How should we respond to the victories of hateful people?
Text: Habakkuk 1:12-2:20
Hosts:
Tim DeFor
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
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Contributors
Keywords
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Brian: The problem with hateful people is that they're so successful. If they didn't possess power or positions of power or influence, no one would care. They couldn't bother us. But every day we see wicked men and women exercise enormous control in countries all around the world. We see narcissistic bosses torment their employees to feed their own egos. We see HOA officials torment their neighbors, and abusive parents win court case after court case. How should believers respond to the victories of hateful people? Part of us wants to fight fire with fire. Hate the haters. But what does God tell the prophet Habakkuk, and what is he telling us today? Welcome to Crosstalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life into all our lives. I'm Brian French. Today, while Dr. Kent is away, Vicki Hitzges, Nathan Norman, and Tim DeFor continue their short series through the book of the prophet Habakkuk. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Habakkuk chapter 1, verse 12, as we join their discussion.
Nathan: Tim and Vicki, welcome back. Where have you seen hateful or evil people win? You know, I'm not talking about the long-term victories, but where have you seen just really terrible people have victory?
Vicki: Well, Brian mentioned one in the introduction. My HOA was horrible to me. I mean, it was the president, I assume. I'm out of there now, but I assume he was embezzling money. He just— he went after single women. And the way the laws are written in Texas, you can't sue an HOA and win. And I had to sue him twice, and I lost both times. That's how I found out about that. But anyway, I would consider that a win for an evil person.
Nathan: Absolutely. Yeah, terrible.
Tim: Well, I've seen people in business deals that they, uh, they have tricky things in the contracts and everybody signs and then they take advantage of the other party. Yeah, I think about maybe what many young people are tempted towards, and that's like cheating on a test or not studying. You certainly don't want your doctor doing that.
Nathan: No, you don't.
Tim: Yeah, but short term it works.
Nathan: Absolutely right. And you see world leaders around the world who are just awful individuals. Not every world leader, obviously, but there are too many that have positions of power and they, they can win elections. And that's frustrating.
Vicki: And indeed, they're evil. And they, at least short term, like you said, they do win.
Tim: Absolutely. And those who stir up just horrible feelings, like people who rage bait online, or it just seems like they're trying to inflame things to gain attention and they get likes and views and they're making money from it.
Nathan: Oh yeah, more than popular, more than us, more than my sermon videos on YouTube, all 64 viewers. Yeah, no, it's true. And I can recall there was a pastor who was trying to get a position at a church that I was associated with, and me and another individual knew this person. He had threatened to fistfight a woman at a board meeting, at a church meeting. "Let's take this outside and we will fight it out in the parking lot," right? So not a good person. And it was a matter of public record, right? I think there was a police complaint So we talked to the church and we are like, "Hey, this is what happened," but the guy was so charismatic and so smooth and so talented, the church went ahead and hired him. And guess what? They had problems.
Vicki: Guess what?
Tim: Not surprising.
Nathan: How could we have foreseen this problem? It is hard. It is hard when you see hateful or evil people have a victory because, well, let's talk about our psychology here. How do you feel when you see Hateful people win.
Vicki: Discouraged, angry, and I think, God, what are you doing? Or why aren't you doing?
Tim: Yeah.
Nathan: God, why aren't you doing? I love that. Yes. That should be on a shirt.
Tim: Yeah. God, why aren't you doing? I like that. Yeah. Similarly frustrated, I think sad for the deep injustice, even if it's not done to us, if we care about people. Yeah, helpless. I don't have power against these people that have great power. I don't know what I can do about it.
Nathan: Yeah. Yeah. I tend to be somebody who sees a problem and I want to tackle it immediately. All right. That's part of the problem living at a church that's like the building's, I don't know, over 150 years old because I'll see like a maintenance issue and I'm like, all right, time to deal with this. Right now, you know, and there goes, there goes the rest of my day. That's a personal flaw on my own. But if I see injustice, man, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna take care of it right now.
Vicki: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan: Uh, regardless of if it's, uh, the right way to do it or not. Um, and that's a problem. But as we're continuing our short series through the prophet Habakkuk, uh, last week we saw this prophet complaining to God about the injustices he saw in Judah. But God tells Habakkuk that he was aware of the situation and that he already had a plan to discipline his people. Well, great. God was preparing the Chaldeans, otherwise known as the Babylonians, to overthrow Judah and take them into captivity. But this led to a huge objection from Habakkuk, and frankly, us. Why is a good God using a wicked culture to bring judgment to his own people? I mean, Vicki, can you imagine God telling you, yeah, by the way, I'm going to work through that HOA president. Like, he's— I'm— I've I've got plans that I'm going to accomplish through him. Like, no.
Vicki: Yeah, and not just plans, but they're going to wipe you out. Isn't that what God said? Yeah, he's going to wipe you out. And I was like, I know, make it stop.
Nathan: Take them into captivity, right? Yeah, he's going to own your property, right? It's, uh, yeah, it's— he's going to eat your cereal, uh, that you bought for yourself. It's not okay. Why is a good God using a wicked culture to bring judgment to his own people? The Babylonians were far, far, far worse than Judah. I mean, Judah was doing bad stuff, and they were treating their neighbor unjustly, and they were practicing idolatry and all kinds of sexual immorality. But the Babylonians were far, far, far worse in murdering their neighbors and sacrificing people. But let's see what the prophet says to God as he's complaining about this. Vicki, you want to read us Habakkuk 1:12-13?
Vicki: Sure. Habakkuk says, Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof? You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever? Ever? I will take my stand at the watchpost and station myself on the tower and look out to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint.
Nathan: I think there's something lost in the translation, but Habakkuk is saying, yeah, Babylon sees us as fish, fish to be slaughtered. I've been called a dog before. I've not been called—
Tim: A fish.
Nathan: You worthless fish. But that's Pretty demeaning, and that's what Habakkuk's saying to God. "Yeah, okay, we're not good, but them? You choose those people?" Offensive language intended by Habakkuk. He very loudly tells God that God himself is too holy to work through people like the Babylonians. Babylon kills people as if they were harvesting fish, and then they worship their instruments of capture and death. And these people are the ones who God wants to work through? That's incredibly hard for him. So Vicki and Tim, imagine there were significant problems in a local church or denomination, kind of like what we talked about last week, and God decides to bring harsh discipline to a congregation. Okay, great. Let's right the wrongs here. What type of person or organization would you be troubled that God was using to bring this kind of discipline.
Tim: Oh, worse—
Vicki: a worse church than mine. I mean, I— it's a principle in business. If you want to learn something, don't find somebody who can't do it and do the opposite. Oh yeah, because you won't learn it. Go find a mentor that knows what the heck they're doing and follow them. And yet God's going, nope.
Nathan: Yeah, that's like when Sears bought Kmart, right? Kmart was floundering, Sears was floundering. So they said, with our powers combined, we'll fail even faster.
Tim: And they did.
Nathan: And they did.
Tim: Yeah. Well, I thought of right away is we've had a disgruntled neighbor who complained about whatever we did. If, you know, if it was too loud and we're a long distance away, or if the field that was next to us that we built in because it was out in the country, if anything out of the field blew into his yard. Or— and it, it seems super frivolous, everything. And people who knew him knew that he was a complainer and was nasty. Or, you know, I think about— I would hate it if somebody in the government was— wanted to use the church or the church space for something, and they bring lawsuits and they take over the property. Or, you know, somebody who openly slanders the church and throws out lies to— for some revenge. You know, there's all these different ways that would hate it. It just wouldn't make any sense at all. Yeah, we've got our problems, but really them?
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just, I just can't imagine. I imagine like some sort of political organization coming in and taking over the church. And, you know, for those of you who know me that listen, I call myself an avowed nonpartisan. So I'd be pretty angry if either side came and bullied me around and told me anything, right? I would think of an organization like Planned Parenthood, if God was using them to come in and bring discipline to us. I even think like if he used a secular news organization to reveal the sinful patterns of us, right? Like, and you think of some of these news organizations and their founders are serial adulterers and have very questionable overseas investment holdings. And, uh, and it's really— it's like, okay, I get it, I get the church isn't perfect, we're flawed, we need discipline, and you're gonna use them? Yeah, yeah, to, to, to discipline us? Well, that's not fair. Discipline them, right? It doesn't make sense. So it's, it's a hard situation that Habakkuk finds himself in, and we understand it. How should believers respond to the victories of hateful people? Because that's what Habakkuk is seeing here. These hateful people are having a victory, and God, you're the one handed it to them, lock, stock and barrel. So once again, just like we saw last week, God answers Habakkuk. Vicki, you want to take Habakkuk 2:2-4 there?
Vicki: Yeah. He had been questioning God and he said, I'll wait for the answer. And then he wrote, In verse 2, "And the Lord answered me, and He said, 'Write the vision, make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end, it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
Nathan: Okay, so God says to write this prophecy on tablets. So at this point in Israel's history, they most certainly have other means to write things on, like scrolls. But he says, hey, write this down on tablets. We often say something is written in stone to mean that it's permanent. God knows that Babylon is puffed up and arrogant. He knows that they're not right. He also knows that Babylon trusts in their own strength rather than putting their faith in God. Behold, Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright within him. But the righteous, those who know me, they'll live by their faith, by trusting in me. But to Habakkuk's objection, how could God use the wicked Babylonians to judge Judah? God gives his answer. He declares 5 devastating woes or condemnations against Babylon. In fact, oftentimes, both in the Old and New Testament, when you see that word woe, the colloquial term would be go to hell. It really would go to hell. This is why you are going to be damned for all of eternity. Uh, and it is harsh. We're not going to look at all of them, they're long. You guys can go and look at Habakkuk 2 and read through all the 5 woes. Uh, but let's take a look at, uh, at 2 of them back to back. Uh, Tim, you want to, uh, read those for us? Sure.
Tim: I'd like to say my pleasure, but it's not really a pleasure, but I'll read them. I'll read them. Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own. For how long? And loads himself with pledges. Will not your debtors suddenly arise and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them. Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you. For the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. Sounds pretty rough.
Nathan: Yeah.
Tim: Then another. 2:18 and following. What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols. Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, 'Awake!' To a silent stone, 'Arise!' Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah, it's absolutely incredible. Their murdering spree that Babylon is committing, it's almost like these debts. And God says, yeah, the debtors will suddenly arise. You will be destroyed. Your violence will be returned with violence, and you will not recover from it. God tells Habakkuk, yes, God is going to use the wicked Babylonians to bring discipline to Judah, but he will restore Judah in time. But the Babylonians, well, he will wipe them from the face of the earth. He will judge them too, but their judgment will be far harsher. And I think the contrast here is between discipline and judgment. God's using the Babylonians to bring discipline, meaning he's, he's bringing this harsh reality into Judah's life to change their moral character. And to allow them to flourish in the future. But the Babylonians don't get that. They're getting judgment. And judgment isn't about improving your life. Judgment is about putting an end to your evil. In the same way, we can see hateful people winning and think that God is favoring them over his own people. But he's not. They're like toilet paper, manufactured for a purpose, then discarded down the drain and never to be seen again.
Vicki: Well, there's an image.
Nathan: There's an image. I tried to keep it a little more abstract. How should believers respond to the victories of hateful people? Well, by trusting God will bring justice in his timing. Whatever victories evil people achieve is only temporary. Sin and evil are always self-defeating. We have to keep that in mind. So, so when we look at this in real life or try to find metaphors for what this is like, uh, Tim and Vicki, what are some like really dirty jobs? I mean, absolutely filthy, grimy, disgusting jobs or chores that, that people have to do?
Vicki: Oh gosh, just—
Tim: oh, I thought—
Vicki: I'm thinking about micro. Now, what did you have in mind?
Tim: Oh, I thought of a couple. I had a friend who worked at a slaughterhouse for pigs. Oh, and, uh, there is this big tank that over time gets gunked up and plugged, and somebody has to go in and like pull out the things that are clogging up the machine. Oh, and it—
Vicki: oh, it'll be hard to beat that.
Tim: And then I think of small things, like even, even in a home, like I don't love cleaning out the cat litter. Something like that, or I think of a crime scene person who has to go in and clean up after a crime scene and know the horror that happened there. I don't know why all of mine have to do with cleaning. Those are disgusting.
Nathan: Well, I did use the word dirty jobs.
Vicki: Yeah, I can't beat that. I'm sorry, I'd like to, but—
Nathan: Pork rendering houses, murder sites. Cat litter.
Vicki: Yeah.
Nathan: Oh yeah. Well, you referenced the show. What was the show?
Vicki: Oh, it's Dirty Jobs. Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs. And he did— he just one after the other. He has all these horrible jobs, but they get done every single day.
Tim: Yeah.
Nathan: But what comes to my mind is the floor sponge. In my house growing up, my mom would get so angry at me because there's a mess on the floor. So I just grabbed the sponge. From the sink and I would clean the floor and then I'd put it right back. And she would say, "What are you doing? That's what we clean our dishes with." Right? "Use the floor sponge." So in my house there was like a level, right? You'd use the sponge on the dishes and then once that kind of got ratty, you put it under the sink and then that was the one you're supposed to use on the floor. 'Cause you don't wanna clean up the same mess from the floor that you're cleaning your dishes with 'cause you're redistributing the dirt and everything. So it took her years to train me to not use the dish rags on the floor. But the reason why she did that is because you don't use a relatively clean item to clean the really dirty things. You use the relatively dirty or discardable things to clean the dirty things, right? That's kind of what God is arguing with Habakkuk here. He's saying, so you want me to bring in really holy people to come and do the dirty work of bringing harsh discipline into Judah's life. Why would I do that to them? No, no, no. I've got a dirty floor sponge that I can use, and that's the Babylonians to clean up the mess here. I don't want to have to use pure things on impure things.
Vicki: That's a good illustration.
Nathan: Yeah.
Brian: Yeah.
Nathan: Thank you. Yeah. So I'd imagine with— in Tim's case, you know, they're not saying, hey, you know, jump into your wedding dress and clean out the hog rendering Uh, that's, you know, like, no, you're not wearing white, you're not wearing a new pair of jeans. This isn't your church best clothes. What are you doing? You're putting on like a jumpsuit that is disgusting, that immediately gets washed and is only used for that purpose and no other purpose. And that doesn't make its way home, that doesn't make its way into your car, right? You just, you just put on dirty, disgusting clothes and use dirty, disgusting tools to take care of the dirty, disgusting job.
Tim: That's what What do you do with it? You burn it. Like, it's done.
Nathan: Amen.
Tim: You just— yeah, it's done.
Nathan: Yeah, it's, it's over. We're not doing this anymore. Yeah, absolutely. I, I was shocked a number of years ago. I was talking with a pastor friend of mine. He was at another church, and we were talking about our churches doing things collaboratively together, and this church in the area came up, and, uh, man, I This church is horrible. I mean, it was just filled with toxic, double-minded, lying, mean-spirited, hateful people. They could twist a scripture to, uh, to mean whatever they wanted and to justify their general nastiness. And, uh, um, I'd been burned by them before. I knew this guy had been burned by them before. Everyone's been burned by them before. And he said to me, I praise God that that church is in our area. And I was like, what? I'm feeling him out, like, are you just like so generous? Are you super hyper spiritual? And I said, explain, what do you mean? And he said, well, you know, in a car at the bottom of the oil pan, there's a magnet. And the reason for that magnet is as the engine is running in the car, it will make these metal shavings. But if those metal shavings get put back into the engine or any part of the car, it'll cause damage. So there's a magnet at the bottom of the oil pan, so it draws all of the impurities to that one point. So when you do an oil change, all of the impurities get let out of the car and the— and the engine goes undamaged. He said that church is the magnet at the bottom of the car. It attracts all of these toxic, hateful, mean-spirited people so the rest of the churches can flourish and be healthy. It's just, wow, what an image. That's what the Babylonians are. They're the magnet. Just, yeah, just deal with all the impurities and grossness so that, that God doesn't have to use purer things, cleaner things, cleaner people, holier people to take care of the dirty jobs. In that same way, God will use evil things to put an end to evil things. But there's two objections to this. One, you might be thinking, well, why doesn't God act now? Right? I mean, I wish he would act now. I want him to, to act in the face of evil people. So, okay, fine. Use the evil people to judge and then like Tim said, burn it, right? Burn the rag and we're done. We're never going to deal with this again. But he tends to delay. And like we said at the beginning of the show, we're discouraged by the bullies, the abusers, the negligent and general wickedness of individuals who have victories. I think there's two ways to answer this. One is for some, he's waiting for them to repent and believe in Christ. And so for the Babylonians, yes, even the Babylonians can repent and follow the one true God. For the worst of the worst in our culture, yes, they can repent and they can follow after the one true God. And I think God does wait and give them an opportunity before he brings final judgment, because then it's too late. And I think the other answer is, for some of us, maybe not as satisfying, but, but realistic. I think he has a plan that is far beyond our imaginations. I don't think we can fully understand how God can bring good out of catastrophe, out of evil men's plans, out of heartache, out of difficulties. I just think we lack the imagination to understand.
Vicki: Well, God said that last week in the lesson. He said, you don't know what's going on, and if you did know, you wouldn't understand it.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, good point. Good point. We need to trust the plan. And that's hard to say. I don't like to basically do what Habakkuk's doing. I don't like this. I don't like what's going on. But I'm trusting you. I know your character. I know you love me. And as Christians, we know that he loves us because of Christ Jesus and in Christ Jesus. So I'm going to trust the plan. Now, the second objection that we have, we've been talking a lot about God's justice and wrath. What about mercy? What about love? You know, what's the point of God's justice? What is the point of his terrifying wrath? And for that answer, you're just going to have to come back next week because that's Habakkuk's third and final objection to all of this, this prophetic, this prophetic text. But for this week, as we're looking at this text, we should respond to victories of hateful people. By trusting God will bring justice in his timing. It's really hard to do, but we have to trust that God is working. In these chaotic times, there is a sense that the faithful church is on the wrong side of history. And in the short term, you know what, we probably are. The culture says we're wrong on sex, wrong on marriage, wrong on gender, wrong to believe Jesus is the only way, wrong to believe the Bible is the unchanging and perfect word of God. But in the long run, Jesus is coming back. God is working in this world. And yes, we wrestle with this present evil, but we don't give up. Evil destroys itself. Don't lose heart. Have courage. Trust the plan.
Brian: They say there are 3 kinds of people: people in a trial, people coming out of a trial, and people about to enter a trial. If you are in a trial because of the wickedness of another person or group of people and they seem to be winning, how should you respond? Trust that God will bring justice in his way and in his timing. God may bring in someone even more evil to deal with your tormentor, but as we just heard, evil destroys itself. So don't lose heart. Have courage, even if it doesn't make Sense. Trust God's plan. The Crosstalk Podcast is a production of Crosstalk Global, equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. Crosstalk just finished successful trainings in Bucharest, Moldova, Southern California, and Kansas this season. We're getting ready for another training in Kenya this summer, and Cuba and Nepal in the fall. Help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click "Donate" in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also support this show by rating it on whatever platform you're listening to us. Be sure to join us next week as we continue our short series through the prophetic book of Habakkuk. You won't want to miss it.
Nathan: Before I go into the question, have you guys heard Habakkuk pronounced differently at any point?
Vicki: We just studied it and they didn't know how to say it and they were calling it Habacook.
Tim: I've heard that, Habacook and Habakkuk.
Vicki: Yeah, but that's because I don't know.
Nathan: Habuki. I've heard Habuki. Just grasping at straws on that one. It's a cross between Habakkuk and Malachi.
Tim: I just—
Nathan: okay, I've heard the whole— I think it's Habakkuk, but my Hebrew is not something that would have made Dr. Rixby proud at Talbot School of Theology.
Tim: Okay.