Through the Bible in 66 Days - Habakkuk

 

When God Seems Silent: Habakkuk, the Gospel, and the God Who Saves

Most Christians know what it feels like to pray, wait, and wonder why God doesn’t seem to act. The prophet Habakkuk understood this deeply. His short book opens with a cry that many believers have echoed: “How long shall I cry for help?” Habakkuk saw “evil, destruction, violence, strife and contention.” That world feels very much like ours.

Yet Habakkuk’s journey—from confusion to confidence—beautifully mirrors the truth of the gospel itself. His prophecy is not just an ancient complaint; it is a doorway into the good news of Jesus Christ.

1. The Burden of a Broken World (Habakkuk 1:1–4)

Habakkuk begins with a “burden”—a weight he carries as he looks at the injustice around him. He asks why God allows violence and why justice seems distorted. His honesty is refreshing. The Bible never asks us to pretend everything is fine.

The New Testament affirms this same realism. Paul writes, “The whole creation has been groaning” (Romans 8:22). The world is not as it should be. Sin has fractured everything—our hearts, our relationships, our societies.

The gospel begins here: with the acknowledgement that we cannot fix ourselves or our world.

Through the Bible in 66 Days - Job

 

The book of Job is one of the oldest pieces of literature in the world, yet it tackles one of the most modern questions we ever ask: Why would God allow suffering? If you've ever felt life was unfair, if you've ever been bullied, broken, or bewildered, Job is your companion. It doesn't give easy answers—but it does introduce to God and the way He operates.

Job begins by pulling back the curtain on a conversation we would never have known about unless God had told us about it. Satan, the accuser, sneers that Job only loves God because his life is comfortable. "Take away the blessings," he says, "and Job will curse You to Your face." But God knows His servant. He knows Job's faith is real. And so, to silence Satan and to demonstrate the authenticity of true faith, God allows Job to be tested.

What follows is devastating. Job loses his business, his animals, his servants, his family, and finally his health. He ends up sitting on an ash heap, scraping his sores with broken pottery. If anyone ever had the right to accuse God of cruelty, surely it was Job. Yet he never curses God. He wrestles, he weeps, he questions—but he clings on to his faith in God, just as God said he would.

Most of the book is a long, painful conversation between Job and his friends. They try to explain his suffering with neat formulas: "Good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people—so Job, you must have sinned." Their theology is tidy, but it's wrong. Job knows he hasn't done anything to deserve this, and he refuses to pretend otherwise. His friends defend their beliefs; Job defends his integrity. And in the middle of it all sits the great question: Why would God allow this?

But here's the remarkable thing: when God finally speaks, He doesn't answer Job's questions. Instead, He reveals Himself. He takes Job on a tour of creation—its vastness, complexity, and wildness—and shows him that the world is far bigger, deeper, and more intricate than he ever imagined. God isn't avoiding the question; He's lifting Job's eyes. Job wanted explanations. God gave him Himself.

And that is the turning point. Job discovers that knowing God is better than knowing the reasons. His suffering becomes the doorway to a deeper relationship with the living God—something he could never have gained through comfort. As he says, "My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You."

This is where the gospel shines through the book of Job. The New Testament tells us that suffering is not a sign of God's absence but often the place where His love is most clearly seen. Peter writes, 'In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,' 1 Peter 1:6–7. Paul reminds us that 'suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope,' Rom. 5:3–4. And the Lord Jesus Himself, who was 'a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief', shows us that God does not stand far off from pain; He enters it, bears it, and offers salvation as a result of His death and resurrection.

Job's story casts a shadow that reveals the suffering of the cross. The Lord Jesus is the ultimate righteous sufferer, facing satanic accusations. God allows suffering not because He is cruel, but because He is accomplishing something bigger than we can see. And as a result, there is a final restoration that far outweighs the pain.

So what does Job say to you when life isn't fair? When you're hurting? When you're tempted to give up? It says this: God is bigger than your suffering, nearer than your tears, and better than your explanations. You may not get the answers you want, but you will get the God you need. And in the gospel, we see the ultimate proof that God can take the darkest moment in history—the cross—and turn it into the greatest good the world has ever known.

Job teaches us that suffering is not the end of the story. God is. And those who trust Him discover His character in a way they never could have known otherwise.

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

Standing up for others

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

History records many who stood up for a cause or a people, and in so doing were prepared to face physical suffering, or to be reproached or put to shame.

One day, Jesus arrived in the synagogue, where people used to gather to hear the Bible read, and taught. Amongst the company was a man who had a withered, deformed hand. As Jesus entered, a company of religious folk watched to see whether He would heal this man on the Sabbath day, which they considered to be a breach of the law. They were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, and so bring His work, and His following to an end.

W-H-Y?

Just three letters: W-H-Y. 

Why? 

Why so much pain? 

Why so much wickedness? 

Why do people suffer?.. 

Why?Why,?Why? 

Have you ever wrestled with this question? Perhaps you've lost a loved one, or maybe you know of some innocent person who has suffered terribly. And just wondered.. Why?

Well, God's Word, the Bible gives the answer. What brought suffering and pain? Yes, it is the result of man's original sin in the Garden of Eden. 'Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned,' Romans 5:12, the Bible. But perhaps you wonder, why did God allow sin to continue? Couldn't He have stopped it at once and destroyed the sinners? 

Life hurts - why?

Life Hurts - Why?

It’s my aim in this article to address some of the questions that people ask in life and to discover what the Word of God, the Bible, has to say about it. I place real confidence in the Bible because I have become convinced that the Bible is God’s communication to men and women and I want people to benefit from what God has said.

I’m sure that most would agree that life hurts! That hurt can be caused by the normal progression from youth to old age and all the problems that come with ageing. Sickness also brings its heartaches! Natural disasters are devastating and destructive! To say nothing of the dreadful treatment that people endure at the hands of their fellow man. War and acts of terror produce unimaginable horrors. I’m sure that at times we all question why life is such a difficult and a hurtful experience.

Is there an appropriate response to this? The first thing I’d like to say is that “it's not personal”. What I mean is that we are not usually suffering as individuals because of something specific we have done. Before I go any further let me qualify that statement.  There are times in life when we do reap what we sow. There actually are consequences to our actions! But all the awful things that happen in the world are not usually the direct result of our personal actions.

My main thought when I say it’s not personal is this: ;people don’t die as a result of some sinful thing that they have done; old age doesn’t come because you did something wrong. The fact that we die, that we have sickness, that we grow old is explained to us in the Bible. The bible states that all of these conditions and circumstances exist because sin came into the world. As a result of Adam, the first man in the world, disobeying God the floodgates to all that was evil and damaging were opened. The fact that all of this is the result of the first man’s rebellion to God is explained by the biblical statement “by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin”,; Romans 5:12.

The Bible clearly teaches that God gave man a choice:

Obey Him,

Enjoy His presence,

Enjoy all that He created for him….

But, there is a but, God warned him that the day he ate of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he would die. And that is what happened! Adam didn’t die physically but he died as far as his relationship with God was concerned. He was dead spiritually. Sin, death, pain and suffering became the normal experience of life. He had to work by the sweat of his brow for everything. Childbirth became a painful experience for the woman and the earth was cursed. So life hurts as a result; a fact that we know only too well.

However, what is quite incredible about the biblical story of salvation is that God had already a plan in place. God’s plan to provide forgiveness and to offer salvation to men and women was devised long before time began, 1 Peter 1. 19,20.

God had always planned to send His ‘Son to be the Saviour of the world’. He made sure in the writings of the Old Testament, the first half of the Bible, that we would know Him when he visited earth. In the Old Testament, God told the prophets how to identify His Son. There were specific facts such as what family He would be born into, His distinctive and sinless lifestyle and His mode of death. Normally how people will die is an unknown fact but God was making a point in defining how Jesus would die in advance. See Psalm 22:16, Zechariah 12:10, Luke 2: 34,35. All of these passages of scripture speak of crucifixion which at the time was unknown and of the piercing of the hands and feet of the Lord Jesus. All of this information was so that when He came we would know Him.

To me the greatest and most amazing thing about this whole thing is that God came to earth in person. He was a real but sinless man. He suffered, He hurt and He endured death to pay for our sin. God wants us to be forgiven therefore the price and the legal penalty for our sin was dealt with by the Lord Jesus Christ when He died upon the cross.

The Bible explains it like this:  “Christ died for our sins,” 1 Cor. 15. 3, “He was despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” Isa. 53. 3.

Today God offers us not hurt but forgiveness;

Today God offers us love.

The Bible tells us, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” John 3. 16. The greatest proof of the love of God is that, “God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,”  Rom. 5. 8.

I want to point you to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, if you pray to God, today, confessing your sins He will forgive you.

I trust that you will do this.

May God bless you!

To access podcasts and videos explaining the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ visit www.seekthetruth.org.uk

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