The earth has reeled and staggered beneath Venezuela, and the hearts of God’s people are moved with compassion for the thousands who mourn, who hunger, who lie crushed beneath the weight of this sudden calamity. Such a solemn visitation cries aloud to us who are spared, bidding us to weep with those who weep and to stretch out our hands with the alms of mercy. Yet, while we do so, let us not forget that the clearest bell which tolls in the earthquake’s roar is the summons to prepare to meet our God. The trembling ground is but a faint shadow of that day when the elements shall melt with fervent heat and the nations shall wail because of the coming of the Son of Man. We do well to pray for food, for shelter, for the binding up of broken bones, these are the dictates of common humanity and the proofs of a living faith. But let our prayers rise higher still, that in the midst of wreckage and woe, souls may fly to the Rock that is higher than they, to the Refuge which can never be moved. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever; when the mountains are carried into the midst of the sea, He remains the sure hiding-place for every sinner who casts himself upon His mercy.
Take heed, then, how you pray and how you give. It is a noble impulse to send bread to the famished and water to the parched, and God will not overlook the kindness shown to the least of these. But what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world of temporary relief and loses his own soul? This tragedy is an open door for the gospel, a singular season when the stony ground of the human heart may be broken up by the plough of affliction to receive the seed of eternal life. Pray therefore that the Lord of the harvest would thrust forth laborers who know the art of speaking a word in season to the weary, who can show the stricken that the God whose voice shakes the earth is the same God who gave His Son to ransom sinners. Ask that the tender mercy of our God would visit those dark valleys, not merely with a cup of cold water, but with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Remember Hagar sitting by the well in the desert, forlorn and hopeless: it was then that the Angel of the Lord found her and opened her eyes. Even so, in the ruined streets and the dry wastelands, God knows how to meet with the outcast and whisper, “I have seen him that seeth me.”
You have entreated our prayers, and we will not cease to make mention of Venezuela at the throne of grace. But let me press this upon you: do not rest in a bare request for prayer, as if that discharged your duty. Set your own hand to the work. Give of your substance as God has prospered you, and do it not with the trumpet sounding before you, but as unto the Lord. And while you remember the bodies of the perishing, forget not their never-dying spirits. It may be that your gift will pave a way for the Great Interpreter, the Messenger of the Covenant, to declare the ransom that has been found, the precious blood of Christ. That is the only balm that can heal the deeper wounds of sin, which are a more dreadful earthquake than any that rends the crust of the globe.
Beware of a false hope, either for yourself or for them. Some fancy that God’s mercy is a soft and easy thing, a tolerance of sin that requires no transformation. God forbid! The mercy of God comes to pull down the old edifice of self-righteousness and to build anew on the foundation of Christ. If this disaster merely leads men to cry for shovels and bandages, but never for cleansing from guilt, it has done them no ultimate good. Pray, then, that the survivors may be brought into soul-trouble about eternal things, that they may feel the earthquake within, the terrors of a broken law and an offended God, and so flee to the cleft of the Rock, Jesus, who was smitten for our transgressions. There alone is safety. The door of mercy stands open today, for the Lord is slow to anger and plenteous in mercy, but He will by no means clear the guilty. Christ must be our Cleanser, our Atonement, our All.
Therefore, while we plead for a swift delivery of aid, let the petition of our deepest heart be this: that God would be pleased, through these groaning wonders, to turn multitudes from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God. Let your charity be the footstep of mercy, following the print of your Master’s shoe. So shall your bread cast upon these troubled waters be found after many days, and you may meet some ransomed sinner in the New Jerusalem who will bless the hand that gave him the bread that perishes, and told him by deed of the Bread that endures unto everlasting life. May the God of all comfort bow the heavens and come down, and may the shaking of the earth but make His own beloved rest the more securely in the unshakable kingdom of His dear Son.