Habakkuk 1:2-3
Habakkuk 1
2 How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
5 “Look at the nations and watch -- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told.
6 I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own.
10 They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on -- guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”
I’ve been drawn to the book of Habakkuk ever since I first studied it many years ago in Bible Study Fellowship. Habakkuk’s cry to God could be ours today. In so many ways and it so many places, justice is perverted, people do wrong without being punished, and there seems to be destruction and violence anywhere we look. How long will it be before God deals with the oppressors of our time?
He doesn’t tell us when, but He assures us that it will be done. For Habakkuk, justice would come in the form of the Babylonians, people who were so much worse than the wrongdoers among his own people, and it didn’t seem right to use such wicked people to mete out justice.
But God is sovereign, and he assured Habakkuk that the Babylonians would face justice for their crimes when the time was right for them.
It’s hard, as I look at national and world events, to accept that God tolerates so much sin in our culture, that He allows wanton assaults and murder to go seemingly unchecked. Is it possible God is again using wicked people to judge a nation that once claimed Him as their God? Could He be asking us to wait, in the midst of our doubts and questions, for His will to be completed later? Much later?
When it comes to the heart of the matter, Habakkuk has this to say:
But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him. Habakkuk 2:20
If you’re questioning God’s justice and righteousness in the world, bring those doubts to Him. He will accept your questions, just as He accepted Habakkuk’s. But after you raise those doubts, wait for Him to answer you. Remember that He is the Lord, and take time to be silent before Him.
Brenda
2 How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
5 “Look at the nations and watch -- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told.
6 I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own.
10 They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on -- guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”
I’ve been drawn to the book of Habakkuk ever since I first studied it many years ago in Bible Study Fellowship. Habakkuk’s cry to God could be ours today. In so many ways and it so many places, justice is perverted, people do wrong without being punished, and there seems to be destruction and violence anywhere we look. How long will it be before God deals with the oppressors of our time?
He doesn’t tell us when, but He assures us that it will be done. For Habakkuk, justice would come in the form of the Babylonians, people who were so much worse than the wrongdoers among his own people, and it didn’t seem right to use such wicked people to mete out justice.
But God is sovereign, and he assured Habakkuk that the Babylonians would face justice for their crimes when the time was right for them.
It’s hard, as I look at national and world events, to accept that God tolerates so much sin in our culture, that He allows wanton assaults and murder to go seemingly unchecked. Is it possible God is again using wicked people to judge a nation that once claimed Him as their God? Could He be asking us to wait, in the midst of our doubts and questions, for His will to be completed later? Much later?
When it comes to the heart of the matter, Habakkuk has this to say:
But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him. Habakkuk 2:20
If you’re questioning God’s justice and righteousness in the world, bring those doubts to Him. He will accept your questions, just as He accepted Habakkuk’s. But after you raise those doubts, wait for Him to answer you. Remember that He is the Lord, and take time to be silent before Him.
Brenda
posted by BreadBakers at 12:17 PM
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