Trinity Baptist Church

The Book of Habakkuk

Choices

Habakkuk 2

 

I don’t think we have a way to fully comprehend the eventual impact and results of our choices and how  something that seemed so insignificant and unimportant at the time, years later, becomes life changing.

 

And I suppose it is right to say that all of our life is shaped by the the choices we make. We make our choices and our choices turn around and make us.

The truth of the matter is that at the age of 52, I am nothing more than the sum total of all the choices I have made over all the years of my life. I am what I am, where I am, doing what I do, as a result of thousands of choices made over a long period of time.

 

For instance, I was perfectly happy serving as youth pastor at Rexroat Baptist Church in the early 80’s. I was asked to share a devotional at the roller skating rink for an associational skate event.  The pastor of Mary Niblack Baptist Church heard me speak that night, later contacted me about becoming a part of their staff.

 

When I met with their search committee was the first time I met the girl who would become my first wife.  In fact, she is my only wife.  Lisa was on the committee that recommended me to the church. I don’t know if she had more of a calling in mind than I did or not.  But come next March we will celebrate 30 years of marriage.

 

It was a series of choices that brought us together that began with a very simple decision to share a devotional at a youth event. At face value, it was not that big a deal, but it developed into life-changing circumstances.  And the truth is, we all have stories like that.  We make our choices and our choices turn around and make us.

 

And because our choices matter, the Bible speaks of them often. Near the end of his life Moses challenged his people this way:

 

"This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19).

 

Choose life!

 

As Joshua was an old man and nearing death, he reminded the people of Israel about what God had done for them. Then he exhorted them with these words:

 

"But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD" (Joshua 24:15).

 

 

 

 

 

Many years later Elijah stood atop Mount Carmel and addressed the people of Israel this way:

 

“How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21).

 

Psalm 1:6 shows us the end result of the ultimate choice:

 

“For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (Psalm 1:6).

Then we have t

hese familiar words from Solomon:

 

“There is a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way to death” (Proverbs 14:12).

 

Finally we can add this solemn warning from the Lord Jesus Christ:

 

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14).

 

Every person is on a journey that leads to life or death. Jesus calls it a “way.”  One “way” is wide and easy. The other “way” is narrow and hard. Make sure you are on the right road.  Many take the easy way.

Only a few take the hard way. Jesus is saying to all of us today,

 

“Make sure you are on the right road. You don’t want to end up in a place you never wanted to be.”

That brings me back to where I began. Our choices really do matter. We make our choices and our choices turn around and make us. Never is this more important than when hard times come and life seems to move against us. When trouble comes, you find out very quickly what you really believe.

 

That’s what is happening to Habakkuk.  He is finding out what he really believes. Now God is bringing him face to face with the choice he must make.

 

The little book of Habakkuk records a conversation between the prophet and God.

 

In chapter 1 they speak to each other.

In chapter 2 God speaks to Habakkuk.

In chapter 3 Habakkuk speaks to God.

 

When trouble comes, you find out very quickly what you really believe.  As we pick up the story in chapter 2, Habakkuk is a man waiting for an answer.  We last left him sitting in a wodden tower he had constructed waiting for God to answer his questions.

 

He has been struggling with the activity and nature of God and how they seem to be in conflict.  God has chosen to bring judgment upon His people at the hands of their enemies, the Babylonians.

 

He has been exploring what He knows about God and how long it will be before God intervenes, and without any answers, he sits down to wait.

 

In chapter 2, God speaks and He gives

 

 

 

 

The first one is

 

 

verse 2

 

The Living Bible gives us this paraphrase: “Write my answer on a billboard, large and clear, so that anyone can read it at a glance and rush to tell the others.”

 

God wants to make his will clear. What He says to Habakkuk is not some secret, coded message only for the prophet. Instead it’s a message for the whole nation.

 

The second instruction is

 

 

verse 3

 

God may seem slow but he’s never late. He never delays in order to hurt us. He’s an “on-time” God.

Have you ever noticed how when you are praying for something really big, the answer seems to take forever to come?

 

Very often, when we are really concerned about something, it seems like we have to wait and wait and wait. And if we aren’t careful, it is during those waiting times we are tempted to slip into doubt and despair.  Finally, about the time we are ready to give up on God, the answer comes.

 

Why does it happen like that? There are many answers, I suppose, but chief among them is this: God will not share his glory with anyone.

Sometimes he delays his answers so that we cannot later say, “Well, it was my faith that made the difference” or some doctor or medicine gets the glory.  Very often, God answers in his own time and in his own way so that we end up saying, “Only God could have done that!  To God alone be the glory!”

 

In verse 3, God is saying to Habakkuk, “Not today. Not tomorrow. But the answer is on the way. Hold on. Wait for it.” He even says, “It will surely come.” The Babylonians will be judged, and in the end they will be destroyed. God will balance the scales of justice. But he’s not working on our timetable. Though he seems to linger, he does not delay. Remember that the next time you feel like giving up when you pray.

 

The third instruction Habakkuk is given is

 

 

verses 4-5

 

The “he” refers is referencing Nebuchadnezzar.  The application is to Babylon, but he is the king.  Under Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian empire spread in all directions, conquering cities, towns, provinces, and ultimately whole nations. Nothing satisfied Babylon’s hunger for conquest. There was always another nation to subdue, another city to overrun, another army to defeat.

 

In the midst of this rampage of terror, what should the people of God do? The answer comes at the end of verse 4. “The just shall live by faith.”

 

What do you do when they are killing you? The just shall live by faith.

 

What do you do when the enemy destroys your home? The just shall live by faith.

 

What do you do when your loved are taken into captivity? The just shall live by faith.

 

What do you do when the enemies of God seem to be gaining ground and getting by with whatever they want to do?

 

You remember that “the just shall live by faith” and trust God no matter what.

 

It’s interesting to me that this little phrase, tucked away at the end of verse 4, in the tiny little book of Habakkuk, given almost as an aside, became for the Apostle Paul the hallmark of the Christian gospel.

 

He quoted it in Romans 1 and again in Galatians 3 as proof that the gospel of Jesus had been predicted in the Old Testament. Fifteen hundred years after Paul, this verse became Martin Luther’s highway to heaven:

 

“When by the Spirit of God, I understood these words—"The just shall live by faith"—then I felt born again like a new man. I entered through the open doors into the very paradise of God.”

 

How much of this did Habakkuk understand? I assume only the immediate application of it.  The Jews were waiting for the Babylonians to attack and they are instructed, as the just, to face it with faith.

The rest of it, the eventuality of what it would bring to Paul and Luther was hidden from his understanding.  But for where he was at that particular time waiting on God, that was all he needed to know.

 

The remainder of the second chapter describes how God is going to one day cut Babylon down. The mighty empire will be brought down and utterly destroyed. God conveys that message through 5 woes found in verses 6, 9, 12, 15, and 19. They are

 

 

 

Verse 6

 

That perfectly described the Babylonians. When they took a city, they plundered its silver and gold. They took the crops and the cattle, and they carried off anything else of value. Thus they grew rich through the misery of others. But God promised a day of judgment:

Babylon is going down!

 

Verses 7-8

 

They got away with it for a long time because no one dared to stand against them. But God saw it all, and in due time he would even the scales of justice.

 

 

 

Verse 9

 

This refers in part to the walls of Babylon, in some places 100 feet high, stretching at least 40 miles around the city. The Babylonians thought themselves invulnerable to attack. They believed no army could ever breach those fortifications.

 

But look at what verse 11 says.

 

Many years later Belshazzar, the last king of Babylon, would give a grand banquet that turned into a drunken orgy that was interrupted by the sight of a finger writing on a wall (see Daniel 5 for details). Babylon had been weighed in the scales of justice and found wanting. Now the kingdom would be taken from Babylon and divided between the Medes and the Persians. That very night the king died and the kingdom collapsed. Mighty Babylon was no more.

 

 

Verse 12

 

God hates those who build an empire on bloodshed. Obviously this applies to nations that use military might to conquer the weak and defenseless. One wonders what God would say about a nation that murders its unborn. What does God think about the 55 million babies killed in America through legal abortion since 1973? Surely this woe applies as much to us as to ancient Babylon.

 

In the midst of these words of judgment comes a glimpse of a happier, better day:

 

Verse 14

 

Here God pulls back the curtain to give us a glimpse of the world as it will be when Jesus comes back. There is coming a time when the “the earth will be filled.”  Jesus will return to the earth that rejected him

 

Not with the knowledge of bloodshed.

Not with the knowledge of pornography.

Not with the knowledge of immorality.

Not with the knowledge of injustice.

Not with the knowledge of greed.

 

God intends to fill the whole earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. It is very significant that he mentions “the earth.” When he says that, he means it quite literally. He’s talking about this ball of dirt that is the “third rock from the sun.” He means this earth we currently inhabit.

 

This earth . . .

That had no room for the Son of God.

That mocked his words and doubted his character.

That refused to believe he was the Messiah.

That falsely accused him.

That preferred to let a guilty man go free.

That hated what he stood for.

That accused him of being in league with the devil.

That beat him without mercy.

That made him carry his own cross.

That crucified him between two thieves.

That watched him die in agony.

God intends to bring his Son back to this earth.

Back to the same world that rejected him the first time.

 

One day the glory of the Lord will fill the earth.

One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

One day the glory of the Lord will fill the earth

 

We are not there yet. It will be a day with . . .

Injustice gone,

violence gone,

terror gone,

threats gone,

abuse gone,

pornography gone,

divorce gone,

abortion gone,

perversion gone,

liars gone,

blasphemers gone.

 

A vision of a better day coming and not to some other world, but to this world!

 

Hard to believe this today because we live in a world filled with violence. We see the cruelty and the killing all around us, and we long for a better day. But someday, one day, this world will be pristine and beautiful again.

 

 

Verse 15

 

 

This is indelicate, and it’s meant to be indelicate. Here is God’s condemnation of those who use alcohol as a tool of seduction for immoral purposes. We all know that alcohol changes behavior. A person under the influence of alcohol will say and do things they would not normally say or do.

 

Imagine Vegas without alcohol

Where would Las Vegas be without alcohol?

Where would frat parties be without alcohol?

Where would conventions be without alcohol?

 

God promises judgment on those who use alcohol as a tool to lead others into immorality. You may justify it in your own mind, but God will not be fooled. When you entice another person to drink so that they will lower their standards, you come up against Almighty God himself.

 

Years ago Ogden Nash gave us this little bit of doggerel: “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”

 

That’s what this woe warns against.

God will not be fooled

 

Verse 16 gives us God’s response:

 

In other words, what goes around comes around.

 

“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice” (Martin Luther King, Jr.).

 

Babylon used alcohol for illicit purposes, and that’s one reason God brought them down. Let all who think alcohol is not dangerous ponder these verses.

 

 

 

Verse 19

 

This speaks to the idiocy of idolatry. Who in their right mind would believe that praying to lifeless stone could make any difference? Pray to the stones all you want, bow down before the wooden altar. Work yourself up into a frenzy. Say all the incantations you like to your “god” of metal.  Idol worship is a complete waste of time!

 

It will do you no good.

Your prayers will go unanswered.

Your idols have no life.

The wood cannot hear.

The stone cannot speak.

 

Besides all the other obvious points against idol-worship, here’s the big one: it’s a complete waste of time.

 

And notice how God’s indictment of the Babylonians ends.

 

verse 20

 

Some churches use this verse as a call to worship, but it is more like a call to judgment. The verb “be silent” really means something like, “Hush!” God looks at the nations in all their frantic clamor and says, “Be quiet now. I am about to judge the earth.”

It is a fitting final word from the Lord.

 

 

 

I is as if he is saying, “Habakkuk, do you get it now? I will judge Babylon in my own time and in my own way. Their downfall is certain because I have decreed it.  So hush with your complaints. I have given you my answer. Will you believe it?”

 

In 605 BC Babylon looked invincible but less than a century later the Babylonian empire had disappeared.

 

Waiting is hard!

It’s easy to despair and doubt what God is doing!

 

But God says, “Will you wait for me?”  The world says, “Don’t just stand there. Do something!”  God says, “Don’t just do something. Stand there!”

 

Babylon looks good in all its glory.  I want to tell you something:  Babylon always looks good.  Sin is always shiny and attractive.  It knows how to sparkle and grab our attention.  It always looks good, right up until the time it is destroyed by God.

 

We hear a lot these days about being “on the wrong side of history,” especially when it comes to redefining marriage. The tidal wave of support for gay marriage has become a tsunami, so much so that even some Christians have begun to lose confidence in what God’s Word says.

 

No one wants to be on the “wrong side of history.”

No one wants to be seen as a narrow-minded bigot.

No one wants to be singled out for ridicule.

I certainly don’t want to be on the “wrong side of history.” But I remind you that history is really His Story. It’s the outworking of God’s plan for the human race.

The “right side” of history is always God’s side. It’s never determined by the latest Gallup Poll or by the latest decree from the Supreme Court.

 

Those who line up with the cultural forces of today will find themselves out of step with God tomorrow. That’s the whole point of Habakkuk 2. You can side with Babylon and win in the short run, or you can take sides with God and win eternally.  It all comes down to whose side you are on.

 

Right now Babylon may seem to be winning the big game. They largely control the media, the entertainment industry, the major universities, and the halls of power. They hold sway over contemporary culture.  And they have a huge recruiting budget.

 

They keep signing all the big names.  People seem to be flocking to the side of Babylon.  That’s where the action seems to be. That’s where you have to be if you want to be accepted and current.

 

But I will remind you it’s not over yet.  The only thing that really matters is the final outcome and that has already been pre-determined by God.    

Ponder these words from This is My Father’s World:

 

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done: Jesus Who died shall be satisfied, And earth and Heav’n be one.

 

If you think this world will last forever, join Team Babylon and you’ll have a front-row seat when it all comes crashing down.

If you think God’s Word is true, then join Team Jesus and 10,000 years from now, you’ll still be glad you did.

 

Whose side are you on?  With Joshua, may we say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

 

Let’s pray.