By Don Koenig
Some are wondering why God would allow as many as 300,000 people to die in this great disaster in the India Ocean or the great disaster on the gulf coast of America. The real question should be why the judgment of God has been so limited and why He has not allowed total judgment to come on this whole corrupted sinful planet that is obviously insane and in total rebellion against Him?
One answer is that God is still merciful and is still striving with man to come to His Son for salvation. This destruction may be what it takes to open the door to salvation for a much greater number of people who have been enslaved by false pagan religious beliefs. God cares more about our eternal destiny then He cares about the amount of time we sojourn on the earth in this body of dust.
I am not going to say that the people that died or suffered deserved judgment any more than we all deserve judgment. However, persecution of Christians by Islam is ongoing where much of the destruction took place and indeed could be a factor why God allowed this spasm in the earth to take place. On the Gulf coast New Orleans has certainly been in rebellion against God and has been flaunting every form of paganism during its annual festivals. One thing that is certain is that all people on earth will someday die by some natural disaster, be it an earthquake, or some germ that attacks our body or something else. When Jesus was asked about the calamities that comes on people through evil men and through disasters He said it was not because they had more sin than others. He said, unless you repent you shall perish likewise (LK 13:2-5). In other words Jesus was saying all will die unless they turn to Him and receive everlasting life
We all live in a fallen creation that is alienated from the true God of creation. We will all someday die without God if we have not been born into His new creation by trusting in Him. When God removes all restraints on Satan to deceive the nations we see in the book of Revelation that Judgment and destruction come upon the whole world. Jesus said if He did not come for the sake of the elect, no flesh would be saved on the earth. Jesus came the first time and died so all who will believe on Him will be saved regardless of the fate of this temporal body of dust that we occupy. God never created man to die or suffer it was a choice that man made when he rebelled against his Creator because he wanted to become like God.
Another thing we must consider is that God never originally created the earth with stresses on the earth's crust. It is the stress that causes the earthquakes and the huge mountain ranges. The mountain ranges ultimately cause the wind and ocean currents that allow the great storm formations on the earth. According to scripture all this happened after man rebelled against God at Babylon. It occurred in the life span of Peleg. The dividing of the earth is what brought the stresses on the earth's crust. Time and time again we see in the Bible that man's rebellion against God brings judgment.
We live in a fallen world that is in rebellion against the true God of creation and until God ultimately deals with rebellion on the earth and makes the New Earth that He promised in the Bible there will be great natural disasters on the earth. All people of flesh will someday die in one way or another unless God takes them alive in the rapture.