In the book Dune, set in the distant future, there is a scene where a young Paul Atreides is interrogated by a witch who represents a religious sect that helps rule the universe. She forces him to put his hand in a box that mysteriously produces terrible pain without damaging the flesh. She is testing him to see how he responds to suffering. At first, he winces and screams, but he holds his composure and determines not to withdraw his hand. He becomes resolved to endure pain.

At the end of the short book of Habakkuk, the prophet said that even if all the crops in Israel were to yield no produce and even if all the livestock in Israel died off, he would rejoice and take joy in God (3:17-18). Even if the earth suffered chaos in apocalyptic proportions, Habakkuk would trust God. God had made him strong, so he would move forward, trusting God despite all he saw, despite the pain of his hand in the box (3:19). At the end of the book, Habakkuk demonstrates remarkable trust in God.

That is how the book ends. But it is not how it begins. At the start of his book, Habakkuk was reeling. He questioned God. He was upset at God. And he longed to know what God was doing because, in Habakkuk's mind, God wasn't doing anything.

So what happened that took this man from despair to trust? A conversation with God—a conversation recorded in these three brief chapters. In their dialogue together, Habakkuk fixates on a problem as he saw it, God gives a promise to Habakkuk and the world, and Habakkuk then praises God for what he heard before concluding with a strong song of faith. The conversation changes Habakkuk. He progressed from worry to worship and from fear to faith.

Because of this progression, I am calling this series on Habakkuk Unreasonable/Reasonable Trust. I pray it helps us develop a trust in God that is not based on reasons we can see with our own eyes or logic (unreasonable, or without reasons), but a trust that is based on his nature (reasonable, or with reasons).

A Song Of Discouragement (1:1-4)

Habakkuk 1:1–4 (ESV) — 1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

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?

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.

A Burdened Prophet

We might not know Habakkuk's backstory, but this quick introduction tells us a lot about him. First, we suspect he was a poetic man because this beginning statement is written in song form. And our suspicions will be confirmed in the final chapter of his book—there, he wrote a prayer to a song style called a Shigionoth and gave instructions to the choirmaster to play it on stringed instruments (3:1, 19).

Second, we learn he was a burdened man. He'd seen an oracle, a word meaning "what is lifted up" and that some translate as "burden." Like a soldier with an eighty-pound pack on his back, Habakkuk's every movement was slowed by the presence of his burden.

Third, right away, we must note that he felt free to be brutally honest with God. He wonders aloud how long he's going to have to pray. He wonders if God hears him. He is tired of alerting God to the violence all around him without any response (2). He challenges God's wisdom, asking him why he has to see so much sin. He is frustrated by all the destruction, violence, strife, and contention all around him (3). He even tells God that the Bible is ineffective—justice never happens, and the wicked keep multiplying! And when justice is administered, it's clumsy and a cheap imitation of true justice (4).

But this last note about the prophet helps us learn something about God. Habakkuk's prayer made it into the Bible. God did not order a ban of Habakkuk's questions. He welcomed them and—as we will learn in a moment—gave a shocking response to them.

Hints At The Setting

And, just as we can learn a bit about Habakkuk and his God from this opening salvo, we can also glean a little about the situation that made Habakkuk write this song in the first place. The key is found in his conclusion that the law is paralyzed (4).

What this helps us understand is the location of all the despairing things Habakkuk saw. As a prophet who was concerned with God's people—the church of that era—Habakkuk desperately wanted God's word to regulate the lives of God's people. He taught and prophesied and sang with the hopes that God's congregation would submit to God's law.

But the law was paralyzed—among God's children. The odds are strong that all this happened after the reign of King Josiah. Josiah had been a good king who led a revival of the worship of God in Israel. But the reform must've been only a top-down, outward, legislated one rather than a bottom-up, heartfelt, personal one because the second Josiah died, the people drifted back into disobedience. For a hot minute, the king compelled them to worship God, but once the king was dead, their true hearts were revealed.

So Habakkuk didn't start his book bemoaning the sin outside Israel, but the sin inside Israel. Perhaps you can relate. There are many elements of today's society that discourage believers. But a mature believer is more disturbed by sin inside the church than outside it.

Who was Habakkuk saddened and frustrated by? Not the world. But God's church. This is one of the most important interpretive questions to get right with this book. It is tempting to use the book of Habakkuk as a soapbox against society's ills—and many have done so—but Habakkuk was initially discouraged by the ills of God's people. To use Habakkuk to rail against sin in the world is like being in the emergency room with a gunshot wound to the stomach, getting out of your bed, going across the hall, reading your neighbor's chart, and becoming sad for their sprained ankle. Read your own charts! There's plenty to be sad about right there. Habakkuk had, and all he saw broke his heart.

The law was simply paralyzed. What a picture! A dead body part is lifeless, but a paralyzed body part has life, but not ability. The designed function of a paralyzed hand is clear, but the paralysis keeps it from doing what it was designed to do. And, as Habakkuk looked out at Israel, he felt the word was not able to do what it was designed to do. Something in God's people paralyzed the living Word of God!

And in our age of church scandals, the prevalence of strange doctrines, and a general acknowledgment that many Christians don't look any different from the world they're living in, can't we relate? It can feel like the word is paralyzed to work among God's people—all the pornography, all the consumerism, all the self-expression, and all the hyper-independence seem to keep the positive effects of the Bible from breaking into many lives. Habakkuk saw it and asked how long? Perhaps we ask the same.

It is important to acknowledge, however, that Jesus saw and did more than Habakkuk (or we) ever could. Jesus saw the depths of our sin and depravity, the total enslavement of our souls to unrighteousness. And he was able to do more than merely bemoan what he saw—he acted. What he saw, though repulsive, made him run to us, not away from us. Because of what Jesus saw, he offered more than a complaint but a solution. He came with his cross to save us.

A Surprising Discipline (1:5-11)

But the book does not end with Habakkuk's initial flurry of emotion. The song continues. The direction of the language changes here—this next section is penned by God.

Habakkuk 1:5–11 (ESV) — 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.

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!”

The Chaldeans

That God answered Habakkuk might've startled the prophet—many Jewish songs of mourning never got a response. But God was already working on something before Habakkuk uttered his lyrics, so now God is ready to sing about all he is doing. But what did God's song say?

It said God was about to do an astounding work Habakkuk would have trouble believing (5). It predicted that in Habakkuk's lifetime, God would raise up the wicked and violent Chaldean armies to invade Israel (6). It acknowledged that these Chaldeans answered to no man and were a law unto themselves (7). It spoke of their speed, ferocity, and pride by comparing them to leopards, wolves, and horsemen (8). It compared the number of their captives to innumerable sands (9). And it detailed their response to kings and fortresses that tried to obstruct them—all they did was laugh before mowing them down! (10). Finally, God sang that they swept through like a hurricane and worshipped their own military might and power (11).

If Habakkuk's song was like a moody and despairing Nirvana track, God's song was like a jarring and confrontational Rage Against The Machine one. Habakkuk might've mourned the sin of God's people. But God was tired of mourning for so many years. He'd already sent prophet after prophet to his people, calling them to turn and repent. Now—after half a millennium of patience—it was time for action.

He would send the Chaldeans to wake up his slumbering people. You might know the Chaldeans as what they eventually developed into—the Babylonians. And when King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian forces did finally invade Judah, they were merciless—just as God had said to Habakkuk. Their brutality can be illustrated by what they did to the last king of Judah. After a long siege against Jerusalem, the Babylonians took King Zedekiah, slaughtered his prince-sons, and put out his eyes before delivering him to a Babylonian prison (1 Kings 25:1-7).

And—don't miss this—God's lyrics are abundantly poetic in nature. It's like God in heaven sat down at his desk with pen in hand to write down his deliberate poem of discipline. Why is this important? Because it tells us God was not writing in cold prose about the hard facts of his judgment. He used the art and romance of poetry to express his heart. It was planned and calculated but also sad and heartfelt. He is not a prosecuting lawyer building a case but a jilted lover who can't believe it's come to this.

And this poem-song is a shock! God would cure his people's disobedience by sending seemingly worse people to chasten them. The Chaldeans would be God's scalpel to help him access the cancer deep within Israel. As a jilted lover, it's as if God will do anything—even the most extreme things—to rescue his people. Like the hero in every modern Liam Neeson movie, God will take any measure necessary to win us back to himself.

God's Unbelievable Work

Last week, we considered for a moment that God's ways are not our ways. Here, we see this truth as Habakkuk and God's perspectives are placed in stark contrast. God's way of sending the Chaldeans was high above Habakkuk's desire for another reform or revival. And when God tells Habakkuk what he's going to do, it's like a mathematical genius trying to explain calculus to a little child who's only learned simple addition. This is why God said Habakkuk wouldn't believe it (5). He couldn't. To him, it didn't add up.

We are often this way. We have our simple equations for things like the presence of evil or human suffering. We have questions about why evil flourishes. But we often approach these questions with simple addition of what we think is good or what we think is bad. God, however, approaches these problems with the calculus of the gospel, consuming the worst of evils on the cross so that all who believe in Jesus can escape all pain forever. But it is often hard for us to process because we are like children in comparison to the wisdom of God.

But, though this work was hard for Habakkuk to believe, we should believe it. Christians, of all people, understand that death precedes resurrection. And God's people needed some resurrecting in Habakkuk's day, so God was going to allow some death. As Jesus said:

John 15:2 (ESV) — 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

Israel needed a bit of pruning before better fruit could come.

When Peter wrote to a church that was suffering because they were being marginalized, he said God was using it to sharpen his people:

1 Peter 4:17 (ESV) — 17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God...

Perhaps we are also shocked today that God would choose to work in this way. Perhaps we cannot imagine God using wicked schemes, worldviews, or movements to discipline his own people. But why not? Why can't God shape us up in that way?

A Statement Of Disillusionment (1:12-17)

Well, Habakkuk might've been shocked by God's response-song, but that didn't mean he would be silent. He had something to say to God.

Habakkuk 1:12–17 (ESV) — 12 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?

14 You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler.

15 He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad.

16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich.

17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?

I Thought

Habakkuk's rebuttal was a statement of disillusionment. He had three beliefs that made him confused by God's promise of discipline at the hands of the Chaldeans.

First, he had always thought of the Chaldeans as evil people who were ordained for judgment and correction (12). If anyone needed discipline, Habakkuk thought, it was them! They were brutal, treating the nations like fishermen treat fish, catching them in their net before feasting on their lives (15-16).

Second, he had thought Israel was special. He said to God, "We shall not die. We are more righteous than them" (12-13). He'd not understood that, as God's people, God's expectation of them was higher than it was for nonbelievers.

Third, he had thought God was a good God. God was from another perfect and holy dimension (12). He thought God couldn't even look at evil—and certainly, the Chaldeans were evil (13).

Perhaps you've been where Habakkuk was—trying to reconcile different concepts you thought you knew about God. Maybe you've even done what Habakkuk did and tried to argue with God by appealing to a facet of God's character—God, you are love, so you should do this! God, you are holy, so you should do this!

It all seemed so strange (and maybe excessive) to Habakkuk, and he had theological arguments ready to go. He shot back at God, reminding God that he is holy, just, and good—how could he allow the sin of the Chaldeans to go unchecked? No longer was Habakkuk concerned about sin within the camp but outside it. Surely these wicked murderers deserved more of God's judgment than Habakkuk's people did!

Habakkuk felt God's medicine was worse than the disease. The prophet would have preferred another reform or revival in the land—he'd experienced one a few years earlier. If only we could go through another revival, Habakkuk thought, it would stick this time!

Habakkuk felt like many of us do—that evil is pointless. God had a specific plan for using the wicked Chaldeans in the life of his people—and that plan is difficult for us to imagine. But just because we can't imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen doesn't mean there can't be one. We are doing basic addition, but God is busy doing advanced calculus. As Tim Keller wrote in his seminal book, A Reason For God:

"If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know. Indeed, you can’t have it both ways." — Tim Keller, A Reason For God

The Cross

But the cross of Christ shows us that God is love and holy, just and merciful. It also shows us that—in God's estimation—the only true way to eradicate evil is not by putting the world on autopilot to do whatever he wants at a given moment but by going himself to suffer, die, and rise from the dead.

We must remember this about God. Habakkuk was stressed out because the Chaldeans were treating the nations like fishermen treat fish. But we must remember that God went fishing too. He sent his Son so that all who would believe in him would no longer perish but enter into abundant life (John 3:16).

When children play tag, they often have a home base. It's a place of safety. For believers, going back to the cross of Christ is our place of safety, especially when life is confusing.

Conclusion

Habakkuk will not remain in his state of confusion forever. After completing this first step of presenting the problem (as he saw it) to God, Habakkuk would go on to listen to what God had to say. God will promise judgment on all unrighteousness and evil one day. And, in response to God's promise, Habakkuk will praise God for his faithfulness. After praise, Habakkuk will arrive at a position of deep trust in God. For Habakkuk—and many believers over the centuries—the equation is simple: the problem + God's promises + our praise = trust.

This trust is the goal, but often we get stuck on the problem. Why is there evil in the world or, more egregiously, in the church? Why do people who claim to love God sometimes behave the way they do? Why isn't there more love and devotion to God and his word? Why do insidious ideologies and movements gain traction in our modern time? Why do people get sick without cause? Why can't we shake ourselves from war and famine and disease? Why do innocent children suffer and die? Why? Why? Why? With all these questions, we can quickly get stuck on the problem. Soon, we become unable to move forward into the kind of trust that can get us through life and into a kingdom without problems of any kind.

It was hard for Habakkuk to believe that God would win over his people through their defeat at the hands of the Chaldeans. When these Chaldeans invaded Israel, it looked like Israel lost, when actually, it was a great triumph and an important step for God's people.

In a similar way, when we look back on Jesus' life, we know that God won the victory over sin by being crushed in death on the cross. We know that at the moment it appeared God lost the battle, he was winning it. We know that the Son consumed wrath far worse than the Chaldeans could bring. Yet his death is what brought us life.

No, we shouldn't be surprised at all that God might work in this way. To Habakkuk, God said, "I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told" (5). Paul even applied this quote to the gospel—what God did on the cross is unimaginably good and hard to believe when you hear it! (see Acts 13:37-41). But we have been told of God's marvelous work in our days—and praise God, many of us have believed!