What do we know about the prophet Habakkuk? Evidence seems to suggest that he wrote in the 7th century BC, just as the Babylonians were emerging as a world power. The Assyrians who had threatened Judah for so long were but a memory. And in Judah itself, a religious revival had begun, but in many ways it was only a superficial one. The high places and the idols were destroyed, but still there was injustice and there was an oppression of the powerless in society.
We have noted in the prophets so far that they are directing their words, or God’s words, to the people. Now those people have been from Israel, Judah, Nineveh, and other places. But the direction of prophecy has always been words from God directed to the people, friends and enemies alike. But in Habakkuk we see a different dynamic. In chapter one of the book, the dialogue is in a different manner. The chapter is a discussion between the prophet and God. Habakkuk is a skeptic prophet. He looks around his society, he looks upward to God, raises his hands, and offers his complaint.
Habakkuk’s words are perhaps the most truly human of all the prophets. Habakkuk recognizes the difficulties of belief in troubling times. He looks around and sees all the problems that plagued his prophetic predecessors. Moral outrage, oppressive leadership, religious superficiality, strife and violence are on every corner. And Habakkuk lifts his voice to God and says, “O Lord how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous – therefore judgement comes forth perverted.” How long? That is Habakkuk’s basic message to God, how long?
And that is a proper question. It is a question we have all faced and tried to deal with. How long, O Lord, will injustice reign? How long, O lord, will sin rule in the world? How long, O Lord, will we be faced with pain, and trial, and temptation? How long must we bear the burden of suffering? How long will the righteous be overcome by the wicked? And with each time the question is asked, it seems as though it is left unanswered. And Habakkuk’s anger wells up as he raises his hands to God. Will you not listen? Will you not save? WE wonder about the Lord’s indifference.
There are some who think we should not question God. There are those who think God should not be prayed to in anger and complaint. But Habakkuk’s prayers are not from anger, but from anguish. And we must believe in a God who is big enough to hold our prayers, even our anguished prayers. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus Christ lifted up to his Father anguished prayers, prayers offered in blood, sweat and tears. God hears the prayers of the anguished. God hears the complaints of the righteous. And in some way God will answer those prayers.
And so we turn to God’s answer to Habakkuk. God knows the injustice of the Judean people. God sees their sin. God knows their moral lapses and oppression. God knows they have abandoned him for idols of gold and silver, gods of human construction. And he answers with words directed to the wrongdoers. “Look at the nations, and see! Be astonished! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told. For I am rousing the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. Dread and fearsome are they; their justice and dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more menacing than wolves at dusk; their horses charge. Their horsemen come from far away; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, with faces pressing forward; they gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and of rulers they make sport. They laugh at every fortress, and heap up earth to take it. Then they sweep by like the wind; they transgress and become guilty; their own might is their god!” (Hab. 1:5-11). This is the work of God’s judgment. A work, as God says, a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told.
And he says, “Be astonished! Be astounded!” The Lord is going to bring his judgment by the hands of the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, who will come from their land and destroy the land of Judah. This will be God’s instrument, a foreign invader. The nation that has rejected God will be subdued and ruled by a godless Empire. And in Habakkuk’s’ words we see in that great poetic style, we can hear the horses racing, we can hear the armies marching, we can see the force that comes to inflict great hardship. And we know that this was not the answer that Habakkuk would have wished for. And that again is another dilemma in prayer. The answer. For the answer to our complaints, the answer to our anguished cries is not always what we imagine it to be.
But Habakkuk understands. He knows the awesome power of God. He knows the sin of his people. So he responds to God’s answer beginning with that sense that he understands, “Are you not from of old, O Lord my God, my Holy One? You shall not die. O Lord, you have marked them for judgement; and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment. Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing;” God and sin cannot abide together. But even with that sense of understanding which Habakkuk broadly gives, there is still a sense of complaint in his soul. He still feels as though his first complaint has not been answered.
Because he looks at the Babylonian conquerors of his nation, and he still sees the oppression of the weak. Habakkuk understands that God must execute his judgment, but is it truly necessary to utilize such an unjust and harsh instrument. But Habakkuk believes that God’s actions are always a step on the path to salvation for his people, so he is willing once again to ask the important, if not difficult question. “Why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they? You have made people like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. The enemy brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his seine; so he rejoices and exults. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his seine; for by them his portion is lavish, and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net, and destroying nations without mercy?” (Hab. 1:12-17) The Babylonians are not a force for good; they are not a force for peace and justice. But still, how can God let this unrighteousness prosper?
And so Habakkuk writes that he will wait for the answer, that he will go to the watchtower and wait. “I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself at the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.” (Hab. 2:1). Habakkuk holds himself to the truth that he knows already. He maintains his good conscience and guards that which has already been given by God, and expects God to answer again. It is important to realize that this waiting, this watching is an important part of prayer. That even in the midst of trial and trouble, in the midst of oppression and injustice, in the midst of all of the prophet’s complaint, he is still able to turn his mind, his soul, his eyes upon the Lord and he will keep watch. George Adam Smith writes of Habakkuk’s skepticism and this point saying that, “Without such a conscience, scepticism, however intellectually gifted, will avail nothing. Men who drift never discover, never grasp aught. They are only dazzled by shifting gleams of the truth, only fretted and broken by experience.” We must not be dazzled by shifting gleams of the truth, but we must stand at the tower and hold watch over our vision of the truth, the truth of God, the truth of Jesus Christ, the truth of the power of his Holy Spirit.
And so as Habakkuk waits he receives his reply, and he heeds it well. “Then the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.” (Hab. 2:2-4)
The Lord’s answer is a call to duty. The first is “write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.” God gave Habakkuk a vision that needed to be repeated. Such too is our call, a call to repeat the vision which we have received. And God says make it plain. I am as guilty as anyone of trying to complicate the gospel. We attach so many things to the records of Scripture, to the records of God’s speaking to us, his people. We come to scripture with agendas, conservative or liberal, with the idea of inclusivity and political correctness, and we blindly build walls around scripture, walls to protect, not to protect scripture, mind you, but to protect from scripture. And does that make it plain? How can we reach the truth of God’s vision, if we must travel a maze, hedged in on all sides by the judgments of the world? How can we stand and allow such a maze and hedge to grow around the plain vision of God.
The second duty called upon by God is the duty to wait. “For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” God does not say wait in vain. God still has a vision. In the darkness, it is the vision of light. In coldness, it is the vision of warmth. In the depths of despair, it is the vision of joy. In death, it is the vision of life. In defeat, it is the vision of victory. He knows it may seem to tarry, but he says it will surely come. This is the promise which reaches its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has made God’s vision visible to us. He is the light. He is the warmth. He is the fount of joy. He is the giver of life. He is the victor over death, sin and the powers of hell. We must wait for the final fulfillment, but in God’s own words, the promise which he makes that there is a vision, that promise is enough to make our waiting seem as nothing at all.
The third duty is the duty of faith. “Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.” This passage was quoted in St. Paul, and through those words, “the righteous live by their faith,” the reformation of Martin Luther began in earnest. The dread opposition between the proud and the righteous. The two are not the same. It all boils down to this statement. Do you live in the power of the world, or do you live in the power of faith in God? Do you put your trust in money, in property, in friendships, in health, in exercise, in diet? These are so many things that draw our attention, and they draw our passion. And oh, if only half that passion was spent in our faith. Jesus said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. We have planted our mustard seeds in too many parts of our lives, and it is time to uproot them from the world, and offer them again to almighty God.
It is time for us to take our places at the watch. To stand upon the tower and hold fast to the truth that we expect our God to answer, even that our God has already answered, answered in Jesus Christ. Are we prepared to take our place and fulfill our duties? Are we prepared to make record of the great things God has done, in history and in the pages of Scripture, in the lives of each and every one of us here? To make record of the fact that we have been delivered by God. Delivered in Jesus Christ. Are we prepared to wait for that which God is surely going to show us, a vision of a kingdom ruled by Christ, a vision of conquered sin, a vision of life eternal, a vision of saints gathered praising at the throne of God? Are we prepared to turn our backs on that which rules this world, turn our backs on those things which would hold us down, turn our backs on the darkness that draws us in, and say the righteous live by their faith? Live by your faith. Live in that power. And let us move the mountains that stand before us, between us and the kingdom, the vision of God. AMEN and AMEN.
