1. "They may have heard from the pulpit that Christians trust in God, but how could they trust in God when God's people treated them like this? I imagine they left that night thinking, if this is the way their God is, then I want nothing to do with Him."

2. "Either God is good but impotent, or God is in control but not good. Either way, we're left asking, how can we trust God when He seems to do nothing about the evil that is around us?"

3. "I think sometimes the easiest thing for us to pray about are those things that are related to our own comfort, aren't they? So things that fill up our prayer list are things like that promotion at work, that my day would go well, or that my cold would get better, or that my kids would be obedient."

4. "If we have come to know the love of God, if you and I have come to know the grace of God, then we cannot be indifferent to the violence or the injustice that is going on around us."

5. "That's not to say a church will be perfect or that a church will never have conflict. I think we, as every church, is full of broken people, broken people who are sinners. But what you should expect, what you should see is a marked difference compared to the rest of the world. You should see a humility where because we are Christians, we're quick to admit our wrong."

6. "Friends, know this. Every injustice that you have witnessed from afar, every wrong that's been overlooked, every evil that you have tasted and been a victim of, will be punished by a God who is unwaveringly committed to doing what is good. And one day, he will write every wrong."

7. "Fill a room up with people who trust only themselves and what happens? You're going to end up with strife. You're going to end up with conflict. You're going to end up with injustice. Because people who make decisions with only their own interest in mind going to end up with conflict."

8. "I think the reason we hate injustice and pain and suffering is not only because it hurts, but it's because we weren't built for it. God didn't make us for that. It wasn't meant to be that way."

9. "When God does the unexpected, we're reminded that we are not God. And choosing to follow Jesus is just that, recognizing that he's God and we're not choosing to follow Jesus is a decision ultimately to trust in the Lord with all our heart."

10. "When Christ died, it seemed like for a moment that evil triumphed. But when God raised him from the dead, it became crystal clear that our sovereign God is able to take the greatest evil and from that bring the greatest good."

Observation Questions

1. In Habakkuk 1:2, what two things does the prophet cry out to God for? What does this reveal about his heart for God's people?

2. Looking at Habakkuk 1:3-4, what specific problems does Habakkuk observe in his society? How does he describe the state of justice?

3. In Habakkuk 1:5, how does God tell His people to respond as He prepares to act? What specific words does He use?

4. Reading Habakkuk 1:6-7, how does God describe the Babylonians? What characteristics stand out about this nation?

5. According to Habakkuk 1:8-10, what makes the Babylonian army so formidable? List the specific descriptions used.

6. In Habakkuk 1:11, what fundamental spiritual problem does God identify in the Babylonians? How does this relate to their behavior?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why do you think God chose to use such a wicked nation (Babylon) as His instrument of judgment? What does this teach us about God's sovereignty?

2. How does Habakkuk's prayer differ from many of our typical prayers today? What can we learn from his example?

3. What does God's detailed description of the coming judgment teach us about His character and His relationship with His people?

4. How does Habakkuk's struggle with God's justice relate to Jesus' death on the cross? What parallels do you see?

5. What does this passage reveal about the relationship between God's timing and human expectations? How might this inform our own waiting on God?

Application Questions

1. When was the last time you saw injustice in your community and felt compelled to pray about it? What specific actions did you take?

2. Think about a time when God answered your prayers in an unexpected way. How did that experience affect your trust in Him?

3. In what area of your life are you currently struggling to wait for God's justice? What makes waiting particularly difficult in this situation?

4. How has watching hypocrisy in the church affected your own faith journey? What steps can you take to ensure you don't become a stumbling block to others?

5. What specific injustice in our world today breaks your heart the most? What practical steps could you take this week to address it while trusting God for ultimate justice?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Psalm 73 - A psalm wrestling with the prosperity of the wicked and the challenge of trusting God's justice. This passage parallels Habakkuk's struggle to understand God's ways.

2. Romans 8:18-26 - Paul's teaching about present suffering and future glory, showing how the Spirit helps us in our weakness as we wait for God's final justice.

3. James 5:7-11 - Instructions about patient endurance while waiting for the Lord's coming, using the farmer waiting for harvest as an illustration of faithful waiting.

4. Isaiah 55:8-9 - God's declaration that His ways and thoughts are higher than ours, helping us understand why His methods often surprise us, just as they did Habakkuk.

Sermon Main Topics

I. A Personal Story of Church Conflict and Its Impact

II. The Struggle to Trust God in a Broken World

III. We Should Pray for Justice (Habakkuk 1:2-4)

IV. We Should Wait for God’s Justice (Habakkuk 1:5-11)

V. The Cross as the Ultimate Revelation of God’s Justice and Trustworthiness

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Detailed Sermon Outline

I was only 12 years old at the time, but it was a difficult evening to forget. Growing up in Nebraska, my family had attended a small town church for about two years when during one evening service, things just took a turn for the worse. One of the families in the community had started visiting our church, and they were exploring Christianity. But as they came and started visiting our church, they were received with kind of mixed reviews. Some in the church loved the fact that this family had come and were exploring the claims of Christianity.

But not everyone was so happy. There were others in the church that because of this family's reputation in the community, they were kind of skeptical about this family, and they would kind of treat them with sometimes what seemed to be contempt. So you can imagine the tension kind of growing between this family and the church over time until this night when it all came loose. The father stood up during the evening service and in the middle of the service began yelling at the pastor about his frustration with the way that people had been treating him in the church. When one of the accusations turned towards the pastor himself, one of the church leaders stood up in opposition.

And I can remember him walking up onto the platform where the pastor stood, and he invited everyone, if you're with a pastor, come up and stand with me and him on the platform.

And sure enough, some people did. It was horribly uncomfortable because as soon as people started coming up on the platform, there's like a clear dividing line between some people in the church and others. So some stood with the pastor on the platform. Some just sat there weeping. Others sat frozen in the pew, shocked.

There was a yelling match going on in the evening service.

As I reflect on it now, I think one of the hardest parts was the effect that it had on this family who had come to the church to find out who Jesus was, to find out what he taught, what he was all about, what it meant to follow.

They may have heard from the pulpit that Christians trust in God, but how could they trust in God when God's people treated them like this? I imagine they left that night thinking, if this is the way their God is, then I want nothing to do with Him.

At the same time, our ability to trust God is not only under attack from what we sometimes see going on in the churches around us, from those who claim to be followers of Christ. Our ability to trust God is also tested by what we see going on in the world around us. Just turn on the news tonight, and before long you will be bombarded with headlines about suffering and injustice and violence. And I think the closer that that strikes home to us. The more questions that we're left with, you know, why did this happen?

Where is God in all of this? How long until this is over?

And if we accept that there's a God when we are confronted with evil, it's tempting to land of one of two conclusions. Either God is good, but he's impotent, or God is in control, but he isn't good.

Either way, we're left asking, how can we trust God when He seems to do nothing about the evil that is around us? How can we trust God when our world seems to be crashing down around us and the one who could do something to fix it isn't?

Have you ever felt that way? Like you're crying out to a God who doesn't seem to be listening to you, or that you're bothered by the evil around you, but you're just simply confused by what God is doing or by what he isn't doing?

Well, if so, you find yourself in good company this morning with an Old Testament prophet that we have a chance to come together and listen into as we consider what he has to say to us. So if you have a Bible, I invite you to open up with me to the Book of Habakkuk. Now, some of you may be thinking, habakkuk, what is that in the Bible somewhere? Well, it may not be the most familiar book. It may not be the one that you immediately think that I want to read when you sit down for your quiet time.

But friends, Habakkuk is a wonderful part of God's word. It's very helpful for us as we seek to follow Him. So I invite you to turn with me to the Book of Habakkuk. If you're looking at the red Bible in front of you, it's found on page 929. 929.

As we go through this book together throughout our study, I pray that God would help us as his people to trust in him even in the midst of difficult times. Let's start in Habakkuk 1, starting in verse 1. Big numbers being the chapter, the chapter. The smaller numbers in Habakkuk being the verse numbers as we read through it, the oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received. All right, let's just stop there for a second.

The Book of Habakkuk is one of the 12 minor prophets in the Bible. And when we refer to them as minor prophets, we're not talking about the level of importance. The minor is just a reference to the. The brevity of the book itself. Now, Habakkuk, we don't know a lot about Habakkuk himself.

We learn here in verse one that he is a prophet, so we know that he is receiving a message or an oracle from God, and then he speaks on behalf of God to his people. But we don't know much more about Habakkuk other than that. As we read through the book together, we'll find that from the details of the book that it seems Habakkuk ministry was during Jeremiah, he would have been an older contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah ministering to Judah in the late 7th century BC sometime before Babylon would capture Jerusalem in 586 BC. So as you read through the book of Jeremiah, one of the things you'll notice is that these were really dark days for Judah. The king at this time was wicked.

His leadership team was oppressing and killing and misleading the people around them that they were called to lead. And though God would persistently send his prophets to plead with them to turn from their sin and to warn them about the danger that was ahead, God's people refused to listen. You see that over and over and over throughout Jeremiah. So this is not a good time to be living in Jerusalem. But this is exactly the context that we think Habakkuk found himself in.

This was the time in Judah that he had his ministry. So how could Habakkuk trust God? How can we?

Well, the first thing we see in Habakkuk one is that we should pray for justice. That's our first point, and we see it in verse two. We should pray for justice. Look again at verse two. How long, O Lord, must I call for help but you do not listen or cry out to you violence, but you do not save.

Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me. There is strife and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed and justice never prevails.

The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted.

As we consider these verses, I want you just to stop for a moment and take a quick inventory of the things that you prayed about this week. What would be the headlines of your prayers if we could just kind of consider them together? Think about that for a second.

You know, I think sometimes the easiest thing for us to pray about are those things that are related to our own comfort, aren't they? So things that fill up our prayer list are things like that promotion at work, that my day would go well, or that my cold would get better, or that my kids would be obedient. And don't get me wrong, those things are wonderful. Those things are good things to pray for. But after you've considered the list of the headlines of your prayers this past week, now compare them to what Habakkuk was praying for.

Look down again at verse two. What did Habakkuk pray for? Essentially, he's praying for two things. He's praying for help and for salvation. He says, how long must I call for help?

But you don't listen. How long? Or cry out to you violence, but you do not save. He's praying for help and for salvation. But help with what?

And salvation from what?

The help and salvation is not in regards to the violence done to Habakkuk, but the violence that he's describing is about. He's describing is the violence that he's watching happening right in front of him among God's people. And as he watches it, he cannot stand to watch it. Verse three, he says, why do you make me look at injustice? He goes on to say, destruction and violence are before me.

So here's this prophet looking out at Judah, at the people of God, a people who are called to represent what God is like to the surrounding nations. But instead of seeing things like unity and justice and generosity and love, all things which are are true of God. What does Habakkuk see? He sees violence and strife, injustice and conflict. I mean, just try to put yourself in his shoes for a moment.

I mean, here you're the. You're a prophet in Judah, and your job is to help God's people, to worship God. That's your job. That's what you've given your life to. But as you walk around this city where that's your job, you watch the king who is a man given to uphold the law, a man who's given to lead people in following God.

But instead, you see this king who is putting his people into slavery. And why? So that he can have a big house, a palace, and live in luxury. He would have been horrified to watch these priests in Judah who were called to teach people the truth about God. But instead, what does he see?

Priests endorsing sin, priests lying about God. I imagine Habakkuk would have been shocked to see judges in the land taking bribes from the rich. Justice was being perverted and they were beginning to out. The wicked are beginning to outnumber. And so they felt hemmed in.

And the people who were suffering most were the poor and the needy who had no money to pay the judges with Bribes. So Habakkuk's not so much praying for his own comfort. He's not praying that God would come and fluff his pillow for him. Right. Rather, his prayer has to do with the honor of God's name, that is being drug through the mud by these people who are called to represent Him.

I think that's why he complains in verse three, as he does when he says, why do you tolerate wrong? He's. He's crying out to God and asking a question that doesn't make sense. He knows it's not true that God would tolerate wrong. He makes that clear later on in verse 13.

He says, Your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrong. So he knows that's not true of God, but he can't make sense of what God is doing, or rather what God is not doing. And so what does he do? He prays for justice.

Okay, what do I mean by justice? Well, in some sense, Habakkuk's praying for God to punish the evildoers. And he's praying that the people in this land would be treated with a dignity that is fitting for someone who's made in the image of God. He's praying that God would. Would allow these relationships and interactions in this land to be that.

That the name of God is honored in the way that they're treating each other as image bearers of God.

Okay, so how does praying for justice then help us to trust God? Well, let me try to offer two suggestions. First, I think prayer helps us unload our burdens on God. Prayer helps us unload our burdens on God. You know, when we look out at a fallen world and we see rampant evil, injustice and suffering, it can leave us with really burdensome questions.

Can it? Questions much like Habakkuk was asking. How long, God? Why God? Where are you now?

There's a big difference between accusing God and bringing honest questions in our grief. But I think one thing that's worth noting in Habakkuk 1 is that God doesn't rebuke Habakkuk for his questions. Instead, what we find is a God who actually invites us to pour out our hearts to him as we seek to trust him in every situation of life. So in that sense, prayer then becomes this arena where the questions that we have in suffering and the truth about God that we know to be true, prayer becomes the arena where those things move closer together.

But not only does praying help us unload our burdens on a God who can bear that load. Praying for justice Also secondly, helps us remove obstacles to faith. That's the second way that praying helps us to trust God. You see, I think Habakkuk was troubled because God's people were lying about him in their violence and their injustice towards one another. And you can imagine that if someone from another nation came to visit Judah at this time, I think they would have wanted nothing to do with their God, who they were called to represent.

Friends, if you're here this morning and you're not a follower of Christ, I understand that there may be some point in your life when you've been wronged by a church where you've been mistreated by a Christian. Or it might be that you're here this morning and you're just bothered by the conflict and the division that you've seen in your life, in the lives of those who claim to follow Jesus. You know, one objection I often receive about Christianity from people who are considering the claims of Christianity is why? Why does there seem like there's hypocrisy in those who claim to follow Jesus?

Well, friend, if you're here and you're not a follower of Christ and that's where you find yourself this morning, I think Habakkuk would agree with you. It shouldn't be this way.

That's not to say a church will be perfect or that a church will never have conflict. I think we, as every church, is full of broken people, broken people who are sinners. But what you should expect, what you should see is a marked difference compared to the rest of the world. You should see a humility where because we are Christians, we're quick to admit our wrong. We're quick to take a responsibility of our own wrongdoing.

We're quick to forgive one another when there is conflict. And we're fervently fighting against sin in our own life.

Now, for those of you here who are followers of Christ, friends, we must remember that when we tolerate sin, when we refuse to forgive another person, when we think of gossip as kind of a harmless diversion, we not only lie about God, but we're putting up obstacles to others trusting in this God. Jesus once warned his disciples. He said, things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. Friends, I pray that we would take our sin seriously, that we would fight against it, that we would be quick to forgive one another and to be united as a church.

And as I thought about this part of the text this week, this is the part that's been really convicting to me. When I look at my own prayer life, as I consider the headlines of my prayers, they're often more to do with my comfort than with God's glory. Again, praying for relief is a fine thing to do. But if I'm not careful, comfort becomes an idol that makes trusting God difficult. You know, I begin to think I can't trust God unless I'm comfortable.

And when that begins to happen, it blinds me to the needs of others around me because the only thing I'm focused about is me, and am I comfortable. But if we have come to know the love of God, if you and I have come to know the grace of God, then we cannot be indifferent to the violence or the injustice that is going on around us. Proverbs 8 reminds us, to fear the Lord is to hate evil. To fear the Lord is to hate evil. And one of the ways this hatred of evil is expressed is in our praying for justice, in our praying that God's name will be honored in the way that we treat others, not only in this church, but with every person who bears the image of God, rich or poor, Hispanic or Asian, male or female, Christian or atheist.

Okay, but how do we do that then? I think again, sometimes the challenge in praying for justice is because we're too preoccupied with our comfort. But I think another reason that it's often hard to do is that we're simply uninformed. This past week, I read a 9 marks article by Justin Holcomb on sex trafficking. And when I read it, I just have to admit it was shocking, to say the least.

The article explains that the sex trafficking industry in the US alone is an industry that brings in $9.5 billion every year. In fact, the Department of justice estimates that 250,000American children are at risk for trafficking in the sex industry annually. What's the average age for girls forced into street prostitution? 12 to 14 years old.

So how do we pray for justice here? How do we fight for the honor of God's name?

Well, a number of members here at Capitol Hill Baptist Church work for an organization that many of you have probably heard about. It's called the the International Justice Mission, or ijm. It's an organization who fights to end sex trafficking here in the States and around the world. A good place to start might be to talk with someone who works there, somebody like Alex Shu, who you can talk with and find out what's a good way to pray about this. What are things that we can do to fight against this injustice?

Let me suggest another reality that we live in.

Every year, over 1.2 million babies are killed because of abortion. So who's going to speak up for these little ones who are unable to speak up for themselves?

How do we pray for the honor of God's name here?

Well, we should pray that God would change the laws in this land that allow abortion. We should pray that God would change the hearts and the minds of men and women who think that abortion is the only option that they have. If you're looking for more ways to pray, Jessica Pearl is a member here at this church who works with an organization called the Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center. It'd be a great resource for us to look into to find out better ways that we can pray against that injustice or another thing. Did you know that just east of the river here in D.C.

schools like Ayton elementary have only 21% of their students who are proficient in reading with scores that low. Schools like that receive little money and support from other agencies. It's kind of like it just feeds the problem worse and worse.

Worse yet, many boys in this school have no fathers, no mentors to look up to. And so where do they turn for their advice? Where do they look for mentors? The neighborhood gang banger. This is happening just across the river than here in D.C.

so, friends, what does it look like for us to pray for justice here? How can these kids get tutors in their classrooms? And godly mentors are going to show them what it looks like to follow Jesus.

Stephanie Municke, a member here at this church, works with a ministry called Daybreak. Should be a great person to talk to, a great ministry to look into, to have more information, ways that you can pray, ways that you can involve to fight against this type of injustice. All around this room, I can see people who use their jobs as a platform to show mercy, to fight injustice. Guys like Andrew Nichols, who uses his job as a lawyer to fight injustice. Guys like Wes Ellis, who teach at Howard, they're teaching kids.

And he's a guy who doesn't just use his. He's not just filling a position as a teacher to get a paycheck. He is using his position and he is working tirelessly to influence these kids for good. People like Joe Hammer, who works at a government agency who's seeking to bring relief to countries in Africa who are facing famine. I could go on and on and on.

And one of the fun things about being a preacher here, one of the privileges I have about being a preacher of God's Word is things like that in teaching what it looks like to obey what God commands. I am so encouraged to look around the room like this and see and hear of different ways that you as members, are seeking to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. It's amazing to just watch God's word bear fruit by his spirit in your life. And I praise God for that.

Now I understand when I read through a list like this of things that are the injustices, we're just scraping the surface, right? But when we read through a list like that, it can feel overwhelming.

And I think one of the things we have to be careful is not to privilege social justice issues over other areas of obedience to Christ, areas like our caring for our families or our fighting against sexual sin in our own personal lives. What's more, I think the unique call that we have as Christians is to tell the good news of Jesus in every arena that we find ourselves in. While not every one of us should volunteer at the IJM or tutor kids across the river, but friends, as those who have been graciously rescued by a Savior from suffering worse than anything that would be possible in this life, our hearts should ache when we see injustice around us. A heart that has come to know mercy will show mercy.

And so we should pray for justice. And as we seek to trust God in a world filled with evil and injustice, that's the first step that Habakkuk models for us. But I think as the prophet watches his people tear each other apart, as he watches those who are in authority exploit those who they're called to be protecting, the prophet's still asking God the question that he raised in verse three. He says, why do you tolerate this? Why do you tolerate wrong?

Why don't you do something?

That question, I think, is really at the center of what's going on these first 11 verses. If God is good, then why doesn't he do something about the evil and suffering in the world?

And what would Habakkuk find out?

God is doing something. His justice is coming, and Habakkuk was called to wait for it. I think that's the second point that we see. We should wait for God's justice. We should wait for God's justice.

We see that starting in verse five of our text. Look there with me if you will.

Look at the nations and watch and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own. They are a feared and dreaded people. They are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.

Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves. At dusk their cavalry gallops headlong. Their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture swooping to devour. They all come bent on violence.

Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities. They build earthen ramps and capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on guilty men whose own strength is their God.

Again, up to this point, Habakkuk has been asking what question? He's been asking God, why don't you do something about the evil that I'm seeing around me among your people? And what's God's answer? Verse 5, look at the nations and watch. In other words, he's calling Habakkuk to wait, look and watch.

I am going to do something. And what was it that God would do? Verse 6. I am raising up the Babylonians. And then from there on out, God is launching into this vivid description of Babylon and what's about to take place when they invade Judah and carry God's people off into exile.

So just looking at these verses, I think one of the first things we learn about God is that all evil will be judged by Him. He will not stand by and do nothing. And because we know this to be true about God, God's people can trust him as we patiently wait for his justice.

Now, you may not know this, but last week the Nebraska Cornuskers played the Wisconsin Badgers. Any Nebraska fans? Yeah. What one is that? Kyle?

No. All right. Good to have you here, brother. Well, the game, if you watched it, was an absolute nail biter. It was a back and forth battle for the lead and the game really came down to the last few minutes when Nebraska kicked a field goal, got ahead by three points, and then the Badgers had one more possession.

They're coming down the field and the defense was able to hold them off and we won. By the end of the game, I was exhausted, but I was not about to shut the TV off and go to bed. I was going to finish that game. Well, let's just imagine that I had recorded the game. And this afternoon I invite you over to my house and we sit down and we watch this game together?

What would you think if, as we watched the game together, you watched me and I'm visibly stressed out? What if by halftime, when the Badgers were hit by 10 points, I said, all right, I can't do this. We got to shut this off. This is stressing me out. I think we're going to lose.

What would you say to me? I imagine you'd say something like, you're being ridiculous, Zach. You know the end. You know that Nebraska wins. Don't throw the towel and just hang in there, friends.

The same is true for the Christian life. We know how the end turns out. God is faithful to his word, that one day he will punish sin, all sin, all evil, all injustice.

Some of you here this morning have been deeply wronged in your life, and you have suffered grave injustice.

You may have had to endure demeaning and costly racial discrimination. You may be sitting here this morning living with scars that have come from the mistreatment of someone who is in a position of authority over you, whether that be a parent or a boss, a teacher, a pastor.

Others of you have been mugged. You have suffered physical violence from people in a city that you love and that you pray for. Friends, know this. Every injustice that you have witnessed from afar, every wrong that's been overlooked, every evil that you have tasted and been a victim of, will be punished by a God who is unwaveringly committed to doing what is good. And one day, he will write every wrong.

And because of that, friends, we can trust him. He's a God who is faithful, and we can wait for God's justice.

Okay, but you ask, well, what does it actually look like to wait for God's justice? What do we do? What does that look like? Well, think back to the idea of the football game. You know, we may not.

We may know the end. We may know the how it all ends, but what we don't know is how long it's going to take.

And so waiting looks like us turning our attention to the promises of God. Waiting looks like what we're doing right now. We gather together to encourage each other about what is true about God. It means praying together. It means sharing each other's burdens.

It means reminding each other that this world is not our home.

Listen to how James, the brother of Jesus, describes this process of waiting. He says, be patient then, brothers, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, and how patient he is for the autumn and spring Rains, you too. Be patient and stand firm because the Lord's coming is near. The judge is standing the door.

The judge is standing at the door.

So God's justice can really be a very comforting truth. Can't.

Can be the thing that helps us to hold on until the end, knowing what God has promised.

But God's justice can also be a terrifying reality.

Look again down at verse six and notice the description of the Babylonians who are about to invade Judah.

Verse 6. I am raising up the Babylonians. Okay, Are these guys the good guys or the bad guys? These are the bad guys, right? If the Rolling Stones name an album after your country, you've got a bad country.

So the Babylonians. Verse 6. The Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own. They are a feared and dreaded people. They are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.

So God is describing this military force of the Babylonians, and it was a fierce military force. When they come into your land, they don't ask for permission. If they want something, they just take it. If you try to stop them, they kill you. If your neighbor tries to report it to the the courts, they kill your neighbor and then they burn down the courthouse.

They were a law to themselves. They did whatever they wanted. Verse 8. Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves. At dusk their calvary gallops headlong.

Their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping to devour. They all come bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. So he's saying, listen, you can't outrun these guys.

They'll catch you. You can't reason with them, you can't negotiate with them. They are bent on violence. They are determined to do violence.

And you say, well, we have a king. We have police, we have a strong military.

Verse 10. They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities. They build earthen ramps and capture them. Then they sweep paths like the wind and go on guilty men whose strength is their God friends.

Babylon was a fierce and terrifying nation to tangle with. There was no stopping them. There was no reasoning with them.

And worse off, they saw themselves as their own God. They saw their strength as their own God. And this, this was God's plan. This was God's justice. This was no mistake.

God was vivid in his description, saying, I know what I'm doing. I'm raising up these people. This is my plan.

I think as I read through this description. One of the questions I'm left with is why does God spend so much time and, and, and give such a vivid description of these Babylonians? Well, I think one thing that's not immediately obvious in the text is that starting in verse five, that the you is in the plural. So when he says, I'm going to do something in your days that you would not believe, he's not speaking about just simply Habakkuk. The you is in the plural.

He's referring to the entire nation. So in verses two through four, we get to overhear Habakkuk's conversation with God. But when we come to verse 5, God then turns around and responds to, to the entire nation of Judah.

I think one of the reasons that he addresses the entire nation and tells them that they wouldn't believe what he's about to do, that they'd be amazed by it, is because many people in the land did not take God seriously. They thought that they could do whatever they want and God would not judge them. That's what we find in the prophecies of Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 5. The prophet himself groans as the people said, he will do nothing.

No harm will come to us. We will never see sword or famine.

They arrogantly thought God wouldn't do anything about their sin. They thought, the temple's here, God's not going to wipe us out. We're good, we're religious.

You see God's delay in judging sin, though mercy to provide the space and the time for these people to have an opportunity to repent.

But those who scoffed at Jeremiah and the prophets, like Habakkuk, they misunderstood God's delay as his being indifferent towards sin. They misunderstood who God was. And so I think the detail that God gives in verses 6 through 11 to describe the Babylonians who are coming in is meant to be a wake up call. It's designed to snap them out of the delusion that they're living in the lie that they were believing about God.

Friends, if you're here this morning and you're not a follower of Jesus, let me just say that we are so glad that you're here with us. It's great to have you here.

Yet I wonder, what do you do with the problem of evil? Not the problem of evil out there, but the problem of evil right here in your own heart.

See, the Bible teaches that though God created us to love him and to follow him and to trust him, we all, without exception, have run from God. We have determined to live our lives, our own way, as our own king, we've tried to dethrone God and put ourself on that throne. And rather than trusting him, we trust ourselves. But imagine that for a minute. Fill a room up with people who trust only themselves and what happens?

You're going to end up with strife. You're going to end up with conflict. You're going to end up with injustice. Because people who make decisions with only their own interest in mind going to end up with conflict. Kind of looks like the world we live in, doesn't it, friends?

Every one of us has this sin problem. Every one of us has rebelled against God. And because God is good, he will not only judge those who have been unjust toward you, he will also judge you. There's no amount of good works or religion or time past that can erase the wrongs that we have committed. Left to ourselves, we will one day face a judgment infinitely worse than any Babylonian invasion.

We will suffer God's righteous and good wrath in hell.

But there is good news. You see, God, in His great love, in his great mercy, takes on flesh and becomes a man named Jesus. And Jesus lived the perfect life without sin, that we were all called to live. But all of us have failed to live. And so when he willingly went to the cross and died a criminal's death, he wasn't dying for his own sin.

He had nothing to die for. He died as a substitute, taking on himself the punishment of God. God's wrath, his punishment for sin. For anyone who would turn from their sin and trust in Jesus, he died. But then, three days later, Christ rose from the dead as evidence that his payment for sin was sufficient even for the worst of sinners.

And so, as a result, God is able to be both just and the justifier, the one who forgives sin to anyone who would trust in Christ.

I think the reason we hate injustice and pain and suffering is not only because it hurts, but it's because we weren't built for it. God didn't make us for that. It wasn't meant to be that way.

The reality is that we, as human beings made in the image of God, were created for God. We were created to know him and to love him and to trust him and enjoy Him.

But because our sin has separated us from a holy God, friends, the only way to be with God is to go through that door of justice.

Don't assume that any religious activity is some sort of shield from God's right judgment. There is only one mediator between us and God. It's Jesus Christ. So I urge you this morning, turn from your sin, trust in Christ, come to know his forgiveness. A new life, a new beginning that he's offering to anyone who would turn from their sin and trust in him today.

Friends, if you have any questions about that, I would love to talk to you. I'll be at that door afterwards. If you have any questions about what it means to follow Jesus, or if you can't find me, find any of the guys at the doors. Talk to somebody who looks like they know what they're doing around here. We'd love to talk to you about what it means to follow Jesus.

Friends, I think sometimes the challenge in suffering is that we simply don't know what God is doing. We kind of see that what's going on with Habakkuk. And so we look around at our circumstances and think, this doesn't make sense.

This isn't what I thought God would do. This isn't going according to my plan. And before long, we find ourselves getting nervous or upset. Maybe we start complaining.

But friends, God often works in unexpected ways. And I really think it's the kindness of God to do that way, to work in unexpected ways. You see, when God does the unexpected, we're reminded that we are not God. And choosing to follow Jesus is just that, recognizing that he's God and we're not choosing to follow Jesus is a decision ultimately to trust in the Lord with all our heart, not to lean on our own understanding.

So when we don't understand and we're trying to trust God and we're trying to trust this God who is trustworthy, how can we know that he is trustworthy?

Friends, we can know that he's trustworthy by looking at the cross, by looking to the place where the sinless Son of God was mocked, was beaten, and was betrayed. The place in human history where all of mankind should have been crying out with Habakkuk violence. Why do you make me look at this injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong God?

And for Jesus disciples, this was the unexpected thing. They did not expect this to happen. They thought he would rise up and be king right away. They didn't know that he had to suffer first. And so it didn't make sense to them in the moment.

And in that moment, it was heartbreaking. It was disorienting for them.

But make no mistake, the cross is no accident. The cross is no mistake. The cross of Christ has been a part of God's plan, the plan of a sovereign God from all eternity. And just as God was the one to empower these Babylonians. God is the one who would bruise his own Son so that we might be healed, that we might be forgiven.

When Christ died, it seemed like for a moment that evil triumphed.

But when God raised him from the dead, it became crystal clear that our sovereign God is able to take the greatest evil and from that bring the greatest good. So how can we trust this God with all our heart? By looking to what we know that God has revealed about himself. That God is both perfectly good and in absolute control. And rather than letting the circumstances around us tell us who our God is, we keep coming back to the truth of who God says he is, what he has revealed to us.

We look to him. We pray for justice, and we wait for God's justice.

I'll close with these words from the Apostle Paul. In Romans, chapter eight, Paul writes, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. For in this hope we were saved.

But hope that is seen is no hope at all, who hopes for what he already has. But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. Let's pray together.

Father, we confess this morning as we are gathering together, that there are many things in this world that we do not understand.

We bring our questions, our grief, our troubled hearts to you.

And we praise you this morning, God, that you're a God who welcomes us to do that, to pour out our hearts to you as we seek to trust you.

But Lord, we also thank you that you're a God who is good and righteous and just. We thank you for the fact that you have provided a way for us to be forgiven of our own injustice through Christ.

Lord, we thank you that every wrong that has been done in this world that we have suffered from, that you will one day make right. We know the end. You triumph, you win. You reign for all eternity. And so, Lord, we look to you, the God who is good, God who is in absolute control.

Even when we don't understand. We pray that you would help us to trust you. In Jesus name, amen.