loud interruptions
When mankind needs a nudge, God has many things in His arsenal to wake us up.
In the fourteenth century, John Wycliffe was a “thorn in the flesh” of the established Church. William Courtenay, the Archbishop of Canterbury even went as far as to brand him a heretic. So what heinous doctrine was Wycliffe responsible for, to incur such ire?
He was simply a person who said it how it was. He looked at the clergy and wondered why they were so well-off and comfortable. He looked at their teaching and asked where in the Bible was the veneration of saints, the use of sacraments, transubstantiation and other practices? His answer to this was to create a list of twenty four dodgy teachings promoted by the Church and
then to produce a Bible that the common man could actually read, a Bible written in English. For this he was hounded by the authorities and declared a heretic. After all, if the ordinary person could see what the Bible actually said, then there would be a lot of the clergy with a lot of explaining to do.
In 1382 the Archbishop declared that “enough was enough”and convened a special Synod, an ecclesiastical consultation, to be held at Blackfriars on May 21st. At around 3pm something happened to completely disrupt proceedings. There was an earthquake … in London!
The clergymen fled the building. According to a contemporary report, “screams from town showed that London was in a panic … the centre of the quake was nearby. Steeples toppled, buildings fell down and large waves rolled up the Thames River, overturning ships.”
The Archbishop acted quickly to dispel any negative thoughts. “This was the result of noxious vapours underground, that needed to burst forth from the Earth”, he exclaimed. “It’s as Aristotle has taught us.” Wycliffe and his followers had an alternative explanation. “This is God’s judgement on the council”, they cried. “They may have condemned Wycliffe … but God has condemned them!”
Earthquake Synod
This has gone down in history as the Earthquake Synod. It is interesting to compare two very different explanations for this significant event. For the Archbishop, having given the “scientific” explanation, realised that he needed to spin things a little in his favour, before people started to think too deeply about what had just happened. So he deemed the earthquake a favourable sign “of the earth being purged from erroneous doctrine.”
Let us examine the evidence. If God was treating this earthquake as a sign, the Biblical model was one of judgement. Here are some examples:
The Lord Almighty will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire. (Isaiah 29:6)
In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel (Ezekiel 38:19)
Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. (Matthew 24:7)
So, if you are going to interpret an earthquake as a sign, then it will probably be one of judgement or correction. As to who God may be speaking to here can perhaps become clearer when we read that a number of churches in Canterburywere damaged, as was St Paul’s Cathedral! So who do you think God would be speaking to, if indeed this earthquake can be considered a Divine judgement? And did the proceedings at Blackfriars merit such a visitation? You would have to look far to find a more worthy occasion, where God’s supposed representatives at the highest levels were acting to withhold God’s truths from God’s people.
When God speaks …
We’ve now seen two examples of significant earthquakes, in Lisbon (in a previous article) and London and ask
ourselves if God is still speaking to us through what many would call random natural phenomena. After all here are just two of hundreds that have afflicted mankind since records have been kept. Does God speak through all of them?
Just because He may use earthquakes to express His displeasure, does this mean that every earthquake is a judgement from God? I would suggest not. Let’s first remind ourselves exactly Who we are dealing with here:
The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. (Psalm 103:19)
All of creation is His, He rules over all. If He chooses to speak through natural events such as earthquakes, then that’s His prerogative. But, of course, He may be speaking … but are we listening? It is just as well that we have specialists in the Church who have the job of listening …
Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7)
So here’s how it goes. Earthquakes will always be with us and in most (if not all) cases there are perfectly sound geological reasons for them. But occasionally, every now and again … God will use an earthquake to speak to us. Now, this is all very well, as long as His prophets are listening and proclaiming the God of the earthquake to the people. We saw that with John Wesley,who interpreted the Lisbon earthquake as God’s wake-up call for people to start thinking of their eternal souls. We also saw this with John Wycliffe, who saw God’s judgement on the established Church. God will always have His people in place to interpret the signs of the times, whether people wish to listen or not.
When man ignores …
Of course this is problematic in our cynical, secular world, where even many in the established Church deny that God still speaks to nations and peoples through earthquakes and other phenomena.
“Don’t say God is punishing people. This was one of the responses to the Lisbon earthquake, as it was to London’s Great Plague a century earlier. The idea that God is angry with people and punishes them with natural disasters goes all the way back to the Flood. But that doesn’t mean it’s true today. God is love, and more to the point, God is just, to everyone.” (Mark Woods, managing editor of Christian TodayAugust 26th 2016)
This is a common attitude among many Christians. As mentioned earlier it insists that the God of the Old Testament has changed His ways, that anger is no longer part of His makeup, that the only expression that defines Him now is love. This is a very one dimensional God and is not the God of the Bible.Of course God is love. But He is also holy. It is because of this holiness that Jesus had to be sent to mankind, as a Redeemer, to bridge the gap between our sinfulness and His holiness. If God was just about love then there would be no need for Jesus because everybody would be free to enter His presence without penalty. It’s a nice thought … but it’s a wrong thought.
So if we accept that God would use earthquakes to grab our attention, then it is vital that every generation has prophets that can hear His voice and communicate His message. Do we have the Wesleys and the Wycliffes to do so? We live in a post Christian culture, where even the “Christian” elements are not as aligned to God’s Will as they should be. If God speaks, who do we have to listen to? Do we know who our prophets are and do we take them seriously or are we like the generation at the time of Jeremiah, who failed to acknowledge him … because they didn’t like his uncomfortable message.