Habakkuk 2:19-20 The Foolishness of Idolatry Part III

Some time back, in a town we lived in, one of the churches had a new contemporary worship service they titles "Networking with Christ".  I still giggle about that.  I can just see some of the people going into the worship center "Oh, yeah, I'm here to see if Christ has some good stock tips.  Maybe he knows of a good opening at a bigger company He might could give me the inside track on.  And, of course, if I've got any good tips for Him, well, I'll share those too."

(snicker)

The fact is, that if we really had the kind of view of God that, say, Job had, we would live, act, and talk much differently than we do today.  If we truly understood Him to be all-knowing, all-loving, holy, sovereign, and powerful, you know, like He is, we would live our lives in awe and worship.  We don't obey like we should and love Him like we should because, I submit to you, we don't see Him as being Who He is--the Lord God Almighty.

The Babylonians had much the same problem.  They worshipped idols, As we noticed in Habakkuk 2:18, it is foolishness for anyone to worship something they carved, gilded, and set on an altar.  In verse 19, God continues to point out how silly idol worship is.  First of all, notice, it's foolish to talk to something that "has no breath in it" and call for it to act as though it were alive.  It can't teach.  For that matter, it can't do anything at all.

Not only is it not alive, but this dead, inanimate object, is "overlaid with gold and silver". Sure, it's shiny and looks pretty on a coffee table, but if it was a living being, it would smother.  So, since this thing, that they created by the way, is not only dead but doubly dead what kind of kook would you have to be to turn to it for answers?  It just doesn't make any sense.

Of course, we do the same thing.  Don't shake your head judgmentally at these godless Babylonians because when you love your recreation and your job or your family more than you do God  and the ministry He's called you to, you can dress it up as pretty as you please, but you, my friend, are committing idolatry.

However, we read our antidote to all this godlessness that God has pronounced woes over beginning in verse 4 of this chapter.  What we need is to recalibrate our perspective by maintaining a clear view of God and His glory.  We remember that "the Lord in His holy temple" is high, exalted, and unimaginably holy.  When we contemplate the glory of God and His many attributes, we, like Job, find ourselves with our hands over our mouths, "silent" in awe of Who He is, where He is and what He's done.

Praise God for revealing this truth to us through His word.

Habakkuk 2:18-20 The Foolishness of Idolatry Part II

When I was studying music in college, there were a couple of freshmen that came in my junior year who acted like they looked up to me.  We made idol conversation and they would ask me questions about various things in the music department.  One day, for recital class, I was playing a transcription of a Bach violin partita.  This was the first time they heard me play alone and they realized I wasn’t very good.  Oh, I was alright.  I could probably have walked into any 7^th grade band room and made first chair, or at least had a lock on 2^nd chair.  In all seriousness, they realized that I wasn’t as good as they’d made me out to be and it was foolish to look up to me.  In a similar manner, God, through the prophet Habakkuk, shows the foolishness of idolatry.

Now, of course, this portion of scripture is part of a song with 6 woes pronounced against the Babylonian empire.  The Babylonians like all ancient nations and most people today, did not worship the God Who created the universe.  They engaged in the worship of idols.  Now, just like Mike and Matt in my story above, in order to worship an idol, you have to engage in a bit of self-delusion.  Every idol, be it a gold statue, a job, a person, or anything else, is created by a human.  Not only is it created by a human, but you know, or you can know, who it is that created it.  Many times in scripture, the people saw the idol being made (Aaron and the golden calf, Jeroboam’s idol in I Kings 12) right before their eyes.  Therefore, as God observes in Habakkuk 2:18, what sense does it make for someone to trust something they created, especially an inanimate object made of cold, unfeeling, unliving metal.  Even though this creation is a “teacher of lies”, its creator trusts in it. 

It stands to reason if you create something, you are greater than what you created.  I mean, this object of gold, stone, or wood that the Babylonians created owed its existence to them. So, its shape, height, weight, and any other attributes it has exist because of the will of the person that carved it.  So, the lie that it teaches is that “You can be in control” or “You can depend on me”.  Now, it’s easy for you and I to sit here in the 21^st century and shake our head at these foolish people who “say to a wooden thing, Arise, to a silent stone, Awake” as if we’re better than they are.  As Habakkuk 2:19 says, “there is no breath in it” (i.e. it isn’t alive).  We can comfort ourselves as if we’re superior because we don’t bow down and worship wood or gold.

But are we really that much better?  If you place something as a higher priority than God, then we can call it whatever we want to, but that, my friends, is worship.  That job that you put more time and energy into than you do into sharing the gospel?  You’re worshipping that job.  Your leisure time that you don’t want to sacrifice to go on a mission trip?  That’s an idol.  These things have no more breath or life in them than any stone statue.  You and I are just as foolish to chase after those idols as the Babylonians and other ancient nations were to worship statues instead of turning to worship the true, living, loving God who created the heavens and the earth.

In fact, we know that God will one day triumph over evil and all those who hate Him.  He will put  an end to sin and punish unrepentant sinners forever in hell.  The fact that God is so holy and righteous should fill us with awe.  I’m not saying we should fear God as if we’re in danger, but we should fear God in the sense that we should respect Him.  The last verse of this passage sums this up as well as any other scripture I can think of—But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.

Habakkuk 2:18 The Foolishness of Idolatry Part I

I’m a diabetic.  My grandma (paternal) and both of my parents were as well, so I come by it honestly.  I probably could have staved off the disease longer by making smarter choices when I was younger but, well, it is what it is.  Thankfully, though, God in His providence allowed for the invention of Splenda.  Oh, how I love me some Splenda.  It doesn’t replace sugar, but it gets close enough for this old boy.  It’s a fine substitute.  Some substitutes are nowhere near as good as the real thing.  A man who cheats on his wife, for instance, and nearly wrecks his marriage and loses his son as a result (despite his protests of “She made the indecent proposal”) finds that substitute for love can’t compare with the real thing.  I would say idolatry falls into that same category.  Setting up something in your life as a substitute for God can bring a kind of comfort and assurance, but those are only temporary and shallow at best.

In fact, as we read through our passage in Habakkuk, there are things that God says about idols that I think hold true for all of them, whether they’re made of gold like a statue or brick and mortar like an office.  First of all, notice with me that idols are worthless.  In verse 18, we ready the rhetorical question “What profit is an idol?”  The answer, of course, is that there is no profit.  For that matter, there is no “prophet” in the idol either, but we’ll get to that later.  Anything that we make into an idol costs something, whether it’s wood, gold, or silver like the Babylonians or a job, power, or a boat like we do today. In order to worship and serve God, we have to spend our time:  in Bible study, prayer, ministry, and other things.  Well, if you’re serving anything in the place of God you’re going to do the same thing.  You’ll need to work one more week of late nights, make yourself look better at the expense of others, or wax and polish that boat just a few hours more.  The fact is, as human beings, we’re going to worship. 

Furthermore, observe in Habakkuk 2:17 the truth that idols are manufactured.  In fact, I would go further to say that sometimes people manufacture their own idols.  We find that to be the case in this verse because the maker “shaped it” and “trusts in his own creation”.  To illustrate the absurdity of those statements read with me the following passage in Isaiah 44:14-17.  I won’t reproduce the entire passage here, but the short version of the long story is some guy goes out, cuts down a tree, takes one log from that tree and makes a fire to warm himself and cook his food.   He fashions the other log into a wooden idol and worships it.  Now, that wooden idol that he is worshipping had a 50/50 chance of being the wood that he burned to cook and warm himself.  So he could have just as easily burned this thing that he is now calling “god”.  If that doesn’t make you want to guffaw, I don’t know what will.  The fact is, idols are not creators, and they are always creations.  And if I create something, it must, by definition, be less than me.  So what kind of silly person would I be to bow down to something I just made?  Exactly.

Finally, we know that God is a truthful God.  We He speaks, what He says is true and we can trust it.  People that trust an idol trust in a lie.  The text refers to idols as “teacher[s] of lies”.  While it doesn’t specifically say what lies are being taught, I would imagine some of them include “You’re ok”, “Everything will be alight”, or “Live for the now and take what you want”.  In any case, in contrast to our God who speaks truth, these idols lie even though they themselves are “speechless”.  I think that means they help the makers lie to themselves.  They tell themselves that everything is ok when in fact their soul is in mortal danger because of their sins.

As we look later at the passage, we’ll see more evidence of the foolishness of idolatry.  As we remind ourselves of that, we should also be encouraged to faithfully follow, worship, and obey God rather than idols.

Habakkuk 2:15-17 Shame, shame, shame!!

I’ve never really enjoyed watching reality TV.  I guess that’s why I haven’t watched much first-run television in probably a decade because that’s all that’s on.  You can watch people’s hearts get broken on dating shows, you can see people compete in groups against each other to see who is going to be told “You no longer have a job here”, and you can watch people embarrass themselves in all manner of contests to try and avoid being shipped off of an island.  I guess we’re following the same pattern as the society of Babylon because, as we read in this text, they enjoyed watching people embarrass themselves as well.  I submit to you that if a society finds enjoyment in the humiliation of other people, that society is sick.  In the case of Babylon, it was just one more example of why God was going to judge them for their wickedness.

First of all, Habakkuk 2:15 gives us the fifth “Woe” in this song about the Babylonian empire.  They are told they will be punished because of how they manipulate people for their own enjoyment.  Specifically, we’re told the Babylonians “make [their] neighbor drink…in order to gaze at their nakedness”.  Now, obviously there is an aspect of lusting in what they’re doing, but the basic thrust here is the same as today in reality television.  They view people as objects to be used as fodder for entertainment.  They enjoy seeing them in positions that we all would find embarrassing—in this verse specifically we’re told it is so the Babylonians can “look on their nakedness”.  Now, if you or I were to be seen by most people without our clothes, we would be embarrassed.  However, for the Babylonians, and for many in our entertainment culture today, that’s not really important.  When we devalue men and women who are made in the image of God, we reveal something about how holy we think God is—so in the end these Babylonians, in their lust, were really giving further evidence of their profane, anti-God attitude.

Instead of being able to sit around and enjoy the shame of other people, God tells them that they themselves will be shamed.  In fact, Habakkuk 2:16 says they will be shamed in the same sorts of ways that they embarrassed other people (…show your uncircumcision..).  They made others drink wine so that they could watch them put on a show for their amusement.  God will, in His time, make the Babylonians drink from the cup of His wrath.  While judgment would not come where the prophet Habakkuk could see it, it would come and when it did those who had lived in comfort because they were in power as world conquerors would find that they were the ones suffering shame.

The Babylonians ascended to world dominance through violence—they conquered a whole lot of people, killed some, enslaved others, and lived high on the hog as a result.  However, as we read in Habakkuk 2:17, the chicken, metaphorically speaking, will come home to roost.  All of the violence they had spread and the blood that they had shed would be returned on them.  Now, we know from reading history, that it was the Persian army of King Darius that attacked Babylon, but in the end, it was by the word that God spoke in the prophesy that judgment came upon that nation.  No matter how long it takes, God will execute His wrath on sinners for their sinfulness.

Habakkuk 2:12-14 You’re bellyaching about doughnuts?

We’re all familiar with the poem The Nail. 

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
for want of a shoe the horse was lost,
for want of a horse the knight was lost,
for want of a knight the battle was lost.
So it was a kingdom was lost - all for want of a nail. 

Priorities, people!!!!

While it’s true that sometimes the smallest things can make a big difference, some people will whine and complain about something as inconsequential as a nail, or a doughnut, or whatever when their refusal to repent of their sins when they’ve been pointed out is the problem they really need to address.  For instance, in the passage we’re going to look at in Habakkuk, the sinfulness of the Babylonians is evident, but so is their stubborn heart which refuses to repent. 

Observe with me the manner in which these Babylonians go about their conquest.  In Habakkuk 2:12, we’re told the tools of their trade are “blood” and “iniquity”.  The Babylonian army was violent, as we saw when we studied Habakkuk 1:5-11.  They killed without pity and were savage in their treatment of the survivors.  In fact, they dehumanized them in many ways, but in particular in verse 13 we notice they enslaved them.  A worker earns his wages.  A slave is lucky to get anything at all.  They treated them no better than a rake or a mule.   

That’s not how God intended for people to treat one another.  If someone works for you, you should pay them.  We don’t “own” any other person.  God created each of us as individuals and we are accountable for how we treat one another.  In contrast to how the Babylonians enslave, kill, rob, and mistreat people, in Habakkuk 2:14, we read that God, Who is in control of everything, will ultimately be glorified.  No matter how awful things are on this earth, regardless of how we treat each other, and no matter the pains and sorrows we experience, we can trust and know that God is sovereign over time, history, and all of creation.  He will be glorified in all things, even in the midst of our pain, and He will be known even by those who reject Him.

“Aww, did you cry to Andy about it? Did he make it all better?”

“Did he fix it and make you feel all safe because you were so threatened?  Bless your little heart—so mistreated and bullied.  Did he make everything ok, little bunny?”

The title to this post was supposed to be Habakkuk 2:9-11 Malicious Motivation.  However, as I was studying this text and preparing to write, I let my imagination run a little bit.  I tried to picture what it would have been like to have been an Israelite and have the Chaldean army come in, conquer, and take all your belongings.  I pictured a young Israelite who had lost everything they had to that terribly vicious army saying to himself (or herself) “I know, maybe my kinsman-redeemer could help me.  Maybe he can convince them to give me my stuff back”.  So, I imagined this person’s kinsman redeemer, who I randomly named Andrew, going to the Babylonians, getting his clock cleaned, and going back to his relative to tell him it was hopeless.  Then, I could see the giant of a soldier going to the man and mocking him.  Can you imagine how humiliating something like that would be?  Trying to put myself in that kind of place and imagine what it would have been like to be helpless certainly made the text more real to me.  Ultimately, the hearts of the Babylonian army were utterly wicked and their motivation for conquest was purely evil.

First of all, notice in Habakkuk 2:9 the desire behind their conquests—“to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm”.  In other words, they saw themselves as a “self-made man”.  In contrast to those who trust God and rely on Him for everything, including their salvation, the Babylonians plundered other people and robbed them of their possessions for the purpose of enriching themselves.  To them, it was a kind of insurance policy—a nest egg, if you will.  They felt safe because they had enough stuff to weather whatever sort of storm life threw at them.  Such self-reliance is celebrated in our culture, but the fact is that as Christians we rely on God not on ourselves.  We have faith that God will provide for us and carry us through whatever we face in this life.  We have the hope that this life is not the end and no matter how hard life is, we can trust God to keep us safe, not our own strength and possessions. 

The Babylonians thought that they set themselves above other people.  They saw themselves as honored because when one army conquered another army in the ancient world, the people interpreted that to mean that the god of the winning army was more powerful than the god of the losing army.  However, in reality that is the exact opposite of what they would experience in the long term.  They thought they were honored because of their conquest but Habakkuk 2:10 tells us because of their conquests they had “devised shame” instead of gaining honor.  And, as would be the case years later when the Persian Empire conquered them, rather than being safe they would find they had “forfeited [their] life”.

The fact is, what they had done was evident to everybody.  People saw the Babylonian Empire go out and conquer nation after nation with impunity.  People saw what was happening—they knew how they treated people I think that’s the idea being expressed in Habakkuk 2:11—the stones and the beams of their lofty homes would cry out against them.  There’s no place to run or hide.  You can live “high on the hog” and flaunt sin in God’s face for so long, but eventually there is a judgment day.  One day, these merciless men would be punished for what they did.  They would suffer like they’d made others suffer.

The root cause of this and their other sins is pride.  They were too proud to cry out to God and seek Him.  They preferred to live life on their terms.  If that describes you today, pray to God that He will break you of your sinful pride and grant you repentance.

Habakkuk 2:6-20 A Song of Woe Part I

Pride can lead to people doing some pretty awful things to other people.  I’ve read information about serial killers and one trait that many of them have in common is the belief that they are better than other people and therefore their actions are justified.  Even people who aren’t psychopaths can delude themselves into thinking that they are privileged and can therefore treat other people however they want (“Taxes are for little people” “Let them eat cake”).  We know from history that the Babylonians were cruel conquerors who mistreated the people they defeated.  In fact, Habakkuk knew that as well, which probably explains his reaction in chapter one when God said He was going to use them as agents of judgment against Israel.  Here, we read how the Babylonians would ultimately suffer for their sins.  They were able to live in luxury for a while, but through a prophetic series of “woes” pronounced on them, we see their end is ultimately a sad one as they are defeated. 

The first woe pronounced on them in this song (vs 6 “taunt”) describes them as being covetous.  Notice the speaker (which doesn’t appear to be God although He obviously inspired it or Habakkuk though he wrote it down) in verse pronounces the woe on “him who heaps up what is not his own”.  Obviously, underlying the boldness of taking something that doesn’t belong to you and the covetousness to desire it is a pride that says you have a right to it.  J. Vernon McGee observes, rightly, that God intended for people to work for what they get.  So, when these Babylonian conquerors took what was not theirs they were enriching themselves from someone else’s labors.  Now, we’re not talking about management where you direct someone else to do work, we talking about piracy where you take what belongs to someone else.  

When the Babylonians would conquer a nation or town, they would take spoils—food, clothes, people, cattle, land.  Because the Babylonian empire was the first real world empire, they had amassed lots of loot from lots of people and left those people with nothing.  They not only took their stuff but they also required tribute (vs 6 “loads himself with pledges”).  So not only did they take your land, they required you to farm it and pay them with your crops from your land.  While I don’t know how much they made the conquered people give them in tribute, in whatever form it was they took it, it seems clear that they enriched themselves while they impoverished the people they subjugated.  

Oh, hai.  We iz here for teh party, k?

However, as we read verses 7 and 8, we are reminded of a universal principal.  If you plant corn, you will end up one day reaping a crop and it won’t be a crop of watermelons.    You reap what you sow.  Because the Babylonians had taken so much from so many, they would eventually suffer retribution because of the number of people they had stolen from.  In fact, we read in Daniel chapter 5 where the Babylonians were conquered (while having a wild party, I might add) by the Persian empire who dammed  up the river that ran through the capital city and walked right into the middle of it—probably one of the easiest military victories ever.

Because the Babylonians were prideful, they felt like they had a right to take what wasn’t theirs.  That pride led them to a swift defeat as they tried to bully one nation too many.  God’s justice on their sin was swift.  Let’s take that as a warning against pride in our heart should we see it there.

Nebuchadnezzar—His Sinful Pride

We’ve been studying the book of Habakkuk and in my last post we examined the Habakkuk 2:4.  We noted that the sin of pride is the root of all sin in some way or another.  Pride refuses to submit and a prideful person refuses to submit to God.  Prideful people think they are a law unto themselves and therefore they mock God’s law.  You see it every day—a man cheats on his wife and blames his mistress when caught because his uncontrollable lust is more important that his marriage vows because of pride.  A woman falsifies an expense report that she turns in at work because she feels she deserves more compensation than she’s getting.  You see it in churches—a man believes he has the right to decide who will and will not be part of a Sunday school class/choir/etc because of pride, or insecurity, or both.  A woman believes that, due to her superior musical talents, she should always be the featured soloist.  All of these things are the result of pride, and as we read in Habakkuk, a prideful person’s heart is not upright.  A classic biblical example of that, and very relevant to our study of Habakkuk, is Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. 

Nebuchadnezzar was prideful and worshipped his military might.  In short, he was a bully.  Now, some bully’s stalk their targets for some time before preying on them.  Nebuchadnezzar was a different kind of bully.  He knew he had the power to crush his opponent and he made sure they knew it.  They knew it because when he decided to attack a city, his fierce army was relentless.  They had better weapons, more fierce warriors, and a larger army than anyone they went up against.   

I remember a kid in elementary school named Paul Kahauna who played a similar game.  Paul had taken karate lessons since he was very young—and he made sure you knew it.  He was constantly making little asides like “If that boy had messed with me, it would have been very bad for him” or “Maybe you ought to think about it before you confront someone with a black belt” (I'm not sure if he had a black belt or not).  Classic bully tactics.  Just like Nebuchadnezzar, he knew he could do what he wanted, say what he wanted, because no one could stand up to him.  His sinful pride led to him being a bully, just like the world conquering Nebuchadnezzar.  However, Nebuchadnezzar’s pride was finally broken by God. 

We read in Daniel 4:28-33 how Nebuchadnezzar looked over his kingdom and said (loosely paraphrased) “Man, am I bad or what?  Check this stuff out.”  His sinful pride led him to take credit where no credit was due.  His sinful pride led to him self-worship.  When we sin, ultimately, it is self worship.  We are saying that our pleasures, passions, fears, or whatever else motivates us is more important than God.  Therefore, we are more important than God.  And God will not take second place to anyone.  Nebuchadnezzar learned this lesson the hard way—he was driven mad and lived like a wild animal for a period of time.  The Lord graciously restored Nebuchadnezzar’s sanity, but what a way to have to learn that lesson. 

We should take seriously any pride in our lives and pray that God would root it out so that we don’t have to learn a lesson the hard way, like Nebuchadnezzar.

Habakkuk 2:4-5 You’re So Vain—You Probably Think This Post Is About You

Actually, the title of this post was supposed to be “Habakkuk 2:1-5 The Character of the Wicked and the Character of the Righteous Part 2”, but a blog post of someone’s that I read Friday made me think this title was pretty catchy.  Well, actually, “posts” is more correct.  So, thanks, Bugs Bunny, for the inspiration.  In all seriousness, though, considering the verses that we’ll be looking at, the title is pretty apropos.  God is in the beginning of explaining to Habakkuk that while the Babylonians are going to be used by God to punish Israel, that they will not escape God’s judgment for their wickedness.  In giving Habakkuk this prophetic vision, God also gives us one of the most important concepts in all of scripture.  It is a truth so simple that a child can understand it and it is so profound that it can (and has) confounded the wisest people throughout history. 

First of all, in Habakkuk 2:4, we see the character of the godly and the character of the ungodly contrasted in as simple of terms as you can get.  Speaking probably of the Babylonian king in particular, and also of the Babylonians in general, God tells Habakkuk that “…his soul is puffed up…”  Ultimately, the root of all sin is arrogance.  The idea that we don’t have to obey God or His word, that we can make our own decisions and define our own morality, is at the root of every sin that people commit.  When someone cheats on their taxes, timecard, or spouse, they are in effect saying “What I want is more important that what God commands”.  Therefore, they have set themselves up as a higher authority than God.  When you find sin in anyone’s life, you will find pride at the root of it.  Because of this pride, God declares that “[his soul] is not upright within him”.  The proud person who will not repent of sin whether he recognizes it or others love him enough to point it out to him is not right with God. 

Now, God tells us how a person can be right with him—how that person can live.  He tells us how that person can avoid judgment and eternal damnation.  If someone wants to be justified before God, there is one path that they can follow: faith.  God tells us that those who will be declared righteous are so declared because of their faith.  It is not because they kept the law or earned enough credits with God because of their good works.  Praise God!!!!  Nothing I’ve ever done or am capable of doing is anything more than filth in the sight of the Lord Almighty.  I don’t have the strength to faithfully follow God.  Even if I could keep some of the commandments, I can’t keep all of them.  I know what the end of my journey would be if it depended on me and my strength, on what I’ve done.  But because God is so good and so merciful, He chose before the foundation of the world to save people and those whom He would save He gave the faith that their heart lacked and couldn’t possibly produce.  Righteousness, therefore, comes not by works but by faith.  And that faith couldn’t come from a proud person who believes they’ve got this whole “right with God” thing covered.  The faith that saves a person can only come from a heart that says “Have mercy on me, God, a sinner!” 

Now, God gives us a glimpse inside the heart of the proud man—probably specifically with Nebecanezzer in mind.  However, the principals are timeless and apply no matter where you look.  That being said, let’s look at the first part of verse 5 in a few different translations. 

Habakkuk 2:5 (ESV) Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest.

Habakkuk 2:5 (NIV) indeed, wine betrays him; he is arrogant and never at rest.

Habakkuk 2:5 (NLT) Wealth is treacherous, and the arrogant are never at rest.

Habakkuk 2:5 (KJV) Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man,  

So, as you can see in these verses, there seems to be some discrepancy as to what is being said here.  Is it wine or wealth, or for that matter the man himself, that is treacherous?  Is it because he drinks too much?  Again, I must remind the reader that while I  know enough Greek to make an educated guess here or there in expositing the New Testament, my Hebrew is limited to what little I picked up from the movie “Crossing Delancy”.  So, I can’t tell you exactly what God had in mind when He inspired this scripture.  However, we know of the Babylonian king’s pride (Daniel 4:28-33) and we know the Babylonians were not afraid to get drunk no matter what was going on, like say, an enemy invasion (Daniel 5).  Further, as we read the rest of the verse, I think we see the underlying principal.  There is an underlying restlessness for the proud, wicked, godless person.  Generally, people without God have a hole in their heart that they try to fill with everything.  They find all their pursuits empty and they never have enough.  Specifically, the Babylonians demonstrate this fact in their endless quest for conquest.  They seemingly could never have enough bloodshed, or conquer enough land, to satisfy them.  In fact, they became the first world power, quite literally conquering “all nations…all peoples”, of the Western world anyway.   

So, probably more than 200 years before the birth of Christ or before Paul would write Romans and Galatians, we see here that God revealed what makes a person right with Him, faith.  He had done so as far back as Genesis, and it is found elsewhere in the Old Testament.  The fact is, friends, that righteousness by faith has always been and always will be the only way a man or woman can be saved.  Praise God that it doesn’t depend on us.

Habakkuk 2:1-5 The Character of the Wicked and the Character of the Righteous Part I

In His Sermon on the Mount, our Lord Jesus Christ said “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.  That verse, as well as anything else that I can think of, encapsulates the mindset of someone who recognizes their need for the gospel.  In order to desire the righteousness of God through faith in Christ, a person has to recognize their spiritual bankruptcy.  They have to have come to the end of themselves and be willing to throw away all of their pride and self righteousness.  In lovingly and sovereignly answering Habakkuk’s 2^nd complaint in chapter 1 (“God, how can you use the wicked Babylonians to punish your people?), God also teaches Habakkuk and us about the humility of righteous and the pride of the wicked. 

We should observe first of all where this is happening in Habakkuk’s conversation with God.  Habakkuk has questioned God’s apparent non-judgment of the wicked.  God counters that He will most certainly judge the wicked in Israel and that He will use the Babylonians to do it.  Habakkuk then does his best Gary Coleman impression (“What you talking about, Jehovah?”).  Now, Habakkuk, in spite of not having all the answers, comes to a place that we all have to face when God doesn’t make sense.  When the hurt, confusion, and pain are too much, you and I that worship God have to decide to trust God in the midst of and in spite of those circumstances.  Notice, in Habakkuk 2:1, that is exactly what the prophet does.  He says, basically, “I will stand and wait on God”.  Now, depending on the version of the Bible you read, the text either says:

(ESV)  I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

(NKJV) I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, And watch to see what He will say to me, And what I will answer when I am corrected.

(NLT)  I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guardpost. There I will wait to see what the LORD says and how he will answer my complaint.

Neo-Orthodoxy was neither "new" nor "orthodox".  Dicuss.

Reading the textual footnotes in my ESV and various commentaries and word studies on this verse leads me to this very definitive statement on this verse and the underlying Hebrew text—I have absolutely no idea what is different or why some translators translate it differently.  I know enough Greek to be dangerous, but my knowledge of Hebrew is limited to what I picked up from Mike Myers playing Linda Richman on Saturday Night Live’s “Coffee Talk” (“I’m getting verklempt.  Talk amongst yourselves.  I’ll give you a topic.”).  So, I think the simplest explanation here is the best—Habakkuk, in spite of his doubts and questions, chose to wait on God because he trusted Him.

Now, God chooses to answer Habakkuk’s complaint—not because He has to do so.  He is not obligated to explain Himself to us.  We are creatures.  He is the uncreated One.  But because God is so merciful, kind, and loving, He chose to answer Habakkuk with some very encouraging words and then to inspire him to record these words in Holy Scripture.  As we read to the end of the chapter, we see that God will in fact judge and punish the Babylonians who are going to be used as the instruments of judgment against Israel.  He begins here to lay out that truth for Habakkuk.  This truth, that God will judge sin, is a truth that should be “made plain” and we can be sure that “it will surely come—it will not delay”.  So, while we look at a world that routinely snubs its collective nose at God and finds new and more audacious ways to sin, we can know that we serve a God who will vindicate Himself and His righteousness someday.  We can praise Him and thank Him that He is just and will perfectly execute justice in His own time.  Like Habakkuk, we can be assured that “If it [God’s judgment] seems slow [we should patiently] wait for it.”

We will look next time as to how God is going to judge.  What is the criteria He will use to determine if someone is righteous or not?  I will go ahead and give you a spoiler waring—it is what it has always been:  faith.