Yesterday we talked about how it's really impossible to divide the
world into two groups of people. And that's true so long as the
groups we are talking about are good and evil.
All of us really do evil and none of us lives up
to God's perfect standards of good.
But of course there are other ways to divide people into two groups.
In fact sometimes we talk about people having either a type A or a type B personality.
People who are type A are aggressive.
They they take action and they take action now.
Type B personality people are a little bit more relaxed. They're more patient.
They wait before acting, if they act at all.
So let me ask. When it comes to delivering justice in our world and punishing
evil, which of those two, two personality types do you think you should be; type A or type B?
The answer seems obvious right? In fact, sometimes we're told that silence
and inaction are not options when it comes to the evil that we see around us.
We're told that we're actually complicit in evil if we don't do something,
anything that we can to stop it,
At least when it comes to delivering justice, the choice between type A and type B seems to be pretty obvious.
Except that yesterday we saw that
when it comes to punishing evil, God is sort of what we might describe as a type B personality.
God often just allows evil to seemingly run wild as a way of punishing evil.
That's the amazing and an incredible and perplexing thing that God told
the prophet, Habakkuk, that he was going to do.
He was going to use evil as his instrument to punish evil.
Well then God went on to say that
now it was the prophet Habakkuk's turn to do exactly the same thing.
In fact, God tells Habakkuk that there are two types of people in the world.
There are, first of all, those who trust in their own power.
Who think that they can get done everything that needs to get done, including punishing evil as it deserves.
And then there are those people who live not by trusting in their own power,
but instead by trusting in God's.
Here's what God says to Habakkuk.
So two types of people.
Type A trusts in his own power and his own strength.
Type B, God says the righteous type, lives by faith, lives by trusting in God.
Now let's be clear. There are times when we see evil around us
when God would very much want us to do something.
God in fact tells us to to stand up for and to speak up for those who cannot stand up or speak for themselves.
And maybe God has, maybe God will give you the opportunity to either protect or
rescue someone else from evil.
But is it also fair to say that the sum total of all the evil that exists in our world
is far bigger than any of us can do anything about?
Is it fair to say that that that evil is even bigger than all of us can do anything about?
That's not what you hear, of course. Very often the impression is given
that if we all just band together, if we work hard enough, if we're determined enough, if we all just
do all the right things and elect all the right people, then at some point we'll finally be able
to eradicate this world of all of the evil that has always existed in it.
We talk about being puffed up, right? I mean yes there is a time when God would very
much want us to act, but there's also a time when God wants us to know the limits of our own power
and instead put all of our trust in his. Let's pray.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Give us the wisdom and the strength of heart to trust your power rather than our own.
Humble us by your Holy Spirit so that we live our lives by faith. Amen