Can we identify God’s acts of judgment today or in recent history? (Part 3 of 3)

Can we identify God’s acts of judgment today or in recent history? (Part 3 of 3)

I Chronicles 16:12 and Psalm 105:5 tell us to “Remember His wonderful deeds which He has done, His marvels and the judgments from His mouth.”

This blog will consider passages in the Old Testament that speak of the ways God judged individuals, groups, cities and nations. It will not be exhaustive as the amount of material in the Old Testament that speaks of God’s judgment is vast, from His judgment of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 to His judgment of sorcerers, adulterers, promise breakers, and oppressors in Malachi 3.  

1. Warnings of judgments via multiple means

            II Chronicles 6:28-31, 7:13-14 [also 20:9 and I Kings 8]

After Solomon completed construction of the temple he prayed to the Lord.  His prayer includes the following:

If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, if there is locust or grasshopper, if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities, whatever plague or whatever sickness there is, whatever prayer or supplication is made by any man or by all Your people Israel, each knowing his own affliction and his own pain, and spreading his hands toward this house, then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and render to each according to all his ways, whose heart You know for You alone know the hearts of the sons of men that they may fear You, to walk in Your ways as long as they live in the land which You have given to our fathers. (II Chron 6:28-31)

The Lord then appears to Him and says:

If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

While Solomon’s prayer detailed situations that he did identify as God’s judgments (although he may well have assumed they were), the Lord’s answer revealed that that indeed was their cause.  The judgments of drought, plague of locusts and pestilence are not tied to specific sins, but they are God’s responses to His people’s then-future wicked ways.  I am well aware of arguments on both sides of the question of whether II Chronicles 7:14 can be applied to America or to any nation today, to Jesus’ church in a given nation, or to any smaller segment of the church, down to the individual level.  While I have my own thoughts on this question, my point here is only to suggest that since God said that He could send drought, plagues and pestilence at some time in the past, it is reasonable to consider that He could again use these means to call His people to repent, to realize the destructiveness of their sin and turn from it and to seek His healing of both their hearts and the damage their sin has done to their land.

Jeremiah 14:12, 18:21, 21:6-8, 24:10, 27:8 & 13, 29:17-18, 32:24 & 36, 34:17, 42:17-22 & 44:1-13

In these verses the Lord repeatedly says that He will or that He has judged His people or other nations through wars, famines and pestilence (or disease).  Jeremiah 14 is His first warning and is discussed under drought and famine below. In Jeremiah 18, the prophet asks the Lord to use these three means of punishment against the men who are attacking him.  

When King Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, sends a representative to Jeremiah to plead with him for the Lord’s help against Nebuchadnezzar who is attacking Jerusalem [Chapter 21], the Lord replies, “I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and any of the people who survive the war, starvation, and disease. I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to their enemies.” [21:7]  But He adds that the people of Jerusalem can escape these judgments by willingly going into exile in Babylon [21:8]

Jeremiah 27 is a message to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon, telling them to submit to Nebuchadnezzer or the Lord will punish them through the king of Babylon with war, starvation and disease [27:8].  But like His message to the people of Jerusalem, if they submit to the king of Babylon, they will escape these three calamities [27:13]. 

Jeremiah 29 is a letter from the prophet to the exiles in Babylon, assuring them, in contrast to what they have heard from false prophets, that the Lord will indeed bring war, starvation and disease on the people who remain in Jerusalem, adding that He ”will treat them like figs that are so rotten  they cannot be eaten.” [29:18]   In Chapter 32, Jeremiah affirms that God is using war, starvation and disease to bring about the fall of Jerusalem.

Chapter 34 is a discussion of the covenant King Zedekiah made with the people of Jerusalem to grant slaves their freedom, to which the Lord responds, “You have not really obeyed me and granted freedom to your neighbor and fellow countryman.  Therefore, I will grant you freedom, the freedom to die in war, or by starvation or disease.” [34:17]

In Chapter 42 the Lord warns those in Judea who are preparing to flee to Egypt that they will not escape war, starvation or disease, but it will follow them.  And then in Chapter 44, the Lord speaks to Judeans who did flee to Egypt when He brought His judgment on Jerusalem and towns of Judah for their worship of other gods.  He tells them that He is just as angry with them because they are now sacrificing to the gods of Egypt.  He says, “And I will punish those who live in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, with the sword, with famine and with pestilence.” [44:13]

Ezekiel 14:12-23 [also 5:8-17, 6:11-14, 7:14-15, 12:16]

After God tells Ezekiel earlier in Chapter 14 what He will do to elders of Israel who have come before Him with idols in their hearts, He broadens the discussion to actions He will take when the nation or the city of Jerusalem is unfaithful.  After going through four actions one by one, he combines them in verse 21, "For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments—sword and famine and wild beasts and plague—to kill its men and their animals! These four means of judgment include two of the three mentioned in II Chronicles 7 plus two others – the sword and wild beasts.  In contrast to II Chronicles 7:14 in which God calls His people to repent and pray, God says in Ezekiel 14:14, 16, 18 & 20 that even if Noah, Daniel and Job were to intercede for the nation when God brings famine, wild animals, a sword or plagues against the land, they could only save themselves.

            Deuteronomy 28:20-28 & 32:19-25

Deuteronomy 28:20-28 is contained within a longer section of curses God pronounces for disobedience to the Mosaic covenant. The passage makes it clear that the Lord sends or allows the long list of calamities that are described as (according to the NET Bible):

1. Deadly diseases (“pestilence” in other translations), expanded to include weakness, fever, inflammation, blight, mildew, tumors, eczema and scabies

2. The sword, defeat by their enemies

3. Drought

4. Madness, blindness, confusion of mind

The passage goes on to say that God will allow His people to become victims of theft, rape, humiliation, enslavement and exile, as well as repeating and expanding on the above four.

Deuteronomy 32:19-25 is contained within the Song of Moses. The verb tenses suggest that this passage refers both to times Israel made God jealous and angry during the Exodus and also to future times when Israel turns to idols after settling in the Promised Land.  Verses 23-24 describe how God will execute His judgments:

I will heap calamities upon them and expend my arrows against them.  I will send wasting famine against them, consuming pestilence and deadly plague; I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts, the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.

Verse 25 adds the sword (war) to the calamities of verses 23-24.

Summary

The above passages indicate that the Lord can and has used a variety of what we might call natural causes, like famine, wild beasts and diseases, and human evils, like war, to judge both His people and foreign nations.  There are of course many Old Testament passages that speak of these same calamities which have no hint of being the means of judgments of the Lord.  Generally the Lord reveals His plans beforehand, which, in some passages, provide an opportunity for His people to repent and avoid the judgment.  Others indicate the time for intercession has passed.

Now I’ll consider some specific cases, most of which include one of the means mentioned in the above passages and then ask if the same things that have happened in the history of Idaho Falls or Southeast Idaho could have been God’s judgments.    

2. Judgment of rival gods

For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments; I am the LORD.   Exodus 12:12  [see also Numbers 33:4]

The plagues of Egypt had multiple purposes, one of which was to show God’s people as well as Pharaoh and the people of Egypt the supremacy of the Lord God over the gods of Egypt.  The plagues that brought disease, destruction and death revealed the power of the Lord and the impotence of the gods of the land. 

Can we see any examples of this in the history of Southeast Idaho?  With a lot of digging into history, maybe.  We don’t have gods that are local.  But we do share in national calamities that can be viewed as God’s judgments on national gods and experience local calamities that may also point to national worship of false gods.

I don’t consider my knowledge of local history thorough enough to draw definitive conclusions, but the first one I would investigate would be the windstorm that destroyed the Eagle Rock round house in 1886.  With the loss of that operation, the population of the town dropped by 80%.  Could this be a case of God’s judgment on the god of wealth embodied by railroad baron Jay Gould and perhaps also God cleansing the land from earlier bloodshed through the connections of Bill Hickman and General Patrick Conner to Eagle Rock?

Much more recently, how do we view God’s role in the coronavirus pandemic? Is He testing our trust in Him as opposed to our faith in the gods of government power and control, technology, and medical science?

3. Floods

The flood in Noah’s day was God’s judgment on the ancient world, but appears somewhat unique in Scripture, as God promised Noah that He would not repeat sending a flood of that magnitude.  The prophet Nahum recorded that Nineveh would be destroyed by a flood - But with an overflowing flood He will make a complete end of its site, and will pursue His enemies into darkness (Nahum 1:8). Just after Isaiah writes of the cornerstone being laid in Zion (28:16) he writes of the floodwaters of God’s judgment, sweeping away the treaty Jerusalem made with death (28:17-19).

Were there people in Southeastern Idaho when the Bonneville flood occurred 15,000 years ago?  Probably not.

While a number of references to floods are present in histories of Southeast Idaho, documentation is mostly very sketchy or nonexistent regarding the extent of damages, whether there was loss of life, and whether anyone considered them a cause to repent and seek the Lord. It’s doubtful.

A flood in 1853 formed Market Lake when the Snake River overflowed its banks, and for the next several decades seasonal flooding maintained its level.  In the late 1887’s a railroad grade blocked the overflow channel from the river.

The maximum historic discharge of the upper Snake River occurred in June, 1894, a flow of 72,000 cubic feet per second (cfs).  Given that flows around 35,000 cfs took out the south Twin Bridge near Ririe in 1997 and caused flooding of the Greenbelt in Idaho Falls, the flow in 1894 must have caused some damage in early Idaho Falls.  However, the lack of reports of damage in period newspapers suggests that the young town of Idaho Falls escaped serious consequences, perhaps because of flooding likely occurred mostly upstream of the town. 

A severe storm hit Idaho Falls on July 15, 1954 that dropped over an inch of rain in 15 minutes, resulting in flooding of many basements, and overflow of the 17^th Street canal.  On February 10, 1962, the canal flooded again, 2000 families in Bonneville County were evacuated and damages were estimated at $3 million.

The flood on June 5, 1976 caused by the catastrophic failure of the newly built Teton dam caused the deaths of 11 people, flooded 100,000 acres, and damaged homes, farms, businesses and roads to an estimated $400 million. The cause of failure was determined to be design and construction errors.  

These floods may have carried God’s gentle voice reminding the residents of Idaho Falls and the surrounding area to reflect on His control of “nature” and how vulnerable they are to forces beyond their control.  However, with the exception of the Teton Dam failure that had clear human causes and did result in loss of life, the relatively minor destructiveness of the others suggest that at best that message was muted.

3. Drought and famine

Drought and famine are more common means of God’s judgment in the Old Testament than floods.  Periods of drought have been fairly common in Southeast Idaho as well.

Psalm 105:16 attributes the seven-year famine in Egypt in the days of Joseph to the Lord’s word.

One prime example of drought and famine from the Old Testament is the story of God’s judgment of Israel’s worship of Baal and Asherah though Elijah’s confrontations with Ahab, Jezebel and the prophets of these gods.  The account begins in I Kings 17:1 and is referenced in the New Testament book of James.  Elijah declared that would be no rain in Israel until the Lord gave him permission to ask for it, which turned out to be a period of three years.  The drought ended just after the contest between the God of Elijah and the “gods” of the 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah.

Just after King Ahaz died, the Lord through Isaiah told the Philistines, “I will destroy your root with famine, and it will kill off your survivors.” (Isaiah 14:30)  Later in the book of Isaiah, the Lord uses famine and sword to judge Jerusalem (Isaiah 51:17-20).

Jeremiah 14 begins, “This is the word of the LORD to Jeremiah concerning the drought…(14:1)” After the Lord details the severity of the drought, Jeremiah responds, “O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name even though our sins speak out against us. Indeed, we have turned away from you many times. We have sinned against you…”(14:7)  Based on similar prayers of repentance of Moses, Daniel and others, you think this would have swayed the Lord, but it didn’t.  In verses 11 and 12 he tells Jeremiah not to pray for the people, and if the people fast, cry to Him and bring Him offerings He will not hear their prayers or accept their offerings.  As harsh as this sounds, the Lord adds a completely different tone when he tells Jeremiah to tell the people that His eyes overflow with tears day and night for His people (14:17) and this causes Jeremiah to continue to confess the sins of the nation and plead for the Lord to remember His covenant. (14:19-22)   

The book of Ezekiel records that because Israel has broken their covenant with the Lord, “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations.” [Ezekiel 5:8] One of His several means judgments is famine: When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food. [Ezekiel 5:16]

When King David took a census of his army, [II Samuel 24 & I Chronicles 21], turning away from trusting in the Lord, he realized his sin and the Lord gave him his choice of three forms of judgment – three years of famine, three months of defeat by his enemies, or three days of plague. [II Samuel 24:13 & I Chronicles 21:12].  

Amos 4:7-8 records:

I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up. So two or three cities would stagger to another city to drink water, but would not be satisfied; yet you have not returned to Me," declares the LORD.

The Lord sought to bring His people to repentance through drought, but they didn’t.

A final Old Testament passage in which the Lord warned He would send drought is Isaiah 5:5-6:

So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed; I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground. I will lay it waste; it will not be pruned or hoed, but briars and thorns will come up. I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain on it."

Have any of the droughts in Eastern Idaho been times God was speaking, telling us to repent of our worship of false gods and seek His face? 

Depending on years used to compute the average, the average precipitation for Idaho Falls is between 10 and 12.5 inches. The total precipitation received in 1966 was only 5.6 inches.  In July of that year, 40,000 acres burned in Eastern Idaho.

Annual precipitation totals for the years 1959-1962 were also below normal, from 5.8 inches in 1959 to 9.0 in 1962.  I have only been able to find precipitation data for Idaho Falls for 3 of the 8 years of the national drought of the 1950’s, which by some measures the worst drought in the history of the country.  For two of those three years, 1953 & 1954, precipitation in Idaho Falls was about 70% of the average.

The earliest record of drought in and around Eagle Rock I have found was the summer of 1879, when dry conditions brought about fires that swept through the Snake River Valley all the way to Island Park. 

In late spring and summer of 1919 there was no rain in Idaho Falls for more than 100 days. 

Local drought conditions were reported in Idaho Falls newspapers in 1928, 1930, 1946, 1949 and 1977.

In the early 1990’s public officials in Eastern Idaho called for prayer because of anticipated water shortages.  Prayer groups in Idaho Falls responded.  Precipitation for 1993 and 1995 ended up being about 180% of the average and close to the average for the other years.

Other relatively recent drought years were 2003, 2007, 2008, 2012 and 2013, with annual precipitation each year of 50-70% of average.

The world economy now shields most of us from the devastating effects of local droughts.  While wildfires and crop losses make the news, we still have water in our taps and can get food in our grocery stores in draught years.  Thus the effectiveness of draught to cause a widespread turning to God is likely very low.  However, the example of the droughts of the early 1990’s, and the prayers of repentance and seeking the Lord’s mercy as a result, are a good example to follow.

4. Pestilence

When Israel refused to go into the Promised Land after hearing the reports from their spies (Numbers 13), God was ready to destroy them with pestilence (Numbers 14:12).  Moses’ intercession saved them, causing God to replace His judgement of death through pestilence with natural death through four decades in the wilderness (Numbers 14:20-35). Israel’s unbelief resulted in their death.

II Samuel 24:15 and I Chronicles 21:14 record that 70,000 died in Israel from pestilence, this time as a result of David’s sin of taking a census.  The plague was stopped when David interceded for the people and sacrificed to the Lord.

After drought fails to cause Israel to repent as recorded in Amos 4:7-8, the Lord sent blight, mildew and locusts to destroy crops, and plagues and the sword to kill men (Amos 4:9-10).  Yet Israel still refused to return to the Lord.

During a time of prayer by Habakkuk, the prophet sees the Lord, with “Plague going before Him and pestilence marching behind Him.”  (Habakkuk 3:5)

From 1914 to 1916, Eastern Idaho experienced plagues of crickets.

Other local examples of what could be called “pestilence” are the flu epidemic of 1918, an epidemic of mumps in Idaho Falls in 1924, an epidemic of diphtheria in Ammon in 1926, a measles epidemic in 1941-42 and a polio epidemic in 1949. There may well have been others that I have not come across. 

And then there was the COVID pandemic of 2020-2022.  Did Jesus allow this to shake up or wake up His people, remove some dead branches from the vine, or cause the church in Idaho Falls to seek Him and trust Him in new ways?

I have no doubt that all of the above prompted prayer, at least by many of those who suffered or lost loved ones.  While there may have also been some who sought to hear God’s voice or see His hand in the epidemics, I have found little evidence of it.  

5. War

The Old Testament is full of times when God used Israel’s enemies to turn His people from worship of idols or empty religious practices back to genuine faith and devotion.   Judges 2:14-15 is like a summary of the book of Judges:

The anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies around them, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.

The period of the kings was not much better, as at various times the Lord brought the Philistines, Canaanites, Moabites, Edomites, Syrians, Assyrians and Babylonians to wage war against Israel.  One of many passages that expresses this is I Samuel 12:9:

But they forgot the LORD their God, so He sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them. 

The book of Habakkuk records the conversation between the Lord and the prophet about the coming invasion of Babylon and God’s reasons for it.

While many young men of Idaho Falls have fought in wars the United States has entered into, and the church of Idaho Falls has turned to prayer in these times of war, it’s hard to compare any of these times to the wars of Israel and Judah. There may be comparisons to our nation that have local implications, but that’s not the focus of this study.

6. Withdrawing His presence and exile

God’s judgment of Adam and Eve included their exile from the Garden of Eden.  

When Moses was about to die, the Lord revealed to him that the people of Israel would reject Him, break His covenant and worship foreign gods, and “Then My anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide My face from them, and they will be consumed, and many evils and troubles will come upon them; so that they will say in that day, ‘Is it not because our God is not among us that these evils have come upon us?” [Deut 31:17]

Just after the Lord tells Jeremiah to call on Him in prayer and He will answer (Jeremiah 33:3), He continues, “For thus says the LORD God of Israel concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah which are broken down to make a defense against the siege ramps and against the sword, while they are coming to fight with the Chaldeans and to fill them with the corpses of men whom I have slain in My anger and in My wrath, and I have hidden My face from this city because of all their wickedness.” (33:4-5)

Many Old Testament passages speak of the God exiling His people, which to tem meant leaving the land of promise and His presence.  A sampling of these passages include Amos 5:27 and 6:7, Isaiah 5:13, Jeremiah 27:20 and chapter 52, Zechariah 2:6, and Hosea 5:14.  Hosea 5:15 adds the purpose of exile: I will go away and return to My place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.

Whether God sends Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden or exiles Israel or Judah from the Promised Land, the effect is the same as God hiding His face and removing His presence from His people. Ezekiel 5:11 is another verse that speaks of the Lord withdrawing from His people: So as I live,’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominations, therefore I will also withdraw, and My eye will have no pity and I will not spare.

Trying to measure the degree to which the Lord is present at any time and place in Eastern Idaho is probably a futile task, and yet can we not sense times when the Spirit of the Lord is tangibly among us, times when we sense the reality of the Lord’s presence when we gather together, or times when His voice speaks so deeply to us we are almost overcome with praise? 

While there may be many reasons why different churches in Idaho Falls have disbanded or faded, one reason must be that sin or unbelief has made His power and presence minimal.  We can think we believe that “He will never leave or forsake us,” yet I suspect our confidence can be misplaced or replace a heart to Seek the Lord and the strength he gives! Seek his presence continually! (I Chronicles 16:11 & Psalm 105:5).

Conclusion

If my understanding of church history is correct, there have been were long periods in which God was viewed as sovereign, and what insurance companies now refer to as “acts of God” were truly believed to be acts of God.  While world views have changed and immediate causes of disasters, both “natural” and human-caused, have in most cases been identified, God is still sovereign and He still wants all people to repent and to seek His face, and recognize Him in all of life, including the events and processes He ordains.  Finding the dividing line between the chaos, suffering, destruction and death caused by the devil and God’s purposes in those tragedies is often just as hard now as it was for Job and his friends.  Yet I think it would be a mistake to ignore or deny it.

We should look for Jesus in the tragedies of life as well as the blessings.

We should believe that He is sovereign and hence seek His will in times of tragedy.

We should use tragedies to draw near to God in prayer, individually and corporately.

May we expand our vision of Jesus as we look for Him in both the past and present.