Habakkuk 1:1-3; 2:1-4 * October 21, 2001 * Pentecost 20 * Pastor Joel Leyrer

   1:1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received.  2 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.  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.
   2:1 Then the LORD replied: "Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald a may run with it.  3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.  Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.  4 "See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright — but the righteous will live by his faith."
- Habakkuk 1:1-3; 2:1-4, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House) 1984.

Dear Friends in Christ,

For the third week in a row we are considering a text in what for many is perhaps the least known segment of God’s Word – that odd collection of strange names at the end of the Old Testament known as the Minor Prophets.  The last two weeks we heard what God had to say through the prophet Amos; today our word from God comes to us through the prophet Habakkuk.

I have never met a person named Habakkuk, and I suspect you haven’t either.  But I have talked to plenty of people who have voiced the concerns and questions Habakkuk raises in our text – and I suspect you have, too.  Because the spiritual struggles and questions he had were not limited to his historical time and circumstances.  They are timeless.  And they continue to be asked today.

The good news is that our text provides us not only with questions, but also with answers.  In fact, that’s a pretty good description of this portion of God’s Word:

MAN’S QUESTIONS...  GOD’S ANSWERS

"The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received..."  An oracle was a message from God, often in the form of a vision or a dream.  Here we are told that God gave such an oracle to an individual named Habakkuk.  What we know for certain about this man will impede but slightly the forward progress of this sermon because our information is limited to his book and is quite scant.  Other than his name (which may mean "one who embraces"), we know he lived and worked in the land of Judah about 600 BC.  We know that he was a prophet of God.  And we know that God thought it was important enough to preserve his message for us in the Bible...

This we also know: among the Minor Prophets Habakkuk’s message is unique.  It is not so much a warning to God’s people (often the case with the other prophets) as it is a dialogue between God and the prophet, composed for the strength of true believers at a time of mass defection from the Lord.  As the opening words will indicate, the majority of the people Habakkuk dealt with were corrupt and selfish and violent.  Though professing to have faith, their "faith-life"  was nothing more than empty ritualism; a thin veneer of religiosity which covered a spiritual emptiness.

With that as background, Habakkuk begins the dialogue by asking God some very pointed questions: "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."

These words don’t need much explanation.  The prophet looked at the world around him and saw violence and wrongdoing and injustice and strife and conflict – and all of this happening not only to, but by and among those who were supposed to be God’s children.

So he asks two simple questions of God.  Number one, how long is this going to last?  Number two, why are you letting these things happen in the first place?  Implied in these two questions, however, are several others, such as...  Have you forgotten your people, Lord?  Are you unable/unwilling/powerless to do anything about this, Lord?  Why must the righteous suffer and the wicked flourish, Lord?  How fair is that?  If you are so good, Lord, why do so many bad things happen?

Sound familiar?  These questions are ageless.  I wonder how many times they or variations of them have been asked since September 11^th.  Suddenly this ancient Israelite named Habakkuk seems amazingly contemporary, doesn’t he?  Beyond the obvious application to our recent national tragedy, these questions can also very much be personalized...

For instance, we watch a loved one go through an extended illness with little or no hope for recovery, but just a gradual loss of strength and vitality – and we may wonder: How long does this have to go on, O Lord?

We deal with problems – personal problems, family problems, problems which despite prayer and effort and doing all the "right things"  don’t go away – and we may wonder: How come you’re not helping, O Lord?

We experience pain or loss or setbacks or difficulties, or we lose an opportunity to do something we feel would be beneficial – and we may wonder: Why is this happening?  Why me?  Why my kids?  Why my parents, O Lord?

We read about a drunken driver plowing into the side of a car or a bus and killing little children, or job related accidents which leave widows and fatherless children in their wake; we hear that the Trade Tower attack has resulted in over 10,000 immediate families losing a husband or wife or father or mother or child; we think about the military build-up that’s going on and wonder what it’s going to translate into in terms of additional loss of life; within the last two weeks we’ve watched the panic level increase at the prospect of bio-terrorism – and we may wonder: Where are you in all of this, O Lord?

No, Habakkuk certainly wasn’t the first to ask these kinds of questions as he looked around and saw what he perceived to be injustice and unfairness.  And he won’t be the last.  We may find them slipping into our own consciousness.  We may preface them with statements such as "I know I shouldn’t be questioning God"  or "I probably shouldn’t be thinking this way..."  but then ask them anyway.

Back to the text...  Habakkuk not only asked questions; he also wanted some answers.  Our text picks up in Chapter 2 after Habakkuk has issued a second complaint along the same lines.  We read: "I will stand at my watch and station myself on ramparts; I will look to see what He will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint."

Unable to come up with answers to the questions raised, Habakkuk devises a plan: He’ll simply settle in and wait for the Lord’s instruction.  We should note that Habakkuk’s questions did not spring from doubt in God’s existence, but rather in confusion as to why God would tolerate the things He did.  These were not accusing questions, but searching ones.  And God in His grace condescends to answer His troubled prophet...

"The Lord replied: ‘Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.  For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.  Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and not delay.’"  Habakkuk is instructed to write down what God was about to tell him so others could also know.  And although it may take a little while, Habakkuk was assured that answers would indeed be forthcoming and appropriate actions taken.

The message that followed was originally directed to the specific time in which Habakkuk lived.  It had to do with the fall of Babylon, the nation which would soon conquer God’s Old Testament people and lead them into captivity.  But as we will see, behind the specific message was a general principle for all believers of all times...

Let’s backtrack for a moment and fill in some information covered in the verses later in chapter one but not a part of today’s text.  Habakkuk’s first complaint was: Why do You tolerate so much evil and wickedness from your people?  God’s answer: My people will shortly be disciplined by the hand of Babylon.  Habakkuk’s second complaint: How could you let Your people be conquered by a nation even more wicked than they are?  God’s answer: Babylon, too, will be punished for its treatment of God’s people, whom I still love...

And then the Lord begins His pronouncement against Babylon, while at the same time instructing Habakkuk and all believers how to live in troubled times: "See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright – but the righteous will live by his faith..." He = the Babylonian.  He is proud, arrogant and godless – and would eventually be destroyed.  He lives by might and by sight and only in the present.

On the other hand, "the righteous will live by his faith."  And that is the definitive answer to all the prophet’s questions.  Here is the explanation Habakkuk was looking for.  Wickedness may abound and unrighteous people may live by violence and injustice – but "the righteous [the believer] will live by his faith."

What does this mean – to live by faith?  "Live" must be understood in two ways.  First, it means to live eternally through faith in what at Habakkuk’s time was the promised Savior who was to come, but in our time is the Savior who has come – Jesus Christ.  In the New Testament book of Romans the Apostle Paul uses this passage to explain the central message of Scripture: Justification by faith.  We live eternally through trusting (faith) in the substitutionary perfect life, sacrificial death and triumphal resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We are saved eternally and will live eternally through faith in Jesus.

But in addition to eternal life by faith, believers also live in this life by faith.  In other words, NOW – even though evil and bad and seemingly senseless tragic events take place – WE LIVE BY FAITH.  Faith in what?  Faith in God’s love and goodness toward His children.  Faith in God’s promise to us to never leave us or forsake us and to make all things work out for the good of His children.  Faith in the things we can touch, taste and see – like the water of baptism which applied the work of Christ to our hearts and washed our sins away; the bread and wine of communion in which Christ comes to us and gives us His body and blood for the tangible assurance that we are forgiven...

Here is the answer to those nagging questions of how long and why – faith! And not just blind faith.  Faith in God’s love which was and is demonstrated and proven in the cross of Jesus Christ!

Although there may be things we don’t understand and possibly never will understand on this side of heaven, far more important than focusing on the things we don’t know for sure is to focus on what we do know for sure.  And what we do know for sure is this: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.  And the cross of Christ proves it.

Yes, as we focus on the love of God and faithfully believe His many promises to us that He knows what He’s doing and He is indeed in control of a world which often seems to be out of control, we will then find as much of an answer as we need to the why’s and wherefores of life...

This is the conclusion that Habakkuk came to as well.  The last verses of his book are no longer the words of a questioning man, but a man of faith.  A man who grew from demanding answers from God about life’s troubles to a man who trusted God even in the midst of those troubles.  Listen to the final faith-filled words of Habakkuk (3:17-19):

As He did for Habakkuk, God also provides us with the strength to endure as we keep our eyes centered on the Savior.  Because that Savior is God’s answer to any and all of man’s questions.

Consequently, may God, who has shown His great love for us all in Jesus Christ, increase our faith in His Word and promises.  And may we who have been made righteous through faith, live unquestioningly now and eternally by faith.  Amen.