We are beginning a short series on the book of Habakkuk or Habakkuk as some pronounce it. So I invite you to turn with me tonight to Habakkuk chapter 1 and verse 1. Now I know that this may not be a regular portion of scripture that you may visit, so I'll give you a couple of minutes to look that up. If you are in the New Testament, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk. That is how you find it. If you find Jonah, move forward a little bit. If you see Malachi, you gotta move back a bit. Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk. Habakkuk or Habakkuk chapter one and verse one. And I'm going to read the first four verses of this marvelous book. Habakkuk 1 and verse 1, the burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw. Oh Lord, how long shall I cry and you will not hear? Even cry out to you violence and you will not save. Why do you show me iniquity and cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me. There is strife and contention arises. Therefore, the law is powerless and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous. Therefore, perverse judgment proceeds. Life isn't all light without shadows. It isn't laughter without tears. It isn't euphoria without depression. Life isn't smooth without bumps. It isn't strength without weakness. It isn't praise without criticism. Life isn't health without sickness. It isn't success without failures. It isn't clarity without confusion. In fact, is it not your own experience that so many times life seems to be more shadows than light? It seems to be more tears than laughter, more weakness than strength, more sickness than health, and more confusion than clarity. Life, it just doesn't always work out the way we might expect it, does it? And in the darkness of disappointment, questions emerge. If God is good, fill in the blank, why are things like this? If God is just, why are things like this? Or perhaps simply stated in a title of a book I once read, where is God when it hurts? How do we persevere in the midst of perplexity? How do we move forward when everything seems to be pushing us backwards? How do we hold fast to God when He seems absent? How do we walk in the light in a world of darkness? Or, how do we live right? when the world goes wrong? How do we live right when life goes wrong? The simple answer of the book of Habakkuk is this, the just shall live by faith. As we come to the book of Habakkuk, Habakkuk is ministering at a time when Judah is in decline. If we were to back up a little bit prior to Habakkuk's time, we look at some kings of Judah. Hezekiah was a great king. God brought incredible deliverance when Assyria came and defeated the northern kingdom of Israel and then attempted to defeat Judah as well, God brought incredible deliverance. Hezekiah was a follower of God, but his son Manasseh was an evil, evil man. And for most of Manasseh's reign, he plunged Judah into further and further depravity. While in time, Manasseh's son would be placed upon the throne. He would last only a short time, do all the same wicked things that his father did. But then Josiah would come to the throne. at eight years of age. He would come upon the throne as the nation of Assyria begins to decline in its strength. Josiah, some of you Bible readers know, had a godly reign. In fact, he did many good and godly things even in his youth. But later in his reign, we can put the date at about 621 BC, the book of the law was found. It's amazing that the book of the law, God's word was lost. I mean, it's not like your hat or your keys. God's word was lost. And when the book of the law was found, Josiah, for all of his goodness, realized how far he fell short of what God had required in his law, and there was a nationwide repentance. Well, later, at the end of Josiah's life, he decided to go forth to battle against Egypt. Egypt and Assyria were beginning to think about alliance together, and they were thinking about the need for doing that because of the strengthening Babylonian kingdom. While you might know that what happened was that Josiah would die in that battle. When he died, his son was placed upon the throne, but that son that was placed upon the throne by the people of Judah was actually taken by Pharaoh Necho back to Egypt and would spend the rest of his life in chains there in Egypt. Pharaoh Necho then allowed or placed another of Josiah's sons on the throne. He placed that son on the throne and actually renamed that son, whose name was Eliakim, renamed him Jehoiakim. It was Egypt, the pharaoh of Egypt that renamed him, showing his supremacy over that king of Judah. Jehoiakim, well, Judah then essentially became a vassal of Egypt. And Jehoiakim was a very wicked man who really did not seem to care much about the prosperity, even in earthly terms, the good of the nation as a whole, was more interested in his own personal advancement, his own personal riches. And you can read about Jehoiakim, 2 Kings chapter 23 and 24, tell us just how wicked of a man that he was. He filled Jerusalem with innocent blood. He is also known to have killed at least one of the prophets. And under the wicked leadership of such a wicked king, the rest of Judah kind of falls in line and they also are wicked and violent. Judah had reached a point where there really wasn't proper justice to be found. There was brutality, there was violence, there was oppression, but no one was following, or very few people were following the law of God, and very few people were following the laws of the land, if they could get away with breaking them, and had the power to do so. All the while, in the international scene, Egypt is beginning to fade in its strength. Assyria is beginning to fade. In fact, as you read 2 Kings, you find that the Chaldeans, who are the Babylonians, actually begin to make raids against Judah and Jerusalem, and then begin to take them under their power. But at this point, Judah is kind of this semi-independent state. paying some tribute, but still kind of left alone to do its own thing. And its own thing really is its own thing, it's not God's thing. It's a land that's characterized by iniquity. And we can see how this impacts the people of God when we read the words that we just read from Habakkuk. Habakkuk's name means to embrace or hold fast. It can also mean to fold hands. One who clings, and we'll see by the end of Habakkuk how this prophet of God will cling to God even when he doesn't understand what God is doing. He'll trust him. The book begins by saying the burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw. This is a weighty oracle. This is a weighty revelation. While other of the minor prophets and even the major prophets might begin with God speaking out against what's going on among His own people, the book of Habakkuk actually begins with a complaint against God. And we can summarize verses two to four by this. This is simply Habakkuk looking at the wickedness of the world around him and asking, is God inactive and inattentive? He says, how long shall I cry and you will not hear? even cry out to you violence, and you will not save. God, I've been praying to you about all of the wickedness around me. We're in a desperate place. There's violence all around, there's plundering, there's trouble, there's strife, there's contention. He'll even say in verse four, the law is powerless. No one's following it. In fact, the wicked dominate the righteous. The picture that he gives is that they surround the righteous. Therefore, perverse judgment proceeds. And he cries out in the midst of this injustice and says, how long? How long do I have to keep praying God and you are not doing anything? The injustice of this society is unbearable for the Prophet. We look at the complaint here, the question of Habakkuk, and it resonates with us, perhaps, in the world in which we find ourselves. A world in which God's laws are pushed aside, wickedness, vileness is exalted among the sons of men, And even if it's not injustice that causes us to cry out, there are other things perhaps in our lives that we look at what we're going through and we cry out to God, God, are you inactive? Are you inattentive? Do you even see what I'm going through? And if you see it, why aren't you acting? Well, God answers. And God's answer is more shocking than his silence. Follow along with me, verses 5 to 11. This is God's reply. Look among the nations and watch. Be utterly astounded for I will work a work in your days which you would not believe though it were told you. For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans, the Chaldeans, those are the Babylonians, a bitter and hasty nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. But what is God saying? Habakkuk has asked, how long are you gonna allow Judah to continue on this path of iniquity and injustice? And God says, just long enough for me to raise up the Babylonians. Now, this is incredible. This would be like perhaps some of us crying out about the wickedness and the moral decline that we see in our society, and hearing God answer by saying, don't worry, I am at work already, I'm raising up North Korea to come and take over Canada. What? God himself, in the description that he gives, describes the Babylonians as they truly were. Bitter and hasty, marching through the breadth of the earth to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. Terrible, dreadful. In fact, verse seven, their judgment and dignity proceed from themselves. They look at themselves, they're a law unto themselves. They don't think of anyone as having any authority over them. They make their own rules. Here's an interesting thing. Judah is violent and God will judge them with violence. Judah disregards God's law so God will bring a nation in to judge them that is a law unto itself. God's answer to this, is God inactive and inattentive, is this, no, I am at work. Verse eight says that their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than evening wolves. Their chargers charge ahead, their calvary comes from afar, they fly as the eagle that hastens to eat. They swiftly take over the world, and they will take over Judah as well. They all come for violence. Their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand. The visual here is that it's like the wind pushing the sand. Who can resist the wind? Who can stop the wind from blowing the sand? And this is the power of the Babylonians. They scoff at kings. Princes are scorned by them. They deride every stronghold. They heap up earthen mounds to seize it. And that's actually historically very accurate. Great walled cities, the way that they would defeat them is that they would build up earthworks and essentially build a causeway right up over the city walls of the city that they attacked. Verse 11, then his mind changes and he transgresses. He commits offense ascribing this power to his God. So they're a law unto themselves, but then when they defeat who they defeat, and they will defeat Judah, they're gonna say this is because of the greatness of our God. Of course, the irony of this is that they would have no power unless God allowed it. By the way, I think that this is something that was shocking to Habakkuk, as we'll see in just a moment, points out a principle that perhaps we would all be wise to remember, and that is this, as one book has said, discipline often precedes deliverance. We want God to act and deliver in a certain way, and God so often moves to discipline before he moves to deliver. This is exactly what he's going to do with Judah. If Habakkuk's first question was, is God inactive and inattentive, and God's answer was no, I am at work, I'm raising up Babylon, Habakkuk's next question is a harder one because Habakkuk says, okay, here's what I think I know about God. This is what I have read in his word. This is what I have seen in history. This is what, this is who God is, but how can he work this way? Or another way we could ask this question is, is God unjust? So we may be shocked when God acts in our lives. While at times we may wonder, is God inactive and inattentive? Then when God does begin to work, we wonder, how can a good God do it this way? Is God unjust? And this is what blows Habakkuk's mind. How can this be right? Look at what he says, verse 12. Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my holy one? So he says, God, I know that you are the eternal God. There is no other God but you. It's not that you've come along and usurped someone else and there used to be a holy God and now you've come on the scene. You are the only true and living God and you are holy. You're the same God that's acted with justice in the past. You're holy. Okay, I'm trying to wrap my mind around this. We shall not die. Oh Lord, you've appointed them for judgment. Oh rock, you've marked them for correction. Okay, I'm starting to wrap my head around this. This is not for our destruction. You're going to use them to, the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, to judge us, to correct us. But how does this work, God? Look at verse 13. You are of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on wickedness. Why do you look on those who deal treacherously and hold your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he? Why do you make men like fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler over them? They take all of them, take up all of them with a hook. They catch them in their net and gather them in their drag net. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. What he's saying here is, okay, we're bad, but Babylon's worse. How can you then use this even more wicked nation to judge us? The way he describes them is accurate. They look at humanity as just fishes to be caught in their net. They rejoice and are glad when they defeat people, when they gather them into their net, when they win their battles, take their territory. But then it says they sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their drag net. They worship their own power. Because by them they burn incense to their dragnet, because by them their share is sumptuous and their food plentiful. Shall they therefore empty their net and continue to slay nations without pity? Lord, I don't understand. Yes, you're everlasting, you're holy, but how can a holy God do this? How can a God who cannot look with favor on evil raise up the Babylonians? And then he says, chapter two, verse one, I will stand on my watch and set myself on the rampart and watch to see what he will say to me and what I will answer when I am corrected. See Habakkuk knows where to go to ask these questions. And he knows that he isn't getting something right. That's why he realizes that he's going to be corrected. But he's going to wait and watch with humility for the answer that God gives. And I think that's so important here. He'll wait and hear and listen. And God then replies to this, and his reply is essentially, I know that they are evil, and in time, I will judge them too. So let's follow this train of questions and answers. Habakkuk's first question was, is God inactive and inattentive? And God's answer was, no, I am at work. Habakkuk's next question was, is God unjust? And God's answer is, no, I will do right. Verse two, then the Lord answered me and said, write the vision and make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it. So this has to be written plainly. The person who is giving this message has to be able to read it while he runs. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it will speak and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it, because it will surely come. It will not tarry. Behold the proud. His soul is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith. And then God, in verses five to the end of the chapter, begins to speak. in terms that show us that He knows exactly the iniquity that's going on, both in Judah and in Babylon, and that He will righteously judge both. Now, I want to focus here on verse 4, because this is so important. The first question, is God inactive and inattentive? No, God is at work. Is God unjust in the way that he works? No, God will do what's right. And verse four is so important, it's a theme for the entire book. Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him, but the just shall live by faith. How do we live right when life goes wrong? We live by faith. Is God inactive and inattentive? No, He is at work. Is God unjust? No, He will do what's right. What's our response? We live by faith. What does that mean? Let me give you three things that this means. First of all, living by faith means justification by faith. Notice that God says, the just shall live by his faith. God is not simply saying the righteous shall live righteously or the righteous going to be righteous. When he uses this expression, just, it does mean righteous, but it's a specific status of a specific kind of person. It's the kind of person who like Abraham has believed in the Lord and it was counted to him for righteousness. These are people who are not just in their own righteousness, but made righteous, counted righteous, because they have placed their faith and trust in the true and living God. Think about that today. The just today is the person who has placed their faith and trust in Jesus. who is not trusting in their own works to obtain them favor with God and earn them salvation, but rather they have believed in the Lord and the righteousness of Jesus has been imputed to their account. You cannot live by faith unless you have first been justified by faith. Unless you have first come to God on his terms through Jesus Christ. You can say, oh, I'll just trust things will turn out for the better. But you cannot truly live by faith unless you've been justified by faith. For it is the just who lives by faith. This, as you Bible readers know, is a verse that's quoted in the New Testament, in Romans 1.17. The just shall live by faith. It's a verse that Martin Luther read and God used to convert him. There is no living by faith unless you've been justified by faith. So my question for you tonight is, have you trusted in Christ as your Savior? Have you believed in the Lord? You have no righteousness in your own merit by which you can stand before a holy God. You stand before him condemned. Even when we cry out for God to work and bring righteousness and bring justice, if we are honest, there's a lot of injustice in our own lives and hearts. As a song that we sometimes sing says, dark is the stain that we cannot hide. What can avail to wash it away? See, there is flowing a crimson tide, whiter than snow you may be today. Jesus has lived and died for sinners. And everyone who will place their faith and trust in Jesus will be forgiven. And the perfect righteousness of Jesus will be credited to your account. And in the eyes of heaven, you will be counted just. We sang about that earlier, didn't we? When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see Him there who made an end of all my sin. Because my sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me. The penalty that we deserve for our sin has been placed upon Jesus. The righteousness that we could never earn, He earned and will give to us when we trust in Him. And so I ask, have you been justified by faith? How do we live right when life goes wrong? We live by faith, but you cannot live by faith until you've been justified by faith. But second, for those who have been justified by faith, living by faith means rejecting unrighteousness. You see a contrast in verse four, don't you? Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith. There's an intentional contrast. And then as the passage continues, we see God speaking woes to the wicked. We look earlier in the passage, we see that the prophet Habakkuk has withheld himself from iniquity. He looks on it as an outsider. Living by faith means rejecting unrighteousness. The just shall live by his faith. Why is this important? It's important because when those dark times come, and we think that God has not done what is right, there is a massive temptation to say, well, if God is not going to do what I think is right, I'm not going to do what he thinks is right. How many times have I seen and heard of people who wanted to have a relationship or wanted to be married and God didn't give them that person. So what did they do? They went out and they got themselves a boyfriend or a girlfriend that wasn't a believer and then started to commit immorality with that person. Well, if God's not going to come through for me, I'm not going to come through for him. No, brothers and sisters, it doesn't matter what life brings to you, the just live by faith, and that means rejecting unrighteousness. Well, I didn't make the amount of money that I think I should have made this year, so I think I'm just going to tell a few white lies on my income tax. No, the just shall live by faith. Well, I haven't been treated the way that I think I should be treated by people at work, so I think I'm gonna cuss them out. No, the just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith. Living by faith means rejecting unrighteousness. And then finally, and perhaps most pointedly, Living by faith means trusting God when you don't understand. And we see that in this passage, don't we? You keep reading the book of Habakkuk, and I would encourage you to do so this week. It's only three chapters long. It's not going to take you very long to do so. At the end of the book, Habakkuk says, even if everything goes wrong, I'm still going to trust God. There's no indication that Habakkuk ever completely understands not only the what, but the whys of God's program. And neither will you. You won't. Sometimes people come and they ask me, is serving Jesus worth it? Well, it depends what you mean by worth it. Because a lot of times what people are thinking of when they say worth it, they're thinking, am I gonna have good health? Am I gonna have a good job? Am I gonna have a nice car? Am I gonna have a good house? Are my kids all gonna be obedient? The worth of it is seen with an eternal perspective. And look at what, we see it in verse two, or verse three rather, wait for it. This is what God says, wait for it. I will judge Judah and I will judge Babylon. And even if it seems like it's tarrying, it's not tarrying because it's happening on my perfect timetable. Wait for it. Living right when life goes wrong means living by faith. The just shall live by faith. It means that we trust God when we don't understand. And that's really when our living by faith is tested. It's one thing when we can trust God when income is good. It's another thing to trust God when you lost your job. It's one thing, brother, to trust God when you found a good deal on tools. It's another thing to trust God when they all get stolen from you. It's one thing to trust God when you have all of these grand schemes and plans about how you're going to raise your kids and make sure that they're intelligent and articulate. It's another thing to trust God when all your kids have autism. It's one thing to be trusting God when you have the money and you're putting it into a registered educational savings plan, thinking about the wonderful education your kids are going to get one day. And then it's another thing to trust God when you realize that not a single one of your kids are going to go past high school. It's one thing to trust God when health is good and wonderful and I'm doing all right. It's another thing to trust God when the accident happens and you end up in the wheelchair. It's one thing to trust God when everything seems clear in your mind. It's another thing to trust God when things start to get fuzzy and dementia begins to set in. It's one thing to trust God when you have a nice vehicle and everything's running right. It's another thing to trust God when you don't have any and you don't even have money to buy gas if you had a vehicle. It's one thing to trust God when your kids are young and obedient and they all know the verses and they can all talk about Jesus. It's another thing when your kids get older and say, I don't believe any of it. I don't even trust that there is a God. You understand what I'm saying here? This is real life. This isn't just some fancy, hey, God's gonna work it all out by next Tuesday, and I'm gonna trust that he's gonna do that. You may never see the resolution to the mess that your life is, to the darkness that you face. You may never see it in this life. And there are a lot of people that lose their faith because they don't think God comes through for them on their timetable, and he's not going to because it's his timetable, not theirs. You gotta trust him then. Wait for it. It won't tarry. God, I don't see it happening. It won't tarry. But it seems to be taking so long. It's on my timetable, not yours. See, God is right and good and just at all times. Look with me at Hebrews 11. The Hall of Faith. After talking about some incredible victories that happened by faith, which we can also rejoice in whenever God does that in our lives. He says, for example, who through faith subdued kingdoms, verse 33, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness, were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of aliens. That's not talking about the ones from up in the heavens. It's talking about foreign invaders. Women received their dead, raised to life again. But lest we think that the life of faith is all about only experiencing wonderful mountaintop things, look at what he says next. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Lord, torture? How is God at work when one of his kids is being tortured? How are they supposed to live through that? The just shall live by faith. So others had a trial of mockings and scourgings. That which is the experience of the children of God was also the experience of the Son of God, is it not? Trial of mockings and scourgings. All of these, of course, unjust. Yes, chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two. Just think about that for a moment. Sawn in two. It's hard to think of a more gruesome death than literally being sawed in half while alive. But these are in the Hall of Faith. This was the real experience of people who truly trusted God. Were tempted, were slain with a sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. Of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth. Listen, these are people who lived by faith. They're in the hall of faith. Let that, let that dynamic register in our minds and remember that for some of us, life will be an awful lot of suffering. In fact, the divine note of approval here is that of whom the world was not worthy. The world rejected these people, but they were not even worthy of the people they rejected. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. Living by faith means trusting God when you don't understand. So how do we live right when life goes wrong? Well, when life goes wrong, we're tempted to ask, is God inactive and inattentive? But Habakkuk reminds us by God's answer that, oh, God is at work. When we see God at work, we begin to wonder, is God unjust? But God's answer reminds us, no, God will do what's right. How do we live right when life goes wrong? We live by faith. Living by faith begins with justification by faith. Living by faith means rejecting unrighteousness and living by faith means trusting God when you don't understand. Oh, brothers and sisters, may God give us the grace to live by faith, to rejoice in those wonderful sunny days when things seem clear to us. But to trust in those cloudy days, we can't make sense of any of it. He's still on the throne. He's still in control. Trust him. that just shall live by faith. Amen.