Habakkuk Chapter 1 verse 5 to 17


Sermon Notes on Habakkuk Chapter 1 verse 5 to 17.

Last week the questions that Habakkuk was wrestling with: Why aren’t You DOING something LORD, to turn the people’s hearts back to YOU?

Why aren’t YOU answering the cries of our hearts and the prayers that we’ve prayed?

This week we are going to look at God’s answers to those prayers and discover that far from easing Habakkuk’s fears, God’s answers may confuse Habakkuk.

1: Verse 5, God gives 3 commands. Habakkuk has been asking God about his own city and nation. But God tells him to look at the bigger picture, look out across the nations. ‘For I am going to do something in your day that You would NOT believe, even if you were told.’

If we only could see things from God’s perspective from heaven’s perspective.

Habakkuk had complained in verse 1 to 4 that God was doing nothing to stop the pain and hurt in his city and his nation.

Now God says v6, ‘Your wrong Habakkuk, this is what I’m doing, ‘I am raising up the Babylonians.’ A nation that cares for no one or nothing, only their own power and success.’

If his first complaint was about the behaviour of his friends and the people of his nation, his second complaint to God is about the behaviour of his enemies. This ruthless, brutal nation that is about to come and completely devastate and decimate Judah and Jerusalem.

And basically what Habakkuk says in verse 12 to 17 is – How can You do this? – How can you allow this? How can you permit this? – This is not fair! – This is not right!

And you can feel the tension building inside Habakkuk as he wrestles and struggles, and battles to reconcile what he sees and hears from God, and what he believes about God.

Questions: What is God really like? What things do I really know and believe about God that won’t change, that don’t change? Even when the storms of life hit and threaten to completely shipwreck my faith and my life?

You get a sense of what Habakkuk believes about God, even though he’s totally bewildered by the suffering he sees in his life.

2: Verse 12, God You are an everlasting God. No power on earth or in hell can ever defeat our God and His purposes, no matter how powerful it is. Our God is everlasting.

3: My God, my Holy One. For Habakkuk this is not just any God that he is wrestling and struggling to comprehend. This is the LORD whom he knows, he loves and in whom he trusts as ‘My God, My Holy One.’

4: The final truth Habakkuk declares in v12 – My Rock. A rock stands for strength, stability, something unshakeable, unmoveable, solid. Nothing is certain in our world any longer. Everything that we relied on and clung to, that gave success, happiness, peace, joy, meaning, purpose, has been swept away from under our feet. Yet there is still one Rock, a solid certainty in this frightening sea of change. ONE Rock Solid Person who does NOT change when everything around us is changing and decaying. Psalm 46, ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in times of trouble, therefore we will not fear. Even though the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.’

Like Habakkuk there is so much going on in our world and in our generation, that we do not understand or comprehend. We too can be like Habakkuk as he struggles and wrestles, and battles to line up what he sees happening in front of him. But we come back to the rock solid fixture in our lives who does NOT change and who will NOT fail us. Even in the worst of storms that threaten to shatter and destroy our lives and our world. ‘What, then, shall we say in response to these things? This is what we say: ‘If God is for us, who can be against us?’