Caption:DIVINE JUDGMENT? Heavy flooding ravaged Spain earlier this month, killing over 200 people and causing untold damage. Photo by EPA-EFE/CHEMA MOYA
….Are recent weather disasters divinely orchestrated judgment on Israel haters?
While crazy weather patterns around the world continue to stoke the carbon-hating fires of climate change activists, others – usually Christians who know their Bible – suggest they are more likely signs of the end times Jesus warned us about.
Quite out of the blue while having my haircut yesterday, my hairdresser Hayley – a relatively new believer – raised the subject of the floods in Spain and whether I thought it was the judgment of God.
It had occurred to me as a possibility, but of course only God himself knows, though he does sometimes leave us with clues. And it got me thinking.
We should always bear in mind, however, our Lord’s reference to the tower in Siloam (Luke 13:4), a tragedy in which 18 people died when it collapsed on them. They hadn’t been especially picked on, he pointed out, but we will all perish if we do not repent of our sin.
On the other hand, God does execute judgment on nations, particularly for touching the ‘apple of his eye’ – Israel, his chosen people (Genesis 12:3, Numbers 24:9). The prophet Ezekiel referred to those, like Tyre in chapter 26 of his book, who rejoiced and gloated over Israel’s predicament when they were (rightly, in God’s eyes) defeated by enemies after turning away from the Lord.
As their Heavenly Father, it was for God himself to discipline them, but not for Tyre (in today’s Lebanon) or other nations. And ancient Tyre was duly destroyed, just as the prophet predicted.
In more recent times, as millions of Jews were being herded into gas chambers at brutal death camps, Germany was reduced to rubble by RAF bombers.
Spain too has a shocking history of antisemitism – torturing, murdering and deporting Jewish people during the infamous Spanish Inquisition, which also forced my ancestors into exile.
In recent days, they have tragically turned the clock back by recognising a Palestinian state, which is tantamount to encouraging another Holocaust as their terror-loving leaders have clearly stated their intention to rid Jews from the region.
On another occasion, Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz ended a speech on the Gaza War with the genocidal slogan ‘Palestine will be free from the river to the sea”. This of course is the Hamas chant that effectively calls for the extermination of the Jewish state and of her people worldwide.
This is such a shame in view of the warning given by former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in 2010 about the importance of supporting Israel as they are on the frontline of the battle to protect the West’s hard-won freedoms from the threat of radical Islam. If Israel goes down, the rest of us would follow, he argued in a Times article.
Positive steps were subsequently taken by Spain, along with its neighbour Portugal, in passing Laws of Return for the descendants of those deported in past centuries. But it seems woke madness has since taken over.
For sure, nations will be judged in future (see Joel 3:2, for example) and are in ever-present danger of suffering divine wrath today in light of the Bible’s assurances to bless or curse on the basis of how Israel is treated.
Britain, for example, was greatly blessed as she helped to pave the way for Jewish restoration when evangelical leaders of past centuries urged politicians to heed the scriptural promises of a reborn nation. The British empire once stretched across much of the planet.
But we soon began to lose all that through betraying the Jews during the Nazi Holocaust by failing to ensure their safety in the Promised Land when it was in our power to do so, choosing to appease the Arabs instead by severely restricting Jewish access.
Western leaders are playing with fire when they curse Israel. For the God of all the earth will, in time, execute his judgment on nations who defy his decrees.
....Charles Gardner is author of Israel the Chosen, available from Amazon; Peace in Jerusalem.
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