COVENANT PULPIT How Can You Use Evil, O Lord? Habakkuk 1:5-2:1 October 11, 2015 Pastor Bob Petterson Covenant Church of Naples Ι PCA 6926 Trail Boulevard, Naples 34108 (239) 597-3464 www.covenantnaples.com
Life couldn t have been sweeter for Harry: an idyllic childhood; graduating from Columbia University with honors; advanced degrees from prestigious Jewish seminaries; seven doctorates; eleven published books; Rabbi of the premier Boston synagogue; officiating at the state funeral for Ronald Reagan. Life was especially good for Harry when he married beautiful Suzette. When she gave him a son, that boy was his supreme joy. Then tragedy struck Harry s charmed life. His son was diagnosed with progeria, a rare and fatal disease that causes rapid aging in children. Despite years of experimental treatments and desperate prayers, the boy died a 90 year-old man when he was only fourteen. After he buried his son, Harry s Orthodox Jewish belief in a powerful and good God collapsed under the weight of grief. He searched the Scriptures to salvage his faith. He became obsessed with the story of Job, that ancient sufferer who buried ten of his children. Out of his wrestling with Job, he wrote a runaway bestseller. Parishioners call him Rabbi Harry, but you might know him by his full name, Harold Kushner. Maybe you recall his bestseller: When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Kushner s book explores this baffling mystery: if God is powerful enough to control all things, why don t all things turn out for good? Can God be both powerful and good in the face of suffering? He argues that it was monstrously unfair for a righteous man like Job to endure such horrific afflictions, or that God could have allowed the Nazi holocaust, or handicapped children, or hurricanes and earthquakes. Either God is all powerful or all good, but not both. Kushner opts for a good God who is not powerful. He writes, I can worship a God who hates suffering, but cannot eliminate it, more readily than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die for whatever exalted reason. One day Rabbi Harry saw a bumper sticker that said, My God is Not Dead. Sorry About Yours. In response, he had this bumper sticker made: My God is not Cruel. Sorry about Yours. Kushner s God neither causes nor prevents tragedies. He can only sympathize with our struggles. The good news is that God isn t responsible when bad things happen. The bad news is that he is impotent, and prayer brings no supernatural help. I m not here to fault Rabbi Kushner. Can anything be more heartbreaking than to watch your child suffer for years, only to die an old man at age fourteen? Eventually righteous Job shook his fist at God. The prophet Jeremiah wished he had been aborted rather than being born into an evil world. Even Jesus cried out from his cross, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Did he
doubt whether his heavenly Father was all-powerful or all good? I won t find fault with anyone who has ever wrestled with how a powerful God can still be good in the face of evil. The same suffering that shapes our faith can shatter it. If you are going through pain today, or are ever angry at the way God manages your world, then you understand how the prophet Habakkuk feels. Habakkuk is as ticked off as Harry. He can t understand how an all-powerful God can sit passively by while his people do gross evil. He cries out impatiently, How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? (Habakkuk 1:1) Is there anything more infuriating than God s silence? Rabbi Kushner pleaded with God for his son, but heaven was silent. Habakkuk pleaded with God to bring spiritual revival to Israel, but nothing happened. God s passivity is as bad as his silence. Bad things happen and God does nothing. How long, O Lord! Yet it gets worse. God finally speaks, but it s not what we wanted to hear. He acts, but it s not what we wanted him to do. God tells Habakkuk that he s going to deal with the sinful Israelites by sending the monstrously evil Babylonians to devastate Israel. After the butchers of Babylon have unleashed a holocaust, they will carry the Jewish survivors off into captivity in what is now Iraq and Iran. Imagine an Orthodox Rabbi in 1930s Europe complaining that the vast majority of his fellow Jews have become secular humanists, hedonists, Communists, agnostics and atheists, but God is doing nothing about it. Finally God says to the rabbi, Don t worry, Mordechai, I m going to allow the Nazi Party to come to power. These butchers of Berlin will unleash a holocaust that will kill six million Jews and bring about the slaughter of 50 million other people. Out of that will come the State of Israel, and all the events that will lead to world evangelism, the ultimate salvation of Judaism, and the Second Coming of the Messiah. Do you suppose Mordechai would be any happier with that answer than Habakkuk was with his? Mordechai might say with Habakkuk or Kushner, I can t believe you would allow such evil to achieve good? Or imagine an American Evangelical Christian (like you) pleading with God, How long are you going to allow the church to be so spiritually dead? When are you going to bring revival? For years you plead with God to shake things up. Nothing happens. Then God answers, I m going to unleash the Babylonians to dismantle your churches, and take away your religious freedoms. The Babylonians of Hollywood will corrupt your children with ungodly media. The Babylonians of education will reshape them into secular humanists. The Babylonians of culture will change everything about marriage and moral values in America.
Babylonians will occupy the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Babylonians will pour across your borders. They will rise up in the Middle East and then move inexorably west. Mentally ill Babylonians will enter your school houses, movies houses, churches, and shopping malls with their automatic weapons to inflict mass killings. Babylonians will dismantle your economic systems and pollute your environment. I will not stop them until my people, who are called by my name, humble themselves, turn from their wicked ways, and desperately seek my face. Suppose this was God s answer to you? (And I believe that this is God s answer to us at this time). Would you be any less upset than Habakkuk in the 6 th Century BC, or Rabbi Mordechai in 1930s Germany, or Rabbi Kushner at the deathbed of his son? Dearly beloved, judgment is at hand. The Babylonians are already at the church gates. This is not an easy message to hear not for Habakkuk or for us. That s why this little book, written on the eve of Israel s Fifth Century BC destruction, is so critical to us today. How do we maintain faith in the face of our present evil? We have to believe this answer to Habakkuk, Kushner, and us: God is all-powerful, all-wise, and all-good, all the time. Rabbi Kushner says that he can t be all three. You have to choose one. The 4 th Century BC Greek philosopher, Epicurus would agree. He poses the following problem: Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not all powerful. Is he able, but not willing to prevent evil? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing to prevent evil? Then why is there evil? Is he neither able nor willing to prevent evil? Then why call him God? What about this quote from Sam Harris, prominently posted on an atheist Internet site: Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophe, Or he doesn t care to, Or he doesn t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. You choose. Is Epicurus, Sam Harris, or Harold Kushner right? How would you answer them? I would argue that you are not limited to those options. God is all powerful all the time. He does have absolute control over everything, including the worst sorts of evil. He can stop it anytime he chooses. But, if he doesn t, that will not negate the fact that he is still good all the time. How can I say that?
Because God is all wise all the time. He can do what we cannot compute in our finite minds: to be both powerful and good at the same time. There are four things we must remember. Trent and I will repeat these four truths throughout this series on Habakkuk because they are foundational to all Christian responses to evil: 1. GOD IS POWERFUL, GOOD, AND WISE. God answers the prophet s first complaint [that he is not dealing with the sins of his people] in verse five: 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. He is right that Habakkuk can t believe what he hears next: I am raising up the Babylonians (verse six) This is a monster empire. The prophet Daniel describes it as a ferocious lion. Look at our graphic for this series. We designed it to capture Habakkuk s terror. Have you ever seen a more terrifying lion? And you can t believe it when God raises up certain people to be in the most influential places in our culture. How can he allow such evil people to come to power to devastate our world? Habakkuk knows that God is all powerful. But how can he do this thing and still be good. Habakkuk argues in verse 12, Lord, aren t you from everlasting to everlasting? Aren t you holy? He goes on in verse 12, How can you appoint them to execute judgment or ordain them to punish? He adds in verse 13, Your eyes are too pure to look on evil you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Let s unpack these complaints. When he says that God is from everlasting to everlasting, he s talking about his immutability. What I mean by that is that God never changes. Habakkuk is arguing that God has never once used evil forces to execute judgment, or been able to look at evil. But Habakkuk is wrong. Ever since Lucifer s rebellion in heaven, an all-seeing, ever-present God has looked at evil. He saw Adam and Eve doing evil in the Garden. He sees every evil act that has ever been committed in history. God can look at evil without losing his holiness. And he can use evil to bring about good without compromising his goodness. In fact, he has done it repeatedly, even in Habakkuk s Bible. He used the destructive fury of nature to clean up Noah s world. He allowed Satan to wreak havoc in Job s life so that he would come out a better man. He allowed Joseph s jealous brothers to sell him into Egyptian slavery, and Potiphar s wife to falsely accuse him of rape, leading to twelve years of prison, so that Joseph would be at the right time and place [and have the right character] to become Prime Minister of Egypt in order to save his family from famine. Repeatedly God allowed the enemies of Israel to bring his sinful people to their senses. Like Habakkuk, we know those stories from Scripture. Yet, when God
chooses to do the same thing in our day, we are surprised and upset as if we should somehow be exempt. God is all powerful. But he is good, too. St. Paul wrote, All things work for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28) But what is that good? Romans 8:29 goes on to define it: For we have been predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. What is good? Jesus said it: Only God is good. Good is to be like God. Jesus is God. Therefore to be like Jesus is to be like God. God created us in his image. But sin has twisted and perverted that original God-image in us. So Jesus died to destroy sin in our lives. And God is about the business of reshaping us into his image. He will use any means possible: Satan s attacks, natural disasters, the consequences of our own sins and stupidities, pain and affliction, trials and tribulations, and even the evil Babylonians. He is determined that he will have a church that is a spotless and radiant bride for his Only Begotten Son. God is so powerful that everything that happens is for his perfect purposes, and ultimately ends in our good. Ultimate goodness is not being safe, but becoming saints; it s not being happy, but becoming holy. How can he be both all-powerful and all-good? Because he is all-wise. Habakkuk, Kushner, and we may wish he operated differently, but Father always knows best. 2. EVIL IS AN EVER PRESENT REALITY. The Babylonians are coming. In verses 5-11, God describes them in some of the most graphically terrifying words in all of literature: ruthless and impetuous sweeping across the whole earth a feared and dreaded people a law unto themselves... horses swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk an eagle swooping to devour they all come intent on violence. Their hoards advance like the desert wind gather prisoners like sand mock kings scoff at rulers laugh at all fortified cities they sweep on like the wind guilty people whose own strength is their god Ever since Satan led legions of fallen angels in that first war in heaven, evil has flourished. In every age the Babylonians rise up: Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, Turks, Nazis, Communists, ISIS. In 6,000 years of history there have been less than 270 years without war. More than 4 billion people have been slaughtered. How can we read about medical experiments in Auswitzch and be surprised at the selling of aborted baby parts by Planned Parenthood? How can we read about Cain killing his brother in a fit of anger, and be surprised when a pyscho walks into a schoolyard and begins shooting children? As long as Satan is alive and well on planet earth, and his demons roam the wastelands of
liquid air, and we have the seed of sin within us, and the earth is fallen and twisted from its original paradise, evil will come. Later on, in verses 14-17, Habakkuk speaks of fish that swim in the sea. On the surface above, fishermen are baiting hooks and preparing to drop nets that they worship rather than God. They are intent on catching and eating fish swimming in ignorant bliss below. Habakkuk is appalled. Is this the way the world really is? Does God allow evildoers like the Babylonians to go fishing for his fish? Yes, he does. We ought not to be surprised. St. Peter said, Be sober and vigilant, for your adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8) Jesus is fishing for men. So is Satan. Evil exists. It ought not to surprise us. It exists within each of us. We may be the fish ready to be hooked by evil. Or we might be looking for smaller fish to devour, or even baiting our hook to catch someone else. I believe that the line between good and evil runs through ever person s heart. 3. GOD IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF EVIL. There is that uneasy statement by God in verse six: I am raising up the Babylonians. Wait a minute: I am raising up the Babylonians? But doesn t the half-brother of Jesus say, God is not tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. (James 1:13)? Did God tempt the Babylonians to send their massive armies against Israel? No, he did not. Later, he will tell Habakkuk that he will punish them for the monstrous evil they visit upon the Jews. One day Babylon will be a heap of ruins visited by archeologists and tour buses. What God is saying is that he allowed them to rise up. He allowed them to prosper and build their armies. Look again at all he says about them in chapter one of Habakkuk. They are a rapacious, greedy, and violent people. Everything within them strains to rape and pillage Israel, just as everything within Satan strained to destroy Job, and the jealousy of Joseph s brothers drove them to sell him into slavery. God never has to make evil happen, or tempt evildoers to follow their evil impulses. What God does is restrain evil. He puts a hedge of protection around his people. But sometimes his dearest sons and daughters need to be disciplined. So he unleashes the lion. He takes away the walls of protection. He makes use of evil, but he never puts it in the hearts of wrongdoers. Maybe you are asking, Where did evil come from in the first place? Back to Philosophy 101. God created all things. Evil is a thing. Therefore God created evil. It sounds logical, doesn t it? Maybe the ancient bishop of Hippo, St. Augustine can help here. God did not create evil; he created the potential for it. He could have made a paradise without the potential of evil. He could have made his angels as flying robots, automatons without free will or choice who could only do good. He could have made us as robots
without free will or choice, so that we could only love him and one another. But love that has no choices not to love is not really love. Lucifer made a choice, and evil was born. Adam and Eve made choices, and evil came into paradise. I like what Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote after he spent years in the horrific evil of the Russian Gulag: The line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man. God is not the author of evil; we are. 4. GOD USES EVIL TO BRING ABOUT GOOD. Habakkuk starts out complaining because God is doing nothing to discipline his wicked people. God comes back and says, I m about to fix this. Habakkuk says, I don t like the way you ve chosen to fix this. Every child has a different opinion than his parents when it comes to discipline. But, wayward children are not in a position to tell their parents how they want to be disciplined [at least not in homes where mom and dad have some backbone]. Hebrews 12:6 says, Those the Lord loves, he disciplines. There is this added caveat: No discipline seems pleasant at the time. (Hebrews 12:11) Oswald Chambers called it, God s severe mercy. Hebrews 12:11 adds, but later it produces a harvest of righteousness. All things, even the discipline that evil brings, work together for God of those who are loved by God and redeemed to be conformed to the image of his holy and beautiful Son. The prophet says in Habakkuk 2:1, I will stand on the ramparts and wait to see what kind of an answer I will get. He will get an answer. But the real answer will be 600 years in coming. Let me illustrate with a story Henri Nouwen tells about a family in Paraguay. The father, a doctor, spoke out against the military regime and its human rights abuses. The police arrested and tortured his teenage son to death. People were outraged. They wanted to turn the boy s funeral into a huge protest rally. But the doctor chose another means of protest. At the funeral, the father displayed his son s body as he had found it in jail naked, and scarred from electric shocks, cigarette burns, and beatings. As people filed passed the corpse, which lay not in a coffin but on a blood-soaked mattress from the prison. Evil was put on display. Isn t that what God did outside Jerusalem? Evil and its grotesque work were put on display. So was heaven s ultimate triumph over it. God identifies with Kushner in giving up his son. He stands with Habakkuk in letting the Babylonians of Rome unleash their evil on his Beloved. He identifies with everyone who suffers evil, and redeems us for better things through his death, burial, and resurrection. He is all powerful, all good, and all wise all the time! Copyright October 11, 2015 by Covenant Church of Naples / PCA