WHY GOD AND HOW LONG LORD? (Questions from Habakkuk to God)Whether we are discussing events in the Old Testament or in the early New Testament church there were two certain questions for which it was hard for people to get an answer to from God, and it is the same in our present-day situation.Those two questions - WHY has God done something (or not done something) and asking God WHEN he is going to do something. The answer we usually get from God is WAIT – AND YOU WILL SEE!
In due co...
WHY GOD AND HOW LONG LORD? (Questions from Habakkuk to God)
Whether we are discussing events in the Old Testament or in the early New Testament church there were two certain questions for which it was hard for people to get an answer to from God, and it is the same in our present-day situation.
Those two questions - WHY has God done something (or not done something) and asking God WHEN he is going to do something. The answer we usually get from God is WAIT – AND YOU WILL SEE!
In due course God will let us know why the timing was the way it was and why you had to wait, and why he allowed things to happen. But there is one thing that you can know for certain – and that is that God IS at work in the situation and that we must never give up trusting him to bring about his will for us.
No matter what the situation happens to be, God is telling us to live by faith, trusting him totally. We can’t trust God totally and be anxious at the same time. He wants us to bring our anxieties and doubts to him but at some point we have to be able to laugh at our own anxiety.
What God wants us to get is a greater revelation of who he is, not just a better explanation from him of what he is doing (show me the science please Lord – the formula - so that I can be confident about pulling this off myself when I need to).
No, he always gives us what he wants us to know, not always what we want to know. We get a new view of God and we grow in faith and trust – but we learn to hang in there and endure and be patient and have a living hope. On the journey of patience he shows us his goodness and what he is doing by the many little things that happen - the odd happenstances. He guides us with his eye. He then doesn’t have to drag us along like a horse or a mule (Psalm 32:8).
There is the story in the Old Testament of a man called Habakkuk. Everything seemed to be going wrong and the prophet thought that God had forgotten them. They had been terrified by the cruel oppression of the Assyrians and come through with God but now he could see that Babylon who had defeated the Assyrians were now going to come and attack them… He still believed in God but the circumstances caused doubts to come into his mind. Habakkuk was writing just before the rise of Babylon (Chaldea) and God was using Babylon to discipline and correct Judah. The big question of Habakkuk is, why does God use a wicked nation such as Babylon for his divine purpose? And how long till Babylon is judged. He could not understand all the strife and injustice that was happening in the nations round about him, nor could he understand the way God’s own people had become unfaithful in breaking God’s laws. This is very much what we see happening around us today. What happened to Israel is always a message for the Church and always a personal message for us
Habakkuk 1:1 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; and justice is perverted.
He wanted a move of God but he was told by God that God’s plan of action would be revealed at an appointed time and ‘It would surely come and it would not be late’
Habakkuk comes to realize that though God’s ways are sometimes hidden, his people shall live by his faith as they wait. These words are quoted three times in the New Testament (Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38).
Habakkuk 2:3 ‘the revelation is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not be late… For the just shall live by faith.
God understood that Habakkuk had doubts and God was waiting for Habakkuk to ask some tough questions. God always wants us to go to him when we have doubts, and he knows we will have them. He lets us know that he is at work in the situation in his way and he asks us to wait and have faith in him. God answers tough questions with direct answers.
When Paul wrote to the Hebrew Christians they were having the same problem – they were doubting whether God was going to rescue them from the persecution from the Romans (and Jews) that was going on in Jerusalem at the time. This was written just a little while before The Roman armies destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, which was prophesied of by Jesus [Matthew 24:1-3] and which was fulfilled in 70AD. (Why Lord? how long Lord?). Many of the Hebrew Christians wanted to give up but Paul quoted the same Scripture that God gave to Habakkuk – ‘Don’t give up, just wait!’
Hebrews 10:32 remember when you were first enlightened by God and you went through persecution and affliction and insults and stayed the distance. Some of your friends even went to prison (some at the hands of Paul himself) and you had compassion for them, then your possessions were plundered but you knew that you had a far more precious and abiding possession on the inside than all of that. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my upright and faithful one shall live by faith, but if he shrinks back, I will feel disappointed in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are rendered useless (go to waste - ap??leia), but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
This is exactly what God had said to Habakkuk.
Our discouragement will always say ‘Will God come and help, and when?’
The answer of faith will always be ‘Yes, wait for him and trust in him’
The very next verse in Hebrews is the beginning of a new chapter (11) which says that ‘faith is the basis of our hope, the assurance that God is at work on our behalf in the world of the unseen (the evidence of things – pragma – not seen).
For us personally in whatever are our present-day circumstances the answer to how long means that Jesus will arrive in time to reveal to us that he is there NOW and that he has a plan of action. Our faith is not confidence in what we can do, but confidence in what Jesus IS doing. Be still and know that he is God – IN ACTION!
(Ezekiel 37:3 the switch from the natural to the supernatural)
He wants us to have an opportunity to get to know him in a greater way through this warm and familiar experience of hope and faith and to learn that we can share our hearts and minds with him in any situation. We can be assured that he hears us and brings about the will and purpose of The Father into our lives.
Habakkuk finally gave glory to God by accepting the fact that it was not about how he could deduce or determine the solution about what he saw going on around him, but it was the fact that he believed that God was at work in a great way – and he said ‘I am going to laugh AND sing about this’. He finishes his message with a great statement of faith.
Habakkuk 3:17 Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor there be no fruit on the vines; Though the labor of the olive fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls—Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD my God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer's feet, And He will make me walk on my high hills.
His message has the following footnote: A note to the Chief Musician. ‘’Accompany with stringed instruments.”
1
