Habakkuk, Then & Now

 

by Chuck Ness

As I was reading Habakkuk during my morning quiet time, I was given some insight I have not considered before. The phrase, ”The more things change, the more they stay the same,'' came to my mind. Jeremiah and Habakkuk were contemporaries living in Judaea just before and during the time when Babylon took them away. While Jeremiah taught that wickedness in God's own people has doomed them, Habakkuk preached about the corruption that had infested the government of their day. His opening verse gives us all we need to know about how evil the government of the Southern tribe of Judah had become.

”O 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"
Habakkuk 1:2-4

It was a time when the King and his cronies were so evil they allowed justice to be perverted. So much so that evil abounded while righteousness was attacked. It should make the reader seriously look at the way the United States is today. Between Jeremiah revealing the evilness of the people, and Habakkuk telling us how evil the government was, we can get a good picture of how similar things are today compared to what is happening before our very eyes.

Habakkuk's concerns were much more philosophical than Jeremiah's was though. In that Habakkuk was disturbed that it seemed as though the sovereign Lord was not responding to Habakkuk's evil generation and its internal injustices. Like in Jeremiah and Habakkuk’s day, we Christians see the evil in both the people and the corruption of our government. We pray and yet we see things just getting more evil as time goes by. So many wonder why God will not respond to our prayers for justice.

Habakkuk’s name means, “One Who Embraces,” which is a great reminder for followers of Christ in this evil time, because the only way to endure the culture is to embrace Jesus Christ and all he taught us in the Gospels. Just as the righteous did back then, today we need to voice our concern to God in prayer, yet we don’t see Him stepping in to stop evil from gaining control of everything. GOD’s people, then the Israelites and today us Christians, will always be the ones who feel the brunt of the persecution dealt by Satan’s minions, who seem bent on controlling every aspect of our society. Back then the Lord told both Habakkuk and Jeremiah that HE was raising up a nation that would punish His people for their covenant unfaithfulness.

Today we see some of the most evil and vile people on the planet gaining the upper hand as we have the uneasy feeling that GOD has turned HIS back upon us by allowing our way of life to be taken over. Thus our future seems no brighter than that of the citizens of Jeremiah and Habakkuk’s day. We all see the writing on the wall, and we don’t need Daniel's translation to tell us what it means. Our destruction is set in stone, because the decay of the nation today is deeper and more infectious than any of us could have imagined just a few decades ago.

When the evil that abounds in people is so easy to see, it is usually too late to fix. Like an injured leg that has gangrene set in, the only cure is a complete amputation. Yet even the best of us are unwilling to decapitate the limbs that are in control of our own destruction. We are blessed though, because many of us have read the final chapters of mankind’s futile attempt at running our own lives. So as we go through the upcoming trials and tribulations, know this, tyranny by governments and the evil of people always carry within them the seeds of their own destruction.

So I beseech you all to be strong and know that our Lord is coming. So while many of us will leave this vessel before He does arrive, our security is in the same promise He gave the Israelites as Moses led them through the desert of Sin.

”Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them;
for the LORD your GOD, He is the ONE who goes with you. He will not
leave you nor forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6

So we all should;

”be confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a
good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ”
Philippians 1:6

Isaiah warned them many years earlier and his warming is for the world today also, because GOD never changes, He hated evil then and He hates evil today. Read and weep Oh America, for our judgment is near, and it is one that we well deserved.

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And prudent in their own sight!
Woe to men mighty at drinking wine,
Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink,
Who justify the wicked for a bribe,
And take away justice from the righteous man!
Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble,
And the flame consumes the chaff,
So their root will be as rottenness,
And their blossom will ascend like dust;
Because they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts,
And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”
Isaiah 5:20-24

God bless you all and keep the faith, and remember;

”we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,
against spiritual hosts of wickedness.”
Ephesians 6:12