A Conversation with Yahweh

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Well, if you'll open your Bibles to the book of Habakkuk, I have put myself in a conundrum.
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I had planned on spending two weeks in this book, and now I have to try to cover it in one, so in about two hours I will stop.
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Normally we would stand up and read the whole text, but I'm going to need a few more minutes to try to get through it, so I'm not going to read the whole book.
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Normally that's what I would do.
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It's only three chapters.
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So what I will do is I'm going to open this with a word of prayer, and then I'm going to get right into the text.
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Most gracious heavenly Father, thank you so much once again for the privilege and opportunity to, not in a cliché term, Lord, but to stand once again before your people and open your word to proclaim your truth.
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Father, what a privilege and honor to hold the very written words of God in my hand and to proclaim it with power and to proclaim it with truth.
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And Father, I pray that you would fill me with your spirit, Father, that there would be less of me and more of you, that, Father, we would listen to what Habakkuk was saying, and that, Father, it would pierce our hearts, and Father, how applicable and relevant it is even to today.
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Father, now, be with your servant, use me, Father, in Christ's name, amen.
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Habakkuk is an obscure individual.
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We don't know a lot about him as an individual, but we do know that he is quoted three times in the New Testament.
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So important prophet.
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He is different in the sense that he is not making an oracle of judgment to another nation.
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It actually is just a conversation with Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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And this conversation will reveal a lot of what was going on in the nation of Israel.
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It is a, he was a contemporary of Jeremiah.
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If you remember when I was doing the book of Nahum, I talked about the destruction of Nineveh.
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That would have taken place around 612, the fall of the Assyrian Empire, and it fell to the Scythians, the Mede-Persians, and the Babylonians.
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So it would have been at 612, we would begin to see the rise of the Babylonian Empire.
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The Babylonian Empire would then begin to try to make its treks across the Mesopotamia and out of the Middle East.
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Then in around 609, there would have been a recongnition, a try to regather the Assyrian Empire with the Egyptians.
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And then they were going to try to go take on the Babylonians.
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It would be in 609 when Necho, the Pharaoh, was going to come across Judah.
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He was going to go fight the Babylonians.
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He tried to get passage through King Josiah, who was a very good king.
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King Josiah said, not going to have it.
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We're going to fight.
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And it's interesting that Pharaoh Necho says, my God told me to tell you, let me come through here.
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And if you don't let me come through here, I'm going to kill you.
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He didn't listen.
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And it was in 609 that one of the faithfulest kings of Israel was struck down in the Battle of Megiddo, which then made, by the Egyptians, which then made Judah a vassal state to the Egyptians.
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They put in a puppet king, Jehoiakim.
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He did whatever they told him to do.
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He at times would try to rebel.
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It would be in 605 that the Babylonians would then come in, haul them off into the first wave of captivity.
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So the time in which Habakkuk is talking, he is speaking with God, is somewhere between 609 and 605.
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And the reason being is because the fall of Necho and his empire was around 609, the Pharaoh, then in 609 would have been the rise of it to the vassal state.
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It had been 605 at the Battle of Carchemish when Babylon would have wiped out the Assyrians and the Egyptians, never to be heard from again.
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So in 605, that is the rise of the Babylonian Empire.
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Remember, God rose up the Babylonian Empire for one purpose, and it was to scourge his people.
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Very short-lived, only 70 years, the purpose of it was to scourge his people.
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So let's read and hear what Habakkuk has to say.
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Chapter 1, verse 1.
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I don't know about y'all, but that sounds like today.
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It was in a time which Jehoiakim, the puppet king, who was not a God-following king, who was perverting justice, letting men do whatever they want.
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They were not worshiping Yahweh.
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There was violence.
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There was perversion.
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There was even at times when there was sodomite prostitutes within the temple complex.
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That is absolutely astounding.
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These are the things that were going on.
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And Habakkuk's going, how long are you going to continue to let me see this? We'll just give him benefit of the doubt.
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Let's say he prayed three years, day in, day out.
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God, how long are you going to continue to let justice be perverted? How long are you going to continue to let these things go out and just be unchecked? And he says, because all of this wickedness is actually surrounding, there are righteous men within Jerusalem and within Judah.
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That is Habakkuk's, basically, his cry, his plea, his complaint to God, Yahweh.
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And listen to what Yahweh, God, the Lord, answers him in verse 5.
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He says, I want you to look among the nations, observe.
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Be astonished.
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Look at it, be in wonder.
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Because I'm going to do something in your days that you ain't going to believe it was told to you.
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He said, check this out.
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I am, I just want you to look about all the nations.
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Look around.
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I want you to see it.
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Just look at every one of them.
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I want you to observe what they're doing, what's going on, and I am fixing to do something so breathtaking, Habakkuk, that if I was going to tell you what I was going to do, you wouldn't even believe it.
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And listen to what he says.
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Verse 6.
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Behold, I'm going to raise up the Chaldeans.
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That is a synonym for Babylonians.
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Some of your translations actually may say Babylonian.
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He says, I'm raising up the Chaldeans.
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They are fierce.
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They are impetuous people.
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They march throughout the earth.
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They seize dwelling places that aren't theirs.
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They are dreadful.
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They are feared.
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Their justice and authority originate within themselves.
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He says, Habakkuk, they're horses.
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They're swifter than leopards, keener than wolves, as hunting in the night.
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They're horsemen.
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They come galloping.
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They're horsemen.
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They're going to come from afar off.
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They fly like eagles and they swoop down to devour.
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All of them come from violence.
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Their hordes and their faces move forward and they collect captives like the sand.
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They mock kings and rulers.
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They laugh at.
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They make a laughing matter of them.
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They laugh at every fortress and they heap up piles of rubble to capture it.
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Here it is, you got Habakkuk complaining about God's people, the covenant people of Judah doing wrong things and God says, you know what? I'm going to raise up the Chaldeans and here, dude, he's almost bragging about how ruthless they are.
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He says, these people are dreadful.
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They're fierce.
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They're impetuous.
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He goes, they're marching across the earth just unimpeded.
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They seize dwelling places that aren't theirs.
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They're taking over lands at will, just overpowering them.
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He says, they're dreaded and they're feared.
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As the Babylonian Empire come across, knowing that this was one of the armies that overthrew one of the most powerful Assyrian empires to ever be on the planet.
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These people were feared when they come to their land.
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They overthrew those men that did all of these things.
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What are they going to do to us? So he said, they're feared and he says, their justice and authority originate with themselves.
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Hey, look, they didn't have no rules.
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They did what was best for them at the time.
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Their justice was impeded by whatever their wants and desires were.
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It says that their authority was within their own self.
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They just were going to do whatever they wanted with no concern for any other nation, any other people but Babylon.
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And then he goes on to talk about their horses.
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Their horses are swifter than leopards.
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Have you ever seen a leopard, how fast they are? I love to watch National Geographic stuff.
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You see, whether it's llamas bouncing across or impalas running and you see a leopard or a tiger or something just running, wipe their legs out from under them and they jump on them and start eating them.
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That's just like, wow.
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He's saying this is how fast and how swift their horses are.
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They're going to come and they're going to come in with might and power and they're going to destroy everything in its path and they're very strong and swift.
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Remember, a leopard also could drag something twice its own weight up into a tree.
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He says they're keener than wolves in the evening, meaning they're going to be slick.
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When they come, you're not even going to hear it.
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They're on you and it's over.
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Their horsemen will come from afar galloping, horsemen will be coming from afar, and they're going to come in and they're going to fly like an eagle swooping down to devour.
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Once again, watching those National Geographic, have you ever seen an eagle? He'd be way up, just, next thing you know, mountain goat, something, them eagles swoop down with their talons and just barrel roll whatever it is.
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I've even seen one on there, they actually hit a wolf, over barrel rolled the wolf and then flew off with it.
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That's what he's saying, how fast and how strong and how quick this army is that's coming.
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He says, and it's all for violence.
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He says their horde of faces will move forward, they're just going to come on, just one after another, just piling, and he says, and they collect captives like the sand.
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You just reach down, scoop up a handful of sand at the beach.
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He says that's how easy they're going to make captives and enslave people.
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He says they mock at kings, rulers are laughing madder, they're just going to do what they want.
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They're going to taunt, they're going to mock, they're going to put hooks in people and haul them off.
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That was one of their tactics, when they would go in and get their captives, they would either hook it through their jaw bone, the big hook, or they would hook through their nose or their lip and drag them off into slavery.
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He says that they laugh at every fortress, why do they laugh at every fortress? Because nothing's impregnable to them.
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It says they'll destroy one thing to heap up the rubble from that, to make a siege wall, to then come in and siege that what they're trying to, they just destroy everything.
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He says in verse 11, and then they sweep through the land like wind and then pass on, it says when they come through, it's going to be like the wind, like a rushing wind, leave everything desolate and just move on.
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He said but they will be held guilty, they whose strength is their God.
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He's saying look, these guys I'm bragging about how ruthless they are, they're going to come, they're going to come and they're going to come judge my people, Judah, for their continual disobedience, and this continual disobedience would have been for 490 years of disobedience.
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He says when they come through, they're going to do this, they're going to pass on, and they're not going to be innocent, they're going to be held guilty, why? Because they're going to say the very thing that I've commissioned them to do, to use them as a scourge against you, they're going to say that they did it by their own God.
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You understand that God did this in 722 with the northern tribe.
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God sent in the Assyrians to come in, wipe out the northern kingdom, haul them off into captivity through the Assyrians, and then the Assyrians said that they did it by their own God, then God eventually punished them through the oracle of Nineveh, I mean through Nahum at Nineveh, saying hey, we weren't used by God as a scourge, we did it by our own God, Issachar and Ishaar, well in this case it would be Marduk and whatever other Babylonian God they think that they serve.
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And listen to what Habakkuk says in response to him, he says are you not from everlasting? He says are you Lord my God, my whole one, will we die? You oh Lord have appointed them to judge? Oh God you're a rock and you have established them to correct? He says wait a minute, I have a theological and philosophical problem with you God.
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You're going to use these people? These people are the ones you're going to use to judge us? Oh man, something's wrong, he says aren't your eyes not too pure for evil? And you cannot look on wickedness with favor? Why do you look with favor upon those who deal treacherously? He said why are you looking on favor? Why are you using these men to be a scourge against us? And here's what he says, why are you silent when the wicked will swallow up more righteous than they? He says hold on God, here's the deal, you're fixing to use somebody, if this is even a word, wickeder than us.
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He says we're bad, we need judgment, but hold on, you're fixing to use these guys? They're worse than we are.
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He says we have made men, I'm sorry, he says why we have made men like fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler over them.
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The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, they drag them away in their net, gather them with like a fishing net, and therefore they rejoice and are glad.
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He says look, they're like throwing a net into the sea, they're going to scoop us up and drag us off, and they're going to make hooks in our nose and our mouth and just drag us off.
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He says in verse 16, therefore they offer sacrifices to their net, he's saying God I know that you're doing this, but they're going to offer sacrifices, meaning the net, meaning their God, because he says they're going to offer burnt incense and sacrifice to their net, to their fishing net, they're thinking that they're doing this, not under the commission of God.
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He says they're going to do these things because they, through these things, they catch a large catch and their food is plentiful.
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He says why, I'm sorry, will they therefore empty their net and continually slay nations without sparing? He says alright God, you're going to let them do this, they're going to think that they did it on their own volition and that they did it on their own ideas and not under your, and they're just going to continue to go on slaying nations.
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He says God, I have a huge problem with you, how in the world can you being good from everlasting use evil to punish evil? That's called a theodicy, a word we don't hear much, but man, how can God be good, yet evil exist and the purposes of evil, look, every evil deed is carrying out the purposes of God.
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We don't know what those are at times, okay? Back in Sunday school this morning, we talked about, look, the most heinous evil deed in all of humanity to ever be committed was the crucifixion of the Son of God.
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God decreed that, he used evil men to do it, we see the good that came out of that.
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They don't see the good that's coming out of being drug off into captivity.
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It's interesting in chapter 2 Habakkuk then says this, I will stand on my guard post, I'll station myself on the rampart and I will keep watch to see what he will speak to me and how I may reply when I am rebuked.
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You understand, he realizes that I have just opened my big fat mouth to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the one who's commissioned these people to come in and scourge his covenant people who need to be scourged and I have just basically rebuked God.
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He says, alright, I'm in trouble, I've opened my mouth, let me just stand here and take it on the chin, so Yahweh give it to me.
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And here it is in verse 2, and the Lord answered me and he said this, I want you to record this vision Habakkuk, I want you to inscribe it on tablets that the one who reads it may run.
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It's interesting, when he says record this vision and inscribe it on tablets, this is the only other time that I could find, if somebody else could find one, I would sincerely find it.
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I could not find any other place other than something inscribed on tablets, was it this and the Ten Commandments or the Decalogue, which was put into, so it's like wow, this is important enough, they're going to put this on stone tablets, not on a scroll, not in a book, on tablets.
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He says record the vision, inscribe it on tablets that the one who reads it may run.
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Now there's two ways of understanding that, that when he records this, this vision, this prophecy, that when someone reads it, they're going to run, okay? That is a way of understanding that.
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That's not my understanding of it.
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My understanding of it, we're going to record this, and you're going to put it on tablets, and when somebody reads this, they're going to run and tell all of God's people what's fixing to happen.
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And as we get to the end of this, I'm going to tell you why I believe that, because this is a, this is an actual prophecy and rebuke from the conversation between God and Habakkuk on his covenant people.
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He says, for the vision is yet to be in a point in time that hastens towards its goal and it will not fail.
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He's saying, look, there's no point in time that this is coming.
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This horde of men that are coming, whose horses are like, are as fast as leopards and they're going to swoop down like an eagle and take its prey, he says, look, it's coming, it has its appointed time, and it's moving toward that goal and it will not fail.
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Though it looks like it, he says, though it tarries, wait for it, for it will certainly come to pass.
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It will not delay.
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Look, once God says he's going to do something, you can take it to the bank.
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It's going to happen.
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I want you to think of one time in scripture where God promised to do something and it did not come to pass.
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One, search it up high and low, back, forward, back.
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It always comes to pass because God is not a liar.
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Every man be made a liar.
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God is truth, and what he is saying will come to pass.
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He says, for behold, this is in verse 4, behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him.
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He is speaking of this individual, the leader of Babylon who will come and do these things.
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His soul's not right within him, and he makes this contrast.
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The cry of the Reformation was this very verse, but the righteous one will live by his faith, for the just shall live by faith.
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It is quoted three times in the New Testament, and it is quoted because we are not justified by any works.
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We're justified by trusting in the Lord.
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That's how we're justified.
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It was how men were justified in the Old Testament, the same way they were justified under the New Covenant.
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There was no works involved.
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Look, people are not justified by death alone.
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Not everybody goes to heaven when they die.
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You understand that? Someone dies, they don't go to heaven.
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If they're justified by the grace of God through Jesus Christ, they go to heaven when they die.
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Therefore, a person's life, and to me a better rendering of that is the righteous one's life, he will live by faith.
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The righteous one's life will be lived out by faith.
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I'm asking you here today, is your life characterized by faith? Seriously.
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I want you to think about it.
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Last week we talked about God being our refuge, our strength, and our help.
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How often do we trust in ourself, faith in our own junk? We put faith in our good health, we put faith in our money, we put faith in our jobs, we put faith in all these things that at the end of the day they're all going to melt and turn to a pile of rubble.
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But the righteous one will live by faith.
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I want you to understand that God does not need you or me to carry out his purposes.
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Do you understand that? God doesn't need as Habakkuk his advice.
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He didn't need Habakkuk's advice, just like he doesn't need our advice, he doesn't need our help, he doesn't need our money, he doesn't need our good looks, he doesn't need our brains.
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Sometimes God needs us to do as Habakkuk's doing, is to shut our mouth and do what God tells us to do.
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We don't like the biblical principle of shut your mouth and listen to God, do we? Sounds kind of harsh, but that's true.
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What did he say last week through the psalmist? I will be silent.
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Cease striving.
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Biblical principle said that.
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Put your hand over your mouth and listen to the Lord.
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Look, he's saying what this guy does.
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He is drunk with himself, he does what he wants, his appetite's just like the grave.
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You know, sometimes you hear men say, oh, that guy died, I heard a preacher, that guy died, he busted hell wide open.
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That is so stupid.
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Hell's never full.
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The grave is never satisfied.
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There's not going to be a time when death says, you know what, I think I've had enough, I'm going to quit killing people.
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The grave's never full.
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It's never satisfied.
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And it says that this man, making this scourge that he's going to use as the leader of the Babylonians, is going to gather himself, all nations, and he collects them to himself.
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Look, Daniel, when he speaks of the Colossus in Daniel about the nations, you know the head, the most pure and powerful nation that is demonstrated in that Colossus statue is the Babylonian empire? It was only short-lived, 70 years, poof, and then gone.
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And relatively disappeared under the Medes and the Persians with little to no bloodshed.
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Verse 6, will not all these take up a taunt song against him, even mockery and insinuations against him? And they will say, woe to him.
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Now there's five woes here.
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Woe to him who increases what is not his.
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Okay, he's saying, all right, this is the guy, here's what he's coming to do.
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He's going to increase all of his stuff, and it's not his.
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He says, how long he makes himself rich with loans.
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He takes loans from these countries that he's going in, trying to make alliances with, then he betrays them and slays them.
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He takes loans, and he doesn't pay them back.
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He says, will not your creditor rise up suddenly, and those who collect from you awaken? Indeed, you will become a plunder to them.
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He's saying, what's going to happen to this person, the Babylonians? Because you have looted many nations, all the remainder of the people will loot you because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land and to the town and all its inhabitants.
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These five woes are saying exactly how God's going to judge this other person.
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It's almost like poetic justice.
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We see that all through Scripture.
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You know, when other nations fall, the nations that come in behind them come in and do the exact same thing to them that they had done to the other nations.
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You remember when we talked about Nahum? We talked about what happened when the fall of Nineveh came in.
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He says, the prophecy, they're going to go in, and they're going to melt the city just like you have done others.
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They're going to trample you down like mud in the street just like you did others.
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When we talked about the Edomites back in Obadiah, what did he say is going to happen? You made your nest up in the sky to try to not be where you could not be gotten to.
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Well, God's going to make you fall, and the same thing, how you took advantage of your brother Jacob, I'm going to destroy Esau for the very same thing that you did to him.
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God's got a way of reaping, making men reap what they sow.
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He says, woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to put his nest on high to deliver him from calamity.
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He says, look, he's going to do all these things to try to put his house up high.
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He's going to put his empire up high where it can't be gotten, but it will be delivered to the hand of calamity.
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You have devised a shameful thing for your house by cutting off many peoples, so you are sinning against yourself.
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He's saying these men that are coming into the city that I'm using for a scourge against God's covenant people, they are sinning against themselves by doing these atrocities.
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And I know in your mind you go, well, wait a minute.
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How can God decree these men to do these things, to use them as a scourge against his people, and then punish them for being a scourge against his people through wickedness? Yes, because God's God, God's holy, and at the end of the day he judges everybody, and he judges them in righteousness.
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That's how.
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God's going to judge everybody.
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He can use whoever he wants, how he wants.
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Surely the stone will cry out from the wall, and the rafter will answer to it from the framework.
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And woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with violence.
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That's what these people will do.
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Is it not indeed from the Lord of hosts that the people will toil for fire, and nations will grow weary for nothing? He says, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the earth.
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He's saying, look, man, God's purposes will be accomplished.
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And when he accomplishes it, it's going to be glorious, and the whole earth is going to be filled with his glory because of it.
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And then in verse 15, chapter 2, woe to you who makes your neighbor to drink, who mixes with venom even to make them drunk so as to look upon their nakedness.
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He's saying, woe to these men that are coming in to doing these things.
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They're making them drunk.
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It doesn't always mean drinking with the bottle, but using some type of conversion to bring them to a point to where they can be taken advantage of, to be laid open bare, where their belongings, whatever, to be taken.
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Now, there is an application that you get someone drunk enough, you can take advantage of them.
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I don't think that's exactly what this passage is talking about, because I think it's metaphorically speaking.
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It says, and you will be filled with disgrace rather than honor.
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Now you drink yourself and expose yourself for your own nakedness.
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He says, you're exposing yourself.
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And you're going to drink exactly what you made other people drink.
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The cup of the Lord's right hand will come around you.
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What was the cup of the Lord always represented through Scripture? Wrath.
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Wrath.
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Jesus, guarding Gethsemane.
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What did He say? Let the cup pass.
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What was that cup? It wasn't a cup of Kool-Aid.
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It was a chalice of God's white hot wrath He was fixing to bear for His people.
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It says, utter disgrace will come upon your glory.
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The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you.
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These are the things that you have done.
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The devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land and to the town and all of its inhabitants.
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What prophet is the idol? Okay, now here comes another woe.
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What prophet is the idol when its maker has carved an image, a teacher of falsehood? He's like, okay, how can an idol carved out of wood or chiseled out of stone, how can it be a teacher of falsehood? Because it makes that person think that this piece of mute garbage can provide some type of safety.
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It's false security.
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It's teaching that person to trust in something that can't be trusted.
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He says, for its maker trusts in his own handiwork.
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When he fashions something like a speechless idol, woe to him who say to this piece of wood, awake, or to a mute piece of stone, arise.
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And that is your teacher? Behold, it's overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath in it at all.
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But the Lord is in his holy temple.
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Let all the earth be silent before him.
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Okay.
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He's saying, you're going to make these idols.
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This guy, Marduk and all their other gods that the Babylonians had acquired as they conquered other lands because they were polytheistic.
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He's like, look, they chiseled these things out of stone and wood.
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They're going to bow down.
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They're going to talk to them.
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They're going to ask them to protect them.
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And when I'm coming, there ain't no protection for them.
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There's no idol that can protect them from me when I come.
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He said, why? Because God's on his holy temple, and all the earth is going to be silent before him.
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Once again, biblical principle.
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All the world's going to shut their mouth.
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And God's going to shut their mouth through destruction.
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Now, we get to the last chapter.
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This is a prayer of Habakkuk.
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This is Yahweh.
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He has spoken all this.
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Remember, Habakkuk has stood on the rampart.
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He says, I'm going to stand here.
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God's fixing to rebuke me.
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And he did exactly that.
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He said, this is what I'm going to do.
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Here's what I'm going to use.
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I didn't ask for your opinion, and I'm going to judge everybody at the end of the day.
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After he hears what the Lord has to say, in chapter 3, here's what Habakkuk says.
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It's actually a prayer of praise.
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It says, a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet according to Shiginoth.
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Kind of a funny sounding word.
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Shiginoth.
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It's only used twice in all of scripture.
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And it actually has to do with a stringed riff.
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Whether it was on a harp, lyre, guitar, ukulele, I don't know what they had back then.
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Whatever that string is, he was going to make a riff with it.
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It was going to be a song.
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And it says, in verse 2, he says, Lord, I have heard the report about you, and I fear.
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Look.
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He said, okay.
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I've heard what you said, and I'm fearful.
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Once again, this is not the reverential fear that we often refer to God.
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Okay? And we're going to continue on.
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We should respect and revere God.
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But you better tremble before the God of all creation.
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He says, and I fear.
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Oh, Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years.
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And in the midst of the years, make it known.
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And listen to this plea.
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But in your wrath, Lord, remember mercy.
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He knows that God's fixing to judge his people.
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You understand, the people that we're talking about God judging is not an outside nation.
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These are the covenant people of God that were disobedient.
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And he's saying, in wrath, remember mercy.
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Search Scripture far and wide, high and low, back and forth.
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Anytime an act of judgment, anytime an act of God's wrath, there's an extension of God's mercy.
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They come hand in hand.
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We'll just start back in the garden.
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When they sinned in the garden, should God have wiped out Adam and Eve? Yes or no? Yes.
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Yes, but what did he do? He showed them mercy, and he made a covering for them, to cover their shame with animal skin.
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I know the implication and inference, and probably nobody here that would disagree with me, but if you do, that's fine.
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We can talk about it.
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That he shed the animal's blood and made a covering for their skin, out of their clothes, for their shame.
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He sacrificed something, something, blood was shed, so that their blood did not have to be shed.
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Move on.
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God destroyed all the earth by the flood.
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Was that not a huge act of judgment? Yep.
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And that act of judgment, one of the biggest displays of God's wrath, he saved eight souls by those being in that ark.
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Wrath.
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He remembered mercy.
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The Babylonian captivity, it's coming.
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He's saying, God, when you display your act of wrath and judgment on these people, please remember mercy.
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And that's exactly what God does.
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He answers that prayer.
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How does he do that? By not stomping every one of them down like mud in the street.
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He actually hauls some off in 605, 597, and ultimately the last deportation in 586, when they destroyed the temple, 586 B.C., he hauls some of them off into captivity.
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And you understand that those who were hauled off into captivity wind up being the faithful? Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego? Man, that's amazing.
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Those who were being hauled off looked like they were going to a place of exile where they would never be heard from again, and God preserved his people in God's wrath.
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He remembered mercy.
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And then the best, the biggest, grandest display of God's mercy is the cross.
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You understand that the cross was the grand display of God's wrath towards all unbelievers.
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He crushed his own son so that sinners could be forgiven, namely the elect.
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He poured out on his son his white-hot wrath without delusion.
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He drank down that cup to its last drink, and it was not deluded.
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It wasn't like Jesus got halfway up, and he started trembling, I can't drink anymore.
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No, he'd write down his gullet.
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Every bit of it.
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And in that act of judgment, mercy was granted to every person that would believe.
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And then he goes on in verse 3.
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He says God comes from Mount Timon, and the Holy One from Mount Paran.
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Now, this, by understanding, Timon and Paran would have been kind of the boundaries of the time when they left the Exodus.
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It would have been the time that they wandered around the Sinai Peninsula because that's kind of where this area is.
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He says, well, God came from Timon.
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He certainly did.
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He came from Sinai.
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The understanding of when Moses went in to tell Pharaoh, let my people go, where was he commissioned? It was in the area of Timon and Mount Paran.
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And he said, actually, when you go and you take them and you lead my people out, where he commissioned him by the burning bush at Mount Sinai, you're going to bring him back here, and I'm going to make a covenant with my people.
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So, yeah, that is where God came from originally in the sense to deliver his people, his splendor covers the heaven, the earth is full of his praise.
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Once again, look, God's glory is very evident.
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And it goes on to say in verse 4 that his radiance is like the sunlight, his rays are flashing from his hand, and there is the hiding of his power.
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Look at the glorious display of the divine warrior judge.
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He says, look, his radiance is like that of sunlight.
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In the book of Hebrews, it actually uses the word effulgence when it talks about Christ being his glory, and the glory and the radiance of his beauty and the shining of his glory.
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Here, he just points to something that could only possibly be seen as the brightest thing, which would have been sunlight.
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I mean, how many of us can look into the sun? But I can tell you what, though, when Jesus Christ splits that eastern sky and he comes to make all things right, he'll be brighter than ten suns.
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It says in his rays of flashing from his hand, and there is no hiding of his power.
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I'm sorry, and there is hiding of his power.
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So he's like, look, even in all of this radiance of his glory, the power of lightning and rays and the consolidation of power in his hand is still hidden because it can't all be seen.
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He says, and before him goes pestilence, and the plagues come from him.
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You remember all the plagues, all the pestilence that came from God, from Yahweh against the people of Egypt? Turn your Bibles over real quick.
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I know we've got to finish up.
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To Psalm 78.
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I'm going to read this.
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This is an awesome description of what God did.
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I'm going to begin in verse 40.
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This is what he says.
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How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert.
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And again and again they tempted God, they pained the Holy One of Israel, and they did not remember his power.
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The day when he redeemed them from their adversary, he performed all kinds of signs in Egypt and his marvels in the field of Zoam.
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He turned their rivers to blood, their streams they could not drink.
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He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them.
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He gave also their crops to grasshoppers, and the product of the labor to the locusts.
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He destroyed their vines with hailstones, and their sycamore trees with frost.
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He gave their cattle over to hailstones, and their herds were struck with lightning bolts.
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He sent upon them his burning anger, his fury, indignation, and trouble, and with a band of destroying angels.
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He leveled a path for his anger, and he did not spare their soul from death, but gave them over to their life to the plague.
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He smote all of the firstborn of Egypt, and the first issue of their fertility in the tents of Ham.
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And he led forth his own people like sheep, guiding them in the wilderness like a flock.
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And he led them safely, so that they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.
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So he brought them to the holy land, to his hill country, and his right hand he gave them.
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He also drove out the nations before them, and proportioned them in their inheritance by their measures.
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And he made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their own tents.
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Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High, and they did not keep his testimony, but turned back and acted treacherously, just like their forefathers." Hey, out of all the pestilence and plagues that God did to deliver his people, what did he say they did? I get them into the land, through the conquest of Joshua, and what do they do as soon as Joshua and his predecessor, his successor died? What happened? They follow after other gods, and do exactly like their forefathers did in Egypt.
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That's exactly what Habakkuk's generation was doing.
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And it says in verse 6, that he stood, he surveyed the nations, he looked, and he startled the nations.
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Yes, perpetual mountains were shattered, and the ancient hills collapsed.
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His ways are everlasting.
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He says, look, God stands up, he surveys all the nations, they're all startled at the power of God.
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It says, look, remember what mountains were, we talked about that last week, how they look at a place of stability, a place of rock steadiness, and what does it say here? They're shattered in the presence of God, because God is everlasting.
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And it says in verse 7, I saw the tents of Cushon under distress, the tents of the curtains of the land of Midian were trembling.
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Just continual enemies of God, just under terror.
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In verse 8, did the Lord rage against the rivers, or was your anger against the rivers, or was your wrath against the sea, that you rode on your horses, or on your chariots, that you rode on your horses, on your chariots of salvation.
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Your bow has been made bare, your rods of chastisement are worn, you cleave the earth with the rivers and the mountains, you have quaked.
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The downpour of the water swept, and the depth uttered forth its voice, it lifted high its hands, speaking of the glory of God.
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In verse 11, the sun and the moon stand in their place, they went away in the light of your arrows, at the radiance of your gleaming spear, in indignation you marched through the earth, in your anger you trampled the nations, you went forth from salvation of your people, with the salvation of your anointed.
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And listen to this, this kind of like named that tune, you struck the head of the house of evil, and you laid him open from neck to thigh.
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Anytime you see the evil's head get popped off, you should remember what happened back in Genesis 3, that he promised that he's going to crush the head of the serpent.
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What does it say here? He lays him out, he crushes that head, he cuts it off in such a way, that he lays him open from neck to thigh.
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I love God talks that way.
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Whacked the head off of it, with a big sword, the chalcedon just, said you pierced with his own spears, the head of his throngs.
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They stormed in and scattered us, and their exaltation was like, those who devour the oppressed in secret.
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That was what the coming, divine warrior, judge was going to do.
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I want you to hear this, and I'll land the plane, and we can get out of here shortly.
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Now the divine warrior, judge listened to the devastation, that he leaves in his wake.
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Said you trampled the sea with your horses, and on the surge of many waters, and he says I heard, that my inward parts trembled.
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At the sound of my lips quivered, decay had entered my bones, and in my place, I trembled.
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Does that sound like reverence? That sounds like knee knocking, lip trembling fear.
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And why? He says because I must wait patiently, for the day of distress.
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For these people who will arise, they will invade us.
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That's the just living by faith.
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You understand that? He told Habakkuk back in chapter 2 verse 4, that my just shall live by faith.
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That's Habakkuk saying, you know what? Terrible as it's going to be, I'm going to have to wait patiently, for you destroy my people, and you'll do it righteously.
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But then he says this, though the fig tree should not blossom, and though there be no fruit on the vine, and though the yield of the olive would fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and though there be no cattle in the stall.
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Look, is that not utter devastation? No food.
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No nothing.
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There's no, look, the fig tree is not going to bloom or blossom.
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It's actually, in the Hebrew it says no bud.
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It's not even going to be a bud.
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The fruit won't even be on the vine.
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Do you understand it was always a sign of fruit being on the vine as a sign of prosperity and a gift to God, to His people.
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He's saying there ain't even going to be anything on the vine.
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The very things that you sustained yourself through drinking of the fruit of the vine ain't even going to be here.
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The olive, He says, it's going to fail too.
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All the other produce in the fields, gone.
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And then, on top of that, you ain't going to have no produce to eat.
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He says, all the cattle, gone.
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No food.
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Absolute destruction and devastation.
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And here's Habakkuk.
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Yet I will extol in the Lord.
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I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
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And in verse 19 it says that the Lord is my strength.
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He has made me like hind's feet and makes me to walk in high places.
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Habakkuk was a man of faith.
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Habakkuk was a man who, just like you and I, have a tendency to question God and His doings.
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Habakkuk is a lot like us, that we pop our mouths off long before we have to remember that God's working out His purposes and He, when I say it again, He doesn't consult us.
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God graciously answered Habakkuk.
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God could have told Habakkuk, shut your mouth, I don't have to tell you a thing.
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But He graciously gave him the oracle that was coming.
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And in the face of absolute devastation, Habakkuk, being a man of faith, says, I will wait for it to come.
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And when it comes, I see it's going to be absolutely unbearable.
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But I know this, that what God is doing is good and what God's doing is holy and what God is doing is right.
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And I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
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We don't know what happened to Habakkuk.
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We don't know if he was hauled off into captivity.
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We don't know if he was killed.
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We don't know.
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But we know this, he trusted in the Lord as his salvation.
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If you're here today, and I know there's people in here that are not converted.
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There are little children here that are not converted.
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Every time we see the devastations of nations, that is only a preview of what God will do at the end of the age.
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There is coming a day when He will judge all men, all women, boys and girls, and He will judge them in righteousness, and all of those who are not shielded from the wrath of God, who have been placed in Christ, will absorb the full weight of God's white hot wrath forever.
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That's why this table is so good every week.
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This table every week is a reminder when we take that little cup.
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That is a reminder that we are drinking the blood of the new covenant.
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How do we get the blood of the new covenant? Because Jesus Christ poured out His blood for His people, so that we could be acquitted of our sins.
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Look, it ain't a pardon.
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A pardon is you are guilty, we're just going to commute your sentence.
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Salvation is not a commuted sentence.
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It's not a suspended sentence.
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It's not a pardon, and it's not a reprieve.
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It's a declared righteous, and declared innocent in Christ.
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And that's what this table represents.
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So if you're here today, and you've placed faith in Christ, the just will live by faith.
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This world is crazy.
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It ain't getting no better.
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And I don't care what brand of eschatology you have, you know it don't get better until it gets real, real, real worse.
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Whatever brand you got.
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Whether you think that, you know, there's going to be people, unmanned cars and clothes falling on the ground and all that.
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That's what you're waiting on.
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I hate to tell you, you're sadly mistaken.
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It's going to get bad.
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And God's told us, through the prophet, that His just will live by faith.
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Let's pray.
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Father God, thank you so much for the prophets.
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Father, thank you that they spoke boldly, and that they spoke exactly the words that you gave them.
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So Father, there was no confusion what you meant when you said, I will make it desolate.
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Father, I want to say thank you for making your son desolate, devastating your son, so that we could stand before you clothed in his righteousness, clothed in all of his innocence, so that we could be embraced by the perfect judge, as no longer judge and executioner, but as Father.
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Lord, we love you, and we thank you, and I pray that you would bless this time of communion at the table.
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In Christ's name, amen.