Introduction
When we look at our world today, there is so much injustice. There are wars all over – innocent civilians die because of power hungry dictators like Saddam Hussien. Recently, George Bush expressed regret that the U.S. intelligence gave wrong information and that Saddam didn’t actually had any weapons of mass destruction! Pity the people who died in the process. What about Hitler and the 6 million Jews who died? What about the rape cases around us? Many of these rapists are never caught, and as time passes, people forget and the police stops pursuing the case – and these rapists run free!
Non-Christians asks the question rightly: Where is God? Is God’s hand somehow shortened? God is not able? Or perhaps some will try to “defend” God, by stating that it is really the human problem – God has done His part, it is just that we fail at ours. There is definitely truth in that we humans are terribly responsible for the mess we are in, but is this the whole story of God’s solution? The political and economical injustice we see in the world today, isn’t God going to do something about it?
Our world today is not entirely different from the world that the prophet Habakkuk lived in. He saw the same injustices, he asked the same questions. Before we move on, it is important to know the background of Habakkuk. It would also be a good practice to have the Bible open before you, so that you can make sure what is preached is really according to the Bible, and not something the speaker made up.
Background of Habakkuk
According to historians, Habakkuk is dated about 605B.C. This is a very interesting time:
After the Golden Age of David and Solomon,
Israel split into 2 countries:
Israel (The Northern Country) and Judah (The Southern Country)
Both of the countries steadily saw their decline.
Their immorality towards God revealed itself in all sorts of crime.
God judged Israel by sending Assyria to attack Israel. Israel is forever gone from the pages of history.
God has warned Judah of her sin (and we read it in the book of Habakkuk too).
During 605 B.C., Judah is being reigned by the evil king Jehoiakim in Jerusalem who did what was evil in the sight of The Lord (2 Kings 23:36-37)
Wickedness, injustice and bribery is rampant in the country, and it is during this time that Habakkuk is written.
Habakkuk 1:1-4
Habakkuk has been crying out to God who apparently is indifferent about the Israel.
“The law is paralyzed and justice never prevails”
There is wickedness in the judges, injustice is everywhere! The wicked oppress the righteous, justice is perverted! God isn’t listening!
Habakkuk 1:5 – 1:11
To Habakkuk’s dismay, God revealed to Habakkuk that He is about to judge Judah by raising the “ruthless and impetuous” Babylonians who does not obey the Law of God but are “a law to themselves” to attack Israel.
God reveals that the Babylonians will “seize dwellings not their own”(i.e. conquer Judah which is immediately fulfilled during Jehoiakim’s time). God will judge wicked Judah by sending a more wicked Babylon to conquer it.
Habakkuk 1:12-2:1
Habakkuk takes no such “nonsense” from God and “makes his case” to “see what God will say to him”. Habakkuk then puts forth his argument:
o God’s eyes are too pure to look on evil: How can he tolerate such wickedness? As if Israel was not wicked enough – God will give Israel over to Babylonians who are more wicked!
o Babylonians are going to “catch” Israelites like fish – without mercy! As though Israelites are not human beings!
o Not only that, in their victory and pride, the Babylonians credit it all to themselves ( and their idols) – “sacrificing to their nets, and burning incense to the dragnets”
o Above all, God is going to just let all these happen when the Babylonians are destroying the nations without mercy?
To Habakkuk, God’s decision is inconsistent with God’s character.
Habakkuk 2:1 – 19
God replies! From 2:4-17, God reveals that He indeed hates the wickedness of the Babylonians, there are proud, have wicked desires, greedy, steal, extort, murder, commit all sorts of immorality – the list just goes on!
As God reveals each type of wickedness that He detests, He also reveals that He will judge them with a terrible judgement. Perhaps the most powerful line is revealed in 2:16, speaking to the Babylonians
“You will be filled with shame instead of glory. Now it is your turn! Drink and be exposed!”
(Reading from Daniel, we know that God revealed that the Babylonian empire to be overthrown by the different empires that followed after – as Daniel explained the dream)
Building from 2:2 onwards, the most striking verse in this chapter is found in 2:4
“The righteous will live by faith”
God revealed that this judgment will not be immediate. It will take time – but it will SURELY COME. It speaks of some appointed time, not now, but sometime in the end. But it will not prove false. God’s judgment lingers, but IT WILL CERTAINLY COME!
Meanwhile, the righteous will just have to take God at His Word and trust that God will make good His promise of judgment. The righteous will have to live by (his) faith. Faith that simply says “God will do what He said”.
Habakkuk 2:20
God does not lie, though His judgment will take time. God is sovereign. We who are often so faithless, doubting whether God actually cares about what is going on with the injustices in the world – this is what God says to Habakkuk (and perhaps to us)
“The Lord is in His holy temple, let the earth be silent before Him”
Habakkuk didn’t get this, he thinks that God is somehow mellow and complacent with wickedness when no immediate judgment followed – maybe God fell of His throne of something else! But God replies that He is not like the idol who is useless (2:18-19), but Yahweh is THE Sovereign Lord who is ever in control. Judgment will come, God knows what He is doing – let the earth be silent before Him.
Habakkuk 3:1-15
Receiving such a powerful revelation of God in His power and sovereignty, Habakkuk burst into a beautiful poem using different imageries to describe God’s strength for simply who He is, and His Judgment – God’s sure Judgment.
Habakkuk 3:16-19
Now Habakkuk understands. The world may crumble, Babylonians may win the battle – but God is still God! God will surely judge Babylon as Habakkuk “waits patiently for the day of calamity to come to the nation invading Israel”. God has opened Habakkuk’s eyes to see beyond the “here and now” to be confident that God will make good His promise and Judgment – God is teaching Habakkuk to “live by faith” (to take God at His Word). It is no wonder that if Habakkuk can see what God sees (in a way), the Sovereign Lord is His strength! Habakkuk’s sight of Judah crumbling fails him, but God’s promise of avenging Judah just turns the table around – no wonder Habakkuk bursts forth
“I will be joyful in God my Savior”
Application:
What about our world? What about the rich who oppress the poor – and get away with it? What about the rapist?? Will they get away? Will God judge the greedy American businesses that caused this financial crisis?
God will surely judge is the reply. Maybe now, but most probably not now. Will God judge them now by striking them down with cancer? Maybe, maybe not.
How should we understand this judgment in light of the New Testament? Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4
“The righteous will live by his faith”
in Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11. Paul argues that we are saved by grace through faith – the righteous will live by faith. Faith in what? In Jesus Christ.
To understand God’s judgment, we have to understand Jesus. It is not weird for the Israelites to expect the Messiah as a “political deliverance”. After all, they have been ruled by foreign powers since forever! But through Jesus’ death on the cross, we suddenly realize that the sin of the whole world goes on to Jesus! The real deliverance was not military/political in nature, God is concerned for something FAR MORE IMPORTANT.
This is unimaginable! The rapist’s sin? Hitler’s sin? Saddam Hussien’s sin? Perhaps more importantly – My sin? Your sin? We are almost going to cry out in disagreement like Habakkuk did! But God has indeed judged the world. The judgment fell on Jesus.
The world is sinful.
God is Just, God is loving.
Jesus takes the penalty.
What? The Judgment fell on Jesus? Yes, this is what the Christian Message is. Jesus – Sin Bearer of the whole world, which is the means by which EVERYBODY can find forgiveness. By faith, we are saved. Not of ourselves, so that no one can boast. The righteous shall live by faith.
Paul argues: By the law no one is justified. Some of us who think we are good enough – that is not true. Jesus had to die – for our sins, and the sins of the world. If anybody could be nominated for being the “most cursed person”, it is Jesus. Innocent, Righteous, GOD Himself – suffers the ultimate humiliation, the ultimate condemnation. Can we try to earn our salvation? No. God’s Love calls us to accept this free gift. By faith.
Whichever way it is, God wants to teach us to take Him at His Word that He will surely judge, even though what our eyes see might not look like God’s immediate judgment. God wants us to trust in Him – in His Word that He will surely fulfill. God is not an absent God like what we would think of absent fathers – they go away and do their own thing, and comes home to just give money (assuming that they have done their part). God is actively involved in our world, but God has a time for everything – sometimes God’s timetable is the same as ours, most times it is different. Perhaps God didn’t want to waste this opportunity to train His People to “live by faith and not by sight”.
But let us not only point fingers at others – the rapists, the swindlers, the wicked dictators. What makes us think that God who is the Judge of the whole world is not our Judge? God is just and shows no partiality! Not with “them” (the other people), neither with us. To start with, when we point fingers at others calling them murderers and thieves, do we not practice it? (Afterall, the Sermon on The Mount equates hating our brothers as murdering – highlighting that what God demands is the true obedience from the heart, not just a FORM of obedience)
Closing:
God is just and God hates sin. His eyes are too pure to look on evil. God’s hatred for sin and God’s judgment for sin is revealed in Jesus. Yet on the cross, we realize God’s love for us is immeasurable. It is immense – God’s judgment and God’s Love demonstrated fully through Jesus Christ crucified. What about us? We know God’s judgment – it is terrible and horrifying. How then are we to respond to Jesus – to God?
Questions to challenge us
Are we going to realize our own ignorance, and turn to God for forgiveness and trust in Him – to stand in awe of Jesus’ sacrifice and bow our knees? Or are we going to continue in our ignorance and despise God’s Love?
Questions to discuss
1. What kind of issues in our world and our lives today that we think “need God’s immediate judgment”?
2. In light of Scripture and Jesus’ death, how then are we to understand the world we live in?
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1 comment:
Habakkuk 2:4,14,20
"The righteous will live by faith"
It is true that the righteous will live by faith - which we would also understand as Christians are saved by our faith in Jesus Christ. This is generally the thrust of the New Testament and an undeniably true. We are saved by faith and not by good works.
However, "the righteous will live by faith" is actually applicable even at Old Testament since we know that the idea of "righteousness by faith" is from Abraham. Abraham was credited for righteousness because he took God at His Word. God told Abraham of a heavenly city, even though Abraham did not live to see it - God fulfilled it, and we can be sure that Abraham is in heaven.
As for Habakkuk, Habakkuk did not live long enough to see Babylon's downfall. Nobody in the Old Testament lived long enough to see the TRUE fulfillment of "The righteous will live by faith" that came by Jesus. In light of the New Testament, we realize that some people may escape God's judgment on this earth, but they will never escape the Judgment Day.
We have to be very careful to expect God's Judgment to come "here and now" - this is also the message of Habakkuk, for indeed, God's judgment did not come immediately. It came many years later: but God has revealed to Habakkuk - It will surely come. We know that living in a fallen world, God's Judgment doesn't always come "here and now"! But it will surely come in the end.
But what difference does Jesus make? Because we have to take into account that God indeed judged the world in Jesus. It is a mind boggling kind of mercy that God offers. The sin of the American CEOs on Jesus? Yes. No doubt they experiencing the consequences of their greed, but if we confuse their "consequences" and "God's judgment" - then the cross of Jesus is made to be of no effect. If God judges us here and now, then what difference does Jesus make? Because we learnt that the full measure of the earth's sin is laid on Christ - not shared with us. Another example: Consider a student who doesn't study for his exams. He fail his exams. We know it is the natural consequences of his laziness, and not "God's Judgment".
Does God then say nothing of "natural consequences"? Surely He does - in Proverbs for example. Proverbs teach us a lot of common sense, to be careful in our daily life since they all have consequences.
What then do we make of the Old Testament judgments of God?
It is a shadow of the things to come. This may be a rather simplistic answer and we would not have time to elaborate on it here. The Old Testament is a shadow of of the New Testament -
The Israelites have a promised land. We have the real thing, the real promised land - Heaven.
They have Moses to lead them out of bondage - at best, Moses is a shadow of Jesus, the True Deliverer.
David defeated the enemies, and earned his right as King - but we have the real King who defeated the real Enemy - Satan.
God's Judgment in the Old Testament - we know that there is a REAL Judgment in "Judgment Day", where Jesus is The Judge.
The festivals, the passover, etc - is the shadow of the REAL Passover - when God passed over the Christians because of Jesus blood.
These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ (Col 2:17)
It is not too far fetched therefore, to say that Jesus gives meaning to the Old Testament - that the WHOLE of Old Testament, is really just a shadow of the reality.
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