Why Do You Allow It?

How long, O LORD, must I call for help? But you do not listen! “Violence is everywhere!” I cry, but you do not come to save. Must I forever see these evil deeds?   Habakkuk 1:2-3

Imagine Habakkuk at home in Jerusalem, his head in his hands. He cannot pick up a Jerusalem Journal newspaper without reading about a shooting, a killing, or some other kind of violence. When he looks around the city, he says, “Wherever I look, I see destruction and violence. I am surrounded by people who love to argue and fight” (Habakkuk 1:3).

Everywhere he looks—businesses, government, neighbors, even in the Temple—there are disputes and arguments. You might expect a general civility among the people of God, and it had once been so, but now it’s every man for himself. Habakkuk finds himself in a litigious society.

So “the law has become paralyzed” (Habakkuk 1:4). The courts are jammed with litigation, but when all is said and done, justice doesn’t prevail because “the wicked far outnumber the righteous, so that justice has become perverted” (1:4). More cases are decided on the basis of money and power than truth and justice, and as a result, the whole legal system is coming apart at the seams. Does this sound strangely familiar?

The thing that made this so painful for Habakkuk was that all this was happening among God’s people! God had called these people to be a light to other nations. Jerusalem was supposed to be the city where God’s name was honored and where people lived according to his law. Habakkuk’s heart was heavy because of the rampant injustice in the city of God. He wondered how long God would allow this to go on, and he longed for God to do something about the sins of his own people.

Why does God tolerate wrong? How are we to understand what is happening in our day? Habakkuk raises the great questions that believers in a fallen world face in every generation. Why is the world as it is? Why does God allow the evils that stalk the world today?

For further reading, see Habakkuk 1