Download the full guide in the link below.
THE LORD IS IN HIS HOLY TEMPLE; LET ALL THE EARTH BE SILENT BEFORE HIM
Habakkuk 1-2
Violence; injustice; the wicked disenfranchise the righteous and make them helpless; and the law is useless. It looks like no one is in charge and Habakkuk turns to God to ask: where are you? Why are you silent? How can you tolerate all this?
In answering Habakkuk’s cry for justice, God tells him that an even greater injustice is going to happen. Judah, the nation that Habakkuk is in despair over, is itself going to be destroyed by the Babylonians. When you operate in the realm of evil, know that you can fall prey to even greater evil. God is not on your side.
But Habakkuk is flabbergasted. “Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”
God’s answer, “but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness”, emphasises that the reverse also holds true: the wicked will die by his own evil. “Will not your creditors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their prey. Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you.” It is not a question of lesser or greater. It is that when you live by wickedness, you will die by wickedness. Evil has consequences.
God is not a man-made idol who can be manipulated nor a lifeless idol who is powerless. God is the eternal God almighty. He is in his holy Temple and no one can dislodge him, no one can out-maneuver him, no one can get away from his justice.
In answering him, God gave Habakkuk a vision of him. The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.
Habakkuk’s response is in Chapter 3. Do read it, especially 3:16-19 because it beautifully captures how we should respond as we see him in his holy temple.