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I will stand at my watch

and station myself on the ramparts;

I will look to see what he will say to me,

and what answer I am to give to this complaint.

The Lord’s Answer

Then the LORD replied:

“Write down the revelation

and make it plain on tablets

so that a herald may run with it.

For the revelation awaits an appointed time;

it speaks of the end

and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it;

it will certainly come and will not delay.

“See, he is puffed up;

his desires are not upright—

but the righteous will live by his faith.



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FAITH TO ASK SEARCHING QUESTIONS

A Patient Faith In Times Of Darkness!



‘Lord, I don’t understand!’ ‘Why, Lord, why are these things happening?’ ‘Lord, how can you allow these things to happen and go unpunished?’

If you have been following the last two Thoughts for the Week, you will have seen and read the searching questions asked of the Lord by Habakkuk. They stemmed from an honest faith and a living relationship between him and the Lord. Now, the Lord answers with a call to a patient faith in times of darkness and an assurance that justice will be done and will be seen to be done.



Habakkuk

2 v1-4

“… it is understandable that doubt should arise on account of our less than total grasp of the situation. We aren’t fully in the picture. But how important is this? Isn’t what really matters the fact that God promises to be faithful to us, to remain with us as we travel, to guide and support us?*

God’s answer to Habakkuk is not one of total explanation. Would Habakkuk, or we, have understood if God had given such detail? Rather, God gives assurance that there is a day of reckoning, a day of absolute justice coming, but not yet. It’s coming is certain, is the message of v2. The command to ‘write down the revelation’; to ‘make it plain on tablets’; that ‘heralds may run with it‘ is a way of saying ‘The coming of that day is beyond doubt, it will happen’. The outcome, justice, judgment and salvation, is certain, v3.

Read the rest of chapter 2 and see the number of ‘woes’ and what follows them; a dire warning to the arrogant, even the arrogance of super-powers; an encouraging assurance to those who are suffering the darkness of injustice under them. God is sovereign and ‘the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the LORD’s glory as the seas are full of water’ v14 GNB. So let everyone - the arrogant and the honest questioner be assured that, ‘the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.’ v20.

In the midst of the darkness, God seeks to encourage Habakkuk to continue waiting patiently and confidently - to live by faith; ‘the righteous will live by his faith.’v4 Faith in God himself; faith in the sovereignty of God, the mercy of God, the grace of God and the justice of God. Here is the great theme expounded by Paul in Romans and Galatians - that we are justified by faith and live by faith in Jesus and all that he accomplished at Calvary. Here is the Christian’s assurance for the future and in times of darkness.

“In the end, it is the saving presence of God in the life of believers that matters more than a complete explanation of the way things are.”*



* Alistair McGrath: Doubt in Perspective, 2006, IVP p53


Mike Stear
19th February, 2012