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All right, let's remain standing,
and our reading of the law will be from the second part of Habakkuk
chapter two. This is God's holy word. 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 loathes himself
with pledges. Will not your debtors suddenly
arise and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will
be a spoil for them. Because you have plundered many
nations, all the remnant of the people shall plunder you, for
the blood of man and 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 in 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 will respond. Woe to him who builds a town
with blood and founds a city on iniquity. Behold, is it not
from the Lord of hosts that people's labor merely for fire and nations
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 You will have your
fill of shame instead of glory. Drink yourself and show your
uncircumcision. The cup of 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 beasts that terrified them. For the blood of man and
violence to the earth, the cities and all who dwell in them. What
profit 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 the speechless idols. Woe to him who says to a wooden
thing, awake, to a silent stone, arise. Can this teach? Behold,
it is 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 first
five verses of Habakkuk 2. Now, some of these you might
think, that's not gospel. There's a little bitty section
in here that's discuss many times in the New Testament that is
at the heart of what the gospel of Jesus Christ is. And so let
us hear this this morning. I will take my stand at my watch
post and station myself on the tower and look out to see what
he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint.
And the Lord answered me, write the vision, make it plain on
tablets so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits
its appointed time. It hastens to the end. It will
not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it.
It will surely come. It will not delay. Behold, his
soul is pupped up. It is not upright within him.
But the righteous shall live by his faith. Moreover, wine
is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed
is wide as Sheol. Like death, he is never enough.
He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples."
Let's pray together. Father, we always pray after
the gospel because we need understanding. when we hear these words, especially
as they concern the coming and now for us the past coming of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We pray that you would take the
veil off of our eyes so that we might see him in his glory
today, so that you as our great father might be glorified through
him and what he's done. And we pray that your Holy Spirit
would be pleased to do these things for us this morning as
we worship you. May he lead us into worship we
ask in Christ's name. It was kind of a surprise this
week that I heard from Keith. Keith is one of the founding
members of our church 20 years ago, good friend of mine for
almost 30 years now, hard to believe. And he said he's going
to be in town with his family, visiting his parents and his
grandma. And I asked him if he would like to continue his series
on Habakkuk that he did, started last summer. So he was in Habakkuk
1 for a couple of weeks, and now he's going to be in Habakkuk
2. And I would just, Thank him for coming and ask that you would
all be attentive to the word of God this morning. Morning.
It's always good to come back here to what I still consider
my home church. This was my church before I went
to seminary. Um, and leaving seminary meant I had to leave
this church as well, which was hard, but it was in the Lord's
providence. But it's a blessing to be back here with you this
morning. And as Doug said, last time I visited, I preached two
sermons from Habakkuk 1. So I thought I would just pick
up where we left off. I'm assuming you all remember those sermons
freshly from a year ago, right? Because it's been several months
since I was able to preach the last sermon here on Habakkuk,
I thought it would be helpful for me to give a brief review
of the context of Habakkuk 1 before we jump into Habakkuk 2. But
let's ask the Lord's blessing on the preaching of his word
this morning before we do that. Heavenly Father, we come before
you again, thanking and praising you for who you are and for the
wonderful promises that you've given to us in your word, that
your spirit would attend the preaching of your word, that
you would speak through the foolish preacher and the foolishness
of preaching into the hearts and lives of your people, convicting
us where we need to be convicted, giving us life and encouragement
where we need encouragement, And we pray, Father, that your
spirit would be active and among us today through the preaching
of your word. Otherwise, this is just a man
babbling on. But we pray, Father, that you
would speak to the hearts of your people and minister to us
through your holy word. We pray these things with confidence,
knowing, indeed, that you have promised them and your promises
never fail. We pray in the name of our Lord,
our God, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. While the book of Habakkuk
was surprisingly written by a man named Habakkuk, which is quite
fitting. Habakkuk, his name literally
means one who wrestles with God. And the book itself bears his
namesake quite appropriately because it's a prayer journal
of the prophet praying to God, asking, why are you allowing
such sin and injustice to get worse and worse and violence
growing in Judah and you are apparently doing nothing about
it. He's praying to God and God replies. Habakkuk considers God's
reply. He prays again with another complaint.
It's a back and forth prayer conversation between the prophet
and the Lord. It's a wrestling. It's Habakkuk
wrestling with the providence of God. in how God has chosen
to deal with the sin of Judah. And it's a book that bears a
lot of truth that is very practical to us today. So Habakkuk lived
in the southern kingdom of Judah roughly 200 years after the northern
kingdom of Israel had been defeated by Assyria and carried off and
assimilated into oblivion. So Judah was the only part of
God's covenant people old covenant people that remained and he grieved
in his heart to see how Judah had devolved into such wickedness
and he prayed beginning in verse 2 Oh Lord how long shall I cry
out for help and you will not answer me which tells us that
he had been praying repeatedly fervently for a long time and
heard nothing from the Lord I cry to you violence and you do not
save why do you make me see iniquity why do you look idly at wrong
destruction and violence are before me strife and contention
arise. And then we read God's reply
to the prophet in verses 5 through 11. God answers his prayers essentially
telling Habakkuk, I'm not doing nothing. In fact, I am preparing
judgment to fall heavy upon Judah for her sin. He says he is about
to unify and raise up this small group of a bunch of nomadic tribes
called the Chaldeans who had never gotten along with each
other. They were politically impotent and insignificant up
until this point in history. God said, I'm going to take this
group of obscure tribes. I'm going to unify them. I'm
going to strengthen them. I'm going to cause them to overthrow
the mightiest empire of Assyria, which is going to blow everyone's
mind. You wouldn't believe this if it were told you. That's what
God actually tells the prophet here. You wouldn't believe this
if it was told you. And then they're going to sweep down They're
going to besiege Jerusalem as an act of my judgment upon Judah. And they're going to carry you
off. They're going to plunder you because of your sin. And Habakkuk
hears that, and he quakes in his bones. God's hand of discipline
falls hard on her for her sin. Didn't we read Habakkuk's response
to that terrible news? He says, He says, are you not
from everlasting reward, my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. You have ordained them as judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof. He's acknowledging
that God is sovereign and allowed to do this. And the prophet knows
that the Lord's discipline, though severe, will not result in complete
annihilation of Judah, which God had promised him, which is
some comfort to him, at least. At least we're not gonna be assimilated
into oblivion like the northern 10 tribes were. But the way in
which God had chosen to administer his discipline upon Judah is
hard for Habakkuk to accept. That's a difficult thing. If
we heard that news today, that God said, because the United
States has become so wicked and evil, is so prideful of her sin
and arrogant and glorifying herself, et cetera, et cetera, I'm gonna
raise up some obscure evil wicked people to come overthrow the
United States, which we wouldn't believe if it were told us, right?
But it's going to mean hardship. It's going to mean devastating
loss of life and property. Many of us would become slaves.
Our lives would be completely different. God's justice is falling
on the sin of our country, which is something as Christians we
want to see, except for we're going to be swept up in that
judgment. That's how Habakkuk felt. He was going to be swept
up in the judgment that was falling on Judah. And he raises a second
complaint to the Lord. He says to the Lord in verse
13, you who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look
at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and are silent when
the wicked swallows up man more righteous than he? And then he
goes on and he poetically describes for God just how wicked the Chaldeans
were. These people that you're going
to use as your instrument of justice, God, are far more wicked
than us. How does that make sense? They
deserve judgment more than we do, but you're using them to
judge us. That didn't make sense in the
prophet's mind, and he was wrestling with the Lord with that prophecy. Why does God, who is just, allow
the wicked to prosper, get away with great evil, while men who
are righteous persecuted? And why does God sometimes use
as his rod of discipline men who are even more wicked and
evil, allowing them to prosper even greater? The Chaldeans rose
to become enormously wealthy and powerful because the Lord
strengthened them to use them as his rod of discipline. Why
does that make sense, Lord? Why are you benefiting them?
They're worse than we are. The prophet didn't understand
that. He raised this complaint. And then he tells the Lord, I
will take my stand at the watch post. He's going up on a tower
and he's watching to see when these things that God told him
were gonna happen would happen. And I will station myself on
the tower and I will essentially wait for an answer from you to
this complaint. And then we come to chapter two. The Lord answered
me, write the vision, make it plain on tablets. so that he
may run who reads it, for their vision awaits its appointed time.
This judgment is awaiting its appointed time. He tells the
prophet, write this thing down on tablets, or write it on signposts,
I think is a more literal translation. And the way that I envision what
is going on here with God replying to the prophet is saying, write
what I told you on these signs, and write what I'm about to tell
you on these signs, that the Chaldeans who are going to come
besiege your city, commit terrible atrocities upon you, carry those
who survive the starvation of the siege, they're going to carry
them off into captivity. But as they are marching off
to Babylon in captivity, what are they going to see on the
roads as they're going out there? They're going to see these signs
that God is telling the prophet to write, that God prophesied
years before that the Chaldeans would come and do this because
God ordained it. And God also prophesied judgment
upon the Chaldeans. for the sins which they were
committing at this moment, which would be a great comfort to those
being let off into captivity. God is the one who orchestrated
this, and God also promised that it will come to an end. That
was a huge, huge prophecy of grace in the midst of turmoil
that the people were going through. This morning, I wanted to look
at the five woes that begin in verse six. I was gonna read that
whole passage up through verse 20, but Doug gracefully decided
to read it ahead for us, so I will go ahead and skip that, but you
can keep your books open if you would like. To the Book of Habakkuk,
everything that's recorded for us throughout this passage essentially
is given in order to support that simple doctrine laid out
in verse four, which Doug brought our attention to. that the righteous
shall live by faith. It tells us that there are two
kinds of people in this world when you consider that verse.
Those who live by faith, or those who live, the righteous, they
live by faith, and those who do not. Essentially, you believe
in the God of scripture and live your life striving for righteousness
in light of the truth of God's word, or you live your life based
upon the conventional wisdom of the day. and you follow the
dictates of your own evil, wicked, sinful heart. The rest of chapter
two, beginning in verse six, is comprised of these five woes
given to Babylon, or to be more precise, given about Babylon,
but it's prophetically written as though it's speaking to them.
These are five prophecies of the coming destruction and ruin
of the greatest empire the world will ever see, because that empire
didn't exist yet. God had just said, I'm going
to raise up the Chaldeans to become an empire. This became
the Babylonian Empire. But right now, when Habakkuk
is writing this, the Assyrian Empire was the strongest empire
in the world. And they reigned with great security. But God
is predicting that he's going to raise them up. overthrow Assyria,
and now he's predicting how they're going to fall and be destroyed.
God had told Habakkuk he was raising them up to fulfill his
purposes through them, but he also tells him in this chapter
how he will tear Babylon down and punish them for their wickedness
to give Habakkuk some consolation to the fact that, yes, I do use
even sinful wicked people to accomplish my purposes on the
earth, but I am still a just God. That does not make me unjust.
because look what I have in store for them because of their wickedness.
Woe number one begins in verse six. 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, as the
ESV says, but I believe it should be translated creditors, Will
not your creditors suddenly arise and those awake who will make
you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them. Speaking to future Babylonian
empire, you will be spoil for them. Because you have plundered
many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder
you for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities,
and all who dwell in them. Prophet Jeremiah. refers to Babylon
as the hammer of the whole earth. And indeed, many nations, not
only the nation of Judah, would be, speaking from Habakkuk's
perspective, they would be pulverized by the hammer of Babylon before
the Lord himself would put a halt to the carnage and destruction
that they brought. The woe begins with this, woe
to him who keeps up what is not his own. When Babylon would come
to a city or a city-state, they would simply take whatever they
wanted, loading themselves up with things that did not belong
to them, things that belonged to other people, and even taking
the people themselves to become their slaves if they wanted them,
and to do whatever they commanded them to do. And this woe continues
by saying, and to him who loads himself up with many pledges.
So when the army would come to a city-state And surround the
city, they would send an emissary out. And they would say, hey,
we are going to besiege your city. We're going to burn it.
We're going to kill most of you. We're going to take the rest
of you as slaves. And we're going to steal everything you own, unless
you want to open the doors up for us and welcome us in. And
then we will not harm you at all in any way. We're simply
going to take whatever we want from you. But we're not going
to harm you. And you can give us a pledge of tribute every
year. They're loading themselves up with pledges. So if you're
in a small city-state with a small army, and this massive army is
around you, you could face either death or paying a huge tax to
these people. A lot of the city-states said,
I'm going to pay tax, right? That's a better option to them.
And so that's what loading themselves up with pledges mean. The shocking
impact of verse 7 here lies in the fact that Babylon looked
at themselves as the ones in credit to their victims because
we could destroy you and we are giving you your lives. So you
owe us this tribute. That's how Babylon looked at
it. You owe us this tribute that you're paying every year. But
God did not see it that way. That is not just. God calls these
defeated people groups the creditors of Babylon. That's how the New
King James translates it. They are the creditors of Babylon,
loaning Babylon credit. that one day they will come calling
for, essentially saying Babylon owed them for what Babylon had
stolen from them. Babylon thought they were the
bank, and the people who surrendered to them were taking out a loan
with their very lives as collateral. But God here is saying, no, no,
Babylon, you are taking out a loan from them, and you owe them,
for you are taking from them what is theirs. What is more,
the prophecy also states that Babylon's creditors will rise
up suddenly, which certainly happened in history as we look
back, as Babylon's king had a great feast one night celebrating his
supreme power and wealth and the Babylonian empire was intact
and secure and as strong as ever. And the very next day, people
woke up and he had been assassinated in his bed and he had been killed
and Darius the Mede took control of the empire And what took the
Babylonians several generations to build up took the Lord one
single night to take away from them, just like that. And the
Babylonian empire was gone. It changed. What do we learn from this? This
woe that the Lord gives to Babylon or to the Chaldeans. If you are
the big mean bully on the playground, and you steal the lunch money
of one or two kids because you're bigger and stronger and meaner
than they are, you might get away with it, at least for a
while. But if you steal the lunch money of all 30 kids in your
class, eventually they're going to unite together with one another
and come up against you. That's what happened to Babylon.
They conquered every single people and nation all around them. And
everyone submitted to them at first, but eventually they united
together and overthrew them. They made too many enemies and
the remnants of all the people groups they had suppressed rose
up and they plundered the once beautiful city of Babylon, taking
back what had been stolen from them in the first place. Yet
we need to remember this passage is not simply teaching us that
it's unwise to pile up too much debt or it's unwise to try to
control and rule other people. It's teaching us that our great
God is a God of justice. which living in a country like
ours today is something we need to be reminded of. We look around
our country today and we don't see justice taking place. I live
in Seattle. Like do you know how many times
people are arrested and the city prosecutor just says I don't
want to charge him for that. I don't want to charge him for
that. Like all these these criminals getting arrested and they're
let out let out the next day for very serious crimes. Justice
is not taking place. It's comforting to know that
our God is a God of justice. who allows injustice to take
place for a time, but he will visit their iniquity upon them,
and he will bring justice upon them. He is a God of justice,
and he will absolutely hold everyone to account for their debts. God is saying in this answer
to Habakkuk's complaint that it does not seem just for God
to punish sinners through means of the more wicked, or more sinful
people, and God's reply here was meant to comfort the prophet
so that he would know God is absolutely just, and all sins,
even sins which God himself ordains to take place to accomplish his
own purposes, will be met with divine justice. Woe number two, verse nine. Woe to him who gets evil gain
for his house. to set his nest on high to be
safe from the reach of harm or the reach of disaster. You have
devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples.
You have fortified your life, for the stone will cry out from
the wall and the beam from the woodwork will respond. It's kind
of poetic language. I'm not really sure what that
means, right? But this is speaking to Nebuchadnezzar and to the
future kings of Babylon. Here Habakkuk concentrates on
the almost paranoid search for security, which would typify
the future Babylonian king and his leadership. When we look
at how this prophecy came to pass in history, I think it's
safe to say there is a poetic double nuance here when the prophet
uses this phrase for his house. On the one hand, it refers to
the royal palace itself, the physical building of the king
which Nebuchadnezzar built. It was a magnificent palace.
On the other hand, it also refers to his desire for his dynasty
to be secure, his house meaning his future lineage. He wanted
his sons and heirs to rule this empire which he created for many
generations to come. And God is saying here that judgment
will fall and it will be short-lived. Nebuchadnezzar went about this
in two ways. First, evil gain, and secondly,
physical security in order to be safe from harm's reach. He
stole and plundered, piled up creditors. Everyone was paying
him enormous amounts of taxes. He had all this money, all these
slaves, to accomplish whatever his heart desired. But those
who gain massive amounts of wealth by illegal or immoral methods,
such as extortion or oppression, they feel the need to have extra
security around them. because they know they have a
lot of enemies, and they know they have a lot of wealth. They
know they're a target. They know how their own heart
operates when they see other people who are wealthy, and they
are scared that other people are going to come and do to them
what they've done to so many. They feel this innate need for
extra security. Look at Jeffrey Epstein. He bought
an island so he could be secure to do what he wanted to do. They build their house on some
high, secluded spot guarded by every known security device possible.
That's just as true today as it was in Babylonian times. King
Nebuchadnezzar was an insatiable builder, not just a military
general. After he had conquered his empire, he set up many amazing
building projects in towns and cities all over his empire. But
it was the city of Babylon that he focused on fortifying and
beautifying. Listen to this description of
the city of Babylon at its height. Upon entering the city through
one of its eight ornamental gates, A visitor was able to travel
about the city on wide and well-kept streets, which was uncommon in
those days. Among many impressive buildings
were dozens of temples and, of course, Nebuchadnezzar's palace. The palace complex was lavishly
furnished and enclosed with a wall that was 136 feet thick. This is not the wall of the city.
This is the wall surrounding his house, 136 feet thick. You think he was worried about
security? In the outer course of the wall, Nebuchadnezzar had
his name inscribed on each and every brick. The terraced hanging
gardens are said to have been located in the northeast angle
of the palace complex and were considered to be one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world. It is understandable then that
Nebuchadnezzar named his palace the marvel of mankind. King Nebuchadnezzar
accomplished all of this, but he did so by the means of the
possessions of the sweat and of the blood of hundreds of thousands
of other people that he had conquered. Habakkuk poetically wrote, or
the Lord poetically spoke through the prophet to say that the stones
and the beams of his own house will cry out against him. which was true because every
single stone surrounding his house had his name inscribed
upon it. No doubt as an attempt to bear
record of his own glory, but the Lord Jehovah looked at his
name inscribed there on each and every brick as innumerable
witnesses bearing testimony against Nebuchadnezzar in favor of the
oppressed peoples who were crying out before the Lord concerning
the guilt and the sinful theft and oppression that Nebuchadnezzar
had committed and God said he will not hold him guiltless.
Every stone of your own house will cry out against you as testimony
against you on the day that I come in judgment. It's a beautiful
poetic prophecy. Woe number three. Woe to him
who builds a town with blood and founds a city upon iniquity. Behold, Is it not from the Lord
of hosts that people labor, merely for fire? And nations 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. This third woe is not unlike
the first two. In the first woe, God condemns
their evil gain. In the second, He condemns building
a house with what was stolen and by the labor of what was
stolen. And in the third, he condemns the city of Babylon
itself. This beautiful city of Babylon
was built in order to glorify the Chaldean people, or they
became known as the Babylonians, so that they might look at this
grand city and anyone who came to it might look at this grand
city, which was the capital of the largest empire in the world
at that time, and proclaim Look what we have accomplished and
see how great and how glorious we are. Look at the garden of
our king. It is the marvel of mankind.
Look at us, how glorious we are. Now, there's nothing at all wrong
with the people setting out to build a beautiful city or even
being proud of their work. But in this case, the Babylonians
built this great city and saw beautiful buildings Seemingly
impregnable walls, an architectural magnificence that the world had
never seen before. But God looked at this city and
saw bloodshed. He saw iniquity. He saw slavery
and theft. And he saw men striving to glorify
themselves and themselves only rather than their creator. And
so the Lord says, woe to you. Verses 13 and 14, pronounce the
curse upon the city of Babylon as it says, behold, Is it not
from the Lord of hosts that the people's labor merely for fire, and the nations weary themselves
for nothing? All this work, all the expense,
all the toil, all the labor that they would do to construct this
beautiful, magnificent city was for nothing, because God had
ordained that it would be built for the purpose of being burned
in fire. which it did, and it would be
destroyed. All the labors of all of these
peoples that Nebuchadnezzar brought to Babylon to build his city,
all of that labor came to nothing, exactly as his woe predicts. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. And why were they working in
vain? Why did God pronounce this particular woe upon the people?
It answers that question in verse 14. For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge and the glory of the Lord. Not the knowledge
and the glory of Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar. The knowledge
and the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. What
God is saying here is that they worked very hard to accomplish
a goal which was to fill the earth with the knowledge of their
own glory. Yet that would come to absolutely nothing because
it is the knowledge of the glory of the Lord that will eventually
cover the earth. Secular people of all periods of time have sought
their own glory, desire to promote themselves, to make for themselves
a heritage, a legacy that will live on. This is their life, life's goal,
their greatest possible success. Yet in the end, after the day
of judgment in the new heavens and the new earth, When men are
standing in the New Jerusalem, who will be there on that day
thinking, wow, King Nebuchadnezzar was so great and magnificent? The greatness of Xerxes, the
greatness of Alexander, Napoleon, et cetera. No one is going to
be standing in a New Jerusalem and taking in that beautiful
sight and thinking to himself, This is great, but if only I
could see the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon and his palace and his
gardens. The greatest glory of man is
but a fading blade of grass that withers and dies, compared with
the glory of the Lord, which will burn ever brighter in all
eternity. And the knowledge of the glory
of the Lord will cover the earth as the water covers the seas.
Striving for your own glory is vanity. But living your life,
seeking out and promoting the glory of God will give us gems
in our crown one day. Well, number four. Beginning in verse 15, 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
own 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
terrify them. For the blood of man and violence to the earth,
to cities, and to all who dwell in them. This fourth woe speaks
of yet another reason why God will one day be bringing down
his judgment upon the Babylonians. They glorified themselves, not
only by becoming drunk themselves, but in becoming drunk with power,
as we've seen in the previous woes, by conquering and subjugating
nation after nation, not only by using the plunder stolen from
their victims to build for themselves beautiful, lavish palaces and
cities. But they would further humiliate
these conquered peoples by forcing them to become drunk in order
to make them engage in all sorts of humiliating degradations.
That's what bullies do. They try to force other people
to do humiliating things because in our sinfulness, we have this
foolish idea that if we can get other people to humiliate themselves
into that in some way that means that we are somehow more glorified
or better than they are. We try to make other people look
bad. We don't necessarily go and force people to get drunk
and then do terrible, horrible things, but we often spread rumors
about other people. We often figure out ways to make
other people look bad because we think it makes us look good,
but it doesn't. If you know someone who gossips,
do you look at them as better than the people they gossip about?
No. You think, oh, I'm never going
to tell this person anything personal about myself. They think
they're making themselves look good. They think they're making
themselves look glorified. But it's the opposite that's
taking place. They not only force others to
get drunk in order to force their will upon them, They themselves
drank and dove into the swimming pool of all sorts of immorality,
thinking to themselves, man, now this is what life is all
about. We rule the world. We can do whatever we please.
Whatever our hearts desire, we can have. No limitations. We are the glorious Babylonians. But the Lord says to them, because
of this attitude, Woe be unto you. You who force others to
drink and drink yourselves in order to humiliate others, to
glorify yourselves, to engage yourself in headlong sinful pursuits
and wicked pleasures, I, the Lord, declare to you that you
will certainly drink, but you will drink from the cup that
is in my right hand, the cup of my justice and the cup of
my vengeance. Your wine will run dry. Your
glory will turn to shame. My cup will not run dry. What
you look forward to doing in your sin today, one day you will
look back on and you will be absolutely disgusted with yourself
and utterly ashamed. What you look at as your glory
will be turned into shame. On the day of judgment, those
who engage in wicked, sinful acts, when they are judged by
the Holy God, they will look back upon things they used to
take pride in, and they will be ashamed. They will be humiliated
at how they had let themselves seek their own glory rather than
the glory of God. Woe number five. 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 is 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 fifth woe speaks not of
the self-worship that the Babylonians engaged in, glorifying themselves,
which epitomizes the first four woes, but it turns to the cultic
worship of Babylon, where they worshiped man-made idols made
of wood and stone, overlaid in silver and gold. Scripture speaks
about idols as being empty, lifeless, and useless, while at the same
time, having and holding great power over the lives of those
who worshiped him. They are dumb, idols, or unable
to speak. Yet they are able to teach lies
and to mislead, as Habakkuk states in verse 18. But he says, woe
to him who says to a silent stone, arise and teach. Yet there is
no breath in it at all. But the Lord is in his holy temple,
and all the earth keeps silence before him. In the temples of
pagan gods you would see, their gods overlaid with gold and silver,
but they did not breathe. They did not speak. Indeed, they
did not live. In this verse, God is making,
in verse 20, he's making an absolute contrast between himself and
these gods. They did not speak, they did
not live, they did not breathe. In direct opposition to these
false deities, the Lord was in his temple. But there was no
statue of him there. There's no need to have a statue
of him there. Because he is there. He has made manifest his own
presence there. And he certainly breathed. Indeed,
he breathed life into all that lives. He certainly spoke, unlike
these idols. not merely words, but the word
of the Lord caused all that is to come into existence, and also
to sustain all existence. He certainly lives, and not only
does he live, but all life only exists through his providence.
The contrast between these idols and the Lord in his temple is
stark. All of these woes are declarations
of future judgment were to befall Babylon, for her yet future sins
and atrocities. Yet all of these woes also serve
as warnings to future generations as well, that judgment from the
Lord and destruction is declared upon all the ways of men who
are opposed to God. They may have great temporary
success, build up for themselves, A strong
sense of security, but it's a false sense of security if the Lord
is not behind it. And we must be ready for that.
Just as Judah needed to be ready to watch Babylon grow in power,
strength, and worldly wealth, and then to come knocking at
her gates. But as certainly as their star, the star of Babylon
rose so prominently, it would fall to the earth and be swallowed
up by the sea of God's judgment. Like Habakkuk, I think we often
really struggle with questions of God's sovereignty and justice
when we see the things that we see in the world today. All kinds
of moral perversity, not only being done, but being celebrated
and promoted. We see the wicked glorifying
themselves at the expense of the righteous. We, like Habakkuk,
may ask God, why is he allowing such wickedness to succeed and
flourish? We know how God looks at these
kinds of sins. Why is he allowing this? Yet we must also trust and know
that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, is he not? And he is a just God, and his
justice is most terrible. It is so terrible, in fact, that
I think when we look around at the wicked today, if we understood
the holiness of God and had that on the forefront of our mind,
when we see the proud wicked sinners today understanding God's
holiness, rather than looking down upon them in condemnation
and sneering at them, we ought to pity them because we know
what's in store for them. We ought to show love to them.
and implore them to repent while there's time. Let's not set ourselves aside
from them as though we are not sinners saved from God's wrath
ourselves. We are not elite. Anything special about us is
because it's been given to us by grace. Let us pity and love
the wicked in our world and beg them to repent while there is
yet time. God says, woe to the proud, but
we must live by faith. We must trust in his righteousness.
Woe to the proud, but those who live and strive to live a righteous
life will be given life rather than the woe of God. His goodness,
his loving discipline of our own sins, and his promise to
exercise his most perfect justice upon all who glory in themselves
which is vanity, we must live by faith and trusting in who
God is rather than living in fear of whatever sinful man may
do to us. Let's live every day of our lives
with more fear of God's justice coming upon us than fear what
sinful man may do. As we engage in the world in
which we live, as we watch secularism and pluralism and evil replacing
Christianity in this nation, if it was ever a Christian nation.
I mean, it at least had some essence of Christian morality.
In many other nations as well, all of these things are taking
place. As we see the wicked even mandate the legalization and
celebration of all sorts of perverse evils, what should we make of
it? I tell you what, let the enemies of God and the enemies
of God's people run rampant. Let everything appear as if they
are going to succeed in exterminating the Christian Church of the Lord
Jesus Christ, because God promises that will not happen. Let them
try. Let them run into that brick
wall. I know, and we know, that a day is certainly coming when,
at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. I know that certainly the earth
will one day be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the
Lord. The evil one will be routed and cast into the lake of fire,
and everything and everyone opposed to God will be destroyed. And
there will be a new heaven and a new earth, wherein righteousness
dwells forevermore. We know this to be true. Just
as those being carted off to Babylonian captivity who had
thought that their entire lives were ruined would see that sign
and know that God has a promise of judgment upon Babylon coming
and that his people would be restored one day. We know the
same thing when we see evil and wicked in our nation. That we
will be restored and brought back to after judgment falls
on our nation, which I think it probably will one day, We
will be restored and we will come home to the new Jerusalem
in heaven. What a measure of grace, what
a comfort that is to us. Let the knowledge of that affect
the way we live our lives here and now. Let us strive for righteousness
that we may live. May all praise and glory and
honor be unto him who was and is and is to come. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before
you this morning. We hear the words written by your prophet, spoken
to your prophet from you thousands of years ago. Yet the truth that
remains embedded in them is so applicable to us today. Your
word is so beautiful. It truly is a living and breathing
word. Father, we pray that you would plant your word in our
hearts, that it might not simply satisfy our intellectual curiosity
of history, but it might teach us how to live our lives here
and now, how to learn to trust in you to bring down judgment
where it needs to be brought down, and trusting in your justice
also, Father, to punish the evil in this world and to restore
your people, indeed, one day restore us forevermore. We look
forward to that day, Father, where we will sit at the table
with the Lamb of God. at the great wedding feast of
the Lamb. We look forward to that day, Father, and we thank
you for your word. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.
Five Woes to the Proud
Series Habakkuk
| Sermon ID | 8722421424247 |
| Duration | 48:57 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Habakkuk 2:2-20 |
| Language | English |
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