Natural Calamity – a warning sign
I greet you all in Jesus name! It’s quite good to see a lot of you come for service in spite of the rain and the damages incurred because of the rain. Not every Sunday is the same, today is special since we have come to worship God in the midst of the calamity. I know really what it is to be flooded inside the house cause my house had water for 3 days stagnated inside. I was desperately waiting for it to drain out and was earnestly praying that the rain should stop and God should have mercy on us. It was little too much since my daughter and my wife began crying not able to see the house flooded. With all these I and my wife were pondering the reason for such havoc and we concluded it is probably God’s doing in order that people will go to him, we were personally asking God for us to learn from this incident. I was reading through the scriptures and I came across this verse in Amos 3:6 (“ When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?”) which came in as the answer for the question. I knew it was God’s work and we had to learn from it.
This morning I want to bring in 3 important lessons that we can learn from this calamity…
1. Intercession:
2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
The Lord wants us to intercede for others since we are all called by His name. The Lord wants us to humble ourselves before Him, and he wants us to turn from our wicked ways. If all of us as believers would pray earnestly the Lord will bless the land since we have asked for it.
If we read the newspaper in the morning, it has at least details of one crime taken place in the city. Talks big about opinions on gay marriage and freedom of sexual practices, all these are an abomination to the Lord, and the Lord detests all these. Celebrities comment on these issues and it is taken as serious opinion since our people have a strong hero worship. Sometimes even Christians and believers practice Yoga and propagate as a remedy to weight loss. Therefore it is the bound duty of few real committed believers to pray on behalf of these perishing people so that the land is blessed and healed. We read in Genesis a similar account where Abraham prays to God if there be one righteous person will the land be spared and the Lord was willing to spare them, unfortunately there was none. Remember Jonah he went to preach to the Ninevites, the entire nation including the animals went in for fasting and praying and the land was delivered. As a church let us pray that the wickedness in the city would be gone and we will uphold the city in our prayers every day. The Lord will hear us when we pray.
2. Introspection:
Psalm 139:23, 24
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
The second lesson that we have to learn is to introspect – to look within. We never forget to look at ourselves in the mirror before we leave the house. Even when we park the vehicle in the parking space, we make sure that our hair is done and our makeup is perfect. In a similar manner the Lord wants us to look within to see if there be anything that is displeasing to God and that has to be set right. Psalmist David asks the Lord to put the search light and check for the unwanted things. He even goes on to say that his thoughts need to be checked. Many number of times we have taken everything for granted, we need to examine our motives, maybe we have been very active in church then and not now or we used to read the bible for hours together, now we do not have time we are busy caught up with many things. We used to tithe then but now we thought that the church has more money and your tithe will not make any significant impact. Sometimes we feel it is Sunday and the only day to sleep a little more and we walk to the sanctuary late never intimidated by that, we find excuses if asked about late coming. We have started taking the things of the Lord very light. My dear friends the calamity is a check point for us – a warning sign for us to implement some serious change. So let there be – a deep looking within this morning for everyone of us.
3. Individual Intensification:
Psalm 119:170
May my supplication come before you; deliver me according to your promise.
Our God is a God of covenants, what He promises He will faithfully do it. The deliverance for us is according to His promises. The Bible tells us that the promises of God are yeah and amen in Christ Jesus, heaven and earth might be gone but His word would still remain. So these are times where our frustration and worry will make us strengthen our relationship with God. It is the apt time to remember His promises and hold to them very dearly and firmly. Because the word of God tells us that – we will not be put to shame if we have put our trust in HIM. Go home and read through the promise that the Lord had given you. In the beginning of the year the Lord promised me that He will be with me according to Matthew 28:20, and very truly He has been with me in spite of the flood and there were no damages to any of the household articles and not even sickness because of the sudden dramatic change of the environment, that is the level of His faithfulness.
Never lose heart, calamities are a blessing for the believers, whereas it is a disaster for them that do not believe the Lord and it is our duty to pray for them and lead them to the Lord. God bless you. Amen.
