“O Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O Lord, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.” (Habakkuk 1:12, NIV)
The Lord answered the questions that Habakkuk raised about injustice and evil. God assured Habakkuk that He was going to act swiftly. The Lord told him that He was going to use the Babylonians as a tool of discipline. The verse above is Habakkuk’s response to that information. He was taken aback. He did not understand how God could use a nation like Babylon to inflict righteous judgment when they were so wicked. I hope we are all beginning to see the danger in trying to judge the acts of God when we can only see a moment in time and God can see all eternity.
The book of Habakkuk certainly tells us that it is okay to raise the question. It is okay for us to tell God that He is not making much sense to us today. What we cannot do is say that He must do something that makes sense to us. What we must do is say that while He doesn’t make sense, we will trust His perspective before we will demand ours. Habakkuk could not see the future and all that God was going to do through Israel’s captivity in Babylon. Habakkuk could never fully grasp that God was fulfilling multiple layers of purpose with Israel, the Babylonians, and especially the King of Babylon (Nebuchadnezzar). We know of these layers of purpose because God reveals them to us in His Word. There are countless other layers that God was working that we will never know.
Paul says in 2nd Corinthians that “we walk by faith and not by sight.” We need to rely upon God’s Word and centuries of history in which He has proven faithful. We need to trust Him even when this world and our senses would have us do otherwise. Join me in standing firmly upon the truths of God’s Word despite what our short-sighted vision may be causing us to think.
Peace!
Pastor Tom
www.firmlyrooted.church