Another tragedy has struck the world. The most powerful earthquake in 40 years has sent 800-kph tsunamis crashing on several Asian and East African shores. As I write, the death toll has climbed to more than 117,000 people in 11 countries; over half a million people were injured, and about five million people were rendered homeless and in desperate need of food and clean water. The Red Cross predicts the death toll could well exceed that number, as many could die from contagious water-borne diseases. Dave Goldiner of The New York Daily News called it “the farthest-reaching catastrophe in recorded history” and “the worst natural disaster of any kind in more than a decade.” Tens of thousands remain missing while thousands of bodies of men, women, and children lay rotting and unidentified on lawns and streets, waiting to be dumped into mass graves. As if the tremendous loss of lives were not enough, the economic impact is calculated at $13.6 billion or 764.7 billion pesos—not including the cost of lost business and productivity.

This killer earthquake happened exactly one year after the last devastating earthquake in Iran that claimed the lives of 31,000 people. Last December 26, 2003 at 1:56:52 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), an intensity 6.6 earthquake shook from under the city of Bam in Iran. Then, exactly one year later, this more powerful earthquake with intensity 9.0 hit off the west coast of northern Sumatra on December 26, 2004 at 00:58:53 UTC—almost to the very same hour a year ago! Could this be just mere coincidence? This is the fourth largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and the largest since the 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake.

Perhaps like most of you, I was saddened by the news. A third of the victims were children—about 35,000 of them. Why do tragedies like this occur? What can we learn from it?

Jesus Christ prophesied “great earthquakes in various places” as one of the signs leading up to His triumphant return (Luke 21:11). But He said these are just “the beginning of sorrows.” The Bible foretells more devastating earthquakes, more super-typhoons, more natural disasters, and more unrest, famines, wars, and disease epidemics as this world hurtles toward Armageddon.

One thing Jesus Christ warned us against is complacency—self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies” (Webster’s 11th Edition). Christ said: “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation [intemperate living, indulgence, and excessive drinking], drunkenness and the anxieties [worries and cares] of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:34-36, NIV, emphasis added).

I really appreciate the sermon Mr. Holladay gave last July 31 (“How We Deceive Ourselves”). In it, he said: “We hear and don’t do. We know what God requires, we know what He says, and we forget it; we neglect it. We don’t have enough care about our spiritual development, our growth, making it into God’s kingdom—that it just becomes something that we don’t care about.”

We can become too comfortable and spiritually self-satisfied that we become blind to the spiritual dangers lurking beneath the surface, like an approaching tsunami about to kill us while we lie down on the beach to enjoy the sun. Let’s draw even closer to God! We need to be praying more fervently for God’s Spirit so that we can overcome Satan, this evil world, and our human nature. And let’s pray for the people in great suffering at this time. May God’s kingdom come soon!