When God Seems Silent

Introduction - The Problem of History

Do you ever feel weighed down by what you see on the news? The evil and rampant wickedness that seems to dominate our world and culture seems to be unending.

We live in a world of violence and injustice as we saw a little more than a week ago with the shooting in Buffalo where a man went in to a grocery store with the express purpose of killing african americans and ended up killing 10 people and injuring another 5 and now has pled not guilty in this heinous crime because he sees no value in people’s lives.

We see in our culture that immorality and alternative lifestyles are celebrated and praised and where the death of babies serve to promote the rights of women. Divorce rates and the number of people cohabitating before marriage are all rising.

It is easy to see the wickedness in a culture that does not submit itself to Christ. What about when we see evil and wickedness among those who profess to be God’s people?

When we see televangelists and prosperity preachers take advantage of people making great promises to those who give only to take that money and build mansions for themselves and fly their own personal jets.

When we have to create committees to investigate reports of abuse from clergy.

When the sexual lifestyles and licentiousness are nearly as prevalent within the church as outside the church.

When churches begin to affirm and condone alternative lifestyles, to ordain those who practice those lifestyles and even see churches like a church from Austin, TX change God’s pronouns from He and Him to She and Her on Mother’s day because the bibilical authors didn’t really understand who God was. This church was founded by Brandon and Jen Hatmaker, who themselves began to condone alternative lifestyles and sadly who divorced after 27 years of marriage.

What do we do when we see wickedness infiltrate the church?

What do we do when God seems distant and silent and wickedness seems to triumph?

Read Habakkuk 1:1-5

Habakkuk 1:1–5 (ESV)

The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?

Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?

Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?

Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.

So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth.

For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.

“Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded.

For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.

I. Becoming Burdened Over Sin

We are not given much information about Habakkuk. We do not know exactly when he lived or prophesied, but we do have some clues. We know it was coming towards the end of the Kingdom of Judah as God tells Habakkuk that the Babylonians will soon be coming to take them into captivity. Most scholars believe Habakkuk was a child during the reign of King Josiah.

King Josiah became king at 8 years old. During his teenage years he began a system of reform and repentance for the kingdom. As they were rebuilding and renovating the temple, they found a copy of the law of Moses. After reading the law, Josiah was convinced they needed to tear down all the ashera poles and the idols and images of false worship and return back to a proper worship of God. Judah was starting to head back into a proper direction.

Sadly, later Josiah would be killed in a battle against Pharoah Neco. Judah would quickly return to their former idolatrous ways and wickedness would return to the land.

Habakkuk saw what God was doing through Josiah in bringing the people back to Himself. Now, the people were rebelling and becoming worse than they were before Josiah and he is confused and burdened by this knowledge.

In fact, that’s what this word “oracle” means. While oracles can contain information about the future, and God certainly does reveal to Habakkuk what He is going to do in the near future, the word “oracle” is not so much a foretelling prophecy as it is simply receiving the word of the Lord and the word itself means “burden.” Habakkuk is burdened by what he sees and knows about his own people and about what God is going to be doing in the life of His people.

Habakkuk is recognizing the problem of history. If anyone has ever taken philosophy, you might remember the problem of evil and the existence of God. In theological terms we call this Theodicy. The question that is posed is “how can evil exist if God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving.”

David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in 1779 states: “Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?” His argument is if God exists, either God is not all powerful, or God is not all loving. But an all powerful and all loving God cannot exist when there is such evil and wickedness in our world.

Now, Habakkuk is not doubting the existence of God. But he is confused and even doubting the plan God has for His people. He is faced with this same problem and asking the question, “Why is God not doing something about the evil among our people?” Habakkuk isn’t looking to the wickedness of the nations around him. He’s looking at the rebellion among his own people. We shouldnt be surprised that Hollywood and Washington D.C. are doing what they’re doing. It should break our hearts and burden us when we see other professing believers accept the worldview of the lost around us though.

So what do we do when we are confronted by this problem of history and when God seems silent and evil seems to go unanswered?

II. Cry Out to God

When we feel as if God is distant and silent, we have one of two choices to make:

We can turn from God and live our own lives

Many times, people will turn away from God when they can’t make sense of what is going on.

This has sadly been true of many who had once believed in Christ, but no longer do. There is a current movement known as deconstruction, a deconstructing of one’s faith and leaving what one has believed for so long. Joshua Harris, author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Kevin Max, a member of the band DC Talk, YouTube personalities, Rhett & Link, who at one time worked with Phil Vischer on a series called “What’s in the Bible?” Marty sampson from hillsong There’s many reasons for these deconstructions but for many of them it stems to being unable to see or make sense of what God is doing.

This is not the route of Habakkuk though. Habakkuk did not lose his faith in God, even though he was confused and could not understand what God was doing. What did he do? He turned towards God and cried out to Him.

We can turn towards God and cry out to Him

We can see that Habakkuk spent quite a bit of time crying out to God. “How long shall I cry for help or cry to you “Violence”? He was not one to say one little prayer and then give up when his prayer seemed to go unanswered. He persisted in his prayer in crying out. This actually shows us Habakkuk’s faith in God even though he didn’t know what was going on. Here’s the thing, we can have faith and not have all the answers. In fact, faith grows as we learn to trust Christ even when we do not understand everything He is doing.

Now, to be clear, He is not calling us to a blind faith. God gives us evidences of His existence and of His love for us along the way. But He probably will not ever give us all the answers to what He is doing all the time.

We can look at the story of Job and how God allowed Satan to afflict him and Job could not understand why God seemed to abandon him. God came to Job and asked him, “Who is the Creator?” “Who is the One who sees all and knows all?” God didn’t tell Job why he was suffering. He simply told Job to trust that God knew what He was doing.

Our crying out to God is a demonstration of our faith in Him, to believe that even when we can’t see God or hear Him, we cry out knowing that He is still there and He is still working even when its confusing.

It is not a sin to ask God questions.

He knows the confusion you might be feeling. He sees and knows our hearts, so we need to be honest with Him and present our questions to Him.

We see from Habakkuk that God invites our questions to Him. Again, we may not always get the answers we are looking for, but God desires for us to come to Him.

But be careful that we do not accuse God of any wrongdoing.

James 1:13 ESV

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

God cannot be tempted into doing evil and He does not tempt anyone into evil.

We can be honest with God about our questions and tell Him we are confused about what He is doing.

Habakkuk is trying to make sense of God’s plan. He knows God is holy and cannot tolerate evil nor does He cause anyone to be evil, which is actually what is creating the confusion for Him that God is allowing the wickedness to continue on for so long.

Habakkuk is simply asking God, what’s the plan? I’m not getting it, please help me make sense of what You are doing.

Instead of turning from God, He invites us to come to Him with our questions and our confusions. He already knows what we are feeling. Be honest with Him. That is a demonstration of faith itself is by turning to Him with your questions and your seeking after God. And in verse 5, we see God begins to answer Habakkuk’s question. We will get into God’s response next week, but for now, we need to see that for those who honestly seek after God, He will make Himself known. It may take some time. It will take some perseverance. God didn’t answer Habakkuk right away, but don’t give up! Persevere and God will answer.

Hear the words of Jeremiah the prophet:

Jeremiah 29:11–13 ESV

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Don’t be halfhearted in your pursuit of God. Seek Him with all your heart. The answers He may give may not always be what we want, but He will give us what we need.

III. Trust that God is Working Even When we Don’t Understand

In the meantime, what if we are not hearing from God? Habakkuk spent quite a bit of time praying to God before He answered. What do we do when God seems silent?

Remember that we do not have all the information

Habakkuk kept crying out to God because He knew he didn’t have all the information. The information he had made him confused, scared and possibly angry. But he knew there was a bigger picture that he could not see.

We are limited in our perspective because of our limited human existence. We can only see the tiny little piece of information directly in front of us. It is like looking at a very pixelated fraction of a portrait. It looks like a mess at first, but when you can zoom out and see the whole picture you can make out what is being shown.

Example of a zoomed in portion and then looking at the whole picture.

There can be a reason why God allows evil to take place for a time, even though evil is contrary to His nature. God does not cause evil, but He does allow it and use it for His good purposes and only at the end when we see the finished product can we understand.

Romans 8:28 ESV

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

We also know that God is long suffering and patient. 2 Peter 3:9

2 Peter 3:9 ESV

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

We can ask, why doesn’t God just eliminate all evil right now? Of course, when we ask that, we have to ask, what all is evil? Our minds might go to things like the Holocaust and to 9-11 and the war in Ukraine. Why does God allow that instead of just completely eliminate all of it. Well the problem is, if God were to eliminate all evil, He would have to eliminate you and me as well, for however good we think we are, we have to acknowledge the truth of Romans 3:23

Romans 3:23 ESV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

If we are sinners, then we too are evil and God would have to destroy us too. But God does not want to destroy us, but wants to save us. Which means, He has to keep evil people around until such time as He can eliminate the evil within us. But that means, for the moment, allowing evil to continue.

While philosophers say that an all loving and all powerful God would eliminate evil, It actually is that it is the love and power of God that is keeping Him from destroying all evil in a moment.

Remind yourself that God has dealt with sin and wickedness on the Cross

Last, we have some hindsight available to us that Habakkuk was still trying to look forward to. We know God has dealt with evil when He sent Christ to come and die upon the cross.

When Christ, the perfect and pure Son of God, died upon that cross, He became sin for us and in that moment God defeated evil, sin and death. God crucified sin and evil on the cross through the sacrifice of Christ!

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

All those who repent and believe in Christ have now received Christ’s righteousness while He has taken away our sin. Our sin and evil has been dealt with on the cross.

Yes, evil is allowed to have temporary sway over the hearts of men right now, but Christ has already defeated evil and it will be completely obliterated when He comes again. In that moment, all those who believe and trust in Him will be given glorified bodies, bodies that have not been affected by sin and evil.

1 Corinthians 15:51–52 ESV

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

then God will proceed to destroy evil once and for all and then God’s people will be safe from that day for we will no longer have sin and evil existing within our own bodies. It is because of His love for us and his longsuffering patience for others to come to the knowledge of the truth and to saving faith in Christ that He is waiting to completely obliterate evil until that day.

Conclusion