Wrestling with God’s Silence

God does answer prayer, but you can't force him, you know. He'll answer you. He'll speak to you when he's good and ready. So he does answer prayer. He does hear you cry. You're wondering if God hears and answers. I think you'll find today's message right on target.

Here's Anne. And I can think right now of a prayer that I have in my heart that I'm wrestling with. And one of the prayers, and I have more than one, one of them, of course, is for our nation and for Israel and for the world situation. And Habakkuk was wrestling with his prayer for his nation and his world. And he was looking at his world and his world was unraveling. It was just going crazy. It was in turmoil.

It was in upheaval. And God didn't seem to be making his presence known. It's like, God, where are you? Don't you know what's going on down here? This place is a mess. Why aren't you doing something?

Why aren't you showing yourself? And in Habakkuk's lifetime, he had listened and watched as God had warned that northern kingdom of Israel that judgment was coming. If you don't turn back to me, if you don't forsake your idols, I'm going to judge you. And the northern kingdom of Israel paid no attention and Habakkuk was alive and well when he saw the Assyrians come in and take the northern kingdom of Israel off into captivity. And then in Judah, where Habakkuk lives, they have a yo-yo of kings.

You know, they have good kings and bad kings and good kings and bad kings. They even had a revival at one point under a great king, Josiah. And the revival blossomed under Josiah.

When Josiah was killed, the revival fizzled. And so God was warning them, you need to turn back to me, forsake your idols, cry out to me, repent of your sin. And Judah was not doing that. So the Egyptians were raised up. The Egyptians came in. They took over Judah, sort of the surrogate power. And Judah rebelled against Egypt. Egypt won that battle at Armageddon, actually, where Josiah was killed, if I remember right. And then, lo and behold, a little upstart empire called Babylonians overtook Egypt.

So it was just a mess. And Habakkuk is saying, what in the world? And so Habakkuk, first of all, is wrestling with God's silence. And when I look at our nation and I see the things going on in our nation, when I look at our world and see the things going on, and there are times I just say, God, you know, what we need is a good dose of fear of God. And I think that would help, God, if you would just strike somebody with lightning, you know, if you'd open up a ground and swallow somebody. Just make yourself known. Let them know you're up there and that you're watching and that you'll hold them accountable. So Habakkuk is saying, the world is unraveling and where are you, God?

Make yourself known. And he wrestled with God's silence in verse 2. How long, O Lord, must I call for help but you don't listen? Why are you silent when I cry out to you? Why do evil and suffering have the upper hand?

Why does bad overcome good and hate overcome love? And why is the church so under attack in America? God, you see what's going on. And God seems to be silent. So he's asking God, where are you?

And why are you so silent when all this is happening? Habakkuk was crying out to God. I want you to notice he's crying out to God. And somebody said, believers argue with God, skeptics argue with each other. And Habakkuk was taking his complaint to God.

And I think that's very important. So sometimes we can confer with each other and we complain with each other about what God is doing and what God is not doing. But instead just take it to God. And Habakkuk was an honored prophet. You know, it was his job, if I can say it that way, to receive a word from the Lord and to impart it to the people. And if God is silent, how can Habakkuk do his job?

And Habakkuk was a prophet responsible for receiving the word. And God was silent. So listen to me. Is God silent in your life? And it doesn't mean that you're in disfavor. It doesn't mean that God hasn't heard you.

It doesn't mean that you're not honored. It doesn't mean that you're not serving God according to his will. For whatever reason, he's just silent. And maybe, I was telling somebody this past week, it's a test of your faith to persevere in the silence. So God was silent.

And some of my prayers have been met with silence and that can be very hard to bear. And then Habakkuk wrestled with God's stillness because God not only didn't say anything, he didn't do anything. In verse three, why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me.

The strife and conflict abounds. The law is paralyzed. Justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous and justice is perverted and you're not doing a thing. And God was silent and he was still.

The situation was just going out of control. And it's hard when you pray and you pray and you pray and the very situation you're praying about and God is silent about gets worse. And God doesn't do anything. It reminds me of John chapter 11, a chapter that has taught me so much. When Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus, Lord, the one whom you love is sick. And implied with that message, that was a prayer, and they sent the message to Jesus. Implied with that is, please Jesus, come here and do something. Heal Lazarus, make him well.

We know you can. Please help us. And Jesus was silent. He didn't answer them. He didn't send a message back and he was still. He didn't respond. He didn't go there.

He didn't do anything for four days. And the situation got worse and Lazarus got sicker until Lazarus died. And the worst thing that could have happened, happened. So when Jesus finally shows up in Bethany, Martha says, Jesus, where have you been?

You're late. If you had answered my prayer the way I prayed it, this wouldn't have happened. So she wrestled with God's silence and she wrestled with God's stillness. And so did Habakkuk.

Are you? And then he wrestled with God's solution because God finally spoke to him. And I want you to see that in verse five, God says, look. And I just want to pause for a moment because God does answer prayer. But you can't force him, you know. He'll answer you. He'll speak to you when he's good and ready. So he does answer prayer.

He does hear you cry. And while he delays in silence, I'm not sure. Except that I feel like sometimes it's just a test of our faith and trust in him.

To persevere in the silence and the stillness. And that's what he was doing for Martha, by the way. He was silent until he was wanting to develop her faith so he could do something that she would never have thought of. And he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, demonstrating to his disciples what would happen next week when he was the one crucified.

And that he would be the one raised from the dead. They didn't get the message. But he was giving them an exhibit A. So anyway, Habakkuk wrestled with silence, stillness, and then God's solution.

And the solution was absolutely unthinkable. He says, Habakkuk, look. And I think we need to stop there and say, God is saying, while you're praying, I want you to look at who you're praying for. Look at the nation. Look at Israel. Look at your loved one. Look at the circumstances. Just take a good look. Is something going on?

Is something happening? And then he tells Habakkuk, I want you to look and be utterly amazed because I'm going to do something in your days you wouldn't believe even if I told you. And what he was going to tell Habakkuk was absolutely unthinkable. God works outside the box.

Do you know that? He doesn't always work according to what we think, when we think, what we think. He doesn't fit into our little package. He can do something that's totally we'd never thought of. And God may be at work in the life of your loved one, in the life of this nation, in the life of Israel, but in a way that we wouldn't think about. So look at your prayers and the way you're praying. What are you expecting God could do? And then look at what it is that you're praying for and what's going on. Could God be answering your prayer, but in a way that isn't how you prayed it? You know what I mean?

It's not what you had asked for. It is the deep down prayer, but he's going about it in a way that you wouldn't have imagined. And sometimes God does things that we can't imagine, and God is saying, Habakkuk, I do care, and I am involved, and I see exactly what's going on, and I see what's happening in Judah, and I see her sin and her idolatry, and that she's turned her back on me. And the way Habakkuk was describing, he was describing Judah in those first few verses, his own people in those first few verses.

And God is saying, I see all of that, and I'm going to do something that you wouldn't believe. And he says, I'm going to raise up the Babylonians as my instrument of judgment on Judah. He describes them in verse 6.

They're bitter, they're greedy, they're ruthless. Verse 7, they're terrible, they're dreadful. Verse 9, their aim is violence.

Verse 11, they glory in their own strength and ability. They're godless. So let's just think about this for a moment, and I thought if I'm praying for Israel, and I say, God, why are you silent? Why are you still? Why haven't you answered my prayer? And I'm praying for the peace of Jerusalem, and could he say an? I'm raising up Hamas. I'm raising up Hezbollah. I'm raising up ISIS. I'm raising up people to stab people in the streets, to turn the hearts of my people back to me, so they cry out to me. And I pray for revival of the church and revival in America, and that God's Spirit would be poured out. And I say, God, why aren't you doing anything? You don't answer our prayer. And he says, an, take a look. Could it be the rioting in the streets and the economy that's going to plunge and the war on the police and the political bickering and partisanship and the gridlock in Washington?

Could it be that all of this is happening and the active shooters and the environmental disasters because I'm going to make the nation desperate enough to cry out to me? Verse 6, he says, I am raising up the Babylonians. I underlined that in my Bible because if you read world history, they will say the Babylonians rose up because they have their own prowess and their own military might and their own strategy and, you know, whatever.

And God says, and that's not so. I raised up the Babylonians. There's another in 1 Kings chapter 12, 24. When the kingdom of Israel under David, you know, it was this wonderful kingdom under Solomon, it just became a glorious kingdom. Then Solomon died and because of his sin, God allowed his son for the kingdom to split under his son. So his son and another king were going to go to war with each other and try to reunite the kingdom but to see who would be the stronger one to take over the other one. And God said, don't do that.

This thing is of me. And God himself broke that kingdom in half. So God raises up kingdoms and he lowers other ones and he said, that's my doing.

So I just think today as I look at the world situation, what Babylonian is God raising up to do his bidding? Is it Russia? Is it Iran? Is it North Korea? Is it China?

What is the Babylonian? Think of your personal, if you're praying for a personal Judah, somebody in your family, could it be that he would raise up bankruptcy or the diagnosis of a deadly disease or a divorce or the loss of a job? It's just an unthinkable solution to you and you're praying for them and then you see things getting worse and you think, God, you haven't heard my prayer, but actually he is.

And he's at work. It's just not in a way that you could have thought of. So Habakkuk says, not only is this unthinkable, God says, if I told you, you wouldn't believe it. Habakkuk now says, God, not only is it unthinkable, that's not acceptable. You can't do that.

I just don't go along. He just recoils in horror, God, I wanted you to do something, but not that. And so he just begins to argue with God using the basis of God's character. And so he says, God, in verse 12, O Lord, are you not from everlasting? You're the creator God and you're good and he's faithful and he's righteous. You are the holy one. You are pure.

You're separate for sin. You can't possibly look on evil. And then he says, we will not die. And he's saying, God, because of who you are, you can't possibly use these Babylonians.

They are wicked. And in verse 13, your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You can't tolerate wrong. Why then could you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

And he's saying, you know, how can you sweep out a dirty room with a dirtier broom? And Judah's not right with you, but God, you know, they may be sinful, but they're nothing like the Babylonians. How can you use a wicked nation like Babylon to judge a less wicked nation like Judah? And Habakkuk just recoils in horror.

You can't do that. Is there something that God is doing in your life that his conduct doesn't seem to match his character? And is there something he's doing that seems wrong to you? It seems wrong to me to allow stabbings in the streets of his city. It seems wrong to me for him to allow babies to be sold in parts for profit.

It seems wrong to me for people to sell others into prostitution. So Habakkuk wrestled in prayer and then he watched in prayer. And I could have labeled this, I guess, waiting in prayer.

God is in the waiting in chapter 2. But I labeled it watching because in verse 1 he says, I will stand at my watch and I'll station myself on the ramparts. I will look to see what he will say to me. And I think it's just standing at his watch, making time to get alone with God and get quiet with God and align yourself with God and see what's on God's heart and mind and see if you can get some wisdom and insight into whatever it is that you're praying about. And you listen to what he has to say even if what he says is not what you want to hear at all.

It takes courage, doesn't it? And so he listens. I will stand at my watch. I think that's an expectancy. He knows God's going to answer.

Station myself on the ramparts. That's his patience. I'm going to wait until he answers me. I'll look to see what he will say to me.

That's his diligence, his persistence. And what answer I'm going to give, how I can respond to this. And so Habakkuk is focused now on God's word. This is the equivalent of him opening up his Bible. Then the Lord replied, and God speaks to us through his word. Write down the revelation, and he did. So that's what we're reading is the revelation he wrote down. You understand that? So it's God's word.

Make it plain on tablets. When you turn to God's word and you open up God's word, it's plain. Don't let anybody tell you that nouns are not nouns and verbs are not verbs. That you can't take the Bible literally.

Of course you can. You take Shakespeare literally. You take some of these other writers literally.

You can take the Bible literally. It's a piece of literature, okay? And prophecy, yes, has symbolism. Poetry, yes, has symbolism. Of course, that's literature. But when you come to the history and some of these other things, you can take it literally.

Make it plain, he said. And Habakkuk has made it plain. So that a herald may run with it, it's living. The revelation awaits an appointed time. It's very timely. When you're in a passage of scripture and you're doing your devotions on that paragraph, it's amazing how God will just speak to you and you just can't believe that the very thing you're reading that morning is speaking and addressing the problem that you hadn't shared with anybody else, but it's timely. And God is speaking to you at that moment about something he knows you're concerned about. And the time is appointed. It speaks to the end and will not prove false.

God's word is true. Though it linger, wait for it. Sometimes when you get up in the morning and you have your devotions, you may not hear a word from the Lord. And next morning you get up and you have your devotions, you may not hear a word from the Lord.

It may linger, okay, but you wait. You just continue persevering, reading your Bible, listening for him to speak to you. Though it waits, it will certainly come and will not delay. God will speak to you. He speaks through his word.

The answer to your prayer will come. So Habakkuk is watching in prayer, focused on God's revelation, and then focused on God's righteousness in verse 4. And so he's going to describe now the wicked, and this is not just wicked people in Judah. This is not just wicked people in Babylon.

This is wicked people, period. And there will be judgment for sin because God is against all sin, any sin, every sin, all wickedness, okay? So as the world is falling apart, he is against the wickedness in Syria, the wickedness in Iran, the wickedness in Israel, the wickedness in Lebanon, the wickedness in Europe, the wickedness in America, the wickedness in South America, wickedness in China, wickedness in North Korea, wickedness in, you know. God is against all sin. He is righteous.

But look at this in verse 4, and just zero in on this. The righteous, in the middle of all this, the righteous will live by his faith. In the midst of the wickedness, God knows those who are his. In his omniscience, he sees you. He knows you're trying to live rightly. He knows you're going to be reading your Bible every day to ask, What does it say? What does it mean? What does it mean in my life?

You're trying to live it out. God knows. And his righteous people live by faith in the midst of a faithless, godless, wicked world. He always has a remnant, and he knows who you are. So just keep that in mind. And we're surrounded by wickedness, and we think, How can we tolerate this?

I just can hardly even stand to open up my computer and even look at my news source and all the little thumbnail things, and it's just so gross, and I can't read the newspaper and the things that are going on. And in the middle of all of that, God sees we're trying to live rightly, and we guard our eyes, and we meditate on those things that are pure and good and holy. So then he just underscores the fact that he's not going to tolerate sin. And he pronounces five woes on the wicked, no matter who they are, where they are, what they are. And I won't go into them.

I'll just go through them fairly quickly. Verse 6 through 8 is the first row, and basically it's against those who are greedy. Woe to those who pile up stolen goods, make themselves wealthy by extortion. That describes Wall Street, or maybe some of the big corporations today, and some of the big business. And woe to those whose borrowing, because they want more, has run up trillions of dollars of debt so that our nation is enslaved to the lender. Borrowing weakens the nation, and our nation is owned by China. And one day those enemies of ours are going to call in the debt.

Verses 9 to 11 is the next row. Woe to those who build his realm by unjust gain, that set his nest on high to escape the clutches of the ruin. Just woe to those who build up their business at somebody else's expense. And verses 12 to 14, woe to the violent, those who build the city with bloodshed, establish a town by crime, and just woe to the ruthless. Nothing stands in their way, and crime pays, they can get by with it.

Woe to them. And I think about Putin, who goes into Ukraine, now going into Syria. I wonder if he'll go into Egypt, which Ezekiel indicates that he will at some point.

Not he, but Gog and Magog and all that battle of Ezekiel 38. I mean, that may be right on us. And then I think of some of these other things. They're violent, they're ruthless, they build their kingdom through bloodshed. Woe to them. And verses 15 to 17, woe to those who give drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin till they're drunk so he can gaze on their naked bodies.

And I thought of the pornography. You know, date rape, the drug dealer, the abortionist, the pimp, the sex trader. Just woe to them. God sees.

Woe to them. And verses 18 to 20, the fifth woe, woe to the idolater, woe to those who worship other gods. And in our nation, secular humanism is a god, sex is a god, pleasure is a god.

I think sometimes sports can become a god, entertainment can be a god. And we're worshiping all these other gods, and woe to you. Plus all those who have their own gods and say that ours is just one of them. You're going to have Mohammed and Buddha and Allah and whatever and Jesus and they're all sort of equally pick and choose whichever one you want.

And this is America. In God we trust. Which god is that? So verse 20. And all of these woes and the wickedness and it's just all coming apart. But the Lord is in his holy temple.

Let all the earth be silent before him. And Habakkuk I think is saying that all of these people can have temporary success. And wickedness can seem to triumph for a time. And so you have the Assyrians who triumphed over the northern kingdom and then the Babylonians took over Assyria. And then you have the Babylonians who triumphed for a time and then you have the Persians that took over Babylon. And then the Persians triumphed for a time and then Greece takes over Persia.

And then Greece triumphed for a time and then Rome takes over Greece. And America triumphs for a time and it's our day coming. I'm firmly convinced America's time is coming. A time of accountability before a holy, righteous God whom we have spurned, defied, marginalized, minimized. God's righteousness demands judgment for sin. The blessed hope is that he is just as merciful and forgiving as he is righteous. So I believe the time has come and now is for God's people who are called by God's name to humble themselves, pray, seek God's face, turn from our wicked ways, claiming God's promise that he will hear our prayer, forgive our sin, and heal our land. For the glory of his name. This has been Living in the Light. Please take advantage of all the free resources at www.anngramlots.org to help and encourage you in your walk with God and in your study of his word. Join us here each week for Living in the Light.