Habakkuk was called to live through very challenging times. Times of pervasive violence and injustice. Not only among the people of God, Judah, but also the violence being visited upon the people of God by divine judgment in the form of the invasion of the Babylonians and the deportation of the people into captivity. I can assure you, we have never experienced anything like the vicious cruelty that has threatened Habakkuk and his contemporaries. Habakkuk is challenged to resolve his experience with his knowledge of God. It's an old issue of theodicy. How can Habakkuk square his confession of God with his experience of manifest evil? How can he confess God to be holy and righteous and faithful to his covenant promise to save the sons of Israel, and at the same time, accept the glaring barbarity of the Babylonians who are so obviously wicked? So, questions erupt from his conscience and he brings them to God in the opening verses of the book of Habakkuk. The question, how long? The question, why? Verse 12, he asserts his confidence in his God. Are you not from everlasting? O Lord, my God, my Holy One, we will not die. You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge. And You, O Rock, have established them to correct. Your eyes are too pure to approve evil. And You cannot look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they?" Lord, You are the righteous rock. The God of justice. The God of holiness. Why is all this injustice happening? So, in chapter 2, Habakkuk positions himself to hear a rebuke from God. And he prepares to remonstrate with God even further. He's determined to wrestle with God like Jacob did until God blesses him and brings some resolve to his concerns. The Lord does respond, but not with a rebuke, but rather with revelation. It gives to him a paradigm by which all history now operates in verse 2 and verse 3 of chapter 2. History is being driven by the purpose of the God who comes in judgment in His time. At the appointed time. And no one is getting away with anything. Righteousness ultimately triumphs. And that in conjunction with the coming of the Promised One. So in verse 4 to verse 20 of chapter 2, the Lord informs Habakkuk that he knows full well that the Babylonians and all the proud are quite wicked indeed. And he reveals an abiding principle of divine jurisprudence. It is called the lex talionis, the law of retaliation. It's articulated explicitly in Exodus 21, verse 23 to 25. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. As we'll see in our study of these verses, the crimes committed by the proud are the very punishments that are visited upon them in divine justice. God exercises retributive justice. The punishment precisely fits the crime. While the believer waits for the certain coming of divine justice, and with that, God's deliverance. He is called in the meantime to live by faith. That steadfast believing in the Word of God that manifests itself in a lifestyle of obedience to the commands of God and upholding the worship of God. And thus, the righteous will live by faith. So, verse 4 and 5 are a preface to the profile of the arrogant evil man that is then given from verse 6 to verse 20. Such an evil man, of course, is epitomized by the very king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar himself. But his vices and attendant liabilities to judgment characterize all who live in rebellious unbelief, and who worship and serve the gods of this age while enslaved to their lusts and their aggressive greed." So, in verse 6 to verse 20, Habakkuk pronounces five prophetic woes. These are taunts. mocking denunciations against the Babylonians, asserting the certain execution of God's judgment upon them. These woes are given with various literary devices that are designed to attach onto the ear of the Hebrew listener. They're written in a poetic way so as to be memorable. They even recall Proverbs that have already been memorized by the Hebrew when he was a little child. The believer's defense therefore, the believer's defense against the onslaught of evil is the Word of God. The Word of God known. The Word of God memorized. The Word of God articulated into the face of adamant evil. The Word of God that is pronounced with a cutting edge and constructed with an elegant beauty that majestically trounces the world's most terrifying tyrant with the transcendent justice of the holy, sovereign God of the universe. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who is revealed as Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior who reigns in exalted righteousness and who will return to judge mankind and to deliver us into His eternal glory. So, consider with me this evening these prophetic woes. A woe is an interjection. It is an eruption. It is a burst of emotion that breaks into a sentence. It is found some 50 times in the Old Testament prophets. Usually preceding an announcement of impending judgment. An announcement of coming wrath. A warning that precedes the coming of God's chastening rod of discipline. 150 years before Habakkuk, Israel heard the woes of the prophet Isaiah. If you turn to Isaiah 5, allow your eye to survey the first seven verses where you see Israel presented as the Lord's vineyard. The vineyard is fruitless. The vineyard is about to be laid waste. Why? Verse 7, He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed. For righteousness. But behold, a cry of distress. The same conditions in Habakkuk's day. Violence and injustice. Verse 8, woe. Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field until there is no more room so that you have to live alone in the midst of the land. In my ears the Lord of hosts has sworn, surely many houses shall become desolate, even great and fine ones without occupants. For ten acres of vineyard will yield only one bath of wine, and a homer of seed will yield but an ephah of grain. Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue strong drink, who stay up late in the evening that wine may inflame them. Their banquets are accompanied by lyre and harp and tambourine and flute and by wine, but they do not pay attention to the deeds of the Lord, nor do they consider the work of His hands. Therefore, my people go into exile for their lack of knowledge, and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude is parched with thirst. Therefore, Sheol has enlarged its throat and opened its mouth without measure, and Jerusalem's splendor, her multitude, her din of revelry, and the jubilant within her descend into it. So, the common man will be humbled, and the man of importance abased. The eyes of the proud also will be abased. But the Lord of hosts will be exalted in judgment, and the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness. Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat in the waste places of the wealthy. Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood and sin as if with cart ropes, who say, let him make speed, let him hasten his work that we may see it, and let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come to pass that we may know it. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant men in mixing strong drink who justify the wicked for a bribe and take away the rights of the ones who are in the right. Therefore, as the tongue of fire consumes stubble and dry grass collapses into flame, so their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust. For they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. On this account, the anger of the Lord has burned against His people and He has stretched out His hand against them and struck them down." These woes, as you see, echo in advance the woes that Habakkuk pronounces upon the people of his generation. They concern the injustice of economic tyranny, of sensual revelry, of a refusal to honor God and His Word in the midst of verse 19's false religiosity. Let's see the work of God. And they don't mean a word of it. Deception. Moral confusion. Arrogant pride. And injustice. Yet, verse 16 and 17, the Lord will arise in judgment and rescue His lambs. But verse 5 ends with a description of the coming Assyrians who are about to invade the northern kingdom. In chapter 6 of Isaiah, Isaiah sees the exalted Lord upon his throne. He experiences forgiveness of sin. And he's commissioned to preach to a people who he is told extensively will refuse his ministry. He asks the agonizing question, In verse 11, the same question, Habakkuk asks, Lord, how long? Yet, verse 13, a remnant of God's people will survive. Now, in Habakkuk's day, we come back to chapter 2. Judah, again, is given the ministry of a prophet. And this prophet comes among them. And again, prophetic woes are declared. And prior to these woes, the people are told that this Word, this vision, comes with the same authority as the very law of God that was given from Mount Sinai. Now remember, these are descriptions of the proud. The arrogant. And it is self-worship that lies at the heart of the evil that is denounced by these woes. In verse 6 and following, will not all of these take up a taunt song against Him? Even mockery and insinuations against Him and say, woe to him who increases what is not his for how long? and makes himself rich with loans? Will not your creditors rise up suddenly and those who collect from you awaken? Indeed, you will become plunder for them because you have looted many nations. All the remainder of the peoples will loot you because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, to the town and all its inhabitants. Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to put his nest on high to be delivered from the hand of calamity. You have devised a shameful thing for your house by cutting off many peoples, for you are sinning against yourself. Surely the stone will cry out from the wall and the rafter will answer it from the framework. Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with violence. Is it not indeed from the Lord of hosts that peoples toil for fire and nations grow weary for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, who mix in your venom even to make them drunk so as to look on their nakedness. You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness. The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you, and utter disgrace will come upon your glory, for the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them, because of the human bloodshed and violence done to the land, to the town, and all its inhabitants. What prophet is the idol when its maker has carved it? Or an image, a teacher of falsehood? For its maker trusts in his own handiwork when he fashions speechless idols. Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, Awake! to a mute stone, Arise! And is that your teacher? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all inside it. But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him. Here we see a woe to the greedy economic tyranny Here we see a woe to those who build fortresses for themselves in an attempt to establish a dynasty. Woe to those who enlarge their holdings through brutal, violent conquest. Woe to those who live in sensual debauchery. And woe to those whose gods are idols. They are exposed before the exalted Lord who is enthroned in His temple. When we come into the new covenant time of Jesus, He also, the prophet of God, announces prophetic woes against arrogant hypocrites in Matthew 23 beginning at verse 12. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. But, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people. For you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering in to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses and for a pretense you make long prayers. Therefore, you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, Pharisees, scribes, hypocrites, Because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Woe to you blind guys who say, whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated. You fools and blind men. Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? And whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing. But whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated. You blind man, which is more important, the offering or the altar that sanctifies the offering? Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by him who dwells within it. And whoever swears by heaven swears both by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. But these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous and say, If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets. So you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers. How will you escape the sentence of hell?" Here pride hides itself behind Pharisaic religion. But there arises all manner of wickedness from the putrid heart that hates the Word of God manifest in the murder of God's prophets. We too, in our age, live under the threat of prophetic woes. In the book of Revelation 8, verse 13, we have a declaration of three prophetic woes. And then I looked and I heard an eagle flying in mid-heaven saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth. because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound. These three woes are announced prior to the trumpet cycle, which are the preliminary judgments of God visited upon a rebellious mankind. These three woes are then each declared as this judgment unfolds. So, in chapter 9, verse 12, The first woe is past. Behold, two woes are still coming after these things. Chapter 11, verse 14. The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. The third woe is then embedded in the sounding of the seventh trumpet at the fall of Babylon in Revelation 18. We have a double repetitive announcement of woes. In verse 4, I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues. For her sins have piled up as high as heaven and God has remembered her iniquities. Pay her back even as she has paid. and give back to her double according to her deeds. In the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her. To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, I sit as a queen, and I'm not a widow, and will never see mourning. For this reason, in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire, for the Lord God who judges her is strong. And the kings of the earth who committed acts of immorality and live sensually with her will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe, the great city Babylon, the strong city, for in one hour your judgment has come." In verse 5 we're told that God remembers the iniquity of Babylon and visits it with retributive justice. In verse 6, give back double according to her sins. The word double in the Greek means a duplication or a twin that matches and is equivalent to. It is retributive justice. Give her that which she rightly deserves to the degree that she has paid, paid her back. Do it and double it in the sense of making it equivalent to, of making it a twin. that in her sin she has birthed a companion twin. The justice of God in its retributive precision. She's described with her arrogant defiance of God. With her sensuality and her economic justice. And at the end in verse 24, we find within her the blood of the prophets and the saints and all who have been slain on all the earth. Verse 16 and 17, Whoa! Whoa! The great city. Verse 19 and 20, Woe, woe, the great city. From Isaiah preceding the Assyrian invasion, to Habakkuk during the Babylonian invasion, to Jesus Christ against the religious hypocrisy of His day, to the angelic overseers of this present tribulation, People of God dwell among people who are slated for judgment. God describes them to Habakkuk. He assures Habakkuk of the dynamics of retributive justice. The Lord remembers men's iniquity. The proud will be brought low. the wicked punished with precise justice according to their sins and will pay an eternal penalty because they have sinned against the eternally holy God. This survey of prophetic woes leads me to conclude, first of all, that men cannot escape the justice of God. We've learned in Sunday School that man is created in a moral climate as an ethical being, the image of God. He is accountable to God as his creator, lawgiver, and judge. He's been given the stewardship of creation ordinances, of labor and Sabbath, of marriage and procreation. He has been given the responsibility of dominion over the world. And he has been equipped with a moral conscience that aligns itself with the law of God expressed in the Ten Commandments. He was given a command concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil set in what is called the covenant of works, accountable to obey God upon the threat of death. Brethren, the air that we breathe is legally warranted air. All that we are and all that we do is capable of being morally measured according to the justice of the God who judges us. We ourselves, as His image, testify to this truth. For we, as image bearers, are constantly judging everything, everyone, ourselves, others, politics, the way we communicate, society. Name something that we don't have an opinion about it, whether we like it or dislike it, whether we think it's good or bad, whether we approve it or disapprove it. It's an all-encompassing aspect of our very humanity. We judge everything because we are being judged. We're so concerned about equity and fairness. It's built into the very human conscience. But our consciences are busted in our fallenness, yet it still functions in desperate need of regeneration and instruction by the Word of God. We therefore look upon the landscape of our times and we know, as Habakkuk was taught to know, that nobody is escaping the justice of God. The vision of the divine coming judge will indeed come to pass at its appointed time. He will certainly come. He will not delay. We therefore must view everything as we judge everything in terms of the coming judgment of God. We must learn to see everything with eschatological eyes. and already know the essentials of the end that God has determined. When the Lord walked toward Sodom with Abraham, His friend, before the day of judgment, He asked Himself, shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do? And as a friend of God, Abraham was given an eschatology. He was told about the coming judgment that would fall upon Sodom. Now, we too, as sons of Abraham, friends of God, are being told in advance, my friends, there are woes that are hanging over the proud Babylonians among whom we sojourn as aliens. Yes, they are wicked, and at times they appear to gain the ascendancy over the believing righteous. But I ask you, can you hear the angelic woe? Woe. Woe. As Abraham, we too are given a view of the end of history as it concludes in the revelation of God. Revelation 22, reading from verse 12, Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me to render to every man according to what he has done. And again, verse 20, He who testifies to these things says, Yes, I am coming quickly. He is coming. He will not delay. He will not be late. He will arrive at the appointed time precisely in keeping with God's determined purpose to exercise the precise retributive justice according to every man's work. Look at life with eschatological eyes. Man cannot escape The judgment of God. Secondly, rejoice in the grace of God and the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. It is something that should astonish us and will continue to amaze us through all eternity that after Adam fell through sin into death, God came to him in grace and salvaged the fallen world and commenced a program of salvation. He did that. in the face of real evil. A fallen angel, Satan, who would attack man in his undeveloped innocence. He did that in the face of real sin. The incomprehensible rebellion that erupted from a righteous man. A rebellion that now resides in the heart of every fallen man. He did that in the face of real death, of separation from God, of the destruction of His glory revealed in His creation. He did that in the face of hatred and lies and lewdness and oppression and disorder. Into such a setting in walks God, the God of grace, the God of love, come to make provision for sinners and come to give salvation to the otherwise damned. Were it not for the cross, we would live under the horrifying woes of divine denunciation. We would be facing eternal wrath. But Jesus Christ drank the cup of God's wrath for us. He became the curse for us. He paid the penalty of our sentence of death. And by faith in Him, we are justified. Believer, ever believe. For we are justified by faith alone, in Christ alone, through grace alone, and in Christ there is now, therefore, no condemnation. We have passed from death to life and now in Christ and forever with Christ to the praise of God. Rejoice in the grace of God and the work of Christ on the cross. Thirdly, God's inevitable judgment encourages steadfast faith. The experience of the enlightened conscience in this fallen world is one of continued offense. As Lot, righteous Lot in Sodom, who was continually offended As Paul in Athens, as he walked from corner to corner and saw idol after idol after idol and his spirit was stirred within him. The experience of the enlightened conscience in this fallen world is one of continued offense. Offended by the godlessness of idolatry and its accompanying immoralities. Horrified by the extent to which wicked men can perpetrate brutality and cruelty upon their fellow men. Shocked by how stunningly blind men can be to the rudiments of fundamental ethical integrity and the revelation of God's love in His Gospel. I tell you, If it were not for the certainty of coming judgment, I would be tempted to despair. I would be tempted to become nihilistic in a rage of repulse, destructiveness, vented upon a world that repels me and upon myself in particular because of all the sinners I've ever known, I'm the chief. I would be like Asaph who struggled in Psalm 73 and said, I became embittered. When I pondered to understand this, this was troublesome in my sight, until I came into the sanctuary of God and I perceived their end. Surely Thou dost set them in slippery places. Thou dost cast them down to destruction. When your conscience is troubled and you see the rise of voices that are crying out and demanding to have the right to be perverse, to have the right to kill, innocent life. To have the right to be provided for in sloth. When you see so much that offends, remember, righteousness wins. Get the perspective from the sanctuary. That's where Habakkuk takes us at the end of this in verse 20 of chapter 2, the Lord is in His holy temple. Let the earth be silent before Him. It encourages a steadfast faith. Keep believing. Things are not what they appear. And the end of the story has not yet come. But it will come. Fourthly, God's inevitable judgment encourages earnest urgent evangelism. Knowing that all men are ethical beings accountable to God, that history proceeds to the second coming of Christ and final judgment, knowing that God's provision for men in their sin is Jesus Christ, through whom grace and mercy is freely given to all who believe, Let us be steadfast both in believing and in summoning all to come to Jesus Christ now in this the day of salvation. You see, men innately know that something's wrong. They know something's wrong with themselves. They know something's wrong with others. They know something's wrong with society. They know something's wrong with the world. They have enough light that illuminates their conscience to cause them to look for some solution to the unease that they have with life. Speak to them. Tell them about God the Creator. About who they are as the image of God. about their accountability to God as lawgiver and judge, about the lying spirit who is intent upon deceiving them and bringing them under the wrath of God, about the amazing grace of the God who comes to the guilty and the damned and makes peace with them and provides Christ in His life, His death, His resurrection, and promises pardon and everlasting blessing to all who simply and humbly only believe. As you hear the apocalyptic trumpets blowing, as you perceive the bowls being poured out on a planet that is careening to judgment, tell others that the wicked proud do not ultimately triumph. Tell them that injustice and evil does not ultimately win. Tell them that Jesus Christ died for sinners and rose again for our justification and is exalted as our priestly King who will receive and save all who call upon Him. Tell them that Christ is about to return and to right all the wrongs and to usher in those who trust in Him to an eternal glory. Christian, persevere in faith and do all you can to rescue as many as you can along the way. I've been very sobered in reflecting upon Jesus' words. I mentioned it several sermons ago and it's haunted me. Work while it is yet day, for the night is coming when no man can work. The wolves are going to break upon us. Will they break in my lifetime? I don't know. But this is the message for this generation. Labor now. While you have the liberty, while you have the Spirit, while you have the energy, while you have the opportunity, labor now. For the day of woe will soon be upon us. But Jesus is coming. Even so, come. Lord Jesus, Amen.