God at Work
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Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received. How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
Hab begins with some questions for God and some accusations about God. The prophet reveals that he is weary with the world as the world currently exists.
Two main questions for God: 1) How long? How long should I cry for help, how long do I need to cry out that there is violence? 2) Why? Why is there injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong doing? Even though they were posed by an Israelite prophet long ago these are questions we can relate to today. What is taking so long and why does God put up with the evil in the world? I prayed that when my mom lay dying of painful pancreatic cancer. Seemed long and drawn out. Pointless. What was the reason for the suffering? Why can’t this just be over?
Besides the questions, there are accusations leveled at God also: you don’t listen, you don’t save. Justice is perverted and does not prevail.
These internal struggles exist not because the prophet thinks God is mysterious and unknown, but precisely because God is known. He is known to be a holy and righteous God. Certainly the prophet knew the name of the Lord proclaimed to Moses in Exodus 34:6-7
Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
Or how about Psalm 1? The righteous are like trees planted by streams of water, they bear fruit in season. Whatever they do prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
God punishes! He holds people accountable! And who are the wicked people perverting justice and who is responsible for the destruction and violence? The Babylonians are mentioned in vs. 6 but they are the ones God is raising up to punish God’s people. The mentions of the law and justice likely point to those within the house of Israel itself who are being disobedient to God’s law.
The New American Commentary: Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah 1. Habakkuk’s First Question: How Long Must I Call for Help? (1:2–4)
The opening “tension of unanswered prayer” sets the tone for the entire book. “Habakkuk here faces the dilemma that has confronted faithful people in every age—the dilemma of seemingly unanswered prayer for the healing of society. The prophet is one with all those persons who fervently pray for peace in our world and who experience only war, who pray for God’s good to come on earth and who find only human evil. But he is also one with every soul who has prayed for healing beside a sickbed only to be confronted with death; with every spouse who has prayed for love to come into a home and then found only hatred and anger; with every anxious person who has prayed for serenity but then been further disturbed and agitated
*What is God’s answer to these charges? The questions of why? how long? the complaints that God doesn’t act or care?
“Look at the nations and 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. I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own.
You wouldn’t believe it even if I told you and I’m telling you. The Babylonians are coming to seize dwellings not their own. Who would expect that God would use a wicked instrument to judge a nation more righteous than them? That’s why God says, “watch and be amazed.” This is not something you would expect.
Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay. “See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—
God further explains what the prophet is to do: 1) Tell everyone. Write it down down so that a courier can run ahead with it. 2) Wait for it. God is at work and his justice will come. And then the saying that is quoted many times in the NT (Ro 1, Gal 3, Heb 10): the righteous live by faith.
It takes faith to wait while it seems that God is not acting or caring about injustice. It takes faith to see that God is at work even though my prayers are not being answered the way I want right now. The opposite of faith isn’t doubt, it’s sight. When we believe only that which we can see, we’re not walking by faith. Doubt is rather an important element of faith. It’s just that like Habakkuk, we’re supposed to take our doubts and questions to God.
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.
We recall that a tax collector was bad and a “chief” tax collector even worse. He likely was an overseer over a group of tax collectors whose job it was to collect some sort of customs dues on trade goods in the region. The fact that he was wealthy reveals that he was pretty good on collecting what Rome required as well as making enough for himself.
Z is a good example of what Habakkuk was talking about. Here is the face of oppression and injustice. Here is wrong doing going unchecked and unstopped by God. Hey God, how long are these Romans going to rule over us? And why aren’t you doing anything about these so called Jews who are exploiting us and ripping us off?
But at the call of Jesus, the oppressor and exploiter comes down immediately and welcomes the Lord. Upon hearing the muttering of the people, Z makes quite a bold vow. I’ll make it right. I’ll pay it back.
God says, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you. An oppressor, a guy who is part of the problem responds to the call of God. As we read in our scripture reading: Thess said: “by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.” Z suddenly desired to do good and here he proclaimed his deeds prompted by faith. And Jesus proclaimed him a son of the great man who also lived by faith:
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son,
Z too is a son of Abraham.
So God is at work even when we don’t see it. The people who knew Z surely didn’t think God was working in his life. Chief tax collector and all. The people around Z that day didn’t see it or believe it. The denied his sonship and labeled him a sinner. They didn’t walk by faith like Z did, they walked by sight.
Why does god sometimes seem to linger? Why does he seemingly tolerate injustice and oppression? Part of the answer is there is good in the world too.
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
If we can walk by faith also, we may see that God isn’t slow or uncaring but that he is at work in our lives and in the lives of the Z’s around us.