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Articles 2014-2017
In our last mailing, we saw the prophet Habakkuk question the Lord’s ways in overseeing the nations. And specifically he wanted to know how the Lord could judge His people using the clearly more wicked Babylonians.
I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected.
Habakkuk knew that the Lord’s response would bring a reproving, a correction. But he was a watchman, a prophet. A prophet’s priority was not to first watch for the enemy’s activities or even the people’s sins. His primary task and calling was to the Lord himself. What was on His heart? What were His priorities? Habakkuk knew he was out of tune with the Lord. But he had to open his heart to Him and make known his perspective. It is better to learn God’s ways even if the insight comes through correction and rebuke than it is to simply sit in silent confusion. What a privilege it is that God would open His heart to His people and make known His purpose, His priorities.
Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.”
We are all called to run a race. Without a clear vision from God, we will simply wander and hope for the best. The Babylonians had a clear vision; they would conquer whatever got in their way. Similarly today, Islamic radicals and secular humanists are running with a sense of destiny undergirding their cause. Much of the Church just wants to get out of here. But God has targeted the earth. He taught us to pray that His will would be done here as it is in heaven. The New Testament informs us that God is doing a work among the Gentile nations of such a nature that when its fullness comes in (i.e., from Heaven’s initiative and grace), Israel will become jealous and then turn to Him. Whatever that work is, I believe it involves more than simply an increased number of believers. Why would a more populated Christianity make Israel jealous?[30]
For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
God’s purpose among His people would come to its fullness in His own time. Nothing would prevent the work of the Sovereign One. Habakkuk would simply have to walk before Him with the confident expectation that He could be trusted – no matter what men or empires were doing. And as the vision began to come into full expression, it would speak. Insight into the priorities of Heaven would be made known as the Lord brought His purpose to pass.
Likewise in our own day, there is a coming clarity into the heart of God concerning His plans for the earth. The more we pursue Him and seek to know His ways, the more He will make himself known among us. So much so that even many unbelievers will begin to gain a glimpse of Him. Here is the fullness of the Gentiles. It is the Lord God himself revealed among His people in increasing glory that will ultimately make Israel jealous. The implications for how we ought to be building in His house are nothing short of revolutionary.
It is interesting to note that the New Testament writer to the Hebrews quotes Habakkuk and defines the vision not as an “it” but as One who was coming and would not tarry (Hebrews 10:37). For Habakkuk, the fulfillment of the vision was the Lord himself coming in judgment through the Babylonian armies because of the sins of His people. For the recipients of the New Testament epistle to the Hebrews, God was coming again in just a few short years in judgment through the Roman armies because of His people’s rejection of Christ. In both cases, the gospel message was that the sovereign God who loves His people is to be loved and trusted by them but also held in awe.
Again, the Lord spoke to the prophet.
”Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.
God saw the pride of the Babylonians just as He sees the arrogance of the wicked in our day. He knows exactly what men are planning for His planet. But the just must believe in Him. We must trust His wise lordship over the nations, and His eternal plans for His house, and His amazing love for His bride.
”Indeed, because he transgresses by wine, he is a proud man, and he does not stay at home. Because he enlarges his desire as hell, and he is like death, and cannot be satisfied, He gathers to himself all nations and heaps up for himself all peoples.
There seemed to be just no stopping this evil empire. It was like death that could never be satisfied. Babylon would always want more power and possessions.
But there is an inviolable principle in God’s creation. Whatever is sown will be reaped. Babylon had sown great destruction and oppression of others. As a result, would there not eventually come a reaping? Would not the oppressed rise up against the oppressor?
”Will not all of 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 – for how long – and makes himself rich with loans?’
(Habakkuk 2:6 NAS)
Here the Lord pronounces the first of five woes. The Babylonians had made themselves rich by stealing the lives, the freedom, the wealth, and the futures of others. When one takes a loan, he takes wealth from the future so as to make use of it in the present. In conquering others, Babylon had taken their futures from them so as to use that wealth to live in present prosperity. But soon these creditors would arise demanding recompense; the time for payback was coming.
Will not your creditors rise up suddenly? Will they not awaken who oppress you? And you will become their booty. Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the people shall plunder you, because of men’s blood and the violence of the land and the city, and of all who dwell in it.
A time of reaping would come; it always does. Today we face from the powers of darkness over America the lie of permanence concerning our culture’s growing view of biblical godliness as being evil and bigoted. But darkness does not get the last word. It is but a fleeting vapor that shall fade before the arising of the righteous Ruler of human history. More is yet to come out of Heaven. God has more to say before He brings this age to an end. And He has more of His majestic glory to make known among His people for the sake of the nations. Israel’s Messiah must come into an increased clarity in His function as the head of His corporate body. Indeed, the hearts of the Jewish people will only find their deep longing for spiritual reality fulfilled as God pours upon them the Spirit of grace and supplication, and they finally see the One whom they pierced. And He will be making himself known in a measured fullness through His body among the nations including His followers in Israel.
Then the Lord pronounced His second woe.
”Woe to him who covets evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of disaster! You give shameful counsel to your house, cutting off many peoples, and sin against your soul.
God showed the prophet the heart of the powerful king of Babylon; he was nothing but an insecure man. Everything he was doing in conquering others was to make himself secure from possible future disaster. “If I can just get enough territory surrounding my home, then I’ll be safe from any possible attacks.” But all he was doing in attacking others was sinning against his own soul. Acting out of fear against others only assured the greatest of all disasters that anyone could face – the judgment of God himself.
For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the timbers will answer it.
Here God reveals an important prophetic insight. Whatever is built always testifies concerning the one who built it. What Nebuchadnezzar had built through his destructive military campaigns against others had only served to reveal the darkness in his own heart.
So it is today in God’s house. Many have built great ministries for the Lord. But often, what are revealed are the strengths and weaknesses of the very men and women around whom such ministry occurs. And often, too much glory goes to them.
But God is at work among men to reveal His ways. As we cooperate with Him in what He is building, what is constructed will testify concerning Him – His character, His motives, and His priorities. Again, as we labor in His house among the Gentile nations toward a certain measured fullness of the revelation of Christ, we must remember God’s priority. It is that His ways and glory may be made more clearly known in the earth. None of what we are involved in is about our fame or renown; it is simply about Him.
The third woe had to do with the futility of the nations’ agendas apart from God.
”Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, who establishes a city by iniquity! Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the peoples labor to feed the fire, and nations weary themselves in vain?
It is indeed from the Lord of hosts that nations weary themselves in vain, that all they have to show for their labor over many years is ashes. In many quarters, our nation has said that we do not need God in our public square. How well has that worked out for us?
We told ourselves that we would fix the poverty problem. But after about a single generation, all we have to show for our efforts is about the same percentage of poor people along with billions of dollars of new debt. Well, maybe we could fix some of the problems in the Middle East by bringing democracy to Iraq. But after much bloodshed and billions of dollars more of debt, that part of the world is as problematic (if not more so) as it was before. But let’s at least take God out of our educational classrooms. After all, we all know that we are the distant descendants of the ape. We wouldn’t want the idea of God muddying up our “scientific approach” to understanding life. How silly. The fruit of rejecting our Creator is pretty obvious to anyone who really wants to see.
So why does God let the nations weary themselves in their efforts to change the world?
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
The bankruptcy of the ways of man apart from the Lord must come into clarity. God has been giving humanity many “teaching moments” over the last two thousand years. The planet will not be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the great strategic planners from the political left wing or from the right. Nor will the world come in homage to the great military or economic thinkers of human history. To some degree, these may all have their day. But the world is moving irrevocably toward a dawning day that will bring to God’s Son His due honor. Here is some good counsel. Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. (Psalm 2:10 - 12)
The fourth woe:
”Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness!
We see this practice in our political system. What can we do to expose and even destroy others so that we can then magnify ourselves and take power? In the world of law enforcement it is called entrapment; in the world of political elections, it is just hard politics. But the result is that such practices only bring shame on the ones perpetrating them.
You are filled with shame instead of glory. You also–drink! And be exposed as uncircumcised! The cup of the Lord’s right hand will be turned against you, and utter shame will be on your glory.
When people will do anything necessary even illegal practices to obtain their own ends, whether it be to get political power, to amass riches, or to put away criminals, they will experience in their hearts an internal disquiet, a sense of guilt that an increasing intake of pharmaceuticals will fail to silence. Humanity must come to grips with the fact that there is a God in heaven to whom we must answer. It is His ways we must learn. And as we walk in harmony with Him, His glory will be seen in our lives. And it is His glory that is irreversibly surfacing among the nations for the whole earth to see.
For the violence done to Lebanon will cover you, and the plunder of beasts which made them afraid, because of men’s blood and the violence of the land and the city, and of all who dwell in it.
Babylon would indeed reap according to how she had sown.
God’s fifth and final pronouncement of woes had to do with idolatry.
”What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it, the molded image, a teacher of lies, that the maker of its mold should trust in it, to make mute idols? Woe to him who says to wood, “Awake!’ To silent stone, ‘Arise! It shall teach!’ Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet in it there is no breath at all.
How foolish it is for man to honor and worship the work of his own hands. Whatever he forms whether they are simply the visions themselves in his own imagination or the organizations to bring about those very concepts, they are the reflection of man and his desires. Yet today the world bows before these very expressions of men’s hearts and their attempts to save the world. But neither the UN General Assembly nor the latest political party platform can bring salvation among men. The truth is – we desperately need the God of heaven to arise among us. The words of the prophet ring true – when we look into the heart of these manifestations of man’s ingenuity, there is no breath in them.
But there is a hope for the future of the earth. All we have to do is to look in the right place. There we will find both breath and life. But it is the One who dwells there, not the place itself that is the answer we seek.
”But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
Neither God’s temple in the Old Testament nor His temple made of living stones in the New Testament has ever been the answer for what ails the earth; He alone is salvation. And when He says that all the earth should hush before Him, He includes us believers as well. For Habakkuk, here was the reproof he knew was coming. God did not need either his help or his suggestions on what the world needed. What He did want was for the prophet to believe in Him.
And if we believe, our God has an answer for us on what to do next in the great spiritual war engulfing our planet. Perhaps we can gain some insight as we look next month into Chapter 3.
Donald Rumble – June 2016
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