Finding Faith When the World’s Falling Apart: Preaching and Teaching Habakkuk Today

Habakkuk is likely a book you haven’t spent much time in recently, which, to be honest, is quite understandable. Few of us are racing to read, study, or put to memory Habakkuk’s prophecy, not only because it’s a little hard to find but also because its message is heavy, to say the least. As one of the twelve “Minor Prophets,” Habakkuk is situated among the books of the Old Testament that are known for their messages of “fire and brimstone,” and doom and gloom, more than anything else. It’s not that those elements aren’t present or important, but there’s so much more to the prophetic books of the Bible, especially Habakkuk, than merely announcing judgment.

The designation “Minor Prophet” isn’t exactly helpful either. Even though the terms are similar, this isn’t meant to serve as a division of leagues like Minor and Major League Baseball, cluing you in to their expertise and effectiveness. To apply the “Minor” label to a book of prophecy says nothing about the book’s content, themes, or subject matter, just its size. Compared to treatises like Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, Habakkuk is certainly smaller. This, to be sure, isn’t a comment on the message of Habakkuk, which is just as pertinent and important as those so-called “Major” prophecies, both then and now. Indeed, despite how tedious and burdensome Habakkuk’s prophecy was and is, it remains a message that is fitting for “such a time as this” (Esther 4:14), for a moment just like ours.

1. The Doubting Prophet

Habakkuk was well aware that his was a burdensome message, largely because, as David Prior notes, “it contained at its very heart an uncompromising and chilling declaration of judgment on his own country.” The opening verse, which essentially serves as the book’s title, says as much: “The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw” (Hab. 1:1). The Hebrew word for “oracle” can mean either “utterance,” that is, something you declare, or “burden,” that is, something you carry (the KJV cuts right to the chase and renders it as the latter). Both meanings are at play here, as Habakkuk is letting his audience know early on that the word with which God had entrusted him wasn’t necessarily easy or pleasant. Still, he was compelled to carry it and convey it. Even though Habakkuk’s message “weighs heavily on him,” Prior continues, “he cannot escape the responsibility of declaring it. It is of God, and therefore is not to be ignored, trimmed, or trivialized.”

The burden of what he was bound to declare grieved Habakkuk, so much so that he poured out all his grief and trouble to God himself. “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” he wails. “Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?” (Hab. 1:2). One of the many features that makes Habakkuk such a unique book of prophecy is that, unlike Isaiah, Jeremiah, or even Malachi, Habakkuk isn’t composed of its namesake’s sermons. We never get one of those thunderous “Thus saith the Lord” declarations, nor are we treated to an extended passage anticipating the Messiah’s arrival. This is because, on the whole, the book “addresses God rather than the people,” as John L. Mackay observes. What is recorded for us isn’t what Habakkuk declared to God’s people. Rather, what we have in front of us is a prophet’s dialogue with God. It’s almost as if he has invited God’s people (us included) to eavesdrop on a conversation between him and the Lord, one that should cause the people to shudder and, ultimately, repent.

In that way, Habakkuk has the same goal in mind behind his prophecy as all the other prophetic books—namely, to bring the people of God to repentance; he just deploys a very different method to get there. That difference can be seen right away, as he vulnerably vocalizes his distress and doubt over God’s apparent apathy and indifference. “Why do you make me see iniquity,” he bellows, “and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted” (Hab. 1:3–4). This, to be sure, is another unique feature of Habakkuk’s oracle: the pronounced notes of doubt from the prophet himself. It’s more than a little jarring and disconcerting to hear words so freighted with despair coming from the lips of a so-called “man of God.” The only counterpart to Habakkuk’s distress is found in his contemporary, the prophet Jeremiah, whose oracles were similarly tinged with anguish (cf. Jer. 8:21; 9:2–6; 12:1).

2. A Nation in Crisis

Habakkuk’s desperation and frustration leap off the page. Every word drips with a devastating sense of hopelessness, even as he vents to the God who is supposed to be “the hope of Israel” (Jer. 14:8; 17:13). You get the sense that Habakkuk, much like Jeremiah, was a seasoned prophet whose message wasn’t well received, even by his own countrymen. Whatever word God gave him to proclaim hadn’t made a dent in their decorum. All he sees is “destruction and violence” (Hab. 1:3). “In a few brief words,” writes James K. Bruckner, “Habakkuk describes a ruined society full of crime, violence, corruption, mock legal battles, and the defeat of the righteous, and he wants to know why God tolerates it.” Everywhere he looks, grief, disaster, and strife are on the rise, among the covenanted people of God, no less. “Beginning with his own situation,” David Prior remarks, “[Habakkuk] found himself articulating timeless questions—about the problems of evil and the character of God, about the apparent pointlessness of prayer and impotence of God, about the oppressiveness of unrestrained violence and the silence of God.” This description of the prophet’s environment helps us put it into historical context.

Although we aren’t given any overt dates or details that might specify when this prophecy was first given, Habakkuk’s account of his circumstances, coupled with the Lord’s forecast of Babylon’s (a.k.a. “the Chaldeans,” Hab. 1:6) rise to power, are indicative of the turmoil in Judah in the late seventh century B.C. The Northern Kingdom had long since been left desolate at the hands of the Assyrians, but now the Southern realm was careening towards the same fate. All the same calamitous strands of idolatry, iniquity, and injustice that precipitated Samaria’s (or Israel’s) disintegration were spreading rampantly among the people of Judah, putting them on the fast track to disaster. After King Josiah was killed on the battlefield, Judah effectively became a vassal state for Egypt (cf. 2 Kings 23). Jehoahaz, Josiah’s son, sat on the throne for all of three months before Pharaoh Neco imprisoned him and appointed Josiah’s other son, Jehoiakim, as the new king of Jerusalem. This set in motion a period of devastating political, moral, and spiritual decay that essentially reversed the reform efforts Josiah had initiated when he and the elders found the Book of the Covenant years prior (2 Kings 23:2–27).

Jehoiakim was a good-for-nothing king, with the bulk of his reign being spent as either Egypt’s or Babylon’s lackey. This was a role he appeared quite happy to play, as he quickly ingratiated himself with the Pharaoh by imposing heavy taxes on his own people and giving the proceeds to Neco in Egypt (2 Kings 23:35–37). Jehoiakim’s flimsy scruples were downstream of his flagrant resistance to God’s words. The prophet Jeremiah, in fact, characterizes King Jehoiakim as little more than a toddler who refuses to listen to parental advice (Jer. 23:21), an attitude that crescendos when he brazenly shreds into little pieces Jeremiah’s scroll and throws it into a fire (Jer. 36:23–24). Consequently, that iniquity and violence were running roughshod through Jerusalem and beyond should have come as no surprise to anyone. After all, when God’s standard, which is God’s word, is shunned, the ensuing fallout is nothing short of catastrophic. It’s chaos all the way down. To no one’s surprise, Jeremiah mentions him in the same breath as a donkey (Jer. 22:19). (Do with that what you will.)

3. God, Are You Listening?

It is into this chaos that Habakkuk was summoned to speak, a calling that must’ve felt like trying to put out a forest fire with a squirt gun. But as Jehoiakim’s inferno of oppression and violence continued to rage through Jerusalem’s streets, Habakkuk could be found wrestling with how to make sense of it all. As he preached, he was forced to watch as his homeland plunged into decadence. Judah was unraveling at the seams, and God was, seemingly, nowhere to be found. “How long are you going to let this go on, God? I’m doing as you asked, and it’s not making a lick of a difference. God, why aren’t you intervening? Why aren’t you getting involved? Why aren’t you doing something?” The gist of Habakkuk’s outcry is the Lord’s nonintervention as his people hurled themselves toward oblivion. He is, as John Currid notes, “openly accusing God of not acting or responding to the present trouble.” Rather than “doing something,” God appeared to be idle, enabling oppressive power structures to persist and leaving the law all but “paralyzed.”

Habakkuk’s question is thoroughly honest and, no doubt, all too familiar. The parallels between this prophet’s distress and our own are thick, to say the least. More than a few inquiring minds of our day have wondered where God is in all the bedlam we’ve collectively witnessed and experienced. From the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left twenty-one elementary students and teachers dead, to the 2021 tragedy in Waukesha, Wisconsin, that saw six die after an SUV plowed through a Christmas parade, to the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean that resulted in over 230,000 deaths across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, among several other countries, there is no shortage of events to spark questions of “why” and “how long.” In fact, in the aftermath of almost every crisis that rocks our society to the core of its being, our knee-jerk reaction is to interrogate God’s passivity and inactivity. Where is God in this? Why isn’t he doing something? How long, Lord? As the dial of suffering and calamity continues to intensify, so, too, does Habakkuk become the de facto spokesperson for churches filled with saints who are wrestling with circumstances that are equally as irreconcilable.

How do we resolve the problem of suffering with a loving and sovereign God? How do we reconcile our faith with the presence of such atrocious evils and heinous tragedies? How do we make sense of all the grief and disaster that we see all around us? You’re not the first to ask such things. In fact, these are some of the oldest philosophical questions in the history of humankind, which, regrettably, might suggest that there is no answer or resolution to be found on this side of the grave. At least, not one we will be content with. Nevertheless, as piercing as these questions are, the Lord’s response to Habakkuk is just as piercing and affecting (Hab. 1:5–11).

4. God’s Shocking Reply

The gist of God’s reply to his perplexed prophet is the foreboding announcement that the Chaldeans were set up to “march through the breadth of the earth,” Judah included. Although they were relatively new members in the arena of world super-powers at the time, the Neo-Babylonian movement led by the Chaldeans, and most famously by Nebuchadnezzar, saw Babylon quickly become one of the most dominant forces in the history of civilization. By the time of Habakkuk’s oracle, they were well on their way to supplant Assyria as the most feared nation in the surrounding regions. A few short years after Habakkuk, Babylon would trounce Egypt at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 B.C., before marching on Jerusalem in 597. God’s description of Babylon’s military prowess is both ominous and precise. Much like the Nazi Blitzkrieg in 1930s Europe, the Chaldeans swept through the land with reckless abandon. They saw themselves as their own authorities, answerable to no one, least of all the supposed God of former Egyptian slaves. They’d laugh at anyone who dared to oppose them; every new adversary was a joke to them.

But perhaps even more jarring than all of that was the revelation that God himself was “raising [them] up” (Hab. 1:6). The prophet’s stomach no doubt became all knotted when he was told what was coming for God’s people. It wasn’t just devastation, but devastation to which God consented and, we might even say, arranged. As we read the dreadful description of the Chaldeans and their ravenous army, it functions as a mirror that exposes Judah’s fate. Because they pursued violence, they will experience violence (Hab. 1:3, 9). As they sowed, so they will reap. “God’s answer to Habakkuk’s lament about lawlessness and injustice,” writes David Prior, “is greater lawlessness and more injustice at the hands of an evil empire of terrifying cruelty.” The Lord lets his prophet know that the arrogant and ascendant Babylonian Empire would be his instrument of judgment, a fact that is devastating, albeit tinged with a note of hope.

As terrible and fearsome as the Chaldeans were, as unstoppable as they appeared to be, even their kingdom had an expiration date. This is what God tells Habakkuk in verse 11: “Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!” These pompous and prideful warriors will soon meet their end, too. They will pass on and be swept away like a drop in a bucket (cf. Isa. 40:15–17). It had already been ordained as part of God’s deep and unfathomable providence that was, even then, at work. In one of the most soul-stirring verses in Scripture, the Lord invites Habakkuk to step back and take stock of what he was already doing. “Look among the nations, and see,” God says, “wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told” (Hab. 1:5). Even though he couldn’t see it, even though he couldn’t make sense of it, Habakkuk is told by God himself that God was up to something. “God has been telling Habakkuk, however opaque and shattering the message,” concludes Prior, “that evil does not go unpunished and that even the most brutal aggressor, backed up by immense military might, is not merely under the authority of God, but is even an instrument of the divine purpose.”

5. Faith in the Midst of Chaos

The details might’ve been fuzzy, but even still, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is once again inviting his people to put their faith in him and what he was doing, despite what it looked like. Trusting in God’s word even when it doesn’t make sense is the very posture of faith. When chaos and violence seem to rise faster and higher than the evening tide, we are invited to put our faith in a work that, though hidden, is still unfolding in our days, right in our midst. This is the surest and steadiest hope we can cling to in times of grief and disaster—namely, a work that assures us that evil won’t win; that, as profuse as the trouble is, God’s mercy is greater; that all this sorrow will one day “turn into joy”; that the darkness won’t overcome the light. These are no mere platitudes meant to stoke a faith of saccharine hope. Rather, this is what it means to be a believer. In other words, just as God beckoned Habakkuk to lift up his eyes to behold the mysterious sovereignty already at work, so, too, does God’s gospel invite us to put our trust in him, even when that seems more than a little absurd.

God’s word to the prophet Habakkuk is echoed by none other than the apostle Paul. Speaking to a crowd of skeptics in Pisidian Antioch during his first missionary journey, Paul boldly declares to them “the good news that what God promised to the fathers” has been fulfilled in the person of Jesus (Acts 13:32–33). Through him, the “forgiveness of sins is proclaimed,” not as a possibility but as a certainty, for “everyone who believes” (Acts 13:38–39). It was precisely in and through Jesus that the “definite plan and foreknowledge of God” was brought to bear, right in their midst (Acts 2:23). Yes, Jesus of Nazareth, the one who was betrayed, discredited, beaten, ridiculed, and crucified, is the very one through whom every syllable of God’s promises are realized. The person of Jesus is the embodiment of the work that God is doing in our midst (Acts 13:41), a work that defies logic and sounds more like a joke than anything else (1 Cor. 1:18). What seemed like foolishness—the long-awaited Messiah pegged to a Roman cross—was in fact the ultimate revelation of God’s justice and mercy.

God’s words to Habakkuk, therefore, are a window into his gracious providence. They invite all of us, all those who believe, to “wonder and be astounded” by the work that he is already doing. Even in the midst of pain and perplexity, even through grief and disaster, the hope of the word is not deterred. Even as the world keeps spinning into ruin and heaven seems silent, his ways are perfect. Even when we cannot trace what the hand of God is doing, we can trust his heart and look up to him in the darkest hour, and believe that all is well and all will be well. May we, like Habakkuk, find grace enough to wrestle and worship the God who is still at work in all our days, even now.