The right to question God is a right that God Himself has given to
His children. He inspired men of God to write about their own
questioning of God’s ways of dealing with the evils of life and all of its
suffering and injustice. None is more bold than the prophet
Habakkuk. He begins his book with a series of complaints as he cries
out to God about his prayers not being heard. He might just as well
cry out to the wall to save him, for there is no help coming from God.
He questions God to His face and says “Why do you make me look at
injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?” The world is falling apart and
the wicked seem to be in full control as they create violence and
injustice at will with no power able to stop them. Later in the first
chapter in verse 13 he questions God again as he says, “Why then do
you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves? ”Kirk Patrick in
The Doctrine Of The Prophets writes, “The book opens with a
dialogue between the Prophet and God, in which God is boldly but
reverently challenged to defend His action in the government of the
world.” Stuart Briscoe sums up his complaint, "Why is evil and
suffering rampant in our world? Goodness and justice seem to fail!
How is it, God, that you are so against wrong but you go on tolerating
wrong? God, is what you are doing fair? Is this honestly the moral,
ethical thing to do?"
Here is a man who represents every believer who has ever lived
who begins to wonder about the purpose and power of God in a world
of so much evil and violence. Where is God when we need Him? Why
does He not seem to care when evil is so prevailing in its power that it
seems of no value to be righteous? God wanted Habakkuk to write
about his questions and complaints to Him because He knew that this
would be a common issue all through history for His people. There are
many timid Christians who fear to question God, for it seems almost
like blasphemy for the creature to question the Creator. But the fact
is, every child comes to a point in life when they begin to question the
wisdom of their father in the way he is raising them, and every child of
God comes to a point where they question the wisdom of God in the
way He is dealing with them in a sinful and violent world. In other
words, there are things that just do not make sense in this fallen world
and we are compelled to ask why? We are compelled to question
God’s will and power because it seems from our perspective that He
does not seem to have the will or power to deal with the forces of evil
that prevail.
God says by including such questioning in His Word that it is
legitimate and right to do so, and so there is no point in trying to hide
your doubts. God says we are to go ahead and get them out into the
open and question His will and His ways. He actually wants us to
question and to come to Him in prayer with all of our doubts and
pessimism concerning the way things are. It is foolish to try and hide
these feelings and pretend that all is well with us and that we do not
care if it seems that evil is more powerful than good, and that Satan
seems to be in control of history rather than God. The Psalms
frequently ask the same questions of God that we read here. Some
examples are:
1. How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for
ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
Psalm 13:12. How long will ye judge unjustly, and
accept the persons of the wicked? Psalm 82:2
2. LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long
shall the wicked triumph? Psalm 94:3
The implication is that it is understandable that evil must be
endured for awhile, but when it is prolonged and goes on and on and
God does not step in to correct the situation, then we become anxious
and question God’s intention and control. We begin to doubt God’s
power to change things and protect His people from the forces of evil
and violence. His inactivity in times of suffering make us wonder if He
is indifferent to our pain. J. Hampton Keathley writes,
“Habakkuk’s name means to “embrace” or “wrestle.” As is
usually the case, his name has something to do with the message
of the book. I think it relates to the fact that he was wrestling
with a difficult issue. If God is good, then why is there evil in the
world? And if there has to be evil, then why do the evil prosper?”
Jeremiah prophesied at the same time as Habakkuk, and he had
some of the same questions also. In Jer. 12:1 he asks God, “Why does
the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?”
In 15:18 he complains, “Why is my pain unending and my wound
grievous and incurable?” In 20:18 he reaches the depth of despair and
says, “Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow
and to end my days in shame?” The point is, in times of sorrow and
suffering of any kind it is normal to ask God why, and want to go to
Him in prayer and complain about the circumstances and the fact that
He allows them and does not respond to our prayers to deliver us.
When we deal with deep issues like Habakkuk does here we will
experience both the depths and the heights of emotion, for we will be
led through the darkness into the light, and so experience both fear
and faith. Joseph Parker in The People’s Bible writes, “He talks to
God; he has it out with God; he plies God with sharp questions. He
will have practical matters attended too; he says, Lord, this is evil;
how did it come to be in thy universe, thou fair One, whose face is
beauty, whose voice is music? There is no such book in all the cannon
as Habakkuk. The very word means strong embrace. He gets hold of
God, and throws Him in the gracious wrestle. He will not let God go.
On the one side he represents pessimism or despair as it never was
represented before, and on the other he rises to heights of faith, which
even David did not attain with all his music. We shall find sentences in
Habakkuk that leave all the prophets and minstrels of the Old
Testament far away down in the clouds, whilst Habakkuk himself is up
beyond the cloud-line reveling in morning light.”
God wants all of us to be Jacob ‘s and wrestle with Him over hard
issues like this. It is only by wrestling with hard issues that we find
answers and purpose in a world that often seems meaningless. God
does not want us to just drift through life, but to struggle and become
thinkers about the major issues of purpose and meaning. If we never
question God and His ways we will never really come to have
understanding in a way that enables us to live by faith with a full trust
in God regardless of circumstances. That is where Habakkuk came
out in the end. He starts with questions and pessimism, but he end his
book with the greatest optimism and faith that we can find anywhere.
He writes in 3:17-18, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are
no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields
produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in
the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my
Savior.” One can never go from questioning God to trusting God
without wrestling with God, and that is what we do when we wonder
out loud to God why He does not act on our behalf in the way that only
seems right for a God of love who has the power to act.
The first thing we need to keep in mind is that this first complaint
of Habakkuk deals with the wickedness and violence of God’s own
people. They had become totally corrupted and had fallen away from
the worship of God. God kept sending them warnings but they would
not listen to the prophets of God. They kept on going deeper and
deeper into perversions of all kinds. We get a clear picture of what
was going on in Jer. 35:15-17.“15
Again and again I sent all my servants the prophets to you. They
said, ‘Each of you must turn from your wicked ways and reform your
actions; do not follow other gods to serve them. Then you will live in
the land I have given to you and your fathers.’ But you have not paid
attention or listened to me. 16 The descendants of Jonadab son of
Recab have carried out the command their forefather gave them, but
these people have not obeyed me.’ 17 “Therefore, this is what the
LORD God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘Listen! I am going to
bring on Judah and on everyone living in Jerusalem every disaster I
pronounced against them. I spoke to them, but they did not listen; I
called to them, but they did not answer.’”
So we have an answer to the first complaint of Habakkuk. God
does not listen to our prayers sometimes because people do not listen
to His Word. When people close their ears to the will of God, God
closes his to the prayers of the people. God does not stop the
consequences of evil choices. If people insist on departing from His
laws for life and live according to the lusts of their flesh, then they will
have to reap as they sow, and God will not step in to change the
function of that law. Evil prevails when evil is the first choice of
people. It is not God’s will that people choose evil and folly. It is
contrary to His revealed will, but He allows them the freedom to be
fools and pay the price of folly. The consequences of a people rejecting
the will of God for their own will are terrible and the innocent will
have to suffer with the guilty. That is what makes it such a damnable
evil and worthy of severe judgment. When a society is full of violence
and evil deeds the righteous will have to suffer even though they are
not involved in the evil deeds. They are victims of their times, and to
make it even worse they must also suffer with the guilty when God’s
judgment falls and they are carried away into captivity.
God goes on in verses 5 to 11 to describe the horrible judgment
that He is going to bring on His people for their wickedness. He says it
is unbelievable, but true, that I am going to raise up the ruthless
Babylonians with all their military weapons of destruction to punish
my people who will not listen to me. Habakkuk is getting an answer
that he does not like at all, for though it explains why God has not
answered his prayer and come to the rescue of the righteous, it seems
still to make God an accomplice to evil. The Babylonians are worse
than the wicked people of God. They are the worst of idolaters and
they are cruel and bloodthirsty without mercy. Habakkuk questions
God again as to the seeming inconsistency of using people so wicked
and treacherous to achieve His goals. It makes some sense that God
allows evil to run its course until the cup is full and it is time for
judgment because people have exhausted their right to mercy, but
does it make sense that God would use a people even more evil than
His own to judge them? Habakkuk questions the wisdom of God in
tolerating and showing even temporary mercy to those who show no
mercy toward His people. Life is a mess and there seems to be no way
to unravel it so that it makes sense.
This is when the heart cries out Why? Why? Why? Some feel that
we have no right to question God and ask why, but my question to
those people is why is the Bible so full of the question why if it is not
right to ask it? You would think that God would prevent His prophets
from asking why, and then recording it for all of history to read, if it
was not legitimate to ask why. If we are to live by every word that
comes from God, and His Word is filled with the question why, then
we not only have a right to ask why, but an obligation, for God reveals
it to be something that we ought to do when we are truly puzzled by
life. If you have lost a child by some tragic accident or disease, you
must ask why? If you have had someone you love reject you and give
their love to another, you must ask why? If you have prayed for your
son or daughter to become a strong Christian and instead they become
rebels who live a life of sinful indulgence, you must ask why?
We could go on and on with endless negative situations that compel
the question why? This question is addressed to God often in the Bible
and all through history, and nobody needs to feel they are out of God’s
will by asking it. It is a valid biblical question. Even if we had no other
example, we have that of the highest example, for Jesus prayed from
the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Habakkuk has seen his people, who are supposed to be the blessed
people of God, go from bad to worse, and society becoming so corrupt
that the righteous are at the mercy of the wicked. Justice is ignored
and powerful wicked people can break every law and not pay a
penalty, but the righteous are forced to suffer for the evil acts of the
wicked. The law of God is no longer honored and so the righteous who
seek to live by it are sitting ducks for those who pay it no heed. It is no
longer an advantage to be righteous, for the wicked can overcome you
by having no restraints of the law. It is a heart breaking time for the
righteous, and God seems to be doing nothing to help them no matter
how much they cry for help. One author I read said it is like a
policeman sitting in his car at the curb while on the sidewalk in front,
of him a couple of thugs are beating an elderly lady and stealing her
purse, and he does nothing. If that would not make you angry, then
you have a serious lack of compassion and a sense of justice.
People get angry at God all the time because of the many things
that don’t make sense. Does it make sense that a godly person who
serves Him all their life can come to old age and suffer a disease that
leaves them at the control of forces they refused to obey all their lives.
Godly people will begin to swear and talk in ways they never would
have before. They become an embarrassment to their families because
they seem to have lost their righteousness, but it is only the loss of
control of the mind that is filled with all sorts of foolishness that they
were able to keep under control when they were fit and healthy.
People who see a loved one go through this are angry at God for
allowing it, and they cry out Why? Many people get so disappointed
with God that they stop worshiping and cut themselves off from
fellowship in the church. There are many thousands of people who are
angry with God, and possibly even millions, and one of the reasons is
they have questioned God, but they have not waited for the answer.
Habakkuk is not only about the right to question God, but also about
the obligation to wait for His answer. Those who do not wait on the
Lord, but just stay focused on the question that has filled them with
anger and anguish become bitter people who lose the joy of the Lord.
It is lack of listening to God that leads to all the judgment on His
people, and it is lack of listening to God that leads to even the
righteous becoming very unhappy believers or bitter apostates.
Barbara Mandrell, the famous singer, is a good example of how the
believer is to deal with the questioning of God. She had a terrible
accident that led her to have to suffer great pain over a long period of
time. In her book Get To The Heart she tells of her why questions and
of her waiting for the answer. She writes, “I was still in rough shape the
next day, and I went to see the Naval Chaplain to talk about my accident
and Sher being killed. When I saw the Chaplain, I asked, “Why did God let
me loose control of that car and crash?” The Chaplain was a naval officer,
and he gave it to me straight. He said, “It wasn’t God’s fault. He didn’t do
it. You were the one who didn’t change your tires. You were the one who
had bald tires on the car. You were the one who made it happen.”
And I asked, “Why did God let Sher get killed?” And he said, “You
let Sher out, and a human being was driving too fast. You can’t blame God
for that. We all have the ability to make choices. We are all going down
the road. We all choose left to right. God is omniscient. He knows what
road we are going to choose, but He lets us choose. He doesn’t do bad
things.” When the Chaplain told me that, it gave me such peace. It brought
me back to reality, brought me to my senses. I was heart broken, blaming
my Heavenly Father, but then I found out that I had messed up. Instead of
blaming God, I should ask Him to help me be better in my actions.
I also don’t believe God looks down and says, “Zap! I’m going to
give that person cancer,” or, “Zap! I’m going to give that person a heart
attack.” That’s the way it is. There are these things, germs, diseases,
accidents, in this life.”
What we see is the natural response to question God, but we also
see the desire to listen for an answer. She went to someone who could
help her see that God is not the cause of the bad things that happen to
us. This is what waiting on the Lord is all about. It is about seeking for
understanding. You have a right to question God, but then it is your
duty to wait for an answer. We see this in Habakkuk. In 2:1 he writes,
“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.” Because he waited and listened he ended up an optimist
praising God in spite of the miserable circumstances. Barbara
Mandrell and millions of others end up with a realistic understanding
about suffering because they do not stay in the questioning mode, but
seek to find an answer that gives them peace and joy in the Lord. It is
valid to question God, but it is vital that we get an answer, and so in
this message we will seek to answer the question of why evil is so
strong, and why God allows it to survive and do damage even to His
own people.
EVIL IS THE RESULT OF HUMAN CHOICES.
God did not choose for the people of Judah to become immoral and
unjust. He gave laws to guide them to be a moral and just people.
They became evil by their own choice. Adam and Eve chose to disobey
God’s will for them, and every form of evil since then has been due to
the free choice of those who decide their own will is superior to God’s
will. Jesus is the only person who ever lived who never chose his own
will over that of the Father’s will. Even facing the cross he prayed,
“Not my will, but thine be done.” All others have said by their actions,
“Not thy will, but mine be done.” And this is the essence of sin and
evil, and the cause of most, if not all, of the misery of the world. All of
the suffering of God’s people came from the same source, and it was
their choices to do their own thing rather than follow the laws of God.
So the answer as to why God does not stop evil and even the
righteous must suffer and endure violence and injustice at the hands of
the wicked is really quite simple. God cannot let people be free to
make their own choices and at the same time prevent the
consequences of those choices. There is no point in giving the law that
says thou shalt not steal if God is going to make sure by His power
that nobody can ever steal. He gave the law because it is His will for
the good of mankind that nobody steal. But He has to let people be
free to steal, for if they are not free to disobey His law, they are also
not free to choose to obey. Freedom of choice is what determines
righteousness and sinfulness. If God prevented all evil choices then
man is not free to choose the way of goodness and obedience to God
either. They are prisoners of God’s will, and means none chooses to
love God by their own will. This is not the purpose for which God
made man. He made him to be a creature who could choose to love
and obey Him, and not a toy He could wind up and watch perform
actions He built into it.
Evil is real because choice is real. Habakkuk listens to God
describe the powerful armies of Babylon who choose to use their
superior power to sweep across the world destroying nations without
mercy. God is going to use these terrible people to punish His own
people for their wickedness and rebellion. It makes sense, because a
righteous and compassionate people would not be coming to destroy
them. God in His sovereignty can and does use evil people to
accomplish His purposes in the world. It is not His choice that they be
evil, but since they are, and since they are out to conquer and destroy,
He can use their evil choices to achieve a goal He has of punishing His
own people. God is simply using their choice to His advantage. He
accomplished the salvation of His people by using the evil choices of
men to send His Son to the cross. God will use evil for God, for that is
the way He is able to outwit evil, but He is not the author of the evil. It
is always due to the choices of people. The essence of evil is bad
choices. We try to make evil such an incomprehensible mystery, but
the reality is that it is extremely simple. All evil is the result of bad
choices, and by that I mean choices that people make that are not
choices that God would will for them to make.
Psychologist Scott Peck in his book People of the Lie tells of how he
came to understand evil. He began counseling with a family where the
parents were so neglecting their adolescent boy that it amounted to
abuse. They were in denial of what they were doing, and this was made
clear when they gave him a rifle for Christmas, and it was the very
rifle that his older brother had used to commit suicide. They had no
idea that this son was also contemplating suicide. “I awoke that night
in a state of panic and terrible realization,” writes Peck. “What these
parents exhibited was something for which the vocabulary of medical
pathology has no word. The only word that begins to describe what
they did to that boy was evil. Until I could allow myself to use that
very unscientific word in this situation, I had no hope to being able to
treat or protect this boy.” He was dealing with the bad choices of these
parents, for that was the essence of their evil. They may have really
loved their boy, but they were still evil because of the bad choices they
were making. Even good people make bad choices and suffer the
consequences, and they make others suffer with them.
The only way God could prevent suffering due to bad choices is to
prevent people from having choices at all, and this would mean that
God would have to change His plan to have beings who freely choose
to love and obey Him. Man is not that being, and so God’s purpose in
making man can only be fulfilled by having him free to choose to
disobey as well as to obey Him. God made man able to make bad
choices and produce evil, but He never wills that they make those
choices. His will is always that they make good choices. The bottom
line then is this: evil is the result of bad choices, and because man is a
fallen being who often chooses badly, the world is filled with all kinds
of folly and violence that is suffered by the innocent as well as the
guilty. Righteous people will be victims of those who break all of the
commandments of God.
If you pray that people in this fallen world will stop committing
crimes and stop lying, stealing and doing all sorts of things that injure
others, you can expect that God will not answer that prayer.
Habakkuk was praying that the Lord would stop His people from
being so stupid. He wanted God to prevent them from their folly of
forsaking God’s law and living such lawless lives that made life so
unbearable for the good people of the nation. He wanted God to
prevent the perversions of justice that led to the wicked being able to
win over the righteous. God has nowhere promised to stop people
from making bad choices. It is His will that they be free to do so, and
so it is a futile prayer to ask God to prevent evil choices when it is His
will that men be free to choose evil. So when you cry out with
Habakkuk, “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not
listen?” remember that if you are asking God to prevent bad choices
you are asking for what God can never answer. The answer to all of
Habakkuk’s why’s is simply that the evil exists because of bad choices
of man, and they are permitted by God because it is His will that they
be free to choose.
What God did do for Habakkuk, however, was to make it clear
that bad choices will lead to judgment. Those who make bad choices
and bring evil into the world will not go unpunished. In the long run
those who make bad choices always end up in defeat and disgrace. If
you study the evil rulers of history the thing they all had in common is
that they did not last. There reign of terror lasted for awhile, but they
were defeated and destroyed. God goes on to tell Habakkuk that the
Babylonians who do evil deeds and destroy nations, including Judah,
will not last, but go down in defeat and suffer the very pains that they
inflicted on others. The point is that bad choices always lead to bad
results for the one making them. This goes for individuals and for
nations. We reap as we sow. It is a universal law. Therefore, do not
blame God for the mess the nation or the world is in. Do not get angry
at God for all the bad choices that lead to so much evil. Instead, come
to the recognition that Habakkuk came to, and realize that trust in
God is the only hope we have in an evil world. In 2:4 we read, “but the
righteous will live by his faith”
Faith in God is the key to surviving evil of all kinds. There is no
promise of escape from suffering. If you study all manner of tragedy,
disease, crime, persecution, injustice and every form of evil you can
think of, you will find that God’s children suffer all of them. When
they do they naturally ask why, and it is their right to do so, for
questioning God is a God given right. But, like Habakkuk, they need
to wait on God for the answer, and also wait on God to act in history
to judge those whose bad choices made the evil a reality. He says in
3:16, “Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the
nation invading us.” Faith in God means that you wait on Him. You
give Him time to make clear to you just why you suffer evil and He
does not deliver you. You wait for Him to act in history to set the
record right and deal with evil. Successful survival of evil calls for
going through two stages-the why of anger, and the wait of acceptance.
It is normal and natural to be angry when we suffer evil, and often we
will be angry at God for not preventing it. This is valid and God gives
us the right to question Him. But then we need to trust Him and move
into the next stage and wait for the answer that helps us accept what
has happened and go on in hope that God will work in all things for
the good of those who love Him and are called according to His
purpose. This is the message of Habakkuk and the whole New
Testament.
