In the past several years, it is becoming too common to hear of disasters taking place all over the world with increasing frequency. What used to be shocking news is now seemingly common - people just take it as part and parcel of life. The recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile bear testimony to the fact that we are indeed nearing the time of Christ's Second Coming as He said so in Matthew 24:7. Many theologians and preachers are adamant that a loving God will never has a hand in all these disasters. Yet in the same breath, they proclaim that all who have never heard and believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in this time and age are doomed for eternal condemnation in hell!
The fact of the matter is that we need to understand the world as God sees it. This world does not belong to God as our forebear Adam and Eve had long ago cut off man's relationship with his Creator. In so doing, all of mankind had fallen under a curse of sin and death. When Jesus came to redeem man from the Fall, only a small handful who are called out from this world are under His protection.The rest of humanity will have to wait until after His return for their chance of salvation. All these are in God's plan of salvation for mankind hidden in the festivals of the seven holy days found in Leviticus 23.
Has Adam and Eve chosen to obey God in partaking of the tree of life, the Spirit of God will have abide in all of mankind giving God's presence, provision and protection to all who obey Him. But since that was not the case, mankind as a whole is under the sway of the great deceiver to commit sin and more sin as generations passed. The result is untold sufferings and misery throughout the history of mankind. Sadly, just as our forebears had rejected God, so have our generation. Hence, famines, pestilences, natural disasters and wars had and will continue to come till the close of this age when Christ returns to set up God's kingdom on earth. Then and only then will there be peace, righteousness and prospertiy throughout all the earth.
God had to allow man to learn his lessons. The reader may wonder how is that possible since countless innocents would have been dead, often through no fault of their own making! The answer is simply that all the dead will be resurrected to life sometime toward the close of the millennial age and be taught the truth, and nothing but the whole truth about what had actually happened and how they can embrace God's way of life. 2 Peter 3:9 reads, 'The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.'
Every human being who has yet to be saved will be given the opportunity to hear of the gospel and God's plan of salvation. Except for a small group who will reject God and be annihilated at the lake of fire, most will repent and accept God's offer of salvation and be born again in the kingdom of God as eternal spirit being. It is within the kingdom of God that eternal life begins.
In this age only a small group of people are called to repentance and have God's protection through His indwelling Spirit. In the Old Testament, there are records of countless helpless people killed, including many women and children before they had the opportunity to repent of their sins. God is a God of love as well as a God of judgment. He blessed those who obey and punished those who disobey Him. There are examples after examples of warnings in the Bible about God's judgments. The case of the Great Flood in Noah's days, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Abraham's days and the ten plagues in Egypt during the time of Moses are lessons for our learning (1 Cor 10:6).
The vast majority of the victims of natural disasters have not been given the opportunity of repentance and hence are yet to be judged. God's perspective of death is only a temporary sleep (John 11:11). All those who died in all the disasters in the history of time will be resurrected and be offered true life where disaster and death will be no more! The facts of injustice and disaster in Luke 13:1-5 testify of the truth that bad things do sometimes happened to good and innocent people. The Lord made it clear that those Galileans who were killed by Pilate were no worse sinners that deserved such fate. Similarly, the eighteen men who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them were no greater sinners than others who did not die tragically. But unless we repent, we shall likewise perish! The disasters are a warning for the nations to repent, or worse disasters during the Great Tribulation will eventually take place (Jeremiah 16:4).
Just like the many catastrophes happening in the years leading to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, there will be many disasters leading to the coming Great Tribulation. All these are the beginning of sorrows -Matthew 24:8. God says in Jeremiah 33:11, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.Turn, turn from your evil ways! This life is only temporal and will soon pass. The real abundant life will come to bring hope to countless billions that will fill earth to the brink. That will be when God will bring about a new heaven and a new earth to house His expanded Divine Family!
