Short Answer
Natural disasters are not random events; they occur within God’s sovereign control, even though they may have natural causes like geography or weather patterns. While God is not the direct author of evil, nothing happens apart from His permission and purpose. These events exist in a fallen world and are ultimately used by God within His greater plan.
The Overview
Natural disasters—such as earthquakes, hurricanes, pandemics, and wildfires—can be explained in part by natural processes like weather systems or geological activity. However, the Bible teaches that these events are not ultimately random. God is sovereign over all creation, meaning that nothing happens outside of His knowledge, allowance, and purpose.
At the same time, Scripture makes a distinction between God’s sovereignty and direct causation. God may allow or ordain events without being the immediate agent of destruction. For example, in the story of Job, natural and even evil forces brought devastation, yet they operated only within the boundaries God permitted. This shows that God is always in control, even when events seem chaotic or tragic.
Another key factor is the fallen condition of the world. Since the events of Genesis 3, creation itself has been affected by sin. This results in what can be called “natural evil”—things like disease, disasters, and death. These realities affect both righteous and unrighteous people alike and are part of living in a broken world.
However, even in suffering, the Bible teaches that God is working out His purposes. For believers, Romans 8:28 affirms that God works all things—including hardship—for good. While humans may not understand the specific reason behind each disaster, they can trust that nothing is meaningless or outside of God’s plan. Ultimately, Scripture points to a future where such suffering will end, and creation will be restored.
Key Takeaways
- Disasters Are Not Random
They occur under God’s sovereignty, even when explained by natural causes. - God Allows but Is Not the Direct Author of Evil
Events may involve natural or secondary causes, but God permits them within His plan. - The World Is Fallen
Natural disasters are part of living in a world affected by sin since Genesis 3. - Both Good and Evil People Are Affected
Suffering is not always a direct punishment for individual actions. - God Works Through All Circumstances
Even tragedy is used by God for His purposes and ultimate good.
Read Full Raw Transcript
00:00:00
How are we supposed to view natural disasters? Hurricanes uh in Florida, wildfires in California, uh COVID, these are natural disasters and they seem like a plague from God. Are they simply outcomes based on geography of those regions? Well, here’s here’s the thing. Nothing, as Amos 3 says, disaster does not come to a city unless the Lord has commanded it. Right? Like Job said, do we receive good from the hand of God and not evil? Obviously, God is in charge. And uh though God is not the direct
00:00:27
agency of of terrifying events or evil events, uh certainly they’re not happening without his allowance of these events. And therefore, God is going to be credited with the reality of even the hard times as Job rightly says. And even after Job makes that statement to his frustrated wife, uh the Bible says, Job did not sin. Even in all this, Job did not sin with his words, with his mouth. So we know that this is a true way to look at reality. The Lord is given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the
00:00:53
name of the Lord. shall we receive good things from his hand and not evil. And God is not going to let the wildfires take your house in Pacific Paladus or or Aladena or or your home in in Omaha if if um in a in a tornado if this is not uh God’s path and purpose, right? Many are the plans in the mind of a man. Proverbs 19:21 says, “But it’s the purpose of the Lord which will stand.” So, we know that if your house burns down, God’s not like, “Oops, didn’t know that was going to happen.” Uh but just
00:01:23
like with Job, let’s think about Job. 10 of his kids died in one day. And you could say, well, it was because of a storm. Was it because of the storm in in the land of Is that why that that happened? Uh or the land of Oz, rather, it says in in Job 1. Or is this God? Well, of course, God is all worked into God’s plan. Now the intermediate cause may be uh meteorological issues of storms that are prone to happen in that area of where Job lived. But we know there’s satanic involvement. Satan is there trying to push buttons to
00:01:55
make this happen to a particular man and cause a particular kind of damage as Jesus says in John 8. He’s a murderer and he’s out to murder a few more that God allows in that particular story. And it’s a sad story but here’s Job responding rightly to it. But ultimately it wouldn’t happen unless God didn’t give him permission to do that. So we say, yeah, God is utilizing everything that happens in your life if you’re a Christian. Romans 8:28, maybe it’s over quoted in the midst of bad times. And
00:02:23
people need to hear more than just this verse, but God is working all things together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose, even the evil and the bad that comes into our lives. I mean, there’s several reasons. There may be bad things that God has commissioned and purposed to come into your life, but in the end, I’m going to say, “Yeah, Jack, it’s not just, well, you happen to live in this city and it happens.” None of it’s going to happen without God saying it’s going
00:02:48
to happen. Lamentations 3, none, none of this is going to happen. The alarm’s not going to sound in the city or the trumpet’s not going to be blown in the city unless the Lord is behind it all. So now, I can look at the individuals and say God has orchestrated all of that. But then again, we live in a sinful world. And I go back to Genesis 3 and I know that God cursed the ground. And because the ground is cursed, uh it’s indiscriminate, at least humanly speaking, that the thorns and thistles
00:03:12
are going into everyone’s garden, right? Into the garden of the evil and the good, just like the sun is going to rise on the on the on the crops of the evil and the good and the rains are going to fall on the evil. So here is common grace and common evil. Now, there’s specific grace and there’s specific evil and we just need to understand the difference. And that’s why, Jack, I can’t say, “Well, this is clear, right? If the Golden Globes, they’re going to mock God, so God’s going to, you know,
00:03:35
burn and singe the Hollywood Hills.” Well, okay, maybe there’s a direct response. I don’t know. But I can’t I I can’t say one or the other because I don’t know what’s going on in the invisible realm. I don’t know the kinds of debates that are going on there. Uh I can say this. Earthquakes happen in California. uh you know, Kansas has um has tornadoes and Florida has hurricanes and there’s monsoons in in the in the in the Pacific. So, you know, what what do we do with the natural evil that’s just
00:04:04
a part of being in this world? It’s like death. Death is going to happen to us all because that’s part of what was commissioned in Genesis 3. To put it in the words of Romans 8:20, right? The whole creation was subjected to futility. Futility means I’ll build a house and I thought it was going to be great and stand until my grandkids stood in the living room. But then, you know, here’s the futility of it all. I built it for for me to live in, but now it’s in in it’s in rubble because it was
00:04:29
burned in the Santa Ana winds and fire, assuming like you say, Jack, in your question, which I didn’t read parathetically, assuming that those fires were all natural cause, which we’re not sure, of course, because there have been people arrested with blowtorrches in their hands. But nevertheless, the point is the evil that comes upon us can be general evil, natural evil and generally done or specific natural evil that is specifically done for a particular reason that God has allowed. All of it
00:04:57
is part of God’s purpose. And that’s where people stumble over that truth. But I can’t get around it. If God is omnisient and he’s all powerful and he’s all good, then I know he’s got a good plan for even utilizing the evil in this world. And the suffering is just part of what being a human being is about post Genesis 3. The good news is though we live between Genesis 3 and Revelation 19. One day Revelation 21 and 22 are going to be here and the eternal state’s going to get us back to a much better
00:05:23
paradise than the one we had in in Genesis 1 and 2. So Revelation, we have the hope that all of this this big chunk of scripture between Genesis 3 and Revelation 19. it’s all going to be over and we won’t be in a place anymore where we have all this. So, yes, some of it’s based on geography. I’m more likely to have my home destroyed in a in a in a an earthquake because of plate tectonics than I am a tornado because of the meteorological uh issues of of weather and and pressure and storms in Southern
00:05:57
California. So, yeah, I know that. That’s why I can’t afford earthquake insurance because they know, you know, the actual actu the um the underwriters and the insurance say there’s no way we’re going to give you uh insurance in a uh in a in a air earthquake prone area. So when the when the disaster comes to a city, does it affect the righteous and the evil? Yes, absolutely. And does God have a different purpose for the evil than he does for the righteous? Yes. and we trust God and all of that. Let’s
00:06:29
think of the the the towers. Here’s some moral evil, we would call it. Go back to 9/11 way back in the day. And here are some men who wanted to make a point and they wanted to make a point by killing Americans. And so they go after our tallest buildings in New York. And you say, “Okay, all those people died. Thousands of people died. Uh were there righteous and unrighteous?” Yes. Were there people that were living lives that, you know, death was like, “Why isn’t this coming sooner?” Yes. where
00:06:55
there are those that are righteous and living for the Lord and like well we want them to live until they’re 500 years old. Yeah, but they died that day. So disaster that God is allowing, right? He’s got a plan for each individual person and we know that all of this should be for all of us, right? That we should all have our lives cut short and eventually we all will. The point is the wages of sin is death. We live among a sinful uh people because we are sinful people in a sinful world where even the
00:07:23
laws of nature itself have been cursed. And so we’re going to encounter all of this. This is going to be the case and we’re going to have to to endure this. But it’s not as though it’s all random. And I guess that’s really what you’re getting at, Jack. This is a question of are all these natural disasters, are they random? And I’m going to say none of them are random. And the purpose that God has for each individual on this planet right now and all of them that have died up until this point and all
00:07:49
that haven’t been born yet is all specifically laid out as it says in in Acts 17. He he didn’t just people aren’t being randomly born, right? He’s determined the times and the dwelling places of every human being. And that we live out through our valitional decision-making, but in the end it somehow comports and harmonizes with God’s plan. And in that we’re stuck with that hard doctrine. And all of us would get really apoplelectic about someone who doesn’t explain the problem the same
00:08:18
way we do. But it’s a problem because we struggle as finite beings to know how God can be so involved uh to have a master plan for all these little decisions that are made all the way down to what I’m going to have for lunch today. And yet God is a God who does that. He works everything after the council of his will. Every small detail. The bird does not fall from the nest. Jesus said apart from the from my father, right? God says it’s time for that bird to die. And that’s how this
00:08:43
works. Psalm 139, right? Every day of my life has been written a book before there was yet one of them. I was born way back in the in the olden days and and all of my days, right? God had determined how long I was going to live. If I die in a fire, an earthquake or if I die in a nursing home, you know, at at 92 gripping the edge of a of a gurnie that well, that whatever it is, this is this is my determination. And we’d like it to be different, right? We’d like to be so selfactualized and so autonomous that we’re going to
00:09:13
decide all these things, but we really can’t. At the end of the day, I didn’t decide when I was born, who my parents would be, what city I’d be born in, all of this. I I’m I’m a victim of this in a sense. Then I come into the world, I start making decisions. I feel like, well, no, I’m the captain of my own soul, the master of my own fate. And I’m trying to make decisions, and and in time, I get hit with the grace of God, which God was involved the whole time. But I then say, “Oh, man. I want to give
00:09:35
my life to Christ.” Well, that want didn’t get there. Even the decision didn’t get there without God’s gracious work to pull me then out of my despair of being stuck as a sinful person in a sinful world headed to a sinful destruction. And God says, “No, I’m going to write your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life. And now I want you to live for me.” And as imperfectly as I’m trying to do that, and you’re trying to do that, here we are on this planet, uh, doing what we’re doing, making decisions every day, and God is working out his plan through all of that.
