The God of History

They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!”
Habakkuk 1:7–11
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The God of History
The Chaldeans presumptuously and arrogantly demanded obedience and claimed superiority. God used this self-serving nation as the instrument of His judgment against Jerusalem, as incomprehensible as this may seem.  The Chaldean army, as innumerable as the sand, would press forward for the kill.  Almost incomprehensible to those who thought they were God’s favored nation, even though they mocked and ridiculed His holy name, the sinful nation of the Chaldeans, who deified itself, became the means through which God would act in history to judge the evilness of the nations.  God’s response to Habakkuk’s complaint shows the powerful and arrogant nation that He would raise up to punish Judah for the sins in their midst. In our sinfulness, we can be tempted to judge God for His brutal action against sin. But we should never sit in judgment of God’s ways, which are beyond all human discernment. On the other hand, we can place our trust in Him, secure in the knowledge that in the end, He will carry out His beneficial will in our lives. As our eyes gaze upon the cross, we are reminded of all that He did for us so that we might be reconciled to Him.  At times His plan and work are unclear to us. Nonetheless, through His grace and mercy, we submit to and trust in Him alone.