God, Why?
Pastor Tan Thai · Apr 21, 2018
This sermon examines the age-old question: why does God remain silent in the face of evil and suffering? Through the book of Habakkuk, the pastor shows that God is not absent but is acting according to His sovereign timing and purpose. The righteous are called to live by faith even when they do not understand.
The sermon opens by connecting with Vietnamese culture: the Vietnamese have long feared and revered Heaven, expressed through folk songs, oaths, and curses. The pastor then leads the congregation to the universal question anyone asks when facing suffering, injustice, and evil: where is God? Why do the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer? This question not only keeps many people from believing in God but also challenges the faith of Christians themselves.
The central portion of the sermon is based on the book of Habakkuk, written near the end of the kingdom of Judah before the Babylonian invasion. The prophet Habakkuk poses two major questions to God: first, why does He remain silent before violence, injustice, and evil in the land? Second, why does He — a holy God — use an even more wicked foreign nation to punish His chosen people? The pastor shows that God does not punish us for asking questions, since asking reflects humility, but warns against asking merely to justify one's own presuppositions.
God answers Habakkuk by affirming that He is indeed at work — using Babylon as an instrument of judgment — but that same wicked nation would itself face five woes of divine judgment (Habakkuk 2). The core of God's answer in Habakkuk 2:4 is: "The righteous shall live by faith." The pastor surveys secular explanations for evil — economic, scientific, sociological, political — and concludes that each captures a partial truth, but the root cause remains human sin and humanity's departure from God.
The application section outlines four possible responses to suffering: (1) cursing God like Job's wife; (2) becoming bitter, resentful, and leaving the church; (3) trusting God and rejoicing in Him as expressed in Habakkuk 3:17-19; (4) allowing God's purposes to be revealed, trusting that suffering has meaning even when not yet understood. The pastor uses the real-life story of Rachael Denhollander — the first woman to publicly accuse Dr. Larry Nassar — as an illustration of justice, forgiveness, and faith in the face of profound injustice.
The sermon closes with Psalm 121, affirming that the LORD is the keeper who neither slumbers nor sleeps. The congregation is invited to live by faith in God's faithfulness, love, and protection, even amid the injustices and sufferings of everyday life.