Sermon. The Believers Perspective - Take The Long View
Scripture - Habakkuk 1:1-6 “This is the message that the prophet Habakkuk received in a vision. How long, O Lord, must I call for help? But you do not listen! “Violence is everywhere!” I cry, but you do not come to save. Must I forever see these evil deeds? Why must I watch all this misery? Wherever I look, I see destruction and violence. I am surrounded by people who love to argue and fight. The law has become paralyzed, and there is no justice in the courts. The wicked far outnumbers the righteous, so that justice has become perverted. The Lord replied, “Look around at the nations; look and be amazed! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it. I am raising up the Babylonians, a cruel and violent people. They will march across the world and conquer other lands.”
Introduction: Perspective is everything. Our perspective is the lens at which we view life and most importantly God’s role in our life. God is good all the time. Too many Christians define God’s goodness by their circumstances rather than Who God actually is. Men fail us. The world fails us. Our friends and family failed us. Even when we go through trauma and disappointment, God is in the middle of it all, reigning supreme and orchestrating every step we make and bringing about His will in the world. Your perspective is formed by what you know is true. As Christians, this wisdom should come from God’s Word.
What do you do when your world has become confusing and unsettled? What do you do when nothing seems to make sense. The prophet Habakkuk lived at a time and in a world with many similarities to our own. There were frightening international tensions, the decline of one superpower and the rise of another, attendant anxiety and fear among smaller nations that tended to get trampled in the conflicts, and the confusion of political alignments and alliances. And, at the same time, the fracturing of family morals, religious bonds and sacred traditions were plaguing Judah’s own society. We all face confusing times, unsettled hearts and troubled minds, sometimes. It’s okay to admit to God how you feel.
1. Habakkuk Expresses His Feeling to God. He admits that his mind is confused, and his world is unsettled. It was a bad time. It was a baffling time. It was a world that was hard to understand. What did Habakkuk have to say about this situation? More importantly, what did God have to say about it? Unsettling and Confusing are mild words for the state of the world during Habakkuk’s life. It was a time filled with international, political, religious, and moral chaos and rampant unchecked evil.
Internationally, the whole world of the ancient Near East had been in turmoil, with one empire collapsing and another rising to take its place. All of this was generating great fear and uncertainty, especially among the smaller nations who, like Judah, had got caught up in the rivalry of the great powers of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Habakkuk turns to God in the midst of that world—a world he could not understand—with those fears and questions tormenting his mind. He begins to tell God how he feels and what he thinks. There is a conflict between what he knows and what he sees.
Nationally, King Josiah had made valiant efforts to bring about reformation in Judah, the country was still suffering the long-term legacy of the evil reign of King Manasseh, who reigned 53 years. During that long reign, the people had slid into increasing idolatry and evil practices of all kinds. Even though Josiah had achieved some major reforms and purged the nation of the outward trappings of other gods, he was soon followed by his son Jehoiakim, who tragically reversed Josiah’s policies and behaved in arrogant, showy, and oppressive ways. It was probably during the reign of Jehoiakim when Habakkuk asked his questions.
Socially, there was increasing poverty, social inequality, sexual dysfunction, arrogant exploitation by the “elite,” dispossession, and all the suffering that went with loss of land and security. The country of Judah was descending into a spiral of increasing degradation and wickedness, while the perpetrators of these ills were boldly getting away with it. That was the trigger for Habakkuk’s opening complaint to God.
Religiously, there was a mixture of worship of other gods and a dangerous complacency in the assurance that Yahweh, the God of Israel, would always defend his city. God’s people thought they would be safe if they carried on their worship in the Lord’s temple, for God would never allow his own temple to be destroyed. How wrong they were!
Politically, because the international scene was so turbulent, the political alignment of Judah wavered back and forth. There was constant conflict between the prophets and their messages, and between the political leaders and their position on Babylon in Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah suffered badly at the hands of the leaders for going around saying that God had raised up Nebuchadnezzar and would give Judah into his hands. The best thing for Judah to do for the moment was to submit to the Babylonians. This was subversive speech, and it made Jeremiah very unpopular, to say the least. In fact, Jeremiah narrowly escaped lynching and murder more than once. Other prophets were not so fortunate. During this time Uriah son of Shemaiah was also prophesying for the Lord. And he predicted the same terrible disaster against the city and nation as Jeremiah did. To silence him, King Jehoiakim, the army officers and officials captured him in Egypt, brought him back to Judah, killed him and buried him in an unmarked grave. Speaking truth to power is always dangerous but it is also always necessary!
2. Habakkuk Sought God in His Confusion. Habakkuk list some things He thought that God ought to be doing something about but isn’t – Habakkuk has a list! Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Don’t you see the destruction and violence are before me? Don’t you see there is strife, and conflict abounding.
Habakkuk reels off six different words for social evils of all sorts—injustice, wrongdoing, destruction, violence, strife, conflict. These are the social outworkings of sin. The kind of things that embed themselves in the structures and practices of fallen humanity. The word “violence” (hamas) is a key word in this book. It occurs six times, including in the list in Habakkuk as he cries out for help. How long, Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? It’s like the shout of somebody witnessing a brutal attack on some innocent victim nearby and shouting out, hoping that others, or the police, will come to intervene. Not only should we seek God in our confusion, but we must also trust God to do the right thing.
3. Trust the Righteous God to Do Right. Habakkuk 2:4 “Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.”
Psalms 89:14, says “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.”
The God Habakkuk knows, worships and trusts is Yahweh. Yahweh is the just and compassionate God who character is to listen and to save. Yahweh is the God who hears the cry of the victims of violence and saves them. All the old stories of Israel’s history illustrate this truth. Many psalms celebrate it. Right now, God does not seem to be listening nor saving. These are the two things that God has done in the past, that God can do at any time, that God should do, but is not doing now. God seems to be neither listening to Habakkuk nor saving the victims of violence. Yet there is never a time when God is inactive.
Here, then, is the challenge of verse 2. It seems there is a contradiction between what Habakkuk knows and believes about God from the stories, the Scriptures, and the worship songs of his people on the one hand and the present reality that surrounds him on the other. There is a clash between what he believes and what he sees. And God has been silent and inactive for so long. How much longer do Habakkuk (and others) have to cry out before God hears and saves them?
4. Trust God When His Response is Not What we Expect. Habakkuk 2:3, “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.
The answer that God gives to Habakkuk’s opening question is rather surprising, and unexpected. What God is about to reveal may take a long time before it all takes place, but “it will certainly come.” God’s sovereign purpose in history will be accomplished. That’s because God does not tell lies, and his word will always accomplish what God sends it to do.
Psalms 89:14, “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.
Believers must take the long view of God's operations in the world.
Habakkuk rehearses in vivid poetry some of the great episodes of the story of his own people Israel—those mighty saving acts of God in their past. We should draw hope from not only knowing the story so far (from the Bible), but also from knowing where the story leads and how it ends. Like Habakkuk, we need to know and trust that God remains sovereign in His world and controls the movement of nations and men. We need to listen to the news with this perspective in mind. “Look at the nations and watch. Watch out to see where God might be working. Realizing that the beginning may be small, like a mustard seed, but leads to kingdom impact. Just as Joseph of old, recognized that God was working in ways that he could only see with hindsight. Knowing that God works in mysterious ways in the past, should strengthen our faith and confidence that God is working in our confusing present and our unknown future. Things meant for evil can be how the overruling sovereign God can bring about that which is good. Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
We may not know how or when, but the Judge of all the earth will ultimately do what is right—either within history in his acts of judgment and redemption or ultimately in the great rectification of the final judgment. God will deal with all wrongs and put all things right before he makes all things new in the new creation.
Trust me, says God. Go on living by faith—faith in the sovereign justice of God as well as in the sovereign grace of God. Are we allowing God’s word to strengthen our faith and renew our joy, even in the midst of a threatening world around us? Habakkuk stands among the many in the Bible, including many in the book of Psalms, who cry out to God in lament and protest at the evil they see all around them. But do we? Or do we just complain and protest to one another?
We can and should pray for our rulers to come to repentance and salvation and to do justice. And we can follow the example of the psalmists who appealed to God against wickedness in high places on behalf of those who suffer the consequences. The winning posture for believers is to look forward with Hope, Joy, and Strength. God is good all the time.
Habakkuk’s mission was to expose and oppose all the idolatry that produces injustice, violence, and suffering and to call people to repentance. At the end of the book, we find Habakkuk still shaking with fear, because God has shown him what lies ahead in the immediate future. However, we also find Habakkuk strengthened in faith. He is determined to be among the righteous who will put their trust in God and go on living by faith no matter what.
In these famous closing words, Habakkuk makes three amazingly strong resolutions: I will wait. . . I will rejoice. . . I will run. He plans to get on with his mission, with energy and determination, in the strength of his Sovereign Lord: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.” Habakkuk 3:17-19 May we take the long view, trusting God and living in the example of Habakkuk with the obedience of faith, knowing the Sovereign Lord is the source of our hope, joy and strength. Amen.
