Thursday
Evening Bible Study
June 8,
2006
Introduction
What do you do when life takes a turn for the worse?
What do you do when it seems like God is silent?
What do you do when life doesn’t make sense?
Jesus gave us hints that there would be difficult times in our lives:
(Mat 7:24-27 NKJV)
"Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I
will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: {25} "and
the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house;
and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. {26} "But everyone
who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish
man who built his house on the sand: {27} "and the rain descended, the
floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great
was its fall."
The storms are going to come for everyone.
Everyone will go through difficult times. But will you survive them?
Jesus said if you based your life upon obeying God’s Word you would
survive.
(Mat 13:5-6 NKJV) "Some
fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately
sprang up because they had no depth of earth. {6} "But when the sun was up
they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.
(Mat 13:20-21 NKJV)
"But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears
the word and immediately receives it with joy; {21} "yet he has no root in
himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution
arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.
The seed sown on rocky soil didn’t survive because it didn’t have deep
roots.
The hot sun would fall on all the soils, but only the plants with deep
roots would survive.
What do you do to survive the tough times that are coming?
Habakkuk 1
:1 The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw.
Habakkuk – Chabaqquwq –
“embrace”
We believe the book was written somewhere before 607 BC.
It is a warning about the very soon coming Babylonian invasion of Judah.
Habakkuk was a contemporary of Jeremiah.
:2 O LORD, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear? Even cry out to
You, "Violence!" And You will not save.
Lesson
God is silent
There are times in life when it seems like we pray, but God isn’t
listening.
Sometimes the reason is because of sin in our life:
David wrote,
(Psa 66:18 NKJV)
If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear.
Saul went through a time when he didn’t hear anything from God.
Saul was used to being able to ask God questions and get
answers. He’d ask a priest, he’d get
answers from a prophet.
(1 Sam 28:3-7 NKJV) Now Samuel had died, and all Israel
had lamented for him and buried him in Ramah, in his own city. And Saul had put
the mediums and the spiritists out of the land. {4} Then the Philistines
gathered together, and came and encamped at Shunem. So Saul gathered all Israel
together, and they encamped at Gilboa. {5} When Saul saw the army of the
Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. {6} And when Saul
inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim
or by the prophets. {7} Then Saul said to his servants, "Find me a woman
who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her." And his
servants said to him, "In fact, there is a woman who is a medium at En
Dor."
Saul was praying, but God wasn’t answering.
Saul resorted to going to a witch to find answers. This was one of the things that ended up
costing him his life.
What was Saul’s problem?
He wasn’t right with God.
Sometimes God just waits before answering.
Jeremiah had just survived the Babylonian invasion. Then there was an assassination of the
governor put in place by the Babylonians.
The people weren’t sure what to do.
Should they run away?
(Jer 42:1-7 NKJV) Now all
the captains of the forces, Johanan the son of Kareah, Jezaniah the son of
Hoshaiah, and all the people, from the least to the greatest, came near {2} and
said to Jeremiah the prophet, "Please, let our petition be acceptable to
you, and pray for us to the LORD your God, for all this remnant (since we are
left but a few of many, as you can see), {3} "that the LORD your God may
show us the way in which we should walk and the thing we should do." {4}
Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, "I have heard. Indeed, I will pray
to the LORD your God according to your words, and it shall be, that whatever
the LORD answers you, I will declare it to you. I will keep nothing back from
you." {5} So they said to Jeremiah, "Let the LORD be a true and
faithful witness between us, if we do not do according to everything which the
LORD your God sends us by you. {6} "Whether it is pleasing or displeasing,
we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we send you, that it may be
well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God." {7} And it
happened after ten days that the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.
God had an answer.
But it wouldn’t come for almost two weeks.
I’m sure this wasn’t a big problem in Jeremiah’s day – but
for us, we can’t wait an extra minute for the microwave to finish cooking our
meal. We want answers immediately.
Sometimes you just have to learn to wait for the answer.
:3 Why do You show me iniquity, And cause me to see trouble? For plundering
and violence are before me; There is strife, and contention arises.
:4 Therefore the law is powerless, And justice never goes forth. For the
wicked surround the righteous; Therefore perverse judgment proceeds.
:5 "Look among the nations and watch; Be utterly astounded! For I will
work a work in your days Which you would not believe, though it were told you.
Lesson
New things
There’s a similar prophecy in Isaiah:
(Isa 43:18-19 NKJV) "Do
not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. {19} Behold, I
will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will
even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert.
Here God is speaking of doing a wonderful new work. Would we even recognize it if we saw it.
This week at the Pastor’s Conference we experienced a
fresh outpouring of God’s Spirit. On
Sunday night in our service I felt like God met us as we were waiting on Him,
worshipping and praying.
Some of us too often refer to the “good old days” and the
things that happened in the Jesus Movement.
Could it be that there might even better days ahead? Would we even see it?
But Habakkuk isn’t talking about a good thing coming.
He’s talking about the coming Babylonian invasion.
And it’s something that the people couldn’t even imagine
happening.
They felt that they were a righteous people and the
Babylonians were a wicked idolatrous people.
How could the righteous ever be defeated by a wicked
people?
I wonder about our own nation and the things that might be ahead of us.
Before Sept.
11, 2001, we could not have even imagined a terrorist threat on our
soil.
And I wonder if we haven’t grown a little more complacent.
What would you do if your world was shaken to the core?
:6 For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans, A bitter and hasty nation
Which marches through the breadth of the earth, To possess dwelling places that
are not theirs.
Chaldeans – the Babylonians
:7 They are terrible and dreadful; Their judgment and their dignity proceed
from themselves.
:8 Their horses also are swifter than leopards, And more fierce than
evening wolves. Their chargers charge ahead; Their cavalry comes from afar;
They fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.
evening wolves – extra hungry because they did not find anything to
eat all day, now it is night and they attack.
:9 "They all come for violence; Their faces are set like the east
wind. They gather captives like sand.
:10 They scoff at kings, And princes are scorned by them. They deride every
stronghold, For they heap up earthen mounds and seize it.
earthen mounds – building a siege mound to conquer a city, break
through the walls.
:11 Then his mind changes, and he transgresses; He commits offense,
Ascribing this power to his god."
The Babylonians thought they were strong because of their “gods”.
:12 Are You not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not
die. O LORD, You have appointed them for judgment; O Rock, You have marked them
for correction.
:13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And cannot look on
wickedness. Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, And hold Your
tongue when the wicked devours A person more righteous than he?
If God is pure, how could He dare to look upon evil?
I’ve heard people use this idea to say that God can’t dwell where there is
sin.
First – this is incorrect thinking.
God is gracious. God lives in you
and you still sin don’t you?
Second – this isn’t what the passage is saying. The passage is asking the question. And the answer that astounds Habakkuk is that
God is going to use a wicked nation (Babylon)
to judge a righteous nation (Judah).
You might say that the nation of Judah
wasn’t that righteous, but as wicked as they were, they were WAY more righteous
than Babylon.
Could God bring judgment on the United
States through a wicked terrorist
organization? I’m afraid the answer is
yes.
:14 Why do You make men like fish of the sea, Like creeping things that
have no ruler over them?
:15 They take up all of them with a hook, They catch them in their net, And
gather them in their dragnet. Therefore they rejoice and are glad.
A picture of the nation being caught in the net of Babylon.
:16 Therefore they sacrifice to their net, And burn incense to their
dragnet; Because by them their share is sumptuous And their food plentiful.
:17 Shall they therefore empty their net, And continue to slay nations
without pity?
Habakkuk 2
:1 I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, And watch to see
what He will say to me, And what I will answer when I am corrected.
Lesson
Waiting
Habakkuk says he will wait for God’s answer.
We need to cultivate patience.
:2 Then the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision And make it
plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.
:3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will
speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will
surely come, It will not tarry.
These warnings about Babylon
will be coming to pass. It’s going to
happen.
:4 "Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just
shall live by his faith.
live – chayah – to live, have life, remain alive, sustain life,
live prosperously, live for ever, be quickened, be alive, be restored to life
or health
This is the key verse to the whole book.
Lesson
Living by faith
This is an important verse in the Bible and is quoted several times in the
New Testament.
There are two aspects of what it means to “live” by faith.
1. Survival
This is the idea of “salvation”. You don’t “die” when you have faith, you
“live”. You won’t be killed by the
Babylonians, but you’ll “live” if you are a person of faith.
Paul uses this to stress that our eternal salvation is
also through “faith” and not by “works”.
(Rom 1:16-17 NKJV) For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,
for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew
first and also for the Greek. {17} For in it the righteousness of God is
revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by
faith."
(Gal 3:11 NKJV)
But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident,
for "the just shall live by faith."
2. Continuing
The idea here is how you choose to “live” your life, how
you continue to “live”.
The writer to the Hebrews uses the verse this way:
(Heb 10:35-39 NKJV) Therefore do not cast away your confidence,
which has great reward. {36} For you have need of endurance, so that after you
have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: {37} "For yet a
little while, And He who is coming will come and will not tarry. {38} Now the
just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in
him." {39} But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of
those who believe to the saving of the soul.
We don’t just receive salvation and live through faith.
We need to continue to live our lives by trusting God.
:5 "Indeed, because he transgresses by wine, He is a proud man, And he
does not stay at home. Because he enlarges his desire as hell, And he is like
death, and cannot be satisfied, He gathers to himself all nations And heaps up
for himself all peoples.
I believe that Habakkuk is going to start listing the various sins of the
nation of Judah,
the reasons for the coming judgment.
:6 "Will not all these take up a proverb against him, And a taunting
riddle against him, and say, 'Woe to him who increases What is not his; how
long? And to him who loads himself with many pledges'?
:7 Will not your creditors rise up suddenly? Will they not awaken who
oppress you? And you will become their booty.
:8 Because you have plundered many nations, All the remnant of the people shall
plunder you, Because of men's blood And the violence of the land and the city,
And of all who dwell in it.
:9 "Woe to him who covets evil gain for his house, That he may set his
nest on high, That he may be delivered from the power of disaster!
:10 You give shameful counsel to your house, Cutting off many peoples, And
sin against your soul.
:11 For the stone will cry out from the wall, And the beam from the timbers
will answer it.
:12 "Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, Who establishes a city
by iniquity!
:13 Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts That the peoples labor to feed
the fire, And nations weary themselves in vain?
God has a part in making life difficult for the person who is opposed to
Him.
:14 For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the
LORD, As the waters cover the sea.
This is a great prophecy of the Millennial
Kingdom – when Jesus returns. This specific prophecy is repeated in:
(Num 14:21
NKJV) "but truly, as I live, all
the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD;
(Psa 72:19 NKJV) And blessed
be His glorious name forever! And let the whole earth be filled with His glory.
Amen and Amen.
(Isa 6:3 NKJV) And one cried
to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth
is full of His glory!"
(Isa 11:9 NKJV) They shall
not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth shall be full of
the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea.
:15 "Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, Pressing him to your
bottle, Even to make him drunk, That you may look on his nakedness!
:16 You are filled with shame instead of glory. You also; drink! And be
exposed as uncircumcised! The cup of the Lord's right hand will be turned
against you, And utter shame will be on your glory.
:17 For the violence done to Lebanon
will cover you, And the plunder of beasts which made them afraid, Because of
men's blood And the violence of the land and the city, And of all who dwell in
it.
:18 "What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it, The
molded image, a teacher of lies, That the maker of its mold should trust in it,
To make mute idols?
:19 Woe to him who says to wood, 'Awake!' To silent stone, 'Arise! It shall
teach!' Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, Yet in it there is no
breath at all.
:20 But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence
before Him."
If we would only realize how great and awesome our God is.
He is still on the throne.
Sometimes we should just shut up and be quiet.
(Psa 33:8 NKJV) Let all the
earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
(Mat 10:28
NKJV) "And do not fear those who
kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to
destroy both soul and body in hell.
(1 Pet 1:17 NKJV)
And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according
to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in
fear;
Habakkuk 3
:1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, on Shigionoth.
Shigionoth – we don’t know what this means.
:2 O LORD, I have heard your speech and was afraid; O LORD, revive Your
work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make it known; In
wrath remember mercy.
I like that even in God’s wrath, Habakkuk is asking God to be merciful.
:3 God came from Teman, The Holy One from Mount
Paran. Selah His glory covered the
heavens, And the earth was full of His praise.
These next couple of verses could simply be relating a vision of God’s
coming, perhaps pictured in a storm.
Some of the language sounds like previous battles where God showed up.
But Teman and Paran could also be related to Edom,
and reminds me of another passage:
(Isa 63:1-4 NKJV) Who is this who comes from Edom, With dyed
garments from Bozrah, This One who is glorious in His apparel, Traveling in the
greatness of His strength?; "I who speak in righteousness, mighty to
save." {2} Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like one who treads
in the winepress? {3} "I have trodden the winepress alone, And from the
peoples no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, And trampled
them in My fury; Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, And I have stained
all My robes. {4} For the day of vengeance is in My heart, And the year of My
redeemed has come.
This is when Jesus comes back. He
will come first to rescue the Jewish people who have fled to the wilderness at Petra
and are about to be killed by the antichrist.
He will rescue them.
:4 His brightness was like the light; He had rays flashing from His hand,
And there His power was hidden.
:5 Before Him went pestilence, And fever followed at His feet.
:6 He stood and measured the earth; He looked and startled the nations. And
the everlasting mountains were scattered, The perpetual hills bowed. His ways
are everlasting.
:7 I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; The curtains of the land
of Midian trembled.
:8 O LORD, were You displeased with the rivers, Was Your anger against the
rivers, Was Your wrath against the sea, That You rode on Your horses, Your
chariots of salvation?
:9 Your bow was made quite ready; Oaths were sworn over Your arrows. Selah
You divided the earth with rivers.
:10 The mountains saw You and trembled; The overflowing of the water passed
by. The deep uttered its voice, And lifted its hands on high.
:11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation; At the light of Your
arrows they went, At the shining of Your glittering spear.
:12 You marched through the land in indignation; You trampled the nations
in anger.
:13 You went forth for the salvation of Your people, For salvation with
Your Anointed. You struck the head from the house of the wicked, By laying bare
from foundation to neck. Selah
:14 You thrust through with his own arrows The head of his villages. They
came out like a whirlwind to scatter me; Their rejoicing was like feasting on
the poor in secret.
:15 You walked through the sea with Your horses, Through the heap of great
waters.
:16 When I heard, my body trembled; My lips quivered at the voice;
Rottenness entered my bones; And I trembled in myself, That I might rest in the
day of trouble. When he comes up to the people, He will invade them with his
troops.
Habakkuk has been reminded of the terrible coming Babylonian invasion.
But now He has this tremendous vision of God that makes him want to faint.
:17 Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though
the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock
may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls;
One suggestion is that this might be referring to what would happen when
the Babylonians came through the land and tore it apart.
For us, there are going to be times in life when we just don’t see any
fruit. There are going to be times when
it seems that the enemy is stealing all our fruit.
For years at our old house we tried growing a grape vine. I almost felt like it would be a sign of the
health of our church. I remember one
year we actually had some good clusters going on the vine. But one day I went out to check on the grapes
and all that was left was empty stems – the birds got to them.
:18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
:19 The LORD God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer's feet, And
He will make me walk on my high hills. To the Chief Musician. With my stringed
instruments.
deer’s feet – gazelle’s feet, sure-footed confidence.
Lesson
Stability and joy come from trusting
God, not circumstances.
Too often we get our joy from the “fruit”, from the things that look like
good results.
So are we going to stop loving God when live gets uncomfortable?
We need to be sure that our stability isn’t based on circumstance, but on
God and God alone.
Illustration
On a balmy October afternoon in 1982, Badger Stadium in Madison,
Wisconsin, was packed. More than 60,000
die-hard University of Wisconsin
supporters were watching their football team take on the Michigan State
Spartans. It soon became obvious that MSU had the better team.
What seemed odd, however, as the score became more
lopsided, were the bursts of applause and shouts of joy from the Wisconsin
fans. How could they cheer when their team was losing? It turns out that seventy miles away the
Milwaukee Brewers were beating the St. Louis Cardinals in game three of the
1982 World Series.
Many of the fans in the stands were listening to portable
radios--and responding to something other than their immediate circumstances.
-- Greg
Asimakoupoulos
Illustration
While on a short-term missions trip, Pastor Jack Hinton
was leading worship at a leper colony on the island
of Tobago. A woman who had been
facing away from the pulpit turned around.
“It was the most hideous face I had ever seen,” Hinton
said. “The woman’s nose and ears were entirely gone. She lifted a fingerless
hand in the air and asked, ‘Can we sing Count Your Many Blessings?’ “
Overcome with emotion, Hinton left the service. He was
followed by a team member who said, “I guess you’ll never be able to sing that
song again.”
“Yes I will,” he replied, “but I’ll never sing it the same
way.”
-- The Pastor's
Update
Illustration
As the farthest reach of our love for each other is loving
our enemies, as the farthest reach of God's love for us is loving us at our
most unlovable and unlovely, so the farthest reach of our love for God is
loving him when in almost every way that matters we can neither see him nor
hear him ... when the worst of the wilderness for us is the fear that he has
forsaken us if indeed he exists at all.
-- Frederick Buechner
How do you survive when monstrous things happen?
We survive by trusting in God, despite our circumstances.
(2 Cor 4:16-18 NKJV)
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is
perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. {17} For our light
affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding
and eternal weight of glory, {18} while we do not look at the things which are
seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are
temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
The just shall live by his faith.