As Sorrow Permeates Your Being

So many people with whom I have spoken with (since the devastation and aftermath of hurricane Katrina has been broadcast from our TV sets over the last few days) have expressed shock, horror and sympathy for those affected by this terrible disaster. In fact, there are many ongoing debates on various blogs and message boards where people are discussing whom or what is to blame for it.

When natural disasters happen, people come up with all kinds of theories and views about it and most ask the question, "why"?

Amidst all the pain and suffering, I tend to focus in on the spiritual aspects of an event such as this. America will come to the aid of the victims and survivors. Their physical needs will be attended to. There will be counselors to help them with the psychological damage they will be experiencing.

To lose a loved one in a disaster such as this causes unimaginable grief. I only wish that more people had taken the dire warnings more seriously and had gotten out of the city.

To lose everything one has except the clothes on one's back is an emotionally shocking experience.

I have friends who lost everything in the San Diego wildfires a few years ago and I saw firsthand how it can change a person and their outlook on life.

I was going to post links to some significant articles that I have found but have decided to copy and paste each article here.

Then, I will copy and paste a blog post written by a dear Christian friend named SaltnLight because I found it to be particularly excellent for a time such as this.

Christine
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Did God Send the Hurricane?

This natural disaster is bringing together a perfect storm of environmentalist and religious doomsday sayers.

By Deborah Caldwell

What caused Hurricane Katrina to slam the U.S. Gulf Coast? Was it a typical late-summer tropical storm caused by wind, water, and heat? Mother Nature crying out on behalf of the earth’s pain? An angry God?

Depends whom you ask. All along the theological and political spectrum, Katrina has crystallized people’s fears into a now-familiar brew of apocalyptic theories similar to what we saw after September 11 and after the Asian tsunami several months ago.At least one New Orleans-area resident believes God created the storm as punishment because of the recent role the United States played in expelling Jews from Gaza. On Sunday evening, Bridgett Magee of Slidell, La., told the Christian website Jerusalem Newswire that she saw the hurricane "as a direct 'coming back on us' [for] what we did to Israel: a home for a home." Stan Goodenough, a website columnist, described Katrina as “the fist of God” in a Monday column. “What America is about to experience is the lifting of God’s hand of protection; the implementation of His judgment on the nation most responsible for endangering the land and people of Israel,” Goodenough writes. “The Bible talks about Him shaking His fist over bodies of water, and striking them.”

Meanwhile, spiritual and political environmentalists say that massive hurricanes such as Katrina, along with the Asian tsunami, are messages from the earth, letting humanity know of the earth’s pain. These hurricanes are caused by global warming, environmentalists say, which are the result of using too much fossil fuel. They see the catastrophic consequences as a kind of comeuppance.

Katrina forced oil workers to evacuate rigs in the Gulf of Mexico; meanwhile, seven oil refineries and a major oil import terminal have been closed. The Gulf Coast region is home to a quarter of U.S. oil refining. As a result, Common Dreams, a liberal website, wrote Monday: “Oil may be achieving a new impact on daily news, people’s pocketbooks and world history--perhaps even the end of history and the world.” James Howard Kunstler, author of “The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century,” predicted in his Monday blog: “It seems possible to me that we will be seeing gas station lines all over America within the week.” In another area of his website, Kunstler writes: "We are entering a period of economic hardship and declining incomes...The suburbs as are going to tank spectacularly. We are going to see an unprecedented loss of equity value and, of course, basic usefulness. We are going to see an amazing distress sale of properties, with few buyers. We're going to see a fight over the table scraps of the 20th century."

Stephen O’Leary, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and an expert on the media and apocalypticism, says, “God’s got a two-fer here. Both sides are eager to see America punished for her sins; on one side it’s sexual immorality and porn and Hollywood, and on the other side it’s conspicuous consumption and Hummers.”

In some ways, these are mainstream feelings: In a recent CNN poll, 55% of those responding believe that global warming is causing the severe weather we've experienced recently, which is a kind of admission that a huge hurricane is part of the wages of (environmental) sin. Meanwhile, most polls show that 40% of all U.S. adults believe the physical world will eventually end as a result of a supernatural intervention, perhaps with a literal Rapture, Tribulation, Antichrist, and Battle of Armageddon described in the Book of Revelation. Nearly half of all Americans believe the Middle East will be “heavily involved” in the events surrounding the end of the world. And 40% believe the end of the world will come in their lifetime.

The rush to doomsday thinking, O’Leary says, is related to our need to process emotion in the face of suffering. “The mass media confront us with emotion that is almost impossible to process, and the only way we have to deal with that is to put it in terms of the drama of apocalypse and redemption--you transform suffering into a story of God’s plan. If you don’t have that, then what you do is turn off the TV and have despair.”

It’s not just conservative Christians who tune in to this cycle of apocalypse and redemption, however. New Agers and left-wing environmentalists subscribe to a theory that the world is undergoing what they call Earth Changes--a time when, because of humanity’s degradation, the climate severely reacts. Many of these believers say the United States will be almost completely submerged in seawater when the Earth Changes are complete.“

When people leave behind the Christian version of the apocalypse, they don’t quit being apocalyptic,” O’Leary says. “They switch brands.”

Even the media, perhaps reacting to their own cycle of hype and emotion of this moment, have been priming the doomsday pump. The normally bloodless Associated Press wrote this description: “When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans on Monday, it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.”

Interestingly, last year’s string of Florida hurricanes didn’t seem to cause much doomsday rhetoric. But Katrina is different for a few important reasons: It’s much larger than usual storms; it hit a region that is home to one-fourth of U.S. oil production at a time when Americans are feeling tremendous anxiety over rising fuel costs; it happened a couple weeks after Israel pulled out of Gaza; and it conjures horrific images of fetid water contaminating a city with a Sodom and Gomorrah reputation.

The thought of this region, or even the nation, being somehow punished for its sins, conjures twin feelings of excitement and dread among apocalyptic thinkers. On one hand, they seem delighted that a divine plan appears to be unfolding. With horrific events such as this, they believe, God (or Mother Nature) has shown them the world is so evil that it is closer than ever to the end of human history--which means they will spend eternity in a happier place. Yet they also believe God (or Mother Nature) is punishing Americans. That gives rise to their urgent need to stave off destruction through prayer, scolding, and trying to convert people to their way of thinking.

It’s worth noting that end-times fever also broke out during the Persian Gulf War, around the turn of the millennium five years ago, and then around September 11, as it has many times in history. Each time it happens, Americans (and humanity for millennia before) become convinced the End is upon them because they’ve sinned and that God or Mother Nature is angry.

Yet if people actually read the Bible, they can just as easily find an alternate view of the divine, a view that is diametrically opposite the wrathful avenger. The Book of I Kings reads: “Behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind and earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”

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HURRICANE KATRINA DESTROYS NEW ORLEANS DAYS BEFORE "SOUTHERN DECADENCE" 8/31/05

PHILADELPHIA - Just days before "Southern Decadence", an annual homosexual celebration attracting tens of thousands of people to the French Quarters section of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina destroys the city.

"Southern Decadence" has a history of filling the French Quarters section of the city with drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets and bars. Last year, a local pastor sent video footage of sex acts being performed in front of police to the mayor, city council, and the media. City officials simply ignored the footage and continued to welcome and praise the weeklong celebration as being an "exciting event". However, Hurricane Katrina has put an end to the annual celebration of sin.

On the official "Southern Decadence" website (www.SouthernDecadence.com), it states that the annual event brought in "125,000 revelers" to New Orleans last year, increasing by thousands each year, and up from "over 50,000 revelers" in 1997. This year’s 34th annual "Southern Decadence" was set for Wednesday, August 31, 2005 through Monday, September 5, 2005, but due to massive flooding and the damage left by the hurricane, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has ordered everyone to evacuate the city.

The past three mayors of New Orleans, including Sidney Barthelomew, Marc H. Morial, and C. Ray Nagin, issued official proclamations welcoming visitors to "Southern Decadence". Additionally, New Orleans City Council made other proclamations recognizing the annual homosexual celebration.

"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city," stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. "From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge," he continued.

New Orleans is also known for its Mardi Gras parties where thousands of drunken men revel in the streets to exchange plastic jewelry for drunken women to expose their breasts. This annual event sparked the creation of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series.

"We must help and pray for those ravaged by this disaster, but let us not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long," Marcavage said. "May this act of God cause us all to think about what we tolerate in our city limits, and bring us trembling before the throne of Almighty God," Marcavage concluded.

"[God] sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:45)

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WHERE IS THE CHURCH? A few years ago I was ministering at an atheist gathering in Washington, D.C. During this meeting, I heard a few words spoken from the platform that I cannot forget. The atheist told the hundreds gathered, "The church is a sleeping giant!" This statement is certainly true, but sad. When the church is silent, sin is celebrated openly and publically. Awake, arise, and obey the Lord!

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AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

by Judge Roy Moore

America the Beautiful, or so you used to be.

Land of the Pilgrims' pride; I'm glad they'll never see.

Babies piled in dumpsters, Abortion on demand,

Oh, sweet land of liberty, your house is on the sand.

Our children wander aimlessly poisoned by cocaine,

Choosing to indulge their lusts, When God has said abstain.

From sea to shining sea, our Nation turns away

From the teaching of God's love

And a need to always pray.

So many worldly preachers tell lies about our Rock,

Saying God is going broke so they can fleece the flock.

We've kept God in our temples, How callous we have grown.

When earth is but His footstool, And Heaven is His throne.

We've voted in a government that's rotting at the core,

Appointing Godless Judges

Who throw reason out the door,

Too soft to place a killer in a well deserved tomb,

But brave enough to kill a baby

Before he leaves the womb.

You think that God's not angry, That our land's a moral slum?

How much longer will He wait

Before His judgment comes?

How are we to face our God, From Whom we cannot hide?

What then is left for us to do, But stem this evil tide?

If we who are His children, will humbly turn and pray;

Seek His holy face and mend our evil way;

Then God will hear from Heaven

And forgive us of our sins,

He'll heal our sickly land and those who live within.

But, America the Beautiful, If you don't then you will see,

A sad but Holy God withdraw His hand from Thee.

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"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14 KJV

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(Note: The following was written prior to the storm hitting the Gulf coast.)

Katrina - The fist of God?
- By Stan Goodenough - Jerusalem News Wire

Today is going to be a terrible day for millions of people in the United States as Hurricane Katrina comes roaring ashore on the northern Gulf Coast of the country.

Hopefully, prayerfully, despite the worst-case scenarios being predicted by many weather experts and others in the media, there will not be an enormous loss of life.


But even if no one dies, the thought of hundreds of thousands of people having to leave their homes in the last 48 hours to stream out of the hurricane's path, not knowing what they will come back to – what will happen to their neighborhoods, their houses, their possessions, almost everything they hold dear – is a terrifying thought indeed.

Untold numbers of people are about to be made refugees. Life, as many in the south-eastern USA have known it for generations, is about to change, painfully and dramatically.

For millions more citizens in the "greatest nation on earth" – those who are not physically near the advancing storm – their existence is also about to take a turn for the worse.

Katrina has forced oil workers to evacuate rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, stopping the production of 600,000 barrels of oil a day. Seven oil refineries and a major oil import terminal have been closed.

Oil prices have already gone through the roof, soaring to a record high of $70.80 a barrel of crude since last Friday. Things could get much worse.

The US is particularly sensitive to oil price hikes. While comprising just five percent of the world population, Americans daily consume 20 million barrels of oil – 25 percent of the world's total.

Two weeks ago, the monster Katrina was not on any radar screen, although the 2005 hurricane season, which began in July and will not peak until September, had already seen a record number of hurricanes.

On August 14, citizens in the United States, like people around the world, heard about the issuing of an order for the forced evacuation of Jews from parts of Israel's biblical land.

For six days they watched as thousands of weeping people were pulled and carried from their homes, forced to leave their gardens, parks, communities, schools, towns and synagogues, everything they had spent decades building; banned from ever returning again. Those scenes were soon followed by pictures of bulldozers and other earth-moving machinery pulverizing the just-vacated homes into heaps of dust.

While this was taking place, a small tropical depression was forming near the Bahamas in the Atlantic Ocean. Slowly, as the air began to revolve, the nonthreatening weather system began moving in the direction of Florida.

Yesterday, we in Israel watched as American officials, including President George W. Bush, ordered the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans and its surrounds. That small depression had turned into a frightening fiend. Now we are seeing on our television screens up to a million people being forced to leave their homes. People are weeping on camera, mourning that they are going to lose "everything we own; everything we have worked for."

As today unfolds we are bracing to see wind and water pounding homes, whole communities, into the ground. Is this some sort of bizarre coincidence? Not for those who believe in the God of the Bible and the immutability of His Word.

What America is about to experience is the lifting of God's hand of protection; the implementation of His judgment on the nation most responsible for endangering the land and people of Israel.

The Bible talks about Him shaking His fist over bodies of water, and striking them.

While the "disengagement" plan was purportedly the brainchild of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the United States of America has for more than a decade been the chief sponsor and propeller of a diplomatic process that has dangerously weakened Israel in the face of an overwhelming, growing threat to annihilate her.

In the context of the last 12 years of peace-process history, and not withstanding the desire of many on Israel's left to go ahead with this process, the Sharon disengagement plan was something that was forced on Israel, primarily by the United States. "It is a fact that Israel's very existence is in grave danger, because of our nation's sponsorship of 'land for peace' plans, which have led her to the brink of war," writes US author William R. Koenig, in his 2004 book Eye to Eye– Facing the consequences of dividing Israel. (21st Century Press, Springfield MO, ISBN 0-9728899-9-X).

On the cover, a grim-faced President Bush is shown looking warily at a massive hurricane threatening his country. Koenig writes, in a book listing major natural and man-made disasters experienced by the USA during its peace-process efforts in the Middle East: "America is now experiencing the consequences (curses) of Middle East policies, which have been opposed to God's Word and to the preservation of His covenant land."

As this "storm of a lifetime" wreaks its rage on the southern United States today, non-believers may be tempted to shake their fists at God. Others will cry out for mercy. Will God hear them?

Our prayer is that He will. "Pray for us. Pray for all of New Orleans," a weeping woman resident of the city pleaded on an international television network Sunday evening as Katrina barreled its way towards her.

Many in America couldn't have cared less about Jews being forced out of their homes and losing everything they have built. Here in Israel, many Jews will be feeling for the Americans who are now facing similar tragedies, tragedies brought about by the forces of heaven rather than through the political power of men.

Can't you see the link, America? Won't you see the link?

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SaltnLight's blog post:

Katrina: God's purpose for her

The strongest, most devastating storm in the history of the USA. That is what they are saying about hurricane Katrina as it subsides from the areas of the South where she destroyed everything in her path. Bodies of people’s pets float in the flood waters that broke through dikes in, Louisiana, over flowed in Mississippi and parts of Georgia and Alabama.

Some will ask, “Is this punishment from God for our sin?” Others will ask about God’s judgment. As I watched the news and saw the pictures I couldn’t help but hear mention of how in one town there was the “toppling of a church”. Of course we know there were probably more than one such toppling but it came to me during this newscast, Matthew 5:45(b) He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

How quick we seem to be to believe that God is some ogre who waits for the time to pounce on us. With that said I must add that, there will come a time when He will judge mankind for the evil which we demand our “right” to pursue. His way is not as we may do. He isn’t interested in beating us down for each and every wrong we do.

God created a good world, but evil entered because of the first man's and woman's deliberate choices. God does not, however, withhold the normal blessings of life from those who oppose His will. He allows them to function in His world in order that He might lead them to see His love and experience His forgiveness. Since God treats evil people with kindness, we should also. They are a part of the world He created, and we should seek, by every means possible, to lead them to His love and way of life.

I believe that things like Katrina are permitted to happen to shake us from our slumber. God has not lost his control over our world. He has a leash on Satan and the enemy cannot do more than permitted by God. God has a message for us, we are going in a very suicidal direction due to many of our demands. We demand things that God has already condemned. Where is this condemnation? In the very Book that many have chosen to call antiquated and outdated. This book is like the instruction booklet that we have in the glove compartment of a new car. Like that booklet, we often do not open it until something terrible happens.

Today we are witnessing the coming together of people all over the country, in aide for and prayer for the people who have been so affected by this storm. We did the same after 9/11. Even so, it must frustrate the angels of glory to see how soon we seem to forget the God who loves us. The God we can find it in our hearts to pray to in the face of evil yet, we take for granted and push away throughout the other happier times.

God is our Creator and wants to be our Father. He stretches out His arms to take us into them and heal our brokenness. He wants to wipe the tears of sadness from our eyes and replace them with laughter and joy unspeakable.

Why wont you run to Him today and stay with Him forever??

Not just for the moment as sorrow permeates your being.

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"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Ephesians 6:12

"...And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire..." Jude 1:22-23