Habakkuk’s
Questions!
Questions
for GOD: “This is the prophecy Habakkuk the prophet saw: ADONAI, how long must I
cry without You hearing? ‘Violence!’ I cry to You, but You don’t save. Why do
You make me see wrong doing, why do You make me see oppression? Pillage and
cruelty confront me, so that strife and discord prevail. ADONAI, haven’t You
existed forever! My GOD, my Holy One, we will not die. ADONAI, You appointed
them to execute judgment. Rock, You commissioned them to correct us. Your eyes
are too pure to see evil, you cannot countenance oppression. So why do you
countenance traitors? Why are You silent when evil people swallow up those more
righteous than they? You make people like fish in the sea, like reptiles that
have no ruler. The evil haul them up with their hooks, catch them in the fish
net, or gather them in their dragnet. Then they rejoice and make merry,
offering sacrifices to their fish net and burning incense to their dragnet; because
through them they live in luxury, with plenty of food to eat. Should they,
therefore, keep emptying their nets? Should they keep slaughtering the nations
without pity?” ADONAI, is it against the rivers, against the rivers that Your
anger is inflamed? Is Your fury directed at the sea? Is that why You ride on
Your horses, and drive Your chariots to victory? Habakkuk 1:1-3, 13-17; 3:8
Questions to
humanity: “Look at the proud, he is inwardly not upright; but the righteous
will attain life through faithfulness. Truly wine is treacherous; the arrogant
will not live at peace but keeps expanding his borders like Sh’ol; like death,
he can never be satisfied, he keeps collecting all the nations for himself,
rallying to himself all the peoples. Won’t all these take up taunting him and
say about him in mocking riddles, ‘Woe to him who smashes other people’s
wealth! – how long must it go on?’ – and to him who adds to himself the weight
of goods taken in pledge! ‘Won’t your
own creditors suddenly stand, won’t those who make you tremble wake up? You
will become their spoil. Because you plundered many nations, all the rest of
the peoples will plunder you; because of the bloodshed and the violence done to
the land, the city and all who live there. Woe to him who builds a city with
blood and founds a town on injustice, so that people toil for what will be
burned up, and nations exhaust themselves to no purpose. Isn’t all this from
ADONAI-T’zva’ot? For the earth will be as full of the knowledge of ADONAI’s
Glory as water covering the sea. What good is an idol, once its maker has
shaped it, a cast metal image and a teacher of lies, that its maker puts his
trust in, and goes on making non-gods, unable to talk? Woe to him who tells a
piece of wood, ‘Wake up!’ or a speechless stone, ‘Rouse yourself!’ Can this
thing teach? Why, it’s covered with gold and silver, without the slightest
breath in it! But ADONAI is in His Holy Temple; let all the earth be silent
before Him.” Habakkuk 2:4-8, 12-14, 18-20
Habakkuk is
considered a minor prophet, not because of the content of his writings but
because of the size, just three chapters. The first chapter seems to be
directed to GOD and the second to humanity, chapter three is a psalm – a prayer
to GOD.
In chapter
one Habakkuk asks GOD some hard questions, the same questions GOD has heard
since the creation – why do You allow evil to exist? GOD answers in chapter 2 [I
don’t agree with the division between these two chapters – chapter 2:1 should
be chapter 1:18] after asking GOD these hard questions Habakkuk states, “I will
stand at my watchpost; I will station myself on the rampart. I will look to see
what (GOD) will say through me and what I will answer when I am reproved.”
Habakkuk has asked GOD these hard questions and now he is going to stand before
GOD and wait for GOD’s response to the people, expecting to be corrected.
GOD starts
His response in chapter2:2-3, “Then ADONAI answered me; He said, ‘Write down
the vision clearly on tablets, so that even a runner can read it. For the
vision is meant for its appointed time; it speaks of the end, and it does not
lie. It may take a while, but wait for it; it will surely come, it will not
delay.’” The same answer GOD has given humanity from the beginning; the
righteous and faithful will be justified, the wicked and evil will be judged –
be patient and wait for it. In the rest of chapter two GOD speaks to Israel and
the world present and future and the future Church. Humanities’ response is not
a response at all, they don’t want to hear GOD’s response and correction so
they ignore His Word.
Chapter
three is Habakkuk’s prayer, set to music – a psalm about GOD’s Glory and
Victory.
Habakkuk
starts his prophesy with the hard questions he and Israel are asking, hears GOD’s
reply and then worships GOD in prayer.
I do have
one issue with Habakkuk’s prophesy, many in the Church have taken part of one
verse out of context and made it a standard teaching – almost a doctrine. That
GOD is so Holy and Pure that He had to look away from JESUS on the cross was
our sins were applied to Him. They take the first sentence of the three
sentences of verse 13 out of its context and use it to say that GOD The Father
had to look away while JESUS died on the cross for our sins. That is not what
that sentence says, “Your eyes are too pure to see evil, you cannot countenance
oppression. So why do You countenance traitors? Why are You silent when evil
people swallow up those more righteous than they?”
The other
scripture that people use to say that GOD looked away from CHRIST on the cross
is Matthew 27:46, “About the ninth hour JESUS cried out with a loud voice,
saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My GOD, My GOD, why have you
forsaken Me?” Many tie this verse with Habakkuk 4:13 and teach that GOD forsook
JESUS on the cross because of our sins – that was our punishment on Him. Wrong!
This is why I adamantly teach that when you read or study the Scriptures you
must keep them in the context of the complete passage or thought.
The Apostle
Paul did not believe that GOD forsook JESUS on the cross, why do I say that,
because Paul said that JESUS in the flesh was the full embodiment of The
GODhead (Father, Son, SPIRIT) therefore The Father could not forsake or even
look away from JESUS on the cross. “Beware lest anyone cheat you through
philosophy and empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to
the basic principles of the world, and not according to CHRIST. For in him
dwells all the fullness of The GODhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who
is the Head of all principality and power.” Colossians 2:8-9
The other
problem is in the Matthew 27 passage, even taken in context it is incomplete.
The four Gospels were written at different times for different reasons and
really to different audiences. Most
ministers and teachers don’t harmonize the Gospels and can get an incomplete
view of some of the events in JESUS’ lifetime. I have written a harmony of the
Gospels, it is not perfect but it does help me in my studies.
If you take
just the death of JESUS as presented by Matthew you do not get all of the
events, Luke’s Gospel is the same, they both have some events but then they both
have events that the other does not have. This is why GOD has given us four
Gospel accounts and not just one. Matthew’s Gospel does not have JESUS’ last
Words before He dies but Luke’s does; read Matthew 27:45-50 and Luke 23:44-47,
this is the harmonized version: “Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour
there was darkness over all the ]land] earth. About the ninth hour JESUS cried
out, with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My GOD,
My GOD, why have you forsaken Me? Some of those who stood there, when they heard
that, said, ‘This man is calling for Elijah!’ Immediately one of them ran and
took a sponge, filled it with sour wind and put it on a reed and offered it to
Him to drink. The rest said, ‘Let Him alone, let us see if Elijah will come and
save Him.’ [And JESUS called out again with a loud voice and yielded up His
SPIRIT.] He said, ‘Father, into Your hands I commit My SPIRIT.’ Having said
this He breathed His last.” So Matthew’s account has JESUS’ first outcry and
Luke has His last outcry, harmonized they have the complete story of CHRIST’s
last moments and Words. [Matthew’s event as more completely described by Luke]
So if JESUS’
last Words were, “Father, into Your hands I commit My SPIRIT.” obviously The
Father did not look away or forsake JESUS on the cross while He bore our sins
and took our death (punishment).
There are many
scriptures that tell of GOD’s eyes looking upon the righteous and the wicked
throughout the earth. Proverbs 15:3, “The eyes of The LORD are everywhere,
watching the evil and the good.” Psalm 11:4, “ADONAI is in His Holy Temple,
ADONAI, His Throne is in Heaven. His eyes see and test humankind.” Job
24:22-23, “But GOD draws the mighty away with His power, He rises up, but no
man is sure of life. He gives them security, and they rely on it; yet His eyes
are on their ways.” Isaiah 66:4, “So I will choose their delusions, and bring
their fears on them; because when I called, no one answered. When I spoke they
did not hear; but they did evil before My eyes, and choose that in which I do
not delight.” Jeremiah 5:3, “O LORD, are not Your eyes on the Truth? You have
stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have consumed them, but they have
refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than rock;
they have refused to return.” Daniel 9:18, “O my GOD, incline Your ear and
hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by
Your Name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our
righteous deeds, but because of Your Great Mercies.” Hosea 13:14, “I will
ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O
Death, I will be your plagues! O Grave, I will be your destruction! Pity is
hidden from My eyes.” Amos 9:4, “Thought they go into captivity before their
enemies, from there I will command the sword, and it shall slay them. I will
set My eyes on them for harm and not for good.” Micah 7:10, “Then she who is My
enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to Me, ‘Where is The LORD
your GOD?’ My eyes will see her; now she will be trampled down like mud in the
streets.” Zechariah 4:10, “For who has despised the day of small things? For
these seven rejoice to see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. They are
the eyes of The LORD, which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth.” 1
Peter 3:12 (Psalm 34:15-16) “For the eyes of The LORD are on the righteous, and
His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of The LORD is against those
who do evil.” Revelation 5:6, “And I looked, and in the midst of The Throne and
the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as
though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are The
Seven Spirits of GOD sent out into all the earth.”
