The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755

"Some Serious Thoughts Occasioned by the Late Earthquake at Lisbon" (1755)

   By John Wesley

Thinking men generally allow that the greater part of modern Christians are not more virtuous than the ancient Heathens; perhaps less so; since public spirit, love of our country, generous honesty, and simple truth, are scarce any where to be found. On the contrary, covetousness, ambition, various injustice, luxury, and falsehood in every kind, have infected every rank and denomination of people, the Clergy themselves not excepted. Now, they who believe there is a God are apt to believe he is not well pleased with this. Nay, they think, he has intimated it very plainly, in many parts of the Christian world. How many hundred thousand men have been swept away by war, in Europe only, within half a century! How many thousands, within little more than this, hath the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up! Numbers sunk at Port-Royal, and rose no more! Many thousands went quick into the pit at Lima! The whole city of Catanea, in Sicily, and every inhabitant of it, perished together. Nothing but heaps of ashes and cinders show where it stood. Not so much as one Lot escaped out of Sodom!

And what shall we say of the late accounts from Portugal? That some thousand houses, and many thousand persons, are no more! that a fair city is now in ruinous heaps! Is there indeed a God that judges the world? And is he now making inquisition for blood? If so, it is not surprising, he should begin there, where so much blood has been poured on the ground like water! where so many brave men have been murdered, in the most base and cowardly as well as barbarous manner, almost every day, as well as every night, while none regarded or laid it to heart. "Let them hunt and destroy the precious life, so we may secure our stores of gold and precious stones." How long has their blood been crying from the earth! Yea, how long has that bloody House of Mercy, the scandal not only of all religion, but even of human nature, stood to insult both heaven and earth! "And shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a city as this?". . .

But alas! why should we not be convinced sooner, while that conviction may avail, that it is not chance which governs the world? Why should we not now, before London is as Lisbon, Lima, or Catanea, acknowledge the hand of the Almighty, arising to maintain his own cause? Why, we have a general answer always ready, to screen us from any such conviction: "All these things are purely natural and accidental; the result of natural causes." But there are two objections to this answer: First, it is untrue: Secondly, it is uncomfortable.

First. If by affirming, "All this is purely natural," you mean, it is not providential, or that God has nothing to do with it, this is not true, that is, supposing the Bible to be true. For supposing this, you may descant ever so long on the natural causes of murrain, winds, thunder, lightning, and yet you are altogether wide of the mark, you prove nothing at all, unless you can prove that God never works in or by natural causes. But this you cannot prove; nay, none can doubt of his so working, who allows the Scripture to be of God. For this asserts, in the clearest and strongest terms, that "all things" (in nature) "serve him;" that (by or without a train of natural causes) He "sendeth his rain on the earth;" that He "bringeth the winds out of his treasures," and "maketh a way for the lightning and the thunder;" in general, that "fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm, fulfil his word." Therefore, allowing there are natural causes of all these, they are still under the direction of the Lord of nature:

Nay, what is nature itself, but the art of God, or God's method of acting in the material world?[...]

A Second objection to your answer is. It is extremely uncomfortable. For if things really be as you affirm; if all these afflictive incidents entirely depend on the fortuitous concourse and agency of blind, material causes; what hope, what help, what resource is left for the poor sufferers by them? . . .

What defence do you find from thousands of gold and silver? You cannot fly; for you cannot quit the earth, unless you will leave your dear body behind you. And while you are on the earth, you know not where to flee to, neither where to flee from. You may buy intelligence, where the shock was yesterday, but not where it will be to-morrow,—to-day. It comes! The roof trembles! The beams crack! The ground rocks to and fro! Hoarse thunder resounds from the bowels of the earth! And all these are but the beginning of sorrows. Now, what help? What wisdom can prevent, what strength resist, the blow? What money can purchase, I will not say deliverance, but an hour's reprieve? Poor honourable fool, where are now thy titles? Wealthy fool, where is now thy golden god? If any thing can help, it must be prayer. But what wilt thou pray to? Not to the God of heaven; you suppose him to have nothing to do with earthquakes. . . .


But how shall we secure the favour of this great God? How, but by worshipping him in spirit and in truth; by uniformly imitating Him we worship, in all his imitable perfections? without which the most accurate systems of opinions, all external modes of religion, are idle cobwebs of the brain, dull farce and empty show. Now, God is love: Love God then, and you are a true worshipper. Love mankind, and God is your God, your Father, and your Friend. But see that you deceive not your own soul; for this is not a point of small importance. And by this you may know: If you love God, then you are happy in God; if you love God, riches, honours, and the pleasures of sense are no more to you than bubbles on the water: You look on dress and equipage, as the tassels of a fool's cap; diversions, as the bells on a fool's coat. If you love God, God is in all your thoughts, and your whole life is a sacrifice to him. And if you love mankind, it is your own design, desire, and endeavour, to spread virtue and happiness all around you; to lessen the present sorrows, and increase the joys, of every child of man; and, if it be possible, to bring them with you to the rivers of pleasure that are at God's right hand for evermore.

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The Great Lisbon Earthquake:  Thinking Theology and Natural Disasters

I am Baptized in the Holy Ghost and with Fire!

Samson with the jawbone of an ass

Dreams from the LORD 2003-2006

24 March 2005

John 4: 23-24: “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship. God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

The true worshippers. The full Gospel. The Holy Ghost and Scripture. Shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. There is a powerful balance when you have the power of the Holy Ghost and the knowledge of Scripture engrafted into your Spirit man. The Holy Ghost and Scripture is a two-edged sword that Satan hates. Satan can find ways to inflict damage on someone who is only in the Holy Ghost or who is only into Scripture. I think it is interesting to note that the word “spirit” precedes the word “truth”. We can’t get the cart before the horse. We need the Holy Ghost to teach us the Scripture. How can you understand Scripture if you are not born again? Then when you get baptized in the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues, the Bible becomes an even more living, breathing document.

When Adam was in the Garden of Eden (before he sinned), he did not have the Law, the Prophets or the New Testament, but he did have the unbroken Presence of God (the Holy Ghost) to guide him and sustain him. The Lord did not have to give him a written book to tell Adam what to do, the Lord spoke to Adam in his spirit: Spirit to spirit: perfect communion.

And they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. It doesn’t say you must worship Him in a building. If a building has a pastor in it that is submitted to the Holy Ghost, then the congregation is in good hands. The congregation is in the building not because of the building, but because of the Holy Ghost.

When I meet people on the road, I don’t care if they are Pentecostal, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Baptist or non-churchgoers. I tell them about Jesus, the Word of God and the Holy Ghost. Let’s get the horse before the cart. Without a horse, the cart is dead in its tracks; without the cart, you can still ride the horse. John Wesley rode on horseback all over England: he didn’t need a cart. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if the Lord told some Holy Ghost believer to buy a horse and go on horseback and preach the Gospel in England? Or maybe it would be easier to hitchhike. America owes so much to England and the rest of Great Britain—a lot of powerful saints came out of Scotland and Wales. Get on your horse and ride in the power of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost Riders.

I Kings 18: 46: “And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.” In the back of my Bible I have a map of Israel and the distance between Mt. Carmel and Jezreel is about 25 miles. This old man named Elijah outran the king’s chariots in the power of the Holy Ghost. Some people hitchhike in the Holy Ghost, some people ride horses in the Holy Ghost and some people run in the Holy Ghost.

Sans teeth, sans taste, sans horse, sans everything.

I was working for Pike Construction back in Ames, Iowa and I was doing demolition work: I would use a sledgehammer and break down these brick and mortar walls, shovel it up into a garbage can and haul it out to this dump truck. One morning we got this new guy and he worked with me his first day. He was built like a brick house: he was around 5’ 9”, 235 pounds, had 19-inch biceps (that’s what he told me—maybe he only had 18-inch biceps)—he was a body builder. The second day he came to the job site, he said that he couldn’t keep up with me, so he would do carpenter work. That was okay with me because he had more experience than me in carpenter work. After about a week, this guy said to me, “Tim, how do you do it? You’re swinging that sledgehammer all day long and you don’t let up. Look at me; look at the size of my arms. Now look at you; look at the size of your arms (at the time I was 5’11” and 175 pounds). How do you do it? You never get tired.”

I looked at him and exclaimed, “Because I am baptized in the Holy Ghost and with Fire!”

The guy about had a heart attack. He didn’t know what to think. From that time on he would ask me questions about the Bible and spiritual things. So the moral of the story is: if you swing your sledgehammer in a responsible, Holy Ghost manner, someone eventually may enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Elijah . . . ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel in a responsible, Holy Ghost manner.

I came, I saw, I swung my sledgehammer in the power of the Holy Ghost. With the sledge of a hammer, heaps upon heaps, with the sledge of a hammer, have I slain a thousand men. And he cast the sledgehammer out of his hand and called that place Ramath-sledgehammer.

Judges 13: 25: “And the spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.”

One thing about Samson: at least he slew the Philistines in a responsible, Holy Ghost manner.

Samson:  A One-Man Wrecking Crew