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.