Tornadoes! What is Wrong with the Weather?

Tornadoes! What is Wrong with the Weather?

Tornadoes have struck across five southern states in the past week. Several deadly Pre-Christmas tornadoes have badly impacted my home state of Kentucky, in the dead of night.

Thus far, 77 people have lost their lives. The town of Mayfield, Ky hit by an F-5 tornado was essentially destroyed. Many other of our Kentucky communities were devastated as well. 

Yet, within the chaos of all this destruction, people are really coming together, helping their brothers, and thanking God that they have survived a close brush with death.  

It is always amazing to me, that when people are confronted with disaster, they finally turn to a God they’ve never fully acknowledged.

I noted one man who said: “I’ve never ever prayed in my life, but when the tornado hit, I began to pray to God to save my life!”

These terrifying unseasonable “whirlwinds” of death and destruction have caused many to ask: “what is wrong with our weather and why in the world does Almighty God allow such calamities?”

Tornadoes in the Bible

It may surprise you to know that tornadoes and hurricanes are mentioned in the Bible. The Hebrew word “suphah” appears 15 times in the OT and is a direct reference to tornadoes! Suphah is translated as a great “whirlwind,” and these mighty whirlwinds have been common in our world for the last 4,000 years.

The Bible even offers us a basic course in how tornadoes are formed.

Job 37:9 Out of the south cometh the whirlwind: (suphah) and cold out of the north.

In fact, the righteous servant of God, Job saw his sons and daughters killed by a great “Whirlwind” (tornado) that destroyed their house. 

Job 1:19 And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead;

In the tragic “whirlwind” event that took Job’s family, it was clearly Satan that manipulated the weather systems to bring that calamity upon Job, and his household. 

From this Job narrative, we can glean the fact that God does sometimes either permit or relax his controls of the “natural world forces,” thereby enabling Satan the power to bring about chaos in our natural world.

On December 10, 2021; the perfect weather conditions combined themselves to foment the unleashing of these terrible “Whirlwinds” upon our land. 

“Whirlwinds” be they tornadoes, hurricanes or other vortex type wind storms are simply the common result of the mixing of divergent air temperatures and air streams, particularly at the times of seasonal changes. 

Yet, the seeming increasing number of natural disasters and terrible storms have many people wondering, who controls the weather, God or Satan? 

It is particularly distressing to me that natural disasters are often termed, by men as “acts of God,” while no thankfulness is ever given to God for years, decades, or even centuries of safe and peaceful weather. 

God is in control of all things, including the weather. Yet, through His providence, God provides for and protects His children, but He also permits Satan, demons, and powers of the air to exercise their limited capacity to commit acts of evil, and wickedness. These same beings are ultimately fully responsible for any and all disasters and tragedies they cause.

The Bible proclaims that Jesus Christ holds all of nature together. In fact, we’re it not for the constraining power of God, our universe  and world would totally collapse from the evil designs of Satan. (Colossians 1:16) 

Could God prevent natural disasters? Yes, Absolutely! Does God sometimes influence the weather for bad? Sometimes he does! He has on occasion used the dynamics of the earths physical laws for both blessings and for judgment! Can Satan manipulate the weather? Yes, Sometimes he can, but only if God permits it.

The Natural Order

God created the entire universe, including the physical laws of nature. And the world that God created in the Beginning, was in all aspects, environmentally, meteorologically, agriculturally, in every way; a Good world. 

Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

The pre-flood world that God created was a world without rain, hail, wind-storms, floods, temperature extremes, earthquakes, and all such natural disasters that we today are subjected to. (Genesis 2:5)

In fact, it wasn’t until after the great flood of of Noah that our natural physical world, it’s topography and its climate were drastically changed. 

 

The great flood of Noah resulted in dramatic changes in everything about our world. From continental fractures, mountain upheavals, a tilting of the earth, the ice age, volcanoes, to monstrous rain and wind storms, the Earth’s climate was changed from a tranquil place to one wholly subjected to disturbances in the laws of nature!

The World Then vs. The World Now

II Peter 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

Here in II Peter, we find a stark contrasting piece of information about the “world before the flood” compared to the “world after the flood.” 

The world that “Then Was” was a closer semblance of the paradise that God created originally. The Edenic fall of man brought sin into mankind’s life, and it resulted in the loss of agricultural productivity, but the Earth still retained the physical protocols of its design.

Ever since the flood of Noah, the world that “then was” even became accursed resulting in the world that “Now Is.” The entire world today is only functioning only partially as God originally designed for it to do. The world that “Now Is” endures many types of natural earthly calamities! And it all stems from the consequences of curses that fell upon Man’s involvement in Sin! 

And we are all subjected to these “Natural” curses on our world! Whereas Satan may be the original cause of it all, still, all who live in this present world have to endure this world as it is. 

In fact, Jesus reiterated the fact the natural laws of this world affect the just and unjust alike. It is of special note that in the context of this fact that Jesus instructed us to love our neighbor as ourselves! And this is just what we are witnessing in Western Kentucky right now!

Matthew 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

In much the same way that God allows evil people to commit evil acts, God allows the earth to reflect the consequences sin has had on the whole of creation; including, not only the Earth’s weather, but also the worlds animals.

Romans 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

The whole world pains to be delivered from the evil effects of sin! So now we cycle back to our original two questions at the start of this article:

1-What is wrong with our weather? 

Answer: Our weather and our even climate is operating from a dysfunctional malady in the original design of the Earth! Today, it is out of sync with its Creator! 

2-Might God be trying to get our attention by permitting chaos in Earth’s weather events?

Answer: There are only two existent possible scenarios relative as to why the prevalence of whirlwinds, hurricanes, floods, etc. seem to overwhelm us today. In one case, Satan is seeking to destroy our lives and cause us to blame God for the catastrophe’s in life. In the second case, either God is using Satan’s evil for Divine judgment or he is using these evils to get our attention, and hopefully cause us to look to him as our only Hope in this fallen and calamitous world!

Focus on the Bible

December 17, 2021

by: Darrell G. Young