An Introduction to Habakkuk
- David Fairchild
- Feb 5, 2006
- Series: Habakkuk
INTRODUCTION
Today we are going to jump back to the Old Testament to study the small yet important book within the minor prophets called Habakkuk.
This week we are only going to give an overview of the book, and next week we will jump in and begin the first few verses and start working through it verse by verse.
The importance of giving an overview is not always clear, so let me explain why we take the time to introduce a book before we study the work itself. In our time, it is very popular to ask what a book of a Bible or what a verse in the Bible has to do with our lives. I’m not diminishing that curiosity because I believe it is perfectly legitimate and healthy to ask such questions. The problem arises when we seek only to find how it applies in context to us, without first discovering how it applied in context to the time and audience of the book/letter itself.
One of the reasons I speak so much about the postmodern condition and mindset is due to the fact that our principles of biblical interpretation have been greatly affected by the hermeneutic of our day, which happens to be the postmodern hermeneutic. This method of interpreting the Bible, literature and art is so much a part of our culture that we are often unaware that it governs how we look at such pieces.
What you find in a postmodern interpretive method is a high emphasis on personal experience, application and understanding. Now, this doesn’t sound alarming, until you attempt to study the Scriptures outside of their context. This interpretive method desires to arrive at an answer to how the Bible and its contents affect our lives without first attempting to understand what was meant when it was originally communicated through the prophets and apostles to the people of God. This can be very dangerous, since many cults and aberrant theological positions have been given life by ripping a verse or passage out of context and building an entire theological system around this “new” insight or understanding of the passage.
In order for you and I to grasp how a book like Habakkuk can have any significance in our lives, we need to understand the historical setting, circumstances, author and the intention of the author’s work before we can ask what this means for you and I today. As I have said previously, a person that says they do not care about history and only faith, is actually contradicting themselves, because our faith is rooted in an act within time and space history in which our entire worldview and beliefs are grounded. Someone that does not care about history is actually advocating a works-based religion because they are saying that it doesn’t really matter whether Christ really existed, or really died, or really rose from the dead, as long as we follow His example. This assumes, very subtly, that we can have favor with God through following advice or example. This is justification by works, which this little book very much disagrees with.
So let’s come to this book aware of what is happening and seeking to understand how Habakkuk’s conversation with God has a direct impact on our faith today.
Let’s get into biblical history then I’ll speak about the history of our faith and how a passage in this little book ignited a revolution in the world today.
A Brief History
Moses
The book
of Exodus, with the main human actor, Moses, tells us the story of how God
supernaturally saved a people for Himself. The drawing of His own to the base of
God gives His word in promise, command, and warning out of love to His people that they might live long lives of spiritual prosperity and blessing as image bearers upon this earth. God warns His people that if they disobey in unbelief, only death, destruction, and curse awaits them.
Most of
you know that Moses did not lead the people of God into the Promised Land
because of His disobedience. Yet, God
allowed Moses to see it from afar. This
is very telling since it points to the way that God saves His people, through
faith and not mere obedience. Joshua is
chosen and the book of Deuteronomy ends with Moses’ death on the border of
Joshua
The book
of Joshua tells the story of the Israelites’ conquest of
The land
is like a second
The people of God have had, and continue to have, short memories and rebellious hearts. They are affected by the idolatry of the Canaanites and God calls for the destruction of the Canaanites out of loving protection for His people.
God’s holiness and judgment are to be reminders of just how much is at stake in the Israelites’ remaining faithful to the LORD.
Judges
The book of Judges tells the story of what happens once Joshua and his generation have died—and the news is not good.
Time and
time again the Israelites do what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, so that the
Lord hands them over to their enemies. Judges tells the story of a downward spiral into rebellion and disaster
at every level in the nation of
The temptation of the Israelites to follow after foreign idols because of their lack of faith in the true God is overwhelming, and they succumb to the pressure. They serve Baal, the fertility god, and this new god promises to give them prosperity and blessing if they say this prayer, offer this sacrifice, do this duty (sounds like word faith doesn’t it?). They move from God has their greatest good, to the land He gave them and the blessings in it as their god they worship. The people of God begin to use magic and witchcraft in their new-found cult and seek to have more animals, more crops, more children, more material possessions. They engage in sexual activities with cult prostitutes—male or female—at the local Baal shrine. The purpose was to act like Baal so that Baal would act on their behalf. You always look like what you worship!
God is saddened and in righteous indignation over the adultery of His people, God’s judgment is carried out. This cycle looks like this:
1- The Israelites sin by worshipping the Baals and the Ashtoreths.
2- This violates the covenant and provokes the Lord to anger.
3- The Lord hands them over to their enemies.
4- Because of distress under oppression by their enemies, the Israelites cry out to God for deliverance.
5- Finally, the Lord raises up a military deliverer (judge) to rescue them from their oppression.
This
pattern would run its course. All would
be well for a while, and then as the judge died and
The book of Judges begins and ends with war. In the beginning, the Israelites are fighting a war against their enemy, and by the end they are at war with one another. They live their lives doing what is “right in their own eyes.”
The People Request a King
They people of God were to be under the sovereign rule of their One True King. Yet, in their folly, disobedience and failure to remember and respond to the judges that the Lord gave them, a king is sought.
God
answers the barren woman, Hannah’s, prayer, delivering her from her barrenness,
and at the same time, delivers
The people of God once again grow restless as they look toward their future and desire a king like the other nations. They want someone who is going to be a military leader and say nothing about their request for someone that will lead them in faithful obedience to God. They want a monarch instead of a Theocracy where God is their King.
God uses
Samuel to choose a king over
God rips the throne from Saul and gives it to a shepherd that is anointed by Samuel to lead God’s people in humility and godly faith. God makes a covenant with David that from his throne will come a King who will sit forever in power and glory—one who will rule in perfection and whose royal reign will never come to an end. From David’s line will come the Anointed One, the True King, the Messiah, Jesus.
You know the story. David rules faithfully, but sin creeps in, and after his sinful relationship with Bathsheba and the murder of Bathsheba’s husband, a prophet visits David and tells him the story of the rich man who owns many flocks, and a poor man who owns just one lamb, a ewe, a family pet. When the rich man needs a special meal for a visiting guest, he arrogantly slaughters the poor man’s lamb instead of his own. This tale of greed enrages David and he vows to visit punishment upon the “rich man.” Suddenly God’s prophet Nathan turns on the king and declares “you are the man.” David acted out of greed and injustice and David’s arrogance allowed him to take another mans wife. David weeps before God and repents of his sin.
Though repentant, this sin affects David’s household. David’s child from Bathsheba dies, and rape, murder and rebellion erupt in David’s own family.
Ultimately, David declares Solomon to be the heir of his throne.
The cycle continues. Solomon begins well, ruling wisely, then Solomon is attracted to foreign women and ultimately their gods.
The Kingdom is Split in Two
After
King Solomon’s reign, in 930 B.C., the kingdom is divided into two kingdoms—
In the north,
The
Southern Kingdom saw good kings rise into power off
and on that would restore worship of Yahweh until eventually
· Habakkuk was probably written around 605 B.C. and was a contemporary of the well-known prophet Jeremiah.
· Habakkuk was a prophet to a very morally corrupt nation.
o
He
prays over a long period of time that God will right the wrongs. However, when God answers, his plan involves a
nation more wicked than
· Here is a quote describing the cruelty of the Babylonians:
“The kings’ cruelties were especially revolting. Pyramids of human heads marked the path of the conqueror. Boys and girls were burnt alive. Some reserved for a worse fate—they were impaled and flayed alive, they had their skin peeled back in front of their family. Then they were blinded or deprived of their hands or their feet or their ears. Some had their noses cut off while the women and children were carried into slavery. The captured city plundered and burned to ashes and all of the trees were cut down. How deeply seeded was the thirst for blood and vengeance on an enemy was exemplified in a carving on a wall which represent the king and his queen feasting in their garden while the head of the king of the Elamites hung from a tree above in plain view of all of the party guest.”
Basic Outline
· Although the book has three chapters, it has two major sections.
o
First
Section (
o Second Section (Ch. 3): Habakkuk’s Song to God
· What is so unique about Habakkuk is that Habakkuk is not the record of his prophecies to the people, but rather it is Habakkuk’s conversations with God.
· If you were to look at the first two chapters, they would break down as follows:
o Conversation One
§ Habakkuk Speaks (1:1-4)—You’re Indifferent
§ God Answers (1:5-11)—No: Here’s My Plan
o Conversation Two
§
Habakkuk
Responds (
§ God Responds (2:2-20)
Theme of the Book
· The theme of Habakkuk is Faith.
o As you read the book over and over and as we go through the book, you will see this stick out very clearly.
· For the remainder of our time today, I want us to focus in on a particular verse in Habakkuk which has made this book so important.
· Habakkuk 2:4
o What makes this verse so significant is that it is quoted three times in the NT This is impressive because the book was only three chapters long and they did not have ready access to the Scriptures like we do today.
§ This verse is quoted in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, which are the three key theological books of the NT
o This book is by far the most significant of the Minor Prophets.
Romans 1:15-17
· The Gospel
o The word ‘gospel’ in verse 15 means good news because it tells how a lost person who has wrath, condemnation, and judgment hanging over their head can find forgiveness and mercy from God.
· Why is he eager to preach the gospel?
o It is the power of God for salvation.
· Why is it the power of God for salvation?
o In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed!
§ This is what happens on the cross. At the cross, all of my sin is taken away and the righteousness of Jesus is added to my account.
§ It is from ‘faith to faith’—in other words, the gospel starts with faith and it ends with faith. It is faith from beginning to end.
· Martin Luther
o This truth changed Martin Luther’s life. Martin Luther was a German monk who was desperately seeking forgiveness of his sins. He fasted, prayed, did penance, and practiced the sacraments. He would climb up a long set of steps over and over again on his hands and knees, seeking to find approval from God and to have his sin forgiven. He attended confession over and over again, but would find that by the time he made it back to his chamber he remembered sin that was he had not confessed and would then have to hurry back. He was a very intelligent man who held six degrees.
o
In
the midst of this, Luther was sent to the
§ “In that instance it seemed to me that I was born anew and I entered the gates of paradise.”
o
Shortly
thereafter, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle in
· John Wesley
o
Years
later John Wesley who was the founder of the
Galatians 3
· When Paul preached to the Galatians, a group of heretics came along and said that salvation begins with faith, but after that you must keep the OT Law in order to remain saved.
· In order to challenge this, Paul shows a contrast between the Law and Faith.
· Verse 10—Everyone trying to keep the Law is under the curse. When you look back at verse 9 you see that people of faith are blessed.
· There are only two categories—Cursed and Blessed (Law/Faith)
· What verse 10 is saying is that you must abide in all things written in the book of the Law, not some of the things.
o In other words, you must continually keep every single thing written in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.
o According to the ancient rabbis, there were 613 laws in the book of Moses.
§ Most of us can’t even remember the Ten Commandments, much less 613.
· The message of the Law is bad news; however the good news in verse 11 is that “the righteous shall live by faith.”
o Notice that in verse 11 no one can be declared righteous by the Law.
o What does Paul base this on?
§ Habakkuk 2:4
Hebrews 10
· Hebrews 11 is the great chapter on faith, but it begins back in Hebrews 10:37
o Soon Jesus is coming, but until Christ comes and judges the world, what are you to do?
§ Live By Faith!
o Notice that living by faith and drawing back is opposite.
· Real faith is much more than mental assent and believing facts about Jesus.
o Real faith is not making a profession and walking an aisle. Real faith is irrevocable, it is total submission, it is ongoing, enduring and lasts forever.
Conclusion
Habakkuk is significant in a number of ways.
·
First,
in its primary context, it spoke of the coming judgment of
· Second, it would be used three times in the NT to reveal major theological doctrines regarding salvation.
· Finally, it would be used as a lightening rod to start the Protestant Reformation, which led to you sitting here today.
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