Hurricanes are warnings to us of the eternal judgment yet to come. They are like warning shots fired across the bow of ships that are sailing in rebellion to God. They are calls to repentance—to turn away from our sin to return to our Creator by trusting His Son, the Lord Jesus, for salvation.

This article was originally published September 2017.

Irma and Harvey may go down as the Bonnie and Clyde of tropical hurricanes. My extended family in Texas suffered great loss from the latter (though all of their lives were spared, by God’s grace), and now my immediate and church family in Florida are preparing for the onslaught of the former, which as I type is a Category 5 and headed straight toward us. So both storms have occupied many of my thoughts the last two weeks.

Understandably, people are trying to make sense of these devastating natural disasters. “What is God saying to us?” is the question of the hour. Many of the responses are less than satisfying. Some are extremely unhelpful. As I have listened to these suggestions, Martin Luther’s wise counsel keeps ringing in my ears; “Let the man who would hear God speak, read holy Scripture.”

That doesn’t mean that God does not speak to us in nature or acts of providence. Psalm 19:1-6 and 119:117 make this clear. I think CS Lewis is correct when he writes in The Problem of Pain,

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it [pain] is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

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