Habakkuk 2024 Bible Study (When I Don't Understand)

Habakkuk 3, Strong and Afraid

Strong and Afraid (Habakkuk 3)
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God has given his answer to the prophet Habakkuk. Habakkuk has been praying to God about how he does not understand what God is doing in the world. It did not make sense to him. He has been crying out to God asking, “Why?” and “How long?” God did not give specific answers to these questions. Rather, God tells Habakkuk that he is going to act in unbelievable ways. Since God will act in his time in unbelievable ways, God tells Habakkuk that the righteous will not trust in themselves but will live by their faith. Further, God tells Habakkuk that he is in his holy temple and all the earth must keep silence before him. Let God be God. Now God’s part of this discussion has concluded. Habakkuk is given the final word in the third chapter of Habakkuk. What will Habakkuk say to this definitive response from the Lord? What will be Habakkuk’s answer? What should the faithful say when we recognize that the Lord is in his holy temple? Open your copies of God’s word to Habakkuk 3 and we will learn from Habakkuk how to respond to God when we do not understand what God is doing in the world and doing in our lives.

Pray More (Habakkuk 3:1-2)

I would like us to see that Habakkuk’s first response is to return to prayer. This was an important point that we made in the very first lesson of this series. We are being shown to pray and pray again and pray again. The Lord being in his holy temple does not mean that we stop praying. We will stop complaining and we will let God be God. But that does not mean that we no longer will talk to the Lord again and again and again. Habakkuk 3:1 shows that God being in his temple means that he will offer up his prayer again to the Lord because he is in his temple, ruling from his throne. What will Habakkuk say this time in his prayer?

First, Habakkuk says that he has heard about the power of God in the past. I know your mighty works that you have done before and I am in awe of what you have done before. I know you have done great things in the world and for your people before. Do them again! Revive your work! Use your power again today. Let us see your mighty works again. Friends, when you are in your season of life when you do not understand, pray for God to perform his untraceable, powerful works again. Pray that God would choose to do something amazing again that will astound everyone. Pray that God will work and it will astound the doctors. Pray that God will work and it will shock the nations. Pray that God will work and people will fall on their face and glorify God because the work will be clearly attributed to God. Pray for God to act again for his own name and his own glory. Habakkuk prays that God would act again with his mighty hand.

See God’s Sovereign Rule (Habakkuk 3:3-15)

Second, in verses 3-15 Habakkuk turns and starts describing God’s mighty work and sovereign rule in the creation. Habakkuk describes God’s past interventions. He speaks of God’s splendor and glory in his actions throughout the world on behalf of his people. God stood and shook the earth (Habakkuk 3:6). Mountains crumble and nations tremble before the Lord. God parted the sea to rescue your people (Habakkuk 3:8-9). The sun and moon stood still to rescue your people (Habakkuk 3:10-13). The majority of this prayer is Habakkuk describing God’s majesty. Why is Habakkuk doing this? Why is observing and remembering God’s majesty so important? The point is to know that there is good reason to trust God. We have every reason to trust God again. God is a powerful rescuer of his people. God is a warrior who fights for his people. All powers are subject to God. No power can withstand God. You see that how you think about God affects how you pray to God. Our view of God changes everything about how we will pray to God. Job in the midst of his suffering uttered these words.

“Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” (Job 19:23-27 ESV)

I want you to notice that Job says that he knows his Lord, his Redeemer lives even though he thinks that his flesh will be destroyed by his suffering. Job was not giving up on God because he knew God’s power even though he was experiencing complete and utter loss on this earth. Job’s hope and Habakkuk’s hope, and our hope is that God is not merely a deliverer in the past. Our Redeemer lives. He continues to deliver in the present and in the future. One author made this very thoughtful point: “We fear what people do because we do not fear what God can do and is doing.” Recounting God’s glory helps us see the power and majesty of God that is ready to act again.

Three Responses When I Don’t Understand (Habakkuk 3:16-19)

Seeing God’s power and hoping in God’s deliverance leads Habakkuk to three responses in the final few verses of the book. What will Habakkuk say and do as the righteous who lives by his faith? Look at verse 16. Habakkuk describes the terror that he has inside. His body is trembling. He feels like his bones are decaying. His legs are shaking. I want us to see that God’s answer to have faith and trust that he is in his holy temple does not mean that we are not trembling within. Having faith in God does not mean that we are not hurting on the inside. Faith in God does not mean that we are not shaking down to our bones. Faith in God does not mean that we do not feel like the stool hasn’t been kicked out from under us and that we are not staggering. But notice what else Habakkuk says in verse 16. Faith quietly waits for the day of trouble to come. Trembling I will wait quietly for the day of calamity. We rest in God while we are trembling. I am afraid but that does not mean I am not trusting. I feel rottenness within me but that does not mean that I am not waiting for God. What I want us to see was that God did not answer Habakkuk by telling him that he would avoid the time of trouble. Rather, God said you must trust me while you go through the time of trouble. God never tells us that we will avoid the valleys of life. God never says that we will get to skip the winter seasons of life. Rather, God says I will walk with you through the valley of the shadow of death (cf. Psalm 23). God says you can trust that I am in my holy temple while you walk through the winter season. But we will wait as God walks with us to the other side.

Habakkuk’s second response can be seen in verses 17-18. Listen to what the prophet says in verse 17. He describes a complete economic collapse. The flocks will disappear. The herds will no longer be in the stalls. The fields will no longer produce food. This is going to be a total disaster. Imagine if the trial means that you lose your job, you lose your possessions, you lose your money, and you lose your food. Now what would you do if you lost it all? This is the prospect that Habakkuk is facing. He is going to lose it all. But look at verse 18. Even if he loses it all, he will rejoice in the Lord. He will find his joy in the God of his salvation. Please think about what the prophet is teaching us. Rejoice in God when you cannot rejoice in your circumstances. It is much easier to rejoice in our blessings. But will we rejoice in our loss? We want to know how we could possibly rejoice in our loss and in our devastation. We can find joy in God when we cannot find joy in our circumstances because there is one thing that nothing in this world can take away from you. Nothing can take you away from the love of Christ. Nothing can take you away from your salvation. There is so much that we can lose in this life. But we cannot lose the most important thing: God. The apostle Paul found hope is proclaiming that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (cf. Romans 8:35). Then Paul describing lots of bad things that happen. He describes trials, distress, persecutions, famine, nakedness, dangers, and being threatened with death. No, we can rejoice in the Lord because even in all those things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. I can rejoice because there is one thing you cannot take from me: the love of God for me. Now here is the very sad thing. When life gets hard, we are tempted to throw away the one thing that cannot be taken from us. When we lose everything, we throw away the love of Christ rather than rejoicing in what we have in Christ. Faith says all that I need is my Father in heaven. Faith says that if everything in this life fails, I know that God will not fail me. So I will rejoice in the Lord even if I lose it all.

This brings us to Habakkuk’s third response which we read in verse 19. The Lord is my strength. God will give me the strength to go through the times when I do not understand. God is a powerful and rescuing God. He will bring me through the fire and keep me strong. God will provide. God will help. God will get me through. He will make my feet like the feet of a deer. He will enable me to walk on the mountain heights. He will get me through the rugged terrain. He will give the secure steps to continue to walk to the top of this mountain.

What Is Your Strength?

So what is your source of strength when you don’t understand? What is your hope when life does not make sense? What keeps you going when you feel like you cannot continue? If you trust in you, then you will be crushed when you do not understand what God is doing. If you are self-reliant, then when life does not make sense you will be crushed to the dust of the earth. If your spirit is not upright, then when you lose it all, you are going to lose it. But if you trust God, then you will hold on to God all the more when life is in freefall. I am not a big fan of rollercoasters. I do rollercoasters out of social requirement. My family wants me to ride with them. My kids want me to go on all of these crazy rides. So I would go on roller coasters that were floorless. I went on coasters that flipped so many times that it didn’t seem like we were ever right side up. I went on rides that started in a vertical position and rides that shot you up the ramp. I hate the feeling of falling. I don’t know how you all like that feeling but I hate that feeling. So I even went on Disney’s Tower of Terror which simply just causes you to fall over and over again. Worse, they give you this thin, narrow bar to hold you in place. No seatbelts are offered. No overhead lock system is built into the ride. Just a lap bar that goes across the whole row. So if someone larger is in your row, that bar is far from your lap. As the ride drops me over and over again, I have one hope. I will hold on to the one secure thing: the lap bar. So I hold on as hard as I can because I know I will get through this if I am holding on to this safety object provided to me. God is your safety in life. God is your hope. God is your help. God is your strength. God is the only way to safely survive the repeated falls of life. The apostle Paul said it like this:

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:12-13 ESV)

We can get through any circumstance when we see our glorious, powerful God who will safely carry us through the storm. We will be trembling and we will feel like we are rotting on the inside. But we will rejoice in God who will get us through. He will give us the next safe step so that we can continue to leap like deer as we climb this mountain before us. This is what living by faith looks like. God may not change our circumstances. But God changes us to be strong for the circumstances.

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