Calamity in the City

The mounting calamities around the nation continue to give us pause to consider exactly, how does God work through the wind and waves? The worst tornado in 60 years has just blown through Joplin, Missouri. Floods are inundating everything that does not float.

There are questions that float, through our minds, as we meditate on these actions of God. And, yes, they are His actions by the way, ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.’ (Isaiah 45:6-7). So, our notion of God as the ‘One Who Brings Niceness’ is blown and washed away by both Scripture and by the evidence in front of us. What then are we to make of the seeming disasters we see on our news each day lately?

I found myself reflecting on a most disturbing thought that if there is common grace as we are prone to assert then could there also be common judgment? If we are happy to receive the bounties of God’s overflowing grace in the good times are we equally happy to receive His common judgments as well? Or, is it perhaps that there are blessings of common grace but only specific judgments that hit the wicked and leave the righteous untouched? We are assured that not a sparrow falls without His knowing but does that prove that righteous sparrows never fall in a general judgment? Is there any comfort for God’s own when living within a society that cries out for wrath daily? What shall we say then…?

I remember that when reading Jeremiah I saw that when the city was about to be sacked by the Chaldeans he went and bought a piece of land. It was a curious act because at the time he was telling everybody in sight that God was about to overthrow the city and the Babylonians were going to carry captives away en-mass. Of course, Jeremiah was also warning anybody that would listen to flee the city since certain judgment was at hand. My point is that even in the midst of a general judgment Jeremiah had confidence that he was not to be caught up in the acts of God’s wrath. He was to be spared and in fact would be around to use the land purchased in a time when land seemingly had no value. Admittedly, Jeremiah does seem to have a leg up on us having been a very specially chosen prophet in his time. Still, it looks to me like God sometimes spares His own when the general judgment comes.

Perhaps, by prayer and God’s special grace, we may avoid the worst of the roaring winds of wrath. If not, then we trust in the daily mercies and the strength given to live through the trouble. Either way we are the Lord’s. Either way we progress toward the gates of the celestial city. In this we have confidence and rejoice.

For Christian Culture,

Don Schanzenbach