LESSON 3A
Back to the dead sea scrolls
I am still focusing on that group of pious Jews who settled
around the northwestern Dead Sea two hundred years before Christ was born.
We have been to that place – it is truly desolate. We were with a group touring that area, and an amazing soprano sang a hymn that still rings in my memory.
I don’t remember her name, but I will always hear her voice.
We were on a sort of a high cliff overlooking the Dead Sea . Our guide pointed to the cave, far down below us, where the young shepherd boy discovered the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.
Then the woman stepped out further on the ledge and turned toward the valley below us and began to sing:
Come, everyone who is thirsty in spirit
Come, everyone who is weary and sad
Come to the fountain; there’s fullness in Jesus—
All that you’re longing for, Come and be glad.
“I will pour water on him who is thirsty;
I will pour floods upon the dry ground.
Open your heart for the gift I am bringing.
While you are seeking Me I will be found.”
I will never forget those moments.
My best suggestion for all of us in the time machine is to stop a moment, go to gloryscapes devotion and click on the starting arrow. You will be so blessed and so thankful – I promise!
The music playing in the background is the tune for the words
above.
So think about it – Habakkuk receives a message from God around 600 BC.
Four hundred years later a group of faithful Jews write a commentary on that “ancient” book because they knew their own situation closely paralleled the times Habakkuk described.
And now here we are – 2600 years after Habakkuk and 2200 years after those pious Jews – studying the same holy document to find comfort for our times!
It’s all so profoundly simple!
Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Isaiah 55:1
For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground …Isaiah 44:3
You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with your whole heart. Jeremiah 29:13
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6
To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. Revelation 21:6
Without cost….without cost to us….but certainly the greatest cost possible for the One who paid the price!
Lesson 3
Habakkuk’s 1st Complaint:
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?
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.
Therefore the law is paralyzed,
And justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
So that justice is perverted.
--Habakkuk 1:2-4
Have We Been Immunized?
Sin, whether our own personal sin, or in our society around us, should make us heart sick.
I watched the news one night this week and wondered, “Where are all the tears? We are surrounded by grief and injustice – have we built up a resistance to it? Have we taken an inoculation to protect us from its pain? Or have we seen so much of it we have developed an immunity?
Don’t we, as a people, care anymore? Do we?
I remember hearing Mr. Rogers once advising parents to never leave their children alone in a room when TV news is being broadcast. He urged parents to sit and hold children if they are watching the news.
I felt like I needed someone to hold me while I was watching, too! Someone to protect me from the onslaught of crime and violence!
This was some of the “news” this week:
· A man is being executed for killing his three children some years ago.
· A mother in the northwest is implicated in the death of her child, as is a father back east. Children who will never see justice.
· About 7000 protesting Syrians have been killed by their government.
· A school district is refusing to teach the holocaust to appease some “offended” Muslim residents who deny Nazi atrocities against Jews – (they say all the reports and photos are just carefully contrived lies).
· Fifty million abortions since Roe vs. Wade…..
· What else? Various sex scandals involving European government leaders, as well as political candidates here….and it just goes on and on and on….ad nauseum…
I wonder, as did Habakkuk, “God, why don’t YOU do something! How can YOU – a holy and just God – tolerate all this horror? Aren’t YOU concerned?”
(Notice he never says “Why can’t You. He knows God can. It is a question of “why don’t You..?”)
Little children always ask why?
We as God’s children also ask why?
There might be a deeper question: God, do You even care? Really care?
We want to make some kind of sense of it.
When things in our lives go wrong we continually ask God “Why?” Why did this happen to me (on the other hand, why not me?) Why have all my carefully laid plans been thwarted?
Why am I the one disappointed? Why do I keep getting dragged down?
But Habakkuk’s challenges to God are not about his personal life – it is a wider picture – why, God, is there so much pain and injustice and violence in this (Your) world?
Look at the word “justice” in verses 2-4. “Injustice” once and “justice” twice in just 3 short verses. “Justice” is a theme in this book.
Habakkuk is overwhelmed. It looks like evil is superior to good. Physical evidence seems to indicate that the sinfulness of sin is stronger that the goodness of good.
Shakespeare even hundreds of years later mentioned it: “The evil that men do lives after them…the good is oft interred (buried) with their bones…” (Mark Antony speaks the words in his funeral oration for Julius Caesar.)
Evil does seem to have a long and vibrant life. Aren’t we still living with the lingering problems of the sin of slavery?
These verses (1:2-4) are a short lament – from a root word that means mourning, wailing, deep sorrow. (The Book of Lamentations, by Jeremiah, is a longer, but also single topic, lament.)
Certain psalms are considered psalms of lament: “How long, O LORD, will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1).
When Habakkuk says, “How long..?” he is not asking for a timetable. He is not demanding that the situation be taken care of in a year or two.
Habakkuk’s cry is that he feels he is being neglected. He is crying out to a God He fears has abandoned His creation. A God that no longer, if ever, really cares for His creation.
Deism here again
Deism is a popular, trendy, notion today, as it was in the 18th century. A true deist believes there was a creator-God, who finished His work and then walked away. He abandoned His creation to play itself out over time, and His creatures to work out their own path, upward or downward, however it might happen. He would be an absentee landlord.
The famous example is a watchmaker, who made a watch, wound it up, and then left it to run indefinitely on a beach or in a forest. It just runs as long ad it can.
Maybe someone will find it and re-wind it. Or maybe it will just eventually rust away into nothing.
A true deist does not pray – there is no one to pray to.
That’s why “history scholars” are so inaccurate when they label our Founding Fathers deists. Perhaps a few were, at some point in their lives. But very few. The group as a whole were men of prayer. They appealed to the “God of the Universe” to come to the aid of mankind.
Even Ben Franklin, reprobate though he was, prayed often, and insisted on prayer being offered in their meetings. And he greatly admired those Christians with whom he came in contact, especially those new converts in the Great Awakening Revival movement. He even said once that if all future Americans lived similar lives, our country would endure and succeed in achieving its ideals.
Habakkuk was not a deist in any definition of the term. He boldly challenges God “Are You going to let this go on forever? When will You exercise Your power and stop all this violence and injustice? How long are You going to overlook this public display of sin that has infiltrated our whole society?
God, how can You stand it?!?”
Because of the degree of sin on every level, even the law of the land had become slack, or “paralyzed.” (The role of human government is to “restrain evil” because all men are evil – and human government has to be restrained because it, too, being made up of men, is also capable of great evil (remember Nazi Germany? And Stalin? And countless others?)
– remember the old adage “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”?)
– remember the old adage “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”?)
Habakkuk was talking about the Law of God. He likely remembered how God’s Law was read and obeyed during Josiah’s revival. He yearned for the return of those days of the rule of God’s justice.
There should be some correlation, no matter how slight, between the Kingdom of God in heaven, and the Kingdom of Man Kingdom of Man serves man best when it is making its rules from the Kingdom of God
But the rule of God’s law had ceased. Justice had been eliminated from society or else maintained only in perverted forms.
Maybe like our insistence today of trying to keep everyone from being “offended.” Aren’t you just sick of it? Consider how offended God is! Justice can’t even be administered in some cases because we have placed “Political Correctness” on the throne.
Aren’t you just sick of it?
Is this one way the wicked hem in the righteous?
Is there a cure for what ails Habakkuk?
Yes, but is the cure going to be worse than the disease?
Stay tuned for the next chapter of our story…..
FUN PROJECTS for LESSON 3
1. Read Psalm 74 – a famous song of lament. See how the writer’s (Asaph) questions are much like Habakkuk’s. This is a truly beautifully worded psalm.
Notice the word pictures: God’s anger smoldering against the sheep of His pasture…..remember the people You purchased of old?
Verses 10-11 – take out Your arm from the folds of Your garment and destroy them! [ I really LOVE those words….Just give it to them, God! Show them who’s really boss!]
Select one verse that describes the way you feel when you watch the news.
2. Read Psalm 79 – another of Asaph’s laments. (I like this guy more and more...he also wrote Psalms 50 and 73-83). Asaph was a Levite and one of those choir leaders talked about in 1 Chronicles 23.
3. Of what is Habakkuk accusing God in verse 3. Is that a fair charge?
4. Does God do this to us? Why ?
5. What is good about God’s apparent tolerance (His slowness to act) of sin?
6. In verse 2 it appears that Habakkuk is pointing out sinful acts to God –“Look God, can’t You see it?” Does he really think we have to point out sin to God? Do we do that?
QUIZ #2
(Covering Lessons 1, 2, and 3)
____1. Habakkuk called himself a:
A. King
B. Priest and saint
C. Concerned citizen
D. Prophet
____2. Josiah became King when he was
A. Lost in the wilderness
B. A child
C. Kidnapped by Pharaoh
D. Found the crown in the temple
_____3. Josiah was brought up as a child to respect the Law of God
A. True
B. False
_____4. Read Deuteronomy 17:18-20. According to this passage all future Kings of God’s people were to:
A. Write out a copy of the Law for themselves on a scroll
B. Put their copy of the Law on display in the Smithsonian
C. Keep their copy of the Law with them and read it daily
D. Both A and C
E. Both A and B
_____5. We know ancient Jews living around the Dead Sea greatly respected Habakkuk because:
A. They wrote and preserved a unique verse-by-verse commentary
on the first 2 chapters.
B. They wanted his recipe for stew
C. They were curious about who Habakkuk really was
D. They respected the chronicles of King Josiah
_____6. Before King Solomon died, he counted the Levites and designated how many would participate in the temple construction and worship.
A. True
B. False
_____7. How many Levites were to serve in the temple choir and band?
A. 38,000
B. 6,000
C. 4,000
D. 24,000
____8. Habakkuk was a contemporary of:
A. Moses and Joshua
B. David and Solomon
C. Jeremiah and Daniel
D. Mary and Joseph
____9. In the NKJV of the passage we are studying, Habakkuk’s prophecy is called:
A. Politically Incorrect
B. Troubled speech
C. Burden
D. Journal
_____10. Habakkuk is challenging God to:
A. Listen to me!
B. Look at how bad things are!
C. Send someone from Krypton to save us
D. A and B
Part I – Lessons 1-3
This is not an easy study. Take your time. Let me know how you are doing and if you have questions.
Let’s just do it together. (I use mostly NIV)
There will be a reward at the end – not just from the blessings of the joy of the Lord as you work on this, and not just in the way you view the history of the world and God’s shaping of His Kingdom…and your life… but also a material award. Nothing will ever be as great as the first two rewards, but nevertheless, there will be a material award, also!
There is a total of 290 points possible in this first part (Lessons 1-3). If you get all 290 points, I will throw in 10 additional points, for a total of 300!
There are other optional quizzes at the end of Lesson 6 (covering lessons 4-6), 9 (lessons 7-9), and 12 (for lessons 10-12).
There are other optional quizzes at the end of Lesson 6 (covering lessons 4-6), 9 (lessons 7-9), and 12 (for lessons 10-12).
Counting Points for Lessons 1-3
Projects:
Lesson 1 – 5 Projects
Lesson 2 – 6 Projects
Lesson 3 – 6 Projects
17 projects worth 10 points each for a total of 170 possible credits.
Quizzes:
Lesson 2A -- 12 questions
Lessons 1-3 – 10 questions.
22 questions, worth 5 points each, for a total of 120 possible credits.
TO COUNT YOUR CREDIT FOR PROJECTS.
Please feel free to grade yourself. Just send me an email telling me how much of the 170 credits you feel you earned.
If there are some comments or insights you want to share, please email them to me. I wound love and am sure others would, too! And tell me if I can publish them for others to see. Otherwise just tell me the number of points (out of the total of 170) you feel you earned.
TO COUNT YOUR CREDITS FOR QUIZZES
There are two in this section.
Please email me your answers. Just say Lesson 2A and list your answers and the same for the quiz on lessons 1 – 3.
Email address: gloart2@yahoo.com
Mailing Address: Glorya Hammers
20260 CR 510
Fax: 979.798.2748
