Does God Cause Disaster?

I) Introduction

Commentator James Montgomery Boice writes:

In 1915 a plague of locusts covered Palestine and Syria from the border of Egypt to the Taurus mountains. The first swarms appeared in March. These were adult locusts that came from the northeast and moved toward the southwest in clouds so thick they obscured the sun. The females were about two and one-half to three inches long, and they immediately began to lay eggs by digging holes in the soil about four inches deep and depositing about 100 eggs in each. The eggs were neatly arranged in a cylindrical mass about one inch long and about as thick as a pencil. These holes were everywhere. Witnesses estimated that as many as 65,000–75,000 eggs were concentrated in a single square meter of soil, and patches like this covered the entire land from north to south. Having laid their eggs the locusts flew away.

Within a few weeks the young locusts hatched. These resembled large ants. They had no wings, and within a few days they began moving forward by hopping along the ground like fleas. They would cover four to six hundred feet a day, devouring any vegetation before them. By the end of May they had molted. In this stage they had wings, but they still did not fly. Instead they moved forward by walking, jumping only when they were frightened. They were bright yellow. Finally the locusts molted again, this time becoming the fully developed adults that had invaded the land initiallyTop of Form

2. 2017 - Hurricane Maria - 5,740 deaths -91.6 Billion

2017 - Hurricane Irma - 134 deaths - 64.76 Bil.

2017- Hurricane- 107- $125.00 billion- Hurricane Harvey - Texas, Louisiana, Alabama

Hurricane

2016 - Wildfire - 14 - $990 Million - 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires - Tennessee

Wildfire

14

107

2016 - 5 disaster

$990 Million

2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires

2015 - 4 disasters

2014 - 4 disasters

Tennessee

2013 - 3 disasters

2012 - 2 disasters

2011 - 3 disasters

2007 - 2008 - 2009 - 2010 1 disaster each

II) God’s call to our nation

$125.00 billion

Hurricane

107

Hurricane Harvey

$125.00 billion

Hurricane Harvey

Texas, Louisiana, Alabama

Texas, Louisiana, Alabama

II)

a. How severe was the destruction (2-4)

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b. The Sorrow of the devastation( 5-12)

According to a description of this plague by John D. Whiting in the December 1915 issue of National Geographic Magazine, the earlier stages of these insects attacked the vineyards. “Once entering a vineyard the sprawling vines would in the shortest time be nothing but bare bark. When the daintier morsels were gone, the bark was eaten off the young topmost branches, which, after exposure to the sun, were bleached snow-white. Then, seemingly out of malice, they would gnaw off small limbs, perhaps to get at the pith within.” Whiting describes how the locusts of the last stage completed the destruction begun by the earlier forms. They attacked the olive trees, whose tough, bitter leaves had been passed over by the creeping locusts. “They stripped every leaf, berry, and even the tender bark.” They ate away “layer after layer” of the cactus plants, “giving the leaves the effect of having been jackplaned. Even on the scarce and prized palms they had no pity, gnawing off the tenderer ends of the swordlike branches and, diving deep into the heart, they tunneled after the juicy pith.”

III)The Cal to the ministers

a. We need to repent (13-14)

b. The need to pray (15-18)

c. We are called to pray (19-20)

IV)Closing

This is exactly what had happened in Joel’s day. There was a massive locust invasion of the land. The devastation caused by the locusts was extremely severe. Everything was gone.