Habakkuk was written immediately before the fall of Assyria to the Babylonians. The theme question of Habakkuk is how could God use wicked nations for His purposes? He had used the Assyrians to destroy Israel, and now would use Babylon to destroy Assyria and Judah. As we live in the midst of wickedness, the key is to live by our faith, as Habakkuk tells us in Habakkuk 2:4. This statement was so powerful, we find it quoted three times in the New Testament.
Habakkuk 1 starts with Habakkuk complaining to the LORD for not answering his cry for mercy and protection. The LORD answers by saying He’s going to use the Chaldeans or Babylonians as a tool of judgment. This raises another complaint from Habakkuk who cannot understand how God can forget His people.
Habakkuk 2 ends Habakkuk’s second complaint. The LORD answers by telling Habakkuk to write the vision on a tablet so large a rider could see it as he rode by. The LORD tells him no matter how long it takes for the vision to come to wait for it. Then He tells Habakkuk the righteous shall live by faith. This is the oft-quoted verse, we noted in the introduction. The LORD goes on to pronounce judgment on the Chaldeans/Babylonians, who were His current “tool” for bringing judgment to other nations. He condemns them for their ruthlessness toward other nations, and for their insistence on worshiping dead idols rather than the living God. He reminds them the LORD is in His holy Temple, and to let all the earth be silent before Him.
In Habakkuk 3, Habakkuk offers a prayer to the LORD, and it concludes with one of the strongest statements of faith in the face of adversity ever recorded: 17Though the fig tree should not blossom,nor fruit be on the vines,the produce of the olive failand the fields yield no food,the flock be cut off from the foldand there be no herd in the stalls,18yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. 19GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s;he makes me tread on my high places.Habakkuk 3:17-19 (ESV) As we return to John 5, Jesus encounters a man at the Pool of Bethesda who had been waiting for decades to be healed by entering the pool when it was stirred. Because he was lame, he could never get there before someone else. Jesus asked the man what on the surface seems like an uncaring question: “Do you want to be healed?” Because Jesus asked the question, we know it wasn’t uncaring. He sincerely wanted the man to address the matter of whether he wanted to be healed. Jesus healed the man, and this raised a great debate between Him and the religious leaders, because He healed the man on the Sabbath. The debate covered many areas, but at the bottom of it, Jesus contended He was God, and the religious leaders were having none of that. While we’re only in John 5, we see in John’s gospel as in the others, Jesus engaged the religious leaders early in His ministry in ways that caused them to be determined to eliminate Him.