Sunday, February 04, 2018

"Woe" Sermon: Habakkuk 2:6-20



“Woe”
[Habakkuk 2:6-20]
February 4, 2018, Second Reformed Church
            We return again to our look at the burden -- the heavy vision -- of the prophet, Habakkuk. Habakkuk preached about the time of Jeremiah, before the fall of Jerusalem. We saw in our previous looks at Habakkuk's burden, that the prophet calls out to God and asks God why He is allowing Judah to sin and not be punished; why is the Law ignored and Justice never served. God answers the prophet that God will punish Judah's sin: He will send the Chaldeans against them -- to slaughter them and take them into captivity. The prophet responds and cries out to God again, asking God how He could be holy and send a people more evil than Judah to punish her. And God tells Habakkuk that God is Holy; He is well aware of the sins of the Chaldeans, but the just will live by faith alone.
            God tells Habakkuk that He knows that the Chaldeans are an insatiable and evil people, and God will deal with them. Yet, God is using them to accomplish His Will in the punishment of Judah. God instructs Habakkuk to write down his vision and print it in bold and clear writing so all the people of Judah will be able to read it and know what God says and what He is going to do.
            God speaks five "woes" -- five laments of judgment -- against the Chaldeans. In response to their insatiable and evil gathering of nations and people, God pronounces five woes against the Chaldeans. The first three form a cluster about lust. The fourth deals with the treatment of neighbor. And the fifth, with idolatry.

“Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say, ‘Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own— for how long? — and loads himself with pledges!’ Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them. Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.”
The first woe is a woe against those who plunder by demanding unjust tribute. The Chaldeans lusted after money and riches. Even after they had conquered and enslaved a people, they demanded that they pay exorbitant tributes to the king. They desired more and more and more -- while there was any breath left in their captives, while there was any person or nation on the planet, there was more. They were trying to fill the black hole of their hearts; their love of money. And God proclaims that the day is coming when those that they have taken from and taken from and bled dry, will rise up against them and demand back full payment in the blood of the Chaldeans. They would not escape paying back their creditors -- the axe would fall, and they would take their due in flesh.
            Paul warned about this sin: "But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (I Timothy 6:6-10, ESV).
Do not misunderstand Paul. He is not saying that being rich is a sin. God chooses to bless some with great riches. That is not a sin, but it is a temptation. Those who have much are greatly tempted. But we also must not glory in being poor, because being rich is relative. If we make five thousand dollars a year amidst a people that make two thousand dollars a year, we are rich. Paul is not saying that we should avoid being paid what we are worth -- no, we are to pay people what they are worth -- for the job they do for us.
            Oh, it's so easy to lust after money and things -- especially in an age of credit cards. Credit cards are not evil -- they can be useful and helpful, but have you ever bought something you didn't have the money for and didn't need, but you had the card? Have you said, "If I only had this, or one more of those, I would be content?"
            Paul said, “but if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content."
            David, on the run in the wilderness of Judah, wrote, "Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,” (Psalm 63:3-5, ESV).
Are you satisfied with what God has given you? Whether marrow or fatness, merely food and clothes or riches. Is God's loving-kindness enough? Is the gift of salvation through Jesus Alone enough?  Or are we modern day Chaldeans with insatiable lust?
“Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm! You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life. For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.”
Similarly, God pronounces a woe against the Chaldeans and those who seeks security and economic gain through evil means. The Chaldeans thought if they conquered and enslaved more and more of their enemies and took more and more of their goods, if they achieved more and more control over the world, they would be safe and successful -- nothing bad could happen to them. They would have all the toys, so they would win. But God says that they would be put to shame; they sinned against their own souls. The very building materials that they stole to build their homes and fortresses would turn against them, and their sin would be public knowledge. Their glory would be turned to shame. As Solomon wrote, "What the wicked dreads will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted” (Proverbs 10:24, ESV).
            I have been told again and again that churches must be run like businesses. And, as often is the case, there is truth and falsehood in that assertion. Is it true that we ought to run churches in an orderly fashion, wisely stewarding what we have, setting goals and working hard to achieve them? Yes. But, when I hear that we need to calculate the number of people and the amount of money we need “to keep in business" and that we must set forth in a mercenary fashion to get "x" number of people with "y" amount of money in total -- that is sin, that is putting out trust in numbers. That is seeking security in evil means.
            Are we seeking safety in numbers? In the stuff we see around us?
            After my father died, my mother was left to live on Social Security and the remains of the estate -- in other words, not much, especially with three children still at home then – all with medical problems. And people in my mother's church advised her to stop tithing -- that God would understand that she needed the money now. I was thankful that my mother said "no" to this friendly Christian counsel.  God has provided for her daily needs for fourteen years thus far.
            Many people look at giving to the church as something we do with the leftover money we have, as we feel like giving. I have preached on how God teaches to give – generously, sacrificially, trusting in our God and Savior.  What is Jesus and His salvation worth?  Is that reflected in your giving – in your offering thanks by giving to His church?
            One of the struggles I am having with money currently is that I have begun to think more seriously about my future needs.  In fact, our denomination asked me to meet with a financial counsellor, because I had reached “a certain age.”  God calls us to be wise with our money, to use it to glorify Him, to care for ourselves and those who depend on us – so it’s not wrong to save – to prepare for a time when we can’t work as we once did.  But where is the line between wisdom and sinful hoarding?  It is a question we must wrestle with God about.  Let us pray for each other.
So, are we hoarding to achieve some sort of false security, or are we being obedient and trusting of God? After all, God has given us His Son and eternal salvation with Him. The stones and the timbers will cry out.
“Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity! Behold, is it not from the LORD of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”
Again, in line with the first two, God issues a third woe against the Chaldeans, against all those who ruthlessly seek fame. The Chaldeans wanted to be known throughout the world for their power and their glory, for their skill and their wealth. Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon -- the Chaldeans -- was walking on the roof of the royal palace and said, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30b, ESV). Do we remember what happened in the land of Shinar, in the early days of our history? The whole earth came together and said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4b, ESV).
In pride and vanity, the Chaldeans wanted to be known and glorified for their kingdom. They desired to be on a high place -- they desired to be worshiped and adored. Remember, their net was their god, so they thought they deserved all glory.
            But God says it is vanity. It is the eternal feeding of the flames of a fire. The nations weary themselves seeking what they can never have. Their vanity grows exponentially as their sin shows them they are not worthy, even as they want more and more.
And so we are tempted -- we also desire to be known, to be thanked, to be glorified. (It is a sad commentary in the church when people get angry because they have not been thanked.  We should thank each other, but if we are not thanked, we should not proceed to sin.) Who do we think we're asking to have glory taken from when we ask it be put on ourselves? The world can fill their black holes of vanity. But, Christians, we are the Church -- we are the Body of Christ. We exist to glorify Jesus Christ.
            Even I am not here to be glorified. You ought to repect those who have been called to the ministry and strive to be obedient and faithful, but no church is the pedestal of the minister. As Paul writes, "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building” (I Corinthians 3:5-9, ESV).
            Seeking after our own glory will fail, as it would fail for the Chaldeans some seventy years later. God said that they would not receive glory and we will not receive glory, but "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”
If we want joy -- if we want security -- that coming glory that will enrapture the whole earth will be our hope. That glory that will come and make us as blind to our lusts and all sin, is the glorious future we look for. Matthew tells us it will be like this: "For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matthew 24:27-31, ESV).
The commentator, Edward Marbury, wrote, "It is plaine that Gods remissenesse in the execution of his just judgments upon the proud and cruel Babylonians, and the miserable face of the Church disfigured with tears, her voyce hoarse with roaring for help, he throat dry, her heart aking, and no relief appearing: all this had not only made the ungodly and profane confident that there was no such thing as Providence; but it appeareth by this Prophet that the faith of Gods children was staggered hereby. But when God shall declare his justice against these his enemies, then he shall recover his glory; then shall they both know that Christ is Lord, both the oppressor shall know it, and the delivered shall know it, and they that are no parties to the cause of any side shall all understand" (Marbury, Habakkuk, 294).
“Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink—you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness! You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision! The cup in the LORD's right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory! The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.”
God speaks a fourth woe against the Chaldeans and all those who encourage others in their sin and humiliate them and abuse them. They gave their neighbors alcohol so they would get drunk. They wanted to get them drunk so they could expose their nakedness -- to take advantage of them, to shame them, to abuse them. (Nothing changes, does it?)  But God promises that the day will come when whatever the Chaldeans do others -- whatever sins they encourage them to engage in -- the violence that they do to the people and the cities and the nations and the cattle and the land and all the grows on it -- all of that sin and shame will occur to the Chaldeans as well. Their cities will be taken; their crops and herds will be slaughtered. Their nakedness will be exposed and they will be physically abused.
Have you ever encouraged anyone to sin? Even just a little sin. "Everybody does it. Nobody will get hurt. But it feels so good. Don't you want to?  Nobody will know." We are called to love our neighbors, so we ought to be about doing everything we can to keep them from sin. We ought to be about doing everything possible to promote holiness in our neighbors. Yes, even that nasty neighbor down the street that spits on your lawn and allows his dog to relieve himself on your stairs. Yes, even that good friend who says if you were really a good friend you would just ... We must renounce the temptations that come to us and not invite others in. It's true that sin loves company. Shall we compromise our witness to the Gospel and steal a box of paper clips from work because everybody does it? And so forth. We must draw the line hard and fast and not allow ourselves to be swayed into believing that a little bit, together, will be all right -- we can go to church and confess later. To such excuses, God exposes one's uncircumcision.
“What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols! Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it. But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
Fifthly, God issues a woe against all those who make idols. The Chaldeans, like all pagans, are idol-makers. Habakkuk says right from the beginning that they will worship their nets if they caught fish. John Calvin says that we, humans, are by nature, idol-makers. By the fact of our depravity, due to our original sin, we seek to set up something, anything in God's place. Something that we can control and make do our will -- a god who is wholly pliable to our whims and fascinations.
            The Chaldeans carved idols out of wood -- idols who could not speak or hear -- idols that could do nothing -- and God taunts them telling them to wake their idols, to call on them to teach -- but they have no breath. They are false gods. Impotent, human creations.
            We remember that the prophets of Baal challenged Elijah and the Lord. And Elijah taunts the prophets of Baal when Baal does not answer them by saying, "Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened” (I Kings 18:27b, ESV). And Isaiah mocks the sin of Israel, saying that they would cut down an oak tree and "Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, ‘Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!’ And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, ‘Deliver me, for you are my god!’ (Isaiah 44:16-17, ESV).
We may think we no longer build idols, but let us consider it in the widest understanding: do we sin? Is sin against God? Then sin is idolatry -- giving something or someone God's place. Each time we sin, we thrust up one of these little homemade idols in God's face saying, "I would rather follow him."  “I would rather eat until I am sick, even if I am not hungry.  I would rather cheat and steal and lie to get to the place of authority where I will be safe and secure.  I would rather keep a wife and hire company as well to keep myself pleasured.  I would rather stay home just this one Sunday to prepare for my Superbowl party”
            Idols failed the Chaldeans, and our idols fail us. They have no breath; they cannot speak.
            But the Lord God Almighty is in His holy temple, and the day will come when God shall speak, and there shall be no answer from man or beast or idol. As Zephaniah prophesied, "Be silent before the Lord GOD! For the day of the LORD is near; the LORD has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests” (Zephaniah 1:7, ESV).
            Let us pray that our satisfaction would be in God and His salvation alone. Let us be about preaching the Gospel, trusting the numbers to God. Let us seek to see God glorified in all that we experience -- and throughout the earth. Let us seek our neighbor's welfare in all things, and especially in the knowledge of salvation in Jesus Christ Alone. And let us worship our Holy God, lifting up our voices in praise to Him, and shutting our mouths when they do not advance the cause of Christ.
Let us pray:
Almighty and Holy God, forgive us for our presumption and our sin against You. We thank You for Your Son, our salvation, and we ask that Yours Alone would be the praise and the honor and the glory and the worship. Satisfy us with Yourself. Cause us to trust You. Make us Your faithful and obedient children, for Jesus' Sake and for the Sake of the Kingdom. For it is in Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.

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