Exposition by Max A Forsythe
The
Reformer's Fire
Exposition by Max A Forsythe
Our text for today may be divided into three unequal portions. Verse one, which identifies the prophet. Verses two to four, which contain his first abrupt question to the God of heaven. And verses five to eleven where God gives an unexpected answer. We begin with verse one. The soul of the prophet was burdened with a vital question that he must ask the God of heaven. He is identified as Habakkuk the prophet.
From the information available in his prophecy we must date his life's work between the fall of Nineveh to the Babylonians in 612 BC and before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BC. James Montgomery Boice would place Habakkuk's childhood in the era of good king Josiah and sees his life's work being done during the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. There is an interesting question about society and revival that we may sense in this time structure.
Since the time of Truman and Eisenhower in America we mostly have a feeling that most of our American leaders have fallen short of being ideal. Yes, there was the era of good feelings while Father Reagan was in office, but with the exception of him and Gerald Ford in the ordering, the later inhabitants of our own White House have been disappointing for various reasons. Like Habakkuk who could look back at the revival era during the boy King Josiah's reign, so have the Truman/Eisenhower images been treasured as a more modern era of good feelings, which Ford and Reagan momentarily reinvoked.
Here's the kicker in this popular evangelical sense. If Josiah's time was one of Revival and Reformation brought about from the top down. Isn't this the political dream of evangelical politics for the last generation? What if we were to have a moral president, wouldn't this country turn around. Couldn't we bring a post-millennial type of kingdom in if only our President were a forceful evangelical? Well, look what happened to Judea once Josiah was killed in battle. The king's reforming zeal was dissipated rather quickly! The people soon went their own pagan way again and again.
Just as the apparent religious revival that swept suburbia when the major denominations couldn't build churches fast enough for the flourishing growth of the fifties, so did the sixties display the real feelings being fostered not only in the leadership of the Republic but also the institutions, denominations, businesses and organizations who were learning to corporately control America. And just as in Josiah's day the people were very comfortable with the new theology as it developed.
There is no doubt of the sincerity of good king Josiah, and anyone who has read of his reign in Second Chronicles must be awestruck at the vision and vitality of the boy king who gave his heart, soul and kingdom to the Lord while he was enabled to rule wisely. However, the hearts of the people were untouched. And like many in our own time, the bitterness of the abject decline in everything religious since our eras of good feeling has colored evangelical expectations for a true religious revival.
And just as Habakkuk dared to question the wisdom and providence of God, so are we tempted to lay before the God of heaven, the responsibility for every religious decline. This brings us to our second section in verses two to four where Habakkuk charges the God of heaven with at least a minimal complicity in the wicked ways of his time. Look at the phrasing of these verses, hear the soulful musings of the heart of a discouraged prophet:
"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."
What better description of the last four decades can be found in all of
scripture? Our courts are there, so is the ACLU and every other timely
enemy of our God and King! Violence has been done not only to the Law of
God and the laws of nations, but even to the least able to defend themselves
- the unborn children. Thirty-seven million and still counting and no
political, religious or educational activity seems to make more than a
minimal difference.
As evangelicals hoping for a revival and reformation we can truthfully feel the spiritual pain of Habakkuk! The words and phrases there could all be explored and exploited to paint a damning picture of post-war America. I know this is a bleak picture that I paint of our time at the end of the Twentieth Century. Like Habakkuk - I too would like to feel the joyous "Welcome Home America" that was so vividly painted by Grandfather Reagan. He did keep a vital promise, he temporarily slowed the growth of wickedness and by setting a good example and encouraging young people to just say no to drugs, that social problem declined by at least twenty-five per cent. We realize of course that appearances of traditional values and solid applications of wisdom to international problems were not finally successful. The appearances of world peace in the immediate after government of those Reagan years have not proven final.
And if like Habakkuk we approach the Lord questioning His wisdom. We may hear China instead of Babylon. Yet even the Mad Man of Baghdad has rebuilt his Babylon and hopes to enlarge his kingdom again at the expense of his so called Province 19 which we know as the little fort of Kuwait. As we move to the Lord's answer to Habakkuk, who would have believed seven years ago that the Chinese hordes could ever again be dangerous. Yes, a 200 million-man rifle armed army can pretty much go where it pleases while there is food and fuel to keep it moving. But, even if Brittania no longer rules the waves, there is still the technical challenge of besting the carrier task forces which only America can deploy.
However, there remains the little remembered movie of several decades ago called The Manchurian Candidate which now reads more like news than the mere fiction it espoused when it was released. We have only to look at the sad spectacle of the "kings and princes" who followed good King Josiah to appreciate the contemporary dilemma.
"Look among the nations and watch -
Be utterly astounded!
For I will work a work in your days
Which you would not believe, though it were told you."
God is indeed sovereign and even though the "terrible and dreadful" Caldeans
were whistled up in answer to Habakkuk's question, God certainly intended to
use those wicked and forceful enemies of Himself to chastise and train the
people of God. Only after the Babylonian captivity did the Jewish nation at
long last put away the profane idols that had been such a threat to the true
religion of Israel as long as the Lord allowed them to live in peace in His
land.
Now, I am going to get very vague here in the application of our text to contemporary America. The gift of prophecy no longer is a gift allowed to God's men! Of course there are the obvious lessons of history that even a Rhodes Scholar should be capable of considering, but we will save those for another time. But, just how the God of heaven intends to deal with the abject wickedness that is afloat in our fair land, I have only a hint of biblical principles. Just as the Lord warned the Israelite and Judean people by tragedies, invasions, bad government and economic dislocation, so may we see a pattern of judgment beginning in our own time. The earthquake during the World Series a few years ago, droughts in unexpected areas, the vast destruction of the Mississippi flood, increasing storms of snow and wind and hurricanes.
You know, if I lived in the Tornado belt as an unbeliever, that recent storm that was nearly a half a mile wide would convince me that it was time to be getting religion like some of those who came through it! I have seen a small tornado in the process of breaking up about eight miles east of my home in the last decade. And I was very happy that those four tiny funnels were way over there on the horizon!
Unlike, Habakkuk - I do not have any hard questions for our God in heaven. I know that whatever comes about will be according to His great wisdom and sovereign administration of not only the forces of nature but also the forces of history. And as we work our way to a closing on this meditation, I would like to jump ahead to the New Covenant Revelation to some words from Paul so that we may find encouragement in times like those of Habakkuk.
Romans 8: 38-39 "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Only in words like these revealed to us by the God of heaven through His Spirit may comfort us in decades of decadence. And as the Zietgiest (Spirit of the Age) of our time descends further and further from the light of knowledge of our Creator God, we can take real comfort in being members of another Kingdom. The Spiritual Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So let the Triune God of all heaven and earth invite us to "Look among the nations and watch - Be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days Which you would not believe, though it were told you."
Are we willing to wholeheartedly commit ourselves to waiting on the Lord as He works out His will for both Kingdoms? His spiritual kingdom and even His worldly kingdom? Come Lord Jesus reign in our midst, and show the power of our Father in heaven.
Resources Used:
Baker, David W. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Nahum, Habakkuk & Zephaniah.
Boice, James M. The Minor Prophets: An Expositional Commentary.
Places Taught:
Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian Church in America)
Box 13926 -- Columbus, OH 43213
Hab 01a 06 June 1999
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