Introduction

For the second time now in this short book of Habakkuk, the prophet again brings his dilemma, his complaint, and wrestling to Yahweh. As one commentator said, Habakkuk is in "a sea of confusion". He is mentally and spiritually jarred at what he is experiencing. His distress is evident; his heart is laid bare before us in this portion of Scripture.

And as we saw in the opening verses of chapter one, "why God is Judah, this covenant nation, this way? Why don't you move to renew them like you did in the days of Josiah?" These are the things that are on Habakkuk's heart. The wicked overtake the righteous. "Violence and injustice are all about me" is his complaint.

So we left off last time with God's first response to the prophet. Most significantly, God's word to Habakkuk is that he is not absent from Judah. He is coming in judgment upon her for her sins and those wicked kings from Manasseh through to Jehoiakim. Look among the nations, Habakkuk. The Chaldeans, that is the Babylonians, are coming and they will take this people away.

Habakkuk 1:9, all of them come for violence. Their hoard of faces moves forward. They collect captives like sand. That describes the Babylonian empire that will later come into Judah and take her away in exile. And this morning we listen in on the dialogue as Habakkuk responds to God's prophetic promise.

How will the prophet respond to this astonishing word that God has now revealed to him? A rising power for the purposes of judgment is coming. Whether this will still the seas in Habakkuk's heart and his mind is what we will consider.

The Prophet's Dilemma

The first heading I have is the prophet's dilemma, Habakkuk 1:12–2:1.

The prophet's dilemma. And by dilemma, we mean that by Habakkuk's initial response here, he hasn't got it figured out just yet. And I take comfort in this actually, and so should you, Christian. I take comfort that the prophet Habakkuk hasn't got it worked out just yet. Not immediately understanding God's will and his answers to our queries does not mean he never will make it clear to us.

God's truth can take time to seep into the heart, to become content with reality. It can take time. It will take time for Habakkuk to finally pray as he does in chapter three, as we will come to. That will take time. He is not there yet.

He's not ready to pray the prayer just yet. It'll be the same for us sometimes when it seems like everything is falling apart in our lives. It will often take time for us to realise that total, unconditional trust in God's providence is always the sensible option for us. So be at peace, Christian; we don't have to have it all worked out right away. We can trust that God has it for us.

So read with me again there in verse 12, "Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my holy one? We will not die. You, oh lord, have appointed them to judge, and you, oh rock, have established them to correct. Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and you cannot look on wickedness with favor. Why do you look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they?"

The first detail here to draw your attention to is that Habakkuk's response is an appeal to the holiness of God. This is what he doesn't understand. This is the truth that has not yet seeped into his heart. Habakkuk has just heard from the Lord all of what we saw in verses 5 to 11.

He has heard of this nation that God is raising up and is going to bring upon Judah, and his response is almost admirable. "Oh, Lord, you have appointed them to judge". And so there's a recognition here, and yet he does not understand it fully. He doesn't get it. His theology is sound, but he still doesn't understand.

Yahweh, the great I am, he who revealed himself to the fathers, the God of Moses at the burning bush, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is a holy God, a holy, holy, holy God. The word holy is an idea of set apartness as to moral excellence and purity. God's holiness is such that for sinful man without mediation, he is impossible to serve.

You cannot serve a holy God as a sinner. His eyes are too pure to leave the wicked unpunished. That's what Habakkuk is saying here. Holiness demands justice. Holiness requires a reckoning.

His holiness is such that even Joshua, that great captain of the Lord who led the people of Israel into the land, said in Joshua 24:19, "you will not be able to serve the Lord." Why? "For he is a holy God." Habakkuk knows these things.

So why his query? Well, remember what God told him in verse six: the Chaldeans are coming at the call of God. As Habakkuk goes, he's saying, wait a minute. I see what you're saying, God, but that doesn't seem to align with what I know of you. Your eyes are too pure to approve of evil.

You are too pure to have anything to do with the wicked. How could a nation like this be wielded by you against your own covenant people? That doesn't make any sense to me. Habakkuk can't understand how a morally pure God can use a morally impure nation to judge his own people.

The Chaldeans are unjust. They're violent. They're idolatrous. Now, look at his imagery in these verses that he uses like a fisherman with a net. They would drag away peoples and nations, and then they would worship their own strength, conveyed with this metaphor of worshipping their own nets. In other words, worshipping their ability to overrun nations and drag them away into exile. And they'll worship that power of theirs, boasting in their own strength. They glory in their own might and supremacy and their violence. So Habakkuk feels a contradiction here.

But you see, in Scripture, this is by no means an isolated example. Consider, by illustration, how God has said, as we've seen, that he will raise up the Chaldeans to bring them upon Judah.

But he's also said he will later bring judgment on the Chaldeans themselves in verse 11 of chapter one. They will be held guilty, he says, they whose strength is their God. Do you know how God holds them guilty eventually? We learn about it in Isaiah. He raises up another nation. He raises up Cyrus, the Persian Empire. Isaiah 44:28, "it is I who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and he will perform all my desire. And he declares of Jerusalem, she will be built, and of the temple, your foundation will be laid." Isaiah 45:1, "thus says the Lord to Cyrus, his anointed, whom I have taken by the right hand to subdue nations before him and to loose the loins of kings to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut." It's going to be another empire that is eventually going to overthrow the Chaldeans so that then the people of Israel can then return to the land!

God is sovereign in all of it. So he explains to Habakkuk, to you and me, that there is no contradiction between God's holiness and his purity and his ability to yet harness sin, restrain sin, and let it go as well. He can harness and turn evil acts to work out for his own sovereign purposes in nations. He can restrain sin in nations, and he can also just let it go, which in human history has certainly happened when evil consumes nations. The application here, when you think about it, comes close to home, doesn't it?

The Western nations of the world where God has been pleased for some time to allow the gospel to flourish are spiritually dying through their corporate rejection of Christ in our times. The believer cannot help but see in what we learn here about God's use of nations for judgment, his raising up and his bringing low, that perhaps Islam is at this moment a tool, a weapon forged in the hand of God to discipline those corrupted Western nations which once celebrated the gospel and now blaspheme him openly, who are pushing him out of their identity. Islam has long been a tool in the hand of God to discipline nations, and it appears we are witnessing that now as they are at the throat of the West. Now the book of Habakkuk reminds the godly it's okay to be alarmed; it's okay to struggle with the prevalence of evil, to mourn at depravity, to lament the satanic deceptions of false religion.

But we're reminded, aren't we, as in Isaiah 40:15, "behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales. Behold, he lifts up the islands like fine dust." So, God is not silent. He raises up and he brings low nations.

And what other applications can we make? Well, to bring it even closer to home, what a great comfort it is to know as Christians at a personal level that even human sin is no barrier to the purposes of God. And what this means for us is that God can still use all of the times that we've made a hash of things or we've upset his church in some way. He can use it for ultimate good. That's one of the great principles we see here. It isn't to make us cavalier about our sin, but it's a comfort to know that I can never sin beyond what God can, for his own glory and purpose, work out for good. Habakkuk is learning these things as he wrestles with the holiness of God and God's ability to yet work through the evil actions of man. So it explains a lot, doesn't it?

It explains how in Romans 8:28 Paul can say, "and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to his purpose." So it means if perhaps you have regrets about the way that you parented your children, the way that you have done things in your life, maybe you wronged someone years ago and in pride you drove them away and you've never reconciled with them and as you look through the memories of your life and you think, "Lord, how many times have I stuffed up?" None of it is beyond his ability to use for good. Whatever it is, Christians, we need to learn to not dwell on those things but realise that in Christ we are forgiven all of our sins and God will really work out all things for good for those who love him. So the principle here from Habakkuk is that God is in no way limited by human sin.

Now think of John Newton, for example. For years, John Newton was involved in the slave trade, even captaining ships that carried enslaved Africans back to Europe. He could never undo the suffering that he'd helped cause. But years later, when God saved him and he came to know Christ and he became a Christian minister, he used his first-hand knowledge and experience to speak against that very trade and was instrumental in its downfall. Do you see how God works? He turns evil on its head as it pleases him.

His discipline of Judah, as we are dealing with in the context of Habakkuk, was not that they would be cast off forever; it was to teach the nation that he is holy, that his land shall not be occupied by transgressors of his law. So friends, I say to you, stop and cease worrying that you have created scenarios outside of God's intervention and outside of his sovereignty. It's not beyond him. Remember Joseph, whose brothers betrayed him to death and sent him down to Egypt. God was with him.

And in the end he was able to stand before his brothers and say, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. And that's the bottom line. Trust him.

A second detail we need to see here is that Habakkuk's response is to watch and wait for the Lord's response. Look at what he says in verse one. "I will stand on my guard post and station myself on the rampart, and I will keep watch to see what he will speak to me and how I may reply when I am reproved." I want you to see his attentiveness to hear from the Lord at this point. You see, when we are in the sea of chaos, you will not find true rest unless it be that you, like Habakkuk, are attentive to divine aid and attentive to his word. Listen with your ear; see with your eyes what God will do. Habakkuk has said his bit. He's expressed his objection, but now notice that he puts himself in the way to watch and see what God will do.

We notice that he is attentive, that he is patient, and that's just what he needs, right? That's just what we need too. Are we living this way, dear Christian? Watchful, attentive, listening for the Lord, listening for his voice and his guidance. Are we at rest in the Father's care for us in life?

Are we always looking to put ourselves in the way of his instruction because that's what Habakkuk is doing here. He's putting himself in the way of the Lord's response. Charles Spurgeon said, "how much more we might know if only we were willing to listen to the Lord's messages. There is in the word of God a voice which is often inaudible because we are so engrossed in other things." So, friends, sit yourselves on the watchtower, like Habakkuk here.

Now this translates to praying on your knees in silence before God. Speak to the Lord that you might present to him an open ear and receptive heart. Stop thinking of yourself only in earthly terms associated with your profession or your stage of life or how much land you own or what you've done or what you hope to be. Stop thinking about yourself in those terms and start thinking of yourself as a Christian, who you are, a child of God, a blood-bought sinner, a trophy of God's grace. And you need to hear from him if you are to live for him.

There are many things competing for your ear, but we must be like the prophet here in verse one of chapter two. I will keep watch to see what he will speak to me. It must be our cry every day. We must be attentive and patient for the Lord's good word and guidance. Again, Spurgeon says, "if we have been deaf to him, he will be deaf to us."

Is our heart open to hear from the Lord? These are hallmark traits of those who wish to be in the King's service. We will be of no use to God if we will not stand in the way to hear from him.

Perhaps you've heard of the story of the great English Puritan, John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress. He was a preacher and he was for a great deal of time in prison on account of the gospel. He documented his experience in prison. With John Bunyan, we encounter a man like Habakkuk here, as all Christians ought to be. He was attentive to the will of God for him, and he found peace in whatever lot he believed God had assigned to him, even when he was in prison. He was willing to speak with the prophet. I will take my stand at my watch post and station myself on the tower.

John Bunyan wrote the following, which I've updated into modern English. He says, "I asked God to set me free. If I could do more good outside prison than inside it. But if not, I prayed that his will would be done. I hoped my imprisonment might stir the believers in the surrounding area so I could not be sure which was better. I simply entrusted the matter to God. When I returned to prison, God met me there again, comforting me and assuring me that it was his will for me to be there." He put himself in the way. He sought the Lord. He sought him in his word.

And he resolved that this was where the Lord would have him at that moment. We have to be like that, dear brothers and sisters. We will have no peace, and we will always find ourselves in the sea of chaos and despair.

The Lord's Response

A second heading to close on, these final verses, verses two to five, the Lord's response. The opening two chapters of Habakkuk are a dialogue.

It opens in chapter one with Habakkuk's complaint, then the Lord responds, and then Habakkuk responds again. And then here we have the Lord's response again, which is broken up into two parts. The second part of the Lord's response we'll consider by itself next time. But here, though the prophet is mystified, we find him at least content to accept all that God has told him, even if he doesn't fully understand it.

That's how we found him in verse one. And now we come to these remaining verses, the Lord's response. We want to consider the first part of it in verses two to five. "Then the Lord answered me and said, record the vision and inscribe it on tablets that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time. It hastens towards the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it for it will certainly come. It will not delay."

The first detail to consider here is that the Lord reminds us that he does not mumble. The Lord does not have a double tongue.

He does not speak out of one side to one and then another message to another person. God does not mumble. His word is definite; it is sure. We see that there is no withdrawal on God's part but a restatement that he will do what he has already said he will do. Verse six of chapter one was enough.

I'm doing something, Habakkuk. Look among the nations. I don't mumble. Now take it down. Write it on tablets.

This is to say it is assured as a fixed word of God for all of Judah, for Christians. The Chaldeans are coming. It is a sure and fixed word. They will come, and then they will go, and then at the right time, I will even judge them. So what is Habakkuk to inscribe on tablets exactly? Well, the vision so far is essentially twofold. First, that the Chaldeans are coming against Judah; we've seen that. And secondly, as we saw in Habakkuk 1:11, that God will eventually judge the Chaldeans as well.

Now recall that I said last week in the introduction that Habakkuk is unique among the prophets and that it's not recorded that he proclaims his message to Israel or to Judah or to kings anywhere. He's not found in the streets as other prophets heralding the Lord's call. It's simply a book that's a dialogue and then it closes with a prayer.

But perhaps these verses indicate that we get close to Habakkuk fulfilling that typical role of a prophet. Notice how the Lord says that the one who reads it may run. What does that mean? Well, it means that God's prophetic word is to be shared. It's to run ahead of even the prophet. It's to be distributed among the peoples. This is the word of the Lord for you at this moment, Judah.

It reminds me of the Māori people when the Europeans first arrived in New Zealand and after some time eventually the Māori people were running ahead of the missionaries with the gospel, taking it to other tribes so that when the European missionaries eventually made it to different places like in the lower North Island or onto the South Island, they found that they were coming into tribes who already knew the name of Jesus Christ. The gospel had run ahead of them.

"That the one who reads it may run", he says. This is true of all God's words and we ought to play our part in it. God's words are like this word that is written in an iron pen, to use the language of Job. It is sure. It is proven. It is trustworthy. Some of us as believers will be the delivery messengers right in the trenches, at the coalface of delivering the Lord's sure word. Some will be in the background loading the delivery van. Others will be there filling up the van with gas. Others will be putting air in the tyres. Others will be paying for the fuel. Some will pray that the message will be gladly received in the home. But we must all run ahead with the words of God in some way. It's always what God has commanded. We might as well call this the Great Commission of Habakkuk. These are words of eternal life.

What application point can we see here for us? Well, inside the Old Testament, we have many occasions of prophecy which came to pass inside the Old Testament itself. Many occasions.

Joshua 21:45 is reflecting on God's fulfilled promises. "Not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed. All came to pass." He's reflecting through the Exodus, way back to the promises made to Abraham. And he says all came to pass.

God was true to his word. But then there is prophecy which reaches further. It spans millennia. It spans even hundreds of years. It spans from Old Testament to New Testament. From epoch to epoch. God declares what he will do and he does it. He declares, for example, in Isaiah's prophecies that the servant called Israel is coming. The Messiah will be born, one who will make an end of sin, who will bring freedom for captives, who will be crushed for his people, who will gather the Gentiles into one flock. God said it and then he did it.

Because, friends, our salvation is based upon promises made and promises fulfilled. And so we have to take comfort because our God says to Habakkuk here, "for the vision is yet for the appointed time, it hastens towards its goal and it will not fail." This is how we are to see all of God's words. And he still speaks in his word today. He still has promises outstanding to fulfil.

The greatest is be that there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. The consummation awaits the one who has hoped in Christ. He promises that every injustice will be made right. He promises that every tear will be wiped away, every loss for the kingdom will be repaid to his people a hundredfold.

He has promised that the power of Babylon the Great, to use the language of Revelation 17–18, the godless world system that opposes Christ and his people, is temporary. Its downfall is certain, and Christ will at last return for his bride. They're all written in that same iron pen, and he will perform it.

And as a final detail here, I want you to see how the righteous and the wicked are put in contrast with one another here. Look at verses four and five. "Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him, but the righteous will live by his faith. Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man's city. Does not stay home. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol. He is like death, never satisfied. He also gathers to himself all nations and collects to himself all peoples."

He's speaking here about the Babylonians, and they're referred to by God as proud in heart. Their souls are not right within them. Furthermore, the wine is referenced here because these people were known for being drunkards, for their lavish drinking parties. The Lord refers to them here. But notice the diamond amid the wrath, as it's been called. A call here by God to a higher life.

In the midst of the proud and the drunkard, God says the righteous man shall live by his faith. This is the gospel gem of Habakkuk. And in some ways, it is the shining point of light from this book. It's a reminder of who that one is, whose privilege it is to be called a son or a daughter of God. It's not the one who works. It's not the one who has everything reasoned out. It's not the one who can understand how a holy God whose eyes are pure can use the evil of nations and of men. It's not the one who has all of those things worked out. The one who can call upon the Lord is the one who will live by faith and trust that God is God, and that he will do what is good and what is just. The righteous will live by faith.

It's a reminder by God of who he counts as righteous, whom he has promised to be with in life and death. It is those who are counted righteous by faith. This takes us back to the text of Genesis 15:6. We're speaking of Abraham. It says, "then he believed in the Lord and he, that is the Lord, reckoned it to him, Abraham, as righteousness."

In other words, God made promises to Abraham that were unilateral. That means that God alone would fulfil them. A covenant that he would fulfil, salvific promises made concerning the seed of the woman, the seed of Sarah, that is the Christ through whom God would bless the nations with the gospel. Abraham believed in the promise of God and it was counted towards him as righteousness. He was a justified man when he believed the promises of God and put his trust in them.

And God reminds Habakkuk that nothing has changed in this respect and it hasn't changed today. The righteous by faith are still pilgrims. They are living between the proud. They are living between the drunkard as Habakkuk is here, as Judah is. And we are to live by faith.

We are to trust God. And our faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. In this fallen world, God's pilgrims on the narrow way have been called to trust in him unconditionally, and that is always the sensible thing to do, to live by their faith and trust him no matter what. Just read Hebrews 12, that great chapter, the hall of fame of faith.

Think of Abraham, who by faith obeyed God's command to offer his only son Isaac, trusting that God could raise the dead. Since it was God who fulfilled his promise to give him a son, it would be God who would raise his son if God so commanded it. What it means, friends, is that he trusted God no matter what. And Habakkuk has been called to do the same here. The righteous will live by his faith.

It's the kind of trust that God requires of his people. Even though Habakkuk might not understand why the even more wicked nation of Babylon was going to be used against Judah, even though we might not understand why things are happening the way they are in our lives, this verse, the righteous will live by faith, is our hope to hold on to and live by. You don't have to have it all worked out.

You just need to trust in the promises of God. This verse, Habakkuk 2:4, is used three times in the New Testament: Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 10:38. And the great point uniting their contextual uses is that it is Christ, the promised seed of Abraham, through faith in whom the people of God shall live. Your own works, your own merits, your own law-keeping, your own ability to reason out the will of God will do you no good. You must look to Jesus Christ.

It is not faithfulness that saves, but faith. And faith saves because the object of that faith is the Son of God who came and lived for sinners like us and who died in our place. It is in that way that we may be justified when our hope and our faith are fixed upon him.