Habakkuk 1

0:00Welcome to Bible chapter every day. I'm Matthew. Our chapter today is Habakkuk 1. Let's go to God in prayer. Heavenly Father, we see so many problems in the world today. In our nation we see violence. We see people getting away with hurting other people. You are the righteous judge. We know that you cannot live with sin and we do know that you are powerful, all powerful. You can do anything and it does bother us. It is a problem that you are powerful and you allow these things to continue for so long. Hope us to understand you more. Hope us to understand your ways. We are thankful that you are patient, that you do not crush us immediately when we sin,

1:02that you give us time to repent. We hate to see the suffering that is in this world from the sin, and yet we know that the suffering is just a part of how bad the sin is, that sin is first horrible because it is against you. It is breaking of the right order that you have set up. We do thank you for saving us and not giving us what we deserve. Amen. Habakkuk 1. The Oracle that Habakkuk the Prophet saw. Oh, Yahweh, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen? How long will I cry out to you, violence, and you will not save? Why do you cause me to see evil? While you look at trouble, destruction and violence happen before me, contention and strife arise, therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice does not go forth perpetually.

2:08For the wicked surround the righteous, therefore justice goes forth perverted. Look among the nations and see, be astonished and astounded. For a work is about to be done in your days, that you will not believe if it is told. For look, I am raising up the caldians, the bitter and impetuous nation, the one who walks through the spacious places of earth to take possession of dwellings not belonging to it. They are dreadful and awesome. They are justice and their dignity precede from themselves. Their horses are more swift than lipards. They are more menacing than wolves at dusk. Their horsemen gallop, their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle that is swift to devour. All of them come for violence.

3:10Their faces pressing forward. They gather captives like the sand, and they themselves scoff at kings, and rulers are a joke to them. They laugh at every fortification, and they heap up earth and take it. Then they sweep like the wind and pass on. They become guilty, whose might is their God. Are you not from of old? Oh, Yahweh, my God, my holy one. You shall not die. Oh, Yahweh, you have marked them for judgment. Oh, rock, you have established them for reproof. Your eyes are too pure to see evil, and you are not able to look at wrongdoing. Why do you look at the treacherous? Why are you silent when the wicked swallows up someone more righteous than him? You make humankind like fish of the sea, like crawling creatures that have no ruler among

4:13them. He brings up all of them with a fishhook. He drags them up with his fishnet, and he gathers them in his dragnet, therefore he rejoices and exalts, therefore he sacrifices to his fishnet, and makes offerings to his dragnet. Or by them he makes a good living, and his food is rich. Will he therefore empty his fishnet and continually kill nations without showing mercy? Well, that's the reading. Let's dig in. Habakkuk is a different type of book than the typical book of prophecy. Most of the prophets are giving God's message to the people. Generally, the message is repent, or you will be destroyed. But Habakkuk is a discussion with God. We don't really know anything about Habakkuk, but from the things discussed, he must have lived around the same time as Jeremiah.

5:14Habakkuk starts right off by asking Yahweh, how long? Which sounds a lot like some of the Psalms. These prayers asking God how long this suffering will go on, and what Habakkuk is suffering is seeing violence, wickedness, and Judah, and it seems to be Jews who are doing the violence to each other, and the legal system is failing them, there is no justice. So when the human legal system fails, cry out to God the judge of all, and Yahweh replies, but it isn't quite what Habakkuk expected. Yahweh says he is going to do something that will shock everyone, including Habakkuk. God is bringing the Caldians, also known as the Babylonians, against Judah. The Caldians are proud, and fierce, and strong, and fast, and they worship their own strength. That is a shock to Habakkuk, that God would use a nation that is even worse than as

6:18a role to punish Israel for their sins. He says God is too pure to look on evil, so how can he use this wicked people? They are like fishermen pulling fish after fish out of the sea, and then they worship their net. Will God allow that to go on? And we'll have to wait for the answer in the next chapter. And now for a deeper dive. This book is different than most of the prophets for sure. It shows a man asking God questions, questioning how God can allow wickedness to go on. It is a question that many people have asked through the years. If God is all powerful, and God cannot stand sin, then why do we see so much sin and suffering in this world? And God doesn't seem to mind the question at all. God doesn't review Habakkuk for asking the question. And God even answers the question, though the answer is surprising to Habakkuk.

7:22And God knows it will be surprising to him. We can and should ask God our questions. When we're bothered by things, we should talk to Him about it. God has told us to pray to Him. And that prayer is not limited to just certain things, certain subjects, it's a conversation. It is pouring out our heart to God. If something bothers us, we should talk to Him about it. Like Habakkuk, we may not understand the answer. It may surprise us more than the question in the first place. And that is okay, too. We have a view right now of God and how He works. We've built up that view by what we've read and what we've experienced in our lives. And our view of God is too small. God is bigger than we can understand. But when we ask the hard questions of God and seek the true answers, our view of God

8:24will grow. Scripture quotations are from the Lexum English Bible, Copyright 2012, Logos Bible Software. Lexum is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.