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Episodes
Weekly sermons and Bible studies led by a retired pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
Episodes
Wednesday Apr 13, 2022
Wednesday Apr 13, 2022
Sermon for Palm Sunday, based on:
Sermon originally delivered March 24, 2013
Thursday Apr 07, 2022
Thursday Apr 07, 2022
This coming Sunday is known either as Palm Sunday or The Sunday of the Passion. Churches can use readings focusing on either of these or a combination of them. I will give you just some general ideas about the readings.
The Old Testament reading can be Deuteronomy 32:36-39. God speaks and reminds that He is the only true God. There is no other. He can bring death, but He can also “make alive.” This prepares for both the death and the resurrection of His own Son, Jesus, which we will hear about during Holy Week. Another Old Testament reading could be Zechariah 9:9-12, a prophecy of Jesus, King of kings, coming into Jerusalem, but in a very humble way, riding on a donkey, and ready to shed His blood to give hope and peace to people.
The Psalm can be Psalm 31:9-16. David speaks of his troubles, but this a prophecy of Jesus, also, as our Suffering Servant, who perfectly trusts His Heavenly Father and His love, even as others “plot to take His life.” Psalm 118:19-29 can also be used, with many references to Jesus coming into Jerusalem. “Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord.” Jesus is the “Cornerstone” for salvation, though many will reject Him.
The Epistle is from Philippians 2:5-11, telling of God the Son, humbling Himself and becoming a real man who would die for the world on a cross, and yet also be “exalted“ to life. Finally, “every knee should bow” to “Jesus Christ as Lord.”
The Gospel reading could be part of a Palm Processional, as we hear the story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, from John 12:12-19 or possibly from Matthew 21:1-9. There could also be a Gospel reading from John 12:20-43, where Jesus predicted His death on the cross and called people to “believe” in Him as “the Light,” even as many others would not believe in Him. There could, instead, be a much longer reading, telling of the suffering and death of Jesus, from the Gospel of Luke, Chapters 22 and 23. You could read those chapters yourself, too, to hear the whole Holy Week story at one time. As Jesus said, “This Scripture must be fulfilled in Me: ‘He was numbered with the transgressors’” to die in our place and pay the penalty for our sins, to bring forgiveness and life to us (Luke 22:37 and Isaiah 53:10-12).
Thursday Apr 07, 2022
Thursday Apr 07, 2022
Sermon for Midweek Lenten Service VI
“The Cross of Christ"
Sermon originally delivered March 20, 2013
Monday Apr 04, 2022
Monday Apr 04, 2022
As our study begins today, the prophet Habakkuk has realized that God is serious about bringing judgment and reproof upon the evil people of Judah, through the Chaldean/Babylonian Empire. He cannot understand this plan, though. God’s own chosen people are very evil and sinful, but the Babylonians are even worse, with their false gods and cruel treatment of the nations they conquer. How can God work through such terrible people? Habakkuk is waiting for an answer to his complaint and seems ready to complain to God even more (Habakkuk 2:1).
God did not immediately answer Habakkuk’s question, but asked him to write down this conversation they were having. Habakkuk did what God asked, and that is why we have this prophecy, this “vision,” preserved in dialog form, in a way that one could read it and then “run” it on to deliver it to others (Habakkuk 2:2).
God also told Habakkuk that what he was revealing would not immediately happen. “The vision was awaiting its appointed time.” The plan of God was “hastening to the end.” It would happen. It would not be a “lie.” But this would be in God’s hands and in His timetable, not that of Habakkuk or anyone else. If what God said seemed “slow” in coming, just “wait for it.” “It will surely come; it will not delay,” according to God’s will and planning (Habakkuk 2:3).
The problem is, God said, that we human beings are often “puffed up” and are not “upright” (straight) in our “souls” toward God. We want to do things our way, according to our own desires, rather than trusting God and His ways and timing (Habakkuk 2:4). Even God’s people often acted this self-centered way.
Read the little story in Deuteronomy 1:41-44, when the people thought they could easily go into the “hill country” and defeat their enemy, even though God had told them not to go. They “would not listen” and “presumptuously” went ahead and were routed and chased away by the Amorites. The Hebrew text has the idea of their being “swollen, puffed up, proud,” and they were acting “haughtily,” and were very sorry for doing so, when they did not wait for the Lord’s plan, when He would have been with them and given them victory.
See how this passage from Habakkuk is referred to in the New Testament in Hebrews 10:35-39. In a time of suffering and persecution, believers were to “endure” and wait for “the coming One” - God’s help and rescue. “It will not delay,” but may seem like that, because it is God’s timing, not theirs. They are called to “live by faith” in God in the meantime. (We will talk much more about this phrase, in a few moments.) See also the discussion in 2 Peter 3:1-9, when “scoffers” are predicted as asking, “Where is the promise of God’s coming?“ Time goes on and God seems to do nothing. Peter reminded the people that God’s time was different from theirs or the “scoffers,” and that they needed to wait patiently for the Lord to act. He would “fulfill His promises.”
Go back now to Habakkuk 2:5. God began to talk again about the character and ways of the Babylonians. They were truly “arrogant men, never at rest” and puffed up in their own ways. Their greed was never ending, like “death” and “Sheol” (the place of the dead, and sometimes a reference to death in hell). These Chaldeans would keep conquering “nations” and “peoples” and bringing sorrow and death to so many. (If we would use a contemporary image, it would be like talking about the waves of Covid and how many people were swept up and died. It was as if death and the grave never had enough people.)
However, the Babylonian empire had its own weaknesses, which would eventually lead to its fall and destruction. God introduced here the problem of too much alcohol and its dangers. “Wine is a traitor.” When abused, it can bring great sorrow and trouble to individuals or cultures (Habakkuk 2:5). Read warnings about wine and strong drink in Proverbs 23:29-35. See the true story of King Belshazzar in Daniel 5, happening later in Babylon, when in a wild, drunken party of a thousand people, the king used vessels of gold and silver, stolen from the temple in Jerusalem. “They drank wine” and “praised” their own “idols” and “gods.” A human hand then appeared and wrote a message on the wall of the palace. Only the prophet Daniel could interpret the message, which predicted that Belshazzar would soon die and the Babylonian empire would collapse. See also Proverbs 30:15-16, warning of the dangers of greed, when there is never enough, and only trouble comes.
God was preparing in verse 5 for what He would talk about next, the “woes” that would eventually come to the Babylonians. They would prosper, but only for a time, and then they would receive their own time of judgment, as Judah did; and then hope and restoration would come again for God’s people from Judah. (We will talk about this next week, as we look at Habakkuk 2:6ff.)
In the meantime, what are God’s faithful people to do? Here, the words from the second half of Habakkuk 2:4 are so important. Bad times are coming for God’s people because of their sins. They will suffer at the hands of the Babylonians. The fall and judgment of Babylon will come, but “it awaits its appointed time,” and God does not tell when that will happen. (Historically, it did not happen until 539 BC. They did not know it, but that meant that the people of Judah would suffer being vassals of the Babylonian empire, then have Jerusalem and the temple destroyed and then be carried away into captivity in Babylon for many years. About 60 years of trouble were coming. How were God’s people to live and survive? God simply says, “But the righteous shall live by his faith)” (Habakkuk 2:4).
This is a key message of the whole of the Scriptures and introduced already in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, with Abraham. Abraham was promised that he would be the father of a great nation and his descendant would be a blessing to all nations, but he had to wait and wait for even the promise of a child to be fulfilled. Abraham was far from perfect, yet we read in Genesis 15:6. “He believed the Lord, and He (the Lord) counted it (his faith) to him as righteousness.” He was counted a righteous man by his faith in the Lord and His promises.
See also Isaiah 26:2-4. Israel is called a righteous nation because it “kept faith” and its people trusted in the Lord. Even then people realized that their faith was also a gift from God. Isaiah 26:12 says, “O Lord, You will ordain peace for us, for You have indeed done for us all our works.” God was revealing the same thing to Habakkuk in Habakkuk 2:4. He was considered righteous as he lived by faith in the Lord, even though he was struggling with God’s ways and plans.
See how often this passage is quoted or alluded to in the New Testament, in relation to the key doctrine that we, too, are saved by God’s grace, simply by faith, by trust in Jesus and what He has done for us, and not by our efforts or works. Read Romans 1:16-17, Romans 3:20-28, Romans 4:1-9, Romans 4:16-25, Romans 5:1-2, Galatians 3:7-14 Galatians 3:24-29, 2 Corinthians 4:13-18, Ephesians 2:8-9, and Hebrews 10:37-39, for example.
God is telling Habakkuk and us and all believers to live by faith in God and His promises, even though we do not understand all that God is doing and sometimes have to wait a long time for our prayers to be answered and may not ever see the answers we wish for, in this life. As New Testament Christians, we also have the great comfort of having God’s central promises already fulfilled for us in Jesus and how Jesus lived perfectly in our place and we are now credited with His righteous, through faith in His life, death, and resurrection for us. Our eternal future is secure in Him, no matter what happens to us in this life.
May the Lord bless us, as we continue to hear with Habakkuk how God is just in His judgments, even for Israel and how strongly Habakkuk came to live by faith in His loving Lord, no matter what was going on around him.
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
All of our Scripture readings this week have to do with the ending of the old and the coming of the new, in Jesus and what He does for us in this Lenten/Easter season.
The Old Testament lesson is from Isaiah 43:16-21. God says through Isaiah not to focus so much on the old things, because He is “doing a new thing,” with “drink” for His chosen people, like life-giving “water” and “rivers” in a desert wilderness. This is ultimately prophetic of Jesus, as he came and said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37-38).
For that to happen, God brought a remnant of His people back to the promised land, out of captivity in Babylon. Psalm 126 celebrates that joyful freedom, when God “restored the fortunes” of His people. There were still “tears” and “weeping,” but God “did great things for them” and finally sent, from them, the promised Savior, Jesus.
So sadly, many of His own people rejected Jesus when He came, and most of the religious leaders wanted to “destroy” Him, seeing Him as a threat to their old ways (Luke 19:47). In the Gospel lesson, Luke 20:9-20, Jesus then told a parable about God being like the owner of a vineyard who hired tenants, the people of Israel, to care for that vineyard for him. When he asked for “some of the fruit of the vineyard,” the tenants refused again and again, and even harmed his messengers. Finally, he sent his own son, and the tenants killed the owner’s son. In this parable, Jesus was predicting, as God’s Son, sent from God the Father, His own death, brought about by His own people (and our own sins, too). He quoted Scripture, saying that He was the “Cornerstone” of the new life and new way that God was bringing through Him, but if people kept rejecting Him, they would be “broken“ and “crushed.”
In the Epistle lesson, Philippians 3:4b-14, Paul speaks as one who had been a prominent Jew and had rejected Jesus and followed the old Jewish ways. He had tried to be “righteous” by keeping the “Law” and old Jewish ways. The risen Lord Jesus had turned his life around, though, and “made him His own” and he found “the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord” and Savior. He then had the perfect righteousness that came to him “through faith” in Jesus. He “forgot what was behind” and “strained forward to what was ahead” in His new and eternal life, confident in the risen Christ Jesus.
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Sermon for the 4th Sunday in Lent, based on:
Sermon originally delivered March 10, 2013
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
We began with prayer and a quick review of what was troubling the prophet Habakkuk as he spoke with God in Habakkuk 1:1-4. Jehoiakim was the King of Judah and was an evil man. The people were following him in going against God and His will.
Habakkuk was seeing much evil and violence and cried out to God, but it was as if his prayers for help were not heard or that God did not care about all the strife and contention and wrongdoing Habakkuk saw. This silence of God seemed to contradict what God had said in Isaiah 1:13, for example: “I cannot endure iniquity.”
There were some godly people, but they were surrounded by the wicked and their perversion of justice and the Law of God. (Does this not sound like what we see and hear about evil and violence brought upon people in Ukraine and in so many other places and in our own country, too? We pray, and the law is “paralyzed” - literally, has grown cold and numb - and God seems to be doing nothing and letting it all happen.)
Do note that what Habakkuk said was directed to the LORD, the one true God of Israel. It was, as the commentator Roehrs says, “a cry of faith, a troubled, groping faith, but still faith.” Habakkuk believed in God as a just God, but could not understand why God was not intervening and helping His faithful people. Habakkuk was speaking up on behalf of himself, but also on behalf of other believers in Judah.
God’s answer in Habakkuk 1:5-6 was that He was already at work, but not in the way Habakkuk had expected. Habakkuk was to “look among the nations” around him; and God then named the Chaldeans, the people of the new Babylonian empire that He “was raising up.” They were the ones who would bring judgment upon the evil people of Judah and its king. They were already know as a “bitter and hasty nation,” quickly destroying the Assyrian empire and Nineveh and winning victories over the Egyptians and now threatening the Kingdom of Judah, too. They could go and capture whatever they wished as they “marched through the breadth of the earth,” seizing whatever they wanted. (Historically, they would soon surround Judah and Jerusalem and make them and their king subservient to Babylon and force them to pay high taxes and give away a lot of their wealth to the Babylonians. They would also carry away promising young men of Judah, including Daniel and his friends, and make them serve the Babylonian kings. The Babylonians would not destroy Judah and Jerusalem until 587-586 BC, though.)
All this was coming, because of the sin and rebellion of God’s own people. Habakkuk then described in vivid images the “dreaded and fearsome” ways of the Babylonians and their own evil kind of “justice” that they would bring upon the Jews and other nations (Habakkuk 1:7). (My understanding of Hebrew is not the best, but scholars say that what Habakkuk wrote here was very good, poetic Hebrew that influenced later Hebrew prophets and writers, as God inspired them all.)
What God predicted here was really not something new. Read Deuteronomy 28:45-50, where God had already warned through Moses long before that if His people rebelled and refused to listen to His voice, another nation would be a “sign and wonder” against them and bring God’s judgment upon them. Read Habakkuk’s description in Habakkuk 1:8 of the Babylonian conquerors, using images of leopards, wolves, horsemen and eagles. Read also Jeremiah 4:13 and 5:6-9, and notice the similarities to what Habakkuk had written. These two prophets lived close in time to each other, but Jeremiah probably wrote a little later than Habakkuk. Both were predicting God’s use of the Babylonians to bring judgment on Judah and Jerusalem, though.
Habakkuk also described the Babylonian tactics in “picture” ways, quoting the Lord, just as history describes these ways. See Habakkuk 1:9-11. Habakkuk thought the people of Judah were very “violent” in what they did to each other. The Babylonians were even worse. They “gathered captives like sand” (Habakkuk 1:9), a way of saying how numerous their captives were, whom they deported to Babylon and other places, as they eventually did with many Jews, even as God had described the descendants of Abraham as “sand” in a similar way in Genesis 22:17-18. (The New Testament says that all believers, including us, are part of that countless group of spiritual descendants of Abraham by faith in Christ, no matter what our background is. See Galatians 3:28-29.)
The Babylonians laughed at their enemies and enemy fortresses. They built up huge earthen ramps to get over the walls of cities without having to knock the walls down. They conquered with great speed. The people of Judah were guilty of many sins, including worship of false gods. The Babylonians were guilty of that much and more. They worshipped themselves and their own power and pride as their primary god, along with other false gods (Habakkuk 1:10-11).
Pause for a moment and note that some of what we just read is quoted in the New Testament and applied to new situations, too. The phrase in Habakkuk 1:6 about the Babylonians “marching through the breadth of the earth” in battling others, including the people of Judah, is quoted in Revelation 20:9 regarding Satan and the forces against Christ “marching up over the broad plain of the earth” and then being utterly defeated by Christ and His power and cast into hell forever. As we will see, God did use the Babylonians to bring judgment and humbling of the people of Judah; but later, the Babylonians themselves would be judged and humbled and utterly defeated because of their own terrible wickedness and unbelief.
Habakkuk 1:5 is also quoted in the New Testament in Acts 13:40-41. The Babylonians being used to humble God’s people was an astounding surprise for Habakkuk, which we will hear more about. In the same way, God’s plan of salvation through the death and resurrection of His own Son was an astounding surprise for many Jewish people. Many thought that the coming Messiah would be a conquering hero who would overthrow the hated Romans. Instead, God the Son came as a true man, as well as God, to be a suffering servant, who would die for the sins of the world and then defeat death and rise in victory, and free people from the condemnation of the law of Moses, which no one could fully keep, except Jesus. (Read the whole context of Acts 13 to see how this was taught. Forgiveness of sins that brings eternal life, not political liberation, was to be the greatest gift of God, also for us.)
Go back now to Habakkuk 1:12. Habakkuk confessed again that he was talking with the one true God. He called God the LORD and his “Holy One” - a term used often by the prophet Isaiah in the past. (See, for example, Isaiah 31:1-3, where God’s people were turning to Egyptians, who were only men, and their horses, for help, instead of trusting “the Holy One of Israel.”) Habakkuk’s God is the “Everlasting” God. (See Psalm 90:1-2, words of God through Moses.) God was Habakkuk’s “Rock,” and Habakkuk seemed to understand now that God really did plan to bring “judgment” and “reproof” to Judah through the evil Chaldeans, the Babylonians.
That raised more questions for Habakkuk, though, as we hear in Habakkuk 1:13-17. How could the pure and holy God see all the evil and wrongdoing of the Babylonians and “remain silent, when the wicked swallow up” God’s own people, who were surely “more righteous” than the pagan Chaldeans. It made no sense to Habakkuk (Habakkuk 1:14).
Habakkuk went on to say that the Babylonians were like those catching fish in the sea or crawling things in a net and “mercilessly killing nations,” including Judah, in the process. The Babylonians only cared about themselves and “living in luxury” and having “rich food” and having their own “joy and gladness.” They were worshiping themselves, “sacrificing” and “making offerings” to themselves, in honor of their own power.
Habakkuk even mentioned “hooks” that both the Assyrians and the Babylonians would actually put into the noses and other parts of captives to keep them under control as they moved them from place to place. (Habakkuk was horrified by such atrocities; but he also seemed to forget or downplay the warnings that he and others had been giving for a long time about the consequences of their own evil and sins. See Amos 4:1-2, for example, where God warned through the prophet Amos that even fellow Jews could eventually be “taken away with hooks” if they kept rejecting God’s will and kept abusing others, including the poor and needy (Habakkuk 1:14-17).)
Habakkuk then said he would stand and watch for God’s answer to him about his complaint to Him. The word for “complaint” is a strong one. It is almost as if Habakkuk felt he needed to “contradict” God’s plan and “correct” God’s thinking (Habakkuk 2:1).
Do we react in the same way to God sometimes? Why does He allow things to happen in our lives that seem so unfair? I think back to the 9/11 events in the US. There were some who dared to say, “Could God be trying to wake us up and tell us something?” The great majority of people, though, seemed to think that God would never use Islamic terrorists to say something to us. The bigger question for most was “Why would God or anyone else allow this to happen to our good country?”
We will look at God’s response to Habakkuk, and maybe to us, too, next week, as we read on in Habakkuk, Chapter 2. Think about two last things, too. Some point to the fact that Jesus Himself told a parable about a net in Matthew 13:47-50. This time, though, it is the Lord and His angels, on the last day, perfectly sorting out and rescuing the “righteous” believers and putting away the evil into “the fiery furnace.” Does this parable say anything to what we are talking about and the struggles that we and Habakkuk have, at times, in understanding and responding to God’s will
Finally, remember the words of Habakkuk in Habakkuk 1:12. In the midst of his questions and confusion about all that was going on around him, and what God was doing, he could still say, “We shall not die.” He knew that his everlasting Lord would care for him through this life, and even if he faced physical death, to everlasting life. That is our hope, too, in Christ our Savior, even if we do not have all the answers we wish to have. We have God and His promises to sustain us. We will hear more of that, above all, as our study continues. May we continue to hope in the Lord, above all, too.
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
All of our Scripture readings this Sunday speak of the blessing of God’s forgiving love, coming to us through the saving work of His Son, Jesus. In Psalm 32, David speaks of how miserable and deceitful he was, trying to hide his sins from God and others. Finally, he was brought to admit his sins and have their burden taken away in the Lord’s forgiveness. David encourages us not to be like a stubborn mule, but to listen to the Lord’s instruction and trust Him and His steadfast love, even for us sinful people. (We still use part of Psalm 32:5 in our confession of sins in Divine Services Three and Five in our hymnal.)
The Old Testament lesson, Isaiah 12:1-6, is a song of thanksgiving for “that day” when the “Root of Jesse,” the “Righteous Branch” predicted in Isaiah 11 would come. That One is God’s Son, who came to be our Strength and Song and Salvation with comfort and forgiveness for us, as we drink from His “wells of salvation” and trust in Him. His glorious work needs to be shared with everyone “in all the earth.” (We sing much of Isaiah 12 in a song that is part of “A Service of Prayer and Preaching” in our hymnal, p.261-262.)
The Epistle lesson is from 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, where we hear that we have been reconciled to God through Christ Jesus. Our sins are not counted against us, and we are “a new creation” and counted as “righteous” by God through faith in what Jesus has done for us. “All this is from God,” as a free gift from Christ, and we are now “ambassadors for Christ,” sharing this Good News with others.
In the Gospel lesson, Luke 15:1-3, 11-32, Jesus is being criticized for associating with “sinful” people. He tells a parable, a story of two sons. One wastes his life and inheritance on foolish and sinful living. Finally, God helps him to realize how wrong he has been, and he returns home and receives the forgiving love of his father. The other son is angry that his father has treated this “prodigal son” in such a kind and forgiving way. It seems so unfair. This second son has to be reminded that he, too, is a forgiven sinner and has also already received many blessings from his father. Now it is time for him also to share that mercy and forgiveness with others, including his brother. For all of us were once lost and dead in sin, but have been found and made alive in Christ, in what he has done for us.
Sunday Mar 20, 2022
Sunday Mar 20, 2022
Our new study is on the Book of the prophet Habakkuk. You can find this book near the end of the Old Testament with the other Minor (shorter) Prophets, just three books after Jonah. It is only three chapters long, and we know very little about Habakkuk himself, so this study should not take as long as some others.
I began with a little history of the time in which Habakkuk lived. If you followed the Jonah study, you may remember that Jonah did his work somewhere between 800 and 750 BC, when the Assyrians were the greatest power in the Middle East, with their capital in Nineveh, where Jonah went and preached. The Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel and its capital of Samaria in 722 BC and carried many of the Jews of the 10 Northern tribes into captivity in other nations. Most of those Jews never came back to the Promised Land and have been called the “10 Lost Tribes.” Only the Southern kingdom of Judah was left. The Assyrians continued in power for a long time, twice attacking and burning Babylon, in 689 and 648 BC.
By the late 600’s, the Babylonians had become the dominant power and destroyed Nineveh in 612 BC. (They are called Chaldeans in this book. See Habakkuk 1:6.) But by the grace of God and a good king, Josiah, Judah and Jerusalem did not fall to them. Sadly, Josiah drifted away from God in his last years, and his son, Jehoiakim, has been described as “ambitious, cruel, and corrupt.” The Southern kingdom went far from God’s will during this time. Habakkuk probably served as a prophet at this time and wrote his book around 605 BC.
We know nothing about him, other than what is revealed in this book. He may have had priestly functions, as a part of the tribe of Levi. His work overlapped with prophets like Jeremiah and Zephaniah. His name may mean “one who embraces,” who gives help and comfort to others, as a prophet. (There are legends and stories about him from later times, but they have no Biblical basis. One is the apocryphal book “Bel and the Dragon,” which claims that Habakkuk was sent by God to help Daniel when he was thrown into a lion’s den for a second time. You can find this among extra writing included in Roman Catholic Bibles of the Old Testament. This and other such books were not included in Jewish Hebrew Scriptures and were not considered Scripture in the early church or, later, in Protestant Bibles.)
A unique thing about the Book of Habakkuk is that Habakkuk never preaches directly to the people of Judah. His book is a dialog between him and God, including many questions he has about what God is doing. God asks him then to write down what they had been discussing. That is how the message then gets to God’s people.
Look at Habakkuk 1:1. This book is called an “oracle” - a pronouncement or message that Habakkuk “saw,” which was revealed to him in a vision or in some other direct way from God. The King James Version translates it as a "burden” that Habakkuk saw - meaning that it was a heavy message that would challenge the people and their behavior before God, with a strong warning. In this, Habakkuk is also able to ask questions and God responds to him, too.
Habakkuk 1:2-4 is then Habakkuk’s set of questions for God. He uses the special Jewish name for God - the LORD. He wonders how long he will have to cry out to God for help, and the Lord will nor hear him. He is especially troubled by a lot of violence going on in Judah. There is much “iniquity” (sin, lawlessness, unrighteousness in the uneven, chaotic actions of people toward one another). He piles up the words to describe how bad things are - wrong, destruction, strife and contention between people. It is as if the holy law of God, given through Moses and others, is “paralyzed” and having no effect among people. There is so much “perversion” of “justice.” “The wicked surround the righteous” and it is so hard to see good and to do good in such a “violent” atmosphere.
Worst of all, Habakkuk says to God, You don’t seem to care, when I cry to You. “You will not hear…. You will not come and help and save.” I am so upset, Lord God, when I see all this evil, and you just “idly look at wrong” as if you do not care and aren’t going to do anything about how bad things are among Your own people.
Do you and I ever have the same kind of questions? Don’t we also wonder the same things, even today, when we pray and don’t seem to get answers, when we see the horrors in Ukraine and starving people in Ethiopia and other places, and the struggles in our own personal lives, and we can’t tell if God is responding or even hearing us?
Next week, we will see how God responds to the challenges thrown out to Him by Habakkuk. God says that there will be justice, but in a very surprising way that Habakkuk does not understand and we may not, either. Habakkuk only has more questions for God, as we will see, also.
Maybe you can see already how practical and relevant this short book is for us, too. God wishes to bring us to greater faith and trust in Him and His wisdom and ways, even when we do not fully understand what He is doing. We can learn from the way God works with Habakkuk.
God’s blessings on your week, as you keep talking with your Lord, even if with tough questions, and keep listening for His answers in His Word.
Sunday Mar 20, 2022
Sunday Mar 20, 2022
Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Lent, based on:
Sermon originally delivered March 3, 2013