On December 26, 2004, a massive undersea earthquake occurred off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. This earthquake, which measured 9.0 on the Richter Scale, was the largest since 1964 and the fourth-largest since measurements of earthquakes began in the 1800s. According to seismologists, a magnitude 9 earthquake releases as much energy as detonating 99 million tons of TNT; that’s 20,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. This massive quake triggered tsunamis—tidal waves—that raced across the deep waters of the Indian Ocean at speeds exceeding 500 m.p.h. These walls of water crashed ashore on the west coast of Northern Sumatra within minutes, on Sumatra’s east coast and the west coasts of Malaysia and Thailand within an hour, and all the way across the Indian Ocean on the east coasts of India and Sri Lanka within an hour and a half. Though it is still unclear how large these tsunamis were, scientists suspect that some were over fifty feet tall since they traveled more than a mile inland. 

The death and devastation from this dual disaster—the earthquake and tsunamis it spawned—have jarred and jolted the whole world. The death toll already exceeds 220,000. Indonesia, the nation boasting the world’s largest Muslim population, has 166,000 confirmed dead. Most of these fatalities come from the Indonesian provinces of North Sumatra and Aceh, where officials are still reporting, more than four weeks after the disaster, retrieving and removing 3,500 decomposed bodies a day. Whereas the dead are being numbered in the thousands, those left homeless are being counted in the millions, while the cost of material damage is being calculated in the billions and trillions. All told, this natural disaster is one of the deadliest and most destructive in modern history.

Like all natural disasters, this one too provokes the question: “Where was God?” Isn’t it interesting that the majority of those who question God’s whereabouts during natural disasters are indifferent themselves to their own whereabouts with God? Although unconcerned about whether or not they’re right with God, they don’t hesitate to demand that God give an account of Himself to them every time a natural disaster occurs.

Our own country was guilty of such hubris following 9/11/01. Although we had expelled God from our public schools, evicted Him from the public square, and expunged His name from our public discourse, we demanded to know where God was when the terrorists struck. Never mind that we had done everything we could to throw God out of American life, we still held God culpable for failing to show up on 9/11 and protect the lives of our fellow-Americans.

Following a chain of catastrophes that befell him, the ancient man Job asked the age-old question: “Where was God?” In response to Job’s demand to know the divine whereabouts, God came down in a whirlwind to inquire of Job’s whereabouts in eternity past when the foundations of the earth were laid (Job 38:4). Furthermore, God asked Job who was he to be questioning his Creator, especially since Job was ignorant about the things of which he spoke (Job 38:2). In the end, Job abhorred himself for having opened his mouth, repented of his questioning of God, and learned to trust God at all times, even in times of tragedy when one struggles to make sense of it all (Job 40:3-5; 42:1-6).

As foolish as it is for finite creatures to suggest that there is fault with their infinite Creator (Romans 9:20), it is equally foolish for humans to attempt to exonerate the Almighty. Just as calamity causes some to foolishly question the divine whereabouts, it causes others to foolishly rush to God’s defense. Like Uzzah, the self-appointed guardian of God’s ark (2 Samuel 6:3-7), self-appointed defenders of God’s honor are skating on thin ice. What could be more insulting to God than our presumption that He needs our help to defend Himself? God is perfectly capable of handling His own defense. In fact, the Scripture assures us that God will ultimately be proven just and all who ever questioned His justice will be proven liars (Romans 3:4).

To carefully walk this tightrope stretched by the recent tsunami between questioning and defending God will prove to be no small balancing act. By taking up the long pole of Scripture, however, we may be able to offer some balanced commentary on this cataclysmic event. If we should fall from the dizzying heights of our lofty intent, we pray that the mercy and long-suffering of God will serve as our safety net.

Let’s begin with those determined to provide the Almighty with an alibi, proving He was nowhere in the vicinity of the tsunami catastrophe. Although hostile witnesses in God’s defense, atheists provide God with the perfect alibi during natural disasters by arguing that natural disasters prove the nonexistence of God. If God doesn’t exist, as the atheists insist, then nothing, natural disasters included, can be traced back to God. This atheistic nonsense is summarily dismissed by Scripture as the inexcusable raving of godless fools (Psalm 14:1, Romans 1:18-20).

Deists, those who believe God created the universe and then abandoned it after setting it in motion, also provide an alibi for the Almighty during natural disasters. According to them, God wound the universe, but is letting it tick down on its own. Therefore, God cannot be blamed for anything that happens, since He no longer has anything to do with His own creation. This deistic assertion of divine indifference to world events is clearly disputed by Christ, who taught God’s intimate involvement in all of creation to the nth degree. According to Jesus, God has numbered the hairs on each head and the days of every little sparrow (Matthew 10:29-30). Far from being disengaged, God is the Sustainer of the universe (Colossians 1:17). If He ever removed His hands all of creation would unravel.

Along with the atheists and deists, today’s liberal theology has produced another group alibiing the Almighty from any involvement in the recent tsunami. This group, known as open theists, denies the omniscience and omnipotence of God. They argue that God cannot be blamed for natural disasters, since He, like all of us, is surprised by them and incapable of preventing them. Contrary to open theism,  the Scripture clearly teaches that God is all-knowing (1 Samuel 16:7; 1 Chronicles 28:9; 2 Chronicles 6:30; Psalm 44:21; 90:8; 94:11; 139:1-6; Isaiah 41:4; 44:7-8; 45:21; 46:9-10; Jeremiah 17:10; 23:24; John 2:24-25; 21:17; Hebrews 4:13; 1 John 3:20; Revelation 2:23) and all-powerful (Genesis 17:1; 18:14; 35:11; Job 42:2; Psalm 115:3; 135:6; Isaiah 43:13; 50:2-3; Jeremiah 32:17; Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27; 14:36; Luke 1:37; 18:27; Ephesians 1:19-23; Revelation 1:8; 4:8; 19:6). Try as they may, open theists cannot remove an omnipresent God from the premises of natural disasters or His sovereign hands from the controls of the universe.

All Bible believers are forced to face the inescapable fact that the fingerprints of the Almighty are always found wherever natural disasters occur. As much as we may want to deny it, the Bible leaves us no wiggle room to do so. If you doubt this, try dusting the recent tsunami for prints with the following verses from the New International Version of the Bible.

“I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I the Lord, do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7)

“Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?” (Lamentations 3:38)

“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)

In Job 38:8-11, God declares that He is the One who “set” the “bars and doors” that “shut up the sea” in its “place.” Furthermore, He declares Himself to be the One who says to the sea, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” Following Christ’s calming of the sea (Mark 4:35-41), His disciples asked, “What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” In light of these scriptures, how can we explain away the role of the Almighty in the recent tsunami? One word from Christ would have calmed the turbulent sea and stayed its mighty waves, but that word was not uttered by the Master. Why not?

Some Christians on the island of Sumatra, where they are persecuted by Muslims, and in the country of Sri Lanka, where they are persecuted by Buddhists and Hindus, believe the tsunami was a judgment of God upon their persecutors. Many who are now participating in the massive relief effort, including some Christian aid organizations, are calling upon these Sumatran and Sri Lankan saints to keep such sentiments to themselves. After all, the last thing you want to do in Southeast Asia, where paganism is so prevalent, is incite the region’s religious hatreds, especially its hostilities toward Christianity.

Should we chalk it up to coincidence that Indonesia—the world’s most populace Muslim nation—was the hardest hit by the tsunami (166,000 dead), that India—the world’s most populace Hindu nation—was the third hardest hit (10,000 dead), and that Thailand—the world’s most populace Buddhist nation—was the fourth hardest hit (5,000 dead)? Or  is it possible that the massive earthquake and tsunamis it spawned are only “the beginning of sorrows” for a Christ-rejecting world (Matthew 24:7-8)? According to our Lord, “great earthquakes” and the “roaring” of “the sea and [its] waves” are precursors and signs of the world’s impending end and of His soon return (Luke 21:11, 25).

Throughout the Bible, earthquakes symbolize the wrath and judgment of God (Job 9:5-6; Psalm 18:7, 15; 60:1-2; Isaiah 13:13; 24:19-20; 29:5-6; Jeremiah 4:24-26; Ezekiel 38:18-20; Nahum 1:3-5). The ancient prophet Haggai predicted God’s shaking of all Christ-rejecting nations before Christ returns (Haggai 2:7-6) and the Book of Revelation repeatedly associates earthquakes with the final judgment of an angry God upon a Christ-rejecting world (Revelation 6:12-17; 8:5; 11:15-19; 16:17-20). Why then should Christians be so squeamish about suggesting to the world that the recent tsunami was a wake up call from God?

When asked to explain a seemingly inexplicable atrocity of His day, Pilate’s brutal murder of Galilean worshippers at the Jewish temple, Jesus responded by informing His questioners that this tragedy, as well as another, the deaths of eighteen people upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, served as a wake up call from God (Luke 13:1-5). According to Jesus, unless the Jewish people repented of their rejection of Him, they would “all likewise perish.” Interestingly, less than forty years later, these unrepentant Jews were slain at the temple or buried beneath the rubble and ruins of their city when Titus the Roman attacked and destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Christ’s prediction had come to pass; the unrepentant inhabitants of Jerusalem had perished like the Galileans slain by Pilate at the temple or like the eighteen crushed beneath the rubble of the collapsed tower in Siloam.

The very mention of divine retribution is met today with shrills and sneers, both inside and outside of the church. Furthermore, anyone caught calling others to repentance is in danger of being called an intolerant religious fanatic, not only by those seated on bar stools, but by many seated in church pews as well. Still, Christ has commissioned us, His church, to preach repentance to the ends of the earth (Luke 24:47). Our opportunity to do so is running out; however, for the day of salvation is far spent and the night of God’s vengeance is fast approaching (2 Corinthians 6:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; John 9:4). Therefore, like our Lord, we should seize every opportunity afforded us by this sin-cursed world’s inevitable tragedies to call all men to repentance. Failure on our part to do so is tantamount to disloyalty to Christ and disobedience to His commission.    

Undoubtedly, many will be appalled at the suggestion that the recent tsunami is a mere foreshadowing of far severer judgments yet to come upon a Christ-rejecting world, as well as an international wake up call from God that transcends time zones and the date line. Those appalled will argue that Christians and children were also killed in the tsunami, not just Christ-rejecting pagans and persecutors of Christians. Though it appears at this time that over 70% of the tsunami’s fatalities were Muslims, and that the rest were mainly Buddhists and Hindus, it is true that some Christians must be counted among the casualties as well. Also, and most heart-rending of all, it appears that at least half of the tsunami’s victims were children. However, the notion that this somehow wipes the divine fingerprints from this natural disaster and discounts the possibility of it being a judgment of God upon one of the most gospel-hating and Christ-rejecting regions of our world is Biblically untenable. Alleging such a thing may keep us in our comfort zones, but it will also put us outside the parameters of sound Biblical exegesis.

Scripture unquestionably asserts that Christians have been “saved from wrath through” Christ (Romans 5:8-9) and that the church will be delivered “from the wrath to come”; that is, from the final cataclysmic judgment of God upon a Christ-rejecting world (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:9; Revelation 3:10; 6:16-17). Yet, there is no promise in Scripture of divine discrimination between Christians and non-Christians in God’s judging of the ungodly nations of our world prior to His climatic judgment of all the earth. Any Christian visiting or living in such a land during a time of divine retribution is subject to “receive of her plagues” and to suffer as a “partaker of her sins” (see Revelation 18:4; cf.. Genesis 19:12-16, 23-25; Numbers 16:23-26; Jeremiah 50:8-10; 51:6, 9, 45). 

This explains why Jesus warned His disciples to flee from Jerusalem when they saw Rome’s armies encircling the city (Luke 21:20-21). According to historians, when Jerusalem’s Christians saw Rome’s armies amassing in A.D. 70 to destroy Jerusalem and slaughter its inhabitants, they remembered and heeded their Savior’s warning and fled to the mountains of Perea. If, however, they had ignored their Lord’s warning and remained in Jerusalem, they too would have been put to the sword by the Roman legions and perished in God’s awful judgment of that Christ-rejecting place.

All of this should speak volumes to Christians everywhere. As the church of Jesus Christ, we serve as the conscience of our respective countries. It is therefore our responsibility to fight with the sword of the Spirit for the soul of our nation and to boldly stand as the salt of the earth against all social evils. If we shrug off this awesome responsibility, allowing our land to either remain in or return to moral and spiritual decadence, we may soon face the frightful prospect of God’s wrath being poured out on our God-forsaking nation. When it is, neither we nor our children will be immune from the consequences.

Far from teaching the inoculation of children from the destructive influence and deadly effects of their parents’ sin and rejection of Christ, the Bible warns all haters of God that “the Lord [our] God [is] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate [Him]” (Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 5:9). Though it is true that God is steadfast in His “mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,” it is equally true that God will never “clear the guilty”; that is, the unbelieving and unrepentant, but will visit their sin “upon [their] children,” even “unto the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 34:7; Numbers 14:18; Jeremiah 32:18). As it has been inarguably demonstrated time after time, the vast majority of those who receive Christ as their Savior have Christian parentage, while the vast majority of those who reject Christ have non-Christian parentage. No wonder Jesus told the “Daughters of Jerusalem,” the women who wept along the Via Dolorosa over Jerusalem’s rejection of its Messiah, “Weep not for me, but for yourselves, and for your children.” (Luke 23:27-31).

Unfortunately, much of today’s church is dry-eyed in a hell-bound world. Instead of crying rivers of tears for the lost souls of pagan lands and all the little children without Christian parentage, we skip along merrily as though our world’s rejection of Christ and hostility toward the gospel is inconsequential. The thought that our world’s animosity towards God and abhorrence of His Beloved has incurred divine indignation never crosses the mind of the average churchgoer today. Indeed, it is a most preposterous proposition to the majority of those seated in today’s pews and standing in today’s pulpits. This, despite the fact that the Bible solemnly warns of “a certain [and] fearful...judgment,” in which all “adversaries” of God—those who thumb their nose at God’s grace and trample under foot the shed blood of His Son—will be devoured by the “fiery indignation” of the Almighty (Hebrews 10:26-31). Truly, “It is,” as the Bible says, “a fearful thing [for sinners] to fall into the hands of the living God.”

According to Peter and Jude, God is unsparing in His judgment of sin (2 Peter 2:4-9; Jude 5-7). He did not spare the angels who sinned, the prediluvian world, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, or even His own chosen people when they rebelled against Him. This meticulousness of God in judging sin is proven beyond doubt by the fact that He “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). When Christ died on the cross, God the Father unsparingly poured out on His Son the full fury of His wrath for all the sins of all time. It is this and this alone—the Father’s refusal to spare His own Son and the Son’s suffering in the stead of all sinners—that makes it possible for the unsparing God to spare sinners like you and me. However, the Scripture warns that the judgment of God is inescapable for those who reject Christ and “neglect so great [a] salvation” (Hebrews 2:3).

 Will the unsparing God spare the Christ-rejecting, tsunami-stricken nations of Southeast Asia? Will God spare Indonesia, the world’s most populace Muslim nation, where militant Muslims have killed thousands of Christians and destroyed hundreds of churches over the past few years? Will God spare Sri Lanka, the nation second hardest hit by the tsunami and a land within which militant Buddhists violently oppose the spread of the gospel by beating and stabbing Christians and burning down their homes and churches? Will God spare India, the world’s most populace Hindu nation, where anti-conversion laws have all but outlawed the preaching of the gospel in several states and where militant Hindus frequently destroy Christian villages and threaten church leaders? If God should spare these Christ-rejecting peoples from divine retribution, would He not owe the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah an apology? 

While T. D. Kamaldeen, a Sri Lankan Muslim, reads his Koran over the rubble that was once his house; while the fishermen and families on Adomen and Nicabar islands, where more than 7,000 died in the tsunami, dance, float lanterns across the water, and sacrifice goats in the performance of ancient pagan rituals designed to appease their gods and make peace with the sea; while Buddhists make donations for good luck at the Kalutara Bodiya, a Sri Lankan shrine around a sprawling bo tree, which is supposedly like the tree that provided shade for Buddha when he gained enlightenment; while criminal gangs maraud around the Indonesian province of Aceh kidnapping orphaned children to sell into the ever-burgeoning sex trade; while radical Islamic groups with alleged links to al-Qaida, like the Laskar Mujahidin—a group known for killing Christians—post signs at Sumatran relief camps that read: “Islamic Law Enforcement”; and while the Indonesian imam, Cut Bukhaini, boldly declares the tsunami to have been a judgment from Allah and calls upon all men everywhere to repent and accept Islam; today’s church, fearful of raising the ire of a politically-correct world and frightened by its own militant Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist antagonists, cowers in silence! Though it is true that Christians worldwide are giving generously to the relief effort and doing charitable work in tsunami-stricken lands, it is also true that by and large they are squelching their witness. In fact, rather than pointing the people of these dark lands to the true light of Christ, some Christian are actually assisting them in the clean up and repair of their Muslim mosques, Hindu temples, and Buddhist shrines.   

As the world’s watchman (see Ezekiel 33:1-9), today’s church must not “give an uncertain sound” as it sees the great day of God’s wrath upon a Christ-rejecting world approaching (1 Corinthians 14:8 & Joel 2:1-2, 30-31; cf. Revelation 6:12-17). Instead, we must lift up our voices like a trumpet and declare to our world its supreme sin and unspeakable crime against God; namely, its refusal to believe in God’s Son and to accept from His gracious nail-scarred hand the free gift of salvation (Isaiah 58:1). If we are mealy-mouthed in the face of natural disasters, like the recent tsunami, our fellowmen will sense neither the need nor the urgency to repent of their sins, to turn from their unbelief, and to trust Christ for their salvation. If, on the other hand, we use these inevitable tragedies of our sin-cursed world as our Lord did, to call men to repentance and to warn them of far greater judgment to come, some may come to Christ before it is everlastingly too late!

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