WHY DISASTERS?   DFO959   26/11/80
--Is Death a Curse or a Blessing?

         1. ONE OF THE GREATEST QUESTIONS THAT HAS PLAGUED THE WORLD FOR AGES IS "WHY DISASTERS?" Why earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, wars & famines that wipe out tens of thousands of people.--Why?--And why does it so often seem to strike the poor & the needy & the helpless & children & the innocent?
         2. Well, in order to understand the problem & know the answer, you must believe in God & His love & His faithfulness & His righteousness, goodness, mercy, justice & fairness. Then you know there's got to be an answer, a good answer, why He has to do this or allow it to happen.
         3. If you have total confidence in the future & in a future better life after death, then you can certainly understand why God, even in His mercy, would take thousands of people out of this horrible World & their suffering & pain & agony & oppression & poverty caused by man himself & his own sins. When they get to the point where they're possibly suffering beyond endurance, He releases them & takes them into a better World!
         4. The thing is, people have difficulty getting over this habit of considering death a complete curse, that it's awful that all these tens of thousands of people should be killed in great disasters. Well, it's not awful!--Death is not a curse for them, it's a blessing!--A mere gateway, an entrance to a better life in which they'll be relieved of all this.
         5. THEREFORE GREAT DISASTERS THAT SWEEP THOUSANDS OF LIVES INTO THE NEXT ARE UNDOUBTEDLY IN SOME WAY GOOD FOR THE PEOPLE INVOLVED. For many it will be a release from the agony & the punishment & the pain--like Lazarus the beggar who begged at the rich man's door & the dogs licked his sores.
         6. The Lord says he suffered his HERE & HAD his evil things HERE, but in the afterlife he's going to have his good things. Whereas the selfish rich man had his good things here & he was going to suffer for his sins in the afterlife. (Lk.16:25)--God is just & God is thorough & "every man will be rewarded according to his works" & his sins. (Ps.62:12; Jer.17:10; Mt.16:27; 2Cor.5:10; Rev.2:23; 20:13; 22:12)
         7. Certainly not EVERYBODY deserves the same KIND or AMOUNT of punishment or the same severity of judgement as do the worst of sinners. Many simply never heard about the Gospel or Jesus, didn't know about His Love & were ignorant of their Master's will. So God probably has as varied terms & means of punishment & correction in the afterlife as there are in this life.
         8. He makes a DIFFERENCE between FEW stripes & MANY stripes.--But whether few or many, they all come to an end. There comes a time when the sinner has paid for his sins, when they have received enough to have accomplished God's purpose to cause them to see the Light, be sorry, & change. And from what God has shown us, we're even to pray for them that they will repent in the afterlife & be spared from further retribution & punishment.
         9. So God is just, God is loving, God is pure, God is holy, God is perfect, & everything will work out perfectly in the long run. There will be perfect judgement & punishment for the wicked, & perfect reward for the righteous & the believer & the one who obeyed the Lord.
         10. SO WHY WEEP FOR THOSE WHO HAVE GONE ON TO THE NEXT LIFE? They're the blessed ones! But those who didn't die, who still stay behind, are still having to suffer in order to learn what life is all about. Because suffering does one of three things:
         11. It purifies & humbles & cleanses the saved & draws us even closer to God; it turns some of the unsaved to God, brings some of the wicked to repentance & salvation as in their suffering they cry unto the Lord; & then the totally unrepentant, renegade or utterly wicked, it causes them to curse God all the more & therefore be all the more deserving of His judgements.
         12. So it's for the millions who still LIVE that we need to pray & whom we need to reach with the Gospel & the Love of Christ & the Message of Salvation & His forgiveness & happiness.--The living dead, who can still be saved here & now & miss all that!
         13. SO TO US WHO BELIEVE, IT'S OBVIOUS WHAT GOD IS DOING IN THESE DISASTERS: He's either punishing the wicked, or releasing the righteous out of this evil life--or both! Because the works of God are good & not evil! They may appear to some people to be evil, but even so-called evil is good if God is in it.
         14. No matter what happens, what great disasters befall the poor & the meek, "they shall inherit the Earth"! (Mt.5:5) And those who die, if they were good & did the best they knew how, they're better off & out of the suffering & agony of this World. Amen?--Which are you?

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