We have seen the prophet
Habakkuk pleading with God to do something concerning the godlessness of Israel,
even accusing God of doing nothing about
it (1:1-4).
God does respond, telling Habakkuk that the Babylonians shall be the
instrument of His judgment on faithless Israel (1:5-11). Habakkuk is absolutely flabbergasted by this answer and in 1:12-2:1 we have seen him bargaining with God over this matter. His basic argument is, “Lord,
how could you possibly use people more
wicked than us (the Babylonian
cruelty was proverbial) to chastise your
nation?” Habakkuk is speechless at
this revelation, and in response he says,
“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.” (2:1)
Habakkuk thus applies a ‘wait-and
–see’ approach to the situation.
The answer comes in 2:2-3,
“The Lord answered me: write the vision…it will surely come ; it will not delay”.
This
prophecy was recorded in writing, and now with hindsight, it serves as a proof that the
Lord’s word through His inspired prophet
is certain. It all happened in history.
It is done. The Babylonians did become God’s tool of judgment upon Israel, BUT as we shall learn now, the Babylonians themselves shall be judged by God. This is what we shall consider now.
What follows now in our
text in Ch. 2:2-20 is
God’s assessment of the Babylonians, with a prophetic word concerning
their future. God’s first words to Habakkuk concerning the
Babylonians are these,
“Behold his soul
is puffed up; it is not upright
within him “ (v.4a)
The rest
of chapter 2 will be an explanation of
this fact.
The soul of the nation
of the Babylonians is unrighteous.
But God also has a word for His faithful prophet, who is struggling with this theological problem – this fact that God
here chooses to use an evil people to
punish his unfaithful covenant people. The word which God has for Habakkuk is this,
“the righteous shall live by his faith”. (Habakkuk 2:4)
Habakkuk was
one of these righteous people in Israel, and what he and others needed to do now in this time
of God’s mysterious dealings with
Israel, was to live by faith in God’s sovereign dealings with them. They
needed to trust that God would know how to work outall things for their ultimate
good (Rom. 8:28).
“The righteous shall live by his faith…”. This is a famous verse, quoted in
Romans, Galatians and Hebrews, and
in the context of Romans 1:17, this truth greatly helped the great German Reformer, Martin Luther, a monk in an
Augustinian order of the Roman Catholic church,
who until then had lived his life
in utter fear and terror of God. He was a God fearing man and you might say, a believer in that
sense. But he did not know God experientially. He was terrified of God. He
never knew whether God was pleased with Him. He never felt good enough for God.
He constantly beat himself
(physically and mentally) to subdue himself in order to please God. His
whole system was built on a works righteousness. When he saw that he
could never attain to a righteous life before God, but that he needed to look by faith to Christ, he finally understood that
this difficult life in this world can only ever be lived by faith
in God ALONE. This was his conversion experience, and Martin Luther became a friend of God and a
fearless, courageous man,because he had his eyes now focused on God
and not on situations before him.
It is this kind of faith which says, “Father God, I don’t quite understand what you are doing here in this situation, but I love you and trust you as my heavenly Father, and I know that you are too wise and too loving to err in
this.”
The
powerful testimony of Sarah Edwards is an eloquent testimony to this attitude. When her husband,
Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758), America’s greatest
theologian was 55 years old smallpox
vaccinations had just been
invented, and since they were proving
helpful, he was vaccinated. The doctor however administered too much of the
vaccine, and he developed a fever which killed him. His early death brought a severe trial to his
wife Sarah, but listen how this God centered woman dealt with his death,
in a letter written to her daughter:
“My very dear child. What shall I say?
A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. The Lord has done
it. He has made me adore his goodness, that we had him so long. But
my God lives; and he has my heart. O what a legacy my husband, and your father,
has left us! We are all given to God; and there I am, and love to be. Your
ever affectionate mother, Sarah Edwards[1].
That
is the language of faith in a good and loving God.
This
is a great example of how
“the righteous shall live by his faith.”
God essentially says to Habakkuk, “Look,
I know very well that the Babylonians are puffed up (arrogant) and unrighteous, but I am determined to use
them, and in the act of using them to chastise you, my covenant people, I am
asking you my righteous servant
Habakkuk, and all of you righteous people, who care to listen to the word that
I am giving through him, to
trust me in this !”
What follows in verses 2:6-19 is an
exposition of the fact that God knows that the Babylonians are
wicked, and that He is determined
to exercise judgment upon them once they have done His work.He is by no means
condoning them for their evil behaviour.
Here is
God’s analysis of them:
In 2:5 Babylon is compared to a drunkard whose
appetite for more wine is never satisfied. In fact, the Babylonians were famous
for their drunkenness. Drunkenness
creates false and foolish courage. What they did
was often fuelled by alcohol. It was not surprising
then that during one of their drinking parties described
in the book of Daniel (5:1-4), Cyrus and the Persians were able to sneak
into the city and defeat the Babylonians. That would be God’s judgment on them.
Also (2:5), the
Babylonians were greedy- ”his greed is as wide as Sheol, like death he has never enough”. The
Babylonians, like Hitler and the Nazi’s in my father’s day, were never
content with the size of their empire. They tried to conquer more and more.
Next, in vv.
6-19 Habakkuk gives a series of "Woe" oracles to describe the ‘woeful’ state of Babylon.
Can you see
the five sections in verses 6,
9, 12, 15 and 19?
1. Woe to the greedy who
steal and plunder for they shall be
plundered! (2:6-8) The
first crime is theft – “Woe to him who
heaps up what is not his own…”. This was some 2,700
years ago and still the heart of man is unchanged. Our cities and towns and
villages are full of thieves and everyone has a story to tell about that. Think
also of the political power of many dictators in our world, and how they have impoverished
their countries, and have enriched themselves and their families, living in palaces
protected by private armies, all while
their countrymen and women suffer, and their prisons are full of their opponents
, and the people cry, “How long must this
go on?”(v.6)
God says
… the “debtors will suddenly arise… ”
(v.7). Those who were once plunderers
will be plundered. This will happen to
mighty Babylon, says God. And it
will also happen in the great day of judgment when every
thief in Windhoek and Namibia will be
summoned to give an account to God. There will be no escape.
2. Woe to the dishonest who
get evil gain for themselves - for the stones will cry out against them from
the wall (2:9-11). The Babylonians enriched
themselves by plundering the treasuries and the homes of the people they
conquered. Think of the drug barons, the
loan sharks and all those that practice
extortion. Think of politicians who use
their position to gain quick wealth for themselves through kickbacks and bribes. Our newspapers are full of these things. But the Lord
says: “This will not go unnoticed… For the stones will cry out from
the wall- dishonesty, greed, extortion“, and
the beams of the woodwork will respond
and echo back, “excess, theft, debauchery, drunkenness ” (v.11). The love of money is at the heart of this, and it invites
God’s judgment.
3. Woe to the violent who
build a town with blood for they will weary themselves for nothing (2:12-14). The Babylonians built their cities with the
help of the people they had captured in their wars. When slaves grew exhausted,
they were killed without mercy, like
many prisoners of war in the wars of the 20th century. But think about this: while the Babylonians
built their thick walls, did these help them when the appointed time for the
destruction of Babylon came? No one on
earth resists God. Before God the fortifications were as nothing! In the year 538 BC , the Persian Cyrus launched his attack on the city one
night when the population had a big drinking party. They were relying on the
strength of these walls. But a canal of
water from the Euphrates river ran into the city under the city wall, and Cyrus had the water
diverted, and so while they were boozing, Cyrus’ army entered though that canal right into the city –
without using battering rams or shooting
a single arrow . The nation had wearied themselves for nothing in building
their walls. If God is against the Babylonians, who can be for them?
4. Woe to the sexual pervert
for you will be shamed! (2:15-17). Alcohol and sexual
immorality go hand in hand. Here is a
picture of Babylonian depravity, using drink to lower the inhibitions of men and women until
they had no sense of shame left. But God says
in v. 16b, Now it
is your turn! “You will be filled with shame instead of glory …”. God will
put a cup in your hand to drink Babylon but it will be the cup of
disgrace! The violence you inflicted in
one particular shameful massacre in Lebanon will be inflicted on you.
That will be your future when Cyrus captures the city.”
So, here is the perspective that Habakkuk (and we) need: God having judged his own people with the
Babylonian invasion ultimately brings worse judgment on Babylon. God is answering
Habakkuk’s prayer. Babylon is not going to have the last word in history. This
powerful empire will eventually be sacked
through God’s servant Cyrus, the
Persian.
THE EARTH WILL BE
FILLED WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GLORY OF GOD.
God
assures Habakkuk, “For the
earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters
cover the sea.” (2:14).
This is one of these beautiful verses in the Bible which
we sometimes find in the midst of the most depressing and darkest of
circumstances. God is saying, “Look up,
Habakkuk! Don’t despair. This is hard
to understand, but I am committed to
subduing this earth for my glory!”
God said
the same in Isaiah 10 and 11 in the context of the Assyrian invasion. There God speaks of His judgment coming upon that
ungodly nation. In that context also God
tells the people through Isaiah of a Branch growing out of the root of Jesse.
There these identical words are used, ‘For the
earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea’
(Isa. 11:9). The Branch is a
reference to the Messiah. It is He of whose coming it was said, ‘The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and
all flesh shall see it together: For the mouth of the Lord has spoken’ (Isa.40:5).
Those
words should fill us with hope and confidence.
This is a theology of glory. This is a vision of the
true end: The earth will be filled with
the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea! Obadiah
(same era as Habakkuk, and same circumstances) says in conclusion of
his brief prophecy “ … and the kingdom
shall be the Lord’s” (v.21).
And with
this in mind we conclude with v. 20:
“The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silent before Him”. God is in charge of your world. He knows the way He takes amidst all the current political and
economic maneuvering in this world. This is what Hababkkuk learned at this time . Perplexing times teach God's people to live by faith in God. Rest in His sovereignty, dear child of God. Amen!
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