Habakkuk 1:12-2:1
Habakkuk’s reply to God is so very human and also very contemporary. He essentially says, “It’s all a matter of comparative wickedness.” It’s all relative. The Babylonians are far more wicked than the wickedness Habakkuk sees around him in Judah. This is the very common belief that many people have: There will be someone at the gates into Heaven (Saint Peter, although this is nowhere taught in the Bible) who will decide one’s right to enter Heaven based on a comparison of that person’s life with the “average” person’s behavior in life. The “average” is always assumed and defined to be worse than the one seeking entrance. “Well, I haven’t lived a perfect life, but I’ve sure been a lot better than [fill in an individual’s name or some group of people you are obviously superior to].” The truth is that only the full righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, appropriated by those who come to Him in faith based on His sacrificial death, is adequate for heavenly entry. See John 3:16. If anyone at the gate of Heaven should ask why you should be admitted, the best answer is to silently point at Jesus Christ.
Habakkuk also has the commonly held belief that we, no matter what nation or time in history, will continue and not be destroyed as a nation. Everyone believed this. In every case they have been proven wrong. The word used in verse 12 for judgment is the same word translated earlier as justice and law. God’s rebuke could have come through a knowledge of divine instruction. But, it didn’t because the people ignored instruction.
Unlike dumb idols, our God both hears and responds. Habakkuk’s “complaint” comes from a word that means both the argument that things should be restored to what is right and the rebuke itself that restores things. We would do well to take our questions to God about what in the world God is doing. And wait for an answer.