“Isn’t God Holy?”
[Habakkuk 1:12-2:5]
January 28, 2018, Second Reformed
Church
Last week we began to look at the
burden of the prophet, Habakkuk. We said
that he preached in the 600’s B.C. – around the same time that Jeremiah
preached. Habakkuk‘s name means,
“wrestler,” and we see that he wrestles with the message God gave him.
Habakkuk cries out to God about the sin of
God’s people. Habakkuk cries out to God saying
if God does not bring justice and uphold His Law, the people will continue to
sin. And we saw that God answers our
prayers, but, sometimes, He makes us wait.
And we are to be patient and persistent as we wait upon the Lord.
God answers Habakkuk with an answer he
could never have guessed: God says He
knows about the sin of His people and He is sending the Chaldeans to slaughter
them. And we saw that God may choose to
use a greater evil to punish the sins of His people.
Not surprisingly, Habakkuk does not
just hear God’s plan and keep silent – Habakkuk cries out to God again and he criticizes
God’s plan. Habakkuk objects that the
plan God has revealed goes against His being holy. This is not a plan that would be acceptable
to the Holy God.
“Are you not from
everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained
them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof. You who
are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly
look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more
righteous than he? You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling
things that have no ruler. He brings all
of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his
dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and
makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is
rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations
forever?
“I will take my stand at my watchpost and
station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and
what I will answer concerning my complaint.”
Habakkuk objects, “Wait a minute,
God! That doesn’t sound like You. God, aren't You eternal? Aren't You that God
Who made an everlasting covenant with Your people? Aren't You the God Who never
changes? Aren’t You holy? How can You
break Your covenant and change Your allegiance and send the wicked Chaldeans to
punish us?"
Habakkuk objects, "But God, my
God, the God of Israel, how can You favor another nation when we are Your people?
You are my Holy One, aren't You Holy? How can You be holy if You do this awful
thing and send the wicked Chaldeans to punish us?
"No, we will not die, because
You will change back again, O Lord. You will stand for Your Holy Name once
again. How could You be our Lord and appoint them for judgement? How could You
be our Rock, and use them to mark us for correction? No, Your Eyes are too
pure: You could never do this, it will not happen.
"You cannot enjoy wickedness.
You cannot enjoy the treacherous. You cannot hold Your tongue when the wicked
devours a person more righteous than themselves -- can You? Can You sit by and
do nothing when the Chaldeans, who are so much worse sinners than we are,
attack and enslave us?
"It would be as if You made us
the fish of the sea, and the Chaldeans were the fishermen. And they would come
and haul us all up with their hooks and their nets and their dragnets. Do You
understand what You would be doing Yourself? They would rejoice as we are
defeated, but they would not rejoice in You -- they would not give thanks to
You or worship You. No, they would make sacrifices to their nets and burn
incense to their dragnets. And they would live in wealth and prosperity,
slaying nation after nation, hauling them up in their net.
"No, God, You are Holy, God
from all of eternity, our God, the God of Israel. All sin is against You, O
Lord, so You cannot ordain sin. Think again, Lord, and do not make this
mistake."
And Habakkuk goes up into a tower
and waits to hear a response from the Lord.
He gets one thing right – we are called to wait upon the Lord – and He
will answer us according to His Will and in His time!
Habakkuk's mistake is a mistake we
make as well. We know something about God; we learn how God acts in a certain situation,
and we jump to the conclusion that God can or cannot x, y, z.
Some wrong teachings that are taught
today:
"God really loves us, so He
does not violate our free will."
"God is Sovereign; He just
restricts His Sovereignty so we're not robots."
"God is not the author of sin.
Therefore, the future is unknown to God."
These are all errors.
It is not difficult to take a
statement that is true about God and draw a false conclusion.
Perhaps one of the best-known and
well-loved pieces of blasphemy is a book called, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner. I had
to read this book in a Judeo-Christian ethics class in college, and then again
in seminary, and I have seen it in countless church libraries. It ought to be
removed.
Rabbi Kushner and his wife had a
son, the son was born with a horrible, incurable disease, and he died a
horrible and painful death. Rabbi Kushner couldn't go on without an answer to
why this happened -- why their son was taken from them. So he looked to the Old
Testament to learn about the character of God. And he said there were two
conclusions that he could come to: God is Good and God is Almighty – God is
Sovereign. (Both of those are true, by the way.) But Rabbi Kushner asked how it
could be that such a bad thing could happen to his good son, much less himself
and his wife. And he said there are only two options, either God is not Good or
God is not Almighty – not Sovereign. And Rabbi Kushner came to the conclusion
that he would rather believe in a God Who is Good, but not Almighty – not
Sovereign, than a God Who is Almighty – Sovereign, but not Good.
Rabbi Kushner looked at the Old
Testament and saw that God is Good and God is Almighty, and he concluded that,
based on his terrible experience with his son, one of those must not be true.
So, in this book of “comfort” that has sold over four million copies, Rabbi
Kushner says that when bad things happen to good people, don't blame God. God
is Good all the time, and He wishes that everything would go well, but He's
just not that powerful. God is not Sovereign. God does the best He can, but
He's not able to do just anything. Take comfort in knowing that God cares, even
if He's impotent when it comes to your situation.
Habakkuk comes to the opposite
conclusion, God is Almighty, but sometimes He doesn't make the best choices.
"God, I know You're Almighty, I know You are Sovereign, but if You
consider Your Character as You've revealed it to us, You can't do what You're
planning to do."
God eventually speaks to Habakkuk
again:
“And the LORD answered me: ‘Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. 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. Behold, his
soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live
by his faith. Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at
rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers
for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.”
God answers Habakkuk and tells him to
write down the vision that he receives – to write down everything that God is
answering Habakkuk. And God tells him to
write it down and post it in a public place: clearly, in crisp large, lettering,
so every people who runs by or walks by in a hurry can still read what God says
He will do because of the sin of Judah.
God tells Habakkuk that the plan of
sending the Chaldeans to slaughter them has been set for an appointed time – God
is not going to change His mind about bringing this punishment on Judah. It is not God Who has misunderstood, it is
Habakkuk. The Chaldeans are coming against Judah, and they will win decisively.
But, God promises, in the end, the vision,
will speak against the Chaldeans. But its fulfillment will be in God's Time.
And though there will be people who say that the time will never come – because
so much time passes – God keeps His Promises. And God promises Habakkuk that the
fulfillment of the vision will come.
So it is in this day: some gleefully cheer
about the conflict in the Middle East, praying that there will be a great
slaughter that will bring Jesus back. And then there are those who say,
"What return of Jesus?"
Peter writes: "knowing this first of all, that scoffers
will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers
fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of
creation.’ For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed
long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word
of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with
water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist
are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of
the ungodly.
“But do not overlook this one fact,
beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day” (II Peter 3:3-8, ESV).
Just as God's Justice against the
Chaldeans will wait about sixty years, so we are waiting for the return of our
King and Savior, Jesus. And He will return, in His Own Time.
But for now, "Behold, his soul
is puffed up; it is not upright within him,” God understands perfectly well,
the pride and the arrogance of the Chaldeans. He knows their sin and plans to
deal with it, after God uses them to punish Judah.
But there is good news, "but
the righteous shall live by faith." This verse is quoted three times in
the New Testament. In Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews.
In Romans, Paul writes, "For I
am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the
righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The
righteous shall live by faith’” (Romans 1:16-17, ESV).
In Galatians, Paul writes, "Now it is
evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous
shall live by faith’” (Galatians 3:11, ESV).
And the author to the Hebrews writes,
"For, ‘Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not
delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my
soul has no pleasure in him’” (Hebrews 10: 37-38, ESV).
"The just shall live by
faith." “The righterous shall live
by faith.” What is God telling Habakkuk?
God is telling him, in the midst of the devastation that the Chaldeans will
bring upon Judah for their sin – Judah is not innocent -- there is salvation in
trusting in God. If they knew and trusted and received the promises of God,
they would be saved in the end.
Similarly, Paul writes, "For by
grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is
the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast"
(Ephesians 2:8-9, ESV). Just as with Habakkuk, our salvation is found in a sure
trust in the promises of God. Neither Habakkuk, nor Judah, nor we can be saved
from our sin by any work we do. Salvation is found as we receive, through the
conduit of faith, the grace God is pleased to give us.
Paul says that we who have been
saved by grace alone and saved by faith alone will live out their faith by
doing the good works that God has ordained for us to do.
This is what we find in Habakkuk as
God responds to him: the just, those that God has declared legally innocent by
His Grace, these will receive God's Grace through faith alone and they will
live out their faith through good works – even as the Chaldeans sweep down upon
the nation and slaughter them and take them into captivity.
God tells Habakkuk He is well aware
of what type of people the Chaldeans are. The Chaldeans are an arrogant,
greedy, insatiable people. Their pride knows no end. They are not satisfied
with what God gives them. Their desire for more is like the desire of Hell to
fill itself; it is like the desire of death to be full. They gather people
after people, conquest after conquest, but it is never enough.
But that truth is not of prime
importance. As we hear threats purporting
to come from China and North Korea, and Iran and Iraq, and even Washington,
D.C., what is most important for us to remember – for us to hold onto with all
our might – through faith – is that God is eternal. God keeps His Promises. God is Holy and Just.
God will not allow sin and evil to go unpunished forever. Yet, our Holy God
does use other people, other nations, other events – like the Chaldeans – to carry
out His Will. Still, God’s Will is done, in God's Time, and according to God's
Sovereign Good Pleasure.
Habakkuk's hope, our hope, and the
hope of the Church, is that the just shall live by faith. Let us trust and hope
in God and in Salvation in Jesus Alone, as we faithfully carry out those good
works that God has set before us.
Let us pray:
Holy and Just God, we thank You that You
never change, but are always and forever our Holy and Trustworthy God. We thank
You for Your amazing Grace, for the faith to receive it, and for the ability to
live out Your call on our lives. May we be pleasing in Your sight. For it is in
Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.
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