A Promise of Vindication
I wonder how are you at waiting? How was that wait? Were you itching for the sermon to start? Could you not wait to hear a response to the reading?
Chapter 2, begins with Habakkuk waiting. He's waiting for God to answer him. If you were here last week, you'll know that the book of Habakkuk is a conversation between the prophet and God. It started with Habakkuk complaining to God about the injustice he saw going on in Judah. He asked God '? Why are you letting all this violence go on? How long will you let it happen? When are you going to do something about it?
Then in verse 5 God answered almost straight away. God said, “I’m about to act, but you’re not going to believe it. I’m raising up the Babylonians to come and deal with the injustice that’s going on in Judah!”
Habakkuk was a little taken back by this answer. It’s not what he was expecting. So he does something very brave. He talks back to God. He engages in some theological reflection, as Chris put it last week. “Aren’t you from everlasting to everlasting God? Aren’t you too pure to even look upon the Babylonians? They’re worse than we are! How can you be using them?”
Now he’s waiting patiently for God to answer. He’s waiting to see what God has to say for himself.
1I will stand at my watchpost,
and station myself on the rampart;
I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,
and what he will answer concerning my complaint.
Like many of the other prophets he uses the image of a watchman on his watchtower. But instead of looking for the enemy to come, or watching over the people of Israel, he’s watching, waiting for God to respond. Unlike his first complaint, it seems like there’s some time that passes before God responds. But that’s OK, because Habakkuk is determined to patiently wait for God’s response. He perseveres in waiting and watching. He’s poured out his heart and now he’s waiting. He’s listening intently for God to respond, to give him an answer.
I’ve spent some time this week waiting. Waiting at the medical clinic up the road, waiting to see a doctor. Not knowing which doctor it would be, I was waiting intently. Listening out, wondering when the door would open and my name would be called. Then there was more waiting, waiting for an X-ray, waiting to find out the results.
Habakkuk’s waiting is rewarded. God shows that he can take his second complaint. He’s not about to strike us down for coming back to him. For asking for clarification, for seeking to know more, even for challenging him. God can take it. God kindly answers Habakkuk. Though it’s clear that the answer isn’t for him alone.
2Then the LORD answered me and said: Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.
This is a message for everybody. It’s to be written down, nice and simple, so that people walking by can read it. It’s to be written down, so that people can remember it and tell others. It’s to be recorded so that heralds can take the message out to all people.
And it’s to be written down so that people can be reminded of it. Habakkuk wanted God to hurry up and deal with the injustice going on around him. God makes it clear that he does have a plan to do just that. God says this is a vision for the appointed time, but that time is not yet! The bad news for Habakkuk is that he might have to wait a bit longer! But it is surely coming. It might be some time away, but nothing will stop this happening.
After all, God isn’t ignorant of what’s been going on. Habakkuk had asked if God didn’t realize that the Bablyonians were bad people. God says he knows exactly what’s going on. In verses 4-5, he repeats what Habakkuk has said about them. The Babylonians are a nation out to take over the world. There seems to be no end to their conquest. God says he knows that they’re wicked, they’re proud, they’re arrogant.
But God wants Habakkuk to see that there’s more going on here. There’s more than meets the eye. The evidence that is before him doesn’t reflect the real truth. The real truth is that God is still in control. The real truth is that God will judge these people. Nothing can save them from what’s coming.
The rest of the vision focuses on this. It’s broken up into five woes, five images of how things are not as they seem. Five warnings that judgment is coming. The wicked might think they’re getting away with things, but this isn’t the case.
Those who take what is not theirs, who plunder through violence and oppression, will be mocked and not applauded. They’ll find their victims rising up against them.
Those whose blood has been shed will cry out against their attackers. God will hear the cries of those who have been victims of violence, just as he heard Abel’s blood crying out from the ground.
Even those who build strong houses for themselves, who make their homes their castles won’t be able to escape. Even the stones and plaster will cry out against them!
Those who seek to build a town, a city, an empire for themselves will be thwarted. For
‘the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, as the water covers the sea’
It is God’s kingdom that will fill the entire earth. There is no room for any other. There’s only room in the world for God to be glorified. He’s the only one who deserves glory. Those who seek it for themselves will find out the truth the hard way.
Those who seek to make their neighbours drunk, who treat others as their playthings, to exploit their lack of inhibitions, whether for violence or debauchery, will find themselves reaping the same. God will force them to drink from the cup that is in his right hand. Except this cup isn’t full of sweet wine, but of God’s bitter wrath. Psalm 75 speaks of God executing judgment and speaks of this cup.
Psa. 75:6 For not from the east or from the west
and not from the wilderness comes lifting up;
7 but it is God who executes judgment,
putting down one and lifting up another.
8 For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup
with foaming wine, well mixed;
he will pour a draught from it,
and all the wicked of the earth
shall drain it down to the dregs.
We see a similar picture in Revelation, were again in a vision, John sees that the wicked will be judged. They will be forced to drink the wine of God’s fury which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. (Rev. 14:10)
For in the woes we see that it’s not the natural order that rights wrongs. It’s not some cosmic Karma at work. God is fully in control. He’s the one who fans the flames, who executes judgment.
The final warning is against idolatry. Ultimately it’s a warning against seeking to set our own morality.
It shows how foolish it is to make idols. Even the one who carves the idol, who knows it’s nothing but a lump of wood, yet they still trusts in it. Our idols today might be more sophisticated, but they’re still just as dumb. Their still just as deaf. They can’t answer, because they don’t have lips, or breath, or voices.
Of course people fill the silence don’t they. It’s the great thing about an idol is that you can make it say whatever you want. It’s like a ventriloquist puppet. I recently saw a recording of David Strassman, the famous ventriloquist. Half his act involves pretending to be surprised or shocked by what his puppets say. But you know that he’s in control. He’s the one who puts words in their mouth.
An idol is nice and safe, because it’s not going to contradict me. It means I can live however I want to. It’s a great way to justify all the behaviors and actions that have been described already.
But unlike idols and false gods, God is awake and alert. God is present and alive.
20But the LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth keep silence before him!
He looks and he listens. He speaks. The whole world must be silent before him. It’s a great contrast to those who cry out vainly to idols who can’t speak isnt’ it? God can, and will, and we must be silent before him. God will have the last word. He will have the only word. He will speak in judgment, he will act to vindicate the righteous, to vindicate the faithful.
Ultimately wrong will be righted. The five warnings show that not just the specific wrongs they mention, but ultimately all evil, crime, wickedness, greed, oppression, violence, debauchery, idolatry, sin, are doomed to destruction. Habakkuk had looked at the world around him and become depressed. How long would this last? Was God really in control? The answer is yes! The wicked will not prevail. Justice and judgment will come. People will not get away with things forever. God is in control, he alone dictates what is right, and what will be done.
This is the answer to Habakkuk’s second complaint. He might have been hoping that God would relent, that he would find a more gentle way of correcting the evil in Judah. But what God says is that the Babylonians will be judged too. Their evil won’t go unchecked. Habakkuk need not worry that God has lost his senses, or that he’s cavorting with wicked. It’s a promise for the faithful, that Babylon won’t be victorious over Judah because of their own might. The Babylonians are nothing more than tools in God’s hand. They won’t escape judgment themselves.
But more than that, it’s the answer to Habakkuk’s original complaint isn’t it? God isn’t blind to the wickedness of those around Habakkuk. He sees the perversion of justice, the evil and wrongdoing that is being done in Judah. Habakkuk had asked, ‘Why haven’t you done anything? How long will it go on?’ In chapter 2, God tells him that the time of judgment is coming, that it will be swift and sure, even if it appears delayed. He won’t let evil go unchecked. He will right wrongs, he will judge the world.
It’s a promise that’s just as important for us today. When we ask those same questions, when we wonder, is God still in control? We can look at this chapter and know that a day of reckoning is coming.
It’s strong warning for us too isn’t it? God’s promise is that not just the wickedness of Babylon would be judged, but the wickedness of Judah, the wickedness of his own people. The wickedness in our world, in our neighbourhood, in our lives will be judged. The cup of wrath is ready to be poured out.
But there’s more here than just a promise that the wicked will be punished. Buried in verse 4, is the news that that the righteous will live by faith.
One Rabbi said that Moses gave the people 613 commandments, David reduced them to eleven (Psalm 15). Micah to three (Micah 6:8), and Isaiah reduced it to two (Isa. 56:1). But Habakkuk manages to summarise the message of the whole bible in just three words in the Hebrew:
“The righteous will live by faith.”
This message is the core of the gospel. It’s at the core of what be believe as Christians. That those who have faith in God, who trust in his faithfulness will live.
There is another cup waiting for us. In his death, Christ drained the cup of wrath. He took upon himself the judgment, the penalty, the punishment that we deserve. Now he offers us another cup. The cup we remember, we celebrate today in communion. It’s the cup of the new covenant, filled now with the bitter poison of God’s wrath, but with the sweet blood of Jesus. It’s filled with God’s mercy and love. It has the promise of forgiveness, for all who believe that Jesus is God’s Son, and that he has died for us, in our place.
For God says that the righteous will live by faith. Those who trust in him, who seek to live righteously, loving God and neighbor will endure. They will survive. They might not survive present strife, we know that not all lived through the Babylonian conquest, but they endure eternally.
Here is where the fullness of the promise of vindication comes out. The wicked will be judged. But those who by faith follow God, will live. They will be proved to be righteous. Even if in the present age it looks like the wicked are prevailing, the message of Habakkuk 2 is that things are not what they seem. The real truth is different. The righteous will live by faith.