Matt Nelson - June 6, 2021
Habakkuk
HABAKKUK The Questioning Prophet 6.6.21 Misunderstandings about the Bible: • The Bible doesn’t answer all of our questions. • The Bible doesn’t guarantee success or prosperity in every area of life. • The Bible invites us into dialogue, mystery, and faith, not just certitudes. • The Bible doesn’t “record” history objectively but interprets it through real people in real-time and places. Habakkuk 1:2-4 2 How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? 3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. 4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted. Habakkuk’s problem with God: 1. Indifference: God, you don’t seem to care. 2. Inactivity: God, you aren’t doing very much even though you could. 3. Unfair: God, what you are doing doesn’t seem fair. Habakkuk 1:5-11 5 “Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. 6 I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own. 7 They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. 8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swooping to devour; 9 they all come intent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. 10 They mock kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; by building earthen ramps they capture them. 11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on—guilty people, whose own strength is their god.” Habakkuk 1:12 12 Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, you will never die. You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment; you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish. Habakkuk 2:1 1 I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Definition of Waiting on God: watching expectantly for God without giving into bitterness or fatigue. Habakkuk 2:2-3 2 Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. 3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay. Habakkuk 2:4 4 “See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness Habakkuk 3:16-19 Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.
