I can’t understand why some things happen as they do. It seems that people with the finances to hire the most famous attorneys are much more likely to go free than those who must be represented by assigned public defenders. I become cynical about justice because neither guilt nor innocence seems to be a factor in the outcome.
In matters of health, it seems that there is no rhyme or reason as to who gets sick and who stays healthy. I know that, statistically, people who practice their Christian faith live longer than those who don’t, but this doesn’t help much when everyday I see devout Christians suffering inexplicable misery.
Habakkuk seems to be one of those avoided books of the Bible. Perhaps because most people can’t pronounce it, even fewer can spell it. It is an important book, however, not only for its prophetic significance with God. Its three chapters, 56 verses in all, trace the spiritual progress of the prophet Habakkuk and show his emergence from a period of deep concern and confusion to a climactic peak of joy and victory. Even though this little book opens in gloom, it closes in glory. It begins with a question mark and closes with an exclamation point.
In chapter two, we have that great declaration which found its way into three books of the New Testament: “The just shall live by faith.”
In reviewing the Book of Habakkuk, four things are immediately noticeable: The prophet was a man with problems; he was a man of prayer; he was a man of faith; and he was a man of song. Habakkuk, an obscure prophet that lived 600 years before Christ. Few people knew where he came from or where he went; who his parents were; or the nature of his calling.
These were turbulent and uncertain times in Judah, times of spiritual delinquency, injustice, oppression, violence, and wickedness. They were times of political instability and national crisis. Good King Josiah had been slain on the battlefield by the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho. Jehoahaz, Josiah’s son was installed as King, but he was deposed three months later by Necho, who installed Jehoiakim as King. Jehoiakim was a weak and wicked king whom the prophet Jeremiah rebuked by saying. "Thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence to do it”(Jerm 22:17).
In addition to moral, spiritual, and political bankruptcy throughout the land, the threat of war became increasingly predictable as the rolling war machines of Babylon ground nation after nation into the dust. It was against this backdrop that throws Habakkuk into doubts, confusion, and even accusations against God. This giant web of frustration so entangled him that he soon felt God didn’t even care. Listen as he voices his concerns,: “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! Even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! The prophet Habakkuk began his prophecy by questioning God about why things were as they were. Habakkuk saw the people turning their backs on God and what he saw frightened him. He list a catalog of sins, as he denounce God’s indifference to wrongdoing. Violence and injustice reign throughout society. The Torah is not taught or obeyed, and the poor are judged with a different set of rules than the wealthy.
In chapters one and two, we see Habakkuk pouring out his complaints before God. From where he sat the nation was dying; obedience to God was optional; justice was jettisoned; morals were missing; and the law was limited. Not only was there corruption in the government, but also there was moral, ethical, and spiritual decay. There was a breach in the covenant relationship between God and the people. Right looked like wrong; and wrong looked like right.
Unlike Jeremiah and the other prophets who stood before the people for God, Habakkuk stood before God for the people. Habakkuk wanted to know just like some of us today want to know, why the wicked go unpunished and how long God will allow this wickedness to go unanswered. When would God step in and right this perverse situation? Habakkuk wanted to know why the rascals of the world have everything and God’s people have nothing. Why are the wicked seemly is being blessed. Why does He permit the rich to get richer?
Why is it that the average person is bearing the burden of taxation and inflation? People getting by with sin, and God is seemingly doing nothing about it. That was the psalmist’s question in Psalm 73:2,3” “But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” Why does God permit evil men and women to prosper?
Don’t you sit there, as if you never wondered about it. They are the ones that is stepping over people and stepping on people. They are the ones who drive the big cars, dress in the finest clothes, live in the most fabulous homes, and always have a wad of money, and you can’t pay your bills or meet next month’s rent.
God reassured this prophet with the pronouncement that the wicked do not go unpunished; and that there was already a plan to restore order to the land, justice to the government, and obedience to God. God said to Habakkuk, “I am going to do a work in your day that you would not believe even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians to restore order in the land.” For Habakkuk, God’s cure seemed worse than the disease. Now if you think Habakkuk had a question before, he really has some questions now.
The Babylonians were more wicked and unjust and unfair than anybody was, and yet God chose to use them in the divine plan for national healing and redemption. That is like replacing Democrats with Republicans. In chapter three, we come to this great hymn of faith, a hymn of resignation and of trust. Habakkuk determines that he will wait for the awesome day of calamity, trusting that the great God, who performed awesome deeds in the past at Mount Sinai and the Red Sea, would again display the awesomeness of His divine might. To this testament of trust, Habakkuk appends this codicil, “God do what must be done, but in your wrath remember mercy.” God in your wrath, remember mercy. Give us what we deserve, but remember what we need.
In a book written by Baron Freiderich Von Hugel, a Roman Catholic philosopher, who wrote a series of letters to his niece, wrote My dear Gwen: “I want to prepare you, to organize you for life, for illness, crisis and death. Live all you can, as complete and full a life as you can find, do as much as you can for others. Hope for the best, plan for the worst”. In this fast moving, fun living, freedom-loving age in which we now find ourselves, we are often caught off guard when the worst comes. The despair, dismay, and discouragement that now disturb this present era are indicative of the fact that we do not believe that the worst can come. There is evidence that we do not think that the worst will come.
On November 13, 1995 two-thirds of this nation’s registered voters did not think that the worst would come. So they stayed at home and did not vote. On November 14, 1995 we woke up to a Newt Gingrich led mean-spirited, cold-hearted, dishonest government. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. On Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, The United States was caught off guard, when terrorist used unexpected, innocent people to attack America. Crashing 4 planes, 3 of them into occupied building.
The worst does come. In life, things do not go according to plan. Catastrophic circumstances, Tumultuous times, and Perilous predicaments arrest our attention as they zigzag across the landscape of our national and individual horizons. We need to have a strategic plan, a contingency diagram, a dynamic course of action for ministry, because the worst does come. Now, if it has not happened to you yet, just keep on living. Keep on walking. Keep on talking. The worst does come. There are bumps in the road. There are detours up ahead. There are problems to go through. There is trouble to go through and there is a death to die. The worst has come. In the supreme sense, things cannot get any worse than they are right now. I know there are those of us who romanticize life from a Charles Dickens worldview, that it is the best of times, it is the worse of times; it is an age of wisdom, it is an age of foolishness; it is the spring of darkness; it is the winter of despair.
But I believe, from where I sit that the worst has come. Look around; we have an impotent President, an insensitive Senate, an ignorant Congress, and an invisible Court.
Bombings in New York and Oklahoma. School shootings in Colorado. High unemployment, no health care, poor childcare; high crime rate, black on black crime. Babies dangling from bridges, children with guns, runaway teenage pregnancy. Absent fathers, anemic mothers, disintegrating families, children with no hope, mothers who can’t cope, fathers on dope. More black men in jail than in college.
Women forgotten too soon; men gone too soon; children dying too soon. Sisters waiting to exhale; brothers trying to get paid; heroes becoming zeroes. Many of us kept out, kicked out, knocked out, locked out, pushed out, put out, pulled out, and phrased out of this thing called life. Many of us are out of the game because we have never really been in the game, I tell you, from where I sit the worst has come.
While our problems today are not precisely the same as were Habakkuk’s, there is a definite parallel. These are turbulent and uncertain times, spiraling inflation, lack of national and international leadership, spiritual apathy, and mounting family problems.
We live in a pressure-cooker society. Someone said that if Moses were to come down from Mount Sinai today, the two tablets he would be carrying would be aspirin tablets. It isn’t always the large, giant problems that destroy us. Sometimes it is the subtle forces that drain our happiness and spoil our effectiveness.
On the slope of Longs Peak in Colorado lie the ruins of a huge tree. Naturalists say that it stood for over 400 years. It had weathered thousands of storms and had been hit with lighting 14 times. At the end, an army of beetles attacked the tree and leveled it to the ground. This tremendous giant, that age had not withered, that lightning had not blasted, that storms had not subdued fell at last before beetles so small that a man could crush them between his forefinger and thumb.
Many people survive rare storms and lightning blasts somehow but allow the beetles of worry, fear, stress, and tension to destroy their happiness and effectiveness. It’s interesting to note that out of 773,692 words in the Bible, the word worry is not found. Worry is not in God’s
The threefold rule of earth’s wisest man was “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths”.
Habakkuk said to his generation and to ours, I have a plan for the worst of times. Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines. The olive crop fails, and there is no food from the field. If the sheep are destroyed in a storm and there is no cattle in the stalls. …YET I WILL REJOICE.
Notice Habakkuk does not say “then” will I rejoice in the Lord; he says “YET”, I will rejoice, all my friends, gone, Yet. Lost my job, Yet. Health fails, Yet! I will rejoice. Many things happen in our life, which become the basis for a celebration; but never a pending calamity as was facing Israel.
Celebrations are times of great rejoicing and gladness over positive events. Defeat and destruction is never a cause for rational people to rejoice. We celebrate weddings, anniversaries, graduations and job promotions. But not defeat and destruction. Yet Habakkuk had the courage to “celebrate” and rejoice in the Lord that had been his past help and sustenance. He may have had every reason to fold up his tent and cry, but he decided to rejoice instead. This prophet found the faith and courage in hard times to “celebrate” and rejoice.
Sometimes, as Christians, we have to look around us and find the reason for a celebration. You have to think on the goodness of Jesus and all that He has done for you.
Sometimes we have to count our blessings and realize that there are so many people that are in worse situations than the trouble that we are experiencing. We have to look beyond the temporary setbacks and see the permanent fellowship of our almighty God. It is easy to see the evidence of our Christian faith when positive events seem to be either “going for us,” or “coming in our direction.” We all know too many saints who only rejoice and praise God enthusiastically when the “sun is shinning” in their life experiences. , “Talking faith” and “having faith” are two different happenings. They got their mouth poked out, having pity parties, constantly complaining to others, when life is not so pleasant, or some other misfortune.
God is no stranger to crises of this magnitude. The same God who moved in history is involved in this present hour. God is able to handle this crisis that we are in. My faith tells me that wickedness awhile may reign; Satan’s cause may seem to gain. But there is a God who rules above with a hand of power and a heart of love, and if I am right, God will fight my battle.
Somebody ought to say Amen, right here. If this doesn’t ring your bell, than your clapper is broke. God will allow me to rise above my circumstances and make a noble contribution to this world. Habakkuk says to you and to me that it is time to get up, look up, stand up, straighten up, and speak up, not in my name, not in your name, but in the name of the one whom was at His best, when we were at our very worst.
Allow me to conclude by saying this:In order for this declared faith to be validated, it has to be tested and tried when life is not so pleasant; when we become afflicted with illness, suffer financial decline or some other misfortune. Simply put, the strong Christian must develop and maintain a “Hard times” faith in his God.
A “Hard times” faith continues to function when the way is darkened by clouds of trouble and adversity. A “Hard times” faith becomes a shield to “quench all the fiery darts of the wicked”. A “Hard times” faith is constant; it will work in the fair weather of life as we are prospering. Scripture has given us clear-cut examples of “Hard times” faith in the people of God who have refused to quit trusting Him, even though things looked desperate or hopeless.
“Hard times” faith caused Deacon Stephen to utter these words in Acts 7:56, while his enemies were stoning him to death: “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God”.
“Hard times” faith caused Daniel, to pray three times a day while suffering confinement during the Babylonian captivity. It caused the three Hebrew boys to believe that God would deliver them out of the “fiery furnace.”
If we live long enough, some of our days will be filled with distress and troubles. Every day will not be wonderful for us. We need a “Hard times” faith in God to see us through the sorrows, sickness and tragedy which sometimes happens in our lives.
We must continue to “praise God, from whom all blessings flow.”
We must keep on rejoicing in our salvation, believing that God is yet in control. God is going to work things out in our homes, communities and situations. We must “delight ourselves in the Lord and He shall bring it to pass.” He said, “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
