Perplexing Problems
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Background Information
Background Information
Habakkuk is a late seventh century prophet, which places him pre-exilic time period and post Northern Kingdom. Right between Nahum and Zephaniah and a contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah. It is likely that he knew a young Daniel and Ezekiel. The prophet does not state his age or any Judean kings. Using the Babylonian invasion as a point of reference and the lack of mentioning Jerusalem’s fall in 586 BC it is likely his life and ministry extended from Manasseh’s reign to the rule of Zedekiah Judah’s last king.
Habakkuk lived during turbulent times, in both the political sense and in the spiritual sense. He witnessed the invasion by the Babylonian armies and Judah’s fall from spiritual revival high point under King Josiah to the depths of spiritual depravity under Josiah’s son Jehoiakim. The name Habakkuk is derived from the Hebrew word for “embrace” and so his name likely means “He Who Embraces” or “He Who Clings”. Which is quite fitting in that Habakkuk holds and an embraces or clings to His faith through wrestling and grappling with difficulties and tough perplexing questions. Habakkuk wrestles with questions that if we are honest we all wrestle with in our faith walk. Habakkuk teaches us our faith is perplexing and we must cling through the perplexity.
Theme verse is Habakkuk 3:17-18
17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there is no fruit on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the flocks disappear from the pen and there are no herds in the stalls, 18 yet I will celebrate in the Lord; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!
Perplexing Problems
Perplexing Problems
Introduction
Introduction
The world is unraveling. I dont just say that because of the way things seem to be going, but because the world is literally coming apart and winding down. The end of all things is at hand we have been in a time known as the last days and the Bible describes the last days and how it all ends - it ends in calamity. The world as a system is in view here.
Most of us know ( the rest will soon know and understand) that Jesus is coming back again just as He promised. First He is coming to snatch out the church in what is known and taught as the rapture. After the rapture of the Church there is a period of time and prophecy known as the Great Tribulation. Now many may have the wrong idea that just because they are Christian that our lives will be without trouble and will only know peace and tranquility. Now the Bible teaches it is true as God’s children we will not go through the Great Tribulation, but it also teaches that events will happen that are not the tribulation but point to its coming.
6 Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and they will deceive many. 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don’t be alarmed; these things must take place, but it is not yet the end. 8 For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.
Birth pangs they are called and even though we will not enter the tribulation we must be prepared that we are living in this age and in this day we may see tribulation like we have never seen before. Nationally, Internationally and in fact Globally.
Disturbing Ideologies
False Religion Heresies - JW’s, Mormonism, Prosperity Gospel, Word of Faith Movement, Emergent Church, inclusivism, open theism and liberalism
Communism, modernism, post-modernism, supremacy (White or Black), feminism, gender dysphoria.
Universal Violence
Terrorist Attacks
Mass Shootings
Abortions
Shifting World Powers
The geo-political stage is awash with anti-Christian nation-states seeking dominance. Russia, a once-crippled world power, increasingly exerts worldwide influence. China’s size and increasing strength is threatening Western powers on multiple fronts. In an age where knowledge and information are power, cyber warfare is at its height. Who will rise out of the Middle East? Can western influence stem the tide of oppressive and militant regimes? And with birthrates far exceeding our own in America, what will the picture of the world’s super powers look like in 25 or 50 or 75 years?
Whether we live through God coming to judge with pestilence, famine and war we will experience our own private tribulations. We all know financial problems, heartache, sorrow. We have experienced sickness and trouble and distress. If we aren’t understanding truth and arent careful when trouble comes we will cry out for rescue and for God to do something and when He doesnt we stand on the precipice of stumbling and falling.
Your sick and hurting or someone else is and your praying and asking God to do something your faith will become perplexed and it is in that perplexity we must cling to God and our faith in Him.
It used to be the greatest resistance to faith was people had trouble trusting and believing the Bible - Science and the Bible but as science and the Bible bring more agreement - now the trouble becomes history. If God is God how can the news be what it is? War, Crime, Rape, Strife, Murder, Hunger and Oppression.
Habakkuk is going to show us that even in the darkest times God is still God, He is on His throne in Heaven and remains in control. Cling to Him with perplexed faith for He cares for you and has a plan for you.
1 The pronouncement that the prophet Habakkuk saw. 2 How long, Lord, must I call for help and you do not listen or cry out to you about violence and you do not save? 3 Why do you force me to look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Oppression and violence are right in front of me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict escalates.
4 This is why the law is ineffective and justice never emerges. For the wicked restrict the righteous; therefore, justice comes out perverted. 5 Look at the nations and observe— be utterly astounded! For I am doing something in your days that you will not believe when you hear about it.
6 Look! I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter, impetuous nation that marches across the earth’s open spaces to seize territories not its own. 7 They are fierce and terrifying; their views of justice and sovereignty stem from themselves.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards and more fierce than wolves of the night. Their horsemen charge ahead; their horsemen come from distant lands. They fly like eagles, swooping to devour. 9 All of them come to do violence; their faces are set in determination. They gather prisoners like sand.
10 They mock kings, and rulers are a joke to them. They laugh at every fortress and build siege ramps to capture it. 11 Then they sweep by like the wind and pass through. They are guilty; their strength is their god.
12 Are you not from eternity, Lord my God? My Holy One, you will not die. Lord, you appointed them to execute judgment; my Rock, you destined them to punish us.
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, and you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do you tolerate those who are treacherous? Why are you silent while one who is wicked swallows up one who is more righteous than himself?
14 You have made mankind like the fish of the sea, like marine creatures that have no ruler. 15 The Chaldeans pull them all up with a hook, catch them in their dragnet, and gather them in their fishing net; that is why they are glad and rejoice.
16 That is why they sacrifice to their dragnet and burn incense to their fishing net, for by these things their portion is rich and their food plentiful. 17 Will they therefore empty their net and continually slaughter nations without mercy?
Puzzling Questions
Puzzling Questions
1 The pronouncement that the prophet Habakkuk saw. 2 How long, Lord, must I call for help and you do not listen or cry out to you about violence and you do not save?
3 Why do you force me to look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Oppression and violence are right in front of me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict escalates. 4 This is why the law is ineffective and justice never emerges. For the wicked restrict the righteous; therefore, justice comes out perverted.
The pronouncement from Habakkuk was a weighty one. The word pronouncement is Massa - to lift up as in a heavy burden. If there ever was a heavy message surely Habakkuk has one. Habakkuk saw a vision and it was heavy and it brought Habakkuk puzzling questions.
Why Is God Indifferent?
Why Is God Indifferent?
Habakkuk speaks to God saying “LORD how long?” How long must I call for help and you do not listen? I see what is going on around and I call out for help but no help comes. It is as if God you are not listening! Why God do you not hear me? Why God do you not help?! The question how long indicates the agony of the period of waiting and the endless delay for the help and for the answer.
Many if not most of us today if we are honest we sense the same problem. Why does not listen and answer when we pray and when we call?
1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long will I store up anxious concerns within me, agony in my mind every day? How long will my enemy dominate me? 3 Consider me and answer, Lord my God. Restore brightness to my eyes; otherwise, I will sleep in death. 4 My enemy will say, “I have triumphed over him,” and my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
1 Why have you rejected us forever, God? Why does your anger burn against the sheep of your pasture? 2 Remember your congregation, which you purchased long ago and redeemed as the tribe for your own possession. Remember Mount Zion where you dwell.
Like David and Asaph (as well as others recorded in scripture and many who were not recorded at all) Habakkuk saw the injustice and troubles of him and his people all around and asked how long, and why - why does it go on? I cry out - literally I scream with a loud voice and a disturbed heart. The wickedness in the land burdened Habakkuk more and more and God just seemed indifferent to it all. I mean why does He not save - Habakkuk asks.
The concern is not only are his cries and calls going unanswered and unheeded, but corruption continues. Evil summed up as violence as well as oppression going on and continuing on unchecked by God at all.
7 I cry out, “Violence!” but get no response; I call for help, but there is no justice.
Why Is God Inactive?
Why Is God Inactive?
Sin was abounding and God seemed not only indifferent but also idle. Habakkuk with his next question sort of calls out God asking “Why do you FORCE me to look at injustice?” Then presents an even greater question “Why do you tolerate wrong doing?” Not only does Habakkuk say that God is causing him to look at injustice but that God is also tolerating it.
We can understand people tolerating sinful behavior but a holy and righteous God seeing evil and doing nothing about it is beyond our comprehension and beyond our understanding in faith.
Strife is ongoing, violence are right in front of me escalating. Habakkuk lived in a culture that was not ashamed of their iniquity, they celebrated it with much pride. Sound familiar? We live in the same kind of generation - witness to the same depravity of men and the same celebration of such depravity and we cry out and we call out and God hasnt stepped in and stopped it yet.
The seeming unanswered cry for help brings perplexing problems to our faith.
The law is ineffective and justice is never seen because the Lord is the only one who can fix it and He hasnt. The wicked are in power and restrict the righteous and therefore justice that does come out is perverted.
When one’s faith is in God and His sovereign control they cant help but look around and ask why God do you allow this?
Where does God allow us to see sin and iniquity?
Ourselves
Others
I believe there are several reasons why God might do this
It keeps us humble
To make us truly see the wickedness of sin, that we would hate it and fight it in and around us
To make us value and admire grace and salvation from God toward us all as sinners
God's Answer
God's Answer
5 Look at the nations and observe— be utterly astounded! For I am doing something in your days that you will not believe when you hear about it. 6 Look! I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter, impetuous nation that marches across the earth’s open spaces to seize territories not its own.
7 They are fierce and terrifying; their views of justice and sovereignty stem from themselves. 8 Their horses are swifter than leopards and more fierce than wolves of the night. Their horsemen charge ahead; their horsemen come from distant lands. They fly like eagles, swooping to devour.
9 All of them come to do violence; their faces are set in determination. They gather prisoners like sand. 10 They mock kings, and rulers are a joke to them. They laugh at every fortress and build siege ramps to capture it. 11 Then they sweep by like the wind and pass through. They are guilty; their strength is their god.
God responds to Habakkuk’s questions. Though he was lamenting and the questions were rhetorical God chose to answer the complaint - and I for one am grateful that He did and that it was recorded for us to look at and understand. Turns out that the LORD was neither indifferent nor was He inactive. God is not idle, in fact He was already at work to discipline the erring nation of Judah and He reveals this to Habakkuk. “Look at the nations and observe” The words in Hebrew are plural and they indicate not only the change in speaker but that the speaker is speaking to both Habakkuk and the people.
Being Too Me Oriented
Being Too Me Oriented
Habakkuk and Judah are both being rather near sighted and self-centered in considering God to set things right. God says they need to stop being so focused on themselves and then they could see the big picture. God says “Look at the nations” The developments coming politically and nationally would be.
When we are perplexed in our faith walk with God perhaps the problem is our worldview is too small. God was saying their worldview to understand what God was doing must include “the nations”.
God says He is doing something in their days that they would not believe when they hear about it. It’s not necessarily too good to be true, but it is too terrible to be true. A work of judgment causing them to have a hard time believing it.
God drops the bombshell and says I am raising up the Chaldeans the Babylonians. Now granted sin in Judah abounds and is unchecked but the Babylonians are the epitome of wickedness and evil. A people without remorse or forethought committing atrocities. God admits as much describing them as a bitter and impetuous nation.
Babylon was without rival. They were a law unto themselves for they answered to no one. They promoted themselves. They recognized no law or judge.
The Lord describes their swiftness and speed. Their readiness to devour and conquer.
They come with determination and success.
They are confident in their own strength and mock kings and rulers laughing the supposedly fortified cities - easily conquering and ravaging even the most fortified of cities.
They own strength is their god. Might is right and might became divine.
Perplexed With God’s Answer
Perplexed With God’s Answer
12 Are you not from eternity, Lord my God? My Holy One, you will not die. Lord, you appointed them to execute judgment; my Rock, you destined them to punish us.
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, and you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do you tolerate those who are treacherous? Why are you silent while one who is wicked swallows up one who is more righteous than himself? 14 You have made mankind like the fish of the sea, like marine creatures that have no ruler.
15 The Chaldeans pull them all up with a hook, catch them in their dragnet, and gather them in their fishing net; that is why they are glad and rejoice. 16 That is why they sacrifice to their dragnet and burn incense to their fishing net, for by these things their portion is rich and their food plentiful. 17 Will they therefore empty their net and continually slaughter nations without mercy?
Why Use People More Sinful?
Why Use People More Sinful?
How Can God Endorse People Of Injustice?
How Can God Endorse People Of Injustice?
Why Would God Excuse Their Own Idolatrous Sin?
Why Would God Excuse Their Own Idolatrous Sin?
Habakkuk is now troubled by the agents of God’s discipline as much if not more than Judah’s need for discipline and for God to set things right. The Babylonians are more sinful than Judah.
We cry out for the direction of the state of things in America and the church prays and cries out for God to come and set things right. Perhaps God will do that by sending a nation or an ideology more wicked - Liberlism, Communism, Wokism. “Wait a minute LORD Your cure is worse than the disease!
People who face crisis times like these the wrong way - withdraw from Church and from fellowship and either pull back into a comfortable spiritual corner or they give up on God altogether.
God had given Habakkuk a revelation of what was to come and not an explanation. What we need in times of perplexing problems is not explanation but revelation of God to give us a better view of Him.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones guides with a better response:
Stop to think - before talking about it think about it
Restate basic principles - as you think about the problem dont begin with the problem. Go back further to basic principles about God and His dealing with man
Apply the principles to the problem - think about your problem in light of these principles
Commit the matter to God in faith - whether you know what to do or not
Habakkuk saw God’s revelation as more perplexing than relieving. It seemed to be inconsistent on God’s part. The prophet knew that in this crisis time of perplexing problems seeming to conflict with faith he knew He had to focus on God and His character.
G. Campbell Morgan wrote “Men of faith are always the men who have to confront problems” If you are going to trust and believe in God you are going to wonder why He allows certain things to happen. It is ok to doubt - doubt is not the same as unbelief. The doubter wrestles with God but doesnt abandon Him and the unbeliever has abandoned and ignores God. Unbelief is an act of the will, while doubt is born out of troubled mind and broken heart.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Habakkuk was perplexed wicked and violence seem to go unchecked. Is there no end to the rising tide of evil and sin? Habakkuk took his complaint to the one who could do something about it. He essentially said “Why dont you do something?” God’s response added to Habakkuk’s perplexity even more - “I am and what I am doing you will not understand nor believe”
One of the modern Christian myths is that when you give your life to Jesus you dont have any problems or troubles and you never have doubts or questions. But this often when the biggest questions and doubts start coming
Why do good people suffer?
Why does evil prosper?
Why isnt God answering?
When I am serving the Lord why do I experience suffering and problems?
Christians who claim to be problem free are either not telling the truth or are not growing and experiencing the Christian walk/faith. Like Job’s friends miserable comforters. Those walking faith ask questions like Habakkuk and David and Jesus
1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning?
46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Elí, Elí, lemá sabachtháni?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
2 How long, Lord, must I call for help and you do not listen or cry out to you about violence and you do not save?
Habakkuk teaches us to not be that believer. As we look out and survey the scene around us we are going to be faced with serious problems that may perplex us. We must like Habakkuk do the right thing and take these before the Lord.
Before we are ready to listen to God’s encouraging reply, we must pause to examine our own hearts. Are we fully yielded to God and willing for Him to have His way with us and with those whom we love? There’s nothing wrong with wrestling with the problems of life and seeking a better understanding of God’s will, but we must beware lest we start debating with God and trying to change His mind.
We admire Habakkuk for being an honest man and wanting God to spare the people he loved. We want to imitate him in his openness and sincerity and in his willingness to wait for God’s answer. But we want to remember that Paul wrote to the believers in Rome:
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways! 34 For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? 35 And who has ever given to God, that he should be repaid? 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
Communion
Communion
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.