Bible Study Notes: Habakkuk Believing and Living by Faith!

Overview: Habakkuk was a prophet of God during the reign of Jehoiakim, a wicked king, around 607 B.C. The Babylonian empire was rising in strength and the southern two tribes of Israel, called Judah were surrounded by this powerful and wicked empire. The nation of Judah, under Johoiakim’s reign was following the ways of the world and was drifting from serving God. The most recent King Josiah, loved God and instituted reforms that were quickly melting away under the reign of Jehoiakim. Habakkuk was troubled by what he saw and asked God to judge the nation of Judah for their sin. God’s response utterly shocked Habakkuk as he couldn’t understand why God would respond in the way that God was planning.

The lessons learned and the questions asked by Habbakkuk are similar questions that believers have asked throughout the ages about the reign of evil. These three chapters written over 2,600 years ago could be summarized in this manner then and even today. 1) God sometimes allows evil to exist and doesn’t stop it for reasons unknown 2) God is in total control in spite of what we see 3) When we understand and accept God is in control no matter what happens, we will give God the glory. These lessons from Habbakuk started a spiritual revolution with Martin Luther and the Reformation that have changed the lives of millions of people around the world. When we accept God’s allowance of evil for His purposes because we know that God’s goal is the redemption of a lost world then we like Martin Luther can and will say, Habakkuk 2:4  “ Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.”

Key Verses: Habakkuk 1:3-4 Why do You show me iniquity, And cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; There is strife, and contention arises. 4 Therefore the law is powerless, And justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore perverse judgment proceeds.

Habakkuk 1:1-4 The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw. 2 O LORD, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear? Even cry out to You, “Violence!” And You will not save. 3 Why do You show me iniquity, And cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; There is strife, and contention arises. 4 Therefore the law is powerless, And justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore perverse judgment proceeds.

                                                                               

Habakkuk 1:5-11 “ Look among the nations and watch— Be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days Which you would not believe, though it were told you. 6 For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans, A bitter and hasty nation which marches through the breadth of the earth, To possess dwelling places that are not theirs. 7 They are terrible and dreadful; Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. 8 Their horses also are swifter than leopards, And more fierce than evening wolves. Their chargers charge ahead; Their cavalry comes from afar; They fly as the eagle that hastens to eat. 9 “ They all come for violence; Their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand. 10 They scoff at kings, And princes are scorned by them. They deride every stronghold, For they heap up earthen mounds and seize it. 11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on— guilty men, whose own strength is their god."

Habakkuk 1:12-17 Are You not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, You have appointed them for judgment; O Rock, You have marked them for correction. 13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And cannot look on wickedness. Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, and hold Your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he? 14 Why do You make men like fish of the sea, Like creeping things that have no ruler over them? 15 They take up all of them with a hook, They catch them in their net, and gather them in their dragnet. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. 16 Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their dragnet; Because by them their share is sumptuous and their food plentiful. 17 Shall they therefore empty their net, and continue to slay nations without pity? (See Notes 2: Armies of the World: God’s Perspective)

Notes 1: God’s Purposes Beyond Our Understanding
Jeremiah 29:10-14 For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.
Isaiah 55:6-10 Seek the LORD while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the LORD, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon. 8 “ For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. 9 “ For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. 10 “ For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater.
Romans 8:28-31 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Notes 2: Armies of the World: God’s Perspective
Isaiah 40:15-23 Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, And are counted as the small dust on the scales; Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing. 16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, Nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering. 17 All nations before Him are as nothing, And they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless. 18 To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him? 19 The workman molds an image, The goldsmith overspreads it with gold, And the silversmith casts silver chains. 20 Whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution Chooses a tree that will not rot; He seeks for himself a skillful workman To prepare a carved image that will not totter. 21 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. 23 He brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless.                                         

2 Kings 19:32-37 “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: ‘He shall not come into this city, Nor shoot an arrow there, Nor come before it with shield, Nor build a siege mound against it 33 By the way that he came,By the same shall he return; And he shall not come into this city,’ Says the LORD. 34 ‘For I will defend this city, to save itFor My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’’ 35 And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead. 36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. 37 Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

Personal Application: (Habakkuk 2:4) “ Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.”      As we look around the world today we see tremendous evil happening every single day in our own nation and in the world around us. Terrorist attacks are accelerating as the world sees perhaps a “new Babylonian” empire that ruthlessly crushes all who oppose it. God was and in still in control and uses all things to effect His ultimate perfect will for His children. Jesus told us that evil would grow worse as the Day of the Lord approaches and the end of time as we know it. We as believers can rest in knowing that God is reaching out to a lost world with the offer of redemption until Jesus Christ returns to establish His kingdom on earth. John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."