The recent earthquake centered in Port Au Prince, Haiti has given rise to questions of a religious nature. Where is God in all this? Does God have anything to do at all with events like this? How? Why? Is this an instance of His wrath?
Of course the materialist believes there is no God, so to view the earthquake as an act of God is preposterous. In the materialist world view earthquakes, like tsunamis or hurricanes, simply occur as a result of natural cause and effect. There is no higher meaning to be interpreted in relation to some god or human moral behavior for that matter. However, one cannot miss the political hay that is often made in the aftermath of these events.
The Christian view of things is much different. Granted, there are many so called Christians who believe that God has nothing to do with natural disasters - except perhaps that He grieves over the mess when it's all through... I say these are Christians "so called" because while they profess belief in God they adopt the materialist view of the world where disasters happen in a vacuum of nature, having no relation to God or human moral behavior.
But the Biblical teaches otherwise. God spoke through the prophet Amos saying, "When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it?" Amos 3:6. While this question may be ambiguous in English, the Greek translation is so worded to indicate the questioner expects an affirmative answer. The question therefore has the effect of a statement: "If disaster comes to a city, the LORD has caused it."
While the disaster immediately in the prophet's view was destruction by a foreign army - the 8th century BC Assyrian invasion of Israel - it is clear that several natural disasters had preceded this. In chapter 4 we're told God had brought famine (v.6); drought (v.7); crop failure (v.9); insect plagues (v.9); and deadly diseases (v.10). All these are things which God says, "I did this...". Furthermore, in each case God says of Israel, "...yet you have not returned to me." Natural disaster becomes God's instrument to chastise a rebellious people.
Earthquakes in particular are things which God says He uses. They are reserved especially as a sign of God's presence in the end times to judge the earth and destroy the enemies of His people. For example, in Ezekiel 38:18-20, in the day Israel is attacked:
"This is what will happen in that day: When Gog attacks the land of Israel, my hot anger will be aroused, declares the Sovereign LORD. In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground."
In Jesus' vision of the turmoil surrounding the end of the age He says, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains," Matthew 24:7-8. The birth pain is that time of judgment at the end of the present age leading up to the birth of the new, Messianic age when God's Kingdom will come in power.
Interestingly, in John's vision of the end in Revelation there is contained over a third of all the Biblical references to earthquakes (seven out of 20 in the NIV). And here too is recorded a seismic event of apparently worldwide scope, "Then there cam flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed," Rev.16:18-19.
In summary let me answer an objection raised not by unbelievers but from Christians. In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina I heard an announcer on a local Christian radio station deny that that event could be an expression of God's wrath because, after all, we're all sinners and if God was judging the inhabitants of the gulf coast for sin, to be consistent, He'd have to bring judgment on us all. But this is to demonstrate an ignorance of how God works.
One of the classic instances of God's wrath against a people - Sodom and Gomorrah - was not universal in scope but selective. Peter reminds us, "...He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them into ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly," 2Peter 2:6.
Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed as an expression of the sum total of God's judgment. Rather, they were destroyed as "an example of what is going to happen" in the ultimate, end times judgment. God, in His mercy to the whole world of rebellious humanity, often makes an example of a few. That earthquakes and other disasters have not devastated all the cities of the world is no evidence that a single instance is not His judgment - Amos tells us it is - rather, it is evidence of His mercy.
Jesus explains how this is the case. Speaking of Jews who were slaughtered by the Roman governor Pilate as they were in the act of worshiping He said, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish" Luke 13:2-3. They were sinners. Moreover, their suffering points to a greater perishing that will come to all the impenitent.
So, let us not minimize the suffering of those in Haiti's earthquake because they were sinners, and let us do our utmost to show compassion to the survivors. But let us neither minimize the message of this event: "Unless we repent, we too will all perish when the real shaking comes!"
