Today, we uncover the timeless wisdom within the Book of Habakkuk, starting with chapter 1. Through Allen J. Huth’s insightful commentary and personal journal entries spanning decades, understand how Habakkuk’s honest questioning of divine justice and his journey to faith offer invaluable lessons for our daily lives. Encounter God’s responses to Habakkuk’s earnest questions and consider how they apply to your own life’s challenges.
Welcome to AddBible, an audio daily devotion from the Ezra Project. Allen J. Huth shares a Bible passage with comments from over 35 years of his personal Bible reading journals and applies the Word of God to our daily lives.
SPEAKER 01 :
Today we begin the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk is another minor prophet book. I’ll use my English Standard Version Study Bible book introduction to help us with the book of Habakkuk. Little is known of the prophet Habakkuk. He may have lived in the time of Zephaniah and Jeremiah and maybe even in the time of Ezekiel and Daniel. Dating the book is difficult. It may have been written in the 600s B.C., probably no later than the reign of the boy King Josiah 640-609 B.C., And before Josiah, Judah had radically turned away from God under wicked kings like Manasseh and Ammon. The nation was ripe for punishment. But under Josiah, there was a spiritual revival, though short-lived. Habakkuk may have seen historical events like the destruction of Nineveh by Babylon in 612 BC, the battle where King Josiah died in 609 BC, and maybe even the fulfillment of his own prophecy of Babylon invading Judah In 607 BC, Habakkuk, like Job, questioned God’s justice. But like Job, finally realizes God is sovereign and his justice is beyond human comprehension. By the end of the book, Habakkuk is a changed person. maybe you will be changed by the book of Habakkuk as well. He learns to wait and trust in God. The first two chapters of the book are his complaints, or his, quote, prayers to God, and God’s replies, which puzzle Habakkuk. That may happen to you too from time to time as you pray, that you’re puzzled by God’s answers. He asks questions like, how could a just God use a more wicked nation to punish a less wicked one? Though Habakkuk doesn’t fully understand, he learns to rely totally on the wisdom and justice of God. The final chapter is Habakkuk’s praise and worship to that God. The key themes in this book are God is just and merciful even though his people may not understand his ways. Wickedness will eventually be punished, and the righteous will ultimately experience God’s justice. God also sometimes uses wicked nations to punish other nations, but ultimately God will judge all nations. If you are prone to question God, you will relate to Habakkuk. It is a dialogue between him and his questions, and God and his answers. So let’s listen in to Faith Comes By Hearing’s reading of Habakkuk 1.
SPEAKER 04 :
Habakkuk Habakkuk 1 The Oracle that Habakkuk the Prophet Saw O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you violence, and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me, strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed and justice never goes forth, for the wicked surround the righteous. So justice goes forth perverted.
SPEAKER 03 :
Look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded, for I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.
SPEAKER 04 :
They are dreaded and fearsome. Their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their God. Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die? O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof. You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. He brings all of them up with a hook. He drags them out with his net. He gathers them in his dragnet, so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet, for by them he lives in luxury and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?”
SPEAKER 01 :
To help us understand and apply the book of Habakkuk to our lives, I’ve selected three of my personal Bible reading journals. I’ve been journaling my Bible reading for 35 years. And so every time I read the scriptures, I write something down about what I’ve read and what it meant to me. So in the book of Habakkuk, we’ll be using a journal from 1997 when I read the Old Testament and I was 42 years old. The next journal will be 2009 when I again read the Old Testament at 54 years old. And then finally, the journal from 2015, when I read 20 Old Testament books and 15 New Testament books that year. And I was 60 years old. Three different journals, three different decades of my life. Habakkuk is such a short book that oftentimes we read the whole book in one day. It’s only three chapters. But in this Ad Bible recording, we will take each chapter on its own. So let’s go back to my journal in 1997 and see what I wrote after I read the whole book of Habakkuk. I wrote, He questions God and God answers his questions. Why do the wicked prevail over the just? God has a long-range plan and will judge the wicked in the end. Why do evil people rule and righteous people follow instead of rising up? Because the just shall live by faith. We question God because we want to know God’s ways are higher than ours. We cannot see the end from the beginning, but he can. Lord, thank you for your grace, not your fair judgment. That was my journal entry from 1997. I’ll save the other journal entries for the other two chapters of Habakkuk. So let’s look at Habakkuk chapter 1. The first complaint Habakkuk offers God is verses 2 through 4. Basically, it’s summarized in verse 2. And it concludes with the final part of verse 4. Habakkuk questions God. Have you ever questioned God? In my own life, I try pretty hard not to question God. But here, as Habakkuk questions God, God answers. Verse 5. God is responding to Habakkuk’s complaint. He’s saying, God is telling Habakkuk that he is raising up the Chaldeans, another name for the Babylonians, to bring justice to various nations. These Babylonians will be dreaded. They’re fearsome. They’re violent. They scoff at kings. They laugh at rulers. They sweep up victory after victory like the wind across the earth. They become so powerful, according to verse 11, their might is their God. Habakkuk says, hold on, wait a minute. These are unjust people. You’re going to use them to create justice? Look at verse 12. Are you not from everlasting, O my God, my Holy One? O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment? Verse 13. You’re going to remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? In other words, you’re going to remain silent when the Babylonians wipe out Judah? We’ll have to wait for God’s response to this complaint in chapter 2. So what can we apply to our lives from Habakkuk chapter 1? First, what is your attitude toward God? Do you believe God is working behind the scenes or are you always questioning what’s going on in front of you? Secondly, do you look around your life or around the world and see injustice and somehow question God? For example, do you see wicked or evil people prosper when you, a righteous person, may suffer economically? If so, stay tuned in the book of Habakkuk. Thirdly, is it okay to question God? I think we see people question God throughout the scriptures. But I also would heed a warning about how you question God. Is it from a sincere heart or from anger or frustration? In chapter 1 here, we see God respond to Habakkuk’s complaint. Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t in the scriptures. So you may want to question how you question God. I look forward to chapter 2 and chapter 3 of Habakkuk. I hope you do too. But for now, let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the opening chapter of the Minor Prophet Book of Habakkuk. We see the courage of Habakkuk to ask you a question. We see his concern for his own people. We see his sincerity in looking for answers. May we be the same. May we have sincere hearts to try to understand you and what’s going on around us. May we have the willingness to come to you with sincere questions. And may we be able to receive your gracious and just answers. And when we don’t understand, may we believe that you are working behind the scenes. You may be working in our days in ways that we would not believe even if told. So, Father, thank you for the book of Habakkuk. Speak into our hearts. Answer our questions. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to Ad Bible today. In September, we will be deciding whether to continue this program or not. Our decision will be largely based on your financial support. To keep Ad Bible on the air, visit EzraProject.net and partner with us today. You have probably noticed I refer to my personal Bible reading journals in AdBible. I took an honors English class in high school and learned about journaling. I kept a journal in high school probably related to that class, and then I quit. For some reason, I started journaling my Bible reading about 10 years later. I don’t know why I decided to journal my Bible reading, but my first journal is dated 1983. Back then, I bought spiral-bound notebooks from a retail store. Nothing fancy. But when I started the Ezra Project, I decided to publish Bible reading journals. You can find two of them on our website at ezraproject.net. Why journal? It will change the way you read the Bible. If you struggle with your daily quiet time, try it. If you know you’re going to write something down after you read, you will pay more attention to what you’re reading. It can be as simple as your favorite verse in the passage or the major point you got out of the passage. You decide. It’s your journal. And it’s not a personal journal. It’s a Bible reading journal. So you shouldn’t have to worry about someone finding it and reading it. I wanted to print a bumper sticker once called Real Men Journal. I figured it would look good on the back of the pickup trucks. Well, you know, I never printed it because I knew it wouldn’t sell. But get an Ezra Project Bible reading journal at EzraProject.net.
