Day 232 – Reading – Habakkuk 1 – 3

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

Habakkuk 1.

This guy prophesied just before the coming of Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldean army.  Good King Josiah had just died, and the prophet was seeing evil seep back into Judah through kings Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim and the wealthy. And now… the rumors of the approaching Babylonian army!

Habakkuk doesn’t speak “TO” the growing-more-wicked people & leaders of Judah, but his statements and complaints are laments TO GOD.  WHY hasn’t He punished these kings and the people???  Why will He let these cruel pagans devour His own people?

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Have you ever ranted against God for His seeming to ignore the injustice around you? Especially if it’s against YOU or a LOVED ONE?  Habakkuk does.

• O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to You, “violence!” and you will not save?
• Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
• So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous: so justice goes forth perverted.”

God answers Habakkuk’s rant. He was sending … NOT REVIVAL … but the dreaded and fearsome judgment.

• “Behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.
• They are dreaded and fearsome….  They all come for violence….. They gather captives like sand.
• They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on…. their own might is their god!

Habakkuk is aghast!  NO!, he cries.

• “Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my HOLY One? 
• You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, WHY do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he??

Pretty brave, is our prophet, Habakkuk!

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Habakkuk 2.

Habakkuk really wants to know the answer to his “why?”.  He says he will – like Ezekiel (3:33) will go up on the wall of Jerusalem, and be as a watchman.  Habakkuk will wait and “see what He will say to me … and what I will answer.”

Habakkuk was to write down on a tablet the VISION God was going to give to him. But He cautions Habakkuk, “If it seems slow in coming, wait for it; it will surely come and not delay.” Then he speaks of the Chaldeans, and their fall to the Medes & Persians.

• “HIS SOUL is puffed up, it is not upright within him, (but the righteous shall live by his faith.) 
• Wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. 
• His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death, he has never enough. He gathers FOR HIMSELF all nations and collects AS HIS OWN all peoples.
• Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own…. 
• Will not YOUR debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble?  Then YOU will be spoil for THEM… 
• Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house …
• Woe to him who builds a town with blood…
• Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink and get drunk — in order to gaze at their nakedness…
• Woe to him who says to a wooded think, Awake! and to a silent stone, Arise!…

And then God’s slight reprimand…  “But the LORD is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!

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Habakkuk 3.

Our prophet seems rebuked.  His tone has changed. Now he switches from judgment on his fellow Judahites, to … mercy for them.

• O LORD, I have heard the report of You, and Your work, O LORD, do I fear.  In wrath … remember MERCY.

He recalls all the mighty works God has done, and then, it seems the TRUTH hits him.  Whatever comes at HIS HAND, will for His people’s good, and His glory. They must experience judgment at the hands of evil men, but God will “take care” of them one day.

• “Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.

And this glorious statement of TRUST, no matter what the circumstances.

• “Though the fig tree should not blossom, 
• nor fruit be on the vines,
• the produce of the olive fall
• and the fields yield no food,
• the flock be cut off from the fold
• and there be no heard in the stalls.
• YET…
• I will rejoice in the LORD,
• I will take joy in the God of my salvation. 
• God, the LORD, is my strength;
• He makes my feet like the deer’s,
• He makes me tread on my high places.”

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WOW. This is a reminder to me.  Though the politics of my time, and the wonton actions of the people of this country make me want to plead for judgment …  I am thankful for God’s mercy and patience.  And I pray that as I wait for His Coming, I will be able to pray, or sing, this last refrain of Habakkuk’s. “Though the worst may happen, I will rejoice in the LORD.  He is my strength.