I am near complete with the Old Testament again. Reading the minor prophets daily brings an enduring commentary on the sinfulness of their times and the blatant disregard for proper living, ethics, morality, righteousness, and truth that plagued their community from the priests and princes to the lowest shepherd. This morning I read Habbakuk and sympathized with him. The very opening verse should grab you, "The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see."
Habakukk is witness to the violence in Judah and is asking God why he shows him the iniquity of the community, while at the same time withholding judgment against them. Habakkuk is making it plain to God that he sees and understands Judah is sinful, but Habakkuk does not understand why God is not doing anything about it. If Habakkuk can see it plainly, surely God can see their evil ways.
I often feel this way living in the United States. I watch the "elected" leaders run roughshod over peace, mercy, and humility. These politicians often enter Washington DC with limited funds to their name, but in a short matter of years they are multi-millionaires many times over, while the same degree of economic growth is not happening to anyone else who is not in their sphere. Regular people are going backwards financially while they advance up the economic ladder as if they had a rocket attached to their bank account. Not only that, if regular people were to behave in a similar manner as these princes, they would be jailed for their crimes, whereas the politician makes their behavior legal since they write the laws.
I stand amazed on a daily basis with how the US Military is used to lay waste to entire nations while the blind citizens worship it like it is a force for good. It is nothing to the military leaders to invade a sovereign nation under any pretext fabricated in Washington DC and then stay there wasting the population and leveling its cities. The military rotates a new crop of soldiers in regularly and very few ever consciously realize what they are doing is not good. They are fed lies about defending freedom and they are so conditioned they believe it. Meanwhile, the same politicians and companies make insane profits from the death and wasting of foreign cities and people. It is a vulgar display of power, deceit, and wickedness to fill their personal treasury from the blood of others, yet the United States is the number one proponent of it. US made weapons and additional funding are supporting every single death happening on the planet. Satan could not have devised a better nation to do his bidding than the United States and almost no one within the country sees it. They still believe the big lies.
While Habakkuk saw how the violence and strife caused anger within Judah and discontentment between brothers. I watch the "news," politicians, and "charities" constantly stoke violence between groups by elevating marginal people and their vulgarities to levels of prominence and demanding all accept the vulgarities as normal, if not preferred. The collective mental illness of Americans has become another means for the parasite class to draw greater wealth into their coffers at the expense of those suffering these mental illnesses. How did so many get deranged at the same time? Why it is the same people! After prolonged exposure to government schooling, inept and poisoned food supplies, and water with so many chemical and drugs it would make a billy goat puke, people literally lose their minds and the ability to think. Habakkuk asked God why he abstained from justice and did not just destroy the wicked because they had it coming.
God's response to Habakkuk goes something like this, "I am doing something you cannot conceive or believe, but it is mighty. I am raising up some real bad muldoons who will come and trample these wicked people. You have to wait because they will come swiftly and with even greater violence than you can imagine to deliver my rightoues indignation. They will laugh at your leaders who will be nothing to them." God told Habakkuk he needn't worry. He was aware of what was going on and he was going to set the scales through a return of violence.
God tells Habakkuk to remain faithful while living among filth. This resonates with me. Christians, if they have any ability to see at all and are not blinded through willful disobedience, should recognize they are living in the same kind of times, but they have a mission that goes beyond enduring the evil. Whereas God chose to use the Babylonians to spoil Judah and the other surrounding nations through might, this time He has sent his Son and is using mercy.
Jesus has already come.
God has not tarried. God gave the means to correct the wrongs of today 2,000 years ago. God does not have to raise up vast armies to march against the wicked and cause wanton destruction to bring judgment against the violent whores of sodomy leading nations to ruin and people to the grave. These people are already judged for their lack of faith in Jesus. They are already condemned and are truly dead in their sins. At the same time, those who believe are made righteous through Jesus and are then sent to the front lines to live among the heathens with the mission to say, "There is a better way. God loves you. Jesus will free you. You do not have to die and suffer for your miserable life. You can turn away from it and embrace Jesus and be made clean."
Imagine the mercy of God that he would still accept a truly repentant politician who filled bank accounts with filthy lucre and rivers with the blood of innocents, but if they repent and believe in Jesus, he will forgive them. Their worst violation was not believing in Jesus and the free gift of salvation. All their other sins, and they are massive, pale in comparison to rejecting the Messiah.
This world is trash. The United States is the worst corrupter of people, nations, and children in the entire world, but Jesus is still winning people and setting them free, if they would only believe and turn their life over to Him. Babylon has fallen and is judged, but God will still redeem those who turn to Jesus and repent.