Habakkuk—Week 1

Watch Dannah's Teaching—Why Would I Want to Study Habakkuk

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: During a visit with her beloved dying grandmother, Dannah Gresh was reminded of a promise she’d made. 

Dannah Gresh: In a moment of grace, God lifted the veil of confusion and my sweet grandmother at the age of ninety-six looked at me. She held my hand and said, “Dannah, don’t forget the pot pie. You promised you’d make a batch the day I go to heaven.”

This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, co-author of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, for Wednesday, September 23, 2020. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy: Dannah, we’re turning the tables a bit today because I wanted to share a series of messages you recorded here in the Revive Our Hearts' studio several weeks ago.

Dannah: Well, it was supposed to be several months ago, but sheltering in place due to the coronavirus kept delaying the taping dates.

Nancy: But that actually is fitting for the book of the Bible you’re teaching on: Habakkuk.

Dannah: Yes, certainly!

Nancy: Habakkuk is an Old Testament book about prophecy written during a troubling time in the history of the nation of Judah. It’s actually a theodicy, which is a defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence especially in view of the existence of evil. During difficult days, it can become easy to question God’s faithfulness but that’s precisely when we need to be reminded of it. 

Let’s listen in as Dannah begins the series "Habakkuk: Remembering God’s Faithfulness When He Seems Silent."

Dannah: My Nana was a great cook. She says that the secret to her melt-in-your-mouth ham was marinating it in 7-Up. She made a lot of wonderful recipes, but the one we loved the most was her beef pot pie.

It’s not the kind of pot pie you’re probably thinking of with the chicken and the peas and the carrots and the potatoes and the pie crust. No, because my Nana probably didn’t have those things when she was learning to cook because she learned to cook during the Great Depression. And, as most of the women learned, they could make a meal out of almost nothing.

My Nana’s beef pot pie was nothing more than a beef bone with some marrow, not any meat, and a few potatoes, a few eggs, some cups of flour. And my Nana would tell you, “Do not forget the salt and pepper. It’s very important.”

And with just those few ingredients, she could make a meal for her family and her extended family for just a few dollars.

There was something she never failed to serve with her beef pot pie, and that was a side of joy and laughter. Every time we gathered as a family, there would be so much laughter. My Nana could giggle like no one else.

I never knew until I was an adult that that recipe had been born out of a time of fear and hardship. All I knew is that when Nana made pot pie, all of the cousins came, and we were joyful.

My Nana never forgot that pot pie. She forgot a lot of things in her last few weeks and months of life, including my name. There’s something really precious about a name, isn’t there? I mean, it means so much when someone knows our name, and, if you have a name like mine, it means something when they say it correctly. My name is Dannah, pronounced like Hannah, not Dayna.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I identify with Habakkuk, because it seems no one knows how to say his name. You can hear it pronounced as many was as you can think of. I actually looked it up and did a little research, and I think none of us are even close. I think a correct pronunciation might sound something like “Kha-va-khook.” Don’t ask me to say that again because I won’t. It was a difficult-to-pronounce name, but we’re going to call him “Habakkuk” because that’s what my friend Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth called him in her study on the book. And, speaking of difficult-to-pronounce names, Wolgemuth?

And so you can imagine, in the last week of my Nana’s life, when she didn’t know my name, how grievous it was for me. Anyway, years before she had asked me, “When I die. I want you to make a pot of my pot pie.” I would shake it off. But now, here we were, weeks away from it.

I remember walking into the hospital room one day to visit with her, and she’d long forgotten my name. She said, “Hello, Cheryl,” with the same joy she always had. I had learned long ago not to correct her and tell her, “My name is Dannah” because it was very upsetting to her. So I played the role of my cousin. I talked about her husband and her job.

But then, in a moment of grace, God lifted the veil of confusion, and my sweet grandmother, at the age of ninety-six, looked at me. She held my hand. She said, “Dannah, (my name!) don’t forget the pot pie. You promised you’d make a batch the day I go to heaven.”

And I did. The morning she died, I called my mom. I got my Nana’s big blue pot pie bowl. I got my Nana’s rolling pin. We gathered it all together. We called all the cousins, and we made that recipe one more time. We laughed instead of mourned. We remembered the good times and the joyful moments. We celebrated her life.

When I look through Scripture, I see a lot of women like my Nana who set the tone for their family to survive evil, difficult, fearful days by sprinkling them, flavoring them with faith.

I think about the women who would have been cooking the Passover Feast. How fearful would that have been, knowing the edict, knowing that the firstborn in every house is going to die? And if all the other plagues had come to be, why wouldn’t this one?

They made the bitter herbs. They made all of the things God instructed them to, including, as tradition tells us, matzo balls. I wonder if there was joy and laughter around that table?

The Lord did deliver them that night. He did pass over them, and that did commence the exodus of God’s people from slavery. And to this day those recipes, those tasty matzo balls are still made to remember God’s faithfulness.

And then there’s the feast of Purim—still celebrated today by faithful Jews. We don’t have it recorded in the Bible like we do some of the menu items for Passover, but tradition tells us that a cookie that’s called “hamantash”came out of that festival—still enjoyed by faithful Jews today. Why? To remember that when God’s people once again were threatened with death by an evil man named Haman, and one faithful woman named Esther walked in courage and faith, God was able to, once again, rescue His people.

These women set the tone. They set the table, not just a feast, but for a family to walk in faith. And I want to be that kind of woman. And we find that kind of faith in the book of Habakkuk. In fact, the book of Habakkuk is kind of like those recipes.

It was born out of evil times. It’s been passed on, like those recipes, as a baton of truth and faith. It’s become more than just a tradition. It’s actually become the backbone of the doctrine of the New Testament Church.

Now, you might think that’s a pretty big claim, so today we’ll unpack it, and I think you’re going to actually agree with me. But I know this: This book of the Bible, like those recipes, is a baton of faith, a baton of joy, a baton of hope, and we need to pass it on. We need to be women who set the tone in our families, in our neighborhoods, in our churches, in our culture to walk in faith, even in difficult times.

The book of Habakkuk was written about 600 years before Jesus walked this earth. That would have been when Habakkuk lived in the land of Jerusalem. And during that time, things weren’t looking so good. The people of God had forgotten Him. There was a lot of evil and corruption, and there were difficult days.

And Habakkuk, who was a man of great faithfulness, was troubled by all of the sin that he saw in his culture. So he began to write out his thoughts, a conversation with God, and that’s what we see recorded in the book of Habakkuk.

Let’s begin by looking at Habakkuk 1, verses 2 and 3. Habakkuk says,

O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you, ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law paralyzed and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.

Why, O Lord? How long? Don’t You see this? Aren’t You doing something? When will You speak? Why are You so silent?”

I’ve written questions like those in my journal. I’ve written them over personal pains and personal problems. I remember writing like that, lamenting, “God, why don’t You do something?” when my husband and I were owners of a small business and loved sharing the gospel through our testimony in the community. But some decisions we’d made with our finances put us in a place where we were threatened by bankruptcy. “Why, Lord? Why?”

I remember when my husband was in a life-threatening accident, and I didn’t really know for many hours how that would go, and then for days, how quickly and to what extent he would heal. “Why, Lord? Why did You allow this to happen?”

But I have never asked questions that were on the backdrop that Habakkuk was asking his because his world was falling apart. I’ve never had to ask questions about my own personal problems without having the stability of a healthy economy, without having the promise of family members who would faithfully help me through hard things, without having a church that was able to congregate and meet and help me in practical ways.

Habakkuk didn’t have those things. His world wasn’t stable. He didn’t have an easy life like I have—but with a few bumps and bruises. His world was falling apart completely. I’ve never lived in a time like that. My Nana had. She’d walked through the Great Depression and the Second World War, and the Holocaust and its aftermath and the healing of our nation. But that’s the stuff that’s written about in the Bible that history books tell us. Right?

As we’re taping this, we are emerging from having been sheltered at home for many months. Can you imagine that it would be months until we got to come out of our houses? Why? Because there was a global pandemic— COVID-19—that was taking the life of so many people across the world.

And on top of that, as a result of that, economies all around the globe crashed. And then, just as we began to think, Maybe it’s going to get back to normal, maybe things will stabilize, our world was suddenly embroiled in a difficult and painful conversation about the sin of racism.

I’m starting to understand a little bit just how Habakkuk felt when he asked his questions. But I’m here to tell you that he’s a man who’s walked through difficult times before us, and he’s done it with faith. And his book gives us two really practical treasures.

The first one is this: It teaches us how to talk to God during evil times.

I don’t know about you, but there are times when life seems so complicated and so painful that I’m just not quite sure how to talk to God.

• What can I say to Him?
• What shall I hold back?
• Can I tell Him everything that I’m thinking?
• Can I throw my accusations?
• Is it okay to be frustrated with God?

Habakkuk is an Akkadian name meaning “wrestler” or “embracer.” And as you’ve just seen in the verses we read and in the verses we’ll study in the days to come, Habakkuk wrestled with God. He brought his questions; he brought his doubts to God. He teaches us how to do that. He writes a permission slip for us to do that in our own lives.

And the second thing that Habakkuk does is he offers us six habits of walking by faith in evil times.

Here’s where I think we find the backbone of the New Testament. The thesis of Habakkuk shows up in the New Testament three times—in the book of Romans, in the book of Galatians, and in the book of Hebrews. It also has veiled references throughout the New Testament.

This thesis I’m about to read to you really is a very important truth on the pages of Scripture. Let me read Habakkuk 2:4 for you.

Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

Does that sound familiar to you? Have you heard that a time or two?

My friend Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says, “This is one of the most important verses in all of God’s Word: ‘The righteous will live by his faith.’ This verse is like a diamond against the sooty backdrop of man’s corruption and God’s judgment.”

We find such comfort in those words, don’t we? That we can walk by and live by faith—what a freeing thing that we can do it. But we also find marching orders in them: We must walk by and live by faith.

Now, it’s interesting that we’re so familiar with that second part of the verse, but if that second part of the verse is important, isn’t the first part of the verse important also? Let’s land on that one for just a second.

The first part says, “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him.”

Now, specifically, this verse is referring to the Chaldeans, a very small and insignificant people group in the region where Habakkuk lives. We will see that they are going to become very powerful, and that they’re going to actually march God’s people off into captivity where they will become exiles. These people are proud. These people are puffed up. These people are mean. And God is going to use them to correct His children, to put them in a proverbial time out that’s far more painful than any your mama ever dished out.

Now, as we’ll examine in our study, we’ll come to understand that their pride was just one side of a two-sided coin. They were also a very fearful people. You know, sometimes it is our fear that makes us mean. Our fear makes us reactive. In an attitude of self-protection, we rise up, and we become very prideful. I think that’s who these Chaldean people were.

But I also think that when we look at the contrast of someone who is prideful and someone who walks by faith that God’s also inviting us to consider: Are we prideful? Are we puffed up? Are we reactive? Are we mean? We’re going to take some time to examine our own hearts in the weeks to come.

The second part of that verse says that a righteous person lives by faith. Those who are righteous, as God views righteousness, don’t think that they themselves have brought anything to the table. They recognize that it is the righteousness of God that calls them to rise up and to live and to act in faith. We need to do that. We need to walk by faith because, if the book of Hebrews is right, and it is, I’m sure of it, that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” when times are desperately evil, we need hope to see the things that we can’t imagine.

We need hope when we cannot possibly see how the bank account will last through this crisis.

We need hope when we can’t imagine that God will bring the miraculous healing that we’re praying for.

We need hope when we don’t have the job that we so desperately need.

And we need hope to believe that this evil, difficult time, shall pass.

Faith enables us to have that hope. And we need it all the time, but we need it in an especially real way when we’re wrestling with God in our mind.

I don’t know about you, but that fear and pride, and that faith, it’s like there are two sumo wrestlers in my head, and they go at it day after day. I can feel like I’m absolutely losing it, and I have a hard time finding my hope to stand on.

As I was sheltering at home during the COVID-19 crisis, it became really apparent to me how very much I believe that I am in control of my life. I don’t understand that at any moment, things could change. I don’t really understand how much God is in control of each and every day. I need to confess that there were moments that I laid awake at night with those sumo wrestlers in my head.

So many times the fear was winning. Why? Because I spent time feeding the fear through the newsfeed, through my social media account, through man’s opinions. Yes, there were lots of scary facts during that time. There was a new novel virus on the earth that we didn’t know how to handle. Our bodies didn’t know how to handle it. The medical community didn’t know how to handle it. It was true. It was a fact that people were dying. And it was true, it was a fact that our economies were failing.

But you know what? A person who walks by faith doesn’t look at true facts. They walk in “the Truth.” Because truth from God’s Word trumps the facts every time.

Here’s the thing: What I learned during that time is that I really am capable of having “spiritual amnesia” when times are difficult. I forget how faithful God has been in the past. But do you know what I came to realize? I forget His faithfulness in good times, too.

I struggle with remembering how good God has been. In good times, I tend to forget my dependence on God because I think I can take care of me. That sounds a little proud, maybe a little puffed up.

And in bad times, I forget to remember how incredibly faithful God has been in the past and that I can, in this difficult time, right here, right now, walk through it in faith.

Habakkuk is an invitation for us to consider our personal response in difficult times and our personal response in difficult situations.

God wants you and me to be women of faith who pass on faithful living, like a baton. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll pass it on with your family’s favorite recipe.

Now, Habakkuk is not an easy read. You’re going to have to roll up your sleeves. I have to tell you: I think you’re going to like Habakkuk. My friends who have also studied this book in-depth say that they finish it with a sense of friendship.

I feel that way about Habakkuk. He seems like he’s a familiar friend. I can identify with him. He’s been through some of the same source of emotions and feelings and trials that I have been. He’s had some of the same responses to God and to hardships that I have had. He’s easy to identify with.

But I need to warn you: He’s not all that easy to understand sometimes because he’s very creative. He is a poet. And he does not speak to us in the pages of Habakkuk with prose, with subjects, verbs and direct objects. And so, we have to think a little harder. We have to pause and ponder the poetry.

I had so much trouble with this when I first began studying it that I had to call a college professor. I called a professor of Old Testament theology, and I said, “I have a question for you. Why did Habakkuk have to write in poetry? I mean, it says right in his book that God told him to make the message plain and clear. So why does he use poetry?”

And he told me something very interesting. He said, “God often communicates His best truths poetically.”

He went on to share with me how in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, some of the most important verses in those two chapters of the Bible are poetry.

He reminded me that the celebration of exodus—poetry.

Psalms, Proverbs, the book of Job—another book about living through difficult times—poetry.

Most of the prophetic books are also poetry.

Why would God do that? Because He has something very significant to say, and poetry doesn’t allow us to skim over it. We have to slow down and look carefully.

Here are a few things that I’ve learned as I’ve studied Habakkuk. I hope these are encouraging to you as you dive into the power of poetry in Scripture.

The first thing is this: Poetry requires us to get face to face with God. It’s very intimate. If you don’t slow down and look it in the eye, you’ll not truly understand it.

I had so many sweet moments where I felt a new intimacy with God as I was studying Habakkuk. I hope that you will, too. One particular time that stands out: I set an hour aside just to read Habakkuk and then sit in God’s presence and see what He would speak to me.

And do you know what? After the hour was over, I didn’t want to leave that sweet place of intimacy. I sat with the Lord that day for four hours, watching woodpeckers at my feeder and talking to the Lord.

I hope you’ll experience intimacy with the Lord in the days to come.

The second thing is: Poetry is pregnant with persuasion because poetry tends to be emotional. It tends to be persuasive, and that’s a good thing. We want to be persuaded when we’re reading God’s Word, after all, it is God’s Word.

The other thing: It’s beautiful. Some of the verses that we’re going to come to in chapter 3 of Habakkuk will be very familiar to you. They’re memorable because they’re beautiful.

The fourth thing: The extra work poetry requires results in eureka moments. To be truly present with the Word, to understand it, you have to dig so deep. And when you get down into the truth of it, up to your elbows, you find a treasure that you didn’t know was there, you will have this wonderful sense of reward and this great moment of eureka. I hope that you will experience that in the days to come.

But finally: It helps us to remember. Poetry, because it is beautiful, because it is emotional, it helps that part of our brain that recalls things and remembers things. We’ll store it, and we have it there at the ready. I can’t think of anything better for us to walk and live by faith than passages of Scripture at the ready in our brains. We’re going to need help remembering because when we walk through those difficult times, it is so easy to forget God.

Let me tell you about a few people who say Habakkuk is a good read.

The first one is God. God Himself said this is an important book. He wanted it heralded. Habakkuk 2, verse 2–3 reads:

And the LORD answered me: [this is answering Habakkuk when he says, “Why LORD? How long do I have to wait?”] write the vision; make it plain on tablets so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

In one version, in the NIV, it actually says, “Write down the revelation. Make it plain on tablet so that a herald may run with it.”

What was a herald? A herald was a person who would take an important message, and they would run to make sure that all of the people got that important message. God wants this message in the book of Habakkuk to be heralded. Habakkuk passed it on to us like a baton of faith, and it is our job to run with it now.

Another person who thought this was a pretty important book of the Bible was the apostle Paul. As I said, he used it in his writings. It became the backbone of the doctrine of the New Testament.

And finally, let me say other more contemporary people of faith felt this was important.

Martin Luther was one of them. He used it to get through his questions about a very broken church. When he looked at the Church, he saw a Church that wasn’t really living by faith but by works.

One day he was reading the book of Romans, and he came to a place where Habakkuk was quoted, where it said, “The righteous shall live by his faith.” And that phrase struck him in a way that it never had before. Martin Luther was never the same. He realized these good works—they’re nothing. The righteousness that’s used to walk in faith is the righteousness of God. He realized he didn’t have anything to contribute.

He reports that that was the day that he was born again. And not only that, but the Church was reformed, and the Church had another chance to walk by faith through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And that Church now has this baton of faith: the book of Habakkuk in its hands. And we are responsible to pass that on to herald this truth.

I hope you’ll join me as we roll up our sleeves and study this important book and pass it on to generations to come.

Nancy: Well, what has your response been during these unusual, difficult days? Are you walking by faith or by fear? We’re listening to the first in a series of messages by my co-host Dannah Gresh, who’s just released a new Bible study which is based on the same book of the Bible: Habakkuk. She’ll be back to pray in a moment.

The book is actually a conversation between God and the prophet after whom it’s named. The dialogue teaches us how to talk to God in difficult and evil days. And that’s certainly something many of us need help with during this unusual year.

Perhaps times like these are the reason God was so specific to say that he wanted these instructions passed on! Let me read Habakkuk 2:2 where the prophet receives an answer from God in their verbal exchange:

And the Lord answered me: "Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it."

Now, I can tell you: there is nothing plain about the poetry of Habakkuk! It can take some thoughtful consideration and diligent study to truly understand this book of the Bible. So,when God tells Habakkuk to make it plain, it’s not the style of writing, rather the intention of it. This is an important message.

One version reads: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it” (NIV). A herald is an official messenger who is assigned to bring news about something. In Habakkuk’s case, it was a message of truth about some upcoming challenges the people of God will face, but it was also ultimately an invitation to walk in faith and hope.

As women, we’re assigned to bring this kind of message and to then to pass on faith like a baton. You and I are called to be heralds of God’s faithfulness. And there’s no more important time to run with that message than during a season when it would be so easy to live in fear. 

What kind of woman are you? Do you pass on faith? Or are you passing on fear? We are living in a time where we have a special opportunity to do either. Which will you choose? 

For the next several days we’ll be hearing Dannah’s messages based on Habakkuk: Remembering God’s Faithfulness When He Seems Silent. This series is your chance to —as Dannah said earlier—"to push the reset button where needed" so you can be a woman who is remembered as having passed on a baton of faith during the pandemic of 2020.

Now, here’s Dannah to pray.

Dannah: Lord, we are women of faith. We declare it today because we are digging into this difficult-to-understand book of the Bible. But, Lord, we believe there are treasures here. We believe there are treasures here that help us to know how to talk to You when times are difficult. And we believe that there are treasures that will teach us how to walk by faith.

Father, reward the work of these women who are joining me in studying these words of our friend Habakkuk. Will You teach us, Lord, to pass on this baton of truth and faith and hope? In the name of Jesus Christ we pray this, amen.

Nancy: If you were challenged by this message, Dannah and I want to invite you to dig deeper into the book of Habakkuk on your own.

Dannah: One way to do that is to listen to the series Nancy taught on this book of the Bible. In twenty-four dynamic, information-packed sessions, she teaches verse-by-verse through the three chapters that comprise Habakkuk. I used these messages as part of my research to write a Bible study on Habakkuk in late 2019 and absolutely loved them! When I reviewed them recently to teach this series, I marvelled at how timely the teachings you wrote many years ago are for what our world is going through this year, Nancy.

Nancy: That’s because God’s Word is always timely! 

Dannah: You can find all of Nancy’s past teachings in the archives at ReviveOurHearts.com or on the Revive Our Hearts app. There’s a link in the transcript of this program.

Nancy: I’d also like to encourage women to dig deeper by getting a copy of the Bible study you just mentioned. It’s titled Habakkuk: Remembering God’s Faithfulness When He Seems Silent. We’ll send you a copy when you make a donation to support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts with a gift of any amount today. Our team is busy throughout the world right now, helping women walk by faith in fearful times, and we’re grateful to you for helping make that possible.

Visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1–800–569–5959. When you make your gift of any amount, be sure to ask for the Bible study on Habakkuk.

Tomorrow, Dannah will continue in the series. Dannah, what’s up for day two?

Dannah: Well, Nancy, a lot of women have been writing to me to say they feel like God is being silent right now. 

Nancy: That’s something we’re all tempted to feel or believe when times are difficult.

Dannah: True. But God is always at work around us. Yet sometimes, as we’ll discover in the pages of Habakkuk tomorrow, there’s a message in the silence. And it’s certainly not one you can afford to miss.

Nancy: Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to equip you to walk by faith in fearful times. It’s an outreach of Life Action Ministries.