Many scriptures speak of God being in control of the presence and absence of rain and withholding rain as a sign of His displeasure.
Dt. 28:15 “ But it shall come about, if you do not [a]obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
23 [a]The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. (cmp. Lev. 26:19).
The metaphors of heaven as bronze and earth as iron spoke of a rainless sky and a barren land. Such realities would be frightful to any people.
Zech. 14:17 And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them.
Acts 14:17 and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, [a]satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”
James 5:17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed [a]earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.
Amos 4:7 “Furthermore, I withheld the rain from you
While there were still three months until harvest.
Then I would send rain on one city
And on another city I would not send rain;
One part would be rained on,
While the part not rained on would dry up.
Jer.5:24 Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if My People who are called by my Name will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive there sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7: 13-14)
God created the world as a good environment which would normally provide ample water and food for mankind (Genesis 1:1).
0lder Calvinists saw an interruption of rain as God’s just judgment, Thomas Watson in 1670,
“It is God who brings droughts and rain, and who opens and stops the clouds, the bottles of heaven, at his pleasure:
Watson then cites Jer. 14:2-4,
“Judah mourns, her cities languish; they wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem. The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns but find no water. They return with their jars unfilled; dismayed and despairing, they cover their heads (as a token of great grief and sorrow, as mourners do.) The ground is cracked because there is no rain in the land; the farmers are dismayed and cover their heads.”
Watson, like many of the older Calvinists saw the productiveness of the earth as related to people’s obedience to God.
They could look at the sins of Adam, Eve, and Cain as those sins resulted in unfruitfulness of the earth (Genesis 3:17-18; Genesis 4:12).
17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In [a]toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the [b]plants of the field;
As a result of Cain’s sin,
12 When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.”
The Older Calvinists could look at Israel’s relationship with God and how the sins of Israel also directly affecting the fertility of the Promised Land.
When the people obeyed God, the land was productive (Deuteronomy 11:11-14). However, when they disobeyed, judgment came on the land by drought and famine (Leviticus 26:23-26; Deuteronomy 11:16-17; 1 Kings 8:35).
I Kings 8:35 “ When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain, because they have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name and turn from their sin when You afflict them,
At the same time the Old Testament contains promises that God will protect His faithful ones in times of famine (Job 5:20, 22; Psalms 33:18-19; Psalms 37:18-19; Proverbs 10:3)
Ps. 33:18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him,
On those who [a] hope for His lovingkindness,
19 To deliver their soul from death
And to keep them alive in famine
Ps. 18 The Lord knows the days of the [a]blameless,
And their inheritance will be forever.
19 They will not be ashamed in the time of evil,
And in the days of famine they will have abundance.
While the Bible states that some famines and droughts are the judgment of God (2 Samuel 21:1; 1 Kings 17:1; 2 Kings 8:1; Jeremiah 14:12; Ezekiel 5:12; Amos 4:6), not all such disasters are explicitly connected to divine punishment (Genesis 12:10; Genesis 26:1; Ruth 1:1; Acts 11:28). However, when God did send drought and famine on His people, it was for the purpose of bringing them to repentance (1 Kings 8:35-36; Hosea 2:8-23; Amos 4:6-8).
So older Calvinists used to read visitations upon the land as God communicating to His people by Divine providence. Those negative visitations could be lack of rain, they could be fire that raged through a city, or they could be capture by one’s enemies. The point is that older Calvinists, in difficulties or in blessings and abundance saw the hand of God.
For example,
Thomas Watson on the great fire that decimated London in 1670,
“That the burning of London is a national judgment, is evident enough to every man who has but half an eye.”
“O sirs, you are to see and observe and acknowledge the hand of the Lord in every personal judgment, and in every domestic judgment. Oh how much more then in every national judgment that is inflicted upon us! And thus I have done with those ten considerations, that should not only provoke us—but also prevail with us, to see and acknowledge the hand of the Lord in that recent dreadful fire, which has laid our city desolate!”
When other Puritans in the New World experienced starvation and Indian attacks, they reasoned it was God’s will and possibly also His punishment for their materialism and other sins. When they were victorious in battle with the Indians or reaped a bountiful harvest, they gave thanks to God.
Mary Rowlandinson, a Calvinist preacher’s wife in the New World was captured by Indians in a raid on their town.
Rowlandson believed that God was punishing his people for breaking their special covenant as his chosen people. She described the relationship between the Indians and the colonists as one orchestrated by God. As she surveyed her home after the attack bv the Indians, she credited the destruction not to the Indians, but to God, when she quoted “Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He has made in the earth-“[10] When pondering the escape of the Indians, weighed down with the burden of their wounded captives, from the English army, Rowlandson concluded that “God strengthened [the Indians] to be a scourge to His people.” Rowlandson believed that “our perverse and evil carriages in the sight of the Lord have so offended Him that, instead of turning his hand against [the Indians], the Lord feeds and nourishes them.” She reinforced her conviction that God punished her people through the Indians by quoting the scriptural voice of God saying “Oh, that my people had harkened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways; I should soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries.”[11] The Indians’ success over the Puritans was a result of the failure of the Puritans to uphold their covenant with God. The warning that John Cotton preached over forty years earlier, that if the colonist, “degenerate, to take loose courses, God will surely plucke you up,” had become prophetic to Mary Rowlandson
Remember, the point that I’m trying to make here, is that whether it was drought, or some other hardship, Older Calvinists believed that God’s sovereign providential hand was in the matter. Whatever they were dealing with it did not come to them by chance or happenstance. And generally they believed if what came to them was hardship, then they had need to repent.
Maybe they drew too tight a connection between the hardship and the specific sin in their lives they were being chastened for, but at least they understood that the world was Governed directly by God whatever concrete event may come into their lives.
I think there is danger in drawing to tight a connection between hardship that comes into our lives and some specific exact sin, though Scripture clearly teaches God chastens those He loves. If we draw to tight a connection between hardship and some exact sin we could fall prey to the thinking that success always equal righteousness while hardship always equals some wickedness. Scripture gives us plenty of examples that counter that so that we will not fall into that thinking.
Having said that, I also think that we have fallen into the greater danger of not seeing the world alive with God’s providential superintendence like the older Calvinists. We too often fail to see God’s providence in all the affairs around us. We too typically forget that all that happens, happens by divine ordination and with the concurrence of Divine providence.
For the older Calvinists God’s hand was seen in everything. To often for us, God is a spectator, along with us, in the
vicissitudes of life. And because we don’t seen God’s providence in all that comes our way we are slow to turn to Him in every situation, casting our all upon Him.
Now we ask why did the older Calvinists view life with this high sense of God intimate providence?
Because they saw it taught everywhere in Scripture,
Amos 3:6, “When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?”
Whatever the judgment is which falls upon a city—God is the author of it; he acts in it and orders it according to his own good pleasure. There is no judgment that accidentally falls upon any person, city, or country. Every judgment is inflicted by a divine power and providence… including drought.
“The Lord said to him—Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” Exodus 4:11.
“See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand!” Deuteronomy 32:39.
“The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts. 1 Samuel 2:6-7.
“When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.” Ecclesiastes 7:14.
“This is what the Lord says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them.” Jeremiah 32:42.
“Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?” Lamentations 3:38.
“When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?” Amos 3:6.
“For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal.” Job 5:18.
“I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.” Job 42:2.
“Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.” Psalm 115:3.
“I know that the Lord is great, that our Lord is greater than all gods. The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths.” Psalm 135:5-6.
“I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.” Isaiah 45:7.
“The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me!” Ruth 1:21.
“I was silent; I would not open my mouth, for you are the one who has done this.” Psalm 39:9. “He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.” 1 Samuel 3:18.
“The Lord brought all this disaster on them.” 1 Kings 9:9.
“‘I am going to bring disaster on you.” 1 Kings 21:21.
“The Lord has decreed disaster for you.” 1 Kings 22:23.
“Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle!” 2 Kings 21:12.
“The Lord works out everything for his own ends– even the wicked for a day of disaster!” Proverbs 16:4.
“Therefore this is what the Lord says: I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them!” Jeremiah 11:11.
We see, by the witness of Scripture, that the older Calvinists had good reason to have a strong belief in God’s providence. It was part and parcel of that which makes Calvinism, Calvinism, and that is the belief in the Sovereignty of God.
So what is our attitude to be in the face of natural disasters?
1.) We would do well, in every natural occurrence, to see the hand of the Lord, and to look through the instrument that God uses to effect His end to the invisible God who wielded that instrument. Winds do not blow, floods do not come, rain is not with-held, unless God be in it. (“Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?” Is. 10:15).
2.) We don’t blame God as if He is guilty of our demands. Could any of us say that we are as Holy in our walk as our righteous Father Job was, and yet, God in His providence laid Job low and Job learned not to put God in the dock. When hardship comes our way we must remember that God’s dealings with us are altogether just, and that none of us, if honest with ourselves, can indict God for His dealings with us, as if we deserve better than whatever God brings.
3.) Repent. Repentance means a change in our thinking and then our lifestyle. We have to abandon our humanistic fantasies and return to taking the entire Word of God seriously. Why should we find it so difficult to call for repentance in the time of drought? Our whole life should be characterized as a life style of repentance and if that is so hardship should doubly call us to examine ourselves unto repentance, amending of thinking and acting where needs be and trust in Christ alone.
4.) Understand the truth of God’s “Severe Mercy.” Providentially, God sends hardship into our lives, often to put us into the refiners fire of sanctification. God’s severe mercy, often painfully, yet exactingly conforms us to Christ. We should pray that we might be able to say,
“I thank thee Lord for the Rod, the file, and the refiners fire, for grace tried and proven is better than grace left untried.”
(Paul’s thorn in the Flesh — God’s grace is sufficient.)
5.) We reach out with compassion to those who are suffering from natural disasters. We demonstrate the Love of God. We show the love of God in ministering to the needs and hurts of those immediately affected. It is an opportunity to show the love of Christ. It is an opportunity to relieve physical suffering [as Jesus did when He walked the earth], and point people to the only way to relieve spiritual suffering and know Peace w/ God.
