Habakkuk 02: Get Ready to Run

Start with a hard question and a watchtower view: why does God feel slow when wrong seems to win? We open Habakkuk 2 and find a surprising answer—don’t just wait, write. God tells the prophet to put the vision on tablets so a runner can carry it, turning private doubt into a public message. That move reframes faith as action: clarity, obedience, and a willingness to be patient without losing heart.

We walk through Judah’s political pressure, the sting of Babylon’s rise, and the timeless call that the righteous live by faith. Then we unmask the five woes—pride that bends truth, wealth that pretends to secure a name, violence that builds while it corrodes, exploitation that boomerangs back, and idols that dazzle but cannot speak. These aren’t ancient relics; they mirror the modern hustle for control and the temptation to treat delay as God’s absence. Our conversation keeps circling the heartbeat of the chapter: if it seems slow, wait for it. Not passive waiting, but a steady, faithful posture that resists shortcuts and trusts God’s timing.

Along the way, we linger on the promise that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as waters cover the sea. That hope isn’t decoration—it’s the horizon that gives shape to patience and strength to perseverance. We talk about the difference between justice and vengeance, why “wait” is often the hardest answer to prayer, and how idolatry disguises itself in our time through image, influence, and certainty. The chapter closes in holy quiet: the Lord is in his temple; let the earth be silent. From that silence grows courage to live by faith, speak with clarity, and keep moving with integrity.

If this helped you see the text with fresh eyes, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review. What part of Habakkuk 2 challenges you to trust God’s timing today?

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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Today’s Focus
• 1:27 Setting Judah’s Turbulent Backdrop
• 3:19 Watchtower Posture And God’s Charge
• 3:58 Write The Vision And Run
• 5:04 The Righteous Live By Faith
• 6:15 Woes Against Pride And Violence
• 8:03 Glory Of The Lord Fills The Earth
• 9:10 Idols Exposed, God Reigns In Holiness
• 10:35 Prayer, Patience, And Trust In Justice
• 12:31 Closing Exhortation To Trust

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

SPEAKER_01: 0:23

Well, hello and welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Habakkuk chapter two. And today's title is Get Ready to Run. Get ready to run. Yesterday, Habakkuk was giving God some pretty straightforward questions and really asking him, God, why are you doing what you're doing? What is the purpose of all of this? And God said, Okay, I'm gonna give you an answer, but you better run with it. You better realize that this is more than just for you. This is for everybody around you, too. And I wonder how many times when God does things in our life, it's not just for us, but it's also what he wants to work in us and through us into the lives of others. We'll get to all that in just a moment. I know Habakkuk is kind of hard to find. So I'm gonna give you just a moment to look for him. He's at the very end of the Old Testament. Go to the very end and back it up about 15 pages and you'll have him. While you're doing that, make sure you also take a moment to like, share, and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure to leave us a five-star review on the podcast. It really does help. And make sure you're going to the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. It's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job. And you can get all that information by going to the Biblebreakdown.com. Well, if you're with us yesterday, we said that this is an interesting period of time in the nation of Judah's history. Remember, there are two kingdoms. They broke apart way back in the son of Solomon's reign, Rehoboam, and they broke into two, and you've got Israel, and their capital was now Samaria, and then you got Judah, and their capital is Jerusalem. Well, Israel was destroyed by the Assyrian Empire. And all that's left now is Judah, and the Assyrians tried to come take over them, but they failed. And maybe for like half a second, they had, you know, breathe some fresh air. Like, okay, we're good now. But now here come the Babylonians, and they look even more powerful than the Assyrians do. And Habakkuk is asking this question. He's going, God, why are we having to go through this? Why is all this happening? And that's why we are calling Habakkuk living by faith, because that's what God is going to challenge the nation of Judah to do. Hey, listen, you're right. Bad things are happening, and I got good reasons for it. And so your job is to not always understand why, your job is to trust me. And so we're going to jump into this today and we're going to see how God is willing to answer tough questions. We just have to be willing to trust him, even if we don't like the answers. So let's read this together and just remember this is a dialogue between the prophet and between the Lord for the benefit of the nation of Judah. So we're going to start off with he's going to kind of finish up what he was talking about yesterday, and then we're going to dive into the Lord's answer. So first thing, chapter two, verse one, he says, I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guardpost. There I will wait to see what the Lord says and how he will answer my complaint. So he's very aware that he kind of put God on blast a little bit. He's like, God, I don't understand why you're doing this. Can you help me out? And God says, sure. And watch what he says. The Lord said to me, verse 2, write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner may carry the correct message to others. This vision is for a future time. It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place and it will not be delayed. So what he said is, is I'm about to tell you what you want to know. I'm going to give it all to you, but this is not just for you. I want you to write it down, and I want you to send it to everybody else so that when I do what I say I'm going to do, you can trust me. And that is probably why we have the book of Habakkuk now, is that when God told him this, he said, Yes, sir, and he wrote it down. So here we go. This is what he said. Look at the proud. They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked, but the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God. Wealth is treacherous, and the arrogant are never at rest. They open their mouths as wide as the grave, and like death, they are never satisfied. In their greed they have gathered up many nations and swallowed many peoples, but soon their captives will taunt them. They will mock them, saying, What sorrow awaits you thieves? Now you will get what you deserve. You've become rich by extortion, but how much longer can this go on? Suddenly your debtors will take action. They will turn on you and take all you have. While you stand trembling and helpless, because you have plundered many nations, now all the survivors will plunder you. You committed murder throughout the countryside and filled the towns with violence. What sorrow awaits you who build big houses with money gained dishonestly. You believe your wealth will buy security, putting your family's nest beyond the reach of danger. But by the murders you committed, you have shamed your name and forfeited your lives. The very stones in the walls will cry out against you, and the beams in the ceilings echo the complaint. What sorrow awaits you who build cities, the money gained through murder and corruption. Has not the Lord of heaven's armies promised that the wealth of the nations will turn to ashes? They work so hard, but all in vain. For that as the waters fill the sea, and the earth will be filled with the awareness of the glory of the Lord. Wow, what a verse. I want to read it again, verse fourteen. For as the water fills the sea, the earth will be filled with the awareness of the glory of the Lord. While sorrow awaits you who make your neighbors drunk, you force your cup on them, and you so you can gloat over their shameful nakedness. But soon it will be your turn to be disgraced. Come, drink and be exposed. Drink from the cup of the Lord's judgment, and all the glory will be turned to shame. You cut down the forest of Lebanon, now you will be cut down. You destroyed the wild animals, so now their terror will be yours. You committed murder throughout the countryside, and filled the towns with violence. What good is an idol carved by man or a cast image that deceives you? How foolish to trust your own creation, a god that cannot even talk. What sorrow awaits you who say to wooden idols, wake up and save us? To speechless stone images you say, Rise up and teach us. Can an idol teach you what to do? They may be overlaid with gold and silver, but they are lifeless inside. But the Lord is in his holy temple, and let all the earth be silent before him. Wow. So what he was saying there is at the very beginning of the chapter, God is Habakkuk is saying to God, Hey, listen, I dunno I've asked you some hard stuff. Can you give me an answer, please? Can you please, God, can you give me an answer? And God says, Okay, I'm gonna tell you, but when I tell you what I'm going to do, I want you to write it down so that a messenger can send it out to everybody else so that they can know as well. And I'll be honest with you, when I used to read Habakkuk chapter two, I thought it was about having a vision and sharing the vision with everybody else about what God was gonna do, as opposed to like a vision for a church and all that. And that's fine as a secondary answer, our secondary reading of the text. The primary reading was there was a nation that was in confusion. A nation that was like, we just we just defeated one enemy. We go, we got to fight another one. What's going on here? What's God doing? And what God is saying is, okay, I'm gonna answer your question, and I want you to pass it around so everybody can hear when it happens. Okay, God, whatever you say we're gonna do. And then he says, you know all that evil you've been doing? You know all that bad stuff that you didn't think anybody noticed, and you've really been proud of yourself for how you've been doing, this whole time all that evil has been piling up, and you're gonna have to reap the benefit of all your evil. And when it happens, I'm gonna get the glory because my justice is going to reign supreme and you're gonna be exposed for all the evil you've been doing. So it's like, be really careful what you ask for, you know, because God's gonna tell you the truth either way. But the hope in this is this. Number one, is that God will answer our prayers. Do you know what? God answers every one of our prayers. You know, and that's not a hot take. I don't mean that at all. God answers every single one of our prayers. He answers it in one of three ways: yes, no, or wait. Can I tell you? I think the one, I think the wait's my hardest one. It's like, man, and that's why he says, and he says, though it may tarry, like I'm gonna tell you this, and though it may not happen right away, just just rest assured, evil will be punished. So the first thing is God answers every one of our prayers, it's not always the way we want, but he will answer. And number two is this that's what he was saying, is he was saying, all these evil things I am not going to let slide. That justice is coming, I will make it even. Now, depending on who you are, that's either the best news you've heard today, or that's the worst news. Now, let's get the worst out of the way first. If you're doing the evil, then justice is coming. So, as a wise person once said, stop it. Stop that. Repent of your sin, turn from it, turn toward the Lord, he will have mercy on you. Remember, that's why Jonah was so mad at God, is because he knew that God is a God of mercy. Please turn to the Lord, stop doing the evil, you know, all that. But here's the thing: God says, I don't care what it looks like from your perspective, don't give up. Because I will not let evil go unpunished. You can trust me in this. Evil does not go unpunished. I will make it right. And that's that's good for us because if if you've lived in this world very long, you have had times when you wondered, God, are you going to make it right? God, these bad people who do these bad things for these bad reasons, and it seems like that they were nothing but celebrated. It seemed like that they did all the wrong things, but yet everything is working out. God, what's going on? You know what God's saying in this in this chapter? I didn't miss it. I I did not miss it. I'm having patience with them because they're also my kids. And I'm trying to work out mercy in them as well. But justice is coming. Be patient. Wait for me. Justice is coming. Now I I realize that if you've experienced heavy, horrible evil, that that that is not a comfort that is easy. Because we don't many of us, myself included, can we be really honest for a moment? Many times we don't want justice, we want vengeance. We want them to suffer as we have suffered in the manner at which we have suffered. That's not justice, that's vengeance. But the Bible says that God will always be just. And here's the thing God can be more just than we can. God God knows exactly what he's doing. And that's what he's saying is he's saying that the just will live by faith. In other words, they will trust me. That even if I do it in a different way than they would have wanted, and a different timing than they would have wanted, and a different season, it will happen. So my encouragement to you is don't lose trust in the Lord. Even if he doesn't do it the way we want. Even if he doesn't do it, how and in our timing. He is faithful. And evil will have its day. Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, for your goodness and for your mercy and for your kindness. And Lord, it can be so hard sometimes when we see evil. And God, if we can be really honest, it's not about what we see on the outside, it's about what we experience. It's about our broken dreams, broken promises, broken relationships, broken trust. That is so hard. But Lord, I realize that none of us are righteous. We all are in need of mercy. And so, God, we we realize that though the rain that comes upon the just and the unjust, you, God, will have your way. We trust you. Even through tears, we trust you. And we trust that you are having your way. And Lord, I pray you'll increase that trust in you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And amen. Well, God's word says in Habakkuk 2, verse 4, it says, The righteous will live by their faithfulness to God. God's love language is trust. I would encourage you to trust the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for the finale, Habakkuk chapter 3.