The Lord chose Abraham so that he would instruct his sons to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice. In Genesis 18 and verse 19, through Moses in Deuteronomy 16, 19 and 20, the Lord says, you shall not distort justice. You shall not be partial. and you shall not take a bribe. For the bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. Justice, and only justice you shall pursue, that you may live and possess the land which the Lord your God is giving to you." In Isaiah 61, verse 8, the Lord says, For I, the Lord, love justice. Now, these were Scriptures that would have been very familiar to Habakkuk. And yet, in Habakkuk's time, he witnessed pervasive violence and injustice. As a priest endowed with the spirit of prophecy, he turns and cries out to God, How long? and pours out his perplexity concerning the dissolute state of Judah. He sees a society in shambles, a society characterized by precisely those things he knows God abhors, violence and injustice. So, he makes his appeal that the Lord would act And the Lord answers Habakkuk in a way that serves to intensify his perplexity. The Lord will send the Babylonians to publish Judah, to punish Judah, and to carry them away into captivity. This is a conundrum to Habakkuk because the Babylonians are obviously exceedingly more violent and more unjust than the Judeans. So, he struggles to understand how God, who is holy and righteous, can determine that such an apparent moral travesty should come to pass. How could he orchestrate such a vicious demolition of his own nation? So, again, the Lord answers Habakkuk. And he is given a vision. A vision which he is to record that it might be both read and proclaimed. The vision concerns the coming of the Lord, who will come at His appointed time to execute judgment and to work salvation. Until that appointed coming of the Lord, men will show themselves to be one of two different kinds of men. They will either be proud, unbelieving, and condemned, or they will be humble men who learn to live by faith having been justified by grace. Until the Lord comes, the believing are going to have to contend with the aggressive and at times overwhelming evil of wicked men and nations such as the Babylonians. In order to equip the Lord's people to withstand this onslaught, Habakkuk is given words as weapons five prophetic woes. Woes which denounce the greedy, tyrannical, sensual, violent idolaters with words that mark them out as men destined for eternal wrath. There, every act of evil will be recompensed with an appropriate punishment for justice and righteousness are the foundation of God's throne. Lex talionis characterizes God's court. Retributive justice. Each sin will be punished in righteous proportion to its crime. As Judah is viciously vanquished, men of faith are given words Words that are more solid than the steel of the Babylonian sword. Words that are more weighty than the chains of bondage around their hands and feet. Words that are more certain than Nebuchadnezzar's battle strategies for world dominion. Words that voice God's just wrath in advance of His certain coming. So, in the midst of turmoil and anguish, as we turn in our Bibles to Habakkuk 2, in the midst of turmoil and anguish, in the midst of the deportation and captivity, the people of faith are given a promise in verse 14. For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. The evil empire builders are exhausting themselves for nothing. The determined destiny of the Lord is a universal kingdom that will be filled with His glory, which will be enjoyed and experienced by all those who know Him. The people of faith are given this promise. In the midst of the turmoil and anguish of deportation and captivity, the people of faith are given a perspective in verse 20. But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him. Tonight we're going to consider the first half of this verse. looking together at the Lord's sovereign sanctity. We see, first of all, the Lord's supremacy over idolaters. But, the Lord. This is Yahweh God. who is distinct from the idols of the nations that have just been referred to in verse 18 and verse 19. What prophet is the idol when its maker has carved it? In contrast to the idols of the nations, we are given a view of the true God, the Lord. And we're to understand that at the root of all the violence and the injustice of both the apostate Jews and the gruesome cruelty of the Babylonians lies the sin of idolatry. Whereas idolatry produces an unjust, violent, sensually indulgent society, A society of the Lord will be, in contrast, a just, peaceable, wholesome, self-restrained, self-controlled people who care for the poor and the needy, not take advantage of them. For we become like whom we worship. A fallen man, being deceived by demonic lies, projects his fallen image onto his idols and worships the dead thing. that justifies him in the pursuit of his sin. The evidence of his idolatry, therefore, will be the manufacturing of a society worthy of Habakkuk's prophetic woes. A society that rewards greed. A society that gives place to violence. A society characterized by unjust sentence and lying and sensuality and perversion, apostasy and blasphemous idolatry. But the Lord. It's a contrast to all of the woes that we've been studying in these recent weeks but is a contrast in context, particularly related to the issues of righteousness and justice. For the sin that is so provocative to Habakkuk is the pervasive injustice and violence, the unrighteousness and the lack of justice." Jeremiah. Habakkuk's contemporary, pens the words of chapter 9 of Jeremiah, verse 23 and 24, Thus says the Lord, Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might. Let not a rich man boast of his riches. But let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth. For I delight in these things." This is what it means to know the Lord. Knowledge of the Lord who exercises lovingkindness and justice and righteousness. The gifts of the Lord, things like wisdom and strength and wealth, are not the things in which we are to boast, to rely, to trust, to place confidence in as having supreme value. Those things are not supreme in comparison with what it means to truly know the Lord. Well, what is this knowledge of the Lord? It is a knowledge that is demonstrated in a life. It is a knowledge that is demonstrated in practical relationships and deeds and personal dealings with others. It is a knowledge that is evident by a principled obedience and by traits of virtue and justice that characterize social institutions, especially People of God. People who are characterized by those traits in which Yahweh God delights and values. Loving kindness. A people who are faithful in their covenant commitments to love. Justice. Judicial judgments that are both fair and compassionate in their defense of the weak and the needy. and righteousness, that moral rectitude and integrity that lives in compliance with God's standards of covenant law. When men know this God, when men delight to know this God, they reflect and image Him in their exercise of authority. As husbands, they delight in lovingkindness and justice and righteousness. As fathers, they delight in lovingkindness and justice and righteousness. As men in positions in society and in the church, they value what the Lord delights in. Not in using their authority to get God's gifts for themselves, resting, as it were, for themselves, wisdom and strength and wealth, but rather making a priority of being God-like in their administration of justice. Something totally different from the idolaters, because when they get in positions of authority, they take advantage and greedily tyrannize everybody. So, when Habakkuk writes, but the Lord, he's making a contrast with the pervasive idolatry, but he's also pointing us to the stark difference between God's government and the government of the false gods and their principles that are seen in the rule of the unrighteous and the unjust. It's a contrast between this God who delights in loving kindness and justice and righteousness with the judicial, social, authority systems of idolaters in which violent injustice of arrogant men prevails. Come back to Habakkuk 2.20. And our eyes now focus upon, secondly, not only the Lord's supremacy over idolaters, but the Lord's sovereign sanctity. But the Lord is in His holy temple. The Lord is in His holy temple. This is the locale of the king's government. The word temple is translated elsewhere in the New Testament frequently with the English word palace. It's one of several words of the Old Testament describing the Lord's dwelling place. This vocabulary term used some 80 times in the Old Testament. I could spend time showing you where these passages are located, particularly in the Psalms, where the Lord is seen in His palace, in the midst of His court, in His house and dwelling place. It is the place from which the Lord rules as King. From where the judgments of His throne are administered. Some 40 years earlier, before the writings of Habakkuk, Isaiah was given a vision of this very dwelling place of God's palace in Isaiah chapter 6. We read from verse 1 to verse 5. In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings. With two He covered His face, and with two He covered His feet, and with two He flew. And one called out to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of Him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." This is the palace, the temple, which is referred to in Habakkuk 2, and verse 20, the place where God as King is enthroned as Lord of hosts seated upon His heavenly throne. Now, we could trace this vision and its impact upon Scripture elsewhere. We could understand as we should that Isaiah here sees Christ Jesus in His enthroned glory. He has a vision of that which John sees recorded in Revelation 5. The vision of which Daniel sees in Daniel 7 when the Son of Man comes before the Ancient of Days and is given dominion in His eternal Kingdom. We understand that Isaiah is seeing this exalted King who is the Lord Christ because in John 12, verse 41, after citing this very passage, John writes, these things Isaiah said because he saw His glory and spoke of Him. Referring to Christ Jesus. I also hope that you see, as we're on this theme of the Lord as King, that the Spirit of God has so arranged the menu of the Word of God today, that you're being taught again tonight the things we even saw this morning, even in the consecutive reading tonight. Emphasizing the kingship of Jesus Christ. Evidently, Grace Covenant Baptist Church. The Holy Spirit wants you to come to terms with the kingship of Jesus Christ today. He wants you to live as citizens of your monarch, King Jesus. The divine King who is enthroned upon God's supreme and transcendent throne. Back at 2.20, He is in His holy temple. Three times the angels recite, Holy, Holy, Holy, as they give homage to the king in his throne room. This informs us that the palace is not only the place where the king dwells, but it is also the place where God himself as king is worshipped. So, when Isaiah is then cleansed by in confession of his sin by that burning coal that is taken from the altar, we're not surprised to find the furniture of the temple of worship there in the palace of the king's court. It is a place where the sacrificial offering of priests are rendered acceptable. because the Lord is in His temple palace. And Habakkuk, as this priest prophet of Israel, preaches these words to a believing remnant who are gathered with him at that earthly temple. There, while around about them, society is falling apart. And they're seeing the ravages of the Babylonian invasion They're standing in a place that is soon to be destroyed and razed to the ground. And Habakkuk is asking this believing remnant, you who live by faith, can you see beyond this earthly replica of God's dwelling place that whereby faith we might see the Lord in His holy temple? And understand, That although we live in a day where there is great change and flux and instability in the society round about us, God is still on His throne. He is still transcendent. He is still holy and untouched and unchanged by all the injustice and the violence and the cruelty and the perversion and the blasphemy and the arrogance of wicked men. Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God Almighty, Sovereign in His transcendent holiness. Habakkuk is drawing out the essential summons of his brief writings. And he is appealing once again for the righteous to live by faith. A faith that is to be evidenced by a constant trust and obedience to God in worship, in a pursuit of that which the Lord delights. Micah, again, a near contemporary to Habakkuk, writes, He has told you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. At the end of these five woes, Habakkuk takes the people's eyes off of the devastation and off of, no doubt, what must have terrified them at the prospect of what it would mean for them to be deported to Babylon. He says, but the Lord is in His holy temple. Yahweh God. The God of Abraham, who in grace and love and faithfulness to His promises, delivered Israel from Egypt. This is the God of Sinai, whose law is righteous, just and true. This is the God whose worship would bring about a society of justice and peace. This is Yahweh God and He is still Yahweh God. He is unchanged. Even by the visitation of His just discipline upon His wayward people, This is still the Lord God who is exalted and enthroned in transcendent holiness, separated from the cauldron of corruption that characterizes demonically deceived idolaters. This is Yahweh God who is in His palace temple, being worshipped and adored by the angelic hosts, who is issuing judgments and exercising absolute, unrivaled, unquestioned sovereignty and directing all things. according to His transcendent purpose, which was referred to back in chapter 2, verse 3. 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. How can that be? Because the Lord is in His holy temple. He is sovereign. He is still reigning over all. He is directing the course of history. He is still Yahweh God, the covenant God of all who put their trust in Him. His reign is supreme. And He has not been removed from His throne, even though Israel is being removed from the land. The Lord's sovereign sanctity. By way of application tonight, first, we must know who our God is. In Proverbs 9, verse 10, we read, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. The man who does not know God is said to be a fool in the Bible. He might have an IQ of 160, but if he doesn't know God, he's a fool. Knowledge of the Holy One is what is necessary. The knowledge of the God of Jeremiah. The knowledge of the God of Isaiah. The knowledge of Yahweh God who was revealed to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The God who delights in loving kindness and justice and righteousness. a God whose knowledge is evidenced in the human image-bearer by him entering into relationships of love, by engaging in deeds of mercy and compassion, by standing to defend the defenseless, and ministering to the needy, and instructing the ignorant, and helping the weak, and seeking what was lost that it might be saved. It is seen in the life of the human image-bearer who lives a life of moral integrity and righteousness and trustworthiness and honesty without any hypocrisy. God comes and asks, is this not what it means to know Me? The knowledge of the thrice holy enthroned Lord Jesus Christ, the only God worthy of our worship and adoration, our awe and our astonished reverence, He alone is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, who sits in majestic, sovereign might, reigning over all creation and directing the course of all history towards His intended goal. Glory, glory, glory surrounds His throne. This Yahweh God, Lord Jesus Christ, is worthy of our purposeful, intentional study and obedience and imitation and love. Deuteronomy 6.5, we are told, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. He is to be known. as He has revealed Himself as our Creator and our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, for this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and even Christ Jesus, whom Thou hast sent, John 17, 3. To know Him, not merely as the study of an academic endeavor, so as to have conversation indulging lust of mind, but to know Him with a knowledge of intimacy, a knowledge of love, a living, united relationship that is vital as a branch to the vine, whereby the branch begins to take on the characteristics and qualities of the vine. It's a knowledge that transforms us. We must know this God. We must know who our God is. and know that He is absolutely, thoroughly, and eternally just and righteous. And we must know this, God, in a time when relativism has the upper hand and moral confusion abounds. When corruption and incompetence cripple our social institutions and our churches because there are so few men of integrity and character. We must know this God when we find ourselves living in a time of woe, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, Isaiah 520. We must know this God, even during a day when His wrath is being poured out upon a people who are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. And He's withdrawing from us and abandoning men, allowing their sin's seed to reap the harvest of their own destruction. In times like these, we need to know who our God is. Because He is the only God who is. And knowing Him is to know that justice must prevail. For if justice does not prevail, then the Lord is not God. And He is not in His temple. If we know this Lord God, then we will demonstrate that knowledge by being ourselves a people engaged in righteousness and justice and compassionate, gracious works. We read this morning, and again turn you to Jeremiah 22, where the contrast is made with Jehoiakim, or Shalom, the son of King Josiah. The contrast of his exercise of authority And that of Josiah, his father, in Jeremiah 22, verse 15 and 16. Notice the things for which God is concerned. Do you become a king because you're competing in cedar? Do you become my people because you've got the best, biggest building in the churches of all? Is that what God is into? I'm competing in cedar? Is that where the knowledge of God is seen? By elaborate church facilities? Did not your Father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with Him. He pled the cause of the afflicted and the needy. Then it was well. Is not that what it means to know Me? Declares the Lord. That's what it means to know Me. But your eyes and your heart are intent only on your dishonest gain. You're in it for yourself. And you're willing to lie to advance yourself. And you're willing to trample on other people, shedding innocent blood, and are practicing oppression and extortion. The knowledge of this God, this God who delights in righteousness and justice and righteousness, loving kindness, must be seen in the way in which we relate to others. And again, I emphasize, in the way in which we exercise our authority. in the way in which we exercise influence upon others, as husbands and as fathers, in our workplace, in the church. We need to seek to advance the cause of the needy and the weak and stand alongside those victimized by evil, especially those victimized by demonic deception. Christ in justice and grace has compassion for the lost. We need to live among men exercising the authority of the kingdom in righteousness as sons of the Most High. In a day when everything you know seems wrong, what do you need to know? You need to know the One who says, cease striving and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. Psalm 46 10. The Lord is in His holy temple. We must know who our God is. Secondly, we must know where our God is. He is in His holy temple. His transcendent and exalted throne. He is above every name that is named in this age and in the age to come. He is supreme, eternal, unchangeable, over all and above all. Listen to the description of Him in Psalm 57, 5 and following. Be exalted above the heavens, O Lord God. Let Thy glory be above all the earth. I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord, among the peoples. I will sing praises to Thee among the nations. For Thy lovingkindness is great to the heavens, and Thy truth to the clouds. Be exalted above the heavens, O God. Let Thy glory be above all the earth. Psalm 113, verse 4 and following, the Lord is high above the nations. His glory is above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God? Who is enthroned on high? Who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and on the earth? He is above creation. He's not simply in heaven. He's above heaven. He's transcendent and humbles Himself. condescending to put His eye upon the things of this created order. In Isaiah 40, verse 21 and following, do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it been not declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the vault of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. It is He who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Do you enjoy watching the news these days? Are you hearing things that are unsettling you? Have you taken any history classes? You see history beginning to repeat itself? Are you seeing changes in the arrangement of our nation in its relation to other nations? Things that appear threatening to our economic stability and even to our civil peace? Do we peer into the future and see storm clouds on the horizon? Do we anticipate that perhaps our later years will have a measure of difficulty that even our children will face threats from nations of enemies and repercussions of the incompetent, even corrupt, leadership of our day? Do we find ourselves asking, where are the leaders for tomorrow's church? What will be the state of biblical religion in a generation that has been raised on unsystematic snippets of Scripture and indulged with entertainment and sensuality in the guise of worship, who are undisciplined and unprepared for what appears to be an intensified period of tribulation. Habakkuk looked at the people he was preaching to, and he realized that they were about to have hooks in their nose and get dragged off to captivity. What are you going to say to a people like that? The Lord is in His holy temple. As we look at the landscape being emptied, of the manifest presence of God. We need to know where the Lord is. He's in His temple. Brethren, Habakkuk said these things to that believing remnant who were gathered there in Jerusalem to worship at the temple. And you, the New Covenant Church, are Christ's temple on the earth. So, the question is not only where is the Lord, but in these days of increasing unsettled uncertainty, the question is where are you? If the Lord is in His temple, where do you want to be? If the Lord is with His gathered church that constitutes His temple, And if all history is being driven to the day when all creation will be transformed into His temple, then let us live through the course of our days, be they difficult or even horrifying. Let us live before the face of our God who dwells in His temple. Psalm 27 The priority of the psalmist in a time of upheaval It was the priority of worship. Verse 3, Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear. Though war arise against me, in spite of this I shall be confident. One thing, I have asked from the Lord that I shall seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple. For in the day of trouble, he will conceal me in his tabernacle. In the secret place of his tent, he will hide me. He will lift me up on a rock, and now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy. Yes, I will sing. I will sing praises to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice, and be gracious to me, and answer me. When you said, seek my face, my heart said to you, your face, O Lord. I shall seek. I urge you, make priority of worship. If you are being called to live through a time of social upheaval and disintegration of justice, then let your time be characterized by time in the temple. We need to know who our God is. We need to know where our God is. And thirdly, we must perceive our lives from the perspective of our God. We must perceive our lives from the perspective of our God. In academic circles, the postmodern mind has seized upon the idea of perspectivalism. It's a way of looking at things in order to buttress the postmodern's commitment to relativism. There is no absolute truth. There is no standard of ethics. Everybody merely has their own perspective, their own story, their own narrative. One man's perspective is no better than another's. Knowledge is not coming upon what is true for everyone. It's simply just a way of looking at things. you from your vantage point, him from his, me from mine. In corrupt and incompetent compromising days like ours, it's easy to lose one's perspective. Reliable to be influenced by the relativizing influences of multiculturalism, of advanced technology and communications, of rapid and extensive travel that exposes us to cultures and historical perspectives and political and economic philosophies and religions. Our heads can spin real quick with the multitude of voices that are describing certain perspectives and vantage points. In Psalm 73, when Aesop surveyed the landscape of the ascending evil of his day, he says in verse 16 and 17, when I pondered to understand this, it was troublestome in my sight until I came into the sanctuary of God. Then I perceived their end. From the vantage point of God's temple sanctuary, Aesop got his perspective and he could see the end of evil because he learned to look at life from the perspective of the king. And from the perspective of God's throne, the wicked don't win. The wicked have woe. It's significant. that John, writing to the persecuted church through the pages of the book of Revelation, a church that exists from the first to the second coming of Christ, is given several visions in the Spirit, identifying the vantage points and perspectives from which he writes. In 110, to see the exalted Christ, as did Isaiah in chapter 6, In Revelation 4.2, the perspective from the throne room. In Revelation 17.3, taken to the wilderness. In Revelation 21.10, to a great and high mountain. In other words, John comes to the suffering church and he says, look, I want you to see things from these prophetic vantage points. To get this perspective. To come into God's sanctuary and perceive their end. In the course of preparing for this message, I ran across Isaiah 33, 1-6, and my soul exulted in the Lord. A marvelous passage. Isaiah 33, Woe to you, O destroyer, while you were not destroyed, and he who was treacherous while others did not deal treacherously with him. As soon as you finish destroying, you will be destroyed. As soon as you cease to deal treacherously, others will deal treacherously with you. Justice and righteousness are the foundation of His throne. Isaiah turns to the Lord in prayer. O Lord, be gracious to us. We have waited for You. Be our strength every morning. Our salvation also in the time of distress. At the sound of the tumult, peoples flee. And at the lifting up of Yourself, nations disperse. Your spoil is gathered as a caterpillar gathers, as locusts rushing about men rush about on it. The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high. He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness. And He will be the stability of your times. A wealth of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of the Lord is His treasure. The Lord is exalted. And He will be the stability of your times. Isn't that a marvelous passage? as we face our times. He will be the stability of your times. The Lord is in His temple. Know Him. Live with Him as He dwells with us. And view all things from the vantage point of His supreme and sovereign sanctity. And He will be the stability of your times. Amen.