Why Doesn’t God Do Something? (Part Three)

There is great value in considering the brief paragraphs in the prophecy of Habakkuk. Sometime between the death of good King Josiah and the invasion of Babylon of Israel (586 bc), these words were written.

There is value in their honesty. If you are struggling with the silence of God and unanswered prayer, you will resonate with the words of this man. He is honest about his feelings when he hears that God will use the cruel pagans of Babylon as His chastening rod against Israel. He resents the idea. In chapter 3, Habakkuk is honest about his emotions. The pagan army of Nebuchadnezzar was known for their cruelty. So in all honesty God’s prophet writes that his heart is pounding, his lips are quivering, and his legs are trembling (see v.16).

In this short book, Habakkuk’s journey to joy is chronicled. In chapter 1, he is in a deep valley of despair over the silence of God. In chapter 2, he climbs out of the valley into a high watchtower to wait on God for an answer to his complaint. But in the closing words of chapter 3 (v.19), he is exulting like a deer on the mountain! In Hannah Hurnard’s well-known devotional book Hinds’ Feet on High Places, she writes, “From the garden at the back of the mission house at the foot of Mount Gerizim, we could often watch the gazelles bounding up the mountain-side, leaping from rock to rock with extraordinary grace and agility. Their motion was one of the most beautiful examples of exultant and apparently effortless ease in surmounting obstacles which I have ever seen” (p.5). No finer image can be found of the joy God had given to the prophet! If we can walk with him, as he shares his heart, we will capture truth for our journey.

The Journey

Prayer (3:1-2). “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, on Shigionoth. O Lord, I have heard your speech and was afraid; O Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy” (NKJV).

In this prayer, the speech he mentions could have been the answer he received from God in the watchtower, when God, in effect, tells him, “Yes, Babylon is proud, but you are on a faith walk. Even with the impending captivity, bring revival to your people” (see 2:4). Now Habakkuk prays, “Yes, wrath is coming, chastening awaits us. But please show us mercy!” (see 3:2). So the first “leg” of the journey to joy is humble prayer.

Vision (3:3-15). Those who try to unravel the poetic language of this passage sense that it is a review of the powerful action of the God of Israel in the exodus to Canaan. The excellent summary found in From Fear to Faith by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones helps with this passage. “What is it that makes this [joy] possible? The prophet finds his consolation in a right and Christian interpretation of history. Whenever, in the Psalms, the writer faces situations such as we are envisaging, he invariably looks back at the history of God’s dealings with men and thus finds himself praising God and rejoicing. The prophet likewise here reminds himself of certain of the great facts in the long story of the children of Israel, concentrating especially on the deliverance of Israel from the bondage in Egypt, their passage through the Red Sea, their journey through the wilderness, the defeat of their enemies and their occupation of Canaan” (pp.69-70).

There is power in facts; not in myths or the denial of miracles or the absence of God, but in truth. The Bible is truth. This is what Habakkuk embraced. “If God did not actually do the things recorded in the Old Testament for Israel, then the whole Bible may be just a piece of psychology meant to make me happy . . . . [But] the God in whom I believe . . . did divide the Red Sea and the river Jordan. In reminding himself and us of these things, Habakkuk is not just comforting himself by playing with ideas; he is speaking of things that God has actually done!” (p.71). This is where comfort has its source!

Faith (3:16-19). Habakkuk would experience loss. Thousands of his people would be herded off to Babylon, and he would lose family, friends, and neighbors. The temple would be lost, destroyed by the invaders. Times of precious worship would only be a memory. Crops would be lost and barns would be empty. How we resonate with these words in our current economic collapse.

Stuart Briscoe writes in Taking God Seriously: “In modern language he would be saying: ‘Though my job goes and my health fails, and the forces of evil seem to have things their own way; and even though the economy doesn’t work the way I want it to, and the election doesn’t work out the way I hope, and I’m not appreciated among my friends, and everything goes wrong, I won’t pull the plug on you, Lord. I will have my doubts and questions about how you are working. I won’t stop questioning—but there is one other thing that I won’t stop doing either: I won’t stop rejoicing in you. For you are my rock and you are my strength” (p.128).

G. Campbell Morgan closes his comments on this great third chapter with these good words: “Our joy is always in proportion to our confidence in God, and our confidence in God is in proportion to our knowledge of Him. It is out of such knowledge and such confidence that the song will proceed, and with Cowper we may join in the song that repeats for our days the song of Habakkuk” (p.98).

Sometimes a light surprises

The Christian while he sings;

It is the Lord who rises

With healing in His wings.

When comforts are declining,

He grants the soul, again,

A season of clear shining,

To cheer it after rain.

Though vine nor fig-tree neither

Their wonted fruit shall bear;

Though all the fields should wither,

Nor flocks or herds be there;

Yet, God the same abiding,

His praise shall tune my voice;

For while in Him confiding,

I cannot but rejoice.