014. If God is a God of mercy and love and the director of the universe, why does He send ea...
If God is a God of mercy and love and the director of the universe, why does He send earthquakes, tidal waves and other phenomena when thousands of lives are lost almost instantly?
Because He sees fit to do so.
If God saw fit, He would have a perfect right to plunge the whole earth beneath a flood and leave us all to perish instantly. All men have sinned. All men deserve the wrath of God, but God loves even a sinful and apostate race, and He has provided a way of pardon for all who will accept it, and not only a way of pardon but a way whereby we may become sons of God and heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ (John 1:12; Romans 8:14-17). Any one who accepts this way of pardon, if he is swept away by an earthquake, tidal wave or other disaster, loses nothing. He departs to be with Christ, which is far better (Php 1:23). If anyone does not accept this way of pardon, he is grossly wicked and ungrateful, and his being swept away by an earthquake, tidal wave or other phenomenon is far less than he deserves and far less than he will receive in the judgment that awaits him in the world to come, not merely for his sins but for the black ingratitude of his trampling under foot the mercy of God so marvelously manifested. In our day men have largely forgotten that God is God, and they think that He is under obligation to explain His dealings to us.
God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, but as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). His judgments are unanswerable and His ways past finding out (Romans 11:33). But when we reach the other side and no longer “see through a glass darkly” but face to face, then we shall understand that the providences of God that were most difficult for us to comprehend in the life that now is were full of mercy and kindness to man. What we all need to learn now is that God in His infinite wisdom may have a thousand good reasons for doing a thing when we in our finite ignorance cannot see even one.