Bible Study and Devotional Resources for Teens

Required:

• NLT Student Life Application Study Bible
• Foundations – Teen Devotional: A 260-Day Bible Reading Plan for Busy Teens

Optional:

• The Action Bible Devotional: 52 Weeks of God-Inspired Adventure
• The Simple Truth Bible: The Best Minute of Your Day (365 Daily Devotions for Students)

Review

In sum, we can respect how God may be using Trump while still holding Trump accountable to ethical behavior.

(Isaiah 55:8–9 (ESV): ⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. ⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.)

Habakkuk’s Complaint

Habakkuk 1: 1-4 (NLT): ¹ This is the message that the prophet Habakkuk received in a vision. ² How long, O Lord, must I call for help? But you do not listen! “Violence is everywhere!” I cry, but you do not come to save. ³ Must I forever see these evil deeds? Why must I watch all this misery? Wherever I look, I see destruction and violence. I am surrounded by people who love to argue and fight. ⁴ The law has become paralyzed, and there is no justice in the courts. The wicked far outnumber the righteous, so that justice has become perverted.

The Lord’s Response to Habakkuk’s Complaint

Habakkuk 1:5–11 (NLT): ⁵ The Lord replied, “Look around at the nations; look and be amazed! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it. ⁶ I am raising up the Babylonians, a cruel and violent people. They will march across the world and conquer other lands. ⁷ They are notorious for their cruelty and do whatever they like. ⁸ Their horses are swifter than cheetahs and fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their charioteers charge from far away. Like eagles, they swoop down to devour their prey. ⁹ “On they come, all bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind, sweeping captives ahead of them like sand. ¹⁰ They scoff at kings and princes and scorn all their fortresses. They simply pile ramps of earth against their walls and capture them! ¹¹ They sweep past like the wind and are gone. But they are deeply guilty, for their own strength is their god.”

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

Habakkuk 1:12–17 (NLT): ¹² O Lord my God, my Holy One, you who are eternal— surely you do not plan to wipe us out? O Lord, our Rock, you have sent these Babylonians to correct us, to punish us for our many sins. ¹³ But you are pure and cannot stand the sight of evil. Will you wink at their treachery? Should you be silent while the wicked swallow up people more righteous than they? ¹⁴ Are we only fish to be caught and killed? Are we only sea creatures that have no leader? ¹⁵ Must we be strung up on their hooks and caught in their nets while they rejoice and celebrate? ¹⁶ Then they will worship their nets and burn incense in front of them. “These nets are the gods who have made us rich!” they will claim. ¹⁷ Will you let them get away with this forever? Will they succeed forever in their heartless conquests?

Habakkuk Waits on The Lord

Habakkuk 2:1 (NLT): ¹ 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.

The Lord’s Second Response to Habakkuk

Habakkuk 2:2-3 (NLT): ² And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. ³ For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

Faith vs. Humility

Habakkuk 2:4 (NLT): ⁴ “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

• Bible Commentary: Kenneth Barker (Commentary on Habakkuk): “The one whose life is puffed up in pride and arrogance will die; the righteous, in contrast, by his faithfulness will live.”–Kenneth Barker [Kenneth L. Barker, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, vol. 20, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 325.]
• Examples of God addressing kings who are puffed up:
  • King Nebuchadnezzar
    • Daniel 4:28–33 (ESV): ²⁸ All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. ²⁹ At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, ³⁰ and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” ³¹ While the words were still in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you, ³² and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” ³³ Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.
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  • King Herod
    • Acts 12:21–23 (ESV): ²¹ On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. ²² And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” ²³ Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.
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For the rest of chapter two, God details the punishment he will inflict on Babylon for its sins:

• Bible Commentary: Kenneth Barker (Commentary on Habakkuk): “God answered Habakkuk’s questions. How could God use a wicked people such as the Chaldeans to punish a nation more righteous than itself? God’s answer was that though he might use Babylon to punish Judah’s sins, he also would punish Babylon for its sin. “The day of calamity” would come on Babylon. What an amazing transformation! Because the prophet had been honest with God and took his genuine questions to a caring God, Habakkuk began to look at the world from a different perspective. Habakkuk had moved from “how long?” (Hab 1:2) to “I will wait patiently.”–Kenneth Barker [Kenneth L. Barker, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, vol. 20, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 374.]

God’s Ahead of Us by 93 million Light Years and Counting

Habakkuk 2:14 (ESV): ¹⁴ For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Habakkuk’ Prayer

Habakkuk 3:2 (ESV): ² O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.

• For most of the rest of the chapter, Habakkuk recounts God’s works

Habakkuk is Moved by the Revelation and History of God’s Mighty Works

Habakkuk 3:16 (ESV): ¹⁶ I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.

Habakkuk Rejoices in the Lord

Habakkuk 3:17-19 (ESV): ¹⁷ Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, ¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. ¹⁹ God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk’s Example: Be at Peace and Be in Prayer

Jeremiah 29:4–7 (ESV): ⁴ “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. ⁶ Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. ⁷ But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

1 Timothy 2:1–4 (ESV): ¹ First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, ² for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. ³ This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴ who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2024