Category: Habakkuk

Reading

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SAA Notes

Here is Habakkuk’s response to God’s answers to his serious complaints. It is prayer. I find Habakkuk’s request: renew Your deeds in our day, and his ending: yet will I rejoice in the LORD, challenging, uplifting and heartening. Don’t you?

SJA Notes

* Holy God, please show us today the truth of who You are and the truth of our need for You.

“I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”

Here is a wonderful clear picture from Habakkuk that breaks down false religion, any human prosperity doctrine.

A lack of material blessing has no bearing on our walk with the Lord. In fact, Habakkuk specifically says _in spite of these things_ (the “yet” in v18).

YET I WILL REJOICE IN THE LORD.

This is to be our hard-won intent. Not just words, but our heartfelt response and wrestling with where the Lord has us in life.

Where should our joy come from?

Material things, the gamut of experiences in this life (think the preacher’s words in Ecclesiastes).

No.

“I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”

What a word this is for us!

Habakkuk knows this truth, that the only strength that matters comes from the Lord.

It is not our own inward stubbornness that will win the day. Not our own intellect or reasoning, not our own strength of body.

IT IS THE LORD.

“GOD, the Lord, is my strength;”

Habakkuk has laid out who the Lord is. Our God is POWERFUL and FEARFUL. Our God is JUST and HOLY.

Our God marches through the earth here in FURY. He threshes the nations in RIGHTEOUS ANGER.

It is good for us to meditate on the character of our God, and on our response to Him.

* Mighty Sovereign God,

Rid us of pride and the desire to be great in the eyes of the world, may arrogance and vanity be far from us.

Because it is YOU that is great. YOU that is mighty.

Please Lord, in Your mercy, guide us to find our joy in You, our strength in You – Even when the world calls it weakness.

Amen.

Reading

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SAA Notes

Habakkuk’s second complaint asks why God allows evil, cruelty and economic oppression. God’s answer is: judgment is certainly coming upon God’s people. Judgment (the woes) will also come upon the agent of God’s judgment on Judah, Chaldea, for her violent ways. Faith in God as in Daniel – verses 13,14 and 20 – will guard God’s people through the Chaldean invasion.

SJA Notes

* Dear God, please write Your word on our hearts today.

“But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”

There are four woes called out by Habakkuk’s preaching in this passage.

Woe #1: To the one who heaps up what is not their own.

Woe #2: To the one who gets evil gain for his house.

Woe #3: To the one who builds a place on blood and sin.

Woe #4: To the one who makes those around drink their cup of wrath.

Woe #5: To the one who worships idols (made by man).

These are the outworking of rejecting God’s good law.

Greed. Injustice. Lawlessness. Manipulation. Terrible violence. Depravity.

And idolatry.

BUT.

A big absolute reality, a coin-truth, is in this verse,

“But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”

Are we anxious because of the broken morality we see in the world today?

BUT THE LORD IS IN HIS TEMPLE.

Are we stressed because of the apparent success of greedy ways and injustice and lawlessness?

BUT THE LORD IS IN HIS TEMPLE.

Are we fretting over the idols we struggle with in our own lives?

BUT THE LORD IS IN HIS TEMPLE.

This is a wonderful strong absolute truth and reality for us to wrestle with.

Our Lord and King, the Almighty God, Maker and Creator of all things, the Just God, the Holy God, the Righteous God – He is in His Holy Temple.

* Father God,

Please remind us that You are in Your temple. Your holy temple.

When the world’s influence bears down, when the weight of concern and worry crush us and bring darkness, when our sight shrinks down and we fear what is around us – Remind us Lord, please Lord.

You are in Your holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before You.

Amen.

Reading

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SAA Notes

Judah was torn by violence and great injustice in Manasseh’s reign. Habakkuk complained that God wouldn’t listen to his cries for relief, for revival. God’s answer was that a terrible judgment, not revival was coming. This is a call for repentance as in Hezekiah’s day when the LORD delivered Jerusalem.

SJA Notes

* Mighty God, please teach us from Your word today.

“So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.”

The law is paralyzed.

Justice never goes forth, and when it does go out it is perverted.

These statements from Habakkuk should be ringing bells for us today.

We see this clearly in our world today, in the public square of our nations (the world around us) and in our churches themselves.

What is the answer?

When we see the wicked surround the righteous, what can be done?

When God’s people were taken into exile to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah spoke these words for them to do,

“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

God has placed us where He wants us. He is working out good for His people.

We His people are to seek the welfare, work for the good, of the place He has us in.

This can be a hard word. This is God’s word.

* Father God,

Thank You for Your sovereign will. Please help us to trust Your will for us, to go about each day doing Your will.

Please help us going forward to seek the welfare of where You have placed us.

Amen.