Part 1
Predictably, many pulpiteers are claiming that Hurricane Katrina was God’s judgment on the debaucheries of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. They also assert that all could have been avoided if the Christians of the area had been more repentant and prayed more. Before you swallow the hook keep these things in mind:
- It’s not God’s custom to punish the righteous along with the wicked (Gen 18:25) – Considering the high number of Gospel preaching churches in the area, don’t you think there must have been numerous Christians in the filth that accumulated in New Orleans’ Superdome and Convention center; among the thousands of thirsty and hungry people who lined I-10; numbered among the scores of thousands that have been forced to relocate in other states; and among the dead who float through the debris? In addition, the wealthier sinners had homeowners and business insurance and the funds to evacuate. Their lives have been severely disrupted, but hardly devastated. Though the whole matter is a heartrending tragedy, it might eventually prove to be positive for the regions economy. Florida’s Hurricane Andrew was terrible. However, I have since heard more than a few pastors from the stricken area refer to it as St. Andrew.
- Without question China is experiencing the world’s largest and most intense revival. Anyone who visits the Chinese knows that they are among the most fervent in every form of prayer and intercession – This Summer’s floods have killed an unknown number in Southern China, 3 million have been evacuated and relocated and 21 million adversely affected. In Northern China the floods have destroyed 116 townships to date. How could these thing happen if prayer/witnessing/revival were inevitable preventatives against natural disasters?
- Keep in mind that Jesus called natural disasters signs that the end is approaching (Mat 24:3-8, 20: Luk 21:7-11). He did not call them judgments and He gave no indications that any force on earth, including prayer, could prevent such from happening in diverse places. He did encourage believer’s to pray about the timing of such events and strongly encouraged evacuations. Nonetheless, natural disasters are inevitable and they will happen in every nation. Anyone who tells you that spiritual gymnastics will keep things from happening that Jesus said would happen is being less than candid. It could be that they are attempting to scare you into more frequent church and conference attendance and to give more when you come. God does deliver many believers from the midst of storms. He has never promised that none would experience storms.
Part 2
The John the Baptist wanna-bees who claim that natural disasters and national troubles are divine judgments have two problems. They’re hijackers who are guilty of context tampering. They’ve hijacked the various end-time events that Jesus said were signs that would precede his coming. These have been repackaged as scary judgments for distribution to the naïve. Context tampering is utilized to justify sign hijackings.
Hijackers
In Mat 24 and Luk 21, Jesus’ disciples had inquired about the signs of His coming/the end of the world. Jesus’ response to the sign question was that wars, famines, earthquakes, plagues and so forth would be increasingly noteworthy happenings as the end nears. He emphatically stated that such must come. Jesus did not give a remote hint that the aforementioned were judgments. Neither did He remotely imply that such were judgments that could be avoided through any regiment of Christian disciplines. The context explicitly dictates that the events in question are unavoidable, inevitable signs that must happen prior to the Second Advent. It is a serious flirtation with heresy to tell people that revival/prayer/repentance will prevent the things that Jesus said must happen from happening. The difference between signs and judgments is significant and strategic. A biblical sign cannot be circumvented. A biblical judgment can be circumvented through the mercy of God and appropriate steps of repentance and obedience.
Context Tampering
One of the primary text that is quoted out-of-context in relation to alleviating national woes is 2Ch 7:14. My spiritual mentor, whom my family lived with for 3 years, was Derek Prince the author of Shaping History Through Prayer and Fasting. Among other texts, it highlighted 2Ch 7:14 and for the past 30 years has been a handbook for America’s national prayer movement. As one who has been intimately involved with the movement from its inception, I have come to several conclusions. Prayers for the salvation of friends and relatives; for the restoration of families; healing from physical afflictions/addictions; and personal blessings are very apt to be answered. On the other hand, I see no objective evidence that America has been blessed to the same measure as a result of our prayers. America is worse off today in matters pertaining to righteousness and national crisis than it was when the movement started.
Many claim that it is better off than it would have been had we not prayed. I believe that such is a deceptive copout that equates to lying against the truth. France, Germany and Switzerland were hotbeds for the Protestant Reformation. Their spiritual roots are just as deep as America’s and much older. Post WWII, those nations have been declining into a post-Christian era. Fervency in prayer about anything is uncommon. Nonetheless, during the past 60 years they have not had near as many natural disasters as we have and their crime and murder rates are astronomically lower. Unquestionably their turn is coming, but to date they have been nearly exempt from the end-time signs that are erroneously labeled as judgments.
The seeming failures of our national prayer movement were actually misdirected expectations. The context of chapters 6 & 7 of 2 Chronicles related to situations that had conditional perimeters. The promises were made to those of a specific ethnicity, whose homeland was in a specific geographical location and whose people were to intercede in/towards a specific temple. The promised restoration and healing of the land were made to Jews who were living in a period when the Temple of Solomon was still in existence. If they were obedient, the promises would continue into perpetuity. If they were consistently unrepentant in disobedience their temple would be destroyed and they would be dispossessed of their homeland. Such would nullify the promises of the healing of the land through praying towards or in that specific temple because it would no longer be in existence. That is precisely what occurred hundreds of years prior to the First Advent of Christ.
Hundreds of years later Jerusalem’s Messianic Jewish community of the Christian era numbered in the thousands. They were devoted to intercession in Herod’s Temple and from house to house. Their prayers, though effective for getting people saved and healed of diseases, most definitely were not effective in healing their land. In 70AD Titus, son of the Emperor Vespasian, sacked Jerusalem, slaughtered scores of thousands of their countrymen, deported thousands more into slavery and burnt Herod’s Temple to the ground. To this day, the entirety of the portion of land allotted to the Jewish people as a homeland has yet to be restored. If the full implications of 2 Chron. 7:14 were to be viable for anyone in the Christian era, it would have been so for the Jewish Christians of Israel during the First Century. They understood that it would be futile to pray, fast and repent in order to keep Jesus’ end-time signs from happening. It is likely that they prayed as instructed; that it would not occur on the Sabbath or during the winter. They were well aware that spiritual gymnastics could not enable them to circumvent the signs that Jesus had prophesied.
The early Church’s prophet Agabus prophesied that a famine was coming. He did not put 2Ch 7:14 on the table as a lure to get the people hyped into praying more, repenting etc in order to avoid the calamity. Claudius was the Emperor at the time that the famine took place. Actually there were food shortages throughout his reign from 41AD-54AD. Interestingly, we don’t find any New Testament and Church history accounts of church prophets browbeating Christians about how they were at fault for such things. The nations of the New Testament era were heavily taxed and under Roman occupation. Slavery, sexual debaucheries, idolatry and abortion were commonplace. Yet we do not see one example of the Apostles admonishing people that repentance and prayer would facilitate national healing. Personal, yes - National, no
Conclusion
I have a challenge for those who assert that the spiritual fervency of God’s people is the determining factor in preventing calamitous events. Read the Outline of American History against the backdrop of 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity by Eddie Hyatt.
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/history/toc.htm
As you do so, compare the dates of national/regional revivals and renewed spiritual fervency to troublesome times for our nation. You will find that increased intensities of revival, repentance, prayer etc are preparations for rather than preventatives against national tragedies. Without fail horrendous wars and national troubles have followed close on the heels of every revival that America has experienced.
Part 3
This is the final installment of a three-part series that questions the unfortunate assertion that Katrina was a judgment from on High. If that which I’ve stated thus far is accurate, why are so many good people claiming that Katrina was a judgment? It is because they have been misinformed about three strategic things: America’s spiritual climate in past generations; the nature of and primary targets for God’s judgments prior to the Second Advent; and the reality that many non-religious Americans are apt to flow with the subtle nudges of the Holy Spirit.
Good Old Days?
When pulpiteers mesmerize their constituents about the depth of our founding fathers’ commitments to Christ, it invokes skewed perceptions in the imaginations of many listeners. They muse that churches of the past were much like ours of today. This leads to a number of errant suppositions. IE The majority of America’s first century citizens regularly attended church and exemplified the graces of tolerance and mercy. The hand of God protected the early settlers from troublesome weather, disease and war because they confessed the Word and were committed to prayer. The naïve acceptance of such assertions has led to a new contemporary war cry - We need to take America back! Historical facts present a quite different perspective:
- The Huguenots were the French expression of the Protestant Reformation. They were legendary for their spiritual enthusiasm. A group of these devout praying people came to the New World around 1560 and attempted to settle in Northern Florida. The Spanish caught wind of it and annihilated the settlement in 1565. They built their own Catholic settlement not far away. It is present-day St. Augustine.
- Settlers who professed Christ founded the Jamestown Colony in 1607. The Virginia Charter dictated that Sunday was a day for worship and rest. Attendance at morning and evening devotionals at the churches were mandatory for each workday. The punishment for habitual absenteeism was flogging. By 1610 disease, harsh weather, malnutrition and skirmishes with the Indians had taken the lives of all but 60 of the original 300 immigrants. The blessings of the New Word were not realized for years. The death rate from disease and Indian attacks remained extraordinarily high between 1610 and 1624. During that period approximately 14,000 people migrated to the colony, yet only 1,132 were living there in 1624.
- The early churches had little in common with the fellowships of today. Though they were Christian in name, a legalistic Old Testament model governed churches more so than a grace-based New Testament model. All of the colonies, with the exception of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, had tax-supported State Churches. They were anything but tolerant toward those who held different doctrinal views. In every state except the aforementioned two, the people of minority sects were persecuted. Things got so bad for the Baptist of Massachusetts that they had to flee south and found the Rhode Island Colony. The austere nature of American Christendom and its churches were nothing akin to seeker sensitive and inviting for the masses. Prior to the Great Awakening of the mid-1700s regular church attendance was not the norm for most citizens. During the Awakening it climbed to 80% and declined pitifully after the Revolutionary War. By comparison, though not flawless, America’s churches of this present era have far more similarities with the New Testament model and the grace of God than those of the past.
- There has never been a period in our history wherein we were free of social injustices. In bygone days the Bible was used to justify many tragic practices. Clergymen and laymen alike found proof texts for slavery, the genocide of America’s aboriginal tribes and the suppression of women’s rights in the pages of the Bible.
- In the early 1900s children were exposed to daily prayers and Bible readings in their schools. The Pentecostal revival hit in 1906 and spread throughout the nation and around the globe. In 1919 tee-totaling Christians had their way and Prohibition became the Law of the Land. It all sounds great, if your pastor does not tell you the rest of the story.
- In 1917 the US entered WWI. The Spanish Influenza pandemic hit in 1918. Between 1918 and 1919, 28% of our population came down with the plague and 675 thousand died within hours of contracting it. That equates to ten times the number of our casualties of WWI. There were 200 thousand flue deaths in October of 1918. In that single month America experienced more deaths than Japan did when the A-bombs were dropped to end WWII.
- If such things are judgments rather than signs of the end, pray tell what were Americans doing that would spawn such harsh judgments? Blue laws were in place, alcohol was outlawed, school prayer was commonplace and thousands of our populace were experiencing spiritual renewal through the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Abortion was not mentioned in polite company, MTV, crack cocaine and pornographic websites were non-existent. These factors should beg the question, what is it that was so glorious about those days that would compel us to want them back? In addition, I seriously doubt that the Church can take back that which it never had in its possession, America.
God’s Judgments are Distinctive
Many precious saints make a pivotal mistake. America is promoted to a status wherein it is reckoned as one and the same as the Church. The equation is somehow justified in their minds in that we are called a Christian nation and have semblances of Christian roots. They transfer the surety that God will judge His Church to America, as though the whole nation was comprised of bornagain, churchgoing believers. Each eventuality of troublesome times is cited as proof that God is judging America. The ludicrous inference is that if everybody behaved, the USA would be trouble free.
The problem is America is not one and the same as the Lord’s Holy Nation, the Church. The citizenry of the Kingdom of God are sprinkled throughout the USA. However, it is highly unlikely that there has ever been a sustained period of our history in which the majority of our nation’s inhabitants were actually committed believers.
The Lord holds His people to a higher standard than He does those who are not yet converted. Judgment starts at the household of God. When it hits all can see that it has specificities and supernatural dynamics that are distinctive from natural disasters like Katrina that affect the masses. New Testament judgments on churches, believers and other individuals were administered on a case-by-case-basis. The only parties whose lives, families, and spheres of responsibility were affected were those whom God had targeted for judgment. With individual situations like Ananias and Sapphira, they expired at Peter’s feet while uttering lies in the presence of God and man (Act 5:1-10). Worms consumed Herod, while he was in the act of blasphemy (Act 12:21-23). At the word of Paul, Elymas the magician was temporarily blinded (Act 13:7-12). Note, the supernatural dynamics and the fact that only the guilty suffered. It was similar with the churches that were threatened with judgment in Rev 2-3. They didn’t repent and the promised judgments came to pass. All of them ceased to function as viable churches in the 8th century when Islam overran the entire region. On the other hand, the populations of those nations have continued to exist from times of antiquity.
The judgments of God in Old Testament times also struck with the surgical precision of Tomahawk SP-5 guided missiles. Sodom was pelted by fiery brimstone and destroyed in a single day (Gen 19:24-25). When Israel sinned in the wilderness, venomous serpents bit a host of hundreds of thousands (Num 21:6). In one moment the earth opened up and swallowed the rebellious Levites who sided with Korah (Num 16:24-33). When the walls of Jericho tumbled, the section of the wall that housed Rahab’s family remained intact (Jos 6:20-23). Within twelve months of the day that Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s prophetic dream of impending judgment, the King went insane as prophesied (Dan 4:18-37). All of the current troubles that clergymen commonly call judgments lack the supernatural dynamics that denoted those of biblical times.
Whenever we make assertions about God’s judgments we must remember that He does not punish the guiltless with the guilty (Gen 18:25). Some pseudo-prophets claim that God is punishing America for such things as abortion and instances wherein our government fails to support the State of Israel. Both are regrettable and undoubtedly those who are directly responsible will taste the consequences in some manner, sooner or later. However, the entire population of the USA is not directly culpable for making such decisions. The decision to legalize abortion was made by Supreme Court judges. The President, his cabinet and the various legislative branches of our government decide America’s policies towards Israel. Most Americans are unaware that such matters are being tabled for legislative votes. They are powerless to do much about such things until after they are already in place.
A hurricane and flooding in the Gulf States is not a very effective way to correct such problems. Understandably, most people would have trouble making a connection between abortion and Israel and floods destroying their property. Why would God put that region through suffering when the guilty regularly congregate in and around the District of Columbia? Wouldn’t the premise that God’s judgments are being enacted be more convincing if particular judges, legislators and specific sections of Washington, DC were hit by phenomena of undeniable supernatural origin?
If God was really after the gamblers and the idolatrous party animals of the Gulf area, it didn’t work. As I write, Madre Gras for 2006 is being planned and so are casino reconstructions and grand openings. Interestingly, God’s true Word does not return to Him void. It invariably accomplishes that which He sends it to do (Isa 55:11). Consider this, the book of Ezekiel’s 18 th chapter speaks that under the New Covenant every man would be responsible for his own sins. Children would not be indicted for the sins of their fathers. If this were true, why on earth would anyone assert that God would hold an entire nation responsible for the legislative blunders of its rulers who are not even blood relatives? Some diehards counter that we are responsible for the actions of elected officials because we were not proactive enough to get righteous candidates elected. That is nonsense on two counts. Politicians frequently lie about what they will do and what they will not do. It is God who determines who will rule nations. After He votes the polls are closed (Psa 75:4-7, Dan 2:20-21, 4:17. Rom 13:1-6).
Why?
In my opinion a basic problem is that too many Christians have been duped into believing that prophets of the Church are licensed to function in the same mode as OT prophets. I see no scriptural evidence and no incidences in church history that support that posture. The OT prophets functioned in an atmosphere wherein Israel and its neighboring nations were sacral/Religious-State governments. Israel was God’s Holy Nation and He vindicated it as such and validated her prophets. Now the Church is God’s Holy Nation. Unlike Israel, it is not limited to a centralized geographical location. Every fellowship is an embassy for the Kingdom of God from which believers flow as ambassadors beseeching people to be reconciled to God. The prophets of the church minister to the Church. The apostles and prophets spoke to those of Jewish backgrounds and those of the Church with authoritative tones. They did not speak to unbelievers in that same way. They spoke in tones that were much more appealing and conciliatory. America and other Christianized nations are not God’s Holy Nations. American Christians are part of His universal Holy Nation. Unbelieving Americans don’t qualify as such until they are graced with the gift of repentance and believe the Gospel. (A must read for those who want to explore these matters is The Reformers and their Stepchildren by Leonard Verduin)
Loaded Dice
There is a related problem that has come forth in the wake of Katrina. Scores of ministries are publishing articles that allege previous revelations depicting the calamitous event. At first glance, for the naïve, such can appear impressive. I think it’s a lot like playing with loaded dice.
First of all Jesus said that such things would happen. On that basis alone a chimpanzee could prophesy storms, famines, earthquakes, wars and so forth for most any region with reasonable accuracy. When one considers that Jesus proclaimed that storms would be hazardous for houses built on the sand, like those of coastal regions, the odds become even more favorable. It also helps that for the past 25 years newspapers and periodicals have been issuing warnings about the consequences of major hurricanes hitting New Orleans. The October issue of 2004’s National Geographic Magazine was downright creepy. It described the Katrina scenario happening during the month of August of some distant year. In the winter of 2005 there was a made-for-TV-movie about a storm hitting the area. In May of this year, the National Hurricane Center published its yearly track projections for this season’s hurricanes. The primary track for early storms was the exact track that Katrina took through the Gulf. It is unwise to call such predictions prophecies. For saints and secularists they are informed guesstimates based upon science, common sense and the absolute reliability of God’s Word.
Those who are silly enough to mimic OT prophets by putting date restrictions on their predictions are not doing their ministries any favors in the credibility department. If just one such prediction fails to come true, the prophet has identified himself as subject to an unbecoming self-imposed-indictment. Those who insist on operating under the OT mantle align themselves with stringent rulings. One wrong call and you are a false prophet sentenced to death (18:20-22, Jam 2:10). We can all thank God that though some might enjoy acting like OT finger-pointing prophets of woe; all should be treated with the New Testament’s leniencies.
Great Expectations
I personally believe that God has again nudged Americans to be generous with the poor and afflicted. In response to Katrina, it is very apparent that saints and sinners alike are listening to His voice. It cries for mercy. The amount of money given to date to major charities eclipses the total amount given for 9/11 by three times. That amount does not include private donations to churches and smaller agencies nor the foods and goods and services that are being sent in free of charge. In addition, our government has pledged 60 billion to the effort. That equates to $525 dollars for each of our nation’s 114 million tax-paying households. Wow! What a nation we are by His grace. You might say that even though not all of us believe the right things we are in this instance acting the right way. I wonder whom God favors the most; those who know what they should do or those who do what they should? The cumulative counsel of God’s Word defines pure religion as that which ministers to the poor, the afflicted and the aliens.
The Bible gives specific promises to those who comply with the principles of sowing and reaping. Even more so for those who give without ulterior motives. Most of our citizens don’t have a clue that God blesses those who bless others. Those who give to the poor lend to the Lord and will be repaid by Him. Those who sow bountifully will reap bountifully (Pro 19:17, 2Co 9:6-8). It is my expectation that America has positioned herself for unprecedented spiritual and material blessings. Why not believe God for His best for our country? Those who have courage can claim every Bible promise given to givers on behalf of our citizens who are unaware that such can be anticipated. Intermittent tough times are inevitable. We as believers are forbidden to allow anyone to frighten us about such things. Let us recognize such for that which they are, signs not judgments (Mat 24:3-8, 20: Luk 21:7-11). Rejoice, His Coming is drawing closer each day.
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