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While it is impossible to say that any particular disaster is specifically related to any specific judgment, it is verifiable that God has often used disasters as a means of dealing with the waywardness of the human race. Many such incidents are recorded in the Scriptures.

God sent a flood to deal with the human race which had quickly, in just a few generations, left the worship of Him to live on their own for their own glory. God reigned fire on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of the extreme wickedness of those cities. God opened the ground to swallow up Korah, Dathan and Abiram for opposing God's appointed leader, Moses. God caused the sword to be a constant threat to the family of David because of David's adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah. The list goes on.

Of course, some might argue that these are all Old Testament examples, that God does not deal with humans through disasters any more. But in the New Testament, Jesus predicted that the wrath of God would be poured out on the world at some point in the future. Jesus also told the story of a rich man who built barns and filled them with his goods for his own use, and then decided to take life easy and eat, drink and be merry, ignoring God and the needs of others. But God brought death to him in one night. Jesus said that this is how it would be for those who store up things for themselves but are not rich toward God.

The Apostles Peter and Paul both taught that a day of judgment was coming, a day in which natural and human disasters would prevail as a judgment from God. Peter predicted the earth melting in a fervent heat and being destroyed. Paul talked about the latter days of the church age when people would live stress-filled, selfish lives and be ripe for God's judgment because of it.

The Apostle John wrote perhaps the most comprehensive of all the disaster as judgment documents in the New Testament. The Book of Revelation uncoils a series of disasters of world-wide scope causing suffering and death in every country of the world and causing the collapse of the world's economic and political systems. John reveals clearly the reason for God's judgment in this manner. People had turned away from him and were living selfishly for themselves.

One specific disaster cannot be clearly identified with one specific judgment of God, but certainly the principle that God does use disasters, both natural and human, is well-established in the Bible and in history. God reserved the worst disaster of all to befall His Son, Jesus Christ, on the day God put the judgment of the whole world on Jesus and turned His face away as His only-begotten Son was cruelly killed on the cross. The sun darkened, heavy, ominous clouds rolled in and Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" Here God's love for sinners and His wrath because of sin came together in the person of Jesus Christ to provide forgiveness to all who trust Christ. But for those who do not, the certain wrath of God remains.

Learn more about this author, Tom Parsons.
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