What to do when God doesn't make sense
Notes
Transcript
What do we do as believers when things happen in our life, things outside of our control, and we look at those things and we say, “God, this doesn’t make any sense”? How do we respond? Or maybe we say it this way, “God, I sure would have done things differently if it were up to me.” (Side note- aren’t you glad that things aren’t up to you?) Maybe an unbeliever would say it like this, “How could a good God allow this to happen?”
How do we respond when these kinds of thoughts creep into our thinking. And more than likely something like this has gone through your mind in the last few days. With everything that is going on in our society today- like the corona virus, like being confined to your living rooms this morning and watching me preach to an empty room, or maybe your job is at risk, maybe things are going to keep getting worse before they get better. We are nearing the end of construction of our new church building, only when the building is finally ready we might not be able to have people meet inside of it, at least for a while. Your kids are home from school, sporting events are canceled. Normal life as we know it is put on hold. And the thought goes through our mind, “God, this doesn’t make any sense.”
How should we, as believers, think about these things? What Scripture should we turn to and renew our minds so that we can have the mind of Christ? Many of you have already been doing exactly that and you have shared some of those passages with me and others. Thank you for doing that. Don’t stop! I want to direct our attention to a passage of Scripture this morning that directly answers the question- What should we do when God doesn’t make sense. And that passage is found in Habakkuk 2.
Now, you probably have not turned to Habakkuk in a while so let me help you- it is in the Old Testament, after the book of Psalms. If you can find Jonah keep going just a little bit- Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk.
Now we need to summarize chapter 1 so that we understand the flow of this short little book in chapter 2.
1 The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.
We don’t know much about Habakkuk the prophet. He most likely lived during the end period of the kingdom of Judah. Probably started his ministry during the reign of King Josiah who was one of the most righteous kings of Judah. And Josiah caused a kind of spiritual revival in the land of Judah, but unfortunately that revival was only superficial- it didn’t produce lasting heart change in the people. And as soon as Josiah was no longer king the land of Judah returned to wickedness.
This is the setting of vv. 2-4. Habakkuk is looking at the people of Judah and he is seeing their wicked deeds and he cries out to God. And if I can summarize vv. 2-4, Habakkuk says to God, “God, how can you let these people get away with this? There is excessive violence, there is rampant immorality, justice is being perverted. God aren’t you going to do something about this?”
And beginning in v. 5 God answers Habakkuk and says, (again I’ll summarize), God says, “Of course I am going to do something about it. In fact you are going to be shocked at what I am going to do- I’m going to send the Chaldeans. I am going to send the Babylonians, and they are going to lay waste to Judah.”
Now, if you don’t know who the Chaldeans or the Babylonians are think modern day Iraqis. These people were just coming on the world scene and they were a vicious war like people. They were extremely feared and dreaded- they ravaged their enemies like leopards devouring a deer. They treated other nations like a pack of wolves devouring a helpless faun. They were swift like eagles flying to destroy. They swept over their enemies like a gust of wind, and not only did they roll over you, they left nothing left in their wake. And this was how God was going to deal with the wickedness of the nation of Judah- He was going to allow the Chaldeans to mop the floor with Judah.
Now Habakkuk hears this and his reply to God was something like this, “God, that doesn’t make any sense! That is not at all what I meant- send a revival or something, but don’t destroy Judah!” And then Habakkuk in essence takes God to task- “God, why are you going to do that?”
13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, And canst not look on iniquity: Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, And holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?
God, I thought you were of purer eyes that to behold evil, I though you cannot even look on iniquity- Why then do you look with favor on those who deal treacherously (that is the Chaldeans)? God why are you doing this- it doesn’t make any sense.
I love the way the NASB translates vv. 13-14- in fact let me show you how I marked up these verse in my Bible- it really brings out just exactly what is going on in Habakkuk’s mind:
(Insert Screen Shot Here)
Why do you look with favor on those who deal treacherously?
Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous that they?
Why have you made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping thing without a ruler over them?
God why are you doing this? It doesn’t make any sense!
Perhaps, this is exactly where you are right now in your thinking! With all of the crazy things happening in our lives right now, you are like Habakkuk the prophet, you are calling God to task and saying why are you doing this?
Is this what your life is like right now? Ever feel like you life is already hard and difficult and you cry out to God, and not only does it not get better, but God sends the Chaldeans? You look around at your life and it is in disarray.
Then in Chapter 2:1, Habakkuk is done calling God to task, and he essentially folds his arms over his chest and says, “God, I am going to wait right here until you answer me.”
1 I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, And will watch to see what he will say unto me, And what I shall answer when I am reproved.
What I want you to see this morning is God’s answer to Habakkuk.
Look at v. 2
“Then the Lord answered me.” God has an answer for you. He doesn’t leave us to wonder- He gives us an answer.
And in God’s answer there is a tremendous amount of hope and exactly what we need to renew our thinking this morning.
What do we do when God doesn’t make sense?
The answer is summed up for us in v. 4. It is an important verse, it is the hub of the book. And in fact it is so important it is quoted 3 different times in the NT. In v. 4 God compares two different kinds of people. First, there are the wicked, and in the context it is speaking of the Chaldeans.
4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: But the just shall live by his faith.
Behold- his soul which is lifted up or puffed, that one’s soul is not upright within him. So there are the wicked, those who are not upright- they are characterized by a spirit of pride.
And then there are the just- But the just shall live by faith. Now who are the just or the upright or the righteous?
Those who are just, according to the NT, are those who have been regenerated through salvation in Jesus Christ. No one is just, no one is righteous in and of themselves- we are all sinners, we are all wicked in God’s eyes. And the only way to become just or to become righteous is to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior- to believe on His name. That is the only way- and we become just through what? Faith.
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
The moment you repent of your sins and put your faith in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, is the moment you become a child or God, you become justified, you become just or righteous in God’s eyes. But, that is just the beginning of what it means to be a Christian. Salvation is just the beginning. After our salvation we spend our entire lives growing in our faith and learning what it means to be a child of God. And how do we grow? How do we live our daily lives as a child of God? The answer is the same way you became a child of God- through faith. The just shall live by faith. So, the same faith that it took for you to believe in Jesus, is the same faith you need to trust God when God doesn’t make any sense.
When God doesn’t make any sense- we the just ones- live by faith. That is God’s answer to Habakkuk.
In chapter 2 God gives Habakkuk three truths about Himself, that will help Habakkuk live by faith.
This morning I want you to understand three truths about God so that you can better live by faith- so that you can trust God more and more- especially when God doesn’t make any sense.
I. God is always in control and He is always working to accomplish His plan in the exact way He intends (v. 3)
I. God is always in control and He is always working to accomplish His plan in the exact way He intends (v. 3)
2 And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, That he may run that readeth it.
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, But at the end it shall speak, and not lie: Though it tarry, wait for it; Because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
The judgement that God told Habakkuk would come against Judah had not happened yet- but God was so certain it would happen in v. 2 he tells Habakkuk to write the vision on tables or tablets of stone. In v. 3 God says in the end it shall speak and not lie, though it tarries or lingers, wait for it, because it will surely come to pass and will not tarry.
What I want you to understand from this is that God always has a plan and He is always in control of His plan. God is able to perfectly accomplish His plan, for the entire universe, at exactly the time He wants to accomplish it and nothing can hinder God from accomplishing His will.
And not only will God accomplish His plan, here Scripture clearly teaches that wickedness cannot stop the plan of God- on the contrary- God is able to use the devises and schemes of the wicked to accomplish His plan. So even those whose intent is to thwart God, rather than thwarting God, instead God is actually able to use the effects of wickedness to still accomplish His will. God uses calamitous events- like earthquakes, or fires, or viruses- God uses those wicked events to accomplish his plan. God even uses the wicked, like the Chaldeans, to accomplish His plan.
God could stop them if He wanted to- He has that kind of power. But for some reason God has allowed wickedness to happen for the moment. God allows calamity to happen for the moment. God allows calamity to develop in your life sometimes, God allows calamity to develop in your job, and in our nation, and in our world. The incredible thing is that God intends to use the wickedness of this world to accomplish His plan. Now that doesn’t make God accountable for that wickedness. He permits wickedness to happen, He doesn’t make wicked things happen, and God will judge all wickedness. But know this, right now whatever wickedness or calamity that happens, God intends to use that wickedness in your life to accomplish His plan. Nothing can happen that is not a part of the plan of God. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can happen that is not a part of the plan.
On top of that God, in his wisdom and love and mercy, has not left us in the dark concerning His will. God has given us many details of exactly what he is trying to accomplish in His plan in the Word of God. Look, if you have read the book of Revelation you already know in some detail exactly how God’s plan ends. And we have a general idea of where we are in the time table of God’s plan. And that is really helpful. Because, when our world doesn’t make sense we can look to the Word of God and put our faith in God’s ultimate plan- and we can find hope in the midst of chaos.
And just like God could tell Habakkuk that the Chaldeans were coming to judge Judah- he could be certain about it. So also, we can be sure that the rest of God’s plan will happen- like Jesus will come back, and God will establish His kingdom, and He will right all wrongs.
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, But at the end it shall speak, and not lie: Though it tarry, wait for it; Because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
When God doesn’t make sense how do we respond? We live by faith! We keep on trusting God. And we can trust God because:
1. God is always in control and He is always working to accomplish His plan in the exact way He intends
Why else can we trust God?
II. No matter how bad things get, one day God will fully fix everything (v. 14)
II. No matter how bad things get, one day God will fully fix everything (v. 14)
God has a plan and He will accomplish that plan and He will even use wickedness and calamity to accomplish His plan. For right now though, things may go from bad to worse. And you have two choices- you can either live by faith and trust God and trust in God’s plan, or you can abandon God and trust in yourself. That is what verse 4 states.
4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: But the just shall live by his faith.
You have the just that live by faith, and then you have the soul that is lifted up. And when you puff up your soul and you live outside of faith in God, you attempt to live by your own authority and what happens is you go from bad to worse. And we see that downward spiral played out for us in the lives of the Chaldeans. God is going to use the Chaldeans to judge Judah, but the wicked behavior of the Chaldeans is going to get worse and worse. How do we live by faith when wickedness and calamity go from worse to worse to worse? What do we need to know about God so that we can trust Him and we can live by faith?
The next answer is in v. 14.
14 For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, As the waters cover the sea.
Now, to understand v. 14 in its context you have to understand what God is doing beginning in v. 6. God is pronouncing a series of “woes” on the Chaldeans. The Chaldean’s wickedness is going from bad to worse, until its gets just about as bad as it can get. And because of their wickedness God is pronouncing judgement on them. And then in the middle of the judgement, God interrupts the Woes with v. 14. Why is that? Let’s understand first of all a summary of the Woes.
Woe #1 (vv. 6-8) - God is pronouncing doom on people who are hoarding wealth in evil wicked ways. People who are stealing wealth, they are gaining wealth through extortion, they take advantage of others, they rob, they thieve- God says your actions will come back to haunt you. God says that the wealth they have gathered will one day be a witness against them.
Woe #2 (vv. 9-11)- God is pronouncing doom on people who seek to secure their position of power through any means necessary. For example, they may pass laws or statues that make their own position certain and they do it at the expense of others. The plot the ruin of others to establish their own future. God says one day he will use all of the structures that they have built to secure their own privilege to judge them.
Woe #3 (vv. 12-13)- God is pronouncing doom on people who build their society through immorality. People who pervert justice, people who call good evil and evil good and then they use their upside down system of justice to build their culture and expand their boundaries- God says everything that they build will be burned to the ground.
And then, seemingly out of no where you get to v. 14
14 For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, As the waters cover the sea.
Where did that come from? Here is the answer:
You know how good a basketball coach is by how bad a team he started off with. What do I mean. Look, if you were a basketball coach and on your team you had Lebron James and Kevin Durant and Steph Curry and Zion Williamson and James Harden- if those guys were your starting five and you won an NBA championship, no one would be saying how great a coach you are. Of course you are going to win right? But if you start out the season with five guys that don’t know which end of the hoop is up and they get blown out in their first game by 80 points, but then by the end of the season they win a championship- then everyone will say, “Wow, what a great coach.”
You know how good a dad is by the kind of fishing line tangles he can get out. What do I mean. When I was little my dad used to take me fishing. When you start out fishing usually you give someone one of those Zebco bullet spin-cast reels. They are really easy to handle, you can’t mess it up. Then you might graduate to a spinning real, and then you might try a bait-casting real. Now, if you don’t know what you are doing with a bait casting real you can get into a lot of problems. First, you have to know who to adjust the tension of the reel so it casts properly, then you have to know to put your finger on the spool of line the instant before your bait hits the water. Because, if you don’t you end up with a bird nest size tangle of what used to be your fishing line. I can remember as a kid taking a bait casting reel, winding up, casting it as hard and as far as I could, and then- instant backlash. And if it were up to me I would have just chucked the whole thing in the lake. But, I remember my dad handing me his rod and taking mine and for the next 20 min patiently working at the mess of tangled line until eventually he handed the pole back to me and it was as if the tangle never happened. That’s a good dad and a good fisherman. You know how good he is by the degree of damage he can fix.
Same thing with God. You know how great He is by the kind of broken world He can put back together. Right now our world is an awful mess- it is the worst kind of back-lash you can imagine. And folks it will probably get worse. And I don’t know when God is going to fix it. It might not be for several months that life gets back to a kind of normal for us. But, even if we get out of quarantine and they develop a vaccine for this virus- our world is still a mess. And I don’t know when God is going to fix it. But not matter how bad things get, one day God is going to fully fix everything. And on that day the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
One day we are going to look back on 2020 and say do you remember how bad the epidemic was, do you remember how crazy the world got? Just look at what Jesus Christ was able to fix! He fixed everything! Someday God will make everything right. And the worse things are now, the greater His glory will be when He fixes it. That day is coming. One day Revelation 21:4 will come to pass:
4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
And on that day we will look back to 2020 and we will say, “just look at what God was able to fix!”
What do you do when God doesn’t make sense? You live by faith- you keep on trusting Him. And we can learn to trust Him more and more when we embrace
1. God is always in control and He is always working to accomplish His plan in the exact way He intends
2. No matter how bad things get, one day God will fully fix everything.
III. One day God will accomplish perfect justice upon the world (v. 20)
III. One day God will accomplish perfect justice upon the world (v. 20)
20 But the Lord is in his holy temple: Let all the earth keep silence before him.
Let’s back up and talk about the two remaining woes.
Woe #4 (vv. 15-17)- God is pronouncing doom on sexual predators. People who take advantage of other people for their own perverted pleasure, one day God is going to publically judge them and expose their shame.
Woe #5 (vv. 18-19)- God is pronouncing doom on idolaters. One day their foolishness and stupidity for trusting in idols will be made known and they will be judged.
And then God says- The Lord is in His holy temple: Let all the earth keep silence before him.
What does it mean to keep silence? Some think that one day we will stand in silent awe of God’s glory. And that is true and a possible meaning here. But, because God has just gone through and pronounced woe on the Chaldeans for their wickedness that they seemed to get away with- I think the idea is that one day every mouth will be stopped and all the world will stand guilty before God. One day God will call the wicked to account- He will bring them to justice and when that day comes they will have no excuse. They will not be able to hide or deceive- they will stand guilty before God as their judge.
Sometimes kids will say anything to get out of trouble. Once, my wife caught one of our sons with something he should not have had in his pocket- empty your pockets and there was the contraband. And that particular son looked at her and said, “I don’t know how that got there.” So they came to me and told me the story and I looked at that son and I said, “How dumb do you think I am?” And realizing there was no way out he admitted his guilt.
One day there is coming a time when every single one of us will stand before God and He will accomplish perfect justice and all of our mouths will be silenced. There will be no more excuses or second chances. God will judge perfectly. He will bring justice for all wickedness. All of those who stole riches and took advantage of other people and perverted morality and were sexual predators and idolaters- every single person will stand silent before God.
Now you might be thinking- I thought this was a message about trusting God. How does that make me want to trust God? And the answer is- God is not willing that any should perish. God does not want you to stand condemned. God has already judged his Son Jesus guilty in your place. Jesus took the wrath of God for our sins so that we wouldn’t have to. And if you put your trust in Jesus, your sins can be forgiven, your penalty can be taken away. You don’t have to suffer eternal damnation you can instead have eternal life- The just shall live by faith. So if you have not put your trust in Jesus to save you from that day of judgement do it now! Because one day God will call all of the injustice of the wicked into account. He will accomplish perfect justice.
Folks if you are looking around at your life right now and it seems like God is not making any sense: the answer is to live by faith:
And you can trust God more and more, even through this time of calamity because:
1. God is always in control and He is always working to accomplish His plan in the exact way He intends
2. No matter how bad things get, one day God will fully fix everything.
3. One day God will accomplish perfect justice upon the world.
If you have never trust Jesus as your Savior- live by faith today.
If you are saved, but you are struggling with uncertainty- live by faith.
Our God is worthy of our trust!