Tsunamis, Tragedies & Tornadoes

Well, let's join again together in prayer, asking that God would certainly open our minds to His Word, as we consider some things of the past few weeks. Let's pray. Lord God, now we ask the independence upon Your Spirit to teach us, not just to open the words of scripture so that we can understand it but to open our own hearts that we might see our own the own that we might own the corruption of our own thinking and be renewed in our minds that we might see things differently father what's going to set us apart is not just our behavior but the way that we think and the way that we look at the world give us those eyes today we pray make this a time that is profitable for your people, that we might serve you better, that we might worship you more, that we might love you more, and that we might serve others better as well.

Grant this, we pray, for the glory of your name and the exaltation of Jesus. Amen. I would be surprised if any of you would tell me that what has happened in the last few months has not grabbed your attention. It seems like God has unleashed a plague of tornadoes upon this country in the last couple of weeks. Tornadoes whipping through Tuscaloosa, Alabama, along with other cities in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, killed over 300 people a few weeks ago.

Last week, more tornadoes hit Joplin, Missouri, Fort Worth, and Oklahoma City, killing 200 people or more. And there have been tornadoes in scores of other places as well. Just in the last few weeks, it's just a few months ago that a huge earthquake and a gigantic tsunami hit Japan. Those killed now stand over 18,000 with still 12,000 missing and unaccounted for.

And the numbers are still climbing. Not long ago, in fact, just months ago, we witnessed earthquakes in Chile and Haiti. and then on a much smaller scale even here in our little village in our little part of the world we see that a rain that just won't let up it just rains and rains and rains no one can get into the fields nothing can happen all those things all come together and people have been asking even to me in the last few weeks people have been saying what does all this mean Does this mean the end is near Well, what does the Bible say about all those things? All of this gives an opportunity to review again what the book of Revelation does say about all these natural disasters, because it does address those things.

If you remember, the apocalypse does address those issues, but you may have forgotten some of that. And it does talk about natural disasters. It talks about man-made disasters as well that can happen in this age. So let's get the glasses on and let's review some things in Revelation that will help us understand the things that we're seeing happening around us.

Now, by way of introduction, I want to say a few words here. I want to say a few words to you about some things that seem to cloud the thinking of Americans when we talk about these things from the Bible. OK, just by way of introduction, before we even get into the meat of all this, I want to say some things to you as Americans, because we Americans have a particular viewpoint that seems to cloud all this thinking about the end times and what's going on.

First of all, we start talking about the end of the world when disaster hits America. okay when an earthquake and a tsunami hit japan and 18 000 people are killed we think it's a tragedy but when scores of tornadoes strike us in a small period of time in a two-week period of time and 500 people are killed we start thinking this is talking about the end of the world okay i can even remember as a child when when the state required state sanctioned state composed prayers in school were deemed unconstitutional, I started to hear about the soon return of Jesus and that the Great Tribulation and the Antichrist were just around the corner. And yet, some of our brothers and sisters in Eastern Europe had already for three decades been being thrown in jail, tortured, and killed just for going to church. But when prayer is cast out of the school suddenly it must mean that Jesus is coming soon We have this kind of America way of thinking that when there a glitch on the radar the end of the world is near where the rest of the world suffers much more than we and it never dawns on us that maybe we might be wrong in that way And then another thing, the second thing, there are those who assert that God visits these disasters upon us as judgment against America. behind that kind of thinking is that somehow america has a special relationship with god listen god never made a covenant with america we are not in a covenant relationship with god we are just another nation among many nations and and i always want to ask when people bring that up okay then tell me how do we repent as a nation how do we repent as a nation then now when you look at the old testament it's quite easy the king or the high priest lead the people before god and represent the people before god as representatives of the entire nation so what should we do should we have our president lead us maybe we should elect some special priests who could represent the citizens of the United States before God, for me to say those things, you think that's foolish.

And it is. Because there are only two entities that God sees in the world today. Only two. Okay? Here's one. It's found in 1 Peter 2, verses 9 and 10.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. There God says he does have a nation.

He does have a holy nation. He does have a people. Who are they? They are those who belong to Jesus. They are those who have trusted in Jesus. And that's all.

There is no other holy nation before God There is only those who belong to Christ no matter what nationality That it That the only nation that God has And then there's the other group who, in the book of Revelation, are called earth dwellers. That is, those whose horizons are limited to this earth, who have their hopes and security founded in this life, who don't have heaven's perspective. That's it.

So I say that by way of introduction. So although I believe the destruction we've witnessed in our own country is explained in Revelation, it is not a sign of the imminent end of the world, nor is it a judgment against this nation as a nation. Okay? I would even go so far as to say this. If you want someone who can plead for a nation on behalf of that nation for God, then let it be the church.

It is not the nation that God looks at. It is His people. So, with that in mind, I wanted to put that in, because so many people ask me these questions because they have this American-centered way of thinking that frankly is not biblical. Okay? It's not biblical. And we need to get biblical glasses on if we're going to understand the Scriptures.

Well then, how are we to understand these things? Here's the first. See natural disasters as the judgments of the Lamb. Let's go back to Revelation chapter 6. Some of you may have forgotten this. Some of you may not have been here when we looked at this.

But you remember in chapter 5, we see this marvelous vision of the Lamb upon His throne. And there is a scroll that's sealed. And no one in the whole universe is found worthy to open the scroll and to break the seals. And John begins to weep. And then a messenger says to him, don't weep because there is one, the Lion of Judah. And he looks up and what does he see?

He sees a Lamb that was slaughtered sitting on a Lamb. There is the one who is worthy to open the seals. And you remember that this scroll is the scroll of God's purposes of judgment and deliverance. And as each seal is broken, chapter 6 and chapter 8, as each seal is broken, we get a view of how God is working for the deliverance and judgment. for the judgment of the earth dwellers and deliverance of his people.

So I want you to follow with me as I read the first seven verses of chapter 6. Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, Come! And I looked, and behold, a white horse and its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer.

When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, Come. And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth so that people should slay one another. And he was given a great sword. When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come. And I looked, and behold, a black horse.

And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, a quart of wheat for denarius and three quarts of barley for denarius and do not harm the oil and wine when he opened the fourth seal i heard the voice of the fourth living creature say come and i looked and behold a pale horse and its rider's name was death and hades followed him and they were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill the sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth all right as you look at these first four seals Remember, seal five are the martyrs crying out for God for vindication. Seal six is the end of everything.

Seal seven, again, tells us about the end of everything. So these first four ought to have our attention. They describe the events of the age from Jesus' ascension to Jesus' return. Remember that. The first four seals sound much like what we've read in Matthew 24 that you heard this morning, that there be wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and all these things going on.

And then he says, but that's just the beginning of birth pangs. The idea there is this is the birth pangs of Messiah. So this whole age in which we live, these things are going to happen. So when you look at these seals, understand again that these are describing what's happening in this age, from Jesus' ascension to Jesus' return. The seals reflect the judgment of God. against humanity.

And then thirdly, all of these sealed judgments come from the throne of the Lamb Every one of them comes from the throne of the Lamb The command for each of the four destructive horses and riders originates from the throne of the Lamb Every one of them comes from the throne of the Lamb The command for each of the four destructive horses and riders originates from the throne room of Christ And Jesus opens each seals That is to say Jesus rules over what appears to be a chaotic world of suffering. What the world looks at and sees as natural disasters are actually the plan of the Lamb. It is Jesus executing his plan.

There is no chance. There is no chaos. All right? When you look at the destruction of Joplin, Missouri, every house that went down was according to the plan of God and the plan of the Lord Jesus. Remember that the conquering lamb breaks the seals of the scroll containing the plan of God for judgment and deliverance. Thus, the events that flow from the seals are God's planned purposes.

They're God's planned purposes. Now, what should we see in these first four seals? Very quickly, let's review. You see the Lamb's judgment in the conquest of this age, the white horse. The earth dwellers put their hopes not in God, but in their international law, their clever diplomacy, and their great military forces. But they will always be plagued by conquest, a constant judgment on their idolatrous confidence in what they have.

It's the lamb's judgment against their schemes. They'll do everything but look to God. That's the white horse. The red horse is the lamb's judgment in the bloodshed of this age. now think about it on a personal level on a personal level violent people go to court and what happens well the courts are starting to say you know sending people to jail doesn't seem to work I'd agree with that doesn't always work so let's give them anger management classes strike two right anger management wonderful you know how to really change an angry person introduce jesus christ into their lives you see that the answer so the earth dwellers put their hopes in sophisticated methods of preventing violence while ignoring the living Christ Now expand that to the international level not just the personal level But all the mechanisms we have for keeping peace and bloodshed from happening.

I mean, frankly, look at it. You know, the United Nations sends peacemakers to Congo from other African nations to stop the violence. You know what happens? those United Nations peacekeepers go around raping all the women of Congo. It's a tragedy in that country. I just read an article the other day about hundreds of thousands of women being raped in that country because of our great peacemaking abilities.

And consequently, they experience the judgment of Christ. They have this idolatrous confidence in other things, never looking to God. These things come then as judgment. You see the lamb's judgment in the famines of this age. That's the black horse. Again, no matter how powerful the means of food production among the earth dwellers, the lamb judges them for their misplaced faith in their abilities.

Even today, let me challenge you. Let me challenge you for two weeks now from this pulpit, We've prayed for the rain to stop. God has chosen not to stop it yet. But, you know, you're not going to see that happening in very many circles, are you? No one recognizes their utter dependence upon God for their food. I'm telling you.

You know, I'm more convinced of this even as I talk to my biology teacher's son. How fragile everything is out there. How fragile the whole food production cycle is. I'm telling you, we are utterly dependent upon God for the very food we eat. And then finally you see the Lamb's judgment in the pale or the green horse. And that speaks of death.

The Lamb displays His wrath on every nation and every people through famine, war, and pestilence or disasters. now these two last these two seals the last two seals in particular all right the lamb's judgment and the famines and the lamb judgment in the death that visited upon this this planet these these speak of the things that we have seen in these last few weeks They deal directly with those things. These are the seals of the Lamb. The tornadoes in Tuscaloosa and Joplin are part of the judgments of the Lamb against those whose horizons cannot be lifted above the earth. these are people who are at home in the present world order men of earthbound vision trusting in earthly security that's what is described in the book of revelation okay these earth dwellers they're called earth dwellers or dwellers on the earth as you read through this entire book upon whom these judgments are unleashed these dwellers on the earth are those who wickedly put their hopes in anything but God.

As we will see later, for example, they put their hopes in man, in the beast, as we're going to see. So these tornadoes and tsunamis and disasters display the judgment of God against idolatry, against confidence and hope in anything other than God. Let me ask you, do you think there were people in Tuscaloosa and Joplin and people in Sendai, Japan and people in LaRue, Ohio who trust in earthly schemes?

Would you think that's the case? Are you sleeping today? Maybe you think that LaRue, Ohio is filled with people who love and fear God. now all these places have idolaters we ought to then expect these kinds of things because in them God exposes and punishes man's idolatrous schemes his plans and his security they are the precursor of the final judgment against that They're the precursors.

These are God saying in a very loud voice, judgment against that idolatry is coming. This is just a taste. Can you think about that with me for a moment? I don't know about you, I don't... We never made the switch to high-definition television, so we don't have television to watch the news and stuff. So if I want to see anything, I've got to pull it up on my computer.

So, you know what? Tornadoes have always fascinated me. They always have. I've often said, I'd love to see a tornado before I die, and someone once said to me, that might happen. But you call these, I don't know if you look up some of these things. I remember when the thing went through Tuscaloosa, there was tons of videos that people were taking.

That thing was unbelievable. That thing was a huge, huge, half a mile wide thing. It was what they call a wedge tornado, right? And when it went through Tuscaloosa, man, it just tore that city apart. Just barely hit the University of Alabama. Just didn't even hit it.

Just skipped a block or so away from the University of Alabama. And then when you look at what happened at Joplin, have you seen the pictures of that city? Unbelievable destruction. That's nothing compared to the destruction of the second death that's yet coming. These are like God saying in a loud voice, you think this is power? You wait until your idolatry is judged.

Ultimately, you want to see power. Those tornadoes and that tsunami doesn't even compare. wow that's a wake-up call isn't it that's a wake-up call we need to see these natural disasters in the trumpet judgments that we've been in recently turn over to chapter eight in chapter eight you remember first there's the seals there's the interlude, the final seventh seal, and then we come to the seven trumpets. These trumpet judgments of God.

Read verses 6 through 12. Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. The first angel blew his trumpet and there followed hail and fire mixed with blood and these were thrown upon the earth and a third of the earth was burned up and a third of the trees were burned up and all green grass was burned up. The second angel blew his trumpet and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea and a third of the sea became blood A third of the living creatures in the sea died and a third of the ships were destroyed The third angel blew his trumpet and a great star fell from heaven blazing like a torch and fell on a third of the rivers and on springs of water.

The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became Wormwood, and many people died from the water because it had made them bitter. The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon and a third of the stars, that a third of their light might be dark and a third of the day might be kept from shining and likewise a third of the night.

Then I looked. I'm sorry, that's it. Okay, those first four trumpets. Now, we don't have time to go over all the details. Let's just review. Let me just review this with you.

Recall that these trumpets are patterned after the plagues in Egypt before God delivered His people. They're patterned after the plagues in Egypt. They're a different way to describe what happens in the age in which we live. The seals are one description. Now the trumpets are telling us about this age in which we live. And they give a little bit of a different angle on it.

All right? They give a different view. As with the plagues in Egypt, these trumpets, number one, are mighty acts of judgment. Number two, they both harden and expose the hardness of the oppressors and the seducers of God's people, the earth dwellers. And they set the stage for the display of God's great glory when that final exodus occurs, when we leave.

And Jesus returns. And they are limited. All the way through here it says, one-third of, one-third of, one-third of. That is, these are limited. This isn't God's final ultimate judgment on the earth. It's limited.

It's again, a taste of what's coming. He's not going to do it all now. What do we see in the trumpets? First trumpet, famine. Again, we're confronted with famine. The second trumpet, when you see the fall of great nations, you have with it famine conditions and the disruption of commerce.

Remember that a burning mountain is a symbol of judgment against a kingdom or a nation. So when nations fall, prosperity is interrupted and these kinds of conditions prevail. The third of the fish dying again are a way of describing famine The third of the ships and all that sort of thing disruption of commerce Listen just consider this for a moment Consider this just for a moment in a tiny microscopic way Listen, consider how the earthquake and the tsunami have disrupted commerce to the point that you Honda employees, I only work in two and a half days a week right now.

That's just a little way of how this has worked out, you see. There was a tsunami destroying a lot of the plants and the shipping yards in Japan, so Honda can't get its parts, right? That's what he's talking about here. Those sorts of things are what's described here in this symbolic way. It takes a bite, doesn't it? It hurts.

Then we see the third trumpet, Wormwood. This is bitter suffering resulting from God's judgment. Remember again that bitterness and wormwood in the Old Testament represent severe affliction resulting from divine wrath. The harshness of life and the conditions of famines and war and the collapse and death lead to bitter suffering and death. All right. And then the fourth trumpet is fear and terror that characterize the earth dwellers.

All right. The reduction of light is this symbolic way of talking about fear and terror. Now, it doesn't strike everyone indiscriminately. It isn't the final terror that people are going to experience at the second death, but it's still terror and it's still fear. And without reading chapter 9, we see the fifth and the sixth trumpets, the plagues of the locusts and the horses from hell.

Remember those? These are plagues of hopelessness and despair, spiritual torment and death that come along with what we've read in the other trumpet. These are the diseases, if you will, that naturally accompany the plagues that we've read about. you know just like cholera is almost inevitable when an earthquake happens and everything is disrupted unless measures are taken immediately you have cholera breaking out don't you well that kind of what happens in chapter 9 this these plagues of hopelessness and spiritual torment and death are what naturally accompany the other plagues Now let me ask you do you see these very things in the natural disasters we witnessed First of all, don't they display the glory and the power of God like the original plagues did?

Do they not? I don't know about you, but I certainly see the power of God in some of these things. It's unbelievable the destruction that what we would call nature brings about. God in His providence uses these methods and through nature He displays His power in an unbelievable way. Listen, when I look at those shots of Joplin, it just blows my mind. That hospital sitting there, you see the hospital?

You know, every window in that hospital was blown out. When you look at that building now, you see the curtains outside, you know, coming out the windows. And someone told us that that place was filled with cars. And that those cars, the parking lot of that hospital was swept clean. And those cars were all piled up. Imagine that.

That happened in a matter of seconds. That happened in a matter of seconds. That is the power of God. And that's not even God showing it directly. It's showing it through nature. Unbelievable.

How do people respond? Do they turn in repentance and praise to God for His majesty and His power and His glory? No. You see bitterness and hopelessness, despair, torment, and even death. That's what you see. You see, the earth dwellers harden their hearts when God's power comes through.

Just like in the Old Testament and the plagues, Pharaoh hardened his heart. Same thing happens today. Now, therefore, you say, Pastor Tim, thank you. On this Memorial Weekend, you have just filled us with hope. Well, I'm not at the end yet. Because we should not lose hope.

And we should not just see disasters and judgments that harden the hearts of the earth dwellers. Because there's more to our understanding. This is the perspective. This is the perspective that Revelation brings us as it tells us how we're going to be victorious with the Lamb. It's going to tell us that. But we have the whole Bible to give us a fuller understanding, do we not?

I want you to turn to 1 Peter chapter 1 this morning. Book of Revelation gives us this as we see what it is to march toward triumph and what that's going to be like, okay, for earth dwellers. And as we're going to see, as we started to see already, there are these little interludes where God tells us what He does with His people to protect them. But now we need to go outside this book to kind of get a fuller view of where there still is hope even in these last days.

Now, I hope you've gotten this much. No, we're not at the very end of the world. These are the things that characterize this age. These are God's wake-up calls that He's been giving throughout the last 2,000 years for people to listen to Him. and we see from the book of Revelation that, like in Egypt, it hardens their hearts and seals, it gives them a taste of what's coming.

But we're not hopeless here. There's more to understanding. Look at 1 Peter 1, and we're going to read verses 22 through 25. having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of god for all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.

The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. Now what does he say here? Let's back up. The plagues and the seals and the disasters that fall upon mankind often harden hearts. They harden their hearts against God.

They can show the power of God. These disasters can be things that show the incredible majesty and power of God but disasters will never bring about repentance There is only one thing that can bring repentance to a hard heart. What is it? It is the gospel, the living word of God. By the gospel, we are born again. I love this passage, and I was thinking through this this week.

I love this passage because what it does is it says, okay, here's what it says. It says, when the gospel is preached, either from this pulpit or preached in another venue or personal one-on-one sharing of the gospel, that gospel leaves your mouth and goes out, oftentimes will produce the new birth in someone else. You don't produce the new birth. It's not up to you to get anyone born again.

That's not your job. Your job is to communicate the instrument that produces a new heart, a new life. No one's heart has ever been regenerated, has been made new, without the gospel. And so the Word can penetrate a hard heart and make it into a heart of flesh. Make it from a stone heart to a responsive heart that beats to the commands of God. The gospel can break the hardened hearts of people who've been through natural disasters.

These disasters, if we want to call them that, provide the opportunity for us to live out the gospel by loving our neighbors and helping them. You know, one of the things I think was really lacking in the tradition that I grew up in, there was this reaction against what was called the social gospel. The social gospel essentially said this, don't worry about individual people.

Worry about the system. People aren't regenerated. We aren't regenerated individually. We've got to go out and change their living conditions and so forth. And because that's not the gospel, we reacted against that. And so I grew up with a gospel that said, you know, just give them the gospel. that's not what we're told to do if we been changed by Jesus we going to love people like Jesus did Jesus healed plenty of people who never believed in Him Do you know that He fed people thousands of them who never believed in Him But He lived out the love of the Father.

The Father who lets the sun and the rain come on those who hate Him every day. And that's how we need to be. These disasters give us an opportunity to live out the love of the Gospel to people so that they can see, why are you doing this? I'm doing this because God loved me and Christ and He changed me. And I want to love you like He loved me. You see?

So it gives us an opportunity to live out the Gospel, but it also gives us an opportunity to love our neighbors by proclaiming the Gospel. Like I said, no one's ever born again without the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so these disasters then, even though they may harden their hearts, gives us an opportunity to live out the love of the gospel and to love our neighbors that way and to love our neighbors by proclaiming the gospel.

God sends not only tornadoes, He sends His people. He sends His people with the imperishable seed of the good news of Jesus Christ. It is that word preached, shared, that brings new birth. so we don't have to lose hope we don't have to lose hope we can look at those disasters and say this isn't the chaos of nature this is coming from the throne of the lamb of god these are wake-up calls these are plagues listen and we need to go in and we need to proclaim the gospel because in the gospel there's hope so from now on what should you think when you see natural disasters.

First of all, do not think the world is coming to an end. Don't get caught up in that. We've had enough of that, haven't we? You know, the world was supposed to end when? Last, was it last Saturday? Yeah, now it's October 21st, if I remember, if I'm hearing the story right.

Don't get caught up in that. We have enough of that going on. Let's stop that silliness. don't think the world is coming to end rather you got to remember these trumpets and these seals are operating throughout this age it might be near the end don get me wrong it might be near the end but these are the means that God uses throughout the age to judge the idolatry of men and to expose the hardness of their hearts They are not mere natural disasters, but the providential work of God among mankind.

I mean, that's much more profitable. It's much more profitable to be saying, this is God's providence. This is God shouting at people rather than, oh, it's the end of the world. Let's all go home and pray. No, this is God at work. Why don't we work with Him?

All right? So don't think the world is coming to an end. And then look upon them as evidence of the Lordship of Jesus, the Resurrected One to whom God has given all authority and power. This is Jesus at work, okay? This is Him at work. They're not the random chaotic workings of a cold front meeting warm air and producing a tornado.

It's more than that. There is the purposeful working of Jesus behind that. It's what we call providence. It's the lordship of Jesus. There is not chaos. there is a Lord controlling all of that. Here's the third thing.

See these disasters as signs of your deliverance, of your coming exodus. When the Israelites saw the plagues visited on Egypt, they knew God was at work for their deliverance. And so you need to think the same. Whenever you see these things happening, be reminded, these are leading to the end. These are leading to the end. These are reminders to us that there is an exodus coming that is much greater than that original exodus.

Remember this, natural disasters rarely move men's hearts to repentance, but the gospel will do it. Above all, above all, we should view these things differently than our unbelieving neighbors. ask yourself this question is the way I interpret the world significantly different than the way my unbelieving neighbor interprets the world it should be significantly different different. It should be way different than how your unbelieving neighbor does.

So when these things come upon us, remember this. Remember these things. Live by these interpretations. Have hope because of the gospel. Right? Let's see things differently.

Father, we are thankful again for your mercy to us in Jesus. We are thankful for how you have explained to us what's going on in our world. So help us, Father, to incorporate into our thinking your explanations. the world has enough father of silly explanations coming from unredeemed men who can't make sense out of the world let us be a clear voice of the revealed explanations that you have given us that go far beyond the crazy wicked rebellious interpretations that are around us every every day help us Lord not only to know these to speak these but to live by these for the glory of your name in Jesus name Amen