Japan has just experienced a 9.0 earth quake, a conservative estimate of those who lost their lives is well over 10,000, entire towns were washed away in the ensuing tsunami that followed. Some may ask how could God allow this to happen, does he just not care? These kinds of things make people think that God, if there, is impotent and uninterested in the affairs of man—as if He just set the world spinning and then left us to fend for ourselves.

Actually the bible teaches us that when man sinned it not only brought about death and the decay of the physical body but also the decay and deterioration of the earth itself.

Rom 8:20-22 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Just as we long to shed this corrupted body of flesh and be clothed with our new spiritual body so the earth is groaning as it anticipates the coming of the new heaven and new earth.

2 Peter 3:10-12 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.

What we saw in Japan was the result of the sin of man that has not only cursed our physical bodies with death but also doomed all of creation.

Rev 21:1-4 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. 2 Pet 3:13