Read Habakkuk 1:1–4
Questions from the Scripture
text: What is the prophecy called in
v1? Who saw it? What was his office? What question does he ask in v2a? What has
he been doing? Whom is he addressing? What is He not doing (v2b)? What,
specifically, has Habakkuk cried (v2c)? What, specifically, does YHWH not seem
to have done (v2d)? What six things does he say that YHWH has been making him
to see (v3)? What conclusion has he drawn about the law (v4a)? And about
justice (v4b)? Why—what do the wicked do (v4c)? With what effect (v4d)?
What should a believer do, when his experience of God’s
providence is too heavy for him? Habakkuk
1:1–4 prepares us for the evening
sermon on the coming Lord’s Day. In these four verses of Holy Scripture,
the Holy Spirit teaches us that we should cry out to God Himself.
How long? Why? These are
questions that believers who experience life in this world end up asking. There
are many things that we encounter that seem inconsistent with what we know of
God’s character and Word. What Job personally experienced, in an extreme
instance of this, Habakkuk is experiencing with respect to the people of God as
a whole.
God Himself has asked the
question “How long?” even though He obviously knows the answer. “How long do
you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws?” (Ex 16:28). “How long will
these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the
signs which I have performed among them?” (Num 14:11). There, the Lord
confronts Moses with the peoples’ sins that are incompatible with God’s Word
and character.
This is why Habakkuk’s prophecy
is called a “burden” (v1), literally “a weight.” In the midst of God’s plan of
redemption, weighty experience casts us upon the Lord. The theme of Habakkuk,
through the dialog with God in chapter one, the woes of chapter two, and the
psalm of chapter three, is learning to persevere in trusting and enjoying God,
even in the absence of all situational comfort and encouragement.
Habakkuk isn’t doubting God
like many skeptics who ask these questions, nor is he doubting his own
assurance. In his inability to reconcile what he experiences, with the surer
knowledge of the character and word of God, Habakkuk cries out to God Himself.
It is God Himself that he
needs. It is God Himself that we need. The people of Judah have the Word of
God, the law, but it is stunned/paralyzed (v4a). It is the same word as what
happened to Jacob’s heart in Gen 45:26. The people of Judah have God-given
authorities, but the judgments are ineffective (v4b).
One thing that life in this
world certainly teaches us is that we must have God Himself acting, not merely
the other good provisions that He gives us. Even with those things, the
transition from Josiah to Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, find Judah filled with the
three pairs of evils in v3: iniquity and toil, plundering and violence, and
strife and contention.
Habakkuk cries out in the
singular, but the Lord will answer in the plural (“Look,” in v5, is plural). He
will teach His people as a whole the humility and faith, by which He brings us
through to joy. As God answers Habakkuk’s questions, Habakkuk will become more
perplexed, before he finds his footing in the character of God Himself. From
this passage, we learn to cry out to the Lord Himself, when our experience of
His providence is too heavy for us.
What circumstances
in your life are too heavy for you? What, in the condition of the nation or the
church, is too heavy for you?
Sample prayer: Lord, how long will we cry out, and it does
not seem as if You are doing anything? But we know that You are working, and
that Your work is good. Give us to humble our understanding before You and
persist in crying to You, trusting You, and even rejoicing in You, we ask
through Christ, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP80 “Hear, O Hear Us” or TPH131B “Not
Haughty Is My Heart”
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