If you will, please turn in your Bibles to the Old Testament prophet of Habakkuk. Habakkuk, you know, start at the book of Matthew and turn back a couple pages. It's one of the minor prophets, just a little bit before the New Testament. This will now be my fourth sermon through this prophet. And if you recall, what's happened before this is the prophet Habakkuk has been engaging in a sort of dialogue with God, asking him difficult questions and he got difficult answers. And the last time I preached, we covered that beautiful verse where the Lord answered Habakkuk saying, the righteous shall live by faith. That's who my people are. And so now we take up the rest of chapter two, from verses five through 20. This is page number 665 in the Pew Bibles, if you're using that one. Hear now God's word, Habakkuk two, verses five through 20. Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol. Like death, he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples. Shall not all these take up their taunt against him with scoffing and riddles for him and say, woe to him who heaps up what is not his own? For how long? And loads himself with pledges. Will not your debtors suddenly arise? And those who awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoiled for them. Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the people shall plunder you. For the blood of man and the violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm. You have devised shame for your house. By cutting off many peoples, you have forfeited your life. For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond. Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity. Behold, it is not from the Lord of hosts, is it not from the Lord of hosts that people labor merely for fire and weary themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink. You pour out your wrath and make them drunk in order to gaze at their nakedness. you will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink yourself and show your uncircumcision. The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you and utter shame will come upon your glory. The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them. For the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. What prophet is an idol when its maker has shaped it? A metal image, a teacher of lies. For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols. Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, awake, to a silent stone, arise. Can this teach? Behold, it's overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath in it at all. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. This is the word of God. Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, we love your word. We are thankful for the scriptures. And Father, sometimes in our Bible reading and in our Bible teaching, we come across passages that are hard, that are difficult, that teach us about not your mercy, but your justice. So Father, I pray that you would be with us. Help us to understand this word this morning. Please give us ears to hear and hearts to comprehend. And Lord, may the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight. And I ask this in the name of Jesus, amen. The Super Bowl, earlier this month, was one of the most viewed events in TV history. with an estimated 123.4 million watchers. That's crazy. That's a lot of people. And if you're like many Americans, the excitement of the game itself, or the competition, is often enclipsed by something a bit more exciting, the commercials. I remember when I was but a lad, and all the teams and their rivalries and the people meant nothing to me, but the one thing that I looked forward to was watching the commercials. But this year, an interesting ad ran several times during the Super Bowl. It showed a variety of different still frames of people from opposing sides of the societal or political spectrum showing kindness to each other by washing each other's feet. And the only words in this ad was, he gets us. He gets us. referring supposedly to the compassion of Jesus and his kindness to the world as opposed to all the hate that's always around and This was an ad about the Christian faith attempting to reach the lost world attempting to reach unbelievers about the God of the Bible and while compassionate overtures to the lost are valiant and the Bible does teach us to show kindness to all men and Is this the disposition that the Bible teaches us God has towards the lost? Is this the way that God teaches us in his word to relate to those who are outside of his church? And I would argue no. While attempts to build bridges are commendable, and we should seek to show kindness to all, the Bible firmly teaches that the gospel message is not primarily one of you're in need and God can satisfy that. You need love and God can give you love. Rather, the message of the gospel first and foremost is you are a rebellious sinner against a holy and a righteous God. And his judgment is coming. And here's the way out. Only through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let us remember that Jesus washed the feet of those who outwardly believed in him. Let us remember that. Because in our text this morning, this vision from God to Habakkuk, the message that he gives to Babylon is anything but, he gets us. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Don't hear me wrong. Some texts do teach God's compassion. But not this one. Not this one. Rather, Habakkuk 2 pours forth the comforting and challenging judgment of God. And this is important for us to study because just as God's judgment certainly came upon ancient Babylon, his judgment will certainly come again upon this world. And also as we trust more deeply in God's justice, we will learn more fully how to be thankful for the judgment that fell on God's son, Jesus. So we have a lot to learn this morning. May we learn to trust the certainty of God's judgment, both on the world and on his son, Jesus Christ. So just to remind you where we're at in this book, the prophet Habakkuk has been having this dialogue with God. And it basically began with him looking to the Lord saying, the church is not acting like the church. God, are you doing anything? And God said, yes, actually, I am doing something. God was preparing this foreign nation Babylon to discipline his people, to come and destroy Jerusalem and take the people into captivity. And Habakkuk was a little surprised about this. And he responded to God again and said, are they going to keep pillaging and destroying forever? And before God answers that question, He came back with the beautiful verse saying, my people are known by faith. Remember that, Habakkuk. He needed to hear that first. It's as if God was saying, even though I am often severe with my people, don't think that I've forgotten about the evil in the world. Don't think I've forgotten about the wicked deeds of Babylon. I am thankful for the practice of expository preaching. You want to know why? Because if left to my own devices, I would love to spend weeks upon weeks in Habakkuk 2, verse 4, the righteous shall live by faith. And my tendency would be to skip over hard passages like this. And yet, expository preaching, the whole counsel of God demands that we walk through everything the Lord has to teach us. So in this passages, we will see five woes, five denunciations, if you will, upon Babylon and the world. Upon Babylon's greed, its opulence, its injustice, its deception, and its idolatry. So look with me in verses five through eight. You'll see here that God will judge the greedy, both in Babylon and in this world. What does it mean to be greedy? We throw that word around a lot, and it doesn't always just refer to money. Perhaps a good way to think about this is the wonderful children's book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. How many of you grew up reading this little one? If you give a mouse a cookie, how does the story go? If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll sit there and be happy, end of book. No, that's not how it goes. If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll probably want a glass of milk. If you give the mouse a glass of milk, he'll probably want a straw, and it keeps going and keeps going, which implicitly teaches that when we as humans get the thing that we want, we quickly realize we didn't really just want that. I did say that. This kind of attitude is cute with a child, right? It's cute with a mouse. It's horrifying with a tyrant. It's horrifying with someone who has no one stopping them. It's horrifying with Babylon. And this is where Babylon was at. Look at these verses. It says that Babylon is never at rest. It says his greed is as wide as Sheol, as wide as hell. Like death, he never has enough. He gathers for himself all innations. He heaps up what is not his own. A greedy heart is a heart that is always longing for something else, never satisfied with what it has, always looking for the next fix, always longing for the next big thing in life. And we need to remember as we read this that this is a sickness we're all born with. Ever since Adam took of that fruit and ate, It is baked into our nature to never be satisfied with what God gives us. So here was Babylon's crime. In each of these sections, Babylon has a crime and Babylon has a punishment from God. Their crime was their greed. And Habakkuk and Israel needed to hear this. Why? Because when things go wrong in this world, our gut reaction is to either forget God or to blame God. We think to ourselves, where is God in this mess? or we can look at him and blame him. Whereas this passage says, God is here, he's the one who brought the Babylonians, but he is not to blame, they are. The source of this greed for Babylon, it's not just money, look, it's people, it's places, it's land, but this passage uses the language of money to get to the greedy heart. Look at the end of verse six. It says that Babylon is loading himself up with pledges. Like money, he's just hoarding it. Except we know this is a metaphor for people and places and countries and nations that were not their own. And this actually happened. From Habakkuk's standpoint, this was in the future. But this actually happened. King Nebuchadnezzar of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, within around a decade, with his armies swept across what is the modern Middle East and took it all over. Like it said in chapter one, this person, Nebuchadnezzar, gathered up people like sand, like playthings to him. And look at how vividly Babylon's true nature is portrayed in verse five. The wording here is difficult, but this phrase where it says, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest, this essentially is the prophet, God, likening Babylon to a drunken man. Likening Babylon to a man who is a slave to the bottle. And this is kind of what he's saying. He's saying, however pompous and victorious and proud Babylon might seem, He's just like a drunken man who thinks he owns the whole world, only to be humbled by his hangover the next morning. That's kind of the picture here. I think I've mentioned this story before, but the historian Plutarch tells of this instance where Alexander the Great, that famous conqueror of the Middle East, He was hearing a philosopher talk about the fact that there are more worlds than this one, like more planets beyond this world, and apparently when Alexander the Great heard that, he began to weep. People are like, why are you crying? And he says, I have not even begun to conquer this one, and there are more worlds? That is that greedy heart that Habakkuk and the Lord is calling against. So there's the crime, greed, but also there's a punishment. Look in verse seven. Habakkuk and Israel needed to hear that God was listening. God knew what was about to happen. Now look at verse seven and six. It says, shall not all these take up their taunt against Babylon with scoffings and riddles? And look at verse seven. Speaking to Babylon, will not your debtors suddenly arise? And those awake who make you tremble, you will be spoil for them. This is what the Lord is saying. He's saying, not only Babylon will all of your riches be gone in a moment, but they will be taken away from you by the very people that you've plundered. Because look at the these here. It says, shall not all these take up their taunt? He's speaking about the very nations that Babylon plundered or would invade. And historically speaking, this is exactly what happened. Perhaps you remember from your Bible reading that part in the book of Daniel, where the king of Babylon, Belshazzar, was having this drunken party with all of his officials, and the writing came on the wall. That famous story. And the prophet Daniel said, this very night, the kingdom will be taken from you. By the Persians. Ironically, one of the very peoples that Babylon destroyed. And here's a principle that this passage teaches us. It's this Latin phrase called Lex Talionis. Lex Talionis, and it means the law of retribution. The law of retribution, referring not to our retribution, but to God's. And this principle is simply this, that the punishment fits the crime. The punishment fits the crime. Sometimes kids' movies honestly portray this the best. Maybe you've seen that wonderful 1998 animated film by Pixar, A Bug's Life. I did. It's a great movie. It tells the story of how this hero flick goes off and saves his people from the marauding grasshoppers that steal all their food. And the bad guy is this grasshopper aptly named Hopper. And if you recall, how does the bad guy end up being defeated? Does he get slayed by the hero? No. Does he get turned on by his own minions? No. He gets killed by the big guy, the bird, in the end. The bird swoops in and takes away Hopper and does the same thing to him that he had been doing to all the little guys in the whole movie. And there's something in you when you watch that. You're like, yes, justice. Justice is sweet. And that's that principle there. The punishment fits the crime. And for God's people, we should be encouraged that when God sees all of the wrong things happening in this world, he not only will give justice when necessary, but he will give it flawlessly, right? We live in a world where often when humans give justice, it's either too much or it's too little, but with God, it's always just right. So let's move on to verses nine through 11. We gotta get through all five of these. God will judge the opulent. not only in Babylon, but in the whole world. So what does it mean to be opulent? That's a big word. This sin is kind of downstream from greed. It refers to someone who not only covets and endlessly desires the things in this world, but once the person gets them, he will do whatever he can to not lose them. Perhaps the best way to explain this is from Jesus' parable of the rich fool. Do you remember that parable? Where Jesus talks about this man who has riches, and he asks himself, well, what should I do with all my riches? And what he says is, ah, I will build myself bigger barns. I will make bigger storehouses for all my things, and I'll be protected from anything the world could hit me with, and then at last, I can rest, and joy and party to my life's content. And then what happens? The Lord appears to him and says, you fool, this night, your life is required of you. This was Babylon's crime. They not only heaped up what was not their own, but they built edifices and strong places to protect themselves from ever losing it. Look at verse nine. Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house. Right, they're stealing things for their people. to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm. Perhaps you've been in a nature park or a national forest. You're walking along and you see an eagle or a hawk flying up high and then descending on its nest. Why do the birds build their nests up there? To be far away from all the critters that want to eat their eggs. This is the imagery that God is pointing out. Babylon thought they were like the clever hawk and could avoid anything that the world could throw at them, but that was not the case. Now, Babylon did build some amazing things. You should look up the wonderful Ishtar Gate that Babylon built. It's quite famous. Or all the ziggurats, but guess what's left of them? Rubble. It barely lasted 100 years for this empire. And it says in verse 10 that Babylon devised shame in the end for its house. All of the things that they tried to gather together to protect for generations ended up being their own shame rather than their good. Because how did they do it? Look at the bottom of verse 10. They did this by cutting off many peoples. And in the end, they forfeited their own life. Literally, this phrase in the end of 10 says, Babylon sinned against its own soul. When people are endlessly greedy, ultimately, they're hurting themselves because they're desiring something that will never satisfy. And perhaps we all need to hear that today. We live in America, one of the most, if not the most, wealthy nations in history, which is a blessing. We're surrounded by money, we're surrounded by things, and that is not wrong. But what we need to protect our hearts from is the love of these things, right? This is what Paul says. He says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils. So let us check our own hearts as we work through this. Now look at verse 11. This is Babylon's punishment for its crime. Verse 11, the stone will cry out from the wall and the beam from the woodwork respond. Remember what I said about the principle? of lex talionis, the law of retribution. Right here, once again, we see the punishment fitting the crime. Perhaps in high school literature, you had to read Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The Tell-Tale Heart. The Tell-Tale Heart, if you haven't read it, I encourage you. It's a short, unsettling tale about a madman who becomes a murderer. I recommend it, because it teaches a good lesson in the end. And it tells the tale of this man who commits murder. It's pretty dark. And how he thinks it's the perfect crime, and he's gonna get away with it, right? No one, not even the eye of the man that he killed, could possibly figure out what he's done. But then over the course of this very short story, his own conscience screams at him again and again and again, saying, surely everyone knows, everyone's watching me, God sees me, ah! And in the very end, he confesses. His own conscience was crying out against him. from the wood of the floor where he hid the man that he murdered. This is kind of what the Lord is getting at here. He's saying, however high up and protected the Babylonians may seem to be in their palaces of brick and wood, be assured, the very things that they've stolen will shout to their consciences nonstop. Just because they never lose the things that they stole, don't think that they're at peace with them. God is able to use a man's conscience to make his life horrible. And this is what Paul means in Romans 2, when he talks about on the last day, all of our consciences will either convict us or excuse us, even the unbelievers. So I titled this sermon, the comforting and challenging judgment of God for a reason. And here's why. Because as Christians primarily, hearing these hard things should bring you and I comfort. Why? Because God, he will win. He must win. No doubt many people in this room, many of you Christians have been hurt by the world. Perhaps you've been on the receiving end of someone's endless greed and you lost much of which is yours. Perhaps you have been abused by another when you were young. Perhaps you've been hurt by the enemy himself and he's taken precious things from you and there's deep pain there. This should be a comfort to us as Christians to read that our God knows. Just because he hasn't sent immediate justice already doesn't mean he has no care for you. The comfort of this passage for Israel in this time was them knowing all of these terrible things will happen and our God sent it and our God will also punish it. So don't miss out on the comfort here. This message is meant to be one of profound peace to our hearts. But I put challenge in parentheses, because it's not one of the main points of this text, but it is definitely there. Because when we as Christians read this, we can so often think, ah, they're the bad guys, I'm the good guys, I'm safe. And yet, as Christians, when we read texts like this, we need to admit that the same sins that we see in the world that are very obvious, those same sins hide in our hearts every day. Don't you also struggle to not desire the things of this world more than you'd like? And we need to check our heart. And rather than just saying, oh, those people do those things, we need to be very quick to apply the strictest judgment our own hearts because the same seed of sinfulness dwells within us. It's by God's grace. We're not worse than we are, but we still need to confess because you are a temple of the living God. And just because there might be less sin in you than in the world doesn't mean that it doesn't matter. So this is a comfort and a challenge. Look at verse 12. Let's move on to the next one. God will judge the unjust. He will judge the unjust. In its context, this word injustice is referring to the fact that Babylon was treating people, living souls, like they were things, like play pieces on a board. They were nothing more than pawns in their schemes, and that's the injustice. And this is Babylon's crime, that they were unjust. And Habakkuk and Israel needed to hear that. We need to hear that too. Look at verse 12, another one of these five woes. Woe to him who builds a town, right? Building a town in and of itself, not a sin. How does he do it? With blood and founds a city on iniquity. When it comes to gaining things in this world, The what is never the end of the matter. We always as Christians have to ask ourselves, how did you get there? The ends do not justify the means. Because for Babylon, its entire structure, its entire geopolitical center was built upon the bones of foreign people. And interestingly enough, what happened 80 years ago in Nazi Germany is a perfect example of this. Adolf Hitler and his regime in Germany, they had many goals of growth and expansion and helping their people, but how were they going to do that? Their game plan was to do that by subjugating and killing all the Slavic peoples and all the Jews. I'm in the middle of reading, I haven't finished it yet, this book called Bloodlands by Timothy Schneider, and it walks through the detail of the Third Reich's plans for how to handle Eastern Europe, and it is horrifying. Their stated goals ever since Hitler's first book was we will make ourselves great at the price of other people's lives and land. And guess what? God knew that that was wicked, and he did respond. So look at Babylon's punishment in the next verse. In verse 13, one of the punishments he gives them is futility. It doesn't work in the end. Look at verse 13. He says, behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that people labor merely for fire? He's essentially saying all of this work, all of this war, all of this toil, all these things that you're building, they're all gonna get destroyed someday. And did that not come from the Lord? There's few things more frustrating in life. Men, perhaps you can commiserate with this. When you're trying to do something yourself in your house, right? That DIY job that you watch 12 YouTube videos on instead of calling the contractor, and you do it and you feel so great about it, and then like seven days later it falls apart. I have been there. Or isn't there just some kind of deep frustration sometimes when you come down to do the dishes and you're thinking, I have done these dishes, these same ones. Dozens of times, and yet they keep getting dirty. There's something about the futility of tasks that can kind of get at you over time. And yet, this is one of the punishments that God says he is giving his enemies. They will win. They will be given a long leash. They will fulfill their heart's desires to an extent. But then when the moment is right, I will take it all away. just so that their shame is all the greater. And one of the great ironies of World War II, once again, is that the stated goal of Nazi Germany was to build a thousand-year Reich. It was a stated goal, and guess what? Within 12 years, all of their edifices, all of their projects were nothing and destroyed in heaps of rubble. Very similar to how God says he will respond to Babylon because within a hundred years of Israel's invasion and destruction, that empire fell. But also look at verse 14. This isn't the end of God's response here. He says this beautiful statement. I love this verse. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. This is a beautiful verse. You should memorize this. This is a promise. And what does this mean? I think this can be taken in two different ways. First of all, the knowledge of God's glory could mean the glory of his victory. Because when the Babylonian Empire eventually fell, the news went all over the earth. That what was once the great kingdom of Babylon is now a heap of rubble. But I also think this could be referring to the last day, to the end of time, when God's justice through Christ is perfectly enacted. Because if this points us to the end of the world, it's pointing us to the new heavens and the new earth, where righteousness dwells. And guess who won't be there? Babylon. Avalon. How do we know that? Because as long as a single sinful human walking in an unredeemed body is upon this earth, we know that God's glory cannot pervade everything the way it will. Just think about this verse real quick. The deepest place in the ocean, in the Pacific Ocean, is the Mariana Trench. I did some math, and it's nearly 37,000 feet deep at some points. Just for perspective, that is roughly 26 Empire State Buildings deep. Very deep. That's a lot of water. And God is saying, however problematic Babylon seems to be to my people, guess what? as much as the waters fill every cavern of the ocean with complete and total pervasive coverage, my glory will fill this earth someday. So whenever you are trapped in self-pity, whenever things don't go your way, maybe with your classes, or with your job, or with your family, or with your hopes and dreams for the future, or perhaps whenever you're hurt by the world in an unjust way, This is God's medicine for your soul, pointing us forward to a day when all things will be made right. Number four, God will judge the deceptive. Look at verses 15 through 17. What does it mean to be deceptive? Deception is more than just a lie. It's a deliberately saying one thing while meaning another. Your intentions are veiled. It's like a diabolical misleading of someone. And here is Babylon's crime here. These are two very difficult verses to understand. So let me read them. Verse 15, woe to him, speaking of Babylon, who makes his neighbors drink. You pour out your wrath and make them drunk in order to gaze at their nakedness. What is going on here? Well, right here, The Lord is using this dramatic metaphor to teach us how Babylon is interacting with its neighbors, right? Once again, remember at the beginning of the passage how God was likening the bad guy to a drunken man in his drunken stupor, thinking he rules the world? He's continuing on that imagery. What he's saying here is that Babylon was deceptive with its neighbors. Babylon was saying, come here, come here, come have a drink with me. Come, join my club. Let's be friends. But in the back of his mind was saying, I want everything that's yours. And how am I going to get it? I'm going to make you drunk, and then I'm going to steal it. That's what this phrase, look at their nakedness, often means in the prophets. This laying bare shamefully of an entire country. This was Babylon's crime. Perhaps you've heard of these instances in like a spy movie or something, where the spy, in order to get the information, you know, gets the bad guy drunk until he starts talking freely and all that. The Lord is saying this is what Babylon is doing to the people around them. And this is actually exactly what Babylon did to King Hezekiah, if you remember. After King Hezekiah's victory over the Assyrians, remember the Babylonians came and visited and said, hey, let's be friends. We're neighbors, you're neighbors. And do you mind if we see your whole temple and all your treasures while we're at it? We're just curious. They didn't just want to see. They were coveting. They were looking to what they could steal. And look at Babylon's punishment. Once again, the punishment fits the crime. Look at verse 16. Babylon will have its fill of shame instead of glory, and they will drink and show their own nakedness. The punishment fits the crime. The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you. This image here should make all of us think of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Because often in the Old Testament, God's justice, his judgment is likened to the doctor's cup of medicine. Have you ever been to the doctor before and they say, guess what? You want to get well, drink this. And you say, I don't want to drink that. And they say, well, you got to drink that. It's kind of the image here of God with his cup of wrath. And when he hands his cup to someone, they will drink it. And perhaps this very text was on our Lord Jesus's mind. when he prayed to the Father and said, Father, if at all possible, may this cup pass from me. We'll return to this later. But what a comfort this should be to us, that God's promise to his people is that life won't be easy on this earth, but someday, God's enemies must fall. They must be destroyed. Which brings us to our final one. God will judge the idolatrous. God will judge the idolatrous. So what is idolatry? In a sense, it's all of the four previous ones, because Paul teaches that covetousness in and of itself is idolatry. There's a wonderful quote by the theologian Stephen Lawson, where he says this. He says, an idol is anything that you love more than God, Anything you are afraid of more than God, and anything you serve more than God, never be idle about your idols. That's a good little phrase to remember. Never be idle about your idols. And look at the way idolatry is described here. It's completely irrational. Babylon, these people would come around, and out of the same piece of wood, they would make a fire to make their food, and out of the other piece of wood, they would build a god. and use gold and whatnot to make it into precisely the God they wanted. But guess what? It was still a block of wood. And guess what? It was a teacher of lies, because it couldn't teach at all. And this is the way we should think about all the things in life that we are tempted to put our trust in. The things in this world are not living. The things in this world, like money and cars and stuff and houses and degrees, they can't teach your soul. But God can. God can. And this is how the Lord responds to Babylon's idolatry. He says, woe to him who does these things, who looks to a wooden thing and says, awake, who looks to this pile of stuff and says, teach me. And this is an important point to think of, that Babylon's sin was primarily one of idolatry. Right, they were greedy, they were covetous, they were unjust, but primarily, they didn't worship the true God. And that's a lesson for all of us because a lot of times, we can think to ourselves, man, I am struggling to worship God rightly because I'm really struggling with this sin, this anger, this lust, this issue. Whereas the scriptures teach it's actually the other way around. The reason we struggle with sin in this world, the reason we struggle to make idols out of things, is because we don't worship God rightly in our hearts. And this was the crime of Babylon. And notice how God responds in verse 20. He says, even though there is a world filled with idols, there is a true God, and where is he? Look at verse 20. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. Even though Habakkuk was going to see, likely in his lifetime, the very temple be obliterated, he is being reminded by God himself, do not think for a second that I don't exist. I am still in my temple in heaven, and I rule this world perfectly. What a challenge and a comfort that is to us. When we see bad things happen in this world, or to churches, or to fellow Christians, or to friends, we need to remember God is always in His temple. He is always ruling this world, and if He wanted to at any moment, He could snap His finger and everything would be silent before Him. That is the power of our God, and that is what Habakkuk needed to hear. So as we come to a close, We've read some dark things in this passage, some hard truths here, especially of God's judgment surrounding the ones who hurt his people. And yet this is the very God who sent the judgment to his people. Why does God do this? Have you ever wondered that? Why would God ordain the very people to hurt the church and then punish them? Why does he do that? The answer to that question is incredibly difficult. But that question in and of itself must draw our minds to the ultimate moment of justice in the scriptures, which is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Why? Because from the foundation of time itself, God planned for his own son to be murdered by lawless men. The greatest act of treachery and iniquity of all time was planned by the Father. It wasn't plan B, it wasn't plan C, it was the climax of God's redemption for his people. And remember earlier when I mentioned the imagery of the cup. The imagery of the cup of God's wrath. And this was a cup that Babylon was forced to drink to its dregs. For all of us gathered here this morning, we need to be incredibly thankful that God's cup of wrath was divided in two. Right? One of those cups will be given to all of the ungodly someday. But we need to be so thankful that the other cup was given to one man. A blameless man who didn't do anything to earn it. And what was that cup of wrath for? the very evil deeds of God's church. That cup did not pass by Jesus so that when we die, it would pass by us. Just think through this. Think about the justice and mercy of God at the cross because his punishment fits your crime. For the greed of every single one of us here, Jesus was completely plundered by the world. For the opulence of our heart, how many times we crave the things of this world, Jesus lost everything. For every single time we have dealt unjustly with people, Jesus was falsely tried. For our deception, sometimes to even those that we love, Jesus was deceived and betrayed by a friend. And for all of our idolatrous false worship in our hearts, Jesus was forsaken by the Father. And so this is what it means in Romans 8 when we read that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because there is no condemnation left for those who are in Christ Jesus. Jesus took that cup and he drank all of it. So for you as a Christian to think, God's got it out for me. There is judgment for me. If that was to be the case, God would cease to be God. Because his justice means that when one is judged, they are judged fully. and what Christ went through on the cross. He took all of the judgment fully for us. What a joy, what a good news this is. May we all grow to trust in God's judgment all the more, both on the world, but also on his son, Jesus Christ, for you. Heavenly Father, we thank you for hard texts like this. Lord, we thank you for the prophecies of the Old Testament, for we know that in the Old Testament, we learn of your son, Jesus. So Father, help us to not be discouraged. Help us to live by these promises that you are watching. You are returning justice for evil, but in your perfect timing. And until that day, when we get to see your son face to face, let us trust that he truly has drained the cup of your wrath for our lives and our souls. I pray this in the name of Christ, amen.