The School of Calamity, Part 1

One of two lessons from the book of Jonah as I processed the aftermath of Hurricane Helene upon Columbia County, GA

The massive wind that pushed through CoCo Thursday night into Friday morning made me consider once again Jonah chapter 1:4 which states [4] But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.

The LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea!

Helene: I would love to be able to recap a little of Helene’s strength and size and impact, but I have been living in the early 1900’s the last few days before the invention of a fully functional phone and long before this thing called the internet.

I do know it was a major hurricane. I do know it was projected to have impact on the whole state of Georgia. And I know that Evans, GA is a long way from the Gulf of Mexico, but somehow about 4 or 5 am early Friday morning there was a great wind hurled upon CoCo.

In our neighborhood in Baker’s Ferry, 15 out of roughly 50 homes have trees in them! I did hear that they are estimating that 5 tornados touched down in the greater Augusta area.

A great wind has come through our county, and it appears it will be a while before life returns to normal.

We do care about your physical needs. We do want to help in any way we can.

Please let us know what we can do to help, especially as it may take a while before electricity and gas become readily available.

We also care for your spiritual needs. We long for you to be able to take this storm and somehow categorize it. By that, I don’t mean like a category 2 or category 3. I don’t mean as measured by wind speeds,  but instead, by explanation.

How did that happen?​

Why did that happen?

What is wrong with this world?​​

And how will what is wrong be made right?

Let me explicitly say that I do NOT know exactly why God sent this storm.

What I do know is that the God of the Bible is the master of the storm.

What I do know is that in Jonah 1:4 it explicitly says, The LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea!

Nehemiah 9:6 “You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

Hebrews 1:3. “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Matthew 10:29-30. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

Most everyone in the room has experienced an event, perhaps the fears of Friday morning, perhaps some other event, and you would like to conclude: God had nothing to do with that. Or you have cried out to God, “Why did you do that? Why did you let that happen?” You see, there is something inside us that so wants to believe that God was not involved. So here is my council to you, to please consider this:  The only thing scarier, the only thing more problematic than God being involved in some tragedy, the only thing more fearful than God being sovereignly in control of all things would be the idea of God NOT being sovereignly in control of all things.  Repeat:  the only thing more fearful than God being sovereignly in control of all things would be the idea of God NOT being sovereignly in control of all things.  

The God of the Bible is the master of the storm.

And we sit here today, in the dark of the room but the light of the sun, because God is His kindness preserved our lives, though others sadly died.

I might not smell as fresh as I would like, and I may not be as comfortable as I wish, I might long for propane and gasoline, maybe even some electricity.

Yet, even so, God in His kindness chose to sustain life, rather than take it, and that is solely His mercy to us. 

I want you to consider Jonah for a few minutes as this story demonstrates the both the sovereignty and kindness of our God.  

Jonah 1, 1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, [2] “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” [3] But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.

[4] But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. 

God is not saying to Jonah, “If you ever happen to be passing Nineveh, maybe you could drop in and preach for a little while.” He’s actually arresting Jonah in the midst of his life, and he’s saying, “I want you to get up, right now, and I want you to go to Nineveh. I want you to arise, I want you to reorientate your thinking, and I want you to proceed in the direction that I am telling you.”

Nineveh was a fairly attractive place. It was in northern Mesopotamia. It was on the east bank of the Tigris River. It had developed to a substantial city. And indeed, if you take a contemporary map and you find the city of Mosul—M-o-s-u-l—then it was opposite that that this city of Nineveh had been built. So that is the place that’s involved, “the great city of Nineveh.”

Of course, while beautiful, it is also sinful.

Why Nineveh should be singled out for its wickedness? Well, apparently. It was one of the most wicked places of the then-known world. If you doubt that, you can read in Nahum chapter 3 the striking words of God through his prophet Nahum concerning the city of Nineveh and listen to the nature of its condition:

Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels, galloping horses and jolting chariots!Charging cavalry, flashing swords and glittering spears!Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses—all because of the wanton lust of a harlot, alluring, the mistress of sorceries, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft. “I am against you,” declares the Lord Almighty. “I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness.”

Pretty dramatic stuff. God is enraged about the circumstances in Nineveh. So he goes to his man and he says, “Jonah, you’re my man for the moment, this is the place, and here’s the proclamation. Go in there and denounce it for its wickedness.”

Now, the interesting thing is this: that when you read the denunciations of God, you discover that it is always in the heart of God to long that, as a result of his declaration of judgment and condemnation, it may stir within those who hear it a heart of repentance and of faith, so that what he says he will do in judgment, he will end up not doing on account of his mercy.

And Jonah knows the character of His God.  In Chapter 4, Jonah will say to God, I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Jonah knew that God would forgive these Ninevites so he fled in the opposite direction.    

So verse 3 tells us But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. Sohe paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.

And God would have been completely just to simply let Jonah run!

God would have been completely just to simply let Jonah go.

But the God of the Bible is not that God. He loves His people. He loves them enough to do whatever it takes to to save His people, to sanctify His people, to put them in the right place at the right time.

God will even do what he did to Jonah in vs. 4, “But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.”

He did not hate Jonah, He loved him and needed to get him out of boat he was in to send him in a different direction.  So God did whatever it took.  He sent a great wind. He will send a great fish.  And will in time send a plant to provide shade and then a worm take away that shade.  And finallya scorching wind and the sun to beat down on Jonah’s head, all to teach Jonah that God loves sinners.

Jonah 4:11, “And should I not pity Ninevah, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and all much cattle?”

But God hurled the wind and send the fish and shade and worm and sun to teach Jonah that God loves Jonah.

So we conclude:  

God sends His people to the school of calamity that they might learn His heart.

God sends His people to the school of calamity that they might better know their God.

So as we consider our circumstances, we must confess that God sends usto the school of calamity that we might learn His heart.

Oh how easily we simply look at the calamity rather that the character of our God.

We look at the hardship and miss God’s heart.

Yes, in Jonah 1:4, It is God who hurled the great wind. It was God who did it.

But is was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

It was the God of Jonah that hurled the wind for Jonah’s good!

It was the God of Jonah that hurled the wind in our county

And we trust that God, but we long to trust Him even more.Surely, He had some purpose, some plan, some good intention for us even as He did for Jonah.

Look for the Lord and look for what He will teach you.

Early Friday morning I began to walk up my street only to find 7 out of 10 homes with trees on them.

It was brutal.  We have now lived in that neighborhood for three years and walk the loop many days a week. And that morning I so wanted to call our daughters, one of who was evacuating a country. I wanted to check up on you, my church family, I needed to contact extended family- but none of that worked as my smart phone was more like a paper holder at that point.

And then I started meeting neighbors I had never met before.  

An Asian man who always smiles but never stops, but this day he did.

An older lady who is caring for her great grandson that needed some encouragement.

A couple of the eastern Europe that usually say hello, but today wanted to talk.

God is opening doors in my neighborhood that had previously been closed.  

I want my comforts back, but God has pushed me out of my house and into my neighborhood.

Maybe, just maybe part of what God is doing is stretching us as a church to be fishers of men, and he has sent a wind to move us out of our comfortable boats and towards those He intends to save.  

This week, Look for what God is doing, listen to what He is saying and go where He has sent you!

Rev. John Fender