Slices
Prepare
Pray: ‘Speak, Lord, as I listen.’
Bible passage
1 The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.
Habakkuk’s complaint
2 How long, Lord, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’
but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
4 Therefore the law is paralysed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.
The Lord’s answer
5 ‘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.
6 I am raising up the Babylonians,
that ruthless and impetuous people,
who sweep across the whole earth
to seize dwellings not their own.
7 They are a feared and dreaded people;
they are a law to themselves
and promote their own honour.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,
fiercer than wolves at dusk.
Their cavalry gallops headlong;
their horsemen come from afar.
They fly like an eagle swooping to devour;
9 they all come intent on violence.
Their hordes advance like a desert wind
and gather prisoners like sand.
10 They mock kings
and scoff at rulers.
They laugh at all fortified cities;
by building earthen ramps they capture them.
11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on –
guilty people, whose own strength is their god.’
Habakkuk’s second complaint
12 Lord, are you not from everlasting?
My God, my Holy One, you will never die.
You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment;
you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish.
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;
you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
14 You have made people like the fish in the sea,
like the sea creatures that have no ruler.
15 The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks,
he catches them in his net,
he gathers them up in his drag-net;
and so he rejoices and is glad.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and burns incense to his drag-net,
for by his net he lives in luxury
and enjoys the choicest food.
17 Is he to keep on emptying his net,
destroying nations without mercy?
Explore
As we saw in Way in, for centuries God’s people had cried out to him to rescue them from oppression and, for those who were in tune with God and cared about these things, from social injustices and poor national leadership. Rewind 600 years from the birth of Jesus the Messiah, the Rescuer, and we see the prophet Habakkuk complaining to God about the mess his people are in and the fact that God doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it: ‘I call for help … but you do not save’ (v 2).
After delighting in the coming of Jesus to bring heaven on earth, let’s now use these chapters of Habakkuk to help us bring the state of our own world to God in prayer, that more of the kingdom of heaven will be seen on earth in the coming weeks, months and years.
God’s response to Habakkuk astonishes him (v 5). God will send their archenemies, the Babylonians – a superpower renowned for ruthlessness and cruelty (vs 6,7) – to punish his people, like fish caught in a net (vs 14–17). But this will not be the end of the story, as we shall see tomorrow in chapter 2.
Respond
Speak with God about anything that’s particularly burdening you in world events, and also for any hurt and injustice going on in your area or community. Then listen for what he may want to say to you about it. Anything surprising?
Deeper Bible study
‘Listen, God! … Can you make sense of these ramblings, my groans and cries? … Every morning I lay … my life on your altar and watch for fire to descend.’1
Habakkuk is surrounded by violence, injustice, wrongdoing, destruction, strife and conflict (vs 2,3). The law, which is supposed to ensure justice, seems ‘paralysed’ (v 4). God’s people break the rules, but consequences don’t follow. Have God’s moral laws been suspended? Why doesn’t God invoke the covenant curses against those who so blatantly violate it?2 The prophet fearlessly questions God’s inaction. Many centuries later, with my island home of Sri Lanka plunged into unprecedented political and economic turmoil, the prophet’s questions – neither polished, polite, nor politically correct! – have never felt so real or relevant. The raw edge of perplexed pain in the words tumbling off Habakkuk’s tongue is my pain. The prophet’s agonised struggle to make sense of God’s apparent indifference (‘but you do not listen’, v 2) and inaction (‘but you do not save’) is my struggle.
Habakkuk’s no-holds-barred questions don’t offend God; indeed, God promises to punish those who pervert justice. But if God’s inaction in the face of injustice seemed perplexing, his proposed actions are preposterous! The Babylonians were ‘ruthless’, ‘impetuous’, ‘a feared and dreaded people’ (vs 6,7). On the heels of the law’s paralysis, God’s people must now brace themselves for invaders who are ‘a law to themselves’ (v 7). How could God possibly choose instruments who ‘come intent on violence’ and ‘whose own strength is their god’ (vs 9,11)? Doesn’t this contradict God’s own character, that holiness which ‘cannot tolerate wrongdoing’ (v 13)? Even more deeply troubled, Habakkuk questions God again (vs 13,17). As the chapter ends, the prophet’s questions remain unanswered. As I conclude this note, I have no answers for my country, which continues to weep.
A faith that is real and relevant dares to voice those burning questions and vent those raw emotions, trusting that God is great enough and gracious enough to take it.
1 Ps 5:1,3, The Message 2 Deut 28:15–68
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Zechariah 11,12; Revelation 20
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray for Safeguarding Manager Rachel Settatree as she develops new safeguarding materials for leaders to use with new or younger team members that are more appropriate to their level of understanding. Pray too that children will understand how safeguarding works on our activities and events.
