April 29, 2018 PM The Prophet Hears and Answers by Pastor Josh Sheldon

The Hymnal, the Bulletin, and Returning to Habakkuk

Lyrics to you because many of the tunes that those are matched to and the Gatsby by the way is just the words. It doesn't have the music, but it has a meter, a note on top which then matches some of the songs in the Trinity hymnal.

And that's why I'm able to match them up to a tune that's familiar. But the Gatsby is full of so many rich and truthful lyrics that say so many rich and truthful things about God and Christ and the Holy Spirit that I've decided to utilize that.

And I'm not saying you're going to see it every Sunday afternoon, but fairly often. And if we can get in the habit of just looking for the bulletins to be up there at the sound booth. If you didn't get one handed to you, they will be there and they will always be two familiar tunes like that.

Habakkuk’s Complaint and God’s Answer Through Babylon

So with that, let us go back to Habakkuk. And with verses 12 to 17, we'll finish this chapter. And as you recall, we began in the first four verses. The first message was the prophet calling out to God and questioning his seeming reticence to do anything about all the sins and all the iniquities that the prophet's eyes had been opened by the Lord to see.

And he's saying, how long, O Lord, must I keep crying out to these things that you have shown me? We looked last week at verses 5 through 11, which showed the answer that the Lord gave the prophet. And that answer was, in essence, Habakkuk, I am not ignoring.

And in fact, I'm acting even sooner than you could have imagined. Babylon is coming as my instrument of judgment. And so in these verses, I'll read in a moment, this is Habakkuk's answer to the Lord's answer.

And he's astounded by what the Lord had revealed to him. He is appalled that a nation like Babylon, we'll talk about them in a little bit, we talked about them some last week, could be sent by God, by a holy God, by a pure God, against his own people.

So let's read these verses. You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. He brings all of them up with a hook. He drags them out with his net. He gathers them in his dragnet, so he rejoices and is glad.

Therefore, he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet. For by them he lives in luxury and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?

So we began, as I said, Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear or cry to you of violence and you will not save? And God is of course fully aware. And when he gives his answer, the prophet knows immediately, this is bad news for the people.

Babylon was an irresistible force with a kind of a take no prisoners attitude. But they did in fact take prisoners, but death by the sword might have been a better fate than to fall alive into their hands.

So the six verses I just read are the Lord's, are his answer to the Lord. The prophet back to the Lord, as if he can't believe his ears. Surely a good and holy God wouldn't send a vicious people like them against his very own people.

The apple of his hand, the apple of his eye, this precious nations that he drew out of Egypt and protected while they're in the land. This people who built the tabernacle and later the temple and God was so pleased with it, his glory fell upon it in such an intense way that the ministers couldn't be in their ministering until the glory left the temple.

This God, how could such a one as he use a people such as they for his judgment? So it's kind of a rehearsal here of two opposing natures. First is verses 12 to 14 and that's God and then verses 15 to 17, which of course is Babylon.

Is God going to destroy his own people and then preserve so awful a nation as Babylon? That's what the last verse asks. The very last verse I read, is he then to keep on emptying his net, meaning Babylon, meaning emptying his net which he cast into the sea, which is a metaphor then for the nations that he's captured.

And the dragnet being pulled up full of fish is the way he pulls the wealth, the plunder out of those nations. Is it going to go on forever like this? Are you going to allow him just to do this and do this and do this?

And what the prophet is expecting is that when Babylon does come, that Israel will be no more because Babylon was not known for leaving much behind. And it could be here, if you think about the tone of what I read to you in this response of the prophet back to God, it could be that he is remembering Moses, begging God not to destroy Israel after the golden calf.

Do you remember what the Lord said to Moses? Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you. Now had he done so, perhaps it would have been by giving victory over them, over Israel, to a tribe like say the Amalekites or some such people.

And he would have sent them as his instrument of judgment as he is now in Habakkuk's time sending Babylon against Judah. So in a manner reminiscent of Moses's intercession, and you'll recall how Moses then pleaded with God on behalf, and he pleaded to God for God's own honor.

He said, what then will the nation say that you brought them out of Egypt, but you weren't strong enough to take them to their destination? I paraphrase that of course, but this is the essence of Moses's answer to God.

What will the nation say? After you having publicly promised to bring them to this place, destroy them here, they'll say you couldn't do it. So he pleaded God's honor back to God as a motive for God to let his wrath cool against his people.

And Habakkuk does something like that. He rehearses to God in verses 12 through 14 his attributes, and then of course Babylon's in verses 15 through 17. And holding the two side by side, it's inconceivable that the bitter and hasty Babylonians aren't the ones to be wiped out, much less used by God against his own covenant people.

Look again at verse 12, or hear it again. See how he addresses God. He says, oh Lord my God. Lord is of course Yahweh, which is the name he revealed to Moses when he came in honor of his covenant with Abraham to rescue Israel out of Egypt.

This is the name of God that evokes his what we call aseity. A-S-E-I-T-Y. And that simply means his existence depends only on himself. He has aseity. He lives, he exists, he is within and because of his own person.

There's nothing outside of him, no force outside of his own person that energizes him or sustains him because he needs no such thing. He needs nothing. The name Yahweh is almost always used in relation to his faithfulness to his own word.

His word is secure because Yahweh exists by his own will. He is from everlasting. He's eternal and therefore so also are the promises of his word. So it's an important way that Habakkuk addresses him back.

Oh Yahweh, oh Lord. Because that's the name that evokes covenant faithfulness. This is the name God revealed to Moses at the bush. You tell them I am who I am, Yahweh. And Yahweh remembered his covenant with Abraham and with Isaac and with Jacob.

Yahweh remembers his covenant. Yahweh is self-existent. Yahweh is eternal. Yahweh's word is like him. And so it's recalling God's promises. And then he's my God, Lord Yahweh, my God, my Elohim. And Elohim here when he says my God, it's that personal pronoun.

He is my God. It should make us think of Galatians 2 .20 where Paul speaks of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He is my Jesus, my Savior. I own him and he owns me. Oh Lord, my God.

It's what the prophet says. Elohim, God. The first name of God we encounter in the scripture. In the beginning, God, Elohim, created. So we have here, Yahweh, my creator. Yahweh, my God. And then he goes further and he uses another possessive form to address God.

My holy one, oh Lord, Yahweh, my God, Elohim, my holy one. The appeal is to the eternal God true to his word and keeping that word by his very nature to be self-existent dependent on nothing, which means nothing can act upon him.

Nothing can force him to change and he is holy. He's holy. Like everyone here was in the Sunday school and we're learning about God's holiness in R .C. Sproul's curriculum. And what does holy mean? Holy means other.

He is different. He is set apart. He is other than what exists because he's the one who called it to exist. And he's morally and ethically perfect. And so he says to this God, oh Lord, my God, my holy one.

And he says, we shall not die, oh Lord. We shall not die because you are Yahweh who keeps your word to maintain this people forever. You are our creator. We are your people. You are the holy one who can only do what is right and just.

The judge of all the earth will only do what is right. And so he says, we shall not die, oh Lord. And it's more of sort of a we won't die, will we? Oh Lord, my God, my holy one. We won't die, will we?

That cannot be what I heard. You cannot send Babylon against us because they take no prisoners. They leave nothing behind. Remember who you are, he cries. Consider your nature. Consider your promises to keep this people as the apple of your eye.

If Babylon does come, it's only to punish, not to completely destroy. Right? Lord, he says. We won't completely die, will we? It's good to remember God's attributes when we pray. It's good to remind ourselves of who God is.

And we often pray this way, don't we? Our God and father. You are right and just in all your ways. We're not informing him of anything. It's something he informed us of about himself. And to pray that back to him is to remind who?

Us. And those around us who we pray with and pray for. That we're praying to a God of this or that nature of whatever fits the situation we have. When we've lost our way, we pray to Yahweh, the Lord, my banner.

Yahweh, my banner. Yahweh Nasi. It would be in the Hebrew. That he might be the signpost showing us the right path. When we need him to take notice of our plight. We can pray to Yahweh Ra 'ah, the God who sees, the God who provides.

Because he doesn't just look and notice something. He provides for what he sees we need. Yahweh Ra 'ah. So when we're in need, we can pray, oh Lord, my provider. Because at this time, I need a provision from you.

When illness and disease ravage us or our loved ones, he could be Yahweh Ra 'ah, the Lord who heals. The same word is used in the 46th Psalm for be still. And know that I am God. So the prophet here gives us.

I don't think his intent was a model of prayer. But it does strike me that at this time of astonishment at his revelation from God as to how God is going to punish his people. How God's going to bring them back into line.

He prays back to God in line with what he has heard. And how he understands it. Following the mold of Moses, he intercedes for the threatened people. By reciting to God his name and his nature. And then by looking at the sheer depravity of his chosen instrument.

It's as if he said, Lord, they're even worse than the people you're punishing. I mean, sure, Judah's bad. And the first four verses we see much of the injustice that was propagated by the leadership upon the people.

Which of course would anger Yahweh greatly. Yes, Lord. They are bad. But these Babylonians, how much worse are they? In verse 13, he famously credits God as being too pure than to even look upon evil, much less use evil for his purposes.

So how is it possible that he, the Lord his God, the Holy One, would partner himself with such as Babylon? The fifth psalm, the fourth verse says,. For you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you.

Very much this prophet's sentiment. But we could ask, how could he partner with anyone? Adam, even before he sinned, was capable of sin as events proved. Noah was righteous in all his generation, yet his drunkenness exposed the even worse sin of his son, Ham.

Maybe the better question is whether Judah is really more righteous than their soon coming conquerors. I mean, imagine you're driving down highway 680. Honestly, preachers love traffic examples because they seem to apply all the time.

But think about a minute. A CHP clocks you at 76 miles an hour and pulls you over. And as you're moving through the lanes to get safely over to the shoulder, a car whizzes by at 84. And that car whizzing by you at 84, as you're getting out of the way with the CHP following you over, he goes by at 84, another car, and he has to move out of the way of somebody tailgating him who whizzes by him at 91.

So you roll down your window and you say, good morning, officer, and I'm sure you're going to jump right back into your cruiser and find and ticket those guys who are going so much dangerously faster than I was.

And what's he going to say? He's going to say, well, sir, ma 'am, I clock you at 11 miles an hour over the maximum, and here's your well-deserved ticket. Those Mario Andretti wannabes are none of your concern.

And so the depth of depravity of God's chosen instrument of judgment, Babylon. Let us agree, just for the sake of argument, that Babylon was worse in that way, morally, ethically worse than Judah. Just for the sake of argument, what does that do to Judah's guilt?

And the resounding answer is nothing, nothing at all. God has every sovereign right to use whomever he will to accomplish his purposes. I mean, the only righteous judge is Christ himself. Until he returns, the Lord will, of necessity, use sinners to judge sinners.

And if he uses himself to judge sinners, well, that's the end of history. That's the end of the book of Revelation. That's the conclusion of all scripture. But all that said, we can take a moment, we can think about just how bad the Babylonians actually were.

I mean, we noted last week that the very name Babylon in the Bible, though it was a literal nation, a literal people, and we know this from the Bible, we know this from extra-biblical evidence, but in the Bible, Babylon stands for something more than just that nation.

Babylon stands in the Bible for the entire anti-God sentiment in the whole world. Habakkuk used the picture of a fisher's net. With all the discretion of a modern gill net, they pull fish from the sea.

And he sees his haul, and he's glad for it, as would be any fisherman. But then what does this Babylonian people do? Then they offer sacrifices to the net, as though the net had some say-so in the matter, as though they prayed to the net before they threw it in, and then the net decided to do so.

No, with all the common sense of Isaiah's woodcutter, what is he doing? He's bowing down to the hemp that makes up the net and thanking a piece of rope, knotted together for the bounty. And this repeated over and over again as Babylon harvested one nation after another for all their wealth.

God’s Patience, Human Sin, and the Danger of Spiritual Numbness

Habakkuk's question is, how is it you tolerated Judah's sin for so long, and now you're going to use even worse sinners against your own people and against your own house? Romans chapter 2 verse 4 explains God's patience as his mercy, his merciful withholding of judgment so that people can have time to repent.

Do you not know, says the apostle, that God's patience is his mercy so you have time to consider your ways and repent? But patience is not unlimited. 2 Chronicles 36 verse 15 says that God sent prophet after prophet patiently sending them.

In one version of the Bible it says he woke up early in the morning to send them. Of course, God doesn't wake up. Speaking of the urgency and the determination and the consistency, always warning prophet after prophet that patience would one day expire.

So repent now while you can. So the question is, just how much of this can you stand, Lord? I think it's a good question for us. If that's the question that Habakkuk is asking, but Lord, ask ourselves, how much of this can we stand?

How much sin are we able to tolerate? If God is of pure eyes and to behold evil, and we are his children, and if children share in the nature of the father, why do we tolerate as much as we do? Why did Judah for so long, and part of the answer is, they just get used to it.

They just get used to it. Things just go that way. As Peter says, people become cynical about the coming of the Lord and say, where is this coming? Where's this judgment? Things just carry on. People sin and they find new ways to sin, then they invent new ways on top of it.

And where's this judgment? Where's this coming that you keep talking about? Oh, look, look what I did. And nothing happened. There's no thunderbolt. My boss didn't see. My wife doesn't know. Maybe it's not so big a deal after all.

And we start thinking of God's word as just advice. Take it or leave it as it suits you, because we get so inured to it that we forget he's coming. We forget the urgency of the imperatives in the Bible.

We become so used to things. We forget what it means. We were studying this in Sunday school this morning. Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. What does that mean? It means in our lives, reflect God's moral perfection.

Are we morally perfect? Never can be. But as much as we're able to be like that, to reflect that, to show forth God's nature, to remember that we serve a good God who came, God in the flesh, in his son, Jesus Christ, and who's coming again.

We just get used to it. We lose our sensitivity, don't we? There's a great scene in Hamlet, where Hamlet with his friend Horatio is watching a grave digger, and this man is singing while he works. And so he asks his friend Horatio this.

He says, has this fellow no feeling of his business that he sings at grave making? And Horatio answers, and you'll see right where I'm going with this. Horatio answers, custom hath made it for him a property of easiness.

Custom hath made it for him a property of easiness. What does that mean? That by doing it over and over and over again, he forgot the gravity of what he's doing. He's just throwing boxes and holes that he's digging.

He has no more regard for the fact that that was a living person. That someone has died and is going into the ground. A family is grieving. A wife is heartbroken. A husband is now alone. Children are now orphans.

He's forgotten all this because he's done it so many times. And so we, as I said, no thunderbolt, we don't even think we got away with it anymore. So it was for Judah. Sin became a property of easiness.

And yet a holy God kept at them with providence and with prophetic voice, warning and beckoning and threatening and pleading. And how long we maintain our practice of ignoring the pricks of conscience until custom makes it a property of easiness.

Until the pricks no longer even affect us. Sometimes I think we need a good swift kick to get us off that path and onto another one to resensitize ourselves. I think sometimes that that's one of the benefits of having a weekly table.

That we look regularly and often at the dread price of our sins. As we think about the table and the price that was paid for our sins, for our redemption, for us to be able to come to God, to be able to boldly approach the throne of grace.

We can think of Habakkuk and how easy things got for them. That it finally got to this point that this judgment was coming. I think one of the advantages that we look regularly and often at this is that we think regularly and often about just that.

About what Jesus Christ himself in his own body endured for us. There's a risk of it too. There's a risk here. Let us not by custom become so used to even this that we come here easily. That we come here casually.

We say something like, yeah, I know it. We act as though God had just as an afterthought said something like, I know what to do today. I think I might just send my son to be God in the flesh and to die for people's sins.

Oh, by the way, I think I'll do it on the cross. Let us never get so used to it that we lose the gravity of what it is we remember here. That we just by custom make this easy. I was just kind of la-dee-da.

Okay, a little bit of liquid, a little piece of bread. No, we come to remind us of what we were. We come to remind ourselves of what God did in his son to remake us, to put on the new man created by God in true righteousness and holiness.

For the apostles will say, you are no longer darkness. You are children of the light. You are sons of the living God. It's the finished work of Christ that brings us to this place, to this table. The author of Hebrews says that Christ has entered in the holy place of which the earthly tabernacle was only a copy.

He brought an end to the endless stream of bulls and goats by the sacrifice of himself. I think we could say he brought an end to what the people seem to have gotten used to. The people who Habakkuk is pleading for here, saying, Lord, don't send them, the Babylonians, against them.

They're so much worse. Yet these people were, at that time, at the temple. With, as they talk about, as the author in Hebrews talks about, this endless stream of animals. They just got used to it. They lost the meaning behind it, the truth of what was being pictured to them.

They forgot that they had actually sinned and that God, by their faith, when they have faith and follow the law of the sacrifice, actually, literally, forgives sin. Just became a custom, became a habit.

And on the other side, I warn us again that because God did not judge us today for yesterday's sin doesn't mean that he won't or bring some providence of chastisement into our life. Cannot let ourselves, by constant use of a means of grace, like this table, become so accustomed to it that we lose our wonder.

That's what Judah did. They forgot that God truly dwelt with them. They came year to year to watch the goats be chosen and the scapegoats sent out into the camp or out of the camp bearing the nation's sin and became just a tradition, just something to do.

And so sin became less important and easier to justify. And finally, self-justification becomes ignoring it altogether. I do admit I'm reading a bit into what it says here in Habakkuk. But as I prepared to come to you this afternoon with the end of chapter one of this prophet, this is what was on my mind, this was on my spirit as I prayed over this scripture, as I did the technical work of exegesis and checked the commentaries and all these things, I thought, how does a people get to this point?

How does a people see the 10 plagues upon Egypt and then the Red Sea crossing where they go on dry land and Egypt gets drowned and then lose the wonder of it? How do they see the glory fall on the tabernacle and then later on Solomon's temple and lose the sheer, innocent, childlike, wide-eyed amazement?

God really came. And so I want to use this in terms of application for ourselves and our life to not become like these people for whom Babylon is soon coming. And as we go through this series and the minor prophets, we will get to the prophets who saw the destruction that Babylon would bring, though it's not Habakkuk, it'll come in later prophets.

Let's be sensitive to the scripture and to our failings against it. And as we are sensitive to the scripture and our failings against it, remember Romans 8, verse one, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

We are not condemned for our sin, which should make us all the more sensitive to it because God doesn't hold it against us in that way anymore. There's chastisement, there are lessons to learn. He will bring hard providences upon us to get us back on the right path.

That's all true. When I say the price of sin, I mean the ultimate price for the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God's eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, let us never lose our sensitivity to that.

And let that be our motive to live right and pleasing to God, to be holy as God is holy, to be perfect, as Jesus says, your Father in heaven is perfect. The apostle tells us that this plan of salvation, remembered and rejoiced here, was God's determinate plan since before time, that the Father would choose to himself a people for whom the Son, Christ Jesus, would die, making an end of their sin, and that the Spirit would apply by remaking our souls to be able to believe such a salvation as this.

As we read this prophet, and we think about how easily the people slipped into this numbness to the things of God, I would just call us to quite the opposite. And Lord willing, this table every week will remind us of that.

As we look upon the dread price paid for our sins, what did it take to redeem you, to redeem me from this world, and bring me out of the state of a sinner to the state of a saint, to be able to go boldly to the throne of grace, what did it cost?

We'll talk about that, we'll pray about that before we take the table, and we'll serve those reminders to you.