Habakkuk 1:1-11 | When Lack of Perspective Hurts

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Have you ever asked God why?

Have you ever wondered where is God and my hurt?

And my sorrow?

The Psalms that question God are among the most famous biblical hymns.

The heartfelt questions seem to strike us at a profound level.

When we wonder where God is, why God hasn't answered prayer.

Or when we wonder what God is doing.

We feel when the psalmist cries out, How long, O Lord.

Now our circumstances of life might differ from David and the ancient poets, but it is still a universal aspect of our humanity to struggle to bridge the gap between our perceptions and what God says is true.

We look at life, whatever circumstances or situations we might be enduring at the moment, and it seems as though God is absent.

God is far away, maybe even unconcerned.

He doesn't care.

That struggle is typical.

You shouldn't be concerned when those questions enter your mind as you live a life of faith, because it's part of living in a fallen world.

On the other hand, we must speak truth to ourselves about reality, particularly God's reality, when those questions and concerns enter our minds about where God is, what God is doing in our life.

You see, the psalmists wrestled with those questions a thousand or more years before the cross.

They were looking toward the cross, not knowing exactly how God was going to do things.

They were wondering about their ultimate Redeemer, when God would act, when God would make things right.

We have the gracious benefit of looking backward.

We can have our faith strengthened by seeing how God has already worked and acted decisively in history.

He became sin for us.

And in his death, he satisfied God's wrath against our sin, and he acted decisively to send out his spirit so that we are never without him, regardless of how we feel.

A few moments ago, we expressed gratitude for the Lord's immense and gracious work as we reflected on the Lord Jesus through his death, burial, and resurrection.

Yet we also acknowledge that while our salvation from sin and death is complete, the full extent of God's work is yet to be realized.

We've sung at least twice of anticipating the Lord's return.

He's coming back to do something.

There is more to come.

He has yet to remove sin and its impact from this creation.

That means that partaking in the Lord's table is not just a remembrance and a celebration, but a hopeful anticipation of the completion of God's work.

And by participating, fellowshipping in that together, it becomes a helpful grace to navigate the challenges of living by faith alone.

Like the Old Testament songwriters, we still have questions.

At least if you're not too proud to admit it.

But the Lord has given us a memorial that speaks truth to us.

God is present.

God is working.

But that doesn't mean we always understand what God is doing or how he is working.

But communion reminds us He is.

The Old Testament book of Habakkuk is another of God's gracious gifts to his people.

It's similar to communion in that it reminds us God is working.

You might not see it, you might not know it, you might not understand it, but God is working, and it is a gracious reminder to his people as we endure the roller coaster of life.

Habakkuk was full of questions for God.

He couldn't make sense of his world.

He couldn't make sense of life.

He was confused and he was hurt.

And he was a prophet.

We will walk through Habakkuk's thoughts and interactions with God in the next few weeks, and as we do so, we will find that our circumstances are different, but people, human beings, are not so different from people living 2,500 years ago.

We'll also find along the way some critical truths about living a life of faith when life doesn't make sense.

The portion we're going to consider this morning is Habakkuk chapter 1, beginning in verse 1 through verse 11.

Habakkuk 1 · chapter mention

Last week we scoped out the entire book, highlighting the importance of having a proper perspective on life.

But the book of Habakkuk begins with the prophet's painful questions and confusion, and we might say God's disturbing response.

Instead of showing us the helpfulness of a correct perspective, this first portion of the book reveals how hurtful it can be when we lack a proper perspective.

If you have your Bible open, you can follow along as I read.

Habakkuk chapter 1, verse 1 through verse 11.

Habakkuk 1:1

The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

Oh Yahweh, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear?

How long will I cry to you, violence, and you will not save?

Why do you make me see iniquity?

Why do you idly look at wrong?

Destruction and violence are before me, strife and contention arise, so the law is paralyzed, justice never goes forth.

For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted.

Now notice the quotation marks in verse 8.

God is now speaking.

Habakkuk, lift up your eyes and look among the nations and see.

Wonder and be astounded, for I am doing the work in your days that you would not believe if told.

For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.

They are dreaded and fearsome.

Their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.

Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than evening wolves, their horsemen press proudly on, their horsemen come from afar, they fly like an eagle swift to devour.

They all come for violence, all their faces forward, they gather captives like sand.

At kings they scoff, at rulers they laugh, they laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it.

Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their God.

Amen.

It's appropriate to feel to feel a bit of heaviness by stopping at verse 11.

But that heaviness would continue if we kept on reading.

The reason is that these few pages in our Bible are a burden.

Literally.

That word in verse 1 that's translated as oracle or vision means something heavy.

It's a burden that must be lifted up and carried.

This is a burden that the prophet must carry as a vision about perspective.

It's something that God showed Habakkuk.

The prophet was given clarity through seeing.

And that idea is baked into the text.

In verse 1, Habakkuk saw this burden.

In verse 3, he was made to see sin in society.

And he asked why God didn't see.

Then in verse 5, God told Habakkuk to see the world from his vantage point.

Very quickly then we begin to see what's happening.

Verse 2 soulfully asks, how long?

Verse 3 continues with, why?

Why?

The first part of this text is composed of wonderings in the heart of Habakkuk from what he sees, what's gathered in from his eyes.

He looks around and what he sees in his world bothered him to the core.

And he believed that it would bother God.

But he did not see God doing anything about it.

My friends, our theology is challenged when our circumstances don't align with what we believe to be true.

Habakkuk's circumstances challenged his theology.

His view, his line of sight in his world, in his life, disrupted walking with God and motivated questions about uncertainty.

But as we learned last week, God holds an eternal perspective outside of the boundaries of time.

He has a purpose for his creation and a plan to achieve that purpose.

But he works within time and creation to bring that purpose to fruition.

That plan is detailed.

It includes individuals like you and me.

He knows our days.

He knows your struggle.

He knows your impatience.

And he knows our pain.

So living with God's line of sight helps soothe those questions and begins to strengthen our trust when life doesn't make sense.

On the other hand, lacking proper perspective does not soothe our questions and our uncertainty.

Instead, it increases our anxiety and our wondering, and we begin to search for other ways to soothe those uncertainties and that sorrow.

It's the questions, though, the uncertainty, the angst that we hear from Habakkuk in these first few verses.

Only seeing what is visible, merely trusting in what we feel and living by our senses will generate hurt, confusion, uncertainty, and struggles when we move through life.

The only rescue from the emotional battle brought about by our senses is believing, proclaiming, and resting in what the psalmist says in Psalm 121.

I lift up my eyes to the hills.

Then he asks the question: From where does my help come?

Anything down here?

No.

From Yahweh, from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

Perspective.

Let's look more closely at Habakkuk chapter 1 for a few moments.

Habakkuk 1 · chapter mention

Our section has two parts.

And I have to move quickly here.

If you're taking notes, I apologize.

There's a human component in verses 2, 3, and 4.

There's a divine component representing a limited human viewpoint and an unlimited eternal divine line of sight.

The human portion reveals that humans are hurt, confused, and angry due to a lack of perspective.

So let's consider that when we see what we see in Habakkuk when life doesn't make sense.

Let me say that in a different way.

Habakkuk is us.

If you haven't gotten that yet, Habakkuk is me.

He's you.

We don't know anything about the man except for what is found in these few pages, but we find ourselves reflected in him.

So we can ask, what do we see about ourselves in our brother Habakkuk the prophet?

Well, what we see about ourselves is, first of all, that we wonder where God is.

When we live life by our senses, by what we see, hear, and feel, and that emotion begins to guide us, we begin to wonder where God is.

Because there's an innate part of us that knows living life in a fallen world requires outside help.

The tiny nation of Judah had experienced a mini revival under the reign of the boy king Josiah after Israel's defeat in exile by the Assyrians.

According to 2 Chronicles 34 and 2 Kings 22 and 23, Josiah became king when he was eight years old.

But it tells us that he began to trust in God during his teens.

That trust in God led to about 23 years of righteous rule over his people.

He instituted all kinds of religious reforms that turned the Jewish people back to a life of faith in God, highlighted by a refurbishment of Solomon's temple.

But then in 609 BC, Josiah made a very unwise decision.

Against advice, he decided to go into battle against the Egyptians where he was killed.

The Egyptians then installed a puppet king over Judah, and that led to decades of rule of Judah by puppet kings, either through Egypt or Babylon.

And 2 Chronicles 36 shouts about the character of those men.

So Josiah is righteous.

He leads the people to faith in God.

But once Josiah dies, all of the kings after him did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh.

That's Habakkuk's world.

Habakkuk sees what was, and he sees what is, and he has questions.

He doesn't understand.

His world shifted from comfortable and righteous to distorted and evil.

It was filled with terror as the new kids on the block, the Babylonians, battled the Egyptians for control, and they're caught in the middle.

The religious fabric of Habakkuk's world was degrading.

The political realm was a disaster, with no true freedom, much less hope, on the horizon.

Those elements led to social and cultural perversion.

If it sounds familiar to you, there's a reason for that.

Habakkuk describes it in verse 4 as a time when the law of God was paralyzed, literally numb.

People couldn't feel it, people couldn't sense the law of God, and it had no impact on them.

The religious and the moral aspects of Habakkuk's world had collapsed.

And Habakkuk, the prophet, wondered, where's God?

What is he doing?

Does he even care?

My friends, take encouragement that even God's prophets are not immune to the struggles of living by faith alone.

The how long cry in verse two suggests a lengthy sorrow, a repeated lament.

He kept on crying out to God for help.

You know, crying out for help implies an expectation of being heard.

We pray with sorrow and agony.

We we labor to communicate with God because we believe that He hears.

We don't speak without an expectation of being listened to.

We talk to say something, but also to be heard.

And when we speak to God, we have this expectation of being heard by Him with an implication of rescue, of being saved, of God acting.

But the length of time and the number of times that Habakkuk cried out for help without God's intervention stirs up questions in the prophet's heart and mind.

He expected God to hear, and he expected God to save, and it's the same with us.

All of this is rooted in a worldview truth.

Life in a fallen, sinful world requires outside help.

We can make a go of it in our own power and in our own ability, but sooner or later it will just devolve into a chaotic mess.

Isaiah echoed this, writing about it nearly 100 years before Habakkuk.

He said, Justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away.

Why?

Because truth has stumbled in the public squares and uprightness cannot even enter.

Truth is lacking.

And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

And God saw it, and he was displeased.

Displeased that there was no justice.

And he saw that there was no man, and he wondered that there was no one to intercede in this situation.

Why?

Because you need justice.

Outside help.

Then, one of the most beautiful words in scripture.

Then his own arm stepped in.

Friends, a life of faith is painful.

When our hearts, minds, and bodies are stirred up by our senses, by what we gather in, and that's all that we see.

Because we are unable to interpret life well when we lack God's perspective.

And then we cry out.

We pray, we ask questions, and it hurts when we don't see the expected results.

It's painful when the help does not come as we expect.

And the questions begin to explode.

We wonder where God is, because we know that life in a fallen world needs outside help.

But we also see from Habakkuk that we as human beings wonder why things are the way they are.

We see it in effect in verse three.

Why do you cause me or make me see iniquity?

Habakkuk knows that God is sovereign.

He knows that.

He believes that.

He knows that God is in control.

Therefore, it feels as though the prophet is being forced by God to look at all of this rampant sin all around him.

God is making him do it.

Habakkuk stops short, I think, of blaming God.

But you can feel the tension in his heart, can't you?

God, why are things this way?

Why are you making me endure all of this?

Why are you putting me in this situation?

Habakkuk doesn't lack trust in God.

Let's make that clear.

Habakkuk doesn't lack trust in God.

He lacks understanding and perspective.

Be careful when you hear your brothers and sisters in Christ asking painful questions like this.

Painful questions do not automatically mean a lack of faith and trust.

It may point to the exact opposite.

It may say they have such a solid trust that they can't square the circumstances that they see in life with what they know to be true.

Trusting in the sovereign God implies that he plays a part in my situation and my experiences.

That's what verse 3 is telling us.

Habakkuk believed that.

His faith was the source of his consternation.

His faith grounded what he knew to be true.

God is in control of this.

Sometimes, though, our lack of understanding overwhelms a life of faith, doesn't it?

We are not God.

We don't understand everything.

We can't see everything.

Even when we know lots of things, sometimes we can't put all the puzzle pieces together and make it make sense.

We trust the one who knows all things.

We trust the one who works all things according to his purpose.

And we expect, in a life of faith, we expect those results.

And when our fallen world doesn't produce those results, it stirs up questions in us.

Now let me clarify here.

Desperately trying to make sense of your circumstances by asking questions like Habakkuk doesn't necessarily imply that you lack trust.

No matter what the faith healers and the televangelist impostors say, it doesn't necessarily say that you lack faith and trust.

Don't be quick to judge your siblings in the faith.

Now, that being said, those kinds of questions can lead us down a dangerous path of doubt and mistrust and wandering from the one who bought us for his own.

And so we have to be on guard for our hearts.

We must always speak truth to ourselves about God's purpose, reminding and exhorting ourselves to trust that God knows and God is working, even though it doesn't look like it or feel like it.

My friends, life in a fallen world needs divine purpose.

Because if you do not believe in divine purpose, then you will fall apart.

Habakkuk knows God has a purpose.

He's trusting in that.

He's resting in that.

But in that resting, he's also wrestling with the questions of living in a sin-cursed world.

Which leads to Habakkuk and us at times wondering if God cares.

My friends, when we wonder if God cares, we need to trust in God's character.

Life in a fallen world leads you away from trusting in God's character.

So you need to have your own imaginary leash that draws you back to trusting in God's character.

Believing in the sovereign God implies that he controls my circumstances and my world.

That's why Habakkuk says, destruction and violence are before me, strife and contention arise, the law is paralyzed, justice never goes forth.

These represent reality according to Habakkuk's senses.

He says, God, this is what I'm seeing, this is what I'm hearing, this is what I'm feeling.

It can't get worse.

I know God's law establishes truth.

I know God's law establishes justice, and I know God's law established righteousness.

But I don't see it.

God, don't you care about your word?

Don't you care about truth?

Don't you care about justice?

Don't you care about righteousness?

Don't you care about us?

Habakkuk's perception was that God's law was powerless and ineffective and no one cared.

Maybe even God doesn't care.

It gets a little uncomfortable when we get to that point, doesn't it?

It gets uncomfortable because we know God's character.

And it gets uncomfortable because we begin to question God's character, which is questioning God Himself.

Remember that wondering if God cares is not necessarily a lack of faith.

For Habakkuk, it was a sign of processing.

He's trying to make sense of what he knew to be true and what his perspective on life made him feel.

And as we step back from that, we can see that Habakkuk is trying to connect his perspective on life with his character of God.

And the prophet is having difficulty making them match up.

That's when we have to remind ourselves that God's ways are not our ways.

When our questions remain unanswered, we must trust in God's character, for life in a fallen world requires trust in God's character.

Now, as we process God's response to the prophet, beginning in verse 5, we begin to recognize that failing to live with God's point of view in mind leads to pain, concern, questions, and confusion.

When all we see is what's taken in by our senses, it just stirs us up.

I think Trevan Wax said it well.

He said, the God who is truly scary is not the wrathful God of the Bible, but the God who closes his eyes to the evil of this world, shrugs his shoulders, and ignores it in the name of love.

That's what Habakkuk's struggling with.

He's God, I know you, I know what you're like, I know your word, and what I'm seeing and feeling and sensing is not in line with that.

So verse 5 begins God's response to Habakkuk's questions.

But we struggle with this because God doesn't answer the questions.

Instead, God tells the prophet that he's doing something that he can't even begin to understand.

Habakkuk, you wouldn't believe it if I told you.

I'm gonna tell you, but you wouldn't believe it anyway.

Habakkuk doesn't believe it.

So Habakkuk's perspective on his world was painful because he couldn't fully grasp what God was doing.

And if we're willing to admit it, the same is true for us as we walk a life of faith.

It gets painful when we can't see what God is doing.

So God begins to tell Habakkuk a little bit about his own perspective.

God tells the prophet, listen, Habakkuk, I get it.

I understand.

Let me tell you something you're not gonna understand.

I'm sovereignly raising up and empowering the dreaded Babylonians.

Yes, I'm doing that.

It's my work.

As we'll see in the next section next week, God's response leaves the prophet dumbfounded.

He's even more confused than before.

So we have to stop and consider what God might do with this strange response.

God goes on and talks about how awful, how evil, how terrible these people are.

But he puts it all in a divine perspective, telling the prophet, listen, Habakkuk, you think I'm not working.

Let me tell you, I'm working.

But you're not gonna get it.

It's beyond you.

So what do we do with that?

Habakkuk was hurting because he lacked God's perspective on his world.

So God then interrupts and says, Let me give you some perspective, Habakkuk.

And my perspective, by the way, isn't gonna help you.

Because it's not going to change what you perceive.

So what happens then?

How do we respond?

What do we do with God stepping into our lives and saying, I'm gonna change your perspective.

I'm gonna help you understand what I'm doing, but it's not gonna change what you see.

It's not gonna change what you hear.

It might begin to change what you feel as you trust me.

What do we do with that?

Let me give you five quick thoughts.

Number one.

We must trust that God is always working toward his determined end, even when we can't see it.

Look among the nations and see.

Wonder and be astounded.

For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.

My friends, the first thing that we need to do when we are caught up in this in the stirring moment of questions overwhelming us is lift up our eyes.

We need to look and see.

God's not just concerned about me.

He's also working in my family.

He's working in my church, he's working in my community, he's working in my state, he's working in my country, he's working in my world.

And all of those like puzzle pieces are all working together.

And one thing, one little detail, is not going to stop all of that, but it all works together.

You might not see it, you might not feel it.

But as you begin to look up, you begin to lift up your eyes from your own questions and understand God's working everything.

Boy, that's a lot of stuff.

I sure hope he doesn't drop any of those plates.

But we can trust him that he's working all of those things.

And then if we can do that, then it's only a step beyond that to lift up our eyes to the hills and to see I need outside help from the maker of heaven and earth.

We must trust that God's ways are not our ways.

Habakkuk, I'm doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told, Habakkuk, you would never do what I'm doing.

Because you don't know how all of this works together.

Habakkuk, you would never plan the pain and the agony and the sorrow that you see.

You would never plan to allow for the sin in your world to run rampant.

Habakkuk, you in your right mind and your right spirit would follow my word to the T.

Habakkuk, you would not do that.

So you're not going to understand what I'm doing.

Because my ways are not your ways.

Now that can lead to a bad place if we do not remember what we started with last week in chapter 2, verse 14.

God's ultimate goal is for the whole earth to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as waters cover the sea.

So we know that even though sin and sorrow and pain are running rampant now, that's not where it's going to end.

God is not going to do things the way that I would do things.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Because he does all things well.

When you start to ask questions, always remember God is working toward his determined end, even when we can't see it.

And he does that in ways that are not our ways.

Then we can also trust that God's focused work for his people, in this case, it's Judah, it's the Jewish people in Judah.

God's work for his people is intimately connected and united with his work for the world.

I'm raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the breadth of the earth.

The scope is much wider than this small little territory called Judah.

The scope of God's work is far greater than Faith Evangelical Free Church.

It's far greater than Grand Forks.

It's far greater than North Dakota.

It encompasses the entire world.

At the same time, he knows how many hairs are on your head.

Or not, as the case might be.

And yes, the psalmist says he catches your tears in a bottle.

God is intimately working in your life and in my life, but that is connected to his universal work, in which he will one day at the right time fill the earth with his glory.

That thought alone will help lift your eyes up from the questions of life and redirect your thinking a little bit.

Where are we?

Number four, we must trust that God knows our lives omnisciently and purposely and personally.

He knows everything about you.

Remind yourself in those moments when you ask questions, God, do you care?

Yes, I care, my friend.

My son, my daughter, I know everything about you more than you do, and I care personally.

Yes, I'm working a work for my whole world, but I'm doing this personally in your life.

God responds to Habakkuk almost almost dismissively.

But the result is kind of this assumed statement of, yeah, Habakkuk, I know what you're saying.

Now listen, let me give you some perspective.

I'm not letting you see righteousness flourish right now.

But you need to trust that I'm working all things to a determined end.

We must trust that God will bring about his purposes even through unexpected means.

It's hard for us to imagine what it would feel like to be Habakkuk.

You can get close if you can think for a moment what which nation, which people group would absolutely be the most horrifying and humiliating to be run over by.

To come into the United States, conquer us as a country, destroy everything, and take us captive.

And then to hear God say, I'm doing that.

I'm doing that, and I'm doing it not only to bring all things together for good, but to fulfill my purposes.

We must trust that God will bring about his purposes even through unexpected means.

But friends, our hearts and minds sometimes imperceptibly begin to change when we ever so slightly begin to trust that our good and gracious King has unnumbered purposes beyond our understanding.

And at the end of this interaction, we see two primary truths.

We may be overwhelmed by hurt, by anxiety, and by confusion when our perspective is driven only by life in a fallen world.

But we will be helped by reminding ourselves and exhorting ourselves to trust in the God who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us for himself and purify us to be a part of his eternal people.

So lift up your eyes to the hills and see from where your help comes.

Lord Jesus, cause us to do just that.

To know, to trust, and to believe that whatever you're doing, however you're doing it, we can trust you.

Turn our hearts and minds to you and to you alone as your people.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.