The Just Shall Live by Faith

Habakkuk was a prophet anointed of YHWY Himself and God used him as a watchman in the Southern Kingdom sometimes called Judah (Hab.2:1). Now these watchmen were prophets anointed to speak to God’s people in warning about their sin and spiritual lethargy. In the first chapter Habakkuk speaking of internal conditions in Judah points to a time after the reign of King Josiah and probably during the reign of King Jehoiakim and especially during the early years of his reign, the conditions seem to fit. He was a godless king who led the nation (church) down the path to destruction --- II Kings 23:34 - 24:5; Jeremiah 22:18.

Now as anointed as Habakkuk was, he could not figure out why God wouldn’t intervene in what was happening. And just what was happening? The Chaldeans, the Babylonians, in a period of approximately 20 years were sweeping over Judah in successive waves of violence and ultimately destroyed the country and took its inhabitants away into captivity in 586 BC. And in the midst of these violent waves of destruction Habakkuk cries out to God and asks Him why He is not doing anything to intervene and protect the Southern Kingdom and God replies that even if He were to inform Habakkuk about what He is doing Habakkuk probably wouldn’t believe Him anyway. But the Lord tells Habakkuk that it is God Himself who is raising up the Chaldeans to come and attack Judah and eventually they will be carried away into Babylon.

What? Two things strike me about this narrative. The first is obvious, God is sovereign and will never be bound by our limited views of any of His attributes or methods. But the second is more subtle. Here is Habakkuk, a true prophet and even a watchman for Judah, and he was clueless to God’s own working in the situation. Can you imagine that, the prophet of God was in the dark, he thought he knew what should be happening but he didn’t even recognize the plowing of God’s hand in the fallow ground of the rebellious people of Judah. Keep this in mind because it will be central to the character of God, God’s using of Babylon was a redemptive act for Judah even in great punishment. And as only a sovereign God can do, he later punishes the Chaldeans for their savagery toward God’s backslidden people while restoring Judah. God has made a blood covenant with His people, and like the blood of Christ sealed to our hearts by His Spirit, He will never forsake us and even in chastening the Father reaches out in love. Amazing.

So now what is Habakkuk to do, he cannot understand all the ramifications and inter-workings of what the Lord has just told him? Soon Judah will be carried away and yet God’s flow of redemption will continue unabated even through the captivity itself, working mightily through the fires of brutal enslavement. Oh my, this isn’t how it supposed to go, what is God doing, this can’t be right! So Habakkuk again seeks God to let Him speak for Himself and not let his own well meaning but flawed interpretation defile God’s message. God tells Habakkuk to write it down, that Judah is proud and careless in his life toward Me, and then God says that the “just shall live by faith”. Stop right there and gather all your so called works of righteousness and those things about which you are most proud, gather them brethren and place them on your personal fire of repentance, and smell the disgusting fragrance they bring within the smoke that you thought was pleasing to God.

Pleasing?? Without faith it is impossible to please God. All my writings, all my sermons, all my prayers, all my witnessing, all MY anythings are but dung, my faith in Christ is ALL I have and ALL you have as well. I can smell my pride as it burns before me, embarrassing that I would ever think such a thing about so worthless a being as myself. I am convinced that what God shares with Habakkuk is a glory glimpse into the majestic mystery that will be known as the good news. God will not share His glory with anyone, and Habakkuk must speak to Judah, even in their correction, turn to the Lord in faith, He will heal and He will save. Faith, the royal gift from God, will be that which alone reflects the Person of Christ, God’s Son. Our lives will manifest some of that faith, but even through the translation of faith into action it will come forth diluted.

That one moment of mustard seed faith, given by God and returned to Him alone, is the greatest act of worship that has ever occurred in the universe itself. People genuflect before earthly kings, they gasp at great and towering edifices, they are awestruck by the expanse of the galaxies, but one little 12 year old Pakistani boy who at his father’s chair believes on Christ contains more glory than all of creation combined. That was where Judah had gone wrong, they had trusted their religion and their temple and all their observances but they had turned from their faith. There is no power in buildings and chapels, and there is certainly no power in days and observances, there is no power in men no matter how pious, the only power we are afforded is the power that comes from faith in our Christ. And do not let the word “power” fool you, sometimes God’s power manifested through a conduit of faith appears like weakness and surely not earthly power.

God’ treasure abides in earthen vessels so the excellency may be of Him and not of us. How often have we stepped forward to assert God’s power and in the very act of attempting to show God’s power we have hidden it? I stand guilty many times. So that is what Habakkuk decides to do, believe and trust God which is what a prophet should do anyway. In the last three verses Habakkuk proclaims that it no longer matters if he cannot understand what God is doing, if the economy fails, no meat and no olives, no more sheep and no cattle, it still doesn’t matter. What? Why does it now not matter when just a couple of chapters ago he was crying out to God telling Him He wasn’t doing anything, and now Habakkuk says whatever happens he is at peace with it?

It is because he says, “Yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, he will make my feet like hinds’ feet and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.”

Oh believer in Christ have no fear in the middle of confusion, God is at work and although He may use you He doesn’t need you and the completion of all things is in His hand even now. We serve a Father who loves us more than we can ever believe or understand, and He never slumbers or sleeps but is ever vigilant for our safety. He does not turn from the straying sheep, He chases them as if they were the only ones in His flock. The days are evil but our God is Good and Great and redemption is His mission. Stay humble before our Lord and believe in Him not your own understandings. Do not let the confusion rule your mind, keep your thought on Him and He will give you peace. You do not know everything God is doing so it will exalt Him to confess that to Him and yourself daily.

Habakkuk prays "O Lord I have heard thy speech and was afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years,...in wrath remember mercy." We do well to pray for a revival from the merciful hand of our Father, not to ease things, but to lift high the Lord Jesus to be glorified in all the nations!.

He has given us everything, He is well capable of preserving that which He has purchased. Jesus is a mighty God but the glory of His might is found many times in weakness and sometimes death and even the death of the cross. It is unfathomable to imagine God dying, much less dying on a vicious and bloody cross, and desperately unthinkable that that sacrifice was for us. Oh where is the mental capacity to imagine such a thing and deeper still where are words that can give sufficient honor to the sacred profoundness of such a deed? They are not on this side, my brothers and sisters, but be patient and yet believe. God will finish His work with no worry and no deviations taking Him off stride, the end is near, but the victory has been won and shared with us by faith.

Only believe…only believe.