Habakkuk: When God Seems Unfair

Habakkuk 1-2:4

1Title Slide

2On Saturday, March 9, 2002, three women were killed in Chicago when part of a 25-foot aluminum scaffold fell in high winds from the 43rd floor of the John Hancock Center. These three women were in their cars, unsuspecting of any danger, when the incident occurred. The Chicago Tribune headline stated: "Tragedy at the Hancock."

3That tragedy occurred almost six months from the day terrorists flew planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing 3,063 innocent people. That horrific assault has been labeled "the day that changed America.

4Tragedy is hard to understand, hard to explain, and hard on faith. Some people blame God and become bitter and cynical toward Him. They ask for explanation, but get silence. They ask for understanding, and are baffled.

5Have you ever finished watching the evening news with all the violence and injustice in the world and in frustration asked, Why isnt God doing something? Why do the wicked and the dishonest people prosper? Why do they get elected to the White House? Well, that is not a new feeling.

6A prophet named Habakkuk felt that way around 620 B.C. and wrote a book about it.

Habakkuks name means to embrace or wrestle. As is usually the case, his name has something to do with the message of the book. He was wrestling with a difficult issue, but he eventually embraced faith. If God is good, then why is there evil in the world? And if there has to be evil, then why do the evil prosper? What is God doing in the world? Habakkuk fears God and does what is right, but feels as if it is getting him nowhere.

7Life is a mystery. Much of what happens in life is beyond us. And even if it were explained to us, we probably wouldn't be satisfied with it. We long for sensibility. We seek an explanation. We are desperate for reason.

We need to understand one fundamental truth that is spoken throughout all Scripture: God never explains himself, and He rarely gives reasons. The events that unfold in our world seldom make sense.

8Most prophets spoke to the people for God. Habakkuk spoke to God for the people. He lived in times that were hard on faith. He saw the righteous suffering and the wicked prospering. He asked God the two questions we often ask: "Why?" and "How long?" Why are these things happening? How long will it be before its over? Lets look at what we can learn from Habakkuk today.

9Habakkuks 1st Complaint

10Habakkuk 1:1-4

11God, how can you let such evil in society go unpunished?

12Habakkuk expresses the attitude that many Christians do today. He is outraged at the violence and injustice in his society. He lists six different problems. There was sin, wickedness, destruction and violence, no justice in the courts, and the wicked outnumbered the righteous. Does this sound like our society?

In verse 4 he says, "the law is ignored." God's word was no longer the standard. Just like today, we can no longer post the 10 commandments on school walls or in municipal buildings.

Habakkuk is preaching against the evil in society that he sees, but he is having little effect. raises a good question. Why does evil go unpunished? Why do the wicked prosper? Why doesnt God do something?

Imagine for a moment that you are walking down the street and you see an elderly woman being attacked by a gang of thugs. Then you notice a policeman, sitting on a park bench nearby. You shout to the policeman, pointing to the woman in distress. The policeman refuses to lift a finger to come to her aid and goes right on reading his newspaper. Wouldnt you be angry with the policeman?

This is how Habakkuk felt. He lived during the final dark days of Judah, just before her captivity. The prophet rightly assesses the spiritual state of the nation, and he agonizes because the sins of his day are rampant. Most of all, Habakkuk fumes with anger because God appears to be doing nothing about it, and that is His job! That is the essence of the prophets protest: God, I have persisted at urging you to deal with the sins of this people, and you have been strangely silent? Dont you care? God, if you are a just God, why is there no justice?

13Some people think that men of faith never question God. They just sit and wait faithfully and patiently. But one thing we can learn from Habakkuk is that those who trust in Godcananddoquestion God.

14A DEEPLY COMMITTED BELIEVER CAN EXPRESS SIMULTANEOUS QUESTIONS AND FAITH

15Gods First Answer

16Habakkuk 1:5-11

17Im not letting evil go unpunished; Im sending invaders to destroy the society.

God is doing something. He is raising up a foreign nation, the Babylonians, to come and destroy Judah. He tells Habakkuk, You would not believe if you were told.Why? Because they are really wicked. They were worse than the Jews. The Assyrians and the Babylonians were the terrorists of Habakkuks day. Accounts of the cruelty of these nations are mind-bending. The reason for this description is to show that they are so powerful, no one can stop them. They will certainly destroy Judah.

We see in verse 11 that they will be held guilty for their wickedness, but God is going to use them anyway. For a time, evil would win over righteousness and bad things would happen to good people. God's hand would not move. His face would not be seen.

18Most of us have been praying for the evil in our society hoping for revival. What if God sent the Soviet Union or Sadam Hussein to conquer America, to instill communism or a dictatorship, imprison all the Christians, etc. What would you think about that answer? Would you say God didnt answer your prayer?

19God doesnt always give us the answers we want or expect. We usually have it in our mind how we want God to answer our prayers. When He does it differently, how do you respond?

What is Habakkuks response to the answer?

20Habakkuks 2nd Complaint

21Habakkuk 1:12-2:1

22Habakkuk accepted the answer, but he didnt like it.

23Notice in verse 12, Habakkuk claims that God is eternal. The fact that God does not change is important because it means God keeps His promises and He has made promises to Israel. Habakkuk knows that God will nottotallydestroy Israel because of His covenant promises. So, he believes God and trusts God, but he still doesnt fully understand the answer.

24Habakkukssecond argumentis also based upon Gods character. God is righteous, and He abhors evil. The way the prophet sees it, Gods plan to use the Babylonians as a chastening rod is inconsistent with Gods character. A righteous God cannot achieve His purposes through unrighteous means. God will simply have to change His plans, or so the prophet supposes.

But in Gods eyes Israel was worse than all the rest of the nations because she knew better. She had been given the law while the Gentiles had not.

Habakkuk had received one answer, but he had more questions. So in 2:1 he says he is going to expectantly wait for another answer from God. He is searching for understanding.

25Gods Second Answer

26Habakkuk 2:2-4

27Depend on Me; the wicked (including the conquerors) will get what they deserve, and the righteous what they hope for.

28The problem of delay:

29Woes to the wicked (2:6-20) both then and now.

30Habakkuk 2:4b

31Faith believes that God is too wise to make a mistake.

32The God of the universe has a plan for our lives, and He is busy enacting it. But it is not easy to discern.We view life as though we are watching a parade through a rolled-up program. We can only see what is immediately in front of us. But God is high above us and sees all of life at one glance. He sees both the beginning and the end of things, while we see only the present.We are always wiser after the event. But while the crisis is occurring, we are unaware of why we are going through a tragedy. Only after we reflect does it strike us that God was in it all along. For that reason, we trust in the ways of God, believing that He is too wise to make a mistake.

33On the wall of a concentration camp, a prisoner had carved these words.

I believe in the sun, even though it does not shine.I believe in love, even when it isn't shown.I believe in God, even when he doesn't speak.

34Faith believes that God is too kind to be cruel.

35Romans 8:28

These verses are as important for what they do not say as they are for what they say. They do not say that everything that happens is good. They do not say that God causes evil. They do not say that everything will turn out okay for everyone.What they do say is: God is at work in the world, especially in the lives of his children. His glorious purpose is to make us like his Son, Jesus Christ. And to that good end, God can and does use all things - the good and the bad, that which He causes and that which He permits.

36Faith believes that God always knows best and does best in His time.

37When we try to impose our timetable on God, we get into trouble. For example, a man found a cocoon on a tree in his yard. He was intrigued by it and decided to watch it change. One day, he saw a tiny butterfly inside the delicate covering and he watched it struggling, trying its best to break out of its captivity. Finally, the man became so frustrated that he decided to use a razor blade to make a tiny slit in the side of the cocoon, in order to free the struggling butterfly. Soon afterward, the butterfly was free, but it could not fly and finally died prematurely.

There are times of trials, when we want to short circuit the maturation process, while God wants to prepare us for a great work or a new p