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What do you do with old newspapers? I read an article
recently that said that you can stuff them into your wet shoes to soak up the
moisture. And of course, they can be used to wrap breakable objects when
packing them away, and they can be used to housebreak your pets or to line
their cages. But the one thing hardly anyone does with an old newspaper is read it. The current woes of the printed
news industry suggest that people hardly read “new” newspapers anymore, much
less old ones. Our age has been called “the information age,” and thanks to the
internet and smartphones, news is pushed to us in real time as events unfold.
By the time the newspaper rolls off the press tomorrow morning, we’ve already
heard it. Now, from time to time, I find myself perusing stacks of old books in
an antique store and come across an old newspaper that is decades old. That is
of more interest than a newspaper that is days old. A very old newspaper is
something of a historical curiosity. It answers the question, “What happened on
this day in history?”, and it tells of events of a bygone era. But beyond the
historical trivia, what use do we have for old news? Not much. So, the question
may be on the minds of some here today, as we embark on a protracted study of
the book of Habakkuk, “Why should we care, in 21st Century America , about
a writing that is some 2,700 years old?” Well, I’m glad you asked.
Suppose that we were to find ourselves in a culture that has
discarded all standards of morality? Suppose that our day and age was
characterized by wicked and corrupt rulers who perverted and distorted justice
to suit their own agendas? Suppose that you and I lived in a day in which our
concerns for the decay of our own country’s philosophical and moral foundations
was surpassed only by the fear and outrage of a world filled with violent
terror? I’m not saying that is the case, I’m just inviting you to imagine it,
if you can, hard as it may be. I wonder, if that were the case, where could we
turn for a word from God that would address such circumstances? You may be
surprised to know that you find all of those matters under consideration here
in the little book of Habakkuk. It is three chapters in length, just 56 verses,
but its message is as relevant – no, it is more
relevant than today’s newspaper.
Walter Kaiser has pointed out that “there are a number of
reasons why Habakkuk, obscure and small as it may be, should be lifted up to
the attention of the Church at this time. The reasons are: pastoral, theological,
apologetical, and spiritual.” The pastoral reasons, Kaiser suggests, “take us
in to … the prayer closet where we ask over and over again, ‘How long, O Lord?
How long? Why? O Why?’” Surely all of us have had, or wanted to have, those
times of tear-filled prayer before the throne of grace. Habakkuk has them here
in this book, and he becomes an example to us in so doing. The theological
reasons for continued study of this book are found in the central theme of the
book, found in Habakkuk 2:4 – “The just (or, righteous) shall live by faith
(or, will live by his faith).” Kaiser writes, “Habakkuk has much to teach us
about the meaning of faith and righteousness, and about how, in the face of
great difficulties, one can get on with the task of living now, enjoying the
deep satisfaction of knowing who God is and that He is able to handle things,
come what may!” Then, Kaiser points out that Habakkuk “wrestles with … the
apologetical problem of squaring the goodness and justice of God with the
presence of what seems like unbridled evil and wickedness among men and
nations.” Surely this problem is as relevant in our own day as it has ever
been, and the so-called “problem of evil” is the most frequently cited
objection to faith in God heard from skeptics and cynics today. Finally, Kaiser
points to the spiritual reason for the modern study of Habakkuk, noting that
“it places God in the center of history and of personal consciousness.” When we
know this, as Habakkuk teaches us, we are able to have “a worshipping heart
that has found its rest in the living God,” and that knows “how to rejoice when
the lid has blown off everything and nothing that we once counted on as a
reference point remains fixed.” So, Habakkuk teaches us “how to live by faith
in a God who is alive and active in the current affairs of life, distasteful
and unappealing as those affairs seem at times.”[1]
If these things are true, and I suggest that they are, then
we will be able to conclude, as another scholar has written, “There is no Old
Testament book that is able to do more for the burdened souls of men or to
raise them to higher levels of hope and confidence than the brief prophecy of
Habakkuk. … Search the Bible through and you will find nothing so matchless in
concentrated power as these three chapters of the Book of Habakkuk.”[2]
Habakkuk is located in our Bibles in that section that we
call “The Minor Prophets.” We do not call them this because they are less
important than the other writings, or the other prophetic books which we call
“The Major Prophets.” They are called “Minor” for a very sophisticated reason:
they are shorter than the Major ones,
which are longer. Habakkuk is 3 chapters; Isaiah, for example, is 66 chapters. Like
most of the other prophetic writings, Habakkuk begins with a “title verse,”
which sets the stage for the contents of the book that follow. It is that verse
to which I want to direct our attention this morning. Like the entire book
itself, this verse may seem to offer nothing of importance to us at a
superficial reading of it, but with deeper study, we find that even these brief
words suggest something to us of great significance. Herein we find, not only
important information to set Habakkuk into its historical and spiritual
setting, but also an important message for ourselves as we find ourselves in a
cultural situation not altogether different from that of the prophet.
I have entitled this message, “The Prophetic Burden.” That
title may make little sense from the text as we have read it in the New
American Standard Bible (my English translation of choice). Like the English
Standard and Holman Christian Standard, the NASB speaks here of “the oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.”
The New International Version interprets the Hebrew here, saying, “the prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet
received.” Users of the King James Version, or the New King James, will notice
however that the rendering there is, “The burden
which Habakkuk the prophet did see.” Which is the correct translation?
Well, in a sense they are all correct,
but the older English versions do well to stick to a far more literal rendering
with the word burden.
The word was originally used to describe the cargo that was
loaded onto the backs of pack animals (Ex 35:6). When Moses complained to the
Lord that the people had become a burden to
him, this is the word he used (Num 11:11). The Psalmist uses this word to speak
of his sin-guilt as a burden too
heavy to bear (Psa 35:6). The prophet Hosea uses the same word to speak of the burden that people suffer under the oppression
of conquering kings and leaders (Hos 8:10).[3]
Because the prophets used this word so often to describe their message, in time
it came to take on a technical meaning of a message of judgment that the
prophet received from God and delivered on His behalf. But, it was not for no
reason that the prophets used this particular
word to describe their message. It is, quite literally, a burden to receive a message from the sovereign God of the universe
and to have the unenviable task of delivering that message to a people who
seldom wish to hear it. But that was the calling of the prophet, and as the
ambassadors of Jesus Christ in the world today, it is the calling of every
Christian. We have a burden to bear – a heavy one at that! It is a prophetic
burden as we speak for God to a culture that seems to have gone haywire around
us. So, as we look at the opening verse of Habakkuk, we find an ordinary man
with an extraordinary calling, bearing a natural burden and a supernatural one
– and this is something to which all who desire to live faithfully for Jesus
today can relate!
I. The Ordinary Man with the Extraordinary Calling
Human nature is fascinated with the spectacular. That is why
so much of what passes for news today focuses on the daily gossip about so-called
celebrities who have become famous for being famous. Why do we keep up with the
Kardashians, or care who Taylor Swift’s latest love interest is? Our
celebrity-infatuated culture has put the spotlight on seemingly extraordinary
people who are just doing ordinary things. But every day around the world,
there are far more extraordinary things being done by ordinary people you’ve
never heard of. And this is the way God seems to do His work in the world.
Silently and in the shadows outside of the flash of paparazzi cameras, the Kingdom of God
The earliest Christians were ridiculed by the authorities of
their day as being “unlearned and ignorant men” (Ac 4:13, KJV); but it was by
these men that the world was turned upside down (17:6, KJV). Paul said to the
Corinthians, “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many
wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has
chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen
the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base
things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not,
so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before
God” (1 Cor 1:26-29). Ordinary people – that is what we are. But in God’s
hands, we are able to do extraordinary things for Him in the world.
Habakkuk was an ordinary fellow. Compare him to his fellow
prophets of the Old Testament. About many of them, we are told where they are
from, who their fathers were, and under what kings they served. Not Habakkuk.
About him we are told two things: his name, and that he was a prophet. That is
it.
There are instances in which we can find out a lot about
biblical characters by looking at the meaning of their names. Daniel, for
example, is a name that means “God is my judge,” and that name takes on special
significance as we study the book that bears his name. Jeremiah is called “the
weeping prophet” because of the dreary circumstances of his life and times, but
his name means, “The Lord has uplifted.” But when we come to Habakkuk, we
aren’t even sure what his name means! It may come from a Hebrew word that means
“to embrace.” Among the scholars who interpret the name this way, there is a
lack of agreement about its significance. Is Habakkuk the prophet who embraces
God in the face of difficult days, or is he the one who is embraced by God in
such days, or, as Luther suggests, is the one who embraces his people in these
days? Of course, it is far from certain that this is even the right meaning for
his name, as some suggest that it comes from an Akkadian word that simply
refers to a vegetable or garden plant.
Unsatisfied with this scant information, ancient Jewish
writers exercised great creativity to connect this obscure and ordinary prophet
to other people and events of the Old Testament. Not only do their stories
exceed the bounds of credibility, they are also contradictory to one another.
The fact is Habakkuk is just an ordinary guy, no different from any of us. No
amount of creative writing or historical revision can change that.
Although Habakkuk (the man) was very ordinary, his calling
was extraordinary. Twice in the book he is called Habakkuk the prophet. That title means that he was chosen by God to be the
voice of divine truth to his generation. He was God’s spokesman and ambassador.
When it comes to understanding the men whom God raised up as His prophets in Israel , the
Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel and his simply titled book, The Prophets (first published in 1962) has influenced Jewish and
Christian thinking alike more than perhaps any other. Here are some salient
descriptions of a prophet found in Heschel’s work:
- The words of the prophet are stern, sour, stinging. But behind his austerity is love and compassion for mankind. … [E]very prediction of disaster is in itself an exhortation to repentance. … Almost every prophet brings consolation, promise, and the hope of reconciliation along with censure and castigation. He begins with a message of doom; he concludes with a message of hope.[4]
- None of the prophets seems enamored with being a prophet nor proud of his attainment. … To be a prophet is both a distinction and an affliction. The mission he performs is distasteful to him and repugnant to others; no reward is promised him and no reward could temper its bitterness. The prophet bears scorn and reproach …. He is stigmatized as a madman by his contemporaries, and, by some modern scholars, as abnormal.[5]
- The prophet is a lonely man. He alienates the wicked as well as the pious, the cynics as well as the believers, the priests and the princes, the judges and the false prophets. But to be a prophet means to challenge and to defy and to cast out fear. … The prophet’s duty is to speak to the people, “whether they hear or refuse to hear.” A grave responsibility rests upon the prophet.[6]
- The prophet’s eye is directed to the contemporary scene; the society and its conduct are the main theme of his speeches. Yet his ear is inclined to God. He is a person struck by the glory and presence of God, overpowered by the hand of God. Yet his true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.[7]
- The words the prophet utters are not offered as souvenirs. His speech to the people is not a reminiscence, a report, hearsay. The prophet not only conveys; he reveals. He almost does unto others what God does unto him. In speaking, the prophet reveals God. … [I]n his words, the invisible God becomes audible. … Divine power bursts in the words. The authority of the prophet is in the Presence his words reveal. … The prophet is a witness and his words a testimony—to His power and judgment, to His justice and mercy.[8]
With that understanding of the extraordinary calling of a
prophet, we may wonder, “Who is qualified to undertake such a task?” Humanly
speaking, the answer is, “No one!” But the prophets were not volunteers for
their task. They did not apply or sign-up for the job. They were chosen and
called by the grace of God for this extraordinary task when they were but
ordinary people. And friends, I suggest to you that we, as followers of Jesus
in our day, are not that much different from them. We are ordinary people,
surely unqualified in terms of our human nature for such a task, but chosen and
called by the grace of God to be His people, and to be His spokesmen and ambassadors
to our generation. There are times that call for strong and stinging words of
rebuke, but beneath those words is a love and compassion for fallen humanity
and for the God who longs to reconcile lost sinners to Himself. At times we
will be lonely and outcast, shunned for the upopularity and
political-incorrectness of our message. But in word and in deed, we are called
to make the invisible God audible and
to make others aware of His presence and His power to save those who trust in
Him. It is a great blessing to be chosen and called by God to this task, for it
is all of His gracious doing that we have been so chosen and called. But is it
a burden? Yes it is. It is a weighty and massive burden, at times seemingly
unbearable. And to understand that, we turn our attention away from the
ordinary man with the extraordinary task, to …
II. The Natural and Supernatural Burdens of the Prophet
In order for us to understand Habakkuk’s burden, and see
just how much we should be able to relate to him, it is necessary to sketch a
bit of the historical background of the book. None of these details are spelled
out clearly in the book, but the details we do have enable us to place Habakkuk
relatively confidently in space and time. His days were not altogether from our
own – except maybe a little worse!
Assuming that Habakkuk was a mature man when he wrote the
words of this book, he would have grown up in the Southern Kingdom of Judah
under the reign of King Josiah. Josiah’s story can be found in 2 Chronicles 34-35
and 2 Kings 22-24. Josiah was something of a rarity compared to other kings of Israel and Judah who came before and after
him. We read that Josiah “did right in the sight of the Lord” (2 Chron 34:2),
and that description doesn’t fit many who held the throne of the Northern or
Southern Kingdoms after Solomon. He came to the throne at age 8 in 639 BC, and
by age 16 he began a sweeping moral and religious reform that sparked a revival
in Judah .
He purged the nation of idolatry and set about to restore the Jerusalem temple that had fallen into ruin.
As these repairs were underway, the priests found something that had been lost
for a long time – the Bible, the Book of the Law of the Lord. On behalf of the
entire nation, the king repented of the sinful disregard that the nation had
had toward God and His Word, and he began reading the Bible to all the people
of the land. He swore allegiance to God on behalf of the nation, and led the
nation in righteousness for three decades. It was a golden era of Jewish
history into which Habakkuk had been born and raised.
In 609 BC, tragedy struck the nation. Pharaoh Neco of Egypt marched his armies through Judah en route to Assyria .
Assyria’s domination of the region was weakening, and Neco sought to exploit
their weakness and gain a stronghold for Egypt . Intent on stopping Neco,
Josiah led his army out at Megiddo
and was killed in the battle. The nation fell into disillusionment and despair.
The Chronicler says that the “singers speak about Josiah in their lamentations
to this day” (2 Chron 35:25). His son Jehoahaz became king for only three
months before he was deposed and deported by the Egyptian Pharaoh. In his
place, Pharaoh Neco installed Josiah’s other son Eliakim as a puppet king in Judah , and
changed his name to Jehoiakim. Of Jehoiakim’s reign, the Bible says, “he
reigned eleven years in Jerusalem ;
and he did evil in the sight of the Lord his God” (2 Chron 36:5). All of the
religious and moral reforms of his father Josiah were undone, and the nation
followed their evil king into systemic wickedness.
It was during this time that Habakkuk’s prophetic book was
written. His sensitive spirit was vexed at what he beheld around him in his
beloved nation. He will say in verse 2 that he cried out repeatedly to the Lord
for help, and God did not answer. He describes his society as one filled with
violence, iniquity, wickedness, destruction, strife, and contention. He speaks
of the Law of God being ignored and justice being perverted, with the wicked
triumphing over the righteous (1:2-4). It was only natural for him to be burdened about what he saw in his
homeland. Anyone of us would be, and as we think of our own society today, many
of us are burdened in a way not
unlike Habakkuk.
But I would point out to you that when Habakkuk speaks of
his burden in the opening verse of
this book, he is not speaking of the natural burden that resulted from what he
saw around him with the eyes of his flesh. There was a greater burden than
this. With the eye of faith, in conversation and communion with God, Habakkuk
was shown that things were going to get worse before they got better. God was
about to raise up a violent and dreadful people – the Chaldeans, better known
to us as the Babylonians – to be His agents of divine judgment against the surviving
half of the divided kingdom
of Israel
Friends, by now the parallels between Habakkuk’s day and our
own ought to be obvious. If God was not beholden to protect the very nation
that He had chosen to be called His own people from disaster when they turned
their backs on Him in wickedness, injustice, corruption and idolatry, then we
must not be deceived to think that God has promised to always spare America from
the rod of His judgment. The Bible says to us with all severity, “Do not be
deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap”
(Gal 6:7). And what is true for men individually is all the more true for
nations that rise and fall by the providence of His sovereign governance of
global history. America
is neither promised nor guaranteed a future part on the stage of this world. If
you know this and believe it, it is a burden to our hearts and minds. But the
greater burden is this – we cannot be silent about it. We cannot merely
withdraw ourselves into this holy huddle on one day every week and talk about
how the world is going to hell around us without going out from this place to
herald the bad news of God’s certain judgment and the good news of the
salvation that He has offered us in Jesus Christ! As Spurgeon said, “If sinners
be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our dead bodies. And if they
perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them
to stay. If hell must be filled, let be filled in the teeth of our exertions,
and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.”
But now friends, finally, let us go from preaching to
meddling. It is a very sloppy handling of the Bible to take the events of Israel ’s history and apply them haphazardly to
this relatively infant nation of America . If we are to find a more
fitting analogy to Israel
and Judah
of the Old Testament, it is the Church of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.
The reality of our current society is that it will never rise higher than the
people of God who dwell within it. If our churches – no, let me make it more
personal than that – if our church – this one, this body of believers – is not
committed to living faithfully under the Lordship of Jesus Christ in obedience
to His Word, we cannot expect our pagan neighbors to do better. Where the
church is filled with strife and discord, corruption and perversion, idolatry
and worldliness, it becomes toxic to the culture that surrounds it. We cannot
beg and plead God for revival in our nation until we have worn out our knees in
prayer for Him to send it to His church! And there is nothing that He would
rather do, and no prayer that He would more gladly answer! So our prayer is not
for Him to do something, but that we, by His grace, would turn to Him in
repentance and recommitment, to seek His face and live faithfully under His
Lordship in obedience to His Word! Let revival begin here and now, and Lord,
let it begin with me! That must be the prayer of every Christian! And then,
revived by the Spirit of God, let us go forth bearing this prophetic burden to
declare to the world around us that there is a righteous judge who will call
all men to account at the end of life and the end of time, and apart from His
mercy there is none who can abide His wrath! But thanks be to God! There is the
offer of salvation and rescue through the grace of God in the Lord Jesus
Christ. For us, for our sins, He died as a sacrificial substitute, so that the
judgment that our sins have deserved was poured out on Him as He shed His blood
on the cross. Do not ask God to give you what you deserve, for you cannot bear
it! But God has given Christ what you deserve, so that you might inherit by
grace what Christ deserves – full acceptance and fellowship with God now and
for all eternity – if you will turn from sin and trust in His name to be saved!
[1] Walter
C. Kaiser, Jr., Micah-Malachi
(Mastering the Old Testament, vol. 21; Dallas: Word, 1992), 141-142.
[2] Raymond
Calkins, The Modern Message of the Minor
Prophets (New York: Harper, 1947), 92-93. Also cited by Kaiser, 142-143.
[3] Ronald
F. Youngblood, “aC9m1” in New International Dictionary of Old
Testament Theology and Exegesis (Willem A. VanGemeren, gen.ed.; Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 1112-1113.
[4] Abraham
Heschel, The Prophets (New York:
HarperCollins, 1962), 1.12.
[5] Ibid.,
1.17-18.
[6] Ibid.,
1.18-19.
[7] Ibid.,
1.21.
[8] Ibid.,
1.22.
