Consequences for Injustice
LESSON FOR JUNIORS
Study Scripture: Habakkuk 2: 6 -14
Background Scripture: Habakkuk 1,2, Genesis 15:6, Psalm 130
Lesson 3 March 14, 2020
Key Verse Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Habakkuk 2:14
INTRODUCTION
We are looking at a prophet of God and his conversation with God.
In our last Lesson we discussed the bad actions of bullies who often hurt adults young and old, and also hurt children. Scriptures gives us reasons for their actions. The Bible tells us that they do these things because they have made bad choices and because their spirit is not right in them.
Unfortunately sometimes it seems that they do not receive the punishment they deserve. Sometimes punishment comes to them quickly but sometimes the punishment is delayed and they keep on doing these bully bad things because they feel important by hurting others.
The Lesson from the Word of God seems to be that we are not to worry or fret about the punishment that bullies will receive. God will take care of all our concerns in this matter.
We are therefore encouraged to keep on doing the right thing which means we are to live with faith in God. We are to keep on living and look to the Lord for strength and direction. We are to live with God’s love in our hearts and show the love of God to others.
The prophet who wrote this book in the Bible that we are studying had difficulty understanding why God did not act to punish those that did not act with justice to others.
So God encouraged him by telling him that you would certainly bring about consequences for the injustices done and the bullying that people did to others.
God made it so clear that he told the prophet Habakkuk that he was to write down what would happen to these people that did injustice. Writing it down was a way to guarantee that what God said would happen. God would never tell a lie and a record of what God had predicted would be there for everyone to see and to realize that God’s predictions were 100% true and accurate.
So now God began to describe what would happen to those people that did all kinds of injustice. Those that do all kind of bullying and do not treat people right, and made them suffer without a just cause would experience certain unpleasant things. Many people do bad things because of pride. Sometimes it seems that God takes a long time to act. But we know that God’s actions are certain and will come.
When we read this we know that we are supposed to not hurt people but to show the love of God to people for if we do not do not, the consequences for the bad things that we have done will not be very pleasant.
We are given encouragement for living the right way for our lesson tells us what will happen in the future and why it will happen. God has given us this great promise:
For the Earth will be filled
With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.
So let us look at the consequences for the injustice that people do.
The first injustice is called plundering, that is, taking from others what does not belong to you. This involves too much ambition. We will have the ambition to take what does not belong to us, to make ourselves richer. When we act badly we make many others less well off. We want to be regarded as a powerful “big man” or a “big woman”, bigger or better than everybody else. The Bible says this kind of behaviour is really a shame. It really means that you’re committing a sin against your own self. What do you get will cry out against you.
This act of “plundering” is called stealing in the Ten Commandments. We read of this in Exodus 20.
Many times grown-ups do that and behaving in that way and many times children copy the behaviour of adults and take away from others what belongs to those people. God does not like that kind of behaviour at all.
The second injustice that God warned about through the prophet was greed, that is, wanting everything that we see. When we become greedy we really reach for things that we cannot handle. We will get into the habit of trying to reach too far and when we do that we generally we lose everything. So being greed is not a good practice.
The third injustice that God warned that we should never practice was violence against others.
When you are violent to others and try to hurt them you will turn people against you. In the end you will accomplish very little or even nothing.
The fourth injustice that God warned that we should never become involved with eating and drinking so much and buying so many things that we see advertised and other things that we love that we become trapped in depending on the wrong things that will not help us. When problems come, these things that we love so much and these habits of always wanting something different and something new will drag us down instead of putting us up and allowing us to make our lives better.
We are warned that our habit to eat too much and drink too much will destroy us. Remember that too much of anything is bad for you. We advise that young people are to be moderate in everything they are doing.
Remember that Prophets in the Bible were a special class of people that God had appointed to tell those people in the nation what God intended to do in the future. When they told you that something was going to happen it was 100% accurate. They never made a mistake, not even the slightest one, because they were telling the people exactly what God wanted them to say. And of course we know that God is completely truthful in everything that He says and does. God never says that something will happen and it does not happen.
So let us be careful and listen to the teachings of Habakkuk the prophet. Remember that there are consequences for injustice. When we do things that are not just, not all right, or loving, the things that will happen will not be good for us.
Remember that God is our heavenly Father. Habakkuk ask questions since he knew that God loved him and God was always ready to listen to him, even when he had a complaint to God about people who are doing bad things. It is most important we keep on praying for Justice and not practice injustice, for that is one of the best way we work with God to make the world a better place.