Habakkuk 2:2-5
Someone has keenly asked, ‘If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people happy?’
All people want to be happy. ‘Happiness… is the motive of every action of every man, even those who hang themselves,’ Blaise Pascal said.
How can I be happy? That is the eternal question that we turn to in our study of Habakkuk (notes Mark Dever). As we continue our study, “we want to pursue the question of happiness, about which Habakkuk speaks with unusual clarity” (Dever).
In his opening passage, Habakkuk essentially asks God, “How can I be happy when it seems that you don’t care?” That’s the gist of the first four verses where Habakkuk wonders – complains, really – why God would tolerate so much injustice among his own people. “Why do you tolerate wrong?” he asks (1:3).
Dever rightly notes that “Habakkuk had taken a few correct facts and drawn some faulty conclusions from those facts. We often do the same.”
God answered Habakkuk by telling him that he does not, in fact, tolerate wrong; he would execute justice against the wrongdoing in the nation of Judah. Yet a surprise came attached with God’s reply; God would punish Judah through the Chaldeans (or ‘Babylonians’).
Habakkuk was shocked when God told him how he would address Judah’s unfaithfulness. “The methods God said he would use to answer Judah’s sin were so unexpected and difficult to conceive of that God’s answer left Habakkuk almost more troubled than when he began the prayer” (Dever).
Dever then summarizes the text thus far:
“So if the first question was, ‘How can I be happy when God when God doesn’t seem to care?” the answer provokes Habakkuk to ask a follow-up question, sort of like a not-quite-satisfied soldier who says to his commanding officer, “Permission to speak freely, sir.” Essentially, Habakkuk then asks, “How can I be happy when God’s care is so strange?” After all, God says he will sort out injustice; but then he chooses the most unjust people – the Babylonians – to do it! How does this make sense?”
Habakkuk’s reply to God’s words in chapter 1:12-2:1 can be boiled down to this: “The Babylonians?! The Babylonians?!”
After his dialogue with God in chapters 1-2, Habakkuk turns in chapter 3 to help us answer one more question: How can I be happy under any circumstances?
And his answer is simple: only in God.
But we get ahead of ourselves. For we need to think some more on the key verse of the book: “the righteous shall live by his faith” (2:4). Last week we saw that the phrase provided a resolution to Habakkuk’s dilemma. This week we will see that it is a biblical principle in Jesus’ example. Indeed, by living that faith he became our Rescuer. I hope you can join us for our study in Habakkuk 2:4: “the righteous will live by his faith.”
In Faith alone,
Pastor Wayne
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