HABAKKUK 1 AND 2
HABAKKUK 1 AND [p. 57] 2
In the vision of Nahum it is seen that the people of God have been afflicted, and that He knows those who trust in Him, but their personal exercises do not appear. “The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see” stands in contrast with this, for it throws into strong relief the exercises of a faithful heart in a time of sore trial, and shows what that heart reaches for its own joy before there is any outward deliverance.
Habakkuk prophesied many years later than Nahum, and in his time things had reached the point when “there was no remedy” (2 Chronicles 36: 16); the people were about to fall by Jehovah’s judgment under the power of a terrible enemy. The whole state of things was most testing, and particularly because the cry of a distressed heart seemed to be unheeded. “Jehovah, how long shall I cry and thou wilt not hear?. I cry out unto thee, Violence! and thou dost not save. Why dost thou cause me to see iniquity, and lookest thou upon grievance? For spoiling and violence are before me; and there is strife, and contention riseth up. Therefore the law is powerless, and justice doth never go forth; for the wicked encompasseth the righteous; therefore judgment goeth forth perverted”, verses 2 - 4. Everyone must feel that this is not altogether inapplicable at the present time, and it brings suffering upon the people of God as well as upon others. Faith could hardly be more severely tested than by seeing the people of God suffer oppression without any apparent intervention of God on their behalf.
But the answer to this deep exercise was that the prophet was called to “Behold, and wonder marvellously; for I work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be declared to you”, verse 5. It is very striking that the apostle Paul applied this scripture to the work which God is doing now, and which is declared in the glad tidings. This is, indeed, the greatest work which God has ever done. He has raised up Jesus from among the dead, and the blessed declaration is going forth: “Be it known unto you, therefore, brethren, that through this man remission of sins is preached to you, and from all things from which ye could not be justified in the law of Moses, in him every one that believes is justified”, Acts 13:38, 39. How good it [p. 58] would be if men took account of what God is declaring now! There is a widespread recognition that it is suitable to pray in a time of pressure that God may intervene. But comparatively few seem interested to know that He has intervened in a most wonderful way, and that He is causing it to be declared that men may believe it. All the distress of men and of nations can be accounted for by the fact that men have not believed what God has declared in the glad tidings.
Then God’s corrective ways with His people are always going on, as they were in Habakkuk’s day. It is always faith’s privilege to recognise God’s hand in the afflictions and pressures that come upon His people. In that day He was raising up an enemy who worshipped his own power; verse 11. But Habakkuk’s reaction to the terrible description of the Chaldeans in verses 6 - 11 is, “Art thou not from everlasting, Jehovah my God, my Holy One?” verse 12. He takes, as it were, personal possession of Jehovah as his God, his Holy One. This is ever faith’s answer to what seems to be overwhelming. Whatever Israel or Judah might have been, whatever the Chaldeans might be, Jehovah was from everlasting. He was the one great Reality, subsisting eternally. Nothing can get behind this. And the conclusion which faith draws from it is, “We shall not die”. Looking at the Chaldeans would lead nature to say, We shall all die, but faith looking at the eternal God says, “We shall not die”. However severe God’s dealings may be, faith is fully assured that they are in the way of correction for His people. “Jehovah thou hast ordained him for judgment; and thou, O Rock, has appointed him for correction”, verse 12. It could not be otherwise in the estimation of faith; those who fear God and honour Him in their hearts know that He is for them and not against them, and that His correction is the correction of love, and for their benefit.
But faith has its exercises when it sees that God “keepeth silence when the wicked swalloweth up a man more righteous than he”, verse 13. Why should God allow such things to pass? Why should He allow the wicked to take men and do as they like with them, so that men worship the very means they use when they find them Successful? verse 16. We can see these things going on today: how are they affecting us? Faith says, “I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will look forth to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer as to my reproof”, chapter 2: 1. It is for each one of us to take up this position. What is God about to say to me in connection with all [p. 59] the questions which His ways raise in my heart? There is always some element of reproof in God’s correction: He does not rebuke without cause. The watchful soul on the tower will hear what He says, and be prepared to answer. When God speaks correctively He expects an answer; He expects us to take up the exercise intelligently, and answer as having understood what He said. The psalmist answered when he said, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep thy word”: “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes”, Psalm 119: 67, 71. See also Job 42:1 - 6.
When we answer to God’s reproving ways He always makes further communications. “And Jehovah answered me and said, Write the vision, and engrave it upon tablets, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but it hasteth to the end, and shall not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; for it will surely come, it will not delay”. The vision looks on to the full deliverance of God’s people, which has so large a place in the word of prophecy; that is, it looks on to the coming of the Lord. It was to be made very plain that faith’s hopes and expectations as to the future on earth would only be realised then. The it of Habakkuk 2: 3 is changed by the Spirit of God into he when He quotes this passage in Hebrews 10:37. There, receiving what is promised stands in contrast with losing what the Hebrew believers had possessed on earth. It gives added heavenly light as to the vision. But whether it be Israel’s earthly deliverance, or the saints of the assembly getting their heavenly place in actuality, the appointed time is the coming of the Lord. The saints of the assembly will be caught up at the rapture into their own heavenly place, and the remnant of Israel will be delivered and brought into their promised earthly blessing after the Lord appears. The word through Habakkuk was, “though it tarry wait for it”, but when the Holy Spirit quotes this passage in Hebrews 10 He says nothing about tarrying; He says, “For yet a very little while he that comes will come, and will not delay”. There was a tarrying period when Habakkuk wrote the vision; Daniel’s seventy weeks had to come in, but there are no prophetic periods for the assembly, no thought of tarrying now. The vision, so far as we are concerned, would put all saints in the attitude of constant expectancy, and thus entirely apart in spirit from such persons as are described by the words, “Behold his soul is puffed up, it is not upright within him”, chapter 2: 4. The one who is just; God’s just one (see note to Hebrews 10: 28)
[p. 60] lives by faith. All that belongs to the vision is a reality to him and he lives by the faith of it, though having as yet no outward deliverance. The New Testament very distinctly applies “the just shall live by faith” to the present time. Though the Messiah has come and redemption has been accomplished, it is still the faith period. If we slip away from faith we have nothing left by which to live Godward. In the law period the proposal was that men should live by doing “these things” (Galatians 3: 11, 12), but now we live by faith, and through faith we get the Spirit. Outside faith and the Spirit there is no life Godward or in power, and this will go on until the day of deliverance when “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea”, chapter 2:14. That is God’s great objective as regards the earth, but in the meantime He is in His holy temple, and all the earth is called to hear what He may be pleased to say.