The Silent Serenity of Sovereignty

Dr. Alan Dunn

Habakkuk 2:20-3:2

What would you say to a congregation of believers who are about to be attacked by brutal, vicious, drunken marauders in a frenzy of gruesome violence and destruction? You know that the survivors of the onslaught will be hauled off to captivity in a foreign and hostile land. What would you tell them to equip them for such a horrifying experience? Such was the situation for Habakkuk’s congregation. How did Habakkuk minister God’s word to His people amid the violent injustice of the Babylonian invasion? What does Habakkuk say to us?[1]

Habakkuk Encourages Us to Keep an Eternal, Transcendent Perspective

By faith, we must perceive our ultimate authority. The LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him [Hab 2:20]. Here is God’s court-room, where He sits enthroned in transcendent sovereignty. Here is where our perplexing questions of conscience are quelled. Other, lesser court-rooms are liable to unrighteousness and injustice. Can you trust the court-room of your conscience? the court of public opinion? of the media and universities? of big business? of man’s jurisprudence? of civil governments? of religious bodies? How often do we find that what men judge as acceptable is, in fact, immoral in the eyes of God? Fallen “powers and principalities” and doctrines of demons [1 Tim 4:1ff] can infiltrate men’s “courts” to harden and sear conscience. Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness [Isa 5:20]. We sing the prophecies of ultimate justice, the five taunt-songs of woe [Hab 2:6-20], with our eyes of faith focused on heaven’s throne. We draw near by faith and settle our consciences in the certainty of the Lord’s ultimate and eternal triumph over all evil. We wait with hope, confident that His decreed purposes are unfolding in providence, and His appointed goal will be achieved in His time. Habakkuk 2:20 is the apex, the climax of this three-chapter prophecy. From here, Habakkuk pivots to summon us to worship while awaiting the arrival of our Warrior God who will rescue us [Hab 3]. His complaints and questions submerge beneath the silent sanctity of the throne of the Holy One. We must ever stay connected to our King and His throne and view all from the vantage point of His holy temple.

By faith, we must perceive our ultimate hope. For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea [Hab 2:14]. Habakkuk looks on a world flooded with violence and injustice. Faith looks to the new heavens and earth flooded with our intelligent enjoyment of our Savior’s glory. Let me alert you to one of Satan’s most effective ploys. He offers men a truncated eschatology, a short-sighted hope which yet lies within the boundaries of this present age, this age engulfed by death. Satan would take men’s ethical energies and religious propensities and deceive them into hoping for that which falls short of the glory of God. He would have men devote their lives to apparitions of social utopia and a host of noble causes, however lofty but yet saeculum, of this age, not eschatological, not of the age to come, not of resurrection glory. Babylonians aspire to Satan’s cursed eschatology. Habakkuk says we will not die. We will see the earth filled with the glory of the Lord, and we will enjoy eternal blessedness.

By faith, we can accept the Lord’s answer to the How Long question. The Lord is coming at the appointed time. Wait for Him. He will not delay. He will certainly come [Hab 2:3]. When? At the appointed time. By faith, we can also accept the Lord’s answer to the Why question. We ask the Why question because we see injustice and wrong. But we can calm our agitated consciences knowing the One who sits on the throne in God’s holy temple. Psalm 89 foretells of the reign of Christ Jesus. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; lovingkindness and truth go before You [Psa 89:14]. Be silent, all flesh, before the LORD, for He is aroused from His holy habitation [Zech 2:13]. The LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him [Hab 2:20]. Habakkuk encourages us to keep a perspective on history that transcends history, that transcends our personal experiences and the span of our vapor-like lives. We must situate ourselves in “redemptive history” and understand that we live in “the “last days.” Jesus reigns, and He comes quickly [Rev 22:20].

Habakkuk Encourages Us to Persevere in Hearing God’s Word

Then the LORD answered me and said, “Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run” [Hab 2:2]. Read and run. Do not allow your mind to be inundated with words that displace God’s words. So many speakers! So many words! Commentators, journalists, lawyers, doctors, pundits, politicians, preachers – words and voices saturate and penetrate our minds. “Lord, how long?” “Lord, why?” His answer? Scripture. Read and run. To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn [Isa 8:20]. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away [Luke 21:33]. The vision will not fail. What of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision? the vision of the Caesars? the vision of international treaties and national constitutions and political platforms and inspiring speeches? Those words fail and pass away, receded into the irrelevance of the past.

Why are we told that there is silence in God’s holy temple? We are to be silent so that we can hear the enthroned Lord speaking words of constant, unchanging relevance. Put your eye of faith on Him! See the display of His glory revealed, for example, on the Mount of Transfiguration. Should we ask the eye-witnesses if they took His picture, if they drew His portrait? Then a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him” [Luke 9:35]! Peter, an eye-witness of His majesty on that mount, entrusts us with the prophetic word made more sure – Scripture [2 Pet 1:16-21]. Listen to Him. He gives us His words. The vision is recorded and inscribed [Hab 2:2]. The Good Shepherd calls His sheep. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Habakkuk Encourages Us to Persevere in Prayer

Habakkuk stops arguing. He bows his head and prays. A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth. LORD, I have heard the report about You, and I fear. O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years, make it known; in wrath remember mercy [Hab 3:1-2]. Habakkuk has heard the report about the Lord. His persistent questioning gives way to submissive listening. He accepts the Lord’s answers given in chapters one and two. The Babylonians have come to discipline Judah, and the Lord will judge the Babylonians. Habakkuk will live by his faith. He is confident in the triumph of the Lord’s justice and mercy. The Lord is doing something already. His work is underway and will be completed with the arrival of his goal at his appointed time. There is transcendent purpose and meaning that the Lord is accomplishing in history, even our history filled with demonic lies, violence, and injustice. His doings are beyond our present capacity to comprehend. But our God is the Lord, the Holy One, our Rock. He is our Savior, Jesus Christ. We know Him. We trust Him. The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law [Deu 29:29]. We will read and run and pray.

When Habakkuk says, I fear, he could be saying that he is scared. We see him trembling in 3:16. He must live in turbulent times, horrifying times, a time when evil is on the rampage, and Satan wrathfully rages [Rev 12:12]. The greatest challenge to faith is not our supposed intellectual questions. No, the greatest challenge to faith is our fear. Faith must overcome fear. How? With a greater fear. I fear, expressed in prayer in the temple with the worshiping remnant, is that fear which is the beginning of wisdom: the fear of the Lord. It is the fear of reverence. The homage to holiness. The respect expressed in the sublime serenity of God’s transcendent sanctity. When we see the ravages of rebellious wickedness, let us not be afraid. Let us rather hear and fear.

Habakkuk lives in the midst of the years. He strategically places that phrase in the middle of his prayer and repeats it for emphasis. He is saying that he lives in the middle years between two acts of divine judgment. On the one hand, there is the judgment falling on Judah in the Babylonian invasion. On the other hand, there is the future judgment foretold by the Lord in 1:11, they will be held guilty. When Babylon sacked Jerusalem, Babylon was a mere fifty years away from being displaced on the world-stage by the Persian Empire. The vision is yet for the appointed time, though it tarries, wait for it. For it will certainly come, it will not delay. Indeed. In the meantime, Habakkuk and we readers and runners of Scripture have the prophetic word made more sure. We have the Word of God, the taunt-songs that prophesy certain judgment and the promises of our certain salvation. You see, brethren, we too live in the midst of the years. We also live in a time between two acts of divine judgment. We live between the judgment that has been executed on our behalf on our Lord at Calvary and the judgment that He will execute when He returns to raise the dead and summon all humanity to stand before Him in the day Final Judgment. For yet in a little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay [Heb 10:37]. Indeed.

[1] Your personal reading of Habakkuk as you consider the content of this article will bring additional benefit. Habakkuk and other Scriptures are frequently referenced using italicized words.

First article: Lord! Look! Violence and Injustice!

Second article: Read and Run

Third article: The Silent Serenity of Sovereignty

Fourth article: The Righteous Shall Live By Faith

Fifth article: Wait Quietly

The following books by Dr. Alan J. Dunn are available at Trinity Book Service and Cristianismo Histórico: