A week ago Friday, I had been sleeping in, since it was my day off, when Cheryl came in and said to me, “There has been an earthquake in Japan.”  From the other room, I could hear the news, reporting about possible tsunami waves heading towards the U.S. west coast.  I immediately thought of my mom, who with her husband had gone to Hawaii on a mission trip/vacation – those waves might be heading her way.  What a way to wake up in the morning – it had that “September 11^th” feeling to it; it seemed like I had awakened to the whole world falling apart! 

     Aside from the early shock of it, what DOES the earthquake in Japan mean?  I have seen and heard some different types of responses to it; which is correct?  I think it is important for us tonight to have what I believe is a balanced – and most importantly, Biblical perspective on the meaning of the earthquake.  There have been a range of responses to the earthquake in Japan, some of which I believe really miss the mark:

 1) This is a sure sign that the end is at hand.  Many have quoted Matthew 24 regarding the earthquake.  Matthew 24:3-7 says: 

“As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these thing be, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?’  And Jesus answered and said to them, ‘See to it that no one misleads you.  For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ, and will mislead many.  You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars.  See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.’”

Earthquakes are a sign of the end, they say.  Jesus predicted them in Matthew 24, the chapter in which He gives us signs of the end.  So the Japanese earthquake is a sign that the Lord is about to come back.  It may be; but we need to be careful.

I have a vivid memory.  When I was in college, our church youth group – and many of those of us who were in college at that time as well — were at a New Year’s retreat at Falls Creek, the Oklahoma Baptist camp.  We had been talking about the end times.  As I lay in my bunk that night, and the New Year came in, I pondered the fact that this was undoubtedly the last year of my life here on earth.  Israel had become a nation in 1948 – fulfilling the prediction that the Jews would be regathered in the Holy Land.  Jesus had said that “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place”.  A Bible generation is generally 40 years; 40 years from 1948 makes 1988.  Then take away 7 years for the great tribulation, that makes 1981.  The year was turning; it was about to be 1980.  We were coming into the very last year before the Lord would return.  I vividly remember laying there awake in that bunk, thinking: this is my last year here on earth. 

But I was wrong.  That was over 30 years ago.  30 years later, despite all of the certain predictions of the timing of the end, Jesus has still not returned, the antichrist has not arisen, the tribulation has not begun, and what we thought was the certainty of the end did not take place. 

This should give us a very cautious attitude about our pronouncements regarding the end times.  I look with very skeptical eyes upon pastors and Bible teachers who drag out their charts, and tell you how each news report of every uprising and crisis in the Mideast fits into their neat “puzzle” of end times events.  They just seem to “have it all figured out.”  They may think they do, but I’m sorry; I doubt it.  I’m only 50, but I have already lived too long to believe that.  I look at any claims of “the end” or the end times, with a healthy skepticism.  And that goes for the Japanese earthquake as well.  Just because there was an earthquake and a tragedy does not mean that this is absolutely the end.  We need to keep a balanced perspective: there have been earthquakes and tragedies before. 

In 1755, an earthquake estimated to be of virtually the same magnitude as the one that just struck Japan — about 9 on the Richter scale — took place in the Atlantic Ocean just outside of Lisbon, Portugal.  It resulted in a 15-foot wide crack in the ground in the city of Lisbon.  Residents watched the sea recede, and saw ocean life, and wrecked ships on the floor of the harbor for a few minutes.  Then suddenly a huge tsunami came, flooding the town and killing tens of thousands of people.  What was not destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami was consumed by a fire that raged through the city in the aftermath.  Somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 people were killed in the Lisbon earthquake.  The whole world was shaken by what happened there: theologians and philosophers wrestled with the implications of it.  The parallels to the recent Japanese earthquake are striking.  And all of that happened in Lisbon, Portugal, 256 years ago!  The earthquake in Lisbon did not signal the end – so we just have to be careful about saying that the Japanese earthquake is a sure sign of the end as well. 

     But there is a second perspective that I believe also misses the mark: 

2) This earthquake means nothing.  Is anyone really saying this means nothing?  Yes!  A well-known Louisiana preacher wrote this on his Facebook page and also in a long blog article:

“Earthquakes are not a sign of anything.  They are not a sign that the world is coming to and end.  They are evidence that we reside on a living planet, one that has to deal with its inner pressures and stresses.  Tornados and hurricanes are pressure relief valves for this planet and not the whims of a vindictive God.  Come on!” 

Well, now I’m going to have to disagree with that, too.  The earthquake means nothing?  It is “not a sign of anything”?  How can one say that in light of a passage like Matthew 24?  Jesus did say in :7 that in various places there would be famines and earthquakes.   In fact, that Matthew 24:1-7 passage which refers to “famines and earthquakes” is followed immediately by :8, which says “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.”  What does that mean?  I think from a scriptural perspective it means that earthquakes ARE a sign regarding the end.   Jesus specifically mentioned them in regard to signs of the last days.  He said, “All these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.”  Does that mean that the end is here now?  Maybe not; Jesus said earthquakes are the BEGINNING of birth pangs.  It is not the end – but it may be the beginning of the end.   I would sure not be so quick to minimize them as “nothing”, either, because Jesus compared earthquakes to “birth pangs.”  What comes after birth pangs?  A BIRTH!  Birth pangs are a sign that a big event – the birth of a child – is about to happen.  Earthquakes are like “birth pangs”, Jesus said.  They DO signal that something is “in the works.”  That means that when we see them, we would do well to pay attention.  Something is about to happen.  I don’t think it necessarily means that the Lord is coming tomorrow – but I also think it would be foolish not to think that the Lord’s coming may be quite near, when one of the very signs He gave us regarding His coming is right before our very eyes! 

In fact, I think the assessment that the earthquake means “nothing” may be even more harmful than saying that it is a sure sign of the end.  That attitude just promotes the dangerous idea that everything is going to continue to be the same as it has been; that we don’t need to prepare for anything; that we can go on living the way that we have been.  Or as the Bible puts it in I Thessalonians: “Peace and safety!”  No worries; everything is continuing as it has for thousands of years.  But that I Thessalonians 5 passage goes on to say that when they are saying “peace and safety, destruction will come upon them suddenly – like birth pangs upon a woman with child.”  “Birth pangs”?  That’s the same term Jesus used of the earthquakes in Matthew 24!  No, I don’t think we should characterize them as “nothing.”  When we see birth pangs, we’d better start looking for a birth!  I do not think it is wise to minimize the importance of the earthquake as “nothing.” 

3) A balanced, Biblical perspective.  I think a balanced, Biblical perspective is somewhere in between these two extremes.  The earthquake in Japan does not in and of itself signal the end.  Jesus said, “These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.”  The earthquake isn’t a sure sign that Jesus is coming tomorrow.  But to be balanced, I think we must also say that the earthquake means a whole lot more than “nothing.”  It IS one of the signs Jesus gave us of the “birth pangs” of the end.  We should be on the alert for what God is doing in the world.

And I also think it signals something else very important to us: something that might be overlooked in this discussion:

It means that LIFE IS UNCERTAIN. 

The Bible tells us in the Book of James 4:13-15,

“Come now, you who say, ‘today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there, and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.  You are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away.  Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live, and also do this or that.’”

One thing the Bible makes very clear to us: life is uncertain.  We do not know what to expect.  Many of us take for granted that life tomorrow is going to be just as life is today, and that is often just not so.  The residents in Northern Japan found that out a week and a half ago.  There are certain things that you just count on; that you know are going to be there, that form the frame of reference of your whole life.  But even those can be yanked out from underneath you.

I heard an interview of an American journalist who has been living and working in Japan for a number of years.  He said that earthquakes are taken for granted there; they have minor earthquakes all of the time.  He said they know the drill; you get under your desk so anything falling will not hit you; or maybe you go and step outside on the street.  But he said this was different. He said it lasted so long, and it was so intense.  He said even the street outside was like “jello” – that was his word.  Can you imagine the feeling of that: the street was like jello?!  There are some things in this world that we take for granted as being “set” and “firm.” One of them is the ground underneath us!  If anything else is upset, at least we know the ground is going to be firm.  But how it would feel for the very ground, the very foundation of the earth you stand upon, to become like “jello”?  Suddenly, NOTHING is certain any more.  Every certainty is gone. 

And that is a good lesson for us to learn.  There are things in this world that we feel like are stable, and will never change – and we are wrong.  Anything on this earth can change.  The unexpected can happen.  You can wake up – like I did that Friday – to an earthquake and tsunami.  The world may change radically tomorrow. 

OR … you may wake up to a personal “earthquake.”  You may wake up tomorrow and find out you have cancer.  Or that your spouse or loved one does.  You may get a phone call tomorrow that your husband or wife or child has been killed in an automobile accident.  You may find out tomorrow that the job that you assumed was going to give you financial security for the rest of your life has been yanked out from under you; you may hear the news that the stock market has crashed, and that the economic system has collapsed – and all of the sudden, the stability and security that you took for granted has vanished.  The certainties you once felt sure about, that seemed like the firm foundation of what you based your life on, have been taken out from under you, and like those streets in Japan, have become like “jello.”  These things happen.  We are foolish if we do not think they do.  We are foolish if we think, as God said of those He condemned in Isaiah 56:12, that “tomorrow will be like today, only more so.”  The earthquake is a reminder to us that everything can change for US just as suddenly as it changed for those in Japan.  We are foolish if we think it cannot. 

This world is a place of uncertainty.  This world is a place where things “shake.”  That is why we must have a sure foundation. This is why we must be prepared.

I read where a Japanese woman had stored up 50 liters of water in case of an emergency, and in the aftermath of the earthquake, her family was living on what she had saved.  That woman was wise; she was prepared.

But we need to know that there are things that happen here on this earth that liters of water, and fallout shelters, and emergency meals and cash will not prepare you for.  There are tragedies that can come and shake what we thought were the certainties of our lives and make them like “streets of jello.”  How do you prepare for that?

In a world that is uncertain and shaking, you need an unshakable foundation.  I Corinthians 3 says: “There is only one foundation that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”   Jesus Himself said in Matthew 7, “The man who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, is like a wise man, who built his house upon the rock – and the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house – and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock.”  Jesus said you can have a firm foundation for your life, which will withstand ANY tragedy: HE is that foundation.  Committing your life to HIM is building upon the solid rock.  If you will really make Jesus the “rock solid certainty” that your life is built upon, then you can say with David in Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea.”  If He is really the “rock” your life is built upon, then it doesn’t matter WHAT you wake up to tomorrow: “though the earth should change”; “though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea” – though a devastating earthquake or tragedy hits us here where we are – or maybe a personal “earthquake” makes what you thought were the certainties of your life like jello – you have a firm foundation that will stand, no matter what.  My question to you is: do you have that firm foundation?  Do you have that ROCK to stand on? 

CONCLUSION:  This world is shaking.  Life here is very unpredictable.  The earthquake in Japan is a good reminder of that.  It may not mean that the end of all things will take place today; but it is one of the “birth pangs” that Jesus talked of, that would precede the end.  And it is a needed reminder for us, that things in this earth are not as certain as we often like to think they are.  Things can change – in a moment what we thought were the certainties of our lives can be radically altered.  And so we need to be sober.  We need to have a balanced, Biblical perspective on life in this world. 

If we are in the last days – which there is evidence that we are – then we each need to do some things.  If you are certain that you are a follower of Jesus, then:

–You need to cleanse your life from sin.  II Corinthians 7:1 says, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”  If the Lord is returning soon, it is not a time to be found in sin and compromise.  We need to make our lives ready to meet Him. 

–We should also do the most important things with the time we have in this world, realizing that our time may be short. 

–We should invest our money in things that will matter for eternity.  I have seen advertisements for gold, and how it will be useful if the economy crashes. Listen, there is coming a day when men will cast their gold into the streets as worthless.  Soon and very soon, every material possession in this world will be burned up; only what we have invested in God’s kingdom’s work will last for eternity.  We should make the best use of our money in light of the last days, and of eternity.

–And we should work for the kingdom; we should tell people about Jesus; we should go on mission trips.  We should “Work, for the night is coming, when no man can work”, as Jesus said. 

     If these are the last days, we should do all of those things.  And truthfully, if these are not the last days, and the world survives another thousand years – it will have been worth doing all those things anyway!  It is still the best way to spend your life, in light of eternity. 

But most importantly, each one of us should each make sure that you have that One, Sure Foundation in Jesus, so that no matter what happens in this uncertain world, nothing will shake you: not a local physical earthquake, and not an unexpected “personal earthquake.”  This world is shaking.  It is uncertain.  The Japanese earthquake is a reminder that you do not know what you are going to wake up to tomorrow.  More than anything, make sure that have a foundation that will not shake.  Make sure your life is built upon the Rock of Jesus.