The Righteous Shall Live by Faith: A Lesson from Habakkuk

Why do we always read our New Testament and as Christians tend to neglect the study of the precious Old Testament; this is something that over the past couple years the Lord has convicted me of because of verses like 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” What I have come to find is such rich truth and blessed promises that are revealed all throughout the OT as well as encouraging and exhorting words that we all can grow from. Recently I came across the challenge of understanding the book of Habakkuk and what it was really all about and practically what on earth I was to take from it. In this short time of study, because the book is so small, I have seen the powerful Almighty one face to face.

The prophet Habakkuk wrote this book as a conversation with God and comes to the realization that regardless of His confusion about God’s plans for the nation of Israel, God’s people, He would believe the sovereign power of God and cling tightly to Him. Habakkuk was giving this prophecy during the end of the Assyrian empire and what was going on with all the evil in that time was causing Habakkuk to wonder why on earth God would allow all this evil to go on. The Truth of the entire passage is as John MacArthur puts, “the righteous will live by faith”.

I have learned so much from this short little book, so much that I pray will radically begin to change my walk with the Lord. How often do we find ourselves looking around at the wicked wondering why they prosper? Or maybe looking around at this "crazy" world and wondering how long God is going to let things go on for, or why He "allows" certain officials to take office, or governments to torture their people, or Christians to be persecuted and suffer for His name sake? How often do we cry out for justice and get no response? Or look at our circumstances and wonder how He could be working it all for the good of our lives and the glory of His name? I know I have found myself in this situation many times wondering, and yet what should our response be in these moments of confusion and bewilderment but to stop, to as Psalm 46:10 says to "Be still and KNOW that HE is God!"

Instead of just standing at looking at the problem head on we can take a lesson from Habakkuk and rather stand on solid ground by giving up on what we don't know and starting to remember what we do know. Habakkuk thought as JMac puts it, "Now wait a minute, my God is an eternal God, He's a righteous God, He can't stand sin, He's got to punish sin, He never does wrong, He always does right," and He began to tie down in his own mind that which he knew about God. Once he had established what he did know about God then it was much easier to cope with what he didn't know about the events around him".

I love Habakkuk's response to God in chapter 3, it shows simply states this "God I don't understand everything, I don't understand why You let Israel go, I don't understand why You're bringing the Chaldeans to judge them, I don't understand why You're going to wait to judge the Chaldeans after that, I don't understand any of the things, but I know one thing God, You're the God that is righteous, You're the God that's eternal, You're the God that never makes a mistake, You're the God that hates sin, You're the God that never does anything wrong and I'll stand on that and praise You anyhow" (John MacArthur).


"Although the fig tree shall not blossom, see, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail and the field shall yield no food, the flock shall be cut off from the fold, there shall be no herd in the stalls, and you just hear that, that's one of the greatest love songs I've ever heard, and that's exactly what it is. Can't you hear it here? The Lord, He is saying in verse 18, "Yet will I rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation." Isn't that fantastic?- Here we see Habakkuk recognize and acknowledge the fact that even if all of nature falls apart, if everything is going wrong in the world, He will still choose to love God and praise Him for who He is.

He says God I don't care of all of nature goes crazy. I don't care if nothing's right in the whole world, I'm going to love You and rejoice in You and translated that's praise the Lord anyhow. I've learned to stand back from my circumstances and just get blessed about the God that I know. What an exciting truth. It truly is an amazing lesson and example for us to look to. He proved that the answer in our chaos is to stand still and look into the face of the Sovereign One and trust that He is in control and working everything together in His perfect plan of redemption. Humbly trusting and prayerfully waiting on His perfect timing, it is here that we see God more and more and fall more in love with Him and become unshakeable. May we all take a look at the prophet Habakkuk and choose to trust, for the righteous shall live by faith!