How Long Do We Have to Wait For Your Help, O Lord? based on Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4

I. The big question in Habakkuk 1:2. Habakkuk 1:2 “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?”

II. Evil sometimes seems to go unpunished.

III. People want justice.

IV. Same questions in Psalm 74:1, 43:2, 44:23-24. Psalm 74:1 “O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?” Psalm 43:2 “For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” Psalm 44:23-24 “Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?”

V. We do not know all the answers, but Habakkuk 2:4 and 3:17-19 point in the right direction. Habakkuk 2:4 ““Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.” Habakkuk 3:17-19 “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.”

VI. New Testament words of hope and faith in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

VII. Sometimes we need Law and sometimes Gospel preaching.

VIII. We continue to be people declared righteous in God’s sight by God’s grace through the gift of saving faith in Jesus and Luther quote. We live by faith. Martin Luther, the German reformer from the sixteenth century, wrote, “God is extravagantly rich in his grace: first, through the spoken word, in which the forgiveness of sins is preached to the whole world (which is the proper function of the gospel); second, through baptism; third, through the holy Sacrament of the Altar; fourth, through the power of the keys [that is, Confession and Absolution] and also through the mutual conversation and consolation of [fellow Christian] brothers and sisters.” (Smalcald Articles III IV; emphasis and brackets added)

IX. Pastor Timothy Keller’s comment: “God gives us what we would have asked for if we knew everything that He knows.”

X. God promises to be with us and John 20:30-31. John 20:30-31 “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”