November 17, 2024 | Sundial Faith in a Stopwatch World: Faith That Asks

Transcript:

One of the things that we want to do here at Berean, one of our goals is to teach through all of scripture. God gave us this whole book, and he gave us this whole book for a reason. So we want to make sure that we, in our times here on Sunday morning and other times, we worship God through all of the Bible, and that is for all of our lives.

Which, there's three things about that statement, about that goal that are important to me, probably more, but three that stand out. One, this is about worship. We don't go to Habakkuk or anywhere else in scripture because God gave us a set of Bible trivia information to master. That's not why we have a book that's this big.

We have it because we have a God who's far bigger than that. And in order to tell us who he is, to reveal who he is in numerous facets, like looking at a diamond and turning it in different directions to see how the light reflects, we worship God. That's why all of scripture matters, because he reveals himself in different ways.

So we worship God through all the Bible. Scripture is not God saying the same exact thing a million times. It's comprehensive. 2 Timothy says all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. God breathed it out. And it's profitable. I heard somebody paraphrase that verse, the next section, to say, Scripture is profitable to tell you what to believe and what not to believe, what to do and what not to do.

That's pretty comprehensive. God gave us Scripture so that we will not just know our favorite passages. But that will know all of it and that will be as that verse, the next verse continues will be thoroughly equipped for every good work. So here at Berean, we want to worship God through all the Bible for all of life.

And that's the last piece. God's word speaks to every area of your life. No, he doesn't tell you how to turn on your smartphone or how to use artificial intelligence, but he does give you throughout his word principles that certainly matter every time you turn on your smartphone. There's nothing we do that God hasn't given us principles and ideas and truths that should shape the way that we live so that we can say, like Paul does, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.

So we want to make sure we look at all of scripture, and part of that plan then is over about the next it'll be five years from now with six when we started we want to have Some form of teaching at Berean some of that will be here some of that will be Sunday school Some of that will be Bible studies, some of that will be some online resources. We want to have some form of teaching about every book of the Bible. Now, if you do the math on how many verses you're going to know, sometimes we're looking very much in detail and sometimes we're taking the 30, 000 foot view of a book, and that's okay.

We just finished up, if you're have been with us, we just finished up the book of first Peter and then we'll have some holiday things coming up, but we'll have a few weeks starting this week where we're going to look at the book of Habakkuk and we're going to say here in this funny sounding prophet, written millennia ago, what does God want to tell us about himself and about us in Habakkuk?

So before we dive into that, let's ask God for his help. God, you are a good God who loves us, and you have revealed yourself powerfully, beautifully, in so many different colors, so many different aspects of who you are, that we can And we'll spend eternity learning more of you and celebrating who you are.

So Lord, would you sharpen our understanding today? Would you help us so that as we seek to know what you have for us in this passage, that we would not only Store away historic facts or learn trivia. We not only know facts about this book, but that we would hear what you as our father want to tell us in Jesname, amen.

Alright, so before we dive into Habakkuk, you, you need to know some historic background. Some of this you, you may know already, some of you do, some of you may not. Um, first thing you need to know is you think back to the kingdom of Israel. You think to the United Kingdom of Israel under Saul first and then David, and then Solomon. And then after that, the kingdom of Israel, ten northern tribes, splits from the kingdom of Judah to southern tribes. And then they continue on, and we could go, we're going to skip a few centuries here for sake of getting to where we really need to be for this book. You get down to about 722 BC, when the northern tribes of Israel fell to the empire of Assyria.

At that time, Hezekiah was king of Judah, and he was a pretty good king. He had his ups and downs, but he was a pretty good king. Assyria came all the way to besiege Judah. God protected them. So now, the ten tribes of Israel have been taken away into captivity by Assyria. Judah still exists. And after Hezekiah, a man named Manasseh became king.

Manasseh was not a good guy. He was not a good king. And idolatry worsened in Israel. Prosperity lessened in Israel and Manasseh ruled for 55 years.

So I want you to pause a second and just imagine if you were a faithful Israelite, who loved God, living in the kingdom of Judah, and you see Manasseh, and you see how he's not a good King and you see the way he's not supporting true worship, he's supporting idolatry, and you think how you would feel. Now take your American experience and move that aside and realize that you're Manasseh is not getting voted out in four or eight years.

So for fifty five years, an evil, idolatrous king rules over what's left after Assyria took Israel, two tribes, Judah. So Manasseh dies. When he dies, you think, oh good, maybe somebody better. You get Ammon. He's not better. He's quite possibly worse, but at least he only reigned for two years. So that's nice.

Then, after him, Josiah becomes king. Maybe you know that name. Josiah became king at eight years old. Is anybody in this room eight? Have any eight year olds? I don't know if I would. I'm close. All right, so you can look around and see some of these young kids. And now imagine that after 57 years of bad kings, wait, I saw somebody's hand, are you eight?

Brielle back there in the corner is eight. So if all of a sudden Brielle was queen, I love you Brielle, but I don't think we'd have this amazing hope that something incredible was happening at that moment. That's what happened though. Josiah had good advisors around him. He grew up in the 18th year of his reign.

He orders that the temple be repaired. Now the temple's been deserted for long sections because they're worshipping at high places and groves and all these different things. He says the temple's going to be repaired. In the meantime, they found the book of the law, the Torah, which had been forgotten. And they really hadn't been following it at all.

They find it. Josiah realizes, We have messed up. And so he humbly repents. He starts purging idolatry. He centralizes public worship in Jerusalem like it was supposed to be. Now imagine yourself as a faithful Israelite again. Here we are. Manasseh's been terrible. Ammon's bad. Josiah comes like, well, great.

We got an eight year old. And then they find the stuff in the temple and things start getting better. So imagine how you'd feel. I'd be excited. Josiah reigned for 31 years. At which point, which you could do the math, that makes him 39. You were thinking, we could still have another 30 years of this guy, this is great!

He goes into battle and he's killed in a battle with Egypt. Well now what's going to happen? The people of Judah, they can say, well, who are we going to put in place? There were basically two choices. There was, uh, Jehoiakim. Who the people of Judah did not put on the throne, probably because they suspected he would be a puppet for Egypt or other outside actors, so instead they put Jehoahaz on the throne. We don't really know how good he would have been because he was only there for three months. He was imprisoned by Egypt who then comes and puts the first guy Jehoiakim on the throne.

Now Jehoiakim reigns. As really an Egyptian under Lord, if you will, he's a puppet for Egypt. He's doing what Egypt wants. And as Jehoiakim reigns, he is probably the worst of the ones we've talked about. So among other things, he threatens to kill Jeremiah, the prophet who wrote Jeremiah. He is, I believe the only King that it's recorded that he actually did kill a prophet of God. Other kings threatened it a lot. I think he's the only one that's recorded that he actually killed a prophet.

In the meantime, he starts to undo everything that Josiah did. Idolatry comes back. Worship is spread out in false worship. He's cruel. He's selfish. That's when Habakkuk writes this book.

So having lived through some of it, we don't know how old Habakkuk was. We don't know how much of that he lived through, but if not him, his parents lived through. Terrible king, for a long time, transition, eight year old, good king, reform, yes, he's killed. Oh, look at what we have now.

That's where Habakkuk writes. This book is written, the section we'll look at today is really two questions, there's a question, and then two commands. So it's question, command, question, command. That's the structure. And we start with Habakkuk's first question in verse 2. Oh, Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear? Or cry to you, violence, and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity? And why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me. Strife and contention arise, So the law is paralyzed, And justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted.

Can you identify with Habakkuk's questions?

He says, why don't you ask when the wicked prosper? Not the wicked Egyptians, not the wicked Assyrians. That's not what he's thinking about because he says, Why do you make me see it? He didn't have the internet. He didn't see what was going on in Egypt. He saw what was going on in Judah. Where Jehoiakim was now prospering after Josiah had brought all these reforms.

He says, this guy's prospering and he's bringing about injustice and cruelty and idolatry. Why do you make me see this, God? He says, I'm looking around in Jerusalem. I have all these hopes for godliness and reform, and instead, we're going the other way. Violence, destruction, strife, contention.

This is different, by the way, from the other prophets, if you look through the Old Testament prophets. Generally speaking, prophets take God's message and deliver it to the people. Habakkuk's different because he's taking the people's questions and taking them to God. He's going the other direction.

He says, you notice the law is paralyzed. That was important because so the Torah, that's the word there. The Torah is paralyzed. The very thing that Josiah found that brought about reform, now, because the wicked are prospering, that law is, is paralyzed justice either doesn't happen or worse, the wicked surround the righteous. So justice goes forth perverted. Not only is justice not happening correctly. It's. Justice is happening the wrong way.

And so he comes to God and says, How long will you be silent? How long will you allow this? I've prayed for, because faithful Israelites have been praying for God's justice and righteousness all along. I've prayed for all these things and it looked like you were answering. And now it's going the opposite direction.

I want you to feel the weight of what Habakkuk would feel because unanswered prayers raise questions, don't they? Sometimes it's even bigger questions. When you have unanswered prayers that it seems like God was answering, and now it looks like it's going the other direction. That's where Habakkuk is.

So I want you to notice from this, this is going to be more the 30, 000 foot view of Habakkuk, but notice from question number one, here's a couple observations. One, Habakkuk refused to have faith without reflection. He didn't blindly just say, yeah, here's God, okay, great, whatever God does. He said, no, I want to ask the question. He has a kind of faith that asks. This is important because you can't avoid questions. God made us to want to understand. Again, he gave us a book for a reason. So that we would seek to understand all that we can. The only way to really have faith without questions, to seek understanding, is to not really engage with God.

When I, when I was growing up, my experience, Was I, I learned a version, a version of Christianity that said, don't ask really hard questions, check your brain at the door, do your Sunday stuff, basically be good the rest of the week, and you're set.

And that's not what I was taught, but it's what I caught. And it wasn't healthy. Now I didn't have a lot of questions. I wasn't walking around asking all the really challenging questions, because I wasn't really engaging very much with God.

You can have a kind of faith that asks questions without being skeptical. We know the difference, right, between a question where you, you go and ask somebody a question and you expect them to have a terrible answer. Versus a question that really is, I want to understand, I want to know. Habakkuk comes with a faith that asks, assuming God has an answer.

Here's a second observation from his question. Habakkuk had a problem because of what he did know about God, not because of what he didn't know about God. See, he knew God was holy and righteous. We can see that if, as we go to the second question, if you went down to verse 12. He says, Lord, my God, my holy one.

I know you're holy. That's his whole point. He says, you're allowing wicked to prosper here. God, why? I know you're holy. He knew what Exodus 34 says, where God proclaims his own name. He says, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity on the fathers, on the children, and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.

He knew God's holy. He knew He's righteous. But it seems like He's not doing that for Jehoiakim and others. who are evil and who are in power. So what he knew about God didn't match his current experience. That's where our questions come from, aren't they? And in those times when you say, I know this about God, but my experience looks different.

One of the things Habakkuk drives us to is go ask God. Don't hide from the question. Because to hide from the question is really to not engage with God at all. So he has a faith that asks, and he pursues understanding through honest questions and prayer.

A third observation, and this really has to do with scripture as a whole, with this whole section of the Bible. Habakkuk is part of twelve minor, they call them minor prophets because they're shorter. Twelve prophets, and most of those prophets are warning, after warning, after warning, and there's some hope coming, but judgment's coming.

Now, if, if you, especially kids, you've probably heard this, if you hear warning, after warning, after warning, after warning, and there's a delay, and it never seems to actually come about, what do you tend to do? Ignore the warning. So, for all of these prophets, here's warning, warning, warning, the delay has to be explained for God's warnings to, to not ring hollow.

Habakkuk is about explaining the delay. About saying, there is judgment coming. Here's what you need to know about it. So we have question one. How long are you going to let this happen? Command number one, God's response begins in verse five. Look among the nations and see, wonder, and be astounded.

Here's his command. Look, be amazed. Worship. He goes on to say, I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.

I love, if you think about, he basically looks at Habakkuk and says, you want to be amazed? You're never going to believe this. That's what he does. You're not going to believe this Habakkuk.

Here's what I'm doing. And he says, verse six, I am raising up the Chaldeans. That's Babylon. The Babylonians is another name for them. That bitter and hasty nation who marched through the breadth of the earth. To seize dwellings, not their own. They're dreaded, fearsome. Their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. The idea is originate from themselves. Their dignity is all based on themselves, not based on anything else. Their horses are swifter than leopards. Now, in a world without missiles and bombs, horses are very powerful, and fast ones are even scarier. More fierce than the evening wolves.

In that area, at that time, wolves would hunt in packs at night. And they were hungrier because they'd been hiding from the heat during the day. So evening wolves are the fiercest, hungriest ones.

Their horsemen press proudly on. They come from afar like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence. All their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. So imagine at a beach you're picking up a scoop of sand to make a sandcastle. That's how they capture countries.

At kings, they scoff. At rulers, they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. If you're familiar with military tactics, then they would have these fortresses, which were almost impenetrable. And certainly, your average, normal, warring kings couldn't really come do anything about it.

But when these empires would come to take over a fortress, what they would do is they'd say, Alright, the fortress is here, it's up on a hill, the wall's this high, we're gonna start a ramp all the way miles over here. We're gonna build this giant ramp. And you're gonna watch us while we lay siege to your city, and you can't stop it. And once we finish our ramp, we just walk over your wall. That's what they did. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth, and they take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men whose own might is their God.

So God says, here's what I'm doing. You're never going to believe it. I'm going to raise up Babylon. They're ruthless, they're forceful, they're oppressive. But you want justice on Jehoiakim? The violence he's poured out, he's going to get worse. The strife that's been there in Jerusalem? Even more strife is coming. The idolatry that's been there. I'm going to bring this nation that worships itself. They don't even pretend they worship their own might. They're going to come up and they're going to accomplish my purposes.

So I want you to notice a few observations from the command. Number one, first, the proper response for Habakkuk is to be amazed and worship. That's where he starts. The proper response isn't for him to be in shock or horror or anything like that.

God says, I'm going to tell you up front the way you should respond to this. Look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded. A nation that treated itself like God was going to be God's tool. That's why he should wonder and be amazed.

Not at the time Habakkuk wrote this, but shortly after, Babylon was going to be the superpower. The most powerful empire that existed. It was going to sweep away the previous most powerful empire. And yet God says, that giant empire that's coming, it's like a tool in my hand to do what I want it to do. So the proper response is amazement and worship.

Second, this is a theme throughout these chapters of Habakkuk, evil contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. Evil contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. We'll see it more in chapter 2, but it's here. Verse 6, They marched through the breadth of the earth, seizing dwellings not their own. They're greedy.

Well, we know what has happened throughout history, when there's an empire or a nation that gets greedy, and they expand, and they expand, and they expand, and they expand, and eventually, their greed becomes their undoing.

Evil contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. They're cruelty. We read that in verse 7 down through 9. They're cruel. They're violent. They're violent. And we see this too. Cruel empire raises up, conquers, conquers, conquers, and then people finally have had enough, and a strong enough army, who's sick of their cruelty, comes and beats them. Usually by being more cruel, but not always. Evil contains within it, the seeds of its own destruction.

Arrogance, Their justice and dignity, they say, that's all based on me. It comes from me. We see their arrogance in verse 10, at kings they scoff, at rulers they laugh. In verse 11, they worship their own might. It's blasphemous arrogance. And God has made it clear throughout scripture, these things, greed, cruelty, blasphemy, arrogance. We know pride goes before a fall. Within itself, as these empires pursue evil. They're sowing seeds that will ultimately destroy them.

And so the pattern is, over and over, we see in this text and the rest of the Old Testament, God raising up empires and nations and kings who do exactly what they want to do and involves much evil, often.

And then when God says it's time, He blows on them and they wither and fly away. That's why you look and are amazed and are astounded.

We see this pattern over and over. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Rome. And you could put in some smaller ones in there and some larger ones since. God is working his purposes in history.

Now, if you're Habakkuk, think back, okay? He says, Evil king, but reform's coming. Great, now it's not. God, why do you let Jehoiakim, who's worse than Josiah, why are you letting that happen?

And God responds with this. Oh, I'm going to raise up a far worse place. Probably your response would be much like Habakkuk. He'd say, that's not what I had in mind. That's not what I thought was going to happen.

So he says in verse 12, are you not from everlasting? Oh Lord, my God, my Holy one, we shall not die. Oh Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment. And you, oh rock, have established them for a proof.

So he says, okay, God, I get it. You're bringing judgment through Babylon. I understand that part. But God, Babylon's even worse than Jehoiakim.

Now, God's exploding his mindset because think back to when Israel comes into Canaan. Scripture says part of that was a judgment because of the wickedness of Canaan. And Israel were sinners, but objectively they weren't as bad as Canaan. So Israel understood the principle that somebody who's not as evil could be God's tool for judgment for somebody who's still sinners but more evil. They understood that way.

What Habakkuk's struggling with now is, God, you just described an empire that's worse, and you're going to use them to bring judgment on Jerusalem?

So he goes on and paints this picture of Babylon. Beginning in verse 13, he says, God, I know this is true of you. You are of purer eyes than to see evil. And you can't look at wrong. So why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent? Notice this phrase, when the wicked, Babylon, swallows up the man more righteous than he.

Now it could go either way. You could say, Jehoiakim is swallowing up some people more righteous than he is. That's true. But you can take it another step and say, Babylon's coming. And yeah, Jerusalem and Judah's bad, but they're not as bad as you're describing, God. So, how are you going to do that?

He paints this picture.

Verse 14, you make man like the fish of the sea, like crawling things which have no ruler.

Picture is, all of the world is like Babylon's fishing pond. And the fish out there have no kings, have no rulers. Now that's fascinating because historically, that's also true. Egypt at this point was weaker, and they had strife about rulers around them. Assyria, when Babylon did conquer Assyria, part of the issue was that the rulers, there was infighting about who's going to be really the ruler. As Jehoiakim and Jehoahaz, who's going to really be the ruler in Judah? Israel spread out, they don't have a ruler. So this picture fits historically with all the things that are going on. There's a power vacuum that's coming, and Babylon comes to its, to the world, which is its own private fishing pond, and brings a big dragnet, and scoops up city after city, after city, after city.

Now, especially in the ancient time, if you did that, you plundered those cities. You got the resources, you got the gold, you got all of these things. So Babylon lives in luxury because of their oppression and their violence. Notice, in verse 15, he, Babylon, brings up all of them with a hook. And he drags them out with his net.

He gathers them in his dragnet. So he rejoices and is glad. He conquers, he oppresses violently and says, Yes, I've got what I want. Therefore, he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet. For by them, in the picture, his military might is like his net. He comes and scoops up nations with it. He makes sacrifices. He worships his own power. That's what he said earlier. Babylon worships its own power because its military might is how it is wealthy.

So he gets to his question. Is Babylon then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?

You see how we get to the question, right? He starts with we're terrible. Why are you idle? I'm not idle. I'm raising up Babylon. Babylon's worse. What are you going to do with that? Are they going to keep going? Is he going to continue on?

So I want you to notice two things from his second question. First, God's goal in this first section here, God's goal for justice and punishment and Habakkuk's goal for justice and punishment are not the same. Habakkuk wants the wicked in Jerusalem to be punished so that the faithful people would have guaranteed prosperity. That's what he's asking for.

God is going to punish his people so that fellowship would be restored with them. That's not God's endgame. We'll get to that. But right now, that's what is the communication issue. Habakkuk's saying, You need to do this, and God says, I've got something else I'm doing first. That's more important.

So their goals are different. The second thing is really from chapter 2 and verse 1. After his question, 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. He says, here's my big question, and it's a big one, and it's a hard one. I will watch, and I will wait. So if you have a faith. That asks God, which you should. My next question is, when you ask God the hard questions, do you watch and wait for the answer?

We've all had this situation, right, where you're walking past someone, Hi, how are you? And nobody even slows down. Just keep going. That's very different from the person who says, No, no, no, no. How are you? And waits. It's a different kind of question. We can come to God with, God, why would you allow all this injustice to happen? And fine, I've got to go figure it out myself.

That's not the kind of faith that Habakkuk has that asks. He has the kind of faith that asks, and then watches and waits. I want to encourage you, everybody in this room from the oldest to the youngest in this room, I want to encourage you, ask the questions that you need to interact with God. God, why would you let me get sick like this?

God, why would you take that person away from me because they died? God, why would you allow this evil? In our world, whatever it is. Don't forget to come back on the other side and ask, God, why would you give me such good grace that I didn't deserve?

But ask the questions. God, I don't understand how this passage and this passage fit together. Would you help me? Have a faith that engages with God by asking. A faith that asks. But do it, and wait and watch for answers. Don't ask and then try to deal with it yourself somewhere else.

So God gives his second command. In his second command, right at the beginning of verse 2, the Lord answered me, Write the vision and make it plain. Says Habakkuk, I'm going to tell you, give you some answers. Write it down in a way that the people who see it can know. He describes it so he may run who reads it.

There's a couple different options for what that could mean, either of which get at the same idea. It's so plain and so clear. It's either you have a messenger who would run, And you say, here's the message, the messenger reads it, and then he runs, and the next messenger comes and reads it. Well, if you're going to have five guys reading a message and then leaving the message there and running to deliver it, you want to make sure it's clear. You don't want a 30 page book they've got to memorize. You want, here's the message, written down, it's clear, go deliver it.

Either that, or, so that if you're running in fear, if you're running in just busyness, in turmoil that's going on in your life, He says, plaster it on the biggest billboard you can find, so that if somebody's running past, they can still read.

This is what I'm saying. Make it clear. And he says in 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. It will surely come. It will not delay. God's judgment, God's justice, His plans may seem slow, but they will happen. That's His comfort for Habakkuk.

He says, You're looking at injustice and you're looking at the scales and saying, It doesn't seem to balance out right now, God. And God says, It will. It may seem slow to you. I have my plans for why it is. But justice and righteousness will come about. Judgment will happen. And he continues to say, Behold his soul, the one who Babylon emptying his, his net. His soul is puffed up. It is not upright within him. It's not good. He's evil. But the righteous, or other translations will say the just, shall live by his faith.

Now, when God calls them just here, When Habakkuk calls them just here, he doesn't mean the sinless. He means those in a right relationship to God.

And Habakkuk didn't know, he didn't know how all this was going to work out. He didn't know how God was going to be holy and just, and yet offer merciful forgiveness. He didn't know all of those details. He had prophecies that gave him little glimpses, but he did know God's judgment was going to come. And when it did, the just will live. Because of their trust in God.

He could put those pieces together. He didn't know how it all worked out, but he knew that much. And in a few weeks, we're going to come back to this verse, the just shall live by faith. We're going to look at three different places in the new testament where that verse is quoted. And we'll talk more about what it means for the just to live by faith.

But for our purposes here in Habakkuk, we want to recognize Habakkuk's message was God's judgment and justice will come and when it does, The ones who will live will be just by faith. He says, write that message and write it plain and write it clear.

And he goes on then to say, just like we said earlier, the seeds of destruction are found within evil. Just like that, he says, evil is going to destroy itself.

Notice verse 5. Wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed, Babylon here, his greed is as wide as Sheol, like death he has never enough, he gathers for himself all nations, grabs them, collects them, scoops them up like the sand, and collects as his own all peoples.

Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him? And he's going to pronounce judgment, and he's going to say, those people that you conquered, that cruelty that you used, Babylon, it's coming back. Yes, Habakkuk, Jerusalem is evil. Yes, they're responding in terrible ways with idolatry. I'm gonna bring someone worse to judge them, but judgment on Babylon will come.

And I'm, I'll paraphrase, and you can go back and read through these, these woes. He's pronouncing, here is the judgment that's coming. But verse six through eight could say woe to those who build their success with extortion or violence. It says woe to those who come and Babylon would come and they'd say, we don't really want to conquer you.

So you just pay us enough tribute. We'll be fine. And you do that with this nation and this nation and this nation and this nation and your greed gets more and more and more. And finally, all those people say, you know what? We're not going to pay. We're just going to come attack you. Evil contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

Greed, extortion, all of that. Verse 9 through 11, we could paraphrase, Woe to those who build their success with arrogant self trust. Notice verse 9, Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm. I'm going to conquer so that I'll be safe. I trust in myself.

And he goes on to say, actually, you're devising shame for yourself by cutting off many people.

Third one in verse 12 through 14, related to extortion, woe to those who build their success with violence. Notice verse 12, woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity. You're building up all of your luxury, but you're actually laboring for nothing.

And the contrast is in verse 14. Maybe another verse that you might not have remembered was in Habakkuk. But you might have heard of it. For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

The point is this, while Babylon and any other empire like that, while Babylon is trying to fill the earth with their glory. Look at all my luxury. Look at all the people we've conquered. Look at all the people who pay us tribute. While they're trying to fill the earth with their glory, God is in the long term project of establishing global worship for himself. His glory will cover every part of the earth. Just like the waters fill the sea. And the waters fill the sea about as much as you can fill anything.

This really is like Nebuchadnezzar. Remember the story in Daniel 4? Who, by the way, was king of Babylon. So after this, after Babylon came, after Babylon takes over Judah and overthrows Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar says, Looking out at his kingdom.

Is not this great Babylon which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty? Do you hear his arrogance? Do you hear? He's trying to fill as much as he can with his own glory. That's the whole point. And then, if you know the story, he went and ate grass for seven years.

Then he came back. Here's what he said then. I bless the Most High, and I praise and I honor Him who lives forever, for His dominion is an everlasting dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand or say to Him, What have you done?

He tried to fill it up with His glory. And from a human perspective, that little corner of earth looked awfully glorious for Babylon. God said, My glory will fill it all, as much as the waters fill the sea. That's going to happen, so even if it seems slow, wait for it. So Nebuchadnezzar continues, I praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right, and his ways are just, and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.

That's what God is doing in judgment. And we can't trace it every moment and balance it out. Sometimes it's judgment for evil people who are prospering now. Sometimes it's God using them to judge others. But in all of it, true judgment is coming. And when it comes, those who are in a right relationship with God by faith will live and will enjoy His glory that spreads across the entire earth.

We could go on. Verse 15 through 17 is woe to those who enable sin for their advantage. Woe to those who make others get drunk so that they can take advantage of them. That's verse 15 through 17.

18 through 20 says if you pursue idolatry, what you're going to find is three things about idols. Idols can't profit you. They're statues. They can't do anything for you. Idols can only teach lies. They don't really tell you about God and who he is. And an idol can't guide you. You're really left to your own devices and your own wisdom. And in contrast, notice the end of chapter two. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. That word keep silence there. It's like we use, uh, hush. That sounds like be quiet. You could say the Lord is in his holy temple. So hush and look.

That's what he's telling Habakkuk. This justice will come. So be amazed. So this morning, this really sets the stage for Habakkuk's last chapter. But this morning, I've got a couple questions for you.

One, do you have the kind of faith that asks God? That doesn't just say, here's some difficulties and challenges. I'm going to try and figure it out myself and not worry about relating to God. Do you have the kind of faith that when there's struggles, when there's things within your soul, you go and ask and then watch and wait for the answer?

Two, Does your faith long for the glory of God to fill the earth? Sometimes it's easy to have a faith that longs for God to fix my problems, right now. But maybe not so much a faith that longs for the glory of God to fill the earth, as the waters fill the seas.

Or maybe a different way to ask that question, Are you more concerned with your luxury, or your comfort, or your glory filling your little corner? Or are you more concerned with God's glory filling it all?

And if that feels convicting to you like it does to me, and you feel that little pain on your foot where God steps on it, don't go out of here saying, alright, I gotta try harder to do it. Go out of here saying, all right, God, why do I care more about my glory than yours? Turn it into a faith that asks, that relates to him so that he will, by his grace, teach you and lead you towards loving his glory above all else.

And the last question, which connects with an illustration, is your faith more like a sundial or a stopwatch?

See, a stopwatch, I can control. I start it. I stop it. I stare at it. I'm going to try to stop it at exactly 6 minutes 43 seconds and 53 hundredths of a second or whatever. I'm waiting for God to answer something and I'm going to start and stop and see if he did it exactly on my timetable.

Is your faith more like that? Or is your faith more like a sundial? At least to modern eyes nowhere near as precise. Nobody's timing hundred meter dashes with sundials. It resists human adjustment. To my knowledge, there was no civilization that used sundials and daylight savings time. What are you gonna do, go move the rock back? Like, I don't know how it'd work.

But I can have a stopwatch running and you can say, well, that's good, but somebody could always stop it. It's not inevitable that that stopwatch gets to 10 minutes. But when that shadow's moving across. You know it's going to happen. You don't sit here and wait and like, Oh, did the shadow move? Oh good, it did. You don't check to see, did I accidentally stop the stopwatch? Did I accidentally stop the sundial from moving? You don't do that. You say, I know this is true. Now how do I live right now in this moment?

God looks at Habakkuk and says, You're trying to judge my justice with a stopwatch. Instead, it's like a sundial. That judgment is going to come, and no human can adjust it. The scales of justice are going to balance, so trust it. Watch in worship. And look forward to the day that God's glory fills the earth like the waters cover the seas.

I invite you to take just a moment and respond to God in prayer. Take whatever questions you have in your soul, and ask the God of the universe to work in them.