Why Doesn’t God Seem Fair?
HABAKKUK #1
Maybe you’ve noticed that there are so many questions in life
that are difficult to answer.
I mean, think about it.
Why do they say that an alarm clock is going off,
when it’s really coming on?
That kind of bothers me.
Why do they say that you,
you drive on a parkway, but you park on a driveway?
Why is it that people say,
“I slept through the night like a baby,
when everyone knows that a baby wakes up every two hours.
If you throw a cat out of a moving car,
is it called Kitty Litter?
These are the difficult questions of life.
I know, I just got all the cat lovers mad at me.
I actually like cats,
we had cats for years,
but our last one died and now Kathy has said that
absolutely no way can we get another one.
I don’t know what she has against cats.
I’m not going to say if Kathy is actually the person
who got me this little toy…
Cat’s tail sticking out of a sack, squeeze it…
The name of the book that we are about to study is Habakkuk,
If you have your bible, you can turn there,
Now, you may not be able to find it,
and its only 3 chapters long.
and maybe you didn’t even know it was part of the bible,
But Habakkuk is a great book,
and it is really applicable to our world today.
….pew bible page 639.
The driving question of the book Habakkuk, is this…
Habakkuk wanted to know,
Why doesn’t God seem fair?
Maybe you’ve asked that question before.
“Why doesn’t God seem fair?”
Habakkuk is what’s known as one of the
12 Minor Prophets.
Anybody know the difference between
the minor prophets and the major prophets?
Books like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel
are called major prophets,
because their books are long.
Habakkuk is one of the twelve minor prophets,
which means his book is short,
but doesn’t mean its less important.
God spoke to Habakkuk,
and told him to write this down,
in about the year 600 B.C.,
give or take a little bit.
and this was a time period
when God’s people were becoming very corrupt.
There was a lot of violence.
There was corruption and injustice.
There was a lot of evil,
people ignoring God.
There were suicide bombers,
and school shootings,
and wars overseas,
terrorists,
harsh dictators…
Oh, no… actually,
that would describe our world today.
The point is…
you could say that Habakkuks world,
was a lot like the world we live in today.
There were a lot of bad people
doing bad things to good people,
but even the good people weren’t so good,
because they weren’t doing much to fix it.
Lets read the first 4 verses.
Habakkuk 1:1-4
The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.
2 How long, 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 wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
Habakkuk asks 3 questions in a row,
they’re 3 ways of asking the same thing,
God, why aren’t you being fair.
First he asks,
“How long, Lord, must I call for help, but You, [what?]
“You do not listen,
You ever asked God that?
“God, I need help.
God, you said you’d help.
God, you said you’d answer prayers.
But then I pray for help, and you don’t help.
How come?
How come I pray, and nothing happens?
Some of you have felt that way.
You prayed for things
and you thought you were praying in accordance with God’s will,
you were praying for things that were good,
but God didn’t do it.
So maybe you continued praying in faith, saying,
“Well, I just pray continually
maybe then God will do it.”
But nothing happens,
and eventually you start to ask,
Does God even care?
Is he interested in my situation?
Is he listening?
God, how come someone else prays,
and it seems like you do things immediately,
but when I pray,
You don’t do anything?
God, why is it that
I try to raise my kids according to Your word,
but now my kids are messed up?
but that guy that was a lousy dad,
never even took his kids to church,
and his kids seem okay?
What’s up with that, God?
How come I try to do what Your word says financially,
and I’m struggling to make ends meet,
but my neighbor is an atheist,
and he’s prospering?
How come I’ve got these headaches that don’t go away?
Or, how come I’m battling depression?
Or, how come someone I love is having a hard time?
God, it seems like You could do something,
but You’re not doing it.
God, how come you’re not listening?”
That’s Habakkuk’s first question.
Then he asks a second question:
When I cry out to You ‘violence’,
why don’t you save?
Habakkuk is saying,
God, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,
but the bad guys are winning.
There’s violence, and they’re getting away with it.
There’s crime, murder, rape, theft,
and nobody’s getting punished for it,
there’s no justice.
God, can’t you see,
that people are being harmed.
And I cry out, begging you to get involved
and stop the violence and the sin,
but you don’t show up.
You don’t fix it.
How come, God?
Then in Verse 3,
he asks God 2 questions that are basically the same.
“Why do You make me look at injustice?
Why do You tolerate wrong?”
In other words, Habakkuk is saying:
“I’m just sick of it.”
I’m sick of this injustice.
I’m sick of people doing bad stuff,
and getting away with it.
You ever felt like that?
Some of us get to the place where
we don’t even want to read the newspaper
or watch the news.
because it’s all mayhem and carnage and blood shed.
You hear about the soldiers in Afghanistan posing with body parts,
and Secret Service hiring prostitutes,
the trial of the Norway mass killer,
and that’s just from the last few days.
By the end of the nightly news
you’re completely depressed,
thinking, I’ve about had it.
That’s all I can handle.”
That’s why at the end of every newscast,
they always end with some story about a kitty cat
and some little girl that adopted it.
So at the very end after all the shootings and terrorists,
then they’ll say,
“Be back in a minute.
Wait. Don’t kill yourself.
We have a story about a kitty.”
So you actually get one good piece of news,
so you can say,
Well, the world’s not all bad.
maybe, I’ll give it another shot tomorrow.”
This is actually where many Christians are at.
You’re about sick of living on this earth.
Why do you think the most popular Christian books and movies,
are about the rapture, and the end times.
People are asking the big question.
“When do we get out of here?
When can we leave?
I’m so sick of it that I want to read books
that tell me we’re gonna leave any day now,
so I can just sit around and eat food that ends in -itos
and watch TV,
and escape from life,
And maybe I’ll buy guns and bullets and canned goods,
so I can protect me and mine
when the balloon goes up,
and forget about the rest of the world
because I’m leaving
and then God’s gonna burn the whole place,
and I’m gonna dance at the bonfire.
It’s gonna be glorious.
That’s exactly where Habakkuk was.
He’s sick of it.
He’s fed up.
And he’s going,
How come I’ve gotta look at this?
How come I’ve gotta put up with this?
This is terrible.
This is a cesspool, and I have to live in it.
I want to leave.
Now, some of you might be saying,
Well, obviously Habakkuk just didn’t have enough faith.
If he had more faith,
he wouldn’t have asked questions like that.
Wrong.
Its easy to look down on people,
when things are going fine for you.
But the reason God chose Habakkuk,
to speak to Judah,
was because he did have a lot of faith.
but he also, like many of us,
saw things that didn’t seem to line up
with his faith in God.
So he had some questions.
How does God answer his questions?
Well, let me tell you,
you’re not gonna like the answer.
Habakkuk didn’t like it,
and you won’t either.
God’s basic answer is,
yes, I do see all the wickedness,
And so, for your own good,
I am going to punish you.
Have you ever asked God,
God could you please
just show me what you’re doing?
Well, the truth is,
you might not want to know,
because you might not like the answer.
Habakkuk did not like the answer.
God says this in verse 5:
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…
Now hold on: The Babylonians…
Are those the good guys or the bad guys?
Those are the bad guys.
Those are the enemies of Israel,
or actually the nation its called Judah
at this point in history.
The Babylonians had already conquered
most of the known world,
and now they want to go after Judah too.
And God says, “I’m sending them to punish you.”
Verse 7,
“They are a feared and dreaded people. They are a law onto themselves and promote their own honor.
God says, they’re bad, they’re awful,
so I’m going to let them conquer you.
That was God’s plan… to apply justice.
So Habakkuk says,
“I’m sick of it. Would you do something?”
God says, “I’m sick of it too.
I agree with you Habakkuk,
Judah is wicked,
its out of control,
I’ve gotta do something about it,
So here’s my plan.
How about justice?”
I going to punish the whole nation for their sin,
and I’m going to use an enemy nation to do it.
Do we like God’s answer?
No.
Our response to God would be,
“No, no, no, no, no.
We don’t want justice.
We just want things to be fixed,
We want things to be better,
but we don’t want anyone to have to pay
for their wrongdoing.
That’s a little harsh, God,
to actually hold them accountable for their sin.
We don’t want that.
Can’t you just say a magic word
or wave a wand like a fairy?
and fix all the problems and evil and wickedness,
without punishing anyone?
Couldn’t you be sort of like a talk show host
and give people some nice sounding advice
and encourage them to be a better person?
God, you’re not going to actually
hold them accountable,
and let them reap the consequences of their actions,
are you?
We don’t like that idea, do we?
And I’ll tell you why we don’t like it.
Because we know that we’re all guilty as well.
Now, we all love the United States,
we wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
But we already said that,
Habakkuk’ world back then,
was very similar to the world around us.
When you watch the evening news,
do you ever see anything about corruption,
or about evil, or injustice,
or about people ignoring God
and doing whatever they want?
The truth is, we’re just as guilty as Judah was,
2 ½ thousand years ago,
The bible says,
all have sinned, all fall short.
So in the back of our mind we’re going,
“Well, God, you can’t do that to them.
Because they’re not all that different from me,
and I’m one of the good guys.”
But God says,
“You know what?
There’s only one good guy.
His name’s Jesus.
The rest of you are just varying degrees of problems.
and if I never hold you accountable,
if I never bring discipline,
then you don’t grow.
But we don’t like hearing that.
Now some of you might be thinking,
Is God going to do evil here?
Is he like, inciting the Babylonians to do evil.
No, the fact is,
the Babylonians already want to attack.
that’s just their nature.
and God has held them back, up to this point,
he’s been protecting his people for a long time,
waiting and waiting and waiting
for his people to repent.
And he’s sent prophet after prophet to them,
saying, wake up, its time to change,
time to turn back to God,
before its too late.
But the people ignored all the prophets,
and now it is too late,
and God is going to lift his protection,
and the Babylonians are coming.
Now, I already know
we’re not going to sell a whole lot of cd’s after the service today,
this is not popular stuff,
no one likes to hear that God might actually judge people.
This is not what you’d call a sitcom sermon.
Anybody know what a sitcom sermon is?
Did any of you grow up watching sitcoms?
What sitcoms did you like? (Happy Days, brady bunch)
What happens in a sitcom is.
There’s a little humor.
some tension in the plot, to make it interesting,
but within 30 minutes,
you know that everything’s gonna work out,
and all the problems will be solved.
A lot of people like sitcom sermons:
A little humor,
maybe a little bit of tension, to make it interesting,
a nice story that makes us cry and feel better.
But at the end of 30 minutes,
everything’s neatly tied,
we get a nice neat solution,
so we can go right on with our lives
and feel like everything is okey-dokey.
Well, you don’t get that kind of message in Habakkuk.
In fact, its the opposite,
It’s a whole lot more like real life:
because in Habakkuk,
you get all the tension,
and you get the drama,
but you also get a lot of unanswered questions,
and you don’t necessarily get a happy ending.
Habakkuk says,
As far as I can see,
nothing is turning out fair.
Now, I want to try to explain what Habakkuk is going through,
There’s a guy named Seth Golden
who wrote a bestseller called The Dip,
and he uses this chart,
so I want to give him credit,
but I am going to use it a little differently
than he intended.
Explain Chart:
The Christian life works the same way…
Let’s say you have a person who is without Christ.
In fact, maybe this is you right now,
and you haven’t made a decision to follow him yet,
but maybe God is doing something in your life,
God is reaching out to you
And at some point,
the Holy Spirit does something in you,
and you’re going,
“Okay God, I believe you’re real,
and I believe Jesus is the Son of God,
and I surrender to you,”
NEXT CHART---
At that point, boom! Your life changes.
And all of a sudden,
things are different
and you sky rocket to this point of spiritual high.
You start praying and God answers your prayers,
and you’re having all these God coincidences,
your life is changing,
You go to church,
and its like the message is just for you.
You’re like,
“Whoohh, Dude, that was for me!”
And you get in your car
and your favorite song’s on the radio.
Whoo, hoo,
and you go to the mall
and there’s a parking space right in the front.
God gave me this parking place.
I mean everything is great.
You’re right here on the CHART.
Now, the day will eventually come,
when you go to church,
and the sermon doesn’t quite speak to you.
You’re like, Well that’s weird.”
You get in your car,
and you don’t like the song that’s playing.
That’s weirder.
Then you pray,
and instead of God doing what you ask,
the opposite happens.
And you’re going,
Uh, what’s going on here?
And then one day,
someone you love gets sick
and doesn’t get better,
or someone you care about gets in an accident
and things don’t turn out
the way you thought they would,
And you enter into what Henry Blackabee calls
a crisis of belief.
NEXT SLIDE
God, I thought this was gonna always be good,
and You were on my side,,
and I was trusting You,
it was really cool,
but now based on what I see,
things have changed.
I’m not sure what I believe right now.
Typically, when this happens,
when you’re trying to follow God,
but life is getting hard,
people go one of three directions.
The first tendency is to try and go backwards on this chart,
and get back to the good times.
Of course, you can’t change your circumstances,
so this means you have to pretend everything’s still great.
Pretend its still all good times.
If I just believe hard enough,
and keep a positive mental attitude,
maybe it’ll feel great again.
But that doesn’t work for very long.
Or the second choice is,
you get mad, and you’re like,
“Okay, God.
“If this is going to be how it’s going to be,
and You’re not going to do what I thought You’d do,
then forget it,
I’m outta here. [back to beginning point]
Or, the third option is,
you can go the more difficult road,
which is to say,
“God, I am still going to trust You.”
even when it gets hard.
And when you choose that,
God will take you on a journey,
and let me just tell you right now,
it doesn’t mean that things are going to get better first.
They might get worse,
things might get more painful,
and you may even have more faith struggles,
but if you continue to stick with God,
no matter what He does around you,
if you continue to hold on to Him,
then over a period of time,
He’s going to take your faith to a place of
intimacy, trust, and security
that you never, ever dreamed possible,
But it’ll never happen,
unless you’re willing to go through
the season of doubt.
In fact,
everybody I know
that is really, really intimate with God
and really, really close with God,
almost everyone I know
has been through this season.
The New Testament says it this way.
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
You see there’s a purpose behind this.
God may lovingly allow you
to go through a season
of doubts, questioning,
fear, insecurities,
and unanswered questions,
because by doing so,
he can take you to a place
that you couldn’t get to any other way.
He can build strength in you
that He couldn’t build any other way.
VIDEO
Some of you right now, are in a season of doubt.
You know where this is?
This is Chapter One of the book of Habakkuk.
Just like Habakkuk,
You don’t know what to believe right now.
you don’t know why God isn’t doing what you thought he would.
and too many people walk away from God
in Chapter One.
You see, Chapter One is all about wondering,
“God, where are You
what are You doing,”
and that can be an important part of your faith journey.
That’s where Habakkuk was.
“God, what are you doing.
I don’t understand.”
And God responded to him,
but what God said
was not what Habakkuk wanted to hear.
God said, Habakkuk,
I’m going to use the Babylonians to punish Judah.
“You’re kind of bad,
They’re a lot worse,
but I’m going to use them to destroy you,”
and Habakkuk’s like,
“God, that’s not right!
That’s not fair,
They’re worse than we are.
Habakkuk didn’t understand.
So here’s the big question.
What do you do
when you’re in the middle of Chapter One
you don’t understand what God is doing,
and you’re not sure what you believe?
You want to believe,
but you’ve got so many questions.
Can you still be a deeply committed believer
with a lot of questions?
I put the answer to this on your outline,
because its so important.
A deeply committed believer can express
simultaneous questions and faith.
A deeply committed believer,
can, at the same moment,
believe God, and have faith,
and yet still have a lot of questions.
In fact,
I’ll give you an example from the bible.
Mark 9:24
You can read the story, if you want.
It’s about a father who had a son,
possessed by an evil spirit.
The father says,
“Jesus! Can you do anything about this?”
Jesus says, basically,
Hey, I’m God, all things are possible with me.
The real question is,
Do you believe?”
and the father said this.
“I do believe, sort of.”
Literally, he said,
“I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.
What he’s saying is,
Yeah, there was a time when I really did believe,
but what you don’t understand, Jesus, is
my son has been hurting
and I’ve been praying for a long time,
but nothings happened.
I prayed and I fasted, and I prayed some more,
and I took him to every doctor,
and I’ve been doing everything your word tells me to do,
and I have been believing,
but nothing has worked,
so my faith is kind of at a low point, right now,
I do believe,
but help me overcome my unbelief.”
This man was in a season of doubt,
he had some unbelief.
but there was a purpose behind it.
I think God let him get to that point,
so that he could say,
now I’m going to do something
that you’re not going to believe,
and it’s going to be so amazing
that you’ll never doubt in that way again,
And I know your situation with your son was hard,
but you would have never got there
to that point of deeper faith,
unless I’d taken you through
this season of doubt.
This is exactly what Habakkuk is going through.
You can see both his faith,
and his questions,
at the same time.
For example in verse 12:
“Are not You from everlasting Oh Lord, My God, my Holy One?”
And then he says what?
“We will not die.”
That’s a statement of faith.
So what if the Babylonians are coming.
Ultimately we will not die,
That is faith.
But then, in the very next verse.
he questions again.
Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they?”
He’s saying, God, I believe,
But I don’t understand it,
I’ve got some questions,
this is difficult.
Why do you not seem fair?
Some of you may be in chapter 1, right now.
You’re wondering what God is up to.
I’ve got bad news for you.
Chapter 2’s not much better.
In Chapter 1, you’re wondering …
Chapter 2, you’re waiting …
and waiting and waiting and waiting.
But then in Chapter 3,
if you continue to stick with God,
if you refuse to let go,
you will come to a point, that,
no matter what you see around you,
you will worship God –
not because of what you see with your eyes,
but because of who you know Him to be.
No matter what’s going on around you,
you will worship Him
because you’ve learned that you can always trust him.
So, what do you do if you’re in Chapter One?
You hang on to God with all your might,
and you don’t let go.
No matter what is going on around you,
You hold on.
and you may tell God,
“I don’t understand,”
but I’m not letting go,
I don’t like what you’re taking me through God,
but I’m not letting go.
because no matter what happens,
and even if things seem to get worse,
I can promise you this.
God will never let go of you.
let’s stand for prayer.
“Father, today, I specifically pray for those who are in Chapter One, that as you hold on to them, God, you would give them the faith, to continue to hold on to You.”
God, help us to trust in You no matter what we see, to trust You, God, for who You are. And God, I pray for those who are in Chapter One, this season of difficulty and doubt, that sometime soon, You’d turn the page, and God, they would be on the other side, with a deeper and a richer and a more intimate faith in You, that couldn’t have come in any other way.
Maybe this morning you’re not sure of your relationship with God, you’re not sure you’re part of his family for all eternity. It’s time to step across the line. You can pray with me right now… and say, “Jesus, I believe You are the Son of God, and I surrender my life to You. Forgive me of my sins. I give my life to You. Fill me with Your Spirit, so I have the power to follow You. Thank You for new life.
