Does life seem overwhelming to you? Do you feel like throwing in the towel? Are you discouraged about putting in much effort only to get a trickle of results? Are you tired of being misunderstood and do you feel like your fighting an uphill battle?
I think we all do.
In Habakkuk 1-2 we see a lot of bad news. Life was hopeless and bleak with little hope for the future.
But Habakkuk 3 is different. It's full of good news. It ends on a note of hope and praise.
How did the prophet move from hopelessness and despair to a place of confidence, joy and praise? How did he get there when nothing around him has changed?
The people are still mocking God, violence still fills the streets, and the Babylonians are still coming to Jerusalem.
Outwardly everything is just as messed up as it was in the beginning.
Yet Habakkuk the man has changed on the inside. How did that happen? This chapter gives us the answer.
Kay Warren suggests that Habakkuk 3 is broken up into 3 parts: 1. Prayer 2. Vision, and 3. Testimony. Let's look at these 3 things...
1. Notice his prayer
“I have heard all about you, LORD. I am filled with awe by your amazing works. In this time of our deep need, help us again as you did in years gone by. And in your anger, remember your mercy.” Habakkuk 3:2 NLT
In the face of impending calamity, the prophet prays for a full manifestation of God’s power and for mercy in the midst of judgment.
It’s as if he is saying, “Lord, I know bad times are coming. I accept that. I’m not fighting against your plan. But oh Lord, if hard times must come, don’t let the Babylonians wipe us out. Remember mercy or we will perish!”
That’s a perfectly biblical prayer. It’s honest. It’s desperate. It’s the kind of prayer God will answer. Notice that he asks God to do again in his day what he has done in the past.
Twice he says, “Do it now, Lord, in our day, in our time.”
There are troubles everywhere. The world is in disarray. We live in dangerous times. We need God's help - now!
There is an old Chinese prayer that goes like this: “O Lord, change the world. Begin, I pray thee, with me.”
There is also an old gospel song that went like this...
“It’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, Standing in the need of prayer.”
My greatest challenge is the man in the mirror. Ask God to work in you. It is only then that He can began to work on that which is outside of you.
2. Notice His Vision
After his prayer Habakkuk has a vision of God.
God revealed himself to Habakkuk in something like a dream or a vision.
The prophet recorded his experience in verses 3-15. These verses are highly poetic, which is what you would expect when a man has a vision of God.
But the point is very clear. Knowing that his nation faces imminent judgment, Habakkuk prays, “Lord, do something!”
This vision is God’s answer. It’s as if God says, “Habakkuk, you’ve forgotten who I am. You’re talking as if I can’t hear you. As if I don’t have any power. Let me show you who I am because if you understand who I am, you’ll be able to sleep at night.”
In these verses Habakkuk recounts God’s activity in the past. He especially focuses on the Exodus, the time in the wilderness, and the crossing of the Jordan River.
That was a period in which God repeatedly worked spectacular miracles. By recounting all of this, God is saying, “Have you forgotten what I did for you in the past?”
If he did it before, he can do it again. Sometimes we read the Bible and secretly wonder if God can do it again in the 21st-century.
Here is the answer. He’s God! He can intervene any time he wants. We can get a flavor of this theophany in verses 13-15 which focus on the defeat of Pharaoh at the Red Sea:
You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one. You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot. With his own spear you pierced his head when his warriors stormed out to scatter us, gloating as though about to devour the wretched who were in hiding. You trampled the sea with your horses, churning the great waters.
Look at the verbs: You came out . . . You crushed . . . You stripped . . . You pierced . . . You trampled.
This is what God did. He gets all the credit.
3. Look At His Testimony
Now we come to the end of the book. We can see two things very clearly here:
First there is acceptance.
“I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us” (v. 16).
This is Habakkuk’s way of saying, “I get it, Lord. The Babylonians will attack us and then you will judge them. I will wait for that day to come.”
As it turns out, Habakkuk most likely didn’t live long enough because Babylon would not fall for almost 70 years. It doesn’t matter. Habakkuk’s words mean, “Message received.”
Second, there is commitment.
Verses 17-18 show us what faith looks like when life tumbles in around us:
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The word “rejoice” literally means to jump for joy. We might even say it means to dance for joy.
But how is this possible?
Habakkuk has described a total economic meltdown. Ancient Israel was an agricultural society. If you ran out of figs, olives, grapes, grain, sheep, and cattle, you were in big trouble.
This isn’t just a random list. This is a portfolio! What do you do when you are wiped out? What if your investments disappear? What if life begins to unravel? What if sickness overtakes you.
How do you face that?
What if you lose your job? What if the safety net fails? What if you run out of food? What if you can’t pay your bills? What if your children end up in jail? What if your loved ones never come to Christ? What if the doctor says, “It’s terminal”? What if your spouse has a heart attack and you are left alone? What if America falls to a foreign power? What if you lose your job because you are a Christian? What if you end up in jail for your faith? What then?
Too many Christians have a God of the good times. They serve God and love him and praise him when all is going well. But what will you do when hard times come?
If all you have is a God of the good times, you don’t have the God of the Bible. Sometimes the fig tree does not bud.
Sometimes there are no grapes on the vine. Sometimes the olive crop fails. Sometimes the fields produce no food. Sometimes there are no sheep in the pen. Sometimes there are no cattle in the stalls.
What do you do then? You can get angry with God or you can give up on God altogether. Or you can choose to believe in God anyway.
Often we mistake faith and our feelings. Faith isn't about my feelings, much less about my circumstances. Faith chooses to believe when it would be easier to stop believing.
Habakkuk said, "I will wait patiently" and "I will rejoice." He found new strength in the midst of desolation.
The last verse of Habakkuk is often overlooked:
“The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights”(v. 19).
The phrase “my feet” speaks of our journey through life.
If you have ever traveled to the Holy Land, then you probably saw deer scampering on the barren hills near the west side of the Dead Sea.
The deer are sure-footed where the rest of us would slip and slide and eventually fall.
If you know the Lord, he will give you stability in the slippery moments of life. He will give you grace to stand when otherwise you would fall apart.
It reminds me of Ephesians 6:13 which says that when we put on the armor of God and “having done all,” we will stand safe and secure when the battle is over.
That’s where the book ends, and that’s where we will end our journey.
Let me repeat once again the single most important observation from Habakkuk. As the book ends, nothing has changed on the outside. The people of Judah have still forgotten God. Violence still reigns in Jerusalem. The wicked still oppress the righteous. And the Babylonians are still God’s appointed instrument for judgment. Hard times are coming and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Nothing has changed!
Except this. Habakkuk has changed on the inside.
We all come from different situations. Some are happy, some are sad. Some are healthy, some are sick. Some are excited about the future, some face dark clouds of uncertainty.
But if we know the Lord, if God is our Savior, we can still have feet to tread on the heights in the worst moments of life. We can stand when others fall around us.
When V. Raymond Edman was president of Wheaton College, he used to tell the students, “It’s always too soon to quit.” That’s a good motto for all of us today.
Everyone reading my words is in one of three places: 1-You’re coming out of confusing times. 2-You’re in confusing times. 3- Or you’re about to go into confusing times and you just don’t know it yet. So take this article and put it in your back pocket. If you don’t need it today, you’ll need it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
I leave you with one final thought. ..
You’ll never know that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have. And when Jesus is you have, then and only then will you discover that Jesus is all you need.
That’s the real message of the little book of Habakkuk.
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