One of the shortest books of Scripture-the prophecy of Habakkuk-contains important truth which no reverent student of the Word of God can afford to overlook. Brief as it is, it is directly referred to, or quotations made from it, a number of times in the New Testament.
The great apostle to the Gentiles is particularly partial to it, finding in it the inspired authority for the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith, and the certainty of judgment to come upon all who reject the testimony of the Holy Ghost as to the Lord Jesus Christ. Compare Act_13:40-41 with Hab_1:5; and Rom_1:17; Gal_3:11; Heb_10:38 with Hab_2:4. There is evidently, likewise, very close connection between Hab_3:17-18 and the 4th chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians. As it is purposed to look carefully at these passages in the course of our study, they can be passed over now.
Of Habakkuk personally very little is known. Like John the Baptist, he is “the voice of One,” himself hidden; though the exercises of his soul are vividly portrayed in his vigorous and soul-stirring prophetic poem. Jewish tradition asserts that he was of the tribe of Simeon, and he is commonly supposed to have been contemporary with Jeremiah during the latter part of “the weeping prophet’s” ministry. His book would seem to evidence this, as it was written in view of the Chaldean invasion. Of his birth or death we have no record. He is said to have remained in the land when the mass of the people were carried away by the triumphant armies of Nebuchadnezzar.
The form of the book is that of a dialogue, and the structure is exceedingly simple. Habakkuk, oppressed by a sense of the prevalence of iniquity, unburdens his heart to Jehovah, who in grace answers the cry of His servant. The true divisions are easily found. Hab_1:1-4 gives the prophet’s complaint. Hab_1:5-11 are the Lord’s answer. In Hab_1:12-17 we have Habakkuk’s remonstrance. Ver. 1 of ch. 2 (Hab_2:1) stands by itself. There is no immediate reply to the cry with which the previous chapter was concluded. In Hab_2:2-4 the Lord goes far beyond the prophet’s thoughts, and predicts the final bringing in of blessing through Messiah: meantime “the just shall live by his faith.” The actual response to the remonstrance of chap. 1 is given in Hab_2:5-8. The balance of the chapter would seem to be prophetic ministry. Having been made to know the end of the Lord, His servant delivers His word to four classes who walk not in His ways. A woe is pronounced upon each of them: the covetous, Hab_2:9-11; the unrighteous, Hab_2:12-14; the intemperate and shameless, Hab_2:15-17; and the idolatrous, Hab_2:18-20. Chap. 3 concludes with the prayer of Habakkuk, and is one of the most precious and sublime portions of Old Testament Scripture.
While having its primary application to Israel and Babylon in the dark days following the cutting-off of Josiah (the same period covered by the major portion of Jeremiah), this book contains solemn and important principles applicable to all the Lord’s people, and to all seasons. “Written for our learning,” we may well ponder its searching chapters listening like the prophet himself, “to see what He will say unto us, and what we shall answer when we are reproved.”
That God should thus deign to meet the longing cry of His servant’s heart, is for our encouragement and cheer. He regardeth the cry of the humble, but “the proud He knoweth afar off.” “The meek will He guide in judgment; the meek will He teach His way.” Unquestionably, the paramount reason why we get, as a rule, so little out of God’s word, is because of the appalling lack of self-judgment and brokenness before its. Author, so prevalent on every hand. Pride, haughtiness, and self-sufficiency, resulting in headiness and wordy strife, abound on all sides, coupled with grave moral laxity and inability to try the things that differ. True-hearted subjection to God and His Word is very little known or regarded.
In great measure it has been forgotten that there must be a right moral state to enter into the things of God, for “spiritual things are spiritually discerned.” Consequently, carnal, self-complacent Christians, walking as men, are often found seeking to make up for lack of genuine, Spirit-given ministry by receiving or listening to empty platitudes or expressions (true and precious enough in themselves) learned by rote, and given out in a mechanical, parrot-like manner, instead of waiting upon God until His voice is heard in the soul, exercising the conscience of hearer and speaker alike.
In a day like the present, when “of the making of many books there is no end,” it is very easy for any person of average intelligence to acquire a fair mental acquaintance with the truths of Scripture, and to pose, in the presence of less instructed or unspiritual persons, as an oracle of divine wisdom, when in reality the holy eye of God sees nothing but vain conceit and self-sufficiency in it all.
Truth learned by others in deep exercise in the school of God, is often retailed out to admiring crowds of worldly Christians and Christless professors, incapable of true, godly discernment, by men who themselves have known little or nothing of its power in their own souls, or of that subduedness before God consistent with the teachings they set forth.
Especially will this be found to be the case in regard to the teaching of Scripture as to the Church. How many today talk glibly of the one Body and the unity of the Spirit, who do not appear to have a particle of real concern because of their practical denial of that truth by identification with unscriptural and sectarian systems, where the Head of the Church is in practice disowned, and the Holy Spirit is refused His true place; while a human system of clergy and laity takes the place of the divine order laid down in the book of God!
Many doubtless know Jesus as Saviour, and the Holy Ghost as the earnest of their inheritance, who have never learned to truly own Christ as the Church’s one Head, and the Holy Spirit as the controlling power in the assembly. With large numbers this is unquestionably the result of ignorance, and the Great Shepherd of the sheep will take into account the lack of instruction and the faulty teaching in that day of manifestation, now so near at hand, when “we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ.” But, alas, by how many among us can this be pleaded? Knowledge is even boasted of when there is no corresponding concern as to the existing conditions in the house of God, and latitudi-narianism and independency are the order of the day. It is godly exercise that is so sadly lacking, which accounts for the indifference to Christ and the truth everywhere evident.
In Habakkuk we see the very opposite of all this. He is a man deeply exercised both as to the state of his people-yea, his own state and the ways of God in government. Nor can he rest in quietness until he has the mind of the Lord as to it all. His book, therefore, is of special value in our degenerate and Laodicean times, characterized by what another has designated as “high truth and low walk.” It strikingly portrays the working of spiritual sensibilities, and the divine answer to the same, in a man of like passions with ourselves, as each chapter will make manifest.
