SEEK REFUGE IN THE LORD

May 16, 2010 ~ Winbourne Park Long Term Care Centre

Habakkuk 3:13-19 You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. (14) You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret. (15) You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters. (16) I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. (17) Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, (18) yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. (19) GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk was a prophet who lived during the last days of Judah and was contemporary with the prophets Jeremiah and Zephaniah and king Nebuchadnezzar. Sometime around 600 BC he began a conversation with God in which he complained about the violence he saw around him:

Habakkuk 1:2-4 O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save? (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. (4) So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.

What we often don’t realize is that Habakkuk was a Hebrew, living with Hebrews, in the land that God promised to their father Abraham. It is of these people, God’s chosen people, that Habakkuk is saying “the wicked surround the righteous.” Habakkuk is witnessing the perversion of justice by these people and crying out to God for help.

In response, God shows Habakkuk that Judah would be destroyed by the Babylonians in punishment for forsaking God and abandoning righteousness:

Habakkuk 1:5-11 "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. (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. (7) They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. (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. (9) They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. (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!"

Now Habakkuk has something else to talk to God about for he knows all about the Chaldeans; also known as the Babylonian Empire. He is aware of their cruelty and that they are more Godless even than Judah. So he once again talks to God, this time about the tragedy that is about to befall his people as God uses a nation even more wicked as a tool to punish them:

Habakkuk 1:12-13; 2:1 Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof. (13) 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? .... (2:1) I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

Habakkuk’s complaint is that God is too holy to allow a wicked man to destroy one who, as bad as he is, is more righteous. Then he goes and does something that we all could learn to do when asking God for help: Habakkuk waits for God to respond before he plans the next part of his complaint. And the Lord does answer him:

Habakkuk 2:2-8 And the LORD answered me: "Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. (3) For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end--it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. (4) "Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. (5) "Moreover, 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." (6) Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say, "Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own-- for how long?-- and loads himself with pledges!" (7) Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them. (8) Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.

God comforts Habakkuk by saying that the Chaldeans are merely an instrument of His judgement and that they in turn will be destroyed for their Godlessness; that God’s justice will not be trifled with by man’s plans. A popular saying in our culture echoes this: “What goes around, comes around,” itself proof that God’s justice will prevail over anything that one man will plan or do to another.

In response, Habakkuk can do no more than sing a hymn of praise to God; which he ends with these words:

Here is a remarkable prayer. Habakkuk, confronted with the destruction of his people by an even more Godless people, can still say:

(17) Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, (18) yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. (19) GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk learned what we all should know: That it doesn’t matter what happens, God is always in control. Since He is always in control we can rest assured that the right thing is being done, that injustice will not go unpunished and that God’s plan will take place for the benefit of His people and the greatness of His glory.

Trust in God is of far greater importance than the fear of man.