Bring him your complaint, and listen for a response. Don't merely say, “Unfair!” and storm off. Pour out your complaint and discern.

Listen at the feet of Scripture. Humble yourself and hear. God will respond to you. He'll rebuke pride and give instruction. He'll settle our hearts. He'll show us the glory of the gospel, and make our way plain. He'll help us if we listen to his wisdom as authoritative and true. He'll put power in us.

Secondly, make it plain. Habakkuk 2:2 - "And the LORD answered me: "Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it."

People’s souls are hurting. We have many trials. God smites us, and we are afflicted. We need a word from God that is simple and clear. We don’t need men using the pulpit for glory.

Come in the power of the Spirit, and speak for God. Open the text accurately. We are not here to put on a show, but to help people. If we preach properly, then Jericho’s walls will fall. If we do it wrong, then we show our unbelief. How we say it and what we say are both important. Why are you preaching?

Are we comparing ourselves to others and seeking a following? Do we please men, or do we rear back and give them God’s word in love? Are we serving or self seeking? Is our reliance upon the text, or what we can do to spice it up? Remember, if you put your tool to the altar, then you’ve ruined everything. Exodus 20:25, “But if you make for me an altar of stone, do not build it of hewn stones; for if you use a chisel upon it you profane it.” God wants us to worship by what he provides, which is the word, the Spirit, and the atonement of Christ.

Make much of the Savior, and make it plain. Our goal is for others to run for God, live for his glory, and escape the bitterness of disobedience. Make it plain, so people can practice it, like yourself.

Thirdly, it will come. “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.”— Habakkuk 2:3

God is utterly faithful. Trust him with all your heart. Psalms 37:3, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.” The reward is coming. Do not draw back. Hebrews 10:39, “But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved.” There's no failure with the Lord. If we were cut off, he'd have told us. There's no backstabbing with God. He doesn't impress with flatteries. He speaks, and it is sure.

Fourthly, the righteous will live by faith. Habakkuk 2:4 - ""Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith."

We are not experts, we follow Christ. We are not in charge or inventors of our destiny. We are in God’s mighty hands. Sink or swim, good times and bad, we follow him.

We live by faith in imputed righteousness, when all is cloudy and we feel sinful. We believe in the power of the Spirit, when we ought to be condemned. Romans 8:2, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” We follow Christ by denying ourselves, so we can gain. Luke 9:24, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” We don’t know the full experience of obedience, until we enter in, but we follow because he has said that it is best. Then, we taste God’s goodness, like the first time you trusted Christ. Ah, the relief that came upon your soul, when you knew that you were his. The joy was indescribable when you had God working in power. The rules you tried to obey were now worked in your heart. Guilt and confusion was gone. This is the fruit of obedience, but obey the gospel, when fruit is absent. Believe God, because his word is sure. He will not lie and fail us. Follow him. The reward is certainly coming.

Finally, I want you to know that God sees the wicked. Habakkuk 2:5, “Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.”

God's vengeance on the unjust is part of our comfort. He's never letting people get away with cruelty. They'll turn, or they'll burn. He'll pour all of his fury upon them in the wine press of his wrath.

This comforts us because we don't have to take revenge. It makes us see that God is just. He rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. He uses affliction, but he damns the afflicter. The same thing happened to Assyria and Babylon. God lifted them up to chasten Israel, then he punished their pride and cruelty. Isaiah 10:12, “When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the arrogant boasting of the king of Assyria and his haughty pride.”

A husband may have a gnawing wife. He's tried prayer, but she won't turn. He endures, God purifies him with her fire, and then she's punished in hell. A wife may endure a brutish husband, a worker an evil boss, and believers suffer great cruelty. God, however, will judge. 2 Thessalonians 1:6, “For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you,”