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CONNIE: Why isn’t life more fair? Why do nice guys sometimes finish last and bad guys come out on top? The question’s been around for millennia. Join us today as we explore the biblical prophets’ quest for answers.

Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for more than 70 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko, and we’re glad you’ve joined us. Today as we look at several books from the Old Testament.

CONNIE: We’ve titled our program “Prophets in Search of Justice,” because questions about God’s justice are nothing new in this world.

LONNIE: They certainly aren’t, Connie. But one of the things I find encouraging, particularly as I study the Old Testament and the prophecies found there, is that God does not object to people asking questions of Him. He isn't offended when we ask the kind of hard questions that come up when we discuss this issue of justice.

CONNIE: I seem to remember a text where God even invites us to come and reason these things out with Him. He says: “Come, let us reason together,” doesn’t He?

LONNIE: Yes, that’s found in Isaiah 1:18, where God is appealing to us come to Him and receive His cleansing from sin. Another text that comes to mind is the text where He tells us we’ll find Him when we seek for Him with all our hearts. I think He’s encouraging us to go deep in our search for understanding of Him and His ways in the world—not to be satisfied with surface knowledge. And to me that implies that He wants to meet with us on a deeper level, where we feel comfortable asking Him hard questions.

CONNIE: That’s what the prophet Habakkuk did, isn’t it?

LONNIE: Yes, and we’ll be looking at Habakkuk’s questions, as well as the message of Micah today. These men are two of the “Minor Prophets,” and we’ve invited Dr. Jon Dybdahl, author of a Bible Amplifier volume on the Minor Prophets to join us again today, to share more insights into the messages of these men. Ken Wade spoke with him:

KEN: Dr. Jon Dybdahl, welcome back to our program. A couple of weeks ago we were speaking of the prophets and who they were, some of these later prophets. Today we’re looking at a couple of prophets in particular, and their quest for justice. Now, one of them that jumps out at me is always the message of Habakkuk. He is one of the more interesting prophets, he kind of interviews God doesn’t he.

JON: That’s right. He kind of calls God into judgement himself doesn’t he?
KEN: He asks questions of God. Questions that I think are still very relevant today of course. Why do the bad guys triumph over the good guys is basically what he is saying, isn’t it?

JON: That’s right! In Habakkuk it actually gets even worse. God says, well I’m going to use your enemies to punish the bad guys and Habakkuk says, hey wait a minute, they’re worse then we are, you’re using them.

KEN: It’s a very trying time that Habakkuk lives in as the Babaloynion armies are about to come sweeping down through the nation, and taking people captive…In fact they have been marauding all over for years already, haven’t they? So Habakkuk questions God. What does God’s response to Habakkuk tell us about God?

JON: Well the thing that I like, is that God is patient, and he does answer Habakkuk, and I like to encourage people about that because I think that many people have been taught that you never question God. You never ask God questions, and here you have a prophet of God insistently, and he doesn’t even seem to be terribly polite in some instances about how he does it. It’s a heart-cry question; it’s not just a cold intellectual kind of questioning. It’s a passionate heart-cry questioning which God accepts, and that God responds to. I think that says something wonderful about God.

KEN: Habakkuk is not just sitting back watching from a distance. Watching a war from Afghanistan from a distance, and saying, “Lord why did a bomb fall on this innocent family?” Habakkuk is living where the marauding armies are coming. He can’t just discuss this on a philosophical level. Now, prophets as a whole often appeal for justice to be done, but they also admit to something else. I really noticed this particularly in Micah, that although he wants justice done he realizes that’s there is a need for something else, called grace, doesn’t he?

JON: That’s right.

KEN: Now these prophets, they bring an appeal for change in the world, and a change in people’s religion. But after the time of the exile, after the judgements have fallen, you don’t here much out of the prophets anymore do you?

JON: No, you know you have a period of silence between the testaments, and some have wondered about that. It’s hard to know exactly why that happens, although it could be perhaps God is saying, you know I’ve tried this and there has been little response. Actually the prophets don’t seem to have had a tremendous amount of success and that could be part of it. But again I think that there is one thing that we need to remember, and that is that the final prophet in the Bible, that Malachi ends with the promise with more prophets to come. That God is not going to entirely be silent. There may be a period of silence that may wake you up, but God will again speak.

KEN: So the gift of prophecy did not die out, it was just not heard for a time, or not…

JON: …there was a silence in prophecy but people were eagerly awaiting then. By that time the silence had caused a hunger for that prophecy to come.

KEN: Of course Jesus is the fulfillment, well John the Baptist and Jesus come with a prophetic message in fulfillment of that. Now as we look at this issue of prophets, do we still need them today?

JON: Well I think we do. You know, Israel needed prophets all along, and the New Testament tells us that one of Gods gifts to the church is the spirit of prophecy.

KEN: And in Acts we find, what is it Phillip has seven daughters that are prophetesses. What do think a prophet would tell us if he came today?

JON: Well I think a prophet would urge us to listen seriously to what God has said in the past, and to not get smug about what we think that we already know.

KEN: Oh boy, have you said a mouthful! I think I agree with you there, oftentimes we think that we know it all now, we’ve had enough. But a prophet would come along and probably have a different slant on it.

JON: He would probably tell us there’s a part that we have forgotten, and not to be too smug.

KEN: That was definitely the message of many of these Old Testament prophets, that, hey you guys are going to the temple and you are worshiping, but at the same time you’re taking bribes and you’re taking away the poor people’s clothes, and that sort of thing. Reminding us of the parts we have forgotten. Very good, well thank you very much. I appreciate your insights into these Old Testament prophets and I hope some of our listeners will be willing to dive in and read, and consider these messages once again.

JON: If they do I think they will be blessed.

LONNIE: You know, that's right. If we'll just take the time to dig into the prophets' words, there's a special blessing to be found--special insights into how God has worked with His people through the years.

CONNIE: One important key to understanding the prophets' messages is to recognize that they often were crying out to God in search of answers themselves. We'd like to think that prophets--because of their sort of "direct line" to God ought to have all the answers. But--and here Habakkuk is what you might call "Exhibit A"--prophecies often include as many questions as they do answers.

LONNIE: But the key is that the men and women known as prophets turned their questions to God--crying out to Him for answers, and coming to trust Him.
CONNIE: Which is the theme of our first song today--'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.

“'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”, Christian Edition, from Fishers of Men.

LONNIE: Coming to that trust relationship is such an important part of our walk with God--we may have questions about why certain things happen--or don't happen! But when we focus our life on Jesus, we can come to that sweet experience of simply trusting in Him.

CONNIE: One thing that I know helps many people develop a deeper trust in God is studying how He has spoke to us through prophecies--especially as they see how those prophecies have been fulfilled. And we have a correspondence course called "Focus on Prophecy" that is great for helping you see how God has spoken through His prophets. We'll tell you at the end of the program how you can enroll in this course, but right now, let's listen to Lonnie's message, "Prophets in Search of Justice."

Prophets in Search of Justice

On January 30, 2002, a spokesman for the fire department in Washington, DC named Jeffrey Pargament "the luckiest man walking around today."

Now, just what did Mr. Pargament do to achieve that recognition? Well, nothing out of the ordinary actually. In fact, he was pretty much minding his own business, driving to his downtown office when he heard a lot of shouting. The next thing he knew, his car had been hit by a 143-pound steel beam, that had fallen from the eleventh story of a nearby building.

The beam smashed through the left rear window of Mr. Pargament's Mercedes just inches behind his head! A picture of his car with the beam still sticking out of the window appeared in Washington Post newspaper. If the beam had fallen a split second earlier, or if Mr. P. had been driving a fraction of a mile-per-hour slower, the beam would certainly have killed him. As it was, he escaped without a scratch.

And that's why the fire department spokesman called him the luckiest man around.

Do you believe in luck? Are some people luckier than others?

Mr. Pargament just happened to be in the right place to have his life spared. But what about the lady--reported in Ripley’s Believe it or Not--who went into town one day in 1346, while her husband was working on a catapult outside the town. Her husband just happened to be the inventor of this powerful weapon, which was capable of hurling huge stones. But this particular day there was some problem with the catapult, and in his attempts to fix it, he got tangled in the ropes and ended up being thrown through the air himself--clear across the city. He literally fell from the sky--and landed on top of his wife!

It's a coincidence strange enough to be funny--if they hadn't both been killed by the impact.

How does it happen that one person is in just the right place to be safe, while another ends up in just the wrong place at just the wrong time? Is it luck? Is it divine guidance? Heavenly protection? Heaven-sent justice?

We'd all like to think that everything always works out just the way it's supposed to--that we could expect to always see justice done here on earth.

But is that the way things go?

Did you hear our program a few months ago, when we interviewed Beatrice Benitez? She has a fascinating, wonderful story of how her life was spared on September 11, in spite of the fact that her office was on the 98th floor of the first building hit when terrorists struck the World Trade Center. She's a member of my own Seventh-day Adventist denomination, and she told us she thanks God every day for the gift of life. We interviewed her about how she is using her life to bless others.

But in the days following the disaster, we received news of another member of my own denomination, a devoted Christian man who served as chairman of the church board in his congregation. Michael's first day at work for the same company Beatrice worked for was September 11. And he did not get out of the building alive.

These kinds of stories puzzle us, and trouble us, don't they? Why is one person "lucky" while another seems so "unlucky."

If you were the man whose car was hit by the falling beam, would you "thank your lucky stars?" Or would you thank God for sparing you?

As Christians, we learn to be thankful for every day of life the Lord gives us. I especially appreciate the words of the apostle Paul, who gives us all lessons in positive attitude, like: "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!" "In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances" (Phil. 4:4 NKJV; 1 Thess. 5:18 NKJV; Phil. 4:11, NIV).

But still we're puzzled and troubled at times aren't we--by the way things turn out. Many people who live through a great tragedy are troubled by what is called survivor-guilt: Why am I still alive, when so many around me died? Is it because I'm in some way better than the others? Did they suffer because of some great wrong they had done?

This is a question that faced the biblical prophets on a grand scale in the days when huge armies of Assyrians and Babylonians moved through their land, smashing down city walls, pillaging, destroying, murdering, and taking captives.

Seeing these things happening, the prophet Habakkuk questioned the Lord--how can you let these things happen?

Listen to the questions he posed to God in verses 2 and 13 of the first chapter of the book named after him--Habakkuk:

"O LORD, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear? Even cry out to You, 'Violence!' And You will not save. . . .

"You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness. Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, and hold Your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he?" (Habakkuk 1:2, 13, NKJV).

It's a question we all have, isn't it? Why isn't life more fair? Why don't all good people have peaceful, healthy, rich lives, and why do cruel or uncaring people so often triumph over those who are kinder, more devout, more caring, more honorable?

Habakkuk isn't alone among the prophets in asking that justice be done. A hundred years before his time, Micah had answered the call of the Lord to speak for Him about the injustice done in his day. Speaking during the rule of wicked King Ahaz, Micah pointed to the abominable conditions brought upon the land by corrupt rulers, prophets, and priests:

"Its rulers give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets give oracles for money; yet they lean upon the Lord and say, 'Surely the Lord is with us! No harm shall come upon us' " (Micah 3:11. NRSV).

Micah stood up boldly and challenged the leaders: " 'Hear now, O heads of Jacob, and you rulers of the house of Israel: is it not for you to know justice? You who hate good and love evil;' " (Micah 3:1-2, NKJV).

Talk about bold face courage! Here was a prophet sent by God to call His people away from their selfishness and sin, and to point them to the right: "But as for me," he wrote, "I am filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin" (Micah 3:8 NRSV).

In Micah and Habakkuk we have two of the prophets who were very concerned with injustice. They pled with the Lord to do what was right in a time when the people were doing wrong.

Now . . . when you think about it, the appeal for justice in such circumstances is a two-edged sword. Good and bad. Good for God. Bad for human public relations!

What criminal--after all--wants justice to be done against his crimes? The Lord revealed to Micah why bad things were happening to the people in his day: " 'Can I tolerate wicked scales and a bag of dishonest weights?' " He asked. And of course the answer is No! As Habakkuk put it, "[God's] eyes are too pure to behold evil, and [He] cannot look on wrongdoing." Speaking through Micah, the Lord proclaims that it is because of the wickedness in the land that " 'I have begun to strike you down, making you desolate because of your sins' " (Micah 6:11; Habakkuk 1:13; Micah 6:13, NRSV).

Micah and Habakkuk both hoped for the Lord to do right and to establish justice in the land. One of my favorite texts from Micah is found in 6:8: "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" (NKJV).

In other words--if the people want things to be right in their land, they need to turn back to God, to walk humbly with Him, to become merciful and kind as He is, and to do justly--to do what is right.

Both Micah and Habakkuk look forward to such a day: Micah's prediction, found in chapter 4, may be familiar to you. He writes of a time when "they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid;" (Micah 4:3, 4, NKJV), and Habakkuk looks forward to the time when "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14, NKJV).

These prophets in search of justice understand that as long as we human beings have anything to do with how things go on earth, there will be trouble, fighting, and injustice. And so they look forward to the time when God will rule.

Do you know what this says to me today? In a society where we live in a culture of "Liars," as Newsweek calls us. A time when Olympics officials cheat and connive and there's no real court of appeal any more for honesty and decency. No more shame. The Bible has some good news! There IS a final court of appeal. There IS hope for humanity. There IS a better tomorrow. And it's found in one of my favorite texts from the Old Testament, found right at the end of Micah's prophecy.

"Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea" (Micah 7:18-19, NKJV).

Ahhh… that's what we all really need, isn't it? We may wish at times that the world was a more fair place where people were rewarded immediately according to their works--good or bad. But what chance would any of us have if we received our just reward for every sin we ever committed? After all, "The wages of sin is death!" (Rom. 6:23). Which of us would want to collect our full wages the first time we sinned?

What we really want is justice, tempered with mercy. And that's what our great God gives us! It is His joy to "pardon our iniquity, to delight in mercy, to subdue our iniquities"--and as for our sins--when we confess them, He'll "cast them into the depths of the sea!"

Praise God for that!

“Though Your Sins Be as Scarlet”, Joedy & Lonnie Melashenko.