Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Our nation seems to be heading toward more government control and less freedom. It's like the scenario painted by Habakkuk the prophet. Things were bad and getting worse. He was asking God, where are you?
Today, Lessons from a Prophet on Prayer. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Wind with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, we all like times of peace and prosperity. But then dark clouds gather, and our peace and prosperity are taken away.
I hope today's time will encourage us to remain steadfast when the answer is disaster. Yes, Dave, that might come as a surprise to many of our listeners, but When the prophet Habakkuk prayed, He prayed that God would intervene in his nation because of all the violence. He says, God, don't you see? Don't you hear? God appeared to be deaf, God appeared to be blind.
And God answered It's like a telephone conversation. and to his surprise Habakkuk discovered that God says I am doing something. I'm bringing disaster. What a message that is for us today to recognize that sometimes the answer isn't what we want. And yet Habakkuk continued to believe God.
At the end of this message, I'm going to be sharing a very encouraging word from someone who listens to Running to Win in Russian. I hope that you stay with us because it is because of your prayers and your investments. That the ministry of running to win goes around the world. For now, let us listen.
So I begin today with a question. Where then is God. We've all asked that question many times. We ask it when we see injustice in the world. We see it.
We ask it when there's poverty. We ask it when the rich exploit the poor. We ask it when there is injustice in the courts. We ask the question when people suffer and when tsunamis come and when Katrina comes. We are always asking that question in our hearts.
We ask, where then is God? Where is He? When injustice seems to be winning, when all those who are evil have their heyday. Where is he?
Well, that's the problem that the prophet Habakkuk had. I always say it's Habakkuk or Habakkuk, depending on where you put the emphasis. What I'd like you to do is to turn to that book in the Old Testament and in order to find it, go to where the division happens between the New Testament and the Old Testament, and then go back about 20 pages. This morning I looked it up in the Bible that is in the pew, and I think, if I remember correctly, I should have taken further note of it, but I think it's page 825, something like that, to help you find this little prophet, little only in the sense that it is a brief letter that talks to us about our relationship with God and God's relationship to us.
Well, let's turn to what Habakkuk has to say, and I begin with his prayer. Verse 2. O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear? or cry to you violence. And you will not save.
Why do you make me see iniquity and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me, strife and contention arise, so the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted. I'm praying to you, God, but where are you? How can you look upon this and see what is happening?
He had two problems with God. First of all, God appeared to be deaf. Lord, how long will I cry for help? Verse 2, and you will not hear? Are you deaf?
Must I shout? And the other problem is he thought that God was possibly blind. Verse 3: Why do you make me see iniquity? I see it, but do you? That was a charge that was leveled by God against the idols of the nations.
And the charge was that the idols are blind and deaf. And there are times in our own lives when it appears as if That's the way our God is too.
Now, in this book of Habakkuk, this prophet has a relationship with God where it's almost like a telephone. He talks and God answers, and then he talks again back and forth. It's a little different than most of the other prophets. Because he's not so much preaching as he is having a dialogue with the Almighty. But the Almighty is speaking to him.
And so we'd better listen.
So that's the prophet's prayer, but what happens next is deep. perplexity. Notice God answers him in verse 5 and says, Look among the nations and see, wonder, and be astounded, for I am doing a work in your day that you would not believe if told. Prime raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who marched through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings that are not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome.
Their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Notice the last part of verse 9. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff. At rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress. They pile up dirt and take it. They sweep like the wind and go on and on, guilty men whose own might is their God. Habakkuk, you don't think I'm doing anything? I am.
I'm raising up a very evil nation by the name of the Chaldeans or the Babylonians, as we know them better, and I am doing something that you wouldn't believe. They are going to come against you, and if you think that Judah has problems now, Look out. Because it's going to get worse. That's my answer to your prayer. What you might consider to be difficulty today is going to turn out to be disaster.
What you think are tough times are going to end up being tragic times. I'm doing something, Habakkuk. And you'd better realize what it is. Wow. How is the prophet going to respond to that?
That isn't exactly the answer that he was looking for. You read the text and you continue on, and it's almost as if, well, after that, I'm sorry I asked, quite frankly. I could have lived without this. We cry up to God for the United States of America and say, God, you raised up this nation. Please bring righteousness.
Please help us. And God says, Hey, I'm doing something. I'm doing something that is hidden, but it'll be revealed. I'm raising up a nation who's going to fly planes into some of your famous towers. I'm raising up a media that is going to assault your values.
through technology. I'm raising up mediums that will spread the world and the earth with your pornography. I'm raising up people that are going to understand that tough times are coming. As a matter of fact, I'm going to begin a recession. And a lot of people are going to lose their jobs.
That's the answer to your prayers. And we say, God. Did we hear you correctly? This is not. what we are praying for.
Well, Habakkuk, God bless him, he was just like we are, questioning God and wondering how in the world this could possibly be consistent with the God that he thought he knew. And he goes on now and he begins to dialogue with God. Look at his response in verse 12. You see, Habakkuk's problem is ours. He knows something about God and his attributes, and he understands that.
The problem is. He can't square that. with what he sees in the world. It's like our problem. God is love.
Oh really? God is love?
So there's a young mother that dies of cancer leaving children behind. I mean, it's the struggle of every human being who's ever come to believe in God. We can't put it together. And what Habakkuk is saying in the next few verses is: this seems to fly in the face of two of your attributes. The first attribute is holiness, or I should say, justice.
Verse 12. Are you not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O rock, have established them for reproof. You are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong.
Why do you idly, there's that word again, look at traitors and are silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? He's saying, This creates a bigger problem for me than I had when I began praying. God, it's inconsistent with your justice. Of course we're evil. as your people.
I've already admitted that, you know, that there is no justice and there's violence in the land and your law is not being followed, but we're not as bad as the Chaldeans, not as bad as the Babylonians. Of course we're evil as a nation. We have our evils. But you know, at least we don't kill people who convert from one religion to another. We don't condone the random terrorism of blowing up women and children randomly.
for political agendas. Yeah, we've got our problems, but We're not that. Bad. We're better than they are.
So how come you're going to use them to judge us? How come you are going to use some wicked judges in this land and raise them up? and justice is going to be perverted. God It doesn't make sense. It seems inconsistent with your justice, and it seems inconsistent with your holiness.
You are of purer eyes than to behold evil. How can you stand? This travesty of your law being maligned by us. As a nation, And how can you stand all this when you are of such pure eyes that you find it difficult to even look at evil, though you know that it exists? That's the question.
So Habakkuk. spills out his soul to God. And he pours it all out. and says, I don't understand.
Well, if you're following us, you know that so far we've looked at the prayer of Habakkuk, the perplexity of Habakkuk, and now the posture. I like it every once in a while when all of the sequences in my message actually begin with the same letter. And it worked out this time. I don't do that too often, but occasionally. The posture of the prophet.
Chapter 2, verse 1. I will take my stand at the watchpost and station myself on the tower and look out to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint. The imagery there is of a man who's on a rampart. He is looking into the distance to see if any enemy is coming into the city. And what he does is continue to stare because he wants to be the first who's going to see it.
And in the very same way, Habakkuk is saying, I'm going to stand here on tiptoes in reverence. I am going to stand here because whatever God says, I want to make sure that I get it right and I can hardly wait to hear. What he's going to say.
So God begins to speak, and God says, Habakkuk, I want you to write down the vision. And you say, Well, Did he do it? Yeah, that's this book. You'd say, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could stand on the wall of the city and see God and see what God is saying?
Well, just read the word. And when you read the word, you get what God is saying. You'll notice verse 2, the Lord answered me, write the vision, make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still, the vision awaits its appointed time. That's going to be critical in a moment.
Verse four? Behold, his soul, that is the soul of the unrighteous, is puffed up. It is not upright in him. But The righteous shall live by his faith.
Okay. Very famous verse, by the way. quoted three times in the New Testament. The righteous one shall live by faith. But I want to ask at this point, faith in who?
Well, we know that that is faith in God, but faith for what? Faith for what? Times are hard. We're in an economic crisis. There are those who experience sickness and poverty, and we are in a desperate state.
As a nation, morally and spiritually.
So, I want to know. what I should have faith in God for. Hang on to that. What follows now in the next chapter is not a direct answer to Habakkuk's question as much as it is that God is affirming judgment for all who are wicked. Of course, we need to simply point this out.
There are five woes that God gives in answer to Habakkuk's prayer and question. Verse 6, Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own. Verse 9, woe to him who gets evil gain for his house. To set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm. Woe to that person.
We're living at a time when there are many people involved in a mortgage crisis. And I understand that part of the problem is predatory lenders who knew right well that those people could not pay. Pay, but because they were making money, they signed them up anyway. Woe to those. Who gets evil gain for his house to set his nest on high?
Saying, as long as I'm okay, I don't care about anybody else. Woe to them. Verse 12, woe to him who builds a town with blood. Verse 14 says that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. Verse 15, woe to him who makes his neighbors drink.
All right. Verse 19, woe to him who says to a wooden thing, awake, woe to idolaters. What is God saying here? God is saying, back again, you have to get one thing clear, okay? You have to understand this.
It is not as if the violence in the land or the violence of the Chaldeans that they are going to bring upon the land. And they did. It is not as if Wicked people of any stripe, of any religion, of any country, are ever going to get by. I know what's going on, and my standard of judgment and holiness has not changed one iota. What you must understand, Habakkuk, is that I am on a different timetable.
than you are. It's a different timetable. Give me time. Did you notice that the vision talks about the time appointed? And we say to ourselves, I want justice and I want it today, preferably at least by tonight.
And God says, I have my own timetable. In fact, there's a verse in Ecclesiastes that can be roughly translated this: because the judgment against sin is not executed immediately. People think it is safe to do evil. I'm not getting caught, they say. I made my money.
Perhaps unrighteously, perhaps by cutting corners, but I got by, my friends got by, everybody's doing it. And God is doing nothing. God says to Habakkuk, I am doing something, and keep in mind I know exactly what is happening, and judgment will. Come. When Habakkuk hears about God's sovereignty and God's judgment, He says finally in verse 20, But the Lord is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth Keep silence before him. Earlier in the first chapter, he said, Oh God, how can you be silent? When all this is going on in the world, And now he begins to back up and to say, now it is my turn to be silent. As a matter of fact, it is the turn of the entire world to know that God is in his temple. And in His presence, our mouths have to be closed.
We might not understand his ways. But it's all under his control.
So notice that we have moved now. And we have moved from the idea of his prayer to his perplexity. to his position. And now I'd like to talk about his praise. We're going to go through the text, then I'm going to tell you what's going on, and then your life is going to be changed forever.
You'll never be the same. if you are open to what God has to say to you today through His Word. He goes on in chapter 3, and he prays that in wrath God would remember mercy, last part of verse 2, and then beginning at verse 3 and going on. He begins to talk about what God has done in the past. As he's contemplating the works of God, the splendor of the heavens, verse 4: his brightness was like the light, rays flashed from his hand.
Before him, verse 5, there went pestilence and plague followed at his heels. He scattered mountains. You can look through this yourself. and see the wonderful hyperbole that Habakkuk has regarding what God is doing. Most commentators believe that what he's really talking about is the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt.
You know, it talks about the seas and the rivers opening and the pestilence that came upon Egypt and so forth. And Habakkukir is lost in wonder when he looks at the past. and begins to think what God has done. And then we conclude, you'll notice it says, Verse 16 of chapter 3. I hear and my body trembles.
My lips quiver at the sound, rottenness enters into my bones, my legs tremble beneath me. Don't you feel that way when things go bad and when we read the headlines? Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon the people who have invaded us. I am willing now to have patience to let God do it on his schedule and his agenda and not mine.
So that's what he's emphasizing. And then this book ends with this unbelievable. almost surprising Burst of praise. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food. The flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herds in the stalls.
Yet will I 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 deers. He makes me tread on high places.
And then he ends with a note to Jerry Edmonds. It says right here. To Jerry Edmonds, the choir master with stringed instruments. That's right. It's right there.
Well, of course, I was simply making the point that the prophet ends by saying that that particular response. was sung. You know, oftentimes when you make a financial investment, you receive what is known as an ROI, that is to say a return on your investment.
Well, for the many of you who support the ministry of running to win, I'm holding in my hands a letter that we received from someone who listens to this program in Russian. This person says I'm listening to every episode of Running to Win. you not only cover a very wide range of topics, but also very deep immersion into these topics. there is such a detailed analysis of Scripture. This touched me very deeply, and I recommended to everyone the word of God with such analysis becomes closer To speak to us, don't stop.
Now, friend, I want you to know that we receive reports like this because of you. Would you consider what we call an endurance partner? An endurance partner is someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts. Of course, the amount that you give is entirely according to your discretion. But when we have endurance partners, we can more accurately predict.
As to how the funds are going to come in, And I want to promise you this. We do all that we can. To get the gospel of Jesus Christ to as many as possible. Very quickly, I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because this is what you can do. You can go to rtwoffer.com.
That's rtwoffer.com and when you're there you click on the Endurance Partner button. Or you can call us at 1-888-288-888-888-8. 218-9337. Right now, investigate. an endurance partnership.
Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com. Click on the Endurance Partner button or call us at 1-888-218-9337.
Okay. You can write to us at RunningTowin 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Running to win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. It's easy to feel trapped. Evildoers are having a field day, and the foundations of our nation are being torn apart.
Even so, the prophet has a burst of faith that God is still in charge, just as he is for the USA.
Next time on Running to Win, find out why we can have Habakkuk's burst of faith. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
