No, of course not. Nor did God wish the Cathedral to burn. However, God is omniscient and omnipotent and He did allow the Cathedral to burn.
You ask, why? The short answer is because God continues to LOVE us and like any loving parent He continues to teach, guide and warn. He wishes to awaken a world which reveres buildings more than God. Christ’s church is not a building – it is people – but only the faithful and obedient, and our God is ever merciful, seeking to remove blindness and saving the lost.
God continues to warn that the time is near when wars will break out – causing major destruction, including fiery deaths of a third of the population. Our disbelief does not change God’s Word which has never once failed in over 4000 years.
Let’s briefly examine how God sees the world today –
- We do not love our neighbors as ourselves.
- We do not think of others as better than ourselves.
- We do not sacrifice our lives for others.
- We do not love our own unborn babies.
- We do not cherish the family unit.
- We do not keep the
- We do not love or obey God. We do not give Him thanks for all that we have. We do not make Him the center of our lives; how can we, when we are the center!
- We do not seek God’s unique plan for each of our lives.
- We seek money, drugs, sex, power, self-gratification,
- We consider all religions equal – we travel the wide road when only the narrow road leads to the one true God.
- We do not believe that Christ was the Messiah, that he died for each of us, was resurrected and that He is our passport to Eternal Life.
- We believe that this (short) life on earth is the end – we ignore the future of Eternal Life (or Eternal Punishment!)We argue that we do not need to go to church, which we say attracts only the “weak and hypocrites,” and that Catholic priests have sinned greatly under God’s banner, causing many of our young to be injured, and many folks to fall.
God continuously seeks to save the lost to an Eternal Life with Him through His continuous messages and warnings. However, notice how most of us are responding to the burned-out Cathedral of Notre Dame: “ Let us build a new building – bigger and better.”
When the Assyrians ravaged the Israelites, the arrogance of the people (then, as now) shouted out, “The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with dressed stone; the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars.” (See Isaiah 9:10)
Wouldn’t you know, within days after 9/11 a senior U.S. official standing on the Capitol steps, after quoting Isaiah. 9:10 (thoroughly misunderstanding its intended warning),
stated : “We will build an even bigger and better World Trade Center!” And, indeed we
did! FN
Most will keep on ignoring God’s warnings, His love, His promises, His pleas for repentance and renewal with the indwelling Holy Spirit – until there is no alternative to the coming death and destruction– not by flood this time, but by fire (like the Cathedral) and then ultimately Armageddon.
Of course, the Good News is we know how all eventually ends, and how it can end victoriously for each of us if only we heed God’s warning to see, read His Word, listen, understand, believe and walk the single, narrow way! Sadly, while most will continue to ignore God’s latest warning, it is our hope that you are finally ready to receive and accept God’s “Message” and pathway to Eternity!
Joe Otto
FN: These reactions only tempt the enemy to attack once again.