Yt Framework

LIFE’S INSPIRATIONS: “… If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, seek my face, and turn away from their wickedness, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land…” (2 Chronicles 7:14, the Holy Bible).

DIVINE INTERVENTION & ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS: Both Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Sen. Loren Legarda are correct in their respective assessments of how we can mitigate the death and destruction coming from rains, floods, and winds. Enrile is right in seeking divine intervention, but Legarda is also correct in pushing for stricter implementation of laws that seek to protect the environment.

But, with due respect, their assessments fall short of what we can really do to address, eliminate, or at least mitigate, the damage from rains, floods, and strong winds. While divine intervention is necessary to help our people, and while implementation of environmental laws will go a long way in addressing nature’s degradation, there is something more that people of their stature should try to do, to find a solution.

Both Enrile and Legarda should also study very carefully the spiritual and Biblical dimensions of rains, floods, and winds, and even of global warming, climate change, and environment destruction, and then craft a spiritual solution fashioned out of the verses of the Bible. This is something that, surprisingly, has not been done in the past but which may have to be explored urgently as the death and destruction from natural calamities continue to skyrocket annually.

SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS ON RAINS, FLOODS, WINDS: So this “spiritual and Biblical dimensions of rains, floods and strong winds” are better understood, let me refer, once more, to the warning of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, in Matthew 7:24-27 of the Bible. He said the rains, floods, and strong winds will surely come, bringing death and destruction, and only those who listen to Him and obey His commands will be saved.

Jesus said those who listen to Him, but do not obey Him, will surely die (my translation of the Bible uses the phrase “great crash”, and that could only mean death, of course). Therefore, viewed from this Biblical and spiritual perspective, one solution that could afford relief from rains, floods and winds, would be training our people in spirituality---teaching them to read the Bible, and obeying God.

In fact, in another book of the Bible---in Deuteronomy 28:15, 22-23---global warming, climate change, and environmental destruction were predicted to hit people who no longer listen to God and who no longer obey Him. Very clearly, there is a specific instruction from the Book of the Law as to how these natural calamities could be avoided, or the death and destruction coming from them mitigated.

LISTENING TO, AND OBEYING GOD: I know I have been writing about this for quite some time now, but I am convinced that there is a need to warn our people of the coming of more severe rains, floods and winds. Jesus said they will come, and so it is clear that there is no one who can stop those rains, floods and winds now.

Side by side with governmental efforts to address the problems brought about by those natural calamities, we should ask our people to precisely do what Jesus said must be done, to avoid their devastating effects---which are, to listen to Him and obey Him. In other words, we must ask our people, as a matter of strategy for national survival, to go concretely back to God.

How do we concretely go back to God? Joshua 1:8 gives us one definite way of doing it, when it said: “Do not forget to read the Book of the Law; meditate on it day and night; and carefully obey everything that is written in it. Then you will become prosperous and successful.” Let us do this now, while there is still time.

REACTIONS? Please call me at 0917 984 24 68, 0918 574 0193, or 0922 833 43 96. Email: batasmauricio@yahoo.com.

BY ATTY. BATAS MAURICIO