When God Doesn't

Intro

Our Friday chapel series has been “A New Normal” which the aim was to be reminded that God is with us in the midst of a Pandemic, earthquakes, Presidential elections, racial tensions. What a year it has been to be reminded of the sinful world we live in. I have been most encouraged though by our guest speakers who have taught from a variety of instances in Scripture where the “normal” was changed, whether by choice or by chance. We heard from Pastor Gary Kirst from Galena Bible Church who brought us the example of Paul at the end of Acts. We heard from Luke Springer who took us through a section of Philippians and reminded us that our confidence should not come from us or from within, but that it should be In Christ. We heard from Sean McDonald who spoke from Daniel and we saw how Daniel’s circumstances changed DRASTICALLY when his country was now being ruled by Nebuchadnezzar, but Daniel remain faithful and trusted in His God. We heard from Brandon Peppin from Ruth who also had to endure big changes. These people remained faithful to God. Their faith in God was not dependent on their circumstances, but it was based on their understanding of God. It was based on their Theology of God. Today we and finishing our series of “A New Normal” for the semester and I thought Habakkuk’s message is a good way to wrap it up.

Habakkuk was a prophet of the Old Testament and as we just read, had an issue with the sin that was on display from God’s people. He petitions to God and asks what he is doing about the issues he is seeing. God responds to him, but Habakkuk does not like his response. To contextualize how Habakkuk was feeling...

Consider how many hours you’ve spent reading and studying theology this semester. As students and faculty/staff of a Bible College, we know that it comes with the territory, but what do you do when your theology of God is challenged by your circumstances. We know God is Holy, and we only have access to the throne of Grace by placing our Trust in Christ, the Messiah. We know that our Joy comes from knowing Christ and having an eternal perspective. We know these things, but how do you react when your expectations are not met? You see this is what happened in this dialogue. Habakkuk had expectations on how God should work. For the next few minutes I’d like to make some observations from this text that will hopefully continue to give us some insight as to where we fall short and how we should respond when our “normal” is changed.

The issues of injustice and our expectations

VERSES 1-4 - The Problem

This book of Habakkuk deals with injustice. Here, we see a dialogue between Habakkuk and God. Habakkuk is concerned because God’s people are not abiding by the Law,. Habakkuk petitions/asks God to stop the violence, to stop the injustice that has overtaken Judah. We all know what injustice feels like. Injustice can be defined as,

“The unnecessary and unjustified ill treatment of others, through false accusation or through the inflicting of pain or punishment. Having its origin in Satan, it works through the sinful human heart and shows itself in every sphere of life. It merits the wrath of God.”

Martin H. Manser, Dictionary of Bible Themes: The Accessible and Comprehensive Tool for Topical Studies (London: Martin Manser, 2009).

Injustice happens everywhere. It happens within our families. I remember when my brother got his first cell phone. I remember because he got it a couple of years sooner than I did. I got mine around 15 or 16, but he got his when he was 14. I remember my response when I heard he had his phone. They weren’t smart phones then, they were just regular phones, but how is it fair that he could get a privilege earlier than I did. Why was he treated differently? How is that just?!

Injustice happens in our communities. Think of the death of George Floyd and the events that occured after that. Not only was his ill treatment, and many other who are ill treated based on the color of their skin, but we also had ill responses from our community, rioting businesses who had no fault in the death of this man.

Governmental corruption is also evident in our world. I know that this is a touchy subject now for our country due to the recent election, but you don’t have to look far at other countries to see corruption. I have seen it first hand when I visit my family in Mexico.

This was Habakkuk’s reality of which we can sympathize with and understand his question.

Habakkuk 1:2–3 (ESV) — 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.

Habakkuk seemed to have an understanding of God’s character, as we will see later in this chapter, and he is calling out to God and saying: DO SOMETHING!

Do you have expectations of how God should work? I think we as students of the word sometimes act like we have God all figured out and we place expectations on Him. I am not saying God will change his mind, but we need to check ourselves when we place expectations on how God should act. His ways are higher than ours! But we do know that God is not pleased with wrong-doing. As His ambassadors, we should also be sensitive to evil in our own lives, and the injustice of our world.

So we understand and sympathize with Habakkuk and God hears his petition and answers. Let us see how God responds.

VERSES 5-17 - The Response

Coming judgement on the wicked (5-11)

God responds by saying,

Habakkuk 1:5–6 (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.

God answers and says, I AM WORKING, I am going to use the Chaldeans to punish my people and bring judgment.

Evil does not go unpunished, and God here is telling Habakkuk, I see this evil and I am raising a nation to bring judgment. Judah was a small nation compared to the nation of Babylon. The Chaldeans were powerful and as described in this text, a fearful and evil group of people. This is who God was planning to use. There are a couple of things we can pull from this portion of the text.

First, because we have the truth of scripture, evil is more obvious to us. We become more sensitive to it, and we should, as we seek holiness and Christlikeness our discomfort for evil and sin should consequently grow as well. As a result, when we see sin around us, we have the urge for it to be corrected, for justice to be done. This true even more so among believers. Notice that Habakkuk is talking about God’s people who are being violent, who are doing wrong, who are falling into corruption (the nation of Judah). This is a terrible truth, that we as believers are sometimes part of the problem. That we instead of displaying the fruit of the spirit, we instead bring discord, we bring dissension. It is good for us to become like Habakkuk in this way, that we would be become tolerant with evil around us, or in our own lives.

Second, God does punish sin NOW as well as for eternity. We see that in God’s response, that God has been working on something BIG to bring the consequences of Judah’s sin to an end. Paul actually uses this passage in Acts 13:41 where he warns people that the rejection of the Messiah would also result in judgment like it did for Judah. Sin does not go unpunished, but God does not handle things based on our expectations.

Notice Habakkuk’s response after he hears from God

Isn’t the medicine worse than the disease? (v. 12-17)

Habakkuk 1:13 (ESV) — 13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?

Habakkuk is obviously not happy with God’s response. Although, God is in fact answering his prayer of bringing justice, but Habakkuk does not like the way God plans to bring it. Habakkuk begins his response with stating the fundamental belief that God is eternal and holy. “from everlasting” he says, and calls Him “my Holy One.” The theological problem Habakkuk has with God’s response is how...

a holy God, one who is pure in all things and completely separate from sin, can tolerate wrong and [wickedness] as practised by the Babylonian[s] (13).

David W. Baker, “Habakkuk,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, ed. D. A. Carson et al., 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 843.

Although we know that at this point, God’s people were deep in sin, they were nothing compared to the wickedness of the Chaldeans (or the Babylonians). The Chaldeans had a reputation of being terrible people and a powerful nation being from Babylon. So his theology of God was now being confronted with his expectations of how God should act, or who He should use to fulfill his purposes.

Habakkuk wants God to bring justice, but on his terms. But you see there lies the problem that Habakkuk will later realize, he is not equipped to propose solutions to this issue of injustice. Although we are to grow in our sensitivity of sin and as God’s ambassadors demonstrate the truth of the Gospel through our actions and our words, we don’t have the qualifications, nor authority to bring judgment or propose a solution.

Habakkuk ends this section, similar to how Job ends his dialogue with God, saying,

Habakkuk 2:1 (ESV) — 1 I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

Essentially saying, “I will wait, and He will answer.” It shows God’s patience with us, that he allows us to approach Him, The Holy and righteous one with our attitudes of knowing better than He.

WE ARE ILL EQUIPPED TO RESOLVE THIS ISSUE

God does not meet our expectations, we can’t fit God in a box, or in Grudem’s Systematic Theology. Our aim is to grow in our understanding of God, the Gospel, and in skill of communicating these truths to our world, but we don’t bring salvation, we don’t bring judgment, we aren’t equipped in this way. The passages that list the spiritual gifts, don’t include, judge, nor do they include savior. These are not our roles. We so often place our trust in men, even good men, even good Christian men, to bring about justice. We so easily place our trust in our government officials, or maybe you had hopes that the candidate you voted for would bring about more of what this world needs. That he would save our world by reducing the amount of evil (because we know we won’t see perfection this side of heaven).

THERE IS ONE WHO CAN RESOLVE

Habakkuk realized that his trust can’t be placed on man, nor on himself, but that he must place it on the ONLY ONE who can save. Habakkuk says,

Habakkuk 2:4 (ESV) — 4 “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

300 Illustrations for Preachers “In Dog We Trust”

The $500 rug in the lobby of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in Florida was supposed to say, “In God We Trust,” but the rug manufacturer mistyped the word “God,” rearranging the letters so that the rug said, “In Dog We Trust.” It took a couple of months for someone to discover the typo, but then the rug was quickly removed and later auctioned off; the proceeds went to a nonprofit that serves abandoned and injured dogs.

Having made my share of typos, I understand how mistakes are made. Misspelling a slogan is one thing, but misplacing one’s trust is another. Yet every day many people place their trust in money instead of God, even though the currency itself declares “In God We Trust.”

This is the reminder we need today. Let us learn from Habakkuk’s dialogue, from his strong discomfort of his circumstances that he was placed in, “not by choice” and had to adjust to this world that he was not comfortable with. He realized God is sovereign, and he is not, God is just always, and he is sinful, God is the one who saves, and he cannot. We must therefore, live by faith, we must place our trust in God, especially in light of our current circumstances, and for what is to come.

HOPE FOR TODAY

Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of Habakkuk’s longing for justice.

The Church is called to look to Jesus with faith and trust, knowing that he has already accomplished all things necessary for our salvation. In the time between his ascension and his second coming we are called to live faithfully before him.

The book of Habakkuk reminds us that our hope is in the Father, the God who saves and delivers, but it is also in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, who has come and is coming again, and in the Holy Spirit, who binds us together in unity and mission, guiding us to truth and comforting us in our affliction. This hope is neither empty nor vain, and it carries us forward, regardless of circumstances, into each new day.

Heath A. Thomas, Faith amid the Ruins: The Book of Habakkuk, ed. Craig G. Bartholomew, Transformative Word (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016), 88–89.

Our Hope in God, living by faith is an exercise we need to practice, and we have been enable to do so because of Christ, and His word. I’d like to end with the last words of this book.

Habakkuk 3:17–19 (ESV) — 17 Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. 19 God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.

To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.

As we finish this series, let us be challenged by these words of Habakkuk. Let us learn from his dialogue with God. To place our full trust and hope in Him. That we would be able to say, “though COVID continues into 2021, or the election controversies continue, whether my school year at Emmaus continues to look like this semester, with the social distancing, quarantines, etc. May we grow to be able to say, “yet I will rejoice in the Lord” “I will take joy in my salvation, for God is my strength.”

Let’s pray.

PRAYER