You'll Never Believe What I'm Going To Do Even If I Told You (Habakkuk 1:5-11)
Paul MacDonald RN MA Dipl
You'll Never Believe It | I'm Sending Your Enemies Against You
God says, "You are not going to believe what I am about to tell you, Habakkuk, but I am already at work to deliver you and punish the sinners around you." Then what does He do? He tells the prophet that He is sending the ferocious, bloody, terrifying Chaldeans to conquer Judah!
Terror Out of Chaldea
The prophet must have been stunned! This was not the answer he expected in the least. What kind of deliverance is humiliating defeat at the hand of these utterly godless people who struck terror into the entire Middle East?
In addition, they were Gentiles, and God was taking their side and cruelly punishing His own people. It must have shaken his faith to hear God tell him, "I am coming to spank this nation with the worst of the heathen."
The Cure Worse Than The Ailment
And just as God said, Habakkuk did not want to believe it. In his eyes, the deliverance was worse than the original corruption—at least that is what he thought at first. From what he understood of God, this made no sense. How could a loving God punish His own special people with a club like the Chaldeans?
God Who Works in Mysterious Ways
To understand God's answer we have to understand what God's work is.
Psalm 74:12 says, "God is . . . working salvation in the midst of the earth."
What is astounding is how He chooses to do it because He does it far differently than we would. As the old saying goes, "God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform." To a man's way of thinking, His works are truly mysterious; sometimes, we do not have a clue how He works.
God's Ways And Thoughts Higher Than Man's
God sometimes does things in a very round-about way, but it has a kind of boomerang effect, and that all he says will without a doubt take place (Isaiah 55:8-11 and Joshua 23:14).
God Has Gone Off On One
At times, it seems God goes in one direction, off the beaten path, but that is merely our perspective of it. We find out later—after we have grown in wisdom and understanding—that He has been following His plan all along.
God's Work Makes No Sense Now
We are the ones who have not kept up. Habakkuk deals a great deal with perspective—man's perspective versus God's. God always gets His job done. When He sends forth His word to accomplish a work, it always comes back to Him with the result He intends. It may not make much sense to us at the time, but it surely works because God is behind it. In the end, it is the best way.
God Bringing About Evil For Our Good
Many have questioned why God has allowed everything to decline in recent years. What is happening here? What's going on? Why is God silent?
God isn't silent, but using evil to destroy evil. Why must he use evil? We have shaken our heads at the swiftness and brutality of it all (Isaiah 45:7)
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That is how Habakkuk felt with the Chaldeans breathing down the Judeans' necks. If God had told us a few decades ago that the problems of today would come, would we have believed Him? Well, many have predicted our times today, but they were laughed at, called "Tin Foil Hat Wearers".
Would we have even considered these "Tin Foil Hat Wearers" to be a work of God? "Look . . . and watch—be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you" (Verse 5).
Now we can understand how Habakkuk felt. He did have prior warning, and it still made him question God's very nature, even though God was working away in the background to bring about his plan.
Paul MacDonald RN MA Dipl ©
