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I’ve got a bee in my bonnet today about weather as judgement and condemnation. One side is hollering about how we’re all going to hell in a global warming basket and the other side is carrying on about God’s judgement as if we’re all about to be inflicted by the plagues of Egypt.
It strikes me as all very solipsistic and self absorbed. What if God just makes hurricanes because He can? Because He has the power and He just loves to see a good raging storm? What if He’s just out playing in His creation? What if He just conjured up a good windstorm to give glory to God?
What even makes weather “bad?” Or “good?” It seems as if we just move through these perpetual seasons of negativity, in winter it’s this sure path to the coming ice age, in the spring, God’s wrath in all the flooding, then comes the horrors of drought and heatwaves, all dotted throughout by tornados, hurricanes, and floods.
I don’t know what the world is coming to, there’s all this…..weather?
I don’t like to see property damage either, nor loss of life, nor even major inconvenience and discomfort, but we people tend to build homes on the banks of rivers that are sure to flood and whole communities throughout tornado alley and on top of earthquake fault lines, and then we are surprised and horrified when the earth does exactly what it has always done?
I suspect weather is just a really good reminder that we are not the boss of everything, all of the time.
For those who seem to believe God is trying to get our attention, that the coming floods that haven’t even happened yet are a sign of God’s judgement (as a dozen FB memes have suggested this morning,) I suggest y’all repent. Seriously! I’m chuckling here, but that’s the only logical solution. If you believe we have triggered the wrath of God than hurry up, tell Him you’re sorry, repent, and intercede.
See, that’s the problem, far too often this is just fear mongering, power and control, manipulation. All you Other Bad People better shape up, God’s sending really bad weather to punish you! Well maybe He is, so what are you doing, cheering Him on? Using God as your great Cosmic Power to even the score??
And all those secularist screaming about the wrath, judgement, and condemnation of global warming, same mentality, same ideology, same self loathing and desire to make the whole world suffer for what it’s done.
To make matters more complicated, what pleases one does not please another. We’ve just had the loveliest spring weather, sunshine, temps in the 70’s. Naturally people in this neck of the woods have been complaining about how hot it is. Like, take off your parka, people! And right about now California should be experiencing it’s annual End of the World Rainy Season. It can be a real problem, no mockery intended. Driving is darn near impossible, streets are flooded, there are often mudslides.
I’m just saying, you’d think we’d begin catch on after a while, weather always happens.
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See, there's this thing called biology... 
I agree. It’s a bit rich that people think that we can control the weather. It’s been warming since the end of the last ice age, save for the Younger Dryas. Anyway, if you are looking for signs of condemnation or punishment from God, just spend a few moments of penance at the Walmart item return line. 😀
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LOL! The Walmart return line, good one. 🙂
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Read between the lines – amorality, infanticide (OKed by the Supreme court in Roe Vs Wade) protection and “normalizing” of perverts while attacking Christianity across the board… Are these not “as in the days of Noah? In my youth category five hurricanes were rare. The frequency and intensity of what is called sorrows therein are most apparent.
Matt 24
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
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Well, it often seems to me as if we’ve forgotten that the Son of Man has come, that we are no longer in the days of Noah and that God’s word is true. John 3:17 does say, ” For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” Do we deserve wrath and condemnation? Pretty much, but Jesus came and brought His unmerited favor, His grace.
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Jesus did come to bring salvation but when he returns it will be to bring judgment on those who have rejected this salvation. There is a hymn about Noah that contains these lines:
God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
No more water, the fire next time.
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Are these [The times] not “as in the days of Noah? and it refers to events preceding His return.
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After the flood it was promised that a worldwide flood would not occur again and we have rainbows to remind us of this. Sinners are sinning constantly. God’s mercy moves and His grace gives eternal life to those unworthy sinners. I don’t see a traceable pattern with weather and sin.
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Yes. Here’s my problem with the whole thing, we’re called to the great commission, our job is to spread the good news of the gospel, the good news that brings great joy. Far too often what we do instead is to speak of God’s judgment, condemnation, and destroying the world.
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Law and Gospel go hand in hand. Without the reality of our failure to keep the law the Gospel of Jesus isn’t as sweet. We need both in balanced amounts.
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I have a family member who sees judgment in everything weather-related and it seriously makes me want to run for the hills every time something happens… but then I joke they may be struck down by lightning if they continue saying such silly stuff, so I guess we’re even, lol.
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Ha! Struck by lightening, yep. You make a really good point about, are we talking about the nature of God or the nature of ourselves?? Because if I were God, I’d be sending down lightening bolts like I had a taser or something. I however am not God and I presume His ways are higher than mine. 🙂
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Removing global warming from this discussion (seems like it’s heading there).. climate of any sort affects humans in general. But what is also amplifying the effects of weather on humans is the fact that there are so many more humans and many more to come. Humans are living more and more in areas where traditional weather risks were previously avoided. And the imposing sprawl of humanity is also going into areas affected by other forces of nature. The California fires recently… communities being built in the middle of forestation valleys and mountainside for the views have been turned into wildfire death traps when there’s only one road leading out of town. Earthquakes, mudslides, living in hurricane prone areas… the population is just getting bigger and the insurance companies will continue to go broke and the government bailouts to send the nation into more debt.
It suddenly dawns on me… free birth control for all!
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Humanity just isn’t that powerful. The planet will do what it always has, for millions of years. Cycle. Extreme weather events are as much a part of that cycle as the drifting of continents.
True enough that humans are living in areas that they really should avoid, but is there any part of the world that does not come with some sort of risk? In one area, it’s hurricanes, in another, it’s a flood plain, yet another is tornado alley, and that one over there is an earthquake zone.
If we know what the risks are, we can at least do something to prepare for it. If you live on a flood plain, build your house up and have a dike (in some areas, you can’t get home insurance unless your home is above a certain elevation). There are architectural designs that can withstand earthquakes better, or survive tornadoes. Etc. Not everyone is in a position to take advantage of these things, though. The risk will always be there.
As for the wildfires, especially in California this past year, humans actually did have a lot to do with it, besides creating one-road death traps. In some areas, it was the planting of highly flammable eucalyptus trees, decades ago. In others, environmental regulations prevented the maintaining of forests that would have prevented the buildup of undergrowth and debris, forming a tinderbox, just waiting to explode.
There are things that can be done to reduce the risks. Unfortunately, those things are often restricted or banned, often in the name of saving or protecting the environment, by people who don’t understand the environment in the first place. 😦
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Well said.
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Thank you.
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Ah.. yes.. the Trumpian view.
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Trumpian? LOL The TDS is strong in this one!
More like the view of about 10+ years of research, plus a life time of experience.
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“I suspect weather is just a really good reminder that we are not the boss of everything, all of the time.” – EXACTLY! Well said!
I think you would enjoy my post “Do You Grieve God?” (March 15) It has some excellent examples of how God answered prayer in recent years through the weather – in ways that only He could have done. We grieve Him by complaining when we don’t like it and (as I did) by failing to give Him credit when He does something amazing.
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Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out. 🙂
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I don’t even know what’s going on with the weather. But oh my goodness, we have experienced weather extremes like I have never seen before in my life, since we moved to eastern New Mexico nine years ago. Everything from a blizzard that blew down 3 grain silos a quarter mile from our house, blew an entire freight train off the track five miles from our house, and killed over 30,000 cattle in our area — to a supercell storm that destroyed our roof and vehicles with hail the size of softballs — to monsoon flash floods — to an invasion of tumbleweeds so extreme that people were calling 911 because they were trapped inside their homes and Airmen from Cannon Air Force Base were sent to dig people out of the tumbleweeds — to a tornado warned storm that destroyed our roof and vehicle yet again. Plus, we have had multiple “haboob” dust storms, and wild fires that look like hell is raging all around you.
We moved to this area in 2009 because property is so cheap. No wonder!
Did you know that if you are walking directly underneath a tornado funnel cloud, you wil feel like you are walking on the moon with almost zero gravity? I didn’t know that, until it happened to me on October 21, 2015. This was the most recent time that our roof and car were destroyed. Thank God for Geico!
My very first memory in life is a 6.7 earthquake in California, where I was born over 60 years ago. When I was still a preschooler, my family moved to Missouri, smack in the middle of tornado alley. I grew up in a town that had been destroyed by a tornado in the late 1800s. So I have experienced some extreme weather in my lifetime. But nothing like these past 9 years here in east central New Mexico.
Is it God’s judgment? Only the Lord knows. But let me tell you what — nothing can cause an existential crisis like the kind of weather we’ve been having! During the first week of March of this year, we had a day with highs in the upper 70s, followed 2 days later by a day with a high of 23, a low of 10, and 2+ inches of snow — followed, a couple of days after that, with a high in the low 70s. That was our weather, between March 1 and March 7 of this year. Last week, we had an “imminent extreme alert seek shelter now” tornado warning on March 12. And the very next day, March 13, we experienced the bomb cyclone with close to hurricane force winds, All Day Long.
We don’t have a polar vortex here in New Mexico, we have a bipolar vortex. It’s awesome, really! 😂
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Oh, and I forgot to mention the 10′ snow drifts we got here in eastern New Mexico, from the Goliath blizzard. I never even saw anything like that during the five years I lived in Maine!
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Ha! A bipolar vortex, good one. 🙂
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Thanks! I made that up. But feel free to use it if you want.
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Jesus said that wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, and famines are reminders that the Day of the Lord is coming. I suspect he intended hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and plagues of locusts to be added to the same list. All creation is groaning under the burden of sin and its consequences. But Jesus never said that increased catastrophes signal the approach of the Day. Other people have scribbled that between the lines. And we always feel like it’s getting worse in the world, until we actually read some history and discover that catastrophic storms and earthquakes have been striking as long as people have kept written records. For that matter, the snows of my childhood were a lot deeper than the snows I’ve seen in recent years. (Of course I was shorter then.) J.
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“For that matter, the snows of my childhood were a lot deeper than the snows I’ve seen in recent years. (Of course I was shorter then.)”
Ha! Good one, Salvageable. Perception is not always an accurate judge of events and history, but I think a great deal of our concerns about the weather today have to do with the media hyping it up. I’ve noticed that with the moon too, we haven’t had a normal moon in a few years. Every month it’s an ominous “super blood red wolf moon” or something.
Yes, true, there will be signs in the heavens and birth pains, but just the same I think we’re really being played by the media.
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“Really being played by the media”: this is most certainly true. Their business is to get and keep our attention. Truth, when they manage to share it, is just a byproduct. It’s all about getting the most watchers and listeners so they can charge the highest fee to advertisers. J.
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True. So true. Good perspective. Weather. Happens.
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Weather happens but it happens at God’s command. God once sent a flood that destroyed the whole world in response to human sin. In Elijah’s day he sent a drought that ended after Elijah’s contest with the priests of Baal. Zechariah 14:16-19 reveals that even during the Millennium God will withhold rain from those countries that refuse to obey him. When we experience bad weather our first response should be to ask God if some sin of ours is causing it.
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“When we experience bad weather our first response should be to ask God if some sin of ours is causing it.”
Clyde, I really don’t believe that. One problem is that it sets man above God as if our sin is so powerful, we can make or force God to send bad weather. When we do that we are implying that Jesus and the work of the cross was incomplete, not good enough, that sins have not been forgiven, and that by our own bad works we have the power to derail God’s plan for humanity.
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Well said, IB. I agree with you. So many Christians seem to forget that God’s rain falls on the just as well as the unjust. Jesus made a point to say that the disasters of His day were not from God. Christians just sound superstitious when they attribute every weather disaster to God. As you and other’s have said, there are a myriad of human-related and environmental factors involved. And, if God was behind things like Katrina, He was very bad at it. He totally missed the French Quarter and flooded a lot of good people. 🙂
Our nation is NOT in direct covenant with God like Israel was under the Old Covenant. You cannot apply Old Testament judgments of God after the Cross. The new covenant is between Christ and His Father, and He already fulfilled it on the cross. We cannot break it, we can only believe it by faith.
I think a lot of the fear-mongering comes from people obsessed with end-times, especially pre-tribbers. They take Matthew 24 and Revelation and apply it to every news story. That’s not exegesis of Scripture, that’s eisegesis. All it does is discredit Christianity in the eyes of the public.
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