Sermon Title: WHEN GOD SEEMS ABSENT
Sermon Text: HABAKKUK 1:1-11 (NIV)
Sermon Series: HABAKKUK: FAITH IN THE MIDST OF LIFE’S FRUSTRATIONS
By: PTR NESTOR SY
Sermon Notes:
HABAKKUK 1:1-11 NIV
1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received.
2 How long, O 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 wrong? 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 “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.
6 I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own.
7 They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture swooping to devour;
9 they all come bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.
10 They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them.
11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on-- guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”
I. HISTORICAL CONTEXT
II. HABAKKUK’S COMPLAINTS
ISSUE #1: God doesn’t care.
PSALMS 10:1 NIV
1 Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
ISSUE #2: God doesn’t act.
ISSUE #3: God tolerates wrong.
“They buy and sell us, they make trade of our heart’s blood and sweat and tears, and God lets them. He does. God lets them.”
It is faith that makes us ask hard questions.
Habakkuk complains not against God but to God.
III. GOD’S UNEXPECTED COMMENTARY
GOD SEES THE BIGGER PICTURE. WE DON’T.
Just as there is a time and a season for everything, there is also a color for every stage of life’s journey.
GOD’S WAYS ARE NOT OUR WAYS.
When God carries out his plan in our lives, sometimes he gives answers to our prayers that are unexpected.
If God is in control, then nothing is ever out of control.