Inside Out

Habakkuk 3:17-19

“Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vine, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen, and cattle in the stalls, Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on to the heights.”

Habakkuk’s History:

Habakkuk lived somewhere around 625 BC., during the rise of the Neo-Babylonian empire. He was a temple prophet in Judah, and probably a Levite priest. Habakkuk was likely raised as a proper Hebrew child, trained in the Law of Moses, and taught the temple rites by the elders.

Habakkuk’s Dilemma:

Habakkuk watched as his once great nation divided into factions, and fell into a state of moral degeneration and idolatry. This broke his heart. (Does this sound familiar to anyone living in the USA?) “How long can it go on like this?” he wondered to himself. “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, and You do not listen? Or cry out to you ‘Violence” but You do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do You tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me, there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore, the Law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted.” (Habakkuk 1:1-4)

How many times have you heard people make statements like this: “If there really is a God, why does He let innocent children starve to death? Why does He let people be born with mental and physical handicaps? Why does He allow people to hurt each other? Why doesn’t He stop all this?”

These seem like legitimate questions, and to the natural mind (the mind not trained in the Word of God), they are legitimate questions, if asked with the right motive, meaning the desire to really know, and not just to be contentious. Christians should not just brush off people who ask these types of questions, because these questions provide an opportunity to share God’s truth about all of these issues. As the Apostle Peter writes: “Always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Habakkuk was in good company with many people who ask the same questions.

Habakkuk’s questions answered: a bigger dilemma posed:

The problem with asking hard questions is that we must to be prepared to receive hard answers. Sometimes the answers are not what we want to hear. Like Habakkuk, I think there are a lot of people who enjoy asking the hard questions. However, the difference I have seen in a lot of these people that I have encountered is that many times people are not really looking for the truth, they are either looking for a reason to justify themselves, or they simply like to debate. They like controversy, and approach the questions in a contentious manner, because they have already decided in their minds that they know the answer to the questions before they even ask them. The matter of intellectual pride gets in the way of the truth. Pride makes men want to assert their intellect and appear wise. Many times people will ask questions, and it is not because they are seeking truth, but because they want to argue their own positions, and justify themselves. God cannot speak truth to anyone who is not humble enough to admit that they do not have all of the answers, and are unwilling to listen to, and consider matters that they disagree on.

Jesus was confronted many times by the Scribes, Pharisees, and Teachers of the Law. They constantly followed Him around, and sought to interrogate Him. They were not really interested in what He had to say. They were looking for an opportunity to trap Him in His words, and use something He said as the basis for an accusation against Him. This same pattern of behavior is very common in politics as it is practiced in our time. People from different ends of the political spectrum don’t seem to listen to each other, they simply look for opportunities to discredit their opponents, and promote their own agendas.

Back to Habakkuk:

The fact is that God had taken note of Judah’s sin, and judgement was coming. Judgement is coming to OUR world! As Jonathan Edwards said in his day: Our society is “dancing over the mouth of hell.” Men make a game of decadence and immorality, and shake their fingers in the face of God. Rest assured, He has not forgotten, and He is not looking away. God assured Habakkuk that judgement was coming to Judah. So far, so good. That is what Habakkuk asked for. God is in control. He assures Habakkuk that Judah’s sin would be punished.

But wait! Who is this that God would use as His instrument of judgement? The Babylonians! That ruthless nation of ungodly heathens! They were ten times worse than Judah with their idolatry and immorality. So we see Habakkuk’s second dilemma, a much bigger dilemma than the first one. The fact of the matter is that God can use anyone He wants, to speak truth to His people. God can use an ungodly person to confront you with the truth if He so chooses. The idea that God might be using some of the enemies of the USA to confront our once great nation with the truth of His judgement is a very unpopular idea. Don’t get me wrong here. I am in no way condoning terrorism, or anything like that. But perhaps, because we have been so blessed in this country for so long, and the level of immorality in this country has grown so much worse, perhaps God is removing his banner of protection from over our nation, and this could be the reason that we are becoming increasingly more threatened by these powers in the world that seek to do us harm. It is worth considering.

If we are going to ask the hard questions of life, we had better be ready to meet with the hard answers, or just not ask the questions at all. In order to answer the hard question of why God permits sin and suffering to take place on this Earth, we have to get to the core of what man really is, the nature of his creation, and his place on this Earth. These are issues that a lot of people really do not want to face. It is easier to blame everything that is wrong on God, or simply deny God’s existence and believe that everything is the result of random chaos, than to face up to the wickedness that is inherent in our fallen nature. As the prophet Jeremiah puts it: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Most of us, in our moments of honesty and self-reflection, will admit that we are much like the frustrated doctor in the tale of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. We see a side to ourselves that we want to control and hide from the rest of the world. Unless our nature is redeemed by God, and brought back to its original state (before the fall), we will tend to go to either the extreme of trying to control and hide our evil side, and separating it from our façade of decency, or we will fall into decadence and make a god of hedonistic pleasure. It is easier to blame God for everything that is wrong than to face the fact that we have made a terrible mess out of His Creation because of our stubborn self-will.

Why did God choose to use the Babylonians to bring judgement on Judah? To that I say, “Why not?” God can use whomever and whatever He chooses to accomplish His will, and we have no say so in the matter. As the Apostle Paul states: “But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it: ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes, and some for common use?” (Romans 9:20-21)

Let’s back up for a moment and put ourselves in Habakkuk’s shoes. Habakkuk was a righteous man. He was heartbroken over the sins of his people. Habakkuk was much like Christ in the great sorrow He felt over the city of Jerusalem:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to you. How often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but you were not willing. Behold, your house is left desolate to you. For I say to you, from now on, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matthew 23: 37-39)

When Jesus approached the city of Jerusalem, He wept over it. “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace; but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you, and encircle you, and hem you in on every side. They will dash you on the ground, you and your children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” (Luke 19:41-44)

Should we, as Christians living in the United States of America, be any less heartbroken as we watch the climate of our great nation becoming more degenerate and atheistic with each generation?

Should we be any less heartbroken as we watch the lawmakers of our nation wage a war to systematically remove God from all areas of public life under the guise of “the separation of church and state”?

These days, it seems to not matter how degenerate and ungodly a person’s ideology is. He can feel free to stand up in the public forum and declare his views to a cheering world, and receive a standing ovation from the government and news media. The only exception to this is that if you are a Christian, and declare certain things as either morally right, or morally wrong, suddenly you are branded as an intolerant bigot who is trying to impose his religion on others. This only applies to the Christian religion. Other religions are embraced with open arms and promoted for their so-called peace loving, enlightened views. It is okay to impose your views on others if you are a witch, or a Satanist, or a secular humanist, but Christians better keep their mouths shut! (The irony of intolerance is that those who mouth off about intolerance so much are themselves the most intolerant people on the planet.)

If you are a person with an aversion to making an honest living by simply working, you can purchase a good camera, and head out in search for America’s weirdest, and most degenerate special interest groups, and suddenly you have yourself a talk show. Or perhaps you can find a dysfunctional family to fight in front of the camera for you, and call it Reality TV. (Thanks, but no thanks, Ozzie and Sharon. I have better things to waste my time.) We have turned decadence into entertainment, and we pay to watch it. Why is this? It is because America is a free country and you can pretty much say and do anything you like, as long as you are not breaking the law. The only exception to this, as I have mentioned, is if you bring your Christian views into the public arena. Suddenly all the prophets of tolerance and diversity are up in arms, crying, “You can’t say and do those things! They are a violation of the separation of church and state! We are so tolerant that we cannot tolerate what we perceive in you to be intolerance!”

The U.S. Supreme Court has encouraged this mindset. In 1987, in Edwards vs. Aguillard, the U.S. Supreme Court held unconstitutional Louisiana’s “Creation Act”. This statute prohibited the teaching of Evolution in the public schools except when it was accompanied by Creation Science. The court found that “by advancing the religious belief that a supernatural being created mankind, which is embraced by the term creation science, the act impermissibly endorses religion.” In addition, the court found that the provision that a comprehensive science education is undermined when it is forbidden to teach evolution except when Christian Science is also taught.

Isn’t a theory a reasonable guess purposed as an explanation? (The key word is guess.) Evolution is a theory, not something that has been proven as a fact. Even anthropologists admit this. Anthropological paradigms are rewritten faster than I can change socks. But evolutionary theory has been taught so dogmatically in the public school system that children are offered no other explanation for the meaning of their existence. We are the result of random chance and mutation, or so the theory goes.

Actually, the theory of creationism is more reasonable, and in line with the facts of reality than the idea that the world as we know it, with all its intricate life forms and complexity, is the result of some freak cosmic accident. Common sense shows us that beauty and order do not evolve from base elements or chaotic masses with no reason or order. In order to create a work of art on a canvas, the only base elements that are required are a canvas, some paint, some of the cleaners and thinners that a painter needs, and some brushes. (The missing element in this list is the artist.) If I took all of these elements and put them in a washing machine, and let the machine stir them around, this process would not produce a work of art, it would produce a mess, and probably a broken washing machine. There is no art without an artist. This world, and the cosmos very much looks like a work of art. There is no creation without a creator. Beauty and order require a creator, or designer, and a builder. Someone may argue that the world is not all beauty and order. There is a lot of confusion and disorder in our world. I would not argue with that. But the confusion and disorder are the result of mankind’s system, not nature itself. The disorder and confusion that exists in the world are the result of mankind’s misuse of God’s creation, and are not inherent within the order of nature itself. Nature, without mankind’s interference, will correct all of this by itself. That is because it is designed to do just that. It did not design itself. To say that it did just does not make sense. That is not what we witness in reality. Reality does not show us chaos producing order. That is why I say creationism is more in line with reality as we witness it, regardless of what theory we adhere to. Theories are useless unless they are proven by reality.

Let’s go back to the matter of public education for a moment. Is indoctrination into the theories of Darwinism the purpose of our educational system, or is it education, which is to provide knowledge? If we do not provide all the information of the various theories proposed for the reason for our existence, and let the students make up their own minds about what sounds more reasonable to them, how can we call it education? At this point, it is not education, it is indoctrination, the very thing that the opponents of creationism argue against. Isn’t that ironic? It seems that the advocates of evolutionism are threatened by the prospects of students being given other alternatives. If they feel as if creationism has no validity, why should they feel threatened by students being given the opportunity to decide for themselves?

Consider the case of Henry Hyde. In 1976 Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which barred federal funding of abortions in the Medicaid program. Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, and several other groups challenged the amendment’s constitutionality, claiming it posed “a particularly religious view” of when a human life begins. To prove their position, the plaintiff’s lawyers asked to review Hyde’s mail for expressions of religions sentiments, such as the suspicious use of “God bless you” at the end of a letter. Their private investigator followed Hyde to a mass for the unborn, and sure enough, they caught him red-handed! He was observed reading Scripture, taking communion, and worst of all: praying! The plaintiffs complained that since Hyde could not separate his religion from his politics, the amendment was unconstitutional.

This is a fine example of the way our constitution’s First-Amendment is being twisted to suit the agenda of the atheistic camp that has gained a lot of power within our government. We need to take a stand and put a stop to this. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not advocating an anti-authoritarian stance against our government. Scripture plainly states that government has been ordained by God to maintain order in society, and punish wrongdoing. That does not mean that all government is right, or that the Almighty condones the barbaric acts of dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Stalin, or Hussen. The institution of government itself is ordained by God, and because of this, we should respect and obey our government as long as that government does not dictate that we do things that are in disobedience to the law and will of God. However, I do think that much of the decision making in our government lately can stand a dose of godly wisdom and correction.

If you don’t remember exactly what the First-Amendment says, it reads as follows:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

So, what does all that mean? First, the government cannot endorse or support any one religion. That does not mean people in positions of political leadership cannot practice their religion, or allow it to inform them in the way they think. We cannot form a state religion. That is what Constantine did when he made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire in 323 A.D. This part of the amendment was written as a safeguard against such abuses of power, and the abuses that the colonialists were fleeing from in England during the reign of “Bloody Mary” (Mary I of England). Queen Mary I was known for her persecution of Protestant Christians in England in her efforts to restore Roman Catholicism as the religion of England. This is a necessary safeguard. Government must not endorse, or join forces with any religion for the purpose of controlling the masses.

While the government cannot endorse any religion, it also cannot stop people from practicing their religion. I would add in regards to this whole matter that it is impossible for anyone who practices their religion seriously to not allow it to influence the way they think and behave, including people in positions of government.

Secondly, the government cannot punish or prohibit people from voicing their opinions both verbally, and in print. Also, the government cannot punish or prohibit people from demonstrating in a peaceful manner.

What is so ironic about the people that try to twist the First-Amendment to suit their anti-Christian agenda is that, on the one hand they are the first to cry “censorship” when anyone suggests that we could use less sex, violence, and blasphemy in the television shows and movies that we watch, and the music that we listen to, but the moment a teacher, senator, or congressman expresses his or her opinion on an issue, based on their Christian worldview, suddenly they fight to censor references to God in the public arena. We should consistently hold to the freedom of speech, not just when it suits a certain political agenda.

So, what does all this talk about the Constitution have to do with Habakkuk? Habakkuk was a man who found himself in a situation where it seemed as if evil was winning out over good. This grieved him. Sometimes it seems as if evil is getting the upper hand in our society, and in the world at large. I can understand how Habakkuk felt as I see the direction many things in our society and in the world are going. Circumstances for Habakkuk’s generation were bad. Circumstances for our generation are bad. This is epitomized in the words of our text:

How long can it go on like this?” he wondered to himself. “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, and You do not listen? Or cry out to you ‘Violence” but You do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do You tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me, there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore, the Law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted.”

And when situations in our own personal lives can seem out of control:

“Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vine, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen, and cattle in the stalls…”

For a people whose livelihood was farming and livestock, this is bad news. For us, these words might go something like this:

Though unemployment is increasing, and prices on all the things we need keep going up, though employers want to pay less and less, and decrease benefits, though the stock market might crash, and cause us to lose our 401Ks, though homelessness gets worse every year, though healthcare has skyrocketed, and more people are getting sicker…

As I look around me today, I see a world much like the one Habakkuk grieved over. Circumstances are bad. The moral and spiritual climate of our country seems to be getting worse every year. So many people live without hope. Bad circumstances can be economic in nature, as Habakkuk describes. But we can also have emotional and relational trials. We can have health trials. We can have political and educational trials. The list goes on and on. So what is the answer? Let’s look at the rest of the text:

“Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on to the heights.”

This is the secret. Circumstances do not dictate to a child of God his state of contentment and peace of mind. Externals must not affect our love and devotion to God. God’s love and grace is the gateway to the power to overcome, even when all hell is breaking loose around us. That is why Jesus left us with these words:

“In the world you have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”

“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.”

Too often I meet people who are ruled in their spiritual lives by their feelings and emotions, instead of their faith. I am not too proud to say that this is also a daily battle for me. It is a moment by moment, day by day journey to decide with each thing I encounter. Feelings and emotions are unpredictable. Circumstances are unpredictable. God created our emotions. He created them to serve a purpose, but He did not create us to be enslaved to them. Feelings can be affected by anything from diet to the weather, from the amount of sleep you get, or to your physical condition. For women, they can be affected by the time of the month. Satan can use our emotions to wage war against us. Faith must take the upper hand.

It is easy to “feel like” God loves you, and that you are a good Christian when things are going easy. It is just as easy to “feel” unloved and abandoned when things are crashing in around you. It is easy to feel loved by God when your health is good, and there is plenty of money in the bank, and you can talk about all your blessings. It is just as easy to “feel” abandoned and unloved when you have more bills than money, when your children are unruly and irritating, when you are sick, when that dysfunctional family that you were born into is getting on your last nerve. If you are depending on your feelings to get you through, you are in trouble. Sometimes I don’t feel very much like a spirit-filled man of God. Sometimes I feel like an irritable old grouch. Don’t we all go through times when we just don’t “feel” very spiritual? Can’t we relate to Habakkuk when we look around us and see evil, and bad circumstances? Aren’t we tempted to ask: “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, and You do not listen?

I was talking to one of my friends a while back, just after he had decided to give his life to the Lord. He was telling me about some of the trying times he and his wife were going through. He said to me, “My wife and I have been praying that God will change things, but our prayers are not getting answered. I don’t even feel like I am saved anymore. What should we do?” For those of us who are Christians, and have been in that predicament before, we can be there, alongside those who are going through the valley. We can minister God’s grace to them. That is why the Apostle Paul writes:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of all compassion, and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

If you are a Christian, and you have not been in that valley, just wait. Your day is coming. God sends these times to test us, and squeeze the sweet wine of His grace out of us to overflowing into the lives of others. He does not send these times to crush us. Listen to these words from the prophet Isaiah:

“Listen and hear my voice, pay attention to what I say. When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and harrowing the soil? When he has leveled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field? His God instructs him and teaches him in the right way. Caraway is not threshed with a sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cumin. Caraway is beaten out with a rod, and cumin with a stick. Grain must be ground to make bread, so one does not go on threshing it forever. Though he drives the wheels of the threshing cart over it, his horses do not grind it. All this comes from the Lord Almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom? (Isaiah 28:23-29)

God knows when the mix is right. He knows when the hard soil of our heart has been tilled properly. He knows when to stop. He knows how to take what has been sown into our hearts and cultivate it, He does this to produce a harvest of righteousness and grace, not to beat us down and destroy us.

These words from Habakkuk are very relevant to us today. Although the climate of our times does appear to be very anti-Christian, God can use this to wake us out of our complacency. I believe this is what He is doing with present day events in our country, and around the world. The Babylonians that He is using today, to invade our privacy, and shake our little worlds, are the very ones who appear to be the enemies of the Gospel. Too much of what is going on today in the name of Christianity is focused on the wrong goals, or done to promote the self-interests of those involved, and not for the purpose of advancing the Kingdom of God. Christianity is not a 12 step program to make your life better. There is a spiritual battle being waged in this world, and it involves you and me.

Are you going through hard times? Does it seem like your faith is being shaken? Take these words of the prophets to heart. Rejoice in the Lord, not in your circumstances, or your feelings. Celebrate the goodness of God in the land of the living. Be engaged in life, and engaged with the people around you. Go into His sanctuary and behold His glory! When His glory shines on you, it changes you. Rejoice in God your Savior. Stop depending on your own strength and abilities, and let Him be your source. Then He will make your feet like the feet of a deer, and you will go on to the high places!