Part 6 of Short Books, Long Shadows
July 19, 2026
Glywood Baptist Church, Prattville, AL
James Jackson, Pastor
Good morning! Please open your Bibles to the book of Habakkuk.
Anyone else here a fan of Chinese food? I probably end up at Ding Hao for lunch a couple of times a month. And my favorite part of the meal isn’t even the black pepper chicken—it’s the fortune cookie.
Now, I’ve been told there’s nothing authentically Chinese about fortune cookies, but I don’t care. I love cracking one open and reading that little slip of paper.
Here in Alabama, I fully expect one of these days to get one that says, “Accident or injury? Call Alexander Shunnarah.“
But I remember one time opening a fortune cookie and reading these words: “May you live in interesting times.”
At first, that sounds like a blessing. Who doesn’t want to live in a time where there’s always something going on, never bored, never a dull moment?
But the longer you think about it, the more it sounds like a curse. Because ‘interesting times’ usually mean uncertain times. Times when the world seems to be changing faster than you can keep up. Times when you find yourself asking, ‘Lord…what in the world are You doing?’
That’s exactly where we meet Habakkuk.
The prophet Habakkuk lived in interesting times too. He ministered to the southern kingdom of Judah near the end of the seventh century BC, during one of the most chaotic periods in biblical history. A century earlier, the northern kingdom of Israel had fallen to Assyria. Then, in 612 BC, Nineveh—the Assyrian capital—fell to the Babylonians and their allies. Three years later, Judah’s godly king Josiah was killed confronting the Egyptian army. Before long, Egypt had installed the wicked Jehoiakim on Judah’s throne.
With all this happening, you might hope Judah would do some soul-searching—that the people would repent and continue the reforms King Josiah had begun. But, as we’ll see, that wasn’t the case.
Habakkuk is the story of a man trying to make sense of what God is doing. The book is unique among the prophetic books. Most prophets recorded God’s message to the people. Habakkuk records the prophet’s conversation with God about the people.
And it matters to us today—not only because we live in interesting times as a nation, but because many of us have endured more than enough interesting times of our own. Maybe you’ve been crying out to God about something and feel as though He is ignoring you. Maybe you’ve wondered why you can’t catch a break while the most obnoxious guy in the office gets the promotion.
We’re going to see from Habakkuk where to go with those questions, where to gain perspective on them, and how to encourage others with the answers God gives. Let’s pray, and then we’ll dive in.
[pray]
1. Go to God With Your Questions
The first thing we’re going to notice about Habakkuk is that when he has big questions, he goes to the right place for the answers.
Most of our biggest questions for God fall into two categories.
“How long?” and “How come?”
1. How long questions. These are questions about timing. How long will this sickness last? How long before I find the person you have for me to marry? How long before my daughter comes to her senses and gets her life back on track?
How long am I supposed to keep praying when it seems like God isn’t listening?
If you’ve ever prayed a “how long?” prayer, you’re in good company. The Bible records someone asking God “How long?” about sixty-five different times.
It’s Habakkuk’s first question. Look how the book opens:
Habakkuk 1:1–4 ESV
1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. 2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? 3 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.
Habakkuk sees the evil being done in Judah, and he asks God, “How long before you do something about this?”
How do we know Habakkuk is talking about Judah? Verse four gives us a big clue.
4 So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.
He says the law is paralyzed. The Hebrew word translated “law” is Torah—the covenant law God gave His people. Habakkuk isn’t complaining about pagan Babylon yet. He’s grieving that God’s people are ignoring God’s Word. The Torah is paralyzed. Justice is perverted. God’s people are perpetrating violence, destruction, strife and contention against one another. (Another interesting word study: the Hebrew word for “violence” is hamas). Habakkuk sees that the righteous are getting overwhelmed by the wicked, and he asks, how long.
And in verse 5, God answers him.
Sort of.
Verse 5:
“Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.”
We love this part! “I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.” Let’s put it on coffee mugs! Let’s print it on graduation cards! Let’s quote it before mission trips and church planting conferences. “Do something unbelievable, Lord!”
God’s going to do something unbelievable, all right:
Verse 6:
For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.
Wait, what?
God isn’t going to send down a great revival for Judah. He’s going to send a great army against Judah.
That wasn’t the answer Habakkuk expected. He wanted God to remove evil from Judah. Instead, God was going to use an even more wicked nation to remove Judah from Jerusalem and into exile in Babylon.
Habakkuk wants God to remove the wickedness from Judah. Instead, God plans to remove Judah because of its wickedness. Habakkuk can’t wrap his mind around this. So he asks a second question.
Remember, there’s two basic questions: How long, and how come. This is the How come question:
Verse 13:
13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?
How long before you judge Judah?—
How come you’re going to use Babylon to do it?
God answers… but his answer created even bigger questions.
Have you ever been there?
• You prayed for direction, and the answer God gave was harder than the problem you started with.
• You prayed for healing, and instead the diagnosis got worse.
• You prayed for clarity, and all you got was more uncertainty.
Sometimes God’s first answer doesn’t remove the mystery. Sometimes it deepens it.
So what do you do then?
Habakkuk doesn’t throw up his hands and walk away.
He climbs higher.
And that’s where we come to the second lesson of the book.
Go to the watchtower for God’s perspective.
Look at 2:1:
Habakkuk 2:1 ESV
1 I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.
Let’s break this down. Picture a watchtower. It’s going to be the highest point in the fortress, isn’t it? It will give you a 360 degree view of the field of battle. From the watchtower, you can see further than you can on the ground. You can see more than you can on the ground. In other words, you are getting a broader perspective.
When you can’t understand what’s happening at ground level, God invites you to see things from His perspective.
John Piper famously said, “At any given moment God is doing ten thousand things in your life, and at best you may be aware of three of them.”
Habakkuk could see three things. Judah’s sin. Babylon’s wickedness. God’s announcement that Babylon was coming. What he couldn’t see were the other 9,997 things God was doing.
So he climbed to the watchtower. And there, he showed us the attitude we have to have if we are ever going to get God’s perspective on our circumstances.
First, he waited patiently. He didn’t say to God, “all right, buddy, you’ve got 30 seconds to start explaining yourself.”
Habakkuk took his stand. He stationed himself. He looked to see what God would say to him.
That’s a high view of God. We acknowledge that His timing is wiser than ours.
Second, he waited humbly.
The second half of verse 1 is a little convoluted in English. It says, “… and [see] what I will answer concerning my complaint.” I prefer the New American Standard version here:
I will stand at my guard post, And station myself on the watchtower; And I will keep watch to see what He will say to me, And how I may reply when I am reprimanded.
That’s a humble view of our own understanding. Habakkuk climbs the watchtower not to prove God wrong, but prepared to discover that he may be wrong.
That can be the hardest thing to do when you are dealing with tough questions. So many people turn their backs on God when they feel like things don’t make sense. True faith is getting to the place where you say, “If this doesn’t make sense to me, it’s not because God made a mistake, it’s because my understanding is too limited.”
Now, understand this: God never gives us perspective simply to make us feel better, or so we can be enlightened. He gives us perspective so we can carry His message to others. When we get that perspective on the watchtower, then we know what to say to people when we climb back down. And that’s our third point…
3. Go to the world with God’s answer (2:1-3)
Look at Habakkuk 2:2-3 with me.
Habakkuk 2:2–3 ESV
2 And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. 3 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.
Did you notice what God tells Habakkuk to do after he comes down from the watchtower?
Write it down, and make it plain.
See, the watchtower isn’t the destination. It’s preparation. God gives us perspective so we can go back into the world and give people hope.”
Don’t keep what you know about God to yourself. Don’t hide it in a journal somewhere.
Write it so clearly that someone can read it on the run.
God doesn’t answer Habakkuk’s questions just for Habakkuk’s sake. He answers them for everyone who will come after him.
That’s what God has always done.
Moses came off the mountain and wrote it down.
Isaiah came out of the temple, and wrote it down.
John came out of exile on the island of Patmos and wrote his vision down.
David wrote down his meditations.
Jeremiah wrote down his prophecies.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote down their experiences with Jesus.
Paul wrote down his letters to the churches.
And because they did, we’re reading it twenty-six hundred years later.
Sometimes the greatest encouragement God gives you isn’t just for you. It’s for the next person who walks through the valley you’re walking through right now.
We have a message for the world. We need to let them know these truths about God:
God’s timing is always perfect.
Verse 3 says, “The vision awaits its appointed time.”
God has an appointed time for everything He does.
Not our time.
His time.
And His timing is never early and never late.
It always feels slow to us because we’re standing on the ground looking at the battle. But from the watchtower, God sees the whole war.
Second:
God’s ways are always right.
Habakkuk still doesn’t understand everything.
Neither do we.
But he has learned something on the watchtower: God isn’t making this up as He goes.
He isn’t reacting.
He isn’t scrambling for Plan B.
Even when God uses Babylon—a nation Habakkuk never would have chosen—He is still accomplishing righteous purposes.
And finally:
God’s character is always good.
That’s really what Habakkuk has been wrestling with all along.
Not whether Babylon is evil.
Everybody knew Babylon was evil.
The question was whether God was still good.
The answer of the book is yes.
Always yes.
His timing is good.
His ways are good.
His character is good.
And because those things are true, Habakkuk can carry God’s message to the world with confidence—even before all of his questions have been answered.
And the most important part of God’s message is found in verse 4. Look at it with me:
Habakkuk 2:4 ESV
4 “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
This is one of the most influential verses in the entire Old Testament. It is quoted three times in the New Testament, and each author uses it a little differently.
Paul says in Romans 1:17 that
“For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’“
In Galatians 3:11, Paul writes
“Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’“
And then the writer of Hebrews wrote in Hebrews 10:37-38
“For, ‘Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith,
And notice that each time Habakkuk 2:4 is quoted in the New Testament, the context naturally highlights a different phrase:
• In Romans, The righteous shall live by faith. There is a distinction between how we live and how the rest of the world lives.
• In Galatians, The righteous shall live by faith. We aren’t saved through obedience to the law, or by doing good works.
• In Hebrews, The righteous shall live by faith. Faith is what sustains us. Faith is what charaqterizes us. Faith is what guides our daily decision making.
Our message to the world is not just “have faith,” but live by faith.
4. Go to your knees in worship (Chapter 3)
Now, I need to tell you how the story ends.
The rest of chapter 2 contains a series of five “woes” against Babylon. God assures Habakkuk that Babylon may be His instrument of judgment, but Babylon will not escape judgment themselves. Evil never has the last word. God does.
But that’s not really how the book ends.
The book ends with a song.
Chapter 3 is a prayer. More specifically, it’s a psalm. After all of Habakkuk’s questions…after climbing the watchtower…after hearing God’s answer…the prophet does something remarkable.
He worships.
Look at how the book closes.
Look at Habakkuk 3:17-19
Habakkuk 3:17–19 ESV
17 Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. 19 God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
Habakkuk doesn’t say, “I will rejoice when the fig tree blossoms.”
He doesn’t say, “Yet I will rejoice after Babylon is defeated.”
He doesn’t say, “Yet I will rejoice once I understand what God is doing.”
He says, even if none of this happens, ”Yet I will rejoice in the LORD.”
Nothing in Habakkuk’s circumstances has changed.
Babylon is still coming.
Judah is still going to be judged.
The famine he describes in verses 17 and 18 isn’t hypothetical. It’s exactly what Babylon’s invasion will bring. Empty fields. Empty barns. Empty stalls.
The future he feared is still the future he’s going to have to live through.
So what changed?
Habakkuk changed.
When he began the book, he was looking at God through the lens of his circumstances.
Now he’s looking at his circumstances through the lens of God.
That’s what happens when you climb the watchtower. You don’t always get different circumstances.
But you get a different perspective.
Years ago, there was a Christian singer-songwriter named Don Francisco. He was actually the son of a renowned Old Testament professor at Southern Seminary named Clyde T Francisco.
When Don was a teenager, his father would often have him come and play guitar and sing before his lectures. And there were times when Don would write songs based on his father’s lectures.
And I can imagine Dr. Francisco expounding on Habakkuk one day. Exegeting this profound closing Psalm.
And Don listening to him and writing what would become one of his first hits:
Though the fig tree shall not blossom
Though there be no grapes upon the vine
Though the olive tree shall cast fruit
And the fields shall yield no grain to grind
Though the flock should all be scattered
Though there be no cattle in the stall
The Lord is still my joy and strength
And by His Word, He’ll change it all
Praise the Lord, Hallelu
I don’t care what the devil’s gonna do
The Word in faith is my sword and shield
Jesus is Lord of the way I feel
That’s exactly where Habakkuk lands.
He doesn’t deny reality. He looks reality squarely in the face.
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
We live in interesting times.
Are you living through them by faith?
And maybe that’s where some of you came to church this morning with some of those big questions weighing you down.
You’re still asking, “How long?” You’re still asking, “How come?”
You may leave here today with some of those questions unanswered.
But if you leave knowing that God is worthy of your trust, that His timing is perfect, His ways are right, and His character is good, then you’ve climbed the watchtower with Habakkuk.
And the only appropriate response…
…is to fall to your knees in worship.
Because God’s presence will always be better than God’s explanation.
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