The Just Shall Live By Faith

Tuesday morning September 11, 2001 began much like any other morning. But events the normal routines of life were terribly and tragically interrupted in an instant.  Time moves ever onward and we pray for the victims, their families, the rescue personnel, and various government officials. As a nation we are angry, frightened, worried.  As Christians we want to ask why?  Why did God allow this to happen to us?  Maybe instead we should ask, “Why not us?”  Neither question can be adequately answered by anyone. So this article will attempt to answer another question, “How are we to react to this?”

The answer is provided by the prophet Habakkuk.  His cries for justice seemed to go unanswered by.  Then God finally responded.

Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told you.  For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.  They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves (2:5-7).

This was not the answer the prophet expected.  He could not believe the Lord would allow the people of Judah to suffer punishment at the hands of a people far more wicked than they.  The solution for the Lord’s people is found in the words of 2:4, “Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.”

We must guard against passing judgment upon what the Lord allows to happen. Our response should be to faithfully serve the Lord come what may.  That Habakkuk understood is found in his closing words of chapter 3.

When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.  Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.  The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

He would rejoice and trust the Lord come what may.  No amount of physical calamity and devastation would weaken his faith.  May we always remember the following words from a plaque given us by a friend: “We know not what the future holds.  But we know who holds the future.”

—Denny