Tag: God Creates Disaster ... for a Reason - Joel

Joel 1:4

What the cutting locust left,

the swarming locust has eaten.

What the swarming locust left,

the hopping locust has eaten,

and what the hopping locust left,

the destroying locust has eaten.

Tag:  Some Disasters are From God

We live in a world that discounts God’s Working and interventions.   Most people in today’s society believe we live in a world that either God cares nothing about, or is too impotent to intervene.   Yet, in the above passage we see that God is intervening in Judah’s world by sending a destructive swarm of locust to destroy the land because of their constant sinning against Him.  As believers we MUST understand that God does intervene and does send disaster into the world ... for a variety of reasons.   Note what the prophet Isaiah said about this same subject: 

Isaiah 45:7

I form light and create darkness,

I make well-being and create calamity,

I am the Lord, who does all these things.

Isaiah tells us plainly that God DOES create calamity.   God DOES intervene into the affairs of mankind and uses disasters to bring us back to Him and/or capture our attention.   It is, sometimes (often) ONLY in disaster that mankind turns toward God.   The Apostle Paul would not have turned to Christ had he not had God intervene on the road to Damascus with a bolt of light.   Balaam would not have stopped his foolishness had God not intervened with a talking donkey.   God intervenes.  

We are, however, warned that not every calamity is because of God’s intervention or caused by His creating disaster.  Note:

Luke 13:1-5

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Not every disaster is the result of a specific sin of a person.  But, every disaster is the result of sin in the world, as the wages of sin are death and when death comes it is sin conquering ... doing what sin ultimately does.   But, God also intervenes in death by sending His son to overcome death.   

When we see destruction, calamity, disaster and death, we need to know that God MAY have a hand it, but that also He DOES have an antidote for it via His Son.  Jesus overcame the ultimate disaster, death, to give us life.   He sent the locust to punish Israel for this disobedience.  Later in the same book of Joel He will promise to give them the Spirit of God to bless them.   God gives disaster to grab or attention to give us Life!!!