Habakkuk No.4 Six Follies to avoid

Thank you for joining us for this evening's lecture. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him.

Father, as a family we come to you, mature men and women, some in their youth, some in their childhood, but all wanting to acknowledge who you are and know your blessing on our lives. So receive our thankfulness and be present in this service and achieve all that you want to. In the name of Jesus our Saviour.

Amen. A little red, but a fantastic book with you so that you can read it through. What's important is not what I say, but the message that is located within the verses that we're going to read together.

Habakkuk in chapter 2. I will stand, this is a man who decides to go for a walk or a climb up to some pinnacle in Jerusalem because he's put certain things to God and he wants to see if the good Lord will respond to his difficulties. I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts. I will look to see what he, that is what God, says to me and what answer I am to give to this complaint.

Then, the Lord said, write down the revelation. Make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. God is concerned that what he has to say is not just accepted by the prophet but made available to others.

Make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it, for the revelation awaits an appointed time. It speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it.

It will certainly come and will not delay. Now, here's an evaluation of some pagan people. See, he, they are puffed up.

His desires are not upright but, the exception is, the righteous will live by faith. Indeed, wine betrays him. He is arrogant and never at rest because he is as greedy as the grave and like death is never satisfied.

He gathers to himself all the nations and takes capture of all the peoples. Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn saying, whoa, to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion? Havoc could have sung the last hymn. How long must this go on? Will not your debtors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their victim because you have plundered many nations.

The peoples who are left will plunder you for you have shed men's blood. You have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them. Whoa, to him who builds his realm by unjust gain to set his nest on high to escape the clutches of ruin, you have plundered the ruin of many peoples, shaming your own house and forfeiting your life.

The stones of the wall will cry out and the beams of the woodwork will echo it. Whoa, to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime. Has not the Lord Almighty determined that the people's labor is only fuel for the fire? That nations exhaust themselves for nothing.

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Whoa, to him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin till they are drunk so that he can gaze on their naked bodies. So you thought pornography was something new.

You will be filled with shame instead of glory. Now it's your turn. Drink and be exposed.

The cup from the Lord's right hand is coming round to you and disgrace will cover your glory. The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you. Your destruction of animals will terrify you for you have shed man's blood.

You have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them. Of what value is an idol since a man has carved it or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation. He makes idols that cannot speak.

Whoa, to him who says to wood, come to life or to lifeless stone, wake up. Can it give you guidance? It is covered with gold and silver. There is no breath in it.

But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him. Keep your finger on that page but just turn back a few chapters to Daniel and chapter six.

Here's a man who is the king of Babylon. His name is Belshazzar. I said six, it's five.

Belshazzar gives a party in this great metropolis, Babylon, which is a majestic city, the wonder of the ancient world. There's a real old party and just for a lock. The king says to his servants that they to go to Jerusalem and bring the silver goblets in order that, well, they can take them from, they are in Babylon at the moment, they've been taken from Jerusalem and it would be a real hoot to drink from those sacred objects, alcohol, and people will get drunk.

Well, verse two, Belshazzar was drinking his wine. He gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken from the temple in Jerusalem so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought them in.

Verse four, as they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone. Suddenly, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote.

His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way. Verse 30, that very night, Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain and Darius the Mede took over the age of 62. Back to Habakkuk 2. A little boy came to me some while ago in the fast finders and he said, do you know that Isaiah had a horse? And I said, no.

And he said, yes he did. So I said, if Isaiah had a horse, what was his name? And he said, Izmi. And I said, Izmi? How could that be the name of Isaiah's horse? And he said, well, if you read Isaiah, the prophet is always saying, woe, Izmi.

Don't blame me, I didn't make it up. One of our English poets says, man was made for pain and woe and when this we rightly know, safely through the world we go. I'm not too sure the poet was right.

Man is not necessarily made for pain and woe. Man is made for either woe or wonder. Woe or wonder.

Shadow falls from the word woe. It speaks of judgment. It speaks of hopelessness.

It ultimately speaks of hell. Woe. Sunshine comes from the term wonder.

It speaks of a right relationship with God. It speaks of knowing the Lord, this side of eternity. It speaks of an incredible future when God shall use those for whom Jesus died, having perfected this world in his service and for his worship in the eons which are to come.

And if you want, in summary fashion, my friends, the challenge of chapter two of Habakkuk, it is in these two words, woe or wonder. Woe or wonder. Do you ever take time to ask God about his concerns for your life? Is there a place maybe in your home, maybe in the countryside, maybe outside the town where you go and you pause before the Lord and you ask him to reveal things to you or to confirm things in your life? You see, this was the position of Habakkuk.

This man with this peculiar name, which means wrestle or embrace, he's got to struggle because while he doesn't understand the purposes of God, he knows that his people in Judah need to be condemned by the Lord for the way that they live. What he cannot understand is how God could use a more ungodly people to bring about the measure of correction. And so in honest fashion, he brings his problem to the Lord, and you see him in the first verse of the second chapter determining, I'll stand at my watch, station myself on the ramparts.

I will look to see what he will say to me. And the alternate translation of the latter part of that verse indicates that Habakkuk was expecting God to rebuke him for even suggesting that the Lord might have got it wrong. My point of application straightaway is this.

Do you ever take the risk? Is there a place that is equivalent in your life to the watchtower? Is there a cave, so to speak, like there was at Sinai? Is there a cleft in the rock? Is there a place like there was at Horeb for Moses and for Elijah? Is there the similar place for you to wait for God to speak to you? And when God does speak, how important it is for us to give due attention to what he has to say, and as far as Habakkuk is concerned, to encapsulate that message so that it can ever be checked up, not only by himself but by a future generation. Because what is happening here, you see, which will not be the case for you, but what is happening here is that God is extending his revelation of himself. What Habakkuk receives will be put down and recorded in Scripture.

God has always been very concerned that his word should be written so that the generations that are to come can check it. And when you work your way through the Bible, you will find time and time again the Bible declares its own witness, its own testimony to its truthfulness. The word of the Lord stands forever.

Psalm 119, every verse refers to the word of the Lord. Jesus comes on earth. He speaks that tremendous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, and he says, Heaven and earth will pass away.

My word will never pass away. Peter the fisherman reflects upon the gift of the Bible, and he says, holy men of old were inspired by the Spirit of God, and what they had to write was accurate, was authoritative. Now not only does Habakkuk have to receive that word, he has to make it plain.

The reference here are to tablets. Back in Habakkuk's mind must be those twin tablets that contain the Ten Commandments. Well, in a similar fashion, Habakkuk, when I speak, inscribe what I have to say.

Make your writing plain so that the herald can read it, so that he can take this message, and having inwardly digested it, he can pass it on to others. So what do you do with the gospel? You pour over the gospel, you read about the gospel, you read the commentaries and so forth, and you hear sermons. I tell you, that's good, but it's not enough.

When God has spoken, what he has to say is to be communicated to others who are ignorant of it. And here you see in this very opening verse or verses of Habakkuk 2, an evangelistic commission that applies not only to the prophet, but also to you and to me. And what's more, the reference contains this comment that what God has to say, and it almost personalizes the revelation, is so important that the revelation itself is anxious to be fulfilled.

It speaks of the end. It will not prove false, though it linger, wait for it. It will certainly come and will not delay.

The revelation awaits an appointed time. You say you don't understand. Well what Habakkuk is going to receive from the Lord represents what God is going to do in the immediate future.

But sometimes the immediate future does seem a long, long way ahead. You check one of our kids and tell him he's going on holiday in six months' time, and six months is a long, long time. And here's the idea that the revelation is being given to Habakkuk, and the revelation itself is so longing for fulfillment that it's urging, if words ever can urge, its realization.

So what's all this about? Well, I'll come to that in just a moment, but I want to stay with the point that what God says yesterday, He will perform today or tomorrow. God is always true to what He has to say. He is not impatient.

Two millennia have gone by, or almost, since the birth and the death of Jesus Christ. He will come again. The only reason for the delay is the graciousness of God.

But what God said and came to pass in meticulous detail in the first advent of the Lord Jesus will come to pass in meticulous detail concerning the second advent. You can be sure three, four times packed into this command from the Lord is the promise, the guarantee, that what Habakkuk is told will happen. So Habakkuk is going to be revealed.

It's going to be revealed in the second advent. How do you get onto the woes? Well, the historical circumstance is this. Here are the Jewish people in Jerusalem and the environs of Judah, and they're not doing what pleases God, and Habakkuk feels that somebody ought to come along and sort them out.

God brings the Chaldeans, and this nation of the Chaldeans, well, they can out-sin the sinfulness of Judah, and that was the problem that Habakkuk had. However, what is now given to Habakkuk is some little cameo of society as it was amongst the Babylonians. And overarching this revelation is the fact that God in his sovereignty has the Babylonians in his control, as God has every society in his control.

God is working his purposes out as years succeed to year. Now one of the things that you will discover as you work through these verses is, to quote a philosopher who I believe was a Frenchman, history teaches us that history teaches us nothing. What do I mean? Well, the very pagan aspects of Babylonian society that are obvious when you read through this text are actually with us today, and God speaks out his woes.

You see, here are these Chaldeans. They are the scourge of the ancient world. They are to Jews and Egyptians what the Pol Pot regime was to the Cambodians.

They are to Europe in the 1930s and 40s what the Nazi war machine was. They are to the Middle East and it did look in Cambodia as though Pol Pot was invulnerable. It did look in the Second World War as though nothing could stop Hitler and his armies.

But the fact of the matter is that whether it's Pol Pot just a couple of years ago, or the Nazis 40, 50 years ago, the Babylonians two and a half millennia ago, God has things in control, and he brings societies to book. So here is a prediction of what is going to happen to the Babylonians. But as you work it through, you see not only some indication of what did happen to them, but also you can read out from this text how God assesses certain aspects of modern society, because embarrassingly the common denominators are so clear they hardly need a preacher to point them out.

And the whole of these verses is cast in terms of a taunt. Here are these people, verse 5, they're greedy as the grave. They have a capacity that is never satisfied, as a tomb always seems to be calling more and more occupants.

But although you get a little summary of what they're like in the fourth and the fifth verses, in the sixth verses the narrative swings, and it's not one of the Chaldeans in victory. This is one of those who are opposed to the Chaldeans who see the end of this nation, and they taunt, and they mock. And the woes, they need to be translated in terms of an aha, look what's happened to him.

You remember Maxwell, Robert Maxwell, came from nothing and became one of the wealthiest men in the world. Commanded the media to a large degree, arch rival being Murdoch from Australia. You remember how Maxwell died? Oh yes, they buried him just out of Jerusalem.

He got one of the most prestigious burial spots that any man's wealth could purchase. But when it all came out, although the Chaldeans were not happy those who had been hurt by Murdoch were able to say, aha, that's what he was like. Aha, this is what happened.

The suicide followed by the financial bankruptcy, the collapse of an empire in the city, not only of London, but in financial capitals around the world. And they lived to see those who had been hurt by him, him being humiliated. Well, it works individually, and it works nationally.

So here are the woes. Here are the taunts that are directed towards this sinful society, the Babylonian people. And we are given the sixth to the eighth verse, a picture which could well be entitled, The Plunderer Plundered.

How long must this go on? You making yourself wealthy by extortion? Will not the day come when the debtors will arise? Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you. Now forget the Babylonians. Bring it to the twentieth century.

Bring it to the twentieth century. Because the ethical principles are constant in the Old Testament and in the New. Rapaciousness, covetousness at a national level is judged by God.

Nations have come and nations have gone. And very often it was the greed of the nation, the pride of the nation, which gave it an in-built sense of security, the master of the fate, the captain of their soul, and God loves them to scorn. The plunderers plundered.

The exploiters exposed. Aha, verse nine, you who build your realm by unjust gain, you who have plotted the ruin of many peoples, shaming your own house and forfeiting your life, you who feel that your financial stability is such it has put you on a pinnacle where you cannot be reached by others. The very stones of the buildings that you have caused to come into existence, the very machinery that you control, will speak out against you.

The plunderers will. Jesus once made reference to stones crying out, giving his praise if children were not in his day allowed to extol him. Well this is the flip side.

This is the material objects that have been used by those who have been exploited and metaphorically the prophet is saying, these things that you have engaged in, these buildings that you have put up, these monolithic structures that you have founded, they will one day testify against you. The exploiters will be exposed. The civilized will be confused.

Verse twelve, aha, to him who builds a city? You need to unpack that to understand it. What does it mean to build a city? Well that was one of the first things that was given to man to do in terms of populating the earth. He was to spread around the globe and cities were built.

Cain built the first city. To whom did Cain dedicate the first city? To his son. The cities of Gomorrah and Sodom, to whom, to what were they dedicated? The answer is they were dedicated to materialism.

They were dedicated to licentiousness. A city you see is a gathered community of people. There is a novel, a famous novel of Calcutta calling it the City of Joy.

In one sense it's a sort of kindly comment about Calcutta, how it should be. The fact of the matter is that many of our big metropolises, or whatever plural is of that term, in the world today they are just a centre of deprivation, of need, of exploitation. If you think I'm wrong, if you think I'm overreacting, then I dare you to ask me to give you a copy or to get you a copy of the report to which I made reference a little while ago.

The cities that have been built as a result of bloodshed, that have been established by crimes, these cities will come to nothing. Nations exhaust themselves for nothing. In other words, the very work, the very labour of men who exploit and build their own empires, eventually those cities will crumble.

They will be no more. The civilised will be confused as they discover that what they attempted to do was so unkind, it was registered on the computers of heaven, and the Lord Almighty determined to bring the work to utter frustration. What about the shameless or ashamed? Look at verse 15.

Aha! Look at this! These people who were so bestial in their sexual practices, who used alcohol to stupefy the minds of vulnerable people, who gratified their desires with this evil procedure. Now, watch them. It is your turn.

Drink and be exposed. The cup from the Lord's right hand is coming round to you. The cup from the Lord's right hand is coming round to you.

What a man sows, he reaps. What a nation sows, it reaps. The measure with which you have measured for yourself will be the measure that eventually God will, let me take another run at that, the measure that you have chosen for yourself in terms of exploitation, will be the measure that God will use in bringing about your exploitation.

Hard teaching, but fundamental to the Old Testament, fundamental to the New. Woe to thee, says our Lord Jesus, who caused a young child to be led astray. It would have been better for such a man had he never been born, had his mother put a millstone around his neck.

This is not your gentle Jesus with a candy floss gospel. This is the Lord's Jesus of the Old Testament speaking into the New Testament and in no way qualifying his message. Woe to those who shame others, for they themselves will be shamed.

These Babylonians, or if you like, get some modern group of people, those of you who are aware of the history of the British Empire. Occasionally we have to blush ourselves as to what we have done. Well go to the 17th verse.

The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you. Do some of you think that my concerns for ecology is some sort of addition to the gospel? It's got nothing in terms of a scriptural basis and how do you measure? I bring you to the 17th verse. How do you react to this? How do you react to the parallel teaching in Deuteronomy that you're never to destroy the trees? You are never to so take down trees that eventually as a result of your despoiling of the forests, the soil loses its ability to sustain life, for seeds to germinate, for crops to grow.

You are never to so pollute the environment that you affect a future generation. That is the teaching of Moses. And here referring to the Babylonians, they are indicted by God because needlessly they took down those large cedars of Lebanon.

Lebanon, a beautiful country. After they had finished, they left the land in such a mess and God directs His woe against them for that. And their needless destruction of animals that they terrified, God will bring them to book.

And as it was then, so it is now. You can't play around with these things. The shameless will be shamed whether yesteryear and the evidence is in history or today.

And you'll have to wait for the future outworking to see it. And as for the idolater, well he's impeached. These people who create their own gods, what value is an idol? I mean here is the prophet and he's scorning, he's taunting these men.

Look you've made your God, now you're in difficulty, speak to your God, but he doesn't speak. He's a lifeless thing. You say to your God of stone, wake up, can your God give guidance? It's covered with gold and silver, there is no breath in it.

Oh paganism, of course you say. I mean those poor people in India, they're all duped in terms of their idolatry and so forth. How much Christian material do you ever see in the quality newspapers? How much in the tabloids? How much space this next week will be given over to astrological tables? When you've answered that one, then you've a right to criticize some of the lesser educated people in India, but not until... You see these five characteristics I've picked out, the plunderer plundered, the exploiter exposed, the civilized confused, the shameless shamed, the idolater impeached, the context which drives me to that summary statement for each of these little group of verses can be applied to the 20th century.

It sits on comfortably, accurately on our situation. But, and with this I must try and draw to a conclusion and be more brief. Along with the woes are the wonders.

You see it doesn't have to be like that. You don't have to be in the category of people who come under God's condemnation. The Jews in Jerusalem who were in some ways as bad as the Babylonians, they didn't need to stay in that category.

Why not? Well, because there are the wonders. The wonders of what? The wonders of God's grace. The righteous will live by faith.

Verse four. The apostle Paul takes that verse and he does marvelous things with it as he shows that there's a faith relationship that's available to men and women in his day. There is a different way of life which is illustrated by some of the Old Testament saints such as Abraham.

You see you don't have to live in the category of folks who come under God's woe. You can know the sunshine. The righteous will live by faith.

The wonder of God's grace and what's more, there's the wonder of God's glory. Look at verse 14. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Poor old Habakkuk. When you hear what I'm doing with the Babylonians, hold on. I've got them in control as much as I've got the unrighteous Jews in control.

Habakkuk, this world is mine. One day this world will be permeated with a sense of my glory. The knowledge of that glory is to be transmitted around the globe for this is the God of history.

This is the God who when he speaks demands respect. This is the awesome God of creation and he will bring all things to its final consummation. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

There's not only the wonder of God's grace and the wonder of God's glory, but also the wonder of God's government. Drop down to the twentieth verse. The Lord is in his holy temple.

Now that's not a future tense. It's a present tense. The Lord is in his holy temple.

Well, the Babylonians didn't behave as though they recognized it. Neither do modern men and women. But it is true.

The Lord is in his holy temple. He has eyes that see. He has a heart that feels.

He has a will that is unbending. And this great God demands the respect of all men and women everywhere, Jew and Gentile. And when people give him that respect, when they respond to his grace, when they endeavor to glorify him in their lives, something remarkable happens.

The cup of judgment which the Babylonians drank because of their sinfulness. The cup of judgment and punishment which the Jewish nation drank because of its sinfulness. The cup that comes from the Lord's right hand, verse sixteen, is taken from yours and you no longer have to drink it because there was a man, Christ Jesus, who went to the cross and he paid the consequences of your sin as all the wrongdoing of Babylonians who wanted to get right with God and Jews who wanted to get right with God and us today who want to be right with God.

All the consequences of that sin he takes upon himself and he drinks the cup of judgment. And that's what happened. At the cross, the woe that God directs towards the sin of men is deflected to his own son and he dies there for you and for me.

What are Christians? They are people who have moved from the category of the woe into the category of the wonder. These are people who have known the salvation of the Lord. Babylon, it fell.

Headlines of the Daily Mirror in those days, bold headlines, Babylon is fallen, fallen, fallen. The hand of God, the finger of God on the palace wall caused Belshazzar the king to be afraid. Meeny, meeny, tickle, you fasten.

Your kingdom is in the balances. It is found wanting. And in the midst of the merriment, in the midst of the banquet, the enemies of Babylon poured into the city and it was ransacked.

Babylon was no more. And the Bible takes Babylon as being indicative of the world situation and you move from Isaiah with its prediction of the fall of Babylon to Revelation and it predicts the fall of the world order, the present secular anti-God order. It will fall.

It will collapse. But with the woe, there is a wonder. The Lord is in his holy temple.

Let all the earth be silent before him. The knowledge of the glory of God will cover the world like the waters cover the seas. How do you know that you are in the category of those described by the word wonder? Because the grace of God has been directed towards you.

You've expressed saving faith in Jesus Christ. You want a summary of that chapter? The woe and the wonder. Man was made for joy and woe and when this we rightly know, safely through the world we go.

No. Man was made for woe or wonder and when this we rightly know, safely through the world we go. Let's listen to the first verse of an old hymn.

Surely be when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. From the second verse, from utmost east. From utmost east.

Look at that fourth verse. All we can do is nothing worth unless God blesses the deed. Vainly we hope the harvest tide till God gives life to the seed.

Let's sing that with dedication that we want to be involved in God's purposes and we're going to go on to an old-fashioned gospel hymn which speaks more of the historic plan of the Lord for our salvation. Verse 4. The cup of God's wrath taken by our Lord Jesus. His lovely body beaten and broken for us so that you might move from the woe to the wonder.

So let's engage in wonder now as we sing about our beloved Savior. 2-5-1. 2-5-1.