A Holy Mirror (Habakkuk 1:12-2:20)
Exiles- In the World, Not of the World • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 57:52
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Key Passage
Key Passage
Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, you will never die. You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment; you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish.
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler.
The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.
Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.
Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?
I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.
Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and 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.
“See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—
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 captive all the peoples.
“Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying, “ ‘Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How long must this go on?’
Will not your creditors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their prey.
Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you. For you have shed human blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
“Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, setting his nest on high to escape the clutches of ruin!
You have plotted 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.
“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by injustice!
Has not the Lord Almighty determined that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire, that the 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.
“Woe 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!
You will be filled with shame instead of glory. Now it is your turn! Drink and let your nakedness be exposed! The cup from the Lord’s right hand is coming around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory.
The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and your destruction of animals will terrify you. For you have shed human blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
“Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman? Or an image that teaches lies? For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.
Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’ Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’ Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver; there is no breath in it.”
The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.
Series Introduction
Series Introduction
In this series entitled “Exiles” we are navigating the time of Israel’s history when God led them into exile.
We began last week looking at the history of the nation of Israel and how they drifted away from God’s purposes
They began as God’s promised people. They were His people and He was their God.
As they entered the promised land, God said, “If you follow me, you will be blessed. But if you don’t follow me, you will be cursed. If you continue in your rebellion, I will drive you out of this promised land and you will be exiles in another country. But if you repent, I will gather you back to the land I am giving you.”
So when they followed God, God blessed them
When they didn’t follow God, God cursed them
They continued in their rebellion and God is now beginning to act to drive them out of their promised land.
In this passage we are uncovering principles in how to live in a world that is corrupt and unjust.
How do we do this and still live in a way that is honoring to God?
Recap last week
Recap last week
Last week, we opened up the book of Habakkuk and saw his complaint.
How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
God responded by saying:
I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own.
As we reviewed these passages, we saw some very real and practical truths.
God is just. There are consequences for sin. All of the sin and rebellion in this world will be dealt with.
The king of Israel was a wicked man and his rebellion against God had brought this justice of God upon the nation.
As we go into our passage today, I want us to keep in mind exactly we would respond if we had heard this from God.
Main topic
Main topic
So Habakkuk had complained to God about how corrupt the nation of Israel had become.
The law was paralyzed
Justice never prevailed
The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted.
It was the result of sin in the world, but more importantly, sin in the leadership of Israel.
Law and justice were gone and the wicked were abusing the righteous.
God said, “I am raising up the Babylonians and they are going to wipe you out.
Naturally Habakkuk was unsettled about this.
Here was his response.
Habakkuk’s Complaint
Habakkuk 1:12–13 (NIV)
Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, you will never die. You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment; you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish.
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.
I love this about Habakkuk. Last week, he didn’t hold a protest against the government to express his complaint.
He brought his complaint to God.
Today, we see that he again brings his complaint to God, but Habakkuk reveals his view of God as well.
We might see this as flattery.
God you are everlasting. God you are holy. God you are eternal. God you are my rock.
This is not flattery. Habakkuk was a prophet of God. He was a righteous man.
I imagine this was his tension:
“God, here is what I know about you. You are eternal, you always have been and you always will be. You are the foundation, you are holy. You are pure, too pure to look on evil.”
This was not flattery. This was how Habakkuk knew God. These were foundational truths Habakkuk had learned through experience with God.
This is a theme that we will be drawing from our passage today.
Habakkuk knew God. These were attributes Habakkuk was familiar about with God.
Habakkuk didn’t just know about God. He knew God.
Because he knew God, this presented a problem for him.
If God is all of these things, and he knew God and knew he was all of these things, then how could he reconcile what he had just heard with God with the nature he knew about God?
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
God, we have our problems. But our problems are really small compared to the sinfulness of the Babylonians.
We will get into this more when we move from Habakkuk to Daniel.
What we need to know is that Babylon was one of the most violent, evil and pagan societies to ever exist in History. Possibly the worst in History.
God, if you are good, why are you punishing us and not them?
God if you are good, why are you tolerating their sin and not ours?
We have the same questions.
God, I try to be good. I go to church, I read my Bible sometimes, well maybe not sometimes…how about occasionally. God, I said a prayer and I am a good person.
But I have problems, I have small paychecks, I have sickness, I have ---- fill in the blank.
But the guy that works at that other job, he cheats his customers, swears at work, does lousy work, and look, He is flourishing! Why?!
It seems that you should bring some of that healthy justice that you are known for on that guy!
Then Habakkuk gives us a parable.
I love parables, but his is very vivid and I feel it is something we can easily relate to.
You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler.
The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.
Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.
Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?
We are like fish in the sea
We swim around happily enjoying our lives, not bothering anyone.
We don’t hurt each other.
Life is good when you are a peaceful little fish.
Until the big mean fisherman comes along.
The bad guys are like fishermen
They have big hooks and nets and they catch us
They kill us and our happiness. And it makes them happy to kill our happiness!
Then, he prays to his nets and doesn’t give glory to God. He denies God and makes his own gods.
IT ISN’T FAIR!!!
Habakkuk ends by saying, “Is Babylon going to continue destroying nations like our happy little peaceful fish without mercy?”
I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.
Habakkuk says, “Here are my questions, concerns and complaints. Now I’m going to sit down right here and wait for you to answer.”
He is saying, “God, I know who you say you are, but this doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. How can you be just if you promote the unjust in our world?”
There is a principle here that I think is very important for us.
We often don’t hesitate to bring our problems and lack of understanding to God. We express our frustrations. But how often do we say, “And now I will patiently wait for an answer”?
Sometimes we need to stop talking long enough for God to answer.
God’s Response
Here is how God responds to Habakkuk.
Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and 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.
God tells Habakkuk to write this down and have it done in a way to communicate this message to the nation.
He says, “There is a time that this will happen. Wait for it and you will see it.”
“See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—
As God opens His dialog with Habakkuk, I think Habakkuk was expecting God to talk with him about the Babylonians.
And as He begins, God talks about something other than the Babylonians. He talks about pride. God does a really interesting word play here.
He says, “See the enemy is puffed up. As a result of his pride, his desires are not righteous.
The righteous person will live by faith (or faithfulness)
God is establishing a principle here that we need to understand if we are going to understand the rest of this passage.
The rest of this passage will have to do with the balance between pride and humility.
God simply says, “The enemy”
He doesn’t identify the enemy as the Babylonians as He did before.
The enemy is anyone who opposes God in their pride.
God says, “The righteous person will live by their faithfulness”
We often use different words to define faith and faithfulness. In the Bible, they are the same word.
You cannot have faith without seeing that faith in action through faithfulness.
Faithfulness is the living out of the faith you have.
If you are not faithful, you do not have faith.
So if you are a faithful person. Faithful to what? Faithful to God, His law, faithful to everything He called the nation of Israel to.
If you are faithful, you are righteous.
If you are not faithful, then God has words for you.
We want to identify the “enemy”.
The enemy is the prideful.
Were the Babylonians prideful? Yes
Was the king of Judah prideful? Yes
God identifies some of the characteristics of pride
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 captive all the peoples.
The prideful person believes lies. They are arrogant and never at rest.
They are greedy and are never satisfied.
The prideful person can gain the entire world and all of its people and still not be satisfied.
This person is looking is building their own kingdom. This is a kingdom that is not dependent on God. They are their own god.
God is bringing condemnation against the prideful.
Again, we look at this passage and realize it could have been written yesterday.
As we look at our culture, we live in a prideful culture that is displayed in a heart exactly like what is presented here.
If the choice is faithful trust in God and what He provides
or
Greed and a lack of satisfaction
Where are we?
Where is satisfaction in our world?
There is no satisfaction. The world uses the consequences of sin to create for us a constant draw back to itself where it can solve its own problems
Every commercial on television is a call for you to have more
Better vehicles
Better health
Better food
Better toys
Habakkuk is looking for God to give an explanation about Babylon. But God holds up a mirror and says, I’m not talking about the sin outside of your camp. I’m talking about the sin inside your nation, inside of your cities and inside of your home.
Five Woes
God gave Habakkuk a series of 5 woes
A woe is a denouncement by God saying He sees something and is exceedingly displeased.
As we go into these woes, we might wonder who the “woes” are directed to.
I feel it is very clear who they are directed to.
Last week, we looked at the book of Jeremiah and saw the actions of the king that were appalling to God.
Here is what is happening. God is saying, “Don’t worry about the Babylonians. You asked why I allowed these things in Israel. I want to tell you what I see in Israel. My judgment upon you is right and just.”
God revealed to Jeremiah that the king
“But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion.”
God says to Habakkuk:
“Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying, “ ‘Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How long must this go on?’
Will not your creditors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their prey.
Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you. For you have shed human blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
In their pride and arrogance, the nation of Israel had become a violent, dishonest nation set on oppression and extortion.
Habakkuk wanted the justice of God pointed at someone else. But God showed him a mirror instead.
Don’t you hate it when you are looking to God for justification of anger, frustration or personal judgment of someone else and instead of validating your concerns, God just holds up a mirror?
The pride of Israel had led to a place where people were simply objects for those in power to use and abuse for their own gain.
These were not objects. They were people created in the image of God. People that God had chosen and given a promise to.
“Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his own people work for nothing, not paying them for their labor.
God declares a woe to Shallum the king of Israel to Jeremiah.
Here in Habakkuk God restates this.
“Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, setting his nest on high to escape the clutches of ruin!
You have plotted 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.
The very house the king had built would be a testament to the abuse of God’s people and the anger of God over it.
How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Habakkuk himself paints the context for the third woe. Habakkuk identified the prideful sin of his own people and God uses Habakkuk’s words as the foundation for the next woe.
“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by injustice!
Has not the Lord Almighty determined that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire, that the 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.
I want to take verse 14 and explore this for a bit in our conclusion
In the first three woes, God uses the things that are readily seen by the people of their nation, and revealed by the prophets to the kings and leaders of the nation.
But the next woe is not revealed anywhere. And I believe this is very telling.
“Woe 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!
You will be filled with shame instead of glory. Now it is your turn! Drink and let your nakedness be exposed! The cup from the Lord’s right hand is coming around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory.
Sexual sin is something that tends to be hidden.
God brings this woe likely to the king of Judah, but also to all those whose pride is their own god.
We create this massive divide between the spiritual things and sexual sin.
It is the one area of our lives that we think we are invisible and are hidden.
Sexual sin, pornography, lust and adultery are things in our culture that are now celebrated and glorified.
Here is what God says. You will be filled with shame instead of glory. The objectification that you are imposing on others will now be done to you.
The cup from the Lord’s right hand is coming around to you and disgrace will cover your glory.
Do you think God cares about sexual sin? He absolutely does. Sexual sin lives out the very definition of pride that God gives earlier in this passage.
Sexual sin is the very definition of pride that God gives Habakkuk
“See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—
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 captive all the peoples.
Here is how you know what pride is
Your desires are not upright
The righteous person will live by faithfulness.
Faithfulness to God and also faithfulness to others.
Wine betrays him
Wine and sexual sin are notorious in our culture
In greed, the prideful person is never satisfied.
How much sexual sin is enough. There is never enough.
Sexual sin is something that you can gather all of the world and it will never be enough.
It is the very living out of pride involving others.
To be clear, sexual sin is anything contrary to God’s order of our sexuality.
God designed a man and a woman to be establish a covenant relationship with one another in the context of marriage.
Anything that is outside of that covenant relationship is sin
We tend to look to areas like homosexuality, transgender issues and things like that.
Are these contrary to God’s order for sexuality? Yes.
But so are sex outside of marriage. Pornography. Lusting in your heart and mind.
I don’t want to create a list of sins to avoid. I want to create the path of holiness God puts before us.
The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and your destruction of animals will terrify you. For you have shed human blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
“Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman? Or an image that teaches lies? For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.
Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’ Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’ Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver; there is no breath in it.”
The abuse of God’s creation of trees and animals and using these things to make false gods were seen as a woe at that time as well.
The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.
Rather than setting our focus on all of the worlds problems and asking God to fix them all. Maybe today God is holding up a mirror to us.
A mirror to us as a church in America.
A mirror to us as a church in Newport.
A mirror to us as individual disciples of Jesus.
We ought not operate in our pride. We ought to be silent before God.
Recognize when our eyes are set on the world, we will be led astray.
We live in the information age.
We feel we have the right answers to everything.
We have all the right answers in our theology
We have all of the right answers in our politics
We have all of the right answers in morality
We have all of the right answers in history
We have all of the right answers in worldview
When we see someone operating outside of our right answers, we say, “How stupid!, or How evil!”
We never pause to realize that we are not the all wise, all knowing, all mighty God.
He does not need my arrogance. He needs my humility and faithfulness before Him.
Before we ask God to start judging the world around us, God may be holding a mirror up in front of us.
I am not pure, holy and righteous
I am not all wise and all knowing.
Conclusion
Mirror, not a looking glass