doing in that? There's broader level things, there's individual things. And so, you know, some people can go through it and say, this is actually a real blessing to me. Other people can say it was a real judgment on me. I mean, I think that's a really important point. And I might be saying that solely because I was getting ready to make a very similar point when you said it. But I mean, like, the first one we talked about was punishment. Until the end of time, when everyone is punished, As long as there are survivors, part of it will also be a warning. I think what you said was really useful because when you brought up Job, God was doing many different things with Job at the same time. I mean, Job didn't see the meeting God had in heaven with Satan. Job didn't see that part. When his friends came, the things that was revealed among them as they talked, you know, and so I think as we go on to, I think, Psalm 107, 23-31, where we talk about that there's an aspect of receiving praise, let's read that verse. I mean, those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters, they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the waves of the sea. They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths. Their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm, so that its waves are still. then they are glad because they are quiet, so he guides them to their desired haven. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men." And here, you know, it's talking about those who are on the sea. I mean, people have said there's no one who sails the ocean who doesn't believe in God. I mean, there's no atheist out on the ocean because When Jonah's in the ship, everybody's going, there's a God who's doing this. Right, and they cry out to God. I mean, but you can see this in the hurricane. I mean, you could see when, I mean, there were points in the time where, you know, where the winds were growing and everybody, they cry out to God. They see his power. They see how little power they have in the world. And they cry out to the one who is greater than them. And so while God may be punishing someone right beside, while he may be giving warnings to others, he's also receiving the praise of men. And men, when we don't say that these things are from the hand of God, we encourage people to deny that they should praise God, that they should see his power. And that's a really big part of nature itself. And even when you're in the midst of it, and even if you have negative consequences because of it, you still have a duty to look at it and say, this is the power of God, and God is powerful, and God is mighty, and praise be to him. Because he doesn't wipe us all out. If nothing else, it's clear in the midst of a hurricane that God could wipe us all out if he wanted to. And so if nothing else, in the midst of that hurricane, even when things are going badly, you should be going, oh, God is merciful. When an emperor of Rome came through an area and destroyed one place and left others alive, there were people who went, he could have killed us. I mean, it's not like something that people don't acknowledge in others who have much less strength, who have much less power. And so to deny it of God, it's just ridiculous. Yeah, and the exodus, you know, when God judges the Egyptians, you know, right after, you know, Moses is praising God for that judgment and recognizing his righteousness. As the bodies wash up, I mean, that's even the very graphic picture is the bodies of the Egyptian armies, you know, come up on shore from having been drowned. Moses' response is to praise God, to praise the power of God. And Miriam leads the people in a song, right? I mean, Miriam leads the people… Well, she's kind of doing an echo, I think, of Moses' song. Right. But I mean, there's this part of it where, I mean, if you look at it, her… I think when we went through that passage, one of the things I really remembered was it's really easy for people to become overwhelmed with emotion and think on the wrong things. And there was this part of it where Moses and Miriam are directing the people to direct their praise to God in this moment so that they think about it in the right way. And that's what the church is supposed to do. The church is supposed to point people so that God is praised, as opposed to denying God's involvement. And I mean, I remember we went to Antarctica. in Antarctica in the Drake Passage, the Drake Strait, that you frequently have hurricane winds. That's pretty normal. And so there were hurricane winds out. And just going out on deck and enjoying the hurricane-force winds, I mean, because they're enjoyable because you're going, this is God. This is his power. This is a demonstration of his power. I know that sounds kind of weird that I'm explaining it very well, but I would intentionally go outside in the hurricane-force wind and stay out there just because I was enjoying the power of God. You know, another passage that God talks about storms and why He sends storms is Isaiah 28, 1-3. Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which is at the head of the verdant valleys. To those who are overcome with wine, Behold, the Lord has a mighty and strong wind, like a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, like a flood of mighty waters overflowing, who will bring them down to the earth with his hand. The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, will be trampled underfoot." God sends these things and they should cause humility. I think a lot of times you know, in America, we don't get that response. And we don't get that response in the church. The church goes, oh, this was just Mother Nature, instead of actually the response should be, this is very humbling. And like Joshua said before, on an individual basis, you know, we can look and we see how the church responds, we see how the government responds, and we don't see a whole lot of humility. But we were up in the mountains, and I saw a lot of people that were very humbled by it, and their response was to go, you know, this is very humbling. We thought we had everything prepared. We thought, but, you know, God will sustain us, but it puts you in your place and goes, we need God's sustenance. We can't do it by ourselves. And this is something that, I mean, it used to be that when something like this would happen, even the government would call a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, where they're saying, let's spend time examining why did God do this, praying to God, humbling ourselves before and being intentional about that. But that of course is gone by the wayside. And that is a testimony that the view of our country used to be that, yes, God did everything, and yes, it was noble. Why? And the church isn't proclaiming that anymore, and that's a real sin against the people. And I think part of this is, as you look at these different aspects of the way God glorifies himself and the way God communicates, it's so easy to think of the disaster as the day of the storm. But the situation and the situation it produces is as much in God's decree and as much of his providence as anything else is. And so, like you said, when he causes the government to be shown to be ineffective, I mean, the fact that it's an election year, that's not the fact, like Joshua was saying, that there were Republicans who were sitting here going, we want smaller government, smaller government. But in that moment, they're turning and they're going, where is the government? The government should be doing this. And they're looking to the government for their safety and for their salvation. All of that is part of that. As you think about this, this is what I mean by broadening our ability to think about how God achieves his will in the world and how he causes men to consider themselves as everything that happens, everything that's related to it is part of what he's doing. And I do think, you know, we were up in the mountains, like I said, when this happened, the church was, you know, what we call a family summit that we meet up there. But and that's when the storm came through on the first day. And we got trapped up there, and we didn't have power. I mean, there was water around, obviously. There's water all over the place, and there's springs and everything else. But we were trapped there, and the people there weren't going, oh, let's figure out how to get the government here. we watched people that their response was to go, let's go rebuild the roads because, you know, probably a third of a mile of road, it was completely destroyed and had to be rebuilt. But people got out their mini excavators and they started working on it. And we got the pump running and doing some other things so that we had water. And I mean, people just said, let's do this and let's care for our neighbor instead of saying, let's wait for the government to do this. And it was humbling in the sense that it humbles the government, but it also humbles us because around here, I see that in the mountains and I see almost everybody immediately went, yeah, the government won't be here for a long time. As opposed to here, you go, you sit back and just go, yeah, the government will get here sooner or later and do it. And we should be a lot more active to do what they were doing, where they actively tried to work to care for their neighbor. And we happen to have a lot of supplies, so we were able to participate in that. So I'm not saying that we didn't do anything, but you look at the attitude towards it in a less quote-unquote civilized place. And their attitude was much better than it is in the more civilized, if you will, place. They were much more self-reliant. And you, I mean, you look at also what type of judgment that God sent, how much, how much does he want to humble you completely? Are you, did your ship sink and you're in a lifeboat and can do absolutely nothing? Or are you in a place where you have a road that needs to be rebuilt and you have neighbors that don't have food and you can go give them food? So, I mean- We weren't very humble. I mean, in terms of, we weren't like a real risk at all. Right, right. And so there's very different experiences. I mean, are you sitting there? Except Charles, who was in that house and almost washed away. Other than the deck collapse. And then they moved our children to the room and then flooded it immediately. I mean, but it was pretty amazing because there was this part of it where you saw them move a road from where you're going. This could take weeks to be able to get down to. In about three days, we were able to get a 15-passenger van down the We were able to get a minivan down, which is a lot harder than a 15-passenger van. Trust me, I got it down, so I know. Right. But I mean, that's what happened over the course of three days. None of that was – I mean, the closest thing to government work was there was a guy who was on the town council who had an excavator, who I think was both helping his neighbors and securing his spot for re-election quite handily by rebuilding the road in just a really short period of time. It was amazing. I mean, the farmers that had 100 or 200, 300 gallons of diesel sitting there, which most farmers do, they're like, yeah, anybody can come and fill it up so that we can fix roads. And just the attitude of, we really have a duty towards our neighbor. And I think we should learn from that and we should take that lesson away. And at the same time, I do think that it is a time to see how people respond to those things. Do they respond out of fear of God or do they respond in panic? And you, I mean, you look at the attitude that at least a lot of people in the church adopt, kind of the prepper attitude, which is, I'm in this for me. I'm in this to make sure that when things go bad, I can be sitting in my bunker with my gun. with a year supply of food to make and I'm going to be okay and everyone else around me is going to starve. I mean you look at that attitude of people who you know are not thinking how can I help others versus the attitude of even non-christians in certain areas that they have the cultural understanding that when things go bad you need to reach out and help others. And I'll tell you, I mean, one of the things that really struck me, this is kind of a lesson learned is, hey, you know, like a satellite communications is incredibly useful because when you're used to being able to communicate with people and all of a sudden you have no communication for days, I mean, you can't even find out where people are and stuff. I never considered buying an Apple phone until that trip. Right, the Apple phone where all of a sudden you find the satellite or a Starlink where you know that all of a sudden you can now communicate if you need to. I mean, all of a sudden, that's a real way to help your neighbor, not just to protect yourself, but a real way. I mean, the people that had those, you know, they'd have people going over to their house to make phone calls because that was the only communication. Right. That should go on the list of the – if you should go watch the episode on the ways that Christianity has made the world better. I mean, there's a real intersection here between those. Right. Another aspect of how God uses His judgment within disasters is to increase the fear of God, to cause people to fear God. Proverbs 1 26 through 29. I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your terror comes. When your terror comes like a storm and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call on me but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently but they will not find me because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. This sounds like total destruction but understand the The point of this is he's saying, I want them to understand that they didn't choose the fear of the Lord earlier. And there are other people who see this, and the point of this is for others to go, I need to fear God. I need to fear God today while I can. And I mean, there are other people who survive things, who go through great distresses like this, and they come out of it and they learn the lesson. They come out of it and they go. my fear of God is renewed. Even those who don't come to God in salvation, there's a part of it where their fear of God can be increased to the point where it changes their life in a very real way. And so, I mean, I think it's really easy to turn these things into just a binary. Someone either goes through a storm and they get saved, or someone goes through a storm. But God actually uses these things to chastise nations, to chastise people, and to cause a fear of God to increase in a culture, if the culture is actually looking at it in the right way. And that's really the purpose of doing this podcast, right? I mean, this episode is because we're going, people won't look at who God is, they won't look at who sent the storm. So it said there, because they hated knowledge. Because they hated knowledge, they chose not to fear God. And so part of the purpose here is to go, no, if you actually think about how you should be thinking about God, the result is to fear him because he sends storms. I mean, this next example is, it's actually just, it's more complicated than we want to even think about what God would do. So many of these things are very straightforward. You know, it's God's power and what he does in the world and how he holds our life in his hand. But in Psalm 55, 8 through 11, it says that the damage that a storm does, the damage that that can be done by a swirling storm and by the violence and by what it does is like what sin does in a city, what deceit does, what men who lie and deceive, how much damage they can cause. So Psalm 55, 8-11, I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest. Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues. For I have seen violence and strife in the city. Day and night they go around it on its walls. Iniquity and trouble are also in the midst of it. Destruction is in its midst. Oppression and deceit do not depart from its streets. I think this is really relevant for us here. I mean, right now with what's going on, because if you look, I mean, both political parties are full of deceit and full of lies. I mean, our nation's being torn apart by deceitfulness and a love of lying. And And so there's this part where this storm comes through and everybody looks to the government, they look to the groups who are full of lies, who are full of deceit, but they don't recognize that all they're doing is they're reaping a greater form of punishment and a greater form of judgment because they're looking to the wrong thing. And so God's saying, as damaging as the storm is, the sin is much worse. And the sin, the end of sin, isn't just physical death. It's eternal death. So David's looking at the world around him and he's looking at all the people lying about him, all the people deceiving him and saying, You know, he's not physically in any storm in this passage. He's saying, this is a storm. This is what a mighty tempest is, that it's all these lies and stuff. And so God sends these things so that we can understand. the spiritual things that are happening by seeing this physical picture of it that is the hurricane. And that might seem weird, but that's because we don't think right about how important spiritual things are. When you're in a nation that's surrounded by lies, the lies are doing far more destruction in our country. Look at how many people have died by the lie that a fetus is not a baby. 65 million. How many people died in these hurricanes? A few hundred. He's saying, look, that picture is just a picture of far greater destruction that happens from lies, greater destruction that happens from deceit. And David's looking at all the people that are plotting against him and saying, it's like I'm in the middle of a hurricane. And so God sends the hurricane so we can look and go, this is what our nation is actually in the midst of constantly, but it's a hurricane of lies and not of high winds, but of spiritual, a spiritual hurricane, if you will. Because when you look at what a storm does is the more powerful a storm becomes, it makes things that used to seem solid and stable become, you're no longer able to stand on them. You're no longer able to be protected by them. And if you look at what lies do, as lies get bigger and bigger, you know, it's, oh, it's not, oh, you can kill a baby at this point. Oh, you can do this. Oh, what's a boy? What's a girl? Can you change genders? Can you, I mean, it just, there's nothing left wherever, there's nothing that's stable. right and you look at it what's an insurrection right we go to all these different things even the parties right it's like the the democratic party and the republican party they've all been swirled around and i mean this is what's happening in our society we're in the midst of a hurricane in a real sense and we need to recognize that that that unless the Christians stand firm, that it will just continue to spiral out of control. And God sends these so that we can see that picture right from that satellite of the big spiral. That's what our nation is like. Because just like Christ was able to say, peace be still, to the physical storm, Christ is the one who can bring peace. Christ can stop the lies. And his body is the one that brings peace. not that it's not through Christ and not through his Holy Spirit, but his body really has a responsibility to bring peace and to bring order and to stop the lies and stop the chaos instead of just going along and being swirled away. I mean, another thing that's really important to see is, I mean, we talked about a little bit about where we were up in the mountains and the people that we were there with, and I mean, it was a Christian retreat center, and a lot of the people there, they had a pretty good testimony, and part of God sends storms so that people can respond to them, and people can see a difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. The reality is God talks about, like in Ezekiel 13, 10 through 13, Indeed, because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace, when there is no peace. And one builds a wall, and they plaster it with untempered mortar. Say to those who plastered it with untempered mortar that it will fall. There will be flooding rain, and you, O great hailstone, shall fall, and a stormy wind shall tear it down. Surely when the wall is fallen, will it not say to you, where is the mortar with which you plastered it? Therefore thus says the Lord God, it will cause a stormy wind to break forth in my fury, and there shall be a flooding rain in my anger, and great hailstones in fury to consume it. So people go, I have peace with God. And God sends storms so that they find that, you know, it's the picture of Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount where he says, one man, hear my words and does them, and he's building his house on the rock. And another one hears the words of Christ and does not do them, and he's building his house on the sand. And the only way that you can tell what your foundation is is when the storm comes. So God sends storms to which house are you? Which house are you? Were you in the picture in Ezekiel? Did you actually have mortar between the rocks, between the cinder blocks as we build now, so that it will actually stick together? Did you not actually put lime in it so that it would cure? so that it would actually be hard, so that it would withstand the storm. It still looks the same in both cases, but in one case, when the storm comes, it just falls apart. And so God sends those storms so that people who made professions of faith, some of them fell apart, and they now know that it was peace, peace, when there was no peace. And others, they got hit by the storm and they go, no, I'm trusting in the word of God. I built my house on the rock, which is obedience to the word of God. But then we did, when we were up in the mountains, we did learn an important unspoken rule in that story that because one of the houses there, it was built on the rock. Like you could see the footer sitting on the rock. But what they didn't realize is you don't build it with a creek going through the rock. So that is the house that like almost got washed away because they built on the rock with a creek going through it. And when the creek gets 12 feet higher, it doesn't do too well. You're saying build your house on the rock, asterisk. Yes. Rock must be solid rock, not just rock. The whole foundation needs to be on one rock, not split across two rocks. Yeah, so in 1 Peter 3 15, he gives us instructions on that we should defend the faith. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you. a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. And so when the pressure comes, the issue is, are you ready to say, this is why I trust God in the midst of this, or do you fall down? And so God sends them, these are real opportunities to explain why you believe what you believe, because you're having to put it into practice. Why do you go help your neighbor instead of just saying, well, I may not have water for next week, so I'm going to store up my water and I'm not going to give it away. Or do you go give away your water? Do you go give away things to help your neighbor? It's a real testimony. And when you do that, the response is to say, why did you do that? Give me a reason for the hope that is in you. And so God sends these storms so that we have a testimony. I mean, I have a number of unsaved children that I watched each of them have to deal with. Because in the beginning, it was, hey, the road's been washed out. We don't know when the road will be fixed. And in one sense, you're going, I think we'll be able to get out of here. But you're also not trying to hide the fact that I can't guarantee this. And so they're all having to cope with that reality. And I'm watching them. And it's hitting each of them in different places in their comfort of making them, they're having to wrap their head around their weakness, they're having to wrap their head around their ability to control things, and whether they're going to come to me to kind of have me be security for them, whether they're going to think, you know, I mean, and each of them had to deal with different aspects of it, and they had to deal with it at different times. And, I mean, it's, you could really see how God creates these circumstances. And he uses them to affect many different people in many different ways, to push kind of on different places in their life, to cause them to consider him and consider their place in the world. And people have lots of different reactions to it, and God's glorified by all of them. God obtains glory from how men respond to him, whether it's through his judgment of them in the future or whether it's through his mercy that he shows to them. Right, and going up there, and like I said, it was almost everybody in the church. Jae Kwon wasn't there, but almost everybody in the church was there except for a couple families. And you look at it, and the theme of the conference was, how do you build a church culture that honors God? And the reality is that the storm and the stress, it gave a testimony that we actually do have a church culture that honors God. People weren't panicking, people weren't like, I mean, there was real testimony that we were working in the right direction. And that's a good thing to know, and that's a good thing for the church to know, and the way it finds that out, including the people that were left behind that were trying to arrange transportation to get us back because we thought all our cars might be stuck for some time. At first, the prediction was four weeks. So there was all those things that are going on. just the organization, the response, I mean, these are all good testimonies of where we are as a church, and God does that, and that's God's mercy to show where you are. Because we have a tendency to think that darkness is better than light, that be untested to be that mortar that you don't know if it will really hold up. No, it's actually good to know that the mortar will hold up. It's actually good to have the test that you can actually say, we could do this because we've seen it and we know that we could go this far, so we have reason to believe we could go further. a verse that talks about this is Proverbs 14 20 through 21. The poor man is hated even by his own neighbor, but the rich has many friends. He who despises his neighbor sins, but he who has mercy on the poor, happy is he. So when these storms, when these disasters come, the Christians, the church, should be the people who have many friends, who love their neighbors, who show mercy on them, who aren't those who who act such that they're hated by everyone, but that we should be able to be a light to the world around us and show that we're different from an unsaved world. Right, and he who has mercy on the poor, happy is he. The church in the midst of that helps the poor. The people that don't have faith, their natural response is to help themselves, right? You were saying before about the prepper movement. The prepper movement Largely, and I'm not saying everybody in it, but largely the prepper movement is how do I not help anybody else? How do I protect myself against my neighbors? Instead of how do I show mercy on the poor, how do I help those who are suffering? If you have assurance of eternal life, your answer is, oh, if God says I give away all my water and I die of thirst, well, I'll go to be with Christ. I cared for the poor, I cared for the needy, I cared for those who were suffering. And so it's a real opportunity to show that because the nature of man is to hate the poor, and the nature of the church is to care for the poor, and that's a huge difference, and that's a testimony so that people see that there's a big difference between the church and the world. The true church in the world, I should say. There's a cross-section of the prepper movement that really almost desires a disaster to come so they can be powerful. You know what I mean? And so there's this scenario where they would have power over those around them, where people would need what they had. And this is how people need to think about themselves. And I don't mean like you can't look at somebody who looks like a prepper and know why they did it. I'm just saying when you look at what motivates people, very often there are sins that are driving them. Often they tell you. That is also very true. But I think there's this part of it where man doesn't want to consider his ways. He doesn't want to think about those things. And like you said, there's an aspect of a disaster where it draws out our motives. It draws out who we really are. And God uses that. And so where there's this part of it where You know, there's a reason why sometimes you take the kids on a camping trip or you take the kids in a situation so that you pull them out of their comfort zone a little bit, you stretch them a little bit, you allow them to see how they would behave in a certain circumstance, in a certain situation. And God's just so much better. And God can do this over whole parts of a nation. He can do it to an entire nation. He can do it to the world at times when He wants to. And so I think we just need to consider God and His greatness. Right, and in one case, you know, the whole nation should be considering it because it is a judgmental part of the nation. It is, you know, we are judged as a complete people, right? We are a nation and God's judgment is at a national level and not just an individual or family or church level. But at the same time, those people that were in the storm, they should look at that storm as a mirror and say, what do I see about myself from that storm? Was I filled with fear? Was I filled with terror? Did I find out I really fear death when I don't think I fear death? Do I look at it and say, I worship the comforts of this world? or do you look at it and you go, I see that my desire was to make sure that everybody was safe, that my desire was to care for my neighbor, my desire was to go see if somebody was shut in and couldn't get out, etc, etc. in that moment is, you know, this is how you work out your salvation with fear and trembling. You see how you respond to not the easy times. That's really easy to fake yourself into thinking you're a Christian during the easy times. It's when it's difficult that you actually find out who you are. So it is really worthy of praising God that he puts people into situations so they can be tested and they can say, where am I really? because it's not good to be in darkness. It's not good to be deceived. What you really want to do is know where you stand with God. Know where your sins are. Know what you need to repent of. Know where you fail to praise God. Know where you praise God. And God uses these storms to do that, and that's a blessing. God controls all things. And all things work together for good to those who love God and those who are called according to his purpose. When the church ever denies that, when the church is ever ashamed of that, we need to recognize we're diminishing who God is instead of the God that should be worshiped because he is all-powerful. We make him this minor player in the world. And how can we then have a testimony that you need to believe in Jesus Christ to be saved? If he can't send a storm, how can he cast people into hell? The church needs a bigger view of God. Thanks for joining us. This has been The Conquering Truth, a project of Reformation Baptist Church. If you found this helpful, you can visit us online at theconqueringtruth.com and subscribe here or in your favorite podcast app. Thanks for watching.