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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
“Lord, are You not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One,
You will never die.”
“You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment; You, my Rock, have ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do You tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”
“You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler. The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food. Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?”
“I will stand at my watch and station myself
on the ramparts; I will look to see what He will say to me, and what answer I
am to give to this complaint.”
Habakkuk 1:12-17, 2:1
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks
be to God.
So far in the Book of Habakkuk, we have completed round
1, the first round of dialogue between the prophet and the Lord who appointed
him as messenger. To recap, you’ll recall that Habakkuk initiated a complaint
with God that was centered on two main issues:
1. The prophet believed the Lord was intentionally
ignoring him, not answering his prayers.
2. The prophet was upset the Lord wasn’t taking any action
on the Israelites who were liberally committing social injustices and
worshiping false gods and idols.
At the heart of the prophet’s attitude was this question:
“Why Lord? Why?”
Well, in response to this complaint, we found the Lord
giving His prophet a response, definitely letting him know that (a) He was
paying attention to what was happening and (b) He was hearing Habakkuk’s
petitions. Reading into the Lord’s reply, we find Him sending the following
message:
“Wait and see.”
Essentially, you’ll recall that God told Habakkuk that
judgment was coming on the Israelites of Judah and coming in a big way as the
mighty Babylonian forces would be sent to carry out the Lord’s punishment. The
attack would be fierce and Judah would experience destruction and devastation
as a result.
So God had responded to Habakkuk, setting things straight,
but as we see in today’s devotion, the prophet had a second grievance to bring.
Look again at these words here:
“Lord, are You not
from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, You will never die.”
“You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment; You, my Rock, have ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do You tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”
“You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler. The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food. Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?”
“I will stand at my
watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what He will say
to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.” Habakkuk 1:12-17, 2:1
God’s first response left Habakkuk confused. The prophet
knew the Lord despised sin and would take appropriate action against anyone who
chose to live wickedly in His sight. Habakkuk understood the Lord was perfectly
righteous and did not tolerate wrongdoing, that the Lord’s eyes were “too pure
to look on evil”.
And yet, God was going to use the Babylonians as
executors of His punishment and in doing so, using wicked people to “swallow up”
those who were more righteous (the Israelites). Why would the Lord do such a
thing? Did He delight in allowing the mighty Babylonian empire to destroy nations
without mercy, capturing each nation’s people like a fisherman wielding a net?
It was something that Habakkuk couldn’t understand, a
prospect that left him wondering, “Why Lord? Why?” The prophet resolved to
stand watch and wait for the Lord to answer his complaint and we’ll look at
that response tomorrow but before we close for today, we need to look very
fundamental flaw in Habakkuk’s thinking, a flaw that is more common than you
might think among mere humans. In fact, maybe you have made the same mistake as
he did in your own processing of things that may have happened in the world
around you.
What was the fundamental flaw?
It’s centered around the mindset that one person or group
of persons is any more righteous than another.
We know this because Habakkuk felt the Babylonians were
not worthy of being used by God as emissaries of His judgment due to them being
more wicked than the Judeans, even going as far as calling the Judeans
righteous. It was as if Habakkuk was initiating some kind of ranking system for
evil with the Babylonians being ranked lower than the Judeans.
The truth of the matter is that God hates sin, period. He
abhors the smallest amount of sin and so trying to say one person or people are
more or less wicked is a useless conversation to have. All have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), and so all have placed
themselves in opposition to God as a result. No one can stand before Him
innocent. With this, anyone the Lord chooses to carry out His punishment on
others will be wicked by nature, the wicked being called by a perfectly
righteous God to exact consequences on the wicked.
It doesn’t matter what our opinion is on the matter. God
can do what He wants to do and call whoever He wants to call to do His will, a
will that may ask for someone to carry out judgment on others.
We can ask “Why?” all we want but that’s the way it works
and frankly, who are we to question God when it comes right down to it?
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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