When weather disasters occur – like the recent Hurricane Arthur that landed on America’s east coast – this question is often asked: Who is responsible – God or Satan? The question assumes that one or the other always directly causes the calamities.

I’m aware that Satan can affect the weather. But Satan doesn’t really have absolute control. He doesn’t have omnipotent power. That’s learned from the story of Job, in which it was shown that his ability to cause weather destruction is limited. He can only raise weather havoc when allowed to by God, and then only for God’s purposes (in Job’s case, to prove a point to Satan). That allowance by God must be infrequent because there’s a scarcity of any other Satan weather initiatives in the Bible recordings.

I’m also aware that God does have unlimited control over the weather, having created the components of weather: the sun, moon, rain, clouds, the oceans, wind, etc. Plus, biblical history shows God directly manipulating the weather. But, as God doesn’t cause and intervene in every human activity, He doesn’t cause and intervene in every weather event.

What I’m getting at is that I think catastrophic weather occurrences, generally, are normal, natural disasters. By that, I mean that these things are bound to regularly happen in a world that has fallen because of the spiritual force of sin. Sin has affected not just people, but all else in earth’s environment (Genesis 3: 17, 18). Like hatred, murder, torture, sexual immorality, and all other ills of the human condition; tornadoes, hurricanes, thunderstorms, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, mud slides, hot and cold temperature extremes, etc., are natural manifestations of sin having entered our world.

In other words, I’m saying that sin has distorted God’s perfect weather paradigm. Therefore, sin is responsible for almost all disastrous weather. Yes, I know that God is in control of all things. That’s by virtue of Him holding all of creation together by His wisdom (Jeremiah 10; 12); a wisdom that is letting sin have its season, but which will eventually bring the aberrant, alien force of sin and its effects to an end. It is precisely God’s sovereign and ultimate control that is permitting sin’s consequences to run a pre-determined, chronological course.

That doesn’t mean, though, that God has abandoned us as helpless slaves adrift in sin, be it man-made or weather-wise. In His wisdom, running concurrent with sin is God’s righteousness; His grace-plan of salvation. He has given us the gospel to set us free.

This being the case, we should remember that for those of us who love God, the things of sin that are meant for evil; God will use those very same things for our good (Genesis 50: 20; Romans 8: 28). All the weather disasters will pale in comparison to God’s end result (Romans 8: 18).