Katrina/Rita: Mother Nature or Father God? #1

Introduction: Katrina and Rita, Children of Mother Nature or Father God?

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, September 25th, 2005, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:13 The two most frequently heard and used women's names during the past three plus weeks are Katrina and Rita. The designated names of the two devastating hurricanes that have ravaged many parts of the Gulf Coast region of our nation. And I want to preach to you this morning on the subject, Katrina and Rita, children of Mother Nature or of Father God. Which are they and why were they born?

0:58 Katrina. Katrina and Rita, children of Mother Nature or of Father God. Which are they and why were they born? And at the outset, let me say several things which must be said in taking up a subject that involves massive measures of human tragedy and extensive human deprivation.

1:30 Hardly. Hardly. And loss. To speak of such things in a detached and clinical way, albeit even biblical, is nothing short of ungodliness.

1:44 For the God we know and worship as revealed in Jesus Christ is the God who, when he beheld several thousands of people hungry because they had followed him and attended to his ministry for several days, the scripture, the scripture says, seeing them in that state, he was moved with compassion. His bowels were stirred as he looked upon human need. The God we worship is the one who had compassion upon children and cattle in a wicked city called Nineveh. And he rebukes a pouting prophet who does not share his heart of compassion. And he rebukes a pouting prophet who does not share his heart of compassion for those children and for those cattle. And I trust that what I say and how I say it will, by the grace of God, in some measure reflect the compassionate heart of our God. However, not to speak of these things for fear that one will speak of them in a way that is deficient in compassion and empathy.

3:01 And not to make. an attempt to put these events into a sound biblical perspective is to do a grave injustice both to saint and to sinner. It is to leave the people of God vulnerable to being confused or brainwashed by the glut of aggressive secular comment on these events that have captured our national mind and spirit. It is to fail to be faithful to the souls of those who are strangers to God's saving grace, a failure for which any servant of God will give an account in the last day. For the God revealed in Jesus Christ is not only the God who is moved with compassion in the face of human tragedy, but he is the God who used two tragic current events to be the springboard for the end of the world. The springboard of addressing sinners pointedly and earnestly with their need to repent before they faced an even worse tragedy. And I'm referring to Luke chapter 13 verses 1 to 5 in which our Lord Jesus makes reference to two current events of a tragic nature. A tower fell upon 18 people

4:20 and killed them. And then others in the very act of worship were slain, brutally murdered, and our Lord uses those events not to be insensitive, but to use them as a springboard of entreating others to come to repentance before they face a worse tragedy. Come then, and with a heart moved by the manifold tragedies of the events surrounding Katrina and Rita, put your mind in gear and think with me as we consider the subject. Katrina and Rita, children of Mother Nature or of Father God, which are they and why were they born? As is generally true of my preaching, I have three headings in addressing this theme. Number one, ours is a world under the sovereign control of God at all times, in all places, and with respect to all things. If this Bible teaches us anything, from its opening

Ours is a World Under the Sovereign Control of God

5:39 words, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, it teaches us that there is nothing in those heavens and in that earth and beneath it that God does not sovereignly control at all times, in all places, and with respect to all things. The general, all-embracing affirmations of this fact are found in both the Old and the New Testaments. They are set forth by prophets, historians, by poets, and apostles. The vivid illustrations of this fact are found in the narrative or historical books of the Old Testament, in the Gospels, in the Book of the Acts, and in the Holy Gospel. These are heartbreaking images that impinge upon our minds and are meant to awaken our imaginations in the Book of the Revelation. Consider with me just a sampling of the sweeping affirmations that ours is a world under the sovereign control of God at all times, in all places, and in all things. These verses are simply a sampling from the Old and the New Testaments.

6:58 First of all, the Old and the New Testaments are a sampling of the Old and the New Testaments. These are just a sampling of the Old and the New Testaments. in Psalm 115 and verse 3, contrasting the one true and living God with those things that are not God's, the idols of men. The psalmist writes, but, Psalm 115 and verse 3, our God is in the heavens. He has done whatsoever he pleased. As an unrivaled sovereign in his world, whatever God pleases to do, he does. He accomplishes all of the purposes and designs of his heart and of his mind, and there is no power, no force in heaven, earth, or under the earth that can withstand the accomplishment of that purpose. He is in the heavens as the absolute monarch of the universe. He does whatsoever he pleases.

7:59 Daniel sets this before us, or I should say Nebuchadnezzar, the pagan king who is taught this lesson at great personal cost. In Daniel 4 and verse 35, Nebuchadnezzar confesses, all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing, and he, the one true and living God, does according to his will in the army of heaven. That is, among all the inhabitants of the earth, all the heavenly hosts, good and evil, and among the inhabitants of the earth, good and evil, and none can stay his hand. None can slap God's hand. The marginal reading is, none can strike his hand. You have a little child that begins to reach out for something and say, no, you're not to touch that, and you strike the back of his hand. None can strike God's hand and say, you're not to do that. None can stay or strike his hand or say to him, What are you doing? Ours is a world under the sovereign control of God at all times

9:07 and in all places and in all of the things that angels and demonic powers are given leave to do. His will is accomplished in them and through them. What armies are able to do in rescuing the needy or in wantonly slaughtering the innocent, God is accomplishing his will not only among the armies of heaven, but all of the inhabitants of the earth. And there is none that can strike his hand or say unto him, What are you doing?

9:42 And then when we turn to the New Testament, we have that sweeping declaration at the end of Romans chapter 11, after the apostle has demonstrated how God has sovereignly disposed and dispensed his grace through the nations. For generations keeping his covenant blessings locked in primarily to the nation of Israel and now setting them aside so that those covenant blessings in Jesus Christ may go to all nations and yet still leaving open that any Jew that repents can be wrapped back into that olive tree of covenant blessing and after dealing with these sovereign dispositions of God among the nations in conjunction with the call of God's own hearts to regarded God and to God's will not beуйed in any of these nations. When those nations arrive, being Sparkling, to out of his elect from Jew and Gentile alike, the apostle, as it were, throws up his hands in worship and praise, and says in Romans 11.33, O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor? Who has first given

10:54 to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and unto him are all things. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

11:10 What words could be more sweeping? Of him, that is, out from the purposes and counsels and will of his own infinite mind, and through him in his sovereign governance of all men and women, and through him in his sovereign governance of all men, and through him in his sovereign governance of all men, and all things, at all times, in all places, with respect to all things, of him, through him, and now unto him, ultimately, resulting in God giving glory to himself, are all things. Katrina and Rita, things in God's world, frightening, terrifying, devastating things. But are you ready, am I ready, to say all things, and then put a parenthesis, except the tragedy, the heartache, the devastation, the death, the hardship, flowing out of these horrible, quote, natural disasters? No, our Bibles will not allow us to do it, my dear brothers and sisters. For of him, through him, and unto him are all things, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. And then the well-known words of

12:25 Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 1, where the apostle has been laying out the marvelous salvation that is the possession of believing people in Christ. And as he comes toward the close of that opening paragraph, in which he praises the triune God and focuses on the various aspects of the work of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, in that salvation, notice how he describes this God in verse 11 of Ephesians 1, in whom also we were made a heritage. Having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who works, not just salvation, but who works all things after the counsel of his will. All things are worked out according to the counsel of his own will. These, I say, are some of those general, all-embracing affirmations that ours is indeed a world under the sovereign control of God at all times, in all places, and in all things. However, we are also given specific affirmation with reference to the events of wind, of rain, and of flood. God gets specific and says, if you miss the message,

13:51 or if you are reluctant to place these devastating natural disasters into the world, then you are in the orbit of my all-encompassing sovereignty. Let me accommodate myself to your weak faith and affirm it in spades. Turn to the little book of Nahum, the book of Nahum, the prophecy of Nahum. And in the first chapter, we have this profound affirmation, unmistakable in its significance, the book of Nahum, Jonah, Micah, Nahum. Nahum chapter 1.

14:33 Verse 2. The Lord is a jealous God and avenges. The Lord avenges as if full of wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserves wrath for his enemies. Now look at the contrast. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will by no means clear the guilty. Now here's our statement. The Lord has his way in the whirlwind of the wind.

15:03 And in the storm and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry and dries up the rivers. The Lord has his way in the whirlwind, the tornado, the hurricane, the windstorm. He has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm. And the clouds are the dust of his feet. And back to Psalm 135. Psalm 135, where we have another explicit affirmation of his sovereignty in conjunction with what we call these natural disasters. Psalm 135, verse 5. I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods, whatsoever the

15:58 Lord pleased. That has he done in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and in all the deeps. Here God is affirming that this is his world. He is in sovereign control in all places, at all times, in all things. Whatsoever he pleased, he has done in heaven, in earth, in seas, and deeps. But now notice how the psalmist gets specific. Who causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. Oh, wait a minute. We know why the seas give up their moisture and form the clouds. We are informed people. We know the meteorological processes. Ah, yes, but who's established them? Who causes them to continue to operate? And who can intervene in them in the manner

16:51 of their operation? It is the God who causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. Furthermore, who makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind, out of his treasuries? Ah, yes, we have instruments to measure. Category 2, now Category 3. The winds have moved up from 120 miles an hour to 140. And what are they but the manifestation of what God is bringing out of his treasure? Our Bibles will not allow us to think in any other framework than this, that ours is a world under the sovereign control of God. God at all times, in all places, and in all things.

17:44 And then, amazingly, if we turn back to Psalm 29, the psalm which we sang in our second praise this morning, here the psalmist writes this psalm in celebration of the manifestation of the glory and power in a Middle Eastern storm. One likes to think of him standing there and penning this psalm as he sees this out-breaking, unending, unending, unending breaking of the mighty power of God, the voice of the Lord being powerful, verse 4, the voice of the Lord breaking the cedars, all of this. But then the conclusion is verse 10. The Lord sat as king at the flood. The Lord sits as king forever. What is the greatest natural disaster that has ever visited this world? The greatest. These recent, we are told, are the most devastating ever to visit. It was the flood that took away all but eight souls. And it's interesting, in this passage,

18:52 the only other place the Hebrew word for flood is used is in Genesis 6-11 with respect to the flood of Noah. Other places where the psalmist speaks of flood and floods, but he doesn't use this word. It is a word limited to that horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible thing. It's the holocaust of God blocking out the entire human race, save eight souls. And the psalmist celebrates that the Lord sat as king over the flood. He opened up the fountains of the deep. He opened up the heavens. He sat as king, sovereignly disposing the waters of the earth to cover that earth to the mountaintops. In the light of this foundational fact of

19:43 this gospel, the Lord sat as king over the flood. The Lord sat as king over the flood. reality. Should we not be offended when people speak of mother nature has dealt us a severe blow? I wouldn't be very enamored with such a mother. Furthermore, what ground of comfort do the saints have if there is no all-embracing sovereignty of God as revealed in Jesus? Further, when we hear as I did one meteorologist saying, you know, these hurricanes seem to have a mind of their own. Do you see what that meteorologist is saying? He's attributing to brute forces a human attribute. Do you see what he's doing? He's ruling God out of his world.

20:33 Had he said something like this, there is a governing power that often overrides the predictable movements of these hurricanes, I would have said, amen. And you know who that governing power is, according to Romans 1. It is God revealing himself in the depths of your consciousness, and you're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. But to give a human attribute to impersonal forces and say these hurricanes have a mind of their own. As one man said, and I heard it years ago, the laws of nature are very, very, very, very, very, very, very, God's ordinary footprints as he makes his way in the world that he has made. The laws of nature are God's ordinary footprints as he makes his way through his world. But he is the sovereign over his ordinary footprints. He sits as king over the flood. He sits as sovereign Lord,

21:36 determining all events in all places at all. Sometimes. Katrina and Rita, daughters of Mother Nature or of Father God? Which? The answer of the Bible is clear. With all the problems that may bring to us at the emotional level, at the most visceral level of our being as humans who feel with fellow humans, we must without embarrassment say, Jehovah. That is king over Katrina and over Rita. He birthed them, not innocuous Mother Nature.

Ours is a World Under the Righteous Curse of God Because of Man's Sin

22:27 Then the second thing that we must come to grips with afresh, nothing new, but we need to come back to our reference points. Not only is ours a world under the sovereign control of God at all times, in all places, and in all things. But secondly, ours is a world under the right, just curse of God because of man's sin. Ours is a world under the righteous curse of God because of man's sin. When God completed the work of the original creation, he looked upon it and pronounced it all very good. Genesis 1 and verse 31 uses those very words. God saw everything he had made, and behold, it was very good, very good. And in that original creation, as God established those laws by which he would make his way through his world ordinarily while still maintaining lordship over them, in that cosmos there were no typhoons, no drought, no floods, no earthquakes, no Katrina.

23:44 Noreutilism. But this present world is not what it once was. It is not what it once was. For after man's sin, when God comes to the woman, to the man, and to the serpent, God says to the man in verse 17 of Genesis 3, And unto Adam he said, Because you hearken to the voice of your wife, and eat in the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for your sake.

24:19 In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and unto dust you shall return. Cursed is the ground for your sake.

24:43 On account of you, Adam, I look upon my earth, which was all very good, and now there is going to be much that is very bad. Until we come to the book of Romans in chapter 8, and the apostle Paul is setting before believers the glorious hope of resurrection, life, bodily resurrection as the consummation of their redemption, and he says all of the sufferings of the present time are not, ready to be compared with the glory that will be ours when the Lord returns, and we are given these deathless resurrected bodies, in which will be our sinless spirits or souls. And he says something very interesting in Romans 8 in verse 19, For the earnest expectation of the creation, the created order, is waiting for this revealing of the sons of God. All of creation is, is waiting for God's consummate work of redemption in man. Why? Because the ground was cursed for man's sake, and when the curse is fully lifted from man, it will be fully lifted from the earth.

25:57 Man and the earth stand and fall together, and when God at last will stand man fully upright in his glorified body, with his sinless spirit inhabiting that body, there will be a release of the curse, and it rests upon the created order. Verse 20, For the creation was subjected to vanity, to futility, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. Here is the picture that the entire cosmos, the created order, is in bondage of corruption, and it awaits, the release that will come when full redemption comes to the people of God. Verse 22, For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.

27:02 Those levies that burst were the groans of a cursed created order.

27:12 The cries of little children, where is mommy? And parents separated from their children. The servants, the servants, the servants, and the surging waters before which men were helpless with all of their technology. What are these?

27:26 They are not the groans of the pains of death, but they're the groans and the pains of birth.

27:35 There's something with this whole world.

27:39 And every Katrina, and every Rita, and every tsunami, and all of its destruction, these are the birth pangs of a world that is not now what it once was, but is now. It shall be something glorious when God completes His work of redemption.

28:02 And it's coming. We need to think biblically. Why do these things happen in the present order? Because ours is not only a world under the sovereign control of God at all times, in all places, with respect to all things, but ours is a world under the righteous curse of God, because of man's sin.

28:27 And Jesus, in all His tenderness and His sympathy for human suffering, said to His own disciples in Mark 13, verses 7 and 8, In this period before His return, these things will be part and parcel of ordinary human experience. Mark chapter 13, verses 7 and 8. And when you hear, When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don't be troubled. These things must, needs come to pass.

29:03 But the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes in diverse places. There shall be famines. These things are the beginning of travail.

29:22 We need to be biblical realists. And all of this talk, if the government will only do what it can do, if the government will only get its act together, we can insulate ourselves from what Jesus said these things must be. Now, that doesn't mean we are careless and insensitive and indifferent to proper measures of self. I am not saying that. I'm not that stupid.

29:50 Please, don't charge me with that. But what I'm saying is that this view, that man can, by his own strength, in the present age, rectify and preserve himself from all these things, is atheistic, godless, and unbiblical.

30:09 And we as God's people need to be determined that we will think biblically. This is a world under the curse, the righteous curse of God, because of man's sin. God has told us that such things as Katrina and Rita, are part and parcel of a cursed world. It doesn't mean necessarily that these tragedies indicate that those who were affected directly are more sinful than others.

30:37 Remember Luke 13. Jesus said, Do you think that those on whom the tower fell are more sinful than the rest of you? Don't think that. Except you repent, you'll perish.

30:45 Do you think that those people who were in the act of worship and Herod's soldiers came in and killed them, they were more sinful? He said, Don't think that way, except you repent, you'll perish. I am not sick. Some may, think they can play prophets and say, the inundation of New Orleans was a judgment of God in a special way because of the accumulated sinfulness of that city.

31:07 I'm not prepared to say that. Not when I live in the greater New York metropolitan area.

31:16 Point a finger for them for that, and then I wonder what God might do to us. No, I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is that these things are indicative of the fact that this is a cursed world. And just as God's reign falls on just and unjust in proper measure to bring blessing, so when it falls in excessive measures and brings cursing, it falls on just and unjust alike.

31:44 That's part and parcel of this present world order. You may not like it. You may not think it ought to be that way. But friends, reality is an awfully hard thing to live with when you try to deny it.

God's Multiple Purposes for His Own in Unusual Visitations

31:58 All right. Ours is a world under the righteous curse of God because of man's sin. But now we come thirdly to what will form the bulk of our study this morning. Ours is a world not only under the sovereign control of God, under the curse of God, but ours is a world in which God has multiple purposes folded into his unusual visitations upon the physical world.

32:28 Let me give it to you again. Ours is a world. Ours is a world. Ours is a world.

32:29 Ours is a world. Ours is a world. Ours is a world. Ours is a world.

32:30 Ours is a world. Ours is a world. Ours is a world. Ours is a world in which God has multiple purposes folded into his unusual visitations upon the physical world.

32:41 When tsunamis come with their devastation spread over hundreds of miles, volcanoes erupt and spew out lava that buries cities, when tornadoes rip through the countryside sucking up houses, sucking up land, sucking up people and depositing them far away from the place where they were sucked into the vortex of that tornado, when hurricanes leave a city buried in water and make it nothing but a great lake of floating debris, the God who orders and superintends these events has manifold purposes folded into them, purposes both for his own and for the unconscious. He eternally cares for the perpetrators who SaubonCenter promised a witness 5 purposes that God has towards his own in such events and five purposes that he has towards the unconverted merely suggestive, not exhaustive I want you to begin to think theocentrically What is God doing? What is God purposing? In our Bibles open before

34:03 Laying our tracks to move along those tracks so that we can think biblically, we can pray biblically, we can hope and expect biblically. First of all, then, some of the purposes of God for his own redeemed children enfolded in Katrina and Rita, his daughters.

34:25 Not Mother Nature's daughters, but his daughters. His frowning daughters, his not-so-pleasant daughters. But we want to look together and see if we can discover from our Bibles some of the purposes of God for his own redeemed children enfolded in Katrina and Rita's aprons. And in this connection, we start with the obvious.

Purpose 1: To Advance Conformity to and Love for Christ

34:51 Number one, he purposes to advance their conformity to Jesus Christ and their love for their Savior. Number two, the child of God. The child of God who was in the midst of the devastation, who may have suffered great personal loss of the lives of loved ones, of all his or her possessions, of present state of health and well-being, whatever the devastation may be, short of death. And that's obvious.

35:24 His gracious purpose is to give to Jesus what he prays for. Every true believer who was swept away into death by Katrina or Rita, Jesus got the answer to his prayer. In John 17, 24. Father, I will that those whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.

35:46 Jesus got his prayer answered, and they've entered into their highest joy. Joys they would never know had not a drop of rain fallen upon New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. That's obvious. But now I want to come to things perhaps not so obvious.

36:02 His purpose for his own is first to advance their conformity to Jesus Christ. His purpose for his own is first to advance their conformity to Jesus Christ. His purpose for his own is first to advance their conformity to Jesus Christ. Now what is God's great purpose in redemption?

36:10 Now what is God's great purpose in redemption? Is it to keep us in a tickled heel, clicking, jumping, shouting, 32 toothed grin, happy state all the time? No, that's not his great purpose in redemptive grace. No, that's not his great purpose in redemptive grace.

36:26 His great purpose is set out in Romans 8 and verse 29. His great purpose is set out in Romans 8 and verse 29. For whom he that is loved before God, For whom he that is loved before God, beforehand set his saving purpose upon them, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he, Jesus, might be the firstborn among many brethren. All of those upon whom God has set his saving love, before they had any existence in space and time, his foreordained predestined purpose was that when he's done with them, they will reflect perfectly the moral likeness of Jesus.

37:11 They will perfectly love what he loves, hate what he hates. Their inner graces will be conformed to his inner graces. The outward expressions of those graces will be perfectly conformed. All of his patience, all of his gentleness, all of his kindness, all of his love will be perfectly, though not fully, expressed as they are in the divine human Son of God.

37:36 But perfectly conformed to the Son. And so what has God done? You remember with our Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, there was an aspect of his character in which he desperately wanted something that it was not sinful to want.

38:00 Remember? If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Three times he prayed. Was it sinful for him?

38:10 Was it sinful for him to desire to avoid encountering the unleashed fury of the Father's wrath and to experience vicarious hell on behalf of his people? No. It was not sinful for Jesus to pray, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. It would have been sinful for him not to pray that way.

38:35 For him to have walked with head high and no sense of dread into the... The fury of divine wrath would have been the height of impiety.

38:45 He sees the gathering storm of divine wrath and he says, Oh, my Father, if it be possible, don't let it break upon me. But, but, but, nevertheless, not my will but yours be done. And it was in that embrace of the will of God, even in circumstances that it was not sinful to desire to avoid, that we see the beauty of our Lord's posture as the suffering servant, as the one committed to do the Father's will, no matter what it cost to him.

39:25 And you see what God can do? Dear believers throughout the Gulf Coast, when Katrina was making its way, when Rita was making its way, having done everything possible to protect themselves and their children and their earthly possessions, was it wrong for them to pray, Oh, my Father, if it please you, turn the hurricane and let it go out and spend itself over the ocean? If it please you, Lord, reduce the force of the winds, restrain the rain. If possible, Lord, was it wrong to pray that way?

40:02 No. But when God didn't do it, and they have to come back and see their home and all their possessions, a pile of rubble, and they're able to say, Oh, Father, not my will, but yours be done. They are being made like Jesus. Like Jesus.

40:27 Being brought to a level of embracing the will of the Father against what it is not sinful to desire.

40:36 And it's in that kind of crucible that we come to new levels of conformity to Christ. Without such circumstances, I wonder if we really know what it is. To be conformed to the image of the Son of God. It's the same thing you experience when you stand or kneel by the deathbed of a loved one.

41:04 You say, Oh, God, if it please you, heal me. Don't take them.

41:16 Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Hold it into the fury of Katrina and into the raging of reason. God has this purpose to advance the conformity. Conformity to Christ among his own, and he alone can measure how he's doing it.

41:38 And not only their conformity to Christ, but their love to Christ. Who knows how many a Christian is looking upon rubble and saying, Oh, Lord Jesus, my hands and my heart were wrapped upon the things that are now rubble. I have nothing now but you. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for stripping all the rivals to your love away from me.

42:02 That I might love you supremely. That I might love you more purely. And they will be able to say with the psalmist, It's good for me that I have been afflicted. Before I was afflicted, I went astray.

42:17 But now I observe your word. And who knows how many a believer will have his or her first love to Christ rekindled, standing amidst rubble, and be able to bless God that once again Christ, has the proper place in his or her heart. Secondly, God has folded into Katrina and Rita for his own, not only the purpose of greater conformity to and love for Christ, but secondly, to make his own more heavenly minded. To make his own people more heavenly minded.

Purpose 2: To Make His Own More Heavenly Minded

42:59 The Bible describes us, if we're two Christians, as strangers, sojourners. Those who have here no abiding place. We're living in tents. And as I had occasion to say in another situation some time ago, we ought to view our passports as stamped with a visa for earth.

43:23 But our true homeland is heaven. But so often we live just the opposite. We have our passports that say passport of earth, with visa for heaven, right to go there. But my true dwelling place is here.

43:37 No! It isn't! When I travel abroad with that blue passport, it says on the outside, it's a U.S. passport.

43:45 That's my dwelling. And there'll be a stamp on the inside that I can go into Pakistan for two or three weeks, or I can go into the Philippines. I'm just there as a visitor. We're here as visitors, folks.

43:56 Our home is there. And so often it's things that tether us, and get us all mixed up with respect to our identity. I want you to turn with me to another key passage, Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10.

44:12 The writer to the Hebrews, verse 32, says, Call to remembrance the former days, in which after you were enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly being made a gazing stock, both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly becoming partakers with them that were so used. For you both had compassion on them that were in bonds. Now look at this part. And took joyfully the spoiling, of your possessions.

44:42 And how did they do that? Knowing. You took knowing. You took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession, and an abiding one.

44:58 It's when they saw the stuff that was temporary and non-abiding gone, that that which was permanent, that which was not temporary, and for all, was precious to their hearts. You took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing.

45:23 And I'm persuaded there's many a Christian throughout the Gulf Coast who had forgotten in great measure his or her true homeland, for whom things and stuff had become altogether too much glued to their fingers and to the tentacles of the heart. And God said, I want to wean you. I want to wean you. I want to wean you so that you begin to enjoy your true abiding place and your true possessions, and will be brought to the place where through their tears, it will be said of them, they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods because they knew and presently remembered their true identity, their true destiny, and their true and lasting possessions in Christ. And they will bless God. I am persuaded that there will be Christians in days to come who will bless God for the devastation that loosed them and made them more heavenly minded. Thirdly, God has folded into Katrina and Rita for his own, not only to bring them to greater conformity, to Christ and love for Christ,

Purpose 3: To Make Them the Occasion of Shutting the Devil's Mouth

46:50 to make them more heavenly minded, but in the third place, to make them the occasion of shutting the devil's mouth. To make them the occasion of shutting the devil's mouth. You know what I'm referring to, don't you? The book of Job.

47:06 The book of Job.

47:09 And in the first chapter of Job, we read these words.

47:15 Verse 6. Came to pass on a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan came among them. And there's this dialogue between Satan and Jehovah. And God says to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job?

47:30 And what's Satan's answer? Verse 9. Satan answered Jehovah and said, Does Job fear God for nothing?

47:40 You really think he fears you because of who you are? In yourself? Worthy to be feared? Worthy to be loved?

47:47 Worthy to be honored and obeyed? God, you don't know. I'm on the inside track. Have you not made a hedge?

47:53 Have you not made a hedge about him and about his house and all that he has? On every side, you have blessed the work of his hands. His substance is increased. Put forth your hand.

48:03 Touch all that he has and he'll renounce you to your face. The devil accuses Job of being a mercenary Christian.

48:12 A rice Christian. He's only attached to you, God, for what you do for him and what you give to him.

48:20 And God says, I'll shut your mouth. So the Lord says unto Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power, only upon himself. Don't put forth your hand. Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.

48:32 And then you know the rest of the story. How in one day, his family of ten children is taken. All of his goods and possessions are taken. And when Job hears the report, verse 20 of chapter 1, Job arose, rent his robe, shaved his head, fell down upon the ground and worshipped.

48:51 And he said, Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked I'll return thither. The Lord gave. The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord in all this.

49:04 Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

49:10 The devil's mouth was shut, at least for a time.

49:16 Isn't it a marvelous thing to think that God becomes a taking God to shut the devil's mouth? And I'm convinced that the devil's mouth is shut. I'm convinced, if we're thinking biblically, because the Bible describes the devil not simply once in this capacity of accuser, but that's one of his generic terms in Revelation 12 in verse 10, now is the accuser of the brethren cast out. That's part and parcel of his persona.

49:48 He's constantly accusing brethren in the theater of their own conscience and before the throne of God. And who knows? Who knows how many of God's precious children who were sitting pretty upon a lot of stuff, the devil was saying to God, God, look at that one. Yeah, sure, look what you gave to him.

50:09 Look what you've done for him. You've put a hedge around him. He's got a good fat retirement account. He's sitting in that lovely home, and all his kids are healthy, and all his grandchildren surround him.

50:19 He doesn't fear you for who you are. He's not loving you for what he's discovered of your inherent beauty as revealed in the face of the devil. He's not loving you for what he's discovered of your inherent beauty as revealed in the face of the devil. He's not loving you for what he's discovered of your inherent beauty as revealed in the face of the devil.

50:26 He's not loving you for what he's discovered of your inherent beauty as revealed in the face of the devil. Katrina and Rita will be my instruments to take the perks away. Now watch my child and how many of his children have, through the brokenness of their devastation, taken their posture with Job and blessed a giving and a taking God. And how many of his children I don't know, but I have reason to believe The devil's mouth is being shut as God reenacts this scenario that is played out in the book of Job. Fourthly, fold it into God's purpose, and I can see we'll only get to His purposes for His own and not to the unconverted. God's purpose is to increase the ability of His people to minister comfort to others. There are people who today and in the coming days are being furnished with graces to minister comfort to others that they never would have had apart from Katrina and Rita.

Purpose 4: To Increase Ability to Minister Comfort to Others

51:44 And I base that upon 2 Corinthians chapter 1. 2 Corinthians and chapter 1. The apostle speaking of himself and his companions says in verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

52:04 Who comforts us in all our affliction. Why? In order that we may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction through the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound unto us, even so our comfort also abounds through Christ.

52:29 For whether we are afflicted, it is for your comfort. Or whether we are comforted, it is for your comfort. And then he goes on to say, brethren, verse 8, I don't want you to be ignorant of the circumstances into which God brought us. That in the crucible of that affliction and suffering, we might know dimensions of the comfort of God that would equip us to draw near to you in your afflictions and minister comfort.

52:58 But experientially, that otherwise we could never have ministered.

53:05 This is true, not just for apostles and their companions, but for the people of God. For we are commanded, as we heard from Pastor Chansky last week and were reminded in the adult class this morning, we have a mandate to comfort one another. To administer comfort and exhortation to one another. And dear people, we aren't equipped by that.

53:25 Simply by our devotions. God's got to put you in. Into the crucible where you desperately need the comfort of God and know Him experientially as the God of all comfort. You don't know that simply by hearing a sermon on the fact that God's the God of all comfort.

53:48 You know it. When in the crucible of that which is crushing you, God comes to you as the God of all comfort and you know Him to be that experientially. And you can sit. As I was saying, I was able to do earlier in this past week as a 71-year-old man with my 69-year-old sister sitting on my knee like a little girl and her cheek next to my cheek and her tears streaming down my face as she wept over the death of her 42-year-old son and my tears dripping from my cheeks onto her hands.

54:32 Because we've been taken into the crucible of firstbornness. First-hand dealings with the king of terrors and the last enemy.

54:45 I don't think I could have done that a year ago.

54:53 In our tribulation, in order that and to be able to reach out and take the arm of the newly made young widow and two fatherless children and to be able to minister out of the crucible of the reality of being near, true and in company with someone walking down into the valley. And knowing the presence of the Lord Jesus as the one who mends broken hearts. And how many, how many people? God sees he's got children all over the place that are going to need that comfort ministered by a fellow believer and out of servants of God that has been proven and tested and formed and shaped in the crucible of affliction. And God says, Katrina and Rita, you're going to be my classroom. For Mary, for John, for Harry, for Pete because I see that down here Sally and Elsa and Faith and David and Daniel they're going to need someone who can say I know he's the God of all comfort not just because the Bible says it but because I proved it in Katrina's school in Rita's school.

56:19 You get the message? So when your Katrina comes and your Rita comes get your nose out of your navel. You don't see much when your nose is there. And say, Oh God, surely whatever your purposes are to make me more like Christ to make me love Christ more to hold more loosely to the things of this world to shut the devil's mouth.

Purpose 5: To Draw Out Compassionate Benevolence from Others

56:45 Surely Lord, you're doing something in me because you purpose to do something through me Lord to learn all the lessons. Of what it is to know you as the God of all comfort in order that I may be able to comfort others through the comfort wherewith I myself have been comforted of God. And then the fifth thing that I'm persuaded is folded into God's purposes for his own in his two daughters, Katrina and Rita is to use their deprivation to draw out the compassionate benevolence of others in the body of Christ. To use their deprivation, the deprivation of our brothers and sisters in the Gulf Coast to draw out the compassionate benevolence of others in the body of Christ. In Acts 11, 27 to 30, we have a beautiful example of how this works, how it worked in the early church. We read in Acts chapter 11 in verse 27.

57:57 And in those days there came down prophets from Jerusalem to Antioch. And there stood up one of them named Agabus and signified by the Spirit that there should be a great famine over all the world, which came to pass in the days of Claudius. Famine's a terrible thing, only terrible. No good can come.

58:14 Wait a minute. And the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren that dwelt in Judea, which also they did, sending it to the elders. And it was by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. Famine.

58:32 No good can come from a famine. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Yes, here's the good that came. The awareness of famine-stricken believers in one part drew out the compassionate benevolence of others in the body of Christ.

58:48 And what was the result of it? Read 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. Everything from praise that abounds to God, the validation that the church is one, Jew and Gentile, when the Gentile churches take up an offering for the poor saints in Jerusalem, they sweep away the suspicions of the Jews, and the fact that they receive that offering sweeps away the suspicions of the Gentiles, and the body of Christ is strengthened, the love of Christ is manifested. It wouldn't have happened without a famine.

59:24 Little children going around here a few Sunday nights ago. It was beautiful. Collecting money for the brethren. For the brethren down in the Gulf Coast.

59:34 I saw one girl, she had a jar. And she opened up her jar and spread out all the money on one of the pews back here, and there were a few dollar bills. I think there's $13.47, whatever it is.

59:47 How can we get this to them? What's that doing? Helping kids to realize there's something more important than the newest cell phone. Something more important than the newest toy, the newest gimmick.

60:00 There are needy people. There are needy people. There are needy people. There are needy people.

60:04 There are needy people. There are needy people. There are needy people. There are needy people.

60:08 There are needy people. And so God periodically orders the Catrinus, the Rhetus that the body of Christ might be stirred up to fresh acts of benevolence which not only give people an awareness of the oneness of the body of Christ, where those differences that legitimately may keep us operating in relative proper, but also keep us in relative check, and keep us still in our lives. That's what we need to do. We need to get back to it.

60:32 To get our children back. different circles of ecclesiastical responsibility and activity suddenly in this kind of crisis they mean very little a Pentecostal man who believes he speaks in tongues and has some special gift from God is not going to ask whether the money to help put bread on his table comes from someone who speaks in tongues as well and frankly a dear brother who loves Christ and believes he speaks in tongues I'm not going to withhold the meal from his table because I may not agree with his view of tongues you see what I'm saying things that may of necessity keep us in our areas of responsibility but in these times many of those things are legitimately and properly set aside and then as Jesus said by this shall all men know that you're my disciples if you have love one for another and love is manifested in these tangible and practical ways and remember in Matthew 25 what Jesus said inasmuch as you've done it unto the least of these my little ones you've done it unto me and so God uses the Katrina's and the Rita's in the administration of his sovereign government using the deprivation of one part of the body to draw out the compassionate benevolence of others so in summary with the dark threads of Katrina and Rita a sovereign God is

Conclusion: God's Weaving and a Call to Repentance

62:01 weaving something beautiful into the lives of his children advancing their conformity to and love for Christ making them more heavenly minded making them the occasion of shutting the devil's mouth making them better able to minister comfort to others using their deprivation to draw out the compassionate benevolence of other believers can we not in our prayers now pray that these five things will be accomplished in the lives of our brothers and sisters I believe we've got solid biblical words and Lord accomplish these things because they're not accomplished automatically left to themselves with remaining sin there will be believers that say how can God love me look what he did to me there will be weak Christians who feel until God explains all the mystery of his ways they can't trust him we need to pray that God will help weak believers to be able to embrace the ways of God I was so struck with that when I visited and sought to minister comfort to my brother-in-law and to my sister on the occasion of the sudden death of their son Dan and I was struck again with the fact that crisis doesn't create anything it simply pulls back the layers of what someone appears to be and shows us what they really are that's all a crisis does it pulls off the layers of what you appear to be and it shows what you really are

63:28 and when I saw that sister and brother-in-law of mine through their tears say to me Al God had marked out Danny's days before there was one of them in his life while he was yet in my womb God marked out his days and he was not to live one day longer and blessing the God who marked out the days for a son who's tragically killed and leaves a widow and two three fatherless children how can they do that because in the depths of their soul day by day they are worshipping and relating to the God who is in charge of his world now let me ask you sitting here this morning we have a number of visitors what's been your internal reaction to this are you upset that I have dared to quote the many verses that say in this world that God made he's in charge of every bit of it well if so you probably got problems with the idea that this God has absolute unquestioned right to do what he wants to do what is the point of having the rights over you and what it is to be a sinner is to do anything less than say God I want you to have your rights exercised

64:50 over me that's sin the determination to be your own little self-determining speck in God's universe and that's why you need a Savior you need the Savior who bowed in submission to his Father and took the wrath of God for Rebel sinners like you and like me and he has promised that if you turn to him and and grace and trust him that he will forgive all of your sins and he will accept you as his own child. I would urge you and plead with you. Don't argue with a God like this. I'm concerned about a pastor friend of mine who labors in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Lake Charles has been in the news. Years ago when he began to preach in the church he was in that God's world is under God's control. It caused a furor and it's a relatively small town and he was well known by one of the hotshot local bankers and this man was not a Christian and he came to him and said, Brother Don, he said, I can't figure out what's all this fuss going on over at your church. And so my friend prayed and said, Lord give me wisdom. How do I talk to an unconverted man?

66:01 Explain to him we got people fighting the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty. But knowing this guy was a sharp businessman the Lord gave him wisdom and he said, so and so let's call him Jack. If you made the world, would you run it or give it to someone else to run it? He looked at him and said, of course if I made it I'd run it. He said, that's all I'm doing is preaching that God's running the world he made and people are getting upset. That was holy wisdom. My dear friend, God's running the world in which he made and he's moving it all to the day when he's going to call us all to judgment and if in that day we're not in Christ it would be better we had never be born. Let's pray.

66:41 Our Father, we thank you. That the entrance of your word gives light. That your word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway. And we thank you that we may look into the face of these massive human disruptions and tragedies and see them with the eyes of scripture. And we pray that you would take your word and make it a means of solidifying our faith, arming us with the stuff we need in bearing witness to others. We pray that you would work these five things into the hearts of all of your true people throughout the Gulf Coast who are living in one degree or another with the devastation of these two daughters that you have birthed and brought into their lives. Help us, we pray, as your people to think biblically, to feel biblically and to act in a way that glorifies you. We pray in Jesus' name.

67:49 Amen.