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Asking for a Friend
Week 3
Whether we’re new to Christianity or we’ve been Christians for years, there are questions we think about and sometimes argue about with others. Over the next five weeks, we’ll take a look at the top five questions our community has.
Habakkuk 1:2-4 (ESV) The prophet cried out to God questioning why he and his loved ones were suffering.
The Moral Argument Against God:
If God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving and suffering exists, then God is either none of those things or He doesn’t exist.
The real argument is this: An all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God wouldn’t permit suffering to exist without a good reason. And because I cannot think of a good enough reason, there isn’t one. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.
When we see evil and suffering, something inside of us screams that this isn’t right, and we question why doesn’t God fix this?
We opened the door to what sin brings into the world through our free will.
God leads Habakkuk on a journey to better understand suffering.
– God lifts Habakkuk’s eyes upwards to Himself.
Habakkuk 1:5-6 (ESV)
Isaiah 45:6b-7 (ESV)
Exodus 4:11 (ESV)
Psalm 135:5-6 (ESV)
Isaiah 45:9 (ESV)
“In seventy years we can develop a host of ideas about how indifferent God appears to be about suffering. But is it reasonable to judge God and his plan for the universe by the swatch of time we spend on earth? Have we missed the perspective of the timelessness of the universe?… Who would complain if God allowed one hour of suffering in an entire lifetime of comfort? Yet we bitterly complain about a lifetime that includes suffering when that lifetime is a mere hour of eternity. Next time you want to cry out to God in anguished despair, blaming him for a miserable world, remember: less than one-millionth of the evidence has been presented…” — Philip Yancey
– Habakkuk looks back to the history of God’s faithfulness in the Old Testament.
We have to look back to the cross.
All doubts about the Father are silenced in the Son.
“For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is – limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death – He had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair.” – Dorothy Sayers
– God points Habakkuk’s attention forwards.
Habakkuk 2:3 (NLT)
Evil people will not go unpunished, and there is a real place called Hell.
We will understand suffering as a whole and on an individual level at the final judgement.
Heaven will be a compensation for all the pain and suffering.
Romans 8:18 (ESV)
Heaven will be a justification for our suffering.
2 Corinthians 4:16-17 (NIV)
Habakkuk 2:4 (KJV) “The just shall live by faith.”