Habakkuk 2

Discussion Questions

1. What does “the righteous shall live by faith” mean in 2:4, and how can you apply this to the lists of things about which you’re currently most (a) excited and ambitious or (b) fearful and anxious?
2. Several verses in the middle of the chapter warn against the sin and dangers of unjust enrichment. What can we do to promote economic justice in our communities and in society at large?
3. What can and will you do this coming week to practice reverence and silence before God?

Transcript

We do study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel. If you’d like a paper copy to follow along with, just raise your hand and a cheerful saint will deliver one to you. Joyful. Cheerful. As always, if you look up on the screen, our Wi-Fi network info, password info, is up there, and if you want to download that QR code, you can access our notes and quotes as we start our study today. Welcome to all those who are joining us online today and through the week. We cannot see you, but we know you’re here. And last week we were joined by brothers and sisters from the cities of Agartala and Bengaluru in India, from Los Mochis in Mexico, from Nashville, Music City USA, from Lagos, Nigeria, and from General Santos City in the Philippines. As we like to say around here, welcome, y’all. We are glad to have you joining us.

Well, here’s a little survey for us to start off the message. How many people in here are list makers? Whether it’s in your head, iPhone, scratch pack. Good. Those of you who didn’t raise your hand, I’m not ever sending you to the store with a list of things because you’re never going to remember. Well, I am a perennial list maker. And as my lovely wife will attest, I’m not very realistic in my list making. I make a huge, long list because, frankly, my motto is: How can you get to the end of the day and be stressed out about not getting everything done unless you have a really long list? Am I right? That’s my life. Okay, kidding.

But the reason why I ask this question is, before we start studying our passage, I would like to ask you to take just a moment and think of two or three things that come to mind that you are most excited and ambitious about right now. Think about those things. And then also think about the two or three things that come to mind that you’re most fearful or anxious about, whether it’s personal or politics in the world. Think about those things for just a second. Okay, got your list made? Now that your list is made, tuck it away. We’ll come back to it later on.

If you remember from last week, Chapter 1 of Habakkuk that Pastor Jim taught us through, Habakkuk is an Old Testament prophet. He lived in the southern kingdom of Judah. We don’t know for sure, probably wrote this book around 605 BC, roughly 20 years before the Babylonians carried away Judah into exile, God’s judgment on Judah. And in Chapter 1, Habakkuk is asking some very hard questions of God. He’s not asking them from a position of doubt or disbelief, he fully believes in God, but he’s asking these questions wondering how can God use this wicked kingdom of Babylon to judge Judah. How can he? It seems like turning a blind eye to all of this wickedness of Babylon. Habakkuk is asking these honest questions. And at the end of his passage, Jim read verse one of Chapter 2, which we’ll read again today. And Habakkuk is positioning himself to watch and wait and listen for the Lord’s response. And we’re going to find out today how the Lord responds to him and what He has to say to Habakkuk and what He has to say to us as well.

Our good friend, Chris Wright, from the UK has a study coming out next year. He doesn’t call it a commentary, but it’s a study on Habakkuk, and he recently sent Jim and Kim a PDF to preview. Here’s this quote from the intro of his book. He asks, “How does Habakkuk help us as we struggle to work out in our day what it means to believe in God’s sovereignty, justice and love? How can we live as faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of a violent and unjust world?” And Jim pointed out last week that the questions that Habakkuk was asking, they don’t indicate a lack of faith. Rather, it’s just the opposite. They indicate a faith that is thoughtful and engaged and is asking that question that Chris Wright just asked: How are we faithful disciples in the midst of what is going on around us in the world? And I’d also add: How are we loving and faithful disciples trusting God’s sovereignty, not only as we observe what’s going on in the world around us, but as we observe what’s going on in our interior life as well?

Pray with me, church, and then let’s get started reading this amazing text: Show us Your ways, O Lord. Teach us Your paths. Guide us in Your truth and teach us, for You and You alone are God, our Savior. And our hope is in You all day long. In Your name we pray. Amen.

Well, as I’ve been studying the text this week, I’ve got to tell you in these 20 verses, there’s at least four sermons. We only have one week, so bear with me. Be merciful to me and we’ll fly through this as fast as we can. But I got to tell you, there’s at least four good sermons in this text. In verse 1 of Chapter 2 that Jim finished up his message with last week, Habakkuk says, “I will take my stand at my watchpost 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.” Habakkuk has placed himself in a position and a posture to hear from the Lord. And I would ask, do we, do I, do you, want to know what God is up to? Put yourself in a position to be silent, and then watch and wait and listen for what God is doing and what He has to say.

Verse two. “And the Lord answered me.” And I love the way that starts out all of the hard questions that Habakkuk asked in the first chapter, and then he puts himself in this position to wait for the Lord. God’s so faithful. God answers him. He’s not going to leave us hanging, friends. Moving on. In verse 2, God says, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.” Notice He didn’t say… He’s not instructing like with Jonah to go preach to the Ninevites. God’s not instructing Habakkuk to do that. Rather, He’s instructing him to write this down on tablets so it will be preserved, because we know that the coming judgment of Babylon is not going to take place for a number of years. This way, this judgment, the word of it, the oracle is going to be preserved.

Moving on to verse 3, and I got to tell you guys this is a verse worth memorizing. I was hanging out with a buddy of mine the other day, and I told him that I was teaching this week. I told him the passage and he immediately popped out verse 3. He had memorized it 20 or 30 years ago. Verse 3, “For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end – It will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it,” wait for it, wait for it. “It will surely come. It will not delay.” What a beautiful thing. God is reminding Habakkuk and us that He is in charge. He’s in charge of times, seasons and events. And if His word seems slow in coming to pass, we can trust Him because He’s promised that it will come. And the promises are based on His character. We can trust Him.

Moving on to verse four, “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.” The first part of that verse where it says, “His soul is puffed up,” that’s talking about Babylon. And for the rest of the chapter, we’re going to see that “he, his, him,” that’s all referring to the kingdom of Babylon. And literally, God is saying that Babylon, they are puffed up. They are literally full of themselves, and their soul is not right within them. And here’s this beautiful contrast, the second half of verse four, “But the righteous shall live by his faith.” What an amazing verse! What an amazing sentence.

This sentence alone changed the whole history of the church because Martin Luther wrestled and wrestled with this verse, and he began to understand that truth from God, that justification comes from faith alone, not by our works, and thus was founded the Protestant reformation out of Habakkuk. Just amazing. And we find references backwards and forwards in the Bible going back to Genesis 15 where God promises things to Abraham. And it says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” And then we see Paul referring back to this, quoting Habakkuk in Romans chapter one and Galatians chapter three. And frankly, God is preaching the Gospel to Habakkuk here.

Thinking of Galatians 2:8, “For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It’s the gift of God, not a result of work so that no one may boast.” In essence, that’s what He’s telling Habakkuk here; the righteous shall live by his faith. The Hebrew translation of that is three words, and it literally means the righteous by his faith shall live.

Moving on to verse five, verse five sets up the whole rest of the passage because it’s beginning to describe Babylon. And then we’re going to get to… In verse six, we’re going to start with these five woes that God is going to speak out against Babylon. Verse five, “Moreover, wine…” Some translations say wealth. “Moreover, wine is a traitor. An arrogant man who is never at rest, his greed is as wide as Sheol. Like death, he never has enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.” The Babylonians are described as arrogant, greedy with this thirst for violence and this thirst for conquest, this continuing conquest and enslaving of other peoples.

Moving on to verse six, let’s look at our slide. Here’s a quick look at the five woes and how they break down. And I think they all flow towards idolatry, which is the last woe. And when you examine these categories, wealth by plunder, security through oppression, empires built on violence, exploitation of humans and nature, and then idolatry; it’s painfully obvious that the Babylonians are not the only kingdom or empire that has gained wealth and power and prestige by these means. And if we’re brutally honest with ourselves, I’d like to suggest that we probably see some of those things in our own lives sometimes.

Let’s continue. We’ll keep that slide up there. Let’s continue reading verse six. Here’s the first woe. “Shall not all these take up their taunt.” Again, he means the people that have been enslaved by the Chaldeans, the Babylonians. “Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him and say, ‘Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own.'” Wealth by plunder. “For how? – long loads himself with pledges! Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them,” meaning the Persians, those that the Babylonians had been plundering. It’s going to turn around on them.

Verse eight, “Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnants of the people shall plunder you, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.” That back half of verse eight, we’re going to come back to that in verse 17 again. “For the blood of man and violence to the earth, to the cities and all who dwell in them.”

Verse nine through 11, security through oppression. “Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high.” You might remember how Pastor Tommy taught about that in Obadiah a couple of weeks ago, this very thing, this perceived security of building up on a high place. “To set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm! You have devised shame for your house. By cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life. For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.” The very stones and the beams that the Babylonians are using to build up this fortress of security, they’re built on the backs of the oppressed people. And the stones and the beams will cry out.

Verses 12 and 13, “Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity! Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing?” How many kingdoms have been built down through the ages on bloodshed and violence? The Babylonians are not unique in this. And I love this little breath we have. It’s like a halftime coming up. Verse 14, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” I love that response. In spite of all this, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.

Moving on to verse 15, it starts to get really personal here because if there’s one thing that God… How can I say it? Really, really does not like, it is the exploitation and degradation of humans who are made in His image. Verse 15, “Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink – you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness. You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision. The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory. The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.” God speaks out against human degradation and exploitation. That’s what the Babylonians were doing. And He’s saying, “Your perceived glory, this shame you’re inflicting upon others, is going to come boomerang right back around. And you will be filled with shame.”

And then verse 17, where He says, “The violence done to Lebanon,” Lebanon, as you know, was known for its massive cedars. Solomon’s temple was full of them. Hiram brought cedars to King David and to King Solomon. The Babylonians have gone in and basically have just clear cut these forests, and in doing so, utter disregard for God’s creation, utter disregard for the environment, utter disregard for animals, utter disregard for people. And God says, “For the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.” God loves His creation. He loves His creatures. He loves mankind.

Moving on to verses 18 and 19, which is the last woe. And again, I think all of these woes have been flowing into this greatest sin, this greatest woe, which is idolatry. “What prophet is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols! Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver and there is no breath at all in it.”

Take a look at this next slide because it is from Psalm one 15. And boy, there’s just such a solid parallel here. “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’ Our God is in the heavens, He does all that He pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes but do not see. They have ears but do not hear; noses but do not smell. They have hands but do not feel; feet but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.”

There’s a reason why God ordered the Ten Commandments the way He did. The very first one is: You shall have no other gods before me, and the second is: You shall not make graven images, you shall not make idols. He knows our propensity to take good things and try to make them ultimate things, try to find our being, ourself, our worth, our reason for existence in created things. And He knows that that is not in our best interest, that is not for our ultimate good, because anything besides God will not ultimately satisfy our deepest longings and needs, no matter how good they are.

Well, the last verse here is such a good bookend. Verse 1 of Chapter 2 starts out with Habakkuk being silent before the Lord. And then look at verse 20. “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.” I love how this finishes out because after all these woes, after being witness to all of the evil and the violence done by the Babylonians, what’s the answer? There’s this beautiful contrast. In spite of all of this, God is. God is in His temple, and our right and reverential and proper response is silence before Him. Silence.

Well, how does this word apply to our lives? What is it that God told Habakkuk that might have some meaning for us? There’s been a few things this week that constantly have been coming up in my mind, and I’d like to share them with you. The first thought is: Let’s embrace the long journey of faith. Verse 4 of the passage reminds us that the righteous shall live by His faith. And the Christian faith, boy, it is definitely not like popping a frozen meal into the microwave. It’s a lot more like a crockpot or a slow cooker or smoking brisket out on the deck in the smoker where the motto is “low and slow.” And that’s the way our faith evolves over the course of our life. With the brisket low and slow after 12, 14, 16 hours gives you a piece of brisket that is juicy and tender and flavorful. And that’s what the Lord wants to do in our lives. Our journey of faith is this delicate balance between the dreaming and the coming true between what we call the already and the not yet because from the instant that we say yes to Jesus, He already sees our lives as whole and complete in eternity even though we’ve just started the journey.

One of our congregants told this story, and so not to embarrass him, I’m just going to apply it to our marriage. Kristen and I are going to celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary this November. Thank you, honey. Her only character flaw is her taste in men, as I keep saying, her judge of character. But we’re not any more married now than we were on November 3rd, 1992, minutes after George Lebo said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” We’re not any more married now than we were then, yet we know and love each other in a much more deep and rich and complex way than we did back then. And it is the same thing with our faith. From the instant that we say yes to Jesus, we’re completely justified. We’re seen as being covered with the righteousness of Jesus in God’s eyes, and yet we’ll live this lifelong journey of becoming more and more like Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Eugene Peterson wrote a book a while back on the Psalms of Ascent. The title of this book is just the right description of this process, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. That’s what we’re doing. It’s not a checklist, it’s not a to-do list, it is this following Jesus, this long obedience in the same direction. And as we follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit does this work. And it’s where He begins to change us into the resemblance of Jesus. We’re still us. I’m still me, you’re still you, but we begin to look and sound and smell more like Jesus. 2 Corinthians 2:15 calls it the aroma of Christ. And a couple of weeks ago, Ryan Motta led us in his staff devotional, and he used that verse. And he brilliantly said, “We begin to smell more like Jesus.” That’s the effect. And the change might be imperceptible to us from day to day, week to week, but over a lifetime, the change is undeniable.

In our backyard, we have a couple of really big trees; one’s a maple and one is a tulip poplar, and we planted both of them when the boys were born. We brought them back from Kristen’s parents’ houses, little seedlings, this maple and this tulip poplar, and now they’re 40-some feet tall. They’re giant trees. And you couldn’t see the change from day to day, week to week, month to month, but looking back over 20-some years, the changes is undeniable. And that’s the very same thing that happens in our lives through grace and the Holy Spirit.

John Owen, theologian from the 1600s says it like this: “The growth of trees and plants takes place so slowly that it is not easily seen. Daily, we notice little change, but in the course of time, we see that a great change has taken place. So it is with grace. Sanctification is a progressive lifelong work. It is an amazing work of God’s grace, and it is a work to be prayed for.” Amen. And friends, I encourage all of us to embrace that slow cooker, the low and slow journey of faith whereby Jesus is making each one of us into these beautiful works of art that resemble Him.

Well, part of the way that we embrace that journey is our second point, which is adopt a posture of watching and waiting on the Lord. Our whole lives, we’re waiting on something. As little kids, oh man, we cannot wait for birthday, for Christmas morning, for Easter. And as we get older, we can’t wait to get our driver’s license, to graduate from high school, to graduate from college, to get our degree, our first real job, buy a house, get married. And then hopefully we have kids, and the cycle starts over again, and we start seeing life through our kids’ eyes. We see them growing up and them getting out of college, and maybe them getting married. And then there’s grandkids, and then maybe there’s retirement. We’re waiting for something on the ambitious side, the excitement side.

And then on the anxious, fearful side, what about the other kind of waiting that seems like it never ends, that’s interminable? The waiting for not being able to find a job, the waiting for a spouse that doesn’t seem to be appearing on the horizon. Or if there is a spouse and a marriage, waiting for a kid that just doesn’t seem like we’re going to be able to have kids, or the waiting in a hospital waiting room, waiting news from the doctor on a surgery or a biopsy, a prognosis, waiting for a loved one to mercifully pass into the arms of Jesus, or the agonizing wait of a lifetime to be reunited with a loved one who’s passed way too soon.

So much of our lives seems to be about waiting, and I’d like to encourage you with this, that there’s a third approach to waiting. Waiting on the Lord, intentionally taking a posture of waiting like Habakkuk did. Psalm 1:30 says, “I wait for the Lord. My whole being waits. And in His word I put my hope.” Spurgeon said it like this: “If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts, for blessed are all that they that wait for Him. He is worth waiting for.” Amen to that. “The waiting itself is beneficial to us. It tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes. The Lord’s people have always been a waiting people.” And isn’t that a great thought to remember as we’re waiting on the Lord? We’re waiting not only for transitory temporal blessings, which are good, but we’re waiting for the Lord Himself in our lives, and He is worth the wait.

There’s this fellow that I follow on Instagram that’s always posting prayers and Bible verses. And coincidentally, if you want to call it that, he posted something yesterday that I ran across. He says, “In times like these, God has you in the waiting room,” as he calls it. And I liked that. And he said, “In the Old Testament, Joseph waited 13 years, waiting on the Lord to answer Him. Abraham waited 25 years, Moses waited 40 years, Jesus waited 30 years. If God’s making you wait, you’re in pretty good company.”

And I want to add into this other thinking about waiting, to wait doesn’t mean doing nothing. To wait is an actual verb. And I’ve fallen into this trap before waiting on the Lord and doing nothing that at least in my life, that tends towards fear and laziness rather than continuing on with life while we’re waiting for the Lord to speak. Certainly, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but I do want to exhort you not to waste your waiting. If you’ve ever driven a boat on the water, you are going to know what I’m talking about here. It is so hard to turn a boat and make it change course when it’s idling in the water, when it’s not moving.

However, if you’re moving, even if you’re not headed towards your eventual destination, it is so much easier to turn the boat while you’re moving. And in that same sense, I would encourage us not to waste our waiting, not to just stand still while we’re waiting for the Lord to answer us. Philip Yancey talks about this very thing. He says, “The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and the new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass.” Is that what we’re doing in our lives right now with our waiting, modeling God so that people have a longing for Him by what they see in our life?

Well, lastly, this passage reminds me of the need to cultivate a discipline of silence. Pascal once said something like, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” God gave us the Sabbath as the fourth commandment, a day to set aside and rest from our work. And I think one of the main reasons why He did that was to help us remember that we’re more than our work. Work is great. We are made to work. God gives us our work. Whatever job we are currently doing, it’s a gift of the Lord. It is a good thing, it is a holy thing, and yet we’re more than our work. That’s what the Sabbath is for. Cultivating silence in our lives does the same thing for all of the noise in our lives. It helps us put all that we’re ambitious about, all that we’re anxious about. All of the ambient noise of the world and the culture around it, it puts all of that noise in its proper place, and it lets us know, it reminds us that we’re more than our hopes, our dreams, our fears, certainly more than what the world is loudly telling us we are. We are more than all of that. And I would just suggest that cultivating a rhythm of silence is vital.

International bestselling author, Kim Thomas, puts it this way: “It is in silence that mending takes place. It is there that discovery gives birth to creativity. Wisdom is born in silence. Peace is passed in the river of silence. It is the seed of silence that flowers into strength and courage.” Amen. Well said, Kim. You chose wisely. So did she. Silence gives your brain, your heart, your soul, your spirit, that space it desperately needs to rest. It allows us to properly position our lives into this posture of worship and waiting and watching for the Lord to work in our lives.

Our last quote is from Thomas Merton, a well-known author and monk who lived just up the road in a monastery in Kentucky. And he says, “In a world of noise, confusion and conflict, it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places, love can blossom.” Friends, I encourage all of us, myself as well, to cultivate the discipline of silence. What would happen if today we were silent, not quietly silent before our ambitions or our fears, all of those things that are just running rampant in our mind, but silent before the Lord?

You know how we sometimes say, “Preach the Gospel to yourself”? Practicing the discipline of silence is the same thing. It’s telling all of our fears and our ambitions, “Be quiet. Be quiet.” And I’m not suggesting here that the answer is to live like Thomas Merton, cloistered away in a monastery, unless that’s how you’re being specifically called in your life, but I am suggesting that, since we’re following Jesus, that we emulate the way He lived His life during His public ministry. He repeatedly would go away for silence and prayer, not to remove Himself from society, but to gather His thoughts, to allow the Holy Spirit to minister to Him to come back to minister to others. And I would say the same thing; we should cultivate this same rhythm of silence so we can listen well and love well. Amen.

As the band comes up, I’d like us to do something together. Do you remember that list I asked you to form in your mind earlier in the message, that mental list of a couple or three things that you’re ambitious about, anxious about? I’d like to ask you right now to recall that. Get that up in the front of your mind. Take just a second there. And if you have those things in front of you now, I’d like to ask that you intentionally put those things aside for the next couple of minutes and just take a sabbath from thinking about them. As good as those things may be, as right as it may be to be excited or concerned about those things, intentionally set them aside for just a moment. And we’re going to show three verses from our passage, each one for 20 or 30 seconds. And I would ask for us to just be silent before the Lord, contemplate the verses, listen to how the Lord might be speaking to you. Would you guys stand as we do that?

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs:

“Psalm 150 (Praise the Lord)“ by Matt Boswell & Matt Papa
“Rejoice“ by Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, Ben Shive, Skye Peterson…
“Christ Be In My Waking“ by Simon Brading and Stuart Townend
“Holy Holy Holy“ by John Bacchus Dykes and Reginald Heber
“Doxology” by Thomas Ken & Louis Bourgeois

All songs are used by Permission. CCLI License #200369

Call To Worship: Steady Dependence

Compose our spirits to a quiet and steady dependence on your good providence, that we may not be anxious for anything, but by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, still make known our requests to you, our God. Help us to pray always and not faint; in everything to give thanks, and offer up the sacrifice of praise continually; to rejoice in hope of your glory; to possess our souls in patience; and to learn in whatsoever state we are, there to be content. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen!

Source: John Wesley, edited

Confession: What is Prayer?

Leader: What is prayer?
People: Prayer is turning my heart toward God, to listen and to speak with him.

Leader: What should you seek in prayer?
People: In prayer, I should seek not only God’s provision for my needs, but fellowship with God, who made me for fellowship with himself.

Leader: Why should you pray?
People: I should pray because God calls me to do so, because I was made for fellowship with him, because I need the help of his Holy Spirit, and because he has promised to answer the prayers of his people.

Source: ACNA, Questions 154, 155, 157

Classic Prayer: Esther DeWaal, 1930

Uncrowd our hearts, O God, until silence speaks, in Your still, small voice; turn us from the hearing of words, and the making of words, and the confusion of much speaking, to listening, waiting, stillness, silence.

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