The good ol’ Washington Post recently took on the subject of “Is God’s wrath at work in natural disasters?” As you might expect, it pits one side against the other and misses the point.
Don’t get me wrong. There have been such things as God stepping in and deliberately causing floods, new languages, fire and brimstone and some other calamities. He is even recorded as causing hailstones to help Deborah and Barak to win a war.
However, in case no one has noticed, God often does not interfere. Instead, He allows things to take their natural course.
Imagine that the earth is a planet that needs constant fine-tuning. When you look at the universe and think about entropy, it seems that the natural state of physical things is to fall apart, decay and otherwise be temporary. There’s certainly a great lesson in all of this, but the main point I’m making today is that very often disasters are not because God is actively causing them but rather He is not actively blessing a people via non-interference.
Of course, there is another complicating factor. The story of Job shows that Satan also has great power to influence things – but only if God allows it. By rejecting God and His way in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve unwittingly submitted to Satan’s authority as the “god of this world” (2Co 4:4).
However, even then, would not God be inclined to bless those who are righteous?
Hmmm. If our relations with God has only two sides to it — for/against Jesus, sheep/goats, wheat/tares, etc. — are you saying God can have THREE sides? For, against and "neutral" (non-interference"?
Yes, God blesses those who are righteous. But no humans are (Romans 3:10) – so we need Jesus in our lives to be (5:19).
It's occurred to me recently that when ministers talk about "America turning back to God," they may be calling for something that's impossible.
Consider the example of Joshua 7 and Achan. If only one person's sins can disqualify a nation from God's blessings, how much more would the USA be DQ'd today — even if 99.9% of the population stopped eating pork and shrimp?
For that matter: considering how few of the USA founding fathers kept the Seventh-Day Sabbath (if any of them did), how can we be so sure the "blessings" on the USA since 1787 have really come from God?
@Richard: Consider that it is impossible to be righteous, yet there are men in the Bible who are called as such (S. Eze 14:14). You see, it isn't so much a matter of whether there are 2 sides but whether or not there are 2 extremes and both are incorrect.
God is a God of mercy. He is longsuffering. He waited for the "iniquity of the Amorites" to become "full" before marking them for destruction.
God is not as simplistic as some would make Him out to be. I often see where someone claims God does A because of X. And yet, He often does A because of X, Y and Z. Furthermore, He often leans towards mercy rather than punishment. Good thing, since there probably wouldn't be anyone left otherwise.
However, He has setup things in a way in which we reap our just desserts. Even when He forgives, He won't necessarily take away the physical consequences of our sins.
As far as your question: Consider the example of Joshua 7 and Achan. If only one person's sins can disqualify a nation from God's blessings, how much more would the USA be DQ'd today — even if 99.9% of the population stopped eating pork and shrimp?
And yet, did not God tell Abraham He would not destroy an entire city if only 10 righteous were in it? Could it be that God chooses to spare groups of people sometimes because of the few righteous that are there?
For that matter: considering how few of the USA founding fathers kept the Seventh-Day Sabbath (if any of them did), how can we be so sure the "blessings" on the USA since 1787 have really come from God?
Because God promised them to Abraham? For me, learning that the US and the UK were descendants of Israel did more than just open up prophecy. It proved to me that God keeps His promises.
Our nation's founding fathers did nothing deserving of those blessings. However, on a continuum, they might have been more deserving than most today.