The Complaint

Unwavering The Complaint Habakkuk 1:1-4

Is it okay to ask God questions? If so, what questions are best? Is asking God questions a sign of a lack of faith or does it require a strength of faith to ask God questions?

Today, we are starting a new series called Unwavering. This is a series about how we can have unwavering confidence in God in the midst of world that is confused, confusing and seems to be unraveling around us. In this real-world of ours, we need a real faith that is gritty and unwavering in the face of challenge. This series is going through the Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk. Please open to Habakkuk chapter 1,

As you are turning there, some call him Habakkuk, others Habakkuk, I’m going with Habakkuk for this series. If you are unfamiliar, there is a section of the Old Testament called the minor prophets, that isn’t because they aren’t important, they are just shorter, compared to the major prophets who have longer books. Habakkuk is a man who asked God some hard questions, but he was unwavering in his faith in God. Let’s meet Habakkuk.  

The Prophet: Habakkuk 1:1

Habakkuk 1:1 NIV

1 The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.

The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.

All that we know about Habakkuk we read in chapter one, verse one of his prophecy. His name was Habakkuk and he was a prophet. That’s it. Many of the prophets open with a genealogy and a date, but with Habakkuk, we get none of that. Now, from the evidence we have of what he writes about, scholars have been able to piece together a general sense of when he wrote and lived.

There was a lot happening during Habakkuk’s time. First, there was an international crisis. Let me give you a timeline of some major events of this time period [show timeline]. If you’ve been with us over the past few series, you know we’ve been talking quite a bit about Assyria. The Assyrian Empire took over Samaria in 722 BC, this was shortly before Hezekiah came to power as the king of Judah. A little over a hundred years later, the capital city of the Assyrians, Nineveh, fell to Babylon. The neo-Babylonian rise to power was swift and unsettling for this region. It dramatically changed the political landscape and soon after taking Nineveh, the Babylonians start marching through Judah. In 605 BC Babylon starts to deport many influential families from Judah to Babylon, they do that again in 597 BC and then in 586 BC King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroys the city of Jerusalem and the great time of exile begins.

We believe Habakkuk writes in the time that Babylon was rising to power. I can’t begin to express how frightening a time this would have been for Habakkuk and his contemporaries. If you were part of our last series, we saw how anxious the people of Jerusalem were in dealing with the Assyrians. They seemed so strong, so confident, so powerful. God protected them, but it was nervous times. Now, here comes Babylon and they overthrow the powerful Assyrians for regional control. When we hear of major uproar among the Nations, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the Arab Spring, what is happening in Russia, China, etc. we have a sense of this. For Habkakuk, the rise of these Empires was concerning because they were godless, brutal, violent and evil. They did not honor the God, and they had little regard for the dignity of human life. They were abusive, offensive, arrogant and deeply feared.

But things weren’t any better at home. This is the second issue facing Habakkuk, a domestic crisis. Let’s go back in history a bit from Habakkuk to see what has been happening in Jerusalem. We just wrapped up a series on the prayer life of King Hezekiah. He was a great king and led Judah to strong faith and devotion in God, Hezekiah seemed to be our guy, right up until the end and then he seemed unconcerned about the future generations of Judah. We see a dramatic change after Hezekiah dies. His own son, Manasseh, is a terrible king. Here is what God’s Word says about Manasseh’s leadership:

2 Kings 21:9b-12, 16: Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites. 10 The Lord said through his servants the prophets: 11 “Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols. 12 Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. … 16 Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end—besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

Things went bad in Jerusalem, after Manasseh comes another good king named Josiah, but his reforms don’t stick and another evil king named Jehoiakim comes to power, likely around the time of Habakkuk. So, things have been going downhill for a while. As Babylon rises to power there is a pro-Babylon group and an anti-Babylon group in Jerusalem, the politics are confusing, the priesthood was filled with corruption. Justice was withheld, bribes were commonplace and violence filled the streets.

We know this feeling. We feel trapped by a system we are in, an organization, by poor or corrupt leadership. What do you do when you are living under the authority of a structure, system, boss, or leader whose values don’t align with the LORD? Habakkuk brings his complaint right to the LORD.

The Complaint: Habakkuk 1:2-4

How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? 3 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. 4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

Habakkuk was seeing the condition of the world, both inside and outside of Judah, and he was disgusted with what he saw.

This is what Habakkuk is experiencing, and he cries out to God, “Well, God, are you going to do something?” Verse four summarizes well the heart of his complaint.

The law is paralyzed, meaning it is unable to act. What causes the law to be unenforceable? It comes from the wicked people who hem in the righteous. When someone is hemmed in, they are encircled, or confined. They are forced into a place they don’t want to be and struggle to move from that place. What Habakkuk is describing is what happens in a society when wicked people get into a place of power, and they use their power as leverage. Instead of using their power to help the powerless, they use their power for more power.

This is why the quest for power can hinder a righteous society. It is a tempting false promise that if we can just get righteous people to take power and hold power, they will then bring righteousness. It is a false promise because leveraging power to gain more power for the purpose of righteousness, is not using power in the way God intended. God empowered us as humanity to reflect Him, this was the original design when we were in the Garden, to use the power God gave us to run His world rightly. But we wanted more power. We wanted the power of the knowledge of good and evil, so we took power to give us more power and that bent us away from God. Unlike the first Adam, Jesus, the second and better Adam, has all the power, He has all authority in Heaven and Earth, and He said of Himself, “The Son of Man has not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”Jesus didn’t use His power to gain more power. He used His power to serve those who were powerless: you and me. The quest for power can lead us away from God’s heart and away from righteousness.

This is what Habakkuk is describing, justice is perverted. The word, perverted, in Hebrew Habakkuk uses is the only time that word appears in the Old Testament, it means bent out of shape or twisted.

When I was younger, I would play around with my dad’s tools in the garage, one my of favorite things to do was to hammer nails into a 2x4. When I did this, I didn’t use a hammer that was sized for me, I used my dad’s big hammer, but I lacked the maturity, physically, to handle that sized hammer. Inevitably, I would hit the nail on the side and bend it. If you’ve ever done that, it is frustrating and the best thing to do is to pull out the bent nail, get a new nail and try again. Not me. I didn’t want to throw away the nail, so I would try and bend it back straight, which never works. The nail would be straight-ish but with a little bend in it. Then, even if I hit it properly, the nail wouldn’t go in straight, and it would damage the wood.

Justice being bent is what happens when someone lacks the spiritual maturity to properly handle the power within their hands. They misuse the power they have been given and it results in bent, or perverted justice, that causes damage. This is one of the reasons that we have in our country, separation of powers. We realize that all people lack the spiritual maturity to handle absolute power and that power is best distributed with checks and balances. That is how we govern here at Wooddale. As the Senior Pastor I have a lot of authority within our organization, but not full authority. I am accountable to our Board, but I also have built-in limits. For example, I can hire staff, but I don’t have the authority to hire or release associate pastors. I interview and recommend them to our Board to hire a pastor, but I don’t have the authority to do that, the Board is the one who calls associate pastors as a representative board that serves on behalf of and at the approval of our members. But the Board doesn’t have full authority, they couldn’t hire me, only you, our congregation, could do that through your votes. The wisdom of this comes from the understanding that no human leader has enough spiritual maturity to have total power. The only one who is spiritually mature enough to handle full power and authority is Jesus.

If you want a case study of how giving too much power to one person or one group ends poorly, just open a history book. Most revolutions begin with people frustrated at the injustice of a system, so they thrust another person, party, or team into power in hopes they will right the wrongs. They do. For a moment. Then, they create new wrongs and the cycle repeats. That was happening in Jerusalem at the time of Habakkuk. When these types of moments happen, it is a helpless feeling. What do you do?

What do you do when your boss, who has authority over your job, is not committed to doing what is right or best for you? What do you do when your teacher, who has authority over your grade, isn’t being fair? What do you do when you look out over a system and see injustice?

What did Habakkuk do? He asks God a question. I love this about Habakkuk, he goes directly to God, he goes honestly to God, and as you are seeing in his question, he doesn’t hold back! “You do not listen, you do not save, you tolerate wrongdoing.” When we are facing challenges in this life, it is healthy and helpful for us to ask God questions. I want to point out how Habakkuk asks questions. He asked better questions of God and so he received better answers.

There are two ways to ask God a question.  

1. Questions based on our preference and for us personally.

This isn’t wrong, it is the most common, but least helpful. These are the type of questions we ask when we are in pain, frustrated by a situation or outcome, or we are upset with God. Again, these aren’t wrong. There is a man named Job in the Old Testament, and he deals with some awful things in his life. He didn’t do anything wrong, what happened to him was not a form of punishment, and he never cursed God throughout his ordeal, even when others close to him, like his wife, told him he should. As you read through the story of Job, God does finally speak to him, but He doesn’t really answer Job’s questions. In fact, God speaks to Job about who He is and who Job is. In that contrast of seeing God for who He is, Job covers his mouth and basically says, “I’m sorry God, I don’t even have a right to speak to you.”

A friend of mine, Craig Smith, points out how often the questions we ask of God are the same ones He asks of us. For example, how many of us have asked God, “Where are you, God?” when something is going poorly in our life and it seems like God is distant? In the Garden of Eden, right after Adam and Eve sin, they hide from God as He comes walking in the Garden and God asks Adam, “Where are you?” Many times, it seems God is far from us, but we are the ones who have walked away from Him. Or when something in life doesn’t go well, we might ask God, “Why did you allow that to happen, what have You done, God?” And when God asked Adam if he ate the fruit he wasn’t supposed to eat, Adam blamed Eve and God turned to Eve and asked, “What is this you have done?”

When we ask God questions based on our own circumstances, we need to be prepared for Him to return the question right back on us. God isn’t upset with us for asking Him questions, but we can ask better questions of God and gain better insight that will enable us to be unwavering in our faith. Here is the better question that Habakkuk asked.

2. Questions based on God’s promises and for His people.

This is how Habakkuk asks God questions. The question Habakkuk asks is, “How long, LORD?” This question is focused on all the injustice he is seeing around him, but the question is rooted in God’s word and God’s promise.

Habakkuk knew God’s Law, at the end of the Law, in a book we call Deuteronomy, God’s People are about to cross into the Promised Land and Moses gives them a long sermon, reminding them of God’s Law and then he gives God’s blessings if the people will be faithful to God and the curses that will fall on the people if they are unfaithful to God. God gets specific with those curses and states He will judge them if they give in to injustice.

Habakkuk looks to God and asks, “When are you going to honor your own Word, God? How long are you going to allow this to go on?”

Notice, the ask is about the collective people, not just for him as a person. Habakkuk is going before God and pleading with Him on behalf of the people. He is looking at the suffering caused by the injustice and he looks at God’s Word and he asks God when He is going to respond.

What he is asking of God is the Biblical idea of judgement. Throughout Scripture God’s judgement is something people long for and pray about. To us, that seems like an odd thing to pray about, asking God to bring judgement. This is because we misunderstand judgement. We even say, “Don’t judge me.” Or “You are being too judgy.” We think of judgement as negative, and it can be, but judgement is about making a decision that puts something back to right. When I bent the nail with the hammer, the judgement needed was to remove the bent nail and put in a straight one so it didn’t damage the wood. When someone misuses power, the proper judgement is to remove their power, so the abuse stops. When someone does what is right, the proper judgement is they are rewarded for the good they did. Judgement isn’t bad, judgement is putting something right.

Habakkuk knows what the people need most is for things to be made right. He knows from God’s Word, God is a God of judgement, so he asks for judgement to come.

Let’s say there is something wrong happening in your kid’s school. A staff member has been saying inappropriate things to kids in the hallway, and you have read the emails from the principle about creating a safe school environment, so you set a meeting with the principal and meet with her because she is the person in authority. You walk through the door, your coat still on, and you yell out, “Why are you allowing this language in the hallway? Where are you during the school day?” How well do you think that meeting is going to go?  If you, instead, enter and say, “I have heard you speak about creating a safe school environment. One of the staff here is saying inappropriate things to kids in the hallway and it isn’t safe. What are you going to do about this?” Will that not be more effective?

This is how we can approach the ultimate authority, God Himself. When we are troubled, we are to go to Him and from His own Word, ask Him questions. Here are a few better questions:

§ God, You tell us in Your Word to love our neighbor as ourselves, tell us, who is our neighbor?

§ Your Word says those in Christ Jesus have received every spiritual blessing in Jesus, will You help us to become aware of these blessings?

§ You, Spirit, are always at work, will You reveal where You are working so we may join You?

§ Jesus promised that He will build His church, where and how are You building Your church?

I said these are better questions. They are not easy questions. Habakkuk asked a better question, and he received a better answer, but it wasn’t an easier answer. The answer God gave to his question was surprising. The thing God tells him…we will get to next Sunday.