When the Tables Turn (Habakkuk 2:6-20)

A few days ago, my wife Kristen read me a message that was

posted on a mom's listserv that she belongs to.

The message began. I don't know what to do for

Easter. My kids are 12:10 and 5:00, The

youngest for sure believes. But the jury's out on the

middle. When Kristen first read that,

she had the same thought that I first had when she read it to

me. The youngest for sure believes,

believes in Jesus, believes that he rose from the dead.

But you don't. The message continues.

The real struggle for me is that I do not want to buy them more

stuff. I'm just done with it all.

So much stuff. I know I can't do nothing, but

please help me make something useful.

Oh, OK, So what the five year old definitely believes, and the

10 year old might still believe, is the Easter Bunny, not Jesus.

Now, we don't often question what it really means to believe

in the Easter Bunny. This mom is concerned with this

ongoing faith on the part of one, maybe two of her kids.

What does it really mean to believe in the Easter Bunny?

There is some sort of magical free creature that shows up at

millions of people's houses at the same time on the same day of

the year to distribute plastic eggs in hard to find places that

might be filled with chocolate or other things.

I guess that's what it means to believe in the Easter Bunny.

Now, I don't mean to mock this mom.

Holidays are hard. Parenting is hard.

What's she trying to do? She is trying to teach her kids

a fun myth to create some momentary magic.

That's what she's trying to do on this holiday.

Is that what Easter is? A myth that makes a moment of

magic. The stakes of Easter are a lot

higher than that. The meaning of Easter is a lot

grander than that. It's easy for sort of polite,

sweet, pastel coloured cultural traditions to sort of gloss over

what Easter is about. Easter is about a former corpse

becoming the ruler of the universe and the savior of all

who believe. Easter is about suffering, evil

and death itself all being done away with forever.

That's what I would want my 5 year old, 10 year old 12 year

old to believe if those were my 3 kids.

If you're a guest with us this morning, we're delighted to have

you. As Michael mentioned, you're

warmly welcome to join us at the Pot like afterward.

We are confident there will be enough food.

Don't worry if you didn't bring anything.

Don't worry if you didn't plan on it.

We're happy to have you for lunch with us now.

If you don't normally attend church, you might be a little

bit surprised by the passage that I am about to preach

through. It is not the most Eastery

passage in the Bible that you might think of, but that's

because I'm simply doing what we do each week here, which is

preach straight through a book of the Bible.

This sermon will be #5 of seven in the book of Habakkuk, the Old

Testament prophetic book. As you'll find as we walk

through the passage, the connections between our passage

and Easter are actually surprisingly deep and

surprisingly strong. Our passage for this morning is

Habakkuk, chapter 2, verses 6 to 20.

Habakkuk 2:6–20

If you don't have a Bible with you, you can feel free to raise

your hand and I think someone can bring one to you.

Dawson, Austin, somebody, anybody need a Bible.

If you don't have a Bible, you can have one now.

If you don't have a Bible at home like that, you can

conveniently read, You can feel free to put up your hand and

keep that Bible from us as a gift to you.

We'd be delighted for you to take that home to refresh our

memories and catch you up to speed.

If you're new, here's what we've seen in the book of Habakkuk so

far. It's the late 7th century BC,

just over 600 years before Christ.

God's people are rejecting him and his ways.

Their sin and idolatry are causing total social

disintegration. So the prophet Habakkuk cries

out for God to do something about it.

And then God says he will. He'll raise up the Babylonians

an empire to their northeast, to come down and conquer Judah, to

carry out his judgement against his own people.

But that seems even worse to Habakkuk.

How can God use evil people to judge evil people?

So God answers Habakkuk first by exhorting him to trust, by

telling him to wait patiently for him to fulfill his promises.

And when those promises are fulfilled, he will make a

distinction, a just and fitting distinction between those who

trust his promises and those who don't.

These promises will eventually bring life to all who believe

and judgement to all who reject God.

Now we come to our passage, verses 6 to 20 of chapter 2.

In this passage, the judgement God is promising becomes far

more vivid and explicit. This is what God is going to do

to the Babylonians, and he's what it's what God is going to

do to all who reject him and refuse his ways.

Now, it's primarily judgement, but that judgement itself is

grounds for hope. And you'll also hear even

brighter notes of hope at a few points in the passage.

So please follow along as I read Habakkuk 2 verses 6 to 20.

Habakkuk 2:6–20

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 spoiled for them, because you have plundered

many nations. All the remnants of the peoples

shall plunder you for the blood of man and violence to the

earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.

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 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 labour

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.

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.

What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal

image, a teacher of lies For its maker trust 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, that 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.

Obviously, this whole passage announces and focuses on God's

judgement. We often think of God's

judgement as bad news, and in part it is.

It is bad news if you reject God and receive his judgement.

But God's judgement is also unspeakably good news.

God's judgement is not only what sinners fear, it is also what

sufferers hope for and what the oppressed cry out for.

God's judgement involves both retribution and restoration.

In our passage, retribution is the dominant note, but the two

are inseparable. God's judgement will defeat

evil. God's judgement will remove

evil. God's judgement will restore all

the goodness that evil took away and more.

That's the hope that our passage holds out to us.

Our passage answers the question, What will God's

judgement accomplish? The passage pronounces 5 woes

against Babylon, each of which gives an answer.

So the sermon will have five points.

Point #1 Plunder the plunderers. That's what God promises to do

in verses 6 to 8. Plunder the plunderers.

Look again with me at those verses starting in verses 6 and

seven. 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 spoiled for

them. Verse 6 begins by referring to

all these. Who are all these?

They're all the nations that the king of Babylon has gathered to

himself, as verse 5 says, through unjust conquests,

through taking lands and territories that don't belong to

him. So our passage predicts a time

when all those who have been oppressed will be liberated.

Not only will they be freed from tyranny, they'll even boast over

and taunt their tyrants. This whole rest of our passage

is the song they'll sing on the day when that happens.

So from the outset, this passage is about the reversal of

injustice. It's about the freeing of those

who have been oppressed. The word woe is both a judgement

and a cry of sorrow. It pronounces God's judgement

and mourns the fate of the one who suffers it.

Now, throughout our passage, these woes describe the evil

actions of the Babylonian Empire vividly and graphically.

And they do so in ways that fit lots of other oppressive powers,

whether political regimes or economic orders, whether social

trends or personal offenses. So these woes are especially

about the Babylonians. They're primarily aimed at the

Babylonians, but they also paint a picture of how all oppressors

work. And they promise a judgement

that will ultimately fall on all oppressors.

Verse 6 begins by describing how the Babylonians have greedily

gobbled up what doesn't belong to them, people, territory, the

resources and wealth of other kingdoms.

For how long? It might seem long now, but

verse 7 says, will not your debtors suddenly arise?

This might refer to literal debtors.

It's possible the Babylonians finance their their conquests by

debt, but it's most likely, I think, that it's a metaphor.

The Babylonians think they've been racking up wealth by

plundering all these kingdoms, building a bigger and bigger and

bigger war chest back home. But as God sees it, their evil

actions have been mounting up debts before Him.

And God one day is going to call those debts due unjust killing,

plunder, taking captives in war, sending them back to the capital

and enslaving them. A day will come when, just as

the Babylonians have taken spoil from many kingdoms, they

themselves will become spoil for others.

God's judgement will be just and fitting.

There will even be an element of poetic justice.

The judgement will fit with and follow from the crime.

The plunderers will be plundered.

Verse 8 Because you have plundered many nations, all the

remnant of the people shall plunder you for the blood of man

and violence to the earth, to cities, and all who dwell in

them. The remnant of the peoples

refers to survivors in the cities and territories that the

Babylonians conquered. For instance, at the height of

their power, the Babylonians subjugated the Medes and the

Persians, and it would be an alliance of those very powers

that in two generations would rise up and topple Babylon.

Verse 8 gives the reason why the Babylonians will be punished for

the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who

dwell in them. Babylon will be condemned by God

for their violence against people and their violence

against creation. They will be judged for their

greed, for their theft, for taking what didn't belong to

them. They'll be judged for harming

both people and this earth in their insatiable quest for more.

Now there's a historical horizon here and an eternal horizon in

history. Just a few decades later.

God partially fulfilled this promise by raising up Cyrus the

Persian to seize power over the Babylonians in 539 BC.

But God's judgement extends far beyond that historical event.

It will be fulfilled in fullness when Christ returns and judges

all people. And the consequences for sin

that the Lord Jesus begins to hand out on that day will

persist forever in eternity in hell.

These five woes in our passage are like a five part miniseries.

They're short, provocative episodes of judgement.

They portray both the sins of Babylon and God's judgement in

vivid detail. They're meant as a wake up call.

5 short wake up calls back-to-back to back.

They're meant to teach us 2 main lessons.

Hope in God's judgement and flee from sin.

Patiently wait for God to deal with evil in his time and in his

way, and turn from evil yourself.

It's easy to look at the world and see a whole bunch of evil

out there, a whole bunch of people, bad people doing bad

things. And that perception might be

accurate, that judgement might be true.

But a passage like this is also meant to be a mirror, to hold up

and say you might think it's only bad people out there, but

what about the bad in here? What about the ways in which

you're tempted to reflect and imitate people like the

Babylonians more than you would care to admit?

One of the themes of of this woe, and all the following ones,

is that God's judgement is fitting.

It's exact, it's just, it's complete.

Those who have robbed others will be robbed of everything.

Those who have devastated others will themselves be devastated.

How can that be good news? It's especially good news if

you've ever been on the receiving end of suffering

injustice that didn't get addressed, wasn't properly dealt

with, wasn't handled rightly by the authorities, or even if it

was, the justice that was meted out, you came to realize didn't,

didn't, and couldn't completely fix what was wrong.

All human justice is incomplete. Even when laws are just and

trials are fair, and verdicts are true, and sentences are

fitting and proportional, the execution of human justice

cannot give back everything that an evil person took away.

As we'll see throughout this passage, God's judgement doesn't

only punish evil, it defeats evil.

God's judgement doesn't just repay those who caused harm, it

also removes the harm and restores the one who is harmed

.2 Ruin every false refuge. What will God's judgement

accomplish? It will ruin every false refuge.

That's what the second woe in verses 9 to 11 pronounces and

promises verse 9. Woe to him who gets evil gain

for his house to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach

of harm. Babylon sought to secure their

power and permanence by exploitation.

They sought to protect themselves.

By robbing others of protection, they sought security for

themselves. By denying security to others.

That's what the image of setting their nest on high implies.

It's like an eagle building a nest, an irie up in a rock face.

They tried to make themselves impregnable, invulnerable.

But of course, that obsessive quest for security shows they

were haunted by fear. Bullies have to be afraid of

everyone because they make everyone their enemy.

An obsessive quest for security shows how insecure you really

are. And verse 10 shows us this quest

was futile. You have devised shame for your

house. By cutting off many peoples, you

have forfeited your life. Now, when it says you've devised

shame, that's of course the opposite of what the Babylonians

were intending. But the point is, their plans

produced the opposite of their desires.

They schemed for glory, but what they were actually planning

turned into shame, and that's because they violently cut off

others. They stole life and thereby

forfeited their life in various ways.

In his providential rule over history and ultimately at the

final judgement God will ruin every false refuge.

Verse 11 tells us that their own possessions will testify against

them for the stone will crowd from the wall and the beam from

the woodwork respond. The image here is of lavish

royal palaces or temples that they would have built.

They would have built with plundered materials or materials

they got by spending other people's money.

So they build these nice buildings and then the stones

and the woodwork cries out against them, testifying to

their I'll gotten gain. Sinful gain can give you a

delusional sense of security. But living in sin is never safe.

No security system can keep out death.

No security system can protect you from God's judgement.

Greed is deceptive. Seeking to secure yourself at

cost to others is an illusion. You might not knowingly collude

with an oppressive political power to try to profit from

exploitation. I realized that that as a

literal description of your actions might fit very few of us

in this room. Might fit none of us in this

room. But do you ever press your

advantage at someone else's expense?

Do you ever seek gain for yourself in a way that will

leave someone else worse off than they should be?

And worse off than they deserve to be.

The Babylonians not only worshipped false gods of wood

and stone, as we'll see at the end of the passage, they also

worship their desires, their drives, their appetites.

Physical idols are not the only kind of false gods.

Any created thing that you look to for ultimate fulfilment or

security is an idol. It's a false God whenever you

look to it for total fulfilment, total protection.

If only I have this thing, I will be happy and safe.

You're making it a God in your heart.

Now these verses show us that you can even devote yourself to

one idol in the service of another idol.

Here's what I mean. These verses show us that the

Babylonians were idolatrously greedy.

Their greed was an idol. The Apostle Paul says in

Colossians 35 that covetousness is idolatry.

But Babylon's greed also served another idol, a deeper idol.

They pursued greed to attain security.

Their surface idol was greed, money, wealth, possessions.

Their deep idol was security. I'm borrowing this distinction

between surface idols and deep idols from Tim Keller's book

Counterfeit Gods. It's one of the deepest insights

in the whole book. Keller writes on this so

insightfully, I'm going to read a quote that's long but worth

it. Surface idols, deep idols.

Keller says counterfeit gods come in structures.

Sin in our hearts effects our basic motivational drives.

Each deep idol power, approval, comfort or control generates a

different set of fears and hopes.

Surface idols are things like money, spouse, children through

which our deep idols seek fulfilment.

We're often superficial in the analysis of our idol structures.

For example, money can be a surface idol that serves to

satisfy more foundational influences.

Some people want lots of money as a way to control their world

and life. And such people usually don't

spend much money. They live very modestly.

They keep it all safely saved and invested so that they can

feel completely safe in the world.

Others want money for access to social circles and to make

themselves beautiful and attractive.

These people do spend their money on themselves in lavish

ways. Other people want money because

it gives them so much power over others.

In every case, money functions as an idol, and yet because of

various deep idols, it results in very different patterns of

behavior. Over the coming week, do a

little self examination. Prayerfully consider the desires

of your heart in light of scripture.

What are the evident surface idols that dominate your heart

and mind? And what are the deep idols

seeking fulfilment through those surface idols?

If it's money you're longing for and craving, what is it you want

money to get for you? It's easy to idolize money

because in our society money can get you almost anything.

So the question to ask yourself is not just whether you want

money too much, but why? What are you looking money for

money to get for you? Money is a modern all-purpose

God substitute. It can get you anything.

It can protect you from anything.

It can fulfil anything, It can do anything for you.

So be careful not to let money replace God in your heart.

If you're not a believer in Jesus, where are you prone to

look for ultimate fulfilment or security?

That's not God. And how is that working out for

you? Through his just judgement, God

will ruin every false refuge. Now, the desire for security is

not a bad thing. We all need it, though we like

to think otherwise. All of us human beings are weak.

We're frail, we're fragile, we're vulnerable.

We need security. But you cannot find reliable

security by entrusting yourself completely to any creature.

Where can you find that kind of perfect security?

It's in God alone, as David prayed in Psalm 61.

Verses 2 and 3 lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for

you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.

And don't look for perfect security in this life.

Instead, patiently wait for the perfect security that's coming

in the new creation. As Agustin put it, none of us

are secure or even can be secure until we arrive at our homeland,

where no friend will leave us, nor enemy gain access.

Point #3 Replace futility with glory.

What will God's judgement accomplish?

Verses 12 to 14? It will replace futility with

glory. Verses 12 and 13.

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 people's labour merely for fire, and nations

weary themselves for nothing? Building a town with blood,

founding a city on iniquity, that that could refer to violent

conquest or conscripted labour, or both?

Like all imperial capitals, Babylon was built on the backs

of the oppressed, prisoners of war and slaves.

This is the way all proud human powers go about building their

kingdoms, Building through oppression, building for self,

building through exploitation, exploitation in service of self

glorification. In the thesis statement from his

great work, The City of God, Augustine penetrated down to the

spiritual roots of every human effort to make a name for

ourselves. He contrasts what he calls the

City of God with the city of man.

Accordingly 2 cities have been formed by two loves, the earthly

by the love of self even to the contempt of God, the heavenly by

the love of God even to the contempt of self.

The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the

Lord. For the one seeks glory from

men, but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of

conscience. The one lifts up its head in its

own glory, the other says to its God, Thou art my glory and the

lifter up of mine head. The outcome of the city of man's

building project is vanity, futility, emptiness, nothing.

That's what verse 13 proclaims. Behold, is it not from the Lord

of Hosts that peoples labor merely for fire, and nations

weary themselves for nothing? The empire builds monuments to

itself, but fire will burn them down.

Whole nations will spend themselves for their own glory,

but it will all come to nothing. Whatever empire is in charge at

any given time. Let the tape run.

Let a few more decades roll. Those territories will revolt.

That wall will fall. That dominant global superpower

will be demoted to one among many, or even less than that.

But how can we be certain? What if there's an earthly power

that bugs the trend and lasts as long as it wants?

How can we know they'll all fall?

Because God's building project will be the only one to succeed

perfectly and permanently. That's what verse 14 shows us.

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory

of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 5 Woes.

This is the middle one, and here's the reason.

In terms of typical ways Old Testament books are structured,

what comes in the middle is often the most important.

It's often the key. Here it is, verse 14, key to the

whole passage. For the earth will be filled

with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover

the sea. I've always been a little bit

confused by that phrase. As the waters cover the sea,

isn't the sea water by definition?

How is water covering water? This week I read my friend Steve

Duby's commentary on the back again.

It cleared it up for me. He explained that in this

phrase, the word sea refers to the sea bed, the sea floor.

So of course the waters cover the whole thing.

You know, as far as it extends into an incalculable depth.

Any Norman normal human person without scientific measuring

instruments, you just don't even know how deep it is.

You can't even say how wide it is.

It is covered that completely. That is what the knowledge of

God's glory will be like over all the earth when God fulfills

this promise. My wife Kristen loves to sit on

the beach and stare at the ocean.

She has said to me many times that it is the only place you

can go and just stare off into the distance and no one will

think you're crazy. We both grew up near the Pacific

and I grew up surfing often in the Pacific, so I spent a lot of

time near the ocean, on the ocean, in the ocean.

There's many times and I've just looked out to the horizon and

thought there's nothing but water between me and Japan.

It's incredible how the vastness dwarfs you, how it puts you in

your place as a teeny tiny little speck of a human being.

When you're in the Pacific Ocean, you're staring out

towards Japan. There is nothing but water for

thousands of miles out. When you're in the middle of the

ocean, there is nothing but water for thousands of feet

down. That's what God's glory over all

the earth will be like in the new creation.

Nothing but glory all the way out.

Nothing but glory all the way down.

Notice that what covers the whole earth is the knowledge of

the glory of the Lord, meaning people rightly receiving that

glory, people rightly responding to it, rightly delighting in it

and savouring it. This passage promises that God's

glory will not only be pervasively present, it will

also be perfectly perceived. When will this promise be

fulfilled? It will ultimately come to pass

when Christ returns and remakes heaven and earth.

When Christ returns and brings heaven to earth, this promise

will be fully realized in the new creation.

On that day, God's glory will be perfectly seen and will

perfectly satisfy all of His perfected people.

So this passage promises a total reversal from futility to glory,

from earthly kingdom's self seeking to all of God's people

seeing and savouring Him, from proud striving to the glad

reception of God's total gift of his all satisfying glory.

God's judgement will bring bring about a complete and perfect

transformation of all the conditions of life on earth.

So that's when. But the question is how?

How is that reversal achieved? Here is where we land squarely

on Easter. This reversal is accomplished by

the reversal that Christ experienced.

God's judgement includes both retribution and restoration,

both paying for sin and perfecting his creation.

On Good Friday, Jesus endured the retribution.

On Easter Sunday, Jesus began the restoration.

Jesus received this restoration first in his own body because he

paid for sins and then conquered the grave.

That's what he came to do. He came to deal with sin fully,

comprehensively, totally. Just like God's judgement

throughout this passage brings about a total transformation,

total justice, total change, total perfection for those who

believe in him. Total satisfaction.

That's what Jesus was accomplishing in his death and

resurrection. Our problem of sin is so great,

only Jesus death could pay for it.

Our sin is so serious it took the death of the Son of God to

suffer God's wrath for it. Our sin is so serious, the only

way we could be made right with God is by God Himself

substituting, taking our place and bearing the punishment we

deserved. And God's grace and power are so

great that he effortlessly triumphed over death, our

greatest enemy. That's what the resurrection is

about. It's about Jesus getting a life

in Himself that He can give to you and that He will give to you

if you turn from sin and trust in him.

That's what Easter is all about. That's why Christians have

gathered on Sunday every Sunday for 2000 years.

That's why in the face of a stubbornly traditional

conservative practice, that's hard to change.

Any kind of traditional religious practice takes sort of

a crowbar to pry it open and shift it.

Well, ancient Jews gathered for worship on Saturday.

The earliest Christians, all of whom were Jewish, start a

meeting on Sunday. For Christians, every Sunday is

Easter Sunday. Every time we gather on the

Lord's Day, we are celebrating His resurrection.

The Christian life starts by receiving Jesus resurrection,

and it continues by the power of Christ's resurrection working

itself out in you. If you want to know more about

that, if you're not a believer in Jesus, talk with a friend who

brought you. Talk with me or Michael at the

door. Talk with somebody over the

potluck lunch after. There's nothing more we would

like than to talk with you about what it means to receive the

power of Christ's resurrection into your own life.

God's glory will perfectly fill the new creation when Christ

returns. But the knowledge of this glory

is already spreading out over the face of the earth as people

from every tribe, tongue, and nation come to believe in Jesus.

As we fulfill Christ's Great Commission by sharing the

gospel, by going out as missionaries, by supporting

faithful gospel partners, we spread the knowledge of God's

glory into new corners of the earth.

Here's how Paul put it in language that echoes our

passage. Second Corinthians 4/6 For God,

who said let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our

hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in

the face of Jesus Christ. This promise of God's

retribution and restoration teaches us to hope.

It teaches us to cling to God's promise when God's promise is

all you have. It teaches us to cling to God's

Word when God's word is all you have.

If you're a believer in Jesus, consider all that this promise

holds out to you. To hope in hope in the day when

you will have a perfect experience of God, perfect

fellowship with Him, perfect intimacy with him.

Hope in the day when you'll have perfect knowledge of God.

No more doubts, no more darkness, no more unanswerable

questions, no more fighting for faith and fighting off the

voices in your head that try to undermine everything God says.

No more inward battle with Satan's lies.

Hope In the day when every trace of sin is wiped off the face of

the earth. Every last speck of sin will be

scoured off of God's good earth by the flood of God's glory.

All injustice will be perfectly dealt with.

Justice will be perfectly restored forever, both without

and within. Hope in the day when all harm

will be more than healed. Hope in the day when all loss

will be more than restored. Hope in the day when suffering

will give way to glory. Easter is about this restoration

happening to Jesus first in his body, in his own human nature.

Jesus is the first born from the dead.

Everyone who believes in him will follow in that birth from

out of death. Easter is about the promise that

since this happened to Jesus first, one day it will happen to

everyone who believes in him. Jesus resurrection is the end of

evil. It's the end of death, it's the

end of sin, it's the end of suffering, all brought forward

into the present. God's judgement will replace

futility with glory, and in the resurrection of Jesus it already

has. Point #4 Shame the shameful.

Two more woes. 2 more points. Stay with me now.

Point #4 Shame the shameful. That's what God's judgement will

accomplish according to verses 15 to 17.

We'll consider verses 15 and 16 first.

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'll 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 image here is of enticing

others to get drunk in order to incite them to immoral acts.

It's possible this condemns debauchery by the Babylonians,

but I think it's far more likely a metaphor for their whole

imperial program. In order to succeed politically,

the Babylonians would have had to make allegiances with all

kinds of other kings and rulers and powers.

They would have had to entice them to partner with them in

their exploitation. They promised glory, but the

reality was the shame of the morning after.

People who get drunk boast of things they should be ashamed

of. They try to lower other people's

resistance and reduce their inhibitions by pushing them to

drink more and more with them. Come on, have another one.

What's your problem? What's the big deal?

They lead people into sin. They glory in what should be

their shame. That's true of Babylon's use of

its power. It's also literally true of

everyone who uses their influence with others to lead

them into any kind of sin. Whether you like it or not,

we're all examples for others. We're all models for others.

We all rub off on others. Do you influence people to live

for God's glory or to rejoice in what's shameful?

How do your sins rub off on others?

In verse 16, God warns that just as the Babylonians have passed

around a cup of drunkenness, so he will pass around to them a

cup of wrath. They'll be justly exposed,

utterly degraded, eternally ashamed.

Verse 17 adds another layer to this condemnation.

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. Here I think we shift from the

metaphorical back to the literal.

Lebanon was a territory in the northernmost part of Israel that

was famous for its cedar trees. They were huge, they were

beautiful, they were renowned like redwoods and sequoias in

California. What did Babylon do to those

trees? Violence.

Babylon would have passed through Lebanon on their way to

conquer Judah. We know from Isaiah chapter 14

Isaiah 14:7

verses 7 and eight that they cut down huge swaths of those trees

to use them for their war machine.

They clear cut a heritage Redwood and Sequoia forest.

That's the equivalent here. Why?

To use it to get more power. The text also says that the

destruction of the beasts will overwhelm them, meaning they

will also suffer judgement for the animal lives they have

wrongly taken. By destroying their entire

habitat, they decimated all the animal life in that place.

Now the primary focus of this whole passage is on avenging

violence done to people. But God also cares about

violence done to His creation. That's why this verse repeats

that phrase from verse 8 for the blood of man and violence to the

earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.

This passage offers a challenge regarding our basic stance

toward the created world. Do we take from creation what we

want or think we need with no thought for the long term

consequences? What's the alternative to that

kind of violence? The economist and philosopher EF

Schumacher 50 years ago said the alternative to violence is

treating creation with reverence.

Another way. He put it a harmonious

cooperation with nature rather than a warfare against nature.

As Wendell Berry has said, any violence that intrudes between

the land and the people extends its damage both ways. 5th and

final point, expose idols. What will God's judgement

accomplish? It will expose idols.

That's what verses 18 to 20 show us.

Look at verses 18 and 19. What profit is an idol when it's

maker has shaped it? A metal image?

A teacher of lies. For its maker trust 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.

Now the key to this critique of idolatry is there in the second

part of verse 18. For its maker trusts in his own

creation. The only true refuge and

security and satisfaction is God.

He's the Creator, and we're the creatures we need to seek all of

our good in Him. Idols aren't just creatures in

one point of view, they're creatures of creatures.

That's true for physical idols, like many people in various

religions still worship today. But it's also true for idols of

the heart. Sex, money, power, status,

achievement, recognition, relationships.

When you make any of those things ultimate, they turn on

you. They become futile.

And on the one hand, verse 19 asks this rhetorical question,

can this teach? Implying they can't teach at

all. Idols are deaf, they can't talk.

But on the other hand, by their very existence, verse 18 says

they teach lies. They lie about God, they lie

about humanity. They lie about what we need.

They lie about what we will receive.

Not only do idols teach lies, they demand lies.

If you devote yourself to an idol, sooner or later you will

have to lie for it. How many times have you heard a

politician say something that you know is a lie, that they

know is a lie, and that you're pretty sure they know you know

is a lie? What's underneath all that lying

idolatry? In our passage, God exposes

idols not only by teaching their folly, but by contrasting them

with Himself and by the implied promise of what He'll do to

them. Verse 20 is another kind of

mountain peak viewpoint in our passage here at the very end.

But the Lord is in his holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before him.

To say the Lord is in his temple might mean that he's manifesting

his presence at his temple in Jerusalem.

He's not constrained by it or contained by it, but he makes

himself specially present there to be with his people.

It also might refer to heaven, which Exodus 25 teaches.

The earthly temple is a model of the heavenly one.

There's a temple in heaven where God reigns over all.

Either way, the point here is the temple is God's command

center. The temple is the seat of God's

government. The temple is the place from

which God rules over all things. Idols are lifeless, but the Lord

is infinitely full of life. Idols are mute, but the Lord

speaks plainly and powerfully. Idols can't teach, but the Lord

can teach both outwardly and inwardly.

Idols need to be called awake, and then they still don't get

up. But the Lord can call sinners

from death to life. Why does Habakkuk call all the

world to silence? Not just Judah, not just the

Babylonians, but everyone hearing this verse today here in

this room, and all the other 7 billion people on this planet.

Why does he call for silence? It's to show reverence before

God's reign. It's to express fear before His

Holiness, to indicate our submission under His supremacy.

Throughout the book, Habakkuk has wrestled with God, but now

it's time for reverence. Habakkuk has spoken bluntly to

God, but now it's time for silence.

Both are part of a lively, living relationship with God.

But once you've asked all your questions and you've heard God's

answers, there comes a time when silence, submission, is the only

fitting response. Brothers and sisters, this verse

and the truth behind it is one of the reasons why we bracket

our Sunday morning services with silence.

Just before we begin, just after we conclude, we take a moment of

silence. It's to cultivate reverence

before God, to help us slow down and consider the gravity of

meeting with God, to help us slow down and examine ourselves

so we don't just blunder into God's presence together.

We take a minute to cultivate reverence before approaching God

together and after hearing from God together.

More broadly, this call for reverence is why we aim to have

several elements of our service cultivate our corporate

reverence for God. We read Scripture passages that

convict us of sin, including the 10 commandments.

We confess our sins before God in prayer.

We sing songs that celebrate His Majesty in glory and we preach

the whole books of the Bible. We sit before God in silence,

hearing whatever He has to say. We embrace all that He has to

say, even if what He has to say is 15 verses of judgement on

Easter. Silent listening expresses holy

reverence. Verse 20 ends on a note of

stored up power. The Lord is in His holy temple.

He sees all things. He reigns over all things.

He observes all things. He will evaluate all things.

For now, He does that in a way that's hidden, that lets sinners

keep on sinning, that lets empires keep on rising and

falling, that tests His people's faith by letting them continue

to suffer and struggle and call out to Him.

We wonder where he is. He's in His holy temple.

What is he doing? He is reigning over all things,

but we don't see it yet. One day we will.

One day that pent up power will perfect and purify all of His

people and all of creation. How do we know?

Because I know that my Redeemer lives.

He lives triumphant from the grave.

He lives eternally to save. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we praise you for the promise that the earth

will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the

Lord as the waters cover the sea, and we thank you for

beginning the fulfillment of that promise through the

resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.

We pray that we would trust in You, pray that we would submit

to you, pray that we'd be reverent before you.

We pray that we would wait for You in Jesus name, Amen.