SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/28/2016
9:53 PM
In this SD I want to write some of the things that I
have learned from looking at the book of Habakkuk over the years that I have
read and studied this wonderful little book.
First I want to say that last week in our church services we had a guest
speaker who spoke on all three chapters of Habakkuk in the two services we have
on Sunday, one in the morning and one in the evening and one of the things that
he brought up was asking if the book of Habakkuk, which is all about Judah can
be used to look at the terrible situation that we have in our country today, in
other words do the things that God speaks to Habakkuk about as far as the
sinful condition that was found in Judah during this time between 640 BC and 590
BC. Now remember the nation of Judah was
attacked by the Babylonians first in 605 BC and then later on in 597 BC and
finally Babylon defeated Judah in 586 BC, so what Habakkuk wrote was about to
happen.
Habakkuk had a conversation with the Lord as he had
some things to ask the Lord that we all may from time to time want to ask the
Lord. His problem was the sinfulness that
was going on in the nation of Judah, and when we look back at Judah during this
time especially during the time when Manasseh was king for some 50 years there
was much sinfulness going on and because of the holiness of God and because of
the covenant that He had made with Judah and Israel He had to act. We have written many times about the
covenants that the Lord made with Israel when they came out of Egypt at Mt.
Sinai as recorded in the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy which was a
conditional covenant He made with them.
God covenanted with Israel stating if you do this I will do this, if you
follow this covenant I will bless you, I will defeat your enemies, but if you
do not follow this covenant I will do this, I will eventually destroy you
because of your sinfulness. Deuteronomy
chapter 28 has 68 verses in it and most of it is made up of this covenant. Now remember that the book of Deuteronomy
means the renewing of the Law as the covenant is also seen in the 26th
chapter of Leviticus, but because all of the people who were 20 years an older
who came out of Egypt died in the forty years of wondering in the wilderness
those under that age did not remember all that had happened, thus Moses writes
the book of Deuteronomy to go over the laws that God made with Israel. Habakkuk knew this covenant and knew that
Israel was not following it and so he asked the Lord what should be done with
them. Now the answer that he gets back
surely was not the answer that he wanted to hear as the Lord tells him that He
is going to bring upon the Southern Kingdom the nation of Babylon to defeat
them to which Habakkuk says that they are worse sinners than Judah was to which
God says that is true, but after He uses Babylon to defeat Judah He will
destroy them and this happened not too long after they defeated Judah and can
be read about in the 5th chapter of Daniel.
One can imagine how Habakkuk felt, but as we go
through this short book of only three chapters we see that Habakkuk realizes
that God can make no mistakes and in the end of the book we read the following “16
I heard and my inward parts trembled, At the sound my lips quivered. Decay
enters my bones, And in my place I tremble. Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, For
the people to arise who will invade us. 17 Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no
fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields
produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be
no cattle in the stalls, 18 Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
19 The Lord GOD is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, And makes
me walk on my high places (Habakkuk 3:16-18).”
We see from these verses that Habakkuk was not happy
with what the Lord was going to do, yet more importantly he trusted the Lord,
knowing that just as Abraham said in “Genesis 18:25 “Far be it from You to do such a thing, to
slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are
treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?’”
1/28/2016 10:20 PM
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