Living by Faith in a Chaotic World

Our times are very chaotic, and it’s easy to be depressed and fearful. Yet political systems and decisions aren’t the answer. God is, and He has put us in this time and place for a reason. As Mordecai told Esther, she was in her position “for such a time as this”. God wants to use us to impact our culture. We can learn much from an Old Testament prophet named Habakkuk who lived in similar times.

Habakkuk wrote his book around 620 to 600 BC, not long before the Babylonian invasion which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of most of God’s people. Habakkuk may have been exiled himself.

Habakkuk’s time:
Babylon’s invasion of Israel was imminent. God was about to judge His people for their slide into many sins, including:
Baal worship. This god of fertility was associated with many deviant sexual practices.
Worship of Asherah, a goddess of motherhood and fertility, also dominated by various sexual practices.
Molech, a god of the Ammonites, required child sacrifice. Small children were thrown into an oven of fire.
The government (most kings) actively supported and participated in these activities. For example, Hezekiah’s father, Ahaz, sacrificed one of his children to Molech. And Ahab, with his wife Jezebel, were committed Baal worshippers.

Our time:
We face many foreign threats, including China, North Korea, Russia, radical Islam, and others.
We are obsessed with sex, including homosexuality and gender disphoria.
We also sacrifice children by abortion, which our culture calls “women’s health” and “reproductive freedom” to couch the brutality of the practice.
Our current government actively supports these activities.

Is God close to bringing our country under judgment? I don’t know, but the parallels are striking.

Summary of Habakkuk

Habakkuk’s short book is a conversation with God. In the first chapter, he complains that God doesn’t seem to be doing anything about the evil in Israel. It seems to him that the evil is much stronger than the good (the wicked surround the righteous). Many people of faith in our time certainly feel this way.

God doesn’t directly answer his question, but reveals that He is raising up the Babylonians to judge Israel! And Habakkuk wonders how God can use a people even more evil than Israel to judge them.

Isaiah uses the term in Is 5:26, that God “whistles” for nations to come and execute judgment! Every evil person or nation is subject to God’s will. We often don’t understand his methods, and he often doesn’t answer our questions!

In the midst of his suffering Job asked WHY, and God never answered. He simply revealed to Job how big He is, and that we aren’t capable of fully understanding His purposes. Isaiah 40 reminds us that “His ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts higher than our thoughts.”

In Chapter 2, God tells Habakkuk to record what he hears from God, and WAIT for the fulfillment. From our perspective, his answer seems slow, but He has perfect timing! His promises will surely come! As Isaiah also says in Is. 40, “they that wait for the Lord will renew their strength”.

Then he tells Habakkuk in 2:4 that “the righteous will live by his faith”. This phrase is quoted by Paul in Romans 1:17. As Hebrews says in 11:1, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”. And Paul writes in 2 Cor 5:7, “for we walk by faith, not by sight” (or appearances).
God goes on to assure Habakkuk that he will judge the Babylonians for their sins, and ultimately, that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (2:14). This is about Jesus and his Kingdom!

Habakkuk has heard God’s response, and he prays, in chapter 3, “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy”.

This is a prayer that we can also pray in our time. Lord, revive us again!

He concludes his book with a magnificent statement of what living by faith means in 3:16-19.
I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,

YET I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.

Lessons from Habakkuk
We can’t always figure out why God allows some things to happen.

We are called to live by faith (believing in the unseen) and trust in God.

We are also called to pray, to ask God to revive his works of the past.

We can choose, by faith and by his strength, to rejoice, no matter what the circumstances, even if we have nothing in this world. (Philippians 4)

Habakkuk lived in a time much worse than ours. The early church lived under a government (Roman emperors) much worse than ours. In our day, living as a believer in China, North Korea, or many Islamic countries can be life or death.
YET, the church has thrived, is thriving, and will thrive in times of great trouble, because the righteous live by faith! We CHOOSE to rejoice, no matter what the circumstances, by His strength.

And God will ultimately prevail, and His justice will come about in his time, not ours.