January 7, 2018
No Eyes To See Nor Ears To Hear
Today we begin the Book of the Prophet Habakkuk, a prophet who lived around 625 B.C. Habakkuk is considered one of the Minor Prophets in the Old Testament, that is not because the book is unimportant, but because of the length of the book. It is a powerful teaching about the faithfulness of God and how when we live before a faithful God, our faith can withstand any disaster that may strike us. This book is a great opportunity for us to learn and grow in the Word of God at the beginning of a new year.
Habakkuk is living in an unfaithful country (Judah), and the northern part of Israel had been taken into captivity years before, now, Habakkuk sees the same pain and captivity coming to Judah. Habakkuk is crying out to God, he is frustrated by what he sees in his country, nothing is as it should be; God is not being worshipped, and he says, God is not hearing, God is not seeing and finally God is not caring. It seems to Habakkuk that God has left the building, closed the doors and won’t be returning.
Habakkuk is not so different from us, even though we are removed from where he is by over twenty-six hundred years. The world is self-destructing around us; Christianity is under assault in most of the world. More Christians have been martyred in the past hundred years than in all of Christianity. Unimaginable things in marriage and sexuality have now become commonplace and accepted, even our churches have become places that have given in to the demands of this new society, a society beyond post-modernism, a society that has turned their unbelief into doing whatever “works for you”. What do we see as we look out onto this bleak landscape? Do we sometimes think that maybe God has left the building? Left us on our own?
Our answer to this question should be rooted in what Christ has done for us, our answers are focused clearly upon the Cross, two thousand years ago, where a terrible thing was done, the Lamb of God was put to death on a Roman Cross.
In all the evil that was done that day, God used it for our good and His glory. He planned the Cross, He made a way for the filthy to become clean, for the dead to become alive and the rebel to become righteous. So, here we are listening to Habakkuk, are we hearing hope, or despair? Are we hearing life or death? It depends on who your King is.