R.C. Sproul

God, you are so holy that you can't stand even a cursory glance at anything that is impure, at anything that is unholy.

And so he goes on to say, you can't tolerate wrong.

Let me just back off of this passage for a second and say, this is anything but characteristic of our human situation.

We can tolerate what is wrong.

In fact, we can't survive unless we learn how to tolerate what is wrong, because if we don't tolerate what is wrong, we can't tolerate each other, and we can't tolerate ourselves.

I mean, have you ever asked this question, how do you live with them?

Or how do you live with yourself?

In order for me to live with myself as a sinner, I have to learn how to tolerate something that is evil.

If my eyes were too holy, then to behold iniquity, I'd have to shut my eyes to speak to you here in this studio, because what I'm seeing before me is a group of people who are fallen.

And what you see standing before you is a man who has besmirched the image of God.

And so Habakkuk goes on to say then, why do you tolerate the treacherous?

Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

Habakkuk couldn't fathom how God could endure and be patient with human evil.

We can't tolerate any thinking of being upset about human evil.

I mean, we become antagonistic toward the idea of a God who is so holy that he might turn his back from looking at something or someone that is sinful.

And yet that is the dilemma that Scripture set before us.

We have a holy God whose image we bear.

Our fundamental responsibility as human beings is to mirror and reflect who His character is, and yet we are not holy.

So now, though we're made in the image of God, that which is so basic to our humanity that it becomes part of the definition of man is that man is a sinner.

You've heard this expression repeatedly, no one is perfect, or to err is human, and to forgive is divine.