Theodicy in Habakkuk: 3 Reasons God Ordains Evil

Transcription

1 Theodicy in Habakkuk: Overview of Habakkuk 1-3 in light of God s Providence and the Problem of Evil. 3 Reasons God Ordains Evil Introduction: When these opportunities arise I always try to do two things; 1. Is taking us to a place in the Scripture that most of us don t naturally go. Let s face it, when we pick up our Bibles at home and open them for devotions or just to spend time with the Lord in His word or maybe we re looking for comfort, we gravitate to the popular places like the Gospels or maybe one of Paul s Letters, or for some maybe the Psalms or Proverbs or even somewhere in the Pentateuch, one of the first 5 books of the Bible. But when is the last time any of us sat down and thought Today I m gonna spend some time in the Old Testament History of 2 Chronicles or today I m gonna wade through the Prophecy of Zephaniah? It just doesn t happen that often. So I really like to take the opportunity to introduce folks to the lesser known corners of God s Word to show not only what He has to say there but also to show just how consistent His Word is throughout the text. 2. The other thing I try to do is compliment whatever we re studying with Pastor Jim on Sunday mornings from a different part of the Scripture. And today will be no different For the last few weeks we ve been discussing what s known in the study of Theology as Theodicy, that is basically, the problem of Evil. How do we vindicate that God says he is Always Good and that He is in complete control of all things, and yet Evil exists in the world? Thankfully, we re not the first to ask these questions, not by a longshot. And today we re going to look at a conversation between a man and the Lord that took place 2600 years or so ago on this very topic. So if you haven t already, please turn with me to the Old Testament prophetic book of Habakkuk. John MacArthur likes to say that happiness is sitting next to someone who knows where the book of Habakkuk is. For anyone

2 struggling, it s a small book toward the end of the Old Testament between the books of Nahum and Zephaniah. What I want to show you today from this text are 3 reasons God ordains evil. That s not to say that he is the cause of evil, that s never the case, but He does have sovereign control over it and so it also has purpose. So that s really where most of our attention will be today in relation to this text of Habakkuk, 3 reasons God gives that He ordains evil. Now before we begin studying the text I m going to go ahead and read the first chapter and you follow along. (Read Habakkuk 1) Provenance: Not much is known about the Prophet Habakkuk. His name isn t mentioned anywhere else in Scripture. However, based on the subjects spoken about in the conversation between him and the Lord, we do know a few things with a large measure of certainty. For one thing we know about when this conversation took place. Verse 6 of chapter one, would seem to indicate that the book was written prior to the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Babylonians somewhere between 598 B.C. and 589 B.C. Additionally, from the first 4 verses we can see that Habakkuk seems to be crying to the Lord at a time when corruption has been going on for a while within the nation. This is significant because Judah had a time of national repentance, returning to the Lord, and a cleansing of the temple from idols during the reign of the good king Josiah from 640 B.C. to about 609 B.C. you can read that account in 2 Kings The next king of Judah, Jehoiakim, returned the nation to corruption and once again had idols in the temple and built shrines to false gods in Judah. So this must be taking place sometime after Josiah s death but before Jerusalem fell under king Jehoiakim to king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. We know it s the southern kingdom of Judah and not the northern kingdom of Israel because it was the Assyrian s who sacked the Northern Kingdom about 100 years before the Babylonians conquered them and took Judah and Jerusalem. They are here called the Chaldeans referring to the armies of southern Babylon. So what we have before us then is the recounting of a prophet in the nation of Judah written sometime between 609 B.C. and 589 B.C. That gives us the where, when, what, and who. Now that we ve surveyed the land from about 30,000 feet lets dive down for a closer look. We re not gonna go as far as the verse by verse

3 level today, though we will plunge into a few specific passages here. But mostly we ll stay a bit above. What we ll really be doing is an overview of all 3 chapters with special emphasis on where the text specifically relates to this question of the problem of evil. Text: The first 4 verses of chapter one, Habakkuk spends no time at all just jumping into the problem. Remember, He had seen the great turn around Good king Josiah brought during his reign in Judah. The reforms had brought the people back to obedience to the Law of God. He had taken them away from the deceit of idols and brought a resurgence of faith in the Lord for many years. While Israel to the North was fallen and the Assyrian king sat on the throne in Samaria, Judah was prospering under Josiah with the Lords Blessing. If Josiah was anything, it was wise enough to see the past 80 years of history in Israel and the punishment that would come if they had stayed on that evil path as Israel had. But when He died, the new King did not continue in Josiah s faith in the Lord. Instead he returned to the old ways of corruption and violence, with idols in God s temple and the ignoring of those in poverty who under Josiah were being helped and cared for. And in light of this going on the prophet can t help but Cry out Why do you make me see iniquity, and cause me to look on wickedness? He had apparently been crying out for some time before the Lord finally responded as we can see in verse 2. He s basically saying Lord, Where are you? Things have gotten so bad again and they re only getting worse, how can you let this happen? Why aren t you doing something about this injustice Lord? We can all relate to Habakkuk here, can t we? This is so very contemporary. Especially in light of Friday s Supreme Court Ruling. I think it s fair to say we can definitely feel some of the weight he felt. And so here he has raised the question of Evil for the first time. But finally, The Lord responds in verses 5 through 11, but not in the way, I think, Habakkuk was hoping for. He says (read 5). The Lord basically Says Habakkuk, I AM doing something, though you re not going to believe it when I tell you what I m doing. And you can just imagine Habakkuk s jaw drop when the Lord tells him in the next verse that what He is doing is raising up the Chaldean armies of Babylon to enter Judah and punish His people for their rebellion. He goes on to describe the Chaldeans, how bad they are, what idolaters they are in verse 7 saying Their justice and authority originate with themselves. They don t recognize the Lord; instead they worship false idols and ultimately themselves.

4 But they will be held guilty, He says in verse 11. And this is where we see the Lord reveal the first of the 3 reasons. #1: The Lord has a Plan and He is working out in His time! This falls under what theologians call the Lord s Providence. The Heidelberg Catechism has a wonderfully succinct Explanation of the Providence of God; it says God's providence is his almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand. The Puritan theologian William Ames described providence writing God is the good head of household of Ephesians 2:19 who takes care of all His Children and all His Property. God does not force creatures to act, But rules them Sweetly according to their nature. You See the Lord wants us to understand right off, He has not been idle. He does not look over the cries of the righteous for justice uncaringly. He IS doing something. It may not be what we were expecting Him to do, it may not be the way we wanted Him to do it, but He does have a plan and He is working it out in His Time. The Lord raising up the Chaldeans wasn t what Habakkuk had in mind, as we ll see later in the chapter. He had perhaps wanted another good king to come and bring the nation back to the Lord as Josiah had done. The last thing Habakkuk expected was this plan the Lord has told Him is coming. He felt like the Lord had suddenly abandoned them when nothing could be further from the truth. Like a good Father lovingly punishing his son when he is disobedient to emphasize the rightness of obedience, the Lord will also be punishing His chosen people for their disobedience. But instead of a paddle or a firm hand, He will be using the evil intentions of the Chaldeans, who will later be held guilty for their idolatry. Habakkuk just couldn t see what the Lord was doing. And Just like Habakkuk couldn t see what the Lord was doing already to answer his prayers and had to be reminded, So we must remember that even when it looks like the Lord is doing nothing, When things look bleak and hopeless, when a governing authority makes a judgement that is antithetical to God s Word, God is not idle and has not abandoned us. No, He has a plan and He is working it out in His time.

5 And because we know this, we can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from his love. Now you may have already been thinking just as the Prophet has, how is it right that God would use an awful, unrighteous people like the Chaldeans to punish the more righteous Jews? He basically asks the Lord this question in verse 13. He takes a step back in verse 12 to get his feet back on solid ground by reiterating what he already knows about the Lord. He cites a number of His Attributes, that is, a number of aspects of God s Character that He knows to be true. In order, He says he knows God is everlasting, he always was, is, and will be. He knows that He is Lord, in charge of all things; That He is Holy, basically that God is perfect and utterly different than us in that respect. He then explains that he knows God is completely good in verse 13 saying Your Eyes are too pure to approve evil, and you cannot look on wickedness with favor. And then he asks the question that, let s be honest here, is really on all our minds. He asks 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? In the rest of the verses of the chapter he goes on to basically explain that he knows the Chaldeans are unrighteous because of their idolatry. There we have it, the question of evil asked plainly and simply. But Habakkuk knows that there s just something he s not getting. He s not being so presumptuous as to blatantly accuse the Lord of being unjust, he s just saying Lord, I know all this about you, that you re good and holy and all powerful, and from my perspective it seems like you re looking with favor on these evil people, how can that be? And then like a child talking back to his father, Habakkuk recognizes that he s about to be schooled by the Lord big time. In the first verse of chapter 2 He says And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me, and how I may reply when I am reproved. He knows it s coming, and the Lord does not disappoint. Starting in verse 2 the Lord gives Habakkuk His answer in the form of a vision. After giving a command to record the vision, the Lord reminds the Prophet again to be patient, that His Plan will be worked out according to the Lord s timing, and that even though it may look like it s taking too long to us, it is actually being done

6 in exactly the timing the Lord has planned for it to, it will not delay. Then He reveals the second reason for us to look at today. #2: To display His attributes, specifically His Justice/righteousness. Habakkuk has already listed some of God s attributes for us earlier in chapter one. Remember, He says he knows the Lord is Eternal, Holy, and Good. But now the Lord is going to remind the prophet, and us, that He is also Righteous and Just. In verses 4 through the end of Chapter 2 The Lord pronounces judgement on a vast number of sins. These include Pride in verse 4, Haughtiness (thinking too highly of oneself) in verse 5, Oppression by many means in verses 9-14, Lust and seduction in verses 15 thru 17, and finally idolatry in verses 18 & 19. The Verdict: But the Lord is in His Holy Temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him. He s basically saying Habakkuk, you see all these sins men do? I know it looks to you like they are prosperous because of their sinning, but I m telling you now that my judgment has already been passed on them. At the right time, Habakkuk, they will see my justice as will all the earth. And they will then be silent before me. Just because it looks like they are prospering from Habakkuk s perspective, they really aren t. In eternity their sin has already been judged and condemned. And that s often what we do isn t it, we forget about eternity. Our default setting is that Justice is only really justice when it is enacted immediately after the offence. Like the kids in the backseat right Mom, he hit me! expecting swift and terrible punishment right? Awhile back I forgot to lock my car in our apartment parking lot one night and my checkbook was stolen from my car and used by the thieves at several grocery stores here in town. After all the rigmarole of getting my accounts changed, etc, I was diligent in providing the police with as much information as I could expecting that they would quickly catch the thieves and Justice would be done. I gave them account information, locations and times of the transactions, just, everything I could. To the best of my knowledge, the thieves were never caught. From my perspective they got away with it. They were able to spend well over $400 and prospered from their crime. But that s not true is it? Ultimately they will have to stand before the Lord in judgement and justice will be done. We just so easily forget about that. And that s what Habakkuk has done here too. And so the Lord tells Habakkuk, The prideful will be stripped of their pride. The haughty will be humbled. The Plunderer will be plundered. The Shameless will be

7 shamed. And the Idolaters will be silenced. It s just happening in the Lord s time, not ours. Theologian Wayne Grudem defines God s attribute of justice well. He writes God s Righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right and is Himself the final standard of what is right. The Lord Himself declares in Isaiah 45:19 I, the Lord, speak righteousness, Declaring things that are upright. As a result of God s righteous & just nature, it is necessary that he treat people according to what they deserve. This is why the Jews must be punished for their rebellion against God and why the Chaldeans must be punished for their Idolatry of themselves. This is also why the Gospel is such Good News! Because we are just like these Chaldeans, we are prideful and haughty and shameless. But The Lord sent His Son Jesus to the Cross, the most evil act of man committed in History, to satisfy that divine justice in our place and give us His Righteousness. The Gospel is good news because by believing in Christ, not just that He exists but that he died being punished for our sins; we can be saved from the Just punishment of God. So looking back at Habakkuk s question, we can see that the Lord has answered him aptly. Why do you look with favor on those who deal treacherously? The Lord answers I don t Habakkuk, in fact I have already judged and condemned their treachery for I am Righteous and Just. And we can be reminded just as Habakkuk was; the Lord is always just and acts justly in His time. So we too can stand in confidence with Martin Luther when he writes in his famous hymn a mighty fortress is our God: The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him. #3: The last reason we need to see is actually revealed by the Lord in Verse 14 of chapter 2 amidst his condemnation of Sin. He Says For the earth will be filled with the Knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. The term the Glory of the Lord occurs all over scripture and means a couple different things which are determined by the context of the passage in which it s used. Sometimes it s used to represent the great bright light that surrounds God s revealing of Himself, as in Luke 2:9 when the angels appear before the shepherds surrounded by the glory of the Lord. Or as in Revelation 21:23 when we are told that the new city of God will not have a sun or moon because the Glory of the Lord will be its light source. That s not what He means here though. In the sense that it s being used here, the Lord is talking about the fullness of His Excellent

8 Character and reputation. It s talking about how great, amazing, and awesome He is in every way. It s basically recognizing that God is God and nothing and no one else is worthy of worship. Here it s still being used in conjunction with His justice; that through His right and good justice and punishment of Evil, The whole earth will know how Glorious He is. It ll be as widely known as the waters cover the sea, meaning completely known everywhere. So, after all this, how does the prophet respond? We see that in Chapter 3. He responds in the only way he can, with a humble prayer to Lord in the form of a psalm. And he seems to finally get the point God is making too. So instead of just crying aloud to the Lord about injustice and asking why the Lord isn t doing anything about it right now, in verse 2 he approaches the Lord and pleads O Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make it known. He s understood that the Lord is working things out in His own time and so now he prays in earnest Please Lord, let your time be now. Please have mercy. And then He spends 13 verses in graphic terms describing and praising the Lord as a sort of Divine Warrior, recognizing that the Yahweh is on His people s side and will ultimately bring them salvation. And finally, in the last 4 verses of chapter 3 Habakkuk expresses his submission to the Lord and his confidence in His plan. It s the right way to end any prayer. He proclaims yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. It s the kind of confidence the Lord would have us express in Him too. We can be confident that He will be God, He was and is and always will act as the only God worthy of worship. No matter what happens or how things seem to be, He is our God and will always act in His and our best interest. Like Paul explains in Romans 8:28 we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. The only response we have to such a great God is praise, worship, obedience, and faith. I want to wrap up today by looking at something we sort of walked past in our survey here since we were most interested in seeing how Habakkuk speaks to this problem of Evil. Take a look at Chapter 2 verse 4, When the Lord begins to proclaim his judgment on a host of sins. He says Behold as for the Proud one, his soul is not right within him; But the Righteous will live by his faith. This is actually the central theme of this entire book of Habakkuk. In truth, it s the Lords primary answer to this Problem of Evil as well. Amidst all the troubles and problems going

9 on around the World, the Righteous will live by his confidence and trust in the Lord. When Habakkuk asks the Lord why he s not doing anything the First time in the first verses of Chapter one, he s really betraying his diminishing hope and sureness that God will act rightly. Then when the Lord answers his question with an answer that he was both not expecting and doesn t want, He again questions the Lord s Character, and again betrays his shrinking confidence that God will be the God Habakkuk knows Him to be. And so the Lord reminds him in his vision, while the prideful and haughty are living false in confidence in themselves and will ultimately perish, While all idolaters are living in false confidence, trusting in their fake gods they ve made with their own hands that won t save them from my wrath, the righteous will live by his faith in Me. This message is of course picked up by Paul in Romans 1 and Galatians 3 as well as the author of Hebrews in chapter 10. The point is clear; the Lord is the only one who saves. Nothing and no one else can. That s the message the book of Habakkuk has for everyone then and now. That when evil is going on all around us, the righteous will live by his faith. When things seem weary and dim, the righteous will live by his faith. During times of war and confusion, when things look their bleakest and things around us seem cruel and unrelenting, the righteous will live by his faith. And if we take nothing else away from this prophet s small book, it s that we can always, no matter what, trust and have confidence in our great God who has a plan, is always just, and will make His glory known as the waters cover the sea. Let s pray.