1-2 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!”, and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? 3-4 Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralysed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted. Habakkuk 1:1-4 From the English Standard Version

Having reached a point in Jeremiah where a break was convenient, I thought I'd do a series on the short book of Habakkuk. It's not known exactly when he prophesied but it may have been shortly before Jeremiah's own call to serve as God’s prophet. What was it that was deeply troubling Habakkuk? (vs 1-2)

It's as if he felt like someone who was being attacked and mugged, but God was ignoring his cry for help. In fact, he puts it even more strongly and asks God how He can stand idly by while such violence was taking place! It's like he was accusing God of being AWOL – i.e. absent without official leave! I suspect that few of us who've grown up in the West will have accused God of such a thing, yet perhaps many of us may have wondered why God allows certain things to happen in our lives, or in the nation we live in. In the case of Habakkuk it was probably not that he was being personally assaulted, but it was what he saw happening in the streets of the country around him. What was it that particularly offended him? (vs 3-4)

It was that all justice had vanished and people who despised God's holy laws had taken control. The result was that good and honest people were being crushed by the lawless. The law courts were corrupt. And Habakkuk's problem was 'Lord, why are you not doing anything about all this?'

Before commenting on who was causing the violence, we can take a moment to think about the world we live in today. Have we not seen similar things appearing to grow more common and widespread? People like myself who are over 70 years of age can remember a time when it was safe to walk down a street, even late in the day. We can remember times when wrongdoers were more severely punished and prisons were less comfortable than some are today. We can remember when the 'average person on the street' (even if they were not saved) knew the difference between behaviour that was right or wrong. But much of that has vanished. God's standards are ridiculed by today's academics in the Universities, Parliaments and Law courts. The wicked surround the righteous, and justice is perverted.

At this point of Habakkuk's prophecy I’ve assumed that he is talking about what he saw in the streets of his own nation. It could be, though, that he was thinking of the violence the Assyrian armies had done to the people of Samaria, which had filtered down to Judea. But his words apply just as well to the corruption that had become common amongst the Israelites. In 2 Kings 17 we are told that the reason why the Northern Kingdom (Samaria) was given to destruction by the Assyrians was because, among other things, “they forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshipped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practised divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.” (2 Kings 17:16-17)

So as Habakkuk looked at the mess the world of his times was in, the violence been done by people who rejected God's righteous ways, he cried out to God and asked why He was not doing anything about it. One of the lovely things about the Bible is that it is so honest. It says things we would be too embarrassed to say in front of our friends, but may have thought about in our heart. It also shows us that God is not 'put off' when we pour out whatever anguish has gripped our heart, especially if that anguish has to do with righteousness. And, as we shall see as we go on in this book, God was not AWOL. His response would soon become evident. We can take encouragement from that. Our God is not absent; He is active in the world we live in.