LORD, I Like What I Am Hearing!

Embracing God's Priorities & Perspectives

A Study in the books of Haggai & Habakkuk

by Pastor Frank Rice

Habakkuk 2:6-20

Most people have a sense of justice. We may not demand justice when we’re in the wrong, but we insist on it when others are guilty! We want to see people who hurt people somehow pay for their hatefulness. How would you react to the news that the cop-killer had been shot dead? Or the hooded “beheader” had drowned in his own blood? Or the terrorist cell had been knocked out by a drone hit? Thus far the prophet Habakkuk hasn’t gotten any real satisfaction in what the LORD has spoken. But now he begins to hear some good news. Those who are guilty will pay for their crimes! YES!!

v      Those who have been victimized are the ones who will take up a taunt song against their victimizers (v. 6a)! (Prophetic & figurative. What he says is primarily for Israel’s ears.)

1.      A host of nations had been brutalized by Babylonian armies and these nations will be singing “death songs” to the Babylonians!

 

2.      Each of the five taunt songs contains “woe,” a term appearing 53 times in the OT. Forty-one of these, by the prophets of Israel, announcing some nation’s inevitable and unavoidable doom.

 

3.      The cry “how long?” reveals the desperation and frustration of the victims! How long before justice is served?!

 

v      The victimizer’s crimes are highlighted (v. 6b)! They are guilty of deception (borrowing without intent to repay), outright theft, and widespread extortion! One translation is rather revealing “makes himself rich with loans.” (NASB)

  

v      The victimizer’s punishment is announced (vv. 7-8)!

1.      Those they had victimized will call for payment with interest! “When judgment came to Babylon the pledges would be called in.” They will be forced to pay up!

 

2.      Those they had plundered shall plunder them! (Yes!)

 

3.      They’ll answer for the blood they’d spilled in their victimization of the nations, including their upcoming assault on Israel.

 

v      Those who covet, then steal to build their invincible kingdoms will be compensated appropriately (v. 9). Their impenetrable defenses would prove worthless! Disaster will strike!

 

v      They strategized to annihilate, humiliate, and subjugate other nations and in doing so sinned against their own lives (v. 10)!

 

v      The ill-gotten materials with which they had built their impressive structures will cry out and testify to their wickedness (v. 11)! “Shame on those who oppress people, taking advantage of others in order to pile up unjust wealth.” (Barker)

 

v      The labors of those who had built towns and cities by brutalizing and robbing foreign towns and cities have only labored to feed the fires of their own destruction (vv. 12-13). (How fitting!)

“Any civilization built up by the destruction of other civilizations or by the unjust conscription of labor for its own ends becomes subject to the divine principle of retribution.” (Armerding)

 

v      The prophet pronounces a solemn, enduring promise (v. 14)!

1.      Violence and brutality will not win. They will not fill the earth! “His glory… in this context refers to His sovereignty, justice, and superiority to the gods of the nations.” (Chisholm)

 

2.      “God’s purpose goes beyond simply punishing the wicked. God desires that all the world know Him.” (Barker)

 

3.      “To know God is to be in a right relationship with Him, with characteristics of love, trust, respect, and open communication.” (Fretheim) (I like what I’m hearing!)

 

v      Those who have manipulated or forced others to endure shame & humiliation through the use of intoxicants are guilty of abusive exploitation (v. 15). (This is true on a personal level as well! In Israel nakedness symbolized shame!)

“We can’t exploit people made in God’s image and expect to escape God’s judgment.” (Wiersbe)

 

v      Those who are guilty of such will be held accountable (vv. 16-17).

1.      They’ll be forced to drink, a metaphor for the cup of God’s wrath (v. 16). They will be exposed for what they truly are, ungodly pagans with no covenant relationship to the true God! “In the divine order of things, the cup always comes around.” (Armerding)

 

2.      They will be held accountable for the rampant abuse and destruction of God’s creation (v. 17). God said so! “It is one thing to rule over creation, respecting it as God’s creation entrusted to one for the moment; it is quite another thing to exploit it unmercifully as though it belonged to one absolutely, as though one were not accountable for it to its creator.” (Barker) God’s judgment does rest on those who thoughtlessly destroy the environment!

 

v      Those who worship and trust the things their hands have made will find these very things to be absolutely worthless (v. 19).

1.      “Whenever a person sets his priorities on things made rather than on the Maker of things, he is guilty of idolatry.” (Robertson – not Phil!)

2.      “Whatever people delight in other than God, whatever they are devoted to and sacrifice for, whatever they couldn’t bear to be without, is an idol and therefore under the condemnation of God.” (Wiersbe)

 

v      Disaster is declared for those who trust created lifeless things for security and significance (v. 19). They are just as lifeless as the stone, wood, and metal which they worship and trust (Ps 115)!

 

v      But our God is radically different from these silent, lifeless, deceptive things that men worship and trust (v. 20)! He is in sovereign control and the earth is silent in His presence!

 

So, how should we respond when justice is done, when God’s judgment falls upon those who so richly deserve it?

 

Check out Revelation 18:20 and 19:1-6!