HABAKKUK Skit
Scene One
Habakkuk:
Lord, why is there so much violence all around me?
Why is there so much sin, injustice and lawlessness in Israel?
Evil men swallow up the righteous and you stand around and watch!
If you are good, why do you overlook evil?
If you are just, why don’t you save people?
God:
- Habakkuk, I will judge the wicked in Israel. Watch and see, for I will do something unbelievable.
- I am raising up Chaldeans in Babylon, a proud and bitter nation. They march through the earth and take what’s not theirs.
- They are terrible and they don’t care for anyone but themselves
- Even if they give their demon-god credit for this cruel victory, I am about to raise up the Chaldeans in Babylon to punish Israel.
Habakkuk:
O Lord my God, I want you to bring justice against the violence of your people but God, are you going to use the Babylonians for your judgment work?
You who cannot tolerate evil, are you going to give them the job of disciplining Israel, your people?
Babylon is far more wicked than Israel.
You can’t be serious!
Will you let this ungodly Babylonians butcher us, killing your people as if they’re nothing?
If you are so good, why do you overlook evil?
If you are just, why don’t you save your people?
Are you going to let this go on and on?
What’s God going to say to my questions?
I’m braced for the worst. I’ll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon.
I’ll wait to see what God says, how He will answer my complaint.
Scene Two
God:
- Write this down.
- Write what you see.
- Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read while on the run.
- This vision, this message is a witness pointing to what’s coming, what I’m going to do.
- Write this down.
- It is a vision for another time, even though it may seem like it is not happening, it is surely coming.
- It may look like it is slow in coming, wait.
- It doesn’t lie.
- It’s on its way. It will come right on time.
- I know about Babylon’s wickedness, from their slave labor to their violence, to the evil ways they make money.
- I am aware of more Babylonian evil than you know.
- And I do not just overlook evil, I see all of it and I will put an end to it.
- They will be judged for their evil.
- Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him;
- But the just shall live by his faith.
- Has not the LORD of Heaven’s Armies promised that the wealth of nations will turn to ashes?
- They work so hard, but all in vain!
- For as the waters fill the sea, the earth will be filled with an awareness of the glory of the LORD.
- For the righteous who waits on me, I will bring a day of deliverance.
- I will also rescue those who don’t overlook or join evil.
- Those who believe and trust in Me, that is the righteous person, they shall live by faith in hope because they believe that this vision will become real.
Scene Three
Habakkuk:
The LORD is in his holy Temple. Let all the earth be silent before him.
I will quietly wait, even if it means me and the righteous will have to face the evil doers, we would endure the judgement of the wicked in faith.
The righteous will rejoice even through suffering, because they know God will save them.
I know that you will not overlook the suffering, because you are good.
You are just, so I know that one day, you will save your people.
You will rescue your chosen people
You will save your anointed ones.
You will crush the heads of the wicked and strip their bones from head to toe.
I will wait quietly for that coming day
I will wait by faith for that vision to become reality.
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—
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
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.
What is the Aroma of Christ
God’s grace is the Aroma of Christ
- Pineapple in a junction, Jasmine in a garden
Through the prophet Ezekiel YHWH said to the house of Israel that they will be accepted as a sweet aroma, “and I will be hallowed in you before the Gentiles.”
Ezekiel 20:41 (NKJV) I will accept you as a sweet aroma when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered; and I will be hallowed in you before the Gentiles.
And later the Apostle Paul explained what that means to us in the New Covenant.
2 Corinthians 2:14 (NKJV) Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.
The knowledge of Him, we generally call science.
1 Kings 4:29,33 (NKJV) 29 And God gave Solomon wisdom and exceedingly great understanding, 33 Also he spoke of trees – he spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish.
Romans 1:20 (NKJV) His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,
This knowledge of Him, in the spiritual, is the Christ or God’s Messiah.
Habakkuk 2:14 (NKJV) For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
That requires faith in Jesus Christ, God’s Messiah, God Himself.
Habakkuk 2:4 NKJV “Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.
Without grace, unmerited favor, that faith is useless
Ephesians 2:8 NKJV For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
- The Grace that Christ offers is the source of the aroma,
- and through us the fragrance of His knowledge is diffused in every place.
The story of Habakkuk
- Habakkuk sees the darkness of the world as an invitation to have faith in God’s promise to one day set things right.
- Living with such faith means trusting that God loves this world and works to one day eradicate all evil forever.
Habakkuk’s complained to God
- Life in Israel is horrible
- The Torah is neglected, resulting in violence and injustice,
- This injustice is being tolerated by Israel’s corrupt leaders.
- Habakkuk is asking God to do something, but nothing seems to be changing.
Then God answers him.
- saying that he is aware of this deep corruption
- that he’s summoning the armies of Babylon to bring justice down on rebellious Israel
Habakkuk has a problem with this answer
- Babylon, he says, is even worse than Israel.
- They treat humans like animals, gathering them up like fish in a net.
God tells Habakkuk that He knows this, but to write down what He sees in a vision about an appointed time in the future
- It may seem slow in coming but it will come to pass.
- God also tells him that the “righteous person will live by their faith”
- This is the hope presented in his vision from God.
Even though Habakkuk had a problem with God’s solution, he concludes that it is better to trust God and His ultimate justice.
- Habakkuk 3:17-19 NKJV Though the fig tree may not blossom,
- Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
- The LORD God is my strength;
- With my stringed instruments.
He expresses hope for the future when God restores all humanity
This teaches us to put our faith in Jesus Christ
- He will come through
- He will return soon – there is proof
- Not blind faith, but with the knowledge of God.
Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. [9] “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
- Don’t lean on your own understanding of events, trust in the LORD with all your heart (Proverbs 3:5)
Psalm 131:1-3 NKJV LORD, my heart is not haughty, Nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, Nor with things too profound for me. [2] Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, Like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me. [3] O Israel, hope in the LORD From this time forth and forever.
Supernatural & Spiritual
We cannot have hope only by sticking to the natural, we need to be aware of a supernatural God that is involved in our lives.
That “something more” is important, eternity in our heat (Ecc. 3:11)
- Habakkuk says to the Lord “Renew your work in our days”.
Habakkuk 3:2 NIV LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.
- In the New Testament, we have been given the authority to do that “work”
Isaiah 45:11 And concerning the work of My hands, you command Me.
1 Corinthians 2:16 For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
We are called to walk worthy of the Lord
- diffusing the fragrance of His knowledge in every place
- to the lost and to the hurting, to give them hope
- The is the good news, the Gospel
- God’s grace is the Aroma of Christ
- The just shall live by his faith.
- Without grace, unmerited favor, that faith is useless
- Always trusting in the Lord who always leads us in triumph in Christ.
- We Go with the Gospel, the aroma of Christ, God’s GRACE.