The Tragedy at Haiti WAS because of Sin

I’ve heard a lot of fuss surrounding Pat Robertson’s comments which suggested that the tragedy in Haiti was because of some “pact with the devil”. To be honest, I’m not familiar with Haitian history but it’s not necessarily relevant anyway. The tragedy there was due to sin, though perhaps not in the way meant by Robertson. I’ll let Mr. Robertson explain his own comments but here I’ll offer my own opinion.

In the beginning, after having created the universe, God looked at everything He had made and pronounced that it was all “very good” (Genesis 1:31). In His original creation, there would not have been earthquakes. Neither would there have been volcanoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, or even death. On the 6th day of creation, the world was a paradise prepared for people to inherit and enjoy.

Unfortunately, the paradise was not to last. Adam disobeyed God and did the only thing God had commanded him not to do and so God cursed Adam with death. We are descended from Adam and we have inherited his body of flesh. Because we have his mortal body, we all die physically (Romans 5:12, 1 Corinthians 15:22).

But what most people overlook is that in the same passage where God pronounced the curse to Adam, the Bible also tells us that He “cursed the ground” for Adam’s sake (Genesis 3:17). Adam’s original task of dressing and keeping the garden (Genesis 2:15) was multiplied because now Adam would plow the ground and it would yield thorns and thistles (Genesis 3:18). The world became a hard place and Adam would have to labor all his life and earn his bread by the sweat of his brow (Genesis 3:19). This terrible event, now known as The Fall or The Curse, affected the entire creation. Romans 8:22 tells us that even now the entire creation groans and travails under The Curse.

People sometimes look at tragic events like the earthquake in Haiti or the 2004 Tsunami and wonder how there could be a God who would create a world filled with such suffering. Christians should understand that the cursed world we live in now isn’t the perfect world God had created and intended us to inhabit. Death was never His plan – it is the enemy to His plan (1 Corinthians 15:26).

Jesus promised that someday He would make a new creation where there would be no more Curse (Revelation 22:3). While we are here though, we need to rest in the words of John 16:33:

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”