Sermon, Our Response to National Disasters Part 2 – When God Allows Creation to Destroy

Wildfire Destroys Home

Our nation has been rocked with natural disasters. From raging storms that swept through Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee, killing over 300, to flooding in the Midwest, to earthquakes in the West and elsewhere, to wildfires, to hurricanes, to tornadoes, to ice storms, to drought. And this year, we’ve been hit hard with four hurricanes, three of which hit as category four hurricanes and a wildfire which to date is over 100 miles wide and has killed 40 and destroyed over 5,700 homes and buildings. One of the evacuees said, “There’s nothing to sift through.” Another news report stated, “Some of (the remains) are merely ashes and bones.” It is as if creation is groaning with birth pangs, eagerly awaiting the revealing of the sons of God (Romans 8:22). It is as if creation will not willingly put up with our futility and as if God is removing His restraining hand (Romans 8:19-21). It is as if the land were vomiting out its inhabitants as God warns in Leviticus 18 and 20.

Our Response to National Disasters Part 2 – When God Allows Creation to Destroy

Opening Passage – Psalm 147.

When God Allows Creation to Destroy

Leviticus 18 & 20.

Leviticus 18:25-30.

Deuteronomy 7:20 – “Moreover the LORD your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left, who hide themselves from you, are destroyed. (NKJV)

Romans 8:19-22 – “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” (NKJV)

A Fat and Well Fed Nation

Deuteronomy 8:7-20.

The Blessing and the Curse

Deuteronomy 11:26-28 – “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: “the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today; “and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known. (NKJV)

Deuteronomy 27-28.

The Pattern of Disobedience, Judgment, Repentance, and Restoration — Judges 3:1-15.  (Reference Judges 4:3, 5:28, 6:6-7, 7:21, 9:7, 10:10-12, 15:18.)

Blessed is the Nation Whose God is the Lord

Psalms 33:12‑19 – “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, The people He has chosen as His own inheritance. . . No king is saved by the multitude of an army; A mighty man is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety; Neither shall it deliver any by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, On those who hope in His mercy, To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine.”  (NKJV)

A Call to Repentance

2 Chronicles 7:13‑14 — “When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”  (NKJV)

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