Habakkuk Part 1 - When God Seems Silent

Gaving Wright preaches from Habakkuk 1v1-11 at Immanuel Church Brentwood. This is from Sunday 28th June 2026.

Transcript

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Friends, this is uh God's words, and we need God's help, and so we are going to pray now and ask for it before I read. Uh, Father God, as we read your Bible, and as we read it in a world of sin and suffering, would you please do good to our hearts today? Help us to see you, help us to trust you. Please help me to speak uh rightly and faithfully of your word. Amen. Amen. Habakkuk, uh, chapter one. Let me read. The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear? Or cry to you violence and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity? Why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me, strife and contention arise, so the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth, for the wicked surround the righteous, justice goes forth perverted. Look among the nations and see. Wonder and be astounded, for I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome, their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves, their horsemen press proudly on, their horsemen come from afar, they fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward, they gather captives like sand, at kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on. Guilty men whose own might is their God? Friends, this is the word of the Lord, and we thank God for it. A question for us this morning. Why doesn't God do something about all of the evil in the world? How can a pure, a holy God tolerate so much, so much injustice? Across the world this morning, friends, the poor are being taken advantage of. Girls are being trafficked. Young boys are being given guns and machetes and forced into militias. Children are being orphaned, wives are being widowed, the hungry are being starved, the bomb are scared. The old are being scammed. And people with money and power do what they want without a care for the consequences. And it isn't just out there in the world, is it? In corners of the church, ministers abuse their power. Cultures of hypocrisy and of fear are nurtured. People are cheated on, the vulnerable are tricked into emptying their bank accounts for the false promise of healing. God's law is broken or forgotten or just outright denied. I guess if you're a Christian here this morning, the fact of that won't be a shock to you. If you take Jesus seriously as he talks about what the human heart is like, you won't be taken aback by that. But perhaps what does trouble us sometimes is the question: why isn't God doing anything about it? Why doesn't God act? Why doesn't he end the injustice in our world and in our churches? We pray for the end to wars in Yemen and Gaza and Ukraine, and yet we keep praying because they keep going. We pray against the advancement of abortion and assisted suicide, and yet new legislation keeps being put on the table by those in charge. Why doesn't God act? We pray nearly every week for the persecuted church, and yet the church keeps being persecuted. Why doesn't God stop it? We pray for the church to be holy as God is holy, and every week there is a new scandal in the paper. Why does God sometimes seem so silent? There are always people in the room on Sunday morning looking in on Christian things from the outside. If that is you, we are really glad that you're with us. And maybe this is your question today. How can a good and a powerful God put up with so much injustice? How can we say that God is like that and yet the world is like this? God, why don't you do something? Welcome to the world of Habakkuk. Where we're going to be spending three weeks. The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. But as we go on to read in this book, what is essentially a dialogue between Habakkuk and God, we will learn from him some of his struggles and griefs. But we will also learn something from him of what godly complaining looks like, of what godly questioning looks like when it isn't clear if God is working or if he is, what he's doing. It is a special book in that way. People who think and feel like that often. And we're just going to go through our passage this morning with three big headings. This is the first of all. It is the God who is silent. The God who is silent. Have a look at verses 2 to 4. That's where we are. Ahabakuch is speaking about 600 BC. Okay, so the God's people have not yet gone into exile. The Babylonians haven't yet come. And you'll see how he describes the state of the nation in verse 3. He uses three pairs of words. The first pair, iniquity and wrong. It is a situation of those with power exploiting the weak. Not a great place to be if you're a vulnerable person, the unborn baby, the old, the infirm. It's the kind of place where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. God, why don't you do something? Then the second pair of words in verse 3, destruction and violence. In a modern setting, you may be thinking of young people carrying knives, gunmen entering schools, women feeling unsafe out on their own at night. God, why don't you do something? The final pair of words, strife and contention. Perhaps a nation with high divorce rates, family breakdown, people at each other's throats, neighbor against neighbor, tribalism at its bitter and thoughtless worst. It is Twitter in real life. God, why don't you do something? But we come back to the surprise. Habakkuk isn't talking about the world out there. He isn't talking about the big, bad pagan world. He's talking about God's people, Israel. This is God's people who are like this. Maybe you can imagine the local headlines of the day, tensions and arguments over theological controversies, stories of scandal and abuse. God's people, where his word is actually marginalized, it's shoved to the side, verse 4, his law is paralyzed. It is being forgotten, ignored, or just flat denied. And rather than being marked and known for righteousness and for justice, God's people have become known for hypocrisy and infighting and trampling on whosoever is in your way to get what you want. And Habakkuk looks out at God's people and he says, Why, God, don't you do something? How much longer must we keep praying for the same things? And just at this point, friends, I want to say that Habakkuk gives us an example of it being okay to ask questions in the Christian life. It is okay to express doubts. It is okay to be part of God's church if you're not completely sorted on all of the questions. If you struggle when you look on at suffering, the Christian faith is reasonable. It is not a blind faith, it's based on evidence. But it is still faith. And until faith becomes sight, which it will one day, we will always have questions. And that is especially true when, like Habakkuk, what we see seems to contradict what we believe. I was reading of a minister in the 19th century who had never had any doubts about the goodness of God. He was clear, he was convinced, he was spot on. Until his wife died. He had all of the answers, he had all of the confidence until that one dark day. And in those moments, the question is not whether or not Christians have doubts or questions or longings to know just what on earth God is doing. That is normal. The question is what you do with those doubts and questions and longings. There's a massive difference, isn't there, between doubt on one hand and unbelief on the other. Unbelief has a heart that wants to walk away from God's, and that is a deadly place to be. Godly doubt, friends, is different. It is a soft heart that has questions, but really wants to go God's way within those questions and seeks from God and grapples with how he answers those questions. And look at Habakkuk, verse 2, look at how he approaches things. Look at what he says. O Lord, how long shall I cry for help? And maybe just into next week's reading, verse 12. Are you not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my holy one? See, Habakkuk is expressing his doubts and struggles, not from a position of unbelief, but from a position of faith. He doesn't go behind God's back, asking the question, dragging his name through the muds. Instead, he goes to God. He goes in prayer to God's face, he cries out to the covenant God, the Lord, to his God. He doesn't give up on God because there's something he doesn't understand. He knows enough of God to know that God is trustworthy with these questions, that the Lord won't throw a struggling child's doubts back in his face and make him pay for it. Friends, we know how God loves us. We know how far his love reaches. He's even given his own son for us, Romans. And if he's done that, he won't let us go. He won't throw our cries back in our faces, he won't resent our questions. And God hears Habakkuk's cry and he answers. Which takes us to our second point. That is the God who is active. The God who is active. And we get to verse 5, which I think is probably our key verse this morning if you want to come back to something during the week. And God says to Habakkuk as he answers, look among the nations and see, wonder and be astonished. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. Friends, sometimes we expect that God sort of says, when we're struggling, when we're suffering, we're in a world we don't understand, we we sort of think that God says, I know what you're going through, but push through the sadness and the injustice and the evil, and one day, if you wait patiently, I will act, I will bring an end to sin and suffering, I will fix everything, I will act. And that is true, and that is wonderful. But Christian friend, it isn't the whole truth. We think sometimes that history is this big, scrambled mess, and sometimes God intervenes, sometimes God acts when he really needs to. He rescues his people from Egypt, sure. Jesus dies on the cross and rises from the dead, sure. Jesus will return to call us home, sure. But what does God say to Habakkuk? He says, I am doing a work in your days. You might not see it, Habakkuk, but I am at work. Present tense. So when you look around, Habakkuk, and you see the violence and you see the destruction, you see the lawlessness, don't mistake that for thinking that I'm not there and I'm not working. Christian, when you look around and you see the mess in your families, the division in our countries, the way that so often it is the church that drags God's name through the mud, don't mistake that for thinking that He is not there and that He is not working. He is the God of all of history, every last day of it, not just the days when the sun is shining. But perhaps one of the big difficulties, as Habakkuk is about to find out, is that God doesn't always act in the ways that we expect him to, or often we have asked him to. Because you see, verse 6, God says to Habakkuk, Behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that is, the Babylonians. And just look at how these people, okay, God is raising them up. Look at how they are described. They are basically like the ISIS of the day. Verse 6, they are bitter and hasty with a lust for conquest. Verse 7, they're a dreaded and fearsome force with values and attitudes a million miles away from God, essentially a law unto themselves. Verse 8, it picks the pictures of these animals known for their speed and aggression, leopards, wolves, eagles. And it says, in the blink of an eye, God's people will be overwhelmed, devoured by this onrushing animalistic army, shock and awe at its most potent. Verse 9, the Chaldeans are this violent force sweeping up those in their way like a desert storm, sweeps up grains of sand. The promise for God's people once was that they were going to number like the grains of sand on the seashore, but now they are being hovered up like sand in a whirlwind. Verse 10, these people are arrogant. They scoff, they're defiant, they're proud. Verse 11, they are utterly godless, but for the fact that they like to think of themselves as gods. And this people, they are God's answer to Habakkuk's prayer. It is a shocking answer. It is the stuff of nightmares. You look again at verse 5. And Habakkuk is hearing that God is doing a work. I imagine that Habakkuk is sort of thinking along the lines of a sort of limited clear-up operation, right? Perhaps raise up some good leaders who are going to point God's people in the right direction, maybe raise the general moral education levels, maybe stop some of the outside corrupt influences that are encouraging people to sin. I guess they're the sorts of things that Habakkuk might have had in mind as he prayed, at least if he was anything like me. But God isn't going for a glow-up. He's raising up the Chaldeans. Verse 5 basically says, when it says wonder and be astounded, really, that's be amazed and be amazed. You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you. Never in your wildest dreams could you imagine what is about to happen. I am raising up the Chaldeans. That is a shocking answer. Now, of course, God's answer to Habakkuk raises a bunch more questions, right? How could God use such an evil nation for his bidding? How could God get his hands dirty with people like this? And next week, we're going to see that Habakkuk is thinking what you're thinking if those are your questions. He's going to ask the questions that you're asking as it feels like perhaps the solution is worse than the problem. I encourage you to come back then and see how God answers those questions. But for today, God is working. And he works in ways we don't expect. He even uses injustice. He even uses opponents, enemies to accomplish his purposes. Which brings us to our last point this morning. That is the God who is sovereign. The God who is sovereign. Children, that means the God who is in charge. Nothing is ever out of his hands. Sometimes God uses his enemies to discipline his people, as he's doing here in Habakkuk chapter 1 to bring judgment. Sometimes he uses his enemies to do something else, but God is in control. And he's using injustices, he's using here evil to fulfill his purposes. And you need to know that. You need to know that. Think of that situation in your life that just seems so wrong, so out of control. The evil forces that are in our worlds, the events on the global stage that seem just so distressing, so disturbing. God is in control. See, verse 11. Chadians don't get it. Verse 11. Their might, we read, is their gods. They trust in their muscles and weapons. Verse 10, they laugh at earthly authorities because they are it. Nobody tells them what to do. They've got all the codes to the nuclear weapons, and they can do then whatever they want to whom they want, except, and we'll get more into this next week. Their pride is so woefully misplaced. Because it is God who is raising them up. And it is God ultimately who will bring them down. That doesn't mean that God is responsible, that he's morally culpable for the wickedness of the Babylonians, the Chaldeans again. We'll see more in that next week. They are still responsible for their actions, but he is in control, working out his purposes. He is sovereign even in this. And that goes along with the idea that God doesn't work in ways that we expect. Think he ought to be working. Tell him what he ought to be doing, hand him the script, really, and ask him to work in the ways that we think are the best ways. But God habitually answers our prayers in ways that we don't expect. Have you noticed how he rarely does exactly what you've asked him to do? Or at least in the way that you want him to do it? How he seems to be working off a completely different script. Have again a look at Habakkuk's initial complaint, verse 2. What does Habakkuk pray for? An end to violence. What is God's solution, verse 9? More violence. He prays, verse 4, for justice. And what is God's answer down in verse 7? It is Chaldean justice. A law unto themselves. Habakkuk gets an answer, a solution. God is acting. But it isn't the answer that Habakkuk was looking for. That same God, friends, is working in the world today. Behind politicians and thrones. That's worth remembering. It is possible that the situation that causes you to despair, that seems out of control, is part of God's plan. Ultimately to bring about an end to evil. After all, what's really going on in the world, that's what's really going on in the world of Habakkuk. Like Habakkuk, God isn't pleased or content with the injustices happening in Israel. And the raising up of the Chaldeans. Well, really, it is to deal with sin, to deal with suffering. God won't let this go on forever. And I think there are two reasons that we'll see over these three weeks that God's people are given this prophecy. The first is that even within God's people, God is going to judge sin. And if you will not turn from it, that judgment is going to be swift and devastating. But the other reason, I think, probably the main reason, is to comfort the righteous. That God is working, he hasn't forgotten you. There is what feels like a terrible answer to the corruption coming. But for the righteous, for the remnant that God will preserve, those who love him, he is always working for you to bring you out of this. And he wants you to trust him. Would it be possible that the situation you think is wrong is actually God's way of bringing about a greater good? His sovereignty even over his evil enemies to bring about his good purposes. And I guess the best example of that is the cross, isn't it? Do you remember that episode at the end of Luke's gospel? When Jesus is on the road to Emmaus with two of his disciples and they don't recognize who he is. Do you remember that? They feel downcast. The world is over as far as they are concerned. Jesus was going to redeem Israel, but now he's dead. Three days later, nothing has happened, and it looks like everything has gone wrong. It looks like everything is out of control. It looks like evil has won. It looks like injustice will go unanswered. But it turns out that God is using the out of control stuff. God is using the evil stuff. God is using even his enemies to fulfill his purposes. You don't need to turn there, but have a listen to two verses from Acts chapter 4. For truly in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. God's hand, God's plan. God is fixing the problem. God was answering prayers, acting, intervening, working, but not in the way they expected. He didn't work from their scripture. Do you remember Peter rebuking Jesus when Jesus said he was going to die? But Jesus did something infinitely more wonderful than his disciples would have or could have chosen. And hopefully, friends, there is encouragement there for you. God uses the stuff that you feel is wrong and out of control in the end for good. He raised up the Babylonians to bring justice, to discipline his people. And when we are suffering or great wrongs are done against us, when the righteous are persecuted across the world, when, and some of you will know this pain, when churches fall into scandal or infighting or false teaching. And God please forbid that that would happen here. God is still working. God is still the Lord of history. God still cares about sin. God is still there and he loves you, and he is doing the work of redeeming sinners in a guilty world. And he's doing the work of helping you to trust him and to bring you home. Maybe 2026 has been a rubbish year so far for you. Maybe a lot has gone wrong in your life over the last few months. Could it be that God is working off a different script to the one that you want him to? Could it be that even in those things God is working out his purposes in ways that you don't expect or seek? Could it be that the situation that you think is so out of control, so wrong, so unjust, so evil is actually part of God's good purpose is to bring about greater good and greater godliness in your life. Habakkuk pleads with God. Plead with God, please act. Please do something about the rottenness and the evil within God's people. And God says it's okay, I am. I'm raising up the Chaldeans. And come back next week to find out what Habakkuk feels about that prospect. But for now, if it feels to you like God is silent, know this. He hears your prayers, he is acting. He is still sovereign, he is in control and we can cry out to him. And we can trust him even when we don't understand. Let me pray for us. Father in heaven, thank you that you are our Father. And that there is no spot of this world, no second of history, which is outside of your control and your power, and in which we are outside of your love and your care. Lord, when the sun is covered with cloud and we cannot see the goodness in the world, please help us to remember, teach us to trust that you are still in control, that you always in all things do good for those who love you. Please help us to know you, to know that you are trustworthy. Help us to cry out to you when we are struggling rather than turn away from you. Please keep us. Teach us, help us, Lord. Amen.