Habakkuk tonight. So what we're going to do is do this Bible lesson here in the book of Habakkuk. Are those green bars bouncing, buddy? Okay. And then We'll take some time to pray and we'll go home. Those of you at home that are joining us from home, like I said, we'll do this Bible study in the book of Habakkuk and then I hope that you've set aside some time to pray there at home. So if you'll take your Bible and turn to the book of Habakkuk, I'd love to have some people here tonight because I would like to ask some questions, see how much you learned from last week. Habakkuk chapter one, verse one, and I know you're still finding it, you'll get there. The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see, O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear, even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save. By the way, you'll notice there the word of is in italics in verse two. So you can read, and italics in your King James Bible simply means that that word has been supplied by the translator so that you can better understand what is being said. But if you wanted to read it, you could read it this way, oh Lord, how long shall I cry and thou will not hear? Cry unto thee, violence, and thou will not save. Now, where is, here's my first question tonight, this is looking back to last week's lesson. Where is Habakkuk seeing this violence? What is the nation or the people that he's a part of where he is seeing violence? Anybody, just call it out. Well, yeah. No, actually he's still in Judah. He's looking at his own people there in Jerusalem. This is probably written during the time just after Josiah has died. I said last week Josiah was 31 when he died. He wasn't 31. He had reigned for 31 years and then he died. And Josiah was a good king. He loved Jehovah. He loved God. You remember, he actually went into what would have been northern Israel. Those people had already been carried off into captivity. And he burned the altars that were there that were to the false gods, to those golden calves. And he re-established or re-enforced, he encouraged the people to work there at Jerusalem. But when he died, Two sons and a grandson came to power, and those four kings were not good kings. None of them worshiped the Lord as Josiah did. So Habakkuk's looking around at his own people and he's saying, violence, there's wickedness. Verse four, excuse me, the law is slacked. We talked about that last week. Judgment doth never go forth. The wicked doth compass about the righteous, therefore wrong judgment proceedeth. And because Habakkuk is looking at his own people and he's seeing all of this wickedness, he's saying, oh Lord, verse two, how long shall I cry? and you don't hear me, and how long shall I cry to you? Violence, and you will not save. That sets us up for what God responds, that sets us up for God's response in Habakkuk 1.5. We're just sort of reviewing what we learned last week. Habakkuk 1.5, God says, behold ye among the heathen, and regard and wonder marvelously, for I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told you. So remember, Habakkuk's complaint is, your people are so wicked, these Jewish people I live among, there's violence, there's strife, there's lawlessness, there's false judgment, well, there's no judgment. And God says, verse 6, for lo, I raise up the Chaldeans. Now, the Chaldeans, it's another name for the Babylonians. Babylon is where they live, so we call them the Babylonians. Chaldean is their ethnic group. And he says, So God says to Habakkuk, listen, I'm at work here. And by the way, this is why we believe that this was written early in the reign of Jehoahaz, which was just after the death of Josiah. There was a king for about three months, Jehoiakim, and then Jehoiahaz came to the throne, and the Chaldeans were, at this point, fighting with the Assyrians. Now, the Assyrians had been the power, the world power for a long time, and so God says to Habakkuk, He says, listen, the Chaldeans are gonna win this one. And then they're going to come down and they are going to judge this people. And I'm just reviewing really quickly. Look at verse 12. This is Habakkuk's response to the Lord. Habakkuk says, "'Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? We shall not die, O Lord. Thou hast ordained them for judgment, and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. The them there is the Chaldeans." Lord, you've created these Chaldeans specifically to judge your people, and you've established the Chaldeans to correct your people. And then here's Habakkuk's complaint, verse 13. He says, Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity. Why then, wherefore, why then do you look upon them that deal treacherously? And how, and I'm paraphrasing here, and how can you hold your tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? So Habakkuk's simple complaint is this, he says, listen up God, you raised up these Chaldeans to judge your people, but the Chaldeans are worse than we are. How can you allow that? You're a God who's of pure eyes than to behold evil. You're a holy God. How can you allow the Chaldeans to come and judge your people? That's what his complaint is. He has some more to say about the Chaldeans, what kind of people they are. Notice specifically verse 16. Habakkuk 1.16, Habakkuk says, therefore they sacrifice unto their net and burn incense under their drag. The drag there is a type of net for catching fish. And Habakkuk has likened these Chaldeans to fishermen who just catch fish rapaciously without any consideration for what their needs are or anything, they just catch these fish. And by the way, these were not environmentalists, they're not catch and releasing, they're catch and killing the fish. And so Habakkuk's complaint is they're just, they catch all these fish, they're gonna kill everybody, Lord. And then he says, Habakkuk says, therefore they, the Chaldeans, sacrifice unto their net and they burn incense unto their drag. He says, not only that, they're idolaters. They're going to win these battles. They're going to defeat the Assyrians. They're going to defeat the Jews. And they're not going to worship you. They're not going to say, well, God's such a good God. He blesses. No. They're going to worship false gods and say their false gods have won these battles for them. So Habakkuk's complaint is, how can you allow this, Lord? And we left off last week at chapter 2 and verse 1. Chapter 2, verse 1, Habakkuk ends his complaint by saying, I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower, and I will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved." Reproved. What does to be reproved or what is reproof? Yeah, correction. So he says, okay, I'm gonna stand here and I'm gonna wait and I'm gonna see what God will say to me and I will see what my answer is when God corrects me. When God sets me straight, I know I'm gonna have a response. Now, what I like about Habakkuk is he's having a conversation with God. Now, he disagrees with God, don't get me wrong, but at least he's talking to God. The problem with most Christians is not when you're having a conversation in which you and God disagree. And by the way, every time I've disagreed with God, I've been wrong. Okay, so let's just set the record straight. But the problem is not when I'm having a conversation with God and we disagree. The problem is when I quit talking to God. I'm not even having a conversation with Him. Maybe because I don't think he's going to answer me. Or maybe because I'm bitter at God. I talked about this Sunday night. Or maybe it's because I'm busy. There's a lot of reasons why we might not have a conversation with God. At least Habakkuk is having the conversation. All of that is last week. And the reason I picked Habakkuk for our study over the last couple weeks is because Habakkuk shows us how we can have personal revival. even when the people around us are wicked. And when I say personal revival, I like to call this, sort of adopted this term for myself as I pray, I call this a personal awakening. personal awakening. Have you ever been, this happened to me just this last week, have you ever been sort of in that midway point between being awake and being asleep, and you're sort of dreaming, but you know you're dreaming, and you don't like your dream, maybe you're being chased, or maybe somebody's threatening you, and so you're trying to get out of the dream, and I remember I was laying in bed, and again, I vividly dreaming, and I knew I was dreaming, and I knew I was laying in bed, and I didn't like my dream, so I'm trying to say my wife's name, Christy, I know if I say Christy, She'll say, what? And then I'll wake up. So in my dream, I'm saying, Christy, Christy, Christy. And guess what? She doesn't do anything. And this is frustrating me in my dream. And then I realize it's because I'm dreaming and my lips aren't actually. Have you ever been in one of those dreams? Finally, I got the word out, help. And Christy said, you know, she shook me and said, it's OK. You're nothing. OK. Dream went away. Then I couldn't go back to sleep. That's another problem. But here's the point. When I was finally awake, that's where I wanted to be. And I could deal with life. I could, OK, that was a dream. I'm going to go get a drink of water or whatever. And it was over. When we have a personal awakening, right now, Well, let me not be too... Sometimes you can feel like, boy, I know that God has more of the Spirit for me. I don't mean by that that we get an extra measure of the Spirit. What I mean is, although the Holy Spirit indwells us, we can choose to be filled with the Spirit or we can choose to hinder the Spirit's work. How do we know that? Because the Bible says, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. The Bible says, quench not the Spirit. So evidently I can do things. I can choose things that quench the Spirit. And when I have a personal awakening, it's not that I get more of the Holy Spirit, it's that the Holy Spirit gets more of me. And my life is different. We talked about it Sunday night. There's love, joy, peace, there's meekness, there's gentleness, there's goodness, there's faith, there's temperance. And if you think this list sounds familiar, it's the fruit of the Spirit, mentioned in Galatians 5, 22 and 23, which is a natural result of being filled with the Spirit. And I want, and I want you to want that personal awakening. And Habakkuk experienced that personal awakening even though the people around him were very, very wicked. So all of that was last week. We talked about it all the way up to chapter two, verse one, where Habakkuk says, I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower. I will watch to see what he will say unto me and what I shall answer when I am reproved. So let's pick it up with lesson number two. Lesson number two today. Here we go. God has an answer for Habakkuk, and he says in chapter two, verse two, the Lord answered me and said, write the vision and make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it. By the way, the vision is going to be expressed for us in chapter two here. Write the vision, make it plain upon the tables that he may run that readeth it. Verse three, for the vision is yet for an appointed time, In other words, what God's saying to him is, I'm going to give you what's going to happen. Now, this isn't going to happen right away, Habakkuk, God says. You're going to have to wait a little bit for it, but it's going to happen. And trust me, when it happens, you'll know it. See, he says, in the end it shall speak and shall not lie. Now, verse four, very famous verse. It's quoted three times in the New Testament. Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him. Here's the part that's quoted three times in the New Testament. But the just shall live by his faith. The just shall live by his faith. Now the first part of that verse is a reference to the Chaldeans. Remember what Habakkuk's complaint was in verse 16. They're going to sacrifice to false gods. They're going to attribute their success to false gods. And God responds to Habakkuk in verse 4. Behold his soul, the Chaldean soul, which is lifted up, his pride, that's not upright in him. But here's the contrast, the just shall live by his faith. Can I change how I say that? When God says the just shall live by his faith, what he's really saying to Habakkuk is, trust me, trust me. I know it doesn't look right to you. I know it doesn't seem right to you that the Chaldeans, who are more wicked than you are, would come and judge the people. But you're going to have to trust me. The just shall live by his faith. By the way, notice the pronoun there, his faith. It's a personal thing. I really wish that I could pass my faith onto my children by giving them some sort of injection, right? Just sort of suck it out of my arm, and then I take that same syringe, and then they get my faith. That's not how it works, is it? You may wish you had someone else's faith. I've wished that before. Boy, I see, I remember as a missionary, I see another missionary doing incredible things and say, wow, I wish I had his faith. Well, you can't. You have your faith. The just shall live by his faith. So God's saying, trust me. Trust me. Let's talk about this issue of faith for a while, and one of the reasons that many people abandon faith, and I say abandon faith generally, I don't mean that they lose their salvation, but I mean they quit dealing with God, they quit trusting God. One of the reasons that people abandon their faith is when their sincere prayers are met by seeming silence. When you pray about something, and you pray about something, and you pray about something, and God doesn't seem to answer you. It can be very easy for a person to say, well, I'm just not going to pray anymore. God isn't answering my prayers. Caleb, would you help me real quick? I left my wallet in my office, and I'll need that for my illustration that's coming up. When I was a little boy at vacation Bible school, they told us the story of Amy Carmichael. Do you remember the story of Amy Carmichael? If you don't, it's okay. But Amy Carmichael was a missionary, first in Japan, then later and most famously in India for many, many, many years. And she grew up in Ireland and she was Irish, Anglo-Irish. And so she had, excuse me, and so she had, I'm gonna get, thank you, son. I'm gonna get this wrong. And despite the fact that she was Anglo-Irish, she had brown eyes. And most of her friends, she's a little girl, four, five, six years old, she's looking around, she notices most of her friends have blue eyes. And she really liked blue eyes. She thought, why can't I have blue eyes like these other people around me? So she started to pray that God would give her blue eyes. Now you can imagine, God didn't say anything to her. She didn't hear a vision. Mom didn't walk in and say, oh, you're going to have blue eyes. But she'd get up in the morning, and she would look into the mirror, and guess what? Her eyes would still be brown. She was very disappointed by that. Now, to us it might seem sort of silly that you pray for a change in eye color. Just go down to your optometrist now and get those colored contacts and you can change your eye color. I had a person who did that and she got a very shocking eye color. And I said, I don't think that really goes with your skin color, but you can get your eyes colored any way you want now. But back then you couldn't do that. So she prayed for blue eyes. She never got blue eyes. But when she became an adult, one of the things she did in her work in India was she would color her skin with coffee grounds so her skin appeared darker, and she would go into Hindu temples where there were children that were trapped in childhood prostitution in the temples, and she would rescue them. And what made that possible was after she dyed her skin and she put on the clothes of an Indian woman, her eyes were brown just like the Indians were. And if God had granted her blue eyes, she would not have had that ministry. So when God doesn't answer your prayers, when he's seemingly silent, and he doesn't answer the prayers the way that you expect him to, please don't misunderstand and give up on God. Like Habakkuk, you can say, I'm gonna stand on my watch, I'm gonna see what God will say to me, and I'm gonna see what I'm gonna answer him when he reproves me, when he shows that I'm wrong, I'm gonna see what I'm gonna answer back. That's okay, not great, but that's better than just saying, I give up, I'm not gonna talk to God anymore. But there's a second reason why we don't pray sometimes, and that is when we expect God answer our prayers in a way that conforms with our desires. It can actually be painful when you pray for something and then God works, but he does it a completely different way than you were expecting. Another missionary story, this was the Rosalind Goforth, they were missionaries in China. And they had some children, I forget how many, but one of them, well, let me back up here to get the story straight. So Jonathan Goforth, the husband, had left on a preaching tour. He would go from town to town with some Chinese evangelists, and they would do some street preaching and work in these areas to get churches started. And he left his wife at home with the children, and this one time that he was gone, one of their children fell very sick. And so she sent for Jonathan. She said, your daughter is very sick. I think she's not going to recover. Maybe she will. I want you to come home. So he left his tour. He came home. And of course, Rosalind, the mother, was praying for this child to be healed. And about the time that Jonathan Goforth got there, he just spent a few minutes, maybe an hour with their child, and the child passed away and died. Now that's something that would really shake your faith, I think, if you had been praying for your child to be healed, and instead God takes that child away. And what would happen? What happens? We say, well, see, God doesn't answer my prayers, or he mocks me and answers them in direct opposite of what I ask, and we can give up on prayer. Habakkuk doesn't do that, even though God, he's asked God to judge the Jewish people for their sinfulness, and God says, okay, I'm gonna bring the Chaldeans. That's worse than just fixing the people. I'm gonna bring the Chaldeans, they're gonna judge the people. But Habakkuk doesn't give up. And God says, the just shall live by his faith. Now, faith expresses itself, number one, when we wait on God's answer. That takes faith. And number two, faith expresses itself when we receive an answer for God and it's very different than we expected. And when we submit to that and we say, okay, God, your way is best. Now, believe it or not, we express faith every day. I'll show you how we express faith every day. This is why I needed my wallet here. I have a couple of bills in here, nothing particularly large. But I've got here a $1 bill and a $5 bill. And obviously, they look different. There's a 5 in Lincoln on this one, George Washington, and the number 1 on this one. But other than the way that they look, is the paper that they're on or the ink that they're printed with, is there any difference between these two bills? What makes this bill worth $5 and this one worth $1? Yeah, the number on it. If somehow I could take this. I'm not going to do this, by the way, if you're watching at home and you're with the Treasury Department. If I could somehow put a five and Lincolns on this one, this piece of paper would become worth as much as this one. There's no intrinsic value, very little intrinsic value, in American money. But every day we walk up to the store and if I hand them a $5 bill, I have great faith that they're going to accept this as $5 and this one as $1. And if I have a $100 bill, you know, one with a one and two zeros, I expect that they're going to take that bill, even though it's the same size, same ink, same paper, they're going to consider that bill to be worth 20 times as much as this one. 100 times as much as this one. Yeah, for now. That's a whole other conversation. But let me show you another way we express faith that's even more amazing. Credit cards and debit cards. Now I don't, I'm not even going to tell you what the limit on this credit card is because it's embarrassing. It's really stupid. I told my children, you know, if I actually went out and charged my credit card, maxed them out, I'd never be able to repay it. That's how much credit they will give you. But it's amazing. I can carry this card into a store and buy a vastly expensive item. And you know that clerk, that cashier, he, she takes my card, runs it through the machine, hands me my card back, gives me that item. It could be worth literally thousands of dollars. And they let me walk out of the store. They've never met me before in their lives. They have no idea who I am. But if I hand them this little piece of plastic, Now, it's hard for us to imagine, because we use these little pieces of plastic every day, but again, a missionary story, fella brought, a couple decades ago now, 70s, 80s, he brought an Indian out of the Amazonian rainforest to spend some time with him here in the United States. And he was absolutely amazed that you could load up, in a grocery store, you could load up your cart with whatever you wanted, and go up to them and hand them a little piece of plastic, and that was good enough. You see, we actually express faith every day when it works for us. It's much harder to express faith when it seems to be that God is working against us. Now, by the way, God never works against us. Romans 8 reminds us if God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8 reminds us that He gave us His own Son to prove His love for us. So I am not saying that God is against us. But, let's be frank, sometimes the way circumstances turn, we pray for something and it goes differently, or we pray for something and there's seemingly no answer, we can feel like, well, God must be against us. He's not against us. the just shall live by his faith." And by the way, what, here's a non-rhetorical question, think with me, what is our faith founded on? And yes, the Word of God, but really, beyond the Word of God, if you go through the Word of God, what is our faith founded on? What do we have faith in, in other words? In this case, I have faith in, you might say, the U.S. government or the Federal Reserve, that this money's going to maintain its value, and W.T., I agree with you, it may be just a matter of time, but that's where my faith is, the Federal Reserve, okay. But when it comes to my Christian life, what is my faith founded on? Yes, yes, I agree with you, W.T., salvation's good, but who? Let me ask that way, who? Yeah, in God. God's character, because God can make all the promises that he wants to me if he's not faithful to his promise. He is faithful to his promises. But if it were not a God who is faithful to his promises, then my faith would be in vain. I think I told you I have an uncle, and I really enjoyed spending time with my my Uncle Tom, but he wasn't particularly good at keeping his word. So he would say to my dad, hey, I'm going to come visit you next week or next month or whatever. And my dad would say to us, OK, Uncle Tom's going to come. And I get so excited. Uncle Tom's coming. And it seemed like more times than not, he wouldn't show up. Work or whatever, and he just wouldn't show up. So I do recall one time, I was about junior high, maybe early high school, and my dad made that comment. OK, Uncle Tom's going to come visit us. And I said, I will believe it when I see the whites of his eyes. because he just wasn't, I mean, he just didn't keep his word. He was a fun guy to be with, but he wasn't very faithful. The reason that our faith, it's important that we realize that our faith is founded on a faithful God who keeps his promises. It's founded on a God who is all wise and is far too wise to make a promise that he cannot keep for whatever reason. He's all powerful. There's never going to come a point where God says, well, I really want to do that for you, but I can't. That's happened to me before. I'll say to my kids, okay, this year we're going to take our vacation to Yosemite or whatever. We're going to go there. And then something comes up, somebody gets sick or maybe there's a financial reverse and we take the money we've carefully saved for our family vacation and we buy a refrigerator because the old one broke or whatever. And I say to my family, I'm sorry. I really intended to do this for us, but can't. That never happens to God, because His power is infinite. And that's what our faith is founded on. The just shall live by his faith, his faith in God. At the same time that God gives Habakkuk answer number one, okay, remember Habakkuk's waiting for an answer, chapter two, verse one, I'll stand upon my watch, set me upon the tower, I will watch to see what he will say unto me. First thing God says to Habakkuk is, the just shall live by his faith, trust me, trust me. The second thing that God says to Habakkuk is, I'm going to judge the Chaldeans, the Babylonians too. Because remember what else Habakkuk had said to God earlier, chapter 1, verses 12 and 13, specifically verse 13, he says, skipping down to the end of that verse, and holdest thy tongue, when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he. God, how can you allow the Chaldeans, who are even more wicked than we are, to judge us? And God says, it's okay, because they are going to judge you. I've ordained that, I've already set that in motion. But I'm going to judge them as well. There are, in chapter two, five woes, that God pronounces on the Chaldeans. Let's look at those briefly, and then we'll come back and make application here. The first woe is in verse 6, Habakkuk 2.6. Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his. ladeth himself with thick clay." Now, I wish we could just go phrase by phrase through this. We're not going to. Let me just point out that God pronounces woe against those who are greedy. Those that are greedy. He says, woe to the greedy. And by the way, he likens their greed, even though they're increasing their wealth and they're collecting this stuff to them, he likens it to lading yourself with thick clay. On a couple of occasions, done enough being outside, that you'll walk through an area that's sort of marshy and you put on those boots, galoshes, rubber boots, right? So that no water or mud can get in. But you notice as you take a step and the mud comes up almost to your knees, you notice what happens. Your boots start to collect that mud. And what happens? It becomes very heavy. It becomes hard to walk. See, these people think they're collecting all this money and it's going to make their life better, but God's saying, listen, they're collecting all this money. It's like just putting all this thick clay on yourself. You're just making your life harder. Woe to the greedy. There's a story that preachers like to quote. The only thing is we disagree on who said it, but it was either Aristotle Onassis or Howard Hughes that was once asked. How much money do you need to make you happy? And he said, just a little bit more. Now, both of these guys were incredibly wealthy, but just a little bit more. Let me give you a modern day reference. And I don't know Jeff Bezos personally, but I heard that he's currently worth $189 billion. I don't know how you calculate that, something to do with the stocks that he holds or whatever. $189 billion. Let's imagine, I did a little bit of quick math just for you, for us here. Let's imagine that $1,000 is represented by a millimeter. You know, one of those really, really tiny lines on your ruler. $1,000 is a millimeter. That means $10,000 is a centimeter. And $1 million is a kilometer. So kilometers, about half a mile, it's like, boy, from here back to Leisure Town Road, it's about a mile and a half. So that's about the equivalent of $3 million. How far would $189 billion take us? It would take us from here to South Lake Tahoe. Somebody pointed out he could buy the most expensive residence in the United States somewhere in Los Angeles or somewhere, anyway, and it would be basically pocket change to him. What would you do with $189 billion? How much more, someone asked me this, it was a non-Christian, asked me recently, how much more does that guy need? I don't know. But what does God say? Woe to the greedy. By the way, I would not trade places with Jeff Bezos, because I don't think he's a saved man. And I'm headed for an eternity where I can enjoy the presence of God forever. And unless he puts his faith in Jesus Christ, unless he repents of his sin and trusts the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for his salvation, as these mentioned earlier, boy, I'd much rather have no money and be headed to heaven than have a lot of money and be headed to hell. Frankly, if you have $189 billion, I understand, I've never lived like this, but I understand these people have to hire security just to keep people from kidnapping family members. will hold their family members for ransom. I'm glad that when Caleb says to me, hey dad I want to take a walk around the block, I don't say wait, wait, wait, hey bodyguard you go with him. That'd be a terrible life to live, right? God says woe to those that are greedy because your wealth is not actually making your life any easier. Second woe, Habakkuk 2.9. Woe to him that coveteth and evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil. He says in this, yeah, I'm sorry, verse 10, thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sent against thy soul, for the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. These people are not just greedy, but as it says here, thou hast, cutting off many people, they're willing to destroy others for gain. They're willing to destroy other people's lives, and we know already the Chaldeans, it's like they rake in the fish, they take their net, they're dragged, they throw it out, they bring in all their fish, they kill the fish. How many fish do they need? And they just always need a little bit more. And God says to the Chaldeans, woe to the Chaldeans, not only are you covetous, but you're willing to destroy other people to gain. Number three. Chapter 2, verse 12. What are these people doing? Let me read the verse again. Think with me. What are these people doing? Yeah, they're using violence to try to bring about change. Now, does that sound familiar? Let me read you a quote. Quote, to achieve true justice, we are not working with the police, nor will we seek a relationship with them. In order to create change, we will do so by any means necessary. If you want a revolution, it won't happen by being peaceful." End quote. Now here's what this group calls themselves. They call themselves the Freedom Neighborhood. Doesn't sound like freedom to me. But there are people who are willing to destroy and to tear down in an effort to get the power that they want to have. And God says, woe to those who build a town by violence. Now, right here in the middle, we've seen three woes, there's two more, but right here in the middle, look at verse 13 with me. These people that are greedy, These people that are willing to destroy others for gain. These people that are willing to use violence to get their way and to gain power and to establish the city. What are they really doing? It says that they labor in the very fire. It says they shall weary themselves for vanity, for worthlessness. Why? Because God is still sovereign. We're going to see that in verse 20. Do you realize that even the wicked are created for God's glory? Now, I did not say God created wickedness. I said even the wicked people, they're created for God's glory. Romans 9 says this, power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and the other unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy?" Here's what God's saying to us. He's saying, listen, even when the wicked seem to be running amok, Even when they seem to be ascendant, even when they seem to be getting all the power and all the praise and all the money, I'm still in charge and they're not winning. They're not on the right side of history. As I read Habakkuk, as I read Habakkuk, I realized we're living this out. It seems like the wicked are gaining power. It seems to me as if I'm praying for God to do one thing, and God's obviously in charge, and something completely different is happening. And God's answer to Habakkuk was, the just shall live by his faith, number one. Number two, woe to those who are greedy, that destroy others for gain, that use violence to establish a city. Here's my point, we should never regret being on God's side. Even if it comes to persecution, even if it means that our lives are dramatically worse, we should remember that we are always on the right side of history. We're on God's side. And the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Now that hasn't happened yet, and it won't happen until Jesus comes to establish his reign. I understand that, but that's what we are looking forward to. And the just shall live by his faith. And it takes faith when we don't see God at work the way we're expecting. It takes faith when we pray, and God's seemingly silent. He's not silent, He's at work. That's why He gives Habakkuk this vision of five woes. Here's the fourth woe, verse 15 and 16. Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that putteth thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness. He says woe to those who use alcohol for lascivious purposes. Are there people that do that? Yes. God says, woe to them. Verse 18, and I want to hurry to the conclusion here. Verse 18, chapter 2, verse 18, what profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it, the molten image and a teacher of lies that the maker of his work trusteth thereto to make dumb idols? Verse 19, woe unto him that saith to wood, awake to the dumb stone. Arise, it shall teach. Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it. So he says, woe to those who believe that idols are the source of their wisdom. And that describes the Chaldeans. They had a whole pantheon of gods, of idols, that they thought were going to give them wisdom. And God says, woe to those who believe that idols are the source of power. Verse 20, and we'll pick it up next week. But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him. He's just ended, God has just ended this vision that he's given to Habakkuk with the statement, woe to those who believe that idols will teach them. Woe to those who set up these idols. They think the idols are going to make them successful. The Lord, who's the Lord Jehovah, the true God, he's in his temple. And therefore, all the earth should keep silence before him. This is a restatement that God is in control. It isn't that the Chaldeans are coming because God cannot stop them. It isn't that the Chaldeans are coming because their gods have defeated Jehovah. The truth is God is in His holy temple and He's controlling, He's allowing and moving events. And one day He's promised Habakkuk, I'm going to judge the Chaldeans. So, the obvious question is, are the Chaldeans anymore? No. In fact, the city of Babylon was buried until it became an archaeological dig in the last hundred years. That's how God judges the unrighteous. So again, we are on the right side of history. We want to stay on God's side. We're not interested in what happens today or tomorrow as much as we are in what is going to happen in eternity. Because God works out his plan over generations, over centuries. I pray, I want my answer tomorrow. Even better, tonight, right? And God is at work, but he's working things out over generations and over centuries. The people that were captured by the Chaldeans and the Jews, that were captured by the Chaldeans and taken into exile, Daniel, The three men that went with him, Ezekiel, that generation did not go back to Jerusalem. There were a few, and I know that. But that generation, they didn't go back. It was their children and their grandchildren who saw the defeat of the Babylonians and the Chaldeans and a return to the Promised Land. because God is working out his plan over generations and over centuries. And in our fast-paced society, we want to see results now. And sometimes we give up on our faith because we're not willing to wait. I said this Sunday, and every time I prepare these messages about revival, this is what's in the back of my mind. I think things can get worse before Jesus comes again. People say, I don't know how much worse it can get. When I was a boy, I remember being told, you know, Jesus is probably going to come back before you graduate from high school. And I thought, well, that's really good motivation to work hard in school, isn't it? I have a quote here from 1962. A preacher said, the coming of the Lord is drawing nigh. I try to do all of my preaching with this in mind. Whatever writing I do is with this possibility in mind. I want to write one more book. And he mentions a type of, if I do not succeed in writing that book, it will be all right. I would rather have Jesus come than to write the book. And I get that. But guess what? He wrote the book. I have a copy of it. And that was 1962. Here's my point. Jesus could come tonight, and if he comes tonight, I will be so happy. But he may not come in my lifetime. If he doesn't come in my lifetime, I don't want to say to my kids, well, you know, we can just sort of coast to the rapture here. I'm not going to coast to the rapture. You ever been involved in a foot race, you know, a track and field, you're running forward. Nobody gives up the last hundred yards, starts to back off and just, you know, I'm just gonna coast to victory. You always run hard right up until the end. Because while I think things can get worse before Jesus comes again, I also believe that we serve a merciful, gracious, good God, and things could get better before he comes again. And we don't want to assume that we know exactly when Jesus is going to come. And if God does not come back in the next few decades, I want to create a base for the next generation to build on. And if God comes back in the next few decades, I want to be busy building that base. God is going to be glorified either way, is my point. If things get worse and we have to stand for truth, even in the midst of persecution, God will be glorified in that. And if God sends a fresh wind and there's a revival in our country and there's a marked difference in the behavior and the spirit of Christians that leads to the salvation of literally millions of Americans, God will be glorified in that too. So no matter what happens, I want to be busy glorifying God. And that's why I picked this book of Habakkuk because In Habakkuk, we see a man who lives in a wicked society and it's about to get worse because there's even more wicked people coming. But what does Habakkuk say? Well, we're going to get to that in chapter three. He shows he praises God because he knows God is the same yesterday, today and forever. So he's not just going to sit there and complain and and whine that, you know, things are going to just get worse. he's going to experience that personal awakening. He's halfway between dream and sleep and awaking, and he knows there's more for him than what he's experiencing. And when we get to chapter three, he's got it. But meanwhile, God says to him, the just shall live by his faith. And we express that faith in God every time we go before him in prayer, in sincere prayer. Because whether our prayers seemingly are answered, or whether they're seemingly contradicted, we know God is in control, and we believe it's worth taking time to get on our knees and pray to Him. So that's what we're gonna do tonight. I hope those of you that have been watching at home are eager to spend some time in prayer. I have, oh, I don't have my prayer list up here with me. I do have some prayer lists in the back. Kurt, would you poke your, yeah, WT, poke your head around the corner, see if there's a stack of those there. I think there is, I think they're on like an orangish or peach colored paper and we'll pass those out. Those of you at home, thank you for joining us for the Bible lesson. We're gonna take some time to pray here. I hope that you've taken some, taken time, thank you for that WT, taken some time to either print that out or find it on your computer. By the way, Cindy's new program that she's using to send these out. They tell us how many times you click through to find this document. And I think more of us could be finding this document. So take some time tonight and pray and beg the Lord that he would work in our nation and work in our lives personally. I'll see you again tomorrow morning at 11.