Through the Bible - Habakkuk

The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see... O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!... For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation... the just shall live by his faith... Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines... yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

A prophet watches his nation collapse, hears an answer he cannot stomach, and learns that the just shall live by faith.

A Prophet Watching His Nation Decline

The book of Habakkuk is only three chapters, and it is a fascinating book. We don't know much about this man—where he came from, exactly when he wrote—but we have a rough idea of the time. It was just before the nation of Judah, the southern tribes, was destroyed by the Babylonians. Remember, the nation had split into two: the northern ten tribes had already been destroyed by the Assyrians, whose capital was Nineveh. Last week in Nahum we read of the burden against Nineveh and how God would use the Babylonians to destroy Assyria—and then He would use those same Babylonians to come down and carry away Judah and Jerusalem, because the people had departed from the Lord.

Habakkuk lived during that downward decline, just before the Babylonians came. Like any man of God watching his nation slide, he began to cry out to the Lord and pray on behalf of his people—much as many of us do as we watch the slide in our own nation today.

"How Long Shall I Cry?"

The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see... O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!

He had a vision—God revealed something of what He was going to do, just as He did with Isaiah and Nahum. And in verses 2 through 4, the prophet cries out. How many of us can identify with him in the very first words? "How long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!"

A lot of people cry out and feel the Lord doesn't hear because He hasn't answered. But usually it's not that God isn't answering—it's that God isn't answering the way we want. We hope for a yes, and the Lord may be silently saying, "Wait." When God is silent, He is often saying the time is not yet. Keep praying. Unless He clearly says yes or no, keep praying. And like children with their parents, we don't like it when God says no—but He does.

Habakkuk cries out because his own people in Judah were violent and rebellious. They still had the temple, the priesthood, the feast days and sacrifices, but their hearts were far from God. They worshiped Him with their lips, as Isaiah said, yet their works revealed they had nothing to do with the one true God. So Habakkuk cries, "This is not right." He sees iniquity, grievance, spoiling, violence, strife, and contention, and he says, "The law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth." He looks around and sees no justice—exactly what God said through Isaiah: "I was looking for justice, I found none."

When Wickedness Surrounds the Righteous

"The wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth." When we look at our own nation, led in many places by unjust, activist judges, we see wrong judgment proceeding too—as in the recent California Supreme Court ruling against marriage as God ordained it. And it should bother us as Christians.

But notice the cause: the wicked encompass the righteous, and therefore wrong judgment proceeds. The righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Our nation has largely turned from God—even in the church, where the divorce rate matches the world's, and where some who call themselves Christians embrace drunkenness, cohabitation, and homosexuality, calling acceptable what Scripture plainly condemns. When the righteous are surrounded by the wicked, wrong judgment is the result. And the leaders who pervert judgment are simply an indication that the people as a whole have drifted from the Lord.

God's Answer: "I Raise Up the Chaldeans"

Many God-fearing Christians pray daily for this nation, standing in the gap, and it seems as though God isn't working—things only get worse. But God is still working.

Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

In verses 1 through 4 Habakkuk speaks; in verse 5 God answers. "I'm going to do something in your days that you would not believe." You know the saying, "too good to be true"? God is saying the inverse—it's too bad to be true. "You're not even going to want to hear what I have to say."

Lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation... Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves... they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.

God says, "You're right—your people have departed. You want Me to work? I'll work. But the work will blow your mind, and you won't like it. I am raising up your enemy, the Babylonians, to destroy your nation. Your walled cities will be nothing to them; your princes and kings will not stand."

Bring it into modern terms. Imagine we cry out tonight, "Lord, our nation has gone toward wickedness—do something!" And God says, "Stand up and look around, because I'm going to raise up Iran, and they're going to destroy your nation." What would you say? You'd do what Habakkuk did—stop in amazement and ask, "Wait, what? Could you say that again?"

A Second Cry—and a Pattern for Trouble

Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die.

In Habakkuk 1:12 the prophet speaks a second time, and now something deeply troubling faces him: God is going to destroy His own chosen people using an enemy that follows false gods—an enemy who will even attribute its victory to its idols (verse 11). It would be as if Iran destroyed the United States and gave Allah the glory, even though it is the one true God using them as a tool. God did this before—in Isaiah 10 He called Assyria "the rod of mine anger," a tool in His hand even though Sennacherib didn't think so.

In the face of a troubling situation, Habakkuk teaches us four things to do. First, stop and think—don't react emotionally. Second, restate and consider what you already know about God—His character and nature. Third, apply His character to your current situation. And fourth, if you still haven't come to an answer, leave the rest with God by faith.

So Habakkuk stops and considers who God is. "Art thou not from everlasting?" He remembers the Lord is eternal, unchanging—the great I AM revealed to Moses—and holy, the One who calls His people to be holy as He is holy. From God's character he concludes, "We shall not die." Why? Because God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham. They would be judged, but not completely consumed, for that is not God's nature.

The Problem That Still Didn't Fit

But something still bothered him. The New Living Translation renders verses 13–17 well:

But you are pure and cannot stand the sight of evil. Will you wink at their treachery? Should you be silent while the wicked swallow up a people more righteous than they? Are we only fish to be caught and killed?... Then they will worship their nets... Will you let them get away with this forever?

Habakkuk says, "Lord, I admit we, Judah, are wicked—but the Babylonians are really wicked. Why would You use them to judge us?" It would be like God using Las Vegas to judge Los Angeles. Just minutes earlier he was crying, "Look how wicked my people are!"—and now he's saying, "Well, they're not that bad." We do the same thing. "Lord, judge them"—and when God reveals how, we say, "Wait, not that."

But here is something to recognize: God is not a respecter of persons. He beholds all sin the same from heaven, and He will judge it. Habakkuk has stopped, considered God's character, and applied it—but it still doesn't make sense. So he does the fourth thing.

Leaving It in God's Hands by Faith

I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

This is a teachable man. He doesn't demand an answer; he says, "Lord, this doesn't make sense to me. There's nothing wrong with You, so there must be something wrong with how I'm seeing it. I'll wait until You speak." That is the best thing you and I can do in any situation we can't piece together: leave it in His hands and say, "Lord, You've got to reveal it to me."

And God answers. "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not" (Jeremiah 33:3). We were never promised heaven on earth after salvation—Jesus said, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

"Write the Vision"—and Woe to Babylon

Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time... though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come.

Notice—it doesn't say "that he who runs can read it," but "that he may run that readeth it," that it makes sense and they can press on in what God is doing. God says, "I know it doesn't fit your sense of My character, but write it anyway. It will surely come."

Then God clears things up through the rest of chapter 2. Yes, the Babylonians are proud, greedy, violent, drunken, and idolatrous—and yes, He will use them to judge Judah—but He will also judge them, ultimately by the Medo-Persian Empire revealed through Daniel. God speaks five "woes," meaning certain destruction: woe to the proud (vv. 5–8), woe to the greedy (vv. 9–11), woe to the violent (vv. 12–14), woe to the drunkards (vv. 15–17), and woe to the idolaters (vv. 18–20). Why? Because the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness. He will not clear the guilty.

"The Lord Is in His Holy Temple"

Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise... there is no breath at all in the midst of it. But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

What a contrast. The gods of the world are silver and gold, the works of men's hands—eyes that don't see, mouths that don't speak. Isaiah 44 describes the foolish man who chops down a tree, burns part of it to cook his meal, and bows to the rest, saying, "Thank you for feeding me." That's stupidity.

You may think there's no idolatry today. Go to the Philippines, or walk the streets of Rome, and you'll see it like never before. But even here, idolatry is rampant—not always silver images, but images on TV and the internet, and even the things people drive down the street worshiping. There's no breath in those things; they cannot save. But the Lord is in His holy temple, still alive, still powerful, still working.

Praise and Honest Faith

In chapter 3 we find the praise of Habakkuk as he prays for mercy.

O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years... in wrath remember mercy.

Even in the midst of God's prophetic word of judgment, Habakkuk prays for revival—not his own work, but God's. "Make Your work known. Show these people You are still alive." And here is something awesome about our God: even as He pours out wrath, He is mindful of mercy. The first thing He says of His own name is "merciful." God is not in heaven with His finger on the smite button, watching us like a man at a computer ready to drop a piano on the head below. Even in wrath, He remembers mercy.

In verses 3 through 15 Habakkuk reminds himself of God's mighty, merciful works—bringing Israel out of Egypt, through the Red Sea on dry ground, fighting for them in the wilderness, bringing them into the promised land. We must do the same. When we face heavy trials, take a step back and remember what God has already done in your life to bring you to this very day.

Then in verse 16 he trembles in reverence, that he might rest in the day of trouble. And he makes his great declaration:

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines... yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

This is honest faith. It is not the health-and-wealth approach that, when cancer comes, pretends "I don't really have it, I claim healing in Jesus' name." That's not faith. Habakkuk honestly faces the problems—but he sees them in the light of a great God. Though everything falls apart, "yet I will rejoice."

Feet Like a Deer on High Places

The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.

Remember the Planet Earth footage of a snow leopard chasing a deer down a sheer mountain cliff—the deer bounding from rock to rock as if running down a flat street, while you and I would climb that slope shaking, scared to death. When we have a faith that looks beyond the troubles and sees our God, we can be like that deer, sure-footed on the heights, because He is the one giving us that footing. The book that opens with bewilderment ends with a song—"to the chief singer on my stringed instruments."

The Just Shall Live by Faith

"The just shall live by faith" (Habakkuk 1:4 / 2:4) runs through the New Testament. In Hebrew it is only three words. Romans 1:17 quotes it and focuses on the just—how we are justified. Galatians 3 quotes it and focuses on how we shall live. Hebrews 10:38 quotes it, and Hebrews 11 unfolds by faith. So in this life we walk and move by faith, trusting God, not the circumstances around us, because God is at work behind the scenes. His ways are not our ways—and if you read to the back of the book, you find out He wins, and we win with Him.

This verse has moved the church to reformation. In the 1500s a German Catholic monk named Martin Luther—named after an earlier Martin Luther—traveled on foot toward Rome through the Alps. Falling sick at a monastery near death, contemplating Scripture, the Lord brought this verse to his mind: the just shall live by faith. In Rome he came to a church with stairs the Catholic Church claimed were taken from Pilate's judgment hall, even marked with supposed spots of Jesus' blood. Pilgrims climbed them on their knees, praying at each step. Luther began to climb them too, and the verse would not leave his head. So he did something you're not supposed to do on those stairs—he stood up, turned around, walked back down, and returned to Germany. Many scholars mark that moment as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, built on these words: the just shall live by faith.

We are not saved by works of righteousness, but by faith in Christ Jesus and His work on our behalf. And we don't only get saved by faith—we walk by faith, from faith to faith. A day is coming when, by faith, we will take our last breath and step into eternity, and in that moment all the things of this world will mean nothing. Who won the presidency in 2008 won't mean a thing in eternity. Does that mean we don't vote? No—we still do what the Lord has called us to do here, but He remains in control on the throne.

Closing Prayer

God, I thank You for that reminder tonight that You are on the throne and in control, working a work in our days that we wouldn't even believe if it were told to us. How utterly blown away we would be if You spoke to us the same things You spoke to Habakkuk. Lord, we live in a nation in decline, a nation that has largely rebelled against You and turned from You. Yet there is still a great remnant that knows You, loves You, and cries out for revival. So we keep asking that You would revive us and make Your work known. In wrath, remember mercy.

Lord, should this nation be judged—as in many ways it seems we already are when we line up the things of the last twenty years with Your word and see that You have removed Your hand of protection—we ask that in wrath You would remember mercy. As You promised through Joel to pour out Your Spirit on all flesh in these last days, may revival start right here, right now. As Martin Lloyd-Jones said, if you want revival, draw a circle around yourself in chalk and seek the Lord to bring revival into that circle. Bring revival to each of us individually. Judgment must begin at the house of the Lord, and if it begins with us first, then You can work in and through Your church. So we, Your people called by Your name, humble ourselves before You and ask that You would move, work in our nation, and heal our land. In Jesus' name, amen.