Turning point presents facing uncertain times with Doctor David Jeremiah In 2004.
It was the Indian Ocean tsunami. 2005, we encountered Hurricane Katrina and who can forget the earthquake in Haiti.
2010 more recently and more locally, we’ve witnessed the devastation caused by hurricane Harvey in 2017, the California wildfires in 2018 in the tornado in Nashville just a few weeks ago.
Pandemics and natural calamities rage on our world costing us countless billions of dollars and more significantly hundreds of thousands of lives.
These things raise many questions, questions about the nature of our security, about our fear of the uncontrollable and especially about the character of God.
These questions need answers.
But I’d like to open the discussion by telling you about a biblical character who experienced two natural disasters in the space of 24 hours.
His name of course was Job.
The first few verses of his book, tell us everything we need to know about job.
He was a man of faith. Job.
1 1 says that job was blameless and upright and one who feared God and shunned evil.
Job was also a man who had a great fortune.
The third verse of the first chapter says, also his possessions were 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of Oxen, 500 female donkeys and a very large household.
So that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.
You see back in the days of job, wealth was calculated in terms of land and animals and servants and job had all three in abundance.
He was the wealthiest man of his day. He was also a family man.
The first chapter tells us that he raised sons and daughters who were close knit.
They had great birthday feasts for each other after which their father would make a burn offering to God on their behalf.

Faith and family came together for job. Finally, job had many friends.
Some are famous for their role in this book, but there were no doubt many others as well.
One day as job was going through his daily routine, a messenger approached him with disturbing news.
Sabian Raiders have descended upon his estate, hijacked his cattle, killed his servants.
This messenger alone has survived to tell the story yet even before he has finished his account before job has taken it all in the door opens and another messenger stands there and he is pale, his eyes wide open as he whispers, the fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants.
A third messenger brings news that the Chaldeans have raided and stolen the camels killing the servants.
And yes, leaving one distressed messenger to bring a report.
Finally, while Job is trying to make sense out of all of this and form some kind of recovery plan.
The last shoe drops while he was still speaking says job 1 18 and 19, another also came and said your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house.
And suddenly a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house and it fell on the young people and they are all dead.
And I alone have escaped to tell you now, just stop for a moment and try to imagine taking in such news.
He was a devoted man to his Children, constantly bringing them before God and for all of his intercession, they have died in one fell blow.
He faces 10 fresh graves and an aching silence from heaven.
For many of us, what is happening to us right now is the closest thing we have ever been to job.
And his trials interestingly enough, since scholars consider job to be the oldest book in the Bible, we know that the problem of natural disasters has been with us for as long as man has walked upon the earth.
The Bible doesn’t gloss over the tougher questions of life.
We’re invited to stand with job in the cemetery, looking down at the ashes of His dreams and to ask God why?
And the first question that this story and natural calamities provokes.
Is this, what do these recurring disasters tell us about God?
Let me suggest first of all that natural disasters and the reality of God teach us that God cannot be divorced from disasters.
Now, some say that God should not even be included in the discussion of disasters like the Corona virus since he would have nothing to do with such evil.
The explanation goes something like this. God created the world, but he’s not involved in the operation of it.
This philosophy is called deism. It accepts the existence and goodness of God, but it distances God from anything that happens in the world he created.
I think many Christians often adopt a sort of deism in an attempt to get God off the hook.
It allows us to sort of affirm the goodness of God in the face of terrible evils just by saying, well, it’s not his fault.
He created a good world and he should not be blamed if it goes wrong.
Another way we extricate God from responsibility for disasters is to blame them all on Satan.
But if you read the story of job, you know, you can’t do that because Satan was not allowed to do anything without God’s permission.
And if Satan has to get permission from God to do what he does, then God is still in control and reigns in the affairs of men.
And you know what we all sense is control over disasters like this because when things like this happen, what do we call them, we call them acts of God.
So for us to say that God is not involved in these cataclysmic events is too simplistic to explain all the facts, whether it’s comfortable or not.
We must discuss this issue with theological integrity.
The Bible teaches us that God is sovereign, that He reigns in the nice moments and in those that are not so nice.
Let’s look at some of these reasons why disaster can exist in a world that God controls.
First of all, as we study the Bible, we discover that God employs the elements of nature in the operation of the world.
I mean, the Bible contains many passages, refuting the idea that God set nature in motion and now lets it run as it will.
These scriptures present a hands on God who was involved in controlling and sustaining all the events of the natural world.
In the book of Job, here’s a passage that describes it for he says to the snow fall on the earth, likewise to the gentle rain and the heavy rain of His strength by the breath of God, ice is given and the broad waters are frozen also with moisture.
He saturates the thick clouds. He scatters his bright clouds and they swirl about being turned by his guidance that they may do whatever he commands on the face of the whole earth.
God employs the nature that we see in the operation of his world.
But the second one is a little more difficult yet, it’s nonetheless true.
God also employs the elements of nature on an occasion.
In his opposition to evil, we know that by studying the Bible, not only does God use the elements of nature to keep the world running, he also uses them as punishment to drive His people to righteousness.
For instance, early in the Bible, we find God sending a flood to destroy a sin, blackened world, sparing only Noah and his righteous family.
Later, God sent judgment upon Dathan, a Byram and Cora who had rejected him.
And the Bible says, the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with all their goods.
God sent fire to destroy sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness.
He sent plagues to punish Egypt.
He crafted at a plague that killed 70,000 men because of David’s sin in numbering the people.
He sent a fierce storm to get Jonah’s attention and bring him to repentance.
Now, I’m not saying that is what is happening to us now as a result of our wrongdoing and sin, but neither can we rule it out when we distance God from responsibility for the calamities of the world, we are claiming more than we know for you.
See, if God is not in control of the world’s disasters, then how can we depend on Him to be in control of our lives and our future?
Either God is involved in all the world’s operations or he’s involved in none of them.
So God cannot be divorced from disasters, but neither can God be discredited by disasters.
Some people remove God from the equation entirely for them. He just doesn’t exist. We call them atheists.
They argue that disasters are all the proof we need that there is no God.
After the Asian tsunami, a commentator in Scotland’s newspaper, the Herald wrote these words, God, if there is a God should be ashamed of himself, the sheer enormity of the Asian tsunami disaster, the death destruction and havoc, it wreaked the scale of misery it has caused, must surely test the faith of even the firmest believer.
I hope he wrote. I am right that there is no God for if there were, then he’d have to shoulder the blame in my book.
He would be as guilty as sin and I’d want nothing to do with him but wait a minute, not so fast.
CS Lewis, once an atheist himself sees disasters, not as a proof against the existence of God, but as an actual proof of God’s existence.
My argument he wrote once in one of his books against God was that the universe seems so cruel and unjust.
But he reasoned, how had I got this idea of just and unjust.
A man cannot call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.
What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust if the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be a part of the show?
Find myself in violent reaction against it?
Thus said CS Lewis in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist.
In other words, that the whole of reality was senseless.
I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality, namely, my idea of justice was full of sense.
Consequently, atheism turns out to be too simple.
If the whole of the universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning just as if there were no light in the universe.
Therefore, no creatures with eyes. We should never know it was dark, dark would be without meaning.
One thing we often overlook is that massive deaths caused by disaster cannot discredit God more than a single death.
Can we know who brought death into the world? And it wasn’t God.
So God cannot be divorced from disasters.
He cannot be discredited by disasters, neither can he be defined by disasters in the aftermath of every disaster that I have remembered.
We often hear something like this.
I could never believe in a God who would allow such awful things to happen to his creatures.
Now, those who define God solely by the evil. He allows overlook the flip side of their complaint.
Of course, there is evil in the world, but there’s also an enormous amount of good.
If God is not good as they claim, how do they account for all the good we experience?
Is it fair to judge God for the evil and not credit him with the good, my friend Irwin Lutz has written a book where was God.
And in it, he reasons like this.
He says often the same people who ask where God was following a disaster, thanklessly refused to worship and honor him for years of peace and calmness.
They disregard God in good times yet think he is obligated to provide help when bad times come.
They believe that God they dishonor when they are well, should heal them. When they are sick.
The God they ignore when they are wealthy, should rescue them from impending poverty and the God they refuse to worship when the earth is still should rescue them.
When the earth begins to shake, no, God cannot be divorced from disasters cannot be discredited by them and He cannot be defined by them.
Neither can God be defeated by them.
When disasters happen, we are sometimes tempted to think that God’s purposes have been thwarted.
Maybe God isn’t who we think he is.
So let’s allow God to speak for himself on this subject.
Here’s a passage from Isaiah 46 that speaks loudly these are the words of God for I am God and there is no other, I am God and there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things that are not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure.
Indeed. I have spoken it. I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it.
I will also do it. One reason we fear disasters is that their occurrence makes it seem that God is not in control that somehow things have slipped out of his grasp.
At such times, we must remember that a single thread in the grand tapestry cannot comprehend the pattern of the whole.
Our view is too limited to perceive any ultimate meaning in a calamity how our present suffering fits into God’s ultimate purpose.
We are not able to discern.
Yet, as Paul tells us, Romans 8 28 we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose like every other part of this entangled subject.
This verse is easy to confuse in its meaning.
James Montgomery Boyce tells us, Paul is not saying that evil things are good.
The text does not teach that sickness and suffering and persecution and grief or any other such thing is itself good.
On the contrary, these things are evil. Hatred is not love, death is not life, grief.
Is not joy, the world is filled with evil.
But what the text teaches is that God uses these things to affect his own good ends for people.
God brings good out of evil. God used the work by which Satan meant to destroy job’s faith.
He used the awful reality of the crucifixion of a perfect Christ for wonderful purposes in God’s wise and powerful hands.
Evil events are used as tools to work toward good ends. Doctor Henley Mole is a commentator.
I have read many times. He was a brilliant British Bible teacher and author who died back in the early 1900s.
On one occasion, he was called to the scene of a terrible accident at a British coal mine.
Many friends and relatives of the victims of the cave in had gathered and it was Doctor Mole’s responsibility to address them.
This is what he said.
He said it is very difficult for us to understand why God should let an awful disaster happen, but we know him and we trust him and all will be right.
He said I have at home an old book marker given me by my mother.
It has worked in silk and when I examine the wrong side of it, I see nothing but a tangle of threads.
It looks like a big mistake.
One would think that someone had done it who did not know what he or she was doing when I turn it over and look at the right side, I see there beautifully embroidered, the letters God is love.
We are looking at all that is going on today from the wrong side.
Someday, we shall see it from another standpoint.
And we will understand when our pain leads us to see God is uninvolved in calamity, powerless to control it or defeated by it.
We saw off the limb that supports us and we plunge into fear and this leaves us without hope for an all powerful God is our only solace in tragic times.
So now let us take a moment and look at the ways in which experiences like the ones we are going through right now can actually bless us.
First of all, natural disasters bring responsibility to man in the midst of pain and grief.
It’s hard to realize that disasters can bring vital benefits.
Here’s the 1st 1, disasters teach us to repent of our sin.
Almost all the disasters and tragedies that have befallen our nation in the last several years have incited some pundit to declare the tragedy, a particular judgment for a particular sin that had been committed in the immediate context of the disaster.
I remember when the AIDS epidemic started some pundits, some of them preachers came out and said that AIDS was a punishment.
And then they would talk about some particular thing that God was punishing.
The truth is we don’t know all the mysteries of God’s heart and we are foolish when we assume to know something we cannot possibly know.
Here’s a good illustration of that from the teaching of Jesus in Luke’s gospel.
Jesus warns against playing the armchair prophet Pilate had murdered some Galileans and others had been killed when a tower fell at Saloum.
And when asked about it, Jesus said in Luke chapter 13, do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans?
Because they suffered such things? I tell you no.
But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish or those 18 on which the tower in Silom fell and killed them.
Do you think they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you no.
But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
Jesus was reminding us that in our fallen world, disasters happen and they happen both evil and righteous people without distinction or explanation.
It’s not up to us to label this one as misfortune or that one is God’s judgment.
But simply as Jesus pointed out to ponder the sin in our own hearts.
God uses disasters and tragedies to accomplish his perfect will in us and through us.
And sometimes to bring us to himself in the first place. Here is Shadow Mountain.
Almost everybody who gives testimony to their faith and their baptism have one thing in common.
They talk about being brought to Christ through some difficult experience.
Sometimes it’s the loss of a loved one or divorce or the loss of employment.
God uses difficulty and disaster to get the attention of those he is pursuing.
At the end of last week’s service online, 52 people called to talk to our counselors and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.
Many of them talked about the impact that the Coronavirus has had on their life, causing them to think deeply about things they would normally not consider.
How does this work? Once again, my friend, Irwin Lutz tells us disasters might drive some people away from God, but for others, it has the opposite effect.
Driving into the arms of Jesus. The destruction of nature has helped them distinguish the temporary from the permanent disasters.
Remind the living that tomorrow is uncertain, so we must prepare for eternity. Today, today is the accepted time.
Today is the day of salvation.
When disasters come, God is not on trial, we are so disasters teach us to repent of our sin and they also teach us to reflect on God’s goodness.
When I watch reports of natural disasters as they are instantaneously delivered to us through the media.
My first thoughts are for the many lives lost and the many families that have been torn apart.
I have also experienced a sense of gratitude that my family and the people I know were not touched by these events.
I used to feel guilty about this in the same way.
I felt guilty about the people who got cancer at the same time, I did but did not survive as I did.
But I have since come to understand that it is proper to be grateful that I have been saved even while I mourn for those who have been lost.
God’s blessings abound. They are the norm and it’s proper to be grateful for them at all times, regardless of surrounding circumstances.
Disasters teach us to repent of our sin.
They teach us to reflect on God’s goodness and disasters teach us to respond to the hurting.
In the past couple of weeks, countless stories have emerged about the ordinary and extraordinary ways people have responded to the hurting during this pandemic.
Essential workers have in a very real way, risked their lives to do their best to keep us safe, fed and cared for.
And each day I read a new story about a neighbor or a stranger who did what they could to brighten another person’s day, picking up groceries for the elderly, paying someone’s rent or just calling to check on a friend or family member.
And churches have done everything from supplying drive through kitchen pantries to offering their building as a potential space for hospital beds or quarantine centers to creating online zoom communities where people can meet together and pray and encourage each other.
And just this week, as many of you know, Samaritan’s purse opened a 68 bed Emergency Field hospital in New York’s Central park to provide critical care for people seriously ill with the Corona virus.
Disasters perform a painful surgery in our, in most parts, but Jesus hand is tender and sure.
And he wants to make us better and stronger and more capable of ministry in a world of broken hearts as we minister to our own pain and the pain of those around us.
We take on a growing resemblance of the savior who healed pain everywhere he encountered it.
So disasters teach us to repent of our sin.
Disasters teach us to reflect on God’s goodness, to respond to the hurting and disasters teach us to remember God’s promise.
Did you know that God has given us a spectacular all encompassing promise that provides the ultimate cure for our fear of disaster.
Here it is from the book of Revelation and I heard a loud voice from heaven say behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them and they shall be his people.
God himself will be with them and be their God and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
There shall be no more death nor sorrow, nor crying.
There shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away.
Disasters remind us that God doesn’t intend for this fallen earth with his death, disaster and corruption to be our permanent home.
The old spiritual says it this way, this world is not my home.
I’m just a passing through the calamities we experience here are only temporary phenomena.
Each disaster reminds us that a disaster, free eternity awaits us and inspires our hearts to long for it.
Finally, disasters not only teach us to repent of our sin and to reflect on God’s goodness and to respond to the hurting.
And to remember God’s promise, disasters teach us to rely on God’s presence and his power.
We began this message by looking into the terrible experience of a man named Job.
So it’s fitting that we return to his life again, to discover how the tragic events of his life fully played themselves out.
Job experiences severe depression as he struggles to deal with his losses.
But soon he finds within himself a powerful trusting commitment to God in job 1315.
He says, though he slay me, yet will I trust him by the grace of God, job managed to maintain his strong faith and reliance on God certain that something better was in store for him.
In the 19th chapter, he said these words for I know that my redeemer lives and He shall stand at last on the earth.
And after my skin is destroyed, this I know that in my flesh, I shall see God whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another how my heart yearns within me.
Finally, God speaks to job and his friends.
But instead of explaining his ways, he proclaims his almighty power and puts to shame their bumbling attempts to explain suffering on hearing the voice of God job humbles himself and repents of his questioning of God in the 42nd or last chapter of the book, he says, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.
Therefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.
When famed devotional author, Hannah Whitehall Smith wrote her book Living Confidently in God’s Love.
She had been plagued with terrible pain and unanswered questions.
It seemed to her just as it seems to you and me.
Perhaps now that no one could possibly understand what she was experiencing.
She, she didn’t know where to turn for help until she was told of a deeply spiritual Christian woman living temporarily nearby in her book.
She says, so I summoned up my courage and one afternoon I went to see her, I poured out my troubles before her and I expected of course, that she would take a deep interest in me and would be at great pains to do all she could to help me.
I finished my story and I paused expecting her to respond in sympathy and consideration.
She simply said yes, all you say may be very true.
But then in spite of it, all there is God.
Hannah Whitehall Smith said, I waited a few minutes for her to say something else but nothing else came.
And my friend, the teacher had the air of having said all that.
She was gonna say, I knew she was done, but I wasn’t done. I continued.
You don’t understand how very serious and perplexing my difficulties are. Oh, yes, I did. She replied.
But then as I tell you, there is God, I could not induce her to make one other answer.
It seemed to me most disappointing and unsatisfactory.
I felt that my peculiar and really harrowing experiences could not be met by anything so simple and so mere as the statement.
Yes, but there is God. But I gradually came to believe that being my creator and redeemer, he must be enough.
And at last, a conviction burst upon me that he really was enough.
My eyes were open to the fact of the absolute and utter all sufficiency of almighty God.
Men and women. God is enough.
Do these words of guidance seem to you as they did it first to Hannah a trite over simplification?
They could be viewed that way unless we think a little more deeply.
The fact is God must be enough for if he isn’t, where do we go for? Plan B?
If the God of heaven and earth who is mightier than all the world’s armies who can cause the earth to melt into the sea is not Lord of your crisis.
You’re in deep trouble. And so am I I’m here to tell you that God is sufficient.
He is in control. He holds the destiny of the Galaxies in his hands.
All the while knowing the precise number of hairs on your head and mine above all else.
He loves you. And he chose to pour that love out, not in words but in blood.
So let the winds blow, let the earth itself open beneath us.
We find our fortress in God alone and He is enough before we pray to end this message.
Let me ask you this question. Is he enough for you?
Have you found God to be sufficient in this time of trial through which you are going?
Do you have a relationship with God through his son? Jesus Christ.
Has there ever been a time in your life where you have said to God in prayer, God, I need you.
I want you in my life. I am not capable of dealing with the things that are happening today.
I need Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
Did you know that through a simple prayer that you can make in your heart, right?
Where you are, Jesus Christ will come to live within your heart and He will bring with Him the comfort and encouragement that He alone can provide.
And you will discover when you invite him into your life and receive His forgiveness for your sin, that He is indeed enough.
He’s enough for your sin. He’s enough for your pain. He’s enough for your suffering. He’s enough for your worry.
He’s enough for all the concerns you have during this particular time.
So let me invite you if you have never done it before, to pray this simple prayer with me and invite Jesus Christ to be your savior.
Simply pray dear God. I need you in my life.
I understand that you come to live within me, through your son Jesus Christ.
And right now in this moment, I invite Christ into my life.
I ask for forgiveness, for my sin. I accept the free gift of eternal life.
I choose to be a Christian.
And I ask you Lord God to fill me with a, with a sense of your presence.
And Jesus Christ live within me from this day forward.
And if you prayed that prayer, the Bible says you have been born again, that you are now a Christian, that Christ is now within you.
And he is there not only as your savior, but as your friend, as your helper, as your guide, as the one who alone can meet the need in your life.
And yes, he is enough as we end this message in this service.
On this Palm Sunday weekend, I wanna leave you with these words from Psalm 46, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore, we will not fear even though the earth be removed.
And though the mountains be carried away into the midst of the sea, though its waters roar and be troubled though the mountains shake with its swelling.
God is in control of your life and mine of this situation that we may not see what’s going on.
From our perspective, God is in control. We trust Him. I hope you’re trusting Him.
If you are, he will take you through this and we will come out of this one day with our hands up high.
May God bless you and may He give you a week of victory as you face the challenges in your life.
If you have never taken the step to believe in Jesus Christ, as your Lord and Savior, you can do that today.
If you will allow us, Dr Jeremiah would like to send you two resources that will help you.
The first is a booklet called Your Greatest Turning Point, which will help you as you begin your relationship with Christ.
And the second is our monthly devotional magazine Turning Points to give you encouragement and inspiration throughout the year.
These resources are yours completely free when you contact turning point today.
Thank you for watching.
Today’s special edition of Turning Point, facing uncertain times with Doctor David Jeremiah.