Hi James and Ellen,
Habakkuk was a perplexed prophet who scribed in a short missive his burdened thoughts that would become an entry in the Biblical canon as one of the minor prophet books. Habakkuk was a Jew who your grandpaa thinks lived in the city of Jerusalem. The Israelite people group guys and gals had become known by this time as Jews. The gist of what is in Habakkuk’s prophetic journal’s three chapters suggests that he scribed his ‘book’ around 605 B.C. Jehoiakim was reigning in 605 B.C. as king over the guys and gals who lived in the land of Judah. The land of Judah was a small area of land where God’s specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group guys and gals, still occupied in the land that took on the name of Israel. Jehoiakim’s palace was in the city of Jerusalem. Jehoiakim was an iniquitous, debaucherous king. When violence and immorality escalated in the land of Judah and probably even more so in the city of Jerusalem, Habakkuk conveys in his ‘book’ that he is genuinely baffled why God does not put a halt to the sadistic crimes and sexual depravity that is going on in the city of Jerusalem. Because he has become so confounded per what he scribed by the carnage and degeneracy that was being perpetrated under Jehoiakim’s watch with no apparent consequences, Habakkuk directly asks God for enlightenment for why He was allowing the guck and yuk that was taking place among His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the land of Judah and probably more specifically in the city of Jerusalem. As a God-assigned planet Earth prophet for this exact moment, Habakkuk had an open hotline to God. God’s answer to Habakkuk’s very concerned question was that because of the repulsive, disobedient lifestyles that mocked His mandated worship and life norms that He gave to His specially chosen guys and gals – through Moses, over 800 years earlier, He would have Neo-Babylonian guys – who were at times called Chaldeans, do a number on His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the land of Judah. Habakkuk – because the city of Jerusalem was a crossroads city, knew that the Babylonian/Chaldean army – that was led by an emerging, ruthless power player whose names was Nebuchadnezzar, had just taken on and defeated the country of Egypt’s army in the city of Carchemish, Egypt. Because Habakkuk knew that Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian/Chaldean army were even more wicked than his compatriots who were living in the land of Judah, Habakkuk had a second very concerned question for God. Even though Habakkuk could see the apostasy that his people group of guys and gals had towards God, Habakkuk wanted to know from God why He as a righteous, holy God would send such an malevolent guy and his army to mete out the kind of tough love punishment that He had warned His specially chosen guys and gals – the Jews, over and over that He would do if . . . God’s response to Habakkuk’s second concerned question is that he was not to be preoccupied with what he knows and is perceiving today – that He is going to use the pride card down the road to justify His doing to the Babylonian/Chaldean army much like He is going to have them do to His specially chosen guys and gals who are living in the land of Judah.
As a God-designated prophet spokesman to the Israelite people guys and gals – the Jews, who were living in the land of Judah, at a time when their lives were being driven by egos that promoted self-indulging, Habakkuk had a birds eye view of the final throes of his people group guys and gals as they wallowed in their self-made narcissistic morass. Because God called Habakkuk to be one of His planet Earth prophet spokesmen, Habakkuk had an intimate dialoguing relationship with God. Habakkuk’s life mores became God-centered. Because of Habakkuk having had an ongoing, personal relationship with God, God used Habakkuk to pass on through his ‘book’ to His especially elected guys, gals and kids truth life axioms. The first truism that God has Habakkuk identify as being an absolute is that faithfulness to Him will always be directly linked to how focused the thoughts and actions of a Christ-follower guy, gal or kid will be towards Him. A second truism that God had Habakkuk identify as being an absolute is that a Christ-follower guy, gal or kid is to trust in Him no matter what comes his or her way. The direct link that Habakkuk had with God cannot be discounted in any way that God – when He – as God the Spirit, prompts a guy, gal or kid to internalize why God – as God the Son, died for him or her – leading him or her to go to and through His faith/grace door and into the Christ-follower family of guys, gals and kids, embeds His presence in him or her so that he or she can speak directly with Him just as Habakkuk did and for Him to answer any question just as He did for Habakkuk.
If Habakkuk was living in Washington, D.C., today, what do you think would be his take on what has taken place there over the last 50 years? How do you think that Habakkuk would have responded to the Supreme Court’s decisions that God’s Living Words are not to be read and that God is not to be publicly spoken with in a school and that an embryo is potentially a life threatening disease for a woman and that it can be aborted? Your grandpaa thinks that Habakkuk would be a lot more concerned about and asking God questions about abiblical communities who call themselves churches who give passes to their congregants’ paganistic practices, accept as reality a dualistic mindset that there is more than one way to heaven and abdicate the caring of the oppressed and sick to the government to do.
Habakkuk