Habakkuk 1:12-2:1 "WHEN GOD’S ANSWER DOESN’T MAKE SENSE"

Habakkuk was living at a time when evil flourished in Israel.  Concerning this  Habakkuk  had  cried  out to  God  many years, but it seemed to Habakkuk as if God was deaf:  “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” (v.2). 

We saw however   that  God did answer him  in vv. 5-11.God told him  that  He was in the process of raising up the Babylonians for the purpose of disciplining  the  southern kingdom nation of  Israel  (Judah).  However, this  announcement created another faith crisis   for Habakkuk.  So yes, Israel was in the grip of  evil,  and God was right to judge her, but   Habakkuk's crisis   was , how could God use the Babylonians (1:6),  a nation more evil than Israel, to chastise them?  

Hear the prophet’s struggle in the following words:

V. 12 “Are you not from everlasting? O Lord my God, my Holy One, we shall not die”. You can almost feel the shock in Habakkuk’s being and voice, and you see how he begins to bargain with God. Habakkuk is not ready to receive this message of divine judgement.  The situation would be analogous  to us in Namibia, praying that God would do something  about the wickedness in our country, and then God announcing,  “I am sending the Angolan army  to sweep through your country and cities and towns  and destroy everything  in their way   from the Kunene to the Orange river.”  

We know that our nation deserves God’s judgement, but would you be prepared for having the Angolan army take care of that? So, you understand that this was staggering news to Habakkuk.

We shall now consider  Habakkuk’s reaction to the news of this coming  disaster.  

He begins  by affirming some fundamental convictions (i.e. what he knows to be true ) about the nature / character of God. Habakkuk says to God, “Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One (Hebr. Yahweh Elohi Qodeshi)…!”  This is an expression of  what he fundamentally believes about God:  “my God- my holy God, the eternal God ”.  

Habakkuk is infused with good doctrine. And good doctrine provides a solid foundation for further thinking.  He is thinking from first principles and thereby he is laying a proper foundation of acknowledgement, of submission,  of trust and hope in his  God. 

It was not that God had to be reminded that he was holy and eternal.

It was not that God needed to be told how cruel and wicked the Babylonians were.   

The point is that Habakkuk  needed  to affirm and  remind himself  of who God  was.

That is what happens when you discover a strange   lump in your body. You instinctively pray in your heart,  “O Lord my God, my holy Lord,   grant that it is not malignant!”   And your  response  might be similar,“O LORD are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, I will not die?” (v.12). 

King Hezekiah,  when  he received the news that he was terminally ill, prayed  a similar prayer  in  2 Kings  20:2ff. That is a typical response, and it is good! As it turned out, the LORD gave him another 15 years.  

So, in the revelation of this  God-sent calamity,  Habakkuk worships God, reassuring his own  heart with the truths of the eternal holiness of a personal God. But he is not finished yet. Having established  himself in the Lord, he expresses his perplexity: 

“O Lord, you [the eternally holy one] have ordained them [i.e. these  godless Babylonians]  as a judgment; and you O Rock, you  have established  them for reproof” (v.12b). Have you really appointed people such  as these to punish us?   I am really struggling to understand this.

You will note that  Habakkuk  begins to engage  God in  arguments. He reminds God, 

“You who are of purer  eyes  than to see evil  and  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?  (v.13).

Here we come to the heart of Habakkuk’s problem, and we can understand this  dilemma. It seemed to Habakkuk that God’s tolerance of Babylon was inconsistent with His holiness.  And in Habakkuk’s words, God was allowing the ‘more wicked’ to swallow up the ‘lesser wicked’!  

• Where is the sense God’s holiness in such an action?  
• How can God keep quiet as the Babylonians  swept through Judah  and destroyed  Jerusalem and  took  good young people  like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and Ezekiel off into exile?  
• How could he not  answer  faithful  Jeremiah’s prayer   and  lamentations at this  time ?

Now listen how Habakkuk continues to pour out his heart  in vv. 14-17, 

“ You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; 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?  

Babylonian art (of which I have seen some in the famous  Pergamon Museum in Berlin) pictured those captured and marched off into captivity  as  strung together with literal hooks through each person’s lower lip. That illustrates  the cruelty of  the Babylonians.  No pity was shown to the defeated.  What was even worse, was that the  Babylonians  attributed their power  to  their  false gods, as  if they  had been responsible  to give  Babylon  this  remarkable power over a multitude of nations, as they relentlessly ‘fished’ for more victims. How could God tolerate this idolatry?

Back to Habakkuk’s question  in 1:12 b: 

“O LORD you have ordained them to execute judgment”.  

Arguing with God is very strange, because we know that God is really right all the time. He knows more than we do. He  sees  and understands more than we can. He knows the beginning from the end.From this interaction we see   that God does not forbid us to question Him  we  are perplexed about His ways in the world. Nowhere do we see God striking Habakkuk  dead  as he  questions God’s providence. 

This is true for Abraham  who  pleaded with God not to destroy Sodom. God listens  and graciously  answers Abraham point by point because he knows  that Abraham’s heart  is not evil  in what he  is asking.  This is a matter of lack of understanding, and not willful rebellion. The problem is that these men did not understand that these cities Jerusalem and Sodom had heaped  up sins to high heaven, and were not willing to repent.  

Even if this is true, there is nothing wrong if we cry and plead and pray   to God  to change His mind. Even the Lord Jesus wept for Jerusalem in His time ,  saying ‘I would take you under my wings and protect you, but you wouldn’t come.’ Jesus wept over this doomed city even though  He knew  that it was going to be destroyed by the Romans who would be sent there by  God in AD 70.  “The fact of a predestinated destruction was no basis even for Jesus to be indifferent to their punishment. Let him weep. Let us Habakkuk weep. Let us weep.” (Geoff Thomas )

Learning from Habakkuk we see that   it is not wrong to be shocked when God sends  chastises our wworld through strange means. And if this is so, it is not wrong to ask “Why?“.  

We see this  tendency  often  in the  Psalms, where we find such questions asked  of God,   

• “Why, O LORD, do you stand afar off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1); 
• “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” (Psalm 22:1);

This honest but reverent  questioning of God  and His ways in the world  is an element that  we rarely hear  in our prayer meetings. We  are afraid to think  that we sound faithless, but should we not learn our theology of prayer from the Scriptures ? 

Now let me issue a word of caution.  Remember  that  Habakkuk  began his  discourse  with  an  affirmation of God’s  essential  nature  - His  faithful, everlasting, fatherly,holy,  all-powerful, all-wise  nature. That is what  we must affirm  when we  address God with our  perplexities. Habakukk's questions  have this background in mind.

When we question God, we must do so from a basis of humility. So,  let’s revise this again. 

• Habakkuk is facing this horrible news.  
• What does he do? 
• He reminds himself of God’s  attributes. 
• Then he tells  God honestly about his misgivings.  

He, like we is limited in his grasp of things. He cannot yet see things as God sees them. God  knows the outcome. He must learn not to doubt God’s goodness in the face of a  horrible invasion by the Babylonian army. The Babylonians  are coming with their cruel nets and hooks, and it breaks his heart. But God is on His throne. He knows. And that is an important  thing  for us to know.

So then, what remains to be done? Habakkuk says,  

“I will take my stand at my watch post  and station myself on  tower  and  look out  to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer  concerning  my  complaint” (Hab. 2:1). 

Habakkuk has made  his complaint to God.   Now it is  time to stand back and  observe and wait for God to act  and to give an answer. He will climb  into his observation  post and  see.  

In troublesome times,  how   can we apply this to ourselves?   

1.        By  understanding the present times  in the light of Scripture

2.        By knowing God as He is revealed in  the Bible

3.        By talking  to God - honestly – openly. And we expect  to be corrected.

4.        By prayerful withdrawal. There are times when we can do nothing. We must wait on God.  Do you have a watch post, a  place of perspective where you can speak with God about the things that perplex you?   Follow Habakkuk. He has just left to go to  his watch post. He  will  see from  there what answer God will give.  Habakkuk in his distressed state of mind  will now go to a quiet place and close the door. The God who he will meet there  will supply him with wisdom (James 1:5-8).  And Habakkuk is determined not to leave that place until God answers and solves his perplexities.