July 4, 2010
Habakkuk 1:1-11
We know very little about Habakkuk. We are not certain when he lived, but his message is most appropriate for the nation of Judah around 610 B.C. This would make him a contemporary of Jeremiah. His name is probably Babylonian and may be a response to the method and people through which God was going to bring about destruction on His people. Habakkuk’s book stands alone among the prophets because it never records a word from God for the people. Most of the prophetic writing consists of God’s commands to the prophets to give His messages to the people. There is none of that here. Instead, the entire book is a conversation between Habakkuk and God. Habakkuk offers two complaints which God answers. Finally, Habakkuk offers a prayer to God in light of the answers. All of this was written down so Judah, and we, might listen in.
We begin by looking at Habakkuk’s first complaint and God’s answer. Habakkuk did not like what he was seeing around him and he called out to God to intervene. While at first it seems he is calling out for help for himself, his real complaint is that he has to look at injustice, violence, and strife all around him. He wanted to know, as we so often do, why God tolerates evil and violence.
Habakkuk began by asking God how long he was going to have to cry out to Him for help. Habakkuk had been praying, but so far he had not gotten an answer. God seemed to be silent. Habakkuk called out to Him that there was violence in the land, but as far as Habakkuk could tell, God was not doing anything about it. His cry to God echos the Psalms in their desire to know from God why He does not seem to care at times about the suffering of His people and has taken so long to act on their behalf.
Habakkuk said it had gotten to the point that those who were entrusted with preserving the peace and bringing justice were part of the problem, not the solution. Look again at verse 4. "Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted." What a situation in which to find yourself, where the wicked are in control and determine what the righteous can and cannot do. What an indictment against the government and the leaders of the people. This was the situation during the reign of Jehoiakim. He was corrupt and, instead of leading the people into greater faith in God and obedience to Him, he led them astray.
Justice was in short supply and corruption in the government and in the courts is what drove Habakkuk’s complaint. Bribery was rampant. The rich bought verdicts from the courts and the wicked acted with impunity. The government that was supposed to protect the people was aiding and abetting the robbery. Even the king himself acted like a murderous thug.
So, what was God’s response? While Habakkuk’s complaint provides the introduction and basis for what follows, our real concern, then as now, is God’s response to the sinful state of the world. Why does justice seem to often to be delayed. Why do the wicked prosper and do well? How did God respond to Habakkuk?
The answer begins in verse 5. "Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." God told Habakkuk to look around him at all the nations. God wanted him to get his gaze off of his problems and immediate surroundings and look at what God was doing. He was to watch and be amazed!
Even if God should reveal the fullness of what He was up to, Habakkuk would not have been able to believe it. God was going to bring punishment on His people because of their sin. It’s not that God did not know about the sin, or that He didn’t care. God is loving, patient, and merciful, and so He was giving plenty of time for the people to either repent or to complete their slide into sin and rebellion against Him. Because their slide would continue, God told Habakkuk He would bring the Babylonians to bear. The people trusted in their strength, so God would overpower them with a stronger nation. The Babylonians were an up-and-coming empire with a lot of energy and a thirst for power and domination. Still, as great as they would become, they were only a tool in God’s hand, as they would soon find out.
God does amazing things. We learn this when we take the time and make the effort to look. We have seen answered prayer in this congregation. We have seen God work out His plan of redemption in His word, through history and in the history of this church. We have seen His promises in His word. Sometimes God uses what we would consider unlikely people as tools, but it is still God who will bring justice and an end to wickedness.
We are so rarely able to comprehend what God is doing. For that matter, we tend to fall prey to the belief He is not doing anything. We do not watch, and so we are not amazed. It is when things seem to be at their worst that God is at His best. The history of the church is full of the stories about how God strengthened and kept His people through even the worst of persecution. God does not always save His people from oppression, but He does always provide the strength we need to get through it.
We will face problems in life, and the more obedient we are to God, the more problems we will face because of it. God was able to so grow His church even in the midst of persecution that one of the church fathers, Tertullian of Carthage, declared in the late 2nd or early 3rd century, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." The more the culture suppressed the church, the more she grew. The church’s faithfulness to God, and their steadfast devotion and loyalty to the teaching that had been handed down to them–especially the death and resurrection of Jesus–attracted the people around them so much that people converted and followed Jesus, even when doing so almost certainly meant suffering and death. Such is God’s power and grace. It’s not our problems that hold us back, it’s our lack of trust in, and dependance on, God and faithfulness to Him.
