One of the great prophets of the scriptures, Jeremiah, writes, he wrote two books, Jeremiah and Lamentations, the way we have it bound in our Bibles. In Lamentations 3, he says, remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the bitterness. It's a prayer to God, he asks that God do that. Remember, surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. In a moment of distress and heart sickness, Jeremiah prescribes for all who read it thereafter the effect of God's revelation on our circumstances, in our hearts. He says, this I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's loving kindnesses indeed never cease, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I have hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the person who seeks him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord. We assemble tonight to wait for the salvation of the Lord, to depend upon him, to open our hearts to what he would do in our lives. And we do that by constant attention to his word. And we're gonna do that tonight in an interlude in Isaiah. We're gonna look at the book of Habakkuk. which is thematically related to Isaiah 21, and I'll show you how. And we're gonna need God's grace in working us through his spirit. The filling ministry of the Holy Spirit is the characterization of the person with the fruit of the spirit as we abide in the Son of God who said, abide in me and I in you and you'll bear much fruit. It is the effect of the word of God that you've taken in being expressed through your person, through your character, in your experience. And that, I contend, is because the same effects in Ephesians 5 of the filling of the Spirit are described of letting the word of Christ richly dwell within us in Colossians 3. And it is the Holy Spirit using the word of God to bring out in us something that we don't have in ourselves, except that he works it in us. and is not the Word of God divorced from that personal work of the Spirit in you, and is not the work of the Spirit separate from the Word of God. but it is the Holy Spirit causing the word of Christ richly to dwell within us so that we are bearing that fruit of the Spirit as we abide in the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to give you a moment for silent prayer. If you have found yourself walking in darkness, quenching and or grieving the Holy Spirit, what you need to do about that is to confess those sins to God in the interest of receiving that infilling ministry of the Spirit through the Word. And then we'll take in the Word together, and God will have more to use in you as he works his Word through your life. Let's pray. Father, tonight we've assembled to study your Word to know you. We open our hearts as we open the Word because we want to know our Creator and enjoy eternal life. Father, help us learn what it means that we would rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Help us know what it means that the Word of Christ richly dwells within us, that we truly are filled by your Spirit, by means of your Spirit, with this wonderful truth as we abide in your Son. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. We're working up to the Little Apocalypse in Isaiah 24 through 26. They call it the Little Apocalypse, three chapters that sort of take you to the end times. And we're headed that way by way of the oracles against the nations. And there's two laps. There's two sets of five. And the first one was Babylon. And now in Isaiah 21, 13 and 14 was Babylon. And now Isaiah 21 is back to Babylon, the first part of Isaiah 21. And it says this. The oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea, as windstorms in the Negev sweep on, it comes from the wilderness from a terrifying land. A harsh vision has been shown to me, the treacherous one still deals treacherously, and the destroyer still destroys. Go up, Elam, lay siege, Media." Persia, the Persians. I've made an end of all the groaning she has caused. And so this is an oblique prophecy that is talking about the transition from Babylon, which would happen a hundred and some odd years later, and me to Persia. Persia, as Daniel would prophesy. Daniel experienced. For this reason, now the personal experience of Isaiah, my loins are full of anguish. Pains have seized me like the pains of a woman in labor. I'm so bewildered I cannot hear, so terrified I cannot see. My mind reels, horror overwhelms me. The twilight I long for has been turned for me into trembling. So I wanted to go rest and have a peaceful, easy evening. And I'm having this vision of horror in God's judgment on what he calls the wilderness of the sea. They set the table, they spread out the cloth, they eat, they drink, rise up captains, oil the shields, for thus the Lord says to me, go, station the lookout, let him report what he sees. So the Lord says to Isaiah, go station a lookout to let him report. And when he sees riders, horsemen, and pairs, a train of donkeys, a train of camels, let him pay close attention, very close attention. Then the lookout called, oh Lord, I stand continually by day on the watchtower. I'm stationed every night at my guard post. Now behold, here comes a troop of riders, horsemen, and pairs. And one said, fallen, fallen is Babylon. And all the images of our gods are shattered on the ground. Oh, my threshed people and my afflicted of the threshing floor, what I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I will make known to you." That is the oracle. It's very oblique. It's very difficult in casually reading it. What's he talking about? Well, one thing we're certain of is that Isaiah is greatly anguished by the vision that he received. And we don't have much of imagery in the vision, we have what he experienced from it. Many verses saying, or many lines of poetry saying that it's a horror that he beholds. And I believe that he is looking across the mountaintops of prophetic future, And he sees the Medo-Persian transition from the Babylonian administration, Nebuchadnezzar and his sons, to be taken over by Persia, and the Daniel 2 vision of the image, head of gold, chest and arms of silver, and so forth. But historically, that's a very bloodless, relatively bloodless event. It isn't a total destruction of the city of Babylon, it's mostly peaceful transfer of power. And there's a strategic decapitation, they kill the royal family, they replace the rulership, and now it's under Medo-Persian, but there wasn't a major military destruction. There was a tactical and strategic victory that actually resulted in a fairly bloodless transition of power. But he says there's such a horror and anguish of what's coming for Babylon. And so does Isaiah 13 and 14, and so does Revelation 17 and 18. I think he's seeing all of it. I think he's seeing the ultimate destiny of this signal nation, this signal state that is emblematic of the human race and its rebellion against God. Babel is the, when you read Babylon in the Old Testament, it's saying Babel. It's Hebrew Babel. It's the same as the name where they built the tower in Genesis chapter 11. This is the origin of all the paganism. It's the origin of all the alternatives to the worship of the creator who exists eternally as one God and three persons. And the Many of the trappings of our civilization are still Babylon, still Babel, still pagan. This is the month where everyone gets to celebrate the high holy day of the witches. And we take it as a fun time to have parties and to sort of semi-dip our toes into the darkness, you know, just to get a thrill. without reference or recognition of the actual wickedness that is perpetrated by true believers of the darkness at this time. I want to have nothing to do with it. I grew up playing Halloween with the kids, with other kids, trick-or-treating to do all that. I don't want anything to do with it. because of what it represents to those that are the practitioners of it. I don't want to have any association. I'm thankful for Martin Luther's move to put the 95 Theses on the castle church of Wittenberg on October 31st. I celebrate the Reformation that day. This difficult and oblique prophecy about God's comeuppance for Babylon Echoes something we have in the book of Habakkuk, which is a short, very interesting and exciting thing. And I wanted to share that with you because it's so straightforward and obvious and promise to dig in with you next time. I know you're disappointed, but where would we find Habakkuk? It's right after Nahum in the book of the 12 and the minor prophets. And some of you might have to, what you need to do is memorize the 12 minor prophets and then you've got it. And you find it, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and you find it. All right, Habakkuk. This is the first thing I taught here at Preston City Bible Church in 2006. The first thing I taught publicly as a pastor in training as an intern in seminary at Oak Hills Community Church. I made them suffer through the history of Israel as the background for the book of Habakkuk. And then we went slowly poetic parallel by poetic parallel through the book of Habakkuk. And it was fun. It was like eating a Hershey bar, I'm sorry, a Snickers bar with a toothpick, which is a great thing to do sometimes. But you know, Habakkuk is, it's pretty straightforward what's going on. Just out of curiosity, has anybody read this and kind of has a feel for what it is? Does anybody know the book of Habakkuk from memory? It's a great one-shot message, or two-shot message, one and two, and then chapter three are kind of two pieces that are different but related. It's about a man that's struggling with what we talked about last time, the conceptual framework we live in of here's what I see and reason in my experience, and then God's got what's going on behind the scenes that we can't know. But sometimes he tells us things, and so he breaks through that barrier of what we know to what he tells us and now we know from Revelation. And so this is a great picture of this guy Habakkuk, who is like, and Isaiah is told to put a watchman on the wall and see what you see. Habakkuk is on the wall. He's on probably the roof of the temple, most would say. And he's observing and dealing and struggling against the pain and agony of seeing and experiencing the oppression of the wicked over the righteous in his country. The oppression of the wicked the oppression of the righteous by the wicked in Judah. And he says, in verse two of chapter one, chapter one is the oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw. He says, How long, O Lord, will I call for help and you will not hear? Classic lament, and it's the way the book opens. Now Habakkuk is dealing with his experience and he has some questions. How long, O Lord, will I call out and you not hear? The opening lament of verses one through four goes like this. I cry to you violence, which in Hebrew is Hamas. Those terrorists have named themselves appropriately. They know that that's what they mean. I cry to you violence, yet you do not save. Why do you make me see iniquity and cause me to look on wickedness? It's like I'm trying to look away from this, but you are taking the back of my head and forcing around and making me look at the wickedness of my country. And I have to see it everywhere I go. And this is the way the thing opens. Yes, destruction and violence are before me. Strife exists and contention arises. Therefore, the law is ignored and justice is never upheld, for the wicked surround the righteous. Therefore, justice comes out perverted. We can't get a fair trial even though we have a God-given law. And so the problem with Israel and Judah is the problem with the United States, and this is a great application, the problem is not the system, it's the people administering it. And what's being proposed and embraced is a change of system, which the system isn't going to be improved on. But they're going to say we can get a better system because we obviously are good people, it's the system that's at fault. It's not the system, it's the people. So good law, bad jurisprudence, how does that happen? Well, it's because the judges and the people running things are evil and the wicked are oppressing the righteous. And this is Habakkuk's opening lament. Therefore, justice comes out perverted. Habakkuk has a problem, and this is the conceptual framework of our experience versus God's revelation. You remember the blue rectangle? This is the box you live in that the world will tell you is a closed system. All there is in a materialist frame is all that you can see. And if you want to go a little beyond materialism to some sort of pseudo or semi, let's say semi-mysticism, or just mysticism, you say, well, no, there's the immaterial, and it's other. Well, it's not God, but it's the other things. And it's in our intuition and our reason, perhaps. And that closed system, that closed box that God has us in where I can think, but I can only think so far. I can imagine, but I can only be so certain of my conclusions. It's this limitation God has us in, and we're uncomfortable. And this is what Habakkuk sees. He sees the oppression of Judah. And he is one of these people, there's Habakkuk, see with the H? He's wearing the H jersey. He is part of the remnant of righteousness in Judah who is looking at the malfeasance, the wickedness, the oppression that happens in his country, and he hates it. And we talked today about parental rights. We pray in our prayer meeting about parental rights here in this state and in these United States. And we talk about just the people in charge. You know, we've made a mistake and said in our culture that the authorities are the ones that have the expertise, and they're the ones that need to make the decisions. So we'll defer to the authorities. That's what happened with the lockdown of our country with the pandemic and stuff. All right, so the authorities, the ones that know, well, who is that in education? That's the education theorists. That's the smart, pointy-headed PhDs or especially EDDs in education. And they know, and they know that the kids should belong to the state and not to their families. And they write these things, and they publish, and they pat each other on the back in their journal articles about how the people are confused and the educators are not. And what has to happen is that these patriarchy-minded people, these Christians, that train their children to fear God and to do it God's way, they have to be separated from their children so that the kids can learn to grow up the godless way that we've all learned is the best way. That's our culture. And it's got machine guns. Those experts aren't just writing papers and publishing articles. They run the governments. And the governments have the power of the sword, and they don't bear the sword for nothing. And that's what we've always said from the very founding of our country, is the problem of government is the wicked people that run it. And we have to have government because of the wicked people that must be governed. And so we're in this quandary. And so they invented this arcane system of checks and balances to provide maximum freedom. And what have we done with it? We're doing a drag queen family hour at the local restaurant. That's what we're doing with freedom and we're insisting on our rights and freedoms. So we've killed ourselves culturally with freedom. And so we could be like Habakkuk and look at our culture and say, we can't get it right. We just can't help but fail. We're a constant failure. and the wicked are oppressing the righteous and you're letting it go. God, what are you doing? So that's a vacic in what we know here below, what we know. I see wickedness, so I call out to God, hey, You're up there, do you see down here? It's kind of the question. And we have to recall that beyond what we know, beyond the sun is God, the sovereign, the infinite, the almighty, the infinitely righteous, loving, perfect and holy creator, and the eternal God is our refuge. And so we can't live the way we're supposed to without reference to God's revelation. We have to break through what we can see and know here below to what God has said And He didn't tell us everything, and we don't take on omniscience. We know in our limited, finite way what He's told us. He's got a plan for you. He's got a plan for national Israel. His plan for you is closely associated with national Israel, because national Israel is the capital nation of the coming kingdom of Jesus on earth over all the nations, and you, the bride of Christ, are gonna rule with Jesus in this coming Israelite kingdom. And that's your destiny, and that's a bigger deal than whatever you're dealing with. And so that's what the word does, that's what revelation does, it gives us bigger perspective, it helps us understand our problems in light of the bigger perspective. But this is the setup in verses one through four in Habakkuk. As he's going to the right source, he's going to God, and he wants God to fix things here below. But here's the thing that happens when you go to God and you seek his revelation. He takes you beyond your circumstance to what he's doing, and... Your little plan for solving the local thing is, don't worry about your plan. God's got a massive plan in the great diorama of history, and he's doing something that, as God says, you wouldn't believe. But this is the problem we face. This is the faith line. This is the access you have to God's revelation is that you trust him. And that's a struggle. And we're tested constantly. Well, we're tested consistently. If you're not under testing right now about your faith, okay, rest up. It's coming. And every test that God causes us to endure is a test of our faith. Do you trust me? And faith, at least partially, is a choice. There is, in the trusting of God, the conscious decision to do so. And some of us wait, I think, for God to force it. But the truth is that you are responsible for what God has told you, and your response to God in your responsible action with what he tells you is to trust him, is to believe him. That's why the word Amen is such a big deal in the Bible. It means, I believe what God is saying. Now here's what faith does. I learned this from studying Habakkuk. The righteous man will live by his faithfulness. Faith produces stability. Faith in the stable source enables you to become stabilized. And we're wobbly and shaky on our little baby deer legs by ourselves, but God stands us up when we rest on him. And that's what faith is designed to do. In part, it makes us stable. Well, Habakkuk's not stable because he's looking at the problem, but he's seeking the right course for the answer. So we have Habakkuk's opening lament in verses 1 through 4, and then in verses 5 through 11, the Lord's opening response. God has an opening response that is ironic in the scope. So Isaiah's saying, I've got a problem, and it's going to cost about $50,000, and God's got a solution. He's like, I've got a $50 trillion solution to your $50,000 problem. You've got a local problem with this national disaster of a moral decline in your country. Well, I've got the sweeping, overwhelming solution. We're going to nuke it. Look among the nations, observe, be astonished, wonder. All these terse imperatives in this poetic parallel structure. Look among the nations, observe, be astonished, wonder, because I am doing something in your days." So he said, God, won't you act? Won't you solve the wickedness in my country? I am doing something in your days. You would not believe it if you were told. But since we are having this conversation and God does respond to Habakkuk, who's calling out to God, and then he responds with this prophetic vision, since I am talking to you, I will tell you what I'm doing. I will share with you, is what he's saying. You wouldn't believe it if you're told, but here goes. For behold, I'm raising up the Chaldeans, in Hebrew, the Chazdim, the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous people who marched throughout the earth to seize dwelling places which are not theirs. You want to talk about wickedness, where the wicked are oppressing the righteous. The rich people are eminent, domaining the poor people out of their property, their ancestral property that's theirs by God's direct distribution in the Joshua inheritance. You've got this wickedness in your culture, where enough money can get you any outcome you want in the legal system, because you're all corrupt. And that's what he's describing. God says, these are the people that take houses that aren't theirs. And I mean, they really take them. They kill everybody in their path. They're dreaded and feared. Their justice and authority originate with themselves." Now who's saying that? Yahweh, the creator and the very being from whom justice and righteousness are construed. The very nature of right and good comes from God himself. These people, the creator is saying, think they're God. Their justice originates from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, keener than wolves in the evening. I guess wolves are hungry for dinner at evening time, so they're really ravenous and violent. Their horsemen come galloping. Their horsemen come from afar. Do you hear the Hebrew poetry? Do you hear this Chaldean horde of cavalry bearing down on the people in Judah? Because that's what's being described. They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour. All of them come for violence. Their horde of faces moves forward. They collect captives like sand. They mock at kings. Rulers are a laughing matter to them. They laugh at every fortress and heap up rubble to capture it." So the fortress is a wall, it's a palisade. And you improve it as much as you can with the time and money you've got until the bad guys come, right? The fortress. How do you conquer a fortress? You've got to breach that outside wall. You've got to get past the archers and whatever else they're throwing at people that are trying to breach the wall. And maybe you've seen movies where there's a siege scene where like in a medieval castle, like in the old Robin Hood, Errol Flynn movie or something, there's some sort of siege. Well, the way they would do it in the ancient world is they would not necessarily depend just on ladders. They would build up mounds of dirt and sneak and build these mounds of dirt so that people could run up and even possibly get horses over the wall. And archaeologists have seen this, that there's a siege ramp that they'll build. And it's a tactic that apparently the Chaldeans used when they would take down one of these cities. Here's the thing about the Chaldeans. They're just like, for our purposes, the Assyrians. They're a pagan people from the Mesopotamia, from the Iraq region, that built a massive empire that succeeds the Assyrian Empire, and God uses them, raises them up and uses them as an instrument of discipline for his people for their idolatry. They have so much in common with the Assyrians. Remember the numbers. Assyria conquered By God's divine discipline of Leviticus 26, in the five phases of divine discipline, the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and Samaria in 722 BC. And Nebuchadnezzar of Chaldea, the Neo-Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom, finally in their complete work in 586 BC. And both of them were sent by God and prophesied by God's prophets that that's what God is doing. And God's account of history of him allowing these countries, not only allowing them, but sending them to carry out his discipline on this nation and deport these people. is a matter of what the scriptures and the prophets are telling them. This is exactly what God said he would do in Leviticus 26, because you're in what we call a bilateral or Caesar and vassal treaty covenant between God, the great king and the lesser king and faithlessness to God and idolatry is going to get you removed from the land. And history and a lot of Christians wanna say that was it, that's the end. But interestingly, no, we have the Nehemiah and the Ezra return. And then the second temple period, and Jesus came from Israel, he was in Israel, and there were Israelites in the land, there was a temple, a new temple after they'd been removed. And in 70 AD, 35 years, 36 years after the events of Jesus' death and resurrection and the coming of the Spirit, the day of Pentecost, the Romans came in and they blew up the second temple, the Herod's improved temple of the second temple. And they built big fires around it. And as fire, they built a big, like a barn size fire around the temple. And it caused the limestone rocks with the moisture inherent to the limestone, caused them to explode. And Jesus said, there's not going to be one stone laid on another. There's coming a time, and it's Titus, the Roman general, comes and conquers and destroys Israel, and they have no temple again, and still don't have a temple. And people will say, yeah, that's it, that's it for Israel. We've seen them be kicked out of the land completely, Solomon's temple, the great temple of Solomon, completely destroyed by the Chaldeans. We've seen them come back to the land in God's providence and rebuild the temple and worship God in that temple. Ever heard of Anna? Simeon prophesied over baby Jesus in the temple? How is that possible? Because God brought them back after 70 years of the Babylonian captivity, and they rebuilt their temple. And they cried when they first saw it, the elders, because they remembered what Solomon's temple was like. But Herod really improved that temple for something like 40 years or something in the construction project. And then Titus, not too many years later, destroyed it. Titus the general, not the associate of Paul. And we're looking for a restoration of these people in unbelief to the land, and we have it in 1948. And the prophecies of Scripture are predicting that we will see these people in unbelief with a temple, reject God, embrace a false Messiah, and yet be delivered as God brings the gospel among a remnant of those people. And there will be a moment when Jesus comes back to deliver Israel from her enemies at the end of this time coming tribulation, when they will look on the one they've pierced and all of Israel will be saved. And there's a future restoration of these people. And so, but we're not talking about that today, not at least until chapter three, we're talking about their destruction that God says is imminent is going to happen. So it's the Chaldeans and they bring these siege ramps and God answers Habakkuk's question, he anticipates his question before he asks it. But just to make sure we understand, Habakkuk will ask. So verse 11 is the final thing God says. Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on, but they will be held guilty, they whose strength is their God. They will be held guilty. I'm going to use them to destroy Judah, is what he just said, but I'll hold them guilty. And Habakkuk, that's, I don't know enough yet. I need to ask some more questions. And so Habakkuk is now dealing with this. From God's revelation, when God speaks, he says, okay, so you've got the problems of wickedness in Judah, and you've got your situation, but also the Chaldeans are coming. The Chaldeans are coming. And so he has a new question based on this new information. So Habakkuk is listening to the Lord. He receives that he's going to do, but he doesn't understand why. Help me understand the reasoning. And so we have Habakkuk's follow on questions in verses 12 through chapter 2, verse 1. And Habakkuk starts off with the character of God. He says, are you not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? Are you not from everlasting? Are you not from eternity past to eternity future? And does that eternality not reflect on your holiness and your righteousness and your goodness? I will affirm, we will not die, he says. You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge, and you, O Rock, have established them to correct. I accept it. They're going to come through and destroy our country. But here's my question, your eyes are too pure to approve evil. You cannot look on wickedness with favor. So why do you look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why do you allow them to prosper enough to come destroy us? Why do you do it this way? I'm with you. I would rather God would use a divine satellite laser beam and just zap all the wicked and do it clean. But he doesn't do it that way, he uses nations. And it's fearful, and it was fearful at the Red Sea, and it's going to be fearful here in the streets of Jerusalem. Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they? Because after all, there is a remnant in Israel, and there very likely is not much of a remnant in Chaldea. What are you doing? when you talk about the righteous versus the wicked. Why have you made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things rather ruler over them? These Chaldeans bring all of them up like with a hook, they drag them away in their net. We're just fish and they're fishing us and you're God. And you could stop this, but you're causing this. They gather men together in their fishing net, therefore they rejoice and are glad. So this imagery, this extended metaphor Habakkuk uses of God allowing the Chaldeans to treat the nations like fish, like spreading a fish net or throwing a hook and catching, bringing up fish with a hook. So they're fishermen and they fish people. Therefore, in verse 16, they offer a sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their fishing net because through these things their catch is large and their food is plentiful. It's all poetry all through here. Their catch is large, their food is plentiful. He rhymes and repeats and says the same thing all through the passage. Will they therefore empty their net and continually slay nations without sparing? God, what's the end of this? Because you didn't tell me much about the leash. God did say they'll be held guilty. Their strength is their God. But I want to know about the limitations that you've placed on this, because I see no limit. They can do whatever they want. And unless you stop them, there will be no end. Isaiah 21 talks about him stopping them. There is a prophetic oracle of what God's going to do. And this was already on the books. But did you notice how Isaiah, first of all, writes in 711 or so BC, we saw last time. Habakkuk is on the wall before 605 BC, so a hundred years later. Isaiah is difficult to understand Isaiah 21. It's vague. It's intentionally sort of opaque. And I think what Habakkuk experienced in the progress of Revelation sheds light on what's going on again in Isaiah 21 with God's judgment, especially when he names Babel, when he says it's a judgment on Babel, and he talks about the Medes and the Persians. So God has revealed something of this, but it's not clear. And we don't know how much Habakkuk had studied, but anyway, he's got these questions. Will they therefore empty their net and continually slay nations without sparing? And that's Habakkuk's follow on questions for God. Now, I'm with you. If you think it would be really wonderful for you to ask God your lament questions that you ask him, the why and how questions, the hard questions, why is this happening and how can you work this together for good? Because here below, we don't understand how this could be worked together for good. And all I know is this hurts. And God knows it hurts. He's near to the broken heart and He wants you to trust Him anyway. Sometimes He's preventing our arrogance by giving us thorns in the flesh, as He does with, at least He did it with Paul. Paul says the thorn in the flesh was so that I wouldn't exalt myself. It was preventative. It wasn't correction after the fact, it was correction beforehand that he would stay humble and needy and receive his power from the Lord Jesus instead of in his own strength. And you read about that in 2 Corinthians 12. Three times I asked the Lord to remove the thorn and he said no. So the problems that we face, the questions that we have, ultimately the answers are God has this. But we want to know how do you have this? How can this be? And then God brings the woes, and it's an oracle of judgment on the Chaldeans, the Lord's judgment of wickedness in the Chaldeans. So Habakkuk says, I asked my big question, how can you do this, use this dirty instrument? and are you gonna just let this keep going? And he says, I'll stand on my guard post, station myself on the rampart, this is why we think Habakkuk's up on the top of the temple, and I will keep watch to see what he will speak to me. I'm gonna wait for God's response, because I wanna know. So I'm here below with my limited perspective and all that, and I'll wait for revelation about this question, and I'm just gonna see, because I don't understand. that cognitive dissonance we experience in this life. My challenge to you is that don't use your experiences as your teaching of revelation. Use your experiences as challenges to trust God through things you don't understand. God's clear in his revelation in the word. Take that as what you learn of God, and when you trust him through your hardship, through your experience, you're bringing that revelation to bear. This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. Lord's love and kindnesses never fail. and you keep bringing yourself back to what God has clearly revealed. Instead of trying to say, well, I'm learning new things about God all the time, and he lets this happen, and he lets me hurt, and all these things, that that's part of what's happening, but the revelation of God and his word is much clearer. Then the Lord answered me and said, record the vision and inscribe it on a tablet. You want to know about my judgment of the Chaldeans? Well, let me tell you about my judgment of the Chaldeans, is what he's going to do. recorded on the tablet that he who reads it may run. Now, if this was in chapter one, where I'm sending the Chaldeans like leopards to come destroy everything, we might think this is the person that reads the Oracle run away. But because of what he's about to do, in Judah to say, I'm gonna judge the Chaldeans in my time, woe to them. Because of that, the one that runs is probably the person to carry the oracle for the people to hear. So it's a guy running with a tablet to make sure everybody gets the Word of God. And I love that image of someone running. Now that the Word of God's been delivered, we run it to deliver it because we're eager for God's people to know what he said. For the vision is yet for the appointed time, it hastens toward the goal, it will not fail, though it tarries, wait for it, for it will certainly come, it will not delay. I am going to do what I'm telling you in my perfect timing, and you're on a, it's a locomotive, and it's not stopping. And your truck may be parked across the railroad tracks, but it's gonna come, this is happening. So you could take it to the bank, is kind of the way the oracle of God's woes begins. Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him. Another textual variant says, my soul is not pleased with him. And either way, we've got a problem in arrogance. As for the proud one, the problem is arrogance. And the alternative is trusting God. He says, but the righteous man will live by his faithfulness. The word Amunah is almost universally translated faithfulness and not faith. And the cause for faithfulness is faith itself. And it is either God's faithfulness to preserve the righteous, and that's how I take it, the righteous will be preserved by God's faithfulness. So his response is his faith. And this verse is quoted three times in the New Testament. It's very important in Martin Luther coming to believe the gospel in Romans chapter one. It's also quoted in Hebrews and Galatians. And it's one of the most challenging verses of the scriptures. But in its context, The game we're going to play, the way this is going to work for your question about the remnant, is the righteous man is going to live by God's faithfulness. God will take care of his own. That's my interpretation of the difficulty of Habakkuk 2.4. Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man back to the arrogant. Wine betrays him so that he doesn't stay at home. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol. That word appetite is nephesh, the throat or the soul or the appetite. He enlarges it like Sheol. And he's like death, never satisfied. He also gathers to himself all nations and collects to himself all peoples. So he talks about moral qualities. Are you arrogant or are you the righteous man? That's the contrast. And Habakkuk, you're asking about the righteous versus the wicked. Well, the problem with the wicked is they're arrogant. And here's what they're like. They expand their appetite and they're never satisfied. They're like death. They're like Sheol, the abode of the dead. And so in as much as that characterizes the people in Judah, judgment, and as much as that characterizes the Chaldeans, obviously they're that, they're the haughty, arrogant people whose strength is their God. God made that assessment. They will be held guilty. So let me tell you about what I'm going to do with the wicked, arrogant. Will not all of these take up a taunt against him? even mockery and insinuations against him and say, woe to him who increases." Here's the first woe of God's oracle of judgment against the Chaldeans. Woe to him who increases what is not his for how long and makes himself rich with loans. This is more about the problem Habakkuk saw of moral decay and corruption in Judah. The people acting like Chaldeans in their local piracy, Woe to them, that means there's a death, there's a funeral dirge. Woe, hoy, this person is as good as dead. Will not your creditors rise up suddenly and those who collected from you awaken? who collect from you awake and indeed you will become plunder for them because you have looted many nations." Now it's the Chaldeans. You've looted many nations and the remainder of the peoples will loot you because of human bloodshed and the violence done to the land, to the town and all its inhabitants. So notice that the moral issue is arrogance versus righteousness. And the arrogant are described as creditors, as people that are predatory lending, but then he switches to looting the nations. And he's lumping the wicked that Isaiah is worried about with the Chaldeans that are the greedy of the nations. It's very elegant how God makes it about righteousness versus arrogance. Second woe in verse nine, woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to put his nest on high to be delivered from the hand of calamity. He gets evil gain. So he robs people to feather his nest and protect himself from robbers. You've devised a shameful thing for your house by cutting off many peoples, so you're sinning against yourself. So see, this is the retribution that's inherent in God's design of history, that what goes around does come around, not because of karma. but because of God who makes it this way. You've sinned against yourself by getting evil gain in the case of the Chaldeans. You've amassed this fortune from booty and gotten this great empire. This is sinning against yourself. Surely the stone will cry out from the wall and the rafter will answer it from the framework. What does that mean, the stone will cry out from the wall? When do stones talk? When do stones make noise? When they move. When do rafters answer from the wall? When do they make noise? When they snap. This is the collapse of a house. You've built this house, the imagery of building a house with ill-gotten gain, Chaldeans, by plundering these nations and using the money to enrich your kingdom. This is going to fall under its own weight. It's going to collapse on you, is what that means. The stones cry out here is about the collapse of the house. Third, woe. Woe to him who builds a city. We built a house with ill-gotten gain. Now we build 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. So building the city is a major theme in Ecclesiastes and the wisdom literature. And building a city is one of the great things that men can do. The great men of old, the great Nephilim stories, and then what came out of Babel with Nimrod. These people are famous for building cities. Solomon acknowledges that this is the great thing you can do under the sun, but it's all a vapor. It's all a waste. He says that people's toil for fire and nations grow weary for nothing. This is from the Lord. Because if you're not going to go after him as he offers Noah and his children to do, if you're going to go after just the pursuits of this life, it's for nothing. And God made it that way. At the end of the day, it's about him. And hey, let's learn that at the beginning of the day, instead of wasting our lives. A lot of people are in in this idiotic, tragic thing that we can only pray for them about. Sometimes it's me and you, where we're trying to see if our experience can bear out whether God is true. And there's it's too expensive an experiment to find out all along that God is right. I'll find out when I get there. Yeah, you will. And it'll be hot. For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." This is what it's about. It's not about toiling for fire or spending your life in futility. It's about God. Fourth woe, verse 15, "'Woe to you who make your neighbors drink.'" What? You who make your neighbors drink, who mix in your venom even to make them drunk. So it's a person that slips a drug in a beverage that should be served hospitably to a neighbor. It's poisoning or drugging your neighbor so as to look on their nakedness. That's Genesis 9. That's the first vineyard and the first knowledge we have in history. Apparently fermentation takes place after the flood and so Noah plants a vineyard and gets drunk in the whole story of Noah and Ham. Woe to them who bring someone in hospitably and then use that occasion to gain an advantage, to take advantage of that person, to rob them, to oppress them. And the picture here is even rape. You'll be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Now you yourself will drink and expose your own nakedness. How? the cup of the Lord's right hand will come around to you. You're going to see the imagery. You've got your little trick that you're going to play on someone. God's got something for you. See what goes around does come around. And you're not going to like how God escalates this. The cup of the Lord's right hand is very potent indeed. Utter disgrace will come upon your glory. For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you. This is Chaldea. He's talking about the Babylonians. The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you and the devastation of its beasts by which you terrify them because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, to the town and all its inhabitants. So God is poetically telling Habakkuk, and Habakkuk is recording it so that the person that reads it may run. The town crier can read this out loud. The Chaldeans are going to get their comeuppance for their wickedness. And it's like this is the prosecution. This is the case the prosecution has. And interestingly, the prosecution's working for the judge, and he's a perfect judge. Verse 18, what profit 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. This is one of the great funny things, ironies of the Old Testament. I love humor, and so when you find a joke, take a minute and embrace it. We have it in Titus that all Cretans are liars. It's one of the great jokes in history, because Epimenides was a Cretan who said that. So it's all Cretans are liars. The guy saying it is a liar, which means that we are in a paradox because the Cretan is now lying, saying we're liars. And so if he's telling the truth about the fact that he's lying, that's impossible. But there are jokes in the Bible. This is one of them. This is one of the funny things that is ironic. He says that the idol is something that the artisan makes and then worships his own handiwork. And it's ridiculous. And this is what humans are doing. They're under the sun, ignoring the creator beyond the sun who made it. And then they're taking his stuff and making things to worship under the sun that are now under them. It's not no longer just, you know, worshiping the sun or the sky or nature. I'm now worshiping the works of my hands that are products from nature. And it's ridiculous, but they do it. Woe to him who says to a piece of wood awake, to a mute stone arise. That is your teacher? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there's no breath at all inside it. But the Lord is in his holy temple." Here's the great contrast to these idols. You're empty, and it's ridiculous what you're doing. But he says, you're eating paste. Okay, this is ridiculous. He says, but the Lord is in his holy temple, and let all the earth be silent before him. So you say, awake and arise, and the idol's gonna be my teacher, but the whole earth is silent before the God who's speaking. There's a beautiful contrast. So this is God's answer to Habakkuk's question. Habakkuk has this beautiful question of how are you going to let the wicked prosper as opposed to the righteous or this gradient of wickedness and righteousness. And God says, I'm looking at it in terms of righteousness and trusting me versus arrogance, which is wickedness. And the arrogance is coming forth in the streets of Jerusalem among the rich, pressing the poor, and the powerful pressing the weak. And it's coming across in the mighty Chaldeans, tearing down Lebanon, and they're going to come through. And it's the same problem. The problem you've got with the people in Judah is the problem that you have with the Chaldeans. And it's the same issue and the response for us must be not what he said about in verse three. As for the arrogant man, his soul is not right within him. No, we want to break ourselves down before God and tell the truth. Chapter three completely changes. The tone. Chapter three is a standalone message. It could be in the Psalter, it could be one of the Psalms. And it is Yahweh, the God of Israel, as the eternal deliverer of Israel. That is the, and it's epic in its imagery. It has God as this mighty warrior. He's an archer. He's got a mighty club and splits the head of the enemy on the battlefield. And it is considered by Hebrew poetry scholars to be on par with anything Isaiah or David wrote as for its artistry and its lyric beauty. Prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet according to Shagayanoth, which we wonder about Shagayanoth, and we think it has to do with either the instrument that would be played or the rhythms that would be sung to. So maybe there was a tune that they would sing this to, like in our hymnal, you've got this song, Haifaradol, I think is how I would pronounce it. And we have several songs that you can sing to that. So maybe that's what Shagayanoth is, but I'll ask the Lord soon enough. Lord, I've heard the report about you, and I fear. That's the right response right there, baby. Break yourself down before God. Lord, I've heard what you've said, and I fear. Oh, Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make it known. And here's my big request. In wrath, remember mercy. You're right there with the Lord, the angel of the Lord, talking to Abraham. Okay, if there are 50 righteous in the city, we preserve the city. He's making this appeal. In your wrath, remember mercy. God comes from Taman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. His splendor covers the heavens. The earth is full of His praise. His radiance is like the sunlight. So this approach, He's coming over the hill. He has rays flashing forth from his hand and there is the hiding of his power. So you have this glorious Shekinah light flashing forth from God, but the power is hidden behind the light. Apparently the light covers the power of God. Before him goes pestilence and a plague comes after him. He stood and surveyed the earth. He looked and startled the nations. Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered. The ancient hills collapsed. His ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Cushon under distress, the tent curtains of the land of Midian were trembling." So he's coming across the environs of Israel, marching through the enemies of Israel, and they're all frightened of him. And this sounds like the Exodus generation coming in and the Joshua conquest, or sorry, the generation after Exodus. It sounds like what people saw in the surrounding nations with the Red Sea deliverance. And now maybe he refers to the Red Sea. Did the Lord rage against the rivers or was your anger against the rivers or was your wrath against the sea that you rode on your horses on your chariots of salvation back when you delivered Israel at the Red Sea? Is that what he's talking about perhaps? Your bow was made bare, the arrows or rods of chastisement were sworn like you dedicated each arrow to a target and like in playing pool you call which pocket the ball's gonna go in. That's the dedication of the arrows is the idea that I'm going to name each target that I'm going to hit with it. So it's a picture of a very capable warrior with a bow. You cleave the earth with rivers, the mountains saw you and quake. This sounds like the flood. You cleave the earth with rivers, the deep uttered forth its voice and lifted high its hands. Sun and moon stood in their places. They went away at the light of your arrows, the radiance of your gleaming spear. In indignation, you marched through the earth. In anger, you trampled the nations. You went forth for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your Messiah, Mashiach, your anointed. You struck the head of the house of evil and to lay him open from thigh to neck. That's an up cut. That's not a down thrust neck to thigh. That's from thigh to neck. That's that kind of stroke that you have on this picture of this epic battlefield where you're portraying God as this mighty warrior delivering Israel. You struck the head of the house of evil. You pierced with his own spears the head of his throngs. They stormed in to scatter us. Their exultation was like those who devoured the oppressed in secret. You trampled on the sea with your horses on the surge of many waters, the sea portraying the nations. I heard, and my inward parts trembled, just like Isaiah, says he's in agony and distress over the vision. At the sound of my lips quivered, decay enters my bones, and in my place I tremble, because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people who arise to invade us. So I know, I believe he's saying, ultimately, based on creation and God's promises and revelation, he will ultimately deliver us. And it's hard to know when you have tenses in Hebrew, It's all these past tense things that get says God did. It could be He will do because it's not clear because of the syntax of the conjugations in Hebrew, especially in poetry. So it's predictive, I would contend. But he says, I must wait quietly for the day of distress for the people who will arise, who will invade us, though the fig tree should not blossom. Now here's his profession, like we started in the prayer meeting tonight, I think in Psalm, was it 54? Now we're going to have his affirmation of God's deliverance and his trust in him. Though the fig tree should not blossom, there be no fruit on the vines, the yield of the olives should fail, and the fields produce no food. Though the flock should be cut off from the fold, there be no cattle in the stalls." Even if we go through this horrible economic disaster. Yet I will exult in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. He didn't say we're going to be okay. He didn't say we'll get through this together. He didn't say we're Judah strong. We're going to be able to handle. He said, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. I will exult in the Lord. The Lord God is my strength and he has made my feet like Heinz feet. He makes me walk on my high places, meaning I've trusted him. So he stabilized me. for the choir director on my stringed instruments. The psalm of praise Habakkuk writes in conclusion to God's word about the nature of his judgment. Don't be an arrogant person. Don't be an arrogant nation. Break yourself down and fear the Lord because that's where exaltation is going to come from. Father, we thank you so much for the revelation you gave Habakkuk and the challenges it presents to us. First in understanding and then in application. But we also thank you, Father, for the clarity that this is not that complicated. You are a perfect, righteous, and holy judge. And it is our lot in this life to fear you and so to trust you. If you are the God of truth and righteousness and infinite glory, then it is only fitting that we would trust everything that you say. Father, we do so and expect your son to come soon to bring our judgment and our promotion and our glorification. Until that time, thank you that we're exalted in position at your right hand because we're in Christ and his name. Amen.