Betrayed by Bottomless Appetite

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Well, good morning.

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How are you all doing? That's a little hot. All right, this is gonna be good. So, last week we started dipping into the

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Gospel of Luke and that was really good, wasn't it? Nice to be in the New Testament. So, this morning we're gonna go back to the

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Minor Prophets and I'm gonna continue preaching through Habakkuk, which is where I've been when

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I've been filling in for Don here and there. Now, as far as this sermon goes,

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I have to admit that over the course of writing it and following the text where it leads, this message didn't exactly take the shape that I was expecting.

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I knew that this section was about the judgment on the Babylonians, that was pretty clear, but it goes beyond that.

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It definitely does talk about righteous judgment on the wickedness of Babylon.

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But as I studied, what I also found is this passage provides a useful description and diagnosis of how our sinful hearts operate.

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Some of the patterns of our own miseries are traced out here for us. And this was quite sobering for me to wrestle with what

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God, in His unsparing kindness, was pointing out in my own heart while I was preparing this.

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So, I hope it will prove useful to you as well. It was very, kind of, it's a lot to wrestle with personally, but I hope that it gives you something to wrestle with as well, even if it's maybe slightly uncomfortable at times.

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So, I'm also grateful that Pastor Don has very recently preached through the book of Nahum that fits very well and provides good context for Habakkuk.

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Nahum's message of impending destruction on the Assyrian Empire, it was written about 50 years before Habakkuk.

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And it has a lot to do with this section of Habakkuk that we're going to be going through this morning.

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The Babylonians that Habakkuk is dealing with were the ones that God used to fulfill the prophecy

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He gave to Nahum. And we'll see this morning that what the

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Babylonians did to the Assyrians in taking them out is going to happen to the

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Babylonians themselves. And on top of all of that, that's all good context to have and connect some books of the

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Bible you might not have put together before. Now, when I say Habakkuk is right after Nahum, you can find it easier.

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You've been there very recently. It's really great. So, that's a side benefit.

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Where are we at in Habakkuk? I've preached a couple of other sermons on this, spread out over a good number of months, but right now we are in chapter 2, verse 5.

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But the previous sections that we've looked at, the prophet is in a dialogue with the

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Lord. He starts by asking questions and he's asking very earnest questions about the wickedness that he's seeing around him in the kingdom of Judah.

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He wants to know how long is God going to let this violence and injustice go unpunished.

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God responded to Habakkuk that he was raising up the Chaldeans, also known as the

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Babylonians. I'll be using both those names for them. Same, same. Who were fierce and cruel and they're going to sweep through Judah and punish the wickedness of God's people that had

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Habakkuk so distressed. But that leaves an open question.

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Okay, what about the Babylonians? This is the same problem. We've got wicked people oppressing righteous people.

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It's just a bigger scale now. That doesn't really solve the heart of the issue.

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Will those wicked people just continue to swallow up the righteous? Is this how it's going to just continue on,

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God? And we left off with the beginning of God's answer the last time I preached. And the answer was no.

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It's not going to just continue on like that. But there's a lot more to it than that and we're going to be getting into the rest of that answer this morning.

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Now in that previous passage just before this, Habakkuk was referring to the king of Babylon as personifying or representing the whole empire.

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And that continues throughout this entire section. So when you see he or him references to the singular, it's shorthand for the

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Babylonians. The whole lot of them. And they're represented in the person of their king. So where we left off in chapter 2 verse 4, we were told that his soul is puffed up and not upright within him.

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This is literally like swollen, puffy disease. Something's just wrong there.

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And we're going to get specific about what's wrong in there this morning. And on top of that, in the midst of this, the glory of God stands towering over this text, shrinking the huge empire of Babylon into insignificance.

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So I hope this will be just really good as we go along here.

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So I'm going to read it. If you'll turn with me to Habakkuk. It's right after Nahum.

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It's chapter 2 verse 5. It's five books before Matthew. It's towards the end of the Old Testament. If you're still wondering.

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So turn there in your Bibles or devices or if you brought your scripture journal for Nahum, Habakkuk's in there too.

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And we're going to start chapter 2 verse 5. It says, Shall not all these take up their taunt against him with scoffing and riddles for him and say,

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Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own. For how long? And loads himself with pledges.

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Will not your debtors suddenly arise and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoiled for them.

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Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the people shall plunder you. For the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.

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Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm.

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You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples. You have forfeited your life.

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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.

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Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that people's labor merely for fire and nations weary themselves for nothing?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them.

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For the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. What prophet is an idol when its maker has shaped it?

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A metal image, a teacher of lies. For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols.

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Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, awake to a silent stone, arise. Can this teach?

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Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver and there's no breath at all in it. But the

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Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him.

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Let's pray. Holy Father, in the midst of all of this righteous judgment, we see your glory covering the earth.

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I just pray that that would be just really burned into our hearts and our minds that we would long for the day when your glory covers the earth.

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Thank you for your word that confronts sin, that you will not let the wicked go unpunished, that you are just, but you are also gracious and it's not a contradiction.

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Please open our ears to hear what you have to say and I just pray that you would come hard after us and don't leave us in our hard -headed, hard -hearted, sinful state, that you would show us where we need to repent and grant us a heart of repentance, that we would come to you and admit that we are, but also look to you for the healing and the satisfaction, the good that we need, the things that we can't do, and the atoning for our sin, the covering that over, that we just, we can't get rid of it ourselves.

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Lord, I just pray for this morning that you would turn our hearts to worship you for all of your goodness and glory and who you are.

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Amen. Get settled in your seats and turn back to Habakkuk chapter 2 in your

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Bibles, devices, what have you. If you happen to see the e -cast and brought your scripture journal from Nahum, it has

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Habakkuk in it too. So, I want you to be able to look at that and follow along as we go through the passage because I want to point you to God's words this morning and not my own.

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So, we're picking up in verse 5 of chapter 2, and as I said in the introduction, this is the middle of God's answer to Habakkuk and not the exact center, but it's in the midst of it.

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And this verse at the beginning here is very important to pay attention to as it's got the summary of the whole thing, the whole matter is here.

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And it's the wide angle view, if you want to look at it that way, of the sins of the Chaldeans and what

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God's going to do about it before we get close up on some of the details. In verse 5 says this,

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So, that first bit can be a little bit murky, but if you go just past that and come back to it, it helps to understand it if you go in that order.

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So, his greed is as wide as Sheol, the place of the dead. Like death, he has never enough.

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This is the driving motivation behind all that we will read in the coming verses about the

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Chaldeans. This is important to note here that if you see greed here and you're thinking just money, like, oh,

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I gotta have more money, that's just the beginning of what he's talking about here.

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Some other translations such as the CSB or NASB, they translate his greed is as wide as Sheol.

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That, instead of translating it that way, they translate it, he enlarges his appetite like Sheol, which that's closer to the original

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Hebrew. So, this is talking about a craving, a grasping that will never, ever be satisfied.

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I mean, can you imagine death being full up, no vacancy in the grave? Will anyone ever be told that they cannot possibly die right now because there's no more room right now for souls that have been rendered homeless?

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I mean, that's ridiculous. There might be no more graves for burying the bodies, but that won't stop people from dying.

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The greedy appetite of the Chaldeans is like that. No matter how much it is fed, it never diminishes.

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So, what is Babylon trying to do to fill this appetite?

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Keep going in the verse, he's devouring nations, he's gathering people. When Habakkuk was writing this, the

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Babylonians had already gobbled up much of the Assyrian empire. They had destroyed the

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Assyrian capital of Nineveh, which was talked about in Nahum, and they were in the process of finishing a clean sweep of Egypt, who was allied with the remnants of Assyria, whatever was left of them.

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So, Babylon was conquering and gathering up all the nations around them as their own, their own possession, taking all of that land and people and stuff.

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Okay, so that's what they're doing, but what does wine, going back to the beginning of verse 5, what does wine have to do with Babylon?

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Wine, our scripture says, is a traitor. It will betray the one who trusts in it.

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This is a metaphor. So, picture a man or a woman who is going hard after the bottle, always needing another drink.

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Does gratifying that desire, without limit, lead anywhere good? This will always lead to shame and ridicule and waking up covered in your own puke.

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More on that later, but this, that is the betrayal of wine. And like the betrayal of wine, what this arrogant man personifying

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Babylon is always restlessly going after and craving more of and never able to get enough of, that will betray him to his harm.

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We will see more of the details of how this plays out as we go on, but that's, that's the theme here.

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So, going on to verse 6, we see that all these peoples that have been gathered up and collected, they will taunt

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Babylon. It says, shall not all these, referring to the peoples from chapter 5 and the nations, well, shall not all these taunt, take up their taunt against him with scoffing and riddles for him?

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They'll be watching and participating in the downfall of their cruel oppressor and they are going to have some sarcasm and mocking comments for him on the way down.

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The words here, they even imply this taunting takes the form of a song.

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It's like a divinely appointed diss track, if you will. And here the word craft, as you might expect from something of that sort, is really on a whole other level.

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The sayings are sharp, witty, they play with double meanings and they are memorable.

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Unfortunately, I don't read Hebrew and they're, they're memorable mostly in the Hebrew. And unless you read

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Hebrew, you'll have to miss much of the word play in the immediate and stick to a translation and commentaries and that's how you can mine that out.

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But because of this tightly crafted word play that's here in these verses, the English translations will differ from one another on some of the words in this passage more frequently than you might otherwise find in English translations.

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So, that in mind, I want to take the opportunity to tell you in case you haven't heard that there is no

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English Bible competition being held, that there's not a cage match where the translations go in and one rises victorious over all the others as the best translation, the goat of all translations.

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Most English translations, I want to tell you, they do a pretty good job. The major ones that you're going to run across, they're good and they don't all agree in the word choice everywhere.

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And this, that is not a problem for us who believe that the Bible is God's word and without error in the original manuscripts.

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The thing is that none of those manuscripts were written in English. So, you must realize that you and I, when we're reading our

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Bibles, we read a translation and translators have to make hard calls sometimes and this passage is a great example of that.

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There's a number of them. So, because of those hard calls, comparing translations is very useful and I commend it to you.

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If you run across a passage and you're like, huh, I wonder what this, this means it's kind of unclear right here or I'm just interested in this or fascinating,

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I recommend you pick up another translation and see how it's translated there. That could help you.

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And I will be making more references than usual than I otherwise would to different translations as we go through this passage to bring out the word play and I just want to tell you it's, it's not because some translations are worse or I just want to tear those down or I want to let you in on which translation

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I really like. No, it's to try to get at the meaning. So, that's, that's why you're going to hear a few other,

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I've already mentioned one where it's like, different translations bring this out differently. I'm just trying to get at the meaning behind it.

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So, looking back at the passage, for the rest of the chapter, just verse 6 onward through 20, we have the words of this taunt song and the, there are five things that the people will taunt

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Babylon about and each one of these is set off by the word woe. Now, that in itself is not a very common word in English.

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I don't know how many of you use woe in just everyday speaking, but you can catch the meaning of it from context, usually, if, even if you don't maybe get the force of that word.

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It means sorrow, misery, grief, distress, either described like, woe is me, or declared upon a person or group, woe to you.

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I mean, you read it from Jesus, for instance, in Matthew 23 13. He says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, kind of forceful, there it is, woe to you, and we're used to hearing something like that from Jesus in the

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New Testament. And here, in this context of Habakkuk, additionally, it takes on kind of a sarcastic mocking tone.

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So, this is a little bit more like, ha, sorry, not sorry. That's, that's the woe here.

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So, each stanza is going to deal with different facets of the wicked actions of Babylon, driven by bottomless appetite, and we will see how they are betrayed by what they craved.

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And with each taunt, it goes a little deeper toward the heart of the matter. So, I did have headings for each of these different taunts.

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If you want them, I'll give them to you as we go. The first taunt,

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I gave the heading, ha, you think you have wealth? This is verses 6 through 8.

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It goes like this, So, the

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Chaldeans have piled up the treasures of their conquests, taking what they wanted from everybody.

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They conquered and plundered to make themselves wealthy, and for the nations under their control, they wanted them to be weak and poor.

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So, they take all their stuff, but in doing that, they are setting the stage for their own destruction.

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The Babylonians have all that stuff that isn't theirs, but for how long? Which, ironically, is the same question a

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Habakkuk asked God when looking at the wicked seeming to go unpunished. How long? How long is this going to go on?

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Now, it's used in the opposite way. You don't have much time. For how long do you really have that?

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And here, where it says debtors, I'm going to have to differ with the ESV. Nearly everywhere else, it's translated creditors, which is the opposite end of that relationship, and you see all of,

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I have to say too, the creditors is closer to the original, and there's a little bit of wordplay that works out especially well, but the point here is that all those treasures and all that wealth that Babylon has taken from the surrounding nations, see, they were only borrowing that.

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So, these nations are going to suddenly arise and call in that loan, if you will, and the point is it won't last.

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All of this that they've gathered, they can't hold on to it. All of these peoples that the Chaldeans plundered and were holding down will suddenly plunder them, and why is that?

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For the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. All of that bloodshed and violence will have to be answered for.

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So, what we can learn from this and gather is that those who gather up what's not theirs, whether taken through violence or fraud or some other illicit means, are really taking out a loan with interest they can't pay.

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Taking what's not yours is really like a loan, but the interest is something you can't pay.

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It's an insatiable greed for more things and advantage over others will accumulate judgment and will make all of that plunder useless.

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That's what's going on here. The second taunt, I gave the heading, ha, you think you have safety?

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Verses 9 through 11. This is related to the first taunt. You'll see it's similar, but there's an important difference.

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Previously, it was just an appetite for getting more things, more and more money, stuff, but the driving hunger here is security.

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Look at verse 9. Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm.

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Now, I think it's pretty natural for someone who's been extorting and robbing other people to think that maybe they should take some safety precautions.

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It makes sense. So, they want to set their house far out of reach, like a bird's nest.

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Think of eagles, you know, making a nest on the rocks. And by house here, you could take it to mean like actual physical dwelling place, like I need to fortify that thing.

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People might be trying to come for me. Or it could mean their dynasty, like you hear the house of David, you know, his lineage is going to They want their dynasty to continue.

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Either way you take that, it works. It's kind of ambiguous on purpose.

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And what will become of them though? Here, look at verses 10 and 11. You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many people's.

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You have forfeited your life. For the stone will cry out from the wall and the beam from the woodwork respond.

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All of these careful plans, all of the destruction of rivals and potential threats.

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What was actually accomplished? Shame. They have more than wasted all of that effort in trying so hard to preserve their life.

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They have forfeited instead. Every step taken to make his house more secure was actually making it more sure to end in ruin.

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You might go so far as to say whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it. And similar to what we read in Genesis chapter 4 verse 10, where there

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Cain killed his brother Abel and Abel's blood cried out to the Lord from the ground regarding the evil deed.

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Similar to that, so it will be with Babylon. Now Babylon is more sophisticated in their murdering, without a doubt, but there's still no covering it up or hiding the enormity of their crimes.

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The very stones and beams will cry out about the evil done. And this is starting to sound like something from a short story by someone like Edgar Allan Poe, some kind of horror writer.

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Like, ah, the beams and the stones will actually cry out about the crime. It can't be covered up. Going on to the third taunt.

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Heading is, ha! You think that will last? This is verses 12 through 14.

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And right here at the center of the taunt song, we will see the

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Lord enter the picture. Read in here in the verses, woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity.

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Behold is it not from the Lord of hosts that people's labor merely for fire and nations weary themselves for nothing?

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For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

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So Babylon, are you building on a foundation of unrighteousness, violence, and evil? Are you running over people and shedding blood to establish yourself?

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It's all for nothing. You're just feeding the fire. And this is from the

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Lord of hosts. And God is showing his might here by using this name, the

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Lord of hosts. I find that the way that Eugene Peterson renders this name of God in the message has always stuck with me.

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He renders it God of the angel armies. That's what it's talking about. To Babylon and anyone else who gathers as much strength as they can, they will always be pathetic compared to the hosts of angels led by God, let alone the

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Almighty One himself, just him. And I love verse 14.

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This is so good. This is like this jewel right here in the middle of this passage.

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The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

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That thought is especially sweet to me. Is it sweet to you too? If you love the

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Lord, I mean, it ought to be. Imagine a world so absolutely filled with the knowledge of God's glory that everything is thoroughly soaked in it.

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Everywhere you look, any place you might go, what you will see will reveal some new aspect of how awesome, how glorious God is.

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Every person you meet would be reflecting God's glory in that particular way that God made them to show it.

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It would be an ever -deepening, always satisfying knowledge and relationship with our

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Creator, our God, our Redeemer. And this will happen.

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It is promised, not just here, but into other places as well.

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And I'll just give you the references here. You can go look at these. But in Numbers chapter 14 verse 21, in Isaiah chapter 11 verse 9, and it's interesting to note, this promise shows up always in the context of judgment.

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So, but you know what you won't find hanging around when this is fulfilled? When the earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the

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Lord? You won't find cities built on bloodshed and iniquity. They won't be there.

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These monuments to man's silly little swaggering arrogance will be nowhere to be found.

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All the remnants of every scheme that denies God's existence, power, or goodness will be gone because they can't be where God's, where it's full of the knowledge of the glory of the

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Lord. So, in light of that, I ask, what are you building on?

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What am I building on? And how are we building our lives up? Like, is all the things we're doing, is it just for fire?

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Is it just going to be wasted? Or are we building with the intention of glorifying God now so it will be brought to completion on that day?

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It's worth thinking about. So, the fourth taunt, keeping going here, gave it the heading, ha, you think you have glory?

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Verses 15 through 17. With the appetite for wealth, security, and fame, longevity ridiculed, the fourth taunt here is directed at an appetite that is deep in the heart, and in many ways, it's fueling the others.

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It's the thirst for glory. And here, you see the grossness of the swollen prideful heart is really showing.

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It says, The imagery here is pretty shocking and gross, and that's exactly what's intended.

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Babylon has despised the neighboring nations and come up against them with force of arms, making them fall down powerless, like they've had too much to drink.

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And Babylon, the whole time, is desiring to see those lands vulnerable and exposed. And look at verse 16.

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What were they trying to get their fill of? Glory. It was to taste that glory and to have that glory as their own.

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But they wanted to get glory by degrading everyone else. I mean, one way to be the tallest person in the room is to cut everyone else off at the knees, right?

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But it's not enough for them to be grand. They won't be satisfied until everyone else is shamefully exposed.

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However, what will they get instead of all that glory that they're grasping at? They're going for glory.

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What are they going to get? They will have their fill of shame instead. They will have to drink, and the cup that is coming around is from the

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Lord. This image of forcing a nation to drink a cup filled with wrath as a judgment, this image, is used throughout the

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Bible in prophetic books, clear through to Revelation. And they will have the same shameful treatment,

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Babylon will, that they have been forcing on others. They've been thinking, oh, we're going to force people to drink, taste our wrath.

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Well, God has a cup coming around, and they're going to have to drink that. And not to dwell too long on this part, but the mention of uncircumcision is important in this display of embarrassment of tough guy

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Babylon. It shows that they are outside God's covenant. That was the covenant sign, circumcision.

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So God's wrath is going to fall on them hard. They will be completely destroyed.

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And where it says, utter shame will come upon your glory, I think the utter shame there doesn't probably hit like it should.

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Like that phrase, okay, a lot of shame. Great. But the word there is an interesting compound word.

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It's the word shame combined with vomit. And so Babylon will drink from the wrath of God and pass out naked, covered in their own vomit.

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How's that for glorious? Yeah. They're going to be destroyed utterly.

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And again, looking at verse 17, this is because of the violence and death that Babylon has dealt out.

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For all of the violence done to men and cities and lands, violence will overwhelm them.

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They've gone about this in the worst possible way. So moving on to the last taunt in the last section here, the heading there

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I gave, ha, you call that a God? Verses 18 through 20.

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So this final taunt is against the idols of Babylon. It says,

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Babylon, what good are your idols? You made it yourself. You know that it's just stone or wood with some precious metals over top of it.

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You're trusting in that to guide you? You're listening to advice from an idol? It doesn't talk.

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There's no life at all in it. So this right here is getting down to the root of the matter.

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We've gone peeling some layers off, looking at different facets, and we are down at the root of it here.

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Why is there this unappeasable appetite for glory at the expense of his neighbor's shame?

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Why does he build cities through bloodshed, cities that won't last? Why the desperate grasping for security by gathering resources as fast as possible by any means necessary?

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Why does Babylon extort and steal, gathering all the peoples and nations under his control?

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Why is it never enough? Because he has trusted in his own creation to take the place that can only be filled by his creator.

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As Paul puts in Romans, he has exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

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An important point here is what is created is necessarily less than and merely reflective of the one who creates it.

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I want you to grasp that. The what is created is necessarily less than and merely reflective of the one who creates it.

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An idol is crafted by the hands and imaginations of men and then placed in the seat of moral authority.

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So men worshiping idols place their trust in something that reflects themselves, and that even in an imperfect way.

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This is what turning inward. This is the call to follow your heart.

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But with that heart stuck in a feedback loop of corruption and sin, looking inside for something bigger than the self.

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And making idols is not just for people back then, you know, all those backwards people making idols.

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We trust ourselves to lifeless things now that we ourselves have created as well.

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So we trust in governments or political parties or organizations, even good organizations.

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Like, oh no, I'm a member of that church, you know, hey, recast, yeah. We trust in our sophisticated technology.

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We trust in our medicine. We trust in so many things that we have built ourselves.

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So here's a little test for you. Just recently, there was another high -profile

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Christian teacher whose hidden sins came to light, and he was removed from his position as a pastor and a teacher.

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So when that happens, how does that hit you? I mean, it's sad to be sure.

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There's no two ways about that. But how much does that rattle your faith? Is your faith in a teacher or the word that is taught?

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Do you trust the message because of the messenger or because of the author? If our trust, our final absolute rock -bottom trust, is not in God, we will be disappointed, guaranteed.

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And verse 20 has the end of the matter. But the Lord is in his holy temple.

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Let all the earth keep silence before him. The Lord lives.

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The Lord speaks. The Lord can teach. And only the Lord can satisfy the endless appetite of the soul.

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We were made by him, and we were made for him. Habakkuk has asked, he asked back in chapter 1 why

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God was silent when the wicked swallows up the righteous. Now all the earth will be silent before the

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Lord. God has made it clear that he will judge the wicked, and everything that they count as an advantage or strength right now will turn on them.

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They will have no strength at all when the judgment comes. And in seeing that, all the earth will be silent before God.

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So we've seen how God answered Habakkuk's question, and we've seen through the vision given to Habakkuk how the insatiable greed of the

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Chaldeans arose out of trusting in what was insufficient, leaving them groping about for the glory that they were missing.

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These things are not just history. They were written for our example.

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So I would ask you, do you have an appetite that is never filled? Some aching need to have just a little more money, then you'd be secure.

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Or to be better looking, then people would notice you. Or just a desire for people to like you.

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While I was working on this sermon, I was struck with just how much I desire comfort and pleasant distractions.

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Anybody with me on that? I mean, like, how much of that do you need? Like, always some more?

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But when we feel that kind of unsatisfiable hunger, we need to then ask, what are we going to trust in to satisfy it?

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Like, where should that take us? Because money can't satisfy it.

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People liking you can't satisfy it. Comfort can't satisfy it. But God can.

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He is what that hunger was made for. So listen to what

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Jesus says in John 6. In verse 27, God the

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Father has set his seal. And further on in that chapter, verse 35, Jesus said to them,

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Verse 37, So if you are hungry like that, would you turn from chasing what will never satisfy you and come to Jesus?

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Take that to Him. And if you do, He will satisfy your hunger and He will not turn you away.

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And this morning, you might realize that the terrible punishment described for Babylon is rightly coming for you as well.

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Maybe that pattern is looking familiar. If that's you, then

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I have good news. Jesus took the cup of judgment and bore the punishment of God's wrath for the sins of all who trust in Him to be saved.

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If you have questions about that, you want to talk more about it, grab someone this morning.

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Have that conversation with them, whether it's somebody nearby you, or Dan, the elder on duty, or myself, or Dave who's up here singing.

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But if you have already come to Jesus and you are trusting in Him to satisfy you and what

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He has done to rescue you from the wrath our sins deserved, and you are at peace with others here so far as it depends on you, then in a moment, come to the tables that we have set up in the back, in the front corners, and join together with your brothers and sisters as we remember

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Jesus' death and look forward to His coming back and revel in His glory that satisfies and looking for that day when the knowledge of His glory will cover the earth.

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That's something to celebrate. All right, pray with me here. Heavenly Father, as we have been looking through this message about what came upon Babylon, but at the time it was future, it's just good to realize that Babylon was just an example for us, and I just pray that You would help us to see in our own hearts where we're trusting in things that are insufficient.

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It's so easy to get sucked into that, to just think, oh, I just need to go for this and feed this hunger without stopping to ask, like, what am

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I really hungry for and what is this going to produce?

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And I pray that You would convict us of sin and bring us to repentance, and I pray that You would show

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Your great kindness and Your glory to us, that we would desire Your glory more than things that are just going to perish, and then holding on to that, that we would enjoy the things that You have given us.

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Lord, I just pray that You would bless us this week, and as we come to celebrate what

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Jesus has done, that You would give us unity in mind, and that You would bring us together as Your body, and that we would show