Please turn with me to the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk is listed in the Bible as one of the Minor Prophets. The Minor Prophets are grouped together after the Major Prophets and located before the New Testament, after the book of Nahum and before Zephaniah.
Today we will, in sum, examine the entirety of the text of Habakkuk, with special attention given to chapter two.
Here is a quick look at the historical context in which Habakkuk lived. He was a temple musician in Jerusalem at a time when the nation of Judah was experiencing great corruption and violence. He saw first hand the idol worship and the blatant sin of King Manasseh and King Amon. He witnessed the return of Judah to the Lord under the rule of King Josiah and saw the great reforms that were made as idols and shrines were torn down as the people repented. Then King Josiah died and Habakkuk saw the rapid decline of morality and return to idol worship.
Not only was there moral decline, but political upheaval. After Josiah, Judah came under Egyptian rule and the king became a vassal, or puppet king, to the Egyptian Pharaoh. When Egypt lost to the Babylonians, Judah came under their rule. Judah rebelled and eventually the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple and deported most of the Jews in what has been called the Babylonian Exile.
These are the conditions in which Habakkuk finds himself ministering: Rampant idol worship, political and financial insecurity, uncertainty of the future, fear for daily safety and an immoral governing body. The literary style in which God chose to communicate his message through Habakkuk is what scholars call a “Theodicy”. Webster defines it as “a defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil” and in the case of Habakkuk, it is God who defends Himself.
I’m stopping right here… did you hear me? It is God who is defending Himself. The Creator. The Almighty. Sovereign, Divine, Spirit-being, Triune, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Beyond time. The God who, according to 2nd Samuel when He is angry, the mountains tremble and the earth shakes. The same God whom Moses had to be hidden from in the cleft of the rock as God passed by because His glory was too much for man to bear. The same God who created balls of hot, burning gas billions of miles in circumference and set them in the heavens. The same God who breathed life into the nostrils of man and gave mankind life and this thing called free will. This describes no one who is ever in a position to defend Himself. A resume of this stature demands no such thing – yet He chooses to. In His mercy and His love, and because He knows us so well, God chooses to defend His own goodness and omnipotence in view of the problem of pain, suffering and evil.
////////
Ronald Nash, in his book “Faith and Reason” has written that "the most serious challenge to theism was, is, and will continue to be the problem of evil." The presence of evil and suffering in the world has even been argued by some philosophers from Epicurus to David Hume to cast doubt on the existence of God. Freud and Marx sought to show that religion’s explanations of the presence of evil and suffering were based on delusions. I have known those who could not justify the presence of evil with a good God. As an atheist, this problem of suffering was what kept C.S. Lewis from becoming a Christian for many years.
Many of you have looked at the world with the same thoughts. Why does evil exist? Why does it seem that God does nothing about it? Or perhaps you have looked not only at the world, but closer to home as you have suffered pain. I certainly don’t want to trivialize those painful experiences, but to treat them for what they are: real. And in studying Habakkuk, I don’t believe God trivializes our pain and suffering either.
Before we open God’s Word, let us pray for His direction and guidance in the Holy Scriptures.
We open the book of Habakkuk and find in the opening paragraph a complaint. Habakkuk is complaining of the violence he is witnessing as he sees king after king in Judah taken down. In verse 4 “The law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.” Justice. Habakkuk demands justice – equality and justice, isn’t that what we all want? If this were a just world, we wouldn’t see poverty. We wouldn’t see greed. We wouldn’t see unjust destruction of life and property.
But this is not a just world. And Habakkuk understood this fully because those in power even in his own country were committing acts of immorality, injustice and violence. The people of his time were too tolerant of the evil, the transgression against God’s divine law. A fed-up Habakkuk then offers up his complaint and question to God and God answered Habakkuk’s complaint.
You know, He always answers us. It just may not be as loud or as tangible as it was for Habakkuk, but God always reciprocates our conversation. And sometimes it may not be the answer we are looking for. Did you notice how God doesn’t address the issue of Habakkuk’s stress? Habakkuk wanted to know how a good God could allow such injustice. God doesn’t say why He allowed it, but He does say what He is going to do about it. Instead of saying, “I’m sorry Habakkuk. I’m sorry you have to go through such turmoil, I’m sorry that I have allowed sin to reign and suffering to occur” No, God’s reply to Habakkuk is a call to worship. He tells him to look and wonder. Wonder at what? Well, this is what I am going to do, says God. I am going to take these Babylonians over here and they are going to come to your city with their horses and their fierce weapons and they are going to destroy your city. They are going to destroy the temple. In fact, you may not live to see your old age.
What???!!! What do you mean God? I wanted justice to prevail, but is this what you call justice? By sending our enemies to destroy us? By sending our enemies, an unrighteous nation, an unclean nation, to destroy your anointed ones, your people, your nation, your dwelling place? What do you mean the Babylonians are going to destroy us!? I mean, this is Your Name that is on the line here.
Sometimes the medicine is worse than the disease. These days, when kids get sick they get some sweet tasting syrup to take which they don’t mind taking at all – there’s no pain in the sweet stuff. But when my parents were young – it was Castor Oil baby. Or Cod Liver Oil. Here we come. This will make you feel better all right. Or to bring it a little more real, some of you have experienced first hand or have known someone who has gone through chemotherapy or radiation and have seen the effects that these cancer killing techniques have had on the body. It makes you wonder if it is worth it.
Habakkuk was facing the same thing. In a way, he says “Are you kidding me?” In verses 12 - 17 he is basically saying, “God, You are from everlasting, so who am I to question your technique, but can you be serious? The Babylonians? They’re evil. They’re wicked and like to prowl on the righteous. They are like fishermen and we are like the fish. All they have to do is hook us with their fierce strength and we’re done! They worship their weapons and are greedy and keep wanting more and more.”
But Habakkuk ends his dismayed complaint with an act of faith. Do you see it? At the beginning of chapter two he stations himself on the ramparts, literally the wall of the city, and waits for God to answer. Habakkuk waits patiently for the Lord because he has faith that God will answer his second complaint.
In summary, Habakkuk has asked God why He tolerates injustice and immorality with His chosen people? And secondly, he has asked how God could use an immoral people to judge His chosen people. And now God graciously responds to Habakkuk, beginning in chapter 2 verse 2:
“Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.” Make this plain and clear, Habakkuk. Don’t confuse the issue. Wait on Me, for all my promises come true.
And in verse 4 we see the central message that God has for His people who struggle in a violent-riddled world: “See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous will live by his faith—“ This is the ultimate answer to our questions and gives us the hope we have in Christ.
Who is God saying is puffed up here? According to chapter 1 verse 6 it is The Babylonians. They’re puffed up, which literally means “to lose faith”. It is to be so full of yourself that you loose all and any eternal perspective – to loose sight of God. They do not live by faith in God. How do they not live by faith? God describes an unfaithful life in verse 5: 1) An unfaithful life is marked by drunkenness. Excessive wine betrays the drinker into feeling more important, or puffed up, than is warranted. Wine betrays danger, it is a false pride, an unrighteous pride. This is exactly the false sense of pride which led the Babylonians to their eventual demise. 2) The second mark of an unfaithful life is arrogance “He is arrogant and never at rest”. It is also a false pride. 3) The third mark of the puffed up is greed. It is this greed which produces a lack of peace which never gives rest. The Babylonians were never satisfied… they kept consuming but they were never full. They took the whole Near East captive, but they were still restless.
1) Drunkenness, 2) Arrogance, 3) Greed. To these, God has given five woes, which can be found in verses 6 - 19. These woes are sociologically very complex. The woes in prophetic writings, such as Habakkuk, are not curses, but are actually laments given to the Babylonians captives, lamenting for those who persecuted them. In other words, God’s Word is calling us to reflect upon and mourn the fact that the unrighteous will suffer because of their unfaithfulness. So instead of warning those who are unfaithful, God states that they will receive what is coming to their due, and that we should mourn their demise. We are not to place our hope in their demise, but we should place our hope in the certainty God’s justice. This is God’s response to the question in chapter 1:13, “Why do You tolerate the treacherous?”.
1) The first and second woes are similar and are found in chapter 2, verses 6 – 11. They deal with extortion – that is the one who gains their wealth through stealing or murder acts in an unfaithful: “Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How long must this go on?’ Will not your debtors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their victim. Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you. For you have shed man’s blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.”
I just read this week in the news of two older women in California who took in homeless men, took out insurance policies on them, named themselves the benefactors, and then killed these men. They had received millions of dollars until they were caught.
In contrast, the faithful person puts their trust in God to provide for their every need. This is what it means to live by faith. It means living without victimizing anybody and without coveting or gaining wealth at someone else’s expense. To be honest in all financial dealings, even if you need the resources and no one is watching.
Nothing is gained by building your life at the expense of others. In fact, it will bring you shame. Instead of building a legacy of truth and honesty, you will leave behind in this life empty buildings and houses – standing reminders to the survivors of the shame and the sin by which they were built.
In Proverbs 18:10,11 it states that – “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city, they imagine it an unscalable wall.” A strong tower stands when its foundations are sure – momentary wealth, which is what we’ll ever have in this life, makes us imagine that we indestructible. The love or worship of money makes us drunk, which produces arrogance, which produces a puffed-up lifestyle. We are called to mourn those who have made this choice in their lives.
3) The third woe is in verses 12 – ““Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime! Has not the LORD Almighty determined that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire, that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
The crime committed here is similar to those mentioned in the first two woes, but now God gets serious. He now mentions His name in contrast with the sin. Not only are the crimes of the puffed-up way committed against other people, but they are committed against God. If you think that God does not care or has let this world go to pot, then read these words in Habakkuk 2:14: “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.” God has not abandoned his creation. He has not abandoned the righteous. He will rule and has ruled and is still ruling. And it is all coming to a point where, according to Romans 14:11 ‘every knee will bow before Him; every tongue will confess to God.
So instead of running after their Creator and desiring to know Him, the people who follow the “puffed-up” way run away from Him and create things for their own glory. Instead of creating and working for His glory, to bring others to God, the puffed-up labor in vain and in vain is in vain – it is for nothing. It is meaningless. We mourn for those who follow the “puffed-up” meaningless life.
4) The fourth woe is found in verses 15 – 18. The Babylonians were known to rape and debase their victims. They would make them drunk and expose them – a crime of violence and injustice. Not only did the Babylonians commit rape against humans, but they also committed rape against nonhuman creation. When it speaks of Lebabon in these verses, it refers to the Cedars of Lebanon – beautiful forests which were stripped for their own gain. These are trees which Psalm 104:16 says that God planted. God’s intense love for his entire creation causes Him great anger when that creation is abused. God now says that it is the Babylonians turn to drink and be exposed and to be filled with shame. That God’s right hand of punishment is coming for them and they will find no place to hide, no tree to hide under – they can only hide in their own glory which will not protect them from God’s wrath.
The way of the righteous is to reflect God’s love for all of His creation. We are not only to value the sanctity of human life, but we are also to value His nonhuman creation.
The final woe of the puffed up way is in verses 18 and 19 and is basically summed up as this: If you put your trust in lifeless, created things, then this will bring futility to your life. The Babylonians were known to worship their own weapons – they trusted in them. But those of you who know Biblical and world history know that the Babylonian Empire did not last. In 539 BC, the King of Babylon saw the hand writing on the wall, was killed on the same night, King Darius took over and the Persian Empire captured the supposed mighty and great Babylonian Empire without a fight. What about their weapons that they worshiped? Their weapons were meaningless against the Persians.
By trusting in what man has made for himself, man ignores the Creator of all the earth. It is essentially trusting in yourself, instead of God. It is putting yourself at God’s level. In verse 19 we see a satirical response to man’s idols. It is as if a person is standing mockingly before an idol exclaiming, “It teaches! Look! It is gold and silver! And full of breath! Oh, there isn’t any in it.”
By contrast, God teaches truth, is speaking, is alive, is awake, gives guidance, and is the One who gives the breath of life.
Make no mistake, idols can be much more than carved wood. They are anything which we worship other than God. Cars, houses, investments, credit, and bank accounts lead the list of today’s idols. They are the road to opportunity, as the Babylonians imagined their weapons to be, but these idols can not give guidance. During Elijah’s time, Baal was a god of prosperity. Author James Bruckner explains it as this, “If Baal failed, they believed he was “asleep”. Listen to the folly of that logic. People worshiped these gods in order to increase their prosperity. In any case, they controlled them even as we control our prosperity. True faith honors God in all things, even in the ability to earn money. To live by faith in the true God means worshiping and honoring Him in both good and bad experiences. True worship means trusting Him for all we need from day to day.”
//////
Why does injustice seem to rule? Why the pain? Why the suffering? Why did that child have to die? Why do evil people prosper? Why the cancer, the rape, the depression? Why does God allow Christians to suffer, even when they are doing His will?
What we learn from Habakkuk is that it is ok to ask God these questions. It is ok to question Him – He will receive our questions. When our foundations are shaken, when we receive news that someone we love will soon die, that peace and security are quickly moving toward war, that one of our Christian role models is falling from grace through corruption, God wants us to come to Him. Don’t go to created things. Don’t turn to wine. Don’t turn to your wealth. Don’t even turn to your family or friends before you turn to God. God is the only sure foundation, the only eternal, everlasting One who can meet any needs. Turn to His Word, to His promises and to what His Word and Promise point to: Jesus Christ.
Faith in anything else but Jesus will lead a person in a meaningless journey and will build a foundation for that person which will not stand when storms hit. I know - I put my faith into a girl when I was in college. She was everything to me. You could say that I worshiped the ground she walked on. When that relationship was destroyed, my faith was shaken. You see, I had confused my faith for God with the faith I had in this girl. I thought I was worshiping God and had put my faith in Him, but what I actually was doing was worshiping her. When God so wisely took her out of my life, I blamed Him and then I lost faith in Him. I began to wonder at His existence, but in a point of divine grace, He brought me to the same place where Habakkuk found himself and allowed me the strength to ask Him, why Lord? Why? Then I realized that the emotional pain I had suffered in the failure of that relationship was necessary to bring me into a closer and stronger relationship with God.
You worship that which you have faith in. Some of us may think that those pews which you are sitting on now will never collapse – that is having faith in those pews. The United States government also had faith that Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor would never suffer an attack. Even as early as a month before the attack, a newspaper journalist was quoted as saying that an attack on Peal Harbor was the most unlikely thing to ever happen to this country. Our government worshiped our military might. A False worship. A False faith. The things we see now are temporal and will pass away, but God and His Word is eternal and will never pass away.
I believe that sometimes God allows pain for purposes we will only realize later in life. Christians are sometimes afraid to address the problem of pain and I think they are afraid because it might seem to detract from their faith in some way, or it might seem to put our God in a bad light of some sort. But here’s the truth we can glean from Habakkuk – that God does concern Himself with our pain and that God does not hide the fact that we suffer. If God does not hide the fact that we suffer, why should we? Are we not to emulate Christ? Did Christ pretend there was no suffering? No, He was compassionate toward the suffering and He was real about it – He Himself experienced one of the most horrific acts of suffering ever witnessed.
It amazes me that there are churches out there that teach and preach a false gospel which claims that if you suffer and do not prosper in this life then there must be something wrong with you. You must not have enough faith. Whether you experience suffering or not has nothing to do with your faith – BUT HOW YOU RESPOND TO THAT SUFFERING HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH YOUR FAITH!
What He wants most from His people, no matter the place that they find themselves in, is that they trust in Him. No matter if you experience streams of abundance or are in that desert place. If you are financially blessed or when it is painful to give. If our faith is in Him, then in the midst of suffering He gives us hope.
God not only humbled Himself to give Habakkuk a response, but even while mankind lived in its sin and violence, He humbled Himself and became Man. This Man lived a life free of sin to be an example to all of what life could be if lived by God’s standards. This Man offered a peace to all which surpasses any kind of worldly peace that mankind has been attempting to attain on their own. The peace that is given is a peace between Creator and creation. No longer is there condemnation for our sins, but there is life. No longer does strife have to exist between man and God, but there can be a restored relationship that was once broken.
God offers us this hope through this Man: a life that extends beyond what we see. If you want your life to mean something, what you really desire is that your life doesn’t end here. You want, as I do, to experience life forever. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because He has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
Believe in Jesus and you will experience the life that goes on. Yes – in this body and in this temporal time you will experience suffering, violence and physical death. But God has promised to give His followers the strength to push on. If only we will put our faith in the right thing. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. Jesus is that strong tower which we can run to. He is the name that is above all names. Will you trust Him? Will you take your faith this day and stop placing it in things that are temporary and begin placing it in things which are eternal? Don’t act like the Babylonians – don’t be puffed up. Don’t be deceived into thinking that the things around you will protect you and won’t fail you. Because they will – no matter how much faith you place in them. Start placing your faith in the one Rock that won’t be moved - Jesus Christ.
I challenge any one that does not know Christ as Savior to give Him a try. Experience the faith marked by grace. And if you do know Christ, I challenge you to place your full faith and trust in Him. Do not be like the Babylonians. Do not be deceived into thinking that all the blessings you have in this life are the result of your hard work or determination. God is the source of all we have and it can be taken it away just like that. And if it is taken away, will your faith be in those blessings, or will your faith be in Christ.
/////
God ends His reply to Habakkuk in chapter 2 by demanding worship. The Lord is in His Holy Temple, Let all the earth be silent before Him.
Wonder. Amazement. Awe. This brings our perspective from the temporary to the eternal. In this busy, puffed-up world, there is no time for silence. So when suffering occurs, we wallow in it instead of turning to the only Source who can do something about it. Habakkuk rightly response with one of the greatest Psalms ever written as He worshiped the God that is the author of life – temporary and eternal. And we too, should turn our eyes toward Him and wonder and be amazed.
