Habakkuk: Living With What We Don’t Understand Series

Habakkuk: Living With What We Don’t Understand

Series: Major Message from the “Minor Prophets”

July 23, 2017 – Brad Bailey

Intro

We are continuing our summer focus on hearing what God speaks to us from the section of the Bible referred to as The Minor Prophets. The prophets were those God raised up to declare the truth to those around them.[1] The “Minor Prophets” refers to the final twelve books of the Old Testament and the term “minor” refers only to their shorter length ...not their importance.

There is a major message in each of these prophets….which speaks to us today. In these voices we hear how the heart of our God confronts the unfaithfulness of human life…with the reality of consequences and hope.

Today we continue with the Book of Habakkuk…

Probably the better Hebrew pronunciation is “HAB a kuk”…but I am just going to use the common pronunciation … “Ha BAK kuk”

Habakkuk was, much like the other prophets, a morally sensitive soul.

For some time now, he had been plagued with concern for his city and his country. Every day he saw injustice played out on the faces of the worshipers who came to the Temple in Jerusalem. He watched family after family offer their sacrifices with pain, knowing they bore the weight of ruthless violence…of those who exploited the poor and ruled the city. [2]

Unique… doesn’t speak to the people on behalf of God…but speaks to God on behalf of the people… and what he records is this sacred living Word to us all.

Habakkuk 1:1-4 (NIV)

1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received. 2 How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save? 3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. 4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

The prophet begins with the intensity of one who is seeking to understand…and he is seeking God …with intensity and honesty. These are not the words of religious ritual…but of real relationship. Real suffering….real confusion…and real questions.

He know that the violent injustice around him is not what God had intended.

God’s law, the Torah, was a gift from God for ordering all of Israel’s life … to bring peace with God and one another… and that order is so violated…and the way of life has devolved …and God has not stopped it.

Why?... How long?

Those words can echo something familiar in every soul. Unless you are quite young…you may find they reflect a cry you have known.

There are times we may question minor inconveniences…why raining today… car break down at an inconvenient time. But there are times when there we face not simply inconvenience…but the inconceivable. When there is that which we can’t understand how God could allow it.

Why the atrocities of war?

Why …were planes allowed to fly into towers filled with thousands of lives?

Why must a tsunami come and wash masses away?

Why cancer? … Why so many children starving?

Why do those who dishonor God prosper… while those who honor God suffer?

Why did a dear friend within our community…who is a daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, and friend …. suffer a brain aneurism?

There are times when we don’t understand how God…who we know to be good and powerful… does not do something. Times when we don’t understand. Times when it just isn’t fair.

Some may suggest this is a basis to question belief in God altogether.

But the very question presumes there is some basis by which to question…some reference point out there by which the very idea of something being fair or unfair has meaning.

A purely naturalistic materialistic world … might sound good for you to be free to do your own thing…but it doesn’t provide any ultimate moral order or meaning.

For the person who doesn't believe in God, the events of 9/11 was nothing more than a spectacular arrangement of atoms and molecules. [2b]

But what if one grasps that there is a source…that life begot life… that there is a God…and they have come into relationship? Then what?

We will find that there is a lot we just can’t understand. [3]

“How long, O Lord, must I call for help?”

God responds…

Habakkuk 1:5-7, 11

"Look at the nations and watch-- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. 6 I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own. 7 They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. …11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on-- guilty men, whose own strength is their god."