Saturday, August 8, 2020 -
“Therefore, the law is ignored, and justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore, justice comes out perverted. Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days – You would not believe if you were told” (Habakkuk 1:4-5).
Obviously, I, too, have wondered about justice being perverted, not only in my case but in that of so many other men I’ve met here in prison. The whole United States justice system is corrupt from the courts to the Department of Justice to the majority of the law-makers themselves! These verses so adequately describe America today.
And we see this perversion of justice now at what seems every level of society and culture, where right is called wrong and wrong is called right, as Isaiah warned of happening in Isaiah 5:20. Micah also echoed this in Micah 3:2. But why does God allow such injustice? Why does He allow justice to be perverted? Or allow right to be prosecuted as wrong? This is so especially true of the righteous.
Job certainly wondered why this was. But when he asked God why, he was met with a similar reaction as that of the one provided to Habakkuk. “Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days – you would not believe if you were told.” In fact, God’s answer to Job in Job 38-41 never provides him with an explanation or really an answer. Nor should we expect one today. Our minds are too small and finite to comprehend God’s intentions and plans. Look how God starts out His long dialogue with Job: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge” (Job 38:2 NIV)? At the beginning of verse three and several other verses in these three chapters, God basically tells Job to “suck it up and be a man!” He follows with “Who are you to question me? I should be questioning you not you asking me.”
And then God reminds Job of the astonishing wonders of Almighty God who created all things and controls all things, even the wind and deep recesses of the sea and remotest universes! Job answered the Lord, “Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth” (Job 40:4).
God then continues to goad Job, “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? Do you have an arm like God’s, and can you voice the thunder-like His” (Job 40:8-9 NIV)? Job eventually repents for questioning God and confesses, “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures My plans without knowledge?’ Surely, I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:2-5 NIV).
Habakkuk, in the end, rejoices in the Lord despite the turmoil in the land, “Though the fig tree shall not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength and He has made my feet like hinds’ feet and makes me walk on my high places” (Habakkuk 3:17-19).
No matter what we may be going through now we can rejoice in the Lord, the God of our salvation. He knows all things, of which we can barely comprehend. We merely must trust and obey.