God's Question and Answer Session: Part 1

Text: Habakkuk 1:1-11

Title: God’s Question and Answer Session: Part 1

Textual Theme, Goal, Need:

Theme: God ensures justice is done throughout the world.

Goal: to warn the Israelites that their injustice will be brought to an end.

Need: The people of Israel are doing great injustice in the world.

Sermon Theme, Goal, Need:

Theme:

Goal:

Need:

Textual Outline:

Textual Notes:

Sermon Outline:

Introduction

Who is Habakkuk
When is he writing
To Whom is he writing

Why
You Won’t Believe Your Eyes
Don’t Let this Happen to You
Conclusion

Sermon in Oral Style:

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Before we get started looking more specifically into the text of the book for this morning, there is one issue that needs to be settled. How should we really pronounce this guys name? How was it pronounced in Dutch?

In English, I had heard it mostly one way: HAB ukkuk. But then I heard a few preachers here and there starting to call him Huh BACK uk. I am sure you have probably heard it both ways also. So what is it really? If you go back the Hebrew text they actually had a different pronunciation. Hab ak KOOK. So, really, however you want to pronounce the guys name, it is different everywhere you go.

But what we should know about HabakKOOK is that he is a prophet. He receives messages from God that he writes down for the people. As a prophet of God it is his job to show the people where they are failing to follow the law of God. How they are making God unhappy. Then, even though there is all this going wrong, the prophet always brings that message from God that God’s grace and justice will triumph in the end. That’s the role of every prophet. That’s what HuhBACKuk does in this oracle from God as well.

The first part of the passage is pretty straightforward. It really is just the title for the prophecy. “The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received.[1]

The next verse moves us into the body of the entire book. You will notice if you have your Bibles open yet that the book is split up like this: Complaint by the prophet, God answers. Complaint by the prophet. God Answers. And then chapter three is the prayer. This whole book is a dialogue. It is nothing like a sermon which is a monologue. This is back and forth, wrestling with the most difficult questions that were facing God’s people in that day. It is kind of like a question and answer session with God. But it’s questions and answers that the asker has a real interest in. These are fabric of the universe questions. These are questions where the answers can mean the difference between life and death, belief and unbelief. Hope or despair.

The main question is this: WHY!

Verse 2-4 sound like down right anger with God. “How long, O 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 wrong? 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.[2]

Habakkuk is about ready to throw the towel in on this hoping in the Lord thing. He’s had it. Why God? How long God? What are you thinking not doing anything, God? How can you be God and just sit back?

You would expect Habakkuk to be a little upset. The people of God were anything but, it seemed. The worst part was that the law of God had been completely forgotten by the people and by the leaders. The Northern ten tribes had already been destroyed by the Assyrians about a hundred years before Habakkuk’s oracles. And they were wiped out because they had forgotten God and his law.

Now the only two tribes left of God’s people are doing the same thing. They have forgotten the law of God. They are living whatever way they want to. Habakkuk is crying out violence because the people are not safe and because their society is unjust.

Today we talk about the Law of God as if it is only the ten commandments. But remember for Israel in the Old Testament it provided specific laws on how to be a just society.

One example of this in the Law you can find in the book of Leviticus. It was called the Year of Jubilee. It would have been one of the greatest moments in social justice the world had ever seen. Every fiftieth year, land was supposed to go back to its original tribes and owners. Debts were canceled. People who sold themselves as servants would be released. The whole nation of Israel would have a year were grace and forgiveness was the only thing demanded of people. In the 1000 years between Moses and Habakkuk, there should have been 20 years of forgiveness and justice. You know how many they had? Zero. The law of God was forgotten.

To make matters worse, it wasn’t only the broad sweeping years that God intended to bring justice. Injustice was done everyday by the rulers. Injustice reigned. God’s people were taking advantage of each other. Corrupt rulers. Corrupt judges. Corrupt masters. Corruption.

Our world doesn’t operate much better. I heard on the radio the other day the story about the sex trades in places like Cambodia. Listen to this modern account of injustice. A girl 10 years old is sold to a brothel by her own mother. The patrons of the brothel do unspeakable things to this girl. Some bad enough that the police arrest a man for the things he did. The judge in the case who is a woman accepts a huge bribe from the man. How’s that for justice. A little girl is stuck in a brothel being demoralized. A wicked judge is living the good life off of bribes. A criminal is walking free on the streets with only a little bit lighter wallet. It is unjust.

That’s Cambodia, but I don’t have confidence that Canada’s justice system is free from that. As much as we pray for and support our leaders, as much as we ask for wisdom in choosing who rules this nation, we know many of them are doing unjust things. We know judges and lawyers are often concerned more with career and the big house in the Hamptons than seeing justice done. That’s not public service. We know even our own friends and family, even we have contributed to the injustice of our own society.

Why God? Why is the true LAW paralyzed? Why is Justice not accomplished? Is our faith for nothing since you don’t seem to be concerned about justice. A God unconcerned with justice isn’t really GOD!

Why?

God hears the complaint. He gives Habakkuk his answer. He says, you aren’t going to believe your eyes. My solution to the injustice in the last two tribes of Israel? You aren’t gong to believe your eyes.

Why aren’t they going to believe it. Because the people are so full of themselves, that they think God will never punish them for falling so far away from him. They think, we are saved. We are righteous. They trust in their own strength.

They are not going to believe their eyes, because God is going to punish the injustice of his people by making the ungodly nations around them even more powerful. Verses 5-7 say, ““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 dwelling places not their own. They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.[3]

These people are not close to the truth, but God is using them to make his people holy again. Instead of helping Israel conquer all of the enemies, God is not going to stand in the way of the growth and the ferocity of the Babylonian armies.

Listen to how terrible the Babylonian conquest is. They are ruthless, impetuous or . They promote themselves, there own honor. They are a law to themselves.

Then they describe how terrible the armies are. The Babylonians are a militarilly advanced nation. Faster than others. More ingenious than others. More destructive than others. This Babylonian empire destroyed the Assyrians and the Egyptians. They have power to destroy Israel for sure.

God is going to do it. Even though you hear it, you will not believe it.

That is God’s answer. When there is injustice, God will always punish. That is true for Habakkuk and for us today. When we see injustice we know we need to stand against it. We know we need to do something about it when we have the opportunity. And where injustice is running rampant we need to trust that because God is a just God, those who are crooked and unjust will get what is coming to them.

The final note about this passage we read for today is that Paul actually uses it in one of his grandest sermons to Jews and Gentiles. It can be found in Acts 13. In the sermon he recounts the whole history of Israel reminding the Jews that God has always raised up leaders to rule and maitain justice in Israel. He mentions the stories of the Exodus, the conquering of the promised land. The judges and Samuel. King Saul and King David.

Then he tells these Jews that God raised up another ruler to bring justice to the world. He is the one who suffered terrible injustice himself. He was killed for no reason. He was killed as a sacrifice for those who believe in him. Jesus is the way to forgiveness. Jesus is the way to be justified so that you are not swept away in judgement. This is what it says in Acts 13: “Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses. Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you: HEREs the quote from our passage. “‘Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.’”[4]

Jesus Christ has come. He has saved the believers from their sin. He has come to renew justice to the world. So much for brothels and the sex trade. So much for slavery. So much for holding others down for the sake of keeping them down. Those who are unjust will be swept away. Those who believe will live forever with Christ.

This is God’s will from his word. And all God’s people say, AMEN.

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[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984

[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984

[3] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984

[4] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984