And Habakkuk chapter 2 will be... I know the bulletin says verses 1-8, but we didn't make it that far. So Habakkuk 2 verses 1-4. Habakkuk 2 verses 1-4. And before we read God's Word, let's pray to the Lord. Our Father, we are thankful for Your Word. We are thankful how blessed we are that You speak to us. You condescend and speak to us through Your Word. And so, Father, we ask that now as we hear Your Word read, and then hear Your Word preached, that You would bless us, Your children, Your people, and You would call those who are out of darkness into a marvelous light through Your Son Jesus Christ. We pray in His name, Amen. Habakkuk 2, and we'll begin in verse 1. These are the words of our God. I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me. and what I will answer when I am corrected. And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it will speak and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it, because it will surely come. It will not tarry. Behold the proud! His soul is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith." Those are God's words. A couple of weeks ago, we began looking, chapter 1, together in the burden of the prophet as he looked out over the nation of Judah. And this again is right before Babylon comes in. It's right before the Babylonian exile. We learn in chapter 1, God is raising up the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, to come and destroy Judah and destroy Jerusalem and the temple and everything like that. And that's because of Judah's wickedness, because of their idolatry, because they have continually and constantly rebelled against the Lord God Almighty. And then the Lord promised that He was going to send His judgments to Judah through those Babylonians, but Habakkuk, Habakkuk did not understand why the Lord would use such wicked peoples, such wicked peoples to judge His holy people, His covenant people, that is. And yet Habakkuk trusted the Lord in who He is, as the only God, as the God who is eternal and holy and unchangeable and just and mighty and pure and righteous. And in chapter 2, the prophet waits for an answer from the Lord and receives it with great clarity. The first point this evening is faith in God's Word. Faith in God's Word. It was almost, in the last chapters, Habakkuk was struggling, wrestling with God almost. With the God of all truth. Wrestling with the God who is true. and how it could be that He would judge His people through a wicked instrument. And yet, when we come to chapter 2, you see more clearly the prophet's faith. He says, verse 1, I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected. It's a military picture there. A standing watch on the wall. He's on a tower looking out. What does the soldier do when they're on the rampart? They're on the wall looking out. They're looking for the coming enemy, when the enemy will come. And so here he is, looking for possible movements of the enemy. That's the picture he gives. And that's scary, as we first read, that if we put ourselves in a back exposition here, Because it's the Lord who has declared Himself an enemy of Judah. An enemy of the Jews by all those judgments promised in the first chapter. Those judgments that were threatened. And so Habakkuk is here looking out, watching from the wall, watching for the Lord. And yet we know what specifically he was watching for. It says, to us. and watch to see what He will say to me and what I will answer when I am corrected." Habakkuk is a prophet. He is waiting to hear what the Lord will communicate, what He will say to him so that it can be revealed to Judah. And yet, very much so, he's expecting an answer to his complaint that he had made at the end of the last chapter. How, basically, or summarizing, how, Lord, if you're the good God, the eternal God, the God who is pure, how can you use an unholy people, Babylon, to judge your covenant people? It doesn't seem right for the Lord to judge His own people by a foreign, wicked, Gentile people, the Babylonians. So now he's expecting the Lord's answer. He stands watch. He stands on top of the tower looking out, watching to see what the Lord will say. What is God's Word? That's the duty of a faithful prophet. That's the duty of a minister of the Word. That's the duty of the Christian, the hearer of God's Word. The whole duty is here summed up not only for the prophet and the preacher, but all of us. This is a prophet or for the preacher, the question is, what will he say to me? It's a question for all of us, by the way. What will he say to me? What does the Lord say? The minister must speak only the message, the Word of God. He must see before he speaks. He must be good at listening and seeing before he can speak forth what God has to say. He must be, in that way, first a seer, prophet, seer, S-E-E-R. He must be first a seer and then a speaker. Every prophet, every preacher is to take light from the Father of lights. To gather our wisdom from Him who is altogether wise. Remember, whose foolishness is wiser than men. In 1 Corinthians. And why do we wait on Him? Why watch for Him to see what He says? Because our nature is corrupt, our reason, our judgments, our feelings, our desires are all subject to errors and mistakes and vanity and sin, even as God's redeemed children. But as we've learned, preachers and prophets, same as ambassadors, are heralds, not of themselves, but they are sent. Romans 10, they're sent. And they bear not their own word, but they bear the word of the Lord. And so the Lord has to speak, and they have to see that word, to be able to speak His message. And so preachers today may not do more or less than what God calls us to. This is why the hearer has a very important duty to receive or refuse those words you hear. When the Word is preached, according to it, is it God's Word? Is it according to God's Word or application of God's Word? Like the Bereans who search the Scriptures, If it is not God's Word, then it's not true. If it's not according to God's Word, it's not true. If it's not an application of God's Word, it's not true. But if it is, it is the very Word of God. And yet to oppose God's Word too freely, that should be warned against. Be warned that while you ought to be discerning, one theologian said this, for many hearers are so seasoned with prejudice against their teachers, that if anything sound not to the just tune of their own fancies, they will suddenly quarrel it. So you ought to be warned in yourself of quarreling with God when you hear His Word. Just because you might not like what you hear doesn't mean it isn't God's Word. Just because you don't like how it affected you doesn't mean it's not God's Word. Chapter 1 is a great example of that. Habakkuk didn't like the Word. And yet, he submitted to it and waited still on more of God's Word here in chapter 2 for some help. And we might say some grace. If it is God, if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you even be found to fight against God, is the warning. And so, beloved, if the Lord speaks to the church, he who has an ear to hear, let him hear. For this reason, we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the Word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the Word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe." So you see, he's standing upon the watch. There's this important task of not only the prophet, but the preacher. Ezekiel 3, verse 17, the Lord speaks to Ezekiel and He says, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel, therefore hear a word from My mouth and give them warning from Me." That's the picture of Habakkuk. He's revealing to us, same as with Ezekiel there. I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel, therefore hear a word from My mouth and give them warning from Me. God gives the word, the prophet speaks the word. And so preachers must stand upon the watch, watching to see what the Lord says. You see from Ezekiel that Ezekiel passes part of the duty of the prophet, the preacher, is to watch, but also to warn. To warn. That's why from time to time you hear from the pulpit warnings about false teachers and false teachings that are happening today or have happened in the history of the church, so that we can be aware of those false teachings and turn away from them. Even when we get a hint of an inkling of it coming in, we can say, no, that's false. But God is true and let every man be found a liar. And so we ought to always, all of us, ought to be engaged in truth-seeking and truth-telling, truth-living for the spread of the unity and communion amongst us and not falsities that divide us. So the prophet watches to see what the Lord will say to him. Just as all of us are to watch, that is to search the Scriptures and meditate on the Scriptures of God's law day and night. And in this we fail all the time, don't we? We might read the Word, but we fail to meditate upon the Word. We might think upon the Word, meditate upon the Word, but we fail to read it and learn more. And here on the Lord's Day morning and evening, to hear Him speak. That's where we should be daily in the Scriptures, daily meditating, daily in private worship, in family worship, and in Lord's Day worship. Watch to see what the Lord will say to you from His Word, the Scriptures." And from that what? Habakkuk says, "...and what I will answer when I am corrected." When the prophet is corrected by the Lord, when he is taught from the Word of God and warned and guided and corrected, rebuked, he will respond with an answer. Will he speak like Job's unwise friends? or we speak like a wise counselor. We're all called to listen, hear God's Word, meditate upon it, to learn, believe, and obey His Word, and then go out and tell others the truth. And so we need faith in God's Word, such that we know up front that when we hear it, no matter how difficult it is to hear, even before we hear something difficult, we know, if we hear something very difficult for me, I still know it's God's Word. No matter how difficult it is to hear because of our sin or because of our earthly eyes that make things seem different than the eyes of pure light, we believe no matter what God's Word. His Word is pure truth, pure light, and we bow before Him who is the King, Jesus Christ, who speaks from heaven. Secondly, we look at the second point, faith in Christ. Verse 2 and 4, faith in Christ. Verse 2, it says, Then the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets that ye may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it. Because it will surely come. It will not tarry. Here now comes the Lord's answer. The rest of the chapter is the Lord's answer. The Lord here speaks and directs the prophet Habakkuk and commands the prophet to write down the vision. Notice the language. It says that he may run who reads it. In Jeremiah 23, speaking of false prophets, this running for us is clarified. The Lord says, I have not, because they're false prophets, I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. And so it actually teaches us the opposite of what a good prophet... it teaches us the same lesson for the good prophet, that the good prophet hears the word of God and runs. In other words, the good prophet hears the Word and prophesies. He doesn't just stay here in one place and prophesies. He runs to and fro and tells everybody the Word. That's what the good prophet does. And then Zechariah 2, another angel was coming out to meet him who said to him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls because of the multitude of men and livestock in it." The prophet called to run. And like Moses the second time cut the two tablets of stone, And I think it's Ezekiel 34 or 36, somewhere in there. He cuts the two tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments to go and then proclaim. And so all who read could go out and proclaim. And that's the language here, the tablets. In verse 2, make it plain on tablets. And so here's this language of the prophet, the preacher, the one who testifies is one to do it quickly. And to get the message out quickly, run with the message, prophesy. And these should be rushing to declare the Lord's Word. Run with the message. The message on the tablets is so set in stone. It's God's Word. especially in times of apparent judgment as it was here. Especially this year, in 2020, with all the things going on that we can recall with our mind. The corruption and the riots going on in the church, shown very often to be very weak. Many closing down completely, as in never going to open again. That's what's happened this year. Many Christians who cease completely worshiping the Lord, they don't turn on the live broadcast from wherever, they don't come to a physical location to worship anymore. There's tons of people who are leaving the church this year because of what's happened. This is the time preachers should be running with the Word. Calling those sinners back to Christ. Preaching the Word, for verse 3, the vision is yet for an appointed time. Judgment's coming, is what he's about to say. The vision is yet for an appointed time. The time is not yet fulfilled for the execution of God's will. for this particular vision. But at the end, it will speak. God's Word of judgment will speak. And it will come. And people will not lie. God's vision, this vision that he's talking about, will not lie. It's true. There is in God's eternal decrees a set time that the vision will come about. It's not yet, Habakkuk. It might seem like it's going to tarry. It's going to take a while. but it will come. And it comes from God who is not false, but infinitely true. For God who promises cannot lie. Verse 3, he explains further, though it tarries, wait for it, because it will surely come. It will not tarry. The vision will come to be that you can be sure of. You might seem like it will tarry. It won't tarry. So here our God manifests, He shows forth, makes known to His church His will on the tablets in your Bibles. And we can be assured of all His promises that He will perform them at the right time. All of His promises. We kind of considered that at the end of the sermon this morning. His promises, all of them, He will bring about at the right time. All the Jews coming and all the Gentiles, the fullness of the Gentiles coming. Romans 11. He will bring it about at His timing. Even if it seems like completely hopeless today. And so we're called here to remember that the Scriptures are sufficient for all of faith and life. And so let us wait upon the Lord. We trust the Lord. He knows everything. He knows what is good for us. And for His glory, we wait upon the Lord. Verse 4, Behold the proud. His soul is not upright in Him, but the just shall live by His faith. Here's the beginning of the vision. Verse 4 is the beginning of the vision. And there are two parts of this verse. The first part of the verse is what the Lord is going to do on, He's going to talk about with the rest of the chapter. There are going to be five woes, five judgments spoken about Babylon, about Nebuchadnezzar and that nation. Curses are going to come. And that's summarized a little bit in the first part of verse 4. And one pastor says that this is, here in verse 4, it's a declaration of His holy will and His general administration of justice. That is, it's God's will according to who He is. The God of justice and the God of truth. So what can we expect from that? That verse 4 is not merely the will of God for Judah, or whoever else in the immediate context it applies to, Babylon. It's not only about them. It's not just the will of God for them. But this applies, extends to all times and all persons so long as the world continues. It's why we'll see this similar statement is found elsewhere in Scripture, right? The just shall live by his faith. We know that verse. We know that verse from Romans. We know that verse from Galatians. And we know something very similar to it in Genesis 15. The first part of the verse is a characterization of those who would come in God's judgment against Judah. That agrees with Habakkuk's sentiment in the first chapter. Yes, these are wicked people. They are proud. Their hearts are lifted up. They're inflated. These are those, beloved, who have a high view of themselves. They're very haughty. That is proud. And our God takes offense of such as have a high view of themselves and lift themselves up in their hearts and minds above the Lord. It was this that caused pride. It was this that caused angels to fall. The devil, Satan, to be kicked out of heaven. It was pride that caused the fall of man in Genesis 3, in which the Lord said, Behold, the man has become like one of us to know good and evil. And he cast Adam and Eve out of the garden. The same with the Tower of Babel that we recently read about. And the Lord confused their language. Luke 10, verse 15, Jesus gave the judgment of woe, similar to the rest of our chapter here. And He said, And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades. Beloved, pride is the way of death. It's the way of the devil, taking after the father of lies, the father of the wicked. And often we are drawn away to it for all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. A warning in 1 Timothy 3, verse 6, "...lest, being puffed up with pride, ye fall into the same condemnation as the devil." Now examine yourselves. We're coming before to have the Lord's Supper this evening. Examine yourselves as we come to partake. Is your heart a heart that is filled up with pride? It's your heart that lifts it up and you think very highly of yourself. Pay attention please. Are you thinking too highly of yourself? That you can do no wrong, that in your daily life, in your marriage, you think to yourself, I'm always right. In your marriage, I'm always right. I always have to be right. You think as a child. Are you children? Children. Children, if you are younger, not married yet, before my parents you say, do I grumble? Ask that question of yourself. Do I grumble? Do I complain about my parents? Am I constantly rebellious or consistently questioning their directions? And before the Lord, are you accepting? All of us, are you accepting of His good providence and dark providences? knowing that all things He works together for our good, Christian? Or is there a constant grumbling and nagging about the Lord or about your circumstances, which are the good or dark providences of the Lord? As we heard this evening, is there a constant reflex when the Word of God comes and you hear it and you feel rebuked by His Word? And it feels perhaps like you're being attacked, that you're wide awake and the Lord is doing this open heart surgery to repair you and your soul and you respond by balking back at Him, that you attack Him and grumble. And you attack in your mind and heart or with your words the minister perhaps, even the instrument of God. how easily pride wells up within us. But God alone is high. God above is above all, and we must be humbled, because look what He says, Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him. What can be promised, Lord, about those who will come and judge Your covenant people, the Babylonians, for their sin and their idolatry? The pride of life that lifts us up is not able to keep us up. The Babylonians will come. They are going to come with great pride. They are going to think they are the greatest and they are going to worship their false gods as greater than the true God. But the pride of life that lifts us up is not able to keep us up. The elevation of souls is like one pastor said, it's like a violent casting up of a heavy body into the air, which will fall down again by its own weight. It's a man's own lust that drives and draws and forces him up, so that your soul is filled with yourself, which then gives no room for the graces of God to dwell within you. And if that's your way of life, then you are promised those judgments from verse 5 to the end of the chapter. And the opposite of what we see in the second part of the verse, which is life. Life is promised, but death comes to those who hold on to a life of pride. For pride comes before the fall. Then the Lord says, but the just shall live by his faith. The main and chief care of every soul. The main and chief care of every soul, every study, every endeavor of our whole lives should be to have an upright soul. That is, a righteous soul, a just soul. Not upright in ourselves. Not upright in our works and trusting in ourselves. For all trusting in ourselves is pride. But just a soul. Just a soul that is just. A righteous soul. And we ought not to sit here or stand here and think to ourselves or wish for ourselves to wish, I wish I had an upright heart. No, the Scriptures command us to something. Jesus Christ commands us to something. He says, believe. We're called, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Justification is what's being talked about here. Believe the Gospel. Believe not in your own righteousness, not in your own works, but in the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone for you, His death for you, and His life for you. So don't wish for it. Don't sit there or stand there. Come now. Come and believe. Believe the Word of God. The sound of His voice that comes into the ear, and in His Word, make your hope. Beloved, just as Jesus said to the woman at the well, if you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. There's grace offered in the Word. There's grace offered to you in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. to eat and drink and how beneficial and nourishing to our souls as we see and smell and taste and feel the Word of God. Plead for it, beloved. If you know these things, He says, blessed are you if you do them. So come and believe. Come and hear. Come and partake. We remember here when we see that we're just. In that verse 4, "...but the just shall live by his faith." Again, we have to remember that's the word righteous. Same word, means the same thing. Often it's different in our minds, but it's the same thing. And the Lord's speaking here of the righteousness that is of faith. Justification. And not our righteousness, for ours is of menstrual rags, like menstrual rags. Soiled. But rather the righteousness of Christ is what we must have and look for and believe in for our own life. We need Christ's righteousness, His perfect righteousness before a holy and just God. And if we don't have His perfect righteousness, then it is alone dependent upon yours, ours, which is filled with sin. in which we are guilty and lacking righteousness, not perfect and so we be found before God proud and dead in our sins and transgressions. Those great words, but God. But God gave us His Son to be our righteousness for us. To die that death for us. that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Romans 1, you remember, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. The wrath is revealed upon our unrighteousness. But if you believe, you will be just. If you believe, you will be righteous in Christ. Galatians 3, but that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident. For, quote, the just shall live by faith. Yet the law is not of faith, but the man who does them shall live by them. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. put your faith in Christ who was cursed for us as He hung there on the tree, that you would be credited with His righteousness that is perfect and thus live. Our God calls us, Isaiah 57, He who is exalted, for thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with Him who has a contrite and humble spirit. to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. And so as we come in faith to Jesus Christ, we also must come humbly before the Lord our God Almighty who reigns exalted above all, and how gracious and merciful He is to us in Jesus Christ. If you come and you believe in Christ His Son, and if you do, oh, what assurance you can have in coming to Christ's table. and in the future of that seal of life before Him. The seal of life forever in Him. But woe unto you who challenges the Lord, who contends with the Lord, and boast in yourself before Him. The promise here is that you will be judged. That's the promise. Listen to the promise in verse 4 again. Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in Him. but the just shall live by his faith." Let's pray. Father, we give You praise this day for the clear message of the Gospel, the just shall live by faith. Faith in Christ. Faith in His righteousness for us. Faith in His death for us. And Father, we're thankful as we look to Christ and as we now prepare to partake of Your Supper. A supper that nourishes our soul. We pray that You would feed us. Feed us in Christ, Your Son. That we would cram down our mouths and be nourished with the gospel that His body was given and His blood shed. And to our other senses as well. Cram them into our ears. Cram it into our different senses. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.