Habakkuk 2:9-11

“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.” [ESV]

Looking back on history, it is inescapable that the Babylonians were able to establish a vast and formidable empire.  However, this empire was built through the labor and exploitation of peoples whom they had subjected from other nations.  These actions and the attitudes behind them run absolutely contrary to the nature of God and the kingdom he is establishing.  As such, it was only a matter of time before the empire was to be brought under God’s judgment through the instrument of Persia. 

Obviously, none of us have conquered cities and taken captives to do our bidding.  But how many of us operate in life with the same heart and egocentric worldview that spawned such deplorable behavior among the Babylonians?  Our culture grooms us to pursue our own interests and pleasures even at the expense of the interests and pleasures of others.  This grooming is so subtle, it would be easy for us to miss it.  We all too easily justify luxuries and pleasures in our lives, labeling them as simply good gifts from God that he gives us as his children.  And though every good and perfect gift does come from our heavenly Father, we must not yield to the lie that everything we acquire is good and perfect.  Far too often, our pursuit of comfort and pleasure robs us, our families, and the nations of experiencing the fullness of the self-sacrificing Christ we know and adore.

Instead of idling our time away in front of the television, why don’t we diligently pursue the exercise of the supernatural gifts that have been bestowed upon us through the Holy Spirit for the glory of Christ and the good of others?  Instead of busying ourselves with worldly promotions and compensations, why don’t we earnestly labor in prayer for the goodness and greatness of Christ to be known and celebrated throughout the earth?  Instead of chasing after the house of our dreams, why don’t we fantasize about raising up the family of God’s desire—one that cares more about the needs of others than its own wants and wishes?

Should we follow suit with the Babylonians, our house will most assuredly experience a demise like theirs.  On a surface level, it’s very possible that God would allow our physical house to begin to fall apart in the hope that we would realize the truly temporary nature of our domicile.  On a deeper and more disconcerting level, by pursuing temporary pleasures and security through a vain lifestyle, we greatly endanger the spiritual livelihood of ourselves and our children after us.  The decisions we make regarding where and how we live dramatically influence the affections of our children.  Do we want them to think that the universe revolves around their own good?  Or do we want them to appreciate that the love of Christ is more compelling, more extensive, and more eternal?    

Sadly and ironically, our earthly quest to experience all that the American dream has to offer prohibits us from experiencing the full life that we were created to enjoy.  Those of us who slumber from day to day, drifting off into this dream, will eventually awaken to the reality of the nightmare of a wasted and misspent life.

Habakkuk 2:4

Behold his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him;

but the righteous shall live by his faith. [ESV]

Many of us are familiar with Paul’s use of these words from Habakkuk and how they form the core of our doctrine of justification by faith.  But after exploring the original utterance of these words, we may arrive at a deeper appreciation of this doctrine and may become more sensitive to how we are prone to stray from a pure faith in Christ alone as the basis of our fellowship with God.

The prophetic word of Habakkuk enables us to see the remarkable dichotomy of walking by faith and walking by our own strength.  Our culture is known for its lauding of those who can “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps” and make a name for themselves despite humble beginnings.  So, it has become a part of the fabric of our society to value those who rely on their own capacity and limited resources to climb the proverbial ladder.  However, this self-reliance is not likewise esteemed in Scripture.  Why not?  It is because self-reliance, either subtly or defiantly, seeks to take away the glory, power, and honor that alone belong to the Lord.  Apart from him we can do nothing; apart from him, in fact, we are non-existent. 

Unfortunately, our flesh is not ready to fully concede this fact, so we must continually be mindful of ways in which we turn to our own faculties to define our relationship with God.  The fundamental problem is that our arrogance and self-reliance are what initially created a rift in our relationship with God, so it is utterly foolish to try to mend the relationship with that same self-reliance.  Two wrongs do not make us right with God.  It is not through benevolent offering of our time or our money or our abilities that we can be on good terms with God.  Not only is such ambition ineffective in bringing us into fellowship with God, it actually further accentuates our enmity with him and his eternal purpose of magnifying his name among the nations.  For the one who looks to himself, Habakkuk declares, “His soul is puffed up.  It is not upright within him.”

But thanks be to our merciful and wise God, for he has made a way to restore our relationship with him that simultaneously highlights not our glory but his.  This way is the person and work of Jesus Christ and through faith in him we can indeed live!

Habakkuk 1:2-4

O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence” and you will not save?
Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted. [ESV]

If God is all-righteous and all-powerful, how is it conceivable that injustice persists in our world? Does it not belittle the righteous name of God for his creation to rebel against him? And does it not further belittle his name that he—if even for a moment—appears impotent to eradicate such gross injustice?

These are the very real and very weighty questions with which Habakkuk was wrestling as he beheld the corruption that plagued the southern kingdom of Judah in the 7th century BC. The northern kingdom of Israel had already gone into captivity at the hands of Assyria, and the southern kingdom seemed well on its way to a similar fate. But where was the LORD in all this? And where is the LORD in our day when the poor are oppressed, when the unborn are annihilated, when the faithful spouse is betrayed, and when the spiritually hungry are fed lies? I offer three replies:

The LORD will absolutely vindicate his name and his renown when he comes to judge the living and the dead. Let there be no doubt—he will indeed execute perfect and complete judgment on the unrighteous in accordance with the measure that they have defied his most holy and absolutely awesome name. Just as he wrought judgment on the likes of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, vengeance is his and he will repay. It would be horrendously unrighteous of him not to do so.

The LORD is vindicating his name and renown in the judgment he currently executes in the world. Our natural inclination is to think that an all-righteous and all-powerful God would eliminate injustice immediately. However, such a response would actually be more a demonstration of his mercy than it would be of his justice. His justice says that if men live in unrighteousness, his wrath will be demonstrated by actually giving them over to their evil ways, further exacerbating the presence of unrighteousness (see Romans 1:18-25). It is only just that God withhold his goodness and uprightness from a human race that sees fit to turn away from that very goodness. Thanks be to God that he broke into our vicious downward spiral of evil to extend to us his grace in the person of Jesus Christ. Which brings me to my third reply…

The LORD has gloriously vindicated his name and renown through the cross of Jesus Christ. To be honest, we can only appreciate this fully once we have, along with Habakkuk, wrestled through the soul-wrenching nature of injustice. Not the soul-wrenching pain that we endure because we are victims of injustice but the soul-wrenching pain that we feel when we understand the weight of the heinous affronts we ourselves have made against our most holy God. At the cross—in the same instant of time—we see manifested the unimaginable depravity and injustice that billows forth from our hearts and the infinite mercy and justice of God as the Son absorbs the Father’s wrath in our stead. With all of the injustices in the history of the world condensed down into a single moment and a single offense at the cross, Christ Jesus forever proclaimed that God is most assuredly all-righteous and all-powerful!

That God is able to take all the injustices of our lives and our world and use them to accentuate the utterly magnificent nature of his justice is remarkable. It is why he is worthy of our worship, worthy of our surrender, and worthy of our trust. Trust when we experience the pain of suffering, sickness, and death. Trust when we see the Word of God disdained in our culture or ignored in the church. Trust when his already-sealed victory seems but a fading wish. Let us therefore stand in awe of our Righteous Judge and exercise our faith in him!