Right Thinking in the Face of Tragedy

Thistlebend Quiet eMoment

by Laurie Aker

Focus Scripture: Luke 13:1-5 ESV

There were some present at that very time who told him about

the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans

were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because

they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless

you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen

on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them:

do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others

who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent,

you will all likewise perish.”

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Portions of today’s devotion have been taken from

“Supernatural Lessons from a Natural Disaster”

by John MacArthur

Wrong Thinking vs Right Thinking:

If things are going good then you must be a good person.

If things are going bad then you must be a bad person.

The common thinking of the day in New Testament times

was that if you had calamitous events in your life,

it was because you were a bad person.

It was the judgment of God on you.

For example in the Gospel of John chapter 9,

there was a man born blind and the Jews said, “Okay,

who sinned, this man or his parents that he would be blind?”

Human calamity, disaster, and illness was related to sin.

If you were alive and you were doing well, it meant

that you must be a good person.

That way of thinking has continued far beyond

New Testament times!

In 1861 there were a couple of severe calamities

that occurred in London. One of them was a train wreck in which

23 people were killed. The other was a tunnel disaster

which killed quite a number of people. This became such an

issue among Christian people that Spurgeon preached a sermon

on those two accidents from this text. It was September 8, 1861, and

he preached a sermon to dispel the absurd idea that God killed those

people because they were traveling on a Sunday. We wouldn’t have

a congregation if that was the way God operated. But there was this

crazy idea that, you know, if you breach the Sabbath,

God may kill you in a tunnel disaster or crash your train.

What about today?

What do events like these events mean? What does it mean when a

tower collapses and kills indiscriminately Christians,

non-Christians, adults, children, evil people and moral people?

What does it mean when a plane goes down and everybody

dies without regard for their relative morality, or spirituality

or knowledge of God? What’s the point? Is God picking

on certain people by assembling them together in the right

place to just kill them all?

We know a lot of very wretched,

evil, wicked people who are doing very well. They’re healthy

and prosperous and living long lives and doing everything they

can to corrupt our culture. And we know some very good people

who died in terrible calamities…car wrecks, train wrecks,

illnesses, even hurricanes.

We still struggle to think biblically in the face of

tragedy and disaster.

We must be careful with our thoughts.

We must take every thought captive to obey Christ.

We do not understand or know the mind of God.

He is God and we are not.

So when tragedy hits someone,

it isn’t that we must be better than the people who have

experienced tragedy because we haven’t experienced tragedy.

No. God has been merciful.

It isn’t that we must be better than the people who died

because we haven’t died.

No. God has been merciful.

Conversely if tragedy hits us it doesn’t mean that we

are worse than other people.

If death or illness comes it doesn’t mean that

we are loved less by God.

TAKING THE TRUTH TO HEART

When people go through great trial and difficulty they

don’t need our judgment, they don’t need our platitudes,

they need the love of Christ.

When people are suffering