Major Messages from the Minor Prophets: O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment — Habakkuk

Like many of the minor prophets, Habakkuk is brief, consisting of only three chapters, and 56 verses. Everything we know about him personally is found in verse one of chapter 1 — his name, Habakkuk, and his office, that of profit.

Historically, we know a few more things. The book was written in approximately 609 BC. By Habakkuk’s day, the Northern Kingdom had fallen to a Syria a little over 100 years earlier. Although the Southern Kingdom — Judah — survived, it remained a vassal state in till Nineveh fell to the Babylonians. The Habakkuk describes the Babylonians as a formidable enemy (1:6-10). This would mean that Nineveh had fallen — which happened in 612 BC — just as the prophet Nahum had prophesied. Babylon is now a Mideast power, but Habakkuk wrote before the Babylonians first invasion of Judah since that event is spoken of as future, but immanent. That makes Habakkuk a contemporary of the prophets Nahum, Jeremiah, and Zephaniah.

The prophecy of Habakkuk is unique because the Prophet did not speak for God to the people of Judah, but rather spoke to God about the people of Judah.

There are some interesting traditions surrounding the prophet. Because the third chapter appears to be the lyrics of a Hebrew song, similar to a Psalm, the Jewish rabbis assumed that he was a member of the tribe of Levi, which served as musicians in Solomon’s Temple. A non-biblical tradition a bout the prophet comes to us from the non-canonical, apocryphal book Bel and the Dragon. The story goes that Habakkuk is in Judea and after making some stew, he's told by the angel of the Lord to take the stew to Daniel, who is in Babylon in the lion's den. After proclaiming he is unaware of both the den and Babylon, the angel transports Habakkuk to the lion's den. Habakkuk gives Daniel the food to sustain him, and is immediately taken back to his own place. The first tradition is a possibility the second one, obviously, is not.

The prophet is among several minor prophets well known to Christians because the apostle Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4 — “the righteous shall live by faith” — in two places: Romans 1:17, and Galatians 3:11. That statement became one of the “five sola” of the Protestant Reformation — Sola Fide – and thus a so-called “minor prophet” had a major influence on later generations.

Tonight I want us to see how Habakkuk grapples with two mysteries of the faith,1) why does God allow evil to go unpunished in Judah? and 2) how could a righteous God use Babylon to judge sin in Judah since Babylon is far more wicked than Judah ever was?

I. FAITH IN GOD’S ULTIMATE JUSTICE Habakkuk 1:12

1. during the early part of habakkuk’s life there had been a great revival under King Josiah

ILLUS. In the 18th year of Josiah’s reign he ordered the High Priest Hilkiah to use the tax money which had been collected over the years to renovate the temple. It was during this time that Hilkiah discovered the Book of the Law. While Hilkiah was clearing the treasure room of the Temple he discovered a scroll described as "The Book of the Law". An assembly of the elders of Judah and Jerusalem and of all the people was called, and Josiah then encouraged the exclusive worship of Yahweh, forbidding all other forms of worship. The instruments and emblems of the worship of Baal and "the host of heaven,"were removed from the Jerusalem Temple.

a. part of the result of this revival were significant spiritual reforms set in motion by Josiah

1) this included forbidding all other forms of worship, removing the emblems of Baal from the Jewish Temple, destroying all the High Places that had been set up around the nation to worship other gods and reinstituting the Passover celebration

2) all of this can be found in 2 Kings 22-23, and 2 Chronicles 34-35

2. when Josiah became king of Judah in about 641/640 BC, the international situation was in flux

a. the Assyrian Empire was beginning to disintegrate, and the Neo-Babylonian Empire had not yet risen to replace it

b. Egypt to the west was still recovering from Assyrian rule

c. in this power vacuum, Jerusalem was able to govern itself for the time being without foreign intervention

1) things were looking pretty good for Judah

3. however, Josiah died in 609 BC, and the reforms he had established quickly went by the wayside

a. Spiritual decline quickly said in an Judah reverted back to ungodly, worldly ways

4. it’s against this background that we must understand the two questions raised by the prophet

A. THE PROPHET’S 1ST COMPLAINT — How Can God Permit Evil to Flourish in Judah?

“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? 3 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. 4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.” (Habakkuk 1:2–4, NIV84)

1. Habakkuk simply cannot understand how a holy God could permit wickedness to flourish among his people

a. The prophet begins his complaint with “how long O Lord?”

1) it’s a phrase that occurs 65 times in the Old Testament, and expresses anguish, and confusion over God’s perceived delay in administering justice

2) we read of similar laments in the Psalms

“How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? 3 Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;” (Psalm 13:1–3, NIV84)

2. Habakkuk is deeply concerned that God seems to be oblivious to the evil that is taking place in Judah

a. in the first half of vs. 2 he accuses God of failing to hear his cry for help — “How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?”

b. In the second half of vs. 2 he accuses God of idly standing by while evil flourishes in the land — “Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?”

3. in vs. 3 the prophet uses five words to describe the breakdown of social conditions in Judah

a. Injustice — it’s a word that means trouble, or sorrow that inevitably leads to trouble and hardship

b. Wrong — is a word that suggests suffering due to missed treatment

1) class warfare is raging among the citizenry with the wealthy taking advantage of the poor particularly in the courts

ILLUS. we see an example of this in the story of King Ahab and Jezebel. A man by the name of Naboth owns a vineyard near the royal palace in the city of Jezreel. Wishing to acquire Naboth's vineyard so that he could expand his own gardens, Ahab offered to purchase Naboth's vineyard or to give him a better one in exchange, but Naboth refused, saying he could not part with ancestral land. When Jezebel saw that her husband was depressed by this, she arranged for the elders to falsely accuse Naboth of blasphemy and stone him to death. The plan was put in motion and Naboth was murdered. And if you know the rest of the story, you know things did not turn out so well for Ahab and Jezebel. But what they did is an example of the way that the rich were exploiting the poor in that day.

c. Destruction — evildoers were destroying the righteous and undermining Judean society

d. Violence — that is self defining and needs no real commentary

e. Strife, and Conflict — when a society’s values begin to break down, strife and conflict result

4. In vs. 4 a second result of the rampant evil in Judah was the breakdown of the legal system

a. Old Testament commentators say one of three, perhaps all three situations prevailed in Israel’s legal system

1) 1st, the courts had become overwhelmed with the sheer number of lawsuits

2) 2nd, the law had become paralyzed because the judges were not following Israel’s law code in administering justice

3) 3rd, judges were rendering unjust decisions, probably because they were being bribed by the wealthy

b. any one of those three items can reason for injustice, and all three are a recipe for judicial disaster

B. GOD’S FIRST RESPONSE

1. King Josiah is dead, and King Jehoiakim is on the throne, and wickedness has gained the upper hand

a. God’s people should never be surprised how quickly things can change in society

b. the events taking place in Judah illustrate the imperative of godly political leadership, and the necessity of believers participating in the political process

2. while Habakkuk seems to think that God has been asleep on the job, God is going to make clear that he is seeing all that is going on and He will intervene

a. as a matter fact, God is going to act so decisively that Habakkuk and his countrymen will be shocked

3. when the prophet learns of god’s intentions, he is stunned

“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. 6 I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own. 7 They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. 8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture swooping to devour; 9 they all come bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. 10 They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them. 11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on— guilty men, whose own strength is their god.” (Habakkuk 1:5–11, NIV84)

a. God tells Habakkuk to open his eyes and to see that Babylon is on the move

ILLUS. Nabapolassar has defeated Nineveh, and quickly solidified his empire. The Babylonian beast is hungry for pray and will soon be at the gates of Jerusalem. It’s not necessarily what the prophet wants to hear.

1) God is raising up the Babylonians for his purposes

2) one of those is to discipline Judah

b. in a very real sense, this is an answer to the prophets first complaint

1) wickedness is flourishing among God’s people in Judah, why is God not doing anything about it?

2) God is preparing to do something about it and it stuns the prophet — the Babylonians are coming to wreck havoc on the nation

ILLUS. Suppose for a moment, that at the height of the Cold War a prophet had arisen in America preaching that God was going to use the Soviet Union to discipline America for its sins by allowing that nation to militarily defeat us? That gives you a sense of what the prophet Habakkuk is hearing and dealing with. You can imagine the outrage as the people of Judah read his prophecy. The might well have accused the prophet of defeatism, and being unpatriotic.

4. in the end Habakkuk realizes that God is sovereign, and he puts his faith in God’s ultimate justice

“O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.” (Habakkuk 1:12, NIV84)

II. APPARENT INJUSTICE

“O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish. 13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? 14 You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler. 15 The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad. 16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food. 17 Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?” (Habakkuk 1:12–17, NIV84)

1. Habakkuk puts his faith in God’s everlasting justice, and yet a burning question remains within him

a. how could the everlasting Holy One utilize so wicked a people to administer discipline?

2. this leads to the prophets second complaint

A. THE PROPHET’S 2ND COMPLAINT — Why Would God Permit an Nation Even More Evil Than Judah to Discipline His People?

1. Habakkuk asks the Lord to realize that He can’t use the Babylonians to judge Judah — they are worse than we are!

a. in light of God’s pure and holy character how can He tolerate the treacherous?

b. why would God allow such a wicked people to devour those more civilized than they?

c. It seems like a perversion of justice

1) sinful Judah’s wickedness was dwarfed by the atrocities committed by the Babylonians

2) how could God display His sovereignty in such a way?

2. in vs. 15 God uses a fishing illustration to tell Habakkuk what Babylon is going to do to Judah

a. the Babylonians bring all of them up with a hook, drag them away with their net, and gather them together in their fishing net

3. chapter 1 ends with the prophet asking God if the March of the Babylonian empire will ever stop

B. GOD’S SECOND RESPONSE

1. as chapter 2 begins we find the prophet Habakkuk finishing his argument and waiting for God’s response

“I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.” (Habakkuk 2:1, NIV84)

2. God’s answer comes beginning in vs. 2

a. in a nutshell, God tells the prophet Habakkuk that even though he will use evil Babylon to discipline Judah, that “woe” will come upon the Babylonians for enjoying their part in God’s plan a little too much

b. all those nations conquered and plundered by the Babylonians — including Judah — would in due time witness the fall of their conqueror and join in this song of derision and denunciation

c. the announcement is captured in five stanzas of three verses each all beginning with the denouncement woe

III. LESSONS FROM HABAKKUK

1. God’s sovereignty can be perplexing

ILLUS. In 1861, during the US Civil War, author Julia Ward Howe was visiting Washington, DC. One day she saw a large number of soldiers marching off to the front lines. Early the next morning she awoke with words for a song in her mind. In the midst of all the ugliness of war her faith led her to write: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” She grasped that in spite of and even through the ugliness, God was “marching on” toward the day when He will right the wrongs of the ages.

a. the prophet Habakkuk came to a similar conclusion

“O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.” (Habakkuk 1:12, NIV84)

2.God is at work in our world

a. sometimes it may appear as if the world is out of control, but our God is watching, and working in many ways to bring about his purposes

3. God often answers our prayers in unexpected ways

a. Habakkuk prays for justice in the land and gets an invasion

b. for a long time Habakkuk had prayed, but God did not seem to answer him at all

c. then, when God did answer him, what he said was even more mysterious, and astounding than his apparent failure to answer Habakkuk’s prayers

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