Certainty in the Face of Mystery Part 1 | Habakkuk 1:1-11

Please take out your Bibles as you take a seat. There's plenty around. If you don't have a Bible, there's blue ones. They tend to sit around on the seats.

So grab yourself one if you don't have one. And as you take it, turn to the book of Habakkuk.

Now Habakkuk is one of the hard-defined books in the Bible. It's near the end of the Old Testament.

So it sort of goes, if you're kind of finding them, you find Ezekiel, Daniel, and then you get all kind of this whole run of books with hard names.

And out of them, Habakkuk is number eight and it's wedged between Nahum and Zephaniah.

So you might as well get familiar with it and find it because we're going to be looking at Habakkuk this week and for the next two weeks.

And hearing God speak through this prophet. And this prophet is introduced if you've turned to it.

If you look at the start of the book, it's in the first line. So you'll see the prophecy that Habakkuk, the prophet, received.

Okay, now we don't know anything about Habakkuk other than what it says here, that he was a prophet.

But we can see from the rest of the book that this prophecy that we get in Habakkuk, and this is going to be interesting to look at it for a couple of weeks,

this prophecy that we get is quite different to the other prophets in the Bible.

So generally when we read the prophets, we read things like the Lord said to Israel and then the prophet kind of delivers God's message to Israel, right?

That's kind of the work of the prophet. But here in Habakkuk we have something kind of different in that what we're going to see is that we get the prophet talking to God

and then God replying to the prophet, which is quite startling. And then it finishes actually in a psalm.

So it's quite a different prophetic book. And what we're going to do now is to read the first section.

So we're going to be reading verses 1 to 11. And as we do this, I want you to notice that in verses 2 to 4, we have Habakkuk's kind of question or complaint to God.

And then in verses 5 to 11, we have kind of God's response to Habakkuk. And there's going to be this.

And then in the next section, there's going to be another exchange. But we're looking at this first exchange today. So Habakkuk chapter 1, verses 1 to 11.

Habakkuk 1:1–11

The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received. How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, violence, but you do not save?

Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me. There is strife and conflict abounds.

Therefore the law is paralyzed and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted.

Look at the nations and watch. Be utterly amazed, for I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.

I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own.

They are a feared and dreaded people. They are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.

Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong, their horsemen come from afar.

They fly like an eagle swooping to devour. They all come intent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.

They mock kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities. By building earthen ramps they capture them.

Then they sweep past like the wind and go on. Guilty people whose strength is their God. Let me pray.

Heavenly Father we pray that you open our hearts as we continue to look into your Word.

We thank you that we have this message through Habakkuk and that it can speak to us today.

We pray that you are working us by your Spirit that we may know you better. Amen.

So in this passage Habakkuk is crying out to God. He wants answers to his experience of life.

And he starts this in verse 2 with how long, Lord. And we might ask whether this is really okay.

Is it okay for a mere human to be questioning God? And we might ask why we have this book today.

Are these answers for Habakkuk only or do they apply to us?

Now we've only read the start and only looking at the start today. And of course you haven't had a chance to get to the end.

So there are things that I need to tell you about Habakkuk as a whole book before we get too far to kind of answer these questions about Habakkuk and his questioning of God.

So the first thing to realise is that Habakkuk grows throughout this book as he interacts with God.

So by the end he has a deeper understanding of God and his ways than he does at the start.

And this book ends with an incredible declaration of faith. And so just actually turn over and have a look at that.

Turn over to chapter 3 and the end there, verses 17 to 19.

This is how Habakkuk's faith finishes. He says,

Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,

Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

The sovereign Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.

Right, so he grows in his understanding. The Habakkuk that we have at the start questioning God is not the Habakkuk that we have in the end with this incredible declaration.

The second thing though, having said that, is to realise that Habakkuk is not told off in any sense for his questions.

God actually interacts and answers them. And so we should see from this that it's okay to wrestle with God with the hard questions of life.

It's okay to take these kind of things to cry out to God in the way that Habakkuk does.

But we want to do that in the same way that Habakkuk does it. We want to do it in a way that leads us into a greater faith, a greater love, a greater knowledge of who God is.

And so there are two ways that we can go with our tragedies in life. We can face hardship and that can be a time that people can kind of turn away from God,

that they're angry with God, that they're in such tough times. Or we can kind of use that as a time to grow in faith and to come closer to God.

So some people that we used to live in our street, but actually we used to live in their street, we moved.

Some of our former neighbours, lovely people. They're a really young couple actually who owned their house up the road from us.

They're really into their house so you could kind of talk to them. We kind of chatted to them.

Always trying to improve things. They painted their house. They're always trying to say, we're adding value to the street. Yeah, add a bit of value to the street.

They painted their house orange and grey. Couldn't quite see how that was adding value to the street. But that's what they're all about, these guys.

And in some ways on the surface you kind of met them and you thought, wow, like these guys have it together. Life is going great.

But when we got to kind of know their story, they were able to own their house in the early 20s because both their parents had died.

So both the couple, both their parents, like that's four parents that have died really early.

And we tried to talk to them about Jesus and they just did not want to know about God.

They couldn't accept that there could be a God who had caused them the sorrow and hardship that they had faced.

Other people could face that same situation and see that there is a need to have a Father in heaven.

That they could see that there is a need for life in this world.

So as we wrestle with the tragedies that we face, we shouldn't be afraid of asking the hard questions.

And I think one of the great things about the Christian life and the Christian faith is that no matter what we go through, it just keeps making sense.

It makes sense of our tragedies. It makes sense of the victories and the good things of life.

It makes sense of the beauty in the world and the sorrow and all those things come together in the Gospel of Christ.

You can ask the hard questions. Don't be scared of it. The answers will be there if you seek them humbly.

And that's what we need to do. We need to ask those questions in a humble way that submits to God's Word and so through that grow in faith.

Which leads us to a third thing to notice as we're getting started.

And that's to think about how then does this help us? How does Habakkuk help us today?

And it's the way that I've alluded to that it actually prepares us for suffering and injustice in the world and leads us through those things.

So we are all in different places in our lives. Some of us are facing great hardships as we speak.

Some of us have experienced great injustices in our lives.

Some of us aren't so much at the moment but I can be really reasonably confident that we all will at some stage.

That's not because I'm a prophet or the son of a prophet or making a prediction about your life but simply that I've knocked around this fallen world for long enough

to know that life is long and that there will be suffering in this age.

So what we're going to do is we're going to start by looking at the way that Habakkuk cries out to God and we're going to notice three things about that.

And then we're going to kind of look then at God's response and think about how God's response works then to Habakkuk and how that kind of works for us today.

So Habakkuk's cry to God, three things to notice.

Firstly, notice that Habakkuk is crying out because of injustice. So in verse 2 he cries out violence.

In verse 3 he says that God is tolerating wrongdoings. There is destruction, there is violence, there is strife, there is conflict in Judah.

And notice that Habakkuk's not claiming that these things are against him. His complaints are for what he sees going on around him.

So look at verse 3, it says why do you make me look at this injustice? That's what he's worried about that's happening around him.

He seems to be acting as a prophet representing those people who this is happening to in society.

So far we've kind of, I've focused on the injustices to us and our sufferings but we should be concerned about the injustices done to others.

When we see people suffering at the hand of others we should cry out to God. We should ask God that he sets those things right.

We've done that as we prayed this morning and there's plenty of examples of it in the world around us.

And this is a great thing to do because it focuses us away from ourselves which is very helpful.

So sometimes our own suffering, in our own problems we become really self-absorbed.

We focus on what others are doing to us and the challenges in our lives. But looking up and thinking of others helps us to gain perspective.

Sometimes we're so busy being indignant about the wrongs that are being done to us that that kind of makes us want to strike back, to make us want to cause pain in others.

But if we look at others, people who are suffering, if we show empathy and practice radical love then that changes our whole perspective.

It's very easy to sort of be vigorous about the law when it justifies our own feelings but it's much harder and much more noble to stand up for the goodness of God's law when it's affecting other people.

And Habakkuk is the righteous man, he's the man living in evil times and he reacts rightly against what he sees around him.

Because when violence and conflict are allowed to continue, that's when righteous people get hurt.

So look at verse 4.

Therefore the law is paralysed and justice never prevails.

So God's law is there to honour him but it's also there to do good for people.

But when evil prevails the law is paralysed.

It's like a seized motor in a vehicle. So the car, like the country, is incapacitated.

The motor won't turn over, the whole car is useless, it won't move forward.

When there's evil and justice to the point that Habakkuk's talking about, the law becomes paralysed.

It can't do its job of protecting the weak and vulnerable.

And then kind of look at the end of the verse, it says the wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted.

So when God's law ceases to function then righteous people are oppressed and dominated by the wicked.

And so we should cry out.

So first we looked at how Habakkuk is crying out because of injustice.

The second thing we should notice is that he's crying out because of unanswered prayer.

So look at verse 2. He's saying, how long Lord must I call for help but you do not listen.

This is not Habakkuk's first prayer.

He has been crying out to God about this injustice but God hasn't taken any action.

He's almost kind of groaning this, how long must he wait.

He's weary of this world as it is with the suffering that he sees of righteous people and he longs for God to take action.

And I'm sure that we can all identify with him.

We've all prayed for help and longed for God to take action.

But look at what God says in verse 5.

He says, look at the nations and watch.

So he's telling Habakkuk to wait.

And if Habakkuk waits he's going to be amazed.

God is at work and God goes on to describe his work.

He's at work but he's working in his timing not Habakkuk's timing.

Now that's not a promise that all your prayers are going to be answered in the way that you imagine them being answered if you just wait long enough.

That's not what I'm saying.

God's answer to Habakkuk probably wasn't what Habakkuk had in mind.

He might have hoped that God would bring those individuals concerned to justice.

He might have hoped that God would cause Judah to turn back to him as had happened years earlier when Josiah was king.

But what God says is that he's going to bring the Babylonians against Judah to punish Judah for their sins.

And in chapter 2 we see that God's answer in saying that to Habakkuk is clearly not what he had in mind

because that brings up more issues and concerns for Habakkuk that he then kind of brings back to God.

But we're going to hear about that next week.

Nevertheless, God is working in all of these events, all of what he's doing to Judah

to bring something about that will utterly amaze Habakkuk.

And we're going to look at that a little bit more closely in a minute.

But first we need to see a third aspect of Habakkuk's cry to God.

So firstly we saw that he's rightfully crying out to God because of injustice.

Secondly we saw that he's crying out because of unanswered prayer.

And thirdly we note, and this is really the most important point,

we need to see that Habakkuk is crying out to the right person.

Okay, he's crying out to the one person who can bring mercy and justice to oppressed people.

We've already seen that the law is paralysed, right? That truck isn't going anywhere.

There's no earthly solution here, but the God of all the earth, the God of justice,

the God who is a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows, is the one who can respond.

And this is what Habakkuk gets just right.

This is why God answers his question, why he's wrestling with God in the right manner.

He knows who God is. He gets it. He knows that God loves justice.

He knows that God hates sin. And he knows that God won't let the guilty go unpunished forever.

So Habakkuk's complaint is that he can't see God acting in the way that he knows God will act.

And then he turns to God, the God of justice, and he asks how long until he's going to get to see God act

in the way that he knows that God will act.

And it's really important that we take this away from Habakkuk.

He's crying out in pain. He's wrestling with God, but he's crying out to the right person.

And that's what can really make the difference as to whether we turn away from God

as a result of injustice and suffering, or whether we grow in our faith.

It's at the very time that we are most outraged with God,

that's the very time that we need to turn to him with our prayers.

Another example of somebody who can't see God's goodness is a guy called A.B. Faisie.

You may know his book, famous West Australian. He wrote his autobiography, I guess.

He called it A Fortunate Life.

So it's amazing that in that title he could see the blessings and the things that have been good in his life.

Most of his story is of incredible hardship.

He tells the story of his childhood, which is incredibly harsh.

He goes to war and serves at Gallipoli, and then he returns to war

and has to lead his family through the depression.

His story through that time is incredible stuff.

You read it and you just think, man, we just don't know what some people have gone through.

But he reacted to that. He writes it in his book that he feels,

because of particularly what he saw at Gallipoli, that he can't believe in a good God.

But we mustn't react like that when we see things.

God's answer to Habakkuk tells us why we shouldn't.

That's what we're going to do now. We're going to look at God's response.

We're going to look at that in two ways. We're going to look at his direct response.

Then we're going to take one more step and peel back the layers a little bit

to think an extra step of what sits behind this for us as Christians today.

As we've looked at already in verse 5, God responds initially by saying,

Look at the nations and watch and be utterly amazed.

For I'm going to do things in your days that you would not believe even if you were told.

Then he goes on to describe how he's going to raise up the Babylonians who are going to come and destroy Judah.

He emphasizes how godless and violent and ruthless they're going to be.

Something is going to happen that Habakkuk won't believe.

We've already said that perhaps he's not going to believe it because this is not the answer that he would expect.

Why would God do that? Why would God raise up these people to destroy Judah?

That alludes to the next question and the next problem that Habakkuk has.

Perhaps it's that the power of this invading army that is completely shocking in their ruthlessness.

More directly, he won't believe it because the Babylonians aren't a thing at this time.

The major players in politics at this stage are Egypt to the south, so to the south of Judah.

There's Egypt which is a great power at the moment and to the north there's Assyria or to the northeast.

The kings of Judah are playing politics in the middle of these two powers.

Instead of trusting in God, they're turning to these and making allegiances to play the politics.

In verse 6, when God says he's raising up the Babylonians,

for the Babylonians to do this, to be able to come down as far as Judah and invade,

the first thing they would need to do is to whoop the Assyrians and then assert themselves as a world power

and then be able to come south and conquer a nation which is seeking refuge with Egypt.

But at the moment, these guys are nobodies. What God says here is shocking.

Most immediately, what this tells Habakkuk about God is that God is the God of all the earth.

He's not just directing the affairs of Israel as people tended to think about God's in those days,

but he's actually working in everything, in a far bigger picture, to raise up nations and cast down others.

God is working in everything to bring about his purpose.

The theological name that we give to this is providence,

God's all-powerful care for his creation through which he brings about his purposes.

That's what we saw earlier in Colossians 1, that he does this through Christ, through whom all things hold together.

It is Christ who is holding all things in creation together.

God has absolute supremacy, absolute ability to interact in any situation because Christ is holding all things together.

This is where we need to come back to what we were talking about before in unanswered prayer.

What Habakkuk learns is that God's work in providence is beyond what we can understand.

Habakkuk can't imagine a solution of raising up Babylonians to somehow interact with these problems, but God is at work.

There's no way that we can know what God is doing today.

God's plans are beyond Habakkuk's horizon and they are bigger than he is.

God's plans to set our injustices right are bigger than us.

They are bigger than our childhoods.

They are bigger than wars and they are bigger than our economic hardships.

Because God has bigger plans than those things, we shouldn't let those things cause us to think that he isn't powerful, that he isn't good, or that he isn't listening.

He's acting beyond those things in ways that we cannot imagine.

He's acting beyond our circumstances.

Instead of turning away from God, we should cry out to God because he is the one who is holding all things together.

Then we should wait, knowing that whatever God is doing, and we can't know what that is, whatever he's doing, it is for our good and will ultimately be better than what we can imagine, even if it doesn't seem that way now.

I said that we're going to take just one more step and that's to consider how Jesus fits with all of this, how the events of Jesus' life and death and resurrection come into play.

At the start of the book of Hebrews, it says, this is Hebrews chapter 1 and the first two verses, it says, in the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways.

Hebrews 1 · chapter mention

That's what we have in this book. This is God speaking to the ancestors through the prophets, this prophet that we have at many times and in various ways.

This is one of those times and ways.

That's what we have in this book.

Then verse 2 says this, it says, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom also he made the universe.

In these last days, that's the time that we're in now, he has spoken to us by his son. The greatest revelation of God, the greatest way that God speaks to us is through Jesus.

That means we need to do a little bit of thinking.

We need to think perhaps about how Jesus in his life and death and resurrection might answer the question that Habakkuk is answering to God.

There are two answers that we find and one of those is in the cross and the other one is in Jesus' second coming.

If you like, one is in his first coming and his death as part of that and the second one is in his second coming.

The cross tells us, Jesus' death tells us that yes, God does care about injustice.

God cares so much about sin that he sends his son to die for it.

He won't just let go of any injustices. He can't just forget sin and let it go.

He's angry with sin and it must be punished. He's angry with whatever sin has been done against you.

God is angry about that. He's not just letting it go, he's angry about that. He will bring that to justice.

He satisfies that justice for those of us who are forgiven by placing it on his son, his own son whom he sent.

So injustices in life aren't nothing to God. They're a big enough deal that he has to send his son.

He can't just let go of it. It needs to be paid either on the cross by Jesus or in eternity.

That brings us to our second point, which is that Jesus will return to judge everybody.

The world will be amazed. There will be no wrong that isn't set right.

Either it's set right by Jesus paying the price for it or it's set right by other people facing their being called to account for what they've done, for every injustice.

That's an incredible thought. It's a frightening thought.

As Habakkuk cries out and asks this question, and as we do, there's a real answer to that.

There will be a judgment. We don't see it now, but everybody will be called to account.

God's providence points us to these things. God is working in all things, but he's working specifically to bring about his plan of salvation.

He's working specifically to bring about that plan that he brings about through Jesus' death and his resurrection and his second coming.

He's working in your life not to make things the way that you think are best for you, but to do what he knows is best for you.

And to bring you to that salvation on the last day so that you won't face the punishment of your sins.

So when we suffer, or when we see others suffering, let's cry out to God. That's right. That's good.

But let's not cry out in anger and rejection as some have done.

But let's cry out to God knowing who he is and knowing the way that he's working in the world.

And we really do know God. We know his heart.

We have it in the Bible and we've seen it in the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son who died in our place.

And then therefore we must trust God in his promises to send his Son and set things right again.

Let me pray. Heavenly Father, we must live by faith and not by sight.

And we struggle with that. And so we ask you to keep us encouraged.

Keep our eyes on Christ. Keep us knowing you and your nature through him.

And let us all wait for the day when he comes.

And let us live our lives crying out and asking you that you send your Son.

Please send him to set this world right. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

We are going to sing.