Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Christian, pastor, and teacher, who lived in Germany in the 1930s & 40s. (By the way, speaking of Bonhoeffer, in North Carolina we had a ministry to the deaf, and each service we had a translator who sat up in the platform and signed as I preached. One of the translators, a new member of our church, kidded me after one of the services, and said: “Every time I translate for you, you bring up Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and I have to spell his whole name!”)

But Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in a very difficult world: his life and ministry would take place in Nazi Germany under the dictatorship of Adolph Hitler. Many people have asked: “What happened to the Christians, the pastors and churches in Germany under Hitler?” Well, as always, the responses of Christians, pastors, and churches varied: 

— Some gave up their faith in view of the persecution and suffering they saw take place during World War II. 

— Other German Christians lined themselves up with Hitler, saying we need his “masculine, positive Christianity” that will strengthen the German church. They went along with Hitler’s program against the Jews. 

— Then there were those, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a few others, who refused to go along with Hitler, and had to go “underground” during the reign of the Nazis in Germany. These Christians lost everything in this world during the War, the bombing, the persecution that Hitler brought on them — and many of them, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, gave their lives for the stand they took for Christ and His word. 

So in those difficult days, when Germany went through fiery trials, there were some very different responses: 

— Some abandoned their faith

— Some compromised their faith

— And some held fast to their faith, even as everything they knew of their homeland, crumbled around them.

Is that just a history lesson? No it isn’t. Because we too are living today in a land that is changing — and not always for the better. We too live in a land that may very soon experience some fiery trials. So WE TOO may be facing some very real questions: how will WE respond to the changes we see around us? How will WE respond to the fiery trials that we go through? Honestly, even in this room, we will most likely fall into the same three camps that the Christians in Nazi Germany did:

— Some of us will abandon what we professed as our “faith” during those times.

— Others of us will compromise with the new order of things that will arise, 

— And some of us will be like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and hold fast to the faith we have been taught, no matter what — even at the cost of our worldly possessions, and even our lives.

The question for each of us personally is: which of these will be MY response?

The Book of Habakkuk, which we will be studying through the next several weeks, addresses these very issues. If you don’t know that much about the Book of Habakkuk, don’t feel “too” badly, because you’re not alone. 

Some of you may remember the old evangelistic tracts written by Jack Chick; they were notable for the cartoons that illustrated them, by their humor, and their dramatic nature. Some were definitely better than others. But one that I remember was written to Christians, encouraging them to read the Bible, and not be ignorant about it. One page of the tract showed a cartoon of a person standing by a Biblical-looking character, and underneath the picture the text says: “Won’t you feel silly when you talk with Habakkuk in the next life and you have to say to him, ‘Uh, no. I didn’t read your book; I didn’t even know it was in the Bible!”

Unfortunately, that’s probably true for a lot of God’s people! Some time ago I was awake in the middle of the night, and so instead of “counting sheep,” I began going through the books of the Bible, one at a time, and either recalling what its general content was, or a verse I had memorized from each book. I was going through the Old Testament pretty well — until I came to the Book of Habakkuk. I could not recall one particular item from the book — not a verse, not a concept, or an idea from that book. It  bothered me, that as a pastor I couldn’t think of anything from a whole book in the Bible, so at about 2:00 in the morning, I opened my Bible and began to read Habakkuk. And what you will find as you read it, is that this book is a treasure! It is full of words from God which are SO applicable and needed today. Several of the most famous verses in all scripture are found here, as well as some great lessons about our attitude and walk with God that we really need. So here’s this book that most of us know nothing about — and yet in our ignorance of it, we are missing so much that God has there for us. So today, we’re going to begin what will probably be a couple month study through the Book of Habakkuk. Today we’ll  begin with just a little bit of an introduction/overview/CONTEXT of the Book— especially since so many of us are probably unfamiliar with it. And then next week we will start with Chapter 1 and go through the book together, and see what God has for us here. 

So let’s look at some basics, like:  How do you SAY “Habakkuk”? 

The best pronunciation is “Hu-BACK-uk.” Some say “HAB-uh-kuk”, but the Hebrew is literally, “He-BAWK-Kook”, so I think the former pronunciation is best in English, “Habakkuk” (I will say, however, that the way you pronounce this book will not affect your eternal destiny one way or the other!) 

How do you SPELL “Habakkuk”? Some of y’all may post something on Facebook: “My pastor starting preaching today out of Hkub…..” or whatever! So let’s review how to spell it: 

— Habakkuk has 8 letters: H-A-B-A-K-K-U-K. 

— You can divide into 2 halves of 4 letters each, if it helps you: HABA-KKUK. Or to divide it the way the Hebrews would, into 5 letters and 3 letters: Habak-Kuk. 

— one key to help you spell it right: there is only ONE set of double letters in the word: only the two “K’s” in the middle are doubled — NOT the two “b’s”; and not the two “k’s” at the end. ONLY the two “k’s” in the middle are doubled. H-A-B-A-K-K-U-K. Let’s all spell it together: “H-A-B-A-K-K-U-K”! 

Now this may be the most crucial question of all! Where do we FIND this book? Some books are easy to find: like Genesis, or Matthew, the first books in the Old or New Testaments, Or when you want to find Psalms, most people just turn towards the middle! But where in the world is Habakkuk? 

First of all, we need to know that Habakkuk is one considered one of the “Minor Prophets.” This is as opposed to the so-called “Major Prophets,” which are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. What is the difference? (One of our ladies asked me recently, what makes a book a “Minor Prophet?”) Really the only difference is the LENGTH of the books. The “Major Prophets” are relatively long in length: Isaiah has 66 chapters, Jeremiah has 52, Ezekiel has 48, and Daniel has 12.  But the 12 books known as the “Minor Prophets” are shorter in length. Jonah has only 4 chapters and is only about 100 verses long. Our son Michael & I memorized that book when he was little; it is very brief. Most of the “Minor Prophets” are similarly brief. This Book of Habakkuk is also very short; it has only 3 chapters, and 56 total verses. Several CHAPTERS of Luke or John are longer than the whole BOOK of Habakkuk! So it is really just for their length, these 12 books are called the “Minor Prophets.” But only their length is minor, not their message, as we will see!

So Habakkuk is one of the 12 “Minor Prophets.” And these 12 Minor Prophets are found at the very END of the Old Testament. After the Major Prophets end with Ezekiel and Daniel, the 12 Minor Prophets begin. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, HABAKKUK, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. I think probably most people who recognize a book as one of the Minor Prophets just turn to the end of the Old Testament and flip through the books for a second until they find it! I think we can do better than that, though We should know where these books are!

I did a couple of things to help me memorize them — do not know if they will help you or not, but here is what I did: there are 12 Minor Prophets. I broke them up into groups of 5, 2 and 5. | just memorized the first letters of the first 5 books: H-J-A-O-J (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, then the two “middle books”, #6 & 7, are like the two middle letters of the alphabet: Micah/Nahum (m/n)! Then the last 5 are “H-Z-H-Z” (Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah) — and then everyone knows the last book of the Old Testament is … Malachi!  So the first 5: “HJAOJ” (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah); then the middle two: Micah, Nahum (like the two middle letters of the alphabet), and then H-Z-H-Z (Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah) and … Malachi!  If that helps you any, that’s good, if it thoroughly confused You, I apologize for that! You may find an easier way to do it, but I’d encourage you to do it one way or another. Don’t be ignorant of these “Minor Prophets.” As I said, they may be “minor” in length, but they are not “minor” in message. 

So … let’s look at this book overall for just a minute:

Habakkuk lived and served about 600 years before Christ. He lived in the nation of Judah, among the people God had chosen for Himself, but they had fallen away from Him and worshiped idols. As we saw in Sunday school in our study of Jeremiah, God gave them opportunity after opportunity to repent, over hundreds of years, but they would not. So now, God was about to bring the Babylonians to invade them, judge them for their sin, destroy Jerusalem, and carry many of the people off into captivity. Habakkuk wrote just before this was going to take place, and much of this book talks about Judah’s sin, God’s holiness, the judgment that was about to come on them — and how a person of God like Habakkuk would respond to what was about to happen. 

Let’s look at THE MESSAGE:

WHY SHOULD WE STUDY HABAKKUK? As I mentioned earlier, because the message of this book is so applicable for us today. We too live in a nation that God has chosen and blessed in so many ways; AND we too live in a nation that has turned away from God in faith and practice like Judah did. Unfortunately, there are SO many examples of this:

Just recently in Austin, a 4th grade teacher read to her class the book Call Me Max, “which is aimed at children in early elementary school, tells the story of a child discovering his identity as a transgender boy.” This kind of thing is happening more and more all over our country. That “male and female God created them” is one of THE most fundamental, simple truths in all of creation. If you reject that, you have no foundation for right or wrong or any objective truth whatsoever. And unfortunately that is the road down which our country is heading. 

I read yesterday that the California legislature just passed a bill, that if a parent does not support their child’s desire to change their sex, their child can be taken away from them. Demonic madness is taking over whole segments of American society today! 

The only hope we have as a nation is a heaven-sent revival, and a return to the standards of God’s word. Unless that happens, God’s judgment will come upon us as certainly as it did upon Israel in 586 B.C. Habakkuk is a voice from the past that speaks to us as if it were addressing the headlines of today’s newspapers! We NEED this message. It is VERY applicable to us, and it addresses some of the most crucial needs of our days:

— First of all, it tells us how to be saved. One of THE single most important verses regarding salvation in all of the word of God is found in Habakkuk:  Chapter 2:4, “But the righteous shall live by faith.” This is one of the most important doctrines in all of scripture: the Doctrine of Justification by Faith. We know that Jesus died on the cross and paid for our sins. We can’t pay for our sins; Jesus did. But HOW does what Jesus did on the cross, get applied to us? It happensby faith, the Bible says, “It is by grace that you are saved, by faith”, Ephesians 2:8 says. We are NOT saved by what we do; and we are also not saved partially by what WE do, and partially by what Jesus did; and we are also not saved by “ingesting” the elements of the Lord’s Supper during communion, or by getting baptized. We receive the benefits of what Jesus did for us on the cross by FAITH; by putting our trust in what He did for us. But the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith has its roots in the Old Testament, especially in verses like here in Habakkuk 2:4, “But the righteous will live by faith.” This is a crucial, cornerstone verse. Paul quotes it in both Romans and Galatians in the New Testament, as he proclaims that we are not saved by the good things we do, but by FAITH in what Jesus did: “The wages of sin is death” – “but the righteous will live by faith” in what Jesus did for us on the cross. 

God used this very verse from Habakkuk to speak to the heart of Martin Luther in the 1500s, when he was struggling with how he could ever be forgiven for his sin; and God showed him this verse — we’ll look at it in more depth in a few weeks — but this verse gave him peace, that he was justified by faith — and it sparked the Protestant Reformation, with its cry: “Sola Fide” – “faith alone” saves!  And ever since that time, Protestant Christians have proclaimed the vital doctrine of Justification by Faith, not by works. As I said, we’ll look more closely at that verse in a few weeks. But if you’re here today, don’t wait a couple of weeks. Understand this today: you don’t need to try to do a whole “laundry list” of good things to save yourself and get to heaven; You can be saved by turning from your sins and putting your trust in what Jesus did for you on the cross, ALONE. Say to Him, “Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling.” Ask Him right now: “Save me, because of what JESUS did for me,” and you can be saved by faith, right now!  

Secondly, Habakkuk tells us not only how to be saved, but it addresses several other spiritual issues which are of key importance today: 

— It asks the hard questions — some of the same difficult questions that we ask: why do we call and God doesn’t seem to answer (1:2)? Why does He not seem to judge the wicked, who look like they are prospering? (1:13)  What’s going to happen to us if our nation experiences God’s judgment? Habakkuk wrestled with God about all of these things, and he is a good model for us to keep looking to God as we ask those same kinds of questions.

— Then Habakkuk also proclaims the importance of holiness. Habakkuk 1:13 says “Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You cannot look on wickedness with favor.” He reminds us that God is holy. This speaks right to the contemporary misunderstanding that personal holiness is not important, and the false belief that we can enjoy close fellowship with God while we commit flagrant sins. Habakkuk reminds us: NO WE CAN’T! God is a HOLY God. There are several references to God’s holiness in this book:

— In 1:12 He calls God the “Holy One”

— In 1:13 He refers to how His eyes are “too pure to approve evil”

— And at the end of Chapter 2, in :20, he speaks those famous words, “The Lord is in His Holy Temple, let all the earth keep silent before Him” – did you know those words were here in Habakkuk? This book speaks repeatedly about the holiness of God — a message that we need to be reminded of today! The God of the Bible is not a God who “winks” at sin; He is a “holy, holy, holy” God, who will bring our sin to account, if we don’t repent of it and bring it to Him for forgiveness.

— Habakkuk also addresses a number of specific sins of the people which caused God to bring His judgment on them. Many of these sins are the same ones people are engaged in today: lack of justice (1:4), pride (2:4), taking advantage of people, cheating people in business (2:6-11), making idols (putting other things ahead of God 2:18-18) and more. Habakkuk says judgment is coming upon their nation because they practice such things – so what makes us think that WE won’t experience His judgment when our nation is found doing the very same things?  No, we can be sure: if America does not repent, God will judge us, as surely as He judged Judah.  We need the message of Habakkuk today! 

— But Habakkuk also holds out hope to the follower of the Lord. In the last chapter, he prays for revival: “Lord, revive Your work” he cries out — and that should be our cry as well! And in the very last part of Habakkuk 3, he trembles at the thought of the judgment that is coming upon his country, but he says that despite all the difficulties that are about to come, he can still find his joy in his relationship with the Lord. Christians today need to do today, too. We ALL come into difficult times, just like Judah did. Some of us might say today: “I’m in difficult times right NOW!” Others of us may not be right now, but we will be. And it may very well be that the entire nation of us will experience a time of distress if God’s judgment comes soon. So what do we need to do? The most important need each of us has is to deepen our relationship with the Lord, so that we find our real joy in HIM, not in our possessions or “success” or worldly approval or anything else that may very soon be taken away. 

So the lessons of Habakkuk may be thousands of years old, but they are more relevant for us than today’s headlines. Like all scripture, it was written of old, but it speaks to our deepest needs today. 

Some years ago, one of the men in the church I was serving was working on a huge piece of machinery at their plant, and when they opened it up, they found that a scripture had been inscribed on the inside of it when it had been built years before. What was amazing was that that particular scripture “just happened” to be the very same one God had used to speak to his heart in a special way, just a few days before, at a crucial moment in his life.  That scripture had been written in that machinery years before — and yet in the Providence of God, it was there to speak to him about his own life right then. God’s word from the past, spoke to his need in the present.

AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HABAKKUK DOES FOR US NOW — this Book is “a word from the past,” but God will use it to speak to our needs, right now, in the present. God does that with all scripture, but in the weeks ahead we’ll see how He especially does that with this little Book of Habakkuk. 

Some theologians may call Habakkuk a “Minor Prophet” — but the message God has has for us in this book is not “minor”; it is MAJOR!  We need the truths found in this book. I hope you’ll take some time to read through it yourself over the next weeks. And as you do, watch for a special word that God will give YOU in it. This word of God from the past, has a special message from Him for YOUR life, today! 

INVITATION

— Are you asking God some hard questions about what is going on in your life/family/circumstances today? Habakkuk shows us we can talk honestly with God about them.

— Have you been thinking God doesn’t care about your sin? This book shows that He does. Confess your sin to Him now and ask Him to help you change that area of your life.

— Are you concerned about what is going on in our country these days? Spend some time in prayer for God to work in our land right now.

— Most importantly, do you know today that no matter what happens in your job, or health, or our economy, that you know the Lord and that you are going to be with Him in glory? You can, if you’ll put your faith in Jesus as your Savior today. Ask Him to save you right now …