A call to turn from selfishness and rebellion to turn to the Lord...

This week we are looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Zephaniah. Yesterday we looked on as Zephaniah revealed the actions that the Day of the Lord would bring upon the Jewish people as a result of their selfishness and rebellion against the Lord in their relatively near future.

Zephaniah proclaimed that the Lord would exercise His right and just response to the selfishness and rebellion of the Jewish people that led them to commit idolatry by worshiping something other than the Lord as God. In verse 4, the prophet exposed the idolatry of the priests who led the people to worship the false god Baal instead of the Lord. In verse 5, the prophet exposed the idolatry of those who worshiped the sun, moon, and stars instead of the Lord.

In the second half of verse 5, the prophet exposed the idolatry of those who worshiped at the spiritual buffet by adding the worship of the Lord to the worship of false gods in order to create their own religious system that took what they liked about the Lord and false gods, while ignoring the parts of the Lord and false gods that they did not like In verse 6, the prophet exposed the indifference of the Jewish people who turned their back on the Lord so as to ignore the Lord.

And because of the selfishness and rebellion of the Jewish people, Zephaniah proclaimed that the Day of the Lord was coming in the form of the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonian Empire would be instrument that the Lord would use to exercise justice and judgment against the Jewish people. Zephaniah painted a word picture of an animal that would be offered as a sacrificial offering in the Jewish religious system to proclaim that the Lord was preparing the Jewish people to be a sacrifice that would pay the penalty of their selfishness and rebellion. 

The Babylonian Empire would be the invited guests that would participate in this sacrificial offering against the rebellion of the leaders of the Jewish people. The Babylonian Empire would be the invited guests that would participate in this sacrificial offering against the rebellion of those who oppressed others by leaping upon them to commit violence and robbery, only to offer up what had been stolen in worship to false gods. The Babylonian Empire would be the invited guests that would participate in this sacrificial offering against the rebellion of the merchants who exploited the Jewish people.

What is so fascinating is that what Zephaniah proclaimed in verse 10-11, was fulfilled 40 years later when, in 586 B.C., the Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar entered Jerusalem through the “fish gate”. The Babylonian Empire would be the invited guests that would participate in this sacrificial offering against the rebellion of the indifference and agnosticism of the Jewish people to the Lord and the things of the Lord when the Day of the Lord came upon the Jewish people in the very near future. We see Zephaniah continue to proclaim what the very near future in the second half of Zephaniah 1:14-18:

Listen, the day of the LORD! In it the warrior cries out bitterly. A day of wrath is that day, A day of trouble and distress, A day of destruction and desolation, A day of darkness and gloom, A day of clouds and thick darkness, ¹⁶ A day of trumpet and battle cry Against the fortified cities And the high corner towers. ¹⁷ I will bring distress on men So that they will walk like the blind, Because they have sinned against the LORD; And their blood will be poured out like dust And their flesh like dung. ¹⁸ Neither their silver nor their gold Will be able to deliver them On the day of the LORD'S wrath; And all the earth will be devoured In the fire of His jealousy, For He will make a complete end, Indeed a terrifying one, Of all the inhabitants of the earth.

Less than 20 years after proclaiming the Lord’s message to the Jewish people, in 605 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who at this time was a prince, besieged Jerusalem and made the Jewish people a vassal of Babylon under King Jehoiakim. As part of that process, the Babylonian Empire deported many of the Jewish people’s best and brightest men to be indoctrinated in the culture and religious practices of the Babylonians to further strengthen their rule. Then, in 597 B.C., after the Jewish people rebelled against the Empire, the city was besieged again, with even more Jewish people deported.

Finally, in 586 B.C., after another rebellion by the Jewish people against the Empire, the Babylonian Empire would conquer Jerusalem and the Jewish people would be taken away into exile. After proclaiming what the near future held for the Jewish people as a result of their selfishness and rebellion against the Lord, we see Zephaniah proclaim a second message to the Jewish people in Zephaniah 2:1-3:

Gather yourselves together, yes, gather, O nation without shame, ² Before the decree takes effect-- The day passes like the chaff-- Before the burning anger of the LORD comes upon you, Before the day of the LORD'S anger comes upon you. ³ Seek the LORD, All you humble of the earth Who have carried out His ordinances; Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden In the day of the LORD'S anger.

Here we see Zephaniah, in the midst of proclaiming the potential of the Lord exercising His right and just response to the selfishness and rebellion of the Jewish people in order to bring justice and judgment for that rebellion, call the Jewish people to repent. Zephaniah called the Jewish people to turn away from their selfishness and rebellion so as to turn to the Lord by seeking the Lord. Zephaniah called the Jewish people to turn away from their selfishness and rebellion so as to turn to the Lord by living in humble recognition that the Lord is the One who is large and in charge.

Zephaniah called the Jewish people to turn away from their selfishness and rebellion so as to turn to the Lord by faithfully following and obeying the Lord. Zephaniah proclaimed that if the Jewish people turned from their selfishness and rebellion and turned to the Lord, that they would not experience what humanity would face on the “Day of the Lord”, when the Lord will express His right and just response to the wrongdoing and injustice of humanity by removing the wrongdoing and injustice of humanity that flowed from their selfishness and rebellion.

Then, in the remainder of the second chapter of Zephaniah, we see the prophet proclaim the Lord’s judgment against the nations that surrounded the Jewish people. Whether it was the nation of Philistia to the west, the nations of Moab and Ammon to the East, the nation of Ethiopia to the South, or the Assyrian Empire to the North, there would be a day in the near future when the Babylonian Empire would be instrument that the Lord would use to exercise justice and judgment against the selfishness and rebellion of these nations.

The Lord would provide these nations a “near” circumstance in order that they might better understand a far more significant event in the future, which would be when the Lord would remove the wrongdoing and injustice of humanity against God and others that flowed from their selfishness and rebellion as He expressed His right and just response to that wrongdoing and injustice upon Jesus return to earth. Then, in chapter 3, we see Zephaniah transition to turn his attention and message from the Lord back to the selfishness and rebellion of the Jewish people.

We will look at what Zephaniah had to say to the Jewish people on Friday…

The man and message of a prophet named Zephaniah...

At the church where I serve, we are in the middle of a sermon series entitled when God speaks. During this series we are spending our time together looking at these letters that we often have a tendency to skip over, which are referred to as the prophets. We are going to discover who these letters that we have a tendency to skip over were written to. We are going to discover what these letters that we have a tendency to skip over reveal about who we are. We are going to discover what these letters that we have a tendency to skip over reveal about the nature of God and God’s activity in history.

And as we go through this series, our hope and prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in our heads, hearts and hands so that we understand and embrace the timeless and timely truths that these letters that we often skip over have for our lives. This week, I would like for us to spend our time together looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Zephaniah, which is the next letter that was written by a prophet chronologically, which is not necessarily the order that they are found in the Bible, where they are organized by size. So let’s look at the man and the message of the Book of Zephaniah, beginning in Zephaniah 1:1:

The word of the LORD which came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah:

Most scholars and historians believe that the book of Zephaniah was written between 622 and 620 B.C. Like the book of Habakkuk, which we looked at last week, the book of Zephaniah was written during the decline and fall of the Southern Kingdom of Judea, which occurred from 626-586 B.C. This letter was written during the times described in a section of another letter in the Old Testament of the Bible, called the book of 2 Chronicles, in 2 Chronicles 34:1-35:19.

In the opening verse of this letter, we discover that Zephaniah was the great, great, grandson of King Hezekiah, who ruled over the Southern Kingdom of Judea from 715 B.C. to 686 B.C., a little over 60 years prior to the writing of this letter. As with many of the smaller letters that these messengers of God proclaimed to the people of God, the book of Zephaniah is dominated by two major themes. We are introduced to the first major theme beginning in Zephaniah 1:2-14a. Let’s look at it together: 

² "I will completely remove all things From the face of the earth," declares the LORD. ³ "I will remove man and beast; I will remove the birds of the sky And the fish of the sea, And the ruins along with the wicked; And I will cut off man from the face of the earth," declares the LORD. ⁴ "So I will stretch out My hand against Judah And against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, And the names of the idolatrous priests along with the priests. ⁵ "And those who bow down on the housetops to the host of heaven, And those who bow down and swear to the LORD and yet swear by Milcom, ⁶ And those who have turned back from following the LORD, And those who have not sought the LORD or inquired of Him." ⁷ Be silent before the Lord GOD! For the day of the LORD is near, For the LORD has prepared a sacrifice, He has consecrated His guests. ⁸ "Then it will come about on the day of the LORD'S sacrifice That I will punish the princes, the king's sons And all who clothe themselves with foreign garments. ⁹ "And I will punish on that day all who leap on the temple threshold, Who fill the house of their lord with violence and deceit. ¹⁰ "On that day," declares the LORD, "There will be the sound of a cry from the Fish Gate, A wail from the Second Quarter, And a loud crash from the hills. ¹¹ "Wail, O inhabitants of the Mortar, For all the people of Canaan will be silenced; All who weigh out silver will be cut off. ¹² "It will come about at that time That I will search Jerusalem with lamps, And I will punish the men Who are stagnant in spirit, Who say in their hearts, 'The LORD will not do good or evil!' ¹³ "Moreover, their wealth will become plunder And their houses desolate; Yes, they will build houses but not inhabit them, And plant vineyards but not drink their wine." ¹⁴ Near is the great day of the LORD, Near and coming very quickly;

Now to fully understand what Zephaniah is communicating here, we first need to understand what Zephaniah means when he uses the phrase “The Day of the Lord”. As we discovered earlier in this series, in the letters that make up the Bible, the “Day of the Lord” is used in two different ways. Lord”. In most places in the letters that make up the Bible, this phrase refers to the time at the end of God’s story here on earth, Jesus will return to earth to defeat selfishness, sin, and death, and to exercise God’s right and just response to the wrongdoing and injustice of humanity against God and others that flowed from their selfishness and rebellion against God and others.  

In addition, the “Day of the Lord” is also the doorway through which those who are in right relationship with God as a result of responding to all that God has done to rescue them from their selfishness and rebellion through Jesus life, death, and resurrection, by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. The “Day of the Lord” began with Jesus entering into humanity to live the life that we were created to live but refused to live and to die the death that we deserved to die. And the “Day of the Lord” will conclude when Jesus returns to earth to exercise God’s right and just response to selfishness and rebellion. Thus, in a very real sense, we are living in the “Day of the Lord” right now.

And in verses 2-3, we see Zephaniah describe what will happen at the end of God’s story when the “Day of the Lord” arrives in a global sense. Upon the “Day of the Lord”, the Lord will remove the wrongdoing and injustice of humanity against God and others that flows from their selfishness and rebellion against God and others as He expresses His right and just response to that wrongdoing and injustice.

However, in a few places in the letters that make up the Bible, the “Day of the Lord” refers to a localized judgment of God against selfishness and rebellion. God provided the Jewish people with a “near” circumstance in order that they might better understand a far more significant event in the future. And it is this sense of that the writer is using the “Day of the Lord” here. In verses 4-14, we see Zephaniah reveal that actions that the Day of the Lord would bring upon the Jewish people as a result of their selfishness and rebellion against the Lord in the relatively near future.

Zephaniah proclaimed that the Lord would exercise His right and just response to the selfishness and rebellion of the Jewish people that led them to commit idolatry by worshiping something other than the Lord as God. In verse 4, the prophet exposed the idolatry of the priests who led the people to worship the false god Baal instead of the Lord. In verse 5, the prophet exposed the idolatry of those who worshiped the sun, moon, and stars instead of the Lord.

In the second half of verse 5, the prophet exposed the idolatry of those who worshiped at the spiritual buffet by adding the worship of the Lord to the worship of false gods in order to create their own religious system that took what they liked about the Lord and false gods, while ignoring the parts of the Lord and false gods that they did not like In verse 6, the prophet exposed the indifference of the Jewish people who turned their back on the Lord so as to ignore the Lord.

And because of the selfishness and rebellion of the Jewish people, Zephaniah proclaimed that the Day of the Lord was coming in the form of the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonian Empire would be instrument that the Lord would use to exercise justice and judgment against the Jewish people. Zephaniah painted a word picture of an animal that would be offered as a sacrificial offering in the Jewish religious system to proclaim that the Lord was preparing the Jewish people to be a sacrifice that would pay the penalty of their selfishness and rebellion. 

The Babylonian Empire would be the invited guests that would participate in this sacrificial offering against the rebellion of the leaders of the Jewish people. The Babylonian Empire would be the invited guests that would participate in this sacrificial offering against the rebellion of those who oppressed others by leaping upon them to commit violence and robbery, only to offer up what had been stolen in worship to false gods. The Babylonian Empire would be the invited guests that would participate in this sacrificial offering against the rebellion of the merchants who exploited the Jewish people.

What is so fascinating is that what Zephaniah proclaimed in verse 10-11, was fulfilled 40 years later when, in 586 B.C., the Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar entered Jerusalem through the “fish gate”. The Babylonian Empire would be the invited guests that would participate in this sacrificial offering against the rebellion of the indifference and agnosticism of the Jewish people to the Lord and the things of the Lord when the Day of the Lord came upon the Jewish people in the very near future.

Tomorrow, we will see Zephaniah continue to proclaim what the very near future held for the Jewish people in his day…

The Lord invites His followers to joyfully trust Him in the face of difficulty and loss while waiting for their ultimate rescue...

This week, we have been looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Habakkuk. So far this week, we have seen the prophet ask two timeless questions, which are "How Long?" and "How come?". We talked about the reality that these are the same questions that people ask God today? How often do we question God as to why He would allow wrongdoing and injustice to go unpunished? How often do we question God as to why He would allow evil empires to expand? How often do we question God as to why He would allow arrogant leaders and nations to exploit and dehumanize other nations that are not nearly as evil?

We then looked on as the Lord answered the prophet's question by explaining that  the root of the problem, the root of all selfishness and rebellion against the Lord, is pride. The root of the rebellion of the Jewish people, and the Babylonian Empire, is a selfish and self-centered prideful love that places one in opposition to the Lord and that acts out of that selfish love and pride to do wrongdoing and injustice against the Lord and others. And that selfish love and pride reveals the reality that they are not living in a right relationship with the Lord.

However, the person who is living in right relationship with the Lord will live a life that places their confident trust in the Lord and will live their day to day life in a way that trusts in the Lord.   In the Lord’s answer to Habakkuk’s questions “How long?” and “How come?”, we saw the Lord basically say to the prophet “You need to trust Me. You need to look at the end of history and the end of My story. You need to see where I am; I am still in charge and in control, regardless of your circumstances. So trust Me, shut up and realize who I Am and where I am.” We see Habakkuk’s response to the Lord in Habakkuk 3:1-15:

A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth. ² LORD, I have heard the report about You and I fear. O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years, In the midst of the years make it known; In wrath remember mercy. ³ God comes from Teman, And the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His splendor covers the heavens, And the earth is full of His praise. ⁴ His radiance is like the sunlight; He has rays flashing from His hand, And there is the hiding of His power. ⁵ Before Him goes pestilence, And plague comes after Him. ⁶ He stood and surveyed the earth; He looked and startled the nations. Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered, The ancient hills collapsed. His ways are everlasting. ⁷ I saw the tents of Cushan under distress, The tent curtains of the land of Midian were trembling. ⁸ Did the LORD rage against the rivers, Or was Your anger against the rivers, Or was Your wrath against the sea, That You rode on Your horses, On Your chariots of salvation? ⁹ Your bow was made bare, The rods of chastisement were sworn. Selah. You cleaved the earth with rivers. ¹⁰ The mountains saw You and quaked; The downpour of waters swept by. The deep uttered forth its voice, It lifted high its hands. ¹¹ Sun and moon stood in their places; They went away at the light of Your arrows, At the radiance of Your gleaming spear. ¹² In indignation You marched through the earth; In anger You trampled the nations. ¹³ You went forth for the salvation of Your people, For the salvation of Your anointed. You struck the head of the house of the evil To lay him open from thigh to neck. Selah. ¹⁴ You pierced with his own spears The head of his throngs. They stormed in to scatter us; Their exultation was like those Who devour the oppressed in secret. ¹⁵ You trampled on the sea with Your horses, On the surge of many waters.

Here we see Habakkuk pray for the salvation and rescue of God’s people in the midst of God’s right and just response to wrongdoing and injustice. Habakkuk prayed that the Lord, in His wrath remember mercy. As the Lord exercised His wrath, which is His right and just response to wrongdoing and injustice, Habakkuk prayerfully requested that the Lord extend mercy to those who trust in Him in the midst of His justice and judgment.

And in his prayer, we see Habakkuk paint a picture from a collage of God's activity in the past and the future expectation of God's activity in the future. Habakkuk combined elements of the song of Moses, which is recorded for us in Deuteronomy 32, the song of Deborah, which is recorded in Judges 5, and the song of David, which is recorded in 2 Samuel 23, to paint a picture of anticipating God's activity in the future.

Faced with the Lord’s impending justice and judgment of the Jewish people, Habakkuk prayerfully looked forward to a day in the future when the glory of the Lord would fully appear upon His future judgment upon humanity at the end of God's story here on earth. After prayerfully remembering the Lord’s activity in the past and praying for mercy in the midst of the Lord’s justice and judgment in the near future, we see Habakkuk reveal his personal response to the Lord’s answer of his questions in verse 16:

I heard and my inward parts trembled, At the sound my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones, And in my place I tremble. Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, For the people to arise who will invade us.

Habakkuk responded to the Lord’s answer to his questions with stunned awe. The Lord’s answer turned Habakkuk’s insides upside down in anguish.  The Lord’s answer brought a pain deep into his bones. The Lord’s answer drove Habakkuk to a place of prayer where his lips quivered in fear. You see, there was no escape for Habakkuk; Habakkuk was left to wait and rest in the reality that the day would come when the Babylonian Empire would come and conquer the Jewish people and lead them to captivity.

Habakkuk was left to wait and rest in the reality that incredible personal and national loss was coming his way and there was nothing that he could do to escape it. There is no direct evidence from this letter that Habakkuk lived past the destruction of Jerusalem. Now imagine yourself as Habakkuk. Place yourselves in his shoes. If you were Habakkuk, what would you say next to God? We see what Habakkuk said next in verse 17-19:

 Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, ¹⁸ Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. ¹⁹ The Lord GOD is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds' feet, And makes me walk on my high places.

Now is that how we would have responded to the Lord? Would we have responded to the reality that we were about to suffer potential immeasurable loss by exulting, or make much of the Lord?  Would we have responded to the reality that we were about to suffer potential immeasurable loss by rejoicing in the Lord as your rescuer? Would we have responded to the reality that we were about to suffer potential immeasurable loss by proclaiming that the Lord is your strength? Would we have responded to the reality that we were about to suffer potential immeasurable loss by proclaiming our joyful trust in the Lord, who makes us walk on high places?

Is this our natural response when we face times of difficulty or loss? Is this our natural response when the Lord does not answer our questions “How long?” and “How come?” in the way we want Him to? You see, it is here, when God speaks, that we discover a timeless truth about the nature and character of God and God’s activity in history. And that timeless truth is this: The Lord invites His followers to joyfully trust Him in the face of difficulty and loss while waiting for their ultimate rescue. Just as it was for Habakkuk, just as it has been throughout history, The Lord invites His followers to joyfully trust Him in the face of difficulty and loss while waiting for their ultimate rescue.

You see, the point of the book of Habakkuk is that the Lord is large and in charge of all of the creation. The point of the book of Habakkuk is that the Lord will exercise His right and just justice against the wrongdoing and injustice of others. The point of the book of Habakkuk is that the root of the problem of sin and rebellion against the Lord is a selfish love and pride that places one in opposition to the Lord and acts out of that selfish love and pride to do wrongdoing and injustice against the Lord and others. The point of the book of Habakkuk is that the person who is living in right relationship with the Lord will place their confident trust in the Lord and will live their day to day life in a way that trusts in the Lord regardless of circumstances. 

The point of the book of Habakkuk is that the person who is living in right relationship with the Lord will trust in the Lord even in the face of the difficulty and loss that may come their way as a result of living in a culture that experiences the Lord’s justice and judgment. The point of the book of Habakkuk is that the person who is living in right relationship with the Lord will trust in the Lord even in the face of the difficulty and loss because they trust in the reality of their ultimate rescue by the Lord.

You see, Habakkuk experienced the difficulty and loss with the rest of the Jewish people at the hands of the Babylonian Empire, even though he trusted and followed the Lord. Yet Habakkuk was able to joyfully entrust himself to the Lord in the face of difficulty and loss because Habakkuk recognized that the Lord is the ultimate end of history. Habakkuk was able to joyfully entrust himself to the Lord in the face of difficulty and loss because Habakkuk recognized that the Lord is large and in charge of all history.

Habakkuk was able to joyfully entrust himself to the Lord in the face of difficulty and loss because Habakkuk was able to look at the end of history and the end of the Lord’s story and see that the Lord was still in charge and in control, regardless of his circumstances. And as a result, Habakkuk was able to joyfully entrust himself to the Lord in the face of difficulty and loss because Habakkuk was waiting for the day of his ultimate rescue from the Lord.

So here is a question to consider: Are you wrestling with the questions of “How long?” and “How come?” in the face of difficulty and loss?  How will you wrestle with the questions of “How long?” and “How come?” when difficulty and loss come? And how will you respond to the Lord’s answer to these questions?

Will you respond by joyfully trusting in the Lord as a result of recognizing that the Lord is the ultimate end of history? Will you respond by joyfully trusting in the Lord as a result of recognizing that the Lord is large and in charge of all history? Will you respond by joyfully trusting in the Lord as a result of waiting for our ultimate rescue from the Lord? 

Because, as we have discovered this morning, the Lord invites His followers to joyfully trust Him in the face of difficulty and loss while waiting for their ultimate rescue...

A second timeless question that people tend to ask God...

This week we are looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Habakkuk. Yesterday, we looked on as Habakkuk asked God a timeless question: How long? How long will you allow the wickedness of Jewish people to continue? Why don’t you do something about the wrongdoing and injustice that is happening?

We looked on as the Lord answered Habakkuk’s question by explaining the He was going to use the Babylonian Empire as His instrument to exercise justice and judgment against the wrongdoing and injustice of the Jewish people. The Lord basically said to Habakkuk “I am going to use an irritated and ill-tempered Empire and their awesome and agile army to bring My justice and judgment against the unjust rebellion of the Jewish people against Me. I am going to use an Empire who has a ravenous appetite to destroy and who arrogantly view themselves as being equal with Me to conquer the Jewish people and take them into exile.”

Now imagine yourself as Habakkuk. Place yourself in his shoes. You ask the Lord why He withholds justice and judgment against the wrongdoing and injustice that is being committed by the Jewish people.  And the Lord responds to your question by explaining that He is going to use an enemy army that arrogantly opposes the Lord to bring justice and judgment upon the Jewish people. You are Habakkuk; what would you be thinking? How would you feel about the Lord’s answer? How would you respond? We see Habakkuk’s response in Habakkuk 1:12-2:1:

 ¹² Are You not from everlasting, O LORD, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O LORD, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct. ¹³ Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they? ¹⁴ Why have You made men like the fish of the sea, Like creeping things without a ruler over them? ¹⁵ The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, Drag them away with their net, And gather them together in their fishing net. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. ¹⁶ Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net And burn incense to their fishing net; Because through these things their catch is large, And their food is plentiful. ¹⁷ Will they therefore empty their net And continually slay nations without sparing?

2:1 ¶ I will stand on my guard post And station myself on the rampart; And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me, And how I may reply when I am reproved.

Here we see Habakkuk ask the Lord a second timeless question: “How come?” How come the Babylonian Empire? Habakkuk basically asks the Lord “How can you use the Babylonian Empire to judge the Jewish people? After all, you are the Lord, the everlasting Creator of the universe who is perfectly right and just. You are perfectly pure in your character and conduct. So how can you approve of the Babylonian Empire? They are more wicked than we are; they are treacherous than we are, they destroy nations and peoples without pity and without mercy. How can you allow such and evil people to be the instrument to bring your justice and judgment upon us? You know that they are going to treat us in a way the will humiliate and dehumanize us. You know that they are relentless in their brutality and excessive in their sensuality. So why would you choose to use them?"

Again, here is a question to consider: Are these not the same questions that people ask God today? How often do we question God as to why He would allow evil empires to expand? How often do we question God as to why He would allow arrogant leaders and nations to exploit and dehumanize other nations that are not nearly as evil? We see the Lord’s response to the prophet in Habakkuk 2:2-5:

 ² Then the LORD answered me and said, "Record the vision And inscribe it on tablets, That the one who reads it may run. ³ "For the vision is yet for the appointed time; It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; For it will certainly come, it will not delay. ⁴ "Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith. ⁵ "Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man, So that he does not stay at home. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, And he is like death, never satisfied. He also gathers to himself all nations And collects to himself all peoples.

Here we see the prophet record the answer that he received from the Lord. The Lord’s answer to Habakkuk, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this:

“Get your pen and paper, get your computer keypad; get your mobile device up and ready; open your evernote and get ready; however you choose to record my answer to your question, make sure you record my answer. Because I am about to tell you why I am using the Babylonian Empire against you and what will happen in the future. And what I am telling you will happen in the future will certainly happen in the future. You see, the root of the problem, the root of all selfishness and rebellion against Me, is pride. The root of the rebellion of the Jewish people, and the Babylonian Empire, is a selfish and self-centered prideful love that places one in opposition to Me and that acts out of that selfish love and pride to do wrongdoing and injustice against Me and others. And that selfish love and pride reveals the reality that they are not living in a right relationship with Me. However, the person who is living in right relationship with Me will live a life that places their confident trust in Me and will live their day to day life in a way that trusts in Me.” 

The Lord then pronounced the first of five different woes that reveal the prideful and arrogant nature of the Babylonian Empire that revealed their opposition to the Lord. What is so interesting is that these five woes were also evidenced in the selfishness and rebellion of the Jewish people that resulted in the Lord using the Babylonian Empire as His instrument to exercise His justice and judgment against them. We see the first woe pronounced by the Lord in verse 6-20:

"Will not all of these take up a taunt-song against him, Even mockery and insinuations against him And say, 'Woe to him who increases what is not his-- For how long-- And makes himself rich with loans?' ⁷ "Will not your creditors rise up suddenly, And those who collect from you awaken? Indeed, you will become plunder for them. ⁸ "Because you have looted many nations, All the remainder of the peoples will loot you-- Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, To the town and all its inhabitants. "Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house To put his nest on high, To be delivered from the hand of calamity! ¹⁰ "You have devised a shameful thing for your house By cutting off many peoples; So you are sinning against yourself. ¹¹ "Surely the stone will cry out from the wall, And the rafter will answer it from the framework. ¹² "Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed And founds a town with violence! ¹³ "Is it not indeed from the LORD of hosts That peoples toil for fire, And nations grow weary for nothing? ¹⁴ "For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the sea. ¹⁵ "Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk So as to look on their nakedness! ¹⁶ "You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness. The cup in the LORD'S right hand will come around to you, And utter disgrace will come upon your glory. ¹⁷ "For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, And the devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them, Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, To the town and all its inhabitants. ¹⁸ "What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it, Or an image, a teacher of falsehood? For its maker trusts in his own handiwork When he fashions speechless idols. ¹⁹ "Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, 'Awake!' To a mute stone, 'Arise!' And that is your teacher? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, And there is no breath at all inside it. ²⁰ "But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him."

Here we see the Lord proclaim to the Jewish people and the nations that would experience the Lord’s justice and judgment at the hands of the Babylonian Empire that they would someday pronounce the same woes against the Babylonian Empire. You see, the prideful selfishness and rebellion of the Babylonian Empire that led to the Lord proclaiming these five woes was the same prideful selfishness and rebellion that was evidenced in the Jewish people. The issue of selfish pride transcends ethnic, socioeconomic, or national boundaries. Selfish pride is a universal problem that transcends time.

The first woe that the Lord proclaimed against the Babylonian Empire, that was also present amongst the Jewish people, was a woe against prideful ambition.  The second woe that the Lord proclaimed against the Babylonian Empire, that was also present amongst the Jewish people, was a woe against covetousness.  The third woe that the Lord proclaimed against the Babylonian Empire, that was also present amongst the Jewish people, was a woe against violence.  The fourth woe that the Lord proclaimed against the Babylonian Empire, that was also present amongst the Jewish people, was a woe against a lack of moral shame.  The fifth and final woe that the Lord proclaimed against the Babylonian Empire, that was also present amongst the Jewish people, was a woe against idolatry. 

You see, through these five woes, the Lord wanted to communicate a crystal clear and timeless message to Habakkuk, so that Habakkuk could in turn communicate that message to all of humanity who wrestle with the timeless questions of “How long?” and “How come?” and in these verses, we see the Lord communicate three timeless realities to humanity throughout history.

First, as we see in verse 4, the Lord wanted humanity throughout history to clearly understand that He rightly opposes selfish pride and that a right relationship with the Lord requires the faith that confidently trusts in the Lord. Second, as we see in verse 14, the Lord wanted humanity throughout history to clearly understand that at the end of God’s story, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, because He is the ultimate end of history. And third, as we see in verse 20, the Lord wanted humanity throughout history to clearly understand that Lord is in His Holy Temple; let all the earth be silent before Him as He is large and in charge of all history.

In the Lord’s answer to Habakkuk’s questions “How long?” and “How come?”, we see the Lord basically say to the prophet “You need to trust Me. You need to look at the end of history and the end of My story. You need to see where I am; I am still in charge and in control, regardless of your circumstances. So trust Me, shut up and realize who I Am and where I am.”

Friday, we will see Habakkuk’s response to the Lord and discover a timeless truth about the Lord…

The spiritual struggles of a prophet that lead to a timeless question of God...

At the church where I serve we are in the middle of a sermon series entitled When God Speaks. During this series we are spending our time together looking at these letters that we often have a tendency to skip over, which are referred to as the prophets. We are going to discover who these letters that we have a tendency to skip over were written to. We are going to discover what these letters that we have a tendency to skip over reveal about who we are. We are going to discover what these letters that we have a tendency to skip over reveal about the nature of God and God’s activity in history.

As we go through this series, our hope and prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in our heads, hearts and hands so that we understand and embrace the timeless and timely truths that these letters that we often skip over have for our lives. This week, I would like for us to spend our time together looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Habakkuk, which is the next letter that was written by a prophet chronologically, which is not necessarily the order that they are found in the Bible, where they are organized by size. So let’s look at the man and the message of the Book of Habakkuk, beginning in Habakkuk 1:1:

The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

The book of Habakkuk was written by the prophet Habakkuk during the decline and fall of the Southern Kingdom of Judea, which occurred between 626-586 B.C. This letter was written during the times described in a section of another letter in the Old Testament of the Bible, called the book of 2 Kings, in 2 Kings 21:1-16. Most scholars and historians believe that the book of Habakkuk is a type of spiritual diary that describes the prophet's spiritual struggles over a long period of time, possibly beginning as early as 626 B.C. and continuing as late as 590 B.C.

During this time in history, the Jewish people enjoyed their last bit of prosperity under King Josiah, who died in 609 B.C. After Josiah’s death, conditions during the life of the prophet progressed from excellent—with considerable material prosperity and even promise of spiritual revival— to the height of desperation as the prospect of conquering captivity was drawn closer and closer around the capital city of Jerusalem.

As we discovered last week when we looked at the prophet Nahum, in 612 B.C., the Assyrian Empire was conquered by the Babylonian Empire, who began to establish its dominance over the middle east. Eventually in 586 B.C., the Babylonian Empire would conquer Jerusalem and the Jewish people would be taken into exile.

Now the book of Habakkuk is one of the most simply arranged, practical, and spiritually stretching letters in in the Bible. This letter could be described as “two questions, two answers, and a prayer”. The reason why the book of Habakkuk is so practical is due to the fact that the questions Habakkuk asks are the same questions that are still being asked today. So let’s look at these questions together, beginning in Habakkuk 1:2-4:

 How long, O LORD, will I call for help, And You will not hear? I cry out to You, "Violence!" Yet You do not save. ³ Why do You make me see iniquity, And cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me; Strife exists and contention arises. ⁴ Therefore the law is ignored And justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore justice comes out perverted.

Here we see Habakkuk ask a timeless question: How long? How long will you allow the wickedness of Jewish people to continue? Why don’t you do something about the wrongdoing and injustice that is happening? When will you judge? When will you exercise justice against the violence, wickedness, and conflict that is occurring? How long will you allow your commands to be ignored and justice to be perverted?

Now here is a question to consider: Are these not the same questions that people ask God today? How often do we question God as to why He would allow wrongdoing and injustice to go unpunished? We see the Lord’s response to the prophet in verse 5-11:

 "Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days-- You would not believe if you were told. ⁶ "For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, That fierce and impetuous people Who march throughout the earth To seize dwelling places which are not theirs. ⁷ "They are dreaded and feared; Their justice and authority originate with themselves. ⁸ "Their horses are swifter than leopards And keener than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping, Their horsemen come from afar; They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour. ⁹ "All of them come for violence. Their horde of faces moves forward. They collect captives like sand. ¹⁰ "They mock at kings And rulers are a laughing matter to them. They laugh at every fortress And heap up rubble to capture it. ¹¹ "Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on. But they will be held guilty, They whose strength is their god."

The Lord’s answer to Habakkuk, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this: “Look around, because I am about to do something that you would not believe unless you heard it from Me personally. You see, I am going to use the Babylonian Empire as my instrument to exercise justice and judgment against the wrongdoing and injustice of the Jewish people. I am going to use an irritated and ill-tempered Empire and their awesome and agile army to bring My justice and judgment against the unjust rebellion of the Jewish people against Me. I am going to use an Empire who has a ravenous appetite to destroy and who arrogantly view themselves as being equal with Me to conquer the Jewish people and take them into exile.”

Now imagine yourself as Habakkuk. Place yourself in his shoes. You ask the Lord why He withholds justice and judgment against the wrongdoing and injustice that is being committed by the Jewish people.  And the Lord responds to your question by explaining that He is going to use an enemy army that arrogantly opposes the Lord to bring justice and judgment upon the Jewish people. You are Habakkuk; what would you be thinking? How would you feel about the Lord’s answer? How would you respond?

Tomorrow we will see Habakkuk’s response…

Regardless of relatives, the Lord will rightly respond to those who choose to take refuge in Him or who choose to rebel against Him with justice...

This week we have been looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Nahum.  We have looked on as Nahum proclaimed the character of the Lord. We looked on as Nahum proceed to proclaim that even though the Assyrian Empire was at its height of power and prominence, the Lord was about to act in a way that would remove them from the world stage. Even though the Lord had used the Assyrian Empire to execute His right and just response to the wrongdoing and rebellion of the Jewish people, the Jewish people would no longer experience their affliction.

Instead, the Lord would remove the bondage of the rule of the Assyrian Empire from the Southern Kingdom of Judea. The Lord would act to execute justice and judgment against the Assyrian Empire for the wrongdoing and injustice that flowed from their rebellion against the Lord. We looked on as Nahum proclaimed to the Assyrian Empire that the Lord was about to use the Babylonian Empire to exercise His justice and judgment against them for the wrongdoing and injustice that they had committed against the Jewish people.

The Lord would respond to the cruelty of the Assyrian Empire that flowed from their willingness to commit spiritual adultery by worshiping false gods instead of the One True God by bringing death and destruction on a massive scale. The destruction would be so severe that the Empire would become a spectacle to those who observed its demise and destruction. The cruelty and moral corruption of the Empire would be exposed for the rest of the world to see.

And in response, the rest of the world would flee from the Assyrian Empire so that no one would be left to grieve for its destruction. Nahum then pointed the Assyrian Empire to another nation that experienced invasion and destruction that they would be very familiar with to hammer the Lord’s point home in Nahum 3:8-11:

 Are you better than No-amon, Which was situated by the waters of the Nile, With water surrounding her, Whose rampart was the sea, Whose wall consisted of the sea? ⁹ Ethiopia was her might, And Egypt too, without limits. Put and Lubim were among her helpers. ¹⁰ Yet she became an exile, She went into captivity; Also her small children were dashed to pieces At the head of every street; They cast lots for her honorable men, And all her great men were bound with fetters. ¹¹ You too will become drunk, You will be hidden. You too will search for a refuge from the enemy.

Here we see Nahum point the Assyrian Empire to the Egyptian city of Thebes that was conquered by the Assyrians in 663 B.C. Like the city of Nineveh, the city of Thebes was located on a major river. Like the city of Nineveh, the city of Thebes had relationships with other nations that pledged to help them in their time of need. And here Nahum predicted and proclaimed that the city of Nineveh would experience the same fate from the Babylonians that the city of Thebes experienced from the Assyrians.

Just like the Egyptians, the Assyrians would be brought into exile. Just like the Egyptians, the Assyrians would experience cruelty as they were conquered. However, unlike the Egyptians, the city of Nineveh would be razed to the ground, not to rise again. When Nahum uses the phrase, you will be hidden, he was predicting and proclaiming that the city of Nineveh would be so destroyed that it would be hidden from sight.

And is 612 B.C., this prediction was fulfilled to the point that the city of Nineveh was so destroyed that it was hidden from historians until it was discovered in 1842. We see Nahum conclude his description of the siege and destruction of the Assyrian Empire in verse 12-19:

 All your fortifications are fig trees with ripe fruit-- When shaken, they fall into the eater's mouth. ¹³ Behold, your people are women in your midst! The gates of your land are opened wide to your enemies; Fire consumes your gate bars. ¹⁴ Draw for yourself water for the siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick mold! ¹⁵ There fire will consume you, The sword will cut you down; It will consume you as the locust does. Multiply yourself like the creeping locust, Multiply yourself like the swarming locust. ¹⁶ You have increased your traders more than the stars of heaven-- The creeping locust strips and flies away. ¹⁷ Your guardsmen are like the swarming locust. Your marshals are like hordes of grasshoppers Settling in the stone walls on a cold day. The sun rises and they flee, And the place where they are is not known. ¹⁸ Your shepherds are sleeping, O king of Assyria; Your nobles are lying down. Your people are scattered on the mountains And there is no one to regather them. ¹⁹ There is no relief for your breakdown, Your wound is incurable. All who hear about you Will clap their hands over you, For on whom has not your evil passed continually?

What is so interesting is that, upon finding the ruins of the city of Nineveh in 1842, archeologists discovered that fire helped destroy the city. The Babylonian Empire, like a hungry man shaking the ripened fruit off a tree for food, would shake the Assyrian Empire to a place of total destruction. Just 120 years after hearing the message of the prophet Jonah and repenting to the point of worshipping the Lord, the Assyrian Empire, at the height of their power, would soon experience God’s right and just response to the wrongdoing and injustice that flowed from their rebellion and rejection of the Lord. 

And, it is here, when God speaks, that we discover a timeless truth about the nature and character of God and God’s activity in history. And that timeless truth is this: Regardless of relatives, the Lord will rightly respond to those who choose to take refuge in Him or who choose to rebel against Him with justice. You see, the point of the book of Nahum is that the Lord, in His very nature and character, is righteous and avenges those who have been wronged as a result of wrongdoing and injustice. The Lord, in His very nature and character, is both longsuffering and all-powerful. The Lord, in His very nature and character, is just and executes justice.           

And the Lord, in His very nature and character, is morally good. The Lord, in His very nature and character, is a stronghold of strength in the face of trouble and difficulty for those who trust and take refuge in the Lord. The Lord, in His very nature and character, knows and cares for those who trust and take refuge in Him.

By contrast, for those who place themselves in opposition to the Lord, the Lord will overwhelm them with a flood of justice and judgment.  The Lord, in His very nature and character, is able to destroy the plans of those who oppose Him in rebellion against Him. And because of that reality, just as it was for the Assyrian Empire, the Lord will execute justice and judgment against the wrongdoing and injustice that flows from a rebellion and rejection of the Lord.

And that justice and judgment will be executed regardless of relatives. You see, even though the Assyrian Empire once knew and worshipped the Lord, those who worshipped the Lord did not pass on their knowledge of the Lord to the next generation. And within three generations, the Assyrian Empire found themselves in opposition to the Lord in a way that engaged in wrongdoing and injustice from their rebellion and rejection of the Lord.

And just like the Assyrian Empire, every human being is responsible for their response to the Lord. Just like the Assyrian Empire, every human being is responsible for their actions to the Lord. Just like the Assyrian Empire, every human being will answer to the Lord for how they lived life here on earth.

And just like it was for the Assyrian Empire in Nahum’s day, the Lord will not judge anyone for how their great grandparents responded to the Lord and lived their life before the Lord. Just like it was for the Assyrian Empire in Nahum’s day, the Lord will not judge anyone for how their grandparents responded to the Lord and lived their life before the Lord. Just like it was for the Assyrian Empire in Nahum’s day, the Lord will not judge anyone for how their parents responded to the Lord and lived their life before the Lord.

Instead, just like it was for the Assyrian Empire in Nahum’s day, the Lord will judge everyone for how they responded to the Lord and lived their life before the Lord. Just like it was for the Assyrian Empire in Nahum’s day, the Lord, in His very nature and character, is a stronghold of strength in the face of trouble and difficulty for those who trust and take refuge in the Lord. Just like it was for the Assyrian Empire in Nahum’s day, the Lord, in His very nature and character, is knows and cares for those who trust and take refuge in Him. Just like it was for the Assyrian Empire in Nahum’s day, the Lord will overwhelm them with a flood of justice and judgment those who choose to rebel against Him.  Regardless of relatives, the Lord will rightly respond to those who choose to take refuge in Him or who choose to rebel against Him with justice.

So here is a question to consider: How are you responding to the Lord?  Are you responding to the Lord by trusting and taking refuge in Him? Or are you responding to the Lord by rebelling against Him? Is your relationship with the Lord based on how your relatives viewed and responded to the Lord? Or is your relationship with the Lord based on your response to the Lord? Are you passing on your relationship with the Lord and what it means to have a relationship with the Lord to the next generation?

Because, as we have discovered, regardless of relatives, the Lord will rightly respond to those who choose to take refuge in Him or who choose to rebel against Him with justice.