Before we get into our main lesson today, I want to take our first few minutes to look at a couple of study tools as we come to God’s Word.

First, let’s talk Context.

Context helps us get a fuller understanding of what’s being said. This might mean we study what’s going on during this time period. But it also includes literary context, which is the passage before and after your text. Habakkuk is such a short book that it can actually really help us to read the whole text each week…maybe even several times. If you have a Bible app, consider listening to it while you’re running errands or washing dishes. Soak in the text. The more you read it, the more connections you are likely to see.

How did the book start? With a prayer… Habakkuk receives this heavy burden from the LORD and rightly brings this burden back to the LORD. Habakkuk sees and questions, “God, do you see what I see?!”

Then, God assures him that He’s seeing it all and tells Habakkuk to look and watch because He’s about to do something that is unbelievable!

Now it’s Habakkuk’s turn to talk. And, just as we saw in that first passage, in today’s text, we’ll see Habakkuk continuing to carry this burden back to the Lord for as long as it takes to see God bring about justice.

What comes next? God answers again. The wicked will receive woes, and God will get the glory. And then the last chapter is a song of remembrance of God’s past deliverance and Habakkuk’s determination to sing praise to God no matter what. So that helps us remember in our text today that God will answer His people’s prayers. And God will execute perfect justice. And it helps our theme of waiting and watching for God to work to become a strong emphasis.

The next tool in our toolbox is Parallelism.

Did anyone find it hard to figure out who was who in this passage? We have to remember that we’re looking at Hebrew poetry. And Hebrew poetry is not about rhyming like our standard English poems. It’s not even about cadence or number of syllables. It’s more about parallel ideas that either compare and contrast or repeat and elaborate upon each other. So, let’s look at Habakkuk 1:12-13 in the ESV and NIV for just a minute to see if we can learn anything new by using this tool.

I tend to go with the oldest date (if we know that), and the fact that the oldest manuscripts also reflect Hebrew parallelism seems to confirm this interpretation.

Lines 3 and 4 (v. 13) follow the same pattern of parallelism as Lines 1 and 2 (v. 12).  Another reason I don’t think Habakkuk is assuming he won’t die or can’t die.

Let’s say you’re not convinced. Is it okay to translate this we? Even if Habakkuk IS saying “We will not die,” He’s still basing this belief on the covenant nature of God that we’ll talk about in a minute. I don’t think he’s saying that he will never die physically, because he knows death has been a part of humanity since the curse; it’s appointed to every man and woman to die once. And he’s seen what happens when evil nations bring other nations into exile. People do die. But it may be that he’s confident that even unto death, he will live with God forever because our souls never die.

“My View from the Watch Tower”

Have you ever been in the middle of a really hard conversation and the phone cuts out? Maybe it’s an argument with your husband or a friend. Maybe you’ve been waiting all week for a response to a job interview—did you get it or not? I have two examples that come to mind… the first was when my twin sister was having her third child. So, we knew she was going into labor, we’re excited that this baby is coming, and then about 12 hours in, we get the dreaded phone call: ” Baby’s in distress, we’re going in for emergency c-section! [Click.]” And there’s nothing you can do. So, you pray and you wait and you watch the phone because you know that they’ll call you back as soon as they can, but there’s just not an answer. Then we got a second phone call: “The baby’s okay. [Silence.]” “And Michelle?” “We don’t know yet. [Click.]” And we wait again. And you don’t know if the answer will be positive or not. The other example was my brother this January, my dad called me and said, “I’m taking Jordan to the ER because we think he had a stroke.” And he did. And it was pretty serious. And I remember giving Callan a bath that night and just kneeling by the tub, crying out to God, “God, it hasn’t even been 6 months since mom died… please don’t take my brother too!” And you fast and pray and wait. And wait.

And that’s the kind of feeling we drop into with Habakkuk. He is reeling with a pit in his stomach and holding his breath, and he cries out to God. (And, yes, we praise God that both my siblings are alive and well today, and God used those things in their lives to grow their faith in the LORD, just as He did with Habakkuk.)

The poetry of this section is more of a personal lament than a complaint. We see the personal nature as he refers to God as “my God” and “my Holy One.” Then, there’s the typical lament pattern: there’s a statement of faith, followed by an extended question, then another statement of faith (A-B-A). He also seems to be elaborating on his first lament in verses 2-4, even using many of the same words.

Don’t we do this? We pray a quick prayer and then the answer seems to be confusing, so we pray in a longer way? What attitude do we do this with? Is Habakkuk questioning God in a disapproving manner? I’d argue that Habakkuk comes to God in an attitude of confidence in God’s character and promises. And we can follow this pattern as we bring our laments to the Lord too.

Habakkuk begins by taking a hard look at the character of God. So, let’s do that with Habakkuk.

I. First and foremost, we need “A Right View of the Rock of the Ages.” (1:12-14)

When God gives us heavy burdens, it is absolutely necessary that we are grounded in who God is. We cannot look at our circumstances and change our view of God. Rather, we look at our God, and let what we know to be true about Him give us perspective about what we’re going through. In fact, isn’t usually the hardest circumstances that actually help us get a bigger view of God and understand Him even better? This is God’s heart throughout Scripture—isn’t it?! To give us a big view of Himself. And He doesn’t change—so this is God’s heart for you and me too—to know us and to make Himself known to us in a big, personal way. Relationship, not just religion. So, what does Habakkuk know about His God?

1. He knows God is a personal, covenant keeping God (v. 12)
2. He knows God is eternal (v. 12)
3. He knows God is all-powerful and good (v. 12)

Let’s look at each of these attributes for a bit. First, God is a personal, covenant keeping God.

One of the first covenants we have is the covenant between the LORD and Abram (Abraham). In Genesis 12, God called Abram out of his home country (Ur of the Chaldeas—ironically, the same people group that are attacking his descendants now) and God promised to make Abram a great nation and through him bless all the families of the earth. Fast forward over two decades, and Abram is still waiting for a single son, let alone a great nation! And this is where the covenant comes in. In Genesis 15, The LORD promises again to give Abram a son and make his offspring as numerous as the stars in heaven! “And he [Abram] believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (15:6).

Then God did something as a sign of the covenant He was making with Abram. He had Abram bring a bunch of animals and cut them in half and lay them out. Then Abram fell into a deep sleep, and the LORD said to him, “Know for certain” that I will do what I said I would do (15:13). Then Abram saw “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces” (15:17). This was a special ceremony—the smoke and fire were symbolic of the LORD Himself, and the cutting in half of the animals was saying in essence, “If I, the LORD, do not keep my end of the covenant, may I be cut in two just like these animals.” But we know that God always keeps His promises! God Himself cannot die! He is eternal! And He’s serious about keeping His word forever!

Habakkuk is grounding his prayers in his relationship with God. In fact, every prayer of Habakkuk begins with the word LORD in all caps (see 1:2; 2:12; 3:2). This is God’s covenant name, YHWH, revealed to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. All of our relationships with God are grounded in this covenant history—in this covenant name—and Habakkuk highlights this first.

TRANSITION. The phrase “from everlasting” can point to both God’s eternality, but even more frequently, it implies a specific act of deliverance in Israel’s history. So once again, it points us to the covenant keeping nature of God—the Rock of ages—”our help in ages past,” “our hope for years to come.”

The covenants of God are really important to understand as we look at OT prophecy. We don’t have time to dive into all of it, but I would recommend two books: 1. Christ from Beginning to End by Stephen Wellum and our pastor Trent Hunter, which points to Jesus in every book of the Bible! It’s fantastic if you’ve never seen that before; and 2. Covenants Made Simple by Jonty Rhodes, which is an easy-to-understand introduction to the covenants (this is a really excellent read and very helpful).

TRANSITION: So, Habakkuk knows God is a personal, covenant keeping God. Next, Habakkuk knows that God is eternal—completely sovereign from eternity past thru eternity future. He has no beginning and no end. And His eternality is part of what makes Him supreme. We cannot comprehend this, but we must have this faith, as Habakkuk did and base our laments on it.

God is unchanging. I love that Habakkuk calls God “my Rock.” Is God your Rock today? If not, He can be…when we fix our eyes on Him.

Deuteronomy 31 is the passing of the torch from Moses to Joshua. Moses is 120 years old and about to die. He reads the Law to the people and he writes it all down (which we know as the Pentateuch, or first five books of the OT), then God tells Moses, “I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods” (31:18). Then God commands Moses to write a song and sing it to the people. And we find that song, the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32. Let’s read v.3-4, and then if you haven’t done this yet, I’d make a little note to read through all of Deut. 32 and see what similarities you see and how often God is referred to as The Rock.

^“3 For I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
    ascribe greatness to our God!

⁴ “The Rock, his work is perfect,
    for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
    just and upright is he.

The song goes on to talk of God leading the people to the Promised Land, but how they grew discontent and “forsook [the] God who made [them]; [they] scoffed at the Rock of [their] salvation. 16 They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods [idols]; …  18  were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.”  And it goes on about their idolatry against their Rock.

I read this to remind us that what Habakkuk is seeing is not new. This is not the first time Israel rebelled. In fact, it’s somewhat of a broken record by this point. Verse 13 reflects Habakkuk’s wrestling with what He believes to be true about God with His circumstances.

TRANSITION: Habakkuk knows the Scriptures, and more importantly, He knows God. A. He knows God is a personal, covenant keeping God; B. He knows God is eternal; and C. He knows God is all-powerful and good. God will execute perfect, right justice.

Let’s read verse 13: “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?”

Habakkuk knows God is pure and will not tolerate evil, because that’s part of His covenant promises, and yet the reality of Habakkuk’s surroundings and his theological belief do not seem to line up for him. He’s like, “I see all this evil all around me. How is God letting this go unnoticed? He sees everything, right? He’s all knowing, right? All powerful? I just don’t get it, God!”

We’ve all been there—or if we haven’t, we will be at some point. I get Habakkuk’s paradox here! I know I’m only in my 40s, but the older I get, the more wickedness and brokenness and frailty I see in this world. And no matter how hard we try to guard ourselves from it, it’s simply unavoidable. We live in a fallen world, and we know that man apart from God is NOT essentially good—but rather, deceitful and desperately wicked. We are messed up! We need Jesus!

When Habakkuk says that God has “purer eyes than to see evil,” does he mean that God is not omniscient? No. God sees all and knows all, and yet He cannot and does not dwell on the evil. Fast forward hundreds of years to Jesus on the cross—what did God do? He looked away from His Son. Jesus was forsaken for us—because Jesus took all of our sin upon Himself.

So, we, like Habakkuk, have a choice—we can either let ourselves become overwhelmed by our circumstances and the wickedness of this world, and the wickedness of our own hearts and get depressed and doubt and even turn from God, like so many of the Israelites did! We can reject God and His covenant promise, and pursue idols and all forms of evil to fill up our own desires and pleasures, to try to fill the void and distract ourselves from our fears, OR we can run to God in prayer and faith and trust that God is doing something bigger and deeper and more eternally significant than we are able to see, even through these hard and horrible things. He is 100% sovereign over every aspect of His creation. And He is good!

We don’t get to decide what “good” means. We want to think that “good” is subjective to what we like or want, but God defined goodness in Himself! Whatever He does is good, and we must align our hearts with His sovereign goodness.

We will go through hard things, but hard is not the same as bad. When we go through hard things, we must remember that it is absolutely God who caused it! Is that hard to think about? To wrap our minds around? Sure. But v. 12 says that the LORD  “appointed” and “ordained” the Chaldeans for a purpose—“to execute judgment” and “to punish”—and the judgment and punishment was on the people of God in order to lovingly draw them back to God! The word “punish” here has the idea of doing what is right or just to correct AND to redeem!

Now we come to v.14: “You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler.” “You” refers back to the LORD! God is the one removing their kings and scattering them into foreign nations! We see this language throughout the prophets, God causing affliction through armies—of men or of locusts, through weather, drought, famine, and then saying, “Yet you did not return to me!” In Romans 1, it is God who gives those who refuse to repent over to the lusts of their hearts and a debased mind.

God gives His people so many warnings, including this one in Deuteronomy 29:

^“18 Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, ¹⁹ one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike.”

We as a nation are consumed with the idea of safety—physical, emotional, all of it. But we’re also consumed with stubbornly holding to what I want to believe is true—whether it is or not—and attempting to silence anyone who dares disagree with me. We are not so far off from the wickedness of the Israelites, are we? The result of this stubbornness: the LORD overthrew them because they abandoned the covenant, uprooted them, and cast them out…and ultimately, blotted out their names from under heaven! This is serious! Do we think we can walk in our sin and still inherit the kingdom?!

If you are walking around saying, “I’m okay,” but your heart is stubbornly set against God and His Word,   I beg you to repent of your sin and walk humbly with God! If you refuse to repent, you will find yourself among the religious crowd in Matthew 7 crying, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then Jesus answers, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” Salvation was never about our works! Apart from God, there is ZERO goodness in any of us!

Habakkuk was pleading with God because he saw God as being silent when the wicked were swallowing up Israel—he called Judah “the man more righteous than they” (referring to the Babylonians). But are they? Was Judah “more righteous” than Babylon? No! The Northern Kingdom had already been sent into exile, and now Judah was following in her footsteps! Judah had sinned every bit as wickedly as Israel AND Babylon. Why? Because they rejected God, which made them traitors and enemies of God!

This is a distorted thought of comparison: “we’re more righteous than they are!” But no, God tells us it’s foolish to compare ourselves among ourselves. Rather, we must compare ourselves to God—and when we do that, He corrects our thinking by humbling us and drawing us to repentance and righteous living.

Romans 3 (v. 9-12, 23) tells us that we are all sinners! The Jews aren’t any better off, and neither are we as Gentiles! There is none righteous, no, not one! God sent the Law and the Prophets, and then He sent Jesus—the righteousness of God manifested to us—to rescue and redeem us from our sin! We are not more righteous than anyone, except through faith in Jesus, the truly Righteous One, who loved us and gave Himself for us, taking our sin, and giving us His righteousness in its place.

If you study through the prophets, you will see this theme over and over and over… God’s heart is always FOR His people. He loves us desperately! And will do whatever it takes to bring us to Himself. And that doesn’t always make sense to us as humans. But God’s ways are better than our ways. He does everything for His glory and our good, because He knows what our best good is…to dwell with God Almighty for all eternity! That is good! Because God is good! And we can be confident that God will always keep His covenant promises to preserve His children and destroy His enemies.

Which brings us to our next point regarding God’s (and Habakkuk’s) enemies…

II. A View of the Wicked Netsmen (1:15-17)

We switch from “You” (referring to God) to “he” (referring to the Chaldeans). v. 15 – “He [Babylon] brings all of them [Judah] up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad.”

Habakkuk keeps with his fish imagery here and sees the enemy capturing God’s people with hooks and nets—symbols of aggression, but also symbols of divine judgment in their day. And the evil nations were known to use hooks literally to drag their hostages away, treating them like hunted prey rather than human beings. The word used for “net” here in the original language is a wordplay, and in Deut. 7:26 it’s translated “devoted to destruction.” This is seriously awful!

And then we see this phrase, “he rejoices and is glad.” Do we see this anywhere else in Scripture? Yes! The joining of these two words is throughout Scripture as a call to worship! “Rejoice and be glad!” But here it’s used of the wicked rejoicing in their conquests, not worshiping God! (v.11, “their god is their own might.”)

v. 16 continues their false worship ceremony: “Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings [or burns incense] to his dragnet.” This is a very public form of idolatry!

Why? “For by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich.” The evil seem to be prospering here! They are very affluent, and they follow a very logical, and yet very wrong, line of thinking. They think, “Well, sure I’m cruel, but it must be okay because it’s making me rich, and if I’m fat and happy, then that’s a sign of the gods’ favor, right?!” “The end justifies the means.” But no, just because someone is rich and powerful in this world, it does not mean that’s because “the gods” or God Himself is blessing him!

Habakkuk felt this… and he asks God directly (v.17), “Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?”, echoing the “O LORD, how long?” cry from his first lament (1:2). (Spoiler alert: Will the Babylonians keep doing this forever? No, the woes are coming in the very next chapter! And we’ll look more later at the end of Babylon in a future week.) 😉

Asaph felt this in Psalm 73… he was so weary because he saw the wicked seemingly prosper and always at ease, increasing in riches. And he wonders, is being pure before the Lord and worshiping God worth it?! Then, he goes into the sanctuary of God and God revealed their end. They will be utterly swept away, but God’s beloved children will be received to glory, to be with God forever!

We must remember that our sin is every bit as snaring as the enemy’s nets, but Jesus sets our hearts free to wait and to worship. We need to follow Asaph into the sanctuary of God and follow Habakkuk to the top of the watch tower… and look at Habakkuk 2:1 for a minute.

III. Right Responses from the Watch Tower (2:1)

We can’t look at verses 1:12-17 without finishing Habakkuk’s thought with 2:1, so let’s read that now, noticing the very personal language Habakkuk uses.

“I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.”

Notice he doesn’t say “we”—he is in a lonely, isolated situation, with a heavy weight, or burden to bear, but he takes individual, personal resolve to take up the task that God has set before him. He uses words like “I” and “my” 7x in this short statement.

Habakkuk began his lament with a personal relationship with God and now he ends his lament with a personal resolve to wait for God’s answer in God’s time.

Hosea 9:8 tells us one of the main purposes of a prophet: “The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, [“the people of my God”].”(NIV) The watch post position was one of not only looking for the enemy attacks, but also sounding the alarm to the people! This is the job of a prophet—to watch and to warn! And this is what Habakkuk is resolved to do! He loves God and He loves the people of God, so no matter how hard it gets, he’s going to wait for God’s answer and continue to warn the people to turn back to their God.

We are not prophets, especially in the OT prophet sense of the word. But the crux of the word prophet is a proclaimer. And that we can do! We have this picture of a watch tower—this would be a position on the wall of a fortified city. In Habakkuk’s case, this would have been the watch tower built into the city wall of Jerusalem (before the wall was destroyed and the people taken into exile).

For us, as women, we are to be keepers of the home—this has that same watch tower / gate keeper imagery. We fix our eyes on Jesus and set the tone for what comes in and out of our four walls. We are called to proclaim truth to one another—particularly to our own children and to women younger than us (as in Titus 2).

Waiting takes time. We need this message more than ever! We must slow down and be still. We must resolve to look for God in every aspect of life and be ready and willing to warn those in our sphere of influence that Jesus is coming. This definitely includes home, but it might also include other spheres—whether it’s a leadership position at church or outside the home with a job or in your community. Each of us has been positioned by God in a personal watch tower of sorts. And we can and must proclaim God’s truth in these watchtowers God has placed us in. But how do we do this?

Waiting requires perseverance, humility, and patience in quietness. When we see God for who He is, He gives us the gift of repentance to turn from sin to following our Savior. He gives us faith and other gifts to call others to join us in a life of repentance and faith, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus! Say with the psalmist, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made Heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).

These last five years have had a lot of laments for our family. We’ve had hard diagnoses, death, difficulty in relationships; I quit a job I loved because it was the right thing to do for our family. Life is full of hard things and various disappointments. Sometimes it seems like life is shadowed by a little black raincloud. BUT GOD! Through every single thing, we have seen God proving Himself over and over and over to be faithful to His covenant, and faithful to us as His covenant children. We have seen God strip away our expectations and lift our eyes to a greater understanding of His goodness and glory. And in those lonely, dark hours, we must follow Habakkuk’s example once again. Fixing our eyes on our coming King Jesus!

So, when you are hit by a wave of emotion—grief, anger, fear, confusion, doubt—for whatever circumstance God has placed you in, remember God is with you! The God of Habakkuk is our God too! And we can follow Habakkuk’s example—confidently taking our laments to the Rock of Ages, and then confidently fixing our eyes on the God who will answer and rescue.

Meanwhile, we wait patiently; we wait humbly; and we wait expectantly. So, take your stand and look to see what God will say! God will answer, and God will win! But you’ll have to keep reading for that part.

Let’s pray. “O LORD, You are our Holy One, our God, our Rock—and we do not always understand Your ways, but we trust Your character. You are our stability and eternal hope. And we thank You for the hard realities that drive us to Your goodness. Keep our eyes fixed on Jesus who “endured” much more “hostility” than we ever have, and yet did so with “joy, so we may not grow weary or fainthearted.” Thank you for the “discipline” you use “for our good, that we may share in Your holiness,” by the mercy of our Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.”