When God Doesn't Habakkuk 1:1-4

The Battle

As the first glimpse of light was breaking over the horizon on that cold crisp December morning the battle had already begun. The beams of light that were breaking the horizon were just giving testimony to the reality of what was to come.

All good battles start just before sunrise as the ambient light lulls you into a false sense of security, but all of that was gone as slowly and surely as the sun crept higher and higher above the frost capped landscape the full reality was being realized as this battle was fully raging.

My hands wrapped tighter and tighter around the steering wheel and offensive beams of morning light were in full frontal assault on my eyes. The last bit of energy was being poured into squinting my eyes hard enough to block these horrific onslaughts of light but trying to not give in to the urge to accept defeat and fully close my eyes while driving the last few hours to grammie and grampsie’s house for Christmas break.

We had been driving all night and we were in the last 4 hours of a 12 hour trip. There was no amount of coffee that could help because every bone and muscle was screaming for the relief of the cool sheets and sweet embrace of the bed I knew was waiting for us when we arrived at the house.

If the battle that was raging on the horizon of early morning rush hour, and the light from the sun that wouldn’t stop, if that wasn’t enough to drive any sane person to the brink of their sanity, whatever amount of sanity was left surely now was gone.

My heart sunk into my chest and I could feel my heart beating in my throat now. The sounds that started to come from the back seat of stretching and yawning could only mean one thing.....the toddlers in the back seat were starting to wake up.

I love my children dearly, but all I had left that morning was being put into the work at hand in getting us the last few hours to our destination. As I was bracing myself for the inevitable........there was no sounds coming from the back seat of our family car at first and I thought maybe we would escape these last few hours without the horrific question that no parent wants to answer on a road trip.......ARE WE THERE YET?

I hear a voice starting to quietly make the first sounds of what I think might be conversation.....I wasn’t sure,but all my attention was on what was in front of me. Debbie was asleep beside me and Christian and I were the only ones together in this moment of battle as father and son.

As I was singing the familiar tunes of the Gaithers that were playin on the cd player to try to keep me awake, I thought I heard something from the back seat but as I looked in the rear view mirror I couldn’t see any signs of Christian talking, but sure enough.....dad.....was the cry coming from behind me. I didn’t answer at first because I wasn’t sure he was fully awake. Dad!.......his call got louder the second time and I could see that Christian was getting unsettled by the fact that no response was coming, but before I could open my mouth to respond the last call came with frustration and a balling up of all his muscles as he cried out the las time DAD!!!!!

YES buddy what’s wrong.....why are you screaming? I didn’t know where you were dad. I’m right here buddy trying to get us to grammie and grampsie’s house. I didn’t know where you were......Where did he think I was? obviously the car was still moving, but Christian was only aware of his reality and in his mind he didn’t know where DAD was....and that scared him.

When God Doesn’t

As we begin this four-week series, the following provides some historical background on the book of Habakkuk:

1. We do not know much about Habakkuk; the Scriptures only record his name and describe him as a prophet ().

2. “the prophet Habakkuk prophesied after the fall of Nineveh in 612 B.C. but before the surprising rise of the Babylonian kingdom under Nebuchadnezzar in 605 B.C. This places Habakkuk in Judah around 607 B.C. during the reign of the wicked king Jehoiakim ()”

3. Also, “Habakkuk wrote in a time of international crisis and national corruption. Babylonia had just emerged as a world power” (J. Ronald Blue, “Habakkuk,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck [Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985], 1:1506).

the pharoah of that time NECO who had put Jehoiakim in power was charging the jews an outrageous tax and it was Jeoiakim’s job to come up with the money. So he taxed his people heavily

Also he did what was wicked in the Lord’s sight......usually means that he allowed people to worship other gods and he even re-established the temples of worship for those other gods.

If this wasn’t enough the country of Babylon was coming up as the next “nuclear power” in the world. They were a threat and really unstoppable.

so not alot of hope politically, spiritually, culturally, and nationally things were in (picture of a toilet)

As we talked about the word “burden” a couple weeks ago ....the Hebrew word for burden is used again which means “what is lifted up” as it refers to Habakkuk’s message.

God gave Habakkuk a message that was a burden and was to be lifted up to the people for them to hear and understand.

In verse 2 Habakkuk begins his complaint by continuing to cry out to God for help, but there has been no response from God—not a single sound. Habakkuk even accuses God of not listening to him

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 1:1

The Prophet called his writing a maśśā’, a “burden.” This Hebrew noun is derived from a verb meaning “to lift up,” and consequently signifies “what is lifted up,” and thus “a burden.” The message Habakkuk presented is indeed a weighty one. However, maśśā’ was not always used to preface a burdensome message. It was used, for example, as a title for the rather non-threatening sayings recorded in Proverbs 30 and 31 (where the NIV renders maśśā’, “oracle” in 30:1; 31:1). Nonetheless, if there ever was a heavy message, Habakkuk had one.

Habakkuk wasn’t the first in scripture or the last to think or feel that God wasn’t there or he wasn’t listening.....

Jonah 2:5 ESV

The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head

Job 23:2 ESV

“Today also my complaint is bitter; my hand is heavy on account of my groaning.

Psalm 55:1–2 ESV

Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy! Attend to me, and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and I moan,

Psalm 55:

Psalm 142:1–2 ESV

With my voice I cry out to the Lord; with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord. I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him.

Psalm 142

I was at the pastor’s and spouse retreat this last Tuesday through Thursday with Debbie and Dr Busic our General Superintendent in Jurisdiction was speaking and he asked us

Do we think we can hide our thoughts and our prayers from God?

Some people say I don’t pray what Im really feeling because I don’t want God to know Im angry or bitter with him.

From this passage, we first learn that we must not be afraid of praying from our real emotions in seasons of darkness.

Are we only kidding ourselves when we think that by not speaking our words of frustration in prayer that we can actually hide anything from the great God who created our minds to think and who created our emotions to feel.....yes even to feel darkness and fear which was never his intention fo our lives.

Walter Brueggemann states, “The dominant ideology of our culture is committed to continuity and success and to the avoidance of pain, hurt, and loss”.

The reality is that our lives can be “understood to be a pilgrimage or process through the darkness that belongs properly to humanness (Walter Brueggemann, Spirituality of the Psalms, 28).

He came to this realization in his book written on which is a Psalm of lament

lets hear a moment of the darkness the psalmist David is writing about

read psalm 28

In verses 3-4,

1. Habakkuk continues his prayer by declaring to God all of the violence that he sees occurring on the earth: destruction, killings, violence, and conflict. Yet Habakkuk complains that God does nothing.

2. Habakkuk states that God observes it and remains idle, thus permitting wrongs to take place, evildoers to go unpunished, evil to grow, and justice to be perverted. God does not intervene. God does not save.

When we believe that God is silent in answering our prayers, we often conclude that he does not care. However, as we will see as we continue our series over the next several weeks, God is active and answering prayers; Habakkuk merely does not realize this at this point in the story.

In the C.S. Lewis Narnia series there is a book called the magicians nephew

-A Character who is a boy named Digory and Digory is talking with Aslan who is a lion, but an all powerful lion and if you know anything about the series is a comparison that C.S. Lewis was making to God in this story.

-Digory the boy was asking Aslan to give him something that he could give to his dying mother that could make him well.

-As he was standing in the presence of this great lion he was looking at the lions feet humbly waiting for an answer......it seemed as though no answer came....the lion was silent.

-All of Digory’s hopes for his mother to get well were slowly slipping away the longer the silence continued

-He wanted to ask again, but he was afraid of the answer No that he might hear, but it seemed even worse to him that he didn’t hear the words no, but he heard nothing at all.

-Finally he said one last time, but please.....as he looked now into the eyes of the great Lion Aslan he could see not only the pain and anguish Aslan was in with him, but as he looked at the face of the lion he could see the tears streaming down his face were so bright that it seemed to shrink even the magnitude of his own grief.

-He realized that the great Aslan even though silent did truly care........

Just like Christian screaming from the back seat DAD!!!!......I didn’t know where you were.....when we hear nothing from God in our prayers we too can become scared.

How do we respond in seasons of God’s apparent darkness and silence from God?

1. we pour our heart and unedited emotions to God: “I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him” ().

2. we continue to exercise faith and trust in God: “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah” ().

Third, we can confess our doubts, disappointments, and struggles as well, just as a man did with Jesus in . Fourth, we rest in the faithful love of our heavenly Father who cares for us.

3. we can confess our doubts, disappointments, and struggles as well, just as a man did with Jesus in .

4. we rest in the faithful love of our heavenly Father who cares for us.

Transition to video Weep with me.....in response to the attacks in London…the band rend collective wrote this song.