How should believers respond to unmovable corruption?
Text: Habakkuk 1:1-11
Hosts:
Tim DeFor
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2026 CrossTalk Global
Tim: ¡
Brian: Imagine you lived in a part of the world that experiences frequent hurricanes—somewhere like Florida, Cuba or Louisiana—and a hurricane is coming. The warnings have been issued and you know that you have to evacuate. So you help your friends and family members the best you can to pack up and head out. But some of your friends refuse to leave. So you help board up their house. Some other friends refuse to board up their houses. And even worse, some of your friends won't even seek shelter into their home and they walk around outside refusing to believe that a hurricane is coming. In the same way as Christians We can try and share Christ with those around us. We can try and be a good influence. But at the end of the day, you and I can't change the culture any more than we can stop a hurricane. If you've ever felt this frustration, you're in good company. The prophet Habakkuk felt the same way about ancient Judah. What can we do when people just won't listen and refuse to turn away from sin? How should believers deal with a wicked culture? Welcome to Crosstalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life—into all our lives. I'm Brian French. Today, while Dr. Kent is away, Vicky Hitzkes, Nathan Norman, and Tim Dufour begin a short series through the book of the prophet Habakkuk. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Habakkuk chapter 1 as we join their discussion.
Nathan: All right, Vicki and Tim, what troubles you about our culture right now? What things bother you the most about living in North America, the United States of America?
Vicki: Well, two things come to my mind. One, I don't know who to trust. I don't necessarily trust the media and I don't trust the government. And when I was growing up, I believe I believed them. Absolutely both. Wow. And the second thing is, I really resent being concerned about my television, my cell phone, my computer. I don't know who's spying on me or what they're doing with the information. And I don't even have a life I'm ashamed of, and yet, I don't know, I don't like it. If I talk to a friend about, have you seen any good restaurants in the neighborhood? I get like 5 ads for restaurant And I think, wow, that is just not right. What else are they picking up on me?
Nathan: Yeah, I'll tell you, I was at Home Depot and I looked at a tool bench and I thought, thought, I didn't even say anything out loud. I was like, man, I think I want to pick that up. And I'm not kidding. Next thing, social media, that very tool bench was on there. I was like, are you reading my thoughts? I don't know what happened. I mean, maybe it was proximity. Maybe I had done a search I hadn't thought about, but wow, it was just unreal. Yeah, I hear you. Tim, what's troubling you in our culture right now?
Tim: I think perhaps every generation has some sense of a cultural shift, and I think part of it is morality, undefined morality. And like, there's clearly a shift towards more freedom of what you think is right is good enough. Yeah, that bothers me. I think conflict, that people escalate differences of opinion to attacking character and assuming the worst of others. There's a lot of fighting there. And I think there's a lot of trouble, you know, financial woes people have and the income and wealth gap and the tensions that causes. And there's— we can be here all day.
Vicki: Yeah, I mean, a lot of stuff going wrong.
Nathan: Yeah, absolutely. No, I I agree with you guys that there is a lot of animosity people have between each other. Uh, I agree that the question of immorality and what is moral, what is not moral— you know, we, we have a very double-minded society right now. Something that really bothers me is in New York State where I live, they've just signed into law kind of a right-to-die law where you can, uh, request end-of-life doctor-assisted suicide while they're rolling out the National Suicide Hotline, right? So, um, the National Suicide Hotline, 988. If you have suicidal ideations, you will talk to crisis counselors and they will help you through a tough time. Uh, and I just feel like the slogan now is, life is worth living, asterisk, unless it's not. Right? Yeah, right. I mean, what, what message are you sending? I was just talking to someone from our church who, uh, works in the psychology field with, uh, people who are suicidal. And, uh, and she was saying like, what, what do we say now that the state says, well, yeah, you could go ahead and kill yourself, you know, you probably shouldn't, but maybe you should. Uh, it is really troubling to see that kind of, of double-minded, uh, response to me. But, uh, yeah, like you guys said, we could be here all day. Uh, that is troubling. So let's focus a little bit closer. We do have some troubling things within the culture, but what troubles you about the church in particular? And I mean the universal church. And, you know, we'll focus in our own culture in North America, uh, things that you've observed, trends that you've seen, um, things that really grieve you. Not that you're, you're here wagging your finger, ah, this church is terrible, look what they're doing, it's awful, but things that really you know, kind of grieve you.
Tim: Yeah, I'd say something similar, and I don't know about the church worldwide so much, but I have experienced some cross-cultural things. Similarly, moral drift, and it's now dealing with children of people who have been a part of the church for a long time, and the assumption is that we should live together and behave as if we're married before we even get engaged, and that's the norm. And so that's just a sense of a moral drift. Conflict, people confusing politics with faith and intertwining. That's big. That's big. Consumer mentality, which can lead to not having enough volunteers or giving seen as transactional. What am I getting for my dollar instead of I'm giving because of I'm called to be a part of what the church is accomplishing. It's all of those kind of—
Vicki: And the emphasis on many churches with prosperity gospel instead of the real gospel, and people on the outside, non-believers, they don't know the difference. No. They see sexual sin in the church, and they think every church is like that, every pastor's like that. It's just, it's terrible. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's true.
Nathan: I won't give the website out there, but there's, um, there's investigative journalism out there that kind of focuses on the church, and it is the, the predator of the day club, it seems like, over there from the church. Youth pastors, pastors, um, preying on children, preying on their own congregation, uh, being arrested, being thrown into jail. I— it's problematic. And what I find And this is shocking, but equally problematic to pastors who are preying on their own congregation is the willful blindness and ignorance many people within denominational leadership and many church leaders have towards addressing the issue, right? Paul says we should expose elders who sin so that the fear of God goes throughout the rest of the congregation. Instead, we seem to be trying to defend our church name, defend our bottom dollar instead of exposing evil and saying, "This is not acceptable. We will not allow this and it won't be tolerated." But we're trying to kind of do like a PR move to say, "Well, no, that's an isolated incident." But it's an ongoing issue and that grieves me. So the reason I'm asking us to air all of our grievances here is because we're going to be looking at the prophet Habakkuk for the next few weeks. Short prophetic book. You could read it in about 5, 10 minutes. But this takes place after the Northern Kingdom of Israel was defeated by the Assyrians. And this happens in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, probably after the evil King Manasseh, his reign, but it was before Josiah's godly reform attempts, which we know were not really all that successful. But even though Judah saw the Northern Kingdom have judgment brought against them by God, they still refuse to repent and follow God's ways. So this is where we find the prophet Habakkuk. He looks around Judah. He is frustrated with the sin. He is frustrated with their non-response to his proclamation to follow the ways of the Lord God Almighty. And he complains to God. So, uh, Vicky, you want to read Habakkuk 1:1-4 for us?
Vicki: Sure, the oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw: O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear, or cry to you, "Violence!" and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. Forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted.
Nathan: This is pretty incredible. He looks around and he sees there is a lot wrong in Judah—violence, iniquity, sin—and he says, you're not doing anything. The culture is sinful, their worship is sinful, and, uh, seems like you don't care. Looks like you don't care, because if you cared, God you would actually do something. The reason I started this off asking us the two questions on the culture and the church— I mean, in ancient Israel, ancient Judah, uh, those were one and the same. The culture was the worship space, the worship space was the culture. Uh, that's different in the New Testament, but it still affects us equally. And so just like Habakkuk, um, we look around and we can see problems in our culture and, has God done anything about this? Uh, he's not doing anything right now. And we can look around at problems in the church and can say, is God doing anything about this? Well, he's not doing anything right now, and Habakkuk complains, almost accusatory. You will not save. Why do you idly look at wrong? Unbelievable. Justice never goes forth. So this next question is a little bit more of a psychological question for you guys. Uh, how do you feel— like, I'm asking personally— how do you feel about complaining to God on a personal level? Do you find it acceptable, unacceptable, healthy, unhealthy? What do you think?
Vicki: Well, I have a definite answer, but I weigh it against this verse that says, "In all situations be content." And yet, when I was going through the biggest trial of my life, I was telling my dad about it, and I was angry that God hadn't done something to relieve it. And he said to me, "Vicki, "Take this to God. Tell God. He can handle it." And I did, and he could. And so I think, you know, God knows I'm thinking it anyway. I might as well talk to him about it.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It makes me nervous, maybe because of reading the Old Testament when God says, "Why are you whining and grumbling? You're terrible for doing this.
Vicki: How long should I put up with these complaints?" Oh, and they whined and grumbled about things I would for sure. Like they just kept eating manna over and over and they're like, come on, bring some Häagen-Dazs here.
Nathan: This is probably why the price of beef is going up so much in America, right? We've been complaining so much about stuff. He's like, fine, fine, beef is inaccessible to you now.
Tim: But at the same time with the nervousness, I think there's also this place in scripture that we see people expressing honest feelings in a way that that is kind of borderline on attacking God's character. But even that perhaps can be healthy, like tapping into what's really going on on the inside, 'cause Habakkuk wouldn't be complaining if he didn't think there was something about God that would make God want to listen. Yeah. And that makes me nervous, but I think it can be good.
Nathan: Sure, and that's the incredible thing. I mean, this is someone who, he is a prophet, meaning he audibly heard the voice of God. He audibly heard the voice of God, and he still has the gusto to complain to God about things. Psychologically, for me, I'm like, oh no, like, you know, just, you can't complain to God. You're like, no, he's God, he's never wrong, you know. It's almost, it's just like, he doesn't want to hear. He's, he's, he doesn't, and maybe he's going to get angry at me, but But I know, right, from reading the Psalms, from reading texts like this, that this is a normal thing. I'm not perfect. And I think, Vicki, as you said, he already knows what you're thinking. Why not already tell him where you're at, right? Um, would you recommend this practice to other believers, taking your complaints to God?
Tim: I think I would, because too often I think he's not the first person to go to, and we go to others and other people that can't do anything about it, or they can reaffirm you, or they can take offense at it and they can't really do anything about it. So I think I would, especially if it was heartfelt, if it means turning to God because you do believe at the core that God is good and he can do something about it. So it's like, I don't understand God, help me understand. I want to trust you, help me to trust you. I think that's helpful.
Vicki: Yes, I agree with that. In Genesis, my father described sin as doubting God's goodness, that that's what Eve did when Satan said, oh, you won't surely die, and you know, God doesn't want you to eat that because blah, blah, blah. And she believed Satan. She doubted God's goodness. And yet we do doubt God's goodness. And I think exactly what you said, Tim. If I say to God, I know that you're good, I look at this and it seems to me that it's bad. I don't want to ever doubt you. Help me here. Then I don't think God minds that. Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah. There's some good tension here. I think a lot of his intent But also, it's kind of like, you know, I've got kids, and especially when they were young, they'd throw temper tantrums. And as a father who loves them and cares for them, yeah, it's annoying. Yeah, it's inconvenient. But I'm not like, "All right, I'm done with you," right? And put them out on the side of the street and just wash my hands of it. No, you work with them. "All right, when they calm down, let's talk about this. You got all that out. There's some strong feelings that you're feeling, right? Let's talk it through." You know, why did you respond that way? How can we respond better? How can we fix the problem? Right? And because I'm the one in control, I'm not, you know, emotionally unstabilized about the candy being unwrapped in the wrong direction. So God can understand. I, you know, I think just like a good father can understand his children acting a fool, he can take us acting a fool, and he already knows the way we're feeling. So let's enter into conversation with him. So God does answer Habakkuk. And boy, oh boy, does he have an answer. He's already got a plan. He knows what's going on. He's not idle. He's not blind. He certainly has a plan. Vicki, this is a little bit of a longer text, but will you share with us God's plan for disobedient Judah?
Vicki: Well, he says in Habakkuk 1:5-11, he says— this is God talking. Look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded, for I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward; they gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh; they laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god.
Nathan: Yeah, so God's answer, he says, "Yeah, don't worry. I know Judah is really bad. My response and the way I'm going to deal with them is with much, much, much worse people than them to come and bring discipline." And we understand through history that he uses the Chaldeans or the Babylonians as his instrument of discipline. He takes them into captivity for 70 years. Until they finally, finally, at an end, give up their idolatry. Israel never, ever, ever again struggled with idolatry and paganism. They struggled with lots of other things, but not that, because the Babylonian captivity was so horrible and so harsh and so terrible. So, the big idea here is how will God punish the unrestrained evil in Judah? Well, He will use the wicked Babylonians to punish His people. So today is no different. You and I look around, we see injustice inside and outside of the church, and we wonder, well, what do we do? What's going to happen? How should believers deal with a wicked church culture? By faithfully waiting for the Lord to bring judgment via its own wickedness. God will do a work, as often as we see throughout the Old and New Testament, to bring judgment through a culture or through a people's own sinful deeds. Those will be their own downfall. And here God tells Habakkuk, just wait, wait. I'm raising up the Babylonians in time to bring justice. And God tells us today, you see wickedness, you see evil. Wait on me. Wait on me, because I'm going to bring judgment through its own wickedness. As Christians, we need to actively wait for God to bring an end. To the problems we're seeing. So there's a lot of objections. We'll deal with those in a second. But what is this like? In this text, Judah sinned, was putting them into contact with the Chaldeans or Babylonians, who were much, much, much worse than Judah. But this kind of makes sense. When you do evil, or when you do wrong, when you do sin, that often puts you into contact with people who are even more worse than the sin that you're committing. They're doing worse sins than the things that you're doing. Uh, Tim and Vicki, can you think of examples where our quote-unquote minor sins are putting us into contact with greater evil.
Vicki: Well, I don't have firsthand experience with this particular sin, but I think about back when I was in college, it was a felony to smoke dope. And the people I knew, and I knew a lot of kids that smoked dope, the people they'd buy their pot from were scary, dangerous people, or they could be depending on who they bought it from. That's an example. They were doing wrong, and yet it put them in company of some sinister folks.
Nathan: Yeah, the drug dealers are far worse than the buyers. Yeah, typically, right? And typically, and they're connected to people who are even far worse. I mean, you know, okay, I'm buying illegal drugs, that's bad, but it's not as bad as selling them to children. That's worse. And that's not as bad as killing people for the drugs, right? But now you've put yourself into contact with them. Yeah, that's a good example.
Tim: Yeah, I think of even small things like somebody downloading pirated software. You expose yourself to malware, and those things they can implant and try to extort money out of you. Or if you use certain websites, adult sites or gambling sites, and you have to put in data, okay, now you've got scam artists that can use your data to for lots of bad ways. Or even like if you know somebody in a position of power in government or business and you receive a favor from them and get a contract, well, now you're beholden to somebody who will use that against you to make you do things you don't want to. I think there's lots of little ways that it happens in real life.
Nathan: Yeah. Yeah. And that's what's happening here with Judah. They are doing evil that puts them into the radar, if you will, of the Babylonians, the Chaldeans. And God will ultimately use those evil, wicked Babylonians and Chaldeans to bring discipline and in some cases judgment against the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Similar to the scenario that Bryan talked about in the introduction about hurricanes, I know a couple who lived near Tornado Alley. And during a really bad storm, they were told to take shelter. So the wife took her son to the neighbor's basement and the husband wouldn't go. He's like, "I'm not leaving my house." And a tree ended up coming right through the window where he was sitting. Wow. Almost killed him. He managed to go through unscathed and he wasn't hurt. But in the same way, sometimes the wicked are hurt and sometimes they're not. Sometimes they understand and they get it and they say, "Oh, okay, God gave me a warning here. I'm going to repent and I'm going to change." Sometimes they don't. Um, now in my— the case of my friend's husband, yeah, he, uh, he changed his ways. And whenever there was, you know, the tornado warning, he would take shelter when he's supposed to because he almost died. But there's some people that refuse to. There are some people that will refuse to, to the very end, no matter how many warnings God gives them. And that seems to be the trajectory that Judah is on here, but There are two major objections to this, right? Okay, so we look around 21st century America, 21st century around the world. I see problems in my culture. I see problems in even the church at large, or maybe even in my local church. Are we saying to do nothing in the face of a wicked church and a wicked culture? Well, no. God is telling Habakkuk to wait. Waiting on the Lord is not the same as doing Nothing.
Vicki: I have a question before you get to your answer. I'm under the impression we're not supposed to do nothing. If we see a brother stumble, we're supposed to go to the brother, and then if he doesn't respond, we should take somebody with us and then take him before, you know, the whole church. If I were in a church and I saw the pastor, I don't know, having an affair or really teaching the Bible what I thought was wrong, I'd go—
Nathan: It's pretty amazing you actually saw him have the affair. That's—
Vicki: Oh, whatever, you know what I mean. I know what you mean. Or if he really was incorrect and sloppy handling scripture, I'd go talk to him, and I think I should.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, I think you should. I absolutely think you should. So in Habakkuk's scenario, let's say you go talk to the pastor, and he doesn't care, right? Um, he doesn't care. Uh, you've maybe talked to the elders and they don't care. And that scenario unfortunately has happened. I know people who that's happened to. They just, they don't care. So what do you do, right? I actually, one of my favorite authors, uh, he's an atheist now. He was in, he kind of was in one of those, uh, Jesus hippie movements of the '60s and '70s, um, the Jesus People. And, uh, the main leader, he walked in to his apartment and the guy was having an affair with a married woman. So he told the leadership of the church and the leadership of the church did not respond well. And instead of saying, we need to take care of this with the main leader, they tried to pressure this author to say, you didn't see what you saw and you need to recant what you said and apologize for falsely accusing this man of adultery. Right. And so you can imagine he— this author said, no, I'm not. Like, this is ridiculous. And so he thought that all of Christianity then therefore was a farce and walked away from it and has lived an atheist for, I don't know, 40 years ever since because of the poor response from the church. So imagine you go to one church and you have that scenario, ah, and instead of just becoming an atheist, you walk to another church and you see the same thing and you're like, man, Like these problems are everywhere and no one cares and no one will do anything about it. Right? In our culture, right? No one cares. No one's going to do anything about it. So that's kind of the scenario where Habakkuk sees it. And truthfully, I mean, we do see that within churches. I mean, I know one of the communities I had lived in, it was systematic church abuse, right? You go to one church and you're mistreated. You're like, okay, you go to another church, you're mistreated again. You're never going to church again. If you happen to go to 3 churches and you're misabused in that 3rd church, your grandchildren are never going to church, you know?
Vicki: Instead of correctly abused? Yeah, yeah.
Nathan: Anyway, anyway. I'll take the criticism. It's fine. No, but that's kind of where Habakkuk sees himself. And you're right, there are— that's a good objection because I think when we can try to address the problems, We should. And presumably Habakkuk, as a prophet of God, has tried to correct the problems. Thus says the Lord. And they didn't listen and they won't listen. And he goes to another community and they don't listen and they won't listen. And he goes to another community and they don't listen. They won't listen. And, and he's frustrated. God won't—
Vicki: why won't you do anything? That's a really good distinction between doing nothing and— but, but God tells Habakkuk You just wait. You don't know what I'm doing behind the scenes.
Nathan: And so, and waiting though isn't nothing, right? Because there's a difference between doing nothing and giving up, like the author that I love to follow, who he gave up. He's, "Oh, this is, I'm not trying to do anything here." And he gave up and he doesn't believe in God. He still doesn't believe in God. And I pray for him regularly because he's a phenomenal author. And he's really, uh, influenced me in a positive way in his fiction. But there's a difference between that and waiting on the Lord. And doing nothing is what this author did— I'm an atheist now and all this is garbage, I don't believe it— and waiting on the Lord. So what does waiting on the Lord look like for a Christian? Because it's not doing nothing. You're, you're finding yourself in a situation where you can't influence anything anymore. You've tried and you've failed, and the best you can do is take to social media, and no one wants to listen to you on there anyways. So So, and that's not a good response.
Vicki: No, and it's not a good response.
Nathan: What does waiting on the Lord look like for Christians?
Vicki: There's a very big difference in waiting— waiting and doing nothing. Waiting involves hope and believing that God is good and telling God, this is going on, I know you know, it's heavy on my heart, calm me down, help me trust you. And help me do what I can do to change the situation. I can pray. I can fast. I can love other people in the church. I can be faithful, but ultimately I have to wait on you, God.
Tim: Help me to do that. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. It really is a picture of trust. Faithfulness is I'm doing it because I trust you, even if I never see the outcome. I believe that you are good, and I will align myself with you, and if you use me to be salt and light, phenomenal, but if I am just being faithful and it doesn't seem to make a difference, I'm going to continue to wait, trusting that you are good and you have a plan. I think that's the really hard part.
Vicki: I got a question for you. So these faithful people or faithful person, whatever, prays to God and says, "This horrible thing is going on, and it's been going on, and I've prayed about it. I've done whatever I can do, and you just let it go on." And then God's answer is, "Well, you just wait. I'm going to bring in some really wicked people." Why do you think that would be the case?
Nathan: Right. Well, so that is actually going to be next week. So, next week, what we're going to see is Habakkuk says, wait a minute, okay, you have an answer. That's a terrible answer. Why would you— why would you use horrible people to bring judgment to less horrible people, right? Why would you use a wicked culture to bring judgment on your own people? That doesn't make sense. Bring in some good people to bring in judgment. Yeah. So that's Habakkuk's next objection, which we're going to look at next week. So you're going to have to come back next week and find out the answer. But as far as this text is concerned, how should believers deal with a wicked culture, a wicked church culture, the culture around us? When you're overwhelmed, you've tried, as Vicki, you pointed out, but you can't affect anything. It's too much. No one cares. And all you can do is go to God. We should respond to a wicked culture by faithfully waiting for the Lord to bring judgment through its own wickedness. Last week we concluded the book of Proverbs, and one of the common themes in Proverbs and Psalms is that sin is self-defeating. Be patient. God will put an end to the work of evil. He will purify the Church of Jesus. If you ever find yourself in the middle of a fire, it's hard to keep calm, right? I know years ago when my wife and I lived in Southern California, there were wildfires to the west of us. Then wildfires broke out to the east of us, and I told my wife, okay, If there's one to the north or one to the south, we're out of here because we live in a canyon and we're done if that happens. And sure enough, I wake up one night and there are helicopters overhead and I'm like, what is that? I go out in my pajamas and it's way up there. It's not moving. So I turn on the news and I can see where we live and just a mile away there is a wildfire just to the south of us. And we had our go bags ready. And I'm like, now this is a mile to us. I am freaking out. It is hard to have clarity of mind. It's hard to make decisions in that moment. It's hard to think when you're in the midst of the fire itself. In the same way, it's hard to be faithful to Jesus when everything around us seems to be burning down, when the culture is acting foolish and saying what is evil is good and what is good is evil. It is even harder when our own church family cannot discern sin from righteousness and righteousness from sin. And when we see sinfulness in our own culture and the church, especially the church, it's hard to be faithful to Christ. So when we feel overwhelmed by the sin of others, take a step back and wait. Ask the Holy Spirit to search our hearts, reveal sin to us. How can I be faithful? What should I be doing right now? Because that's all I can do at this point, is to be faithful to him when I can't do any more and trust that God is going to bring justice. He's going to bring discipline in the right time. The hardest thing to do when the city burns is to be faithful.
Brian: As Nathan just said, the hardest thing to do when the city burns is be faithful. So when we are in the fire in a wicked church culture, what should we do? Faithfully wait for the Lord to bring judgment. The Lord will bring judgment, and remarkably, he'll probably somehow do it through more wickedness. The Crosstalk Podcast is a production of Crosstalk Global, equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. Www.crosstalkglobal.org. Crosstalk just finished successful trainings in Bucharest, Moldova, Southern California, and Kansas this season, and we're getting ready for another training in Kenya this summer and Cuba and Nepal in the fall. Help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click Donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also support this show by rating it on whatever platform you're listening to us. Be sure to join us next week as we continue our short series through the prophetic book of Habakkuk. You won't want to miss it.
Vicki: Okay, and then— all right, a killer close to that.
Nathan: And, and I'll tell you, leave it to Vicki to give us a third objection. No, that was good. I really appreciate you bringing that up. That's good. Say that again. What's the heat index in Dallas? 119.
Vicki: 119. And it's humid here, so it's worse than Arizona. It's just mind-boggling. Wow.
Nathan: Okay, hold on. I just heard somebody made some sort of change or something, or something happened. I'm hearing buzzing. It might have been Tim, but it seems to have gone away.
Tim: I don't think I did anything.
Nathan: I've been typing the whole time. How dare you. How dare you. Can you, Tim, check your connection on your microphone and your headphones, just that they're all nice and firm. It just feels like a loose connection or something, like maybe you moved your head and something just disconnected or—
Vicki: There we go. That was better. You did something.
Nathan: That's better. You got it.
Tim: He doesn't know it, but I've been trying to figure out— you got it— how I could turn the volume down on my headphones. Okay, you got it.
Vicki: Fixed it, whatever you did.
Tim: Whatever you did, got it. Yes. Okay, miracle worker, promise keeper, you know the song. Yes.
Nathan: I love Habakkuk. Uh, this is probably the 4th or 5th time I've gone through it, like, in a teaching background, and Like, I see more and it gets better every time. And the problem with me going through it the first time years ago was that I didn't have Vicki here to strongly object to my oversimplification.
Vicki: Did I strongly? I didn't think I did. No, no.
Nathan: Assertive. We use the term assertive in New York. New Yorkers aren't abrasive. We are assertive.
Tim: Yes. Well,