Dark Days | The Struggle Is Real | Trinity Sermons

A reading from Habakkuk, chapter one, beginning at the first verse.

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 and 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 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 own strength is their God.

Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my holy one, you will never die. You, Lord,

have appointed them to execute judgment. You, my rock, have ordained them to

punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrongdoing.

Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the

wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? This is the word of the

Lord. In life there are indeed some unanswerable questions. Questions like if

Cinderella's shoe fits so perfectly, why did it fall off in the first place? Right?

Or, you know, why do we say someone sleeps like a baby when we know babies wake up

like every two hours? Or if I'm at a restaurant and I'm waiting for the

waiter to come, doesn't that make me the waiter? Right? Now these are

tough questions. These are tough questions. But these are not the kind of

tough questions that actually keep you up late at night tossing and turning in

your bed. No, no. There are other tough and unanswerable questions that

really rock us. And that's why we're going to be spending some time for the

next month in this teaching series called The Struggle is Real. We're looking

at the questions and the problems and the struggles that do keep us up late at

night. Some of the hardest questions that you you will have ever asked. Questions

like these ones. Why is there so much evil? Why does God tolerate

wrongdoing? Most of us have asked this question at some point when we're going

through an especially dark period or a difficult time where God does not seem

to be listening and God certainly does not seem to be answering our prayers. And

we're like, God, where are you? God, why don't you do something? God, can't you

see what's going on here? The questions like these do not have easy answers. Now

the person who asked this question 2600 years before we asked this question was

a guy with this name. Just out of curiosity, how do you how do we pronounce

this name anyways? Does anyone know? Just turn to the person beside you actually

and tell them how you pronounce this name.

All right, yeah. You know, is it Habakkuk? Is it Habakkuk? Is it Habakkuk?

Some people have said Habakkuk. No, seriously, some people do say it's

Habakkuk. And it's actually one of those names that even scholars aren't 100%

sure how to pronounce. It's a weird word. It's a borrowed word that comes

from the Assyrian language. It gets pulled into the Hebrew language. Some

people think that maybe it comes from a word that had something to do with a

garden plant. Other people think that this name means to embrace or to wrestle.

And that might actually make sense once we see the full story here. So you

can actually call him whatever you want. Call him Habakkuk. Call him the

Hamburglar. Call him, just, you know, just don't call him late for dinner. But who

is he? Who is this guy? And why is he asking these deep, deep questions? Well, if

you look at the very first verse of the book of Habakkuk, and actually I would

encourage you, if you have a Bible or if you, you know, have a Bible app to take

it out and turn it on, there's a lot here. The very first verse says this, the

prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received. Now, that word prophecy is not

the normal word that the Bible uses to talk about a prophecy. It actually means

heavy load or a burden. So right away this book begins by saying this is

the heavy burden that Habakkuk carried with him. What was the heavy burden? What

was this heavy load he carried? We're gonna, we're gonna find out. And secondly,

we're told this is a prophecy that he received. But even in your translations,

there'll probably be a little star by that word received because the word here

actually means, has to do with seeing. So this actually means that Habakkuk saw

something. So this was the heavy burden that Habakkuk the prophet saw, witnessed

personally. He witnessed this thing that's happening that is a heavy burden.

And the third word we should probably look at is that middle word prophet. Just

to remind ourselves, what is a prophet? You know, contrary to many people's

opinions, a prophet is not a person who can predict the future in biblical

speak. A prophet is someone who goes around and listens for the voice of God

and then in turn is able to speak God's voice, speak God's truth to the people

of God. And that meant that prophets often had the very unhappy job of telling

God's people things they did not want to hear. Telling them times and ways in

which they had fallen short or were disobeying God. And I think actually

that's probably one of the reasons why you've never read the book of Habakkuk or

other little books like it, Joel and Amos, these prophets, because we're a little

afraid of what we might hear if we were to open up those pages. Now I just said

that most prophets go around listening for God's voice and speaking to the

people. Habakkuk is unique still in another way. He actually spends more of

his time not talking to the people saying listen to what God says to you,

but talking to God saying, God we've got some questions for you. And that makes

Habakkuk a very unique prophet among the prophets of the Bible. Very few speak to

God the way that Habakkuk speaks to God. And so today what I want to do is I just

want to look at three things with you this morning. I've given you some some

notes, some little sermon notes so you can follow along. We're gonna look at what

was the big question that Habakkuk was asking. And then secondly what was God's

answer. And thirdly what's our response to it. So Habakkuk had this burden. What

was it? God replies somehow. What did God say? And thirdly what does it all mean

for us? Let's start with Habakkuk's question. Habakkuk's question. What weighed

on him so greatly? Well you see Habakkuk lived the first part of his life during

a time of great peace and prosperity. There was this amazing king who ruled at

that time. His name was Josiah. And King Josiah was a godly man. He was a great

man and people enjoyed great times under his leadership. In fact people thought oh

surely there's even better times and even greater times still to come for us

and for our whole country. But then something happened and Josiah died. And

his sons were terrible, terrible kings. Jehoahaz, one of his sons, was a cruel

and violent man. He died and then Josiah's other son, Jehoiakim, became

king and he ruled for 11 years and he was a tyrant. He was the type of guy who

would enslave his own people and make them work at forced labor to build an

opulent palace for himself. He encouraged the worship of idols. He told people

to turn away from God. That's Habakkuk's burden. Okay that's the heavy load that

he is carrying. That's why he says how long Lord? How long must I call for help?

You're not listening. How long do I have to cry out violence to you Lord but you

do not save? Why do I have to look at this injustice? Why do you

tolerate this kind of wrongdoing? What is going on? God, times used to be so good.

We used to enjoy such prosperity. What has happened? Why aren't you doing

anything? He adds this little piece. He says that the law is paralyzed. You see

that Israel always had this law and that law was always supposed to keep them on

the straight and narrow. It was supposed to prevent this kind of stuff from

happening but now the law, the very thing that created a strong social order is

not working anymore and nothing's fair and nothing's right and there's no

justice. The good days are gone. Where did they go God? Where did they go? And now

how long oh God till those days come back? And so Habakkuk laments. He laments

what he sees. Now lament is an important word. Whenever you read the Bible and you

come across a phrase how long, how long, it is a code word for a certain kind of

prayer, a certain kind of prayer, an honest prayer that expresses sorrow, an

honest prayer where you vent your frustration and your confusion and even

your anger to God in times of great hardship. So in lament prayers you don't

hide your pain. You don't pretend everything is okay. Instead you bring your

raw emotions to God. You bring your big questions to God. That's what lament is

and by the way that is one of the reasons why we're offering the unanswered

prayer course which begins this Wednesday night. It's to help us as a

congregation learn how to lament, how to wrestle with the fact that God doesn't

always answer our prayers and how to pray like Habakkuk did. God why is this

happening in my life? God where are you? God where did the good days go? And

that's what Habakkuk is trying to teach us that sometimes the good days

disappear and the dark days come and the evil days come. Sometimes we're like fish

that get caught in a cruel net like men trapped by evil times that fall

unexpectedly upon them. See most people think good times are normal. That's

what's normal, good times and most people think that generally speaking as time

goes on things should get better and better and better. Life's supposed to be

good and life's supposed to get better. Now sure life's gonna have its ups and

downs but most of us think that 10 years from now or 20 years from now

everybody will be better off. The kids, our kids will have lives that are

better than our lives. In 20 years our home will be worth way more than

than it is today. Our investments are gonna go up. Our country is

gonna get better. Our lives are gonna get better. It's progress. We're human

beings. We're smart. We make good decisions. We make the world a better

place. Better times are coming. Habakkuk stops you in your tracks and says why

would you think that? How do you know that? You don't know that. Take it from

me. Habakkuk says there are good days but then there are also dark days that come.

There are times of prosperity but there are times of evil and and there's

nothing you can do about it. You just get caught in the net like a fish.

Habakkuk enjoyed good times but now dark times have fallen upon him and I

think he points his finger at us a little bit and he says it could happen

to you. Who knows even right now we, you may be descending into some dark days.

Dark days can come for whole nations. You know countries can enjoy times of

prosperity and growth but then come times of war and famine and tragedies,

dark days. You know from about 1870 to 1910 in North America and Europe everyone

felt they were in good times. Everyone felt like things were just getting better

and better and better and we are gonna solve all the problems of the human race.

There was the Enlightenment, there was all this progress. Humanity was on its

way up and then came World War I and then came a Great Depression and then

came World War II and then came things like the Holocaust and by the 1940s

people in the Soviet Union and people in Europe were starving to death in the

winter. Those were dark days. Those were evil times and people wondered what

happened. God how long until the good days come back again? It happened before

and it can happen again. Why not? Why not dark days? And dark days can actually

also happen for whole generations. Right one generation may enjoy peace and

prosperity but the next generation struggles, habikuk. He's speaking of his

own generation. He's like why did I have to live in this generation to see this

darkness, see this kind of tragedy. You know our parents and our grandparents or

our kids and our grandkids, those generations they may live to see better

times than we have or they may live to see worse times. The book of Habakkuk just

says it happens. It's a reality. You can't do anything about it. Dark days come. And

thirdly those dark days can come just for ourselves as well. You may have years

or decades of your life where it's good times. Everything is positive and

hunky-dory and then dark days come and dark days stay for days, for years,

maybe even for decades of your life. Habakkuk, he tells us it guys had happened

to me. Right it can happen to you. Dark days can come. You know this is authored

by the name of Seth Godin who wrote a book called The Dip and the book actually

doesn't really have to do with what we're talking about today but but there's

this concept he floats. He said often in life you can experience like great

growth and energy whether that's financially or spiritually or or with

your health and your family everything is up and everything is to the right,

good times. But then something changes and you find yourself entering what he

calls the dip. And when and when we sense oh no the the dip is coming well we've

got a few choices he says you can either try like mad to get back to the good

days or or what you can do is you can just give up completely and say it's

over I'm done for or there's a third solution and that is that you actually

lean into the dip. That you lean into the suffering. That you embrace the dark days

ahead. This could be a picture of your spiritual life as well because you know

many people when they first meet Jesus we experience growth and we experience

joy and then at some point we enter into what st. John of the cross calls the

dark night of the soul. It's this spiritual dip and and like

Godin says we try to get back to the better times you know oh I want to get

back to how I felt at summer camp or get back to how I felt during the change

conference that was a great high but but but you can't get back. Other people say

when they enter that dip spiritually they say I'm gonna walk away from God

completely or again again we can embrace that darkness we can lean in to the dip

and go through the dip with God. Just about every spiritual leader that you

admire has gone through the dip. Every author that you you love they've gone

through the dip. Chances are when you met them or you read them or you went to

their conference they were they were on the other side of the dip they were

strong and mature and growing but if you ask them no no no they went through

dark days and you'll remember when people uncovered Mother Teresa's

journals remember years ago they started going through Mother Teresa's journals

and people were shocked at what they read about her spiritual life. There were

days when she said I don't even think there's a God anymore. So for nations, for

families, for you, dark days can come and why shouldn't they why wouldn't they?

We can expect they will and when they do our question will be like Habakkuk's

question what is going on? How long? Where are you God? Why do we have to go

through these dark days? Now in the Bible the normal response to a prayer of

lament is God answers back with some words of reassurance like God comes back

we say how long oh God and God says hang tight behold I am coming soon I'm gonna

fix things up just you wait and it appears at first that that is the way

God answers Habakkuk's prayer too. God says here Habakkuk listen to this look

at the nations and watch prepare to be amazed for I'm gonna do something that

in your days something that you would not even believe if I told you amazing

right God is gonna do something the dark days are coming to an end the good days

are coming back not quite. God goes on here's what I'm gonna do I'm raising up

the Babylonians that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across the

whole earth and seize dwellings not their own whoa whoa whoa whoa God God

wait wait I just I just complained to you about dark days and now you're

telling me that Babylon now is gonna sweep in and sweep across the earth and

just destroy everything even even more yes God says Babylon remember them

they are feared and dreaded people there are a lot of themselves and they promote

their own honor oh my goodness their horses are swifter than leopards there

they're fiercer than wolves that does Habakkuk is dumbfounded that's the plan

God right God I cry out to you and your answer is I'm raising up an even more

ruthless and bloodthirsty people that are gonna sweep across the world and crush

everyone including you including me including you and your country and your

people and your family because like you call that an answer we're in dark days

and you say they're gonna get even darker I just complained about evil

injustice and you say I'm gonna send you more evil and more injustice more

violence and more oppression that's what you're gonna do that's what I'm gonna

do God says the dip is way deeper than Habakkuk thought the days are gonna be

way darker than Habakkuk thought God's plan to use this wicked nation to punish

Israel's corruption and disobedience imagine this imagine it to give you a

little point of comparison you're there's this you're a teacher and there's

this kid in your class and they're constantly ignoring you and talking

during class and throwing paper airplanes and so so what you do after

giving warning after warning one day you just you rearrange the seating

arrangement and you take the worst bully in the whole school and you sit him

right beside that kid and you say just go to town on him teach him a lesson

right I mean you get fired as a teacher but this is what God is suggesting and

Habakkuk's like that can't possibly be the plan but sure enough this is what

happens the Babylonians they move westward in the year 586 BC 15 or 30

years after Habakkuk prays this prayer and writes these words Jerusalem is

sacked the walls are destroyed the temple is burned to the ground and all

the people are either taken as slaves or they are scattered throughout the world

this is what's called the Babylonian exile lasted 70 years or more and the

Habakkuk right now he is just looking down the barrel he's looking down the

barrel and he sees all of this coming so so gosh how how long till the dark days

are over God says the dark days are just getting started so how do you respond to

that how does Habakkuk respond to this what is your response when dark days

come and God doesn't answer your prayers well I won't tell you one response that

many religious people take is they acquiesce if you don't like what God is

doing well then just keep your mouth shut don't ask any questions don't

complain just fold your hands and close your eyes and pray nice prayers pretend

everything's okay that is one response that is not Habakkuk's response a second

response you could take would be arrogance you know when God does

something you don't understand then you say this famous line well I can't believe

in a God like that you know if I can't understand what he's doing if I can't

see how this makes any sense well then I'm I'm done I'm walking I can't believe

in a God like that maybe some of you walked away from God for that very reason

I don't understand how this makes sense I can't believe in a God like that as if

your your brain should be able to comprehend all that God is doing but that

also was not Habakkuk's response instead he responds in three different ways

first anger he says God I don't like what's happening and I really don't like

your solution to what's happening I am furious about it angry about it

Habakkuk really really lets God have it I have to tell you I don't know a lot of

people even here at Trinity streetsville that pray who treat God the way that

Habakkuk does but in verse 12 he says Lord are you not from everlasting now

it's interesting in the Bible when you see these words are you not it's almost

always a sign of some very aggressive vigorous argument that's happening so

Habakkuk is very close to saying in this statement he's very close to saying God

are you nuts God are you nuts right I thought you were supposed to be from

everlasting oh I thought like the song we just sung forever God is faithful

forever God is aren't isn't that you oh I thought you I'm sorry I thought you

were supposed to bring salvation out of Israel to the world but actually you're

gonna let evil and injustice reign oh sorry I thought you were from

everlasting my bad my my mistake this is not a prayer right this is like a

protest this is not like just folding your hands praying a nice player

closing your eyes this is pumping your fist with bloodshot eyes right and

here's the thing whatever you're going through if you're going through it right

now you're in the dip if you're in the middle of dark days believe it or not

God invites you to pray this way it might make you uncomfortable and it

actually kind of makes me uncomfortable but when I think about it you know what

really makes me uncomfortable about this it's not because of how aggressive his

prayer is it's because of how rarely mine are I mean I would very rarely pray

with this kind of boldness this kind of confidence in in God and I know there's

lots of people in this room that probably need to work on being less

angry but there's others of us and we need to get more angry we need to get

more upset about the things we see happening in the world the injustice and

the problems the things that really really matter so on the one hand

Habakkuk's response is anger and we're actually encouraged to do the same but

the second response is what I'm calling abiding right Habakkuk's angry all right

but he's not going anywhere even though Habakkuk is angry at God he is still

praying to God because this is still his God in fact just look at some of the

language he uses in his prayer he says my God my holy one right he it's in

other words it says you're it God you're the only one I've got I'm not going to

anybody else you know it's you or no one's your way or the highway he calls

him Lord he calls him my rock saying God this is a mess but I have nowhere else

to go I'm depending on you all the same so it's amazing that on the one hand he

is asking he's questioning and he is struggling but the other hand it never

enters his mind to walk away from God to stop praying to stop believing it's just

not an option for him and I want to say that when Trinity streetsville is being

the church that it ought to be it should be that kind of place where you can bring

your doubts whether you love God with all your heart or whether you're

completely PO with God this is this needs to be a safe place to bring your

frustration and even your anger because God shows us again and again that he

would rather we argue with him then walk away from him which brings us to one

final response that Habakkuk gets to eventually and that is the place where

we finally say God I don't understand it but you do God I'm gonna assume you've

got reasons for what you're doing that I can't understand so I'm just gonna

accept you know in Isaiah God says for my thoughts are not your thoughts

neither are your ways my ways God goes on to say my thoughts are higher than

your thoughts my ways are higher than your ways God says if I know you don't

understand this I know you don't understand why I'm gonna bring more

injustice and more violence into your life but that is actually how I'm gonna

work out my salvation and you may not get it and you may not believe it but I

know what I'm doing I know what I'm doing and actually history tells us God

did know what he was doing I just want to kind of end with this idea you know

twenty six hundred years later we know something that Habakkuk did not know and

could not know we know he didn't that if the Jews had not been taken off into

exile then they never would have spread throughout the whole empire they never

would have gone to all these ancient cities all over the place and they never

would have settled there they never would have built synagogues there and

if they hadn't been scattered and established themselves in other places

then then God's Word would never have been taught and proclaimed to other

people living in those pagan nations right and we know and we know but he of

course didn't know that if the Persians didn't come in and conquer Babylon and

then at the Greeks didn't come in and conquer Persia then there never would

have been this one language that covered the whole known world the Greek language

so that people could communicate never would get understand and you know you

can publish a book and everybody could read it because there was one language

and we now know but of course Habakkuk didn't know that that one day Rome was

gonna come in and conquer Greece and they would establish roads and a

safe peaceful environment where where people could move freely from city to

city to city to city so that and again Habakkuk didn't know this but 600 years

after Habakkuk lived and died people were able to carry the good news of

Jesus in a language that everyone could understand to ins on long safe roads to

synagogues and cities around the world where people could receive the news of

Jesus with joy we know Babylon had to conquer Jude and Persia had to conquer

Babylon and Greece had to conquer Persia and then Rome had to conquer Greece in

order why all that violence why all those dark days it's ironic but that's

what enabled the conditions to emerge where the peace-filled life-giving

message of Jesus could reach the world and Habakkuk couldn't have seen or

understood all that and maybe you can't see and understand the reasons for the

dark days that befall you God's purposes are in fact much larger than our own we

tend to see the world from our limited perspective but God is working out a

larger plan that transcends our understanding suffering is part of a

bigger narrative that we often cannot see this is where we're gonna end today

right we're gonna end in the middle of chapter 1 there's more to come for sure

but today let's leave it in the dip right today if you are asking the

question why you're going through what you're going through I think the only

answer we want to give at this point is who knows we don't know I don't know you

don't know it'd be nice to have an easy answer but we don't know what the answer

is but what we do know is whatever you're going through God loves you just

look at the cross and remember that in Jesus darkest days he did not walk away

from you so in your dark days don't you walk away from God either in the meantime

keep praying keep questioning keep lamenting keep arguing and keep joining

us here each week as we come back to this study because church has to be that

place where we help each other through the dip knowing that God meets us in

these dark days thanks be to God