God is in Control - Faith Under Fire

Habakkuk 1:1-11

Scene 1: Faith under fire.

When the blow torch of reality is applied to your faith how do you cope?

When God doesn’t fulfil your expectations, what do you do?

Some turn their back on God.

Some try to make a deal with God, “Give me what I want and I will not give up on you.”

Others get angry.

Others feel that God is in some way punishing them.

That somehow they just aren’t good enough.

Others try to take things out of God’s hands and seek to control their own future.

Now all of these are unhealthy ways to respond when God doesn’t meet your expectations.

To be honest the one I struggle with is taking things out of God’s hands and trying to be in control of my own future.

I figure that what I desire and how I think things should be is the right way, so I may as well go about making it happen.

Fortunately God has been very gracious and most things have gone well.

But then I overreach and try to make too much happen, I take my eyes off of what God is up to and try to create a future of my own making.

How I think things should be.

The result is always considerable pain on my part.

And I think a lot of rolling of the eyes on the part of my wife and those who are close to me.

But I ask you the question.

When God is not doing what you think he should, how do you deal with it?

Let’s take a look at the book of Habakkuk.

And over the next four weeks see how this man of God faced the very issue of God not doing what he thought he should do.

Scene 2: The prophet Habakkuk had some serious questions for God.

Things were not going well and he couldn’t see what God was up to.

Locally the nation was going from bad to worse.

A whole line of kings had led Judah into increasing disobedience towards God’s standards.

From 687BC until his repentance (perhaps in 648 B.C.), Manasseh led Judah in one of its worst times of wickedness.

Under his son Amon, from 642 to 640 B.C., Judah again excelled in wickedness.

This continued to some extent until Josiah’s reform started in about 628 B.C.

Then for about 20 years things got a bit better

Then King Josiah’s died in 609 B.C.

Judah quickly abandoned Josiah’s reforms and continued their disastrous policies of apostasy under kings Jehoahaz (609 B.C.), Jehoiakim (609–597 B.C.), Jehoiachin (598–597), and Zedekiah (597–587).

During this period there were a number of prophets.

All of these men had a particularly hard time.

But Habakkuk is different.

He basically fronts up to God and says, hey Lord what are you up to.

You’re not fixing things and I think your covenant promises that you will!

Have a look at verses 1 to 4

Habakkuk wanted to know, just as we do, what God was doing and why.

There seemed to be too much evil among the “righteous” and too much freewheeling power among the wicked.

In fact God wasn’t even answering his questions!

Habakkuk had often cried out to Yahweh, but the heavens were silent.

The thought that God did not seem to be nearly as upset about the situation as was Habakkuk made this man of God even more distraught[1]

Habakkuk complained to the Lord about the violence in the land.

Here Habakkuk is using the same word (chamas) which was used to describe the deplorable conditions which existed on the earth prior to the Flood.

In his prayers he described to Yahweh this violence.

Yet the Lord did not lift a finger to save the righteous from the oppression of violent men.

Habakkuk seems to be describing conditions in Judah as they existed during the reign of wicked King Jehoiakim who came to the throne in 609 b.c..

It would appear that justice and the rights of individuals had been totally destroyed, the powerful took what they wanted and evil reigned.

Instead of the courts protecting the innocent, bribes and power determined who got punished and who won.

The power of the government was used to victimize the innocent.

And poor Habakkuk just couldn’t figure out why God wasn’t acting to stop the violation of his covenant.

Scene 3: Then God does answer and he tells Habakkuk that things are about to get a lot worse.

Look at verses 5 and 6.

The Babylonians are coming and they are going to be his instrument of judgement upon all the evil that Habakkuk has been complaining to God about.

And this statement along with Habakkuk’s complaint of great wickedness and lawlessness in Judah, give us the time when Habakkuk wrote.

Habakkuk most probably prophesied between 609–587 B.C.

The Babylonians defeated the evil Assyrians who had destroyed the Northern kingdom of Israel a century earlier.

In 612 b.c the Assyrian capital Nineveh fell and the Neo-Babylonian Empire became the major world power.

Judah’s days were numbered, and Babylon’s power was rapidly expanding.

In addition, the death of King Josiah in 609 b.c. brought an end to an era of religious reform in Judah.

It seemed that the wicked were prevailing both inside and outside Judah.

Habakkuk cried out against the violence, lawlessness, and injustice he saw all around him.

And God’s answer.

I will allow a force more evil than those you see in your own land to be my instrument of judgement.

Violence will be judged by greater violence.

Now the Assyrians were bad.

Their favourite trick was to chop of the heads of the rulers of a city they had conquered and stack them up in a pyramid outside the city gates.

It sort of sent a pretty straight forward message of what would happen if you didn’t co-operate.

They would then deport a large part of the population and settle people from some other region in the land, thereby breaking up any national cohesion.

The Babylonians would be worse.

Because they would take over everything.

it wasn’t a case of cooperating, it was a case of immediate submission or we will take everything and everybody.

And we might just take everything anyway, because we can.

Look at verses 6 to 11.

Notice the description of the arrogance of the Babylonians.

Absolute power.

Look at the description of how they move across the land in verse 6.

There is no fear, no holding back, no caution, they just march on, destroying everything that gets in their way.

In verse 7 we read of their confidence in their own ability.

When you know you have absolute power there is no restraint, no respect for other kings.

Only conquest, and the more you have the more you take.

Look at verse 8.

Cavalry, horses.

A force which Judah lacked.

Now they tell me that in ancient warfare there was nothing more terrifying for a lightly armed infantry soldier than to face a cavalry or chariot charge.

You didn’t stand a chance.

You couldn’t run, you couldn’t manoeuvre.

Then in verse 9 we read of the immense size of the Babylonian forces.

Swift, immeasurable.

Catching up everything in their path.

When a force is so powerful that it sweeps up prisoners like desert sands.

Then the prisoners are worth nothing more than sand.

There would be no mercy, no concern.

Just conquest.

Great kings and fortified cities were no match for the Babylonians.

They build their siege ramps, overcame the city walls and swept on to the next conquest.

The Babylonians and in particular their kings saw themselves as above everything.

And this is the message that Habakkuk got in response to his questioning God.

I think you might be tempted to ask yourself the question, “Why did I ask, perhaps I should have just kept quiet!”

Scene 4: So how do you cope when your faith is under fire, when things don’t line up with your expectations of God?

Look at Habakkuk’s attitude, even when he doesn’t get what God is up to, even when he has questions of God, he still comes in an attitude of faith.

That is the key.

And over the next few weeks we will see that Habakkuk can teach us a great deal about how to deal with God when he doesn’t do what we think he should.

God did not strike Habakkuk down for his questions.

He answered, eventually!

Most Christians at some time have longed for a chance to dialogue with God, and perhaps even to complain to Him about His behaviour.

Habakkuk got the chance and took it.

So should we.

The Lord Himself will establish His kingdom.

The present may be filled with wickedness and chaos, but the future belongs to the righteous—the truly righteous.

God will bring in His kingdom, give rest and salvation to His children, and judge His people’s adversaries.

We may not understand.

We may feel like our faith is under fire.

But that is when we should look at Habakkuk’s example.

Be bold ask God the question.

Lord why are you allowing this situation to go on?

Why don’t you do something about it?

You may be surprised at the answer.

You may not like God’s plan.

But the question then is.

Will you respond in faith?

Will you wait upon him to see his deliverance?

Will you trust him even if it doesn’t make sense?

Because that is what he really wants from you!

[1] Smith, J. E. (1992). The Minor Prophets. Joplin, Mo.: College Press.