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What the Bible says about God Creates Calamity
(From Forerunner Commentary)

God is aware of everything regarding our lives. Not even a thought can be hidden from Him regardless of where we are, regardless of what justifications we might give for what we decide to do. So, when it comes down to the issue of sovereignty, do we allow God to be sovereign in our lives? One of His names, Yahweh Shammah, means "The Lord Is There." Since we are His children, wherever we are, He is. If we allow ourselves to entertain ideas that He is unconcerned about us, we are gravely mistaken.

God's supremacy is so great that He can keep track of all that is happening across the entire expanse of what He has made. Therefore, He is allowing what is occurring in the world. He is permitting it to occur and even directly causing some of the calamitous events to happen. He is not detached from what is going on—in fact, everything is under control. He who sees every sparrow fall also has His eyes on us for our good.

Whatever we do, we must not allow Him to slip from our thoughts. Every thought of those who live by faith should begin with Him and His will.



Leviticus 26:33

A clear and consistent pattern in the Word of God is that He scatters as a result of sin. Large portions of the Old Testament are dedicated to warning God's people to repent to escape God's judgment, which—as Israel and Judah discovered—involved being scattered. The heavy books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel are almost entirely dedicated to such alarums, and many of the "minor prophets," such as the book of Amos, are likewise aimed at helping God's people to reconsider their ways. Sadly, Israel and Judah did not really believe that God scatters—God, not Satan—because of sin. They did not believe it—until it happened to them.

The church is subject to the same principles and to an even greater degree. "For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required" (Luke 12:48). If we violate our covenant with God—which includes much more than simply keeping the commandments—we should not be surprised if He (not Satan) acts to bring us back around. We cannot claim that we are "delivered to do . . . abominations" (Jeremiah 7:10), as the ancient Jews did, simply because we are in the church.

Moreover, identifying Satan as the source of the division is a subtle, perhaps even subconscious, way to shift the blame. Isaiah 59:2 points out that "[our] iniquities have separated [us] from [our] God; and [our] sins have hidden His face from [us]." If the scattered peoples of Israel and Judah were to conclude somehow that they were innocent victims of Satan's attacks, their delusion and self-righteousness would be laughable—if they were not so deadly serious. It is likewise dangerously inconsistent to say that God punished Israel, but any calamity that befalls the Israel of God is because of the Devil.

The fact is that God is sovereign and consistent. God responded to the spiritual condition of His church by creating division. This can be seen as both reactive, in the sense of God reacting to the church's loss of focus (on Him), as well as proactive, to discipline His children and further instill His character in us. Our salvation was under threat by our drifting, so God—not Satan—caused a division. Put another way, perhaps, God formalized and manifested the divisions that already existed.

Nevertheless, because it came from God, it was the best possible result for us. Now it is our turn to seek God to learn in what ways we—corporately and individually—have been separated from God, so we can turn back to Him.

David C. Grabbe
Unity and Division (Part Two): Who Scattered the Church?

Job 2:10

Should a Christian allow himself to bemoan God's goodness even during a trial? When Job's wife wanted him to curse God for bringing trials upon him, Job expressed the right principle of God's universal goodness and fairness when he rebuked her for grumbling.

There are times when we may feel like God is not treating us fairly. Job points out that, as God's creations and recipients of His generosity and benevolence, we have no right to complain when He allows us to be afflicted or tests us through hardship.

Martin G. Collins
Fear the Lord's Goodness!

Ecclesiastes 7:13

Even as man makes many things crooked (Ecclesiastes 1:15), God, too, wrests things out of our hands and twists our paths in a different direction—and we certainly cannot undo what He has done. He exercises His sovereign authority, and it turns things upside down. He upsets the natural order of the cosmos, and the normal course of events for mankind in general and for individuals. He subverts the cause of anyone He chooses, according to His goodness and what He knows is best.

Many people have a hard time with this aspect of God, preferring to shy away from it. Yet He says Himself that He creates calamity (Isaiah 45:7). What is calamity if not crookedness on a monumental scale? He caused the Flood that destroyed all of mankind save eight. He removed a hedge around Job, which resulted in a tremendous trial. He decimated the nation of Egypt. When His people were obedient, He annihilated the armies of those who came against them, but when His people were rebellious, He fought against them and spoiled their efforts. He sent Israel into captivity, scattering them so thoroughly that most of them do not even know who they are.

Closer to home, He scattered His own church because He judged that its course needed to be upset—because it was not good. The course needed to be wrenched in a different direction in order for each child of His to examine his own ways to see what crookedness needs to be straightened out. And as Solomon rhetorically asks, who can undo what the Creator has willed to occur? Only He can—and only when and how He ordains.

If it seems like our every endeavor turns sour, or similar events are conspiring against us, it is not necessarily because we are being punished for being the worst of sinners. Perhaps we are—but we have to remember that even if we have the very best spiritual walk, perfectly resembling Jesus Christ, we will always encounter things that are crooked because the world is crooked, because Satan is continuing to make things crooked, and because God, too, is making things crooked (at least according to human reckoning). The reality is that His actions are always good and will always produce good fruit in the end, but that does not change the fact that they may also turn our world upside down in a most uncomfortable way. And that is all before we add in the crookedness that we cause ourselves!

Even so, we should not despair. God makes things crooked, but He also makes things straight. He supplies what is lacking when we cannot. Recall the crooked hands and legs that He made straight during His earthly ministry and the healing He performs for us. Consider the resurrections that He performed and the crookedness that He straightened out in them. Ponder the food that He provided and the truth that He supplied when they were lacking. He came to a crooked world and began setting things straight.

He did not do it all at once, though He is nevertheless continuing to make straight the crookedness introduced into His creation some 6,000 years ago. The Father and the Son are always working (John 5:17), and they are working for our spiritual benefit. Part of Their work is making things straight for the firstfruits, intervening to bring us to a vastly different conclusion from the end we would reach on our own.

God, at times, grants His children favor in the eyes of others when the normal course would be for them to be despised. He gives peace, which can include straightening out an interpersonal conflict. He takes things that are out of kilter and wrests them to bring them into alignment. “Power belongs to God,” the psalmist says, and so it should be common sense to seek favor with Him, because then He is willing to upset the order of things in a way that will help us toward the Kingdom.

He does not make everything perfect all at once, but as we continue to walk with Him, He straightens out sections of our road that we cannot straighten. He does not take away all of the consequences of our crookedness, nor does He undo all of the world's crookedness that impinges on us. Nevertheless, He straightens enough so that we can continue making spiritual progress and even receive unexpected blessings along the way.

David C. Grabbe
Crookedness

Isaiah 45:7

We find it easy to limit God. While all of His attributes are in perfect, harmonious balance, we invariably emphasize one of His traits or qualities over another. Without divine intervention in the form of a calling, everyone essentially creates a god in his own image, crudely patching together anecdotes and selected scriptures that reinforce his idea of the divine.

This selective emphasis is evident in the popular concept of God on the subjects of peace and unity. Truly, God desires peace, and He wants that His children have peace. Yet, His own words bear out that, in His sovereignty, He also creates calamity (Isaiah 45:7). As strange as it may seem—even though He ultimately desires for all of mankind to live in harmony with Him and for brethren to dwell in unity—when necessary, He is also a God of division.

Our Savior's words in Matthew 10:34 are undeniable: "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword." The wording in Luke's account is different, but the potent core remains: "Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division" (Luke 12:51). In these contexts, Jesus elaborates that even the family—that basic building block of society that He instituted and endorses—is not immune when He requires a separation for the sake of true worship. God even allows division of a marriage for the sake of godly peace, because the fruit of righteousness is sown in an environment of peace (I Corinthians 7:15; James 3:18). While peace and unity are indeed good, they must be on God's terms.

In the parables, God separates the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:31-46) and the wheat from the tares (Matthew 13:24-30). Even though God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (I Timothy 2:4), He will do this in His own time and in His own way. While unity within the God Family is what He is ultimately working toward, He has no compunction about using division in the process, and even permanently separating those who would not fit within His Family.

Paul's letter to the Corinthians provides an insightful study into the causes of and reasons for division. Right at the beginning, Paul "pleads" that "there be no divisions among [them]," desiring that they all have the same mind and judgment (I Corinthians 1:10-11). A couple of chapters later, he instructs that "where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you," it is a result of being "carnal and behaving like mere men" (I Corinthians 3:3). The basic cause of division among men is carnality—just as the cause of division from God is sin (Isaiah 59:2).

However, God can use this proclivity so that it ultimately serves His purpose. Later in his epistle to the Corinthians, Paul writes, "I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you" (I Corinthians 11:18-19). As troubling as it may sound, Scripture states that factions must exist within the church. As illustrated in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats and the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, those who are presently being transformed into the image of God will be disunited with those who are not. If there were not divisions like these, it would mean that the firstfruits were still in agreement with those under the sway of Satan, and thus no spiritual growth would be taking place.

Paul clarifies this principle and expands on it in other epistles. To the church at Rome, he writes:

Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. (Romans 16:17-18)

"Belly" here is a figurative reference to the heart, a person's core. Those who are causing division are doing so because they are serving their own hearts, that is, their own interests, ideals, and perspectives. Paul admonishes the brethren simply to avoid them because their words are dangerous. His language is even stronger when he writes to Titus: "Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned" (Titus 3:10-11).

In Jude's admonition to "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (verse 3), he goes to great lengths in describing apostates:

Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. . . . These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. . . . These are sensual persons [that is, natural, concerned with the physical senses], who cause divisions, not having the Spirit. (Jude 8, 16, 19)

Division, then, is a function of carnality, and there will always be a measure of it while we are mortal human beings. The Father and the Son are working to bring us to the place where we can live as they do—in peace and perfect unity, without any division—yet, until that time, we will experience division and separation. Some of it will be because of our own misalignment with God, and some will be a reaction—required, at times—to the division others are causing.

When God causes division, He does so for the sake of salvation. He separated Israel from Egypt in the process of saving them physically. He fractured His own church during the present age to arrest the complacency of those whom He had called. He requires us to distinguish between the holy and the profane, for in rightly dividing good from evil, we are taking on His image. Many champion peace and unity, and these are without question godly attributes. However, for there to be true peace and unity in God's Kingdom, God is clearly not disdainful of making good and right use of division.

David C. Grabbe
Unity and Division (Part One)

Isaiah 45:9-14

Verses 9-11 anticipate that there will always be those who murmur throughout the often calamitous ways God chooses to work out His salvation. Perhaps here God is specifically targeting the anticipated displeasure of some Jews disturbed that He would use a Gentile king, Cyrus, to free them. People who would not dare to grumble against God were they face to face with Him will do this, not realizing that God actually caused some of their discomfort in the calamities they experience. Israel did this in the wilderness. Deuteronomy 8:1-3 plainly says God caused them to hunger. The Israelites grumbled repeatedly, not realizing God was making them go hungry for their good (verses 3, 16). People ask, "Where is God? If He really cared, He wouldn't allow this to occur."

In reality, God cared about far more important things than the hunger pangs the Israelites endured. People frequently blame God with little understanding and in the wrong attitude. He indeed may be "guilty" of causing the calamity. Sometimes He may be blamed for doing nothing, when in reality He may be "guilty" of doing everything because He has a much greater end in mind! The problem with those who dare to accuse God is that they have a vague and weak understanding of how much He is involved.

Verses 11-13 are simultaneously a rebuke and a challenge to those who take this confused and whining approach. What God does is done in righteousness, and He will follow through with His will regardless of their opinions. He challenges them to ask Him about this prophecy and, if they think He cannot bring it to pass, to notice the power He displayed in His creation. The unstated question is, "Who is going to stop Me?" Further, Cyrus will not have to be bribed to perform what God has decreed—he will rebuild Jerusalem, just as God wills.

Passages like these clearly establish that God initiates calamitous events that on the surface appear to be disasters. But such passages also inspired Paul to formulate the well-known and oft-quoted Romans 8:28: "All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." We most need to understand that God creates these events to produce a result in harmony with His purpose. Thus, they are always good whether or not they appear as such on the surface. This in no way means they are fun to go through. By definition, a calamity is not fun, invariably producing the destruction of things we may hold dear. It may be quite painful and frightening! But, if we believe God, and if we are coming to know Him, then we will strive to work through it in patient hope, trusting His wisdom, love, and power.

John W. Ritenbaugh
God's Sovereignty and the Church's Condition (Part One)

Amos 1:2

In the wild a lion roars just as it is about to pounce on its prey. Symbolically and metaphorically, the roar of a lion or the crack of thunder shows the imminent intervention of God in human affairs (I Samuel 2:10; Isaiah 29:6; 31:4; Hosea 11:9-11; Revelation 16:18).

In the mid-eighth century BC when Amos preached, Israel's economic base was largely in agriculture, but a drought had begun to destabilize that foundation. The pastures had already begun to feel the effects of God's roaring, as had Carmel, the most verdant part of Israel, and incidentally, the supposed stronghold of Baal. Amos proclaims that the drought is the result of God's judgment.

The prophet uses this drought to illustrate that God is not an absentee landlord. He governs His creation (Psalm 104; Matthew 6:26) and knows everything that happens in it (Psalm 139; Matthew 10:29). He has neither abdicated nor delegated these responsibilities. If calamity strikes, God is involved in some way, possibly executing judgment.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Prepare to Meet Your God! (The Book of Amos) (Part One)

Amos 3:3

America calls itself a Christian nation. We have churches on every corner, Bibles in every house, Christian scripture and principles in our founding documents and on our governmental buildings, and the Ten Commandments on public monuments. We produce more Bibles and send more missionaries than any other nation on earth. We piously intone Christian principles in our politics and foreign policy. We even say public prayers before auto races! If we are so close to Him, God says, He must hold us more accountable than others.

Then, He asks a series of questions that are designed to get us to think in a cause-and-effect mode, that is, we are to think about why certain things occur. "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?" (verse 3). The answer is obviously not. God wants us to place Him and ourselves as the "two," and we must remember that He just said that He must punish for sin. The conclusion must be that God is not walking with us because of our sins (see Isaiah 59:2-15)! There can be no agreement between a righteous God and a sinful nation.

Amos 3:4-5 contain four more cause-and-effect questions, but verse 6 applies specifically to our situation in America: "If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there is calamity in a city, will not the LORD have done it?" God is forcing us to agree with His logic. Do not people fear when they are made aware of danger nearby? Yes, of course. In the same way, if a disaster strikes, is it not true that God had a hand in it? Yes, of course! Especially if it occurs amidst a people who claim to be so close to God.

Later, in Amos 4:6-12, God tells us that we have missed the meaning of all the disasters we have endured in recent years. Using famine, drought, crop failure, epidemics, and "natural" disasters as examples of divine wake-up calls, He says, "Yet you have not returned to Me" (verses 6, 8-11). For a people who know God, calamity is not haphazard! God allows it to happen to inspire repentance and revival of true worship.

Did the nation take the September 11 attacks as warnings to return to God, truth, and right living? Sadly, only a few heeded them. A Barna Research Group (BRG) poll released on September 3, 2002, showed that "an overwhelming majority [90%] admit that 9/11 has had no lasting impact on their religious beliefs." BRG president George Barna reached the proper conclusion: "The fact that we saw no lasting impact from the most significant act of war against our country on our own soil says something about the spiritual complacency of the American public."

Indeed, it does. There is only one solution to this, "Seek good and not evil, that you may live; so the LORD God of hosts will be with you" (Amos 5:6). Even if the rest of the nation will not heed, we can as individuals put ourselves back in pace with God.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
September 11 One Year On

Amos 5:19

One calamity occurs after another. It seems as if a person escapes one of them, only to become caught in a worse calamity. The Day of the Lord will be a time of unending catastrophe and trouble.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Twenty-Three)

Philippians 2:14-15

Comprehending God's sovereignty should begin to produce another necessary yet difficult quality: complete resignation to God's will. We Israelites have gained quite a reputation with God for being unwilling to accept life without griping.

Human nature naturally complains when it feels it has been deprived of what it had its heart set on. We think that our possessions are ours unconditionally. We feel that we are entitled to success when we have done something well. We believe that, when we work hard and competently, we deserve to keep what we have accumulated. We hold that, when surrounded by our happy family, no power may enter our beloved circle and strike down a loved one. We can even think that we should be immune from bankruptcy because God must honor our obedience! However, understanding and accepting God's sovereignty includes His right to do or allow anything He wills.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Sovereignty and Its Fruit: Part Ten


 




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