The Strangeness of God's Ways

 

Habakkuk 1:1-11

 

 

Tonight we’re going to begin our study of the book of Habakkuk.  As I said this morning, happiness is sitting next to somebody who knows where Habakkuk is.  So I hope you’ll find somebody around you who knows where Habakkuk is and turn to it in your Bibles.  For the next few Sunday nights we’re going to be dealing with the book of Habakkuk.  The subject for tonight is the strangeness of God’s ways from the book of Habakkuk.

 

Now in case you’re lost, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai and so forth.  Minor prophets, Old Testament holy Bible.  That’s all the directions I can give you.  And I’ll give you a moment to find it since it is a small book.

 

Habakkuk chapter 1, and this is a very fascinating book, although it is very brief, merely three chapters and three very brief chapters.  It is a very, very important book.  Now tonight, primarily, I want to discuss chapter 1 verses 1 through 11.  Beginning at verse 1, we read;

 

“The burden in which Habakkuk the prophet did see.  O Lord, how long shall I cry and Thou wilt not hear?  Even cry out unto thee a violence and Thou wilt not save?  Why dost Thou show me iniquity and cause me to behold grievance?  For spoiling and violence are before me and there are those who raise up strife and contention.  Therefore the law is slacked and justice doth never go forth, for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore justice goeth forth perverted.”  It sounds like a description of twentieth century, doesn’t it?

 

Verse 5, “Behold among the nations and regard and wonder marvelously; for I will work a work in your days which you will not believe though it be told you.”  This is God speaking.  “For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans that bitter and hasty nation which shall march through the breadth of the land to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.  They are terrible and dreadful, they’re judgment and their dignity shall proceed from themselves.  Their horses also are swifter than the leopards and are more fierce than the evening wolves and their horsemen shall spread themselves and their horsemen shall come from far.  They shall fly like the eagle that hasteth to eat.  They shall come all for violence.  The set of their faces is forward and they shall gather the captives as the sand.  And they shall scoff at the kings and the princes shall be a scorn unto them for they shall deride every stronghold for they shall heap dust and take it.  Then shall his mind change and he shall pass over and offend, imputing this his power unto his god.”

 

A very interesting portion of Scripture.  Now we know that life is never a bed of roses and particularly the Christian life is never a bed of roses.  Even though we live the life of faith, even though our faith is very personally and very explicitly placed in the person of Jesus Christ, and even though Christ is all and all, and even though He is sufficient to every need, life, the life of faith, is never just comfortable.  There are always problems.  There are always problems in the Christian’s life.  There are always problems in the life of the Israelites.  There were problems in the mind of Habakkuk as he wrote in this prophecy.  And the reason there are always problems is because there is always an active adversary, Satan, whose desire is to tempt us to sin.  And so there are problems.  And various temptations are presented to our minds as Christians and Satan’s desire in presenting these temptations is to undermine our faith, is to cause us to doubt God, or to doubt God’s love, or to doubt that God cares.  Surprisingly enough, this is true of Christians. 

 

Many of us find coming into our lives problems that we cannot understand, sorrows that we cannot cope with, various temptations that tend to make us doubt God and wonder if we’re really saved, wonder if God really cares at all, wonder if the faith that we hold to so strongly could really have a failing or a weak link in it.  And so if Satan tempts us to doubt God, to undermine our faith, and then Satan tempts the unsaved by making Christianity look ridiculous, it’s an old, old tactic of Satan to present a ridiculous Christianity to the world, to try to make Christianity look like stupidity.  And he’s done it all through history.

 

Today, one of the main anxieties pushed off on the world by Satan is the problem of history.  That’s what we want to talk about for the next few Sunday nights in this prophecy.  The problem of history.  You see, today people are perplexed with the historical situation.  You look around you and you wonder why it’s like it is.  Now up until about 1914 or 1915 we had a different problem.  It wasn’t the problem of history that was bugging everybody, it was the problem of science.  For in the nineteenth century and in centuries previous to that, the biggest problem was that science was purported to be a threat to Christianity.  And you had during those centuries critics who said that the Bible was scientifically wrong and in great error, etc., etc., etc.  They would point to thinks like the Bible statement that the sun stood still and various things like that and say the Bible is scientifically impossible. 

 

And so, Christianity was always wrangling with science.  And if you ever see a book on Christianity and science, the great books, the great traditional books were books written at the very beginning of this century and at the latter part of the last century because that was the day in which science was the problem.    But today that’s not the problem.  Today is the problem of history.  It goes like this, how can a God like the one you claim in the Bible let the world get in the mess that it’s in?  Or for that matter, how can the God that you claim is the God of the Bible let the church get in the mess that the church is in?  And so we have the problem of history.  And if you look around the world, the world is in a mess...war, famine, disease, suffering, sorrow, death, constant problems all around the world.

 

And I’ll tell you, if you look at the church you’re going to find the church in the main is in a mess...apostasy, liberalism, a denial of the authenticity of Scripture, a denial of verbal plenary inspiration, a denial of the deity of Jesus Christ, a substitution of every inane type of philosophy imaginable.  There’s no question about the fact that the world is in a mess.  There’s no question about the fact that the church is in a mess.  And so, the issue today is if God is really God, why is all this mess such a problem today?  Why is God allowing it and why are we having to cope with it?  This is the issue today.  This is the great problem that’s thrown up in the face of Christianity today...the problem of history.  And this is what we want to deal with because in this century, the century in which we live, primarily right today in this particular decade, many Christians find their faith shaken.  Many find them sort of rattling at their roots because of the course of events in the world.  And other people who are not Christians who have no faith find it very difficult...very difficult to accept the God of the Bible in view of the history that’s going on in our world today.

 

Devastating world problems become very difficult to reconcile with a loving, caring, kind God as He’s presented in the Bible.  But really there’s no excuse for this perplexity on the part of a Christian and there’s absolutely no excuse for rejection on the part of a non-Christian because the plain teaching of the Bible sets it straight.  There is really no reason to be perplexed about the relationship of the Bible and science.  That’s a dead issue.  James White Dana(?)  said there is nothing more true in all the universe than the statements of the Bible that touch on science.  And he was a head geologist at Yale University.  That’s a dead issue.  The Bible hasn’t made scientific error, it doesn’t make any scientific error.  And now the history problem is the issue.  But there really shouldn’t be any perplexity about that either because the Bible deals just as explicitly with that as it does with the problem of science.

 

Now I know that some people think that the Bible is a text book on salvation and that’s the beginning and the end of it.  But that’s not really so.  Salvation is really just one thread that runs through the theme of the Bible.  The Bible’s purpose, the Word of God’s purpose is the entire destiny of the world.  If all the Bible cared about was salvation, it wouldn’t deal with the fall of man, necessarily, it wouldn’t deal with hell, it wouldn’t deal with all of the things that have to do with a godless world.  The Bible is infinitely more than a textbook on salvation.  It is that, to be sure it is that.  But it is more than that.  The Word of God in total revelation is concerned with the entire world, its condition and its destiny.  The Bible, if you please, has a very profound philosophy of history and a distinctive world view.

 

Careful reading and study of the Word of God will show this to you.  If you just peruse your favorite Psalm or reread over and over again the Sermon on the Mount, or flip around in your favorite gospel, you might not get it.  But if you carefully study the Word of God, you will find that every thing that occurs in history has a place in God’s divine plan.  The Word of God then is concerned with the whole spectrum of the world and its destiny.

 

Now I say all that to say this.  Habakkuk is an illustration of this problem because the prophet treats the problem of history in his book and he treats it in a fascinating way.  He doesn’t treat it from an academic standpoint.  He doesn’t treat it from a theoretic standpoint.  He doesn’t treat it from a philosophical standpoint.  He treats it from the personal perplexity of his own life.  He says, in essence, God, I can’t figure out why it’s going like it is if You’re who You are.  That is Habakkuk’s problem.  And so I want us to join him in his experience.  He was troubled by what he saw in the world.

 

Now what was the situation?  Well the situation in Habakkuk’s day was that Israel was back-slidden, which is nothing new for Israel.  Israel had turned from God, Israel had forgotten God, Israel was completely given over to idolatry.  And so he begins in verse 2, the real cry of his heart as he examines Israel and he says this, “O Lord, how long shall I cry and Thou wilt not hear?  Even cry out unto Thee of violence and Thou wilt not save.  Why dost thou show me iniquity and cause me to behold grievance for spoiling and violence are before me and there are those who raise up strife and contention?  Therefore the law is slacked and justice does not go forth for the wicked doth compass about the righteous, therefore justice goeth forth perverted.”  What a horrible picture of Israel.  And the prayer that Habakkuk is praying is...God, they’re in a mess, I’ve been asking You and asking You and crying out for You to change it.  Why don’t You do something about it?  How long shall I cry and You will not hear?

 

What a situation.  Sin, immorality, vice were rampant.  Those in government were slack and indolent.  And those who applied the law applied it dishonestly and justice was nowhere to be found.  And Habakkuk, a man of God, has had his heart just bleeding before God as to why God allows this.  Such were the conditions of Israel.  There was lawlessness, there was sin, immorality and so forth. 

 

The same thing is true today.  As we look about our world we see the same characteristics exactly as in Habakkuk’s day.  In verse 2 he says, “There is violence.” Certainly that’s a watchword of our day.  In verse 3 he says, “There is iniquity, there is violence, again, there are those who raise up strife and contention.” There are revolutionaries stirring up trouble.  Verse 4, “Therefore the law is slack and there’s no justice fairly and honestly.”  Law and authority are not dealing fairly and honestly.  It’s difficult to find justice in this world, just as it was in the day of Habakkuk.  And so he’s perplexed by the situation and he cries out to God and says, “God, if You’re who You are, why are You letting it happen?”  We stand today in the twentieth century and we can look at God with almost the same quizzical expression in our brain and say, “God, why is it like it is?  Why is it that we constantly cry out about these things and nothing ever happens?  They only get worse.”

 

So the situation wasn’t very good.  Well if you think the situation was bad, wait till you get a hold of the solution.  In verse 5 to 11, Habakkuk gets probably the most unusual answer to prayer that anybody ever got.  If you think God’s inactivity was perplexing, just notice his activity.  And Habakkuk was perplexed in verses 2 and 4 but it must have been nothing compared to what’s going on in his brain after he heard God’s answer.  Verse 5 God says, “Behold among the nations in regard..”  God doesn’t say I’m going to answer your prayer, everything’s going to be roses.  He says, “And wonder marvelously for I’ll work a work in your days, first of all, which you will not believe, though it be told you.”  And here’s the answer to Habakkuk’s prayer.  Verse 6, “For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation which shall march through the breadth of the land to possess the dwelling places that are not there.  They are terrible and dreadful, their judgment, their dignity shall proceed from themselves,” and he describes their horses, their swiftness.  Their horsemen are going to cover the land, they’re going to come swiftly like an eagle.  Verse 9, they’re going to come for violence.  The set of their faces is forward.  That means that they’re not going to be distracted, they’ve got a goal in mind, you’re going to go at it.  “They shall gather the captives as the sand.  They’re going to pick up the whole nation Israel.  They’ll scoff and laugh at the kings and princes.  They’ll deride every stronghold.  They’re going to heap dust and take it.” And then in verse 11, “They’re going to glory and think that they did it because of the power of their own God.”

 

Now listen to this.  God answered Habakkuk by saying, “You think it’s bad now, you haven’t seen anything yet.”  Now that’s an unusual answer.  He’s been crying out, “O God, deliver us, deliver us, deliver us, deliver us.” And God says, “Not only will I not deliver you, it’s going to get worse than it is now.”  God intends to raise up an utter