Worse before it gets better.
Has anyone ever told you that things were going to get worse before they better? It probably wasn’t what you wanted to hear.
It’s what we kept hearing at the beginning of lockdown back in July. The numbers will go up. The death rate will go up. And the predictions were right. Everything did get worse before it got better.
Imagine if you receive a worrying diagnosis and your doctor says ‘You’re going to need treatment and it will be tough but I’m confident that you will make a full recovery.’
Do you follow his treatment? Or get a second opinion? For most of us, it will be based on the confidence we have in our doctor. It will be based on their past record of good treatment and care. It will be based on trust.
In Habbakuk, God says it’s going to get worse but it will get better but Habakkuk trusts in God’s holiness and struggles with God as he makes sense of God’s plan.
So what was happening? Why does Habakkuk write this book?
Habakkuk prophesied to the southern kingdom of Judah between 630-605BC.
Israel had been conquered by Assyria in 722BC but now Babylon was waiting in the wings.
In 612 the Babylonians invaded Nineveh (the city so feared by Jonah), the capital of the Assyrian empire. In 609 Judah’s King Josiah, was killed and the Babylonians conquered Assyria and headed for Jerusalem. They invaded Jerusalem three times, in 605BC, 597 BC and finally in 586BC. Each invasion saw exiles removed from their land.
For a good 7 minute recap on the historical background to Habakkuk click HERE.
But before all this happened, God shows Habakkuk what he is planning.
And like all the prophets major and not so minor, the themes are similar: judgment, repentance and salvation.
But Habbakuk is unique for a few reasons.
The big thing that’s missing is a call to repentance. God’s judgment is coming like a tsunami and nothing will stop it.
The other interesting difference is that this is a conversation in prayer between Habakkuk and God. Habakkuk doesn’t talk to the people at all. There’s no ‘you people are so bad and God’s just about to judge you, so pay attention and repent’
It’s all about his relationship with God and what we’ll see is the change in him, the shift from fear to faith, from panic and protest to praise, from helpless to hopeful.
The challenge for Habakkuk is that God is going to send a treacherous people to judge Judah. Habakkuk is appalled and dismayed but God quietens his fears with the reassurance that all evil will be overcome, that the righteous will live by faith and that he will be Lord in his holy temple.
Habbakuk is theologically significant because it introduces the doctrine of ‘righteousness by faith’, a promise that foreshadows the doctrine of justification by faith that is enabled by Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins. Habbakuk 2:4 is quoted by the Apostle Paul in the books of Galatians and Romans as well as by the writer of Hebrews: Galatians 3:11, Romans 1:17, Hebrews 10:35-38.
The book ends with no change to the circumstances but a huge change in the prophet and hopefully in us. Habakkuk begins with sorrow and ends in song.
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
Questions to consider:
o When have circumstances caused you to doubt or question God’s care and concern? How does Habakkuk reassure you?
o Faith has an object and a purpose. What does it mean for you to live by faith? What ‘works’ are getting in the way of living by the righteousness that comes from God?
o Yet I will rejoice in the Lord is easier said than done. The context is suffering and hardship. What are you rejoicing in despite the complexities of life?
Fiona Simpkin November 2021
