epcblog: Habakkuk 1

This world is not everything. In fact, our lives as we know them in this place under God’s wrath and curse are such a small percentage of our entire existence, that the actual number cannot even be expressed. We are not allowed to divide even the life of Methuselah by his total years in eternity and come up with a result. Nonetheless, though our days in these mortal bodies are very brief, it does not always feel that way to us. What is the purpose of this time that we go through now, this time that is such a small part of our existence, but which can seem to drag on and on? The Lord has ordered things for us here, things that we are supposed to see, questions we are supposed to consider, things he wants us to learn. The prophet Habakkuk had lessons to consider. God allowed him to see certain things, and then to address questions to the Lord in order to learn some vital truths that we can consider today as we read this Old Testament book.

Habakkuk had a question for God. The prophet was deeply troubled by the unrighteousness of the Lord’s people in Judah. He cried out to God about these matters, and was puzzled by the Lord’s inactivity. The Lord is slow to anger, and the prophet wondered just how slow God would be in addressing the violence and contention, the injustice and lawlessness that seemed to be everywhere. His concern was not only to see the unrighteous punished, but also that they be stopped lest the few who seemed faithful be entirely overwhelmed by the wickedness around them. Why did God seem to be doing nothing about it when His people had apparently so thoroughly given themselves over to lives of sin? What point was there in crying out to God when it did not appear that He was going to do anything about the situation?

The Lord had a surprising answer for Habakkuk. Though it may have appeared that He was not addressing the problem, there was much that this prophet could not see. God had been raising up the Chaldeans for some time, and they would soon be used by the Lord as an expression of His divine chastisement against His own people. God described these agents of His judgment to the prophet. The Babylonians were called bitter, swift, dreaded, fearsome, proud, violent, and deadly. They were not followers of the Lord, for their true god was their own might. This was the nation that God had prepared to address some of the problems in Judah that grieved Habakkuk so deeply. Devastating trouble would soon come upon Judah. If Habakkuk could have seen it, He would have been astounded. In fact, if the Lord had told the people of Judah all that would take place, no one would have believed Him.

Habakkuk seemed taken aback by this revelation. He knew that this could not be the complete end of the descendants of Jacob. God had made promises about their future. The prophet remembered that the Lord was and is from everlasting to everlasting. Surely there must be a big picture beyond the coming trial at the hands of the Chaldeans. There must be a correction coming rather than a final conclusion. As the prophet considered the Lord’s answer to His first question, a second began to form in His heart. Would the Lord use a people more wicked than Judah to swallow up Judah? Would God let that happen?

The world beyond the Promised Land was not a place of purity and peace. Sin was everywhere. Yes, the Babylonians could do this work against Judah if that was the Lord’s will. They could cast out their brutal military net and take in the Lord’s people as their captives. But what would the Lord do when the Babylonians made religious offerings to their own strength, like fishermen who sacrifice to their nets? Surely this could not be the final end to God’s actions in this world so infected by sin and so overcome by death? Would powers like the Babylonian empire simply kill nation after nation without mercy? There must be something else that the Lord had in mind beyond more luxury for the wicked.

We pause here at the end of the chapter and wait with the prophet for the Lord’s answer. During our brief days on this earth it is not unusual for us to see wickedness, and it is not unheard of for us to have to wait for an answer to our questions. There are some things that we see already. The Lord is not asleep. He is well aware of wickedness within the covenant community, and He will surely take action. That action will be according to His schedule and not according to ours. The action that He takes might shock us if we were to see it. It is very unlikely that we will be able to understand all that the Lord is doing as He accomplishes His perfect plan in His great combat against evil.

Habakkuk wrote this brief book prior to the most important battle in the Lord’s great plan of victory. Many people would be very surprised by the way that God would use the brutal force of the Babylonians against His people. Yet they would be utterly shocked if they could have seen that greatest of all battles that we now know as a fact of history. In the cross of Christ, God has taken upon himself the full force of the wrath due against us for our pervasive evil. To send a strong foe against His people in every generation would only have had a temporary impact upon the deep problem of our sin. When Christ gave His righteous blood for our salvation, God permanently addressed the problem of our evil. If we need more proof than the Lord’s words “It is finished,” we need only to look at His resurrection. There are still many questions for which we do not have answers, but the cross and resurrection of Christ are the overwhelming facts that assure us that our God is very serious about punishing sin, and that our failures and disappointments will not be the end of the Lord’s story for His people.

epcblog

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Habakkuk 1

0 Comments:

About Me

Previous Posts