Did God Cause The Hurricane?
"In all of this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." — Job 1:22 Not being omniscient, there are many incidents which occur in this mysterious universe which we cannot or do not understand. Many of these happenings are of a tragic nature. I marvel at the readiness of men to blame the Almighty for these oddities that they do not comprehend. Many of these people would deny the doctrine of pre-destination but they fail to realize that their philosophy of "whatever will be, will be" is synonymous to it.
Several months ago a freak incident occurred in a south Florida city. A sidewalk caved in while a man was walking on it. He was injured and filed suit against the city. The court ruled that it was "an act of God" so he collected nothing. To show the absurdity of the court ruling the man immediately filed another suit against "God and company." While we may regard the prosecutor as being sacrilegious we must admit that he had a better case than the court had. How did the court know God caused the tragedy? There was no possible way for them to know. They simply took advantage of a loop-hole in the law.
Recently the nation stood in shock and sorrow at the disaster wrought by hurricane Camille. I was awe-stricken as I saw the damage that was done and continued to hear the rising fatality count. Among the dazzling events was a televised news report containing the major portion of a sermon delivered by a priest in the hurricane area of Mississippi. He blamed God with this calamity! The trend seems to be "If you can't explain it, then blame it on God!" Such would make God a cruel monster who sends catastrophes upon his creation for no apparent reason and then sends his Son to undo the sufferings of humanity! It makes a maniac of God.
The priest further stated that God was punish-ing the people for their wickedness. Such is an-other foolish charge. Anybody knows that if God was going to punish the Gulf Coast for their wickedness he would not have stopped with just 250 casualties. I used to live in the hurricane area and I know how it is. There is only a handful of faithful Christian and a major part of that area has been compared to the Las Vegas strip with all of its night clubs, strip joints, gambling, and other forms of worldliness. God never leaves a job half done. Read about Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, Jericho, etc. If these were the Lord's intentions he probably would have started elsewhere. There are worse places. Besides, God has appointed a time for the destruction of ungodly men, 2 Thes. 1:7-9. There is more reason to believe this disaster was caused by man than by God. It has long been a theory that the testing of bombs and the launching of rockets and space-ships has affected our weather. I am not qualified to argue the pros and cons of this theory, but it has been conjectured. There is no reason to charge God foolishly.
"Why did God send the hurricane?" is a question asked me recently by an atheist. It seems that the priest and the atheist have far more in common than either would like to admit. Neither of them would want to accept the blame and shame of such a tragedy, so they shift it to God. But the only logical conclusion an atheist could draw is that it was caused by man. Consider the following line of deductive reasoning:
MAJOR PREMISE: A hurricane occurred.
MINOR PREMISE: Every effect must have an adequate cause.
CONCLUSION: Since there is no god and dead matter has no ability, then man must have caused the hurricane.
There is no reason to accuse the great I AM for what we may not understand. We need to learn to meet our misfortunes. Paul said his "thorn in the flesh" was from Satan but he was able to use it to his advantage rather than let it get the best of him, 2 Cor. 12:7-9. In the case of Job it was not God who sent his misfortune but the devil, Job 1:12. Even Job knew it wasn't God. If anyone ever wanted to accuse God of such nonsense Job could have. God allowed Job to be tested because he had confidence in him.
I do not know, but I have often wondered if God is allowing us to be tested by our misfortunes and the devil is seeking to persuade us to "curse God and die," Job 2:9. If so, are you standing the test? Can Jehovah place as much confidence in you as he did in Job? "In all of this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." Blessed be the name of the Lord!
— P. O. Box 147 Trumann, Ark. 71472