The Wonder of Habakkuk - Verse 2 - The Prayer That Reached It's Target

This is the Truth Network Bible Wonders of Habakkuk.

So how fun as we're running into these wonders of Habakkuk. Today we get to wonder about verse two, which is the Bet verse, which hopefully will give us some understanding, as that's the idea of what Aleph meaning wisdom and Bet meaning understanding in so many different ways. And so here we understand a lot about, I believe, Habakkuk's heart. And so I'll read it in the King James version and then I've got my own translation, which is significantly different, that to me says it more what I think he was trying to say, but I'll read it here in the King James version that says, O Lord, how long shall I cry? And thou wilt not hear, even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save. So I had some time this morning to just sit down with the letters that were in this verse and the order that they were in, which interestingly, I love the book of Job and I love the thirteenth Psalm and in both places that this whole idea is written out exactly in the same exact syntax, the exact same letters in this idea of how long, Lord. And so if it sounds like the book of Job to you or if Psalm sounds like the thirteenth Psalm, it's because it really is exactly the same syntax.

And I'm sure that it's so cool that this is Habakkuk's prayer. He's talking to God. And in his prayer, I believe he's using the same words and the same idea that he's quoting scripture and he's using the words that were in the book of Job and words that were used by David in the thirteenth Psalm.

And so as I took that and wrote it out, actually letter for letter and translated it in my own translation, the RSV, the Robbie Standard version, I thought rather than go and watch each letter and how this, I'll just take and give you my translation, which to me makes more sense to what he's actually saying. Like most men, he's saying, show me what to do, show me what to believe. And then he uses the word Yahweh, right? So it's like all men, you know, are trying to figure out what am I supposed to do in this situation?

What am I supposed to believe? And then he uses this amazing name of God that the Jews themselves won't pronounce. They don't know how to pronounce it anymore. They said it hasn't been pronounced really since the first temple was torn down by Nebuchadnezzar as a result of what we're hearing about today.

But after that, it was lost. And they'll say Hashem, which is his name, but they don't even say this because it is so holy. And it would leave from what they describe people sometimes just on the ground as a result of hearing this name, that's the YHVH, that's pronounced, you know, you hear people call it Yahweh.

But it's a lot more than that. And oh my goodness, it's exactly the name that Habakkuk called on, just like the name that David called on and just like the name that apparently Job had called on in order to get that whole idea. And like all men, you know, tell me what I'm supposed to do. Tell me what I'm supposed to believe. That's what I think was the heart cry. And then he uses that Yahweh, that YHVH. In other words, I'm looking for your expression, God expressed to your beloved exactly these things. What should I do?

What should I believe? And then the next set of words, I'm burning, I'm burning, reaching for a direction of godly light. Lord, I want you to burn in judgment and a direction of those that are so far from godliness. When you look at that word that is pronounced violence or translated violence in the King James version, that word based on where the kuff is in the aleph is like as far from God as you can possibly get.

And so if you're living in today's age, you can kind of get an idea of what that is. But from Habakkuk's view, you know, here are these unbelievably far from God people that are coming in to punish the people of God from his perspective. And so why would you use these unbelievably ungodly people? The violence that's described there is the word that's in Genesis 2, right?

That caused the flood. It was that violence that got God's attention. And I'm sure that Habakkuk is then turning to that and say, God, you know, you don't allow this kind of godliness, ungodliness.

In other words, these people that are so far from God. And then I love the end of it in words, again, as my translation would read, and my heart's desire is empty of wisdom, of your fire light yoke, which is salvation or Jesus. In other words, I'm empty. I need Jesus here. I don't have any understanding of what's going on, which is, again, that idea of the bet. He says, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to believe. I need Jesus.

I need someone to reconcile these things for me. And I love that the prayer is so clearly to the Lord. It's so clearly to Yod-hay-vov-hay. It's so clearly he's using scripture and scripture syntax to put his words in such a way as to get a response. And I think that as you study the idea of what Habakkuk is doing here, he gets a phenomenal answer to this prayer. So I think by understanding the prayer a little bit closer, it helps us to pray like this. It helps us to say, God, we don't know what to do. We don't know what to believe. Help us to understand what to believe and help us to know what to do, which many times the idea is what you're doing is praying and now you're on the right track.

And I love that his heart is longing for salvation and that word in Hebrew is Yeshua, as you may know, and the idea is Jesus, right? That's what we need. We need salvation. And that's the only answer that's possibly there to the problem. But I couldn't help but just see the similarity in today's world, right?

As I was thinking about this and what Habakkuk was feeling, I'm like, man, this sounds awfully familiar to me, right? Because right now, I mean, there's so much going on in the world. What's going on in the Ukraine is unthinkable.

I mean, it's just unthinkable that those people are out there in 10 degrees below zero fighting off a war. People are bombing their neighborhood, killing their kids and all that for what we're not exactly sure. And then similarly, what's going on in Afghanistan and all the beheadings and all the Christians and what's going on in the Darfur region of the Sudan and the annihilation of people there, the stuff that goes on in sex trafficking that I report through Land and Rescue, even what's going on in this country with abortion and things like this where people couldn't be any further from God from the way that we're looking at it. And God, what should we do?

What should we believe? I mean, I love Habakkuk's prayer here and the idea that this God-hugging, God-loving man is wanting all of us to go closer to God and show us the direction to go and help us to understand what we're supposed to believe, that we just can't understand why this violence, why this unbelievable godlessness and help us to see what direction to go. I love this prayer and I've really enjoyed praying it with you this morning. And as I think about it, I'll read it one more time in my version. It says, show me what to do.

Show me what to believe, Yahweh. I'm burning, reaching for a direction of godly light and for you to burn in a judgment direction to the furthest from godliness. And my heart's desire is empty of your wisdom. I need the firelight yoke of Jesus. I need Jesus. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Thank you for listening.