#DailyDevotion Ever Wonder If God Knows What’s Going On
Habakkuk 1This is the revelation seen by the prophet Habakkuk. Habakkuk: 2 LORD, how long do I have to call for help while You don’t listen? I cry to You, “Violence!” and You don’t save us. 3Why do you let me see wrongdoing? Why do You watch misery? Before me is plundering and crime; quarreling starts and fighting continues. 4So the law is a dead letter, and no just decree is ever carried out. The wicked hold the righteous in check; and so just decrees are perverted.
Wow, you’d think Habakkuk was living in our age. But no, he is living in seventh century Judah. The people, the princes and king were worshipping other gods sometimes in exclusion to Yahweh and sometimes alongside Yahweh. They had other gods in Yahweh’s face. As such, they were not adhering to the precepts, commands, rules and regulations of the covenant Yahweh had made with Israel in the wilderness. These were very just laws, particularly in their day and age.
But because they had for all accounts abandoned Yahweh, they lived sinful lives. They took advantage of their neighbor. They stole, cheated, and were sexually immoral. They murdered for money. They oppressed the poor, the widow, the orphan, the foreigner residing amongst them and the Levites. These were the results of abandoning worshipping Yahweh alone and following his commandments.
Into this the prophet cries out, “LORD, how long do I have to call for help while You don’t listen?” Sometimes we may feel the same way. We look at the world around us and wonder when the Lord is coming. We see people abandoning the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ to fulfill their own pleasure. People’s hearts have turn cold even among people who say they follow Jesus. We see wrongdoing and misery like Habakkuk. We cry out with him as we see people parading in the streets to the right to murder the unborn in their wombs, “Violence!”
We watch as plundering and crime take place not only on our streets but Wall Street. There is quarreling and fighting in the streets by those who wish to bring anarchy to our land and we scratch our heads and wonder what is going on. Is the Lord asleep? Doesn’t he know what is going on? We then think with Habakkuk the law is a dead letter. Justice is not carried out. The wicked even keep those who stand up for morality and the rule of law by perversion of the law itself. Just where is God is all of this!
We must remember the Lord told us these days would come. Satan has been kicked out of heaven and he knows his time is short. He is going out to tear away from Christ those who don’t understand the word, those who are not rooted in him, and those who think more of the world than the world to come. It happened in Habakkuk’s day and it is happening in our day. The Lord has said so.
The good news several fold. One, and most important, all the wickedness of the world has been taken by Christ Jesus on the cross and justice has been met there. So anyone who has been engaged in it can still be saved through faith in Christ. Secondly, your iniquity, your injustice has been taken by Christ upon himself on the cross and has been punished there. Thirdly, those who refuse to believe the good news of Jesus Christ will indeed get what they deserve at the revelation of Jesus Christ on the Last Day so justice and equity will ultimately be fulfilled in accomplished.
Gracious God and Father, you have not let iniquity and injustice be blinked at but instead have laid it upon your son Jesus Christ on the cross. Grant us faith always to when we despair to look to the cross and find both justice and mercy that resides in your heart. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.