A reading from Habakkuk, chapter one, beginning at the first verse.
How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen, or cry out to you,
violence, but you do not save. 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. Therefore, the law is paralyzed and
justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is
perverted. 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. I am
raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across
the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own. They are feared and dreaded
people. They are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. 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. They all come intent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind
and gather prisoners like sand. They mock kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at
all fortified cities. By building earthen ramps, they capture them. Then they sweep
past like the wind and go on, guilty people whose own strength is their God.
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. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrongdoing.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the
wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? This is the word of the
Lord. In life there are indeed some unanswerable questions. Questions like if
Cinderella's shoe fits so perfectly, why did it fall off in the first place? Right?
Or, you know, why do we say someone sleeps like a baby when we know babies wake up
like every two hours? Or if I'm at a restaurant and I'm waiting for the
waiter to come, doesn't that make me the waiter? Right? Now these are
tough questions. These are tough questions. But these are not the kind of
tough questions that actually keep you up late at night tossing and turning in
your bed. No, no. There are other tough and unanswerable questions that
really rock us. And that's why we're going to be spending some time for the
next month in this teaching series called The Struggle is Real. We're looking
at the questions and the problems and the struggles that do keep us up late at
night. Some of the hardest questions that you you will have ever asked. Questions
like these ones. Why is there so much evil? Why does God tolerate
wrongdoing? Most of us have asked this question at some point when we're going
through an especially dark period or a difficult time where God does not seem
to be listening and God certainly does not seem to be answering our prayers. And
we're like, God, where are you? God, why don't you do something? God, can't you
see what's going on here? The questions like these do not have easy answers. Now
the person who asked this question 2600 years before we asked this question was
a guy with this name. Just out of curiosity, how do you how do we pronounce
this name anyways? Does anyone know? Just turn to the person beside you actually
and tell them how you pronounce this name.
All right, yeah. You know, is it Habakkuk? Is it Habakkuk? Is it Habakkuk?
Some people have said Habakkuk. No, seriously, some people do say it's
Habakkuk. And it's actually one of those names that even scholars aren't 100%
sure how to pronounce. It's a weird word. It's a borrowed word that comes
from the Assyrian language. It gets pulled into the Hebrew language. Some
people think that maybe it comes from a word that had something to do with a
garden plant. Other people think that this name means to embrace or to wrestle.
And that might actually make sense once we see the full story here. So you
can actually call him whatever you want. Call him Habakkuk. Call him the
Hamburglar. Call him, just, you know, just don't call him late for dinner. But who
is he? Who is this guy? And why is he asking these deep, deep questions? Well, if
you look at the very first verse of the book of Habakkuk, and actually I would
encourage you, if you have a Bible or if you, you know, have a Bible app to take
it out and turn it on, there's a lot here. The very first verse says this, the
prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received. Now, that word prophecy is not
the normal word that the Bible uses to talk about a prophecy. It actually means
heavy load or a burden. So right away this book begins by saying this is
the heavy burden that Habakkuk carried with him. What was the heavy burden? What
was this heavy load he carried? We're gonna, we're gonna find out. And secondly,
we're told this is a prophecy that he received. But even in your translations,
there'll probably be a little star by that word received because the word here
actually means, has to do with seeing. So this actually means that Habakkuk saw
something. So this was the heavy burden that Habakkuk the prophet saw, witnessed
personally. He witnessed this thing that's happening that is a heavy burden.
And the third word we should probably look at is that middle word prophet. Just
to remind ourselves, what is a prophet? You know, contrary to many people's
opinions, a prophet is not a person who can predict the future in biblical
speak. A prophet is someone who goes around and listens for the voice of God
and then in turn is able to speak God's voice, speak God's truth to the people
of God. And that meant that prophets often had the very unhappy job of telling
God's people things they did not want to hear. Telling them times and ways in
which they had fallen short or were disobeying God. And I think actually
that's probably one of the reasons why you've never read the book of Habakkuk or
other little books like it, Joel and Amos, these prophets, because we're a little
afraid of what we might hear if we were to open up those pages. Now I just said
that most prophets go around listening for God's voice and speaking to the
people. Habakkuk is unique still in another way. He actually spends more of
his time not talking to the people saying listen to what God says to you,
but talking to God saying, God we've got some questions for you. And that makes
Habakkuk a very unique prophet among the prophets of the Bible. Very few speak to
God the way that Habakkuk speaks to God. And so today what I want to do is I just
want to look at three things with you this morning. I've given you some some
notes, some little sermon notes so you can follow along. We're gonna look at what
was the big question that Habakkuk was asking. And then secondly what was God's
answer. And thirdly what's our response to it. So Habakkuk had this burden. What
was it? God replies somehow. What did God say? And thirdly what does it all mean
for us? Let's start with Habakkuk's question. Habakkuk's question. What weighed
on him so greatly? Well you see Habakkuk lived the first part of his life during
a time of great peace and prosperity. There was this amazing king who ruled at
that time. His name was Josiah. And King Josiah was a godly man. He was a great
man and people enjoyed great times under his leadership. In fact people thought oh
surely there's even better times and even greater times still to come for us
and for our whole country. But then something happened and Josiah died. And
his sons were terrible, terrible kings. Jehoahaz, one of his sons, was a cruel
and violent man. He died and then Josiah's other son, Jehoiakim, became
king and he ruled for 11 years and he was a tyrant. He was the type of guy who
would enslave his own people and make them work at forced labor to build an
opulent palace for himself. He encouraged the worship of idols. He told people
to turn away from God. That's Habakkuk's burden. Okay that's the heavy load that
he is carrying. That's why he says how long Lord? How long must I call for help?
You're not listening. How long do I have to cry out violence to you Lord but you
do not save? Why do I have to look at this injustice? Why do you
tolerate this kind of wrongdoing? What is going on? God, times used to be so good.
We used to enjoy such prosperity. What has happened? Why aren't you doing
anything? He adds this little piece. He says that the law is paralyzed. You see
that Israel always had this law and that law was always supposed to keep them on
the straight and narrow. It was supposed to prevent this kind of stuff from
happening but now the law, the very thing that created a strong social order is
not working anymore and nothing's fair and nothing's right and there's no
justice. The good days are gone. Where did they go God? Where did they go? And now
how long oh God till those days come back? And so Habakkuk laments. He laments
what he sees. Now lament is an important word. Whenever you read the Bible and you
come across a phrase how long, how long, it is a code word for a certain kind of
prayer, a certain kind of prayer, an honest prayer that expresses sorrow, an
honest prayer where you vent your frustration and your confusion and even
your anger to God in times of great hardship. So in lament prayers you don't
hide your pain. You don't pretend everything is okay. Instead you bring your
raw emotions to God. You bring your big questions to God. That's what lament is
and by the way that is one of the reasons why we're offering the unanswered
prayer course which begins this Wednesday night. It's to help us as a
congregation learn how to lament, how to wrestle with the fact that God doesn't
always answer our prayers and how to pray like Habakkuk did. God why is this
happening in my life? God where are you? God where did the good days go? And
that's what Habakkuk is trying to teach us that sometimes the good days
disappear and the dark days come and the evil days come. Sometimes we're like fish
that get caught in a cruel net like men trapped by evil times that fall
unexpectedly upon them. See most people think good times are normal. That's
what's normal, good times and most people think that generally speaking as time
goes on things should get better and better and better. Life's supposed to be
good and life's supposed to get better. Now sure life's gonna have its ups and
downs but most of us think that 10 years from now or 20 years from now
everybody will be better off. The kids, our kids will have lives that are
better than our lives. In 20 years our home will be worth way more than
than it is today. Our investments are gonna go up. Our country is
gonna get better. Our lives are gonna get better. It's progress. We're human
beings. We're smart. We make good decisions. We make the world a better
place. Better times are coming. Habakkuk stops you in your tracks and says why
would you think that? How do you know that? You don't know that. Take it from
me. Habakkuk says there are good days but then there are also dark days that come.
There are times of prosperity but there are times of evil and and there's
nothing you can do about it. You just get caught in the net like a fish.
Habakkuk enjoyed good times but now dark times have fallen upon him and I
think he points his finger at us a little bit and he says it could happen
to you. Who knows even right now we, you may be descending into some dark days.
Dark days can come for whole nations. You know countries can enjoy times of
prosperity and growth but then come times of war and famine and tragedies,
dark days. You know from about 1870 to 1910 in North America and Europe everyone
felt they were in good times. Everyone felt like things were just getting better
and better and better and we are gonna solve all the problems of the human race.
There was the Enlightenment, there was all this progress. Humanity was on its
way up and then came World War I and then came a Great Depression and then
came World War II and then came things like the Holocaust and by the 1940s
people in the Soviet Union and people in Europe were starving to death in the
winter. Those were dark days. Those were evil times and people wondered what
happened. God how long until the good days come back again? It happened before
and it can happen again. Why not? Why not dark days? And dark days can actually
also happen for whole generations. Right one generation may enjoy peace and
prosperity but the next generation struggles, habikuk. He's speaking of his
own generation. He's like why did I have to live in this generation to see this
darkness, see this kind of tragedy. You know our parents and our grandparents or
our kids and our grandkids, those generations they may live to see better
times than we have or they may live to see worse times. The book of Habakkuk just
says it happens. It's a reality. You can't do anything about it. Dark days come. And
thirdly those dark days can come just for ourselves as well. You may have years
or decades of your life where it's good times. Everything is positive and
hunky-dory and then dark days come and dark days stay for days, for years,
maybe even for decades of your life. Habakkuk, he tells us it guys had happened
to me. Right it can happen to you. Dark days can come. You know this is authored
by the name of Seth Godin who wrote a book called The Dip and the book actually
doesn't really have to do with what we're talking about today but but there's
this concept he floats. He said often in life you can experience like great
growth and energy whether that's financially or spiritually or or with
your health and your family everything is up and everything is to the right,
good times. But then something changes and you find yourself entering what he
calls the dip. And when and when we sense oh no the the dip is coming well we've
got a few choices he says you can either try like mad to get back to the good
days or or what you can do is you can just give up completely and say it's
over I'm done for or there's a third solution and that is that you actually
lean into the dip. That you lean into the suffering. That you embrace the dark days
ahead. This could be a picture of your spiritual life as well because you know
many people when they first meet Jesus we experience growth and we experience
joy and then at some point we enter into what st. John of the cross calls the
dark night of the soul. It's this spiritual dip and and like
Godin says we try to get back to the better times you know oh I want to get
back to how I felt at summer camp or get back to how I felt during the change
conference that was a great high but but but you can't get back. Other people say
when they enter that dip spiritually they say I'm gonna walk away from God
completely or again again we can embrace that darkness we can lean in to the dip
and go through the dip with God. Just about every spiritual leader that you
admire has gone through the dip. Every author that you you love they've gone
through the dip. Chances are when you met them or you read them or you went to
their conference they were they were on the other side of the dip they were
strong and mature and growing but if you ask them no no no they went through
dark days and you'll remember when people uncovered Mother Teresa's
journals remember years ago they started going through Mother Teresa's journals
and people were shocked at what they read about her spiritual life. There were
days when she said I don't even think there's a God anymore. So for nations, for
families, for you, dark days can come and why shouldn't they why wouldn't they?
We can expect they will and when they do our question will be like Habakkuk's
question what is going on? How long? Where are you God? Why do we have to go
through these dark days? Now in the Bible the normal response to a prayer of
lament is God answers back with some words of reassurance like God comes back
we say how long oh God and God says hang tight behold I am coming soon I'm gonna
fix things up just you wait and it appears at first that that is the way
God answers Habakkuk's prayer too. God says here Habakkuk listen to this look
at the nations and watch prepare to be amazed for I'm gonna do something that
in your days something that you would not even believe if I told you amazing
right God is gonna do something the dark days are coming to an end the good days
are coming back not quite. God goes on here's what I'm gonna do I'm raising up
the Babylonians that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across the
whole earth and seize dwellings not their own whoa whoa whoa whoa God God
wait wait I just I just complained to you about dark days and now you're
telling me that Babylon now is gonna sweep in and sweep across the earth and
just destroy everything even even more yes God says Babylon remember them
they are feared and dreaded people there are a lot of themselves and they promote
their own honor oh my goodness their horses are swifter than leopards there
they're fiercer than wolves that does Habakkuk is dumbfounded that's the plan
God right God I cry out to you and your answer is I'm raising up an even more
ruthless and bloodthirsty people that are gonna sweep across the world and crush
everyone including you including me including you and your country and your
people and your family because like you call that an answer we're in dark days
and you say they're gonna get even darker I just complained about evil
injustice and you say I'm gonna send you more evil and more injustice more
violence and more oppression that's what you're gonna do that's what I'm gonna
do God says the dip is way deeper than Habakkuk thought the days are gonna be
way darker than Habakkuk thought God's plan to use this wicked nation to punish
Israel's corruption and disobedience imagine this imagine it to give you a
little point of comparison you're there's this you're a teacher and there's
this kid in your class and they're constantly ignoring you and talking
during class and throwing paper airplanes and so so what you do after
giving warning after warning one day you just you rearrange the seating
arrangement and you take the worst bully in the whole school and you sit him
right beside that kid and you say just go to town on him teach him a lesson
right I mean you get fired as a teacher but this is what God is suggesting and
Habakkuk's like that can't possibly be the plan but sure enough this is what
happens the Babylonians they move westward in the year 586 BC 15 or 30
years after Habakkuk prays this prayer and writes these words Jerusalem is
sacked the walls are destroyed the temple is burned to the ground and all
the people are either taken as slaves or they are scattered throughout the world
this is what's called the Babylonian exile lasted 70 years or more and the
Habakkuk right now he is just looking down the barrel he's looking down the
barrel and he sees all of this coming so so gosh how how long till the dark days
are over God says the dark days are just getting started so how do you respond to
that how does Habakkuk respond to this what is your response when dark days
come and God doesn't answer your prayers well I won't tell you one response that
many religious people take is they acquiesce if you don't like what God is
doing well then just keep your mouth shut don't ask any questions don't
complain just fold your hands and close your eyes and pray nice prayers pretend
everything's okay that is one response that is not Habakkuk's response a second
response you could take would be arrogance you know when God does
something you don't understand then you say this famous line well I can't believe
in a God like that you know if I can't understand what he's doing if I can't
see how this makes any sense well then I'm I'm done I'm walking I can't believe
in a God like that maybe some of you walked away from God for that very reason
I don't understand how this makes sense I can't believe in a God like that as if
your your brain should be able to comprehend all that God is doing but that
also was not Habakkuk's response instead he responds in three different ways
first anger he says God I don't like what's happening and I really don't like
your solution to what's happening I am furious about it angry about it
Habakkuk really really lets God have it I have to tell you I don't know a lot of
people even here at Trinity streetsville that pray who treat God the way that
Habakkuk does but in verse 12 he says Lord are you not from everlasting now
it's interesting in the Bible when you see these words are you not it's almost
always a sign of some very aggressive vigorous argument that's happening so
Habakkuk is very close to saying in this statement he's very close to saying God
are you nuts God are you nuts right I thought you were supposed to be from
everlasting oh I thought like the song we just sung forever God is faithful
forever God is aren't isn't that you oh I thought you I'm sorry I thought you
were supposed to bring salvation out of Israel to the world but actually you're
gonna let evil and injustice reign oh sorry I thought you were from
everlasting my bad my my mistake this is not a prayer right this is like a
protest this is not like just folding your hands praying a nice player
closing your eyes this is pumping your fist with bloodshot eyes right and
here's the thing whatever you're going through if you're going through it right
now you're in the dip if you're in the middle of dark days believe it or not
God invites you to pray this way it might make you uncomfortable and it
actually kind of makes me uncomfortable but when I think about it you know what
really makes me uncomfortable about this it's not because of how aggressive his
prayer is it's because of how rarely mine are I mean I would very rarely pray
with this kind of boldness this kind of confidence in in God and I know there's
lots of people in this room that probably need to work on being less
angry but there's others of us and we need to get more angry we need to get
more upset about the things we see happening in the world the injustice and
the problems the things that really really matter so on the one hand
Habakkuk's response is anger and we're actually encouraged to do the same but
the second response is what I'm calling abiding right Habakkuk's angry all right
but he's not going anywhere even though Habakkuk is angry at God he is still
praying to God because this is still his God in fact just look at some of the
language he uses in his prayer he says my God my holy one right he it's in
other words it says you're it God you're the only one I've got I'm not going to
anybody else you know it's you or no one's your way or the highway he calls
him Lord he calls him my rock saying God this is a mess but I have nowhere else
to go I'm depending on you all the same so it's amazing that on the one hand he
is asking he's questioning and he is struggling but the other hand it never
enters his mind to walk away from God to stop praying to stop believing it's just
not an option for him and I want to say that when Trinity streetsville is being
the church that it ought to be it should be that kind of place where you can bring
your doubts whether you love God with all your heart or whether you're
completely PO with God this is this needs to be a safe place to bring your
frustration and even your anger because God shows us again and again that he
would rather we argue with him then walk away from him which brings us to one
final response that Habakkuk gets to eventually and that is the place where
we finally say God I don't understand it but you do God I'm gonna assume you've
got reasons for what you're doing that I can't understand so I'm just gonna
accept you know in Isaiah God says for my thoughts are not your thoughts
neither are your ways my ways God goes on to say my thoughts are higher than
your thoughts my ways are higher than your ways God says if I know you don't
understand this I know you don't understand why I'm gonna bring more
injustice and more violence into your life but that is actually how I'm gonna
work out my salvation and you may not get it and you may not believe it but I
know what I'm doing I know what I'm doing and actually history tells us God
did know what he was doing I just want to kind of end with this idea you know
twenty six hundred years later we know something that Habakkuk did not know and
could not know we know he didn't that if the Jews had not been taken off into
exile then they never would have spread throughout the whole empire they never
would have gone to all these ancient cities all over the place and they never
would have settled there they never would have built synagogues there and
if they hadn't been scattered and established themselves in other places
then then God's Word would never have been taught and proclaimed to other
people living in those pagan nations right and we know and we know but he of
course didn't know that if the Persians didn't come in and conquer Babylon and
then at the Greeks didn't come in and conquer Persia then there never would
have been this one language that covered the whole known world the Greek language
so that people could communicate never would get understand and you know you
can publish a book and everybody could read it because there was one language
and we now know but of course Habakkuk didn't know that that one day Rome was
gonna come in and conquer Greece and they would establish roads and a
safe peaceful environment where where people could move freely from city to
city to city to city so that and again Habakkuk didn't know this but 600 years
after Habakkuk lived and died people were able to carry the good news of
Jesus in a language that everyone could understand to ins on long safe roads to
synagogues and cities around the world where people could receive the news of
Jesus with joy we know Babylon had to conquer Jude and Persia had to conquer
Babylon and Greece had to conquer Persia and then Rome had to conquer Greece in
order why all that violence why all those dark days it's ironic but that's
what enabled the conditions to emerge where the peace-filled life-giving
message of Jesus could reach the world and Habakkuk couldn't have seen or
understood all that and maybe you can't see and understand the reasons for the
dark days that befall you God's purposes are in fact much larger than our own we
tend to see the world from our limited perspective but God is working out a
larger plan that transcends our understanding suffering is part of a
bigger narrative that we often cannot see this is where we're gonna end today
right we're gonna end in the middle of chapter 1 there's more to come for sure
but today let's leave it in the dip right today if you are asking the
question why you're going through what you're going through I think the only
answer we want to give at this point is who knows we don't know I don't know you
don't know it'd be nice to have an easy answer but we don't know what the answer
is but what we do know is whatever you're going through God loves you just
look at the cross and remember that in Jesus darkest days he did not walk away
from you so in your dark days don't you walk away from God either in the meantime
keep praying keep questioning keep lamenting keep arguing and keep joining
us here each week as we come back to this study because church has to be that
place where we help each other through the dip knowing that God meets us in
these dark days thanks be to God