When I left India, in early 1979, I spent a few months in Belgium before returning to the States. The OM base where I was staying revolved mostly around two areas: finance and maintaining OM vehicles. I wasn’t of much use in either of these areas, but I guess the leaders decided I was likely to do less damage helping the mechanics. So I worked for three months, assisting in the garage. The head mechanic would give me simple jobs to do, by describing to me exactly what he wanted and what tools I’d need. Almost always, though, the jobs turned out to be more complex than I was expecting. I’d run into unexpected problems and find myself in over my head, so I’d have to go back and pester my boss with more questions. Because my understanding was so limited, this was a regular experience during the whole time I was there. The jobs were never really as simple as I expected, and they nearly always led to more questions than I could answer myself.
This is the position Habakkuk is in by the middle of chapter 1. We saw in the first sermon that he is struggling with living in a society that is in serious spiritual decline. The people are living in persistent rebellion against God and are even persecuting those who speak in His name. So Habakkuk cries out to God about the situation: “Why are you allowing these things to happen? Why don’t you do something?” And God responds, “I’m raising up the Babylonians to come and punish my people.” Habakkuk knows something about these Babylonians, so he responds, “what kind of an answer is this?” The answer he received to his first question hasn’t helped at all; it’s created more problems, raised more questions.
Conditions in this fallen world are such that it often looks like no one is in charge. Those who manage to get the upper hand, who gain an advantage over others by seizing power, or by having lots of money, or by learning to manipulate people, end up tyrannizing those under them. People, looking at this situation, often conclude that there is no God, or that if there is a God, He is either unjust or is powerless to bring about justice.
This is the problem Habakkuk is faced with in the middle of chapter 1. How can this answer he’s been given – that God is going to use the Babylonians to punish His people – how can this be consistent with what he knows about God? Listen to him, as his words are translated in The Message: “God, you’re from eternity, aren’t you? Holy God, we aren’t going to die, are we? God, you chose Babylonians for your judgment work? Rock-Solid God, you gave them the job of discipline? But you can’t be serious! You can’t condone evil! So why don’t you do something about this? Why are you silent now? This outrage! Evil men swallow up the righteous and you stand around and watch!” Habakkuk was complaining about his own people in the beginning, but the Babylonians are clearly worse. “How can they be the ones to deal out punishment? How can this be, and is it going to keep going on indefinitely? Is this the way things are, and are they going to continue in this direction? How can I reconcile this with what I already know about God?” God’s response to Habakkuk, at the beginning of chapter 2, tells us some important things about His justice in this world that’s so full of injustice.
The first thing is that God’s justice is not apparent on the surface of things. Habakkuk needs to be attentive and put himself in the way of receiving an answer to the question: “I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.” Some of the commentators are very concerned about whether or not Habakkuk actually goes up into a watchtower. They want us to be sure to understand that this is a spiritual exercise that Habakkuk is engaged in, and that he doesn’t actually need to go anywhere special. It’s something that happens within him, in his heart.
But this is a false dichotomy. What we do, and where we are, has an immense impact on the things that happen within us. A friend of mine told me about being on a fishing trip, and one of the men he was with said, “I don’t need to be in church; God speaks to me right here.” So my friend asked him, “Is that true? What does He say to you?” And, of course, the man didn’t have a response. God wasn’t speaking to him, he was just doing something he liked and he felt good about it. When I hear people say, “I can worship God anywhere,” or “I don’t need to set aside special times and places for prayer; I can pray anywhere, anytime;” I usually assume that these people are spending very little time, if any at all, in worship and prayer. It’s true that we can pray anytime, anywhere. But it’s also true that God calls us to set aside times and places to worship Him and cultivate His presence, and when we refuse to do this we end up not praying and worshiping much at all. Was Habakkuk literally stationing himself on one of the watchposts of the city? Probably not. But I’m certain that he had specific times and places where he cultivated God’s presence, and that’s what he’s describing here. He raised the question, then he diligently and persistently put himself in the way of receiving an answer from God.
The author of Psalm 73 is wrestling with a similar question. He begins the psalm by affirming the goodness of God: “Truly God is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart.” He believes that this is true, but then he goes on to say that he went through a time of doubt in this area. He looked around him and saw wicked people prospering; they oppressed others and got away with it; they seemed to live charmed lives, not struggling like other people: “For they have no pain; their bodies are sound and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not plagued like other people.... Such are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all day long I have been plagued, and am punished every morning” (vv. 4-5, 12-14). He looked around and saw that wicked people had a much easier, less painful life than he did. So he began wondering, “what’s the point of my obedience?” But here’s the turning point in the psalm: “until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end” (v. 17). He went into the place set aside for corporate worship, the place that God had set aside for making Himself known to the people, and then God enabled him to see the truth. What we’re doing, and where we put ourselves, will have an effect on our spiritual perception. Can we pray and worship God anywhere, anytime? Yes, but only if we begin by praying and worshiping Him together with His people in those places and times where He has chosen to make Himself known. God’s justice is not apparent on the surface of things. Habakkuk needs to be attentive and put himself in the way of receiving an answer to his question. The same thing is true for us.
The second thing is that God’s justice is not going to appear in its fullness right away. He’s not going to crush injustice immediately. He tells Habakkuk two things that point in this direction: 1) write it down (so that if will be available for people to read in the future); and 2) be patient and wait for it to come. Here it is in The Message: “Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what’s coming. It aches for the coming – it can hardly wait! And it doesn’t lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It’s on its way. It will come right on time.” It will come right on time, but not on our timetable. Our calling is to “wait for it” in confidence that God will carry out His plans in His own time and according to His own wisdom.
But waiting patiently is not resigning ourselves to the injustice all around us. It doesn’t mean that we just say, “oh well, that’s just the way things are; there’s no use getting worked up about it.” If you never get worked up about the injustice of this world, you don’t understand what’s going on; you may have managed to safely insulate yourself from the suffering of others in this world, but what you’re doing is not the thing God is calling Habakkuk to do. Psalm 37 is another psalm that addresses this problem. The psalmist begins with the words, “Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers” (v. 1). Why does he begin this way? Because fretting, getting worked up about it, is a very natural response. So he’s saying, recognize the larger truth about the situation (“for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb”), and turn your heart to the Lord (“Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security”). He’s saying, “you’re going to need to be intentional to keep yourself from fretting over this; you’re only going to be able to do this by turning to the Lord for help and recognizing that He will set things right in His own time and way.”
Waiting on God’s time is not stoic resignation. Paul has a good description of what it’s like to wait on God for the fulfillment of His purposes in this world: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:22-25). We’re waiting in patience for the fulfillment of our hope, but during this in-between time we “groan inwardly.” We’re filled with longing, and we cry out to God, like we see Habakkuk, and the psalmists, doing: “How much longer, O Lord?”
This leads to the third point, which is this: though it may, at present, appear otherwise, those who trust in God and obey Him are better off now and will be infinitely better off in the future. Even while we’re waiting in faith and hope, we are better off than those who appear to have the upper hand right now. Listen to verse 4 in The Message: “Look at that man, bloated by self-importance – full of himself but soul-empty. But the person in right standing before God, through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive.” Jesus said, “What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?” (Mark 8:36-37, The Message). That man, “bloated by self-importance,” is in the process of losing his soul.
If we only look at things as they are right now, in this particular slice of time, we’ll get an inaccurate picture. Those who live by faith in God have life and are moving in the direction of greater fullness of life in eternity. The wicked are dead, alienated from the source of life and of all good, and they are moving in the direction of ultimate, final separation. The consequences of the life of faith are infinitely more desirable than anything the wicked are able to take by force in this life.
So, how do we, as Christians, respond to the reality of injustice in the world? We cultivate God’s presence and influence in our lives. He is the source of all justice. If we’re concerned when we see injustice, our concern should drive us to Him, not away from Him. Habakkuk models that for us. As we draw closer to Him, we’ll be able to see things in clearer perspective. We bring our concerns and questions to Him, like Habakkuk did, then we put ourselves in the way of receiving an answer. Then we accept the fact that injustice is going to be part of this world until the Lord returns. We don’t like that, and we don’t just resign ourselves to it. We do all we can to reduce injustice and to work for justice within the context of our individual callings. Christians have historically been engaged in seeking to make this world a better place to live by showing compassion and working for laws that prevent brutality and exploitation. But we do that within the context of a world that’s in rebellion against God and that repeatedly asserts its independence from Him. Because of that, our success is always less than what we desire, and we pray and long for that day when we will live together in the new heaven and new earth. We live by faith, in anticipation of that time when everything will be made right, and we will see God face to face. We work for justice, but we recognize that we won’t be able to eradicate injustice until that day when God makes all things new.
And when we begin crying out to God about injustice, we see that the problem is not just “out there.” The problem is also within us. Injustice is a result of sin, and we are sinners. Our central focus is in these words in verse 4, which in many ways are the central point of the book. This phrase, “the righteous will live by their faith,” is quoted three times in the New Testament, twice by the Apostle Paul and once in Hebrews (Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38-39). Paul uses it at the beginning of his great exposition of the gospel in Romans: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.” We’re made right with God by faith, and we continue to live in a right relationship with Him through faith. This gospel is the “power of God for salvation for everyone who has faith.” This gospel is the only hope for sinful people living in this fallen world with all its injustice. Jesus has borne the weight of the world's sin, ours included; the price has been paid in full, not just for our individual salvation, but for the healing of this world.
As people made right with God by faith, this is what we look forward to: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:1-5). Until that day, may God help us to walk with Him, cultivating His presence in every area of our lives; may He help us to live increasingly according to the life of His eternal kingdom, seeking to show mercy and grace to others in His name; and may He enable us to hold firmly to the hope of the gospel and to proclaim that message to all in the hope that they will believe and be saved. “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered” (Psalm 130:3-4). That forgiveness comes to us in the gospel, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith.” May we, having contributed, even in seemingly small ways, to the injustice of this world, know the power of that forgiveness in our own lives, and may we offer it to others and pray that they will believe and be reconciled to God.
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