FBC Morning Light – December 6, 2022

Well, good Tuesday morning to you. So let me ask you, can you relate to this? Okay, let me read this for you.

It says Why do you show me iniquity and cause me to see trouble?

For plundering and violence are before me. There is strife and contention arises

Therefore the law is powerless and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous

Therefore perverse judgment proceeds Can you relate to that?

If you can't, maybe you don't watch the news or read any kind of a news magazine or You know

Listen to what's going on in this world and in our own nation Right. Yeah, we can relate to this.

We certainly can it seems that more and more violence and Injustice are on the increase.

Iniquity abounds Freaks can bully with impunity.

They get away with just about anything and Not only does it seem like the law doesn't do anything about it or very much about it

But you know, where is the Lord in this? This is the dilemma that confronted the prophet

Habakkuk He's looking at his own nation and he's seeing all of this stuff and it seems like the

Lord isn't doing anything about it and so he cries out to the Lord and says How long shall

I cry and you will not hear all this stuff is going on and you're not doing anything about it well

There is more going on behind the scenes than we know and this is what the Lord Communicates back to Habakkuk in the next several verses here in Habakkuk chapter 1

Verses 5 to 11 the Lord says look I am involved behind the scenes and I'm going to eventually bring forth judgment and You're not you're not going to you're not going to believe

That judgment which shall fall and the Lord goes on to explain to Habakkuk that he's going to use the

Chaldeans the Babylonians and this again Causes Habakkuk no little trouble.

He says I I don't understand this I mean the Chaldeans the Babylonians I mean, they're more corrupt and more evil than than even we are and you're gonna use them to chasten us again, the prophet doesn't get it and Again, the

Lord graciously responds and says don't worry about that I have the big picture in mind not us not a brief interlude in parentheses in time

I have the big picture in mind and in the big picture Yes, the Babylonians are going to be dealt with as well so the

Lord's ways in his dealings with evil people and Nations sometimes he uses evil people to bring judgment upon other people that maybe aren't as bad or evil in our way of thinking as The evil people who are bringing judgment.

This is an enigma to us It's an enigma because it is because our sight line is just too short

We don't we can't see beyond that We don't know what the Lord is going to do even with those bad evil people

So what do we need to do? We need to do what Habakkuk did in chapter 2 verses 1 to 3.

He says Okay, I'm going to just wait and watch

He says I will stand my watch set myself on the rampart and watch to see what he will say to me and what

I will answer when I am corrected and then the Lord came and answered and what's an there's an interesting verse in chapter 2 verse 14 and It says the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the

Lord as the waters cover the sea There's a couple way to think ways of thinking of that verse.

One of them is in a very very optimistic positive sort of way where we we can look forward to the expansion of the gospel to reach every every creature on the planet and the vast majority of the people come to faith in Christ and Is this this glorious?

Glorious turning to the Lord in the receiving of the gospel But I don't really think that's the way to interpret this verse

I think we have to interpret it in light of its context and in light of the context

It's a context of judgment. And so what this verse is telling us is that the way that the glory of the

Lord is going to cover the earth as Water covers the sea the waters cover the sea and that the knowledge of the

Lord is Going to be is going to fill the earth The way that's going to happen is through his divine judgment.

There will be no escaping of the fact that This is the work of God This is the work of God finally, he's going to bring justice to the planet and It will be unmistakably the work of God Everybody will know the knowledge of the

Lord will fill the earth and his indisputable power and majesty will be

Will be the In the awareness of everybody it'll be inescapable

The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the

Lord as the waters cover the sea So this is a great a great promise

But it's coming at a great cost. Oh how vital it is that we

That we know the Lord that we're trusting in him and trusting in Christ as our

Savior that this Kind of judgment doesn't come upon the righteous.

He brings it upon the wicked Our Father in our God, we thank you for your justice for your righteousness for your faithfulness we thank you that we can trust you even in these days where it seems like iniquity is abounding and violence and and conflict and Just all kinds of crazy stuff going on in our world

And we don't see any end to it. We just see it expanding Help us Lord to trust you and what you're doing in all of this and what your plans are even behind the scenes

Give us faith to trust you more and this we pray in Jesus name. Amen All right.