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As you all know, a major
tragedy struck South East Asia 2 weeks back.
An earthquake under the bottom of Indian Ocean
registering 9.0 on the Richter scale set off
tidal waves that hit 14 countries including
India, Srilanka, and Indonesia, where the death
toll from that country alone is more than 1
Lakh.
Overall, the death toll is over 1,60,000. And
of course, they will be digging through the
wreckage for months, finding others who have
died. There are many thousands missing, including
many tourists from around the world.
The possibility of disease in the wake of this
could ultimately bring the number of casualities
into millions.
In fact, this is a huge tragedy.
It would have been easy to
just let this go and maybe have some special
prayer during the service, but I think God is
big enough to let me focus on this for today.
Today I want us to look briefly
at 3 questions that I think are relevant to
this issue.
This is serious matter, and
I think it is important that we struggle through
some of this, if we want to not only have something
to offer those who go through these things,
but also to be able to hang onto when they visit
us personally.
But I want to give you an
invitation here: I want to invite you to struggle
with these questions. Don’t pass them
off. Don’t just apply ordinary answers
to them.
Think through them, asking
God for clarity in helping you to deal with
them. Are you brave enough to ask God the tough
questions?
He is not afraid of your questions. These types
of heart-cry questions are all through Scripture,
and even Jesus asked the Father why He had forsaken
Him.
So let us look at these,
at least briefly
Why
did god allow this tragedy?
There are 3 main opinions
I have found over time to discuss this question.
The first is this one:
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| 1.
God caused it, for either a testing or a punishment. |
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Deuteronomy
31:29: In days to come, disaster will fall
upon you because you will do evil in the
sight of the LORD and provoke him to anger
by what your hands have made."
(Please refer: Psalms:135:6,7;
Jeremiah:10:10 and Haggai:2:6,7) |
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| 2.
Satan caused, to bring harm and destruction
to thosse he hates - everyone |
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To
establish this thought many may the example
of Job: Satan was behind the entire calamity
visited on Job.
Even if Satan or nature has caused this
calamity, if God wanted to stop it, He might
have done by one single word as Jesus has
done in Mark:4:39.
Since, He has not done
this, we should be brave enough to understand
that God wants us to learn some thing or
we should find out something he expects
from humanity. |
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| 3.
God allowed it (though maybe not causing it
directly) for reasons we may never know. |
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So
which is it? I don’t know, really.
It might be all three, or combinations of
one or two, or it may have happened for
reasons that nothing to do with these three
reasons. We simply don’t know.
But one
thing I can say with absolute assurance:
God is still in on the throne and in absolute
control, and He can and does work in the
midst of even such huge tragedies as this
one.
Note: Jesus said all these
things would happen before His return in
Matthew 24:4-7
(4)
Jesus answered: "Watch out that no
one deceives you. (5) For many will come
in my name, claiming, `I am the Christ,
' and will deceive many. (6) You will hear
of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it
that you are not alarmed. Such things must
happen, but the end is still to come. (7)
Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom
against kingdom. There will be famines and
earthquakes in various places."
Jesus
is saying that even these have a purpose
- to usher in His return.
So guess
what? One way we can look at these types
of disasters and see the ever-closer return
of Jesus.
Assigning
"blame" or "cause" is
not the issue. Reaching out to those who
have been affected is. And we’re going
to look at some specific ways to do that
in a little bit.
But let’s
look now at the second question we need
to address when we discuss what happened
on 26th of December and that is… |
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What is the spiritual
hope of those who have died?
To those outside
of Christ, my answer may seem like a heartless
answer, but it is absolutely true, and it’s
Biblical.
Let me give
you the bad news first. All those outside of Christ
have no hope. All who perished not knowing Christ
as their Savior do not have heaven.
How can I say
that? What about all the innocents who were killed?
Well, let me first say that this is not easy to
say. But follow with me here.
1
John 5:12:
He who has the Son has life; he who does not have
the Son of God does not have life.
Jesus said
in John 3:18: Whoever believes in him is not condemned,
but whoever does not believe stands condemned
already because he has not believed in the name
of God's one and only Son.
You see, outside
of Christ we are all condemned. And the Bible
says that all have sinned. And so if we are not
in Christ, we are punished for our sins, as we
deserve.
You have to
remember something very important here: there
are no innocent people in hell, only sinners are
in hell. And the Bible is very clear that we are
all born as sinners with no hope of heaven on
our own merit.
Jesus offers
the chance to escape the punishment if we will
only take it.
Now for the
good news. I am of the conviction that those UNABLE
to understand their need for forgiveness because
of either age or mental handicap, or being a un-cultured
tribal out of the reach by other humans are covered
by grace.
Therefore,
I believe all those in that category who perished
are in heaven. And so they will be enjoying the
presence of God Himself.
Let’s
move on to the last question I want to look at
today, and that is…
What
can we do?
I want to tell you 4 things
we can do related with this horrible event. These
are easy and tangible things that any or all of
us can do.
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Give and pray for the relief efforts. |
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Needless
to say, the rescue efforts are running at
full swing, but they need help. They need
people to help search for survivors, remove
the dead bodies, and locate family and relatives,
and all sorts of things.
They
also need water, food, clothing, you call
tell hundreds of things. The conditions
are horrible.
As mentioned
during the announcement time, I mentioned
the offering we are taking to help in the
relief efforts in Andaman & Nicobar
Islands.
I appreciate
all the believers who have donated Cash
and Kinds to support the victims of Tsunami.
Thank you brethren for responding to my
call to stand with us to help the needy.
Friends,
I can’t stress this enough. Give.
Give until it hurts. Eventhogh we have very
little, and if giving to this effort means
you have to go without something extra this
month, then consider those who have lost
everything in this time. They have lost
family, friends, possessions, their homes
& their clothes. I can’t explain
or express it enough, you can imagine it.
Please
give sacrificially and without murmuring.
Pray
that the needed manpower, funds, and other
resources would get to the needy quickly,
and that fraud and corruption would not
rear its ugly head to delay the needed help.
Pray
that survivors would be found quickly, and
that families would be re-united.
Pray
for and give to the relief effort. If possible
don’t give anything to the anonymous
and faceless organizations that are approaching
you with hundreds of stories and claims.
As a Pastor I feel that I must tell you
it is better to get our advice before giving
your materials and cash. As for me, I wanted
to give anything to our Church, so that
as a family in Christ we can identify the
needy and give the support directly who
are doing the best with all faithfulness. |
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Pray for the christian message of hope to
be shared without anymore delay. |
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Brethren,
we have just scratched the surface of our
questions about why God allowed this.
Over
there, they are in agony over this, and
have questions that are more than academic.
In the
midst of this, the message of Christ can
shine, bringing hope to those without it,
and offering comfort as people find out
that the God of the universe was not asleep
at the wheel, was not busy, or whatever
during this tragedy, He was right there,
and He still is there, wanting to reach
out and comfort the people affected.
Pray
that the message would be given clearly,
and that those who hear it will hear the
compassion in the good news of Jesus. |
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Pray for god’s comfort for those who
have lost loved ones. |
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No
amount of words from us will be able to
fill this need. This is a God-sized need,
and only God can fill it.
And so
I encourage you to lift up these people,
asking God to move in as only He can.
Some
of the most heart melting pictures of this
horrible event is those showing the bodies
of little children lined up.
And my
mind begins to drift to wondering about
what I would think and feel if those were
my children. And I can’t think about
it too long without beginning to cry at
what I anticipate would a tearing out of
my very heart.
And then
I think about the fact that it’s not
just a hypothetical situation for them.
It’s real, and it hurts more than
they can describe. Pray for God’s
comfort. |
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Make a firm decision to reach others, who
are your neighbours for christ, where you
are living right now. |
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I went
through an article, which says that, all
over the world, approximately 1,50,000 people
die every day. Many of them don’t
know Christ and face the same end as those
who died in the cruel waves of Tsunami in
South East Asia.
Some
of those are here in our city. I am living
in Bangalore for 18 years, and other than
days I have been out of town; I read the
newspaper every day.
And I
have yet to find a single day’s paper
that didn’t have at least a few obituaries
in it.
Everyday
you can hear about murders, suicide deaths,
deaths out of horrible diseases, and by
accidents etc etc.
And how
many of them didn’t know Christ when
they died?
Plenty.
Someone you know could die this week, and
because they don’t know Christ, they
will face a Christ-less eternity in hell.
So what
are you going to do about it? Just keep
hoping that somewhere at the other corner
of the street, they will hear about Jesus
and accept Him as their Savior?
You are
under the obligation to tell them about
Christ. Or if you don’t think you
can do that, bring them to Church. They
will hear it from me; you can be a channel
in this.
None
of the people who perished in Tsunami planned
on dying that day. But they did die.
Today
some people will die who did not plan for
it. And they may be people you know.
Do what
you can to give them the opportunity for
an eternity in heaven, okay? |
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Conclusion
Tragedy can
hit at any moment. If you have Christ as your
Savior, then at least you are prepared to meet
God.
And on top
of that, God’s Holy Spirit has placed in
you a desire to live for God. And one of the ways
we please God is to reach out to others in need.
So while we
may not understand the "why" of what
happened, we can do something to help the suffering
of those going through it.
Are you willing
to put your money where your mouth is in voicing
compassion for these who are hurting? I challenge
you to give today, and even through the rest of
this month, as God enables you.
And we’ll
pray that along with our money, the good news
of Jesus will go forth.
It is not only
enough to pray and give; we are debtors to SEND
or to GO, so that we can preach the good news
of Jesus Christ to the lost.
We may not
be able to travel to all over the Asia, but with
God’s help we can reach the people who are
living as our neighbors.
Let us be a
partaker instead of being a spectator in the Kingdom
work.
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| Tsunami
: Calls us to Pray |
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