Michael D: TTers, as most of you will recall, we had a very lively debate re the ability of Christians to exercise control over nature. This led further to persons questioning whether God uses these types of disasters to judge nations, and even whether He gets so intimately involved in these areas of our lives atall. Well, I feel it is instructive to give an update on the Ivan situation, and subsequent events regarding some of what I shared at that time.
Not long after Ivan struck, I was talking with a close sister in the Lord about the tragedy of Grenada and the decimation caused by that hurricane. How taken aback was I to learn that a ministry based in the U.S. with which she was very closely associated had an open air meeting in their national stadium in April of last year called on the Prime Minister to have a national day of repentance, stressing that God was willing to forgive the nation for it's evils and that He has a plan for them. Needless to say the Prime Minister never called such a day. It did reaffirm to me though, what I had been saying on TT, that God prefers to get the warning out to people before judgement comes, and also that God does allow these things as judgement over the nations, if they will not repent and if no one stands in the gap for them. The idea is, when judgement comes, the people understand that God is dealing with them.
Quite providentially, I had the opportunity to speak with two teachers from Grenada who were in TnT (Trinidad and Tobago) to collect relief supplies collected for the people there. I asked them about the meeting in the stadium calling for a day of repentance. One confirmed it, and further added that people are always coming to Grenada and calling for repentance, but no one takes them on. She then said that up to two weeks before Ivan struck, a man was walking the streets and calling on people to repent: same reaction!!! How amazing.
The U.S. based preacher returned to Grenada after Ivan and had another public meeting. This time people were packed in their cars outside the meeting grounds to hear what the servant of God had to say to them. Again he stipulated to the Prime Minister the need to call for a day of repentance. When the Prime Minister came to speak, he announced that there will be a day of thanksgiving... The whole crowd shouted him down with "Repentance! Repentance!"
It seems that God got His message accross.
These things are real, and storms et al don't come to clean up nature, or by happenstance but, in addition to judgement, also to clean up men's hearts. Why then should we fight them off? Because God prefers to have the storm of the Gospel going forth in the highways and byways, rather than having to allow the enemy to unleash his broadside against a people. When adequately warned, any attendant catastrophe can more easily be attributed to their hardness of heart and can evoke a wave of contrition as happened in Greneda. And that gospel offensive is the responsibility of those are His.
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