The scripts are reading today is from the book of Habakkuk selective verses starting in chapter 1. The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received. How long, O Lord, must I call for help that you do not listen or cry out to you violence, but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me. There is strife and conflict abounds. Therefore the laws paralyzed and justice never prevails. The wicked him and the righteous so that justice is perverted. Look at the nations and watch and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places, not their own. O Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my holy one, we will not die. O Lord, you have appointed them to execute judgment. O rock, you have ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler. The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks. He catches them in his net. He gathers them up in his dragnet and so he rejoices in his glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet. For by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choice and food. Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy? Then the Lord replied, right down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with him. For the revelation awaits in a pointed time. It speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it. It will certainly come and will not delay. See he is puffed up. His desires are not upright, but the righteous will live by his faith. Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime. Has not the Lord Almighty determined that the people's labor is only fuel for the fire, that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Of what value is an idol since a man has carved it, or an image that teaches lies. For he who makes it trust in his own creation, he makes idols that cannot speak. Woe to him who says to would come to life, or to lifeless stone, wake up. Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver. There is no breath in it, but the Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth be silent before him. Lord, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, and our time make them known in wrath, remember mercy. God came from Timon, the Holy One from Mount Peron. His glory covered the heavens and his praise filled the earth. His splendor was like the sunrise, rifted flesh from his hand, where his power was hidden. Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vine, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food. Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God, my Savior. The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to go on the heights. The Word of the Lord. Thank you, Lord. Several years ago, I found myself running very late to the airport, and I think it was south of West Airlines because they're the only airlines that have these particular seats. The only things that were left were those where you're facing someone else. You know those? I can't stand those, but could you just feel like you're uncomfortably staring at someone? And so the man sitting right across from me, he and I struck up a conversation after a little while, and we got to that point where he asked, what do you do vocationally? And the answer that I give always kills the conversation right there. Well, I'm a Christian minister. Oh, well, that didn't stop the conversation with this guy. He was very intrigued by it, and so I've sensed that there was an open door for me to ask a few more questions, and I asked him if he was the follower of Jesus Christ, and he sort of chuckled and said, oh no, oh, is there what do you mean? And he said, well, I was a lifetime police officer in Detroit downtown. I walked the beat for 30 years, and if you had seen the kind of things that I had seen, then you wouldn't be a follower of Jesus Christ either. Now, what was this guy saying? Well, he was saying that he had seen such unwanted destruction, merciless destruction throughout his life, that in his mind, the logical conclusion was that there could not be a God, at least of the kind that the Bible describes. Now, on the other end of the continuum, you find back in the ancient world, someone like the Apostle Peter, who was certainly not immune from suffering. He saw many others suffer greatly in their life, and he suffered himself greatly. Tradition has it, that he ended up being martyred, and by choice was crucified upside down. And yet he talked about suffering in life, the pain of life, this way, he said, these things have come, so that your faith, which is a greater, worse than gold, that perishes, shall be more valuable and prove, prove itself more valuable than gold. A bunch of the verse a little bit at the end there, but the point is that faith is so valuable in God's eyes, that he puts us through the furnace as it were, like a piece of pottery might be, so that we are refined, matured, and that we grow through it. And this is one of the great problems, I think, of all the ages. We're going through a series right now, modern problems, ancient solutions. And really what we're seeing is that all the problems have their representation throughout the ages, and yet there seem to be certain distinctive about the present day that make these particular problems difficult. The problem of pain, and I've of course stolen that title from CS Lewis's book by the same title, the problem of pain is difficult, regardless of what age you're in, but I think in the modern era or today, it's especially difficult because everything in our American culture is leaning against the reality of suffering. And even if you consider something as simple as the infant mortality rate, that in our country is next to nothing, you compare that to any other era, and you can understand how when we go through even slight sufferings, they seem severe to us in comparison to people in other eras. How is it that you and I can make sense of these things? Because really when you come face to face with difficulties in life, and they can be something terribly difficult, heinous, that you might be going through, or it could be simply the accumulation of a bunch of little things. They tend to produce one of two things. Either they lead to a deeper faith in the way that Peter spoke, or they lead to a numbing of faith, or an utter disregard of faith altogether. And so they might cause someone to question the validity of Christianity. If you're a seeker this morning or someone who is not entertained much of biblical Christianity, you might be like the police officer on the airplane, or you might be one who claims the name of Christ, but because of the things that you're going through in life, you might not outright deny God, but the vitality, the vitality of the the sense in which it is real and alive and personal to you right now might not be present. And there is a great story, the one that George and Ashley just read beautifully, it's a tough passage to work through, from the Old Testament that I think can shed some light on this. So as we look at the modern problem, which is an age-old problem of pain, I want to look with you at the solution for that in a book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk and you're some of you are saying Habakkuk was a prophet. He was one of the lesser-known prophets, at least in our day. We tend to call this group, the minor prophets, this group of shorter books in the Old Testament. They're minor not in significance, but just in the size of the book themselves. And what you got today in the reading was really an overview of the book, of the three chapters. And the reason why Habakkuk is so fabulous, I think, to answer this problem is because he ends really frustrated. I mean, he begins by interrogating God, but then the way it ends is really a beautiful intercession to God. What begins in in worry, in in worship, but begins in anguish, in an adoration. And so how is it, because I think everyone wants to get there? How is it that we make that journey that Habakkuk made? And I think there's several things that we can look at and just glean briefly from this book. First of all, it has to do with your reaction. That is, we need to be able to be very attentive to the way we react to trials in our life. We need to have a radar screen in our mind that very quickly spots our own reaction, instinctive reaction. It's become a habit to us when difficult circumstances come into our life. Again, it may not be something as extreme as finding out that you have cancer. It may be something more minor as you've woken up. And already, the kids are screaming. The dog has gone to the bathroom on the living room floor. And you do not feel wrong. You rather just go back to sleep and pretend like the day was not existing. How is it that you react to those difficulties? There's different ways that people react. For instance, some people would just deny it. The stoic reaction to it. It doesn't exist. Now, this isn't the way that most of us handle it. In fact, I think that there's very few pure stoics among us. But this is the thinking, different philosophies throughout the world. It's the thinking behind the Christian science religion and many of the Eastern religions that really evil and pain their illusions. And we simply need to, in our minds, realign with reality and recognize that they're not part of reality. Soicism or denying it. Secondly, you can escape from it. And we've talked about this under several of the modern problems because that is so indicative of our day of simply pushing that escape button when the computer of our life freezes out. You might escape through things like drugs, pornography, drinking, whatever it is, each one of us have that escape button that we can use when the circumstances mount in our life. Others would simply adapt their worldview to that circumstance. That is the difficulties mount, particularly the great tragedies at this point. And we change our view of God and of life. This is something that Rabbi Harold Kushner talks about in his famous book, when bad things happen to good people. Kushner talks about how he who originally had a very orthodox view of God and the Old Testament, he came to see that that God needed to be refined because of the tragedy that he went through while watching his Sunday. Kushner developed a view called finite Godism, which basically means that God does not want the difficult things and terrible circumstances of our life to occur, but they are beyond his control. And so he needs us to work together with him. After all, God helps those who help themselves, right? Not in the Bible, but that's the thinking behind kind of view. And these are different ways that people react. It's not the way that Habakkuk reacted and is not the way that the Bible is a whole instructs this to react. How did Habakkuk react? Well, he took his problem exactly as it was to God. Look at the way the book of Habakkuk opens up. Verse two, how long a Lord must I call for help? But you don't listen or cry out to you violence, but you don't save. Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me. There is strife and conflict of bounds. Therefore, the law is paralyzed and justice never prevails. You sing, look, God, I'm trying to be a righteous man. I'm trying to lead the life that you have set out in your law, but functionally the law is paralyzed. It's alive, but it can't do anything because things are so skewed in our land. And Habakkuk wrote in a time of great international crisis, which we'll talk about in just a second, and also national corruption. That is, the nation of Israel was very corrupt at this point. And what he was observing is something that I think people throughout the ages have observed, what Billy Joel observed in his song, Only the Good Die Young, which is that it appears, at least, from my vantage point, God, that those who are doing good or suffering and dying in the wicked, they're the ones that are thriving. So he went to God with his difficulties in reconciling these things. They talked to him and that's the first thing that we need to do when we see circumstances come into our life. Our reaction needs to be instinctively to go to God, even when you don't feel like it, especially when you don't feel like it, to go to God, to lay open your heart before God, to cry out to him about what your situation is. Not to stuff your feelings. Christianity does nothing about pretending to put on a happy face or speaking in sort of a religious stained glass voice, but it's just pouring out your heart. The words that you can muster about what difficulties you're facing. Well, God gave them an answer, and it wasn't exactly the answer that he wanted. And so, Habakkuk continued to cry out to God and indict him, and essentially the difficulty here is that Habakkuk did not have God's plan fixed straight in his mind. God had an eternal plan that he was setting in course. Habakkuk was at the midst of it, and it appeared very bleak, but God needed to cast a great vision from Habakkuk to begin to see how this particular peril fell in place with the larger difficulties. And I wonder if you've ever had a situation where someone comes up in and confronts you, and it's very clear that instead of getting hysterical with you, they're getting historical with you, and they're beginning to recount the long relationship and all these things that they have observed in a way you have treated them, and while you would probably admit that you're not flawless in that relationship, they're very clear to you. They're interpreting all sorts of things incorrectly. They have taken words that you've said and actions that you have done and misinterpreted them horribly, and then together constructed a paradigm and understanding of your relationship with them. That's frustrating, isn't it? Well, this is exactly what Habakkuk was doing with God, and it's what we do with God instinctively, whether we realize that they're not. We listen to his words and words that we think are his, we see what we think are his actions, and we put the pieces of the puzzle together and then cry out. And so what we need to do is when we go to God and cry out, we need to recognize that though we are crying out in anguish and pouring out our hearts just as they are, that we don't have all the facts, that we haven't put the pieces of the puzzle together correctly. And so God begins to tell Habakkuk the plan. He tells him, he says, in verse 5, look at the nations and watch and be utterly amazed from going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if I told you. I'm raising up the Babylonians that ruthless and impetuous people. Now, what is he talking about here? When I said that he wrote in a day of international crisis, it was the nation of Babylon that had overthrown the Assyrians and become the real world power at this time. The Babylonians, ironically, they were located where present day Iraq is located. And similar to the way that most Americans probably think of Iraq and at least the leader of Iraq, that's how the Israelites thought of Babylonia and maybe even worse than that. They were the epitome of evil. And yet what God was going to do is he was going to take care of the problem that Abakkuk was crying out about, the injustice in the land of Israel, the injustice that had led to the law being functionally paralyzed. He was going to send the wicked Babylonians as an instrument of discipline to the Israelites. And so Habakkuk is saying, wait a minute, time out. I'm getting much more than I bargained for here. This doesn't make any sense at all. And so it begins to further talk to God in verse 12 and following, verse 13, your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrong. You see, he's still trying to put the few pieces of the puzzle together that he has and make a hole. And he can't do it because God in effect begins to say to him, Habakkuk, this is a billion piece puzzle and you cannot put it all together. I remember as a little boy going to one of my relatives, cabin in the Mexico and on their coffee table, they had this magnificent puzzle all put together. And I thought it was so cool that when I got home, I told my parents, please buy me a puzzle so that I can put it together like that in the cabin. And they wouldn't get me this very intricate puzzle and I cleaned off a table in the house and put all the pieces of the puzzle down and went to work. A couple hours later, they came back and I was throwing a fit. And they looked at me and I said, why don't you get me this puzzle? There's too many pieces. Too many pieces, it's too complex to put together by myself. And what God does in effect to Habakkuk is that Habakkuk, I can't right now work with you to put all the pieces together, but I can show you the cover of the box and it will blow you away. This is the plan of God. And what he does, he paints a vision for Habakkuk that becomes so important for him in terms of the way that he works through these difficulties. He tells him in chapter two, verse two, he says, write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. He's saying in effect, look at the box cover of the puzzle and see where things are headed. It speaks verse three of the end and will not prove false though it linger wait for it. It will certainly come and will not delay. And then it says in verse 14, it's a beautiful verse for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. He's saying you've got a revelation. Your life must be based on this revelation. Write it down, stick to it. A prophet's job was to write down the words of God and they became and that's the scriptures. And you say you've got to stick to this plan because you don't understand how incredible it is. He says don't check out on me, bow down to me and understand that everything is moving gloriously forward to a day when just as the waters cover the sea and mighty and glorious and powerful as they are, so one day my glory will cover all. In essence, all the injustice and all the wickedness, it will find its place someday. Justice will come when I come and set my glory over the face of the earth. Now here's the point. Every single one of us has a revelation that we base our life on. Every single one of us has a Bible, let me say what in it and I don't hold the Bible or what are you talking about? Well every one of us has a philosophy or approach to life, a revelation that when you hit the difficulties of life, you begin to meditate on those thoughts, those truths that in actuality or lies, they become for us idols in our heart and he talks later in verse 18 of chapter 2 of what value is an idol since a man has carved it or an image that teaches lies. He's saying don't hold on to the need to be a control freak because that desire to be able to control every situation is like trying to put together this billion-piece puzzle when you've only got access to maybe 25 of those pieces. Instead recognize that that desire, that idolatry, that philosophy, that revelation is a pack of lies. Instead, verse 20, turn to the Lord who is this holy temple and let all the earth be silent before him. Connect that with verse 4 of chapter 2 which is one of the most famous verses in the New Testament and in Christian history. See he has puffed up speaking of the evil that would come. His desires are not upright but the righteous will live by his faith. This Martin Luther saw as the cornerstone of the Christian faith that in this life we enter into a relationship with God through faith, through trust, through recognizing the false revelation that I've been trusting. Whatever it is that I'm basing my life on and turn away from that idol placing my trust exclusively in the God of the Bible. Now the reaction that Havakik gave was one of the most beautiful prayers we see anywhere in the Bible. All of chapter 3 is a prayer that he prays once things begin to click. It's as though he recognizes now at the center of the universe is not Havakik and his concerns but the Holy God of Israel in all of his magnificence and purity. And so he cries out Lord I have heard of your fame I stand in all of your deeds renew them in our day. This is what you and I need as we go through whatever difficulties that life throws at us. We need to come back to who God is. We need to have a cappernic in revolution all over again and relocate the center of our universe back where it belongs upon God. And so we need to cry out God look I I know who you are I think but I need you to rekindle and renew the beauty and power of who you are that all things might take their proper place. Havakik cried out that God would renew them but then he prays a magnificent prayer towards the end where he says in verse 17 though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food though there are no sheep in the pan and no cattle in the stalls yet I will rejoice in the Lord I will be joyful in God my Savior for the sovereign Lord is my strength. I want you to notice a couple of things from those beautiful words he's saying in essence based on an agrarian society though my crops are failing though everything that would put food on my table and resources in the bank though all those things are failing I can rejoice I can worship I can delight in life how by rejoicing in God my Savior the one who is sovereign the twin pictures of God that we sang in our first hymn today that he is both mighty that is he is sovereign he is ordained the history of the world and your history in mind the end from the beginning he is sovereign he is king but also he is merciful he is good for that plan has no second best in it for you and me for those who come to him by faith alone they enter into this world that Noah knew and experienced as he passed through the turbulent waters of the world it's a world that you come to know by recognizing as a backup gift that this is God is not just out there but he is my God did you notice the use
there of my over and over again I will be joyful in God my Savior the sovereign Lord is my strength he enables me to go on the heights we need to come back to the fact that God while he is mighty and merciful he is mighty and merciful for me I told y'all before but it's been some time that when I was in my first year of seminary seminary not cemetery where I was studying for the ministry I found myself to be in great anguish deep in my heart I was doubted everything and I felt so guilty about it that I couldn't tell anyone about it except for Ellen and she kept telling me to talk to people about I just was too embarrassed about I'm supposed to be this great minister to be and I was doubting everything and I would try to find the intellectual answers that would solve all of my problems but they just didn't seem to be there sufficiently and in one day I found myself in a large lecture hall listening to of all things a church history lecture and heard Dr. John Hannah begin to talk about a man named John Calvin and it wasn't Calvin that I was so struck by it was as he talked about Calvin's God this magnificent and holy and sovereign being that enveloped all of the universe that had set in course all that happens in human history and though I can't explain it he understands it and I did come to find out as I sat there weeping in that lecture hall that the ultimate answer to the questions of why is really the who of life that that worry turns to worship when I bow the knee and see that though I can't put all the pieces of the puzzle together there is the great God who designed the puzzle in the first place he's in charge he is good and he is God my Savior who sent his son Christ to be a suffering servant for my sins the just those who are declared to be God's children live and flourish by faith in this God let's pray
Father I thank you that the anguish of life can indeed be satisfied by the adoration of the one true being for whom my soul was made father as a gustan cried out it is far better to leave the questions of my soul without a complete answer and to find you than to seek forever for the questions and in the process miss you we thank you Jesus that you indeed became for us a suffering servant and our friend Amen