Sermon Tone Analysis

Sermon

Why do bad things happen to good people?

It’s a question that probably everyone has asked in their life.

If there is an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God, why do bad things happen?

It’s a good question.

It’s a hard question.

It’s a deep question.

It’s a universal questions and it’s a necessary question.

It’s a question which proves Dr. R.C. Sproul’s statement when he said, “Everyone is a theologian.”

Theology is the study of God, so every time someone thinks about or tries to answer a question about God, they are doing theology.

But the method of theology matters.

Many rely solely on reason and logic.

Others rely solely on the observable, what can be measured, or they may rely solely on their feelings about what seems to be right.

But, the best way to do theology, to answer questions about God, is to look in all the places where God has revealed Himself.

As the children taught us this morning, God reveals Himself to us in many ways — yes, we use our hearts and our minds, yes we use His revelation in creation, but we must also go back to God’s revealed Word, His special revelation, in the Holy Scriptures.

This morning, we will be in the Book of Habakkuk, so you can go ahead and turn there.The whole of the Book of Habakkuk is found on pages 534-535 of the white pew Bible.

Habakkuk is one of what we call the Minor Prophets in the Old Testament.

That simply means that their messages were short, not that their messages were less important.

Habakkuk, working with the prophets which surround his book — Nahum before and Zephaniah after — begin to answer that question, "If there is an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God, why do bad things happen?”

Nahum assures God’s people that God will one day judge evil.

That judgment is going to be devastating and powerful.

He’s not going to let evil last forever.

Zephaniah reveals God’s final answer of future change and redemption.

In Zephaniah God pronounces that He will change the hearts of evil people to good through a great sacrifice on their behalf.

He will make evil people good and bring them home to dwell with him forever — in the New Testament, we see that revealed and accomplished in the person and work of Jesus the Christ.

"If there is an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God, why do bad things happen?”

Nahum reveals that God will one day judge evil.

Zephaniah reveals the future glory of God making all things new.

But Habakkuk lives in the messy middle.

How do we live in the middle of the bad things as we await the future glory?

The pinnacle point of the Book of Habakkuk is found in chapter 2 at the end of verse 4, look at it with me, the final sentence of that verse.

(CSB)

But the righteous one will live by his faith.

Through His prophet Habakkuk, God gives us part of His own answer to the question, “How do we live when our world is falling apart?

How do we persevere when bad things happen?

When our spouse dies?

When our teenager goes off the rails?

When an election doesn’t go the way we’d hoped?

How do we continue when our marriage is falling apart?

How do we persevere as we age and death looks closer and closer every day?

What do we do when our child is in the NICU or we get a terminal diagnosis from the doctor at age 50?

Through Habakkuk, God answers, “Trust me.”

And if you are anything like me…sometimes that is a very unsatisfying answer.

When I’m in the middle of the valley of the shadow of death, the last thing I want to hear is, “Keep walking.”

The walk of faith in the midst of chaos is not an easy exercise.

It certainly wasn’t for Habakkuk.

The whole book is a dialog between the prophet and God about why God seems unwilling to judge evildoers.

Why all these bad things are happening in Judah.

And the dialog between Habakkuk and the Lord brings us our big idea for the book:

Big Idea

Because God has revealed His character, Christians can live by faith in crisis.

Because God has revealed His character — He is all-good, He is all-knowing, he is all-powerful, Christians can rely on what he has revealed about himself in the good times to persevere in the bad times.

One pastor said it this way, “Never doubt in the dark what God has revealed in the light.”

Because God has revealed His character, Christians can live by faith in crisis.

Let’s pray then we’ll look at the text.

Blessed Lord, you have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning — grant us that we in such a way may hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that by patience and comfort of your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of eternal life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Habakkuk lived in the southern kingdom of Judah after the fall of the northern kingdom, but before the Babylonian invasion of Judah.

And he looks around and sees all sorts of wickedness going on amongst God’s people.

And he cries out to God, look at verses 2-3 of chapter 1:

This is the prophet’s opening charge.

He sees injustice amongst God’s people and cries out, “How long are you going to let this go on, God?”

So, God answers in verse 5.

Uh, not exactly the answer Habakkuk was expecting!

Have you ever had an answer to prayer and felt like, “Yeah, that’s not what I meant, God.” Habakkuk gets it.

To his horror, God says He’s going to answer the problem of injustice among his people with something that seems like a greater evil.

He’s going to use a wicked nation bring about the Exile of God’s people from their promised land.

Habakkuk’s response to God is the rest of chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2, but a good summary of his thoughts come in verse 13 of chapter 1:

Sure, God’s people have their issues.

But they’re nothing like the Babylonians!

How can Yahweh be both good and sovereign over a universe where evil clearly exists?

And how on earth can he use the wicked like this!?

Let me pause right there and remind you that asking questions like that is OK.

Sometimes, like in the case of Habakkuk, asking those questions is what God wants us to do.

In verse 1 of chapter 1, Habakkuk says that he recieved an oracle or pronouncement from God, and then he starts recording the questions — God gave those questions to Habakkuk to ask.

Lamentation and questioning are gifts of God to the believer.

They provide a pathway of honest faith and conversation with Him in horrible times.

50 or so of the Psalms are songs of lament, asking questions like “How long?

Where are you?

Why do you allow this?” There’s a whole book of the Bible called Lamentations.

Jesus was reciting Psalms of lament on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It’s straight out of Psalm 22.

There mere act of asking desperate questions does not indicate a lack of trust on the part of a believer.

Conviction that God is good all the time does not necessarily silence the questions and stop the pain.

But, it does focus the questions into dialog rather than a diatribe.

Those questions become a conversation with the loving Creator and the gracious Redeemer.

And He accompanies you in the midst of that suffering and will, in His perfect time, bring victory, healing, and restoration.

There can be great hope on the path of lament and faithful questioning for those who long for the peace, love and goodness of the kingdom of God.

Herman Bavinck, one of the greatest, possibly the greatest theologian of the modern era, wrote this, and man, what truth:

There is no faith without struggle.

To believe is to struggle, to struggle against the appearance of things.

Easy answers lead to our weakness.

Christian growth is born out of the struggle for faith against the appearance that everything is falling apart.

Graciously, in chapter 2 God chooses to answer Habakkuk’s questions.

We won’t read the whole thing, but let me highlight a few sections.

First, God says that He is going to judge these Babylonians.

Even though they are doing His work in judging Judah, they are still committing evil and will be judged for it.

He says, essentially, they are building up a debt of evil and, verse 7, one day the creditor is going to come to call.

Like a bookie with a crowbar coming after a gambler’s kneecaps, God is going to judge Babylon for their evil.

Second, like I said earlier, in verse 4, God tells Habakkuk that the righteous person will live by faith in the face of the inflated ego of Babylon.

Third, Look at verse 14: