How long will lawlessness abound? How long will You put up with my sin? How can You put up with me!? I am a wretch of a man who sins against You daily and cannot escape the cycle of my failures. Why do You love me so? How can You love this world? This world that is full of hate, violence, and blasphemy? I will never understand Your great patience, because if it were up to us, we would not be alive right now. We humans, have little patience for even the slightest bit of traffic, the slightest discomfort, the slightest delay.
But when I ask, “How Long O Lord,” why do I blame You? Why do I blame the God who created a perfect world and universe down to the smallest creature? Oh Father, forgive me for thinking I know better than thee.
When we think about it, everything is led by humans. We’re definitely tempted and led in some ways, but we have free will. We make the decisions. Any spirits—either God or Satan—can only hope to lead us in the way that they want. God’s way is perfect. He wants us to walk in that way, but He doesn’t force us. And Satan wants you to walk in his way, but he can’t force you. He can only tempt you. And so all the decisions that we make are made in a selfish manner. So who is to blame? We cannot blame it on God nor Satan; we have free will, so the only ones to blame are ourselves.
So we end up with the inevitability that human decisions cannot alter trajectories—when you think about the debt spiral, demographic collapse, resource constraints—that’s all because humans have kept going. Humans have continued their ever increasing pursuit of more and of excess.
Where will this lead us? Looking at history, there is always a fall, just like there was one for Israel and one still to come for us all. When we build our foundations on human intuition and success instead of the foundation of God, we will inevitably end up like Babylon.
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 shew 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.”
Violence abounds, and God will not save. Sin and shamefulness abound, and God allows it. Greed, strife, and radicalism abound, and God allows it. Therefore, the law is unequal, cruel, and unjust, and the right sentencing never occurs, yet God allows it. The wicked outnumber the righteous, so perverse judgment abounds, yet God allows it.
Habakkuk 2:6-8 – “Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! How long? and to him that ladeth himself with thick clay! Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for plunder unto them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee…”
Woe to those who increase beyond what was given to them by God! To him who increases with thick clay! With debt! With living above his means! When his head can barely stay above the water! As sinking sand! To nations and men who have spoiled the nations and plundered them for their own gain!
What I am speaking of, we can all feel. The heaviness of this earth. The burden. The struggle. God said this would come, yet we didn’t believe Him, or want to believe Him. The earth is breaking. Exploitation is what we humans do. We always want more. Land, gold, oil, money, technology, and power. But this all comes at a cost. Whether it be people, trust, land, greed, innovation, or human souls.
It has become more evident since the 1800s and the rise of globalism. We think it’s some new thing, but it has always been lurking in the shadows. What happens throughout history? Land is grabbed up by those who are successful, whether righteously or wickedly. Capitalism accelerated it. The belief that God ordained us to work and be successful. That He made us strive for more. He did, but did He truly want us like this?
To be ruthless, cutthroat to climb the ladder, get the home, the car, the influence, the power.
We humans have an unfathomable ability to both be kind and to be driven by jealousy. We are made in God’s image and likeness. But where sin entered, sin perverted. That same capacity for peace and for war has allowed us to thrive—and enabled our undoing. It will be our own demise. The search for war, the search for peace. Peace is never lasting. We only kid ourselves when we say it will.
In that search for peace in this war-stricken world, which will further be divided, we will give up our relationship with God. It isn’t a coincidence that politics seem further and further out of reach for the people worldwide. Nothing ever seems to help or change things for the better. We have already hit the pinnacle of success on this roller coaster ride and are now on the descent, going ever faster. In the chaos we feel now, and in the future, we will beg our Father for peace, which He will grant.
But have we forgotten Revelation? That false peace will be offered across the earth until a peace that will last forever comes? That we as a human race give ourselves over to something other than God? That free will that we have now will fade like a candle? Instantly. Because of the things we have created and the things we have done in the name of globalization.
Instead of seeking to be kind as God was kind to us, we seek to hate, we seek to divide, we seek to be spiteful, we seek to be uncompromising in our ways, we seek to never forgive, to always remember others’ iniquities and treacheries against us, but always to forget our own. God made us in His image. But Satan has also molded the world in his image. To whom will I make myself be like?
But we stand on the mountain of God, with the One who goes before us, who carries all our burdens. Who travels with us along this dark road. He is with us.
