Good morning. If you would go ahead and open your Bibles please to the prophet Habakkuk. It's a very small book towards the end of the Old Testament amongst the minor prophets. I will struggle with you in finding the book in my own Bible here. And I think I found it. It's page 1081. Thank you for that help, brother. So this morning, it's going to be a little bit different. We're just doing an introduction here to the book of Habakkuk. What I plan to do is read through all three chapters so we can sort of get the whole of Habakkuk here and sort of develop the context that we're working on. And as we work through the book, it'll help us to grasp what's happening. The message portion this morning is rather short, so though the reading is long, bear with me, the message here is actually going to be a pretty short one this morning. You might be asking yourselves at this point, why Habakkuk? So we finished up James, and doesn't that seem like the natural place to go next, to Habakkuk, right? I'm not entirely sure. I just know that the last time as a family, when we were reading through this book during our family worship time, I said to myself, I want to preach through this book. Now, my memory isn't so good, but I think there was a couple of reasons. First of all, there were some really important passages here in this particular book of the Bible that caught my attention. But secondly, it was very difficult in that context for me to understand what the book was about. For those of you that do family worship, I don't know what your habits are. As a family, what we do is we'll read five verses, and then the next person reads five verses, And we do one, among other things, we do one chapter, whether we're in the Old Testament or New Testament, we go back and forth, and then some Psalms and some of the wisdom literature. But it's very difficult, for those of you that have done that, it's very difficult to have any good sense of what a book is about when you read it in that manner, because some of the the readers in the family may not be as good as the other readers, and so you kind of, and there's a lot of interjection that happens, and somebody falls on the floor and does something silly, and you have to get them to get back into their seat. You know, all these disruptions and things going on. It's a real challenge then to get your mind around that particular book, unless if you're extremely familiar with it. I was not. extremely familiar with this particular book of the Bible, but could sense that there was some really great stuff here and thought this would be a wonderful book to preach through so that I can get it myself and hopefully you as a congregation can profit from that as well. So that's why we're in Habakkuk. So reading here, beginning in verse 1, chapter 1. The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw, how long, O Lord, will I call for help, and Thou wilt not hear? I cry out to Thee, violence, yet Thou dost not save. Why dost Thou make me see iniquity and cause me to look on wickedness, yet, yes, destruction and violence are before me? Strife exists and contention arises, therefore the law is ignored and justice is never upheld. For the wicked surrounds the righteous, therefore justice comes out perverted. Look among the nations, observe, be astonished, wonder, because I am doing something in your days. You would not believe it if you were told." This is God speaking now. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous people who march throughout the earth to seize dwelling places which are not theirs. They are dreaded and feared. Their justice and authority originate with themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards and keener than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping. Their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour. All of them come for violence. Their horde of faces moves forward. They collect captives like sand. They mock at kings and rulers are a laughing matter to them. They laugh at every fortress and heap up rubble to capture it. Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on. But they will be held guilty. They whose strength is their God. Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We will not "'We will not die, thou, O Lord, hast appointed them to judge, and thou, O Rock, hast established them to correct. Thine eyes are too pure to approve evil, and thou canst not look on wickedness with favor. Why dost thou look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why art thou silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they? Why hast thou made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things, without a ruler over them? The Chaldeans bring all of them up, with a hook, drag them away with their net, and gather them together with their fishing net. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. Therefore they offer sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their fishing net. Because through these things their catch is large and their food is plentiful. Will they therefore empty their net and continually slay nations without sparing? I will stand on my post and station myself on the rampart and I will keep watch to see what he will speak to me and how I may reply when I am reproved." Then the Lord answered me and said, record the vision and inscribe it on tablets that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time. It hastens toward the goal, and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it, for it will certainly come. It will not delay. Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him. But the righteous will live by his faith. Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man so that he does not stay at home. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and he is like death, never satisfied. He also gathers to himself all nations and collects to himself all peoples. Will not all these take up a taunt song against him, even mockery and insinuations against him, and say, woe to him who increases what is not his, for how long, and makes himself rich with loans? Will not your creditors rise up suddenly, and those who collect from you awaken? Indeed, you will become plunder for them. Because you have looted many nations, and the remainder of the peoples will loot you. Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, to the town and all its inhabitants, Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to put his nest on high to be delivered from the hand of calamity. You have devised a shameful thing for your house by cutting off many peoples, so you are sinning against yourself. Surely the stone will cry out from the wall, and the rafter will answer it from the framework. Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with violence. Is it not indeed from the Lord of hosts that peoples toil for fire and nations grow weary for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as waters cover the sea. Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, who mix in your venom even to make them drunk so as to look on their nakedness. You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness. The cup is in the Lord's right hand, will come around to you. and utter disgrace will come upon your glory. For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, to the town, and all its inhabitants. What prophet is the idol when its maker has carved it? Or an image, a teacher of falsehood, for its maker trusts in his own handiwork when he fashions speechless idols. Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, awake, to a dumb stone, arise, and that is your teacher? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all inside it. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him. Chapter three. A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, according to Shigayanoth. Lord, I have heard the report about thee, and I fear. O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy. God comes from Teman and the Holy One from Mount Paran, Selah. His splendor covers the heavens, and the earth is full of His praise. His radiance is like the sunlight. He has rays flashing from His hand, and there is the hiding of His power. Before Him goes pestilence, and plague comes after Him. He stood and surveyed the earth. He looked and startled the nations. Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered. The ancient hills collapsed. His ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Kushan under distress. The tent curtains of the land of Midian were trembling. Did the Lord rage against the rivers? Or was thine anger against the rivers? Or was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride on thy horses, on thy chariots of salvation? Thy bow was made bare. The rods of chastisement were sworn, Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. The mountains saw thee and quaked. The downpour of waters swept by. The deep uttered forth its voice. It lifted high its hands. Sun and moon stood in their places. They went away at the light of thine arrows, at the radiance of thy gleaming spear. In indignation, thou didst march through the earth. In anger, thou didst trample the nations. Thou didst go forth for the salvation of thy people, for the salvation of thine anointed. Thou didst strike the head of the house of evil, to lay him open from thigh to neck, say law. Thou didst pierce with his own spears the head of his throngs. They stormed in to scatter us. Their exultation was like those who devour the oppressed in secret. Thou didst tread on the sea with thy horses on the surge of many waters. I heard, and my inward parts trembled at the sound. My lips quivered. Decay entered my bones, and in my place I trembled, because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food. Though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he has made my feet like hind's feet, and makes me walk on high places for the choir director on my stringed instruments. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do just ask your blessing on this time as we come to your word, Lord. I pray that as we begin now to walk through the book of Habakkuk, Lord, that you would reveal truth to us. I pray that you would allow me, Lord, to discern truth that is here and to be able to proclaim Your Word in a way that edifies those who have their faith in You, and in a way, Lord, that exalts Christ and draws those who are without Him to Himself. We just pray, Lord, Your blessing on this time, in Christ's name, Amen. So, have you ever wrestled with the issue of God's silence in the midst of what seems to you great injustice. When it seems like those around you whose lives are marked with pride and filled with iniquity and people who scoff at God seem to get along so well in life, while those who fear God seem to drag along from one hardship to the next. You know, maybe Noah felt that way when he was in the midst of building the ark. And we know that Job certainly wrestled with that issue. And we read about that in Psalm 73 that was read earlier this morning, something that oftentimes I think believers wrestle with in their lives. And that's what Habakkuk really is wrestling with here too, as we'll come to that here shortly. Now, whether this is just urban legend, I don't know. I can't, I can't, attest to the veracity of this story, but there's this story that circulated about a farming community where most of the farmers in the area were godly and upright people, those who attended church regularly. And there happened to be a man, another farmer in their community, who was an avowed atheist. And in fact, not only was he an atheist, but he happened to have property that joined right up to the church's property. And he made it known that and mocked the Christians who would not work on Sundays because they attended church and they set that day aside. He would mock them. And one of the ways he would mock them is that he would be sure to run his equipment on Sunday mornings while they were worshiping. He was a free thinker and he would chide his neighbors saying, hands that work are better than hands that pray. And one particular season of harvest, his crop did amazingly well. He had a bountiful crop where the rest in the community were all suffering. They did not have good crops that particular October as they were harvesting. And so he submitted a lengthy letter to the editor of the local paper, boasting of what a man can do on his own without God. And the editor printed the man's letter and added this pithy comment, God doesn't settle all of his counts in the month of October. And that really, I think, captures a lot of what God communicates to Habakkuk here in this book. So this morning, we're gonna do this. We're gonna begin by looking at the background of Habakkuk here concerning the author and the historical context. And then we will look at sort of an overview of the content. We'll look at an outline. I'm gonna give you Habakkuk in 30 seconds. We'll look at the themes of Habakkuk and how we see Christ in Habakkuk. So if you haven't figured this out yet, the author of Habakkuk happens to be a guy by the name of Habakkuk. Habakkuk is a prophet. And one of the first questions that I needed to wrestle with as I began to study through this was how to correctly pronounce the guy's name. So as it turns out, there actually are several acceptable pronunciations of Habakkuk. Probably the most popular would be the way I'm trying to say it, which is Habakkuk, putting the emphasis on the back as you say the name, Habakkuk. Another acceptable way would be to say Habakkuk. Maybe you've heard it pronounced that way, maybe you pronounce it that way. That apparently is an unacceptable pronunciation, Habakkuk. Turns out that the correct pronunciation in the Hebrew dialect, and I'm going to do the best I can with this, is chavakuk. Chavakuk. The emphasis is on the last syllable. And one of the things I read was it's like saying, have a cook. You know, if you want to have good meals, have a cook. So chavakuk. That's how you would, if you want to impress somebody that knows Hebrew, that's how you would say chavakuk. I'm not going to do that. I'm used to saying Habakkuk, and I might flip around, who knows? But there are various ways in which you can say his name. And the name Habakkuk means embracing. So some people speculate that he's named this, his name holds significance because he embraces the people of God. Habakkuk loves the people of God. Some people suggest it's because Habakkuk feels that he is safe in the embrace of God. And personally, I think it's because his mom and dad liked the way the name sounded. That's probably why they named him Habakkuk. I'll look at the historical context here, and I always feel like it's good to sort of get our bearings as we think about the Old Testament to figure out where this comes into play. Where does this happen in the whole scheme of the Old Testament? And I think particularly for some of the younger people, maybe you haven't had as much experience walking through the Old Testament, this is particularly meant to be helpful to you, to sort of put the whole thing into perspective, and then we can kind of look and see where this fits. And this is one I just pulled off of the internet. So let's kind of think through everything. We start with the beginnings, of course, with Adam and creation. And then we have Adam to Noah, and that brings us to the flood. And then we have from Noah to Abraham, and that's when we enter into the patriarchal period, and happens to also be the time of the dispersion throughout the nations. And so then we have the patriarchs. We have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. And then we get to Joseph, and it's at the time of Joseph that the Israelites get moved to Egypt. And from Joseph all the way to Moses, we have the Israelites living in the land of Egypt, eventually becoming slaves of the Egyptians. And then the exodus that occurs with Moses. And from Moses and then on to Joshua, we have the conquest back into the land of Canaan. And once they arrive in the land of Canaan, then we have the period of the judges, as you recall. And that would include people like Deborah, Gideon, Samson, Samuel, those guys, right? And that leads us up to then the time of the kings. And we have a united kingdom. The first king was King Saul, and then we had King David, and then King Solomon. And that was the period of time in which Israel was united in that monarchy. And then under Rehoboam, Solomon's son Rehoboam, is when the kingdom was divided. And so then we enter into this period of Israel's history where we have, on the one hand, the kingdom in the north, which was Sorry, we have the, yeah, the kingdom in the north, in which 10 of the tribes went along with. And then the other two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, remained in the south. And so the north became known as Israel. The south became known as Judah. And then during that period of time, we have a lot of, we have some good kings and some bad kings in Judah. We have all bad kings in Israel. And there's all these different prophets that appear that are warning, many of these prophets sent to warn the people that if they don't stop disobeying God, if they don't repent, that God is gonna destroy them. And eventually, then that leads to the exile. First of all, we have Israel, which is taken over and conquered by Assyria. And Assyria takes them and just sort of spreads them out all over the land. That's what they did with their captives. And then eventually, Judah would also fall under the Babylonians, or we can also call them the Chaldeans, as we see it here in Habakkuk. And after a period of 70 years, we have the return from exile. And by the way, the exile happened in sort of waves, and the return also happened in waves as well. And then there are some more prophets, and then there's this very long period of silence that we call the intertestamental period, in which all prophecy ceases. until we come to the birth of Jesus, and then we enter into the New Testament. So there's just kind of a quick overview of the Old Testament. So I want to look more immediately at the historical context here in which Habakkuk is written, which is right before Judah gets taken into exile. Let's see if I can switch here. to another slide that'll help us. This particular slide demonstrates various prophets and when they lived and gave their messages in relationship to the exiles that happened here, both in Israel and in Judah. And so it was during the reign of the final kings in Judah that Habakkuk gives his message before they get conquered by the Babylonians. We know that because of, at least it's thought, because of the message of Habakkuk and all the injustices that he was describing at the beginning of the book, it was probably sometime after King Josiah. Josiah was the very last good king. So sometime after that, when evil had become and idolatry and all these things that were happening, all these bad things that were happening in Judah had become so prevalent. So it's probably during that time and yet sometime before the first invasion by King Nebuchadnezzar. And so, most likely, during the last several kings of Judah, in particular, under the reign of King Jehoiakim, who reigned for 11 years between 609 and 598, And it was during his reign that was the first time the Babylonians laid siege to Jerusalem and deported many of the Jews, including Daniel. And that would have been about 605. So all that to say, somewhere in the realm of between 609 and 605 BC is when most scholars believe that this book was written, and it was warning, as we'll go through this, warning the people that they were going to fall to the Babylonians, another prediction or prophecy of that tragedy which was going to soon fall upon them. So let's go ahead and move then into the content of Habakkuk. I'm just giving you a very simplistic outline here, just sort of the major breakdowns of the book, which would follow, I think, follow nicely along chapters here. So we have the first chapter, the questions of a perplexed prophet. Second chapter, I'm sorry, and then going into the second chapter, the proclamation of a just God. And then the third chapter, the psalm of a settled faith. Now, on the second one, the proclamation of a just God, we probably could think of various adjectives actually to describe God. It was hard to come up with one adjective here. I think there's various elements of God's character that emerge when he responds to some of these perplexing questions that Habakkuk has. But I think perhaps the fact that he is a just God seems to elevate beyond some of the aspects, particularly in what's revealed in that chapter. Thank you. So let me give to you Habakkuk in 30 seconds. I don't know if you've ever watched any of the Kendrick Brother movies like Fireproof. And at the very end, if you watch through the credits, usually somewhere towards the end of that, they'll have like Fireproof in 60 seconds, I think it is. Is that what it is? And they kind of just go through the whole movie really quickly. And it's, you know, I think it's kind of a helpful way of looking at the book to get your mind around what's happening in this book. So here it goes, this is Habakkuk in 30 seconds. Chapter one, God, how can you tolerate the wickedness of our people? God responds, just wait. I'm sending the fierce Chaldeans for judgment. Habakkuk, how can that be? They're more wicked than us. God responds, chapter two, mark it down and trust me. I'm God and will judge all evil. Chapter three, Habakkuk, you are a great God and I tremble. Through terrible judgment, you save your people. So even in distress, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. That's the gist of the book of Habakkuk. That's what we read through. And reading back through it, it reminded me why I struggled to understand it the first time through because there's a lot of things happening, particularly when you have the voice changing from the prophet to God and trying to figure out what's happening here. That is at least my best attempt to sort of summarize the book of Habakkuk. So here's the theme of the book. If we could sort of boil it down, what is Habakkuk about? And I would say it's this, the just shall live by faith. And this comes to us directly from Habakkuk chapter two, verse four. It says, behold, as for the proud one, this is God speaking, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him, but the righteous will live by his faith. The righteous will live by his faith. So what does that mean? What does that mean? Maybe you've heard that statement before. I hope you have. It's in the Bible, multiple places actually. We'll talk about that shortly here. The short answer is that it's probably something like this, and this is for you kids. If we had a kid's theme, I would say it's this, trust in God no matter what, okay? Trust in God no matter what. In its immediate context, the verse here is God's promise that while He is going to judge all evil, including both the evil that's present in Judah, among God's people, as well as the evil Chaldeans, the righteous who live by faith were going to be preserved. So even though he's going to bring judgment, there is hope for those whose confidence is in God. So then, consequently, there's three times that this verse gets quoted in the New Testament. In Romans 117, Galatians 311, and Hebrews 1038. And it's really a development of what's just given in sort of its rudiment form here in the Old Testament. The way that the New Testament, in the Old Testament, the way in the New Testament that it's handled is a much more developed theme at that point. I like what Piper says in this regard. He says, the full-blown doctrine of justification by faith, as Paul taught it in Romans and Galatians, is not yet here. but the seed is here. And I think he's absolutely right. That statement that gets thrown out here in its context would not be sufficient for the Hebrew in that day to sort of work out this whole doctrine of justification by faith as we have it through the writings of the apostles in the New Testament as it is reflected in Christ, and we're gonna come to that. So on the one hand, this verse and this theme speaks of man, right? I mean, this is talking about man, that just shall live by faith. But if we scratch beyond the surface, it really tells us, I think, more about God Himself, about His wisdom, about His sovereignty, about His justice, and about His mercy. These are all things that are wrapped up into that phrase. And here's some of the lessons or the messages that we see that this book speaks to. First of all, life is perplexing. There are many things in this life that are simply just beyond our control and even quite frankly, beyond our understanding. That's the way life is. Life is perplexing. Maybe you've struggled with that before. And Habakkuk, I think, really speaks to that issue. The whole book begins on that premise that he is really troubled by what he's seeing. He's distraught, he's perplexed, he doesn't get it. Secondly, that judgment is coming. that this evil isn't gonna persist for all times. God is going to judge evil. The proud, they're gonna be brought low in due time. Sin is going to be judged and purged in due time. So thirdly, hope in God. Hope in God no matter what. Hope in His wisdom, His sovereignty, His justice, and His mercy. Even through judgment, He will preserve those whose faith is in Him. And as it says here in Habakkuk, the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. So finally, this then leads us to seeing Christ in Habakkuk. As I mentioned, the seed of the gospel is here. In the New Testament, we have its full revelation, and we see that it was through Christ that God is both just and the justifier of those who live by faith. Christ bore God's wrath for sin on our behalf, that we might be saved from the judgment to come, that we might be preserved through that judgment. As Paul says in Romans 3.24, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is the revelation. of God's wisdom, His sovereignty, His justice, and His mercy. All of these things that we see wrapped up here in the book of Habakkuk, all of those things become revealed to us through Christ and through His gospel. So again, as I mentioned, this would be a fairly short message, and part of that is it's not a long book, and we don't wanna over-preach it here. We'll have a chance to walk through it more carefully over the weeks to come. So we're gonna go ahead and close with that, we pray. Father, we do thank you for this book. We thank you, Lord, for the message of Habakkuk. Lord, teach us to be a people Lord, that embrace the truth here, that just shall live by faith, that that would be true of us, Father. And I pray that Christ, through whom, Lord, you demonstrated your wisdom and your sovereignty or justice and your mercy would be exalted, Lord, as we contemplate the truths found here in this book. And it's in his name that we pray, amen. All right, so I just want to open it up if there's any questions or corrections or comments or other words to edify this morning. I think the Heculean way of application, you have to be careful not to make America into some kind of Christian nation, as Israel was God's chosen people. That's a distinction I'm not trying to put together. But we are America, and we are God's chosen people. And so this acceptance of the backing to God's judgment as Israel has turned away is so appropriate to us as we watch God's hands in clear judgment on America. Right. We have to put ourselves in His shoes. He's been given a revelation that Yeah, don't worry, Habakkuk, about all the evil you see, because I'm going to wipe it all out. And times are going to get really tough. And yet he rejoices. I mean, that's the end. The end, where God takes him, is just saying, just trust me. Put your faith in me. It's all going to be fine in the end. And then Habakkuk, at the end, with his song, his hand there, is such an acceptance that as we go through Habakkuk, Right. Given the way things are going, it's probably an important message for us to embrace. Any other thoughts?