"Don't Worry; It'll Get Worse" Habakkuk 1:1-11

“Don’t Worry; It’ll Get Worse”

[Habakkuk 1:1-11]

January 21, 2018, Second Reformed Church

Even if you don’t have TV, it’s hard to escape the headlines, isn’t it?

Women and some men are coming forward about being sexually abused in Hollywood and in the political realm.  Some of our politicians see themselves not as servants, but as kings storing up wealth and pressing the people for more.  And we live in a country that finds itself able to legitimatize the murder of children.

Do you ever pray about these things?  Do you ever pray for these people?  Do you ever cry out to God and ask Him when He is going to intervene and do something?

Today, we open the burden of the prophet, Habakkuk – we begin a look at the prophecy of Habakkuk. We don't know much about Habakkuk, though it seems likely that he is writing during the sixth century B. C. -- around the same time that Jeremiah is writing. Habakkuk's name means "the embracer" or "the wrestler." And the prophecy that he delivers, the oracle that he speaks, is heavy upon him -- a burden. Habakkuk is a prophet who is burdened by what he sees and wrestles to understand God's response to him.

            Habakkuk complains – and prays – to the Lord:

“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’

and you will not save?  Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.”

The prophet cries out to God, cries for help, and gets no answer. He wants to know where the Holy God is that He preaches.

“I preach and I pray, but Your people continue in their wickedness – in their sin – unrepentantly.  They live lives of violence – hurting and killing people – and You don’t intervene.  I see Your people sinning all around me, and You do nothing about it.  Your people are at each other’s throats.  But You don’t ever enforce Your Law.  You never bring justice.  You allow the wicked to overcome the righteous.  You’re allowing justice to be perverted.  Where are You?  When are You going to act?”

            Habakkuk knows God is there; God is just not answering. God is the One Who shows him iniquity and theft and violence and strife, and contention among all the people, and the prophet can do nothing to stop it. He preaches to them. He calls them to repentance. But before him, and before the Face of God, the people have neither respect, nor fear, because God has not disciplined His people.

            So Habakkuk cries out to God, "Do something! Defend Your Holy Name! Avenge Your Righteousness!" But God seems to do nothing, so God's Law becomes powerless and justice never happens. If God never sees fit to enforce His Law, what good is it to have the Law? Every righteous man is surrounded by wicked men, so justice is perverted, and the prophet cries out to God, "How long?" He cries out like the slaughtered souls under the altar are crying out even now, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10b, ESV).

            Habakkuk's ministry is almost the exact opposite of Jonah's: God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach repentance, but he flees, so God chases him down. And Jonah preaches to Nineveh, and they repent of their sins. Habakkuk immediately goes to the people and preaches to them and calls them to repentance, and they laugh and do whatever they want, and God seemingly does nothing about it.

            Does it ever seem that way to you?  Do you ever ask God where He is – when He will act – when justice will come?

And let us understand that we are right to be upset by the sin in the world and in our churches and in ourselves. The Psalmist writes, "I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands" (Psalm 119:158, ESV). Peter tells us that Lot, living among the wicked, "was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard);" (II Peter 2:8b, ESV).

So we, as Christians, ought to be upset. Yet we also ought to be in prayer for those who sin around us – even for each other – especially for the people of God. We ought to earnestly pray for them -- pray with zeal for God's Glory. We ought to pray for those who sin, not so they can one day become wonderful people like you and me, but because the Glory of God is covered and kept from view by our sin. And it ought to be our greatest longing as Christians to see the Glory of God in all its fullness. So let us pray.

"But how can we pray for them when they joyfully, unrepentantly run after sin?"

            Daniel prays among the lions. Jonah makes his sanctuary of prayer in the belly of the fish. And Jesus prays in the Garden, even as the torches light up the evening sky. If we are the people of God, we will pray until sin is vanquished from the earth, because God is worthy, and to glorify God and enjoy Him forever is our purpose.

            And if we have already brought the Gospel to them, let us bring it again. If we still have breath, let us tell them again and again that there is salvation in Jesus Christ Alone, and He requires holiness from His people. Let us call them to repentance, warn them of their treacherous state until they believe -- or the time is past. And if they are Christians, let us exercise discipline, and receive them in love.

            That can be a great burden, especially when God seems to be far away. When it seems as though God is not listening. And we hear no word from God. One of the messages of the wrestling of the prophet Habakkuk is that sometimes God waits. Sometimes God says, "Not yet." Sometimes God says nothing and expects us to wait for the potter to work the clay.

            God does answer -- sooner or later -- in His time, as He is pleased, according to His Will. And we see beginning in verse five that God does answer Habakkuk:

“Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!”

            "Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.” God says, "I will avenge myself for these sins, and you won't believe how I am going to do it."

            "For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans." It's as though God said, "Don't worry; it'll get worse." "I'm raising up the Chaldeans -- the Babylonians -- the Iraqis -- one of the most evil nations on the earth, and I'm going to send them after you. These are a people greatly to be feared -- they conquer nations, steal land and possessions -- they are completely arrogant and selfish. Even their horses are evil: they're swifter than leopards, more fierce than hungry wolves. They will come quickly and they will defeat you in an overwhelming defeat, like a hungry eagle swooping down to eat. They are coming for the joy -- the fun -- of violence. They will gather innumerable captives and take them back to Babylon. They will laugh at your kings, scorn your princes, blow through your strongholds. And they will sin and offend Me, by ascribing their power as their own god."

            God is right -- it is not the answer the prophet expected. He never would have guessed that God would solve the problem of one evil by allowing another, greater evil to conquer it. But He did. God says, "Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle" (II Kings 21:12b, ESV). And Jeremiah also prophesied, "And the Chaldeans shall come back and fight against this city. They shall capture it and burn it with fire" (Jeremiah 37:8, ESV).

Here is a hard doctrine – a hard teaching: God sometimes uses one nation to punish another. Not only that, but God sometimes uses evil to accomplish His Will and chastise the wicked. God sometimes uses pagans to punish the Church. God knows all about our sin -- He knows about all of the sins of everyone who will ever be -- from before the creation of the world. Because God is Sovereign over our sin, and our sin is part of God's Plan.

            Now, let us not get confused: God does not sin. God is not the creator of sin. God does not force anyone to sin. When the Scripture tells us that God raises up the Chaldeans to slaughter and enslave God's people, we understand that God let the Chaldeans – who freely chose after the evil inclinations of their evil hearts – to slaughter and enslave.  God let them do what they freely and responsibly chose to do, and God did not stop them. God did not give mercy to His people, but allowed them to suffer justice.

So what do we do, how do we prepare, since God is not obligated to show mercy? Let us pray. Let us hate evil -- let us hate it with as great a hatred as we have zeal for God's Glory. And let us recognize God's Sovereign Lordship. God does not promise us health and wealth and beachfront resorts. This is a world full of sin, corrupted by sin, a world that is waiting and groaning with us for the restoration that will occur when God’s Kingdom has fully come (Romans 8:21-22). That is our hope; we wait and long for that glory to come.

So, perhaps it's not so astonishing that God would use an evil nation to punish a sinful nation. Perhaps it is not astonishing that God would use evil people to punish Christians – the Church.  Perhaps it makes sense -- sad, heart-wrenching sense – to see God destroy the world in a flood; to rain down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, even to raise up the Chaldeans -- it makes sense.

            What is surprising -- what is truly astonishing -- is that God does not wipe us all out. God decided not to throw us all into Hell. John is shocked with joy, "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are" (I John 1a, ESV). And Paul sings a hymn, "[Jesus], who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:6-11, ESV).

            What is astonishing is not that there is sin in the world and that sin has consequences. What's astonishing is that God the Son would incarnate and the Father would plan for the Son to be crucified by evil men, and that the Father would rain down His Wrath on His Beloved, Innocent Son for every one of the sins of everyone who would ever believe.  What is astonishing is that God would rain down the fullness of the punishment of Hell on His Beloved Son for each one of us sinners that He chose to save. It's not the plan that you or I would ever have come up with!

            And yet it is our hope and our salvation.

            As Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost:

            “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:22-24, ESV).

Will we continue to be shocked and angered by the evil in this world? Yes, and we should be. Will we continue to be surprised by the way that God answers our prayers?  Yes, sometimes we will be as shocked as the prophet, Habakkuk is.  So, let us be a people of prayer, a people ever-ready to speak the Gospel, a people who know and believe that our God is Sovereign over all things, including our sin. And let our hope be in the astonishing Work of the Incarnation, and may it all be to the glory of the Father.

Let us pray:

Almighty and Sovereign God, make us hate sin more each day, cause us to rise up in prayer, putting our hope and trust in You, and in the Astonishing Work that saves us. For it is in Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.