Immanuel Sermon Audio
Habakkuk (35:66)
All right. Take a Bible out and find Habakkuk. It's a short book, only three chapters and they're pretty short chapters. If you don't know where it's at, look it up in the table of contents. We're going to read in a little bit, read through the entire book and you're going to want to follow along as we do that. Habakkuk is kind of a heavy book. It's kind of a serious book and the issues that he's asking and dealing with are serious and the things that we're going to try to apply it to in life are pretty serious. So here's just a couple of things on a lighter note. One that just popped into my head and another one that fits in with Habakkuk. We sang Happy Birthday. Did you hear about the court decision about Happy Birthday? The guy who wrote it has always fought for the copyright controls over Happy Birthday and so a lot of restaurants won't let their employees sing the real Happy Birthday. They make up some goofy version because it's copyrighted and they can get in trouble and there was a court decision and he lost the rights to it. They said you don't own the words to it. You can control the, I think the exact original arrangement is all you have rights to and so he lost that. So if you go to a restaurant and you want somebody to sing Happy Birthday to you, they can do that now. They have no excuse. No one's going to sue them. So how many of you, again on a little bit of a lighter note, how many of you know what your name means? Anybody? What's your name mean, Mark? Orator? Warrior. Big difference. Warrior. Very nice. What's your name mean? Grace. Nice. What's your name mean? Helper of mankind. We are glad that you are here to help us. Great grandma back there. What does your name mean? Purity. Nice. Anybody know what land it means? It's an English name. It means tall hill, which I guess could be worse or less fitting, tall hill. Mud? Yeah, there you go. Mud. Habakkuk. Habakkuk is a guy whose name fit him well and we're going to get to that in a minute. We've talked about what some of these prophets, what their name means and how that connects to their ministry and Habakkuk was a guy whose name is important even for understanding the book. So he's one of the minor prophets and you can see where he fits in. After Habakkuk, we only have four more to go. So we're on the downhill slide in the minor prophets. I tell you this every week, but just to remind you, Habakkuk and the other guys are minor prophets, not because they're not important, not because the things they say are less important, but just because their books are shorter. They're not as long as most of the major prophets. So these guys are the minor prophets and I'm going to read you a story that's really, I'm just warning you. It's a really heavy story. It's a serious story. And before I do, I'll just tell you that Habakkuk literally means to wrestle. That's what his name means. Habakkuk means to wrestle. This little story, it's not very long, just one paragraph. It comes out of a book called God at War, the Bible and Spiritual Conflict by a guy named Gregory Boyd. And here's the story. This is an eyewitness account of something that happened to a young Jewish girl who lived in the ghetto of Warsaw during the Nazi occupation of Poland. So a young Jewish girl, the girl's name is Zosia, Z-O-S-I-A, Zosia. And she lives in Warsaw in Poland, and the Nazis are in control. And here's an eyewitness account of something that happened. Zosia was a little girl, the daughter of a physician. Using one "action" of the Germans, the Nazis became aware of her beautiful diamond-like dark eyes. One soldier said, "I could make two rings out of them, one for myself and one for my wife." His colleague holds the girl down and says, "Let's see whether they're really so beautiful. Better yet, let's examine them in our own hands." And among the buddies, among the soldiers, exuberant Gady breaks out. One of the wittiest and boldest proposes to actually take the eyes out. A shrill, screaming, and the noisy laughter of the soldier pack, the screaming penetrates our brains, pierces our heart, and the laughter hurts like the edge of a knife plunged into our body. The screaming and the laughter are growing mingling and soaring to heaven. Oh God, who will you hear first? Zosia or the Germans? What happens next is that the fainting child is lying on the floor instead of eyes. Two bloody wounds are staring. The mother, driven mad, is held by the women. This time they left Zosia to her mother, and at one of the next "actions" little Zosia was taken away because of course it was necessary to annihilate a blind child. I witness a count. This is a heavy story. In this book, this guy, Greg Boyd, is a pastor and a professor, he starts off with that story and he also tells a story about someone in his church who had a sort of a senseless accident and lost their life. He brings up these stories and their tragedies and they just make you hurt and they make you sad, and then he says, "How can something like that happen if God is really good and he really is in complete control of everything?" How could that happen? He wants you to think about it. How could God allow something like that if you don't like that story, you insert your own tragedy? How could he allow something like that if he's really all good and he's really all powerful? He wrestles with that. In this book, about half of this book, I underlined and highlighted and said, "Amen, amen, amen, that's great." In about half of it, I just wanted to rip out and throw in a fire because his conclusion at the end of the day is God is good and he is all powerful. He would say that, but what Mr. Boyd says is he doesn't know the future. He doesn't know what's coming next. He's a good guesser. He's a lot smarter than you are and he's very good at anticipating and planning for contingencies, but the bottom line is that he does not know the future. It's impossible for any being, you or God to know the future. It doesn't exist yet and therefore I'm paraphrasing and I'm maybe putting words into his mouth, but God's doing the best he can. He's given it a great shot and most of the time he comes through, but every now and then, I mean, what can you do? He just doesn't know and maybe he gets caught off guard a little bit. I want you to understand that when you look at the book of Habakkuk, Habakkuk is wrestling with the exact same question, the exact same question, and when you read Habakkuk, it may not sound to us quite as graphic as the story I just read you, but he's wrestling and he's trying to figure out, okay, you tell me that you're all good. You love your people. You're faithful. You also tell me that you are all powerful, that you know everything. How do those fit together with what I see and how do those fit together with what you're telling me? And so he's wrestling, okay? He's wrestling with the problem of evil and he's trying to figure it out. Let me remind you when Habakkuk lived so that you know what's going on. In the history of Israel, he lives during the rebellion and the exile, meaning the northern kingdom of Israel has already been taken into exile. Assyria, we talked about the Assyrians last week, talked about Nahum and talked about, showed you some of those pictures of the things the Assyrians were doing to people, that's pretty graphic stuff, and so he's sort of, he's seen that happen. The Assyrians come and they take the northern kingdom into exile, but he lives in Judah in the southern kingdom and it's just during a period of rebellion. Here's where he falls with the other minor prophets, Hosea Amos, Micah Jonah, all before the fall of the northern kingdom, before the Assyrians take Samaria in the northern kingdom into exile. Then Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, all go together. They've seen the northern kingdom go into exile, but they're waiting for Jerusalem to fall. They know that that's probably coming and they're trying to get the people ready and to warn the people. And then the rest of the minor prophets come after that, Joel and Obadiah, after Jerusalem falls, Babylon has already taken them into exile and then Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi after they all come back. So is there a timeline up there too? There's the timeline. So you see Habakkuk, you kind of got to get this in your brain to figure out exactly what Habakkuk is wrestling with. To the left, before him, you see at the bottom in red, Israel goes into exile, taken into exile by Assyria. Coming up very, very soon after Habakkuk, Judah, where he lives, Jerusalem, they're going into exile and Babylon is going to be the one that takes them into exile. So Habakkuk lives in Judah and it's kind of an up and down time when Habakkuk lives in Judah. Have you ever heard of a king named Josiah in Judah? Good king or bad king? Good king. Actually let a revival in Judah. And so if you're Habakkuk and you are a prophet, you're all for revival, right? You think this is great. We have a good king on the throne. There's revival. People are turning back to the Lord. We're getting rid of our idols. We're listening to the warnings. This is all good stuff. But then there came a king named Jehoiakim and the Bible basically says he was as bad as all the rest of them put together and did worse things and added upon all of their iniquities and all of that revival was just totally washed away. So Habakkuk the prophet, understand this. He's watched Assyria take Israel into exile. He knows that his nation, Judah, the southern kingdom, could be next. Jerusalem could fall. And he's seen the hope of a revival, right? He knows that can happen. He watched it with his own two eyes. There was a real revival among the people. There was a generation led by Josiah and they turned to the Lord and they trusted the Lord and then he sees a new generation and he sees Jehoiakim and he sees it all basically just get flushed down the toilet. And here's the question that Habakkuk really has for God. He looks around and he says my nation is wicked. And the question he wants to ask God is why don't you do something about it? He lives in Judah. He's seen the revival but now he's living in the wickedness. And his question to God is why don't you do something about it? And understand in the back of his mind what does he want God to do about it? Send us another Josiah. That's what we need. Things were looking up when Josiah was here and he's asking God why don't you do something implicit in that is why don't you send another good king. So here's the outline of the book and then we're just going to read through it and talk about it as we go. It's just a back and forth between God and Habakkuk. There's an introduction. There's a first question from Habakkuk. There's an answer from the Lord. Another question from Habakkuk. Another answer from the Lord. There is a woe, w-o-e, pronounced on Babylon and then at the end Habakkuk prays and then at the very end he worships. So that's the book. Pretty simple in the breakdown. And it's short enough that we're just going to read it and we're going to talk about it as we go and then I'll give you a few thoughts of application at the end and we'll talk about where you see Jesus in Habakkuk and then we'll wrap it up. Okay, so look at chapter one verse one. This is the introduction that says the oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. There you go. You've been introduced. Chapter one verse two to four. Habakkuk's first question. "O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear or cry to you violence and you will not save. Why do you make me see iniquity and why do you look idly at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me, strife and contention arise so the law is paralyzed and justice never goes forth for the wicked surround the righteous so justice goes forth perverted." Okay, that's his complaint. That's his first question. And you can circle the words in there. What are the two real questions that he asked God? First question is in verse two. What is it? How long? I have a question for you. How long am I going to have to ask you to do something in Judah and you're going to do nothing? Second question, verse three, what is it? Why? Why do you make me look at this iniquity and why do you look idly at wrong? You understand what he's asking God? How long until you do something here would you please send us another Josiah? What in the world are you waiting on? That's in parentheses in between. Send Josiah back. We need Josiah. How much longer do we have to put up with these foolish kings? Second question is, is really kind of arrogant. I hope you understand this. It's very presumptuous. God, why are you doing nothing? Implicit in that is Habakkuk saying you should be doing something. You're not doing what you ought to be doing. Habakkuk is telling God what to do in the form of a question and this is very presumptuous. So how long are you going to make us wait? Why are you not doing anything? And he's thinking about Judah. He's thinking about his own nation. So look at God's answer. Habakkuk one, five, two, eleven. God speaks. Look among the nations in sea. Wonder and be astounded. For I'm doing work in your days that you would not believe if I told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans or your translation may say the Babylonians. Same group of people. The next world superpower after the Assyrians. God says, I'm raising them up. That bitter and hasty nation who marched through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome. Their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence. All their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress where they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on. Guilty men. These Babylonians. Think about that. God said, I'm raising them up. They're still guilty. Guilty men whose own might, their own power is their God. You understand that is not the answer. Habakkuk wanted to hear. Habakkuk wanted God to say, here's what he wanted. God, how long till you send somebody to fix this and why are you not doing anything? And what he wanted God to say back is, Habakkuk, I'm sorry. I've been busy. I've been preoccupied. Thank you for helping me. Thank you for briefing me on this situation. I don't know what I would do without you. I'm going to get right on this immediately and I'm going to send somebody like Josiah to turn the whole thing around. Thank you, Habakkuk. We would be in a big mess without you. That's what he wanted to hear. Instead, God says, oh, I'm going to do something. I'm planning it out right now. You're going to love it. In fact, it's so amazing. You wouldn't believe you if I told you, but I'm going to tell you anyways. You know the Babylonians, the people who are more wicked than the Assyrians who just hauled your cousins in Israel into exile, the Babylonians. I'm going to raise them up and I'm going to send them to march over Jerusalem. I am going to do something. I'm going to flatten your city. You ever heard people pray that God would do something in churches in the United States of America? God do something. God, why? You look at all the churches and the chaos and the liberalism or just the crassness or the frivolity and all the mess and all these churches, the sin that's tolerated and you say, God, why don't you please do something? We need better churches. We need you to turn things around. What we mean is sinned revival, right? Make them better. You better be careful when you pray that because God might just turn around and say, oh, I am going to do something. I'm going to send persecution to clean out the riffraff and you say, well, no, I wasn't asking for that. I want you to send us another Billy Graham. I want you to send us another great preacher. I want you to send us revival. I want a third great awakening in the United States and God might say, oh, I'm going to do something. I have a plan. Part of my plan might be, I'm just speculating. Part of my plan might be that if churches don't toe a certain political line that you're going to have to pay taxes on your offerings. Part of my plan might be that pastors get thrown in jail for saying certain things that aren't palatable to the society at large. I have a plan. I'm going to fix it and you may say, well, that's not really the plan I had in mind. What Habakkuk heard would be sort of like this. If you said to God, God, will you please do something to purify and to energize the church in the United States? It's dead. Please do something. And God says, I'm going to do something. I'm going to send ISIS to invade the United States and they're going to conquer your nation. They're going to take over. That's what Habakkuk just heard. Someone's going to come conquer our nation, just flatten our cities, take our people into exile and rule over us. That's your plan. That's what God's plan was. So Habakkuk has another question. Habakkuk chapter 1, verse 12, going up to chapter 2, verse 1. Habakkuk speaking, are you not from everlasting? Oh Lord, my God, my holy one, we shall not die. And when he says that, Habakkuk knows the Old Testament. He knows the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And he's trying to put all that together in his head and he's thinking, wait a minute, wait a minute. You said Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes and Israel and children as many as the stars in the heavens and the Messiah's coming from the, you can't kill us all. You send the Babylonians just to kill everybody? He's confused. Oh Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment and you O Rock have established them for reproof. You who are of pure eyes than to see evil and you 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? You understand, this is an important verse to understand Habakkuk. God, you're holy and you're pure and you're going to use the Babylonians? Do you not have any idea how wicked they are? You thought the Assyrians were bad. These guys are twice as bad. You can't look on evil? How are you going to do this? And an important question, are you going to remain silent when the wicked Babylon swallows up the man more righteous Israel than he? In his question, he assumes, we're bad but we're not as bad as those guys. I know I just told you that things were bad in Judah but we're not as bad as the Babylonians. Are you just going to sit idly by and do nothing? Verse 14, you make mankind like the fish of the sea like crawling things that have no ruler, brings all of them up with a hook, he drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his drag net so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net, he makes offerings to his drag net, for by them he lives in luxury and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever? You understand, he's not talking about fishing, he's talking about Babylon and he's saying Babylon, their army, it's like a fisherman, it's like they're just throwing a net and taking these people and they're getting rich off of it and they're plundering and they're raping and they're pillaging and they're just doing all of this stuff. Is this going to happen forever? Chapter two, verse one, "I will take my stand at my watch post 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." The big problem is verse 13. If you want to circle verse 13, that would be the one to mark. Habakkuk doesn't understand this plan that God's going to raise up Babylon to punish Judah because in the back of his mind, or maybe we should say in the front of his mind because he says it, he says, "We're better than they are. Why would you use someone worse than us to punish us? You should use us to punish them and then you should just sort of give us a slap on the wrist. You should let us march against them and destroy them and then you just sort of come and scold us. We're better than they are. We're more righteous than they are." So God answers, chapter two, verse two. The Lord answered me, "Write the vision. Make it plain on tablets so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time. It hastens to the end. It will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it. It will surely come. It will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed up, Babylon's. He is arrogant. He's not upright within him. You're right, Habakkuk. They are bad people. But, verse four, "The righteous shall live by his faith." Habakkuk assumed that they were more righteous than Babylon because they did less bad things. We sin less than they do. That makes us righteous. You understand, that's how a lot of Americans think things work with God. I'm not as bad as my neighbor, so that makes me a good person. I don't go out and get drunk at the bars like my neighbor does, so that means I'm probably going to heaven. I've never embezzled money from my boss, so that means I'm a good person. We judge our righteousness in terms of the things we haven't done, and that's what Habakkuk is doing. We're more righteous than they are, and God says, "No, no, no, no. You're right that Babylon is puffed up and arrogant, and there's problems in their heart." But the righteous person is righteous by faith, not because they're so morally upright, but by their faith. The righteous shall live by his faith. More over wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as shield. Like death, he never has enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples, again talking about Babylon in the sin of Babylon. So God says to Habakkuk, "Listen, you're right in one thing. Babylon is, there are a bunch of knuckleheads, but you're wrong about something else. You are not more righteous than they are. You don't get to sort of pat yourself on the back because you haven't done all the wicked things that they've done. If you want to be righteous, you need to have faith." This is exactly what God told his people in the beginning with Abraham, right? Abraham believed the Lord, and it was counted to him as righteousness. He believed. He had faith, and God says, "That makes you righteous." Not your obedience, not your morality, not what you do or you don't do, but your faith makes you righteous. And he says the same thing to Habakkuk. Here's the woe to the Chaldeans, the woe to the Babylonians. This is God saying, "I'm going to get them. After I use them, I'm going to get them. After I use them to punish you, I'm going to punish them. Shall not all these things take up their taunt against him with scoffing and riddles for him and say, number one, woe to him who heaps up what is not his own. This is the sin of greed in Babylon. How long, and he loads himself with pledges, will not your debtors suddenly arise and those awake who will make you tremble, then you will be spoiled for them because you have plundered many nations. All the remnant of the people shall plunder you for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them." So number one, you've been greedy. You've conquered all these people, you've taken all their stuff, you have stolen, piled up all these goods, and someday somebody's going to come take it from you. Woe number one. Woe number two, you're in just verse nine. It says, woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to set his nest on high to be safe from the reach of harm. You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples you have forfeited your life. For the stone will cry out from the wall and the beam from the woodwork to the beam from the woodwork respond. God's saying, look, you've built these nice homes and you've done it by exploiting people and being unjust. And literally what God says is the bricks in your house that you bought with blood money, with injustice, with oppression, the bricks on your house are going to cry out against you, that you're guilty. So woe to Babylon because of injustice. Verse 12, woe number three, this is for violence. Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity. Behold, it is not from the Lord of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire and nations weary themselves for nothing. For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. We'll come back to verse 14. He says, you have built your towns on blood. You've forced these people to come and work for you and labor for you. You've oppressed them and you've killed them and you've used them. You've been violent. Woe number four, in verse 15, they've seduced other people to sin. Something we're going to talk about on Sunday. Habakkuk describes it like this or I should say God describes it to Habakkuk like this. Habakkuk 215, woe to him who makes his neighbors drink. You pour out your wrath and make them drunk in order to gaze at their nakedness. You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink yourself and show your uncircumcision. The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you and utter shame will come upon your glory. The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you as will the destruction of the beast that terrified them for the blood of man and the violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. What prophet is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies for its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols. You read verse 15 down to 18 and what God is saying is you have lured, as you've gone and conquered all these nations, you've lured them into your own sin. He describes it as you've got them drunk and at the end you understand he's really not necessarily talking about a keg party. He's saying you've lured them to worship your own stupid idols. You've gone and you've conquered all these nations and you go and you conquer them in what you say to them and you read this in the Bible. You say to them, your gods were powerless to stop our gods. Our gods are better than your gods. You should worship our gods. And you forced your idolatry on all these people. You seduced them to sin. The last woe is in verse 19, woe number 5 and it's just out and out idolatry. Woe to him who says to a wooden thing awake, to a silent stone arise. Can this teach? Behold, it's overlaid with gold and silver. There's no breath at all in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. So five woes for their greed, their injustice, for violence, for seducing other nations to sin and number 5 for their idolatry. Chapter 3, Habakkuk praise. Look at it, a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. So you understand this back and forth. Habakkuk says, when you're going to do something about the wickedness in Judah, why don't you want you to do a sin revival? God says, oh, I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to sin Babylon to flatten you. Habakkuk says, you're going to use wicked people. The holy God's going to use wicked people to punish righteous people like us. He just confessed how wicked they were. And then he turns around and says, we're so righteous compared to them. And God turns around and says, they are wicked, but you're not righteous. And then he says, five woes, I'm going to get Babylon. You don't have to worry about Babylon's end. I'm going to take care of that when I'm done with them. And then this is what Habakkuk prays. A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet according to Shiggyenov. That is a tune of some kind. So this was a prayer to be sung. Oh Lord, I've heard the report of you in your work. Oh Lord, do I fear? In the midst of the years, revive it in the midst of the years, make it known in wrath. Remember mercy. Circle that verse. We'll come back to it. God came from Timon and the holy one from Mount Peron. His splendor covered the heavens and the earth was full of his praise. His brightness was like the light. Raised flashed from his hand and there he veiled his power. Before him went pestilence and plague followed at his heels. He stood and measured the earth. He looked and shook the nations. Then the eternal mountains were scattered. The everlasting hills sank low. His were the everlasting ways. I saw the tents of cushion and affliction. The curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. Was your wrath against the rivers? Oh Lord, was your anger against the rivers? Your indignation against the sea when you rode on your horses upon your chariot of salvation. You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you and writhed. The raging water swept on. The deep gave forth its voice. It lifted its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped at the flash of your glittering spear. You marched through the earth in fury. You threshed the nations in anger. You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. Literally the salvation of your Messiah. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, having him bear from thigh to neck. You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret. You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters. I hear, hear all of that story, what you did. I hear it and my body trembles. My lips quiver at the sound. Rottenness enters into my bones. My legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Look at this prayer with me. Most Bible scholars say he's describing all these things that God did with the rivers and the trees and the mountains and all this stuff. And most Bible scholars say what he's describing is all the mighty things God did for his people in the Exodus and bringing them into the promised land and fighting for them at Jericho and fighting in the north and the south and taking the land God was with them and he fought for them. It wasn't the people who won those battles. It was God executing judgment on Egypt and God executing judgment on the Canaanites. And he just stops, Habakkuk does and he reminds himself. I remember what you did. You fought for us against those wicked people and you punished them and you controlled the creation and you told the sun what to do. Remember in Joshua the sun stood still and they fought the battle longer one day. I remember you did all of these things and he's thinking now you're not going to fight for us but what you're saying is you're going to fight against us through Babylon and he comes down to the end of the prayer and he says my body trembles, my lips quiver, rottenness enters my bones, my legs tremble beneath me. In other words, now I'm terrified. I'm absolutely out of my mind scared, physically shaken because what you did for us to the nations, you are now going to do to us through another nation yet I will wait quietly for the day of trouble to come upon Babylon, the people who invade us, meaning I believe you. I have faith in you, the righteous will live how by his faith and he says you're telling me that you're going to bring Babylon to punish us, I believe you. And you also say five woes against Babylon that you're going to take care of them when you're done with them and I believe you. So I'm going to wait quietly. I'm not going to question you anymore. I have no more questions to ask. I have no objections to your plan. I know that I'm terrified but my faith is in you and I'm trusting you to do what you've promised to do. That's his prayer and then at the end of the book, he worships. Look at the last three verses. 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. You understand what he just described is hell on earth for agricultural livestock raising people. That's their livelihood. Like if he was talking in Midland Odessa, he'd say the oil wells dry up and there'd be nothing left here but sand. There's nothing left. Verse 18, "Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the deers. He makes me tread on my high places." And then at the end he says to the choir master with stringed instruments, meaning this is to be sung in congregational worship. So in the end he worships. Here's the lessons you take away from Habakkuk. We're going to go through these quick. Number one, despite the chaos we see in life, God is sovereign. And you understand Habakkuk is wrestling, looking at Judah in the wickedness with God. Why don't you do something? In the big overarching lesson that he learns in God's response is I am in control and I am going to do something. I do Habakkuk, whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it, I don't need your advice. I don't need your help. I don't need your suggestions. I don't need you to remind me or prompt me. I'm in control. I have a plan to handle this. He's sovereign over all of it. Second lesson, no one deserves God's goodness. And Habakkuk got that flipped up on its head a little bit. He knew things weren't right in Judah. But when he heard that God was going to use Babylon to punish Judah, he thought, "Well, I think things aren't that bad here that you would use those people. We're righteous. Why would you use the wicked to punish the righteous? We're righteous." And God says, "No, you're not. You don't deserve my goodness. You don't deserve my grace." Third, God is just and he will punish evil. And you see that in two ways in Habakkuk. You see it one in the sin of Judah, and God has been telling the people of Judah, "I'm not going to put up with this forever. I will not put up with this. I will kick you out of the land just like I kicked Israel out of the land. There will be justice." And then you also see it in what he says in these five wars against Babylon. I'm going to use them for my purpose, but they're still going to be guilty. If you can't wrap your mind around that, how God could use them for his plan and they could still be responsible for their actions, don't feel bad because I can't either. But that's what the Bible says. God says, "I'm using them. I'm in complete control of it. And then I'm going to punish them because they're guilty for what they've done. Both of those things are true, and I'm going to bring justice on them." The last lesson and the most important from Habakkuk is this. Jesus is the answer to the problem of evil. And the rest of this stuff is not on your outline, so you may just want to jot down some of these verses. And I'm going to give them to you pretty quick, but I just want you to see a few little verses in Habakkuk and how they point you to Jesus, and then how the big picture points you to Jesus. Look at Habakkuk 3.2, for example. He's praying. He's sort of got his head on straight after he tries to interrogate God. In Habakkuk 3.2 he says, the end of that verse, "In wrath, remember mercy." If that doesn't make you think of the cross, you probably haven't read the New Testament. In your wrath, also be merciful. That's a weird, odd, strange thing to pray that when Habakkuk said it, I imagine he thought, "I don't know how you're going to do that, but in your wrath, remember mercy." We understand that at the cross, that's exactly what God did. His wrath is poured out on Jesus so that his mercy can be poured out on us. So out there beside Habakkuk 3.2, you just draw a little cross, or you write Jesus out beside there. Habakkuk 2.4. We talked about this verse, "Behold, Babylon's soul is puffed up. It's not right within him, but, but you are not righteous. And if you want to be righteous, the righteous will live by his faith." That verse, that phrase is quoted three times in the New Testament at really important places, and you can jot him down. We're not going to turn to him. Romans 1 17, Paul quotes that verse, "The righteous will live by his faith." Romans 1 17, Galatians 3 11, Paul quotes it again, the exact same phrase, "The righteous will live by his faith." In Hebrews 1038, the author of Hebrews quotes the exact same phrase, "Those words in the Bible, word for word, four times." I think God thinks it's important. Four times, "The righteous will live by faith." And these New Testament passages obviously apply that to Jesus, that we are not righteous, but when we put our faith in Jesus, there's this exchange. 2 Corinthians 5 21, "The one who knew no sin, Jesus, becomes sin, so that when we put our faith in him, we become the righteousness of God." So it's pointing you to Jesus. One more verse, Habakkuk 2.14. "In the middle of all these woes," he's talking about Babylon, and he's talking about this idea that they've been violent, they've built their towns on blood, and they have this great reputation for this. He comes back around and he just throws this little verse in, Habakkuk 2.14, "The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." That author reminds you of Philippians 2 1 to 11. And at the end of that verse, in verse 11, Paul says, "There's a day coming when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, all to the glory of God the Father. Every knee, on heaven, under the earth, every knee is going to bow and confess that Jesus is Lord." Okay, so there's some specific verses. When you think about it from a big picture, how does Habakkuk point you to the Old Testament? And you understand Habakkuk. It means to wrestle, and he's wrestling with the problem of evil. How is God in control of all these things? And is he really in control of it? Is he really good? My friend Boyd, Greg Boyd, just says, "Well, he's not really in control of it all because he doesn't know." That's his answer. That's not God's answer in the book of Habakkuk. You understand God really never gives him a clear answer to how can you do this? He just says, "I'm doing it. I'm God. I'm going to use these people, then I'm going to punish them, and I have a plan for you, and it's going to be okay. You just need to trust me." And he does that at the end of the book. When you think about Habakkuk, he lives in the Old Testament, he lives in a time when sin requires a sacrifice. They go daily to the temple, and they slaughter these animals, and they cut their throats, and they spill the blood, and they come yearly on certain days, and they offer these sacrifices, day of atonement, and the Passover, and all these feasts. They're offering these sacrifices. But the Bible tells us that the blood of bulls and goats really can't take away sin, really doesn't remove anybody's sin. So you've got this big problem all through the Old Testament where God says to his people, "I'm going to come live with you, sinful people, and I'm a holy God. I'm going to come live in the midst of you, in the middle of your camp, in the temple in Jerusalem. I'm going to be with you." And you've got these sacrifices to deal with sin, but at the same time you sort of say, "Yeah, but we know that they really didn't take away sin." So really what you have is God just sort of taking all these sins during this Old Testament period. You understand, they weren't being paid for by the bulls or the lambs. It's almost like they just sort of got all swept under the rug for a while. God's just sort of saying, "Okay, right, he's going to live by faith. You have faith in me that I'm going to take care of this sin problem, and for now I'm just going to sort of sweep it all here under the rug, and we're going to forget about it. I'm going to remove it. I'm going to be with you, even though you're sinful, holy God is going to live with you." Then you get to the New Testament and you realize that that big mess under the rug needs to be dealt with. And Paul talks about this in Romans. He says, "God has overlooked former sins. There really hasn't been justice. An animal dying for a human is not justice. Something needs to happen." And the Bible says in the New Testament that what happened is God took those sins proverbially out from under the rug and put them on Christ on the cross. And he paid the penalty for those sins. And justice was served. In the midst of his wrath, punishing sin, he remembered mercy on his people. Exactly what Habakkuk prayed. And when you look at the cross itself, you really have a big question mark. It doesn't make sense from a human perspective. You look at Jesus who had no sin, had never done anything wrong, treated like a criminal, humiliated, crucified, mocked, beat, embarrassed. And as an innocent bystander, the disciples, for example, maybe are standing by, not involved in all of that, just watching, thinking, "God, why would you let this happen? Why would you let the most holy, the most kind, the most generous man who's ever walked on the earth? Where are you God?" You remember Habakkuk's question, "How long till you do something and why don't you do something?" And you imagine the disciples and the women standing around the cross saying, "How much longer is this going to go on?" He doesn't deserve that. "God, why are you letting this happen?" And God doesn't give them an answer in the moment. He rarely gives you an answer in the moment. But when you look at the cross, the greatest atrocity ever, you see God had a plan in that. He had a purpose in it. He's using the wicked actions of these men, and they're still guilty and responsible, the book of Habakk says in chapter 4. But he's using them to accomplish his perfect plan to save sinners. Again, in his wrath, he's remembering his mercy. So the whole book is you wrestle with the problem of evil, point you to Jesus, and that is the closest thing in the Bible you'll find to an answer to that sort of philosophical knot. And at the end of the day, what Habakkuk prayed and what you and I have to pray is, I don't really understand all that. My brain is not big enough to sort of get its arms all the way around who God is and how he does things. But whatever he does, if the army comes and flattens us, if there's no more cattle, if there's no more food on the trees, if everything is stripped bare, if everything goes to pot, I'm going to trust him. And I'm going to trust him to do what he said he's going to do. And I'm going to worship him, and I'm going to praise him, and I'm going to rejoice in the God of my salvation. So that's Habakkuk. We'll pray, and then we'll wrap up another minor prophet. Father, we see things every day that are perplexing and confusing, maybe some of the people in this room are facing situations and circumstances of suffering that are hard to swallow and hard to figure out. And we wonder, how long till you do something? Why do you sit by idly and wait? And Father, forgive us when we arrogantly assume that we have a better plan than you do. Forgive us when we're like Habakkuk and we come to you as if you needed a counselor, as if you needed advice or a suggestion. Forgive us when we are tempted to say that you don't know the future or that you don't have a plan or that you are not good or that you are not powerful, because we believe from the scriptures all of those things. You are good. You do know everything past, present, and future. You are in complete control. You are totally sovereign. You are good and faithful to your people. And Father, even when we can't get our arms around all of that, we believe it. And we want to adopt the position of Habakkuk where we just say we will wait in silence and we will trust and we will believe that you are who you say you are and you will do the things you say you'll do. We thank you for Jesus who suffered for us, who took injustice for us, he didn't deserve it, it wasn't right, it wasn't fair, but he gladly endured that so that in your wrath we could receive mercy. Father, help us to remember that we can be righteous only through faith in Jesus, not by comparing ourselves to our neighbor, not by listing off all of the bad things that we haven't done, but we find our righteousness in Jesus Christ. Thank you for the hope, for the life, and for the forgiveness that we have in him. Thank you for the Bible, for the book of Habakkuk, for its message and pray that you would give us wisdom to apply it to our life and to our circumstances as we leave this place. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.