In trying to understand the role of God in natural disasters, we must avoid the trap that Satan has encouraged, namely, that last-day disasters are from an angry, insulted God (some call Him Allah).  That is exactly how Satan has been painting God since Eden and before. Millions, yea billions, on this planet believe this today.  We are in the midst of the last hours of the Cosmic Conflict, the Great Controversy that has plagued heaven and earth since “war broke out in heaven” (Revelation 12:7).

God’s Role in the End-time Events is Forecast in Revelation 7

In Revelation 7 God is holding the “four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree.”  This sounds most ominous.  Before the end times, this earth will have seen all kinds of distress affecting the “earth, sea, and tree.”  But we have never seen anything yet like what will happen when the winds are fully released by the holding power of the four angels who get their orders from the Lord Himself!

Why are the winds still being held?  God’s people have not all been “sealed” with the approval of God “written on their foreheads” (14:1). God’s seal of approval will be placed on those who can rightly represent Him and can be trusted with “latter rain” power.  Here are people who tell the truth about God and witness to His power—again, exactly what Satan has been resisting for a long, long time. Here are people who are now ready to stand firm through the troubles of the last days as depicted in the closing verses of Revelation 6.

What about those angels? Even now, “angels are belting the world, refusing Satan his claims to supremacy, made because of the vast multitude of his adherents. We hear not the voices, we see not with the natural sight the work of these angels, but their hands are linked about the world, and with sleepless vigilance they are keeping the armies of Satan at bay till the sealing of God’s people shall be accomplished”—(Letter 79, 1900, EGW Comments, SDA Commentary, vol. 7, 967 (emphasis added).

And what about those winds? They are the works of Satan about to be released from the restraining hand of God.  All this can best be understood in light of the Great Controversy.  It is the replay of the book of Job (but on a colossal scale)—fire from the sky burning up sheep and Job’s servants, roaming bandits killing at will, a great wind destroying a house and killing his children. Satan is unbelievably evil! And he is still the same today as in Job’s day.  Satan’s studied strategy has always been to confuse, bewilder, deceive, and destroy the peace of this world.  Why?  In order to drain all hope and trust from earth’s billions that a more powerful Person, faithful and true, runs the universe!

Satan Was Behind Job’s Distress

Where is God? God, within the purposes of the Great Controversy, permits this final barrage of deceit and distress, not only on one man called Job but now on the whole planet. All that Job finally knew about what was behind the colossal catastrophes he was enduring, God told Him later.  But until then, it was a very dark time.  He only knew later that God had been challenged by Satan.  Satan was furious that Job had been so blessed with a great family and a great financial statement.  He accused God of playing favorites—that the reason Job was so dutiful in his worshipful obedience was because God had build a “hedge” around him to bribe Him in obedience (Job 1).

And then we listen to the theologians who came to explain to Job why he had experienced these horrible disasters.  What we read in those following thirty-six chapters are the various reasons that people today still use to explain awful calamities. Either Job is hiding deep secrets of evil habits and God is punishing Him, or God responds only to the upright and ignores those who suffer calamities because He is a just God, or God is so righteous and just that He can only vent wrath against the wicked, or that Job is receiving less punishment than he deserves.

So many echoes of Job’s three friends today—on the Internet, media articles, and from many pulpits.

God Held the Winds that Satan Wanted to Blow on Old Jerusalem

The Jews had played out their stubborn rejection of the mercies of God—they finally murdered Him!  God had nothing greater to give His chosen people as He was telling His side of the great controversy.  And so “God withdrew His protection from them, and removed his restraining power from Satan and his angels, and the nation was left to the control of the leader she [Hebrew nation] had chosen. . . . These sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God.  It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work.  By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them, and Satan was permitted to rule them according to his will.  The horrible cruelties enacted in the destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of Satan’s vindictive power over those who yield to his control” (The Great Controversy, pp. 28, 35).

Thus, we have two examples—Job and Jerusalem—from the past of what happens when God’s restraining hand is released and the “winds” blow.

But Lets Look at Our World Today

Obviously, this planet has always had earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, famines and volcanoes.  Some of the worst of these on record happened long years ago—with far greater damage than we have experienced in the last few years even though we have greater populations in these same areas today.  I will pick only a few (See World Almanacs): 

Earthquakes: Syria in 526 A.D., 250,000 deaths; India in 1737, 300,000; Japan, 1923, 200,000; China, 1927, 200,000; China, 1976, 242,000; Armenia, 1988, 56,000; Iran, 1990, 40,000.

Major Floods, Tidal Waves: Holland in 1228, 100,000; China, 1642, 300,000; 1887, 900,000; 1931, 3,700,000; 1939, 200,000; India, 1979, 15,000.

Major Hurricanes, Typhoons: Galveston, 1900, 6,000; Hong Kong, 1906; India, 40,000; Bangladesh, 1963, 22,000; May 1965, 17,000; June, 30,000; December, 10,000; 1970, 300,000; Honduras, 1974, 2,000; Bangladesh, 1985, 10,000; 1991, 139,000.

U.S.A.Tornadoes: Illinois, 1925, 689; Alabama, 1932, 268; Georgia, 1936, 455; 1938, 203; 1952, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, 208; 1965, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, 271; 1974, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, 315.

As Jesus said: “All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:8).  In other words, these are not specific signs of the end of the world. The world will always have wars, earthquakes, pestilences, etc.  But there are specific signs that He outlined Matthew 24 and 25, such as the gospel going to the entire world and then He would return (verse 14). He specified other signs that would be perceived as something very special such a darkened sun at midday, and a moon that would not give its usual light, and a night when there would be an astonishing star display (verse 29).  He compared the last days of Planet Earth to the last days before Noah entered the ark (verses 37-39).  He compared His delayed return to the delay in the Bridegroom’s appearance at his wedding 25:5).

But Something is Indeed Different in the Last Few Years

It seems to me that disasters of all kinds are indeed different in comparision with the past.  But we have been told to expect all this “difference” but before now, we have only romanticized these words that Ellen White wrote: “Famines will increase. Pestilences will sweep away thousands.  Dangers are all around us from the powers without and satanic workings within, but the restraining power of God is now being exercised” (Manuscript Releases, vol. 19, 382 (emphasis added).

“These wonderful manifestations will be more and more frequent and terrible just before the second coming Christ and the end of the world, as signs of its speedy destruction” (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 108, emphasis added).

The Exponential Curve

I call it the exponential curve that registers a slope that constantly increases in contrast to a predicted increase that follows a predicted straight line up. We use this curve in so many areas in the scientific world as well as the financial world.  For example, think of interest on your savings in your bank account.  If you get 8% interest on $100,000, you can draw a straight line up beginning with $8000 the first year, $8000 the second year, etc.  In ten years you would have $80,000 earned interest and still have your $100,000 (that is, you own $180,000).  In 30 years, you would own $215,892.

But if you were earning compound interest at 8%, you would not have a predicted straight line of $8000 per year but a line that would slope up continually.  At the end of the second year, you would own $116,640 (not $116,000); end of third year, $l25,971 (not $124,000); end of fourth year, $136, 048, (not $132,000).  At 30 years, you would own $1,006,266.  Compare!

Now how does this apply to last-day events? All the awful catastrophes of the past will be repeated but in exponential rapidity.  Very much like the mother’s labor in childbirth! Can anyone deny that hurricanes, floods, famines, pestilences, national debt, personal debt, bankruptcies, moral degradation, depletion of water aquifers, energy consumption, etc., are increasing with astonishing speed?  Most people live with the sense that everything is out of control compared to life we lived even 25 years ago. There seems to be no way to turn back the clock.  The escalator, either down or up, seems to go faster every day with every news broadcast.  And everyone has the lurking feeling that they can’t get off that escalator.

The sense of escalation is heightened when the latest disaster is wired into our living rooms through CNN or FOX News in living color.  Instantly, we are fed the reporter’s hype and this constant feed gives us the feeling that it is happening more rapidly, that we are surrounded with distress, and that has never happened like this before.

Just What Satan Has Planned! 

Paul nailed it: Satan is “the prince of he power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2).  He is more than a myth!  He is God’s great antagonist, doing all he can to distract, demoralize, and destroy men and women.

One of the prime ways he does his work is through “natural” disasters (certainly not, “acts of God”). “Satan is working in the atmosphere; he is poisoning the atmosphere, and here we are dependent upon God for our lives—our present and eternal lives. And being in the position that we are, we need to be wide-awake, wholly devoted, wholly converted, wholly consecrated to God. But we seem to sit as though we were paralyzed. God of heaven, wake us up!” (Selected Messages, book. 2, p. 52).

“Satan works through the elements also to garner his harvest of unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature, and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows. . . . Satan has control of all whom God does not especially guard. He will favor and prosper some in order to further his own designs, and he will bring trouble upon others and lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting them.  While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast” (The Great Controversy, p. 589).

Note that these awful disasters are “to become more and more frequent and disastrous on both man and beast—the exponential curve.  Read those quoted paragraphs again.

Adventists Have a Unique View of End-time Events

No, we don’t echo the millions of Evangelicals who proclaim the soon coming of our Lord much louder than Seventh-day Adventists. Just look at the dozens of Internet web sites devoted to last-day events.  Nothing like it ten years ago!  The “Left Behind” best-selling book series plus their three “Left Behind” movies more than amplifies the sense of something awful about to happen.  And many people know nothing better!

Adventists don’t believe in the Rapture, or in Israel as a key figure in last-day events. Nor do we look for an Armageddon where modern armies fight it on the Plains of Esdraelon.

Optimists are right—the world will not end in either a whimper or a bang.  World nuclear powers will not incinerate the earth; we will not drown or be suffocated in our own garbage, nor shrivel up in mass starvation.

And pessimists are right—this world may soon have all the vaccines needed for all the physical challenges we face today but there will be no vaccine for the rising tsunamis of moral garbage that permeates modern life, especially in the “enlightened” western world.  All the GPS devices and gasless cars will not drown out the increasing incivilities and plain hatred that plague communities as well as between nations.

How right Ellen was when she wrote: “I have been shown that the Spirit of the Lord is being withdrawn from the earth.  God’s keeping power will soon be refused to all who continue to disregard His commandments . . . Iniquity is becoming so common a thing that it no longer shocks the senses as it once did” (Last Day Events, p. 27).

We live in the waning days of earth’s history.  The sun is setting.  Ellen is more relevant today than in her day: “When God’s restraining hand is removed, the destroyer begins his work” (Manuscript Releases, book. 3, p. 314).

Conclusion

The main principle we must always embrace when we read the Bible or the writings of Ellen G. White: God takes responsibility for that which He allows or does not prevent. Satan is the malignant destroyer and when finally unrestrained . . . .we haven’t seen anything yet! Compare 1 Chronicles 10:4, 13, 14.