Confidence in the LORD Even When Circumstances are Confusing—THE RIGHTEOUS WILL LIVE BY HIS FAITH —Hope for Today Through a Study on the Book of Habakkuk —Lesson 3
Sometimes people think that to become a Christian is to get rid of all problems in this life. When we are saved, our most insurmountable problem is solved—we are no longer at enmity with but reconciled to God. But what about problems in this world? Is everything supposed to be hunky dory for the believer? Is there something wrong with you if your life is filled with trials and suffering? When our worlds are rocked by a season of trials or when life around us seems to be falling apart, where do we run? Where do we turn for answers? Is okay to struggle with our problems? Habakkuk trusted God. He also struggled with doctrinal dilemmas that tested his faith but were launch pads that had the potential to catapult his faith to new heights if he responded rightly. Habakkuk was in good company with many others who had and would ask questions such as: “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?” (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46)
America is under judgment. The Bible says: Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD. Israel’s history shows us some of the consequences that can come to a nation when its people turn away from God. America is not a theocracy like that of Israel. But we can know that when a nation turns away from the true God and becomes its own god, the Lord will remove His protective hand and allow that nation to experience the world it desires apart from God.
Romans 1:18-32 shows the progression of people and nations that have turned away from God as they attempt to redefine morality. Homosexuality, unbridled lust, and idolatry are all part of God’s judgment on a nation that has turned away from Him. God gives over the people in a nation under judgment to the lusts of their hearts, their degrading passions, and depraved minds. They are described as being filled with unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful and who give hearty approval to those who practice rebellion worthy of death in God’s eyes.
The similarities between Habakkuk in his world and the Christian living in America today are eerily familiar. Habakkuk saw with physical eyes what was going on around him. He needed the eyes of faith to see things as God saw them…to lift his eyes from his circumstances to see God’s glory as He sovereignly rules over His creation.
Who are God’s people in the world today? What does the “Church” in America look like to the watching world? How is she influencing the world? What issues is she wrestling with? More importantly, what does the “Church” in America look like in God’s eyes? I’m talking about the professing Church of Jesus Christ. Could judgment be for the good of the Church?
1 Peter 4:17 says: For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
What does this mean for the true believer? The Christians Peter was writing to were experience persecution for following Christ. His epistle is an encouragement to true believers of all times to persevere in their faith in Christ, particularly in their times of suffering. He says there is no doubt that unbelievers will face God’s judgment, but believers will go through “fiery trials” that will help refine them as gold. God allows suffering in the lives of His children to purify them. This comes in the form of discipline as any loving father rightly disciplines His own. The Bible makes a marked line of distinction between God’s purifying discipline of the Church and His ultimate condemnation of the wicked. It may seem as though the wicked are living it up in this world for a time; but in the end, they will be condemned to death to endure the wrath of God for all eternity.
Discipline for believers includes ‘church discipline’, a biblical practice too few churches incorporate into the life of their congregations today—a practice that helps to purify the church from within. God desires that His people learn to walk in holiness and fellowship with Him. Because His children are to set an example for the rest of the world, there will be unpleasant consequences for rebellion. Israel was to be a light to the nations as they pointed unbelieving pagans to God by their separated, holy lives. If the church is not in the pursuit of holiness but begins to look just like the world, unbelievers see no reason to change their pursuit of sin.
When we are going through a trial and are having a difficult time understanding what is happening, we need to seek God’s wisdom. In fact, we cannot face trials and suffer well (glorify God) unless God gives us His own wisdom to see things from His perspective. During trials, we cannot lean on our own understanding but must ask God for His wisdom. (Proverbs 3:5-7; James 1:5-8) Trials help us to cultivate a deeper trust in God. Those who trust God will ask Him for wisdom; and asking God for wisdom is evidence that we trust Him. God’s wisdom in trials causes the roots of our faith to grow deeper into the foundation of God’s truth enabling us to stand firm in the storms of life.
Man’s greatest fear is the fear of death. The believer whose faith has grown through trials will face even death from God’s perspective. How much wisdom can a man or woman glean throughout a lifetime? Psalm 90:10 says: As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years, yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; for soon it is gone, and we fly away. Even when men focus all their energies on living a long life, all will die. There was a popular song in the late 90’s with these lyrics: I’m like a bird; I’ll only fly away. I don’t know where my soul is; I don’t know where my home is… The music was nice, but these lyrics are horrible; yet this is the state of most living in this world. Only the Christian can know for certain that her soul and her true home is in the Lord Jesus Christ. That knowledge comes from the wisdom of God.
My maternal grandmother died in 2009 just seven days shy of her 98th birthday while living in a nursing home. I visited with her many nights a week, sitting with her for hours talking about her life. I was amazed at how many detailed stories she could recall, especially as I began to age. It’s hard for me to believe that was over twelve years ago. At my age, time seems to fly; but for Grandma sitting in a nursing home, time went very slowly as the clock ticked away between visitors.
She would often make me laugh when she said, “Karla, I’m older than dirt!” She lamented the fact that everyone she had grown up with had died before her. Even so, she was always concerned that every ache and pain was some sort of cancer in her body. One feisty nurse at the assisted living home took a special interest in my grandmother, a feisty character in her own right. She would say, “Bert, trust me, you will not die of cancer!” Grandma would always reply, “How can you be so sure?” Ironically, unbeknownst to my mother, cancer was growing in her body at the time, and she died a year and a half after her mother. The way they faced death could not be any more different. My mother embraced God’s will for her life even in death.
Throughout my life, I often went to my mother for wisdom and advice on many different matters. My dad would shake his head because my mother and I would sometimes talk a dozen times throughout the day for quick questions or to share some ‘revelation’, or for hours talking about serious theological issues. We were so very different, yet no one can ever replace her as my best friend in this life. I miss her counsel as one who knew me better than I know myself. Yet, there is One who knows me intimately better than anyone can or ever will.
Psalm 139:1-4—O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Verse 13—For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. Verses 15-16—My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.
In answer to the above question is none. How much wisdom can a man or woman glean throughout a lifetime? Apart from God, man can never have the wisdom of God. When we compare the wisdom of man in this life to God’s eternal wisdom, we realize our ignorance and frailty apart from what He alone gives. 1 Corinthians 1:25 says the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Paul cries out in exaltation in Romans 11:33—Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. Read 1 Corinthians 1:25, 30; Isaiah 40:28; Psalm 90:12; recording what you learn about God’s wisdom. What else can we learn about God from the following passages? Deuteronomy 33:26-27; Psalm 90:2; and Malachi 3:6?
I am reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure, again, for our Ladies’ Book Club. One thing I never forgot from the first time I read it was this idea we need of preaching to ourselves.
“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they are talking to you; they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment (in Psalm 42) was this: instead of allowing his self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So, he stands up and says, “Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you.”
Habakkuk trusted God, but he did not understand what God was doing. He needed God’s wisdom. Wrestling through the doctrinal dilemmas arising in his mind regarding his immediate circumstances, he needed to get his focus on God’s character and remind himself of the truth he already knew. He also needed to not lean on his own understanding. You will remember that Habakkuk’s name meant ‘to embrace’ or ‘to wrestle’. We see him doing both in this book. Strong ‘embracing faith’ comes from wrestling through the deepest doctrinal waters during the stormiest seasons of our lives.
As a quick recap, good King Josiah died in 609 B.C. Ever since then all the religious reforms he had instituted had been forgotten and Jehoiakim, the son and successor to Josiah, had been leading the nation away from God. Habakkuk used words like violence, iniquity, misery, destruction, strife, contention, and injustice to describe the world in which he was living. Adjectives describing America are precisely the same. Habakkuk called to God for help, then he ‘screamed, cried out with a loud voice, or cried out with a disturbed heart’. God’s silence was more unsettling than his world.
The nation’s number one problem was leaders who refused to obey the law. (v. 4) HELLO? As one commentator has said: “The rich exploited the poor and escaped punishment by bribing the officials. The law was either ignored or twisted, and nobody seemed to care. The courts were crooked, officials were interested only in money, and the admonition in Exodus 23:6-8 was completely unheeded.” Look up Exodus 23:6-8 for more insight.
Did God explain Himself to Habakkuk? The Lord never owes any of us an explanation for anything He chooses to do or not do. What we need in times of doubt is a clearer revelation or a new view of God. We don’t live on explanations; we live on promises, and His promises are based upon His character. It has been said that there is nothing like a fresh view of the glory of God to give you strength for the journey.
That view of God’s glory would sustain Habakkuk in the news that God was sending the Babylonians to chasten the Jews. Widely known, the only purpose of the Babylonians was to promote themselves and conquer and enslave other people.
The fact that it is God who is sending them would silence the obvious question: How can they be stopped? It would appear this was an utterly hopeless situation. And what about the accusation that God was somehow indifferent to Judah’s sin? No. Nothing could be further from the truth. But Habakkuk had hoped God would send revival, judge the evil leaders, and establish righteousness in the land, no doubt the prayer of the Church in the world today.
God had sent prophets who had repeatedly warned the people, but they had refused to listen. Faithful men had declared God’s Word clearly and consistently. They were continually rejected and sometimes persecuted unto death. God had sent natural calamities and allowed them to be defeated in war, but they had stopped up their ears to avoid any conviction of sin. Instead of repenting, the people only hardened their hearts more and turned to the false gods of other nations to help them. That inevitable time when God’s longsuffering finally comes to an end was here. They would not like the consequences of their long-standing rebellion against Him. For Habakkuk, God’s ‘answer’ brought more problems. Is God somehow inconsistent? How could a holy God use a wicked nation to punish His own people?
Is it okay to question God? Isn’t that some form of unbelief? ‘Doubt’ questions God and may even debate with God, but the one who doubts does not turn away from God. It is ‘unbelief’ that refuses to accept or embrace what God says and does. ‘Unbelief’ is an act of the will. ‘Doubt’ is born out of a troubled mind and a broken heart. Waves of doubt only pushed Habakkuk to seek God’s wisdom more urgently.
Habakkuk 1:12-2:1
1:12—Are You not from everlasting, O LORD, my God my Holy One? We will not die. You, O LORD, have appointed them to judge; and You, O Rock, have established them to correct.
Habakkuk begins, not with himself or his circumstances, but with God. Though Habakkuk is perplexed and confused with God’s answer, his trust is still in his LORD and his God. The problem, however, is a personal one that was affecting Habakkuk’s personal walk with God as he wrestled with these faith challenges. Habakkuk was no immature saint who settled for half-truths or superficial pat answers to spiritual conflicts. His desire was to grow in grace and in the knowledge of God. The mature believer never shies away from wrestling through his beliefs to form a strong doctrinal support upon which his faith can continue to grow.
The prophet affirms God’s eternality, His holiness, His right to sovereignly rule His creation, and the fact that God’s trustworthiness is rock solid. Though the earth is quaking under Habakkuk’s feet, the foundation of truth God has laid for him to stand upon is secure. If we firmly plant our feet on God’s promises and His character, we will never be shaken to lose our faith. Faith lays hold of our greatest treasure in this life and the next—Jesus Christ.
Note what you see in Jeremiah 31:35-40 and 33:23-26. What is the significance of affirming God’s eternality and His holiness as it relates to His dealings with the Israelites? How can Habakkuk say with confidence, “We will not die.”? How does Habakkuk know God would not completely wipe out His people? On the other hand, how was Habakkuk sure that Israel would be punished?
God is holy. The Babylonians are the most wicked of the wicked in the eyes of any Jew. So how was it that God could use these wicked Babylonians to judge Judah? Wasn’t she less wicked than Babylonian? It seemed to make no sense. Habakkuk believed God would never destroy the Jewish nation based upon His covenant with them. No. God’s people would be spared, as a nation. That wasn’t the issue. What would they have to endure as God’s punishment at the hands of these wicked Babylonians? To use those more wicked to teach God’s children a lesson seemed upside down.
But were the Babylonians really more wicked than sinful Judah in God’s eyes? What do sinners do? They sin. In fact, they cannot help themselves BUT sin. This was no excuse; they would still be held accountable and judged for their sin, but they had no light in this world. On the other hand, Judah had been warned time and time again. She had a much greater light than the nations around her. She knew the true and living God as He had revealed Himself only to her. The Jews claimed to know God! He was their God, belonging only to them. Yet, they didn’t want Him or His law! Bottom line we must all think about here—SIN IN THE LIFE OF A BELIEVER IS FAR WORSE THAN SIN IN THE LIFE OF AN UNBELIEVER. When God’s children deliberately disobey Him, they sin not only against the light but against pure love.
I had some of these same doubts and conflicts raging through my mind during my ‘prison trial’. It is not lost on me that the biggest revelation to me in prison was God’s holiness and my own depravity.
Part of the conflict in Habakkuk’s mind was the fact he knew God’s character is unchangeable; yet this is not how he had imagined God would act. How often do we do the same? When we begin to look at the world around us, and our circumstances, we can begin to lose our firm footing. We must keep our focus on God’s character and His promises, and we will stand firm fully confident in our God.
Comments
Post a Comment