I Will Quietly Wait.

June 5, 2017 / kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth.

O Lord, I have heard the report of you,
    and your work, O Lord, do I fear.
In the midst of the years revive it;
    in the midst of the years make it known;
    in wrath remember mercy.
God came from Teman,
    and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah
His splendor covered the heavens,
    and the earth was full of his praise.
His brightness was like the light;
    rays flashed from his hand;
    and there he veiled his power.
Before him went pestilence,
    and plague followed at his heels.
He stood and measured the earth;
    he looked and shook the nations;
then the eternal mountains were scattered;
    the everlasting hills sank low.
    His were the everlasting ways.
I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction;
    the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.
Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord?
    Was your anger against the rivers,
    or your indignation against the sea,
when you rode on your horses,
    on your chariot of salvation?
You stripped the sheath from your bow,
    calling for many arrows. Selah
    You split the earth with rivers.
The mountains saw you and writhed;
    the raging waters swept on;
the deep gave forth its voice;
    it lifted its hands on high.
The sun and moon stood still in their place
    at the light of your arrows as they sped,
    at the flash of your glittering spear.
You marched through the earth in fury;
    you threshed the nations in anger.
You went out for the salvation of your people,
    for the salvation of your anointed.
You crushed the head of the house of the wicked,
    laying him bare from thigh to neck. Selah
You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors,
    who came like a whirlwind to scatter me,
    rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret.
You trampled the sea with your horses,
    the surging of mighty waters.

I hear, and my body trembles;
    my lips quiver at the sound;
rottenness enters into my bones;
    my legs tremble beneath me.
Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble
    to come upon people who invade us. – Habakkuk 3:1-16 ESV

How many times has your response to hearing from God been to sing? That what Habakkuk did. When the prophet heard that God’s plan included the use of the Babylonians to punish the people of Judah for their sins against Him, but that He would also bring destruction on Babylon, Habakkuk sang. Or at least he wrote words that were later turned into a psalm of praise. Even though Habakkuk knew that the Babylonians were going to be God’s chosen instrument of judgment against the people of Judah, he rejoiced in the fact that God was merciful and had no plans to do away with His people – even though they deserved it.

Habakkuk opens up his prayer with an acknowledgement of God’s greatness. He admits that he has heard about the greatness of God. As a young boy growing up in a Hebrew home, he would have heard the stories of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from captivity in Egypt. He would have known well the story of the Israelites miraculous crossing of the Red Sea and their many God-ordained victories that led to their occupation of the Promised Land. Habakkuk would have been well-verses in the history of the people of Israel and God’s sovereign work among them. So, knowing what he knew about God in the past, he appeals to God to so the same thing in the present.

In this time of our deep need,
help us again as you did in years gone by.
And in your anger,
remember your mercy. – Habakkkuk 3:2b NLT

Habakkuk knew that God was angry with the sins of the people of Judah. That was the whole reason He was bringing the Babylonians against them. He was doing to them what He had done to the northern kingdom of Israel. He had punished them for the wickedness and rebellion by bringing the Assyrians against them. Because of their worship of idols and stubborn rejection of Him as their God, He allowed them to fall at the hands of their enemy and be taken into captivity. And now, God had revealed to Habakkuk that He was going to do the same thing to Judah, but this time, using the Babylonians as His instrument of judgment. But Habakkuk pleads for mercy. He knew God was just in what He was going to do, but appealed to His grace and mercy, asking Him to deliver His people, just as He had done in the past.

The next thing Habakkuk does is describe what it must have been like when God delivered the people of Israel from captivity in Egypt. He says, “God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran” (Habakkuk 3:3 ESV). Teman was located in Edom and Mount Paran was nearby. They were east of Egypt and Habakkuk describes God as having come from that direction as He approached His people in order to deliver them. Habakkuk describes God as having a brightness like light. This is most likely a reference to God’s shekinah glory. This Hebrew word was used to describe God’s visible presence as displayed in a form of light or other natural manifestation. When the people left Egypt, they were led by God, who revealed Himself to them in a tangible form that was to give them confidence and courage.

And they moved on from Succoth and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people. – Exodus 13:20-22 ESV

Habakkuk also recalls what it must have been like when God descended upon Mount Sinai in order to give His people the law.

When he stops, the earth shakes.
    When he looks, the nations tremble.
He shatters the everlasting mountains
    and levels the eternal hills.
    He is the Eternal One! – Habakkuk 3:6 NLT

God had revealed Himself to the people of Israel in an unforgettable fashion. His glory had been literally earth-shaking and fear-inducing.

On the morning of the third day, thunder roared and lightning flashed, and a dense cloud came down on the mountain. There was a long, loud blast from a ram’s horn, and all the people trembled. Moses led them out from the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. All of Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. The smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a brick kiln, and the whole mountain shook violently. As the blast of the ram’s horn grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God thundered his reply. – Exodus 19:16-19 NLT

To the Israelites at the foot of the mountain, the glory of the Lord appeared at the summit like a consuming fire. – Exodus 24:17 NLT

Habakkuk also recalls God’s power as displayed in the ten plagues that He used against the people of Egypt, forcing them to let the people of Israel go.

Before him went pestilence,
and plague followed at his heels. – Habakkuk 3:5 ESV

God is all powerful. His majesty and might are incomparable. He controls the heavens and His very presence shakes the earth. Egypt was no match for Him. And Habakkuk knew that the Babylonians would also find themselves unequal to the task of trying to stand against God.

Those nations that witnessed the Israelites’ divinely ordained departure from Egypt would have been amazed at what they witnessed. The Israelites, nothing more than slaves, had somehow defeated one of the world’s greatest powers and walked out of Egypt without firing an arrow or throwing a single spear. It had been a divine deliverance, complete with the parting of the Red Sea. This miraculous event, as well as the God’s of the waters of the Nile into blood, are both referenced here by Habakkuk.

Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord?
Was your anger against the rivers,
or your indignation against the sea? – Habakkuk 3:8 ESV

This rhetorical question was Habakkuk’s way of stating that God’s anger was directed against those two bodies of water, but they were simply instruments or weapons in His hands. He used them to accomplish His will, much like a soldier uses his sword or spear. Habakkuk describes God in all His might and majesty, using metaphors that provide the reader with a sense of God’s awe and power. The mountains shake. The sun and moon stand still. All nature stands in awe of God. The entire created order is nothing compared to the greatness and grandeur of God.

All of this imagery is Habakkuk’s feeble attempt to describe the power and sovereignty of God. And it causes him to fear and tremble. But he says, “I will wait quietly for the coming day when disaster will strike the people who invade us” (Habakkuk 3:16 NLT). Habakkuk was putting His faith in the God of the past and trusting Him to be the God of the future. He was placing His faith in God’s consistency of character and proven track record of faithfulness. God had proven Himself powerful enough. God had repeatedly shown Himself more than faithful enough. And that was enough for Habakkuk to place his hope and trust in God.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Trust God.

June 4, 2017June 4, 2017 / kdmiller55 / Leave a comment

Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say,

“Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own—
    for how long?—
    and loads himself with pledges!”
Will not your debtors suddenly arise,
    and those awake who will make you tremble?
    Then you will be spoil for them.
Because you have plundered many nations,
    all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you,
for the blood of man and violence to the earth,
    to cities and all who dwell in them.

“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 labor merely for fire,
    and nations weary themselves for nothing?
For the earth will be filled
    with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

“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 trusts in his own creation
    when he makes speechless idols!
Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake;
    to a silent stone, Arise!
Can this teach?
Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,
    and there is no breath at all in it.
But the Lord is in his holy temple;
    let all the earth keep silence before him.” – Habakkuk 2:6-20 ESV

In verse five, we get a glimpse of Babylon as it appears to Habakkuk and the people of Judah:

His greed is as wide as Sheol;
like death he has never enough.
He gathers for himself all nations
and collects as his own all peoples.

But God reveals to the prophet that things are about to change. Babylon’s stock is about to plummet. Its 15-minutes fame are about to come to an abrupt end. For years they had been forcing their will on weaker nations. Their wealth had grown through the accumulation of plunder and from the exorbitant interest rates they charged on loans. And God finally determines to answer one of Habakkuk’s first questions: When? But He does so by having the question posed by those who find themselves living under the heavy hand of Babylonian rule.

“But soon their captives will taunt them.
    They will mock them, saying,
‘What sorrow awaits you thieves!
    Now you will get what you deserve!
You’ve become rich by extortion,
    but how much longer can this go on?’” – Habakkuk 2:6 NLT

When is God going to do something? When will He finally bring about justice and give to the Babylonians what they deserve? And while God does not provide a specific time frame or give Habakkuk a firm date, He does let the prophet know that the day of Babylon’s judgment is fast approaching. He tells Habakkuk that the day is coming when the captives of Babylon turn against them in rebellion.

They will turn on you and take all you have,
while you stand trembling and helpless. – Habakkuk 2:7 NLT

This would actually take place in 539 B.C., when the Medes and Persians, two nations who had suffered at the hands of the Babylonians, would rise up and destroy their oppressor. The Babylonians would find themselves at the receiving end of the violence and persecution they had meted out to others. The Babylonians had built a great city, but had done so on the blood of others. They had made themselves a great nation by greedily plundering other, weaker nations. They had showed no mercy in the process. And God warns them:

What sorrow awaits you who build cities
with money gained through murder and corruption! – Habakkuk 2:12 NLT

God pronounces five woes on the Babylonians. And right in the middle of this section, God announces that all their efforts at glory and fame will amount to nothing, because God has deemed it so.

Has not the Lord of Heaven’s Armies promised
that the wealth of nations will turn to ashes?
They work so hard,
but all in vain! – Habakkuk 2:13 NLT

All their efforts would prove fruitless in the end and go up in the smoke of the fires that burned throughout their destroyed capital. All their conquests and victories would ring hollow once God turned His wrath against them. Their walls and wealth would prove no match for God’s judgment. Like the water fills the seas, the earth will one day be filled with a knowledge of God’s glory. The people of Judah will know that the fall of Babylon was the work of God, not men. They will realize that Yahweh, the Lord of Hosts, has brought about a great victory over their enemy. And this prophecy has a now/not yet aspect to it. While Babylon would fall in 539 B.C., there is a greater fall of a far more wicked Babylon to come.

And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. – Revelation 16:18-19 ESV

This future Babylon is a representation of the wicked of the world. It will be a literal nation that sets itself against God, under the leadership of the Antichrist. It will be a world order that aligns itself in rebellion against God’s rule. But it will be destroyed once and for all when Jesus Christ returns to set up His kingdom on earth. Ever since the fall of man in the garden of Eden, mankind has been in rebellion against God. And the greatest expression of man’s rebellion has been the desire to be as God – to their own god. At Babel, men joined forces in an attempt to build a tower to heaven. Their goal was to make a name for themselves.

“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” – Genesis 11:4 ESV

But God saw into their hearts and knew what they were attempting to do, so He confused their languages and dispersed them over the face of the earth. But the desire that drove their efforts to make a name for themselves and bring themselves glory has not gone away. Babylon was just another in a long list of nations that had tried to establish itself as the gods of this earth. But God warns them, “You will have your fill of shame instead of glory” (Habakkuk 2:16 ESV). Their days were numbered. They were going to get drunk on the cup of God’s judgment.

Drink from the cup of the Lord’s judgment,
and all your glory will be turned to shame. – Habakkuk 2:16b NLT

The party was over. And their idols were going to prove incapable of standing up to the judgment of God. Those lifeless images made with their own hands would be exposed for what they were: Chunks of wood and lumps of clay.

What sorrow awaits you who say to wooden idols,
    ‘Wake up and save us!’
To speechless stone images you say,
    ‘Rise up and teach us!’
    Can an idol tell you what to do?
They may be overlaid with gold and silver,
    but they are lifeless inside. – Habakkuk 2:19 NLT

But God was alive and well, dwelling in His holy temple. And He would prove to be anything but lifeless and helpless. He would bring down His judgment on the heads of the Babylonians, destroying their once-mighty city and bringing an end to their legacy of power and glory. Habakkuk and the people of Judah needed to be reminded that their God was great and all-powerful. He was on His throne and fully capable of dealing with a nation like Babylon. He had the capacity to raise up other nations. He could call down fire from heaven. He could sent the hosts of heaven. Dealing with the likes of Babylon was not a problem for God. But He wanted His people to trust Him. He wanted them to stop looking at their circumstances and assuming God was either not there or didn’t care. He was fully aware of what was going on and in complete control of the circumstances surrounding them. They needed faith and a reminder that their God was faithful.

Devotionary

The Bible Made Accessible and Applicable

The Book of Habakkuk

I Will Quietly Wait.

Trust God.