The Just Shall Live By Faith, Part 1 (Habakkuk)

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The Just Shall Live By Faith, Part 2 (Hebrews 10:38-39)

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Hebrews chapter 10, we're gonna read together verses 35 through 39, and before we do, let's pray together.

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My father, it is with great expectation that we come to your word, for we know that in the pages of holy scripture that you speak, your voice is heard, it is pertinent, it is relevant for the time in which we live, for the ages that we face now.

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We pray that you would bless the preaching and teaching of your word, our understanding of it, and we pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts to your word and grant us the illuminating blessing of the holy spirit this morning, be honored here, we ask in Christ's name.

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Hebrews 10, verse 35, therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward, for you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

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For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

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But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. In the last few weeks, we've been looking at the things that belong to us, the things that are ours, this great possession that we have, the great reward, a better possession, and a lasting one mentioned in verse 34, we've been looking at the promise of the coming of Christ that is mentioned in verse 37, and we have been seeking to set our hope and our affections and our minds upon those things to do as Peter says in 1

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Peter chapter one, to set our hearts entirely upon the grace that is to be revealed to us at the coming of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, so that we may have a heavenly perspective and a heavenly focus, knowing that we will receive those things that are promised.

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If he who has promised these things is faithful and true, and if he keeps his word, and he will and he must, and if he has promised these things, then we know that we have them, that we will receive them in full, and this is the precious certainty of all of those who have faith.

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We see with the eye of faith what the eye of the flesh cannot behold. We count those things that are promised to us as if we already possess them, because we do, even though we are not enjoying those things in full just yet, we do already possess them, they are ours.

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They have been granted to us, it is just a matter of time until we receive in full all of the experiences of the great blessings and joys that have been promised to us.

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Those things that are promised, the faithful see as a reality, with the eye of faith, not beholding it with the eye of flesh at all.

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And so we are creeping ever so slowly, almost inexorably so, toward Hebrews chapter 11, and it does seem slow, and it is slow, but we are getting there, and I hope you're seeing the connection between the list of heroes in Hebrews chapter 11, the faith heroes, and this warning passage that is at the end of chapter 10.

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The end of chapter 10 tells us that those who have faith have faith all the way to the end, and not seeing the fulfillment of the promises necessarily in their lifetime, but they have faith all the way to the end to the preserving of their soul.

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We are not like the apostates, we are not like the false converts, we're not like the make -believers, who shrink back to destruction in the face of the world's hostility, in the face of the world's opposition, in the face of their hatred to the truth, we do not shrink back.

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Instead, we continue and we persevere, seeing it all the way through to the preserving of our soul.

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That is the promise, and we look forward to faith's reward because we are those who are willing to endure faith's reproach.

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And last week, we looked at this quotation that we find in verse 37, for yet in a little while he who is coming will come and will not delay.

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We saw that, it was from the book of Habakkuk, and we just dealt with the first part of that, and I promised that we would jump into the more familiar quotation, which is in verse 38, but my righteous shall live by faith.

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I promised that we would do that today, and that is what we are doing. That is a more familiar quotation from the Old Testament, probably because you see it multiple times in the

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New Testament, it's quoted not only here, but we also find it in Galatians chapter three and in Romans chapter one.

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It is the battle cry of the Reformation that the just shall live by faith. It is that statement that Martin Luther nailed his hope and faith to, as it were, his confidence to, that sparked the

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Reformation, that the just live by faith, that we are not accounted as righteous because of anything that we have done, or because of anything that other saints have done on our behalf that are credited to us, but that we are given the righteousness of Jesus Christ solely on the basis of faith, and that our righteousness comes not because of anything that you have done, or that I have done, or that other saints have done, but because of what a sinless one has done, namely the

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Lord Jesus Christ. That is the battle cry of the Reformation. It is the heart of the gospel. I would say that it was the battle cry of the

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Reformation because it is the heart of the gospel. James Montgomery Boyce once said that this statement found in Habakkuk chapter two verse four could rightly be considered not just a great text of the

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Bible, but the great text of the Bible. Imagine that. Of all the statements that we find in Scripture, this one could be regarded as the great text of the

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Bible. The heart of the Reformation, the battle cry of the Reformation, the heart of the gospel, the great text of Scripture, and where did we find it?

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In Habakkuk. Did you see that coming? Habakkuk, of all places. Now if the author of Hebrews thought that the book of Habakkuk was worth quoting, and if the apostle

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Paul thought that the book of Habakkuk was worth quoting, and if those two authors were so familiar with that verse which has had such an oversized significance all the way through church history and biblical history, then wouldn't it be advisable for us to be familiar with the book of Habakkuk and to spend at least one sermon on it?

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Well, that's what we're gonna do. So turn back to the book of Habakkuk. And again, if you struggle finding that, just go to the end of your

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Old Testament, start turning toward the beginning of the Old Testament, and you will find about five books back in is the book of Habakkuk.

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Your bulletin says that the title of the sermon is Just Shall Live by Faith, Part One. So here's what we're gonna do today.

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Today we're gonna look at this verse in Habakkuk and its context. And next week, then we're gonna come back to Hebrews chapter 10.

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We're gonna see how the author uses it here in verse 38, and then we're going to finish up chapter 10 next week.

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Have you found the book of Habakkuk? A little bit more time? All right, here's what we're gonna do today.

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We're gonna set the book of Habakkuk in its historical context. I'm gonna describe to you the life and times of Habakkuk so you understand him and what he was facing.

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And that helps sort of set the book in that context so we can understand what is being said there.

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Then I'm going to give you an overview of the whole book with plenty of details. We're gonna cover all three chapters and most of all three chapters.

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And then you're gonna see in chapter two, verse four, this statement, the just shall live by faith. And then we're gonna connect it to everything that is in the book of Habakkuk so you can see how it relates to its entire context.

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And how did Habakkuk, a just man, how did he live by faith in his life and times? And then I'm gonna show you how

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Habakkuk chapter two, verse four is used in both the book of Galatians and in the book of Romans and here in the book of Hebrews.

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And I'm gonna tie together Hebrews, Galatians, Romans, and Habakkuk. I know that sounds very ambitious.

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I know some of you, your eyebrows are up and you're like, really, from you, Jim? I know that that is a bit ambitious so we need to get started.

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And the evangelism training thing doesn't start until 1 .30 so I have until at least that to do it. The book of Habakkuk, now a little bit about Habakkuk in his historical context.

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By the way, if you pronounce it Habakkuk, that's fine, I've heard it both ways. Habakkuk, Habakkuk.

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If you pronounce it Habakuk, that's not right, that means you're from Clark Fort. So if that's how you pronounce it, then just understand that those of us out on the outside with electricity and running water, that's not how we pronounce it.

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And if you're a kid, counting the reference to Habakkuk, Habakkuk does not count. So take that tally mark off of that.

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In fact, my Habakkuk that I just said and that one I just said, those don't count either. So only Habakkuk or Habakkuk, those are the only two.

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I had a Bible professor who gave a real convenient and easy way to remember how Habakkuk is spelled. It's spelled with an

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H and an A and a B and an A and a K and a K and a U and a K. Now if you were keeping notes and you wanted that a little bit slower, it's an

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H and a B and an A and a K and a K and a U and a K. If you can keep all that together, you know how to spell the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk has a number of unique features.

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I'm gonna give them to you real quick. First of all, Habakkuk is prophetic, though prophetic, though a prophetic book,

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I should say, though a prophetic book, it is very similar to the Psalms in that there is a long prayer that is a part of the book in chapter three, this long prayer, and it has poetic descriptions of God that are very similar to what we find in the

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Psalms. A second unique feature is while other prophets declared God's message to the people,

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Habakkuk dialogued with God about the people. It's a little bit different. The other prophets declared what God said to them to the people.

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Habakkuk is God and Habakkuk having a dialogue back and forth about the situation of the people.

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That's a little bit different. And third, other prophets proclaimed judgment against sin. Habakkuk asks

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God for judgment against sin. Little bit different, isn't it? Lord, when are you gonna deal with this?

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Other prophets simply said, here is how God is going to deal with it, and Habakkuk is actually asking God, can you come down here and deal with these people?

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Because they're just really starting to get on my nerves, asking God to judge the people for that. Now, the timing of the book, the book was written somewhere between 612 and 587

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BC. Remember, when you go back that way, you're counting backwards, centuries prior to Christ, about 600 years before Christ, Habakkuk was written.

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Written somewhere in that 25 -year period of time between Babylon conquering the city of Nineveh, which was the capital of the

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Assyrian Empire, and Babylon conquering the city of Jerusalem. Remember that there was a divided kingdom at the time of Habakkuk.

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Habakkuk lived a long time after King David, so after David, Solomon reigned for 40 years.

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At the end of Solomon's reign, the kingdom was divided into the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. In 722 BC, the

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Northern Kingdom fell to the Assyrian Empire, capital city in Nineveh. Gentiles came in, destroyed that Northern Kingdom, and took them captive, and Judah persisted for another 100 and roughly 150 years after that, until it fell finally in 612

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BC. In during Habakkuk's lifetime, and so he's writing right about 600 years prior to Christ, during Habakkuk's lifetime, the nation of Judah, the

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Southern Kingdom, had just come out of one of the darkest periods of time that that nation had ever faced.

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Let me describe it to you. In 698 BC, Manasseh became king.

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Now, you remember, Manasseh was the son of Hezekiah. Hezekiah wasn't a quasi -good king, and he had some good things and some bad things, but toward the end of his life, remember

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God predicted or promised through the prophet Isaiah that Hezekiah was going to die, and Hezekiah said, no, let me live, and so God granted him another 15 years.

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During that 15 years, hindsight's 20 -20, Manasseh was born during that final 15 years. Remember at the end of Hezekiah's life, what happened, the

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Babylonians came in, and Hezekiah showed him all of the kingdom, right? And Isaiah came to Hezekiah and said, what have you shown him? He said, oh,

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I showed him everything. I mean, I showed him my throne room, my king, my treasury, all my gold, my silver, I gave it to him all. And Isaiah said, well, look, there's gonna come a time when they're gonna come in and they're gonna take everything from you.

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Remember what Hezekiah said? At least there'll be peace and truth in my days, right? That's after I die?

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All right, that's good. I'm good with that, as long as it happens after I'm gone. That was all he cared about. Well, his son

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Manasseh became king in 698 BC. Manasseh ruled for 55 years. If you think the present administration of this country is going on forever, imagine 55 years of this.

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Manasseh introduced religious prostitution into the temple worship of Yahweh.

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He introduced human sacrifice into the temple. He killed the priests and set up altars to his

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God. He sought to extinguish all true worship from the nation of Judah. He was the one who killed the prophet

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Isaiah. He later repented, but the sin of the nation was so ensconced that it really sealed their fate. After Manasseh died, his king

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Ammon became king, or his son Ammon became king and ruled for two years. He was killed by some servants of his. That was in 643.

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In 641, Josiah became king. He ruled for 31 years. He was eight years old when he became king.

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Now, that's a little bit of history to bring you up to Josiah, because that's the life and times of Habakkuk. Habakkuk lived during the lifespan and the rule of Josiah.

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So Josiah ruled 31 years, became king when he was eight years old, and here's what 2 Kings chapter 22 says of Josiah. He did right in the sight of the

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Lord and walked in all the way of his father David. He did not turn his side to the right or to the left. That's commendation, isn't it?

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He was a good king. He did right in the sight of the Lord his God and walked in the way of David in his righteousness and his justice.

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David wasn't a perfect man, but David had a heart for God and so did Josiah. When Josiah was 26 years old, he led an effort to rebuild and to cleanse, really, and to sort of revamp the temple because it had been so broken down and so torn down by the false idolatry and the false worship that had gone into it.

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And in the process of that reconstruction of the temple, Josiah found, or the people who were rebuilding the temple, found a copy of the

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Old Testament law and they brought it to Josiah and he read it. And when they read it in his presence, he came undone.

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He repented because he realized how far the nation had fallen and he realized that God was gonna judge the nation for its sin.

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And so he led a comprehensive reformation of the entire nation, drove out all the false gods, broke down all the false idols, and all the altars.

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He burned and razed the houses of prostitution. They were destroyed. And Josiah led a reformation in which they celebrated the

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Passover for the first time in hundreds of years. So 2 Kings 23 says this, "'Moreover,

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Josiah removed the mediums and the spiritists and the teraphim and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the

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Lord. Before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.

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However, the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath with which his anger burned against Judah because of all the provocations with which

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Manasseh had provoked him. The Lord said, I will remove Judah also from my sight as I have removed

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Israel and I will cast off Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen and the temple of which I said, my name shall be there.'"

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Now Habakkuk lived during the life and times of Josiah and those were good times. Josiah had made

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Jerusalem great again. He had led a national reformation and a revival over the whole nation and had expunged idol worship from the land.

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And Josiah, sorry, Habakkuk would have remembered celebrating that national

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Passover for the first time in his life. And if Habakkuk were 45 years old when he wrote the book of Habakkuk, if he were 45 or older, he would have had some distant memories of the reign of Manasseh and Manasseh's sons and then the reformation led under Josiah.

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And the only memory that Habakkuk would have had was that the memory of, probably the best memory that Habakkuk would have had was that memory of the reformation that took place under Josiah the king.

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He could have remembered possibly if he were an older man, the dark days of Manasseh's reign and then he would have remembered how that light dawned and how there was that reformation, there was that revival and Yahweh worship was instituted once again and the nation turned around and good things were happening.

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He would have remembered the reforms, the revival, the repair of the temple, the purging of idol worship and the first national

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Passover celebration of his life. Those were good times. Those were really good times.

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And he would have had that firm in his memory. But then Josiah died and in 610

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B .C., Jehoahaz became king. He reigned three months. Here's what 2 Kings says about Jehoahaz. He did evil in the sight of the

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Lord according to all that his fathers had done. And by fathers, it doesn't mean Josiah, he means Manasseh. He did evil in the sight of the

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Lord just as Manasseh had done. Egypt eventually deported Jehoahaz and appointed his brother

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Jehoiakim as king in 610 B .C. and Jehoiakim lived and reigned, sorry, reigned for 11 years and here's what 2

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Kings says of Jehoiakim. He did evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that his fathers had done. So Habakkuk saw the reign and rule of Josiah and then when

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Josiah died, his son was put into place and Habakkuk saw his son undo everything that Josiah had done.

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He was only there for three months and maybe when he was taken away to Egypt and they put Jehoiakim in, he would have thought, oh, that's good.

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Three months was dark enough, that was bad enough, now we got another shot at this. Maybe Jehoiakim will get it right. No, Jehoiakim did what was evil in the sight of the

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Lord just as Manasseh had done. So here was Habakkuk's quandary. He had known a righteous administration.

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He saw the blessing of God upon a nation and Josiah had been a godly king and then he saw rapid change.

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We may even say that the administration that followed Josiah's administration did, undid with executive order everything that the previous administration had accomplished.

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They just undid it all. They just walked it all backwards. In a matter of months, he reinstituted the sin and the immorality and so Habakkuk would have seen this rapid change, rapid change and not just rapid change but a massive change from one type of morality to an entirely different type of morality.

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He would have seen the nation take a 180 degree turn away from walking in righteousness to walking in sin and wickedness and depravity.

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He saw a nation rapidly descending into sin, immorality and idolatry, people rapidly turning to support their wicked leaders and following after their immorality, the reinstitution of idol worship, cult prostitution and human sacrifice.

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Habakkuk would have seen all of that and the fact that the people so quickly followed the subsequent kings into those immoralities is probably the reason why the

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Lord did not turn from the fierceness of his anger because he knew that although Josiah was leading a reformation on a national level and people were going along with this externally because that's what the king was doing under threat of death, that the hearts of the people were not there with him and so when the next king became king, everybody went, wow,

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God, we got rid of that Josiah character, now we can just let our passions fly and we can have it the way that we've always wanted it and the people went right back to the previous way that it was under Manasseh.

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Very quickly, the idol worship returned, the immorality and in Habakkuk's day, they faced international forces that were also at play.

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There were three nations who all vied for dominance during Habakkuk's lifetime. Assyria was always on the horizon, conquering people, located 500 miles away, their capital city from Jerusalem.

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They were always a threat. Egypt was to the south of them, Assyria to the north, Egypt to the south.

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Egypt was kind of a main player on the stage at that time and then you had this upstart, Nebuchadnezzar and his

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Babylonian horde, they were kind of coming onto the scene and conquering nations so you could sit down in Habakkuk's household at any given evening over some lamb chops and some herbs or whatever they ate in those days and you could ask your family around the dinner table, so who do you think's gonna invade us?

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You think it'll be the Babylonians, the Assyrians or the Egyptians? You didn't know who you were gonna fall to but you did know one thing, that your nation was not strong enough to stand up against any of them.

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So here's what Habakkuk's life and times were like. They had a weak military that could not fend off Egypt because remember, the king who became king after Josiah, Egypt came in, deported him, took a whole bunch of the gold and went back, they appointed another king, a puppet king there and said, you collect taxes and we'll be back to get that in a couple of years.

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They had a faltering economy, they were being taxed heavily just so they could send their money to another nation to prop up other nations.

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They faced international threats of invasion, a nationwide apostasy, the moral fiber of their nation was disappearing before his eyes, people were not interested in justice, they didn't pursue justice, people pursued pleasure, violence and bloodshed were national pastimes, child sacrifice was a national sacrament, homes were falling apart, crime was soaring, idolatry was everywhere, there was corruption at the highest levels of the government and the nation was at a historic low, had never been lower.

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It's hard to relate to that. If only, if only the

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Bible were a little bit more relevant to the times in which we live, right? So even though we might not be able to learn anything from Habakkuk, we're gonna go ahead and study the book anyway.

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Do you feel like I just read to you the headlines the last 12 months? Yeah. How many of you have read

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Habakkuk in the last year? Don't raise your hand. I hope you have. You see what happens when you dive into the

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Old Testament? Aren't you glad we don't unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament like Andy Stanley says? Here's the book of Habakkuk, chapter one, in chapter one,

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Habakkuk dialogues with God regarding sin and judgment, in chapter two, God explains the judgment that is to come not only upon the nation of Israel but also upon the

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Babylonian empire and then in chapter three, we have Habakkuk's prayer. So if you were finding the book of Habakkuk all the way through that whole introduction,

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I hope that you're there now. Habakkuk chapter one. Now we're gonna read the entire book with commentary.

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I promise you we'll get through it. Habakkuk chapter one, the oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw. How long, O Lord, will

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I call for help and you will not hear? I cry out to you, violence, yet you do not save. Why do you make me see iniquity and cause me to look on wickedness?

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Yes, destruction and violence are before me. Strife exists and contention arises.

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Therefore, the law is ignored and justice is never upheld for the wicked surround the righteous.

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Therefore, justice comes out perverted. That's a lament for the common man today, isn't it?

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The wicked surround the righteous and so justice comes out perverted. Justice is never upheld. Lord, why do you allow this nation to slide into such wickedness?

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It's almost, Lord, as if you have taken the restraint off of it and just allowed this whole nation to plunge headlong over the cliff into political, moral, spiritual and economic disaster and yet I gotta look on this.

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Will you not do something to stop this? Obviously, Habakkuk had seen so much change so quickly and he wanted

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God to do something to stop it. He had to have felt like the psalmist when the psalmist said, when the foundations are destroyed, what do the righteous do?

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You look around, you see that all of the foundations of entire society begin to crumble. What do the righteous do in such a situation?

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That's what Habakkuk was seeing, that's what he was facing. This is how he was feeling, this is a lament. Lord, why do you cause me to do this?

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Are you not gonna come in and stop this? I cry out to you, violence, and you do nothing. I beg of you to stop this and you don't even answer the prayer.

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There's frustration and angst and anxiety in Habakkuk's lament. So here's God's answer in verse five.

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Look among the nations, observe. Be astonished, wonder, because I'm doing something in your days you would not believe even if you were told.

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For behold, Habakkuk, here is the answer to the question. Will you stop this, will you judge this?

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Verse six, behold, I'm raising up the Chaldeans, that is the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous people who march throughout the earth to seize dwelling places which are not theirs.

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They are dreaded and feared. Their justice and authority originate with themselves. What he means by that is they consider nothing outside of themselves a standard of justice or authority.

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They view themselves as the ultimate authority. It's almost as if they would say, I am the law. Whatever the king says, that is the law, that becomes moral.

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And so there is no justice outside of them. There is no authority outside of them. They view, that is the Chaldeans view themselves as their own standard of justice and morality.

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Verse eight, their horses are swifter than leopards and keener than the wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping. Their horsemen come from afar.

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They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour. All of them come for violence. Their horde of faces moves forward.

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They collect captives like sand. They mock at kings and rulers are a laughing matter to them. They laugh at every fortress and heap up rubble to capture it.

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Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on, but they will be held guilty, they whose strength is their

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God. He's describing the Chaldeans there. They will be held guilty. Their strength is their God. They worship their own strength, but they will be held guilty.

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And so the answer is the judgment was coming soon that it would be swift, it would be thorough, and it would be brutal.

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The Chaldeans were the most powerful army in the world at the time. They were the most feared army in the world at the time, and they were also the most brutal army in the world at the time.

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Nebuchadnezzar was scandalously prideful, scandalously violent, merciless, and brutal.

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So this passage describes the nature of the judgment. They're coming in fierce, dreaded, swift, keen, and violent, and they're gonna clean house.

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And I wish I had a moment to just highlight for you how the description of the judgment that was gonna fall upon the nation matched almost point for point their sin.

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In fact, if Israel had become a nation of violence, and God says, okay, violence, I'm gonna punish you with violence.

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You like violence? All right, well, we'll give you a little bit of violence. You like lawlessness? All right, well, I'll give you somebody who thinks he is the law.

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You like idols? Have you met my servant Nebuchadnezzar? Because when he comes in, he's gonna introduce you to idolatry.

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In fact, he's gonna take you back to the idol capital of the world, Babylon, and there, you're gonna serve idols. In fact, if you don't serve idols, they will throw you into lion's den.

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That's how fun idol worship is gonna be when you get to Babylon. Almost point for point, the sin of Judah is answered by the judgment that is to come.

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Now notice Habakkuk's shot, verse 12. Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We will not die.

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You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge, and you, O Rock, have established them to correct. Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and you cannot look on wickedness with favor.

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So why do you look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they?

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Yeah, Lord, I understand that we are bad, but the Chaldeans, have you seen the

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Chaldeans? If they come in and they conquer us, if they are an instrument in your hand to punish us, then how can you look on favor and grant them success, military success, against us, your people?

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I mean, yeah, we've got a lot of problems, which I just spelled out to you in verses one through four. We have a lot of problems, we do.

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But we're no Chaldeans by any measure. Those people do, well, they do violence.

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Those people are, well, they're lawless. I mean, those people are, well, they're wicked. I mean, we're violent, we're lawless, and we're wicked, but I mean, those guys are even more so.

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And so how can you look on wickedness with favor? How can you be silent when the wicked swallow up those who are more righteous than they are?

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You see, when Habakkuk compared the condition of his people to the law of God, he saw how wicked they were. But when he compared them to the

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Chaldeans, they looked marginally better. So how could the Lord use the Chaldeans to punish the

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Israelites? That didn't make any sense. If you were holy, how can you approve of what they do and grant them success?

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Habakkuk one, verse 14. He continues, this is Habakkuk. Why have you made men like the 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 with their net, gather them together in the fishing net. Therefore, they rejoice and are glad.

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The Chaldeans come into a nation like an empty net. They just swoop up people, gather them, carry them away to Babylon. Verse 16, therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net, burn incense to the fishing net.

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These were idolaters. They're worshiping their own military might, their own abilities, because through these things their catch is large and their food is plentiful.

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Will they therefore empty their net and continue with slain nations without sparing? Are they gonna go back and empty their net and come back for another round, just take people again?

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Come through and just wipe up everything, mop up everything, take everything from us? Is this what they're going to do? And these

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Chaldeans, they won't even acknowledge that God is behind their strength. They give glory instead to an idol. So this is

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Habakkuk's response to God and he is pushing the envelope a little bit. You'll notice that Habakkuk is not suggesting that God is not just, but he is saying,

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I have a hard time reconciling what I know to be true about the justice of God with what it is that God has said is about to happen.

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He's not suggesting God is not just. He's just saying, I don't understand how this is possible. How is it that you being just and righteous can do this?

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That is what he wants an answer to. How could God be just and reward those who were unjust and use them to punish

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Israel? At the beginning of chapter one, Habakkuk questions God's goodness and his justice for not punishing sin.

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At the end of chapter one, Habakkuk questions God's goodness and justice because of how he was going to punish sin.

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You think, man, this guy would complain if he were hung with a new rope. No matter what it is, he is perplexed about how

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God can do what he is doing. God is silent and he complains. God says, I'm going to judge and he complains.

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Here's God's answer, chapter two. I'll stand on my guard post and station my, sorry, this is Habakkuk speaking. I will stand on my guard post and station myself on the rampart.

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I'll keep watch and see what he will speak to me and how I may reply when he is approved. So Habakkuk has made his case.

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He says, I'm going to step back, I'm going to think about this and when God responds back to me, I'm going to see how it is that I will kind of come back.

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My counter argument, I'm going to form my counter argument. I'm going to wait until God gives me an answer and then I think I got him. I'm going to come back and try to plead my case again.

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I don't think it's right for you to use the Chaldeans. Sometimes that doesn't seem righteous and just. Habakkuk chapter two, verse two. Then the

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Lord answered me and said, record the vision and ascribe it on tablets that the one who reads it may run. In other words, he said, make this clear, write it down, make it clear, make it available to everybody so everybody can see it, everybody can get this message.

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Get it out to as many people as you can. For this vision of the Chaldean invasion and their destruction of Israel, this vision is yet for the appointed time.

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It's happening on a certain date. It hastens towards the goal. This promise will not fail. Though it tarries, you just wait for it, it's coming.

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It will certainly come, it will not delay and that's the passage that we looked at last week. It's quoted in verse 37 of chapter 10 of Hebrews.

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Yet in a little while, he who is coming will come. We saw how the author uses this passage from Habakkuk two, verse three to describe the coming of Christ.

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He borrows some of the same language to say that that which was promised to us in the coming of the

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Lord, we have to wait for it, we have to tarry for it, but we know, just as Habakkuk would have known that judgment was certain, we can know with certainty that the coming of Jesus Christ with the judgment that accompanies that upon the wicked as well as the reward for the righteous, it is just as certain as the coming judgment upon Babylon.

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Verse four, behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him, but the righteous will live by his faith.

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There's a contrast in verse four and verse five between the wicked Chaldeans and Israelites and the one who is just and righteous and lives by his faith.

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The faithful one is described as one who lives by his faith. The proud ones are the Chaldeans and the wicked

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Israelites. Verse five, furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man so that he does not stay at home.

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He enlarges his appetite like Sheol and he is like death, never satisfied. He also gathers to himself all nations and collects to himself all peoples.

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That was the Chaldeans. This proud man intoxicated as it were like wine with his violence and his bloodshed, he's never satisfied like a drunkard, he just wants more continually and so Nebuchadnezzar and all the armies of Babylon, they would come through and they wouldn't stop with Assyria and they wouldn't stop with Samaria and they wouldn't stop with Jerusalem, they were gonna continue to sweep right through.

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Why, because they are filled with pride, filled with arrogance, drunk on their own power. Then beginning at verse six through the end of chapter two, we have a taunt song that has five woes and each of these choruses or verses of this taunt song are intended to describe not just the sin of Israel but more specifically the sin of the

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Chaldean army. So here is God's answer to Habakkuk. Yes, they are wicked, but don't worry about it, I'm punishing them as well because here are all the woes that are coming to the nation of Babylon for what they are going to do to you.

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Nebuchadnezzar was his servant, Nebuchadnezzar was an instrument in God's right hand, he would be the instrument that would come in and punish the land of Judah for their sin, but God was going to turn around and punish

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Babylon for their sin, for their sins of idolatry. So there are five woes here. The first is a woe against greed and covetousness, verse six, will not all these take up a taunt song against him, even mockery and insinuations against him and say, woe to him who increases what is not his?

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For how long? And makes himself rich with loans. Will not your creditors rise up suddenly and those who collect from you awaken indeed?

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You will become plunder for them. This is God addressing the Babylonians. You will become plunder for them because you have looted many nations, all the remainder of the peoples will loot you because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, the town and all its inhabitants.

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The second woe and beginning in verse nine is against depression. Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to put his nest on high, to be delivered from the hand of calamity.

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There's an element of pride there, right? If I can oppress others and take something from them, I can set myself up where I'm above that same kind of oppression.

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Verse 10, you have devised a shameful thing for your house by cutting off many peoples. You're sinning against yourself. Surely the stone will cry out from the wall and the rafter will answer it from the framework.

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What Babylon was doing, they would be punished for their oppression and their wickedness. Verse 12 is a woe against violence.

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Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with violence. It is not indeed from the Lord of hosts that peoples toil for fire and nations grow weary 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. The fourth woe is against seduction and immorality.

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In verse 15, woe to you who make your neighbors drink, who mix in your venom even to make them drunk so as to look on their nakedness.

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You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness.

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The cup in the Lord's hand will come around to you and utter disgrace will come upon your glory for the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you and the devastation of its beast by which you terrified them because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, to the town, and all its inhabitants.

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They would be punished for their violence, for their seduction, for their immorality. And lastly, there's a fifth woe for their idolatry.

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What profit is the idol when its maker is carved or an image, a teacher of falsehood? For its maker trusts in his own handiwork when he fashions speechless idols.

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Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, awake, to a mute stone, arise. And that's your teacher?

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Behold, it's overlaid with gold and silver and there's no breath at all inside it. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him.

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There's this contrast at the end between the idols of Babylon and the true God, Yahweh. The Lord, Yahweh, is in his holy temple.

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Let all the earth be silent before him. So Babylon, what is God's answer to Habakkuk? How is it that you can use the wicked to punish those more righteous than they?

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What is God's answer? That's not for you to concern yourself with. You don't have to worry about this. I'm gonna deal with those who are, even yet now, more wicked than you are, for I'm going to punish them for their greed and covetousness, their oppression, their violence, their seduction, immorality, and their idolatry.

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They all will get what is coming to them. And here's a message to all of the nations. Every nation has its reckoning.

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Every nation has its reckoning. That ought to terrify you. It should terrify the leaders of this nation.

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Every nation has its reckoning. Babylon's not gonna get off scot -free. God is just and he will not slumber.

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He does not sleep. And he will not tarry long. Judgment and justice will always come.

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Chapter three, Habakkuk responds with a prayer. A prayer of Habakkuk to the prophet according to Shigioth. Lord, I have heard the report about you and I fear.

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See, he responded appropriately, right? What did I just say? Every nation has its reckoning and that should terrify everybody.

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How did Habakkuk respond to it? Lord, I have heard the report about you and I fear. Oh Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years, make it known.

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In wrath, remember mercy. You've heard me pray this before. Lord, in wrath, remember mercy. This is my prayer.

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Lord, in wrath, remember mercy. This nation, the one in which we live, and all the nations of the world, you cannot escape, they cannot escape the judgment of God.

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All we can pray is like Habakkuk, if you and I live through that judgment, that in the midst of that wrath, that God will remember mercy toward his people.

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That's what Habakkuk is asking for. Lord, in the midst of this wrath, that you are describing that's gonna be poured out on my people, in the midst of that, be merciful to us, your people.

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Because Habakkuk knows, you're gonna see here in a moment, that he has to live through this, he's gonna see it. He had heard the report about God, the vision in chapters one and two about God's justice, that it does not sleep, it does not slumber, it's not tarrying, it's coming, it's inexorable, it must come to pass, it's unalterable, there's an appointed time, he knows that.

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He knows that God is just and this causes him to fear. But he prays that the Lord would continue his work of redemption and mercy and in the midst of that wrath, he would remember mercy.

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Then Habakkuk uses language to describe God's deliverance and his judgment. Beginning in verse three, and I'm not gonna read all of verses three through 15 and comment on it, but you'll notice that if you read through that, you'll notice that some of the language that Habakkuk uses comes from episodes of judgment and deliverance in Israel's past.

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The exodus out of the land of Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, different judgments of God upon the nation.

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He borrows some of the descriptions from other Old Testament passages. You'll notice in verse five, before him goes pestilence and plague comes after him.

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Verse six, the perpetual mountains were shattered. Verse seven, he sees the tents of Cushun under distress, the tent curtains of the land of Midian were trembling.

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Verse 10, the mountains saw you in quake, downpour of waters swept by, illusions there to the flood. The flood, the exodus deliverance, and other various supernatural judgments and deliverances in Israel's past, he uses the language of that to describe this

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God. This is the vision of God that Habakkuk saw. This is what he understood to be true about the nature of God.

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This is what caused him to fear. Verse 12, in the Indian nation, you marched through the earth in danger. In anger, you trampled the nations.

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You went forth for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You struck the head of the house of evil to lay him open from thigh to neck.

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See, it's not all about judgment. There is a hope of deliverance. There's hope of salvation that he mentions in verse 13. In verse 16, here is his prayer, here is his lesson.

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I heard and my inward parts trembled. At the sound, my lips quivered.

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Decay enters my bones, and in my place, I tremble, because I must wait quietly for the day of distress for the people to arise who will invade us.

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That's not good news, is it? Habakkuk just says, I'm filled with distress and angst over this and affliction.

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I feel like my bones are rotting because I just have to sit here quietly. What can the righteous do?

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And wait for this to happen. I know he knew it was gonna happen in his lifetime. He knew, he just had to sit there and wait for these appointed people to invade his land.

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And he had no idea what the future would hold for him except that. Judgment is coming,

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Habakkuk, and it will be in your lifetime, verse 17. This is his statement of faith. Now, what does it mean that the just or the righteous will live by faith?

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This is it, verse 17. Though the fig tree should not blossom and though there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olives should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the

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Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength and he has made my feet like hinds feet and makes me to walk on high places.

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If they come in and they seize all of my property, Habakkuk says, I will accept it joyfully and exult in the

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God of my salvation. It's almost like the language from Hebrews is borrowed from Habakkuk, isn't it? Though the olive tree should fail and there be no food and the flocks be cut off and the herds fail and there be no cattle and there is nothing to eat and though I have everything taken from me,

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I will exult in the Lord my God and in his salvation because he by his grace causes me to skip around on high places like a deer out in the wilderness.

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I will not be tripped up, I will not stumble, I will not falter, I will not fail, not because I'm special, not because I'm a big bag of chips and all of that, but because God is great and if my faith is in him, the just live by faith, they are able to say in the worst of circumstances,

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I will exult in the God of my salvation even though all of this should fail and all of this should be taken from me.

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I have to sit and watch and wait for the invasion of my nation and the destruction of my people and if the fig tree should not blossom and everything is taken, the just shall live by faith.

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The just shall live by faith, the righteous lives by faith. This is what it meant for Habakkuk.

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I know that this is coming, I see it happening around me, but the righteous man lives by his faith.

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He trusts in Yahweh for his protection, for his provision, for his preservation, for his perseverance, he lives by faith.

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Circumstances could not alter this for Habakkuk. He knew that he would be sure and immovable and he would not slip because the just man lives by his faith.

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God keeps him, God keeps him steady, strong and steadfast living by faith. How is it that you and I live in a nation that is most certainly about to come under divine judgment if it has not started already?

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I think it started already. But how do we live in that nation? We live by faith, trusting in Yahweh, believing that he has in the midst of his wrath, that he will remember mercy and that he will sustain and protect and provide for those who are his and he will see us through.

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The just live by faith. How do we live through a time when the wicked surround the righteous and justice comes out perverted?

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Do we just run around and shout, drain the swamp, put her in prison? Is that our battle cry?

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We might want certain people to be in prison. There might be nothing else in this world that brings me more joy than to see a bunch of people perp walked in orange suits into a penitentiary somewhere.

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That might bring me great earthly joy, and it would. I shouldn't say it might, it would bring me great earthly joy. But that ultimately is not where my hope lies because justice in this world will not be done so long as the wicked surround the righteous.

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Justice will come out perverted. Do we expect anything else when the wicked rule? This is why it's true that when a righteous man rules, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.

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It's misery when the wicked rule. The wicked surround the righteous and justice is not done.

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But he who is coming will come and he will not delay. And again, we're back to the just shall live by faith.

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Now that's the text of Habakkuk. And I got time for this. How is it that Galatians, I told you,

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I promised you I would do Habakkuk and Hebrews and Galatians and Romans. If I can remember that fourth book,

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I'll get to it. Romans, okay? The book, Habakkuk chapter two, verse four is quoted in all three of those

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New Testament books. I think, I love the fact that, I love the fact that this statement, which is so central to our theology, is so central to our life, is found in this obscure book.

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In fact, if you had asked most Christians, if you had asked most Christians in this world, in this country, just in a Bible trivia game, if you were to say, who first said the just shall live by faith?

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Was it Frank Sinatra, A, B, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, C, Martin Luther, or D, Habakkuk?

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Most Christians would probably think, well, I don't remember a Sinatra song by that name. It doesn't sound like something

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg would say. And this is probably a trick question. It sounds like something Martin Luther would say, so I'll go with Martin Luther.

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How many of them would have known that it came from Habakkuk chapter two, verse four? And furthermore, how many, other than this group of select people that are here today, would have been able to tell you the context of the book of Habakkuk and how significant that statement is?

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It's so significant that we find it quoted three times in the New Testament. I'll read to you first, Galatians 1 .16, a familiar passage, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.

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Then from Galatians three, verse 11 and 12, now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident, for the righteous man shall live by faith.

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However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, who practices them shall live by them. There's the context of each of those.

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In the book of Romans, the book of Romans tells us what it means to be a just man. How is a man made just or made righteous in the sight of God?

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The first three chapters are all about our sin. Everybody is unrighteous. There's no one righteous, no not one.

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Everybody is unjust. The poison of asps is under their lips. We are wicked. We go astray from birth. We have a sin problem and we are guilty and can never be regarded as righteous in and of ourselves.

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But chapter four, the righteous are justified by faith just as Abraham was justified by faith so that chapter five, having been justified by that faith, you and I can be at peace with God.

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We can have the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ and be righteous and then what does that righteousness do once it is imputed to us by faith just as it was to Abraham?

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What does that righteousness accomplish? By that we are sanctified, Romans chapter six and seven. We are secured,

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Romans chapter eight. But what about Israel? They were justified by faith as well but not all Israel is

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Israel. Does the fact that God is justifying Gentiles by faith discredit Israel? No, not at all. That's Romans chapter nine, nine, 10 and 11.

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So in the book of Romans, the apostle Paul is answering the question how is a man set right with God?

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The answer, it is by faith. We are justified, declared righteous. We begin our Christian life by faith for the just man shall live by faith.

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Now the book of Galatians chapter three. The book of Galatians, the question is having been justified by faith,

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Romans, how do I live? Do I live by the law? Do I go back to the law for my sanctification and my glorification and my day -to -day life and my growth in holiness?

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No, having been justified by grace because the law cannot justify a man, Romans, so a man is to live by faith.

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If the law cannot justify us, the law cannot give us strength to live by grace. So just as we are justified by faith and not by law, so we are to live by faith and not by law.

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That's the question that the book of Galatians answers. How does a man die? Guess what?

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It's by faith. Hebrews chapter 11. All these saints that died without ever receiving the promise. We are justified and begin living our

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Christian life by faith. We live continually day after day. Guess what? Not by law, but by faith. And how is it that we die?

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We die in faith, having persevered all the way to the end to the preserving of our soul. Like those

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Old Testament saints of old, we will live and probably never see in our own lifetime the fulfillment of those promises, but we wait and we look by faith, just like those

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Old Testament saints did, just like Habakkuk did. He was an Old Testament faith hero, and he waited upon God, trusted in God, and lived by faith.

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We start living our Christian life by faith, we continue living our Christian life by faith, and we die in faith. We're not like apostates.

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We're not like fake believers, make believers. We begin, continue, and end in faith.

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And Hebrews tells us what faith is like, what faith looks like, who it is that has it, and what are the marks of faith.

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Romans, the just, live by faith. Galatians, the just shall live day by day by faith.

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And Hebrews, the just shall live by faith. Here's what faith is. And all the way to the end, the beginning of your

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Christian life, the middle of your Christian life, the end of your Christian life, it is all lived by faith. That is why the just shall live by faith.

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A trust in the providence, the sovereignty, the grace, the goodness, the wisdom, the righteousness, the justice, the truth, and the honor of Yahweh.

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We believe that, we embrace that, and we hold fast to that all the way to the very end. Having been justified, we continue to live, and we will die in faith, waiting for the fulfillment of the promise, but always certain that the promise will be fulfilled.

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The just shall live by faith. Let's pray. Our Father, we love you, and we thank you for your goodness and for your word.

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You are so merciful, you are so good, you are just, and you are righteous, and as your people, we do not know the future, we do not know what you have in store for us in this world or in these times in which we live, but we know that you are righteous and good, and we cannot question your wisdom.

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You are infinite and perfect in all that you do. All your ways are good and just, and you are accomplishing around us and amongst the nations all your good and sovereign purposes, and so we trust you, and we pray that you would give us grace to live by faith, having been justified by it, having been sanctified by it, that if necessary, we would even die in faith, never seeing in our own lifetime the fulfillment of these promises.

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And we pray that you would strengthen us and encourage our hearts together, and we thank you for this precious book of Habakkuk, and for the times in which he lived, and for the message that it has for us today.

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Use it, we pray, to steal our hearts in truth. For thy sake and for your glory, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.