Habakkuk despairs about the society he lives in and those who claim to be the people of God. What should be our assessment of our society and those within it claiming to be the church?
I think that western society is essentially sick! We live in an indulgent society in a world of need; we are a highly-informed society that closes its eyes to global inequality; a society where young people think that drinking themselves silly constitutes a good time—and so we see staggering and puking youth on our news programs; a society that demands its rights and ignores its responsibilities; a society where the unborn are terminated if they threaten to be an inconvenience; a society where our TVs feed us a junk-food diet of trivia and titillation; a society of self-centred relationships with a cheapened understanding of sex; a society that has turned its back on the church!
But then let’s look at the church that it has turned its back on! So many churches in the western world can’t handle an unpopular message. They don’t want to appear intolerant in saying Jesus is the only way to the Father. They don’t want to be accused of being narrow and so they dilute the gospel’s warning that we need to be rescued from judgement and hell. Even churches that pride themselves on holding on to the truth can be little communities of fractured relationships and bitterness. There is no shortage of stories of people who claim to be Christians who have been harsh and uncaring or crooked in business. The church is supposed to be the light in a dark world but so often it appears indistinguishable from that world, if not at times worse than the world!
So what is God going to do about this sick society and these twisted people who claim to belong to God? That’s what Habakkuk wanted to know!
It is about 600 BC. God had acted in line with his promise to make a people from Abraham. He had made them a nation and given them a land yet they persisted in unfaithfulness and so the nation was divided in two. Habakkuk lives in the southern kingdom, Judah. These corrupt people are supposed to belong to God. Why is he letting them dishonour his name in this way?
Habakkuk’s first complaint—when will you stop the rot? (2-4)
Have you ever wondered about church history? When I studied a little church history in college I was left wondering whether what I was studying was actually the history of the church. What I mean is that it was often the institutions that called themselves the church that were caught up in error and persecuted those who preached the gospel. There were times when what was called the church was unbelievably corrupt and self-serving. Why would God allow himself be dishonoured by letting godless people claim his name? Why does he put up, in our day, with the nonsense of a variety of churches from a variety of denominations that simply refuse to submit to God’s revealed teaching in the Bible? I just don’t know!
Habakkuk brings a similar complaint before the Lord. He looks at his society and sees violence and injustice. His society claimed to be a special covenant people of God. However they ignored God’s law and the righteous suffered. This is a place where justice is perverted and strife and conflict abound. ‘How long, O Lord before you will stop the rot?’
I want us to take something from Habakkuk’s example. Here is a man who feels passionately about injustice. Here is a man who is stirred by the wrongs committed by those claiming to belong to God because their actions surely dishonour God’s name. Here is a man who brings his complaint to the Lord in prayer.
How different Habakkuk is from us! We often get most passionate about things that are trivial—we get worked up if the service is not quite to our liking but don’t care if our relationships are shallow. We often are apathetic about things that bring dishonour to God’s name but are enraged if our pride is any way dented. We tend to gripe to others about our complaints and stir up division rather than begin with bringing them to God in prayer and thinking about how he would have us deal with the issue.
As Habakkuk brings his complaint to the Lord he has to deal with a problem that all of us will face at some time if we pray. Why does it appear that God is not listening? Why is he slow to answer? Why is he not responding by doing what I would have him do? Commenting on this, Marytn Lloyd-Jones writes, ‘If God were unkind enough to answer some of our prayers at once, and in our way, we should be very impoverished Christians.’ One of the hard lessons we are going to learn as we study this powerful little book of Habakkuk is the need to trust God even when all that we see around us makes us question whether God is trustworthy!
God’s response—He is in control (5-11)
God says to Habakkuk, “Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.” We had better be ready for the fact that God’s ways are often surprising. He tells Habakkuk that he is going to raise up the Babylonians, a ruthless and godless people, who will bring terror to the land. Indeed this happened in 587BC when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and carried the people into exile. Habakkuk could never have imagined that this would be how God would achieve his purposes.
These verses remind us that God is in control of history. Evil people do evil things but God gets his way. As one preacher explains, ‘This is a truth that is often unpopular, but clear in the pages of the Bible: God is sovereign over everything – including evil actions. Nothing happens in this universe, in history, in our own personal lives, that is beyond God’s control. Everything ultimately serves his purpose – even evil actions.’ Think of the cross. That was the classic occasion in which God acted in an unbelievable way. There evil people got their way and crucified Christ, and so enabled God to save sinful people from our sin.
Would we rather live is a world that was the subject of randomness or one that is under God’s sovereign control? That’s not as easy a question to answer as it first seems! In a world of chance we would have no-one to blame and no difficult questions to ask because there is no reason to anything. In a world subject to God’s sovereign control we can feel perplexed at what God is up to. God’s sovereign control over history leaves us with many unanswered questions about this world and our lives. Yet the challenge is not so much to figure out why things have happened as they have but to respond to our circumstances with trust in God. This powerful little book of Habakkuk presents us with that mighty challenge!
Habakkuk’s second complaint—how can you use evil people to achieve your goals? (12-17)
Habakkuk’s society was bad but the Babylonians were far worse. How could God use them to fulfil his purposes? How could God use evil pagans to punish those who were supposed to be his people? “O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to exercise judgement; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?” The people would be helpless like fish swimming into a net and the Babylonians would give glory to their so-called god for the catch!
What God has revealed he is going to do flies in the face of what Habakkuk believes about God; it seems unjust, it leaves him utterly perplexed! Have you ever been perplexed by the things that God lets happen to us and in our world? Habakkuk had surely wanted God to remove wicked people from the land but God was about to remove everyone. It would appear that God was giving up on his promise to Abraham and destroying his people. How can this be? We will see how God responds when we look at chapter 2. What we can declare from our vantage point in the here and now is that God did not give up on his promise to Abraham. He continues to save people from sin and the consequences of sin—that’s what the promise to Abraham was really about. From the remnant of these people comes Jesus upon whom God’s plan of salvation rests. Despite appearances his faithfulness is certain!
Conclusion
We finish with a warning: we may have questions about the things that God lets happen but these questions never provide an excuse for refusing to put our trust in him. Someone may say ‘I can’t believe because . . .!’ Whatever it is won’t let them off the hook on the day of judgement.
In Acts 13 the Apostle Paul is speaking to the Jewish religious leaders in Antioch. There he quotes Habakkuk 1. He is pointing out that their forefathers, at the time of that prophet, ignored God’s warnings, refused God’s grace, and so faced God’s judgement. He urges them not to make the same mistake: ‘. . . my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you . . . Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you: “Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.”’ In Jesus we can know forgiveness for our sin but a coming judgement awaits all those who refuse to repent and avail of the grace of God in Christ.
So we may look at others in our fallen society and see their sin, but have we realised that our sin contributes to the sickness of this world? We may look at the hypocrisy of those who claim to belong to the church, but have we seen our own hypocrisy? Let’s not choose to miss out on the mercy that God offers to us in Jesus Christ! God’s ways may remain a mystery to us and we might never get the answers to the questions but one day we will see that he has done what is right and that he has been wonderfully gracious and faithful to his promises and his people. May we be among those who have placed our trust in him!
I think that western society is essentially sick! We live in an indulgent society in a world of need; we are a highly-informed society that closes its eyes to global inequality; a society where young people think that drinking themselves silly constitutes a good time—and so we see staggering and puking youth on our news programs; a society that demands its rights and ignores its responsibilities; a society where the unborn are terminated if they threaten to be an inconvenience; a society where our TVs feed us a junk-food diet of trivia and titillation; a society of self-centred relationships with a cheapened understanding of sex; a society that has turned its back on the church!
But then let’s look at the church that it has turned its back on! So many churches in the western world can’t handle an unpopular message. They don’t want to appear intolerant in saying Jesus is the only way to the Father. They don’t want to be accused of being narrow and so they dilute the gospel’s warning that we need to be rescued from judgement and hell. Even churches that pride themselves on holding on to the truth can be little communities of fractured relationships and bitterness. There is no shortage of stories of people who claim to be Christians who have been harsh and uncaring or crooked in business. The church is supposed to be the light in a dark world but so often it appears indistinguishable from that world, if not at times worse than the world!
So what is God going to do about this sick society and these twisted people who claim to belong to God? That’s what Habakkuk wanted to know!
It is about 600 BC. God had acted in line with his promise to make a people from Abraham. He had made them a nation and given them a land yet they persisted in unfaithfulness and so the nation was divided in two. Habakkuk lives in the southern kingdom, Judah. These corrupt people are supposed to belong to God. Why is he letting them dishonour his name in this way?
Habakkuk’s first complaint—when will you stop the rot? (2-4)
Have you ever wondered about church history? When I studied a little church history in college I was left wondering whether what I was studying was actually the history of the church. What I mean is that it was often the institutions that called themselves the church that were caught up in error and persecuted those who preached the gospel. There were times when what was called the church was unbelievably corrupt and self-serving. Why would God allow himself be dishonoured by letting godless people claim his name? Why does he put up, in our day, with the nonsense of a variety of churches from a variety of denominations that simply refuse to submit to God’s revealed teaching in the Bible? I just don’t know!
Habakkuk brings a similar complaint before the Lord. He looks at his society and sees violence and injustice. His society claimed to be a special covenant people of God. However they ignored God’s law and the righteous suffered. This is a place where justice is perverted and strife and conflict abound. ‘How long, O Lord before you will stop the rot?’
I want us to take something from Habakkuk’s example. Here is a man who feels passionately about injustice. Here is a man who is stirred by the wrongs committed by those claiming to belong to God because their actions surely dishonour God’s name. Here is a man who brings his complaint to the Lord in prayer.
How different Habakkuk is from us! We often get most passionate about things that are trivial—we get worked up if the service is not quite to our liking but don’t care if our relationships are shallow. We often are apathetic about things that bring dishonour to God’s name but are enraged if our pride is any way dented. We tend to gripe to others about our complaints and stir up division rather than begin with bringing them to God in prayer and thinking about how he would have us deal with the issue.
As Habakkuk brings his complaint to the Lord he has to deal with a problem that all of us will face at some time if we pray. Why does it appear that God is not listening? Why is he slow to answer? Why is he not responding by doing what I would have him do? Commenting on this, Marytn Lloyd-Jones writes, ‘If God were unkind enough to answer some of our prayers at once, and in our way, we should be very impoverished Christians.’ One of the hard lessons we are going to learn as we study this powerful little book of Habakkuk is the need to trust God even when all that we see around us makes us question whether God is trustworthy!
God’s response—He is in control (5-11)
God says to Habakkuk, “Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.” We had better be ready for the fact that God’s ways are often surprising. He tells Habakkuk that he is going to raise up the Babylonians, a ruthless and godless people, who will bring terror to the land. Indeed this happened in 587BC when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and carried the people into exile. Habakkuk could never have imagined that this would be how God would achieve his purposes.
These verses remind us that God is in control of history. Evil people do evil things but God gets his way. As one preacher explains, ‘This is a truth that is often unpopular, but clear in the pages of the Bible: God is sovereign over everything – including evil actions. Nothing happens in this universe, in history, in our own personal lives, that is beyond God’s control. Everything ultimately serves his purpose – even evil actions.’ Think of the cross. That was the classic occasion in which God acted in an unbelievable way. There evil people got their way and crucified Christ, and so enabled God to save sinful people from our sin.
Would we rather live is a world that was the subject of randomness or one that is under God’s sovereign control? That’s not as easy a question to answer as it first seems! In a world of chance we would have no-one to blame and no difficult questions to ask because there is no reason to anything. In a world subject to God’s sovereign control we can feel perplexed at what God is up to. God’s sovereign control over history leaves us with many unanswered questions about this world and our lives. Yet the challenge is not so much to figure out why things have happened as they have but to respond to our circumstances with trust in God. This powerful little book of Habakkuk presents us with that mighty challenge!
Habakkuk’s second complaint—how can you use evil people to achieve your goals? (12-17)
Habakkuk’s society was bad but the Babylonians were far worse. How could God use them to fulfil his purposes? How could God use evil pagans to punish those who were supposed to be his people? “O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to exercise judgement; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?” The people would be helpless like fish swimming into a net and the Babylonians would give glory to their so-called god for the catch!
What God has revealed he is going to do flies in the face of what Habakkuk believes about God; it seems unjust, it leaves him utterly perplexed! Have you ever been perplexed by the things that God lets happen to us and in our world? Habakkuk had surely wanted God to remove wicked people from the land but God was about to remove everyone. It would appear that God was giving up on his promise to Abraham and destroying his people. How can this be? We will see how God responds when we look at chapter 2. What we can declare from our vantage point in the here and now is that God did not give up on his promise to Abraham. He continues to save people from sin and the consequences of sin—that’s what the promise to Abraham was really about. From the remnant of these people comes Jesus upon whom God’s plan of salvation rests. Despite appearances his faithfulness is certain!
Conclusion
We finish with a warning: we may have questions about the things that God lets happen but these questions never provide an excuse for refusing to put our trust in him. Someone may say ‘I can’t believe because . . .!’ Whatever it is won’t let them off the hook on the day of judgement.
In Acts 13 the Apostle Paul is speaking to the Jewish religious leaders in Antioch. There he quotes Habakkuk 1. He is pointing out that their forefathers, at the time of that prophet, ignored God’s warnings, refused God’s grace, and so faced God’s judgement. He urges them not to make the same mistake: ‘. . . my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you . . . Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you: “Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.”’ In Jesus we can know forgiveness for our sin but a coming judgement awaits all those who refuse to repent and avail of the grace of God in Christ.
So we may look at others in our fallen society and see their sin, but have we realised that our sin contributes to the sickness of this world? We may look at the hypocrisy of those who claim to belong to the church, but have we seen our own hypocrisy? Let’s not choose to miss out on the mercy that God offers to us in Jesus Christ! God’s ways may remain a mystery to us and we might never get the answers to the questions but one day we will see that he has done what is right and that he has been wonderfully gracious and faithful to his promises and his people. May we be among those who have placed our trust in him!
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