Commenting on the recent Queensland tragedy, Dr Andrew Glikson of the Australian National University comments, “Cyclones have increased twofold over the past twenty years. Floods have increased threefold.” A research team from Melbourne University reports in the Journal of Climate that the area of Australia recording extreme heat and rainfall has increased by 25% in the last 100 years. Everywhere you look in the world today, from the extreme cold snaps recently endured by Europeans, to the drought gripping the Middle East nations where I was journeying recently, catastrophe has become commonplace. Closest to home, UWA oceanographer Chari Pattiaratchi warns that tidal surges flooding the CBD around Riverside Drive could become yearly occurrences by 2100. None of this should not unduly alarm us, for Jesus said, “There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.” (Luke 21:11). We are in these times, times of the “last days” (Acts 2: 17; 1 Tim 4:1; Heb 1:2; 1 Pet 1:20; 1 John 2:18) that will traumatise the earth before the Lord’s Return.
These are times marked increasingly around the globe by the other prophetic dimension of Jesus warnings, “they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake” (Luke 21:12). Are you aware that several thousand believers are locked up in shipping containers in Eritrea, or know about the faithful in Mexico fenced off from the village well because of their belief. Are we praying for our sister Asia Bibi sentenced to death in Pakistan for allegedly blaspheming the Koran? So widespread has vilification and prejudice against Evangelical Christians become that there is now even a website dedicated to recording hostility against believers in the European Union www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu . Both physically and spiritually things are heating up across the world, what does it all mean and where is it all going?
Whilst the Lord did not directly send the floods, fires and droughts of recent times to punish Australians for their wickedness, he is speaking as clearly in all these things as surely as he spoke in the agony of the cross. Yet, as almost no-one saw God’s kingdom coming through the brokenness of the cross, almost no-one seems to be listening today. The darkness that covered the earth and the earthquake that rocked it as our Lord died a violent death (Matt 27:45, 51) carried a supernatural message. These cosmological phenomena marked the taking away of an old order so that a new and eternal world might emerge in the resurrection of Christ from the dead. In the biblical worldview natural disasters and persecutions are signals that an old creation is growing old and on the verge of passing and a new creation is coming ((Acts 2:19-21; Rom 8:18-25; Rev 21:1). Paradoxically, disaster and persecution preach to us the Gospel!
Passivity may permeate the Australian Church, but our Father is never passive. He is working to shake us out of our comfort zones and to reprioritise our lives so that we are seeking his kingdom before all else (Heb 12:27-29; Matt 6:33). He is seeking to stir us up to be a people of prayer, compassion, generosity and mission to the ends of the earth. This is a call to hear Jesus’ voice speaking in the midst of the terrible things that are blanketing our world and to follow him in his great mission of redemption. This is exactly what it means to be a disciple (Matt 28:18-20).