You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

When I first planned to preach on the book of Habakkuk last fall, I couldn’t have possibly imagined just how relevant it would be today. To say that a lot has changed since that time would certainly be an understatement, right? The first case of COVID-19 hadn’t occurred yet. Nobody had heard about murder hornets. And there wasn’t even a hint of the kind of anarchy that we have been witnessing over the past couple of weeks all over our country and even around the world.

In the midst of all of those kinds of calamities, it’s easy to do two things:

First we can easily begin to lament the fact that things have never been worse and conclude that therefore we must be entering the end times.

Second, we can begin to question God and ask questions like “God why are you allowing all these things?” or “Why are evil people getting away with the bad things they are doing and good people are suffering?”

Tension

In fact, I would be very surprised if all of us haven’t had those thoughts and asked the same or similar questions at some point in our lives. I certainly know that I have.

So my goal this morning is to help us address those reactions with these two truths:

While we are obviously closer to the return of Jesus today than yesterday, and conditions are certainly difficult right now, there have been times in history when God’s people have suffered through far worse.

Second, I want us to see that these kinds of questions are not new, either. People have been asking those same questions of God for thousands of years.

Truth

Some of you who are with us this morning might be wondering why I would ever have chosen to preach on the book of Habakkuk. There might even be some of you didn’t even know that there is a book by that name in the Bible, which is completely understandable given how short it is and how little attention it is usually given. It contains only 56 verses spread over 3 chapters. You could read the entire book in a matter of a few minutes. In Hebrew, it consists of 671 words, making it the fourth shortest book in the Old Testament.

Its title comes from the name of the prophet Habakkuk. In Hebrew his name is related to the word for “embrace”, and as we’re going to see that it appropriate since he is going to eventually embrace God, although not without a fair amount of struggle along the way. He is one of twelve Biblical prophets that are known as the Minor Prophets. That does not mean that they weren’t good enough to get called up to the Majors or that their message wasn’t important. It just means that their writings are shorter than those of the Major Prophets.

Habakkuk was a contemporary of one of those Major Prophets - Jeremiah - and this book was likely written around 605 BC. It is addressed to the southern kingdom of Judah. We need a short history lesson to help us put Habakkuk’s prophecy in context.

The commonwealth of Israel consisted of all twelve tribes of the sons of Israel, the name God had given to Jacob. During the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon, it existed as a single nation. But upon Solomon’s death, the commonwealth was split into two separate kingdoms.

Map of 2 kingdoms

The northern kingdom of Israel consisted of 10 tribes under the leadership of Jeroboam, one of Solomon’s former officials.

The southern kingdom of Judah consisted of 2 tribes under the leadership of Rehoboam, one of Solomon’s sons.

The kings of the northern kingdom Of Israel were all wicked and the nation rejected God under their leadership. So in 722 BC, they were conquered by the Assyrians and dispersed among the surrounding nations, never to reenter the land, even to this day.

In the southern kingdom of Judah, leadership alternated between evil kings who rejected God and some godly kings who tried to turn the people back to God. Habakkuk comes on the scene after the reign of the last of the godly kings - King Josiah - who died in 609 BC. After his death Judah had plunged into idolatry, corruption, and immorality. And as a result they had become very weak and were of no threat whatsoever to the surrounding nations.

By this time, the Assyrian Empire was now in decline and the new power in the known world of the time was the Babylonians, also known as the Chaldeans. They were known for their brutality and unbelievable violence.

If you were to compare the world situation then to the present day, Babylon would probably be China, or maybe North Korea, and Judah would be more like Vermont. If you’re from Vermont, I don’t mean any offense, but let’s face it, as a world power, you don’t exactly create a lot of fear.

Habakkuk is unique among all the prophets. While most of the prophets received a word from God and then communicated that to God’s people, Habakkuk has more of a dialogue or conversation with God. The book consists of two sets of questions that Habakkuk asks God, God’s response to those questions and then a closing prayer that Habakkuk prays to God.

With that background, let’s begin with Habakkuk’s first set of questions:

Habakkuk 1:1–4 ESV

1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. 2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? 3 Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 4 So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.

We get a sense of what the book of Habakkuk is all about right away in verse 1. We read there that Habakkuk saw an oracle. The word translated “oracle” literally means an “utterance”, or “doom”, or “burden”. So right away we see that the people of Judah, to who Habakkuk is a prophet, aren’t going to like what he is going to tell them. Those words are going to be a burden for Habakkuk. I can relate to that at least to some degree this morning because some of the things I’m going to share with you aren’t particularly pleasant. But at the same time, I do believe they will be profitable.

Habakkuk’s first reaction to the oracle is to push back against God. And he basically asks two questions here:

How long before you answer my prayer?

Why aren’t things in this world fair?

I have to believe that these are the same questions that so many, including many of us, are asking right now.

How many of you have been praying for God to bring an end to the coronavirus pandemic? I know that millions of Christians around the world have been praying that for months now. But in spite of all those prayers, here in Arizona, the number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 hit its highest number since the pandemic began, with the number climbing over 1,000 people for the first time. So why hasn’t God answered those prayers? Many of you have been praying for peace to be restored to our land, but things only seem to be getting worse. When is God going to answer that prayer?

And certainly it’s easy to look at recent events and ask why things aren’t fair and why justice is not being carried out. Why do loving devoted husbands, fathers, grandfathers, wives, mothers and grandmothers and innocent children contract the coronavirus and die while other evil people seem to go largely unscathed? Why did it take so long for charges to be filed against the police officers that killed George Floyd when their actions were clearly wrong? Why are people responding to that injustice with the very same things that Habakkuk saw in his time - destruction, violence, strife and contention? And why are they getting away with that? Why is it that the law is paralyzed and justice has been perverted just like in Habakkuk’s day?

We think things are bad now, and they certainly are. But based on what I know about the culture of Habakkuk’s day, it was at least as bad back then as it is now. That’s why Habakkuk asks the very same questions we are asking.

God is about to answer Habakkuk’s question, but I’m pretty sure the answer isn’t what Habakkuk was expecting and it certainly wasn’t the answer he wanted. I think Habakkuk probably just figured God was going to answer his prayer by installing a new, more godly king over Judah. He figured that is the way God had worked in the past and so He just assumed that is what God would do again now. But God had other plans.

Habakkuk 1:5–11 ESV

5 “Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. 6 For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. 7 They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. 8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. 9 They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. 10 At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. 11 Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!”

God answers Habakkuk’s first question by revealing that even though Habakkuk may not have recognized it, He had been working on an answer to Habakkuk’s prayers all along. But God was doing something so completely foreign to what Habakkuk was thinking that He told Habakkuk, “I’m going to tell you what I’m doing, but you’re not going to believe it.” If there was ever an understatement in the Bible, that has to be it.

God then answers Habakkuk’s second question by revealing that He was already in the process of bringing justice to those who deserved it. But that judgment wasn’t just going to be meted out only to a few individuals that Habakkuk probably thought deserved it. The entire nation was going to be overrun by the Babylonians. And the description of what that conquest was going to look like wasn’t pretty.

God says, “You want an end to violence? I’ll do that, but I’m going to use violence like you’ve never seen before to accomplish that. You want justice? I’ll give you justice, but not the compassionate justice you’re expecting, but rather the self-serving justice imposed by the Babylonians.” The conquest would be swift and bloody.

Let me see if I can’t put this in perspective for you. Let’s say that you have been praying for God to bring an end to all the anarchy and violence that we have been seeing. And God said, “I’ve already been working on a plan to do that.” I’m raising up Muslim terrorists and they are going to make 9/11 look pale in comparison to what they are going to do now. They are going to destroy every church building here in the U.S. They are going to institute sharia law and make it illegal for Christians to gather to worship. If that were to happen, we’d all be thinking that the cure was worse than the illness and that is exactly what had to be running through Habakkuk’s mind.

And, not surprisingly God does exactly what He promised. The conquest of Judah under King Nebuchadnezzar begins in 605 BC. It is interrupted for a few years as the Babylonians have to put down an uprising by Egypt. The conquest resumes in 599 BC and in 597 BC King Jehoiachin of Judah surrenders to Nebuchadnezzar and the first wave of exiles is taken back to Babylon along with furnishings from the temple. It is likely that the prophet Daniel was among that group. Nebuchadnezzar installed a puppet king in Judah, but when he rebelled against Babylon, there was a second conquest of Judah in 586 BC, with a second wave of exiles being taken to Babylon.

I suppose you could say that from our viewpoint the conquest of Judah by Babylon wasn’t all that swift. But in terms of history it is just a blip.

Normally I like to draw one main point out of the text we look at each week, but this week I just had so many different thoughts running through my mind about this text that I found I just wasn’t able to do that. So let me just share with you a number of implications that this passage has for us.

Application

IMPLICATIONS FOR MY LIFE

God wants me to bring my doubts to Him

I think we often get caught up in the thinking that faith and doubts cannot co-exist. And the result is that we bury those doubts and never deal with them. And that’s just not healthy. In fact, I would suggest that actually stunts our spiritual growth.

So I want to encourage all of us this morning by saying that as a deeply committed disciple of Jesus, it is possible for you to have genuine faith and doubts at the same time. I can tell you as a pastor I have my fair share of doubts sometimes. That seems to have been particularly true this week. But I think I’m in pretty good company. David, who is called by God “a man after my own heart”, certainly had his doubts. That is very apparent when you read all the Psalms he wrote.

Doubts, in and of themselves are not a problem. In fact, they are usually a great opportunity to take our faith even deeper as long as we do like Habakkuk and David and take those doubts to God.

The problem comes when we try to ignore those doubts or bury them and not try to deal with them. I find it very instructive here that God did not condemn Habakkuk at all for asking these questions. It is clear that Habakkuk asked those questions out of a sincere desire to know God’s heart, not to question God’s character. That will be confirmed when we get to chapter 3 in a couple weeks.

So as long as were asking out of a heart that wants to get to know God better and not in an accusatory manner, I think God actually delights when we bring our doubts to Him and He delights in helping us to answer those doubts.

I need to avoid putting God in a box

We’re all a lot more like Habakkuk than we’d like to admit. When we go to God with our prayers, we have usually already decided how we think God should answer us. Sometimes, like Habakkuk, we base that on how we’ve seen God work in the past. More often, we probably have formulated an answer that is going to be the least costly and painful for us.

I can’t tell you today how God is going to work through the turmoil we see around us today. It may very well be that He is using this to purify His people or even to judge our nation. That is certainly what He did in Habakkuk’s day and what He has done throughout history. And in the book of Revelation, we see that He will do that again before Jesus returns to this earth. But He could also be doing something completely unexpected, too, something that we’ve never seen before.

That is why we must approach God’s Word humbly, with a teachable spirit. Unfortunately that has been in short supply lately in the church. During the coronavirus pandemic I have seen so many people who I believe are genuine disciples of Jesus become so firmly entrenched into various different camps regarding how the church should respond that it has created unnecessary division in the body of Christ.

That is why our Elders have tried to communicate as clearly as we can that we don’t have all the answers and that there will be those within our church family who will probably think we haven’t gone far enough and others who think we shouldn’t have done anything. What we’ve tried to do is to strike a balance between those opinions, but even more importantly, to hold to Biblical principles the very best that we understand them. Based especially on Romans chapters 13-15, that means that we will respect and submit to our governmental officials except when they require us to violate the Bible, and that we will take actions that promote the consideration of the needs of others ahead of our own.

I need to trust God even when I don’t understand

Since none of us know exactly how God is working right now, we just have to trust that in His perfect wisdom and sovereignty, He is working all things out according to His purposes and plans. We can and must do that even though we might not understand how He is doing that.

Or to put it another way, we just need to let God be God and be OK with that.

We need to be careful not to overlook our own sin

You notice that I phrased this more corporately than individually. Obviously we don’t want to overlook the sin in our own personal lives, but I want to focus more this morning on how we need to be careful as a church not to dismiss some of the things the church as a whole has done and is doing that to contribute to the chaos we see around us today.

For far too long the church, especially here in the United States, tried to use the Bible to justify bigotry, hate, prejudice, racism and slavery. I certainly haven’t observed anyone here this morning who has done that personally, but we are part of a body of Christ that has misused the Scriptures like that so we need to be part of the solution by repenting and making sure that we never allow that to happen again.

But unfortunately that kind of hate and prejudice is not only a thing of the past. It is still present in the church today, only in a more subtle and subversive form. There is a faction present in the church that has twisted Christianity into primarily a political movement which fails to recognize any of its own culpability and is quick to blame its political adversaries for the kinds of problems we have in our culture. As a result they tend to excuse or ignore the ugliness that arises within their ranks and they view our nation’s problems all as someone else’s fault. I refuse to have any part in that and I will do everything in my power to make sure that our church never operates like that.

Inspiration

I do not know what the days ahead will bring. Like many of you I am praying for health and peace for our nation and our world. But that is no guarantee that things won’t get even worse. But we can rest in the fact that an all wise, all powerful, sovereign God is carrying out His plan exactly as He desires. And, as we will see in a couple weeks, that was enough for Habakkuk. And it is enough for us too.

Action

As we close this morning, there might be a number of ways that God is leading you to respond to His Word today. But as a corporate body, I want us to spend some time in prayer, particularly prayers of confession to God on behalf of the church and our nation. We find this kind of prayer modeled by both Daniel and Nehemiah. They confessed the sin of their nation even though we have no evidence that they were personally guilty of the sins they confessed. Let’s use their prayers as our model.

Daniel 9:5–9 ESV

5 we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. 7 To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. 8 To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. 9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him

Nehemiah 1:6–7 ESV

6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. 7 We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.