The Bible says in Mark 13:8 that:
Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.
When a volcano erupts, a hurricane devastates a city or lightning ignites a vast forest fire, it is natural for us to ponder God’s relationship to the events. How should we regard such tragic occurrences? Are they really “acts of God,” as insurance companies still label them?
Jesus asked his disciples a similar question. In Luke 13:4, Jesus asked, “Those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?” Jesus was apparently referring to a well-known disaster of his time that had killed 18 people. His point was simple: events and tragedies beyond our control are part of life. There is not necessarily a direct cause and effect between the people who suffer and the tragedies themselves.
Advertising: know more about the Bible, subscribe to the YouTube Channel Bread of Life
The Bible offers two reasons for natural disasters. First, the world itself is beautiful but broken. All of creation suffers as a consequence of the entry of sin, death and decay into the world;
Romans 5:12 NIV say:
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
Romans 8:19-22 NIV also say:
For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
Second, all of human history takes place within the context of the cosmic battle between the forces of God and the forces of Satan. Job did not know that the Lord was using his life as an example of faithfulness when Satan afflicted him with sores and sadness.
Thankfully, Jesus left his disciples (and us) with this encouragement: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
This post was brought to you by Yury Gaudard and published first in the NIV Essentials Study Bible.
Leave a comment