Introduction
One of the great literary achievements of the 20th Century has become one of the great cinematic achievements of the 21st Century. The first instalment of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy is quite simply a phenomenal film that has brought to life a phenomenal book.
And that is a totally unbiased opinion – from someone who only saw the movie 7 times!
The setting of the story is one in which evil is stirring in the world, moving out in a search for power over all the peoples of “Middle Earth” as it is called. An evil ruler is seeking total domination by getting back a long lost ring of power, which had been hidden for millennia, but is now in the possession of a young hobbit – little people who live simple, peaceful lives in a distant corner of Middle Earth. Once the Dark Lord learns that Frodo Baggins has this ring he sets all his forces to work to get hold of it and to rule the world once he has it. Armies are amassing and a small band of terrorists is sent out to find the hobbit and the ring. As the Dark Lord’s plans unfold the world starts to change and over all the races of Middle Earth hangs the threat of even greater, more devastating change if the ring is not taken to the Dark Lord’s very doorstep and destroyed in the fires that forged it in the first place. How people respond to this evil threat is a key theme of “The Lord of the Rings”.
Of course the threat and reality of evil, and how people respond to it, is one of the classic themes of much great story telling – and one that has taken on considerable poignancy since the events of September 11th, 2001. Such events, as well as things like the storms and bushfires that have hit NSW so hard in recent weeks, take away or threaten to take away something of our way of life - from the loss of material possessions, to the loss of a sense of peace and security in our world, to the loss of our very lives. How we react to evil, suffering and loss is something that is very much on the minds and hearts of people around the world these days.
People’s responses can vary widely to these things, of course. For example:
• Some seem to want to pretend that they are remote and irrelevant, as if they didn’t happen or don’t matter. Did you see the cartoon about the café in Bondi, with the customer complaining to the waiter that there is ash in his latte? Unfortunately that is not far from the mark – there were some people in Sydney who simply didn’t want to know about the bushfires.
• Some react to evil and tragedy by turning on God. As military action in Afghanistan got under way, one letter to a Sydney paper claimed that no one wanted war, but the god of the Jews and Muslims and Christians wasn’t listening. The inference was that God didn’t care or that He was powerless to act.
• Some react the other way, by turning to some sort of faith experience. Witness what happened in the US after September 11, where there was an upsurge in church attendance.
One way or the other acts of evil or natural disasters confront us and we must respond in some way. How do we, as God’s people, respond to the shock and the implications of recent events? In fact, how do we respond to all the experiences of the effects of evil that we encounter in our lives? In particular, what happens to our relationship with God when these things happen?
To assist in thinking about these questions I want us to consider the Old Testament book of Habakkuk. He was a prophet who was confronted with a situation of evil and devastation and had to think through what it meant for his faith and his understanding of God. In the discussion that follows I do not mean to imply that there is one right response for Christians or that the Bible gives us some sort of simple, straightforward, easy to follow formula for such situations. But there is great wisdom in God’s word and the things He reveals to us in Habakkuk are helpful us as we seek to grow in grace.
Summary Overview of Habakkuk
Now relax, Habakkuk is a short book, only 3 chapters long. Whatsmore, I am not going to go over it verse by verse. Rather, I am simply going to give a quick overview of its contents and draw a single line of concluding thought from it.
Chapter 1
Starts with Habakkuk complaining to God. He saw in Judah that injustice prevailed, destruction and violence were a way of life and wicked people dominated over the righteous. He wanted to know why God didn’t do something about this. He asked God, “why aren’t you listening?”
God’s answer was surprising and startling. “You’re not going to believe this, but ……” God was indeed planning to do something about the sin in Judah – He was going to punish it, by raising up the Babylonian nation. They weren’t then the dominant power, as the Assyrians still ruled most of the Middle East at that time and had several years earlier invaded the northern kingdom of Israel. But God tells HAB that Babylon will become an even more fearsome power, that will overrun the southern kingdom as punishment for their evil ways.
HAB’s response – “well God, I know you have the power to do this and because you have said it I know it will happen, but I don’t understand how you could do things that way! You are holy, you can’t stand evil, so why would you use an even more evil nation to punish your own people! It doesn’t make sense.”
Get that – God’s power and God’s holiness were the two criteria by which Habakkuk assessed the situation. He didn’t doubt that God rules the affairs of nations and that He is in control of what goes on in the world. His problem was that the plan of action didn’t seem to fit with what He understood about God’s holiness.
Chapter 2
Importantly, Habakkuk doesn’t let his confusion dictate his theology. He realises that we know God by what He reveals to us, not by our own speculation about things and so he decides to patiently wait for what God will say to him about the situation. There’s a lesson for all of us in that attitude of watchful prayer!
And what God reveals is that because of His holiness, the Babylonians will themselves be punished. Five woes are declared against the Babylonians, on account of their:
• Greed – in verses 6-8, God condemns them for making their wealth by extortion and promises that they will be plundered
• Arrogant self-assertion – in verses 9-11, God condemns them for setting their nest on high and promises that shame will ultimately come to them
• Violence – in verses 12-14, God condemns them for their resort to bloodshed and promises that what they build by bloodshed will only fuel their own destruction
• Inhumanity – in verses 15-17, God condemns them for treating people disgracefully and promises that this will come back to haunt them
• Idolatry – in verses 18-20, God condemns them for failing to bow to the one true God and promises that their idols will fail them.
In the midst of these clear denunciations of evil, and His promise that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God”, is a very significant statement. In verse 4 God tells Habakkuk that “the righteous will live by his faith”. No matter what is going on in the world around him, the person who puts their trust in God and who faithfully seeks to maintain a morally and spiritually steadfast life, will make it through; the person who believes that God will always be true to His character no matter how things are going in our lives or the world around us.
This verse is picked up in the New Testament, for instance by Paul in Romans, as the key summary statement of our salvation. We are saved by faith, not by works; we are saved by trusting in God’s character rather than relying our own deeds, or anything else for that matter.
Chapter 3
Which brings us to the climactic final chapter. Habakkuk reminisces about God’s past acts of salvation for His people, in particular the exodus. He shudders as he recalls the plagues and the dramatic rescue of the sons of Israel from slavery in Egypt. How desperately he wants God to do the same thing in his day, to bring the promised woes upon Babylon, the “day of calamity” as he puts it in verse 16.
But Habakkuk has learned something from his dialogue with God - to be patient. The important thing for him personally is not to be distracted by what is going on in the affairs of the nations of the world, which in the end is God’s business not his; rather the important thing for Habakkuk is his relationship with God. He determines to wait patiently for that day of calamity and in the meantime to remain faithful to His God, no matter what.
This is not a begrudging acceptance of suffering and difficult circumstances. The last verse of the book declares that God “makes my feet like the feet of the deer, he enables me to go on the heights.” He is uplifted by God – something like what we have in mind when we talk about being “on cloud 9” or “walking on air”.
It is a resounding statement of faith in God.
Discussion
Let me conclude by turning these thoughts onto our current situation.
The fact that the Babylonians were used by God to judge the people of Judah at that time does NOT imply that September 11th and Islamic terrorism have been sent by God to punish the Western church or Western society today. They might be, but the role of the Babylonians has been revealed by God as having a judgmental purpose, whereas we do not have an explicit revelation of God’s purpose in allowing Osama bin Laden to do what he did in New York and Washington. People can conjecture – and many have – but there is not and cannot be any authority behind claims by anyone to know God’s mind on these things.
What we CAN SAY about this and any other event that causes death or destruction is that they are all a reminder by God that this world sits under judgment. They are foretastes, if you like, of the final Judgment. The world and its pleasures are all doomed – they will pass. Both the evil in the world and it’s blessings are but for a short time and then will come the day in which the world will be judged in justice by the man that God has appointed, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Out of such terrible events God is calling out to us: DO NOT SET YOUR HEARTS ON THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD. Do not trust in material things, do not trust in social or political systems, do not trust in the sense of prosperity and well-being that they seem to provide. Jesus taught us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; Paul taught is to set our hearts on things above, where Christ is.
And Habakkuk, centuries earlier, said the same thing but from the other perspective:
“Though the fig tree does not blossom and there be no fruit on the vine; the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food; though the flocks be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls – YET WILL I REJOICE IN THE LORD. I WILL JOY IN THE GOD OF MY SALVATION – GOD THE LORD IS MY STRENGTH.”
To make such a declaration is not to deny the reality of whatever devastation may be around us. Habakkuk is not saying that the Babylonians are good guys after all or that it is good that the economy of Judah was going to go into a deep depression when the country was overrun, any more than we should think today that terrorist activity is justified or that arson isn’t such a bad crime after all if it helps us get our priorities in life straight. But he is saying that someone who loves God will know that nothing at all can shake or destroy the relationship we have with Him – a relationship that is based on God’s person and character, not on the external environment He puts us in. And becauses He is who He is, we can trust the promise He has given that we will be delivered from evil.
Do you believe that promise – that we will be delivered from evil? It’s not easy when there is so much evil all around us and we experience its effects in our daily lives. But unlike in “The Lord of the Rings” we are not merely relying on a Frodo Baggins to carry out his quest, fearing that if he fails then evil will triumph. NO – we know that evil has already been defeated because God Himself allowed the forces of evil in this world to do their worst to His Son on Calvary AND HE PREVAILED. There on the cross Armageddon was fought and won by Jesus Christ and His resurrection proves it!
Habakkuk looked back to Moses and the Exodus, and God’s defeat of evil in the form of Pharaoh as a sure sign that God is a God of salvation, and decided in the face of the Babylonian threat to patiently wait to see how God would act as saviour in his day.
We look back to the cross of Jesus and now look forward to His return when the victory He won there will be made plain to all the earth. God’s power and holiness mean that evil is overcome and will be eradicated.
This doesn’t mean that we shrug our shoulders and passively accept the existence of evil for now, nor that we need not be involved in fighting against corruption and injustice today. On the contrary, Christians should be at the forefront of the battle for righteousness and justice in the world. After all, Jesus taught us to pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.
What it DOES MEAN is that when we suffer in this world, when our circumstances cause us to grieve or to despair, then we need not lose hope. It is at those very times that we need to learn how important God is to us – indeed that He is everything that matters. In fact, I don’t think we truly know God until we know Him as Habakkuk knew Him. Can we honestly say that, even if everything were stripped away from us except our relationship with God, we are satisfied with that? Does our perception of God and what He means to us depend upon the things He gives us in this world, or purely on who He is? “Yet will I rejoice in the Lord”, declared Habakkuk as he contemplated the situation.
As we reflect upon the awful events of September 11th, or upon any loss that may suffer in our personal circumstances, I pray that we will hear the voice of God calling out to us, saying “do not set your hearts on the things of this world, where treasures one day are rubble the next – but set your heart on ME. I am your joy, I am your strength, I am your hope, I am your salvation. The righteous, by faith, will live.”
