2 years ago I came back there was a tsunami. This year there is flood in 6 states of Malaysia and Sumatra and earthquake at grandparents’ home in Taiwan. I don’t know what does God wants to show me from these incidents. I feel painful toward the victims, or the world. There are people suffering around, and there were people celebrating Christmas as they do not know anything. I feel pathetic toward both crowds. I could not do anything except begging for God’s mercy. I feel the urgency: something has to be done as soon as possible; there is no time to be wasted. If something you can do, don’t wait until tomorrow. For the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him, be watchful and keep praying, do not act like the ignorant.Jesus answered, “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ, and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains...
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come… Now one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen till the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of Son of Man… Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. (Matthew 24)
There is one thing I have not yet understood. If God is sovereign over all these disasters, and has predestined the salvation of His people, how should I pray? Should I pray that the gospel would be preached to the whole world? But Jesus said it will. Should I pray for the salvation of the people? Should I pray that God will take away the disasters? Or I should ignore everything as if there is nothing happen because God is sovereign? These questions have been bothering me…
2 comments:
May God Bless you all...
Painful experiences and painful questions. There's no doubt that God's sovereignty should give us great boldness and confidence in our serving of Christ during difficult times, but often we loose sight of that don't we! In the Lord's Prayer Jesus taught us to pray for things which will definitely come to pass... "May your kingdom come". That's a certainty, but we align ourselves with God's desires when we make them our own as well. We pray that God will grant repentance, because he has the power to do so. We pray that God will have mercy on our world and relieve it of it's suffering, but more urgently that people will turn to Christ and be saved from God's final judgement. I admire your honestly in wrestling with these issues. Thanks for sharing.
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