About what Pat Robertson said...

Does God use natural disasters as instruments of His wrath? Could the devil use natural disasters to bring destruction as he seeks to kill, steal and destroy?
Good questions! Since the Haitian earthquake, this question has been shoved to the fore-front again by Pat Robertson’s comments about Haiti “being under a curse” because they made a “pact with the devil” and by the many media commentators who have blasted him mercilessly over those words. Over the past few years we have heard various Christian leaders make similar statements about hurricanes, wildfires, and tidal wave tsunamis, preaching that these events are punishments from God released on the earth as a result of man’s wickedness and refusal to heed his warnings. Typically, media personalities have a field day making fun of such opinions and taking sarcastic pot shots at anyone so Neanderthal to believe that the spirit realm even exists - much less to think that God or the devil could affect the weather or anything else physical on planet earth! But what about it? Does God cause disasters?
If you believe the Bible, then there is no debate about a couple of things. First, God has, in the past, used natural disasters as agents of His wrath: the world-wide flood which wiped out all mankind except Noah and his family, the rain of fire and brimstone, or burning sulfur (volcanic eruption?) which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah along with “all the cities of the plain and its vegetation,” the plagues of ancient Egypt, (which included supernaturally timed “natural disasters” such as frogs, gnats, flies, livestock diseases, hail, locusts, and darkness), the earthquake which caused the ground to open up and “swallow” rebellious Korah, Dathan and Abiram along with all their families, and hail and lightning used to smite the enemies of Israel, all of these give ample indisputable evidence that God has in the past sometimes used “natural” disasters or phenomenon to inflict punishment on the guilty. Secondly, it is clear that God will, in the future, use natural disaster to inflict his wrath upon the world. The book of Revelation is full of these examples: massive earthquakes, 100 pound hail stones, famine, disease, asteroid strikes, and celestial events which darken the sun and the moon.
However, at no point does the Bible ever record a time when God destroys the righteous with the wicked. In fact, God in his discussions with Abraham before the destruction of Sodom was willing to spare the entire wicked city for the sake of just 10 righteous men if they could be found. Only Lot was found to be righteous and he was brought out of the city before the “disaster” struck. When God’s people were enslaved in Egypt, He always protected them from the plagues that were unleashed on their captors. In Revelation, there is no account of God striking the righteous with the “disasters” that befall those who have rejected Him. Rather, Paul writes to Christians telling us that, “God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thes. 5:9) If we are to believe that earthquakes and hurricanes are now being used by God for punishment, we would have to also believe that God has changed his practice of protecting the righteous or that only “wicked” people die when these disasters come.
But what about today? What about this New Testament “age of grace” that we live in? Does God send natural disasters to express his displeasure with our sinfulness? What did Jesus have to say about it? When asked by his disciples about two then-current events in which their countrymen had died, (the first was at the hands of their Roman oppressors and the second was in a tower collapse, perhaps due to an earthquake), Jesus responded, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish." (Luke 13:2-5) In my opinion, Jesus gives little credibility to the thought that disasters come due to God’s wrath. Jesus lets us know that we ALL are guilty and that we are all “by nature, objects of wrath” (Eph. 2:3) If God were punishing the guilty with disasters, He’d have to hit us all! But why not? Maybe disasters are coming for us all? If God acted like that in the past and He is going to act in that way in the future, why not now? Because, God poured out his wrath - His wrath for all the sins of all men - on Jesus at the cross! So, for right now, God is not in the wrath business. He sent Jesus “not to condemn the world but to save it!”
However, (and this is a big HOWEVER), people who reject Christ are, according to Romans 2:5, “storing up” wrath against themselves for a future day! “But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.” When will that stored-up wrath be released? Well, for those who die before the great tribulation, they will receive their “stored-up wrath” in hell. Others who are alive during the end times will suffer the wrath of God that he pours out upon the earth, including many “natural” disasters” AND they will feel the wrath of God forever in eternal damnation. But for now, God is not using earthquakes in Haiti, or Hurricanes in New Orleans or any other natural disaster to pour out his wrath upon the earth. (Even though we sorely deserve it!) He is instead holding out salvation, mercy and grace to any who will believe and receive Him.
In the particular case of the recent Haitian earthquake, it is true that over 200 years ago the tribal leaders of Haiti made a voodoo blood-sacrifice pact with Satan to serve Him in return for demonic help in overthrowing the French colonial rulers and the white plantation owners. Could this have opened this nation up to a “curse?” The answer to that is, “yes!” and much of Haiti’s social and political history seems to bear that out. However I do not believe such a curse could include this week’s devastating earthquake. At no time in scripture do we see God giving up his sovereign authority over the natural laws of earth to the devil. Even though the devil does have “dominion” over the earth – dominion that he took from Adam and later offered to Jesus when he was tempting him- and even though the devil is known as the “prince of this world”, ‘the ruler of the air” and the “god of the age,” God still controls the natural laws of earth. Otherwise How could God guarantee Noah that the world would never be destroyed by flood again, or how could He claim to “send rain on the just and the unjust” or how could Christ be described as the One who “holds all things together by the power of His word?”
In summary, it is my contention that the neither recent Haitian earthquake nor any other natural disaster which has befallen the world since Calvary has been used by God as an instrument of His wrath. Nor do I believe that Satan has the power or authority to use natural disasters against man. Satan was disarmed and defeated at the cross! Now all the devil has are lies and deceptions, and they can only hurt us if we choose to believe them! Natural disasters happen because we live in a fallen world -a world no longer perfect since the advent of sin, groaning for its redemption. (Rom. 8:20-21) Make no mistake, the wrath of God is coming and the Haitian earthquake with all its terrible human suffering gives us a glimpse of tiny sliver of an inkling of what that wrath will be! Thank you, Jesus, that because you took God’s wrath on the cross, we are no longer objects of wrath, but have been adopted as sons!