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On August 3, 2023, I became medical director at Honey Lake Clinic (HLC) in Greenville, Florida. HLC is a Christian psychiatric residential treatment center (RTC). We provide holistic, Christ-centered mental health treatments to bring healing to mind, body, spirit, and relationships by identifying the cause of the sickness and restoring the individual to harmony with God’s design for life and health.
Since 1900, 34 major hurricanes (category 3 or higher) have hit the state of Florida, but only two of those have hit in the bend region where HLC is located—both since I became medical director at HLC:
- Idalia on August 30, 2023.
- Helene on September 27, 2024.
- Hurricane Debby also hit the bend on August 5, 2024, but it was a category 1 storm.
In the aftermath of these events, multiple people have asked me whether these storms are from God, the devil, or just the natural processes of nature.
First, we thank God for His protection of HLC during these storms. During the two major storms, patients and staff evacuated for two days, many trees were blown over, fencing was damaged, and power was lost for multiple days, but no buildings were damaged, and the clinic was able to continue to provide services throughout.
But the question remains—how do we understand these events? Punishments inflicted by God for the increasing wickedness in the world? Attacks of Satan to try to destroy God’s agents and resources? Or nothing more than natural phenomena?
The Bible documents that when not restrained by God, Satan can bring storms of various kinds. In the first chapter of Job (vv. 12, 19), the devil brings a windstorm strong enough to collapse the house Job’s children are in. And in Mark 4:37, the Bible describes the sudden appearance of a furious, unnatural storm that terrified the disciples and threatened to drown the early church, requiring Jesus to rebuke the storm and calm the seas.
The Bible also documents that sometimes God brings storms—the great Flood described in Genesis chapters 6 through 8, for instance, and the story of Jonah running from God and the storm that raged until he was tossed into the sea (Jonah 1:10–12).
And, of course, there are simply natural weather patterns that are not instigated by God or the devil. So when devastating storms occur, how do we know what conclusion to draw about any particular storm?
Who Did It?
When I suggested that these recent storms were not from God but were either directly from the devil seeking to destroy or the secondary results of evil in the world, I was challenged. Some have immediately referenced God’s use of power to bring storms in Bible times and asserted that it is God acting to bring judgments to punish wickedness in the world—the proverbial “acts of God.”
So if storms can come from God, the devil, or natural processes, how can we tell the difference between when God is acting and when Satan is acting?
First, God always announces through His prophets what He is going to do before He does it:
Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets (Amos 3:7 NIV84).
Before God intervenes, He always warns to give opportunity for repentance. Why? Because God’s actions are always therapeutic, designed to save and heal, and are not punitive. He warns to alert people in order to protect and save them.
- God announced the Flood for 120 years before it happened and provided a way of escape through the ark.
- God announced to Abraham about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and sent angels to warn Lot.
- God warned Pharaoh and all of Egypt through Moses about the coming plagues and gave opportunity to avoid them.
- God sent Jonah to Nineveh to warn them and, because they did repent, He did not bring the storm.
Whenever God is the one acting, He warns through His messengers before the event occurs in order to give people time to flee, repent, and avoid the destruction.
To my knowledge, these recent storms were not announced beforehand by God’s prophets to warn and give time to repent—thus, they were not from God. So that means they are either simply natural events, ones fueled by the devil, or they are the result of evil actions on this planet.
The second reason we can know that these recent storms were not from God is because God’s actions are always therapeutic in nature, while Satan’s are always destructive. On the surface, the acts of God and the acts of the devil may sometimes appear similar, but they are not.
For instance, a surgeon will act to amputate a gangrenous foot in order to save the patient. But the surgeon’s action is not the same as a Taliban terrorist amputating the foot of an infidel. Both people are amputating limbs, but one is acting to save and heal; the other is acting to injure and destroy. This is the difference—and context, circumstance, and motive of the one taking the action determine the difference.
Once Adam sinned, no human could be saved without the promised Seed of Genesis 3:15—and the entire Old Testament narrative is about God working to bring Jesus to be our Savior and Satan’s work to stop Him. How could Satan stop Jesus from being born as a human and becoming our Savior without merely killing all humans? By getting all humans to permanently harden their hearts against God. God would not force a woman against her will to be the mother of Jesus, and God would not have Jesus born to a woman like Jezebel, who would have offered Him as an infant sacrifice to a pagan god.
At the time of the Flood, there was only one righteous man left on the earth, only one family left who would listen to and trust God and, thus, only one family through whom God could work to save humanity from sin. Thus, the Flood was not God acting to destroy but, instead, acting to save and heal.
If you would like to read more about how God’s actions are therapeutic and not destructive, see our blogs:
- The Flood and the Question of Whether God Kills, Part 1.
- The Flood and the Question of Whether God Kills, Part 2.
- The Death Penalty in Old Testament Times.
- Death: A Punishment Inflicted by God or a Natural Consequence of Sin?
Today’s Disasters
So why are we seeing more storms and disasters? The godless world would have us believe it is because of climate change due to increased carbon emissions, but this is a lie intended to get people to surrender their freedoms to the control of the elites. Moreover, the climate change hoax is a direct denial of the Word of God, for God made two promises after the Flood. One promise was that He would never again destroy the world by a flood, and He gave the rainbow as a reminder to us of that promise.
But He also promised:
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease (Genesis 8:22 NIV 84).
For more on the climate change lies, see our blogs:
It is not climate change that is causing the increase in disasters; it is a spiritual change, the hardening of human hearts. The climate change narrative is how Satan is disguising the real problem!
God is the Creator and Sustainer of reality. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, God has been using His power to save and heal, to restrain evil, to hold in check the principalities and powers of darkness for the purpose of leading people to salvation. But when God removes His restraining hand, as He did in the book of Job, Satan has more freedom to act—and Satan is the destroyer.
The dwelling place of the Holy Spirit on the earth is the spirit temple, the human heart and mind. As billions of people harden their hearts against God, the Holy Spirit is slowly withdrawn from the earth and, as a result, Satan gains more and more freedom to act—and this is what is causing the increase in disasters upon the earth. This withdrawal of God’s presence and protection because humanity has hardened their hearts to Him is described in the Bible as “God’s wrath.”
The apostle Paul explicitly states in Romans 1:18, 24, 26, and 28 that God’s wrath is letting people go from His protection to reap what they have chosen, and the natural result is destruction. Many Bible scholars recognize this truth. From the book Hard Sayings of the Bible, published by Intervarsity Press, commenting on Romans 1:18–32, we read:
In some sense, God’s wrath is built into the very structure of created reality. In rejecting God’s structure and establishing our own, in violating God’s intention for the creation and substituting our own intentions, we cause our own disintegration.
The human condition, which Paul describes in Romans 1:18-32, is not something caused by God. The phrase “revealed from heaven” (where “heaven” is a typical Jewish substitute word for “God”) does not depict some kind of divine intervention, but rather the inevitability of human debasement which results when God’s will, built into the created order, is violated. Since the created order has its origin in God, Paul can say that the wrath of God is now (constantly) being revealed “from heaven.” It is revealed in the fact that the rejection of God’s truth (Rom 1:18-20), that is, the truth about God’s nature and will, leads to futile thinking (Rom 1:21-22), idolatry (Rom 1:23), perversion of God-intended sexuality (Rom 1:24-27) and relational-moral brokenness (Rom 1:28-32).
The expression “God gave them over” (or “handed them over”), which appears three times in this passage (Rom 1:24,26,28), supports the idea that the sinful perversion of human existence, though resulting from human decisions, is to be understood ultimately as God’s punishment which we, in freedom, bring upon ourselves.
In light of these reflections, the common notion that God punishes or blesses in direct proportion to our sinful or good deeds cannot be maintained… God loves us with an everlasting love. But the rejection of that love separates us from its life-giving power. The result is disintegration and death (Kaiser, W., et al., pp. 542, 543, emphasis mine).
At the end of time, God’s wrath is the gradual release of His protection from all those who have hardened their hearts against Him. As this occurs, evil forces will gain more freedom to act and we will see ever-increasing destruction of all kinds—natural disasters, pestilences, wars, famines, and human abuse and exploitation.
And, consistent with His character, God foretold His actions in letting go, withdrawing His protection, and the subsequent results through Jesus’ prophecies recorded in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 and also through John in the book of Revelation.
But Jesus also tells us that we are not to be overcome with fear when these things occur; instead, He said, “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28 NIV84).
And Paul tells us exactly what our mindset needs to be at this time in human history, because we are not children of the dark but of the light:
Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:1–9 NIV84).
We have nothing to fear from the wrath of God, for we are His children and He will never abandon us, leave us, or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). He is with us always, even to the end of the earth (Matthew 28:20). So lift up your head and rejoice as these events take place, for Jesus is coming soon!
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