“Watch out that no one deceives you…Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are but the beginning of birth pains.”  - (Matt. 24:4-8)

Dear Friends & Partners,

When you open and receive this email, I will either be in Haiti or in route there.  I arrived home from India late Saturday night and have made a quick turn-around for Port-au-Prince via the Dominican Republic.  This first trip will either be a brief recon trip of several days – or I will stay there for an indefinite period of time as circumstances demand.  Since no one can anticipate in advance how these kinds of relief trips will play out, you must be flexible and respond as the Spirit leads and the circumstances demand and take a “new direction” at a moment’s notice.  That’s how you can have an “impact of hope” on people through the love of the Lord Jesus. 

ACT OF GOD OR ACT OF NATURE?

But before going, I wanted to share a few thoughts about the origin and nature of this horrific mega-disaster of epic proportion.  On my series of long flights back from India, I was able to read a few newspapers and magazines articles about this 7.3 earthquake – the worst to date in the Western Hemisphere.  I read articles by President Obama, former President Bill Clinton and a number of newspaper editors and reporters.  I also saw a number of references to what Pat Robertson said about this being in some way the “judgment of God” as a result of Haiti’s voodoo pact with the devil in 1804.  As many of you know, I was deeply involved in Haiti’s Bicentennial in 2004 with my friend and partner – and presidential candidate – Dr. Chavannes Jeune.  This was also in partnership with noted Promise Keeper speaker, Joe White.  We called these events: “Haiti At The Cross.”  It was a historic time of prayer, fasting, preaching and teaching to “break the blood pact with the devil” through voodoo and ratify the “blood covenant of Christ on the cross” for Haiti.  We believe that God wonderfully honored the faith of the Haitian church – one of the fastest growing in the world with between 45% - 50% of Haiti professing to be evangelical Christians!  So why did God cause or permit this horrific earthquake and the on-going after-shocks?

Was this earthquake God’s punishment on Haiti for voodoo?  Was it His judgment against the rampant political corruption that has largely reigned in Haiti for 200 years?  Was it somehow the result of two millennia of ecological exploitation?  Was it some kind of “divine discipline” against Haitian Christians?  Or was it just a random and capricious act of “mother nature?”

One thing for sure, Haiti was an “accident waiting to happen” in terms of a lack of infrastructure, poor building codes, inferior building materials, sewage disposal – all of which we take for granted in America.  Shacks built on top of each other will little or no foundations on denuded hillsides is a disaster in the making.  Scientists and Seismologists have been warning for years of the certainty of severe earthquakes in Haiti.  It was not a matter of if but of when.  Back in the early 1980s when we lived there as a family, we experienced several tremors that “shook us up!”  So there are some very basic answers to many such “natural disasters.”

However, while there are no easy or complete answers to these sovereign imponderables of life, the Bible does give us some helpful insights.  When I first got the news of this killer quake from a phone call from Patt,  I was in east India near the Bhutan border.  Almost immediately the Holy Spirit brought one passage of Scripture to my mind.  Let me remind you of it.

Jesus was speaking to a group of people who asked Him why God had allowed Pilate to slaughter a group of Galileans and “…mix their blood with their sacrifices” at the Temple?  The prevailing religious attitude among the Jews of the day was this: Calamity confirmed guilt.  Sickness proved sin.  This same attitude is seen in the rather detached and calloused response of the disciples to a man born blind whom Jesus and His disciples met one day sitting on the side of the road.  They asked Jesus: “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”  Jesus’ response is eternally timely: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (Jn. 9:1-3). Jesus gave a similar response to the question about the seeming capricious murder of the Galileans by Pilate in the midst of their worship at the Temple.  We do well to prayerfully ponder Jesus’ response in the light of the current Haitian crisis:

“Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?  I tell you, no!  But unless you repent you too will all perish.  Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem.  I tell you, no!  But unless you repent you too will all perish” (Lk. 13:1-5).

Here Jesus spoke to two types of apparent whimsical evils that so often unexpectedly befall people in life.  First, the injustice and atrocities capriciously carried out by evil political leaders – in this case Pilate, who would eventually condemn Him to death by crucifixion.  These politically motivated murders and genocides have been consistently carried out throughout history ever since Cain killed his brother Abel.  What God said to Cain He continues to say today: “Listen!  Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground” (Gen. 3:10).  Ever since that first murder, evil leaders from Pharaoh in Egypt…to Herod in Palestine…to Pilate in Jerusalem…to Hitler in Germany…to Pol Pot in Cambodia…to Idi Amin in Uganda…to Al Bashir in Sudan – have continued this brotherly genocide!  The list of homicidal maniac political leaders in history is endless!  The entire earth is saturated with the blood of people slaughtered by paranoid megalomaniacs!  So, evil and wicked men have taken the lives of far more innocent people down through history than have been killed by natural disasters.  All these insane leaders have done is to unmistakably prove the reality of the devil on the one hand, and the evil within man’s own heart on the other!  To paraphrase C.S. Lewis at this point:  “Evil in the universe does not tell me anything new about God.  It only confirms the universality of evil in the heart of man.”  As he further poignantly said: “I have my own heart – I need no other, to convince me of the evil of man!”

Secondly, Jesus spoke of a seeming random “act of nature” that killed “…eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them.”  Was this collapse of the tower in Siloam the result of an earthquake – like in Haiti?  Was it the result of poor building codes and poor building materials – again like in Haiti?  Or was it somehow the capricious judgment of God upon these particular Galileans because of their sinfulness – like the voodoo worshipers in Haiti?  There are no easy answers here that perfectly resolve all of these mysteries of life.

But in both cases Jesus answered the assumption of guilt with a resounding NO!  That alone should caution us about snap judgments toward people who are killed by the seeming capricious “acts of nature” or “acts of man.”  So whether it is a cataclysmic earthquake, a car accident, a killer disease, a random murder, a rape or a genocide – we must be carful about assigning guilt and judgment on the unfortunate victims of random evil in a fallen and rebellious universe.  According to the Bible, these kinds of “natural disasters” are the direct result of a cosmos that is radically different than it was originally created by a good and gracious God.  As a result, it will continue to “groan under a curse” until it is fully removed and restored by the return of Christ.  Until that time, we must do all we can to be Christ’s hands of love and compassion to those whose lives have been forever marred and scared by both natural and man-made disasters.

Two final things…

AN AMBASSADOR FOR CHRIST AND AMERICA

First, please read the timely email I posted yesterday from NDI Alumni, Ambassador Lewis Lucke.  He is heading the USAID Relief and Restoration efforts in Haiti.  Recently we were together in Haiti – just a few weeks before this mega earthquake.  We stayed in the Montana Hotel that is now totally destroyed – killing scores of Americans, Europeans and Haitians.  It could have just as easily happened when we were staying there as now.  But, for some reason that we will not fully understand this side of heaven, we were spared.  Both Lew and I believe it was “…for such a time as this” (Esth. 4:14).  So I thank God that a Christian brother and friend is in this strategic position for our American Government and for the Body of Christ.  He is seeking to be a good steward of the millions of dollars that are at his disposal.  And he is directing a lot to Christian ministries of experience and integrity who are strategically involved in both the relief and development of Haiti.

Secondly, I have reposted a longer study on these types of natural disaster.  It is a more thorough Biblical study for those of you who want to take the time for a “longer read” and more in-depth study of this difficult study on what theologians call a theodicy, or the mysterious “acts of God” behind the devastating “acts of nature” or evil “acts of man.”  This imponderable of “why the innocent suffer” in a world created by a sovereign and loving God has always been one of the greatest stumbling blocks to faith.  It is the spiritual and intellectual fodder of atheism, agnosticism and existentialism.  So if you did not read it in the past when I posted it after the Asian Tsunami and hurricanes Katrina and Rita,  I hope you will take time to prayerfully read it now.  It is entitled “Stormy Lessons.”  This study does not give “all of the answers” to these very difficult spiritual issues.  But I believe it does give a balanced Biblical perspective that can help anchor and secure our souls as we see and experience more and more of these “…beginning of birth pains” for the new world order, called the Kingdom of God, that the Lord Jesus will usher in..

Download the Stormy Lessons study here.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Once again I want to urge you to help me help our bruised and battered Haitian brothers and sisters through your prayers and giving.  While it has been encouraging to see the generous financial response to a lot of the TV and celebrity-based appeals, much of those millions of dollars will be misused and misspent.  Much of those millions of well-intentioned dollars will flow through the hand of corrupt political leaders in Haiti who will abuse it – just like took place in many countries after the Asian Tsunami.  Others will end up in the coffers of bureaucratic NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that are already bloated and top-heavy organizationally where a disproportionate percent of the money will be self-consumed.  And sadly, most of these organizations do not have the motivation of Christian love and compassion.  While helpful relief may be given, the message of Christ and His hope will not accompany the help.  Our relief work is very short-sighted if it only makes people more comfortable on the way to hell!  To heal the body without healing the soul is not the holistic salvation that the Bible teaches.  And to that end,  I can assure you that the 501 ©(3) organization I am currently working under, Impact of Hope, will give 100% of your financial support to the work I will be directing in Haiti.  You can contribute to the Haiti Relief effort via IOH by clicking on the “Donate” page of my website and following the directions there.  And I can also assure you that the relief and development work that my son, Joseph, will be doing through NDI will be just as strategic and efficient.

I therefore urge and exhort Christians to remember the words of the Lord Jesus about this kind of giving:  “If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is My disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”

Mark, the earliest Gospel written,  included the words of the Lord that our acts of compassion should be “…in His Name.” (Matt.  10:42; Mk; 9:41).  So make sure that your financial giving goes through organizations and ministries who will also do their best to add the eternal dimension of spiritual giving “in the Name of Christ.”

Because of His Love & Compassion,