Faith in the Dark

Bible Passage: Habakkuk 1:1- 2:1

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

I. What is a lament?

1. Lament: The prayer we were never taught and this is what Habakkuk uses to bring his pain to God. What then is a lament?

a. A lament is simply the language of honest pain directed toward God and it is a legitimate biblical genre.
b. Lament is defined by where the pain is directed.
c. Lament follows a recognizable pattern in Scripture.

II. Habakkuk’s first lament 1:The darkness of unanswered prayer Vs 1-4

1. The prophecy/burden that Habakkuk the prophet received.
2. Habakkuk’s Complaint: How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
3. Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
4. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
5. The weight of honest observation: A burden, not just a message. v1

a. A burden was received by Habakkuk and he is bothered by this burden and has a complaint for God. I
b. The cry of a man exhausted by unanswered prayer “How long”. v2 (Ps 13:1, Ps 74:9, Rev 6:10).

6. An unanswered prayer is not evidence of God’s indifference — it is one of the most common and most biblical experiences of the life of faith.

a. He is a believing man praying to a God he knows is there — and the silence is deafening.
b. This is the paradox of biblical lament — you only complain to someone you still believe can act.

7. The cry of a man morally overwhelmed by what his eyes are forced to witness daily. v3 (Ps 12:1-2, Ps 73:12-17, Jer 12:1)

a. “Why do you make me look at injustice?”
b. “Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?”
c. The catalogue of Evil – “destruction, violence, strife, conflict.”

8. Theological Crisis: When God doesn’t seem to act, we can begin to question not just His timing but His reliability. v4

a. Habakkuk now names the devastating social consequence — the law has become powerless.
b. “The wicked hem in the righteous,” The image here is one of encirclement

Gospel Connection: Vs 1-4: Matt 27:46 where Jesus cries from the cross — “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

III. The LORD’s answer Vs 5-11

“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.

1. The summons to astonishment: God calls Habakkuk to look beyond his immediate horizon entirely. v5

a. The first word of God’s response is a command to redirect Habakkuk’s gaze “Look”.
b. The language here is deliberately overwhelming. (Acts 13:40-41)
c. Divine activity in history — “ I am going to do something in your days”
d. God’s methods consistently confound human expectation.

God’s answer to Habakkuk’s complaint about injustice in Judah – Babylon is coming.

2. The description of the Babylonians across Vs 6–11 is one of the most vivid and terrifying portraits of military power in all of Scripture. God piles up image upon image

a. They are ruthless and impetuous people v6
b. They seize dwellings not their own v6
c. They are a law to themselves and promote their own honor v7
d. They are compared to leopards, wolves, eagles v8
e. They gather prisoners like sand v9
f. They mock kings and scoff at rulers v10 (2 Kings 25:1-7)
g. And then the sobering conclusion of v11 — “then they sweep past like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god.”

The very thing that makes them an instrument in God’s hand is the thing that will ultimately condemn them.

Gospel Connection: From God’s use of Babylon — The cross is the ultimate example of God using a scandalous and unjust instrument to accomplish His redemptive purposes. (Acts 2:23)

IV. Habakkuk’s second lament: God’s answer seems worse than the problem — A Deeper Wrestling Vs 12-17

12  LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, you[c] will never die. You, LORD, have appointed them to execute judgment; you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish.
13   Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
14  You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler.
15  The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.
16  Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.
17  Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?

1. The cry that anchors himself in the character of God Vs 12-13

a. “Lord” — Yahweh, the covenant God, the I AM, the God of faithfulness and promise.
b. “My God” — this is personal.
c. “My Holy One”
d. “From everlasting”
e. Covenant confidence – “You/We Shall Not Die” Believing the promise while not yet understanding the process.
f. “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.”

i. The collision of two truths produces the cry — why?

2. Humanity — made in the image of God, crowned with dignity, placed over creation — is being treated like fish. Vs 14-17

a. Humanity Reduced to Prey: The imagery Habakkuk reaches for here is devastating in its bleakness.
b. Worshipping the Net: Babylon’s sin is not merely cruelty or conquest — it is idolatry.
c. Every generation and every culture produces its version of net-worship

The Question Unresolved: The lament closes not with resolution but with an open, agonizing question. Will this simply go on indefinitely?

Gospel Connection 12-17: Habakkuk’s horror in verses 14–17 about people being swept up like fish with no shepherd has a direct gospel resonance. Matt 9:36

Furthermore the New Testament is clear that Christ on the cross bore the full weight of the injustice and violence that Habakkuk witnessed. Isaiah 53 —

V. The Posture of the Prophet: it shows us what faith looks like after it has asked its hardest questions and not yet received its answers. 2:1

2:1 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
Every word of this verse describes a deliberate, conscious, disciplined act of faith.

1. The posture in the watchtower answers one of the most practical questions the book raises — what does a believing person do when God’s ways are incomprehensible?

a. He actively waits: He stands. He stations himself. He waits.
b. He adopts a spiritual posture where he can see and hear more clearly.
c. He positions himself to receive whatever God chooses to give. This is submission without surrender of honest engagement

Gospel Connection: The image of the watchman waiting for the word of God finds its ultimate fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ — who is Himself the Word of God (John 1:1, Heb 1:1–2, Rev 22:20).

Takeaway:

Take your pain honestly to God by trusting in His character and understanding that He is already working in ways you cannot yet see.