Habakkuk

Transcript from the podcast (so sorry for the spelling mistakes)

Wildfire podcast is an extension of Wildfire Ministries, an organization that has a focus of igniting men and women of God into a deeper discipleship with Christ, instilling them with a passion to radically and relentlessly pursue Christ wherever that leads, that God's truth will spread like a wildfire.

How's it going?

Nice to be with you again.

I'm joined once again with Luke Taylor.

Yeah, that's right.

And first of all, before we get started in this episode, we'd like to talk about our Paul and Timothy discipleship programs, which will be running at your interest, expression of your interest.

So basically get in touch with us on the website, over Instagram, TikTok now apparently, which I'm a little bit annoyed about, but nevermind.

You suggested TikTok.

That was your idea.

Yeah.

Don't say it wasn't.

It was, but I regret it.

I repent.

I also was a little bit reserved and conservative by going on it as, apart from being involved with Wildfire, I despise TikTok.

But ever since I got on, I've enjoyed doing the videos because of Hands Emer, but that's another, we won't go down that.

Yeah, that's fine.

But yeah, so Paul and Timothy Discipleship Programs, you can express your interest as basically someone from our organization will go with you through this discipleship program with the five stages of?

Recognize, equip, go, grow and glorify.

And this way, we'll just walk with you and try and cement you in your faith, and you'll become a stronger Christian, and we'll just be walking through the Bible together.

But if it's something you'd be interested in, then just get in touch.

Get in touch.

Check out the website, check out all the social medias, and that'll give you further details.

And again, there will be email and links for you to contact us for any further details such like that.

Cool.

Apart from that, we do have to say, we talked about this.

Whenever I was saying to Peter that I have a mentee for you, so a mentor, the opposite of a mentor is a mentee.

That is the person to which the mentor mentors, right?

It's quite clear.

You have a mentee.

What would you think from that?

Okay, I have a person who I'm going to mentor.

What did you think whenever I said that, Peter?

What was going through your head when you got that message?

I had a complete brain fart and I had no idea what it was.

This word meant nothing to me.

I felt it was a type of sweet or something.

Oh, it was so funny.

She thought it was just, I was just offering you some chocolate or something or a new form of sweet.

Yeah, I had no idea to be honest.

You're kind of a weird guy, look, so honestly I had no idea.

But we know now, mentor mentees, that is happening.

So with that being said, what are we talking about today in this podcast, Peter?

So today we're going to be talking about the book of Habakkuk, which is a book I hadn't really heard much of.

I've never heard of spoken about or preached on.

Besides just the Bible project intro and I've read through prior to prepping for this once myself.

So it's not really a book you hear from very often.

But Jonah, give us some of the context.

Yeah, so I was with you prior to this.

And I suppose that's sort of a general theme of the minor prophets.

Minor, not insignificance, of course, because all scripture is useful for teaching, and correcting, and training 2 Timothy 3.

But more so in scale and the amount of content.

You know what I mean?

You've got Isaiah, which is like 65 chapters, whereas Habakkuk's 3.

So that's what we mean by the minor prophets if we do say that throughout the podcast.

But not much is known about Habakkuk.

His name either means Embracer or Wrestler, which corresponds with the central theme of the book.

This dialogue between God and Habakkuk through prayer over the question of suffering.

It can be best summarized by Epicurus, you ever heard of him?

A Greek philosopher who said, is God willing to prevent evil but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

That is all powerful.

Is he able but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

That is, he just is inactive.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?

Okay, so that's a whole big chunk of a statement right there.

But within that, we can probably relate to our own lives of what is being said.

And basically, throughout the whole book, this question is something that we all ask each other, and it's a question that we all face in our lives, and it's certainly a question that is being asked in Habakkuk.

This whole question of suffering and God's judgment, and where is God whenever we think that he is not there, or not present, in those moments of intangibility.

So what I would like to say from the offset, though, is there is a dichotomy that is created, that is, to Habakkuk's name, is embrace or wrestle.

But rather, from the offset, we want to eliminate this, and present another perspective.

That is not to say that embrace is one camp, and wrestle is another, and you just have to choose one, whenever you're interacting with suffering, and problems and trials, and questions of God's justice, and some of the most difficult aspects of society.

Rather, we want to say that they are actually synonymous, that they're one thing.

Because by wrestling, we embrace, and by embracing, we wrestle.

That is to say, if you have a problem, a struggle, a period of suffering in your life, in your life, and you're questioning why God is allowing this to happen.

We're not saying that you simply just, well, you have to embrace it, because we don't know, and God's ways are higher than ours.

Or if you don't like that, then you have to wrestle, and you have to be angry with God, you have to fight with God, and ultimately, there will never be a win or a loss.

You'll just keep fighting.

Rather, we want to say that by wrestling with these difficult issues, you do embrace it.

That is, you accept the suffering that is in your life, and you wrestle with God, because we are finite, and we're in the flesh, and we don't understand, and so we wrestle over these things, and we ask God, and we petition, and we say, God, can you give me further understanding and clarity in these moments of suffering in our lives?

And this is the prayer of Habakkuk.

Yeah.

And the story of Israel in the Old Testament, Israel means he wrestles with God, and Jacob, who then got his name afterwards, he physically did wrestle with God.

So it's something that even the characters in the Old Testament literally did, and the nation itself went through that wrestling process with God.

So the important conclusion though is Ecclesiastes 12-13, that is whenever you embrace, whenever you wrestle, just as Jacob did with God, just as Israel did with God, and just as Habakkuk is doing here, and as we do in our lives, what's the important conclusion there, Peter?

So the conclusion as in Ecclesiastes 12-13 says, the end of the matter all has been heard.

Fear God and keep his commands, for this is the whole duty of man.

For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

So whether you wrestle or whether you just accept, the conclusion should be fear of God, and fear is in reverence for God because his ways are just, and he will bring every deed into judgment that you do.

Yeah.

Genesis does say, I believe it's Genesis that won't the judge of the universe do what is right, so that we can trust and have assurance in.

Yeah.

But a little bit further context in this.

So scholars reckon this book was written prior to 606 BC, sometime within that century beforehand, at least when this prophecy was given.

And 605 BC was the Battle of Kharkhimesh, which is-

What the heck's that?

Yeah, so Kharkhimesh, I think, is in North Palestine, kind of Northern Israel.

I could be near the coast.

Could be wrong about that.

I haven't looked at the map in a while.

And basically it was a battle that took place between the Egyptians who were ruled by Pharaoh Niko and against the Babylonians who were coming down, and they both met just at the central point.

And I think it was Jehokam was king of Judah, and he was told not to go out and fight with, with alongside Egypt against the Babylonians, but he did anyway.

And he ended up getting shot in the back with an arrow.

And long story short, the Babylonians won the battle, and then that's what kind of cemented them as the headhunchers in that region for...

Ah, headhunchers.

Headhunchers.

I wrote the hegemonic power in Palestine, but I like yours.

I prefer yours.

Yeah, it's just easier to say.

But yeah, Babylon became one of the superpowers, well, became the superpower of the world after that for a period of time.

But it was this battle of Corkemish.

But then these prophecies that we're going to read about in Habakkuk all happened before this battle.

So before this battle, before Babylon comes, this is doing whatever it is, whenever Judah are still the ones.

Yeah, so we're seeing some, again, some epic prophecies that happened prior to the events.

And how you can't really explain that away.

Within, again, a theological point, bring it back to Habakkuk, it's similar, whenever I was reading this, it was similar to Job, I thought.

That is, there is this bewilderment or this dissatisfaction with God and his handling of situations or the events that are happening in that moment.

And then the conclusion in Job 38, I'd highly recommend that you read it.

God is just absolutely awesome and epic in his response to Job and their friends and what they had said.

And in equal measure, it's that we may not get all the answers from what Habakkuk says in the book, but again, scripture in its entirety.

Go to Job 38 and other passages to see what God gives further details to how he is a just judge and how he acts accordingly throughout all history.

And I still acting in history today.

Yeah.

Yep.

So again, the question of why does God allow suffering?

We've mentioned that a few times, but we do want to emphasize that we will be again, talking about a Habakkuk and just emphasizing those points, a breakdown of that book specifically, because we will do a podcast on suffering specifically another time.

So with all that being said.

Yeah.

And kind of the main point for suffering in the book of Habakkuk, or the suffering to come for Judah, is for the purpose of discipline.

So the parent who disciplines the child is the father, or God is disciplining his children Israel because of the sins they've committed, which again, we'll look at later on in this book.

But I think it's important to talk about that discipline isn't always the purpose of suffering.

Suffering sometimes just happens because we live in the broken world.

So for example, with cancer, just because you get cancer doesn't mean God's disciplining you for something.

It could just be that may be the reason, but it's definitely not always the case, which we'll emphasize at the start.

There's not a direct correlation there.

Discipline is one aspect.

Yeah, correlation does not always equal causation.

Yeah.

So with that being said, Chapter 1, Habakkuk's Complaint.

If we read Verse 2, it says, Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear, or cry to you, violence, and you will not save.

Now again, we already talked about this idea of discipline, which is the focus of how God is teaching the Israelites in this moment, or in Judah, the northern and the southern tribe, in this case it's specifically Judah, the southern tribe.

But in verses we read that, no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.

Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Proverbs 12.1, Proverbs 13.24, 1 Corinthians 9.27, and Revelation 3.19 all talk about this idea of discipline, of justice and fruit being yielded from it.

So within this specific context, over and over again, you read this metaphor, which is of Israelites and how even when a tree is cut down, it will regrow again, and its new roots will not fail.

You can always find in these verses of God instituting this judgment, this divine judgment and retribution, that the reason for doing so was to actually restore Israel into a position where they knew that they needed Jesus, or they knew that they needed God, three in one.

And again, how is that applicable for us in the New Testament?

Galatians 6 talks about, if any of you is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore one another.

So it's again, we are called to, just as God was restoring Israel, we are called to restore one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

But again, verse 2, we just read it, Habakkuk is offering up these complaints.

And again, it's, how long shall I cry for help?

And you will not hear.

The Messianic Psalms in chapter 2, 22, 110, Jesus on the cross, iloai, iloai lama sabachthanai, why have you forsaken me?

Again, the questions are just reverberates, reverberates throughout all history.

The question, why God?

Why suffering?

Why discipline?

Why God?

And basically, I want to propose that by actually asking this question, why God?

Do we not get the answer?

Because our minds go to God, we turn to God in our weakness, our inability brings us to God.

That is, again, our only purpose and meaning is to know God and make him known or grow closer to him.

And so these moments of suffering, we all, or these moments of injustice, where do we go to?

Yeah, because you always hear the story of the atheists who, no matter how much they disbelieve in God, the moment they start suffering, that's when they begin to pray.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Or that's even the moment where they start to question God's existence.

So God has actually inserted into the conversation through the very existence of suffering and discipline and God's justice and whether God is just or not, which is again, Habakkuk's complaint here.

And again, if we go to verse four, read that there now.

So the law is paralyzed and justice never goes forth, for the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted.

That is to say, Habakkuk is saying justice is being perverted.

Justice seems like it's paralyzed.

God seems absent in this moment as God is those immutable characteristics of justice and righteousness.

And Habakkuk is saying none of those attributes are there.

God is just not present.

And again, to reiterate, Job 38 again goes into more extensive detail about the justice of God.

But 2 Corinthians 5 and 10 says, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

1 Peter 4, 17, Revelation 20, 11, 15, John 3, 18.

Again, all emphasize these points of how God is a God of justice.

And that he will judge accordingly.

And again, those are all New Testament passages.

Again, just attacking the idea of Old Testament is a book of judgment and New Testament is not.

Yeah, and it's also the fact that in these particular verses, the injustice Habakkuk is talking about is that he knows Israel are sinful.

That's almost undeniable.

Again, we'll talk about that in chapter 2.

It's the fact that he's having issue with the exact method of judgment God is using, which is that of Babylon.

Babylon, arguably, are worse than Israel because they are pagan to the core.

Israel, at least, had a good foundation and just went and just ruined after that.

They fell away.

But Babylon, you can read the Enema of Elisha, it's just all pagan doctrine basically.

So he's taking issue with the methods of Babylon.

It's like, why would you, okay, Israel are bad, but why would you use an even worse nation or a bad nation to come judge them?

That's the issue of judgment he's talking about.

But yeah, we hopefully find resolution later on in the book.

In Ema Elisha's creation?

Yeah, that's the Babylonian creation myth, their version of Genesis.

Right.

Okay.

So and then we just wanted to highlight there verse 13, about how it says, You who are of pure eyes, then 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?

Again, Habakkuk recognizes that God is a God of holiness.

And again, that is totally correct.

That is a good presupposition to start with, that God is holy.

But again, he just sort of goes wrong, and we often do, that he looks at injustices in society and says that the fact that God is allowing this to happen makes God unjust, which is just incorrect.

That is, anything that flows from God is justice and is holiness.

Anything that flows from humanity, the flesh, evidently is sinful post fall.

And so that's what we wanted to emphasize in these points, that God is holy and anything that God institutes is holy.

So in this case, Habakkuk is so confused why he's gonna use Babylon, which is a worse nation than Israel, to discipline Israel.

And rather what we're gonna say is, you just can't question God in that word.

Anything that God chooses to do is by definition holy, because God is holy.

Yeah.

Okay, chapter two is the righteousness.

The righteous shall live by his faith.

And the point that I just wanted to highlight there is verse four, which is, behold, his soul is puffed up.

It is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

Again, there is an emphasis of faith.

It is faith that establishes a relationship with God.

It was faith through Abraham that established that covenant, and again, God's sovereignty.

And again, New Testament Ephesians 2, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith.

And the knowledge of your souls is the gift of God.

Heck yeah.

Yeah.

All God.

Let's go.

So now we'll get into some specific things that Israel were doing wrong.

So the five woes, for the sake of time, we're going to put the first two together.

So these are woe to those who profit from unjust economics.

So that would be those in power, or the rich abusing the poor, and making the poor poorer so they can become richer.

And there are differences in the first two woes, but again, we'll just put them together for simplicity.

The third one is woe to those who use slave labor to build cities.

Number four is woe to those who abuse alcohol and sex.

And number five is woe to those who worship idols.

Righty-o.

So Habakkuk, in that moment, who are those woes going up to?

Or who are those woes addressed to?

Yeah, so the woe would basically be, it's basically a point of making clear that this is sin.

So woe to those destruction to you, who profit from unjust economics.

So it's a lamentation, is that correct?

A sorrowful...

I don't know if it's sorrowful as such, it's basically, I think it's just saying the facts, like judgment to you or destruction to you.

I don't know if he's being too sorrowful about the destruction.

So he's saying woe to you, as in destruction to you, because of...

Because of these things you're doing.

Because of these things, unjust economics, as you highlighted.

Yeah, unjust economics.

So an example of that for what Judah were doing, and Israel as a whole as well, was God decreed in the Torah that they were to have a year of Jubilee.

So every seventh year was to be a year of rest.

And then every...

So that's 49.

And then the 50th year, the year of Jubilee, was to be a time when all debts were forgiven, slaves were released and returned.

Anything like that was just reset.

But there's absolutely no record in the Bible of this ever taking place.

So they're actually judged for this not taking place.

In the book of Daniel, we can see this in some of the prophecies there.

So the point of that is because the poor weren't set free of their debts, they got into even more debt and the rich were then able to incur more money unjustly against the law, against the Torah.

This was unjust.

Point three, those who use slave labour to build cities.

Again, they're using the slaves unjustly because the Torah says about treating...

I think there's a part in the end of chapter two that talks about the blood of the slaves, whereas, Israel were told to treat their slaves very well.

If they're bleeding, that's not a good sign.

That's what the Egyptians do, who they were freed from.

Verse 12, Would a henny build a town with blood?

Yes, that's it.

And then, number four, what are those who abuse alcohol and sex?

It particularly talks about using alcohol to get sex for the purpose of seduction.

And again, it's again, addressing those who are in power over others.

So those who are in power are abusing alcohol to get sex and that kind of thing, which obviously isn't great.

And you don't...

Drunk, sinful.

Yeah.

And you don't read a lot about alcohol in the Old Testament, actually.

Like, I've just kind of thought, can you think of another passage that's talked about?

It talks, yeah.

Obviously, there's Noah's nakedness.

And that's another example of drunkenness leading to sexual impurity because of Noah's drunkenness.

Yeah.

There are probably a few others.

It talks about being like a mawker of wine, or wine produces mawkers, or too much wine.

Yeah, so it talks about drunkenness there, another passage.

Yeah, so it's basically the idea that don't abuse alcohol because you'll rule unjustly then.

And then finally, woe to those who worship idols.

And all of the above that we've talked about, the other four woes could all be seen as idols.

Money, slave labour to build cities again, profit to become the ruling class, alcohol and sex.

So these in themselves are idols, but then there were actual idols that Judah were worshipping at the time.

And this is, so this is what Judah are doing, that is the southern kingdom of Israel, so God's chosen people.

Yes.

And Habakkuk is clearly expressing it.

His condemnation of it, of course.

On behalf of God.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

Exactly.

And then I guess it's just the opportunity for us to evaluate ourselves in light of that.

What idols are we buying down to, instead of God?

And you can see how seriously these are treated.

Even society around us, the value they put on sex and alcohol, that's something just take, take account of, I guess.

Look at that and show how severely it's, how seriously it's to be treated.

Finally, in chapter 3, we've got Habakkuk's Prayer.

So it opens with God arriving on the earth.

And it's terrifying.

If you read the description, it's absolutely, there's the ground shaking.

It's quite terrifying.

And it reminds me of Stephen Fry, the actor.

He gave an interview in Channel 4 a number of years ago.

And he said about Howe that if he was, if he was, the interviewer asked something about it.

What would you say if you did arrive at those Proto Gates?

Cause I think he's an atheist, but it's like, say what was real.

And you were taken to the Proto Gates, you were shown to God.

What would you say, Stephen Fry?

And he said, I would say, how dare you?

How dare you?

What about boom cancer in children?

And he listed off all these points, basically.

It would be him giving moral judgment against God.

Yeah, like Habakkuk, but with like any fear or reverence.

Exactly.

Yeah.

But then you read passages like this, of like God arriving on the earth, or there's other passages in Daniel I really love.

And you think, yeah, there's no way he's actually going to be like that.

There will be nothing in his mind that will give him moral superiority for God.

Because I was listening today to another podcast, and the guy was saying about, I think it's in Timothy, so the law is given for the unjust, so it's not for the just.

And it's not, so it's not, the law isn't a ladder for people to climb to get to God.

It's a standard for God to judge those that are beneath him.

So that they can, so God's given us these rules, and we can see that these are the standards we have to keep to.

So in the last day, there will be no, there'll be no opportunity to say, oh, I didn't know, or anything like that.

That'll be, you knew what these rules are, and I'm going to judge you to what I told you, I will judge you.

There's no kind of wiggling your way around it.

Because, oh, I wasn't sure about this little thing.

It's like, no, God's given us his word, and that's final.

And if you don't want to know about it, that's fine.

And it's equal measure, it's what Israel have done.

And they are going to reap the consequences of it.

That is the takeover from Babylon.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

And then verse 13, I quite liked, and you can see if this reminds you of anything else in the Bible.

Look, so verse 13 of chapter 3 is, You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed.

You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck.

See that?

That sounds a little bit familiar to me.

Yes.

It's like it's pointing to back and then forward.

Yep.

And then fulfilled.

It's pointing to Genesis.

Chapter 3, I think.

So, about high.

What was the passage?

So, it's the woman...

So, after the fall, Eve is given a chance...

She's given a prophecy.

It says, you shall cross...

Your offspring shall crush the head of the snake.

The snake shall bruise his heel.

And it's talking about, you crushed the head of the house of the wicked.

So, it's the snake being crushed.

So, it's pointing towards, again, Jesus.

Just like, again, every passage is pointing towards Jesus.

And Jesus, for his love, for his people, and how his people can express love back.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So, just to summarise Habakkuk, it's the idea of, we have suffering in this world, quite often, because of the sin, in our own lives, or sometimes anyway.

And God will bring judgement.

He may bring judgement by ways that seem unjust at the moment, such as Babylon, or something like that in our own lives.

But in time, we will see the purpose of this when we wrestle with it.

And also, that God will finally judge him one day, and it will be perfect judgement that no one can say anything to, because we know the law, we know how to keep it.

And while we can't keep it, we have Jesus Christ to rely on, because it's his salvation that we have.

Has been imputed on us.

Has been imputed on us, so that we can be saved.

And the final verse just to consider is James 1 verse 2, so it says, consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.

So, Habakkuk finishes off this book by waiting for the state of justice.

So it's up to us to wait and rejoice in our suffering till the state of justice comes.

Brilliant.

And with that, we will end it there and we will see you in the next podcast.