The Message of Hurricanes and The Unheeded Calls For National Repentance

 The Message of Hurricanes and The Unheeded Calls For National Repentance – By David Reagan - https://harbingersdaily.com/in-depth-the-message-of-hurricanes-and-the-unheeded-call-for-national-repentance/ Luke 21:11 KJV – “And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.“ There are many spiritual lessons to be learned from the hurricanes we are experiencing. One of the most important is the way the storms have shown the importance of life over things. Lifeis precious. Things—all the material items we collect and become so attached to—are disposable. The storms also have driven home the fact that life can be very tenuous, and we, therefore, need to live with an eternal perspective. I could go on and on about the spiritual lessons of the hurricane, but as a person who has been given the gift of understanding and preaching prophecy, I feel my responsibility is to focuson the prophetic implications of the storm. The Signs of the Times The Bible provides us with many signs we are to watch for that will signal the soon return of Jesus. As I have studied them, I have found it useful to put them into categories. They naturallyseem to fall into six groups: 1) The Signs of Nature 2) The Signs of Society 3) Spiritual Signs 4) The Signs of World Politics 5) The Signs of Technology 6) The Signs of Israel A Category Held in Contempt The category of signs that receives the least respect is the signs of nature. There are two reasons for this, one that is conceptual and another that is philosophical. The conceptual problem resides in the fact that there have always been signs of nature. So, when confronted with the prophesied signs of nature, many people shrug their shoulders and ask, “What else is new? There have always been tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes.” What they overlook is that Jesus said these signs would be like “birth pangs” (Matthew 24:8), which means they will increase in frequency and intensity the closer we get to the Lord’s return.And that is exactly what appears to be happening today. The philosophical problem many people have with the signs of nature is due to the fact that we have been brainwashed by Western scientific rationalism into believing that for something toexist, you must be able to see it, measure it, weigh it, and dissect it. In contrast, the Bible teaches there is a whole realm of the supernatural that cannot normally be perceived by the senses. This realm includes angels, demons, and the operation of theHoly Spirit. It also includes God’s intervention from time to time through natural disasters. God and Signs of Nature Sometimes, God uses signs of nature to underline the importance of major events. Thus, at the birth of Jesus, God placed a special light in the heavens, probably a manifestation of His Shekinahglory. When Jesus was crucified, the earth experienced three hours of darkness and a major earthquake. And the Bible says that when Jesus returns, the world will experience the greatest earthquake in its history. Every island will be moved, valleys will belifted, mountains will be lowered, and the city of Jerusalem will be lifted up like a jewel, possibly becoming the highest place on earth (Revelation 16:18-21 and Isaiah 40:3-5). More often, God uses signs of nature as remedial judgments to call nations to repentance. Both the Bible and history attest to the fact that God has a pattern of dealing with nations. To beginwith, He is the one who establishes nations, and He is the one who takes them down (Daniel 2:20-21). When a nation rebels against God, He responds first by raising up prophetic voices to call the nation to repentance—these are not people with supernaturalknowledge of the future; they simply have the gift of discernment to see where a nation is missing God’s mark. To put it another way, they know how to apply the Scriptures to contemporary events. If a nation refuses to listen to the prophetic voices, God will then send remedial judgments. These can take many forms. Deuteronomy 28 mentions economic failure, rebellion of youth, an epidemicof divorce, confusion in government, foreign domination, and military defeat. The chapter also mentions natural disasters like drought, crop failure, and pestilence. Biblical history indicates that rulers can be remedial judgments. In other words, God oftenjudges nations by giving them the kind of leaders they deserve. Finally, if a nation digs in against God and sets its jaw against His calls to repentance, a point of no return will be reached — often referred to as “when the wound becomes incurable” (Nahum3:19, Jeremiah 30:12, and Micah 1:9). At this point, the Lord will deliver the nation from judgment to destruction. That destruction may occur quickly, as with Babylon and the Soviet Union, or it may occur gradually over a period of time, as with the RomanEmpire and the United States today. Examples of Remedial Judgments There are many examples of remedial judgments in the Bible that involve natural disasters. Take, for example, the plagues with which God afflicted Egypt in order to convince Pharaoh that heshould release the children of Israel from captivity. The Lord sent plagues of frogs, gnats, flies, and locusts. In addition, He contaminated the nation’s water, afflicted the livestock with pestilence, struck the people with sores and boils, engulfed theland in a thick darkness, and finally took the lives of the firstborn of both men and livestock. When King Ahab led the Israelites into the worship of a pagan god, the Lord raised up the prophet Elijah to call the king and his people to repentance. When they ignored Elijah, the Lord thenput a remedial judgment on the land in the form of a severe three and a half year drought (1 Kings 17 and 18). The book of Joel tells about a locust invasion that afflicted Judah. This was one of the worst calamities that could befall an agricultural society. It appears that people began bemoaningtheir “bad luck.” That’s when God sent the prophet Joel to inform them that the disaster had nothing to do with luck. Joel boldly proclaimed that the locusts had been sent by God to call the people to repentance. He warned that if they did not repent, theLord would send something even worse—an enemy army. The people ignored Joel and the prophets who followed him, and God ultimately sent the army, delivering them from judgment to destruction. Seventy years later, when the Babylonian captivity ended, the Jews who returned to Judah laid the foundation for a new temple and then quickly lost interest in the project. They turned theirattention instead to the building of their personal homes. For 14 years, the foundation of the temple stood vacant. Finally, God raised up an elderly, tough-talking prophet named Haggai. He confronted the people by asking them: “Have you noticed that whenyou plant your crops, they are destroyed by root rot? And when you replant them, they are destroyed again by hail? And when you replant, a wind storm comes? God is speaking to you! He is calling you to repent of your misplaced priorities and give attentionto the rebuilding of His temple.” For once, the people listened, obeyed, and were blessed. The Nature of God God has continued throughout history to use signs of nature to call nations to repentance. Some people say, “Oh no, God doesn’t do that anymore because this is the ‘Age of Grace.'” Well, the first problem with that statement is that it implies there was a previous time of no grace. The fact of the matter is that there is only one way of salvation that has ever existed:namely, grace through faith (Joel 2:32). Furthermore, the Bible says God is “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). There is no such thing as the Old Testament God of wrath and the New Testament God of grace. Goddoes not change (Malachi 3:6). The Old Testament God of wrath is the one who showed grace toward the wicked city of Ninevah when its people repented in response to the message of Jonah. The New Testament God of grace isthe one who warned the church at Thyatira that if it continued to tolerate a false prophetess, He would “cast her upon a bed of sickness and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation.” Further, He threatened to “kill her children with pestilence” (Revelation 2:22-23). Our God is a God of grace, mercy, and love. But He is also a God of holiness, righteousness, and justice. The balanced view of God is presented by the prophet Nahum. Speaking of God’s grace,he wrote: “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who take refuge in Him” (Nahum 1:7). But Nahum warned that the same God of grace is the one who is righteous and holy and who will not tolerate sin. Nahum 1:2-3 states: “God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth,and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and theclouds are the dust of his feet.” The Role of Satan Some counter by trying to argue that natural calamities come from Satan and not God. But the Bible teaches that God is sovereign. Satan is not free to do anything he pleases. When he wantedto torment Job, he had to ask God’s permission, and when he was granted permission, God laid down rules about what he could and could not do (Job 1:6-12). The Bible says God does not tempt us (James 1:13). Yet Jesus taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation” (Matthew 6:13). How can these statements be reconciled? The answer is that althoughSatan is the tempter, he cannot do so unless God allows it. Again, God is sovereign, and nothing happens that He does not allow, either in His perfect will or His permissive will. That is the reason the Bible attributes all natural disasters to God. Crucial Questions Are all natural calamities a product of Man’s sin? Yes, absolutely. The original creation was perfect. Natural calamities are a result of the curse that God placed on the creation in responseto Man’s sin. When Jesus returns, the curse will be lifted, and natural calamities will cease. Do all natural calamities represent remedial judgments of God? No, most are products of the natural processes of our weather systems. How, then, can we determine when a natural calamity is a remedial judgment? One important factor is the timing of the event as it relates to the sins of the nation. Another factor is the magnitudeof the event. Remedial judgments are designed to have great shock value in order to capture people’s attention and force them to think with an eternal perspective. The most important factor is God’s Spirit witnessing to the spirits of those to whom He hasgiven the gift of prophetic discernment. They will be motivated to speak forth with a united voice. The Example of the United States We can see all these principles operating in the history of our own nation. We were founded as a Christian nation, committed to Christian values, and God greatly blessed us. But in the 1960s,we began to thumb our nose at God as a cultural revolution was launched. Our society quickly descended into a cesspool of sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, abortion on demand, legalized gambling, rampant blasphemy, and a flood of pornography. Our national sloganbecame, “If it feels good, do it!” We adopted a hedonistic lifestyle, calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20). God responded by raising up prophetic voices to call the nation to repentance. One of those was Dave Wilkerson, pastor of Times Square Church in New York City. I called him “God’s Jeremiahto America.” In the 70s he began writing a series of books in which he clearly outlined the sins of America and warned of judgments from God if we did not repent. Like Jeremiah, his popularity plummeted because people—even church people—did not want to hearhis “doomsday message.” When the prophetic voices were ignored, God began to place remedial judgments on our nation — things like our defeat in the Vietnam War, the AIDS epidemic, the plague of sexually transmitteddiseases, the scourge of homosexuality, and natural disasters in the form of monster earthquakes and killer tornados and hurricanes. The culmination of the remedial judgments seemed to come with the 9/11 terrorist assault in 2001 when two symbols of American pride were attacked: the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagonin Washington, D.C. The towers stood as symbols of our wealth; the Pentagon symbolized our military power. I believe this event was a wake-up call from God for our nation to repent. Instead, like a drowsy man who doesn’t want to wake up, we merely rolled over and hit the snooze button on the alarmclock. A New Factor I don’t think there is any doubt that our national sins have called down remedial judgments from God. But what I think we may have failed to realize is that since 1991, many of the judgmentswe have experienced have been directly related to our mistreatment of Israel. The Bible says that God will bless those who bless Israel, and He will curse those who curse Israel (Genesis 12:3). The Bible also says that he who touches Israel touches “the apple of God’seye” (Zechariah 2:8). History attests to the truth of these statements. Spain was at the height of its power as a world empire in the 15th Century when it launched the Inquisition and drove its Jewish populationout of the country. Within a short time thereafter, the empire no longer existed. Hitler was well on his way to conquering all of Europe when he launched the Holocaust. His Third Reich soon ended up in ashes. I believe that many of our blessings as a nation have been due to the fact that we have historically been a safe haven for the Jewish people. Also, we have been Israel’s best friend ever sincethe nation came back into being in 1948. But the Bible says that in the end times, all the nations of the world will come together against Israel over the issue of Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:3). And in the early 90s, we began to turnagainst Israel in our determination to maintain access to Arab oil. The Decisive Year The turning point was in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, and Russian Jews began flooding into Israel at the rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a day for one year. The tiny nation of Israel was overwhelmedby the refugees. The Israeli government appealed to the World Bank for a $5 billion loan. The bank said it would grant the loan only if the U. S. guaranteed it. The Bush Administration agreed to underwrite the loan on one condition: the Israelis had to goto the bargaining table and start trading land for peace. Yes, we were the ones who forced Israel into adopting the suicidal policy of appeasement, and we have been twisting their arm ever since, pressuring them to divide up the land which God gavethem as an everlasting possession. Keep in mind that we can apply enormous pressure because our veto in the United Nations Security Council is the only thing standing between Israel and economic sanctions that could easily and quickly destroy the Israeli economy. Facing the Consequences of Dividing Israel In February of 2004 a White House correspondent named William Koenig published a book entitled, “Eye to Eye.” It was subtitled, “Facing the Consequences of Dividing Israel.” The thesis ofthe book was that many of the natural calamities, economic setbacks, and political crises experienced by the United States since 1991 had been directly related to actions we took to force Israel to surrender territory to the Arabs. Koenig is a devout Evangelical Christian who has the gift of discernment to see the supernatural relationship between world events and judgments of God. Looking back, his book had a very startling cover. It showed President Bush looking over his right shoulder at a hurricane, and in the eye of the hurricane was a Star of David, the symbolof Israel. Hurricane Katrina did not occur until a year later in August of 2005. In his book, Koenig showed the amazing parallels between U.S. mistreatment of Israel and subsequent natural calamities, economic setbacks, and political crises. The Gaza Withdrawal Take, for example, Hurricane Katrina. It was directly related to our demand that Israel surrender Gaza. That withdrawal began on August 7, 2005, and continued through the 22nd. During thattime, nearly 9,000 Israelis were uprooted from their land and homes. Many had been living in the area for as long as 35 years. It was a heart-wrenching event to watch women and children manhandled, synagogues violated, Torah scrolls desecrated, houses bulldozed, graves dug up, and farms destroyed. Entire Jewish communitieswere forcibly removed from land which God has given to the Jewish people as an everlasting possession (Psalm 105:8-11). The economic impact on the Israeli economy was overwhelming. The farms in Gaza represented 70% of Israel’s organic produce, 60% of the nation’s exported herbs, 15% of its total agriculturalexports, 60% of its exported cherry tomato crop, and $120 million of its flower exports. While this travesty was taking place, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began applying more pressure with the following statement: “Everyone empathizes with what the Israelis are facing. . . but it cannot be Gaza only.” The Supernatural Response The withdrawal ended on August 22, and on the very next day, the government of Bermuda announced that a tropical depression had formed off its coast. Dubbed “Katrina,” the storm quickly developedinto the most powerful hurricane in modern history. It slammed into New Orleans and the Mississippi coast four days later on the 27th. The hurricane disrupted 25% of our crude oil production and destroyed our nation’s largest port (the 5th largest in the worldin terms of tonnage). I think it is interesting to note that the hurricane hit just three days before New Orleans — which often refers to itself proudly as “Sin City USA” — was scheduled to host an ungodly annualevent that had come to be called “The Gay Mardi Gras.” The theme that year was “Jazz and Jezebels.” The previous year, the event had drawn 125,000 revelers who proudly flaunted their perversion publicly in a parade that featured the bizarre. Incredibly, thisevent was sponsored by a group that called itself “Southern Decadence.” New Orleans is known for its occult practices, particularly voodoo. The city is also infamous for its high murder rate and its rampant political corruption. Nonetheless, I do not believe the storm was meant primarily as a judgment upon the city of New Orleans. Rather, I saw it as a judgment on our entire nation for our mistreatment of Israel.The consequences of the storm were national in scope. It resulted in higher fuel prices which led to higher prices for all goods. It disrupted the flow of goods into and out of our country. It shamed us before the world as we mishandled the aftermath. Andit deeply scarred the Bush Administration. Déja Vu All Over Again Like Katrina, I believe the latest hurricanes (Helene and Milton) are God’s response to our mistreatment of Israel. We have tolerated anti-Semitic demonstrations, and our government has shownindifference toward Israel as the nation fights for its very existence on six fronts: Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Gaza, Yemen, and Iran. President Biden has talked tough about backing Israel, but his words have proved hollow. He is holding up the shipment of military supplies approved by Congress. And behind the scenes, heis pressing the Israeli Prime Minister to pursue a policy of appeasement toward the terrorist groups attacking Israel, instead of seeking their annihilation. The bottom line is that Biden is more interested in helping Kamala win the votes of Muslims in thestate of Minnesota than helping Israel win its war. The Message of the Hurricanes I believe the hurricanes are a message from God that He is on His throne. He is in control. He cannot be mocked. He will not tolerate the division of His Holy Land. Nor will He tolerate antisemitismand gross immorality that mocks everything that is moral and decent. God loves our nation. He has blessed us more than nearly any other nation. His Word says that to those to whom much is given, much is expected (Luke 12:47-48). His Word also says He disciplinesthose whom He loves (Hebrews 12:7). Another thing His Word makes clear is that when He sends discipline, the fundamental purpose is never to punish. Instead, the purpose is to call us to repentance so that we might be saved.Here’s how the prophet Isaiah expressed it: “When the earth experiences Your judgments, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9). A Personal Experience I know the truth of this statement first-hand. In May of 1953, when I was 15 years old, an F5 tornado hit my hometown of Waco, Texas. To this day, it is the most deadly tornado in Texas history.It killed 114 people and injured 597. It ripped through the center of the downtown area and leveled five-story buildings with ease. When it was over, the city looked like it had been hit with an atomic bomb. For three months thereafter, the churches of Waco were packed with standing room only crowds as people sought to cope with the tragedy. People were forced to think about eternity. But graduallythe pain subsided, people returned to their old ways, and church attendance fell off. Our God is truly a God of amazing grace. Even when He pours out His wrath, He does so hoping that it will provoke repentance so that people can be saved. Attempts to Respond Spiritually In response to Katrina, the Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, called for a statewide day of prayer: “As we face the devastation wrought by Katrina, as we search for those in need, aswe comfort those in pain, and as we begin the long task of rebuilding, we turn to God for strength, hope, and comfort.” Noble words. But notice, there was no call to repentance. In like manner, President Bush called for a national day of prayer on September 8. He asked the nation to pray for the victims and to reach out to them in compassion. Again, noble words, butno expression of repentance. New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas came the closest of all public officials in recognizing that Katrina had a spiritual message. Referring to Sodom and Gomorrah, he said, “MaybeGod is cleansing us.” But cleansing requires a response of repentance, something God is calling for from the whole nation, and not just the citizens of New Orleans or the victims of the current hurricanes. The Proper Response No public official in our nation’s history has yet seen the spiritual implications of a disaster as clearly as did Abraham Lincoln when he evaluated the cause of the Civil War. In a proclamationdated March 30, 1863, the President called for “a national day of prayer and humiliation.” He began the proclamation by observing: “It is the duty of nations as well as men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humblesorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon.” The heart of the proclamation read as follows: And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civilwar, which now desolates the land, may be but a punish- ment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power, as no othernation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings wereproduced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. How we need such a proclamation today! The sad thing is that we have become so secular and pagan that if our President were to issue such a statement, members of Congress would probably bringimpeachment proceedings against him for “violation of the separation of church and state.” A Call to Prayer We as a nation have set our jaw against God. We are tempting Him to move us from judgment to destruction. Our God is so merciful. He is patiently sending us one wake-up call after anotherbecause He never pours out His wrath without warning. Pray that our eyes will be opened and our hearts melted. Pray for a great national revival. Pray too for the hearts of our leaders to be opened to the significance of Israel in Bible prophecy.