THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER
"Search the scriptures: for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. " (John 5:39)

VOLUME 7, NUMBER 42, OCTOBER 21, 2007

WHY?

            There is a question that is addressed in the Old Testament many times and in different ways.  The question is “Why Do the Wicked Prosper?” In Job 21 this ancient man of God asked, “Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?  Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes.  Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.  Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf.  They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.  They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment, go down to the grave.  Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.   What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? And what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?” (vs. 7-15). 

Job’s friends had come to him in his suffering and afflictions and spoke of the difficulties of the wicked.  Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad all spoke to Job of the hardship and early demise of the wicked and of the security and prosperity of the righteous.  Their obvious implication was, if Job would simply come clean with whatever wickedness was in his life that had caused all of his problems, everything would be just fine.  However, Job responded by showing that the same blessings of a material nature come upon the upright and the wicked.  Frankly, he wanted to know why.

The 12^th chapter of Jeremiah begins with the words, “Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper?  Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?  Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.”  It is essentially the same question, “Why do the wicked seem to prosper?”

In a little different approach, the prophet Habakkuk just could not understand why God delayed His judgment against the wicked.  Consider Habakkuk 1:2-4: “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!  Even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!  Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance?  For spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.  Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.”

Truthfully, I have wondered the same thing myself.  Why is it that some of the seemingly most ungodly people appear to be so prosperous from a material standpoint?  Why does God permit them to carry on, for they bring nothing of truly lasting value to the world and oftentimes cause great harm?  It is hard sometimes not to ask those questions.  I think of the Lord’s statement in Matthew 5:45, “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.”  I want to know “why.”  Why do the wicked get the same material blessings as those who are trying their best to serve God?

The answer is found in God’s word.  If we had continued on in Jeremiah 12, we would have found God informing His great prophet that he was guilty of failing to see the end.  God would take care of it in His own time.  Jeremiah 12 ends with the statement, “But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the Lord.”    God told the prophet Habakkuk to hang on, He would take care of it in His own time and in His own way.  Habakkuk 2:2-3 show us this, “And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.  For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”

So what do we do?  Live by faith and let God handle it; that is what we do.  If we move just one verse forward in Habakkuk 2, we find, “Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.”  It calls to mind Micah 6:8.  “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good: and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humble with thy God?”   That is the answer.  Humbly walk in obedience to God and completely trust Him.  He is in control, and He is infinitely just and righteous.

Greg

FRUSTRATED?

            Have you ever had one of those days?  You know what I mean, the kind of day where nothing seems to be working the way you intended it to.  This day was just such a day.  I had a wonderful idea of what to put right in this space in this bulletin.  I worked and messed with the computer, but it would not let me put what I wanted to put right here. That computer was behaving like a recalcitrant child, and even though I am sure there was something I could have done to fix the problem, I did not know what it was.

            Here I was, being frustrated by a machine!  That computer can not get up and walk out of my office, although I have thought of giving it assistance in a rapid departure out of the window from time to time.  I am sure that my little Gateway laptop does not possess artificial intelligence, so it can’t think for itself.  All it can do is what I tell it to do and if it doesn’t do it, it means that I am not telling it correctly.

            I wonder HOW FRUSTRATED GOD GETS when we don’t do what He tells us to do.  We do possess intelligence.  We can understand what God says and we can do it.  We are not machines.  If we don’t follow God’s commands it is because we don’t want to.