Life’s Questions
We have all wondered why the intoxicated driver walked away from an accident without a scratch while an innocent person or persons died or became paralyzed due to another’s irresponsibility. I’ve seen young couples wrestle with why they could not conceive a child, even though they loved God and would make great parents, while knowing those who could have kids one after another, and neglect or abuse them. I’ve heard kids ask me to pray that their parents would reunite, yet they remained divorced. I’ve counseled spouses who have pleaded with God to intervene in their partner’s life so that their marriage would remain intact and experience revitalization, only to see no change in the life of the one they were praying for and their marriage end bitterly. We’ve asked why, if God is good, there is war, famine, injustice, hospitals filled with sick children, natural disasters, and oppressive governments.
These questions and others we could ask all find their source in the philosophical dilemma known as the “Problem of Evil.” It goes something like this: If God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, how can evil, suffering, disaster, and death exist in the world? If He is all-loving, wouldn’t He want to end these things? And if God is all-knowing, wouldn’t He know how? And if the LORD is all-powerful, wouldn’t He be able to do so? How can we explain these things if God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful? But how can He be God if He is not all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful? The problem of evil, which arises in the tension between what we know about God and what we see and experience, has bothered unbelievers and believers alike in every generation.
The prophet Habakkuk, who prophesied between 640 and 610 B.C., also grappled with the problem of evil and the existence of a good God. We find the prophet living and ministering in Judah about 80 years after Assyria had conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Though the Southern Kingdom had experienced a revival, it was short-lived, and the nation had since spiraled downward. By the time we come to the prophet’s conversation with the LORD, Judah could be a better place. Habakkuk seeks the LORD, asking for understanding of his nation’s current state of wickedness and when or if the LORD has any plans to intervene and make things right. Like us today, the prophet is wrestling with who he knows God to be (1:13) and what he sees and experiences daily (1:2-4). This short book is not lacking in application, comfort, and encouragement for our lives today. In this post, we will explore what the book teaches us about how God’s people are to live when it seems that God does not care about what is happening.
How are we to live when what we know about God and what we see around us don’t add up? The book of Habakkuk answers this question as we are privileged to listen in on a conversation between the LORD and one of His prophets. The book is organized in a question-and-answer format, concluding with guidance on living as God’s people await God’s ultimate righting of all things in unjust times.
Habakkuk’s First Question (1:2-4)
How long, O Lord, must I call for help?
But you do not listen!
“Violence is everywhere!” I cry,
but you do not come to save.
3 Must I forever see these evil deeds?
Why must I watch all this misery?
Wherever I look,
I see destruction and violence.
I am surrounded by people
who love to argue and fight.
4 The law has become paralyzed,
and there is no justice in the courts.
The wicked far outnumber the righteous,
so that justice has become perverted.
God Answers Habakkuk’s First Question (1:5-7)
Habakkuk brings his complaint, his question, to God. The prophet cannot reconcile God’s righteousness and justice, the One who rewards righteousness and judges evil, with His seeming absence from or apathy towards what is happening in Judah. From Habakkuk’s perspective, it appears that evil is prevailing, and he cannot comprehend why. One lesson that we can take away from this prophetic book is that God is big enough for us to bring our questions to. Now, God doesn’t always answer our questions, nor is He obligated to do so, for He is the Creator, and we are His creation. Yet, we, like Habakkuk, may bring our questions before Him, and God may choose to reveal the answers to us. He graciously does so for Habakkuk in 1:5-7.
The Lord replied,
“Look around at the nations;
look and be amazed!
For I am doing something in your own day,
something you wouldn’t believe
even if someone told you about it.
6 I am raising up the Babylonians,
a cruel and violent people.
They will march across the world
and conquer other lands.
7 They are notorious for their cruelty
and do whatever they like.
Yahweh tells His prophet that He is going to use the Babylonians (Chaldeans) to discipline His people for their sins. These wicked people will not only discipline Judah but also the other nations, including the Assyrians. God’s plan is puzzling to Habakkuk. In addition to the LORD revealing the emergence of a new world superpower, Babylon in place of Assyria, He tells His messenger that the “more wicked” nation will be used to judge Judah, a “less wicked” people. God is patient in His dealings with all sinners because He desires that none should perish but come to repentance, but His patience does have its limits. The plea of Scripture is that people make today the day of salvation, to call on the name of Jesus and be saved while they have breath. God has been long-suffering with Judah, allowing time to turn from their sin and, in turn, love Him supremely and their neighbor as themselves, and as a result, be blessed instead of being ravaged by their enemies. The Divine has answered the prophet’s question, but instead of solving his dilemma, it led the prophet to ask another question.
Habakkuk’s Second Question (1:12-17)
Habakkuk 1:12-13
O Lord my God, my Holy One, you who are eternal—
surely you do not plan to wipe us out?
O Lord, our Rock, you have sent these Babylonians to correct us,
to punish us for our many sins.
13 But you are pure and cannot stand the sight of evil.
Will you wink at their treachery?
Should you be silent while the wicked
swallow up people more righteous than they?
1:12 shows us that despite struggling with the tension between what he knows to be true about his God and what he sees and hears, Habakkuk still has faith in the LORD. He praises God for being eternal and appeals to God’s preservation of at least a remnant of people for Himself, based on the past covenants made with the prophet’s ancestors. The prophet has faith in the surety of God’s covenants He has made with His people, but also trusts that God will discipline His people for their sins, breaking their end of the covenant with their God. The prophet has made a significant statement about having faith in his Lord, but doesn’t understand how He could allow a more sinister people to be the tool by which He would discipline less wicked people.
His new question pertains to God acting rightly against the Babylonians. He will not let Judah get away with worshipping idols and practicing injustice, but will He give the more wicked Babylonians a hall pass? I love what the prophet says and does in 2:1; he tarries to see how the LORD replies to his latest question in humble faith. The prophet’s example is an excellent reminder today that genuine prayer is a two-way conversation. We speak to the Lord, but we must not rush off before hearing from the Lord.
God Answers Habakkuk’s Second Question (2:2-20)
Our omniscient God lets Habakkuk know that He is aware of the Babylonians’ wickedness. The LORD assured His messenger that He knew about their idolatry, their worshipping of their own wealth and military prowess. Yahweh knew that there was systemic injustice and unjust economics, irresponsible leaders, and slave labor. Once God uses the Babylonians to punish Judah’s sins, He will render justice on Babylon’s sins. About 47 years after Nebuchadnezzar and his armies defeated the Southern Kingdom, God used the Medes and Persians to defeat the Babylonian Empire and punish them for their wrongs in 539 B.C. It is important to note that Habakkuk, though knowing God’s plan for rendering justice on the coming Babylonians, never saw it come to pass.
Even though the prophet was never to see the fall of Babylon, he was unaware of this fact when receiving this revelation and was called to believe that God would do what He said He would do. For us and the prophet, to honestly believe that God will do what He says He will do when He is ready, affects how we live in the present. Now that God had pulled the curtain back for Habakkuk to see how God’s justice would play out on the Southern Kingdom and their conquerors, how was he supposed to live in the meantime? How was he supposed to live now, knowing God would make all things right, so to speak, in the future?
God’s Answers and Our Lives
We share much in common with this prophet of old. As God’s people, we can look across the landscape of the nation we call home and see how it, too, has been and is on a downward spiral. A plunge that takes us further away from God’s will and closer to His coming judgment. We see social injustice, inequality, racism, sex trafficking, sexual perversion normalized, foolishness in leadership, murdering of the innocent, life declining in value, religious hypocrisy, abuse, broken marriages, a porn epidemic, syncretism, outright rejection of Jesus, and worshipping the comfort and blessings we enjoy instead of the One Who blesses us with those things.
Across the globe, we hear of nations declaring their intent to overthrow, defeat, or annihilate other nations or people groups; who knows what nation the LORD might use to judge the sins of another? We receive news of famine caused by wars and horrid living conditions for citizens under corrupt governments. Like Habakkuk, we look near and far and see evil and wickedness seeming to have the upper hand. The stomach-churning of these atrocities is compounded as we experience hurt at the hands of others, sickness, loss, or injustice personally. How do we live until all these evil things and the people who participate in these practices are judged by God, and He rids His creation of sin and its effects?
How are we to live a life pleasing to our Heavenly Father and freeing for us while we live in the tension of knowing what God is like (Psalm 89:14) and what God will do, that is, making all things right (Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21:1-8)? We find our answer by watching Habakkuk respond to God’s plan as it is revealed.
How to Live While We Wait for God to Make Things Right
In the second part of 2:4, the LORD told the prophet that the righteous will live by faith. The Hebrew language can also mean that the righteous will live by their faithfulness. Either way one interprets this verse, God’s people of all time must live by faith. We trust that God is Who He says He is and will do what He has said He will do in His way and timing. Yahweh told his prophet that he must have faith in Him, faithfully follow Him, and love Him no matter how bleak the circumstances or how distant judgment on his enemies may seem. If the prophet wanted to experience the time when the LORD’s glory fills the earth as the waters fill the seas (2:14), he must remain faithful.
Faith in God and His Word is how we are made right before Him. Without faith in Christ’s finished work on our behalf, we will never be holy enough to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Also, if we as people, having been made right with God by faith, do not live by faith; we will also not be able to be obedient to do what He has called us to do (Hebrews 11:2-39). Being habitually disobedient makes it impossible to live a life pleasing to Him (Hebrews 11:6). The author of Hebrews also quotes Habakkuk 2:4 as he discusses the issue of apostasy (10:35-39). Apostasy is the leaving of the faith and might be described today by some as deconstructing one’s faith.
People were leaving the faith because of the persecution they were experiencing at the time the book of Hebrews was written. Perhaps they couldn’t reconcile suffering at the hands of the wicked with God immediately intervening. People today leave the faith or undergo deconstruction for various reasons, some experiential and some intellectual. These verses in Hebrews focus on the perseverance of the saints, also known as God’s people. God’s charge for the original audience of Hebrews remains the same for us today, as well as for Habakkuk.
He calls us to remain faithful to Him despite things being ugly, confusing, complicated, or hopeless. We have many exemplary men and women who have gone before us, who lived faithfully for God, and will live eternally with their God in the new heavens and earth because of their faithfulness to Him – Habakkuk being one of them. Scripture is clear: God’s children remain faithful to Him throughout their lives, not perfectly but persistently (John 15:1-8; 1 John 2:19).
Habakkuk’s Faithful Example (3:1-19)
As the book ends, we see God’s prophet sing a prayer of praise and faith. The prophet recalls how God has acted by judging wicked nations and supporting weaker nations with His mighty right arm and asks Him to do so again (3:1-2). Whenever God intervenes to render justice and judge evil, He does so powerfully (3:3-11); people take notice. Reaching back into Israel’s history, the prophet recalls how the LORD specifically acted on behalf of the oppressed by freeing Israel from slavery in Egypt (3:12-15). I didn’t mention it earlier, but it needs to be discussed now because people are sinful. All nations eventually become like Babylon, and God will deal with that nation as He did the Babylonians in 539 B.C., using other people as His rod of discipline. In the verses recounting God’s rescue of the Israelites from Pharaoh, Egypt’s king is also an archetype of all evil leaders throughout history – past, present, and future. One day, the Lord Himself will strike them all down and rule with fairness throughout all eternity (3:16; Psalm 2:1-12).
Habakkuk’s faith in God being Who He said He was and that He would do what He said he would do not only informed and shaped his prayer but also his decision to remain faithful to his good God even if things were not good and even if he did not have a good understanding of life’s current circumstances. If we want to be faithful while we wait for Him to render justice and make all things right, we would do well to make Habakkuk’s prayer our own.
Habakkuk 3:17-18
Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,
and there are no grapes on the vines;
even though the olive crop fails,
and the fields lie empty and barren;
even though the flocks die in the fields,
and the cattle barns are empty,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
The prophet declared that no matter how bad things would get because of the coming invasion, the LORD was in His holy Temple (2:20); one day, His glory would fill the earth (2:14), and until then, the God of his salvation, the Sovereign LORD would be his strength enabling him to remain faithful to Him (3:19) and thus receive all that He has promised us (Hebrews 10:35-36, 39).
Justice is inevitable
Conrad Maier-Sogheg made a lot of money, enough to deposit $10,000 daily into his Georgia bank account. How did an unemployed man manage this? He was literally making money, printing his own bills from inside a rented storage unit. He used laser templates, special paper, and a variety of chemicals, including baby powder, to create his counterfeits. Said one police officer: “It’s the best counterfeit scheme I have seen in my law enforcement career. The bills look and feel real.” How was he caught? He failed to pay the rent on his storage unit, and when workers went to empty it, they discovered the scam.
Numbers 32:23 tells us that our sin will find us out. Justice is inevitable. That’s exactly how God answered Habakkuk’s first question. He said to him that justice was about to be done, that the nation’s punishment for sin and covenant-breaking was imminent. It would not be allowed to continue indefinitely. This prophecy was not of the distant future, for God told the prophet it would happen “in your days” (1:5). Though he saw God’s judgment on Judah, he most likely did not see God’s judgment on the Babylonians’ sin, yet lived devoted to God because he trusted that God would act justly and judge the Babylonians too. While we may not see Jesus return and make all things right in our lifetime, we can live faithfully devoted to our Lord because eventually, we trust that He will do what He has said He would do (Revelation 19:11-22:21). Eventually, the wicked will be found out, not for failing to pay rent, but because the eyes of the LORD see everything (Proverbs 15:3) and His patience with rebellious sinners will have come to its end.
Having faith in the Faithful One will produce one who will be faithful to Him no matter our circumstances until He faithfully accomplishes all He has said He would do, including rewarding His faithful.
How Do We Live Faithfully?
How do we remain faithful while waiting for God to make all things right? May I offer these observations from the book of Habakkuk?
- Humbly bring your honest questions to God. He is big enough to handle them. (1:2-4; 12-13)
- Tarry in His presence to hear His voice. (2:1) Remember that while He may answer your specific questions, He is not obligated to do so.
- Reflect on His person and His past workings in the Scripture, your life, and the lives of others. His faithfulness to others in the past will reassure you of his devotion to you today and provide strength and encouragement. (3:1-16)
- Remember that God is in His holy temple, sovereign and at work – the day will come when His glory fills the earth as the water fills the seas. (2:14, 20; 3:19)
- Remember that God is patient with the wicked so they might repent. This same grace was extended to us by God as well; we will inevitably suffer because of God’s patience with rebellious people as He gives them time to come to Him. God’s people will also suffer until the presence of sin is banished. Yet, there will be a day when His patience will give way to vengeance toward the wicked and reward for the righteous. (2:2-4)
- Resolve that He alone is enough for you. (3:17-19)
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