Good morning church! A warm welcome to all who have joined us here at the hall & our friends who have joined us online.
Even as we begin, I just want to remind us that we’re here today not by accident or just out of a weekly routine, but this time is divinely ordained by God so that He can speak to us and change us in the process. I really believe that God wants to speak some specific things to each and every one of us this morning.
Last week we kick started a new sermon series titled “Trusting a sovereign God” from the book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament. Ps. Saju did a wonderful job of setting the context for this series and telling us why we need to study Habakkuk.
I found it so interesting that this book is so different from the other prophetic books in the Bible. The usual pattern we see in other prophetic books is that the prophet hears a word from the Lord and he delivers it to God’s people.
But in this book it’s something totally different. It’s a dialogue. It’s a two-way conversation that the prophet has with God. And what we’ll see over the course of the next few weeks is that from this dialogue, there’s so much that we can learn about God and what it means to trust Him. That’s the journey that we have set on.
But before we proceed, I’d love to pray for us.
Pray
One of the most common one-word questions that parents often get from their children is the question “Why”. On one hand, it’s exciting to see your kids ask that question because it shows that they are learning to discover the world by themselves.
On the other hand, it can get quite draining because it never stops at one “why” question. It’s usually followed up with multiple follow up questions. So for many parents, the “why” question is a dreaded question.
And that “why” question gets even more uncomfortable especially when it’s directed toward our personal choices and decisions – where we’re put in a spot and asked to explain why we chose to do or not do certain things. That’s when it gets really uncomfortable.
And it’s so interesting that that’s the kind of dialogue that the prophet Habakkuk has with God. It almost seems like he’s putting God in a spot and asking God to explain His actions or inaction. Let’s quickly look at v1-4 and then we’ll get to V5 onwards.
1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
Habakkuk’s Complaint
2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
The prophet seems to have a series of complaints against God. But before he begins sharing his complaints, he refers to God as “O Lord”. In the Hebrew that’s translated as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah”. That’s God’s personal name that He revealed to His covenant people in the OT.
And so even as Habakkuk is making his complaints known to God, he’s doing it with the full knowledge that there’s complete freedom in a relationship with Him. He can be brutally honest and know that God will not push him away.
And then he proceeds to make his complaints.
2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
In his first complaint, he feels that his prayers and cries for help are falling on deaf ears. He feels like God’s response is only silence.
3 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.
His next complaint is God’s inaction over sin. The prophet is so unsettled by the sin of his own people and he’s surprised that God’s not doing anything. How can God sit idle is the question that he asks.
4 So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.
From these verses we get an idea on how bad the situation was in those days. It was an extremely lawless society! They left the One True God who rescued them & went after the idols of nations around them.
They were extremely brutal and violent toward one another. The rich kept oppressing the poor and took advantage of them. Leaders were extremely corrupt and excused themselves from accountability. The handful of righteous people who held onto God suffered while the wicked seemed to have everything going for them. Terrible injustice!!
Now some of us may hear this and think that this is true of every society but let me remind you that this was no ordinary nation! This was God’s own people and it looked like they never even had a law to govern them!
Habakkuk sees all of this injustice and wrestles with the question : How can my Loving, Holy God be silent? How can my Loving, Holy God not act? Can we relate to that sentiment? Have you and I ever wrestled with those questions in our hearts?
If yes, let me tell you that you’re not alone. Over the years, many of God’s people have wrestled with these questions & as we can see here, they’ve not only wrestled with these questions but have honestly expressed them to God.
But what does God do now that he’s put in the spot? Does God chide and rebuke Habakkuk for asking questions that are above his pay grade? Or does God just dismiss these questions telling Habakkuk that he’s just being childish? No, we see God engaging with Habakkuk and respond to these complaints.
This should encourage our hearts this morning to recognize that whatever our complaints might be – even the dreaded & uncomfortable “why” questions, God welcomes it in prayer. God wants to engage with us just like He engages with Habakkuk in this passage. How encouraging is it to remember that this morning?
Let’s look at God’s response in V5.
5 “Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
In this verse, we see Principle #1 in understanding God’s Sovereignty: We have to admit that we don’t have the capacity to understand God’s ways and plans. I know that this seems a little counterintuitive, I’m talking about understanding God’s sovereignty and Principle 1 is that we can’t understand it. Please bear with me, and we’ll unpack this but for now hold on to this truth – We simply don’t have the faculty to comprehend how God operates.
In this verse, God is telling Habakkuk to look among the nations and he’ll see that God is already at work in solving this injustice problem. But here’s the thing – even if God told him exactly what He was going to do, even if God broke down all of the details to him, Habakkuk simply didn’t have it in him to be able to understand it.
It’s like me sitting down with Lydia with a detailed PPT on any subject. No matter how much I explained, no matter how many examples I used, no matter how many visual pictures I used, she wouldn’t be able to understand. Because at this age as a one year old, she simply doesn’t have the capacity to understand what I’m saying. In the same way, we don’t have the capacity to understand God’s great and grand plans.
Many times we say “Only if God explained what He is trying to do in this hard season of life, all of this would make sense and I’d be able to trust Him more”. The truth is that even if God explained everything to us, we wouldn’t be able to understand. This is what Isa 55:8-9 tells us:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
And that’s a humbling place for us to start from. Because even as we start this journey of understanding God’s sovereignty, let’s not assume that just because we’ve obtained theoretical knowledge of God’s sovereignty, that we’re able to understand His plans and ways with clarity. No, we won’t because we simply don’t have the capacity in us to comprehend God’s ways and plans.
God could’ve stopped the conversation at V5 and that would’ve been enough but He goes on to actually reveal His plan to solve the injustice problem in V6:
6 For 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.
We arrive at Principle # 2 in understanding God’s sovereignty: God often uses unexpected, unpredictable means to accomplish His purposes.
Chaldeans was another name for the Babylonian nation. They are not a better believing nation, they are in fact an unbelieving nation. V6-11 actually describes a much more wicked nation than Judah at the time.
They were a bitter and hasty nation – a very resentful and impulsive nation who would go miles to hijack homes and lands and make it their own. They were the ultimate bullies!
7 They are dreaded and fearsome;
their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
In V7, God’s not appreciating their moral character but rather revealing their flawed character. I found the NIV translation helpful here:
They are a feared and dreaded people;
they are a law to themselves
and promote their own honor.
As a nation they were intimidating and frightening. They only did what only seemed right to them – which was to promote their own selfish interests & glory.
When the people who are coming to capture you are only interested in their own self interests and glory, it’s a very scary thought because you know it’s going to involve a lot of trauma and abuse.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more fierce than the evening wolves;
their horsemen press proudly on.
Their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
The Babylonian horsemen were known for their great speed. They would scatter the enemy’s foot soldiers and then hunt them down one by one mercilessly.
9 They all come for violence,
all their faces forward.
They gather captives like sand.
As a nation they were eager to injure, abuse and destroy whoever came in their way. Whoever was left after the battle, they brought them back as prisoners of war – war slaves. These were not the friendly type – next door neighbour kind of nation guys. They were a mean, dangerous, scary nation.
10 At kings they scoff,
and at rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress,
for they pile up earth and take it.
11 Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!”
In V10-11 we see how prideful they were as a nation. They mocked the smaller, weaker nations as they captured them. And their complete confidence was in their own strength “their might was their god”.
We look at these verses describing the Babylonians and just like Habakkuk was, we’re probably perplexed that God would choose this kind of wicked nation to judge His own people.
God’s words in V6 tells us “I am raising them up” – this is not just an endorsement from God – God is saying that this is His divinely ordained plan and it’s not making any sense to us. We would like God to operate in a box of our expectations, and God does something totally out of the box.
No matter how much of the Bible you may know, no matter how much theology you would have learnt, you’ll still find it hard to wrap your mind around the fact that God would use unexpected means to accomplish His purpose – that God would use a wicked Babylonian nation to accomplish His purpose.
And this is not a one-off case in the Bible. We will see this repeatedly again and again.
Rom 9:17: 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
This unbelieving stubborn, harsh Pharaoh in the Bible was raised up by God to reveal God’s power and glory in the earth!
Isa 44:28: who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd,
and he shall fulfill all my purpose’;
saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’
and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’”
This unbelieving King Cyrus is the one whom God refers to as “my shepherd” and the one whom God appointed to rebuild the temple of God.
In all these cases, the Babylonians, Pharaoh and Cyrus, God never overlooks their sin. In each of these cases, their sins are clearly described and called out in Scripture.
However, at the same time, Scripture is also categorically clear that each of them were used as instruments of God. In God’s wisdom, using these characters would display God’s glory all the more brightly. Expected? Predictable? Not at all but yet they were the divinely ordained means to accomplish God’s purposes.
So where do we go with this principle? How do we apply this in our lives?
As we think about the unwanted, uncomfortable situations and people in our lives, do we see God’s sovereign hand over it?
When we go to our workplaces and face a boss who is super demanding & demotivating, do we see God’s sovereign hand over it?
When we think about our close family members and how hurtful they’ve been to us (sometimes we wish we were better off in another family), do we see God’s sovereign hand over it?
When we think about the unexpected health issue that popped up in our life, do we see God’s sovereign hand over it?
When we think about failed decisions in life – things that didn’t turn out the way we expected them to turn out – do we see God’s sovereign hand over it?
Now again in all these situations and people, God isn’t endorsing or excusing the sinful actions which were committed. God is deeply grieved by the sin. But at the same time, because He is sovereign He uses unexpected, unpredictable means to accomplish His purposes.
The perfect example of this was shown on the cross. Look with me at
Acts 4:27-28 ESV
[27] for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, [28] to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
The sin of man isn’t being endorsed or excused. The sin of man is clearly being called out & man is guilty for all that they have done.
But yet, in ways that we won’t fully understand, God used something as horrific as the death of His Son on the cross to accomplish His purposes which was to save you and me. And it wasn’t a last minute change of plan – God had predestined it to take place. So if nothing else, let the cross of Jesus Christ encourage us to know that the God who was sovereign over the cross is sovereign over every unexpected, unwanted, unpredictable situation of life. Will it always make sense to us? No, it won’t. Many times it will leave us perplexed just like Habakkuk but we can always trust His character & authority irrespective.
Author / Preacher
Latest entries
- February 3, 2025HabakkukUnderstanding God’s sovereignty – Habakkuk 1:5-11
- January 7, 2025SermonAbiding in Jesus – John 15:1-11
- December 31, 2024SermonBirth of the King – Matthew 1:18-25
- December 16, 2024SermonThe Lineage of the King – Matthew 1:1-17