It isn't suprising when people like Pat Robertson and John Piper credit God with "natural disasters." It is concerning though when people like Steve Wohlberg, who is a member of a church that espouses the great controversy view between Christ and Satan doesn't consider the possibility that Satan, who Jesus called "the prince of this world" may somehow be involved in tragedies such as this.

There is no way for us to know (unless God told us directly) whether or not the earthquake that hit Haiti was judgment from God; however, I don't think it's unreasonable to believe it was God.

If God has done it in the past, is there any reason, based on the Bible, to think that he wouldn't do it again?

I have no idea what Pat Robertson is talking about, but I do know that God has judged whole nations before in the past. So I may not know for sure if this is the case with Haiti, but it certainly is reasonable to believe in my opinion. 

It is interesting that one of the guidelines for comments is that there are no personal attacks yet Wolhberg comments to me are very offensive and a personal attack on the Haitian people. 

Wolhbergh quotes and reiterates the extreme sinfulness of the Haitian country that caused these devastating earthquakes but I am interested to know if he can explain America's extreme transgression of racism, injustices, inequality and exploiting the poor not just in our country but through out the world. What about the financial earthquake in the country why didn't he come out and talk about the sins of this country.  Only when devastation hits homosexuality and people of color do make these type of judgmental and my opinion racial accusations.   

Must I remind Wolhberg that America is the Lamblike beast?   

2onyandrews:

You've made quite the leap in your assessment of Wolhberg's comments. Based strictly on what he said, I see no evidence that his comments are racially motived. His point was, "Whether [God] directly causes [earthquakes], or merely allows them, nevertheless, they can be biblically classified as divine "judgments" to be taken seriously." So unless you know something of a personal nature about the author, I think it would be prudent not to pass such a judgment about his motivations without anything substantiative to base it on.

Shane Hilde 

I would like to believe that natural disasters, to the extent they are not merely the result of a fallen world under the curse, are primarily the work of Satan, not God.  EGW also says that Satan works through natural disasters:

"Satan works through the elements also to garner his harvest of unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature, and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows. . . . Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. . . .  These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast."  GC 589--590.

While it is true that an earthquake might constitute God's judgment, it is more likely Satan's work, and those of us without prophetic authority should think long and hard before publicly speculating about it.  We run the risk of attributing to God what was in fact the work of Satan, and thereby defaming God.  We also run the risk of pharisaism; recall that the pharisees believed that disease was the judgment of God upon sin, and therefore those, like Jesus, who healed disease were undoing God's judgment.  Nothing could be clearer than the Christian duty to ameliorate the suffering ensuing from natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti.  Yet, if we believe it is God's will, doesn't that lessen the urgency of proving help to the victims? 

It would be best if those of us without prophetic authority (and that includes everyone now living, as far as I'm aware) forgo speculation about whether a specific natural disaster consitutes God's judgment.

I've no doubt that earthquakes and tsunamis and what not are a sign of the times. However, I have a problem with Wohlberg's views that God probably caused them because Haiti practices voodoo. Here's a good question:

If God saw fit that it was sovereignly just to cause the deaths of not only voodoo worshippers but most likely thousands of innocent children and Christians, why are Christian groups like ADRA going in there to help the suffering? This sounds like we are going in despite God's right judgements to clean up His mess. That means WE are more compassionate than God! If we want to follow this abhorrent doctrine to the letter of the law, we should allow them to dig themselves out and manage on their own, don't you think?

2onyandrews makes a good point on America. If God is sending such catastrophes on godless nations, then America should be sunken into the ground right about now, never mind Katrina and 9/11 where lives lost were merely a fraction compared to Haiti.

  Shame on Wohlberg for making a mockery of God and the Christians all around the world who are directly or indirectly doing whatever they can to help these 'pagan, voodoo worshippers' to alleviate their suffering in the name of God and Christian charity and love.

Darrell

You may disagree with Wolhberg's connection, but it's difficult to ignore the following pieces of evidence that make it quite reasonable to believe what he is saying:

1. God destroys the entire world with a flood.
2. God destroys the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
3. God destroys entire people groups.
4. Nineveh was going to be destroyed, but they repented.

Those are just a few examples of where God has judged entire nations/cities. Is it reasonable to believe that it is possible God judged Haiti? Yes. Do we know for certain? Well that depends, a little, on whether or not you believe Ellen White was speaking the truth when she said:

"I am bidden to declare the message that cities full of transgression, and sinful in the extreme,will be destroyed by earthquakes, by fire, by flood. All the world will be warned that there is a God who will display His authority as God. His unseen agencies will cause destruction, devastation, and death."  Evangelism, p. 27

Notice the cities must be full of transgression and sinful in the extreme. Only God can judge when the iniquity of a city is full, so it is not for us to be the judge of why other cities have not fallen under judgement.

I don't think it necessarily follows that every city that is destroyed can be assumed a judgment of God. However, when apparently over half the nation is practicing a religion like voodoo, it can make one pause. Is it reasonable to think that God judged Haiti? I think so, but we have no conclusive evidence so far that it's true.

Shane Hilde 

@ Shane

I have made a "leap"-- isn't that what Wolhberg has done?  Trying to say Hatian peoples "extreme sinfulness" cause the earthquake?  LOL  I think that is making a huge leap. 

Also i wasn't making judgment on Wolhberg. What he doesn't do is make the same type of statement when disasters hit America.  It's always someone else's fault when things that happen to America. 

So in my post I was simply asking him TO THINK!!!!  America has done horrendous things to people in America and throughout the world...so what is a our JUDGMENT.  

Like i said we only make these types of statments when disasters hit people of color. By the way, I am white so I don't want people to think these words are from an angry minority. 

If you knew that this were God's judgment, Shane, would you agree with the comment just made that we should not intervene with food, supplies, medical needs, etc:

"Leave it to the lamb-like beast power, through its military, to attempt to reverse God's judgments through humanitarian assistance."

By what measure exactly is Port au Prince more "full of transgression, and sinful in the extreme"  than Washiongton D.C., New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles (...Paris, London, Berlin, Rome... for that matter)? 

And  how do you believe God gets all those he wants to punish by a devastating earthquake (or, usually,  rather their ancestors) to settle close to a fault line?

...puzzled

Mark

P.S.: This seems the first time ever that David C. Read and I agree on anything

This was a poorly conceived newsletter. Linking EGW quotes with the Haitian earthquake is about as (un-)impressive as linking certain other EGW quotes with 9/11.

I'm not sure what percentage of Haitians practice voodoo, but you don't need exact figures to see that the country's French cultural heritage, most especially including its Roman Catholicism, has badly failed Haiti.  More than a third of the population is illiterate, and it is easily the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.  In the movie "Casablanca," a Bulgarian refugee comments that in her native country, "the devil has the people by the throat."  The same could be said, with more justification, of Haiti, and it has been true for a long time. 

The Catholic Church, of which 80% of Haitians are members, bears great responsibility for having failed to elevate these former slaves from so degraded a condition.  The Catholic Church is everywhere too complacent about syncretism, the combining of native paganism with Catholicism.  That so many Haitians combine voodoo with Christianity is a terrible indictment of the Catholic priests and bishops of that country. 

By the way, this is one reason I am so militant on the issue of excluding Darwinism from any sort of acceptance within Adventism: it is an attempt to syncretistically combine a pagan origins myth with the Biblical worldview that Adventism is based upon.  Adventists must not tolerate any attempt to combine the pagan with the Biblical.

Brad,

You said: "If you knew that this were God's judgment, Shane, would you agree with the comment just made that we should not intervene with food, supplies, medical needs, etc: "Leave it to the lamb-like beast power, through its military, to attempt to reverse God's judgments through humanitarian assistance."

Jesus said:

You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:43-48

An underlying principle here is everyone is our neighbor, including our enemies. I'm not implying the people of Haiti are our enemies. My point is it is a directive from Christ to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39).

God said: "As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways!" Ezekiel 33:11

It's not for us to decide who should or should not receive God's love through us. God has made it plain how we are to treat our neighbor. If we have the means to help people, we should.

Shane Hilde 

Shane Hilde said

"It's not for us to decide who should or should not receive God's love through us. God has made it plain how we are to treat our neighbor. If we have the means to help people, we should."

__________________

This is true Shane. However, the point here is going against the judgement of God in Him bringing calamity down on a nation. We are contradicting the gospel to go in there and show them that 'God loves you' by our humanitarian aid while believing in the back of our minds that God punished them by killing their family members and bringing misery, disease and crime upon those who are still living.

There are problems as some of us here have pointed out if we believe that God is behind the destruction of Haiti, and they need to be addressed.

1. Why did innocent women and children have to die for the pagans? As was pointed out by someone else, did God make sure all the'baddies' were near the fault line?

2. Why does Haiti get singled out for practicing voodoo, and terrorist countries, secular atheist countries and backsliding countries like the US not get the full brunt of God's wrath?

3.  Is there not a contradiction for us to believe that God has brought judgement down on Haiti but for us to go in their under a humanitarian mission to ease their suffering? God brings down wrath and punishment upon innocents and we are then going in there in the name of Christian charity to fulfill the great commission and the words of Christ to love our neighbor? Again I'll ask, are we not then more compassionate than God and going in there mostly to clean up the mess He made?

Bad things happen to good people, godly people, all around the world. Why was God punishing them?  Oh wait, when it happens to us, it is a natural disaster and a 'result of sin', not God's punishment. When it happens to others we deem 'sinners' we call it God's divine judgement.

It's pretty easy to claim such things despite the horrible image it paints of God and the many contradictions and illogistics it creates. It's also easy to sit back smugly in our piousness and claim God is responsible for destroying the 'godless heathen' and they are suffering due to their rebellion against God. However, we are all the worst sinners and we all deserve death.

Darrell

Shane's evidence:

"1. God destroys the entire world with a flood.
2. God destroys the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
3. God destroys entire people groups.
4. Nineveh was going to be destroyed, but they repented."

Even with the most conservative dates the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah happened centuries before they were written down.  It is very questionable what exactly happened.  I know of no entire people groups "destroyed" by God.  In the cases of the cities of Ai and Jericho as well as the Midianites and the Amalekites it was the Israelites that did the killing.  Their desire to justify genocide is understandable, but it does not mean that is exactly what happended.

And then there is Jonah, almost certainly fiction.  Nontheless, I have to beg Shane to read the actual book again, i.e. don't read EGW's retelling of the tale.  Notice that in God's explaination for not destroying Niniveh he makes no mention of their repentance.  Rather he talks about people incapable of distinguishing between their right and left hands.  The primary interpretation of these "people" is that they were babies and toddlers.  In a figurative sense they were spiritual babies incapable of undestanding the wrongnes of their actions.  Since this was the case at the begining of the book, there is no reason to believe that God ever intended to destroy Niniveh; at least not in the time of Jonah.

I am very thankful that I don't have to live in terror of Shane's diety.

Darrel said: "...the point here is going against the judgement of God in Him bringing calamity down on a nation. We are contradicting the gospel to go in there and show them that 'God loves you' by our humanitarian aid while believing in the back of our minds that God punished them by killing their family members and bringing misery, disease and crime upon those who are still living."

We don't know if God was judging Haiti. Speculating on a hypothetical situation is straying significantly from the point I made earlier: It is reasonable to believe the earthquake in Haiti was a judgment from God. Such a hypothetical, speculative situation as you've presented above should have absolutely no influence on a Christian's decision to help his neighbor.

1. Why did innocent women and children have to die for the pagans? As was pointed out by someone else, did God make sure all the'baddies' were near the fault line?

Ultimately, the reason righteous people suffer today is because "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Romans 5:12). We can praise God that "by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ" (v 17).

2. Why does Haiti get singled out for practicing voodoo, and terrorist countries, secular atheist countries and backsliding countries like the US not get the full brunt of God's wrath?

This is only a problem because of the hypothetical situation that's been created. Even if we did know for a certain that what happened in Haiti was the result of God's judgment, how do we even begin to understand the ways of God in regard to how he judges humanity? 

3. Is there not a contradiction for us to believe that God has brought judgement down on Haiti but for us to go in their under a humanitarian mission to ease their suffering? God brings down wrath and punishment upon innocents and we are then going in there in the name of Christian charity to fulfill the great commission and the words of Christ to love our neighbor? Again I'll ask, are we not then more compassionate than God and going in there mostly to clean up the mess He made?

It's an interesting question; however, I don't think the answer is entirely evasive. Does a parent not love the child he just punished? Will he just abandon his son after he has punished him, and withhold any tenderness or comfort that may be given? I think the answer is no to both of those questions. So I'll ask you, is the sister more compassionate than the parent by offering comfort to her brother that has just been punished.

Once again, all these "problems" only arise when we attempt to blend a hypothetical situation with reality. Our commission from Christ is not based on such nonsense. A debate based entirely on a hypothetical situation is ultimately meaningless.

When someone discovers that God did indeed judge Haiti, then we can have a meaningful discussion. Until that happens, I think the only thing that can be legitimately discussed on this topic is whether or not God does judge people groups/cities for their sins and what lessons that can have for us today. My simple answer is yes, he does and has, but it's not for me to decide.

Shane Hilde 

Shane said "We don't know if God was judging Haiti. Speculating on a hypothetical situation is straying significantly from the point I made earlier: It is reasonable to believe the earthquake in Haiti was a judgment from God. Such a hypothetical, speculative situation as you've presented above should have absolutely no influence on a Christian's decision to help his neighbor."

Unless you know for sure, nobody should be saying that Haiti is God's judgment. If you believe it, we should not be going in to do humanitarian aid. God's judgment was for them to suffer, not for us to clean up His mess. A Christian's decision to help His neighbor is based on the predicate of Christian love given to each as God has given to us. It makes no sense to say 'God can kill people and make them suffer, but we must go in to ease that suffering'

Shane said "Ultimately, the reason righteous people suffer today is because "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Romans 5:12). We can praise God that "by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ" (v 17)"

We're not talking about results of sin here. We are talking about believing that God deliberately brought on the earthquake to kill thousands of innocent children who do not practice voodoo, which is the given reason to start off with as to why Haiti was experiencing God's judgment. You didn't answer the question.

Shane said "When someone discovers that God did indeed judge Haiti, then we can have a meaningful discussion. Until that happens, I think the only thing that can be legitimately discussed on this topic is whether or not God does judge people groups/cities for their sins and what lessons that can have for us today. My simple answer is yes, he does and has, but it's not for me to decide."

Nonetheless, if you take a position on something or believe it is possible, you better be ready to back it up and explain it. If you entertain the possibility that it is God who judged Haiti and caused the earthquake, then you must be ready to answer the problems that arise with it. You cannot simply say 'It is God's judgment, who am I to decide anything?'. That is not acceptable. If you believe God did it, then you must answer the difficulties that have arisen in the questions we have brought up.  

Darrell

After reading the article and the postings here (except for one) I would ask are you people kidding me? To suggest that a city in Haiti is any more "sinful" than any of ours is laughable. So God is annoyed because these people practice voodoo? By all means destroy them all! /s

Earthquakes are random events and they happen because land plates move. Earthquakes have been going on for billions of years. We only take note of them if people happen to build close to fault lines with shoddy construction and loss of human life occurs. 

"The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This work only one Being in all the universe could do. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it known. Upon the world's dark night the Sun of Righteousness must rise, "with healing in His wings." Mal. 4:2."

Since it is by beholding that we are changed according to 2nd corinthians 3;18

 "18But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

 I'll go with Whites comments from Desire of ages.

The God that I know is a creator NOT a destroyer.

Salaam Alaaikum and Shalome

Peace to all people every where 

Jay Rasco

Ella M

That reminds me of what Graham Maxwell once said in a Bible class that in the great Lisbon earthquake the area where the brothels were located was spared while many churches were destroyed.  I like Luke 4:18 where Jesus says,"Those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew them, think that they were sinners above all that dwelt in Jerusalem?"

To say that God is responsible for tragedy sometimes called "acts of God" is as bad as saying that there is an everburning hell for sinners who suffer eternally for a few years of life on earth.  It makes for more atheists and is a false witness for the God I know.  However, this life is temporary and those who died in the Lord are better off than the suffering.  God knows it is temporary even if we don't feel it is.  He is also able to make good come out of what Satan meant for evil--Haiti will be open to the Gospel more than ever before and renounce Voodooism, and the world will see God's people from every faith come together to help.

Sodom and Gormorrah were destroyed after the angels led out His few people.  The other stories were determined by circumstances--Noah: the earth would be Satan's if God hadn't intervened to save the last remnant who knew Him. Otherwise there would be no communication left between heaven and earth and Satan would have won.

I think our church writings back this up in the already quoted: "Satan works through the elements also to garner his harvest of unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature, and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows. . . . Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. . . .  These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast."  GC 589--590.  This reminds me of what's happening now.

Maybe God will or has reluctantly destroyed some places, but I would say this is rare.  I don't know how to reconcile the above quote with the one about cities being destroyed. But God is love, and He is fair I take my stand on that. 

Please remember that along with its greedy and evil side, America is still often the first to come to the aid of those in need. It is hardly fair to denounce it in such extreme terms.

Ella M

Is it possible they weren't protected by God from Satan's destruction as much as if they had not been Voodoo worshippers?  God seems to withdraw from places that worship other gods as is seen throughout the Bible.  I tend to go with the concept that God's wrath is withdrawing His protection.  When He withdraws life, creatures die.

There is what is called "God's strange act" at the end of earth's present history where God does destroy unrepentent sinners who have chosen to reject Him and the Love He represents. 

Unlike the press or (I suspect) any of the Adventist Today readers, I was in the room with Pat Robertson when he spoke about the disaster in Haiti.  What he said was unremarkable to any serious student of the Bible.  First, he recounted the history of the Haitian people seeking freedom from slavery.  Then he recounted the fact that the people turned, in part, to Voodoo to help them escape slavery.  Then he recounted the series of disasters that have befallen the Haitian side of the island. 

 Who does not believe that following Christ makes for a better life? Pat Robertson's point (unremarkable for a minister of the gospel) was that people who follow Satan have problems in their life.  He did not attribute the earthquake to a judgment from God.  He simply noted the parallel between the questionable spiritual heritage of the island and the series of problems faced by the people over the decades.

Of most importance, is that he then said that the spiritual background of the people had nothing to do with our obligation as Christians to help them. Indeed, Pat Robertson not only had a medical container that had arrived on Haiti just before the earthquake, but his Operation Blessing has been sending medical supplies to Haiti for some time.

 He said nothing inappropriate.  And, far ahead of ANY of his critics, he has been and is doing something significant to help the Haitian people. 

After the San Francisco earthquake, our brethren in Signs of the Times had no trouble tying that horrific disaster to very specific things:

WARNING AND JUDGMENT.

A FEW weeks ago a servant of God delivered an important message to the people of an Eastern city. Among other things, he told them of the wickedness of San Francisco. Unlike Jonah, who loved not the Ninevites and would have evaded duty, this man, filled with the Holy Ghost, solicited the prayers and offerings of his brethren in behalf of a people among whom he had lived and labored, and who were endeared to him by the most sacred ties. ...

God is long-suffering, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and kindliest forbearance toward His erring children. But least of all will He tolerate presumptuous sin, and sinners are growing bolder and more defiant every day. Science, so called, unbelief, and sycophantic, half-hearted Christians may strive to eliminate Him from His works, and relieve Him of responsibility for His actions, but the Scriptures and the events of history will ever
confound and rebuke them. ...

The highest authority thus emphasizes the Father's solicitude and great love for His children. How then are we to reconcile these declarations of Omnipotence with the actions of that power that tossed and shook our stricken city until, first amazed, then in awful helplessness, she was borne to the ground in magnificent but terrible grandeur. Why were the ordinary safeguards—the water mains—destroyed? ...

Brother, the king of great Nineveh proclaimed a fast at the preaching of Jonah's sermon embodied in a single sentence of less than a dozen words. ... They laughed, jeered, and gibed. Representative bodies drew up resolutions: the press, and even some of the ministry, took Bishop Hamilton to task and almost threatened him in the discharge of duty divine. Nineveh humbled herself, repented, and was saved. San Francisco scoffed, and ere the ink was dry in the self-righteous editorial columns of a leading daily on that ever to be remembered morning of April 18, the beautiful city by the bay was plunged headlong to her doom.

T. R. Griffin in Signs of the Times, June 13, 1906. I take it that the Bishop Hamilton Griffin referred to was Methodist Bishop John W. Hamilton. (http://berkeleyheritage.com/eastbay_then-now/1907_churches.html).

As far as New Orleans goes, I think it too simplistic to concentrate on voodoo. We ought to remember that that single hurricane also took out a dozen casinos on the Mississippi coast, not to mention a thirteenth one in New Orleans itself. And New Orleans had a reputation for murder and corruption.

Lk. 13:1-5 is clear. We all must repent.

Many have looked down on the Jews and thought they have gotten what they deserved, forgetting that the Jews were but a symbol of all God's professed people down through time. The many tragedies that have befallen them are but an illustration of what shall befall us all, including the perpetrators of human-caused tragedies, if we do not repent. That is true regardless of whether a particular judgment be the result of the removal of God's protection or the result of His direct intervention.

And even those who have repented may be affected by judgments, as were Daniel and his friends when Jerusalem was destroyed, assuming they were faithful prior to their capture.

@ TruthWave

 "And what is the common link?  They are both have the dubious honor of being epicenters of a unique amalgamation of Voodoo/Roman Catholicism.  Go figure."

The common link? Surely it is that there were coffee shops in both places... Go figure!

This is a completely nonsensical argument.  If this chap is correct, then why are we helping the Haitian people??  Surely such actions would be in contravention of God's will.  

I think, if you were to correlate natural disasters to geographic area  you would find such assumptions by Wohlberg, of course, to be complete nonsense.

The fact that he has has a platform to speak such rubbish is is amazing to me.  It is akin to legitimizing such views.   

 This person should be ignored and left to the perils of anonymity. 

Gail Redberg College Place, WA

Sometimes I think that God must be desperate for someone, anyone to hand him an emesis basin so that he can spew out of his mouth the intolerance that he hears expressed among his children. I am shocked today to read these comments from fellow church members. I am ashamed that the words Seventh-Day Adventist Christians are attached to these sentiments.

To those of you who so easily debate the origins of this earthquake and cast blame on a whole population without once imagining yourself or your children in this I say Shame on You! I cannot believe that any of you have any empathy at all for little children who have been trapped for days under rubble with crushed limbs and no water, no mother to cool their parched tongue. For God's sake, think of your own children or grandchildren and how your heart would break to have them in that situation. Have you no conception at all of the loving nature of our God and how his heart must shatter at the misery he has witnessed?

 Never has anything made me angrier than this complete callousness toward humanity and desecration of the character of God. If this is what being a Seventh-day Adventist Christian is all about I am ready to have my name removed from the books.

Now in those last days what do you hear out of the remote Windischgarsten parish: Our priest has a new target - Haiti. The majority of them incredibly sinful, the majority of them Voodoo practitioners, the Divine Judgment just like in New Orleans, based on the same vice.

I am just curious : Windischgarsten is not on an earthquake line. What  will happen there ? 

It is true that throughout history God has been in the business of destroying people for their actions.  Some examples would be the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, what He would have done to Ninevah had they not repented, and the final destruction of the wicked at the end of time.  Those are clearly "acts of God" when He has had to respond to the wickedness of man's desire to follow Satan.  Total destruction was the result in each case.

But what about an earthquake, a hurricane, or an airplane crash?  While God may use these Satan-caused events to wake up His followers, must we attribute them to God?  How do you explain that many Seventh-day Adventists were killed in the quake?  Did they practice voodoo too?  Did God only allow the "bad" Adventists to be killed in the quake?  Is everyone that has ever been killed in a natural disaster lost (like the ones in the flood or Sodom)?  Or is it just possible that some of these things can only be explained in the context of the Great Controversy between Christ and Satan?

Here's the deal.  When we say God did these things and then go in to try to fix it, that makes us more compassionate than God.  That's just not true.  Sometimes we have to recognize a hard truth--in the battle that's going on between Christ and Satan, God sometimes has to allow things He does not desire. It's a hard reality but God does not always get His way.  Otherwise, no one would ever be lost.

It would be far better to use these events as a wakeup call that we need to always be ready because we simply do not know what might happen.  But to say God caused this to happen to Haiti because they were too wicked puts us in the indefensible position of judging God.

Pastor Stewart Pepper

www.lewisburgchurch.org

Ella M

I share your indignation at the idea of God causing the earthquake in Haiti. This is not what I learned in religion classes.

  I always wonder about the children under such circumstances.  But I believe they will have a special place in heaven and enjoy eternal life (see the metaphor of the richman and Lazarus--Lazarus was rewarded because of his suffering on earth). 

There is a satanic force more evil than we can imagine--but it will be destroyed, for God is more loving than we can possibly imagine.

Re: Steve Wohlberg.  I just returned from the Southwestern Union meeting of ASI, held in Gentry, Arkansas.  Steve Wohlberg was the featured speaker for the weekend, and he did a wonderful job.  His preaching is very Christ-centered and grace-centered, and it is clear that God is using Wohlberg in a powerful way.  I would not detract from Wohlberg's ministry, nor want anything said here to detract from it.