God's Question and Answers Session: Part 2

Text: Habakkuk 1:12-2:20

Title: God’s Question and Answer Session: Part 2

Textual Theme: God is just in his punishment of the wicked.

Goal: to encourage Habakkuk that God is just.

Need: God has just told Habakkuk that he will punish Judah with wicked Babylon which seems to go against God’s very nature of being just.

Sermon Theme: God is just in his punishment of the wicked.

Goal: to encourage Christians that God is just.

Need: God promises that he is just, but often we feel overwhelmed by injustice anyway.

Sermon Outline:

Introduction
God is the everlasting Rock
God woe.
Conclusion

Congregation,

Last week we took a first look at the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk is a prophet, called by God, not to tell the future, but to promise condemnation for wickedness and blessings for those who follow the path God leads them on.

We also looked at the structure of the book. We saw that the book is a dialogue. It’s a back and forth, kind of a question and answer period with God. It starts off with Habakkuk raising a complaint against God, then God responds. Twice that happens and then Habakkuk ends his book with one last talk to God. After his two complaints, he doesn’t end with more complaining, but instead ends with prayer. Knowing that before we even look any further helps us understand that Habakkuk and the people of the two remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin are going to be content with the answer God gives.

The complaint last time is much like one we could bring today. What do the unjust seem to rule and flourish? Why can God sit around while injustice fills the world. For Habakkuk, he saw injustice all around him, and he thinks, “if God really is just he wouldn’t just let it happen. God would do something about it. This is one of those fabric of the universe questions. God you can’t really be God if you allow injustice to happen, can you?

The solution is to wipe out God’s people with an enemy nation, Babylon. So there you have it, the solution to Habukkuk’s complaint.

Habakkuk thinks, WHAT? Why? Why is that a good punishment?

It actually leaves Habakkuk with more questions than answers. God has promised that he is going to love the children of Abraham. God has promised he is going to love those people that he brought out of Egypt and brought through the desert. He promised he would always be faithful. He promised that they would live long in the land the Lord was giving them. Right? He can’t give their promised land to a nation that is even worse can he?

But before he starts into his complaint he starts off recognizing who God is. I think this is so so soo important. As we come before God with any request or any complaint, we have to first acknowledge who he is and what he has always meant to us.

Wouldn’t that be a great way to approach an argument with any person we love. For some reason we get ourselves so angry during arguments that we almost depersonalize the other person. They aren’t our spouse or our friend that we love. They are just our problem. But wouldn’t it be great to start off you complaint saying, Oh wife who has been my partner for so long. Or, oh my best friend who always has been there for me.” Start off with the true and positive aspects of who the other person is and what they mean to you.

Habakkuk says, “O Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O Lord, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler.[1]

The first part of this second complaint is Habakkuk’s reconition of who God is. He starts off with O LORD. In Hebrew, this is a very significant moment. The commentaries say, “Habukkuk envokes THE NAME.” This is important stuff. He begins with by saying YAHWEH. In older english Jehovah. And that name of God was very important. You use that personal name of God only when you are very serious about your praise, or your complaint.

That name Yahweh carries with it all the history of God with his people. Mentioning the name Yahweh makes Habakkuk remember that this is the God who has been with his people through everything. He is always there for his people.

The word everlasting comes out in verse 12. He says, Are you not from everlasting. That concept is so important for God’s people. What good would a God be if he was not there from the beginning. What good would a God be if he was not everlasting?

God is everlasting. Because God is everlasting, his covenant love for his people is everlasting as well. He doesn’t agree to love someone and then reach the end of the contract. It goes on forever. In Genesis Abraham and his decendants are promised an everlasting inheritance in the land God was going to give to them. An everlasting God, will live up to his everlasting covenant to give everlasting blessings. That is who God is that is the way he operates.

That’s God.

Letting foreign people rule in Jerusalem is not part of the everlasting covenant agreement. Habakkuk has a legitimate argument. He says, okay, you promise to save us from our own injustice, but now… this. “Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”

Why are you going to take out Jerusalem’s injustice and replace it with down right evil? You are the everlasting loving God who doesn’t tolerate injustice. This isn’t like you?

Habakkuk promises to wait on the answer from the Lord. And it comes.

God’s message to him starts by assuring him that this revelation of future events will really happen. But what is it about? Not about predicting the future. It is about judgement against those who don’t follow the law of God. Its about the rewards for those who do live out the purposes God put in place for them.

We hear this loud and clear in verse 4-5. It’s the list of wrongs that Babylon will be punished for as well. God will use them as a tool for punishing his people, but then he will punish them for their own sin as well. And listen for that little reminder, that glimer of hope for the righteous in the middle of it all. Verse 4-5 say, ““See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous will live by his faith— 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.[2]

Because Babylon is never satisfied like the grave that always is calling for more, they are going to suffer the punishment from God.

God lays out five woes against the Babylonians. He tells of five reasons that they will be punished. They serve as good reminders for us as well. The first one is in verse 6. Woe to the person who gets wealthy by gouging others. Babylon has done it and God warns that those they have been taking advantage of will rise up against them.

It’s a warning to all of us as well. Are we trying to build a name for ourselves by taking advantage of someone… God won’t let it stand. Watchout.

Woe number 2 is in verse 9. God says, Woe you who are busy building up your home, your own little kingdom by doing things that are completely evil and unjust. Babylon had done that. How about us. The way you treat, employees or customers. The way you charge your bills. Punching in for more hours than were actually worked. Is your house built on evil and injustice. God warns that the very stones of the home will cry out from the wall and plaster and the woodwork will echo back as well. Remember what happened to the foolish man’s home that wasn’t built on following the truth of Jesus Christ. It crumbled to the ground.

Woe number 3 is in verse 12. God says, “Woe if you are an arrogant slavedriver.” Babylon knew how to use the blood and sweat of their captives to do their dirty work. Watchout.

Its for us as well. What do we expect of others. Do we treat them as slaves for our benefit. Do we expect to build up our own reputation on the work that other people carry out before us?

These one seems especially important as you look at a nation like ours where we know that a good amount of the things we buy come from places were the employees are underpaid, work in terrible situations. How much blood was shed just for us to wear the the affordable fashions we wear to our church services. As much as God loves us as his people, there are things we carry on with every day that make him cringe. It is good for us to support Christian labor associations. It is following a godly pattern if we seek to be just in even the things we buy from the store. Woe to those who create their luxury from the unjust blood sweat and tears of unjust labor.

Woe number 4 is found in verse 15. Woe to the demoralizer. The one who gets another drunk just to shame them. God says that will come right back on them again. Today that might be, woe to the bully. Those who do evil things to other just to shame them. Watchout.

And woe number 5 is the most important one. Woe to the idolator. We find that in verse 19. Anyone who looks past the only true God. Yahweh, Jehovah. And finds another god. God really makes fun of those who worship other things than him. Verse 19 is almost comical. 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.[3]

Look to the only true living God. Verse 20 says, But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.”[4] He is alive. He is powerful. Not Israel, not babylon, not any nation on earth today can compare to the power of the living God. He is the only one worth of worship. Those who look elsewhere, watchout.

We can’t end talking about the judgement, justice and love of God without seeing that the promise of salvation through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. The people of Habakkuk’s day did not know Christ. They didn’t know anything but living by the law to avoid the woes of God’s judgement. But there is an expectation of a new covenant with through the blood of Christ. How are people saved: not by being just alone. People are saved through faith. That is the good news of the Gospel.

Paul takes Habakkuk and quotes from it while teaching about grace. Romans 1:16-17 say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”[5]

Faith saves all who believe. The Jew, and the Gentile. The one living in Jerusalem and the one living in Babylon. The Christian in Canada, and the Christian living in Pakistan. In one brief glimpse we hear Habukkuk say faith is what the righteous will have life through. All this judgement on evil. But in the midst of punishment, and judgement and correction is Christ. No matter how dark it is, faith in Christ is always our way to salvation.

AMEN.

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[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984

[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984

[3] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984

[4] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984

[5] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984