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The God of the Old Testament – Part 12: The Rampages of Nature and the Pain of God

By Mark L. Carlton

Two weeks ago my wife and I witnessed and were almost victims of a rampage of nature in central Nebraska.   We were on the way to Branson, Missouri and were almost caught in the tornados that eventually hit Kearney, Grand Island and Aurora, Nebraska. 

Growing up in the Midwest I have been through many bad storms and tornado warnings, but this was the first time I have ever seen a tornado.  Actually, we saw three tornados and there was another one about 100 yards from us that kicked up so much dirt that we couldn’t see it.

We were parked at a rest stop at the time, hoping to wait out the storm.  But when a big sign came cart-wheeling in front of us I decided to make a run for it.   We arrived at the Kearney interchange just as the storm sirens started to sound, so we decided to keep driving.  Fortunately, we finally outran the storm.

The Weather Channel has a regular feature about these sorts of events;  they call it, The Wrath of God.  Insurance companies refer to the damage they cause as “acts of God.”   But what is really happening when a cyclone or a tornado strikes and leaves a trail of death and destruction in its wake? 

My reading of the Old Testament (and I think the New Testament too) leads me to answer the question, sometimes.  As I have previously written, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds.  In fact, we live in a world that has been cursed as a result of human sin.  Because of this, sometimes accursed things happen.

Jesus once weighed in on a couple of accursed events that happened in His day.  It all began when He was asked about an atrocity committed by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.  Pilate had apparently killed some men from Galilee who had come to the temple to worship.  In the process, their blood had been mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.  In commenting on this outrage Jesus also referred to another event, one of those acts of God.  The tower of Siloam in Jerusalem apparently collapsed killing 18 men.

In commenting on these tragedies Jesus told us that we should not assume that those who died in these tragedies were worse sinners that other men.     But, interestingly, Jesus did not deny that their deaths were a result of a more general judgment of sin.  On the contrary, He warned his listeners to learn a lesson from these tragedies.  What lesson?  That “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish[i] “

Jesus’ answer may seem harsh, yet if my life had been taken by the tornados that struck central Nebraska I would hope that a similar message would be given at my funeral.  If fact, I would hope the pastor would use Luke 13:1-5 as his text.  I would hope that he would use my death to remind those few who gathered to mourn me that they should remember that their day will come too.  I would hope that he would remind them of the point I made in last week’s sermon; we live our lives on the Green Mile, death row.  And barring repentance, none of us is going to get out of here alive.  

 Truly the scriptures are correct in declaring; “it is appointed unto man once to die,”[ii]  and someday, when the bell tolls for us, something natural, something of this world, is going to be listed as the cause of our death.   So whether we die as a result of diseases, plagues, crime, war or natural disaster, someday something will cause our death.   But the Bible points to a deeper cause.  Paul said it best, “The wages of sin is death,[iii]” and since all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, there is a sense in which the physical death of every man and woman is used either to carry out the sentence we have earned, or in the case of the forgiven, as the means God will use to bring us home.

So God may in fact use a tornado, or the butchery of a tyrant like Pilate for purposes of judgment.  In fact, Christians believe this is exactly how God used Pilate in the case of Jesus.  But in a broader sense, a cursory reading of the Bible makes it clear that sometimes God uses tragedy to judge peoples and civilizations that have sinned so grievously His goodness demands that His justice remove them.  What I mean is that there comes a time when God would cease to be good if He did not use some means to judge the wicked.  The first example the Bible gives us of this principle is the Great Flood.   

In responding to one of my earlier arguments an atheist acquaintance argued that my God was a sadist.  One of the things he pointed to was God’s killing of millions of innocent people in the flood.  But in bringing this accusation against the God he chose to reject what the Bible says about the reasons for the flood.   The Bible says the flood was sent upon a world that had it coming:

                “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”[iv]

                “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.  And God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.”[v]

                “Then God said, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them…”[vi]

Now I know that someone will ask, “What about the children?”  I do not intend to dodge the question.  However, I will be deferring my answer to it until my discussion on the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.   But for now I would ask you to meditate upon a statement God made after the waters of the flood had cleansed the earth: “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”[vii]

Now let us consider some of the lessons we learn about the God of Old Testament from the story of the flood.   In the Bible’s first recorded judgment, the judgment of Adam and Eve, we learned that God had established a moral order in the universe, and that He expects humankind to submit to His moral will as it is revealed to them.  We also saw that He was compassionate and gracious to the sinning couple.  In the second judgment, the judgment of Cain and Abel, we learn that God hates murder and that He is the avenger of innocent blood.  But once again we note His mercy in His decision to allow Cain to live, even though he had taken the life of his brother.   But with the flood we begin to learn things about the God of the Old Testament that set Him apart from every other god men have ever worshipped.    

Beginning with the flood, we begin to see just how much God hates sin.  We still see His grace and mercy in such things as the preservation of Noah and his family and in the 120 years he gave the human race to avoid the judgment of the flood by responding with repentance to the preaching of Noah.[viii]   Had there been no flood, we might be deluded into thinking that God is not all that bothered by human sin.   After all, in the years from Cain to Noah we see God doing nothing about the growing wickedness on the earth.  This could be interpreted as indifference.  But with the flood we have our first glimpse of the wrath of God, and we begin to see just how much He hates sin.   We also note that God is indeed willing to use the forces of nature to pour out devastating judgment on the wicked.  We will see it again as we continue our survey of the Old Testament, and the New Testament warns us that we will see it again at the end of the age.

But there are other things we learn about the God of the Old Testament from the Genesis flood.   We note that He sees and knows what is going on in the earth, and just as important, He is impacted by what He sees.   Here we see what we might have missed; the God of the universe has emotions; He even feels pain… and our actions cause it.  Consider what is said about God in the verses we quoted earlier in this message: “The Lord was sorry…He was grieved in His heart.”   Commenting on this, the late, Francis Schaeffer, made this observation: 

“We begin to lose our humanity as soon as we begin to lose the emphasis that what we do makes a difference.  We can glorify God, and both the Old and New Testament say that we can even make God sad.  That is tremendous.”

Indeed, it is tremendous.  In one of the ancient pagan flood stories, God destroys the world because people are too noisy.    The God of this theological system is arbitrary and cruel.   It posits an angry, vengeful God who delights in the destruction of the world.  This theology has found a home in the theology of many of God’s modern critics.  But is this an accurate picture of the God of the Old Testament?  I think not.

The Old Testament says God “takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.”[ix]  The Bible speaks of a longsuffering God[x] — “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger.[xi]”  Read the Old Testament prophets; there you will see a God mourning the sin of His people and agonizing over the judgment their sins are bringing down upon them.  

When I read the Bible, Old Testament or New, I see a God who suffers when we suffer, even when our suffering is our own fault.   When I read about the flood I read about a God who graciously reached out His hands to a doomed humanity for 120 years before a judgment that justice could no longer defer was finally poured out upon them; and I see a grieving creator doing away with something He loved and would have preferred not to destroy.  As an artist, I think I can in some measure understand His emotion.  I will be discussing this in next week’s sermon.