Audio  Religious institutions have abandoned the Scriptures and become corrupt. The government has become hostile to God and those who are put their faith in Him. Genuine believers are despised and outcast in a society where they were once the majority. Systemic injustice feeds the unchecked spread of violence and moral decay. Sexual sin is tolerated, even celebrated, publicly. The foundations of society are crumbling. In the East, a well-organized force of brutal terrorism arises to destroy by force whatever stands in its way of world domination. This is not a summary of the stories from this morning’s newscasts, but instead it is a brief glimpse at the prevailing conditions of the tiny nation of Judah2,600 years ago. In those deplorable conditions, there lives a prophet named Habakkuk. For some time, he has cried out to his fellow countrymen in the name of God, and they have turned a deaf ear to him. Together with an oppressed minority of the righteous in the land, they have turned their cries heavenward, asking God to do something about the situation. For a long time, there has been no answer. In despair, the prophet has asked God how long it will be until he hears them and answers. He has asked God that question that rolls off of our lips so easily in troubled times: “Why?” And God answered the prophet in a surprising way. In verses 5-11, which we examined last week, we saw how God said that He was already at work in the situation. The way in which He was working, however, was surprising. The Lord said in verse 5, “I am doing something in your days – you would not believe if you were told.” But He told him anyway, saying that He was raising up the Chaldeans (better known to us as the Babylonians) to come in violently and take the people of Judah away into captivity. It must have sounded to Habakkuk like the cure was worse than the disease! He was burdened about what he saw in his own culture, but what the Lord showed him was about to happen burdened him all the more. This message from God in verses 5-11 is, in part, the burden which he speaks of in the very first verse. Things were not going the way Habakkuk wished they would. And God’s answer seems only to make matters worse. Bad news was followed by worse news. But Habakkuk did not let these things push him away from his God; rather he pressed into God by faith to reaffirm his convictions, to voice his questions, and to wait for God’s answer. I suppose it was about a year ago that I felt led to preach this book of Habakkuk after we finished the Gospel of John, and I remember thinking, “Well, Habakkuk is pretty relevant to our day and time.” I could have never imagined how much more relevant this book would become over the ensuing year. It is as if our times have caught up with our text to make this prophetic book read as if it were hot off the press. As I was writing these very words on Thursday, video and pictures scrolled across my computer monitor from the funerals of Philando Castile and the officers killed in Dallas, and news began to break of the horrific attack in Nice, France. And then there was Turkey, and then Baton Rouge. And of course, added to these are a multitude of other tragedies and turmoils that surround us on a daily basis. There will be new ones before this day is out. I have mentioned before that Habakkuk has an infinite advantage over us in that the Lord has given him specific revelation about what is to come for his nation. We do not have that. We have no certain means of determining if an act that occurs today is divine judgment against sin, or if it is just another expression of that sin working its way out in the world. We do not know what will become of our nation, our denomination, our congregation, or our situation. Only God knows that, and He has not revealed it to us. So we can make neither declarations nor predictions. But, what we can be are students of the history of God’s dealings with men and nations, and from that we can find pa