There is a biblical story set in Samaria, the capital city of Israel, during a time when it was surrounded by a foreign army. The siege dragged on for months, and food prices behind the city walls had skyrocketed. People were dying of starvation. Some of the Israelites resorted to cannibalism in order to survive the famine. The crisis had reached its tipping point, and death was certain, either from hunger inside the city or from the sword and spear outside.

God, however, did a miracle. He caused the besieging armies surrounding Samaria “to hear a sound of chariots and a sound of horses, even the sound of a great army” (2 Kings 7:6). They surmised that the king of Israel had hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack them and deliver Samaria, and they subsequently fled in terror at twilight, leaving everything behind.

It so happened that at that same time there were four Israelite lepers sitting right inside the gate of Samaria. Being lepers, they were not wanted inside or outside the city. But they, too, were dying of starvation. So they had a discussion among themselves, weighing the risks of staying inside the city versus going outside. They reasoned that it was worth the risk to go outside where there was at least a chance they’d survive, whereas in the city they would surely soon be dead.

So that very evening they ventured outside the gate, and they quickly discovered the empty camps of Israel’s enemies. Giddy over this revelation, they first enjoyed a feast among themselves. Then they rummaged through abandoned tents, confiscating silver, gold and clothing, which they subsequently hid for themselves.

It dawned on them, however, that while they were feasting and hoarding spoil, just over the wall their fellow Israelites were still starving. And so they said to each other, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, but we are keeping silent; if we wait until morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go and tell the king’s household” (2 Kings 7:9). And that is what they did.

This story has application to all of us who are enjoying the blessings that the gospel has provided us in Christ. We were like the four dying lepers, but God did a miracle for us. Our lives have been changed and our future is bright. But those blessings are available to everyone. This is truly “a day of good news.” If we keep silent, people might die who otherwise could live.

“ This is truly “a day of good news.” If we keep silent, people might die who otherwise could live.

When the four lepers initially shared their good news with the captives behind Samaria’s walls, it was met with skepticism. Similarly, not everyone believes when we tell them the good news that God will forgive anyone who will repent and believe in the Lord Jesus. But even if they do not believe, at least our consciences are clear once we’ve told them the truth. Thankfully, some do believe, and they join our feast!

As those who believe the gospel, we have an obligation to not only share it, but support those whom God has given unique callings and opportunities to share it. Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians:

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now (Phil. 1:3-5).

The Philippians “participated in the gospel” not only by believing it, but by supporting it through the ministry of the apostle Paul:

But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity…. Nevertheless, you have done well to share with me in my affliction.

You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone; for even in Thessalonica you sent a gift more than once for my needs. Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account. But I have received everything in full and have an abundance; I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God. And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:10, 14-19).

What a blessing it was for the Philippian believers to have the chance, via their support of the apostle Paul, to help spread the good news that had saved them. And what a tragedy it was that some other churches apparently didn’t seize that opportunity. Paul believed their sacrifices would result in “profit which increases to [their] account,” another way of saying that they had laid up treasure in heaven by their sacrifices. He also believed that, because they had “sought first the kingdom,” God would “supply all [their] needs.” It has been well said that, unless we imitate Philippians 4:14-18, we have no right to claim Philippians 4:19.

If we are honest with ourselves, there is good reason to doubt the salvation of those who have no interest in sharing the gospel or supporting those who are spreading it. If such people are saved, they, in the words of an elderly Haitian pastor I once heard preach, “need to be more saved”!

“ If we are honest with ourselves, there is good reason to doubt the salvation of those who have no interest in sharing the gospel or supporting those who are spreading it.

If you know anything about Heaven’s Family, you know that the gospel is right at the center of everything we do. When folks criticize us, saying we are “just a humanitarian agency,” it shows they don’t know us very well. They should hear Dan Steward, who directs our Micro-Loan Ministry, preach the gospel at one of his small business training sessions in Africa or Asia. Or they should sit in on one of our “God’s Love Groups,” consisting of prospering, small-stake African farmers who are applying what they learn from our Farming God’s Way Ministry, a ministry that starts with repentance and faith toward Jesus Christ and that results in a harvest, not only of corn and beans, but of souls. Or they should follow one of our indigenous prison chaplains or church-planting missionaries in China, Cuba or Myanmar for a week. Or they should read my 500-page book, The Disciple-Making Minister, which has been translated into more than 30 languages and distributed to tens of thousands of pastors around the world. It is full of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it helps equip Christian leaders to be faithful to that gospel.

Heaven’s Family consists of 20 ministries that are all focused on one common mission: to advance Jesus’ kingdom. In 2018, we’ve decided to group our 20 ministries into three subcategories that are each based on Paul’s list of the three things “that will remain,” namely faith, hope and love.

This month, we focus on our “Faith Ministries,” those seven that are most focused on evangelism and discipleship: Books for Discipleship, Farming God’s Way, National Missionaries, Persecuted Christians, Prison & Rehab, Strategic Bibles, and Unreached People Groups. Gifts to our Faith Campaign will be divided between all seven of these ministries, multiplying your impact to support the spread of the gospel. This is an exciting opportunity for you to “participate in the gospel” and lay up “treasure in heaven” by helping to share the Good News that has so changed your life.

So let me encourage you to yield to the “unction to function”! You’ve been blessed, so be a blessing! —David

The post Four Feasting Fellows (Who Felt an Unction to Function) appeared first on David Servant.

The e-teaching that follows, which I originally wrote after Hurricane Katrina bombarded New Orleans in 2005, seems appropriate to re-publish now. For the first time in recorded history, two Category 4 or higher hurricanes have struck the U.S. mainland in the same year. “That is extraordinary by itself,” according to AccuWeather founder Dr. Joel N. Myers, but “also unprecedented is that this particular storm, Irma, has sustained intensity for the longest period of time of any hurricane or typhoon in any ocean of the world since the satellite era began.” Might there be a divine message hidden in these recent hurricanes? Keep reading! – David

Over the past few months in my e-teachings we’ve been taking a look at who God really is—as He has revealed Himself in Scripture—which is quite different than how He is often revealed in modern Christendom. We’ve not only considered His amazing love and mercy, but also His “holy hatred.” That holy hatred is often referred to using other phrases, such as “God’s righteous wrath,” or “His holy indignation,” but all refer to the same aspect of God’s character. And as we’ve seen, God’s Word does indeed speak of His hatred, using the very word hate (for proof, click here to read last month’s e-teaching). There is no escaping this.

It seems that some professing Christians would prefer to adjust the Bible rather than adjust their conception of God, because they don’t want to acknowledge that particular aspect of God’s character. They only want to acknowledge His love and mercy. The truth, however, is that God can be neither loving nor merciful unless He is also wrathful. This is easily understood. If you have two children whom you love and one wrongfully harms the other, you must administer justice. You must punish the offender. If you don’t, you will be rightfully accused of not loving the victim. Love “does not rejoice in unrighteousness” (1 Cor. 13:6). If God is love, He must also be righteous and wrathful.

Likewise, if God is merciful, He must also be wrathful, otherwise there is no need for Him to be merciful. His mercy presupposes His wrath. It is only His mercy that restrains His wrath.

Believing that God is loving and merciful while denying that He is wrathful is akin to believing in Jesus but not Christ. So not only is the common “all-love-no-wrath” portrayal of God completely unscriptural, it is also completely illogical to the point of nonsense.

Moreover, to deny God’s holy wrath is to deny the Bible, which is full of thousands of references to that aspect of His character. To deny God’s wrath is to deny the very thing from which Scripture says we have been saved (see Rom. 5:9). To deny God’s wrath is to make meaningless Christ’s death on the cross, where He became the “propitiation for our sins” (see Rom. 3:25, Heb. 2:17, 1 John 2:2, 4:10). To propitiate means to appease someone’s wrath, which is what Jesus did through His suffering—He appeased God’s wrath. Thus the wrath of God is foundational to the gospel. Without it, there is no gospel.

Some years ago during a question and answer session at a large pastors’ conference hosted at a Texas mega-church, I asked the successful senior pastor this simple question: “Is it ever appropriate for a pastor to preach about the holiness, wrath or judgment of God?” He laughed as he tossed my written question into the trash can and said, “God called me to preach the good news.” He sent a clear message to the hundreds of pastors present: If you hope to be successful like me, stick with positive sermons. The holiness, wrath and judgment of God don’t fit into the category of “good news.”

His response sounded logical, but was it biblical?

The fact is, if God is not holy and wrathful, then there is no good news to tell because there is no hell, no one is in any danger, no one needs to be saved, and no one needs to repent and believe in Jesus. God’s wrath is foundational to the gospel, as Paul makes ever so clear in his defense of the gospel in the first three chapters of Romans. Verse after verse in that passage is devoted to establishing the fact that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Rom. 1:18). There Paul wrote, “According to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus” (Rom. 2:16, emphasis added). God’s judgment was part of Paul’s gospel.

Scripture also says that John the Baptist preached the good news of the gospel (using the very word “gospel”; see Luke 3:18), yet his message was all about God’s judgment and the need for repentance (see Luke 3:1-18).

Jesus preached what the Bible calls the gospel (see Mark 1:14-15; Luke 4:18), yet He regularly warned sinners of God’s wrath and called them to repentance (see, for example, Matt. 4:17; 5:22, 29-30, 8:11-12; 10:28; 11:20-23; 13:41-42, 49-50; 18:19; 22:13; 23:33; 24:50-51; 25:30).

As the early apostles obeyed Jesus and went everywhere preaching the gospel, they, like Jesus, often warned of God’s judgment and called sinners to repentance, which by itself certainly implies the idea of God’s wrath. Paul, for example, declared in Athens,“God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31, emphasis added).

All of this being so, it is a grave error to say that preaching the good news prohibits the mentioning of God’s judgment. Yet the successor of that pastor who laughed at my question has followed the guidance of his predecessor (his father) and has now built the largest congregation in the United States. (His city just suffered the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.) He recently said on a nationally-televised secular interview that he never uses the word “sinner,” would never condemn people who visit his church by using that term, and certainly does not preach any sermons that mention God’s wrath. There are tens of thousands of other pastors just like him.

How sad it is when so many preachers attempt to tone down the idea of God’s wrath, apparently embarrassed about it, and so they use many softening expressions to hide the actual truth. Hell, for example, is rarely mentioned, and when it is, it is often only spoken of as “a place where you will be eternally separated from God” (which might actually sound quite appealing to people who have spent all of their lives trying to keep themselves separated from God).

Masking the solemn truth regarding more temporal manifestations of God’s wrath, some explain the suffering of sinners as being only the result of “God removing His hand of protection.” Thus, rebels aren’t suffering because of God’s active wrath or anger, but because of some other unidentified hurtful force. Some go one step further and name Satan as the bad guy who does those terrible things that a loving God would never do. Hurricane Katrina has certainly fallen into this category, now being called demonic by some.

But what does the Bible say regarding the source of hurricanes?

And the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea (Jonah 1:4, emphasis added).

Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day, and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the Lord of hosts is His name (Jer. 31:35, emphasis added).

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, “I will make a violent wind break out in My wrath. There will also be in My anger a flooding rain and hailstones to consume it in wrath” (Ezek. 13:13, emphasis added).

“I smote you and every work of your hands with blasting wind, mildew, and hail; yet you did not come back to Me,” declares the Lord (Hag. 2:17, emphasis added).

Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters; they have seen the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. For He spoke and raised up a stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They rose up to the heavens, they went down to the depths; their soul melted away in their misery….Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distresses. He caused the storm to be still, so that the waves of the sea were hushed (Ps. 107:23-29, emphasis added).

Some point out the fact that, because Jesus once rebuked the wind and the waves on the Sea of Galilee, such storms must be demonic, as Jesus would never rebuke something that God caused. We just read a verse, however, that clearly declared that God spoke and caused a stormy sea, and then He stopped the same storm that He started. It could well have been the same case that stormy day on the Sea of Galilee. Moreover, Jesus didn’t rebuke God; He rebuked the wind and waves.

Regardless, Jesus’ calming of the violent storm on the Sea of Galilee should be proof enough that God can stop a hurricane if He desires. It would seem logical to think that the One who created the wind and the sea could keep them from getting out of control. So even if God did not send Hurricane Katrina, He must not have wanted to stop it. (For other scriptures that prove God’s control over the wind, see Gen. 8:1; Ex. 10:13, 19; 14:21; 15:10; Num. 11:31; Ps. 48:7; 78:26; 135:7; 147:18; 148:8; Jer. 4:11-12; 10:13; 51:16; Amos 4:9, 13; Jon. 4:8; Hag. 2:17; Rev. 7:1. Only once in Scripture is Satan given credit for a destructive wind, and in that case Scripture makes it emphatically clear that he first had to obtain permission from God; see Job 1:12, 19).

What could have possibly motivated God to send (or refuse to stop) such a devastating wind on the scale of Katrina to the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, doing incalculable damage, and causing almost unimaginable human suffering? The only logical and biblical possibility is that God was motivated by anger. His anger, of course, is not senseless, but always justified by people’s rebellion against His commandments.

Understanding this truth, many Christians have attempted to show specific reasons why New Orleans, rather than other cities, was apparently targeted for divine displeasure. I must confess that I am tempted to agree with them. The reports I’ve read from believers who travel each year to proclaim the gospel during the New Orleans Mardi Gras are sickening. One friend wrote:

I have been to the French Quarter of New Orleans during Mardi Gras. I have been to the homosexual district and seen people “carousing in broad daylight.” I have seen people parading naked down the streets walking in their filth and sin. I preached the gospel the night before Fat Tuesday earlier this year as hundreds of Roman Catholics made excuses for their sin and immorality before a holy God and justified their sin by telling me that they could sin all they wanted as long as they “went to confession” on Ash Wednesday and somehow it was all better in God’s sight!….New Orleans is the Voodoo capital of the U.S.A. I have seen hundreds of fortune tellers on the streets, and many of them would rail curses at me after I handed them a gospel tract (one in particular spitting on it, pronouncing curses and cursing “my Jesus”). I saw thousands and thousands of idols and things which pertain to witchcraft and satanism.

Yikes!

Perhaps you’ve heard that since 1972, New Orleans has been the host city of the annual “Southern Decadence Day,” which would have been held this very weekend, as it has every Labor Day weekend for the past thirty-three years. It is touted as “one of the gay world’s major parties,” and a “gay Mardi Gras” when tens of thousands of gay men and lesbians descend on the French Quarter for unrestrained public lewdness and drunkenness. In 2003 it pumped $95 million into the local economy, which is why city leaders refused to shut it down in spite of protests by more decent people. Is it possible that after thirty-three years God had enough and decided to shut it down?

New Orleans has also seen an incredible amount of looting, arson, rape, murders, gang violence, and general lawlessness after Katrina, something that was not seen in the countries hit by last December’s tsunami. One Sri Lankan observed, “I am absolutely disgusted. After the tsunami, our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering. Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S. we can easily see where the civilized part of the world’s population is.” (Ouch!)

Reports such as these certainly tempt us to assume New Orleans was more deserving of devastation than other U.S. cities. Yet we should keep in mind Jesus’ cautions about making such judgments (see Luke 13:1-5). What other American city or town can claim exemption from deserving God’s judgment? If God is sending a message to New Orleans, He is also sending a message to everyone in this country. Katrina is affecting us all, taking a bite out of each of our wallets. Gas stations here in Pennsylvania certainly aren’t offering any discounts. Once again, God has clearly displayed His temporal wrath to the United States, and He wants all of us to know that, as Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3, 5).

What about the righteous folks in New Orleans, the true followers of Christ? Is God punishing them?

That can’t be the case, of course. But God is obviously testing them. I suppose He is also testing the rest of us who profess to be Christ’s followers and have means to help our suffering brothers and sisters.

“In Wrath Remember Mercy” (Hab. 3:2)

Finally, not only can we see God’s wrath displayed in the recent hurricane, but we also can just as easily see His incredible mercy. How so?

First, because we know that God is “slow to anger,” when we finally do see His anger manifested (which even then is still restrained), we know that His mercy has been restraining His mounting wrath for a long time. Instead of asking “Why?,” we should be asking, “Why not years earlier?” The answer is, “God is merciful.”

Second, the storm could have been worse, much worse. Katrina could have killed millions. (The people of Sodom and Gomorrah would gladly have traded cities with New Orleans.) God has warned the unrepentant who have survived Katrina in hopes that they will repent and escape what will be much worse than Katrina. That warning is another evident display of God’s mercy. Instead of asking “Why so much devastation and suffering?” we should be asking, “Why not more devastation and suffering?” The answer is, “God is merciful.”

All of this being so, we might be more correct in saying that New Orleans was specifically targeted for God’s mercy rather than His wrath. If I was on the sure road to hell right now, it would be better for me to be living in New Orleans than perhaps any other place in the U.S. (as long as I survived Katrina, that is). I would have a firsthand view of God’s temporal wrath, and there might now be instilled in me some fear of God—which is the beginning of wisdom (see Prov. 9:10). I would rather be repenting amidst the rubble of my house in New Orleans than continuing in my rebellion as I sit in my jacuzzi in Wichita.”Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Rom. 5:20).

Again and most importantly, God has mercifully sent yet another warning to us all. Will we heed His message this time? If not, there are certainly worse judgments to come, greater manifestations of God’s temporal wrath, as He mercifully hopes to motivate us to repent and escape eternal death.

Finally, will the pastors, preachers and prophets in America rise to the occasion to courageously proclaim the truth? Or will they actually work against Christ and assist Satan in what he specializes in—spreading lies about himself and God? God has just roared at America one more time. Will His spokespersons now remain silent? Or worse, will they say that God has not roared? Who will proclaim what the Bible repeatedly declares from cover to cover? Who will love people enough tell them the truth? Who will seek the approval of God rather than the approval of men? Who will be truly Seeker-sensitive, that is, sensitive to the One who came to seek and save the lost, and who died in His passion to save them from hell? Who will cry out, like Isaiah of old,

Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly! You have abandoned the Lord, you have despised the Holy One of Israel, you have turned away from Him. Where will you be stricken again, as you continue in your rebellion? (Is. 1:4-5, emphasis added).

To read Part 2 of this teaching, in which David answers objections, click here.

The post Hurricane Jesus, Part 1 appeared first on David Servant.

With the ratio of favorable to not-as-favorable responses being so lopsided, I debated if I should address, in another e-teaching, the objections of those who disagreed with me. In the end, I decided to respond for at least three reasons. First, because the letters of disagreement were for the most part written by sincere people who graciously shared their objections. Second, at one time I would have agreed with quite a few of the objections that were made. That certainly motivated me to be merciful toward my detractors. And third, although only a few people who wrote disagreed, I happen to know that their objections are shared by many others, having heard them for years around the world. What is at stake is eternal salvation for everyone who might hear an explanation of Hurricane Katrina that effectively nullifies the fear of God and His call to repentance. And with Rita now bearing down on Texas, it seems the Lord Himself is repeating His message.

Below I’ve paraphrased the five most provocative objections I received, and I’ve done my best to answer those objections from Scripture and logic. We will once again see that faulty interpretation of the Bible is often the result of reading scriptures out of context. The most fundamental rule of interpreting the Bible is this: A correct interpretation of any given verse will harmonize with the rest of the Bible.

Objection #1: “Because Jesus has died for the sins of the world, God is treating the world differently than He was before the church age, this ‘age of grace.’ That is why we read so much about God’s judgment and wrath in the Old Testament but not in the New Testament. Thus Hurricane Katrina was not a manifestation of God’s wrath, as it may have been had it occurred in Old Testament times.”

First, the reason that we read more about God’s judgment and wrath in the Old Testament than in the New Testament is not because God, who declared that He never changes (see Mal. 3:6), changed, and now possesses a new and improved grace. Rather, it is because the Old Testament covers a historical period of approximately four thousand years, whereas the New Testament (from Jesus’ birth to the end of the books of Acts) covers a historical period of less than seventy years. Because God is so long-suffering, He restrains His wrath for years—and sometimes for decades and centuries—as is so obvious from reading the Old Testament. During the space of four thousand years of Old Testament history there were plenty of times when God’s mercy ended and His judgment fell. The New Testament, covering a much shorter span of time, does not contain as many examples of the same.

There are, however, records of some natural disasters that occurred during the short space of recorded New Testament history, even after Jesus died, such as a severe famine and a hurricane-of-sorts (see Acts 11:28; 27:14-15). Additionally, after Jesus died, we have new Testament examples of people dropping dead due to God’s judgment, such as Ananias, Sapphira, and Herod Agrippa, just as in the Old Testament (see Acts 5:1-11; 12:23). Jesus’ death didn’t prevent those manifestations of God’s wrath. Moreover, just after the New Testament historical record ended, God sent cataclysmic judgment on Jerusalem in the form of Roman Legions, and hundreds of thousands of Christ-rejecting Jews were massacred, a divine judgment Jesus had foretold (see Luke 13:34-35; 19:42-44; 21:20-24). Although the Roman siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 was not a natural disaster, it was certainly a manifestation of God’s wrath like the many Old Testament examples of the same, and one that Jesus’ death and the alleged “age of grace” didn’t prevent.

Second, it seems obvious that since Jesus died, natural disasters have been just as frequent in human history, if not more frequent. So we can’t help but ask, “If God took credit for judging sinners by means of certain natural disasters for four thousand years* but He has since taken a break, who has been causing them for the last two thousand years? And if God isn’t as angry as He was during the Old Testament time because of Jesus’ death, then why doesn’t He stop those natural disasters that have been just as frequent since Jesus died?

Third, if Jesus’ death about 2,000 years ago has changed God’s wrathful dealings with earth’s inhabitants, what is the book of Revelation doing in the New Testament, a description of God’s wrath that occurs after Jesus’ death? Are we to think that God caused natural disasters for four-thousand years, took a break for 2,000 years (during which time natural disasters have never ceased in the least), and then will resume causing unprecedented natural disasters in the near future?

Fourth, doesn’t it seem somewhat inconsistent to think that, had Katrina hit one day before Jesus died, it would have been a manifestation of God’s decision to pour out His wrath upon deserving sinners, but had it hit one day after Jesus died, it would have been a manifestation of God’s weakness and inability to stop a hurricane that somehow occurred outside of His will and which He would have preferred to have never existed because Jesus’ death changed His attitude toward sinners? The more we consider this particular objection the more absurd it becomes.

And fifth, if God is not pouring out His wrath on sinners since Jesus’ death, what did Paul mean when he, speaking of Christ-rejecting Jews who killed Jesus and hindered him from preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, wrote, “But wrath has come upon them to the utmost” (1 Thes. 2:16)?

Objection #2: “Paul wrote that ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them’ (2 Cor. 5:18). Because Jesus has reconciled the world through His death, God is not holding their sins against them just as 2 Corinthians 5:18 says, and He is not angry with them. Thus He would never send a hurricane to judge them.”

This is a scripture I’ve heard abused in this way for years. The problem is, such an interpretation flatly contradicts hundreds of other scriptures. Such an interpretation violates the most fundamental rule of Bible interpretation.

In 2 Corinthians 5:18, Paul was simply speaking of how Jesus, during His earthly ministry, had a ministry of reconciliation. That is, He spent His time attempting to reconcile people to Himself, which is not surprising, as reconciliation with Himself seems to be God’s major priority. And how did Jesus attempt to reconcile people to Himself? He did it by calling people to repentance. Obviously, Jesus succeeded in reconciling some to Himself and failed to reconcile others to Himself. Not everyone repented. Some of them killed Him, hardly a picture of reconciliation.

Those who repented, however, were indeed reconciled to Him. They were the fruit of Jesus’ “ministry of reconciliation,” and He no longer counted their sins against them. They were forgiven. That is what Paul meant. Jesus’ act of “not counting their trespasses against them” came after their repentance and reconciliation with Him, not before, as some construe this verse to say in contradiction to the rest of the New Testament as well as simple logic.

How much more obvious could it be in the New Testament? The only people against whom God is not counting their trespasses are those who have repented and believed in Jesus. God is obviously still counting everyone else’s trespasses against them (see Col. 3:5-6), and currently He is mercifully giving them time to repent. If they don’t repent before His mercy ends, they will suffer His full wrath—which they have been storing up for themselves (see Rom. 2:5). That is precisely why we are called to “preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (see Luke 24:47).

In this same passage under consideration, Paul went on to say that God had also given him a “ministry of reconciliation.” Thus he wrote, “Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). Paul obviously did not believe that everyone was reconciled to God or that God was not holding the sins of the unrepentant against them because Jesus had died. Rather, he clearly believed that people had to do something if they were to be reconciled to God. They, of course, had to repent.

Because God is indeed holding people’s trespasses against them, there is no basis on which to claim rightly that He is not angry towards them and thus would not limitedly pour out his wrath on them in the form of a hurricane.

Objection #3: “When the disciples wanted to call fire down from heaven on a village of the Samaritans who refused them lodging, Jesus rebuked them, declaring that He did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save men’s lives (see Luke 9:52-56). So it is wrong to say that Jesus or God sent a hurricane that destroyed people’s lives.”

I suppose if that incident were the only incident in Scripture, we could buy into that interpretation. But we have a little problem. God has given us an entire Bible.

The disciples certainly revealed a major misconception about God that day. To call down fire on people because they won’t let you stay in their town overnight is a little bit severe, wouldn’t you say? The punishment hardly fits the crime. God is generally a little more long-suffering than that! Fire from heaven is reserved for places like Sodom and Gomorrah, and only after lots of patient warning.

Jesus was not saying that He would never send fire down from heaven to consume sinners, because there is record in the Bible of Him doing that very thing (see Gen. 19:24; 2 Kings 1:10-12, Rev. 20:9). But He wanted His disciples to know that His desire is that “no one perish, but that all would come to repentance” (see 2 Pet. 3:9). He “takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (see Ezek. 33:11). He prefers salvation to judgment, and so He always displays incredible mercy and long-suffering before He displays His wrath.

During His earthly ministry, Jesus was displaying His mercy, just as we would expect of a merciful God, doing all He could to bring sinners to repentance so they would avoid His future wrath. He made it clear, however, that His “mercy-mode” would eventually end. Fire was coming. Jesus once said, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled” (Luke 12:49). There would come a day when He would return to the earth again, and then it would not be to save people’s lives, but to destroy them. The fearful angelic warning will then be fulfilled, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on is forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in the full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb” (Rev. 14:9-10, emphasis added).

Between the “full-mercy-mode” of His first coming and His “full-wrath-mode” of His future coming, is it unreasonable to expect a mixture of both during the interim? In fact, would not some judgment mixed with mercy serve as a loving warning to those who are in danger of suffering his full wrath as it draws nearer?

To say that Jesus’ response to the disciples when they requested to call fire from heaven theologically disallows God’s destruction of anyone in the future by any means is to say that God did not send an angel to kill Herod as the Bible says He did (see Acts 12:23), that God had nothing to do with the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira which He obviously did (see Acts 5:1-11), that God’s judgment on Jerusalem in A.D. 70 did not occur, and that the Jesus of the book of Revelation is not truly Jesus.

Jesus rebuked His disciples that day because their hearts were wrong (see Luke 9:55), clearly revealed by their eagerness to see some Samaritans, who had hurt their feelings, fry. Jesus was not redefining God’s character or nullifying His temporal judgments and righteous wrath.

Objection #4: “Jesus said in John 10:10 that the devil comes to kill, steal and destroy, but that He came that we might have abundant life. If that is true, then Hurricane Katrina was not from Jesus, but the devil.” It killed, stole and destroyed.”

Again, if John 10:10 were the only verse in the Bible, this objection would make sense, but we have thousands of other verses that balance our understanding. This objection is also an example of how Scripture is so often misquoted, and how false interpretations are then derived from a misquotation.

Jesus never said, “The devil comes to kill, steal and destroy.” He said, “The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy.” If you will read His words in context (see John 10:1-10), you will see that He was not talking about the devil, but about false teachers (like the scribes and Pharisees) who rob people of eternal life by propagating what contradicts God’s Word.

In the passage under consideration, Jesus was simply contrasting Himself with false teachers. They, like thieves, killed people (spiritually), stole from them (the truth and eternal life) which ultimately resulted in their destruction (in hell). That is the fruit of their “ministries.” The fruit of Jesus’ ministry, however, is life, abundant life.

A few other verses among the thousands we might consider to help us better balance our understanding of John 10:10 are Matt. 10:26; Luke 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 3:17 and Jas. 4:12, all of which say that God kills and/or destroys, and all of which are in the New Testament. For example, Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear; fear the One who, after He has killed, is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Luke 12:4-5; Matt. 10:26, emphasis added). Paul warned of the same potential destroyer: “If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him” (1 Cor. 3:17, emphasis added). And so did James, “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy” (Jas. 4:12, emphasis added). Thus, those who claim that Satan is the source of all death and destruction display an incredible lack of knowledge of the Bible. There are hundreds of references in Scripture of God destroying and killing.

Objection #5: “We live in a fallen world, and that is why these kinds of natural disasters occur. Scripture speaks of the earth groaning in birth pains awaiting the return of the Lord to make it anew. The reason that the earth is groaning is because of the curse which was released upon it through Adam’s sin. These groanings include natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes. However, again this is not to say that God brought these things.” (With the exception of the first sentence, this is an exact quotation that I was sent from a fairly well-known Bible teacher’s website that attempts to explain Hurricane Katrina.)

This explanation is not an explanation at all, because it raises more questions than it answers. For example, what is meant by the phrase, “We live in a fallen world, and that is why natural disasters occur”? Does that mean that Adam’s sin is the sole cause of every natural disaster? That we should look at every earthquake, hurricane and famine and say, “Adam caused that”? That God is not part of the equation at all? If so, Adam must have been a pretty powerful guy. Although he’s been dead for thousands of years, he’s caused cataclysmic disasters that have taken the lives of millions right up to our present day!

No, what could only be meant intelligently by that phrase is that Adam’s sin resulted in God’s judgment that is manifested in natural disasters. God can’t be removed from the equation. But notice the author’s words above. He writes of “a curse which was released upon earth through Adam’s sin.” He is afraid to say that it was God’s curse. But if it wasn’t God’s curse, where did that curse come from? Who “released” (as he says) that curse?

You can see that this particular explanation is just an attempt to avoid what is obvious. Anyone who reads Genesis 3 easily sees that the curses of the Fall that came upon the devil, the man and woman, and the ground, all came from God’s own lips. The curse was God’s curse because of His judgment. So if the groanings of which Paul wrote “include natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes” as the above-quoted teacher says, and if “the reason that the earth is groaning is because of the curse which was released upon it through Adam’s sin” as he also says, then hurricanes and earthquakes are from God, because He is the one who “released the curse” when Adam sinned.

May I also point out that the above-quoted explanation implies that God actually is unhappy about natural disasters that are caused by the “release of a curse” from some mysterious source. But if that is so, then why doesn’t He stop those disasters? Is Adam more powerful than God, setting in motion something that God can’t stop? The answers to these questions are obvious.

And what about Paul’s words in Romans 8:22 regarding the whole creation groaning and suffering the pains of childbirth?

Consider the immediate context of his words:

For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now (Rom. 8:20-22).

Paul declared that, “the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him [God] who subjected it.” That is a reference to the fact that creation is under a curse, and not some sourceless, mysterious curse, but God’s curse. Consequently, the whole creation now “groans and suffers the pains of childbirth.”

That being so, if Paul had hurricanes and earthquakes in mind as evidences of the groaning creation (and I’m not saying that he did), then he was affirming that their source is God’s curse. And even if they are random, they are random because of God’s curse, and thus He is responsible for them. Additionally, it goes without saying that divine curses are indications, not of God’s approval, but of His disapproval.

In Conclusion

Isn’t it interesting that we can so easily identify the tiniest evidences of God’s goodness—warm sunshine on a cool day, the taste of a crisp autumn apple, the healing of some minor sickness—yet we are seemingly unable to identify cataclysmic evidences of God’s righteous wrath, such as hurricanes and earthquakes? Isn’t it amazing that throughout all human history, people of a multitude of religious traditions have been identifying natural disasters as evidence of the displeasure of a righteous God (or gods), but that many evangelical Christians, including preachers, whose sacred book repeatedly affirms God’s responsibility in these things,* can offer no logical or biblical explanation for people suffering a natural disaster and whom God is trying to save from eternal death? “If a calamity occurs in a city has not the Lord done it?” (Amos 3:6).

Our problem is that we have been inebriated with a false gospel of an all-love-no-wrath God. That false conception of God we convey to the world, robbing them of the very thing that might lead them to repentance—the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.

The apostle Peter said, “I most certainly understand now that…the man who fears Him [God] and does what is right is welcome to Him (Acts 10:34-35). When will we understand this simple truth?

*For God’s role in earthquakes, see Num. 16:23-24; Is. 29:6; Jer. 10:10; Ezek. 38:19; Ps. 18:7; 77:18; Hag. 2:6; Matt. 27:51, 54; 28:2; Luke 21:11; Acts 4:31; 16:26; Rev. 6:12; 8:5; 11:13; 16:18. For hurricanes and wind control see Gen. 8:11; Ex. 10:13,19; 14:21; 15:10; Num. 11:31; Ps. 48:7; 78:76; 107: 23-25; 135:7; 147:18; 148:8; Is. 11:15; 27:8; Jer. 10:13; 51:16; Ezek. 13:11,13; Amos 4:9,13; Jonah 1:4; 4:8; Hag. 2:17; Rev. 7:1. For famines see Deut. 32:23-24; 2 Sam. 21:1; 24:12-13; 2 Kin. 8:1; Ps. 105:16; Is. 14:30; Jer. 11:22; 14:12,15-16; 16:3-4; 24:10; 27:8; 29:17; 34:17; 42:17; 44:12-13; Ezek. 5:12,16-17; 6:12; 12:16; 14:13, 21; 36:29; Hag. 1:9-11; Matt. 5:45; Rev. 6:8; 18:8.

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