What Are The Clouds

In the face of the devastation of hurricane Katrina those questions of life and death, and blessing and cursing are once again forced to the front of our conversation. Why does God allow such horrible destruction to plague mankind?

Believers seek answers to those questions from the Word … and there we find our hope even if we can’t find full understanding.

I’ve printed below some excerpts from a great sermon by Charles Spurgeon that speaks to these issues … I would encourage you to read the entire message by clicking here: “What Are The Clouds”

Spurgeon writes:

““The Lord has his way is in the whirlwind [Greek: “hurricane”] and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet” [Nahum 1:3]. When God works his wonders he always conceals himself. Even the motion of his feet causes clouds to arise; and if these; clouds are but the dust of his feet,” how deep must be that dense darkness which veils the Eternal God.

“But we ask, “What is God doing with this world?” We want to know what will be the consequences. All things are working together for good; but what each individual thing is doing, would be impossible to explain. Yet, you child of Adam, with your finite intellect, are continually stopping to ask, “Why is this?” The infant lies dead in its crib. Why was infancy snatched away? Oh, ruthless death, could you not gather ripe corn; why snatch the rosebud? Wouldn’t a wreath of withered leaves suit you better than these tender blossoms? Or, you are asking of Providence, why have you taken away my property? Was I not left, by my parents, a wonderful inheritance, and now it has all been swept away! It is all gone; why is this, O God? Why not punish the unjust? Why should the innocent be allowed to suffer this way? Why am I to be stripped of everything I own?

“Ah! finite one! do you ask God to explain these things to you? I tell you, God will not do it, and God cannot do it—for this reason: you are not capable of understanding it. Should the ant ask the eagle why it flies in the skies? Will the great sea monster—the Leviathan be questioned by a minnow? These creatures might explain their actions to other creatures; but the Omnipotent Creator, the uncreated Eternal God, cannot explain himself to mortals whom he has created. We cannot understand him. It is enough for us to know that his way always must be in darkness, and that we must never expect to see and understand much in this world.

“Never be afraid of troubles. However heavy they are, God's eternal shoulders can bear them. He, whose omnipotence is testified by the revolving planets, and systems of enormous galaxies, can well sustain you. Is his arm too short, that he cannot save, or is he weary, that he cannot hold you tightly? Your troubles are nothing to God, for the very “clouds are the dust of his feet.”

“Fall down before his feet and worship him, for he has loved you by his grace. You know there are many fearful events which may happen to us; but we are never afraid of them, if we are saints, because they are the dust of his feet. Deadly disease may ravage this fair city once again; and thousands may die, and the funeral procession may be constantly seen in our streets. Do we fear it? No, the pestilence is but one of our Father’s servants, and we are not afraid of it, although it walks in darkness. There may be no wheat, the flocks may be cut off from the herd and the stall; nevertheless, famine and distress are our Father’s doings, and what our Father does we will not view with alarm. There is a man there with a sword in his hand—he is an enemy, and I fear him, yet my father has a sword, and I don’t fear him; I rather love to see him have a sword, because I know he will only use it for my protection.

“I now speak to all the ungodly men and women now present in this place of worship, it is a very solemn fact that you are at enmity with God—you are hostile to God; that having sinned against God, God is angry with you—not angry with you today, but angry with you every day, angry with you every hour and every moment. It is, moreover, a most sad and solemn fact that there is a day coming, when this anger of God will burst out, and when God will utterly destroy and devour you.

“…there is to come a sight more grand, more terrific, more sublime, and more disastrous than anything earth has yet witnessed; there is to come a fire before which Sodom's fire will pale to nothingness; and the inferno of continents will sink into less than nothing and vanity. In a few more years, my friends, Scripture assures us, this earth and all that is in it, is to be burned up. That deep molten mass which now lies in the bosom of our mother earth is to burst up—the solid matter is be melted down into one vast globe of fire; the wicked—shrieking, wailing, and cursing, will become a prey to these flames that will blaze upward from the breast of earth; comets will shoot their fires from heaven; all the lightnings will launch their bolts upon this poor earth, and it will become a mass of fire.”

Pray earnestly for those thousands effected by this catastrophe … pray that they will see that the clouds are only the dust of His feet.

In His Grace,