When God Seems Unfair

Introduction

We start today a three sermon series from Habakkuk. This short writing provides an insight into the nature of God while reminding us that faith demands much from us. Let me encourage you to take a brief time and read this writing. And when you have read it once, take the time to read it again and again as we study the writing together for the next three Sunday mornings. There are many things we do not understand. This lack of understanding may lead to a crisis of faith. Our series is entitled “When God Seems Unfair.” We are not the first generation to question what God is doing in this world and why he isn’t doing what we think he ought to be doing. Nor will we be the last generation.

Observationally, there has been a significant cultural shift in the past two generations. My grandparents, who were born in the second decade of the 20th century, experienced many challenges. Many of the modern conveniences they did not have. They would have been teenagers when the depression hit. My dad’s father dropped out of school at the end of the 8th grade in order to go to work to help provide for his family. My mom’s dad was sent to live with another family because there wasn’t enough money to finish raising him. These stories are multiplied by the thousands. As young adults they experienced World War II; the great recession of 1946; the Korean War; and the economic resurgence of the 1950s. My grandparents knew hard work as the common thread of their society.

Beginning in the 1960s, the culture shifted to less work and more about trying to give the next generation more. Children were encouraged to study and improve their standing in life. The rallying cry for children was more and better and with that shift, culture changed so that we as a people began to expect only the best. Culturally we changed from an acceptance of difficulties and challenges and facing them to believing that we deserved an easy life. So much has this thought pervaded our culture that we demand the best, expect the best, and believe that we are being treated unfairly if the best isn’t easily within our reach. We approach God in this fashion as well. He is supposed to make life easier and better. He is to right all wrongs. And when he doesn’t we question him. We question his intent and his love. Our faith is challenged.

But we are not the first generation to question God nor to have our faith challenged. Habakkuk saw evil and questioned why God didn’t respond. God does and Habakkuk questions God’s methods. Over the next three weeks we will follow Habakkuk’s questions and God’s responses and we shall learn that the living by faith is more than a platitude. Let’s be encouraged today as we sing about our faith.

What Habakkuk Sees

The Southern Kingdom is in a downward spiral morally and ethically. Manasseh had been an evil king for 55 years. There was a good king Josiah who tried to get Judah to return to God and at times the nation did, but the spiral had already begun. Even with Josiah’s reform, evil was easily seen. Habakkuk begins his prophesy at the end of Josiah’s reform. The next four kings will do evil in God’s sight and Habakkuk sees that the wicked oppress the righteous. Those who would do good and try to help the nation remain close to God are mistreated and violently opposed. And this prompts the first question from Habakkuk.

How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Habakkuk has been pleading for God to act. He has been calling on God to put an end to the evil that he sees. He begs for God to step in and stop the violence and injustice. Why doesn’t God do something? That cry is heard today. Why do evil people continue to win? Why is injustice allowed to continue? Why doesn’t God do something? If God is God, then he should be able to stop this evil. The expectations of those who say they do not believe in God and those that say they do believe in God are the same. The unbeliever says if God will stop evil then they will believe. The believer says if God will stop evil then their faith will be confirmed. Both are saying the same thing. Both are saying that God must operate a certain way in order for faith to be real.

The focus is on God’s inactivity. God has been silent while the violence and injustice continue. The question really is “How can God sit on his hands, while the evil doers remain active?” How long is God going to wait? What we may not recognize is that God has asked that same question. In Exodus 16:28, God asks how long Israel will refuse to keep his commands. In Numbers 14:11, God asks how long Israel will refuse to trust him even though they have seen his great power. There was evidence of God’s activity and yet when things didn’t happen as quickly as they thought or in the way they thought, Israel was quick to accuse God of somehow being unfair. So that even God wonders how long it will take for Israel to trust him. How long is the question we ask of God. How long before you act the way I think you ought to act.

God Answers

So God answers Habakkuk and in an old fashioned way he basically says this—Hang on to your hat because I am going to blow you away. You will never see this coming. I am going to bring the Babylonians to deal with the evil. God will send a relentless and powerful army to deal with the nation’s wickedness. But this isn’t any army. This is an evil army. The harshness of Babylon is well attested. And while Babylon has been a nation only a short period of time, Habakkuk knows what this means.

We want God to act but we want him to act the way we dictate him to act. We want him to take care of injustice and violence but we don’t want him to cause us any problems. Why use an evil nation to punish an evil nation? We are not pleased when God is inactive and then when he does act, we aren’t pleased because he doesn’t do it the way we want him to. Back in Deuteronomy 28:49, God had promised that if the nation did not follow him that he would send a nation from the north who would swoop down like an eagle and devour them. The same language is used on 1:8. While the translation in the NIV is vulture it is the same word as used in Deuteronomy. The idea is a bird of prey that eats the dead or kills and then eats the remains. The image is of an army that takes no prisoners. This is how God will deal with the evil in the nation.

Next week we will deal with Habakkuk’s response but for now suffice it to say he doesn’t get it. God is inactive and silent and then he does something that doesn’t make any sense. We beg God to act and then we want him to act in ways that make sense to us. God’s inactivity makes no sense and then his actions make less sense and our faith is challenged. Everything within us says we want to understand. We must understand. If we can’t understand then there is a problem with God—not with us. God is unfair. Why? Because he hasn’t done things the way I think he ought to do them. The solution is simple. Why does he have to make it so complicated? And so we complain against God when he doesn’t act and we complain against God when he does?

Lesson

There are two lessons to be gained from this text. First, questioning God is appropriate as long as it is done in trust. Habakkuk questions God’s silence, but he doesn’t question God. Like the man in Mark 9 who wanted his son healed but couldn’t understand, he cried out “I believe, help my unbelief.” This is our predicament. We believe in God but there is so much that doesn’t make sense. Our faith is challenged. So why not admit the truth—We believe but I need help in times of unbelief.

Second, although we perceive God to be silent and inactive, he is still at work. God carries out his will. God is at work when we do not think he is. Look at Isaiah 44. In a prophesy given before Habakkuk, God announces that the temple is going to be rebuilt. Wait! The temple still stands so there is the prediction of the temple’s destruction but that the temple will be rebuilt even before it is destroyed. And in verse 28, God names the one who will be used by him to bring this about—Cyrus. Cyrus is a Persian king. Persia is the kingdom that comes into power after Babylonian empire. God’s plan is to punish and then rebuild. It will not be a quick process. A generation or two must die out first. Even as we wonder what God is doing, He has already got his plans. Do you know what God’s plan is for those who walk with him? Whatever we must go through here does not keep us from the ultimate plan of God. Invitation.

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