Great. Good evening, everyone. I'm really excited about this series. I know Habakkuk might feel a little bit random. Alistair alluded to the fact that it might be a slightly difficult book to find, but I hope that the next three weeks are a real blessing to you as we spend some time in this book. Before we dive in, why don't we pray together? Let me pray.
Heavenly Father, we ask for your help this evening as we come to your word, as we come with many questions. Lord, we pray that you would be with us, that you would be helping us to understand. Lord, would you speak through me this evening? In Jesus' name. Amen.
So I want you to imagine with me to picture yourself in 1939. You're on a boat. It's a smallish sort of boat, and you're in the English Channel because you're on your way to World War II. You're on your way to fight at the front in France.
But you can't think about that now because your smallish sort of boat is sort of sinking. There's a storm thrashing all around you. Huge waves, gale force winds, relentless sideways rain. It looks like the end might come for you before you even land in France, before you even get to the war.
Might be quite hard to picture yourself there. Difficult to imagine. But I wonder how you might react in a situation like that. You know yourself better than I do. Maybe you're the sort of person that would panic, take your army hat off and hopelessly start bailing water out of your ship. Maybe you're the sort of person who would dive into the sea and try and swim back to Dover.
Maybe you're the sort of person who would just curl up into a ball and do nothing, frozen, terrified. Maybe you're the sort of person who'd be in denial, just really pretending that everything was okay, even though it wasn't.
That's a pretty stark illustration, I think. But the truth is that life can feel a little bit like that, can't it? Like a bit of a storm. How do we respond in the storms of life?
Because if we're honest, the world that we live in, it's a bit of a mess. You just have to look at the news and see there's war, there's violence. In fact, I'm sure we don't even need to look at the news to know this in our own lives.
There's just buckets of injustice in the world that we live in. I'm sure we can all think of a particular person in our lives, maybe in our pasts, or a group of people, or a specific injustice
that has really made your mess. Aren't we asking, whether we believe in God or not this evening, aren't we asking, what is he doing in all of this?
If he is supposed to be loving and good and powerful and just, then why does the world, why does life feel like such a mess?
That's really our question this evening, but it's also going to be our question over the next three evenings.
It's this, how do we have faith even in the mess?
Let's dive into our text this evening, just as we get our bearings, and have a look at verse one with me.
The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received. So what are we coming to here?
Well, that word translated prophecy, it really just means message or burden.
This is the burden that God has placed on Habakkuk's heart about the injustice of the world around him.
But it's quite unlike some of the maybe more familiar prophetic books in this genre,
because it's not addressed to a particular people.
Instead, this book, it takes the form of a conversation between Habakkuk and God.
Maybe you picked up on that in the reading.
Habakkuk sort of asks God a question, and then God responds.
We'll see next week, the same thing happens again.
He asks a second question, and God responds.
And then in the final chapter, Habakkuk responds himself with this wonderful song.
And we'll see as we go through that these questions that Habakkuk asks are incredibly specific, actually.
Specific to the situation of a prophet in 7th century Judah.
But his specific questions, they're also incredibly timeless, because at their heart, they're still the questions that we're asking today.
So what was Habakkuk's world like?
Well, a bit of potted history.
Israel was the northern kingdom.
They had been conquered and carried off into exile by the Assyrian Empire.
Big crisis.
And for Judah, the southern kingdom, that was followed by a century of bad kings, idol worship and violence.
Until along comes King Josiah.
Josiah was a good king in a line of really bad kings.
And there's something of a revival under King Josiah.
The nation of Judah returns to worship the one true God.
But then Josiah dies in battle.
One son replaces him.
He only lasts a couple of months.
But then his other son, Jehoiakim, becomes king.
And he's awful.
In fact, he reversed all the good that his father Josiah had done.
There is a return to violence, to faithlessness.
That's the sort of context then that Habakkuk asks this question in.
In the sort of violence and faithlessness and mess with the memory of a good king.
He's a faithful prophet calling out to God in a messy world.
And in some ways, I think that being a Christian in Scotland today might feel a little bit like being a prophet in Judah.
Certainly it can feel as though the church is slowly or maybe not so slowly dying.
Easy to lament a decline in what we would see as true Christian spirituality.
To look at the waning Christian influence in this country.
To watch the powers of lawlessness and injustice.
Now, I have to say at this point that virtually every generation of Christian history has felt a bit like that.
Like a faithful minority in a messy world.
But it is certainly true today.
And so we might feel a bit like Habakkuk as he asks his first question.
Calling out in a messy world.
So here's our first point then.
It's an honest question.
A really honest question that Habakkuk asks.
See in verse 2.
How long, Lord, must I call for help?
But you do not listen.
Or cry out to you violence.
But you do not save.
It's an honest question.
But notice Habakkuk isn't doubting God's existence.
Or even who God is.
He calls him Lord.
It's a name that points to all that God has done.
Raising up for himself a people.
Rescuing them out of slavery in Egypt.
Bringing them into the promised land.
It is this God to whom he prays.
And notice too that he doesn't doubt that God is going to do something.
It's God's timing, not his character, that Habakkuk questions here.
He is desperate to see God's justice done.
How long?
And yet it seems no answer.
He's been calling out about the violence of this King Jehoiakim.
Jehoiakim.
How long?
See in verse 3 the kind of thing that he's talking about.
The injustice.
The wrongdoing.
The destruction and violence.
And strife and conflict.
And so he just honestly asks.
How long until you're going to do justice, Lord?
Aren't we asking that question today?
How long?
What are you going to do about our messy world?
God.
But Habakkuk isn't denying that God is a God of justice.
Because it is God's justice that Habakkuk is concerned with.
You see in verse 4 he says the law is paralyzed.
That's the law given by God to help his people live wisely in the world.
Under these kings, under Jehoiakim, under the wicked,
that law is not allowed to function.
And so justice never prevails.
Justice is perverted.
And so just like us, Habakkuk is on the boat.
He's in the storm.
There's injustice all around him.
It's worth saying at this stage that if you look at the world that we live in,
and if you see the injustice and it bothers you,
that the mess, you know, as women continue to be trafficked into sex slavery,
as war continues to rage,
as vulnerable minorities all over the world are exploited and persecuted,
if you see that this is the sort of world that we live in,
and it bothers you, and it should bother you,
if that's you, but you don't believe in this God,
then you have to ask yourself,
where are you getting your idea of justice from in the first place?
Because without God, Richard Dawkins puts it like this on the screen,
in a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replications,
in other words, in a world without God,
some people are going to get lucky,
and some people are going to get hurt,
and we won't find any rhyme or reason to it.
DNA neither knows nor cares.
DNA just is.
And we dance to the music.
If there is no rhyme or reason,
if everything really is just left to chance,
then why do each of us in this room feel as though there should be justice?
Why do we cry out for justice in the first place?
Well, let me suggest that it's only because that is the character of the God of the universe.
And especially in this country today,
it is only because the influence of his son,
the son that we believe in,
over the last 2,000 years.
If you're keen to think a bit more about that,
do grab me after.
I've got a really good book recommendation for you here.
I read it this summer.
It's excellent.
But it really is true that what we believe about justice in this country
is rooted in the Christian faith.
But for now, as we consider what to do in the midst of all this mess,
what can we learn from Habakkuk's question?
A bit like being in a small,
smallish sort of ship in a storm,
I think the temptation is basically twofold.
Our first instinct might be to bury our head in the sand.
In other words, to simply ignore the depths of injustice,
to deny that the problem is really that bad,
to keep on living our comfortable lives
and refusing to actually get involved in the mess at all.
I guess that's like pretending there is no storm
or curling up into the hull of the ship terrified.
On the other hand, we might do the opposite, right?
We might be the kind of person
who's trying to fix it all ourselves.
Our instinct, it might be to throw ourselves headfirst
into every justice fighting cause we can get our teeth into.
But doing that faithlessly or in prayerlessness
is failing to recognize who God is,
failing to recognize what he has said about his justice
and then becoming self-reliant,
believing that we are capable of bringing his justice on our own.
You do that, you will very quickly become discouraged
at our inability to have any real impact.
It's like trying to bail water from a ship in a storm
with an army hat.
And so instead, this evening,
would we learn from this honest prayer?
Knowing who God is,
knowing that he is a God who is perfectly just,
a God who has displayed his character
through the history of his people,
who has promised ultimately to prove his justice finally,
would we know that this is who God is
and plead with him,
your kingdom come,
that his justice would be done?
We'll return to this over the coming weeks,
but before we do,
let's just have a look at the surprising promise of justice.
And it is a surprising promise here
that God gives Habakkuk.
See in verse five,
look at the nations and watch
and be utterly amazed
for I'm going to do something in your days
that you would not believe
even if you were told.
What's God going to do about it?
Well, something so surprising
that Habakkuk would be amazed
that he'd scarcely believe it.
It's something coming from the nations.
In verse six, he says,
I am raising up the Babylonians.
Your translation may have the Chaldeans.
But these guys,
the Babylonians or the Chaldeans,
their empire had been and gone.
A thousand years before Habakkuk's day,
the Babylonian empire was the superpower.
They had long since been squashed.
But the Babylonians or the Chaldeans
apparently were going to rise up once more.
That's surprising to Habakkuk.
What about the Assyrian empire?
Those guys who had just wiped out
the northern kingdom.
They were the big bad guys.
Surely it would be them.
But there's a new kid on the block.
Indeed, as we keep reading in verse six,
they sweep across the whole earth
to seize a dwelling not their own.
There's a certain inevitability
about what is coming.
And so no wonder they are a feared
and dreaded people.
Maybe you can imagine the feeling.
Seeing an empire gathering on the horizon,
knowing that they're coming for your nation.
I wonder it might have been a bit like that
for the people of Ukraine.
I suspect the other countries in Eastern Europe
right now might feel a little bit like this.
Fear and dread.
The imagery is terrifying.
Have a look at verse eight.
Their horses are swifter than leopards,
fiercer than wolves at dusk.
Their cavalry gallops headlong.
Their horses come from afar.
They fly like an eagle swooping to devour.
The Babylonians and their horses
are compared to the most brutal predators.
They are fast and fierce and ferocious.
They advance in verse nine like the desert wind
and gather prisoners like sand.
What grain of sand would stand a chance
against the whipping wind?
It's a picture of an army gathering up prisoners with ease.
They mock kings, scoff at rulers,
laugh at fortified cities.
In some ways, I think this image is even more brutal.
This sort of foreboding laughter is terrifying.
Babylon is like the bully in the playground.
And this little kid finally stands up to him
and the bully just laughs.
We all know what's coming next.
He just sort of swipes the kid aside,
moving on to his next victim,
just as the Babylonian does in verse 11.
They sweep past like the wind and go on.
This is what's coming, God says.
It's brutal.
It's terrifying.
But look back in verse six and see the real surprise.
It is God who is raising them up.
They're simply his instrument carrying out his justice.
That's surprising enough just as a plain fact.
But more than that, notice in verse seven,
they are a law unto themselves and promote their own honor.
We begin to get a note of irony here.
If you look back at verse four,
the law is paralyzed for God's people.
But now those who God is raising up to bring justice,
well, they're lawless too.
And just like the people of Judah,
the people Habakkuk is complaining about,
see in verse nine, the Babylonians come,
they come intent on violence.
It's just the way that Judah was described.
Worse than that, it is their own honor that they promote.
If God's people are being judged for their faithlessness,
their inability to promote God's honor,
well, these people aren't interested in promoting God's honor at all.
No, see at the end of verse 11,
their own strength is their God.
They're totally self-reliant.
Actually, this is a pretty unusual thing in the ancient world,
where basically every nation has their own gods,
gods external to themselves,
national gods and fertility gods and especially gods of war.
But this people, the Babylonian people,
as it's described here,
they are so self-reliant,
so self-absorbed that their own strength is their God.
Isn't that the ultimate idolatry?
And actually,
not only is that the ultimate idolatry,
but isn't it the most universal?
To rely on our own efforts in life.
So easy to fall into,
whether you're a Christian here this evening or not,
to be fundamentally self-reliant.
Even sort of specifically Christianly self-reliant,
I think, relying on my own good deeds
or my devotion or my growth in whatever area.
But really,
that reliance is a denial of the God who created us.
It's idolatry.
We'll see in all of this,
how the Babylonians are described.
Essentially in verse 11,
guilty people.
These people,
the people that God is raising up to judge Judah,
well,
they're just as bad as Judah themselves.
It's as though God is saying on your small boat
in the midst of the storm,
here's how I'm going to fix your mess.
I'm going to send an even bigger storm.
It's a surprising justice.
And it begs the question,
if justice is really to be done,
then surely God's got to judge them too.
It's a good question.
Well,
if you come back next week,
you'll see that's exactly the question
that Habakkuk asks next.
But for now,
what do we do with this?
Because we remain at sea.
The storm,
it rages.
This is the world that we live in.
It's a mess.
And how does this surprising promise of justice
help us to have faith in the mess today?
There's a temptation here
to think about today's events,
I think,
and to think about how they
might be God's judgment like this.
Right?
People have said how COVID might be that,
how war in Europe,
or rising energy prices,
or global warming,
or whatever it is,
is God judging his people.
And that the book of Habakkuk
is there to point to those events,
to draw straight lines
from Old Testament prophecy
to today like that.
But that is not what the Bible
is encouraging us to do.
We know that God used the Babylonians
to judge his people like this.
He promises to do it.
The Bible says that it happens,
and history confirms it.
But that does not mean
that we can point to anything today
and say that it's definitely
God's justice on a wicked people
as the fulfillment of what he's saying
in Habakkuk chapter one.
It might be that,
but we cannot say confidently
that we know that it is.
And even if we could,
that's not the point
of this Bible prophecy.
Instead, it points
to an even greater
surprising promise of justice.
As we look at the messy world
that we live in,
and as we desire
that justice would be done,
I think the key question really is,
why is the world such a mess?
Who makes the world messy?
If we answer that question,
we then have another question,
what would justice look like?
You might lay the blame
at God's feet.
If he is the creator
and he made the rules,
and if he's all-powerful,
then surely it's his fault.
If the rules are being broken,
then why shouldn't he
just do something about it?
But could the blame lie elsewhere?
Let me illustrate it like this.
During the COVID pandemic,
during lockdown,
if I broke the rules,
some unessential travel
to go to the beach
for a barbecue with my friends,
or seven people gathering
when only six were allowed,
who would be to blame?
Me for breaking the rules,
or the government
for failing to enforce them?
God created us with free will,
the freedom to choose
between right and wrong.
We are not robots.
We are capable of making real decisions
with profound consequences.
Who then is to blame
for the injustice of this world?
Well, the Bible is clear about that.
I am.
And you are.
The Bible teaches
that God created a perfect world
without injustice,
and that human rebellion
against God
is what ruined it.
As our relationship
with God was broken,
as our relationship
with each other,
and our relationship
with the created world,
isn't that just describing
the mess that we live in?
And so in this sort of world,
what does justice look like?
Well, come to Acts chapter 13 with me.
It's on the screen.
Here Paul is preaching
to the Jews at the synagogue,
and he retells Israel's story,
how Israel was consistently unfaithful
to her God,
and then ultimately Paul shows
how Jesus is the solution.
And he concludes,
Let it be known to you,
therefore, brothers,
that through this man,
that is Jesus,
forgiveness of sins
is proclaimed to you.
And by him,
everyone who believes
is freed from everything
from which you could not be freed
by the law of Moses.
Here is the surprising justice of God.
For God's people,
for the Jews in the first century
when Jesus was around,
justice had been simple.
It was provided in the law,
the law of Moses.
Follow that,
and justice would be complete.
And built into that law
was the promise, of course,
of forgiveness through sacrifice.
But it didn't work
because the people
didn't follow the law.
We've seen that
in Habakkuk already.
And the sacrifices
had to be continually made.
It wasn't a mistake
that it didn't work.
The whole point of it
was to point to this
surprising justice of God,
that one day
he would do it for us.
It's the once
and for all time
sacrifice of Jesus.
And notice,
God uses guilty people
to carry out that justice.
Just like the promise
in Habakkuk,
this is the surprising
justice of the cross.
As God comes down
in the person of Jesus
and he's crucified,
nailed to the cross
by who?
Nailed to the cross
by the Romans,
by an idolatrous,
violent empire,
an empire that the New Testament
calls Babylon.
And in that moment,
he took the guilt
of the world
on his shoulders.
Why?
Well, it's as we read
in Romans 3
earlier in our service.
He did it to demonstrate
his righteousness
at the present time
so as to be just
and the one who justifies
those who have faith
in Jesus.
So that all those
who have faith in him,
seeing that we are guilty,
that we contribute
to the mess,
that there is mess
in our hearts,
faith in this mess
is knowing
that God
is just
in Jesus.
Knowing that justice
has been satisfied
in Jesus
and knowing
that we
have been justified
in Jesus.
And that is
a surprising justice.
As Paul continues
in Acts chapter 13,
he quotes from Habakkuk.
It's at the bottom there.
I am doing
a work in your days,
a work that you
will not believe
even if no one
tells you.
This is the surprising
justice of God,
so surprising
that the Jews
that Paul is talking
to here
would hardly believe.
And this is where
we've got to start
for faith in the mess.
It's not a complete answer,
not yet,
but it's a start.
William Thomas,
he's often known
as Staffordshire Tom,
was drunk,
as usual.
He was sat
in his normal seat
in the working men's club
in Aberavon
in the Welsh Valleys
or South Wales,
and even the other regulars
had learned
to avoid him
because it was his habit
to complain.
He'd spent a lifetime
in the mines
on low wages,
awful conditions.
He was well acquainted
with injustice.
And when he got drunk,
he was very quick
to share his opinions
about the mess of life,
about the mess of the world
around him.
And so as you might imagine,
he sat there feeling lonely,
hopeless,
and depressed,
staring into his pint.
And there were lots
of little groups,
just threes and fours
at the tables around him,
chatting away,
and he couldn't help
but overhear
one conversation.
He caught the words
preacher and church,
and he was just about ready
to switch off
when he heard
this sentence.
Yes,
the man said
no one was hopeless.
He said there was hope
for everybody.
Bill's mouth fell open,
his eyes bulged wide.
He thought to himself,
if there's hope
for everybody,
then there's hope
for me.
And he went
to that church
and he discovered
hope
in the faith
of the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
Christ.
And so let me
take you back
to that smallish
boat in the storm.
Whatever your instinct,
whether you get to work
or bury your head,
Habakkuk would encourage us,
knowing who God is,
knowing that he is
a God of justice,
he would encourage us
to ask honestly,
how long?
But he would also
encourage us
to see God's promise,
a promise of
surprising justice.
It might and it should
leave us with questions
about ultimate
and eternal justice.
We'll come to that
next week.
But for now,
see the surprising
justice of the cross.
Let's start there,
acknowledging that
even in this mess,
acknowledging together
that we desperately
need the hope
of this faith.
Friends,
in all of the mess
of the world,
in all of the mess
that we have caused,
in the mess of our own hearts,
there is hope.
Hope in the faith
of the gospel,
hope in Jesus.
Even in all our questions,
let's start there.
Let me pray.
Heavenly Father,
we come to you
this evening
and we cry out
with Habakkuk.
How long?
We look at the injustice
of the world we live in
and we ask,
Lord,
that your justice
would be done.
And in the meantime,
Lord,
would you comfort us
in this mess?
Would you be with us
by your Spirit?
And as we consider
the ways that we have,
the ways that we do
contribute to injustice,
Lord,
we thank you so much
for what you've done
in Jesus.
being both just
and the justifier,
that we might be justified.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.