Natural Causes

Natural Causes

God’s breath sends the ice, freezing wide expanses of water.

He loads the clouds with moisture, and they flash with his lightning.

Job 37:10-11

He gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.

Matthew 5:45

Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them.

Matthew 6:26

If you’ve ever planted a garden, you know the basic steps required: You plant seeds in the ground and water them, and the sun shines on them. In time, the seeds become sprouts that grow into plants. We might know why this happens, and we might know all the natural factors behind what makes things grow and why clouds pour out rain and how animals and people eventually feed on plants. But is that all there is to it?

We think of many things in creation as merely natural occurrences. But actually they are the work of God. Psalm 148:8 says that weather patterns occur at the command of God: “Fire and hail, snow and clouds, wind and weather . . . obey him.” God directs the stars in the heavens and the sun rising in the morning. God even tells the grass when to grow: “You cause grass to grow for the livestock” (Psalm 104:14).

There’s a “natural” explanation for all these things, yet the Bible says God causes them to happen. God is the primary cause because he planned and initiated everything that takes place in creation. He is the secondary cause because the created order acts in ways that are consistent with how God created it. So we can’t assume that if we know the “natural” cause of something in this world, God did not cause it. According to the Bible, all these natural events are entirely caused by God.

DISCUSSION STARTERS

What do you know about why and how the sun comes up in the morning?

Think about some wonders of nature. Do these things make sense without a Creator who set them in motion and keeps them going?

Think of three things you usually take for granted as a part of “natural” events, and thank God for these things.