Well, good morning. It's wonderful to see each of you. Glad to have our visitors here as well, and we welcome you to Redeemer Covenant Church. What an honor it is that you've chosen to worship with us this day, and for all of our members, it's so glad to see you again. As I was thinking, as we were entering a new book, the book of Habakkuk, You might need all my introductory time to find this book, but if you start in Matthew and go back about four or five books, it's towards the end of your Old Testament.
But as I was thinking, pastors pray for the people. This is part of our calling and our duty as your elders. But I want you to know that pastors need the people to pray for them desperately. The dangers are plentiful. The dangers of our own despair can be often felt. The burden is weighty to bring the Word of God to you, to do it in an honoring way to God, in a faithful way. It feels the burden as Habakkuk probably felt as he describes the burden that he carried.
John Newton, you probably know him as the hymn writer, but he was also before that a slave trader and a blasphemous wicked man who God saved by grace. He was also later a preacher and a pastor. And he told his congregation in 1776 their need for them to pray for him He said this, I'll quote, he said, it is no small thing to stand between God and the people of God, to divide the word of truth or right, to give everyone their portion, to withstand the counter tides of opposition and popularity, and to press those truths upon others. The power of which I at times feel so little of in my own soul. A cold, corrupt heart is an uncomfortable companion in the pulpit. What he was proclaiming is he needs your prayers, as I do, for the fervency to come forward, for the power of the word of God to come out, and we need the spirit of God to work.
Well, we are in Habakkuk. Hopefully, you've found it by now, and maybe you've heard it pronounced different ways. I've heard lots of people say different ways. Habakkuk, Habakkuk, Habakkuk. I confuse myself, but however I say it throughout the next few weeks, that is the way it should be. And so, if it changes, then take it up with my boss.
But it takes us back to the Middle East. Say back, we've never been to the Middle East. Well, it takes us back to this area geographically and also back some 2,700 years ago. You say, wow, well, what is this for us? We are an advanced people, right? Progressing. Well, I want us to realize that times have not changed. It seems like a long time back, but you will see as we examine this text that it feels like it was written yesterday. It was a different world and a long time away, and we might be tempted to think, well, it was so long ago, how is this going to benefit us?
But we will recognize that the commonality that man has not changed, in fact, nothing has changed. The way it was then is the way it is now, shorthand of Solomon. Nothing has changed. There's nothing new under the sun. Evil still flourishes. Man still departs from God. God changes not. Amen. He is the unchangeable God, and God does good all of the time.
Habakkuk, the prophet, his concerns are of God's people at the time, but his concerns are the concerns of God's people for all time. The shared prayers that we have are the prayers of the Habakkuk prophet. And the prophet has a burden. And we're going to look at the first four verses. We'll probably be much in the historical books today as well to make sure we understand the time and the context of where we'll be the next weeks in Habakkuk.
The prophet is unique in his office. And I say that to let us know that we are not like him in that degree. but we are like him as believers in the concern that this believing prophet had. Now this believing prophet, when he spoke, he spoke the words of God. Now there is a, to the preaching and to the pastoral office, there is a proclamation, there is a prophetic role, a prophetic ministry, but I am not saying anything new, but what God has said. If it is said anything new, then it is untrue. But there is a prophetic office that all pastors have.
But the book of Habakkuk is the story or rather the prophecy of a believer's conflict of faith. He wrestled, he struggled. In fact, the name Habakkuk means one who wrestles or one who embraces. Embracing God but at the same time wrestling with what he sees around him and wrestling with God with the questions that he will ask.
But also the ultimate triumph of faith in God. And then we'll see in the last chapter, there's only three chapters, but we'll see in chapter three how faith turns to praise, the resultant praise of faith. To let you know how the book works itself out, we have the prophet calling out to God in question, and God actually answering within the book. And then another calling out and God answering, and then ending in really a psalm, a praise that Habakkuk extends.
Well, before we read the text, we'll read together, let's pray. Father, as we come to this text, I pray that you would embrace us Lord, as we wrestle with the questions of our day and the questions of the prophet's day, Lord, will you come in your presence. Lord, bring comfort. Lord, bring conviction. Bring consolation. Bring us to see and reveal yourself to us, Lord, that we may praise you, that we may result in worship to our God.
Thank you that you have given us the words of the prophet. The words that even in Deuteronomy, Moses said there would be prophets after him who would speak the very word of God. And what we read today is the very word of God. May your spirit impart it to our souls. Amen. I'll read in your hearing. Read along in your copy of God's word. The oracle. which Habakkuk the prophet saw.
How long, O Yahweh, O Lord, will I call for help and you will not hear? I cry out to you, violence, yet you do not save. Why do you make me see iniquity and cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me, Strife exists and contention arises. Therefore, the law is ignored and justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous. Therefore, justice comes out perverted. Amen.
Let's end our reading this morning. What we have read is the turmoil of the prophet. the burden that he carried and he's calling out to God. This is a very unique book. Now the prophets are all very unique, but this is unique even in the prophets. There's two dangers we come to. We have been in the Old Testament before in the Psalms and many places as we've read through the Bible, but as we preach through the Old Testament, there's two dangers that I've seen right away as we venture into the prophets of the Old Testament. Well, one danger, as I hinted at before, is to say, well, they're so removed from us that surely there's nothing to say to us today.
Let's get to the New Testament, right? Let's get to the words of Christ. And so we're tempted to do that because it's so long ago. Well, as I stated before, actually we don't... Even though we don't live then at that time or in the Middle East, in Judah and Babylon and Israel, we shall actually see that this is not far from us, not far from our own context.
The second danger we have is to think, well, We know there's plentiful comparisons, so let's just get right to the application. Let's just pass over what happened there, and what does this mean to us right now, and how can this affect me in my daily life? Well, that would be wrong, too. That would be skipping ahead. There are applications, but we must slow down.
Not so fast, we must tell ourselves that we need to examine the scriptures, and as I brought out, we're going to look at some of the historical writings. The word that the Hebrews used for their Bible, the scriptures, was the Tanakh. You had the Torah, and then you had the writings, and you had the Psalms, and you had all of the... They would use certain words to describe all of the scriptures. Maybe you've read the law, and the Psalms, and the writings, The prophets, well, the history writings are the books of Kings, the book of Chronicles.
We're going to look in some of these this morning. Have you ever been, when you're reading through your Bibles and you're reading through the Old Testament, have you ever been a little confused, a little scratched in your head as you read the books of Chronicles, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, or Kings, 1st and 2nd Kings, and some of it we understand, we understand David, Solomon, okay, we're pretty good there, but what happens when we get into some of the, when the kingdom divides? and you hear such and such was the king of Israel and he did evil and then he died three months later and then there's another king and what's happening is he's going back from Israel to Judah, the two kingdoms that are divided.
Well I hope to help the confusion in us today. I don't know if you've been confused. Anybody else? I mean, I get confused in there because you're trying to figure out. It's good to write some lists down so you can help direct yourself. There's probably things online that you can go to, but I wasn't that savvy so I had to do it myself.
But sometimes you learn better yourself when you do it yourself instead of letting some artificial way do it, but that's another sermon. But why is the prophet, the message of the prophet necessary today? Two things at least, we know that this is God's word and we read in our responsive reading that all scripture is inspired by God, all scripture is breathed out and is profitable for teaching for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate or complete, equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 16 and 17. So they're for sure, but also because, why is it necessary?
Because the Old Testament prophets are little understood. And because they're little understood, they're little less preached. Maybe you've never heard an expedition on Habakkuk. You're not alone. The minor prophets are where we are, and you might wonder, why are they minor?
Let's go to the major ones. Aren't they more important? It's not about more important. You have longer, more broader sections in Jeremiah and Isaiah. Ezekiel, the major, they call him major. Minor, just because they're smaller. Less there, but not less important. In fact, some of the smaller ones are much more dense, much more we can actually grasp and come to understand.
So it's good for us to go to the Old Testament, studying the prophets themselves. They help us get an adequate and appropriate view of God. How many in our day, especially in the church, have an inadequate view of God. You might hear, well, my God is a God of love, and you might hear of the way people talk about God in a way that makes God sound little. And man, oh, he's so big.
This is because we don't understand who God is. We haven't had a full revelation of God. We haven't spent time in the prophets to understand that he is not a mushy God. He's not some cuddle-up God. He's not some whatever you hear in places of today's worship. He's not what this generation thinks of, of a small God with a lowercase g and the greatness of man. Those with a small God complex need to hear the prophets, need to hear the preaching of the prophets.
It helps us know God and His greatness, His faithfulness, and His covenant promises, His righteousness, so much more. It also shows us the need to live by faith. In fact, when you hear all the The New Testament scriptures of Paul saying to live by faith, adjust to live by faith, he's getting this from the prophets. Habakkuk in chapter two, we will get to in days to come. To live by faith and not by sight.
The study of Habakkuk ought to show us this. Also to see God's hatred for sin and God's utter and complete holiness. God's glory is seen against all iniquity of man, that is sin. Habakkuk is not the only prophet with a burdensome, really unpopular message. Habakkuk is speaking to the northern kingdom. No. Yeah, I get confused north and south.
Judah, he's speaking to Judah, so Israel will be the north. So the southern kingdom, he's speaking to Judah. In the same, really, period of Jeremiah, too. But Isaiah felt he had a burden also, and so did Jeremiah. Nahum is the book before Habakkuk. He carried a burden of the prophecy, but he was speaking to Israel. So Judah and Israel. So where we get confused sometimes is who's the king of what. But we're going to focus on Judah today because this is who Habakkuk is prophesying to.
Nahum prophesied to Israel against the Assyrians who were doing violence on Israel. Well, this is focusing on the Chaldeans. Chaldeans are Babylon, so Babylonians. Remember Daniel, so Daniel will be in Babylon later beyond Habakkuk. Habakkuk is prophesying what is going to happen.
The prophets are hard-hitting messages. Most of the people who heard the prophets' messages did not like it and surely didn't like them. I feel at home sometimes reading the prophets. Why were their messages rejected? Why were their persons attacked? I mean, they were just speaking what God said.
Well, it's the same as today. People dislike that kind of message. You probably won't hear it in the large churches, for people would not want to hear that. Some today would dislike it. To be called out as rebellious sinners, to be humbled, to need to repent, oh my, to need to turn from sin, to bring conviction. Well, I don't want to hear that. How dare you say that? I want to be lifted up, puffed up.
You see the heat of the message, the heat of the prophet's message, it was like fire. And the same heat, some causes to melt the clay into the potter's hand where he can move it. But the same heat will bring hardness like the sun that makes it hard and brittle and impenetrable, the same heat. And so it'll be one of two ways. It'll either soften or it'll harden, but it is the same heat, the same word of God.
Most in the time of Habakkuk and most today with restless souls have itching ears. Paul spoke of this. They have itching ears. They want to be pampered and stroked. or tell me something good, make me feel good. I will come back if I feel good afterwards. They might say, just give me the prescription. Just give me the formula to bring success. You know, 10 steps to this and eight ways for happiness. That's what I want to hear. Well, you can hear that in many places of worship, but you won't hear that here.
They insist on feel-good messages that appeal to their goodness, their corrupted sense of morality. Well, tell me that I'm good. In fact, they might even say, tell me something good. And the reason I said that twice is because I saw that on a church marquee, a large church here that we drive by every Sunday. Tell me something good. And the idea is you come in here, we'll tell you something good. You'll go home and you'll feel very good about yourself. Well, I'm not sure that's what we ought to be judging our preaching or our churches by. I know we shouldn't.
The same church that had a sign that said, we take the Bible seriously, just not literally. Excuse me? It said, we take the Bible seriously, not literally, and then it said, you know, Pastor Sally, so-and-so. Pastor. Another one, another one, another large church in town, beautiful building. And the sign, I should take pictures of these, but the sign, it said, when religion gets it wrong, Pastor Amy, so-and-so. That sums it up right there. I could preach a sermon on that.
The church in modern America needs to hear the prophets. So many people choose to think that they are just good religious people. The same is like the days in Moses and the days of Jesus too. People will say, well, we're of Abraham's seed. I mean, I'm a member of this church. I mean, we were baptized as babies, we're good. We're of the good people, we're the righteous ones, you know, the ones that do this and that. They have a warped understanding.
The message of judgment, and the prophets preached judgment. The message of judgment is not acceptable to man. We will not have that, they will say. Now, they might say, well, judgment on the enemies, well, that's fine, tell us about that, but they will reject a message that exposes their own wretched condition before a holy God.
Well, as we look at Habakkuk, three things this morning that I hope we can get to. The author, the man, the context, the time, and the burden, the message. Let's start with the author. Well, first of all, we know that it is inspired by the Holy Spirit.
It is God speaking, but there's a human instrument here. The human instrument is said here in the text, Habakkuk the prophet, the prophet of God, Habakkuk. This is the man that we read in Deuteronomy today, in Deuteronomy 18, about prophets, that God would speak through prophets. So these are instruments that God uses, that the mouthpiece of God, the words of the prophet are the words of God, so you must take them as God speaking.
But there's no vast biography about this man. Well, we can't find anything in scripture that tells us anything much about this Habakkuk, this unknown fellow. There's no list of accomplishments of Habakkuk, no book of bibliography of all the books he wrote and all the famousness of this guy. There's nothing about that. There's no bio at all. Modern man hates that. They want a man they can lift up. Look at all he's done or all she's done. Give me all the credits and all the books and how large his church is. I imagine ancient man hated that too.
Do not know anything about this? Well, why should we hear him? Who is this guy? Look, the guy doesn't matter. In fact, the person up here at this pulpit doesn't matter. We want to hear from God. That is what matters. It is the message, not the man. To illustrate the way man likes, the Lord had directed us as we were in Colorado and we were wanting to reach this lost region. They weren't coming in the church doors. We must go to them.
And so we were going to have a four-day event. And we had four preachers coming and I wanted other men besides myself so that it wouldn't be, I didn't want people to think it was about me, it was about Christ, it was about the gospel. And so I wanted to talk to some of the other churches and get them involved too. I thought everybody would be excited. Well, one of the big churches there was very skeptical and who are these guys, who are these preachers?
What is their bio? What is their information? Do you want to put their picture up there so we can know and see them like visually to see? I don't know why he thought that. You know, make sure they're dressed appropriately. I don't know. I said, it doesn't matter who these people are. It matters that I know them, that they're going to be preaching the truth. What matters is the message. They are preaching Christ and the gospel. I don't care about the man, and these men didn't care about themselves, but that was the difference.
This other pastor, he wanted to know how famous they were because that would determine if we should attend this or not. You see, man wants to elevate man. A true man of God wants to elevate God alone. In fact, a preacher should think to come up here and preach the Word of God and leave it with the people and die and be forgotten. Because the man is not important. God is important and His Word is important. The important thing is not the man, but it is the message. It is from God. It is by the will of God.
And preaching is a unique thing. It's hard to speak about preaching as you preach, but preaching is not a fireside chat. It's not a comfortable, let's all circle up and have a conversation. It's not that. No, preaching is not a motivational help for your life success. It's not a talk of entertaining ideas. It's not that.
It's actually a summons. It's a message of God to the soul of man that God sends forth His message. It is the means that God uses to proclaim Himself to His people, to the congregation, to unbelievers as well. It is inviting those of His people to come into His presence. Preaching is from God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and it affects the whole person. It ought to be affecting my mind and my heart, my soul, and my will. Not just mine, but yours. This is God's intention. Well, that's enough of the author, the man. We've looked at, it's about all we know other than his name.
As I said before, it means one who wrestles, one who embraces, Let's look at the context of the prophecy or the oracle. What's oracle mean? Oracle means the word of God gone forth. It is a, the word masah, it could mean also, it could mean a burden. It is the weight. Woe is me if I do not preach, Paul said. It is the burden that I must give to the people, whether it be uncomfortable or comforting, it matters not, I must give it.
The context here, We think of the time, well, the time is not told us here in the passage itself as far as the exact time, but it can be determined from internal evidence within the prophecy. What I mean is we will see as we progress that there are things that are said that allow us to know the time that it was given to Judah. It was, as I said before, it was after the division, after Solomon's rule, when Israel and Judah were together, and now there's a separation.
And the time of it is going to be approximately 610 to 589 BC. Sometimes we get confused with BC, because it's going backwards to our way of thinking. But 610 to 589. See, it goes from upper numbers to lower numbers till we get to Christ, and then, right? Okay, so you're following me there. The reason we know this is that in 588 BC, Babylon invades Judah. So Babylon, Chaldeans, same folks, they invade Judea.
You're probably gonna wanna take some notes, because I'm gonna give you a lot of names and dates, and you're gonna go back and check them. It's not really something for me to, to tell you and you just hear, you're gonna need to write it down, because it's gonna help you with confusion. Hopefully I'm not confusing you, but when you read through the books and you see, well, so-and-so was king, and then so-and-so was king, we're gonna leave out the kings of Israel for this purpose, because he's speaking to Judah, and we're just gonna concentrate on Judah. And I really hope that when you go back and read 2 Kings and 1 Kings and 1 Chronicles, you will be a little less confused.
Now, you might need to go back and do the same for the kings of Israel to help you with. Most of the kings of Israel were all wicked and bad. They were one after another. There was a few good ones in Judah. Good, I mean, not perfect, but ones that followed after the Lord.
We're going to study the historical books just a bit. And I didn't know if I should go to Chronicles or Kings, but I decided we're going to go through Kings just to keep it simple. The Bible is not chronological, okay? So it's written in a certain way, but it's written in a way for us to understand that the history books are together. So kings and chronicles overlap, but they also have material in each of them that we don't have from the other one.
Certain things, certain details about the kings. So it's good to kind of go back and forth as you're going. You might read them together sometimes. It might be helpful. I've actually read it chronologically before in a chronological Bible, and that's helpful too. But let's take a tour to help us understand the circumstance that he writes in. This is where we're going to spend most of our time today. And then we're going to get to Habakkuk in the weeks to come. So turn with me to Kings. I'm going to start in 1 Kings, but I'm probably not going to start reading until we get to 2 Kings because I don't want to get too much in front of us. But just write the names of the kings. What I did is I wrote the names of the kings, and then I put them in different colors. The ones that were evil are in brown, and the ones that are good are in burnt orange.
But what I did is, and it just helped me, I just put markers to see. So you follow along as I do this. Just write the name of the king. and then write the address I give for it and write either evil or good. Everybody on the same page? Okay, Judas Kings, right after Solomon. First one, Rehoboam, Rehoboam, R-E-H-O-B-O-A-M. Evil, bad, really bad. Rehoboam was a bad king. Okay, that's all I'm gonna say. Next one, Abijam, A-B-I-J-A-M, Abijam, wicked, bad, bad king.
1 Kings 15.3, write that, 1 Kings 15.3. And you can go back and look at these. So we're just gonna progress. I'm just skipping the ones in Israel to keep it simple. Okay, after Abijam, put an arrow, King Asa did right. Checkmark, good king, Asa, 1 Kings 15, 11. He reigned 41 years. All I'm going to say is he did right. Good king, we like Asa, okay?
After that, we see narratives of Elijah the prophet. So several chapters that just talk about Elijah, different things that happened for Elijah. I'm not gonna go into all of that. But some of the things you remember, Mount Carmel, remember when he called on the prophets of Baal and he put the altar and filled it full of water, remember all that? And Jezebel and King Ahab of Israel and all that.
Okay, that was Elijah. Okay, let's keep going. The next king after Asa, King Jehoshaphat. So Jehoshaphat, S-O-P-H-A-T. If you're looking for a name for your next son, Habakkuk would be good, I like that, or Jehoshaphat. But if he's Jehoshaphat, you're going to have to feed him really corn-fed because he's so fat, right? So Jehoshaphat or Habakkuk, great names. We don't have those.
Anyway, there you go. King Jehoshaphat, he was good. He did right. And that's what, when you look at the scriptures, it says did right or did wicked, did evil. So did right, Jehoshaphat, good king. 1 Kings 22, 47. Put that down. 1 Kings 22, 47. You'll read that, it'll say he did right, Jehoshaphat. Can't you picture Jehoshaphat? Big king, right? Jehoshaphat.
Anyway, then after Jehoshaphat, we have some narratives, and we have the narratives of Elisha. Remember the next prophet after Elijah, and several of the things that happened to Elisha. We're not going to go into that, but that's what's next, okay? Next king, bad king, evil, Jehoram, J-E-H-O-R-A-M, evil.
2 Kings 8.18. 2 Kings 8.18. Now we're in 2 Kings. Now I probably need to start reading. It's interesting, from Habakkuk back to Kings, it's like half the Bible, like so much of the Old Testament is, there's a lot of Old Testament.
2 Kings 8.18. It says this of Jehoram, so verse 18, 2 Kings 8, He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done.
He did evil in the sight of the Lord. He was wicked. But notice it says in verse 19, However, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah for the sake of David. his servant, since he promised him to give a lamp to him through the suns also." That's why we see some good ones every once in a while and then some evil ones and some good ones. There was a lot more kings of Israel because they were really wicked and they didn't last very long. But some of these kings of Judah lasted a little longer.
Okay, so now we're moving on. After the evil king Jehoram, we come to another wicked guy, Ahaziah. A-H-A-Z-I-A-H. Ahaziah. All these were kings, but in my notes, I didn't put the king title next to the evil one, just to help me. I put king of the good ones. It was just a way for me to think.
So 2 Kings 8.27. This is an exercise I did, so I'm giving you all the things without doing the homework, but I hope you're writing them down to at least get the benefit of my work. All right. So after Ahaziah, we have a problem. He was killed. A lot of them were killed by their friends and relatives, but the next person is a queen. Wicked. Queen Athalia. A-T-H-A-L-I-A. Wicked, wicked queen.
2 Kings 11.3. She was bad news. She didn't last very long, but she was bad news. Okay, so that was Athaliah.
2 Kings 11.3, talk about her. The next king, okay, here's a good one. Good king, King Jehoash. He was also called Joash, same guy. So Jehoash, J-E-H-O-ash, and J-O-ash, Joash. They were same guy, just they had one letter difference, but same person. So you'll see in your Bible, just so you don't get confused.
So 2 Kings 12.2, he did right. It says, Jehoash did right in the sight of the Lord all his days. in which Jehoiada, the priest, instructed him. He really depended upon this priest to keep things right, and he did well, he did right. Now, all these guys had some flaws. There were some things that happened, they were like, oh, I wouldn't have done that. But overall, the Bible, God says he did right.
Okay, so Joash did right. Let's go to the next king, King Amaziah. He did right, too. A-M-A-Z-I-A-H. King Amaziah, 2 Kings 14.3. Go back and check my work.
He did right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like David his father. He did according to all that Joash his father had done. When he says not like his father, because he didn't remove the high places, and the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. So he did a lot of stuff, but he didn't do everything. But he did right, so Amaziah was still good.
Next king, really good king, he followed God, King Hezekiah. So 2 Kings chapter 18 all the way through 20 is Hezekiah. He's a good dude, we like him, he followed God. He was one that we could benefit to learn from as King Hezekiah. You probably remember him in scripture. It says 18.3, he did right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done. He really desired to follow. I'm going to read some more. Chapter 18, verse 4.
He removed the high places, broke down sacred pillars, cut down the Ashereth. The Ashereth were these goddess of sexualness or whatever it was. They had these trees that were representing sexuality and they were wicked and people were sacrificing to them. He also broke down the bronze serpent that Moses had made for until those days the son of Israel burned incense to it and it was called Nehushtiran.
It says, the king trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him. This was a good king, none as good as him before or after. It says, he clung to the Lord. He embraced, he wrestled, he clung. He did not depart from following him, but kept his commandments which the Lord had commanded Moses.
I'm going to read some more of Hezekiah. He was victorious. Assyria comes against Hezekiah. I'm just going to shorthand this. And the prophet told Hezekiah that they're coming. Assyria is coming. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord. He leaned upon the Lord and asked the Lord to save him. Hezekiah prayed and the Lord answered him. Hezekiah's prayer. He prayed to the Lord, said, O Lord, I'm in chapter 19 now. Chapter 19, verse 14 and 15. Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messenger and read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.
Hezekiah prayed, O Lord, the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim. Who are enthroned. Are, plural, the triune God. Who are enthroned. You are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. Listen to the words of Sennacherib.
So this is the bad Assyrian king. Listen to him, that he reproaches the living God. Truly, O Lord, the king of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands. They have cast their gods into the fire. For they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone, so they have destroyed them. Now, O Lord, our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand. He is trusting in God. God will fight his battles. Let me turn the page here. And he goes on, what does he say next? The Lord does answer. Pages are stuck.
He says, in the last part of the prayer, that all the kingdom of earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God. And so Isaiah is prophesying at this time. Verse 20, Isaiah says to Hezekiah, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, because you have prayed to me about this king of Assyria, I have heard you. And he answers.
Remember how the Lord slaughtered like 185,000 of the Assyrians with not even a shot fired. And then Hezekiah, so you remember he later, fast forwarding, he becomes ill. And in those days, and the prophet Isaiah came and said, set your house in order, you shall die and not live. Hezekiah prays again. He prays to the Lord.
He knows, the Lord knows my days. Remember now, O Lord, I beseech you, how I have walked before you in truth. Chapter 20, verse 3. With my whole heart, and I have done what is good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Heartfelt prayer. A passionate prayer. The Lord heard him. He says, I have heard your prayers. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. And on the third day, you shall go up to the house of the Lord.
I just wanted to relay that, just to keep your mind thinking on this good king. Because there were some good ones. But all kings die. He died. Next king, Manasseh. Very, very evil. Wicked, horrible. Wicked. 2 Kings 21, 2. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. According to the abominations of the nation which the Lord dispersed before the sons of Israel, he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah tore down. Isn't that interesting?
You have one good leader and think, oh, we're going now, gangbusters, maybe even today's world. And then here comes the next guy and he tears all that down. And the next guy tears it even down further. And then somebody comes and rebuilds it, but it's never last. It's just the next guy until the final king. But we won't go there yet. I want to read about Manasseh. He was horrible.
He rebuilt the high places. He built altars. In the house of the Lord, which the Lord said, in Jerusalem only I will put my name. He built stuff everywhere. He made his sons pass through the fire. He killed his own kids. Sacrificed them. As we have child sacrifice now as in the whole abortion industry. He practiced witchcraft, we heard about that in Deuteronomy. He practiced divination. He dealt with mediums and spiritualists.
He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. Don't be fooled that God is provoked to anger when he sees wickedness and sin. He put the carved image of Assyrus, which he made, in the house of the Lord. What else? He did all kinds of just wicked stuff. Because, so chapter 21 verse 11, because Manasseh the king of Judah had done this abominations, having done wickedly more than all the Amorites who were before him, and has also made Judah sin with these idols.
Do you realize leaders make, can make those come and obey and follow the Lord as directing them? And leaders can make them go against these things. Made Judah sin. Therefore says the Lord, the God of Israel, behold, I am bringing such calamity on Jerusalem and Judah that whoever hears it, both his ears will tingle.
Like you're gonna be so shocked, like judgment's coming. This is speaking of Manasseh. But it doesn't end there. Now just a side note, when you go to 2 Chronicles, you'll see that in the very, very end, the last days of Manasseh's life, he actually repented. And the Lord saved him. That's a whole nother sermon. Let's go forward, though.
The next king is a guy named Ammon, evil, wicked. 2 Kings 21, 19. Bad dude, Ammon. Verse 20, he did evil on the side of the Lord as when Nasa, his father, had done. Many times, like father, like son. Sometimes the son comes up and does good even though the father was wicked. Sometimes the father was good and followed the Lord and the son did wicked. Has anything changed? No. Okay, Ammon, wicked. But now we have another one. Now light is coming. Now we're getting close to the time of Habakkuk. I'm just warning you as I'm getting excited.
The next king is King Josiah. He was a good king. I think Josiah is the name of a brother of yours, right? So Josiah is a good king. 2 Kings 22. He did right in the sight of the Lord. Notice it's in the sight of the Lord. Rightness is only in the sight of the Lord, not the culture, thank God. And he walked in the way of his father and he did not turn aside to the right or the left. He wasn't influenced by what other people said or what the culture said. He followed God.
And there's amazing things that happen in Josiah's life. One thing that he had to, he brought the people, the workmen to oversee the house of the Lord and to build it back up because it had been left in shambles. And he built it back up and he sent the priest to do their work. And then a man named, so in verse eight of chapter 22, a man named Hilkiah, the high priest, he said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law. in the house of the Lord. So it had been gone, these wicked kings, and they find the house, the book, the scriptures, and they give it to Josiah, and he tears his clothes as he's in repentance, saying, our fathers and we have disobeyed God, and judgment is coming, and he prayed, he lamented, he repented, and he called the people to repent.
And people probably thought, now we're on the right track, right? He turned people to the Lord. He was a good king. I mean, maybe there's hope now, right? He even made a covenant. He said, then the king Josiah sent, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah. All Jerusalem come, the congregation, right? And the king went up to the house of the Lord and all the men of Judah. So they're worshiping, they're in Jerusalem, both small and great, all the men. And he read in their hearing the words of the book of the covenant, which were found in the house of the Lord. Can you imagine? The lost Bible, and now we have it. You have the Bible in your hands, but they didn't.
And all the people, it says the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, a covenant. Our church has a church covenant. We've committed to one another underneath God. It says the covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord and keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul to carry out the words of the covenant that have been written in this book. And all the people entered into covenant. under God, pledging, we will follow God.
Can you imagine the time of exuberance and they had a Passover and reforms, all these reforms came under, they took down all the vessels made for Baal. There was all this idolatrous stuff, all the kings of Baal, they took and they slaughtered them. The ones who were burning incense in the high places, they took and they brought all the ashereth, these tree-looking things, and they burned the people and the ashereth together on top of the graves of those who were the priests of Baal from past. I mean, they were cleaning house, got rid of all the sodomites. They got rid of all the places that were defiled of Topaz in the valley of the son of Hinnon.
No man might make his son or daughter pass through the fire for Molech ever again. No more abortions. We will not put through the fire. We will not sacrifice to these Molech gods. No. Laws were put up to stop this. They did away with the high places. They broke in pieces the sacred pillars.
I'm in chapter 23 now. Next, the king, from the word of God, he institutes the Passover. It's not like he developed it, God developed it, but they found in the book, it says we need to celebrate the Passover. To the Lord, your God, for it is written in the book of covenant. written that how God brought them out of Egypt. They had forgotten, they didn't know that all these bad kings, generations had passed, and so the books opened, and now they celebrate for days. It was the biggest feast they've had in the Passover in years, and they observed it to the Lord.
Listen to this, Josiah, verse, where am I? Chapter 23, verse 26. No, verse 25, before him, the Josiah, there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might. First commandment, love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, and mind. According to all the law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him. There was no king of Judah after him that was good.
But there's one more. Well, there's two more if we think of Jesus the Christ, but one more that was just wicked. This is probably the last one in Judah that I found. 2 Kings 23, 31, a man named Jehohaz. Jehohaz. J-E-H-O-H-A-Z, evil, wicked, one of the last kings in Babylon. Now between these two kings, Josiah and Jehoahaz, is where our portion of Habakkuk is. You're like, wow, that took a long time to get to that. Well, it was a long time, but I hope it'll help you realize and put us in the spot of Judah. and how you, if you had lived in Judah and you saw Josiah and how all things are great and things are going well, and you think this has gotta be our ticket. And then here comes Jehoahaz. Jehoahaz, 23 years old when he became king. So verse 33 of 23.
He did evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that his fathers had done. And then Pharaoh and Egypt comes in and they conquer, or they take him away. They put another false king up. And then later, here comes Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Now Babylon was, in the times of Habakkuk, Babylon was a nothing power.
So for him to prophesy that Babylon was gonna take them over, it was like, it would be like saying, hey, you know, be ready. I don't know what's a good analogy. You know, the University of Northern Pennsylvania is going to beat Ohio State 100 to nothing next year. Like, who, what? No, it's a bad analogy, but Babylon wasn't even, they weren't a big power. Who were they?
Well, Nebuchadnezzar, we all know him, he's coming. This is Daniel underneath. Daniel had been exiled to Babylon, so part of Judah was exiled. So in chapter 24 of 2 Kings, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, he came up to Jehoiakim and Jehoiakim became his servant. The Lord sent against him a band of Chaldeans. We're going to hear the Chaldeans in Habakkuk. Bands of the Arameans, bands of Moabites, and he sent them against Judah to destroy it according to the Lord which he spoke through his servants, the prophets. And then look at, come down to verse 10.
At that time, the servants of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, went up to Jerusalem and the city came under siege. And Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to the city with his servants who were besieging it. So they took them captive. They took them back to Babylon, took all the treasures of the house of the Lord.
Eventually they'll come and they'll destroy the temple, everything, they'll flatten it, level it. And then look at the very end of chapter 24, verse 20. All this was done according to what Manasseh and all these horrible kings had done. And look at verse 9 of chapter 25.
So the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captains of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. Jerusalem is conquered. So the reason I brought you here is Habakkuk is prophesying of this very episode that Babylon is coming. The Chaldeans, we're going to see in chapter 1 verse 6 and 7, they were dreaded, they were feared, they were fierce. And they were coming.
Habakkuk is an interesting book. Let's get to the message briefly. The burden that he carried, the burden, the prophet, it's not like a dialogue to the people. He's not, in many of the prophets, they're preaching, saying repent, turn, but Habakkuk's not doing that. He's just saying judgment's coming. It's actually a dialogue between the prophet and God. God speaking to the prophet and God answering the prophet. This is what we see in Habakkuk. It's unique. There's no public address here. There's no like, well, if you turn back then, no, this is coming.
And it's really, we're going to find, it's the personal record of the prophet's own questions, his own struggles of faith. You who are believers have struggles of faith. You see things around, you say, why? I know who God is, what is going on? God, are you seeing this? Are you going to do anything about this evil and wickedness? Have you had questions like that? When things come around you and you feel like the wicked are surrounding the righteous. Now, you who are Christians know that none are righteous, but we are righteous through another, that is Jesus Christ. And the prophet has two initial problems in this first part. Number one is God listening. What does he say?
Do you hear me when I pray? Do you hear me when I call out to you? He's struggling to think, well, God, I know you've called me. I know that you say to call upon you, but I'm not hearing any answers. So number one is God listening. Is he going to do anything about all this mess? All that's happening around me, you're a righteous God and they are not. Fix it. Lord, bring revival. Come to the aid of your people. He's surprised by the circumstance he sees. It doesn't line up with who he knows. He's going to be more surprised in God's actual answer. Oh, God, I called you, but I didn't call for this. Well, that's not what I mean. Hold it. Tap the brakes, Lord.
You're going to send who against us? A wicked people? They're much worse than us. You're sending them? We're the good guys, right? Lord. You see his trouble. You're going to see it as we come into this book. There is this apparent distance between God and His ways. Apparent meaning in our understanding. The experience of His peoples, we look up and God are you seeing this? Aren't you gonna do something? And I hear this from people even who are not believers. Why doesn't God come now and fix all of this evil?
I say amen. Let's eliminate all the murderers." And they say, yes. Let's eliminate all the rapists. Yes, yes. Lord, judge them. And all the liars. Well, you know, I don't know. Let's don't go too far. All those who are envious. Well, all those who cheat, even a little. Well, you know, the really bad ones. Then they start to tap the brakes.
Oh, that would be me. I would be eliminated too. Yes, I'm glad you realized that. And you're going to see God. And he is doing something. The rampant sin that you see, this unashamed wickedness, it does grieve us. It's not wrong to be grieved when you see this. It's not wrong to be grieved when you see all of this injustice. To pray, to call upon God is good. We ought to do this, and the prophet helps us to see this. We ought to ask him, and with urgency. And God is soon to answer the prophet. He will answer you too.
The basic theme of the book, And it's still the theme of today's questions is the problem of evil. Maybe you've heard it. If God is good, why is there evil? Where did it come from? Man, it is sin. It's rebellion against God. That's what sin is. That's what wickedness is. Rebellion against God. Why does evil go unpunished, we might ask. And why is God apparently not responding? You'll hear people say, what is God's grand plan for this?
Tell me. And I'll say, well, I'm glad you asked. Because the Bible has answers. God is doing something. In fact, God has done something. God is doing all things. God is in the situation that you are in right now. We come to Him in prayer. We pour forth our heart like King Hezekiah did. We grieve over the conditions around us and we call upon God, but we call in faith, not doubt. There is one who calls upon God in doubt, perpetual doubt, not faith, but the believer calls that in faith. And, Lord, I don't see what's happening. We come to God with our concerns, but we call upon Him according to His will, according to His justice, according to His justice, according to His righteousness.
And the only way we can come to Him, the only way we can call upon Him is through His Son. God will only hear the prayers of those of His own children who have been saved and come through His Son, Jesus Christ. Be assured, believer, as the prophet was, that my help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
He hears me. Be assured. Come thankful to Him. Be thankful that you can come to Him. What a wonderful thing prayer is, that we can come to the God of all creation only through the Son and that He hears. Be thankful that He is not limited by your circumstances. I mean, also be thankful that He doesn't answer you as you ask. What do you mean by that? Because sometimes we ask things and we don't know what we're talking about. We don't see. God sees. And we think we see. And even the prophet Habakkuk thought he wanted an answer, save my, our people, your people. But he didn't know that it was sending of tragedy. But even that was God's goodness. Think about when you call upon him and you think, well, God is delayed. He's not delayed. You're just impatient. His timing is perfect. His ways are perfect. And when you're waiting upon him, he's actually saving us from ourselves most of that time.
Because if we run headlong onto this, things aren't ready yet. I'm working all these things in the background. Hold on. Keep praying, keep believing, trust me. God's patience and kindness not to bow down before us. Oh, tell me you man, what should I do next? God doesn't do that. I'm so glad how troubled we would be in if he listened to my commands. Listen, God is doing something. God has done something. The God of heaven and earth is working everything out perfectly. His providence is over all things.
The slowness of God, that's our term, the slowness of God is merely Him showing kindness to those who justly deserve His wrath. His kindness in order that he might give them time to come to repentance. That he might graciously draw them to himself. Paul asked in Romans to the people that heard, do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, for his tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance.
Romans 2.4. God is in control of our times. He is in charge of our times in the same way He was in charge in the days of Habakkuk. God's eternal purposes are being carried out perfectly and timely. That means perfect timing.
The perfect King has come. The perfect prophet has come. Him I will send and you shall listen to him. Jesus the perfect prophet and the perfect and final high priest is Jesus. He has come. This is God's plan. The Savior of the Lord The Savior is the Lord Jesus Christ, and He has come into creation. He has come to rescue us, the incarnate one who lived, the one who died, the one who was buried and was risen from the grave to resurrection, the one who has ascended and who is seated on high. This is God's plan. You must believe upon Him. Repent of your sins and trust upon the Savior, for He is our only hope. Come to the King, be cleansed by His blood, and listen to Him." That means obey His Word. The entire Word of God is His.
He has spoken. This is his plan. Leave all your confusions about the circumstances that we go through and leave him, leave him at the throne of grace, leave him at the foot of the cross, for this is his pinnacle of his plan, to save the lost and dying sinner, to bring us to the, reconcile us as my brother prayed in our opening prayer, to bring us to God. And it was the cross This is his plan. This is God's plan. There is no other plan. It's the cross of Calvary. And when we look at the complaints of Habakkuk as we close, and Habakkuk complains of the iniquity, I mean, sin. It was placed on the person of Jesus Christ.
All of it. the one who sinned not, all of what you see, all of the wickedness you see, times a thousand trillion of all the people that went before and after you was of the sinners that he died for was placed upon him. This is God's plan. All the wickedness that the prophets saw was bore by him. That means it was laid upon him as if he was the wicked one, the most of wicked of us. He was made to see all of it, Jesus was. You think you, who are a redeemed sinner, who hates to see blasphemy, hates to hear it, hates to see wickedness and it offends you, what about a sinless one? How offended it must have been that he was made to be sin on our behalf.
The violence that the prophet talked about, the violence was actually put upon Jesus. nailed to a tree that he created. Violence of the worst kind. You say, the wicked surround the righteous? Well, the wicked surrounded the righteous one. All of them saying, crucify him. And he allowed it. He planned it. He gave himself.
The righteous one, when the prophet says that the law is not heard and justice is perverted, justice was not perverted on the cross, it was enacted so that you could be set free. The righteous one was crucified and his blood ran out. so that you could be free. But you must believe. You must repent. You must trust that the one who fulfilled all the law died in your place to bring you to right standing justification before a holy God.
And this is God's plan. And this is God's work. And it's His work alone. And now He calls you to go out and proclaim it. To tell it amongst the nations. So when they see the wickedness, you can say that God is doing something and He has done it. Believe, for He's coming again to judge, and He will judge in perfect righteousness. And if you are not in Him now, you will not be in Him when He comes. Turn to Christ, believe upon the Savior, and the Bible says you will be saved.
Let's pray. Oh, Father, as we see rampant wickedness, vileness all around us, and we think of how it offends us as those who have been saved by your grace, how it must offend you, the righteous one who is good. Lord, I thank you that you took upon yourself on the cross all the violence and all the iniquity and all the destruction, all the strife and the contention that's ever been seen, and you took it upon yourself willingly. Lord, I thank you for your plan, your plan of redemption before the foundation of the world, and how you would right the wrongs, and how you have accomplished this. Lord, continue to draw sinners to yourself by your Spirit, save them by grace through faith in Christ alone, and we will give you all glory for you are worthy of all of our glory, all your glory. In Christ's name we pray, amen.
