Five Woes - Habakkuk 2

So we're in the book of Habakkuk or Habakkuk, depending on whether you're American or English. It's just three chapters and we did one chapter, one and a bit last week, I'm hoping to do chapter two. So let's read chapter two and then I'll give you an overview so we can try and put things back into perspective. Let's rather begin in verse five of chapter two. So Habakkuk chapter two, reading from five through chapter three, verse two. Indeed, because he transgressed by wine, he is a proud man. And he does not stay at home because he enlarges his desires as hell. And he is like death and cannot be satisfied. He gathers to himself all nations and heaps up for himself all peoples. Will not all these take up a proverb against him and a taunting riddle against him and say, woe to him who increases what is not his, how long? And to him who loads himself with many pledges, will not your creditors rise up suddenly? Will they not awaken who oppress you? And you will become their booty because you have plundered many nations and all the remnant of the people shall plunder you because of men's blood and the violence of the land and the city and all who dwell in it. Woe to him who covets evil against again for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of disaster and give shameful counsel to your house, cutting off many peoples and sin against your soul. For the stone will cry out from the wall and the beam from the timbers will answer it. Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed and establishes a city by iniquity. Behold, it is not of the Lord of hosts that the people labor to feed the fire and nations weary themselves in vain. Will the earth, 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 gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness. You are filled with shame instead of glory. You also drink and be exposed as uncircumcised. The cup of the Lord's right hand will be turned against you and utter shame will be on your glory. For the violence done to Lebanon will cover you and the plunder of beasts which made them afraid because of men's blood and the violence of the land and the city and all who dwell in it. What profit is the image that its maker should carve it? The molded image, a teacher of lies that the maker of its mold should trust in it to make mute idols. Woe to him who says to wood, awake, to silent stone, arise, it shall teach. Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver and yet in it there is no breath at all. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet Ashigonos. Oh Lord, I have heard your speech and was afraid. Oh Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy. So Habakkuk, the prophet is crying to the Lord and he's saying, why is there no justice? Why are my people the way they are? Remember, he's a prophet to Judah and he says there is no justice, there is no mercy. The law has been perverted, very much a description of what we find around us today. And I think that that's one of the reasons why this passage is relevant, because there's a cry from many of us in saying, well, why is justice perverted? Why does even the Supreme Court rule on partisan basis and not on just and legal basis? And so there's a cry going out from him, there's a cry that goes out from many who are longing for righteousness, who are longing for justice in this world. And the Lord's answer is, you ain't seen nothing yet. You think you've got trouble? Wait till I send the Chaldeans, it's called the Chaldeans here, really Babylon. Wait till I send Babylon and then you'll have some trouble. Babylon is going to really give you a lot of trouble. And of course, his response is, and that's the Lord's replies in chapter one from verse five through verse 11. And then his response in verse 12 of chapter one is Lord, well, how can this be? That, yeah, we're not where we should be. We're not as spiritual as we should be and we have our problems, but these people are worse than us. Now, how can you then use people who are worse than us to judge us? How can they, why don't you destroy them? And why are you exalting them above us? And of course, the Lord's answer is hidden, but he is saying he's going to use this nation to discipline Israel so that Israel will turn, or Judah, so that Judah will return back to God. Many times we look at our own situation and we say, well, Lord, why do the, as David says, why do the nations, the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? Why are the enemies against us? And why does it seem that you're helping the enemies against us? Well, God is using our enemies against us in order to bring us to himself, in order to teach us that we need to put him first, that we need to get our hearts and our lives right before him. And so he uses these things in order to discipline us as he disciplines Judah. And then the Lord answers him in verse two again. So he asks the second question. The Lord's second answer is write the vision, verse two of chapter two, and make it plain on tablets that you may run who reads with it. And so the Lord then gives him a vision, which we're gonna look at this evening. 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. And so the Lord says, I'm going to give you another vision. But this vision is not now, it is for a later time. Now, in between, what was gonna happen was that Babylon was going to come and destroy Jerusalem, destroy the temple, the people would be carried away to Babylon in three successive waves of captives going to Babylon over a period of time. Amongst those, remember, is Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and Zerubbabel, and Ezra, these men. And so they're carried away, and then the Lord brings them back. And the temple is rebuilt, and Jerusalem is rebuilt, and Israel becomes a nation again, or Judah becomes a nation again. And so he's saying, this is not now, this is in the future. So this is at least 70 years in the future. They were in captivity for 70 years. The 70 years equated to, for every year, that they did not let the land lie fallow. They were supposed to work the land for six years, and the seventh year the land was to lie fallow. It was not to be worked, the land had to be rested. They didn't rest the land, and so for all of those years that they did not rest the land, God takes them into captivity for those 70 years. But when he says it's still in the future, it has an intermediate fulfillment in the return of Israel and the destruction of Babylon, because Babylon then, you remember in the book of Daniel, when we did the book of Daniel, Babylon is overthrown by the Medes and the Persians, who come in and they take over the kingdom. So that is a partial fulfillment of what we're gonna see in the next chapter. But remember, we also said that there is an ultimate fulfillment. And you'll see that in verse three, he says, for the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it will speak. So the end was not 70 years ahead. The end was when Jesus comes again. How do we know that that is definitely so? Well, because at the end of verse three, though it tarries, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry. This is quoted, remember, in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 37. But in Hebrews, he changes it and it says, not it, but he. So it becomes Jesus, who will come and will not tarry. And so his answer really to them is, I'm going to allow the heathen to discipline you. But in the end, when Jesus comes, righteousness will be established. Not before that. That's very important to understand, to get our understanding right. Because right now, we're in a situation where many righteous Christians, there are not many, many Christians, most Christians in the world today are just going with the flow. And they're just going with the world. And in fact, they're very much participating in the things of the world, not just in the politics, but in the lifestyle and the values and the various things of the world, which we're going to see in this coming chapter. But there is a remnant who are crying out to God and saying, Lord, what's happening to your church? The church is being destroyed. The church is being divided. The church is going down the tubes. Everything is just falling apart. When will these things be restored? And then there are false prophets who are saying, don't worry, everything is going to be fine. We will not die. Remember Habakkuk says, we won't die. And so there are those who are saying, no, this is not going to be the end. Everything is going to be all right. Everything is going to work out. No, God is judging his people. And the same way as God sent Babylon to deal with Judah, God has sent the world to deal with his church. I'm not going to get more specific with that, but there are certain sectors of American society that God has allowed to be raised up to judge the church, to discipline the church. And unfortunately, in the process, many are defecting to the enemy instead of standing for the truth. So having said those things, verse four says, behold, the proud, his soul is not upright in him. Now we're going to come back to this idea. He's going to come back to this idea of the proud. His soul is not upright in him. But the just will live by his faith. And remember this verse is quoted three times in the New Testament, very important verse. So he is juxtaposing or comparing, putting it opposites really, the proud and the just. The proud and the just, we would say, well, the proud and the humble are opposites. No, here he is saying the proud and the just. Why are they just? Because they are living by faith. Why do they live by faith? Because they are not proud. They're not saying I can do this. I can live the Christian life. They are living by the faith of the son of God who gave himself, loved them and gave himself for them. And so they are walking in humility and independence before God, that God may keep us, that God may carry us, that God may see us through. And so that's a crucial understanding of how we will survive these times. We will not survive them if we are those who are singing these rah-rah songs, we will overcome. And I'm not meaning the world song, we will overcome, but Christians sing songs of victory and overcoming and we're going to beat the devil up and we're going to rule the world. They are the proud by definition, but those who walk by faith say, Lord, we don't know how we'll survive this time. And remember, Israel was in for a terrible, terrible time. Many will be killed. Most will be carried away in captivity. But those who walked humbly with God, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the few stood because they walked by faith. We must walk by faith. And so now we get to where we were last week. So verse five, indeed, because he transgressed by wine, now God is going to speak against Babylon, but not just against Babylon, but all of those who adopt the values of Babylon. And he's going to pronounce five woes against Babylon. And remember that many times in scripture, we find this thing that God pronounces a series of woes against various people. In the beginning of Isaiah, the first six chapters of Isaiah, there are six woes pronounced against those who, the land barons and against the princes and against the priests who pervert justice and so on. So there's six woes in the beginning of Isaiah. Here, there are five woes. So indeed, verse five, let's get it on the screen. Because he transgresses by wine, he is a proud man. There's the proud man. And he does not stay at home. Now, this is not talking about, it's a good thing that we stay at home. We're not out on the streets all the time, but that's not what he's talking about here. He's talking about he's not taking care of his home affairs. He is meddling, but he's not just meddling, he's also conquering. He's out there trying to gain territory. Instead of looking after what he's got, he is grabbing more. And we'll see that a bit further. But because he enlarges his desire as hell or as shul, death, we heard about this evening, is never satisfied. Death never gets enough. I was saying there's enough dead people. Every day, thousands, thousands and thousands are dying, and death is never satisfied. Hell is never full. And so he's saying just like hell is never satisfied, Babylon is never satisfied with its territory. It is reaching out to new territory all the time. And he is like death and cannot be satisfied. He gathers to himself all nations and heaps up for himself all peoples. Now, here's the first woe in verse six. First woe runs from verse six through eight. Each woe is three verses, and this is in the form of a poem or a song. And so there's a particular rhythm to it in the Hebrew, which we obviously lose in the English, but they've retained the verses. And so we have three verses to each of the five woes. So six through eight, nine through 11, 12 through 14, 15 through 17, and then 18 through 20. So the first woe is against selfish ambition. We've spoken about that recently in a slightly different context. And so let's look at that. Will not all these who take up a proverb against them and a taunting riddle against him say, woe to him, there's the word woe, woe to him who increases what is not his. In other words, he is grabbing more. He is ambitious. And to him who loads himself with many pledges. The pledges here refers to getting people to pledge allegiance to him. These are not pledges. We use the word pledges in two contexts. The one is in the sense of money. So I pledge to give a certain amount of money. It's a promise to pay money. Churches use pledges. I think many years ago this church had a building fund and you pledged to pay a certain amount of money into the building fund. But pledges are also used in the sense that we have the pledge of allegiance. And so Americans say the pledge of allegiance, promising, the same way as you promise to pay money, you promise allegiance to the country. Now there are churches who expect people when they join the church to do a pledge of allegiance to the church, sometimes even to the pastor. And so he says they are gathering pledges, with many pledges. Will not your creditors rise up suddenly? Will they not turn against you, in other words? Will they not awaken who oppress you? And you will become their booty. In other words, what you've done to others, they will do to you. Because you have plundered, verse eight, sorry, I'm not keeping up on the slides. I need to stick to the slides. Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnants of the people will plunder you, because of men's blood and the violence of the land and the city and of all who dwell in it. Now what you can see here is that he is saying that the very thing that you inflicted on others will be inflicted on you. Now he's speaking about Babylon. So remember the context. He's saying, the prophet's saying, Lord, why is things so hard for us? God says, it's gonna get harder, I'm gonna send Babylon. He says, well, how can you use Babylon against us because they're worse than us? God is saying, in the end, I'm going to deal with them. And whatever they've done to you, they will get worse. But there's also a message to us. There's a message to Judah. Because remember I said in Isaiah, he speaks of there are those woes. And one of those woes is the same thing to those who are the land barons, those who are never satisfied and add land to land, house to house. The same problem existed with them. We have the same problem. Ambition, selfish ambition is, as I've said before, the most dangerous thing that can get into any church and unfortunately is present in any church. And when that goes unchecked, it becomes a massive, massive problem. It's worse than sin. Sin can be dealt with relatively easy. Wrong doctrine can be dealt with relatively easily. But selfish ambition is almost impossible because it is rooted in the heart of man. And in order to express that selfish ambition, people use manipulation and lies and cheating and all sorts of politics and all sorts of nonsense. It's a very, very dangerous thing. Now he's saying, if you bring other people under your control, we're not talking here about leading people and discipling people in the Christian sense. But there are many Christians who want control, who want to bring people in subjection to them, who want people to pledge allegiance to them. Maybe not in a formal allegiance, as I've said earlier, like some churches do, but they really want the unspoken statement that I'll do what you want me to do. I'm your man. And so God will deal with that. And as much as he dealt with Babylon, he will deal with us if we do the same thing. Now the second woe is in verse nine. And this woe is against covetousness. Woe to him who covets evil, who covets evil gain for his house. In other words, he wants, the word gain is mostly used in the New Testament or in the Old Testament also in the Bible as profit. What will a man be profited if he gain the whole world? So woe to him who covets evil gain, who wants more that he may set his nest on high, that he may build a big house, that he may be delivered from the power of disaster. In other words, that he may isolate or insulate himself from disaster. Something that the world is very good at. The world tries very hard to make sure that there's enough money so that when hard times come, when disaster comes, we are above the flood and we're able to survive. So again, you can see how this applies to us today. Verse 10, you give shameful counsel to your house, cutting off many peoples and sin against your soul. Folks, it's bad advice to teach our children. When he speaks about your house, he's not speaking about the buildings, he's talking about the family. To teach our family to be ambitious for worldly things. The previous verse spoke about ambition for power. Here it's talking about ambition or covetousness for material things. And many Christians believe it's a good thing to teach their children to aspire to become wealthy, to get some great position in this world so that they can have money and they can have influence. He says it's a shameful thing when you counsel your house. What must we teach our children to do? To desire to be like Jesus. That is the highest thing. It doesn't matter if they're poor. It doesn't matter if anything happens, but if they love the Lord Jesus and they're born again and they're fulfilling God's will in their life, those are the important issues. And so, cutting off many peoples. So in order to get ahead, how do they get ahead? They get ahead by cutting others off. I mean, just think of it in terms of traffic. You're stuck on the 405 or the five or wherever and nothing's moving and you wanna get somewhere. And then there's somebody who does what? He cuts people off so he can get ahead. Now, I mean, that's just a stupid illustration, but this is literally what he's talking about. They're cutting others off so that they can get ahead, but not in terms of traffic, but in terms of money. They're prospering at the expense of others. And he says, what they're doing is they use them against your own soul. He says, the stone will cry out from the wall and the beam from the timbers will answer it. In other words, the house that you built out of your covetousness, the very house, the very bricks in the wall, the very timbers in the rafters will testify against you. What a statement. In other words, he's saying the stupid bricks and the wood has more sense than those who are ambitious for material things. Then the third woe in verse 12. This woe is against those who exploit people. Verse 12, woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed. That's exactly what Babylon was doing. They were expanding the empire, the kingdom. How were they doing that? And obviously it's just the way, same way as any other kingdom tries to expand itself, the same way as Russia is trying to expand itself right now by bloodshed, trying to gain new territory by shedding blood. Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, who establishes a city by iniquity. Now, that's a tremendous statement against any form of imperialism. Doesn't matter whether it's British or American or Russian imperialism. The moment we begin to try and expand our territory, whether it's the country or whether it's a church, churches expand at the expense of other churches. And shed blood, spiritual blood in the process of trying to expand, trying to gain new territory and conquer new cities and new areas. Woe to him who builds a town. In fact, we can say who builds anything with bloodshed, who establishes a city by iniquity. There are churches that are established because the churches have been stolen from other churches, from other pastors. We have an example we've spoken about before, not so far from here. Woe to him who establishes a city by iniquity, establishes a church by iniquity. Folks, the reality is there are many, many churches that are established by sin, by iniquity. Verse 13, behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people labor to feed the fire and nations weary themselves in vain? In other words, this insatiable desire for control and for exploiting people, it's a fire that is never satisfied. You never have enough territory once you go down that imperialistic route. You never have enough churches if you see yourself as a church planter in that sense. There are good church planters going to virgin territory who establish churches in areas that there are no other churches, and there are others that conquer other churches in order to establish themselves. Verse 14, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. So here's the good news. In the end, it's not you who will fill the earth with your influence, it's the Lord who will fill the earth. Now, there's a problem with this verse because of all of the verses in this book, there are two verses that most Christians, certainly in my generation, know. The one is that the just will live by his faith, and the other one is this verse. And they know this verse because there was a chorus that came out in the 70s, I can tell you exactly, 1969. It came out in America in 1970. The next year, it was brought to South Africa by a particular preacher, I knew him well, and we used to sing the song. And it was told us that the song was about the gospel and about the Holy Spirit. And so the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. But that is not for now. So that was 1969, so that's 50 years ago. Has the world, has the earth been filled with more knowledge of God in the last 50 years? No, in fact, less. There is less truth, there is less of the gospel in the world today than there was 50 years ago. So clearly, that is not for now. This is when Jesus comes, this is the millennium. In the millennium, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. Nobody will not know about the Lord. Not all will be serving him. Remember, there will be those who are saved who will be ruling with him, that will be us, I hope. But there will be the unsaved that we will be ruling over. They will know about the Lord because we will be ruling by his law. His law will be the law of the world and of the land. So this is still in the future, this is not now. So you can see that what he is saying to Habakkuk is he's saying, Israel is going to be disciplined. Babylon will be dealt with. But then way in the future, all of these things will be set right. And the Lord will come and he will establish his kingdom. All right, now verse 15 is the fourth woe. Now, verse 15 becomes difficult because it's easy to get short-circuited or get stuck on the alcohol part of this verse. And most commentators, in fact, do. Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness. Now, this was true in a physical sense concerning Babylon. And you may remember from the book of Daniel, when I mentioned that the Medes and the Persians conquered the Babylonian empire. How did they conquer it? Not on the battlefield. But the Babylonians got drunk at a massive party. And all of the king's men and all of the lords and the generals and everything, they were all in Babylon. They said the city was impregnable. Nobody can get into the city. The walls had two sets of walls. Chariots could pass each other on the top of these walls. It was built with slave labor. The previous woe, exploiting people deals with that. And they said, no, nobody can take us. And they got drunk. And nobody was keeping watch. And that night, the Medes came and the Persians came and they blocked off the river. So one of the things they did is they brought the river through the city so that even if they were besieged, they would have water. And they blocked off the river and that opened a canal for them to get into the city under the wall. They came in and while all of the Babylonians were drunk, they took over the city. So this does apply in a literal sense to Babylon. But there's more to it than that. Now let me read through the rest of it and then I'm gonna come back to verse 15. You are filled with shame instead of glory. You also drink and be exposed as uncircumcised. The cup of the Lord's right hand will be turned against you and utter shame will be your glory. For the violence done to Lebanon will cover you and the plunder of beasts which made them afraid and so on. Now, you can see that he now brings another dimension to this. He says, you are drinking from a bottle. And remember, they didn't have glass bottles. These would be leather bottles. But you're drinking from a bottle, but God has a cup. And he's introducing the idea of the cup, the contrast. I believe that there's a connection between this. In fact, there are many connections in these verses with the book of Revelation. We just don't have the time. And as I was speaking with John Drey before the meeting, that we don't wanna take too much time because it's important to get the overview, to get the total message. And we can easily get stuck in the details and then we lose the overall message. But when you go to Revelation chapter 17 and verse four, two verses in Revelation. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and adorned, this is the great harlot, and adorned with golden precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. This has got nothing to do with alcohol. Now, when he speaks against alcohol here, of course, that's a problem. And of course, included in drunkenness is any kind of not being sober, whether it's street drugs or prescription drugs or alcohol or whatever it may be, if you are inebriated in some way, God is against that. But that is just one of the things that he is speaking against. Here he is introducing the idea of a cup full of abominations. And in verse six, he explains it. I saw the woman, drunk, not with alcohol, but with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. What was Babylon drunk with? Yes, they were drunk with alcohol, but they were drunk with power. They were drunk with the blood of the people that they had conquered. They were drunk with their expansionism. They were drunk with their greed. All of these things was what made them drunk. Now, remember what drunkenness is. It's not thinking clearly. It's not thinking clearly. And whether you don't think clearly because you are intoxicated, or whether you're not thinking clearly because you're in a state of mind that doesn't think clearly. In other words, you can be so depressed that you're not thinking clearly. That's not a good place to be. You can be so euphoric. You can be so happy because you've ridden the roller coasters at Magic Mountain or at the Dizzy Place and you're not sober because you're not thinking clearly. And so she is drunk with the blood of the martyrs. And if we go back to Habakkuk, woe to him, he gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness, so you may shame him. And then verse six, you're filled with shame instead of glory. You also drink and be exposed as uncircumcised. The cup of the Lord's right hand will be turned against you and utter shame will be on your glory. So the Lord's cup will be against you. Now, I don't wanna go down there too much further, but there's a lot of very rich stuff there that we can't explore. But now look, verse 17, for the violence done to Lebanon will cover you. What's the important word there? For, for, this is not a new thought. You see, because you read the passage, he speaks about drunkenness, now he speaks about violence. And we say, no, these are two things. And in fact, one of the commentators I read said there are two things, the woes here are against drunkenness and violence. No, violence is the drunkenness because the violence done to Lebanon, Lebanon here is Israel or Judah, will cover you and the plunder of beasts, which made them afraid because of men's blood and the violence of the land and of the city and of all who dwell it. Can you see the connection between revelation, the cup of abominations and their drunkenness? The drunkenness that he's primarily concerned with here is their drunkenness for their lust for the blood of men and for ambition. So then he says, for the violence done against Lebanon will cover you, it's gonna come back on you. Remember that he spoke about you're gonna unclose them, you're gonna expose their nakedness. But in fact, you will be covered by the violence that you've imposed on others. Now he says, and the plunder of beasts which made them afraid because of men's blood and the violence of the land and the city. So their violence was against animals, was against men, against the land and the city. Now remember last week I said that one of the things that Babylon was known for, they were the people who initially developed the principle of scorched earth. Scorched earth warfare means that you eradicate everything, that's what Russia's trying to do in Ukraine right now. Why are they bombing the cities? Why are they bombing the power stations? Why are they bombing the water supply? It's called scorched earth so that nobody can live there, so that the enemy or the opposition is pushed out of that. And so the violence of Babylon was not just against the people. They killed the animals, they destroyed the cities. Remember Jerusalem was flattened, there was nothing. In fact, Ezra says that when he first got there, he surveyed the city and he says there were places he couldn't, his donkey couldn't walk, there was so much rubble, everything had been broken down. Violence against the land, crops are destroyed, fields are destroyed, and the city is destroyed, and all who dwell in it. Now verse 18, you see that how he comes back and he says God will avenge this. Folk, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Many times we get tired and frustrated about what the world is doing to us, what other Christians are doing to us. It's not for us to make it right, God will make it right, and he will do so in his time. Now the fifth woe, the last one in verse 18 is against idols, and this is an easy one to understand. What profit is the image that its maker should carve it? The molded image, a teacher of lies, that the maker of its mold should trust in it to make mute idols. So why is the image a teacher of lies? Well, the image doesn't teach anything, but in a sense, the one who makes it teaches himself that this thing is going to help him in his trouble and in his need. And so he says what use is this thing, what profit does it have? Woe to him who says to wood awake, to silent stone arise, it shall teach. Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet in it there is no breath at all. Remember the prophets have much to say about these idols, speaks about a man who takes a tree, cuts a tree down, takes part of the tree and makes fire and cooks his food, and takes the other part of the tree, makes an idol, falls down and worships the stupid thing. And we say, well, you know, this is Judah, but remember we spoke recently about Christian idols. We have idols in the church, we have idols, make idols of our families, we make idols of ourselves, we make idols of preachers. There are many, many Christians today who are worshiping their guru, their cult leader, and I'm not talking about cults as such, these are evangelical Christian leaders that people will travel all over the world to go and just see him and just to hear him. These are idols. And he says, can these things, he's really saying, can these things save? What good are these things? And then verse 20, the last of those, and we're way over time, I'm gonna try and I'll finish off on this verse. What's the most important word here? But, but the Lord is in his holy temple. You're making idols of wood and of stone, you're overlaying them with silver, what good are they? But the Lord is in his holy temple. In other words, the Lord is alive, the Lord is real, and the Lord is reigning. And let the earth keep silence before him. In other words, let everything, including the Babylonians, including the world, including everything else, let them bow before him. Let's draw a line there and we'll pick it up on chapter three. Father, we thank you for these prophets who spoke thousands of years ago. And Lord, speak words that somehow, sometimes don't make sense to us, and yet they do speak to us, Lord. We thank you that even though they're written thousands of years ago, they are written for today. They're written for us here in Sun Valley in 2022. Lord, I pray that you would help us to hear your word. Lord, help us to not be afraid of what the enemy is bringing against us. Help us, Lord, not to despair because there seems to be no justice in the world and there seems to be no justice in the church. And yet, Lord, you are on the throne, and you are in your holy temple, and you know everything and you see everything. And one day, you're gonna set it all right. And so, Lord, I pray that you'd help us to have our eyes fixed on you and not on the storm around us. Lord, that we may remain faithful, we pray. Pray that you'd teach us these things, Lord. Give us grace that we may be able to steep ourselves, even in this book, this week, and just understand the enormity of the message and the reality of this message for us in this time. I pray this in Jesus' name. I pray that you'd go with us, keep us, and protect us. Bring us together again safely on Sunday, I pray in Jesus' name.