“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9–10)
Jesus taught us to pray that God’s will would be done here on earth. If we believe that God is sovereign, then we believe that everything that happens on earth is according to his divine will. But, if we’re honest, it’s hard to reconcile what we see being done here on earth with what we know of God’s revealed will in Scripture. In his excellent commentary on Job, Christopher Ash reminds us that “One mark of faith is not to let go of truths we know, even as we grapple with what seems to be their contradiction.” He then explains that God’s “will is not done on earth in the same way as it is done in heaven. It is done on earth completely . . . but it is not done perfectly. There is a difference between God’s will as he commands (which always happens) and God’s will as he desires (which will not happen fully until the end)” (Ash, Job: The Wisdom of the Cross, italics mine).
We saw last week in God’s answer to Habakkuk’s initial complaint, that the LORD plans to raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation of war-mongering idolaters, to be the instrument of his judgment upon Judah. God has told Habakkuk what will come to pass is by his sovereign hand. This week in Habakkuk 1:12–17 the prophet grapples with this news in prayer to God. How could this invasion be the will of the LORD his God, his Holy One?
When preaching on this passage, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones suggested a biblical method of approaching these problems when the circumstances in the world and in our lives don’t appear to line up with what we know to be true of God.
“A. Stop to think. The first rule is to think instead of speaking. Be swift to hear, says James, slow to speak and slow to wrath. According to [Habakkuk], the first thing to do is to ponder. Before expressing our reactions we must discipline ourselves to think.
B. Restate basic principles. The next rule is that when you start to think you must not begin with your immediate problem. Begin further back. We must first remind ourselves of those things of which we are absolutely certain, things which are entirely beyond doubt.
C. Apply the principles to the problem. Put the particular problem into the context of those firm principles which are before you. . . . The way to interpret a difficult text of scripture is to consider its context. The same is also true of the particular problem that is causing you concern.
D. If still in doubt, commit the problem to God in faith. This is the final step in this method. If you are still not clear about the answer, then just take it to God in prayer and leave it there with him.
Whatever the problem, stop to think, lay down the propositions, bring it into that context, and then, if still in trouble, take it to God and leave it there” (Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, From Fear to Faith; Rejoicing in the Lord in Turbulent Times).
We see Habakkuk applying this method in his reply to the LORD: beginning with what he knows to be true before struggling with what appears to be its contradiction:
Are you not from everlasting,
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.
As he begins to respond to God’s disclosure of what he’s about to do, Habakkuk grounds himself in what he knows to be true of his God—that he is the eternal God, he is an intimately personal God, he is holy, and he is a secure refuge. God is a “safe place” to bring his questions, fears, and doubts. In fact, this seems to be the sense of the line, “We shall not die.” “Although he recognizes the threat the Chaldeans pose, Habakkuk believes his life is safe precisely because of God’s character (David G. Firth, Habakkuk, ESV Expository Commentary). Llyod-Jones comments: “There is nothing more consoling or reassuring when oppressed by the problems of history, and when wondering what is to happen in the world, than to remember that the God whom we worship is outside the flux of history. He has preceded history; He has created history. His throne is above the world and outside time. He reigns in eternity, the everlasting God.”
This assurance of the safety of God’s character is set necessarily in the context of the judgment that is coming to Judah by the means of the Chaldean invasion. As hard as it is to understand what the LORD is doing, Habakkuk sees this news as “reproof, presumably for the righteous as well as the wicked, but Habakkuk’s difficulty is that he knows Yahweh to be holy and therefore pure. This conflict leads to the questions of verse 13, [where] . . . Habakkuk wishes to hold God to account—he is holy and just, and therefore ought to act in ways that are likewise holy and just” (David G. Firth, Habakkuk, ESV Expository Commentary).
You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors
and remain silent when the wicked swallows up
the man more righteous than he?
You make mankind like the fish of the sea,
like crawling things that have no ruler.
He brings all of them up with a hook;
he drags them out with his net;
he gathers them in his dragnet;
so he rejoices and is glad.
Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and makes offerings to his dragnet;
for by them he lives in luxury,
and his food is rich.
Is he then to keep on emptying his net
and mercilessly killing nations forever?
The very character of God which answers Habakkuk’s first quandary in verse 12 causes him his second problem beginning in verse 13. “If God is all powerful, and if he is in control of events, how can these events be reconciled with his holy character?” We know that God is powerful, we see that the Chaldeans are merely instruments in his hands, yet we must still ask how a holy God can allow such things to take place. As Habakkuk applies the same method as before, the difficulty arises: how could God allow these Chaldeans to do this to his own people?
Those who are “more righteous than” the “wicked” who will swallow them up aren’t the people of Judah who are ‘relatively’ more righteous than the Chaldeans. We know this because of what we learned about the utter depravity of Israel—the very reason judgment is coming. But “the righteous” are the godly portion of Israel, the faithful few who have been crying out to the LORD along with Habakkuk against the wickedness of Judah. “This fact, that the righteous is swallowed along with the unrighteous, appears unreconcilable with the holiness of God, and suggests the inquiry, how God can possibly let this be done” (Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, Minor Prophets).
“That God is sovereign is clear from the fact that he is Creator, and Habakkuk sees that God has made mankind free, comparing humans to “fish” and “crawling things” (1:14). The comparison to fish, however, leads to the metaphor of the Chaldeans as ruthless anglers who catch more than they need through a variety of fishing techniques— “hook,” “net,” and “dragnet” (v. 15). They rejoice in the abundance of their catch and completely ignore the fact that they could do so only because Yahweh had raised them up. Indeed they treat their fishing implements as gods (v. 16), celebrating their violence in battle. . . . The Chaldeans relentless destruction of others. . . [their] pitiless killing, says Habakkuk, surely cannot be Yahweh’s way” (Firth).
After stating his absolutes and bringing his problem into this context, Habakkuk rolls to a standstill, ending with a question and without a clear answer. “Is he [Babylon/ the enemy] then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?” (v. 17) The prophet can make no sense of it, as he has pondered, returned to his first principles, and set the problem in the context of God’s righteousness and justice. And now he must simply leave the problem with God in faith.
We experience this in our own lives, don’t we? We can apply this same method in many circumstances, and it works well. But there are those circumstances—those problems and trials—where we find no answer. What do we do then? We must not rush to hasty conclusions and decide that because we don’t understand, therefore God can’t be who he says he is: he’s not powerful enough to effect a rescue; not loving enough to care; or not trustworthy enough to place our faith in. No, if we still don’t understand after applying the God-given methods to the problem, then we talk to God about it. Through Jesus Christ, God has made a way for us to come to him in prayer, and so that’s what we must do.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:15–16)
We must come with the faith of little children knowing that we cannot understand everything that our Father is doing, but trusting him still. We must leave the big unanswerable problems with him.
I’ll close with this from David Firth:
“God’s response to Habakkuk also provides a model for how we are to hold these issues in tension. Faith, a position from which we approach life by understanding that righteousness comes only as God’s gift, is the essential starting point. But this is to be matched with a continued faithfulness that trusts God even when our experience is for a time contrary to our expectations. This is not a blind faith . . . . But it is a faith that lives in the knowledge that God’s purposes have an appointed time for which we wait—waiting both for those interim moments when we see evil overcome in history and for the point at which God’s victory will ultimately be seen by all. But as we wait, like Habakkuk, we continue to pray “your Kingdom come,” asking for the resolution to this tension and for the faith to endure it in the meantime.”
Grateful 