As the apostle says,
"Because of one man's trespass,
death reigned through that one man.
Death was never the norm.
It was never originally sewn into the fabric of man.
Death shouts to us that something is horribly wrong.
Wars.
Rumors of wars.
Life-taking earthquakes,
and tsunamis and Alzheimer's disease.
They all stare in the face at us every day,
and they just cry out,
Sin and death!
Sin and death! Sin and death!
But I want you to notice something with me.
Notice very carefully.
If you're in Luke 21.
Look with me.
Verse 10
"Nation will rise up against nation.
Kingdom against kingdom.
There will be great earthquakes in various places,
famines and pestilences.
There will be terrors
and great signs from heaven.
Now, make sure you don't miss that last part.
Great signs
from heaven.
Jesus calls all these things signs.
These terrors...
the terror of death,
the terror of destruction,
the terror of war,
the terror of disease,
and pestilence...
He calls these things signs from heaven.
A sign - what is a sign?
It's a pointer.
It's an indicator that is meant to aid our perception,
or insight or knowledge to something.
In other words, a tsumani is a sign
that is meant to indicate or communicate
some sort of reality.
And don't miss this.
This sign is from where?
It's from heaven.
Which means what?
The sign comes from Who?
The sign comes from God.
"From heaven" means that God sends it.
Am I saying God is responsible for Alzheimer's
and earthquakes and tsunamis
and civil war in Libya?
Folks, it doesn't matter if that's what I'm saying or not,
that's what the Bible says.
The Bible clearly indicates.
Brethren, Isaiah 45:5-7
"I am the Lord, and there is no other.
Besides Me there is no God.
I equip you,
though you do not know Me,
that people may know from the rising of the sun
and from the west that there is none besides Me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness.
I make well-being and create calamity.
I am the Lord, who does all these things."
Deuteronomy 32:39
"Now see that I, even I, am He
and there is no God besides Me.
I kill and I make alive.
I wound and I heal.
And there is none that can deliver out of My hand."
Brethren, already,
I just simply googled,
"Is the tsunami from God?"
There's already threads on the Internet.
Listen to one I found.
"Is God responsible for the earthquake
and tsunami in Japan?
If yes, how?
If no, how?
Someone has to take responsibility for such mass destruction."
So there's the question.
I recorded six responses.
There were others there.
Listen to this:
Response #1
"If yes, then He's a terrorist.
If no, then it's a natural disaster."
That was somebody's response.
A second response:
"No, the earth follows its own physical laws
in accordance with the freedom
that God has given to all His creatures.
It is the movement of tectonic plates
that causes earth tremors.
Not the will of God."
Response #3
"Of course not!
Why does someone have to take responsibility
for naturally occurring phenomena?"
Response #4
"Whether God is responsible or not, that no one can say clearly."
This is a good one.
Response #5
"People were thanking God
for Representative Gabrielle Giffords
on January 9, 2011 who survived the shooting.
If you give someone kudos for the good things,
then they must also take responsbility
for the bad things."
Now listen to this,
Revelation 16:8
"The fourth angel poured out his bowl
on the sun and it was allowed
to scorch people with fire."
Brethren, I think this is a picture in this age.
God sends His burning sun
to cause drought.
He controls nature
to send lightning and create great fires,
waves to take out great cities.
Brethren, He's in control.
And His judgments come to us through nature.
They say, oh, it's mother nature.
It's tectonic plates.
It's thermal air masses rising in the Gulf.
Brethren, God controls.
God designed.
Have you ever listened to what God Almighty told Job?
He takes credit for all of it, brethren.
The snow, and the cold, and the heat,
and the animals, and the lightning.
He knows where it comes from.
He's the Author of them all.
Verse 9
"They were scorched by the fierce heat.
And they cursed..."
Our ESV says the word is blasphemy.
They blaspheme the name of God
who had power over these plagues.
"They did not repent and give Him glory."
Verse 10
"The fifth angel poured out his bowl
on the throne of the beast."
Brethren, the throne of the beast...
The beast in Daniel's prophetic utterances:
kingdoms,
governments,
nations.
There's wrath from this bowl
"poured on the throne of the beast,
and its kingdom was plunged into darkness.
People gnawed their tongues in anguish.
And again, they cursed, they blasphemed
the God of Heaven for their pain and sores.
They did not repent of their deeds."
What are they blaspheming?
What are they cursing?
They blaspheme, they curse, the name of God.
But just not any god...
Did you catch what God it is?
"Who had power over these plagues."
He has power over them!
That's who they blaspheme.
Look, man is going to blaspheme God two ways
in the midst of this.
There are those who basically look and say,
God would never do that.
He's too impotent. He's too pathetic.
He's too mild.
They make Him into a God who does not hate sin
like the Bible says He hates sin.
They want to undermine His character.
They want to make derogatory statements about Him;
present Him as impotent.
Soft.
Santa Claus.
Or they come along and they say,
He's a terrorist.
He's a monster.
They want to say, if He's in control,
they want to call Him every abomination
they can think of.
But oh, brethren, I've got a better answer for these people.
A biblical answer.
And it's this:
Impotence? Please!
This is the God who expressly says
He has power over these plagues.
Listen, at the beginning of this very book Revelation,
it describes God this way:
"'I am the Alpha and the Omega,
says the Lord God, 'Who is, Who was,
and Who is to come.
The Almighty.'"
Daniel 4:35
Some of you very well know the words of Nebuchadnezzar.
"All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing.
He does according to His will among the hosts of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth.
And none can stay His hand or say to Him,
'What have You done?'"
We sang the song,
"God Moves in a Mysterious Way."
Brethren, His will is unbending.
He determines and it comes to pass.
His ways are often mysterious to us,
but His ways are for certain.
He works according to the counsel of His will.
And brethren, nobody stays His hand.
You better believe it.
He's not playing around.
When that tidal wave -
have you seen the picture of the wave coming in?
It was the second wave.
Those waves came in for an hour.
They've got footage of this wave
going all the way down that beach coming in.
The second tidal wave.
Brethren, I'll tell you,
when those disciples looked at Christ long ago,
when He said, "Peace, be still."
They said, "Who is this?"
"Even the winds and the waves obey Him."
Brethren, I'll tell you this,
you may not have seen Him,
but there was an unseen Christ
riding at the head of that tidal wave.
He had that thing reined.
It was doing exactly His bidding.
Oh, brethren...
But here's what Luke says.
These things are a sign.
When I drive down the highway,
I see a speed limit sign.
It tells me something about how fast the law
says that I can go.
I see a sign that tells me
that Houston is 300 miles away.
It's giving me information.
Signs give us information.
They're speaking to us.
They're telling us something.
The billboard - it tells me that there's a McDonald's
18 miles up at exit 387.
I see that.
It's telling me. It's feeding us information.
Luke says these are signs.
But a sign of what?
What is he trying to tell us?
Listen to this again,
Revelation 16
"The fourth angel poured out his bowl
on the sun,
and it was allowed to scorch people with fire."
Signs.
They were scorched.
They cursed
the God who had power over these plagues.
Listen.
Very carefully.
"They did not repent,
or give glory to God."
That's always the issue.
Repentance is the issue.
Every catastrophe, every calamity,
every death and terror that comes along,
God means it for a sign.
A sign means God is sending a message.
God is in control of the plagues.
God sends the signs from heaven.
God is speaking.
Brethren, it stares us in the face
from the newspaper, the t.v., the computer.
The giant wave is a sign to all the world.
What's it a sign of?
Brethren, they did not repent or give God glory.
That's always the issue.
Listen, let me tell you something.
God is no monster.
Brethren, even in His judgments,
He's proclaiming mercy.
It's a sign.
This is a warning
about what's going to happen to you.
"But I call you,
Repent.
Turn.
Come to Me."
Brethren, God is speaking.
When you're watching that,
God doesn't expect the word "terrorist" to come into your mind.
He expects you to look at that
and to think and to reason.
"'Come, let us reason together,' saith the Lord."
He wants you to reason with Him.
Your life is short.
You're sinners.
What you see here is what your sin deserves.
But I, the God who reins in the tidal waves,
I am also the God who sent My only begotten Son.
God is saying,
you're going to die someday.
And it will be when you don't expect it.
God wants you to look at these things
and to ask yourself and come face to face
with the reality: Am I ready?
He's saying to you, get ready!
Be ready!
Stay ready.
Turn away from sin.
He's saying in those things:
Fear Me.
He doesn't expect you to look at it
and deduce it's tectonic plates.
He expects you to look at satellite images
of cities - they were there a week ago,
and they have been wiped off the face of the earth.
Do you remember what He said about Sodom?
This is an example.
That's what Peter tells us.
Sodom is an example of what will happen to all the ungodly.
Have you ever read that?
2 Peter
Brethren, they're signs.
Turn away from sin.
Fear Me.
Tsunamis ought to put the fear of God into us.
God is saying to us,
"Vengeance belongs to Me,
and I will repay."
He calls you to hear, to fear,
to trust His Son.
He calls you to abandon your unbelief, your idols.
Stop being a fool!
Realize. Wake up.
This little sign of wrath
is an indication of a great Day of Judgment
that is coming.
This smaller judgment just a reminder
of a greater judgment.
Stop believing that sin is better!
That's what He's saying.
When that wave comes in there and crashes in there,
He's saying, young people, sex is not better!
Because it's only for a season...
And this is an indication that there is hell to pay.
There is judgment at the end of this.
Look at Sodom!
Look at those villages along that coast.
Look at them.
Wake up.
God says,
Why will you die, O house of Israel?
Why will you die?
Can you imagine?
"I have slain My own Son.
I struck Him.
I smote Him.
I afflicted Him.
Hear Me."
These are signs
that your life is not long.
That you have sin on your shoulders
and to your account,
you do not want to have to pay.
And why would you?
Will you love your sin so much
that you refuse My Son who has paid that sin
in the sinner's place - will you refuse that?
Will you go on?
Do you think drink, and friends, and parties,
and cars, and money - do you think that's better?
So did a lot of those Japanese.
Brethren, folks...
In Amos 4:10, you don't need to turn there,
but listen to this.
God says this,
"'I sent among you a pestilence
after the manner of Egypt.
I killed your young men with the sword
and carried away your horses.
And I made the stench of your camp
to go up into your nostrils.
Yet you did not return to Me,'
declares the Lord."
I'll tell you this,
God is not ashamed.
He is not to be mocked.
He is not to be blasphemed.
He doesn't hesitate to admit,
He killed their young men with the sword.
Not like some professing Christians
who want to cower away from admitting
that hurricanes and calamites
and ruthless rulers and all that -
that they're not according to the Lord's design.
Brethren, they are.
God is not ashamed to admit it.
You shouldn't be.
When this onlooking world -
we should be bold, be of courage, brethren -
you say to them:
That's a judgment of God.
And it's meant to show you people to turn
and to run into His arms.
I mean, He sends these.
But the same God also stands with open arms
ready to receive any that will repent.
If they'll take that sign and heed that sign.
He is saying,
"Yes, indeed, I did it.
Fear Me.
Come to Me."
But again, did you hear the last part there?
"'I killed your young men with the sword
and carried away your horses.
Made the stench of your camp
go up into your nostrils.
Yet, you did not return to Me,'
declares the Lord."
Isn't that always the issue!
God smites that men may see the sign
and turn to Him.
Isaiah says,
"The people did not turn to Him who struck them,
nor inquire of the Lord of Hosts."
Daniel puts it this way,
"As it is written in the law of Moses,
all this calamity has come upon us,
yet we have not entreated the favor
of the Lord our God,
turning from our iniquities and gaining insight."
Isn't it amazing how often in God's Word,
calamity is clearly set forth
as God's sign to us to turn to Him?
Turn to Him.
Look, Jesus comes along and says,
You guys want to talk about
that tower in Siloam that fell?
You know what happened?
In Jesus' day, there was a tower.
I don't know if it just got old
or badly engineered or what.
But the thing fell over.
Crushed 18 people to death on the spot.
If Jesus was here today,
He would say to the city of San Antonio,
You think those Japanese are worse sinners than you?
No.
But unless you repent, you will likewise perish.
That's always the issue.
Repentance is always the issue.
You mean, men have to lose their lives
to bring that sign?
Brethren, this is the wrath of God
against justly deserved sin.
What about all the rest of the days out of the year
when God didn't destroy those cities?
They were just as deserving all those other days.
But isn't that what it says in Romans 1?
The wrath of God is revealed.
Why?
Because they did not honor Him
or give Him thanks.
They're quick to call Him a terrorist.
What about all the others days
when they should have been praising Him?
Brethren, it's repentance.
Repentance.
You say, well, that was certainly hard luck on their part.
Brethren, let me tell you,
every one of us deserve this by nature.
Guess what?
The vast majority of those people that perished
were alive when the tsunami hit Indonesia.
God was saying, "Wake up! Wake up!"
"Turn to Me."
And do you know what will happen tomorrow?
And the next day?
Many who have seen this,
they will be the next objects.
You resist God's mercies long enough,
and eventually, you are going to be
the object of God's wrath.
And you can't escape it.
There is no escape.
And men don't like to believe this.
Men do not want to believe
there is an Almighty sin-hating God
who sent that calamity on Japan.
Because if they believe there is such a God
who would do such a thing,
then they're suddenly confronted by the fact
that they are in deep, deep trouble.
And Scripture says, of course, that they are.
And that's what God is saying.
This is a sign.
You are in trouble!
But brethren,
my message to these guys writing their threads out there
is no, God is not impotent,
like some of you say,
and no, God is no monster.
These are merciful warnings.
Isn't it amazing that in this world right now,
even in God's most severe judgments,
He means mercy by it.
That is phenomenal
that God doesn't wipe out the whole planet
in a moment.
But that He gives us these flashes.
Flashes.
And you say, but if I do repent?
Brethren, I'll tell you,
there's a text in Isaiah,
that says that He gives men for Israel.
It's true.
God will bring judgment on some
and bring others to repentance through it.
He will give some men for the sake of others.
But brethren, I want to tell you that these messages
are messages of mercy,
if you will have eyes to see them.
Look, brethren...
We know. We know.
We prayed for Papa's wife - my mother-in-law, Ruby's mom.
We prayed. We prayed.
Papa fasted for years.
But you family members, you grandchildren...
her death on Friday is meant to be
a wake-up call to you.
The terror of death is meant to be a wake-up call.
You don't have forever.
And as fun as your sin might seem,
it comes to an end.
And it may come to an end
much sooner than you think.
A week ago, those people sat secure
in their homes in Japan.
They never thought they would be
in eternity an hour later.
Never.
God's calling you to repent.
If you're lost - without Christ,
you're just as bad.
If right now, the earthquake had happened here -
a building had fallen on you -
and they were watching the news of that,
it would have been just as just of God to do that.
It would have been no different.
It would have been severe justice both ways.
But it's merciful warnings to those who are watching.
And you know what, the truth is,
on Friday, God didn't take all of us.
What a mercy!
The answer the world so desperately needs to hear
is God is an Almighty, merciful message sender,
even in judgments.
To you that are lost,
eternity hastens.
The day of mercy is short.
Listen, mercy isn't always going to be extended to you.
The time is going to run out.
You're going to come to the end.
Why are you waiting?
The marriage feast is prepared.
It's there.
You're invited.
The tsunami is like an invitation.
It's a sign.
It's like an invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
"It's set. Come in.
Turn to Me.
Turn away from your sins.
Come in.
I offer you such glories and riches in My Son
that will overwhelm you, stagger you,
they're outside of this world
in its riches and its joy.
My Son - you'll have Him.
You'll have all the joys, all the pleasures -
pleasures forevermore at His right hand."
Wake up!
Don't tarry!
Tarrying is deadly.
The wrath of God is coming.
That gigantic wave on that t.v. moving across
is meant for you to see,
there is another wave coming.
Ephesians 5 says it.
The wrath of God is coming.
There is a wave we can't escape.
It's coming.
There's a storm coming.
These are just glimpses.
Wake up! Step down off your high horse.
Stop your rebellion at once.
To the Christian,
this is a wake up call to us too.
Sands of time are sinking.
As the song says that we sing,
"death is coming, hell is moving,"
Brethren, the masses are perishing.
You may have heard this story.
If you have, it bears repeating.
D.L. Moody
He basically constructed this two-part approach
to this crowd.
He came to this crowd.
He delivered the first half of it
meaning to bring the second part a week later.
That week, God's judgment fell.
And the fire, the great fire of Chicago,
swept through.
That crowd never gathered again.
Moody learned a lesson.
Brethren, we need to preach Christ now.
We need to wake up.
Listen,
When you hear of wars and tumults,
one, do not be terrified.
My brothers and sisters,
though the economies of the world
shake and collapse and fall,
though in all likelihood, America is diminishing
it's greatness, it's grandeur in this world,
don't be terrified.
You hear of wars?
Even when America gets their bubble burst,
and these things set on our front door,
don't be terrified.
That's Jesus' words to you.
"For these things must first take place,
but the end will not be at once."
Then He said to them,
"Nation will rise against nation; kingdom against kingdom;
there will be great earthquakes in various places;
famines, pestilences; there will be terrors, great signs from heaven;
before this, they will all lay their hands on you
and persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues, prisons.
You will be brought before kings and governors
for My name's sake.
This will be your opportunity to bear witness."
Now, I realize, that may be more local
to what He just said,
"When they lay hands on you,
deliver you to the synagogues and prisons,
you'll be brought before kings and governors -
this will be your opportunity to bear witness."
But brethren, I take that as a more
overreaching statement here.
When the tsunami comes,
when the earthquake comes,
when wars and rumors of wars come,
brethren, this is your opportunity to witness.
This is it.
Take it, brethren. Take it.
Don't you dare shy away
and try to pawn off God as something that He is not.
God is the God of the plagues.
God is the God of the earthquake.
God is the God of the tsunami.
And they are meant to wake people up.
Brethren, beseech them to come at once.
Beseech them, call to them.
Just one last word.
It comes to us from Habakkuk.
He had it right.
There were terrors in his days.
Judgment in his days.
Listen, when God brings the judgments,
Christian, Christ says don't be terrified.
Let me tell you this:
when that wave was coming,
God's eyes were on every one of His people.
And let me tell you this,
every tsunami and every earthquake
has to bow down to Romans 8:28.
Every one of them!
It will work for your good.
Don't fear.
He's got the hairs on your head numbered.
You are precious in His sight.
Things were bad in Habakkuk's day.
But he said this,
"Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail,
the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold,
there be no herd in the stalls;
yet, I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God the Lord is my strength.
He makes my feet like the deer's.
He makes me tread on my high places."
Brethren, let me just remind you.
The God of the plagues -
when those ten plagues came upon Egypt,
they never touched Israel.
Whatever God sends in this world,
as terrifying as it may seem,
Jesus says, don't you be terrified.
Brethren, what's the worst case scenario?
You lose your life and go to be with the Lord
forever and forever and forever.
And He wipes away every tear.
That doesn't sound too bad.
I mean, if a tsunami does that to you,
are you going to complain?
No more pain, no more sorrow,
no more death...
no more sin.
And you get to see Him face to face
and be like He is?
If that's what a tsunami brings me,
bring them on, right?
To the Christian,
Haggai 2:5
"'According to the covenant that I made with you
when you came out of Egypt,
My Spirit remains in your midst.
Fear not.
For thus says the Lord of Hosts,
yet once more, in a little while,
I will shake the heavens and the earth,
and the sea and the dry land.
And I will shake all nations,
so that the treasures of all nations
shall come in,
and I will fill this house with glory,'
says the Lord of Hosts."
In all this shaking, brethren,
He's filling the house.
He's bringing them in.
The riches of the Gentiles, of the nations,
He's harvesting through all of it, brethren.
Through all of it.
I'll tell you this,
when that tsunami lands on our front door,
that's not time for you to hightail
and act like the rest of the world.
That is your opportunity to bear witness.
That is opportunity to show love,
to help others.
When the catastrophe comes,
when the calamity falls,
for us to rise up and show,
we're not like the rest of the world.
To seek to love people
and to share our food and share our money.
And to have a message of hope in the midst of all of it.
"Oh, Israel, fear not.
For I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name.
You are Mine."
Brethren, His eye is on you for good.
He sends His signs, yes.
But you remember,
they are all in submission to Him.
And He's given you this massive promise.
It all works out for your good.
You belong to Him, you're called by Him?
Everything in creation is subservient to that.
Amen.