WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.960 Thank you, Corey. It's great to be with you and to have September. I'll be 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:09.160 preaching here in September Sunday evenings through the book of Habakkuk. 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:15.280 So if you have your Bible there, please keep it open at Habakkuk chapter 1. It 00:00:15.280 --> 00:00:22.800 was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That line will probably be 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:26.519 familiar to a lot of you. For some of you, you might not know where you've heard 00:00:26.519 --> 00:00:31.640 it, but it sounds familiar. For some of you, you'll know, oh yeah, that's 00:00:31.640 --> 00:00:35.879 Dickens. Some of you might even know it's the opening line to one of his books. 00:00:35.879 --> 00:00:42.119 It's a tale of two cities. Some of you might even know the story, the context, 00:00:42.119 --> 00:00:47.760 why this opening line is so perfect and therefore so memorable, why it spreads 00:00:47.760 --> 00:00:54.000 out, why it's gone viral as a line. It's the story of a French doctor who lives in 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:58.320 the context of, well, the French Revolution is coming, the reign of terror is 00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:02.820 coming. All around there's hunger, there's instability, there's death and 00:01:02.820 --> 00:01:08.719 murder. The main character spends 18 years in prison and when you know the 00:01:08.719 --> 00:01:15.879 story, you know why this line is so perfect as a way to encapsulate the 00:01:15.879 --> 00:01:21.840 whole book. I think if you took that line, it was the best of times, it was 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:27.920 the worst of times and tried to rework it a little bit to fit the book of 00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:32.240 Habakkuk, which is this really short little book in the minor prophets, only 00:01:32.240 --> 00:01:37.719 three chapters long. Chapters one and two would be the, it was the worst of times 00:01:37.719 --> 00:01:44.719 section and chapter three would be the best of times. Now Habakkuk is extremely 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:49.040 short. You know, if you're flicking through a print Bible to try and find it, 00:01:49.040 --> 00:01:54.400 if you blink, you'll miss it because it's so short. But, and you could go to 00:01:54.400 --> 00:02:00.320 church for years and probably not hear it preached on or preached through. And 00:02:00.320 --> 00:02:04.880 there's so much that we don't even know about Habakkuk himself. He's mysterious. 00:02:04.880 --> 00:02:08.520 We know that he's a prophet. We know that he's literate. At one point he's told to 00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:13.439 write something down on a clay tablet. So there's a tiny hint about his level of 00:02:13.439 --> 00:02:18.879 education. But apart from that, we know almost nothing about him. We don't even 00:02:18.879 --> 00:02:24.319 know how to say his name. People, you might have heard Habakkuk, Habakkuk. We 00:02:24.319 --> 00:02:27.359 don't even know which language his name was in. So the kind of scholars who get 00:02:27.359 --> 00:02:31.879 into this kind of thing debate, is it a Hebrew name that means embrace? Is it an 00:02:31.879 --> 00:02:36.120 Akkadian name that's the name of a plant? We don't know. Okay, so he's ultra 00:02:36.120 --> 00:02:43.000 mysterious. But his book is extremely important. Maybe disproportionately so 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:49.719 when we think of how little we engage with Habakkuk as a book. To stick with 00:02:49.719 --> 00:02:54.080 where I started with this line, it was the best of times, it was the worst of 00:02:54.080 --> 00:03:02.639 times. Everyone knows that line. It's metaphorical everyone. It's extremely 00:03:02.639 --> 00:03:07.199 well known. It's such a well-known line that there's a parody version of it 00:03:07.199 --> 00:03:12.319 that stand-up comedians sometimes use to begin their show. And it's a parody 00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:17.039 based on a rapper called Buster Rhymes. Probably the first time and also 00:03:17.039 --> 00:03:20.719 probably the last time. He's ever been mentioned in a sermon in St. C's. But the 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:26.359 parody is, it was the Buster Rhymes. It was the Worcester Rhymes. Perfect opening 00:03:26.359 --> 00:03:31.599 line. And people will laugh at that if they have never heard of Dickens. They 00:03:31.599 --> 00:03:34.599 still get that it's a reference to something that they've heard of. That 00:03:34.599 --> 00:03:38.959 there's a great line out there somewhere even if they don't know about the 00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:46.280 French Revolution or the reign of terror or 18 years in prison. Habakkuk is kind 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:50.760 of like that in a strange kind of way. So stick with me here. Habakkuk has a 00:03:50.760 --> 00:03:57.040 perfect line that encapsulates what the whole book is about. A line that has gone 00:03:57.040 --> 00:04:01.439 viral throughout the Bible. A line that's quoted three times in the New 00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:06.920 Testament. A line that probably if you're a Christian you will know. And it is 00:04:06.919 --> 00:04:13.439 this. The just shall live by faith. If you're a Christian do you recognize 00:04:13.439 --> 00:04:16.360 that verse? Absolutely. Every hand goes up. If you're not a Christian have you 00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:19.639 heard that verse? If you studied the Protestant Reformation at school and 00:04:19.639 --> 00:04:22.959 Martin Luther you probably heard the verse, right? It's extremely well known. 00:04:22.959 --> 00:04:29.319 Where is it from? The Bible. Where in the Bible? Oh I know. It's in 00:04:29.319 --> 00:04:34.360 Romans. Bonus points. It's in Galatians. It's in Hebrews in the New 00:04:34.360 --> 00:04:40.240 Testament. Okay. And where are they quoting from? Okay and this is 00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:43.900 where if you know the book of Habakkuk you know they're quoting 00:04:43.900 --> 00:04:48.160 Habakkuk. Okay what happens in Habakkuk? What's the back story? What's the 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:53.800 context of the line that the just shall live by faith in Habakkuk? What did 00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:56.960 Habakkuk live through? What's the story of this book? And then when you get into 00:04:56.960 --> 00:05:00.439 that story and you realize the kind of context that he's living in and when you 00:05:00.439 --> 00:05:03.879 find out who said this line in the book of Habakkuk. Was it Habakkuk himself? 00:05:03.879 --> 00:05:08.319 So we're gonna see as we go through the book it's something that God says to 00:05:08.319 --> 00:05:13.600 Habakkuk to describe to him the kind of life that he wants Habakkuk to have in 00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:18.480 a particular context where he feels like he's living in the worst of times. Okay 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:22.199 so the more we get into it the more we start to see that Habakkuk is really 00:05:22.199 --> 00:05:26.839 important and that actually knowing the book of Habakkuk will change what might 00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:33.240 be really familiar words to you, the just shall live by faith. But Habakkuk is 00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:39.720 also extremely important because it's it's such a timely book, it's so 00:05:39.720 --> 00:05:47.199 particularly acutely relevant to our own day in our own context. It's set in a 00:05:47.199 --> 00:05:53.600 place where people didn't say it was the best of times and paradoxically it also 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:57.480 felt like the worst of times. It was set in a place where people just felt like 00:05:57.480 --> 00:06:04.560 no it's just the worst of times. So Habakkuk was written in the 7th century 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:10.840 BC. Okay so in the time before Christ and in the world around Habakkuk there are 00:06:10.840 --> 00:06:17.280 three huge national political military powers that have all been vying for 00:06:17.280 --> 00:06:23.080 position of world domination. So you have the Egyptians led by their Pharaoh, you 00:06:23.079 --> 00:06:28.279 have the Assyrians and you also have the Babylonians and the geopolitics 00:06:28.279 --> 00:06:32.879 of this in the background to Habakkuk's life is that the Babylonians are 00:06:32.879 --> 00:06:38.079 getting extremely powerful, so powerful that their enemies have to unite to try 00:06:38.079 --> 00:06:43.079 and stop them from dominating. So the Assyrians and Egyptians team up and the 00:06:43.079 --> 00:06:48.519 Babylonians utterly destroy them. Okay so you can read about this in Jeremiah 00:06:48.519 --> 00:06:56.000 46. There was a battle, the battle of Kar-Khimish happened in 605 BC and 00:06:56.000 --> 00:07:00.159 Jeremiah writes about it when the Assyrians and Egyptians teamed up to 00:07:00.159 --> 00:07:03.919 fight the Babylonians and the Babylonians completely destroyed them. If you 00:07:03.919 --> 00:07:08.199 want to, if you're in London and you go to the British Museum you can see a clay 00:07:08.199 --> 00:07:12.159 tablet there, it's called the Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle and it talks about 00:07:12.159 --> 00:07:17.120 this battle as well and the Chronicle tells you that some of the Egyptian 00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:20.280 soldiers tried to flee when they saw they were losing and they tried to get 00:07:20.280 --> 00:07:24.680 home to Egypt and the Babylonians were such an efficient military machine that 00:07:24.680 --> 00:07:27.439 they got there ahead of them and killed every single one of them, they're not a 00:07:27.439 --> 00:07:33.160 single Egyptian soldier made at home. Okay so this is a world-changing event 00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:40.079 that's there in the background and what it means is that some of the world's 00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:44.560 biggest armies have just been wiped out and now there is one big army in the 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:48.560 world and if you want to oppose them and it's literally a question of what yeah 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:52.879 but you and whose army, okay they can now do what they want in the world and 00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:56.920 they are the Babylonians and this is and this means that they now have no rivals 00:07:56.920 --> 00:08:00.319 they have their plan for world domination and the strategy is well if you 00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:05.720 destroy all the military opposition then it's a soft takeover after that 00:08:05.720 --> 00:08:13.480 because nobody has any power to oppose you and that is Habakkuk's problem. This 00:08:13.480 --> 00:08:17.480 is why it feels like the worst of times for him because he can see that the 00:08:17.480 --> 00:08:21.920 Babylonians are coming and humanly speaking there is nothing that can be 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:27.960 done to stop them. They have the right, okay in terms of might is right, they have 00:08:27.960 --> 00:08:33.440 the right to come and take the best of what your land produces and if you don't 00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:38.159 give them that well they'll take your sons away turn them into eunuchs in the 00:08:38.159 --> 00:08:42.300 court of their king, they want you to live by their values, they want you to 00:08:42.299 --> 00:08:47.759 speak their language, to worship their gods above all their supreme God Marduk 00:08:47.759 --> 00:08:53.199 and they want you to see their city Babylon as the center of the world, as 00:08:53.199 --> 00:09:00.599 the pinnacle of everything that you would want. It's the city of Babylon and 00:09:00.599 --> 00:09:05.439 this might seem kind of abstract and ancient history to you, okay if you wanted 00:09:05.439 --> 00:09:09.319 to come a bit more alive and again if you happen to be in London and you go to 00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:14.040 the British Museum and you go to their Mesopotamia section you can see 00:09:14.040 --> 00:09:18.240 artifacts of the Babylonian Empire and just how impressive it was. If you go to 00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:23.840 Berlin and go to the city museum their Babylonian display will absolutely 00:09:23.840 --> 00:09:27.240 blow you away in terms of the might and the grandeur and the resources that they 00:09:27.240 --> 00:09:33.240 had. So this is all coming and if you're Habakkuk it's like a tsunami of 00:09:33.240 --> 00:09:38.960 oppression is there in the distance and it's getting closer and closer and it 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:44.759 feels like humanly there's just nothing that you can do to stop this. So these 00:09:44.759 --> 00:09:48.840 aren't the best and the worst of times, they just feel like the worst of times. 00:09:48.840 --> 00:09:56.960 The world he's in was not the world as he wanted it to be and why do I say that 00:09:56.960 --> 00:10:05.120 that's timely in 2024 in Edinburgh? Well that is how a lot of people in our 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:12.240 culture and our city see the world as well. So I grew up in the way back in 00:10:12.240 --> 00:10:17.240 other ancient history the 1980s and 1990s which were in British culture were 00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:25.200 decades of excess. Cheap credit, materialist values, living to consume, a 00:10:25.200 --> 00:10:30.240 culture of you know spend and then show that you've spent, a culture of let the 00:10:30.240 --> 00:10:35.320 good times roll and don't judge me way more than a culture of feeling sort of 00:10:35.320 --> 00:10:39.600 guilty for the consequences of our actions or talking about justice across 00:10:39.600 --> 00:10:45.560 society. But that feels like they didn't in the distant past and nowadays the 00:10:45.560 --> 00:10:49.159 culture around us is very different. If you ask people to describe this as feel 00:10:49.159 --> 00:10:53.120 like the best of times or the worst of times the long list of things that will 00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:57.060 roll. Not so much letting the good times roll but the long list will be well the 00:10:57.059 --> 00:11:03.679 cost of living crisis, the war in Ukraine, the culture war in our newspapers 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:09.599 and our schools, the situation in Israel and Gaza, the struggling education 00:11:09.599 --> 00:11:15.599 system, the struggling NHS, the sense of politics being futile and unstable and 00:11:15.599 --> 00:11:22.439 everyone hating each other and you could just go on and on. People feel deep 00:11:22.440 --> 00:11:28.600 anxiety about all of these things and it's not surprising nowadays when you 00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:33.240 meet young adults who don't really see a future of flourishing opening up for 00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:37.720 them. It's hard to find housing, it's hard to find jobs, it's hard to imagine 00:11:37.720 --> 00:11:42.920 having a family one day and you sometimes meet young people who will say 00:11:42.920 --> 00:11:48.920 even if I could what I want to, would I want to bring children into this world. 00:11:48.919 --> 00:11:55.120 If you lived in Habakkuk's day, one of the slogans, an export slogan, 00:11:55.120 --> 00:12:00.279 aspirational living for the Babylonians and a sort of persuasion attempt to make 00:12:00.279 --> 00:12:07.839 you become one of them was, may the enemy not flourish. So if you went to Babylon 00:12:07.839 --> 00:12:11.399 itself, the city, there was a big street that you walked down when you came in, 00:12:11.399 --> 00:12:17.199 180 meters long, really grand, display of power as you enter the city and the city 00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:21.400 was called, may the enemy not flourish. Street is kind of implied. 00:12:21.400 --> 00:12:27.000 So that's the message that you hear when you come into the city and that's to 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:31.879 tell you get on site. If you're not, you will not flourish and that's a message 00:12:31.879 --> 00:12:37.120 to Habakkuk, people like him. But nowadays I think a lot of people around us feel 00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:42.640 like this world that we live in is not a place of flourishing and that's why 00:12:42.639 --> 00:12:50.720 Habakkuk is so timely. It's a book that makes us ask, how do you live as a 00:12:50.720 --> 00:12:55.879 person of flourishing? Is that even possible if it feels like you live in 00:12:55.879 --> 00:13:00.120 the worst of times? Or if people around you see that as the kind of age that you 00:13:00.120 --> 00:13:07.200 live in? And what does it look to live by faith in those times? So this week and 00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:10.720 then over the next four Sunday nights we're going to go through these these 00:13:10.720 --> 00:13:14.560 three chapters and tonight we're starting in chapter one verses one to eleven 00:13:14.560 --> 00:13:19.279 where we get introduced to Habakkuk and we have this first interaction with God 00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:25.960 in that context. And that on its own is something to notice. It's actually really 00:13:25.960 --> 00:13:31.360 important. You shouldn't just gloss it over. When you think of prophets in the 00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:37.600 Bible, if that's a thing you think about, you tend to think of someone, probably, 00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:41.680 who hears the voice of God to the people and then who comes and who's like a 00:13:41.680 --> 00:13:49.080 megaphone for God. What do prophets say? Thus is the Lord, right? But Habakkuk is 00:13:49.080 --> 00:13:56.759 different. He's a prophet, really clear in verse one, but rather than talking from 00:13:56.759 --> 00:14:01.600 God to the people, Habakkuk is a prophet who talks to God. So in that sense he is 00:14:01.600 --> 00:14:05.840 different. He's really unique among the prophets. So tonight we're focusing on 00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:12.040 these eleven verses. We're going to do that briefly in three parts. Thinking 00:14:12.040 --> 00:14:17.879 about what Habakkuk saw, because verse one tells us that he saw something, and 00:14:17.879 --> 00:14:24.040 then we're going to look at what he did, or what he said, and thirdly we'll 00:14:24.040 --> 00:14:29.960 look at how God responded to him. So verse one, the oracle that Habakkuk, the 00:14:29.960 --> 00:14:38.200 prophet, saw. And sometimes in the Old Testament, when you have oracles, oracles 00:14:38.200 --> 00:14:44.480 are messages that a prophet hears, or the oracle will be a kind of supernatural 00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:49.000 vision that a prophet sees. Okay, so something somewhere else that a prophet 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:55.879 sees, some revelation of supernatural reality. But the oracle that Habakkuk 00:14:55.879 --> 00:15:03.480 sees also is not like that. His oracle is actually a vision, or a different way 00:15:03.480 --> 00:15:06.840 of seeing the world around him that everyone else is looking at as well. 00:15:06.840 --> 00:15:11.439 It's not a vision of something else, it's actually the world as it really is 00:15:11.439 --> 00:15:18.679 around him, which we're going to see as we go through these verses. And there's 00:15:18.679 --> 00:15:26.879 something else really important again to notice here, that this is obviously an 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:31.519 English translation, the book of Habakkuk written extremely long time ago in 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:39.120 Hebrew. And in the Old Testament in Hebrew, there's a word that sometimes you 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:44.000 have to translate into English as oracle, something like that a 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:48.199 prophet hears or a prophet sees. But sometimes the same word elsewhere in 00:15:48.200 --> 00:15:51.920 the Old Testament is something that you need to translate as burden, as a heavy 00:15:51.920 --> 00:15:56.759 load to bear. And in those passages, it's not really talking about someone 00:15:56.759 --> 00:16:00.160 who sees something, it's just a burden that a person bears. But sometimes it's 00:16:00.160 --> 00:16:06.640 very clearly a vision or something that a prophet sees or hears. And so the word 00:16:06.640 --> 00:16:10.400 has these two distinct meanings, you see translated differently in different 00:16:10.400 --> 00:16:16.960 parts of the Old Testament. But with Habakkuk, I think those two meanings come 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:22.759 really close together to the point that almost that they overlap or that it's a 00:16:22.759 --> 00:16:35.759 double meaning, both a burden and a vision. Did he see a vision? Yes. Did he bear 00:16:35.759 --> 00:16:42.000 a burden? Yes. So for example, some of you will have grown up reading the King 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:46.200 James Bible. And if you read Habakkuk in the King James Bible, 00:16:46.200 --> 00:16:52.920 begins the burden that the prophet Habakkuk did see. And that's not a wrong 00:16:52.920 --> 00:16:58.200 translation, just like it's not a wrong translation in the ESV here, the oracle 00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:04.920 that he did see. So when we think about what he saw, his oracle, his vision, his 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:10.319 burden, we have to start off seeing him as someone who is put in a very 00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:21.240 particular position by God. He has been convinced of some things by God. He has 00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:32.079 been compelled to see the world in a certain way by God. And Habakkuk can't 00:17:32.079 --> 00:17:37.679 undo that. He can't unsee what he has seen. He can't unbelieve what he has been 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:44.160 compelled to believe. But none of that, none of the way that God has convinced 00:17:44.160 --> 00:17:48.360 him to see the world makes his life easier. In fact, it's a burden. Makes his 00:17:48.360 --> 00:17:56.720 life harder. It's an oracle and it's a burden. So what was it that he saw? Well, 00:17:56.720 --> 00:18:01.240 he saw violence. How long, oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help? And will you 00:18:01.240 --> 00:18:04.920 not hear or cry to your violence and you will not save? Why do you make me see 00:18:04.920 --> 00:18:09.840 iniquity? Why do you look idly at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me. 00:18:09.840 --> 00:18:14.640 Strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed and justice never goes 00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:20.039 forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted. 00:18:20.039 --> 00:18:26.360 Now, there's violence. I've already said that in the background there's this, there's 00:18:26.360 --> 00:18:30.640 been this huge sort of World War in effect in the background and a huge 00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:34.720 battle, catastrophic, terrifying. If you wonder what's going to come next for us 00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:40.000 in our small town, in our village, that's there. There's iniquity wherever he looks, 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.640 his eyes cannot unsee the evil that is there. There's destruction, there's 00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:52.079 strife, there's contention. The world around him is falling apart. It's being 00:18:52.079 --> 00:18:56.480 destroyed and if you read down through this to what God says in his answer to 00:18:56.480 --> 00:19:01.680 Habakkuk, you start to see that it's being destroyed not through neglect. You 00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:04.640 know, our houses are falling apart just because we don't look after them and 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:11.200 they've kind of fallen to dust. It's falling apart through being 00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:15.200 plundered and pillaged. Our world is being destroyed because somebody is taking 00:19:15.200 --> 00:19:19.120 all the bits and anything of any value to them and we can't do anything to stop 00:19:19.120 --> 00:19:26.480 them. The Babylonians can come and do what they want. Now, that's the kind of 00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:31.640 world that you're in if you're Habakkuk. Think about it like this. So there was, 00:19:31.640 --> 00:19:35.440 I read an article in the BBC website this week and it was about shoplifting, 00:19:35.440 --> 00:19:41.120 which is now a really endemic problem in a lot of places across the UK. There's 00:19:41.120 --> 00:19:47.120 really little that's out there that's a strong deterrent to shoplifters and a 00:19:47.120 --> 00:19:53.960 lot of them steal to maintain drug addictions. And if you're a shop owner, 00:19:53.960 --> 00:19:58.840 shoplifting is a really big problem. It's a threat to your livelihood. And 00:19:58.839 --> 00:20:03.720 what shop owners who feel like this say in the article is, well, at the end of 00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:08.039 the day, I just have to raise prices for the people who do pay for what they 00:20:08.039 --> 00:20:13.559 leave my shop with. And they're the ones who pay for what's been stolen in 00:20:13.559 --> 00:20:16.519 effect. So they get punished and other people steal and I can't do anything 00:20:16.519 --> 00:20:22.439 about it to stop them. And also in the article, there are some shoplifters who 00:20:22.439 --> 00:20:26.199 are willing to buy stolen things from other shops because they can resell 00:20:26.200 --> 00:20:29.960 them at a profit as well. And who aren't really that bothered and who work with 00:20:29.960 --> 00:20:36.840 the shoplifters. Now, in that kind of a scenario where the were for petty 00:20:36.840 --> 00:20:42.799 crimes, feels like the law is paralyzed. What would you expect to find for the 00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:47.319 people who live in that? That's their immediate reality. You would expect to 00:20:47.319 --> 00:20:53.759 find what you can see in that article strife and contention. People respond to 00:20:53.759 --> 00:20:58.640 lawlessness differently. It sets people against each other in all kinds of ways. 00:20:58.640 --> 00:21:02.720 And Habakook, when he looks around himself and sees, okay, the law is 00:21:02.720 --> 00:21:10.160 paralyzed and really bad times are coming. Habakook sees that happening. But 00:21:10.160 --> 00:21:14.319 for Habakook, it's not just, I'm a shopkeeper and I sell grain and 00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:17.200 someone came and lifted a bag of grain and I couldn't do anything to stop it. 00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:21.519 And Habakook state, we're talking about the background to something like the 00:21:21.519 --> 00:21:26.400 book of Daniel. It's our children who are shoplifted. It's that the 00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:29.920 Babylonians will come along and say, okay, these look like your most talented, 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:35.440 healthy, young people with the brightest futures where you're from. They are now 00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:40.559 ours. We're taking them to Babylon, new names, new language, new religion, new 00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:46.519 education. We are going to turn them into, your future is us and you can't do 00:21:46.519 --> 00:21:52.039 anything about it. Okay. And the law is paralyzed. That's what it feels like for 00:21:52.039 --> 00:22:01.319 Habakook. And so Habakook has an interconnected world with international 00:22:01.319 --> 00:22:08.400 warfare and an empire that's about to take over his home and his people and a 00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:14.680 society that's falling apart where God's law is paralyzed, where justice wasn't 00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:19.480 done anymore and Habakook doesn't want to go along with it. Okay. And the message 00:22:19.480 --> 00:22:26.440 from the Babylonians is, well, here's your solution. Join us. Resistance is 00:22:26.440 --> 00:22:31.240 futile. We are the Babylonians and that would have been the easy option by far 00:22:31.240 --> 00:22:35.560 for Habakook in the immediate, but he doesn't want to do that. So that's what 00:22:35.560 --> 00:22:43.600 he saw. What did he do? Well, he cries out to God, oh Lord, how long shall I cry 00:22:43.599 --> 00:22:48.000 to you for help? Okay. So what he saw around him was terrible. It looked 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.759 hopeless and bleak, not the best of times and a cheery way alongside the worst of 00:22:52.759 --> 00:22:58.159 times. And what you can see in this verse is that Habakook prays about it and he 00:22:58.159 --> 00:23:02.679 prays about it a lot. Okay. You don't say, how long will I cry to you if you've 00:23:02.679 --> 00:23:07.119 only done that once? Okay. This is repeated. This is his posture towards God, 00:23:07.119 --> 00:23:15.000 not a one-off. This is the stuff of his prayers over and over. Now one thing to, 00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.079 I'm just going to zoom out for a second to give you the big picture of the small 00:23:19.079 --> 00:23:26.519 book of three chapters. Okay. Habakook begins like a Sam, okay, song from the 00:23:26.519 --> 00:23:30.079 Old Testament and it ends like a Sam as well in chapter three. And in the middle, 00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:35.639 there's something else. God speaks. But why does it begin like a Sam? Okay. Well, 00:23:35.640 --> 00:23:41.160 think about, for example, Sam 13. How long Lord will you forget me forever? How 00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:46.280 long will you hide your face from me? Sam 89. How long Lord will you hide yourself 00:23:46.280 --> 00:23:52.280 forever? Okay. So it begins like a Sam and also ends like a Sam in the chapter three 00:23:52.280 --> 00:23:59.480 is Habakook Sam. It's a song that's set to music, but for the best of times. But at 00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:03.440 this point, we're still in the worst of times and the Sam for the worst of times 00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:11.880 is lament. It's a call to God of where are you? Why are you doing nothing? What are 00:24:11.880 --> 00:24:17.960 you doing? So he asks God, where are you in all of this? But there's something else 00:24:17.960 --> 00:24:22.000 that he does here that's really important, which is that he points out to God, 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:27.799 that God is the reason that he doesn't want the world to be like this, that he 00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:34.240 can't just become a Babylonian. Okay. He says, you cause me to see this. You cause 00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:38.879 me to see this as the as evil, not as good. You are the reason that I'm that I'm 00:24:38.879 --> 00:24:43.399 like a stick out like a sore thumb here. And what are you doing? You're making my 00:24:43.399 --> 00:24:49.720 life more complicated. Now that thing to you cause me to see iniquity. Why do you 00:24:49.720 --> 00:24:54.240 do this? It might sound like a strange thing to say. Okay. In first glance, 00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:58.279 literally, you know, is are his eyes being held open so that he has to look at 00:24:58.279 --> 00:25:02.000 these things? Is that what it means? Why do you cause me to see it? But that's not 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:07.759 what it means. I think that this is what he means when he says this. Something 00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:15.519 words to these effect. It's because of you. It's because I believe in you. It's 00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:23.599 because I believe you because I'm convinced by you, convinced of you that I 00:25:23.599 --> 00:25:29.439 cannot be happy with how things are in the world. These aren't your standards. 00:25:29.439 --> 00:25:35.119 This is not a reflection of your character. And I want a world that is a 00:25:35.119 --> 00:25:41.480 reflection of your character, a world where your standards are a flourishing set. 00:25:41.480 --> 00:25:47.719 How we flourish. It's like he's saying, you Lord are the reason to me that this 00:25:47.720 --> 00:25:55.600 looks wrong. And if you weren't there, I wouldn't measure things by your standard. 00:25:55.600 --> 00:26:02.000 If I didn't follow you, I would have less reason to feel lament about this. 00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:06.559 And maybe then I could just see the world like a Babylonian and my life would 00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:11.519 feel a lot easier. But I can't do that because you are there. Because I am 00:26:11.519 --> 00:26:16.640 convinced of you, compelled by you. And that's why I don't want to assimilate 00:26:16.640 --> 00:26:20.240 into Babylonian culture. I don't want to live by their values and worship their 00:26:20.240 --> 00:26:25.920 gods. But as long as you sit by and do nothing, it's like you're making me see 00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:31.560 the world as it shouldn't be for you. And yet what are you doing? You just leave 00:26:31.560 --> 00:26:38.640 me here to stew in it. How long, oh Lord? Now, if you were a Christian in 00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:46.680 Edinburgh, 2024, maybe this is a point where you start to think, I can have a 00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:51.080 cook feels what I feel. I can relate to him. Maybe there are times where you 00:26:51.080 --> 00:26:57.600 thought, what I believe and what the city of Edinburgh at large wants me to 00:26:57.600 --> 00:27:04.200 believe and to do to long for, they're not easily reconcilable on many points. 00:27:04.200 --> 00:27:08.160 And some other points, you know, in this context, my faith doesn't make being here 00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:13.279 difficult. But another point that really does. But I can't unbelieve what I believe. 00:27:13.279 --> 00:27:19.840 How long, oh Lord? My life would get a whole lot easier. My career would progress 00:27:19.840 --> 00:27:25.680 faster or whatever. My immediate social circle would accept me more easily. If I 00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:30.080 could just stop believing, if I weren't a Christian, if I just assimilated, if I 00:27:30.080 --> 00:27:37.320 weren't an awkward person for my culture to accommodate. If you feel like that, 00:27:37.319 --> 00:27:43.960 Habakkuk is your guy. He's your minor prophet who gives you permission 00:27:43.960 --> 00:27:50.439 biblically to say, how long, oh Lord, do you see me, oh Lord? You've given me this 00:27:50.439 --> 00:28:01.159 burden. So that's what he does. Lastly, and further briefly, how God responded. 00:28:01.160 --> 00:28:08.640 And we're looking here at verses 5 to 11. So this is God's answer to him. Now, God's 00:28:08.640 --> 00:28:13.960 answer begins, look among the nations and see. Wonder and be astounded. For I am 00:28:13.960 --> 00:28:18.800 doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. So imagine that 00:28:18.800 --> 00:28:22.400 you're Habakkuk and God starts to respond with, I am going to do something 00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:27.680 that you would not believe if I told you. And I guess maybe for a lot of us, if 00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:31.240 you're a Christian, you immediately think, I know what's coming next, it's 00:28:31.240 --> 00:28:35.120 going to be really good. This is like in the New Testament, you know, the promise 00:28:35.120 --> 00:28:38.160 of heaven that God has prepared something so wonderful for those who love 00:28:38.160 --> 00:28:42.360 him that they couldn't even imagine until they get there. But here's the plot 00:28:42.360 --> 00:28:49.360 twist. That is not what God says. What God says to Habakkuk is, you're not going to, 00:28:49.360 --> 00:28:54.160 you wouldn't believe what I'm going to do even if I told you. I am raising up the 00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:57.880 Chaldeans, which is another word for the Babylonians. I'm raising them up, the 00:28:57.880 --> 00:29:04.279 people you are terrified of. They're bitter. They're hasty. That means they 00:29:04.279 --> 00:29:08.080 bear grudges and they're in a hurry to get revenge. They plunder and they 00:29:08.080 --> 00:29:11.240 pillage. They want to spread all over the world. They want to take all of your 00:29:11.240 --> 00:29:15.440 homes. Everyone dreads them. Everyone fears them. They don't believe in justice. 00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:19.519 They don't believe in dignity. The reason that they, out of all of their 00:29:19.519 --> 00:29:22.840 different gods, they say that Marduk is the greatest, this is because Marduk is 00:29:22.839 --> 00:29:27.399 the best warrior. His weapons are the best that's slaying his enemies. He's the 00:29:27.399 --> 00:29:32.000 least forgiving and the most vengeful and they want to make everyone, 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:37.480 everywhere, into people who think that he is great. They're the ultimate 00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:42.639 colonizers, the ultimate empire and they're also, God tells Habakkuk, they're 00:29:42.639 --> 00:29:50.399 armed to the teeth and they love violence. They're like the opposite of the 00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:53.720 way that God presents himself in the Old Testament. You know, they see all of 00:29:53.720 --> 00:29:58.040 these people just as sand to be oppressed, whereas God, if you think of that 00:29:58.040 --> 00:30:02.040 image in the Old Testament, wants to bless the whole world through Abraham. 00:30:02.040 --> 00:30:05.519 There's a numerous of sand on the shore. So in every way, they're like the opposite 00:30:05.519 --> 00:30:12.000 of God and God says, you won't believe what I'm doing. These are the people I'm 00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:17.920 sending to you. Okay? Salvation from violence, more violence is coming. 00:30:17.920 --> 00:30:23.680 Salvation from injustice, more injustice is coming. And there's a stunning piece 00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:29.360 of, there's a stunning verse at the end there. When God finishes off describing 00:30:29.360 --> 00:30:34.519 the people who are coming to Habakkuk in verse 11, they are guilty men whose own 00:30:34.519 --> 00:30:39.480 might is their God. When God describes them in effect, God says that their 00:30:39.480 --> 00:30:46.000 religion, their worship of the God Marduk, it's all a sham. It's not really the 00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:50.440 worship of Marduk. Marduk is just a projection of the violence in their own 00:30:50.440 --> 00:30:54.319 hearts and the power that they're addicted to where they're taking over the 00:30:54.319 --> 00:31:02.240 world. And behold, God says to Habakkuk, I am raising these people up and I'm 00:31:02.240 --> 00:31:09.680 sending them to you. And then God's answer stops. And you have to imagine 00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:17.360 Habakkuk at this point thinking, what? Because God's response to him basically 00:31:17.360 --> 00:31:27.080 is, I will fight injustice with injustice. I will fight violence with violence. And 00:31:27.080 --> 00:31:34.160 because it's so counterintuitive to Habakkuk, so hard to understand, that's 00:31:34.160 --> 00:31:39.480 why God begins everything by saying, you are not going to believe what I'm about 00:31:39.480 --> 00:31:44.960 to tell you. This, the first place will make no sense to you. Now, what we're 00:31:44.960 --> 00:31:48.640 going to see over the next few Sunday nights is that this isn't the end of 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:54.000 Habakkuk's interaction with God. As God is revealing the gospel to 00:31:54.000 --> 00:32:00.559 Habakkuk, it's the beginning. But what I want to stop with tonight is saying this, 00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:08.279 that ultimately the meaning of Habakkuk is found in the life and the death and 00:32:08.279 --> 00:32:14.480 the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that makes this book direct and important 00:32:14.480 --> 00:32:18.960 to you, actually whether tonight you're a Christian or not. If you're a Christian, 00:32:18.960 --> 00:32:24.720 what you will see through the book of Habakkuk is that Jesus is the true and 00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:31.039 the better Habakkuk. He was someone, Habakkuk was someone you'll see who could 00:32:31.039 --> 00:32:36.359 wrestle faithfully with God, even in surrounded by darkness and the worst of 00:32:36.359 --> 00:32:44.439 times. Jesus did that but to perfection, to a degree that Habakkuk never did. In 00:32:44.439 --> 00:32:49.839 his worst of times, Habakkuk can cry out, how long, oh Lord, until you do 00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:55.679 something about this. But in Jesus' worst of times, the thing that he has to cry 00:32:55.679 --> 00:33:04.639 out is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Habakkuk, listen to God, talk 00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:08.960 about ending the violence and the injustice of the Babylonians through 00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:13.200 more injustice and violence. But Habakkuk is probably standing there thinking, 00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:18.000 what? You know, as a gut reaction, we're going to see next week what he goes on to 00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:25.800 articulate. But Jesus entered that world of violence and ended violence and 00:33:25.800 --> 00:33:32.640 injustice by submitting himself to it, to the violence, to the injustice of a 00:33:32.640 --> 00:33:41.560 Roman crucifixion. He destroyed it from the inside. He defeats death by dying 00:33:41.560 --> 00:33:46.200 because it's not possible for death to hold him. So if you're a Christian, 00:33:46.200 --> 00:33:51.440 Habakkuk, it's like Old Testament backdrop to Jesus that helps us understand 00:33:51.440 --> 00:33:56.920 him in really profound ways. But if you're not a Christian, finish by saying this, 00:33:56.920 --> 00:34:04.279 that if you're starting to think about Christianity, the Christian Gospel, 00:34:04.279 --> 00:34:09.280 and tonight you're wrestling with it through Habakkuk, what Habakkuk will 00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:14.000 help you think through is that the Gospel is a message that will necessarily 00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:20.360 confound you. Its claims will defy whatever expectations you begin with 00:34:20.360 --> 00:34:26.800 about what God should be like, what God should do. And I want to say this to you 00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:31.760 did you know that the Bible actually realizes that about you and that it 00:34:31.760 --> 00:34:37.440 assumes that about you regardless of where you come from? Okay, let's give you 00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:45.039 the Gospel in a couple of sentences. God is perfectly righteous and He judges you 00:34:45.039 --> 00:34:52.320 by His perfect moral standards, but you can't meet that through your moral 00:34:52.320 --> 00:34:57.280 performance, your religious performance. So before God, you are actually justly 00:34:57.280 --> 00:35:05.160 condemned. It's your status before Him. But God is also gracious beyond your 00:35:05.160 --> 00:35:15.120 wildest imagination. And in Jesus, 100% because of Jesus perfection, God offers 00:35:15.119 --> 00:35:22.880 you unconditional acceptance, gratuitous forgiveness because He loves you and 00:35:22.880 --> 00:35:27.759 He's your Father and He wants you to be His child. And that forgiveness then can 00:35:27.759 --> 00:35:33.480 become the new motivation you have for how to live a different life. I want you 00:35:33.480 --> 00:35:39.599 to imagine two people, neither of them believes this message, but who hear it. 00:35:39.599 --> 00:35:44.039 They're both from here, but they've grown up in different generations. One is 00:35:44.039 --> 00:35:48.279 someone from my generation in the 80s and 90s, a geriatric millennial like me. 00:35:48.279 --> 00:35:54.119 My generation back then, our icon was you know, Noel Gallagher, you know, let the 00:35:54.119 --> 00:36:00.759 good times roll, nobody can judge me. Someone from that generation will hear 00:36:00.759 --> 00:36:06.039 that Gospel message and have a particular stumbling block. And it is, don't judge 00:36:06.039 --> 00:36:10.880 me. I should be accepted, yeah, but I have a really big problem with a God who 00:36:10.880 --> 00:36:17.160 would say, I am your Lord and I tell you to be different. Imagine person number 00:36:17.160 --> 00:36:26.160 two is Gen Z, is like 12 to 18 years old in a Scottish high school with all of 00:36:26.160 --> 00:36:30.079 the values that go along with that generational package. And that person's 00:36:30.079 --> 00:36:35.360 icon is not Noel Gallagher, that person's icon is Greta Thunberg, that person is 00:36:35.360 --> 00:36:42.079 supremely moralistic. There's all kinds of evil. How can you not live with the 00:36:42.079 --> 00:36:45.559 consequences of your action and call other people out for them? That person 00:36:45.559 --> 00:36:49.360 has different stumbling blocks and it's not sin being called out or the idea 00:36:49.360 --> 00:36:52.840 that there are perfect standards and we should be held to account for them. 00:36:52.840 --> 00:36:58.720 Well, that person will find much harder and more counterintuitive will be love 00:36:58.719 --> 00:37:06.719 your enemies, forgive gratuitously. Don't accept people because of some of their 00:37:06.719 --> 00:37:12.759 good deeds, love people in spite of their bad deeds. So even within two 00:37:12.759 --> 00:37:16.519 generations in the same city you could have very different stumbling blocks. 00:37:16.519 --> 00:37:21.199 And that's even not even beginning to think about what would it be like if you 00:37:21.199 --> 00:37:25.679 heard this and didn't believe it and you grew up in Saudi Arabia or in Cambodia. 00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:29.759 People have all kinds of different stumbling block reactions to the 00:37:29.759 --> 00:37:35.319 gospel that are not the same and the Bible assumes that about you. If you 00:37:35.319 --> 00:37:38.799 want to see this read the book of 1 Corinthians in the New Testament because 00:37:38.799 --> 00:37:43.000 it begins with this and that when Paul in that book presents the gospel he begins 00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:47.039 by saying that different people have different reactions to it. They find it 00:37:47.039 --> 00:37:53.799 problematic in different ways. Jews who ask for a sign think that it's the 00:37:53.800 --> 00:37:57.720 gospel as a stumbling block and Greeks who seek wisdom think that it's just 00:37:57.720 --> 00:38:09.519 moronic, that it's foolishness. So what I'm trying to make here just to finish off is 00:38:09.519 --> 00:38:18.240 that when you find Jesus you will find some of what you were looking for, 00:38:18.240 --> 00:38:22.519 absolutely, but what you also discover is that there's a whole lot that you weren't 00:38:22.519 --> 00:38:26.480 looking for and you realize that you should have been and there are a lot of 00:38:26.480 --> 00:38:30.119 things that you were looking for and they're very so much depending on your 00:38:30.119 --> 00:38:33.480 generation and where you come from in the world and where you were just not 00:38:33.480 --> 00:38:37.880 looking for the right things at all. And whether you're reading the Bible in the 00:38:37.880 --> 00:38:42.480 Old Testament in a minor prophet like Habakkuk where God begins to present the 00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:46.880 gospel to him with a you wouldn't you won't believe this even when I tell you 00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:50.639 or whether you're reading the New Testament and it's Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 00:38:50.639 --> 00:38:58.440 saying pay attention to where you're from and how you hear the gospel. The 00:38:58.440 --> 00:39:03.119 gospel begins with this kind of prefix to you that you will not believe this 00:39:03.119 --> 00:39:10.400 when you are told and this is how God begins to present the gospel through 00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:14.039 Habakkuk. So we're going to pick that up next Sunday night as we go through his 00:39:14.039 --> 00:39:21.360 second complaint to God, but we'll finish with that for tonight. Let's pray. 00:39:21.360 --> 00:39:27.360 Lord our God, our Father in heaven, we thank you for the light of the gospel, 00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:33.119 for the hope that it shines into our world even when it feels like Habakkuk 00:39:33.119 --> 00:39:38.400 felt like he was in the worst of times. Lord we thank you that the gospel is 00:39:38.400 --> 00:39:43.599 yours, that it is your message, that it is your plan, that your Son has come into 00:39:43.599 --> 00:39:49.880 our world in ways that confound all of our expectations and we thank you that 00:39:49.880 --> 00:39:55.719 your spirit wrestles with us to convince us, to compel us, to bring us to Christ 00:39:55.719 --> 00:40:01.000 from all of our different starting points. So Lord we pray that you would 00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:06.239 encourage us, that you would build us up in faith through the time that we have 00:40:06.239 --> 00:40:11.519 this month Sunday nights reading through Habakkuk together. We pray this in Jesus 00:40:11.519 --> 00:40:14.280 name. Amen.