The Prayer of Habakkuk
Harry Foster
PRAYER is not the only thing, but it is paramount. When the Israelites emerged from Egypt to find themselves committed to a conflict, it may at first sight appear that Joshua was given the hard task as he led the fighting, while Moses himself chose a softer option by going up into the place of prayer. This was far from the case. Moses was the man who needed support in the well-nigh impossible task of keeping his hands aloft, while Joshua moved steadily into victory so long as those interceding arms were held up to heaven. At the end of that battle and with the assurance of Jehovah-nissi -- The Lord is my banner -- Joshua was informed that this divine warfare would continue "from generation to generation" (Exodus 17:16). Centuries later Habakkuk found himself committed to this spiritual conflict.
It seems that his rather unusual name was derived from an intensive form of a verb which means 'to embrace'. It has been variously explained as one who lovingly embraces God's purposes or alternatively as a man grappling with spiritual problems in the locking embrace of a wrestler. The very first verses clearly show us the prophet getting to grips with a major problem, so I rather favour the thought of wrestling, especially as this is the idea of prayer suggested by Ephesians 6:12. For Habakkuk's main business was prayer. His short book does not deal with the usual ministry of a prophet, namely of speaking to men on God's behalf, but rather depicts the activity of speaking to God on behalf of His people. This must always be a prophetic priority: "He is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee", God said at the beginning of things (Genesis 20:7). For Habakkuk praying was no easy task. He lived in a troubled world, as we do. It is not necessary for us to preoccupy ourselves with the historical allusions in the book, but at least we can readily identify with a man who is bewildered by current events, especially among God's people, and tempted to question the activities -- or perhaps the inactivity -- of his God. We take the chapters one by one.
It is not surprising that the man who so took God's interests to heart should be crying, "How long?" and be driven almost to desperation in his questioning, "Why ...?" On every hand he could see the enemies of the Church threatening to bring in defeat and destruction, and to him it looked as though the Lord would neither hear His servant nor deliver His people. This was not the petty questioning of a man over his personal problems, reasonable as that might be, but the vast question of God's interests in His redeemed people. Some of his words have an unhappy familiarity to us: 'spoiling', 'violence', 'strife', 'strife and contention', 'perverted judgment'. We feel so helpless. So did Habakkuk. But a man is never helpless when he has access to God.
From verse 5 to verse 11 we have God's immediate response to the prophet's agonised complaint. It gave little reassurance and certainly offered no explanation, its tenor being a warning that matters would get still worse. Things were going to happen which would be hard to believe. Not that they were or would ever be out of hand. Oh no! The startling and dreadful events would be God's work: "For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans ...". The praying man must never lose sight of the sovereignty of God. Nevertheless the prospect was daunting indeed; there was no swift or easy answer to Habakkuk's enquiry.
Why did the Lord so respond to His servant's prayer? None of us understands God's ways, but may I suggest that it was in accordance with that frequent way that He has of putting faith to severe tests. The spiritual infant gets quick answers to his prayers. He needs them. The more adult he becomes in his walk with God, the more likely is it that he will be faced by delays and enigmas. If this was so in the case of our prophet, then he emerged magnificently from this first test. Undeterred by what had been told him, he made further appeals to God, keeping well in view the One to whom his prayers were directed, the eternal and holy God whom His people know as the Rock (verse 12). If Habakkuk teaches us nothing more, he at least demonstrates that we must never give up, but go on praying. We note, however, that this further prayer only ends in a question mark (v.17).[76/77]
Having seemingly prayed himself to a standstill Habakkuk turned away from God to muse with himself: "I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon my tower, and will look forth to see what he will speak with me" (v.1). Perhaps we may rightly interpret these words to mean that he would stop speaking for the moment and listen to what God would say. He seems to have realised that such an activity would be fiercely contested so he would have to mount guard over this place of communion, making the place of prayer a veritable fortress and resisting every effort to make him quit it. Listening is always an important part of praying; like the telephone, prayer is not a Tannoy [(brand-name) audio] system for hailing God but a two-way instrument of communication; but if prayer is subjected to many pressures, perhaps quietly listening to God is even more contested.
How long he had to wait we do not know. In the narrative we get the impression that the divine response was immediate and this is not surprising, for often God's greatest difficulty is to get His people to be quiet before Him. God's words spoke of both vision and action: "Write ... read ... run ...". Far from being a waste of time to wait before God, this is the surest and quickest means of getting things done. The central chapter of this short prophecy provides the heart of Habakkuk's message. It has three main points, which I will take in reverse order.
i. God's Sovereignty
"But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him" (v.20). It is not much use praying if we are not wholly convinced of the absolute sovereignty of the God to whom we pray. God is quite unmoved by the strange things which may trouble us here on the earth. In fact this verse suggests to us that earth's events are really decided in the hidden realms of heaven.
The Lord did not reprove His servant for raising the many controversial points which he voiced in his prayer, but He quietened the prophet with the assurance that He knew all about them and was overruling in the violence and chaos of it all, insisting that it was due to Him, the Lord of hosts, that the nations of the earth were wearing themselves out "for vanity" (v.13). They did not realise their own futility, but it was to them, as much as to His own people, that He commanded: "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). But He says it to us also. As we say -- sometimes, I fear, rather glibly -- 'God is still on the throne'. Appearances may be all against this, so much so that to use the phrase could be superficial and even smug. It is easy for us to say or sing it while we are in some safe and comfortable circumstances, but might not be so easy if we were in the earth's trouble spots. But even if it would not be easy, it would still be true. He is far above all.
How can we be sure of this, for we are shut up to faith, never having seen that throne? Well, faith need not falter, since the Word of God makes His sovereignty very plain. It does so in actual words, with strong assurances from the God who cannot lie. But it also does so in historical examples, not least in the Gospels. There are very few matters which are stated four times over in all the Gospels, but it is not without significance that in each one of the four we are told how the Lord Jesus stilled the winds and the waves. This was clearly a notable miracle, and in some of the accounts we are informed that the Lord actually walked on those tempestuous waters before silencing them. Others may have done some of the miracles which He performed, but nobody else has ever or can ever display this complete mastery of the creation. It may not strike those unacquainted with animals that His entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was at all miraculous, but in fact the quiet acceptance of a rider by this unbroken donkey and its obedient progress through the midst of an enormous crowd-demonstration was a further and unique proof of the same mastery.
