John: So That You May Believe, Gospel of John Part 05 John 1:19-28 "The Lord's Herald"

 October 13^th, 2024

From The Series: John- So That You May Believe

Part 05 The Lord’s Herald

The Gospel of John 1:19-28

Mountain View Evangelical Missionary Church

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, living in Canada today has its challenges, no doubt, but we also have so much to be thankful for. We should take time, perhaps more than once a year, to thank God for all the blessings He pours out on us daily.

Due to technical difficulties, there will not be a PowerPoint presentation today. Mainly, because the technology is too difficult for us to figure out when Willy is not here. If you would like to be trained on how to do the technical things, please see Willy when he comes back and he will be happy to train you. That would be a great help to the church.

This morning we are continuing the series, “John-So That You May Believe” and this morning’s message is titled, “The Lord’s Herald”. This morning we will be introduced to John The Baptist, or more accurately, “John the Baptizer”. I have mentioned before that when we see the name “John” in this Gospel it is either referring to John the Baptizer or about Peter’s father whose name was also John. The Gospel writer never refers to himself by name in his book.

Let’s jump right into today’s text and examine this interesting character named John the Baptist. Please open you Bibles or turn on your devices to the first chapter of the Gospel of John and we will begin at verse 19 this morning.

If you did not bring your Bible this morning, you should find one underneath one of the chairs in the row in front of you. John chapter 1 will be found on page 860 of the pew bible. If you do not have a bible at home, please take that bible with you as a gift from Mountain View Church. We feel that it is vitally important that you have easy access to God’s Word. And God’s Word says…

READ JOHN 1:19-28

“¹⁹ Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders h in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”

²¹ They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”

He said, “I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?”

He answered, “No.”

²² Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

²³ John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’ ”

²⁴ Now the Pharisees who had been sent ²⁵ questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

²⁶ “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. ²⁷ He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

²⁸ This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.“

PRAY

Here we are first introduced to John the Baptizer. John was quite the man. He was a relative of Jesus of Nazareth. John’s mother and Jesus’ mother were sisters. Elizabeth and Mary were sisters. Some sources say they were cousins, but it is believed that Elizabeth was an older sister of Mary. From Luke’s Gospel, we read when Elizabeth was six months pregnant the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to tell her that she would become pregnant through the Holy Spirit and would bear a child despite being a virgin.

After the vision and after becoming pregnant, Mary travelled to Jerusalem to see her older sister Elizabeth. When she arrived, Luke records this interaction in the first chapter of his gospel, “⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴² In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! ⁴³ But why am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴ As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”

Yesterday, the ladies were learning about the person and work of the Holy Spirit, and we see here recorded in the New Testament, a filling of the Spirit before the Day of Pentecost. This filling of the Holy Spirit was prophesized to Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah while he was tending to his priestly duties in the temple. The angel Gabriel appears to Zechariah and tells him this, “¹⁵ for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born.” Gabriel then strikes Zechariah mute until after the birth of his son.

John was quite a character. Mark describes John as wearing the traditional garb of the prophet, “⁶ John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.” Matthew chapter 3 also describes John’s appearance as well as his message, “¹ In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea ² and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” ³ This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for him.’ ”

We know John was having an effect because Matthew records, “⁵ People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. ⁶ Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.” Now this baptizing was unusual for the Jewish people.

According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary, Jews held a different understanding of baptism than Christians do today, and John was teaching something other than what the Jews held.

-In the teachings of the Pentateuch, The use of water as an instrument for religious and physical cleansing is prevalent. Those who had committed certain defiling offences were required to immerse themselves in water in order to ritually purify the body.

Later the Jews used baptism as a ritual to initiate new believers into the Jewish religion and continued to serve as a purifying mechanism in Jewish religious life.

-In John 1:31, John the Baptist identifies the reason that he was baptizing, "³¹ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel." The purpose of John’s baptism was not to usher people into a messianic community; rather, his purpose was to awaken the Jewish people to the reality of the coming Messiah. John’s baptism was a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”[i] Baptism was not a part of repentance for the Jewish people. The Jewish people just celebrated their national day of atonement, known as Yom Kippur this past Friday and Saturday. Baptism is not part of the celebrations. So what John was doing with his baptism was something new and novel.

For John, Jewish ethnicity was not a prerequisite to salvation or a relationship with God, repentance was the prerequisite. Throughout the gospels Jesus taught us to repent, to turn from our sins, to stop wallowing in our favourite sin, and to turn to Him for forgiveness.

I’m listening to a book which was released last year titled, “Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age” by Rosaria Butterfield. Rosaria was a well-known lesbian-feminist professor activist who was befriended by a Presbyterian Pastor and his wife and ultimately came to Jesus, so she writes from a very unique perspective. She is currently married to a pastor and they have five children (some are adopted) and even grandchildren. Rosaria warns in her book about a danger that is creeping into churches today known as Gay Christianity. There are two types of Gay Christians: what are known as Side A; and Side B Gay Christians. Side A Gay Christians are those who are still practicing gays. Side B Christianity are those who still have gay attractions but are remaining celibate in their lives.

Here is the danger: neither Side A nor Side B teach repentance for their sins. Rather, both sides attempt to teach gay attraction as normative and the church should accept these individuals just as they are. This approach runs counter to the teachings of Jesus Christ, who called for the repentance of our sins. For Christians, when we refuse to repent of our favourite sin, we are demonstrating that we love that sin more than we love Jesus. Whether that sin is a sexual sin, the sin of lying, excessive drinking, hatred in our hearts, unforgiveness of others, envy, pride, the list goes on and on. All sins are equal in the eyes of God, all of them are an abomination to Him. For us the danger exists when we refuse to repent, change our behaviours and attempt to become more like Christ every day. For the lost, the danger exists when they refuse to bend the knee to Jesus and instead, cling to their sinful ways.

Did you know that Jesus even called churches to repent? In the second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation, when Jesus appeared to the Apostle John in a vision, Jesus called five of the seven churches listed to repent. In one way or another, five of those churches had erred in their doctrines or habits and needed repentance. They were called to change their ways and come back to their first love: namely Jesus Christ and His teachings. Think about that for a minute. Christian churches, full of Christian believers, required repentance. One of the churches was the church at Ephesus. This church had some of the best preachers and pastors in its history. Planted by Paul in 52 AD who then returned a few years later and spent three years in Ephesus teaching and pastoring the church. Later, Paul’s trusted protégé Timothy was sent there to try and correct some errors that were beginning to enter the church. Tradition has it that even the Apostle John was a leader and teacher in this church, yet at the time that John received the revelation from Jesus, the church required correction and repentance. The words in these two chapters of Revelation should serve as a warning to all churches.

But, this morning, we are dealing with the very beginning of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. So, John the Baptist was talking about repenting and being baptized. John was using baptism as a means of cleansing after the people confessed and repented of their sins. John was a model witness, going first to the Jews, but not limiting the message to the Jewish people. John’s actions were getting the attention of the religious leaders and we see here in this morning’s passage that there were men sent from Jerusalem to investigate what was happening. Priests, Levites, and even Pharisees came to question John as to the purpose of his work.

Their exact question is not recorded in John, but from his answer, we can see that they were enquiring if John the Baptist was the Messiah. Notice how John is taking a positive approach to the questioning by the religious leaders. John "confessed freely" that he was not the Messiah. This shows you can be positive while still presenting a negative. John was not pretending to be something other than what he was. John was the herald proclaiming the message of a coming king.

However, the Jewish leaders had a preconceived notion of who the Messiah was going to be and what his mission was. They thought that the Messiah would be a military leader who would free the Jewish people from foreign occupation and give them their lands and their freedom back. This was man’s plans and desires, not God’s plans or desires. The religious leaders had an eschatological view in mind, an end-times view but, it was not time for that yet. The leaders were looking for signs so they asked John if he was Elijah who had returned, or if he was the Prophet as foretold in the Old Testament.

They were looking for the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy as told in his book in chapter 4 verse 5, “⁵ “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.” This was clearly an end-times prophecy, and the religious leaders were looking to see if the time was near.

It is clear from John’s response that he did not think of himself in these terms even though the angel Gabriel and Jesus both referred to John as fulfilling Elijah’s role. The angel told Zechariah in Luke 1:17, “¹⁷ And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

In Matthew 11:12-14, Jesus describes John’s work this way, “¹² From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. ¹³ For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. ¹⁴ And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.”

There were Old Testament prophecies of this herald that was to come. Matthew records John as the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 40:3 of one “calling in the wilderness” ahead of the arrival of the Lord. But Jesus was not coming to fulfill the end-times, not yet.

Amazingly, John quotes a recognized prophet to describe his role quoting Is 40:3. A prophecy made some 700 years earlier. John may not see himself as a prophet, but he was a herald. A herald is a person or thing that precedes or comes before; forerunner; or harbinger. John was a harbinger of the Messiah, he just wasn't sure who that was at this exact time.

Jump down to verses 26 & 27 of chapter 1, “²⁶ “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. ²⁷ He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” Here is John fulfilling his role as herald. John is telling the religious leaders standing before him, questioning John if he was the Messiah, and John tells them “no” but, He is here presently among you and you do not recognize Him.

What is the practical application of this passage for us today? Preachers are the harbingers for the return of Jesus. The preacher, the pastor, is the modern-day equivalent of John the Baptizer. We are the heralds in today's world proclaiming the imminent return of the King. Just as with John’s original audience, many today still do not recognize Jesus for who He truly is.

In writing to his young protégé in the second letter that bears his name, Paul writes to Timothy, “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry..” The term “evangelist” comes from the Greek and means “one who announces good news.” That is the job of the pastor, to announce the “Good News” of Jesus Christ.

My goal should be to be completely transparent so that you see through me to focus on Jesus Christ alone. I am a trumpet, a voice in the wilderness of today's culture proclaiming, "Look, look" but not at me, but rather "Look at my Lord, Jesus Christ. Look what He has done."

What is it that Jesus has done? Only the single biggest act of self-sacrifice that could ever have happened for the most ungrateful and undeserving people. A people so full of pride that they defiantly reject God’s good teaching and instead follow the promptings of their wicked hearts and the promptings of a fallen angel.

According to one Jewish website, there is a fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity when it comes to sin. “Jewish tradition does not understand human imperfections as being the result of an “original sin” by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Sin is the result of our negative human tendencies or inclinations, known in Hebrew as the yetzer hara (the inclination toward evil), which must be channelled in ways that affirm life by the influence of the yetzer hatov (the inclination to goodness).” [1]

Christians understand we are tainted by original sin. Paul presents this concept clearly in 1 Corinthians and again in the Book of Romans. 1 Corinthians 5:21-22 teaches, “²¹ For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. ²² For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” The lesson is repeated in Romans 5:17-18.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Romans chapter 5, verses 17 and 18. That’s going to be page 914 of the Pew Bible. “¹⁷ For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

¹⁸ Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.” We need to take a minute here and define the word all in verse 18. Verse 17 limits the atoning work to those who receive God’s grace, therefore the “all” in verse 18 cannot refer to everyone everywhere.

C.H. Spurgeon puts it this way in a sermon on Particular Redemption, … “the whole world has gone after him” Did all the world go after Christ? “then went all Judea, and were baptized of him in Jordan.” Was all Judea, or all Jerusalem, baptized in Jordan? “Ye are of God, little children”, and the whole world lieth in the wicked one”. Does the whole world there mean everybody? The words “world” and “all” are used in some seven or eight senses in Scripture, and it is very rarely the “all” means all persons, taken individually. The words are generally used to signify that Christ has redeemed some of all sorts—some Jews, some Gentiles, some rich, some poor, and has not restricted His redemption to either Jew or Gentile …^[2]

Spurgeon is clarifying that “all” does not always mean “all, everywhere”. If “all” here, meant “all, everywhere” then we would have the doctrine of Universalism which teaches that everyone is saved by the redeeming work of Jesus Christ and this is simply not taught in Scripture. Some people teach Universalism as a way of being able to justify their rejection of Jesus as Saviour, yet still attempt to claim the security offered by Jesus. Universalism may also serve as a comfort to those who neglect the roles they are to play in the Great Commission. Universalism absolves believers from having to tell others of the gospel, the “Good News” of Jesus because they are already rescued from the flames of hell. This is not biblical thinking.

If universalism were true, Jesus would have no need for giving these instructions from Matthew 28:18-20, “¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” This is known as the Great Commission. A commission is defined as, “an authoritative order, charge, or direction.” Often given by a King or a person representing royalty or government. We were given the Great Commission by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

What was that commission? To spread the Good News of Jesus Christ and what He has accomplished. We heard about the original sin a few minutes ago. The sin of Adam and Eve disobeying the instructions given by God the Father not to eat the fruit of the two trees in the center of the Garden of Eden. Picture this: man is formed from the dust of the earth, and in an incredibly intimate and personal act, the Creator God stops low and personally blows the breath of life into this pile of dust. The Creator “spoke” all other forms of life into existence, but for man, he breathes life into him. The woman is then formed from the rib of the man so that he could have a “help-mate”, for it was not good that man should be alone.

Genesis tells us that God walked with his people in the cool of the day and taught them all they needed to know. But, the devil entered into a serpent and the serpent spoke to Eve and deceived the woman. The serpent caused the woman to doubt the instructions they had received from God, when the serpent asked, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Which was a twisting of what God had said. For God’s exact instructions were, “¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Notice the subtly in the lie, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the Garden’?” Adam and Eve had the entire Garden as a gift from God and could eat from any tree except for the two set aside by God.

They disobeyed, they listened to a creature rather than the Creator. At this disobedience to God, death entered into the world. The man and woman attempted to cover their sins with clothes made of leaves, but God killed two innocent animals and clothed the man and woman in the skins of those animals. This killing of the animals set the standard of blood needing to be shed for the payment of sin against God.

A lesson we see repeated at the killing of the Passover lamb before the exodus out of Egypt by the Jewish people. Lessons cemented home to Moses with the instructions given by God for the sacrifices to be held at the Tabernacle, both in the wilderness and in the promised land until Solomon built the first Temple. The continuation of the sacrifices, first in Solomon’s Temple until it was destroyed by the Babylonians, then re-established by Ezra and Nehemiah and the building of the second temple in Jerusalem until the foreshadowing of animal sacrifices became fulfilled in the final sacrifice of the shedding of the innocent blood of Jesus of Nazareth on a Roman cross.

Jesus, who was in very nature God, took on human nature and faced all the temptations that we face, yet still remained faithful and without sin or blemish. A perfect sacrifice, the only perfect sacrifice who could atone for our sins and bring us back into a right relationship with the Father. Reconciling us back to God through the laying down of His own life on our behalf. A sacrifice that was so complete that Jesus declared that “it was finished” from the cross. Three days later, Jesus picked His life back up again proving that His work was enough to satisfy the Father.

Let me ask you, if this work cost Jesus everything, and it cost the Father His Son, why do you think that you get to accept this gift at no cost to you? It is true, you cannot buy it and you cannot earn it, but you can certainly show your appreciation for the value of the gift and the cost that was paid. This is another work of the pastor and preacher: calling God's people to a life of holiness and preparation for the King. A call to live lives worthy of their inheritance. Reminding them of their obligations to the King, the carrying out of the Great Commission and a life of purity to the best of their abilities. Not a life of perfection, for there was only one perfect, but a life of working and striving for that goal of being more like Jesus each day we have been given.

 CONCLUSION

We have seen that pastors and preachers today are the modern heralds for Jesus and His imminent arrival. We also are to herald other things. We are to warn our people against false teachers and false teaching. These were things that 5 out of 7 churches failed to do in the Book of Revelation. Here is an example of things to be warned about:

“There’s a movement of new churches rising across the country, and guess what they all have in common? They all don’t believe in God! Yes, atheist churches and even atheist megachurches are becoming more and more popular as people want the warm feelings of a church experience they grew up with, just without God. Sanderson Jones, one of the leaders of Sunday Assembly in Los Angeles, said, “There was so much about it [referencing a Christian church’s Christmas carolling event] that I loved, but it’s a shame because, at the heart of it, it’s something I don’t believe in,” Jones said. “If you think about church, there’s very little that’s bad. It’s singing awesome songs, hearing interesting talks, thinking about improving yourself and helping other people—and doing that in a community with wonderful relationships. What part of that is not to like?” Atheist churches, like Jones’ Sunday Assembly, continue to grow in America.

Even those who don’t believe in God understand the power and draw of things he ordains. Singing songs, talking meaningfully to one another, caring for one another, being in a committed community, and doing works of charity to our neighbours—these activities are attractive to everyone. The reason why is that these activities represent who God is and the expression of himself through his human creation. The only problem is that these atheistic churches leave the original source out of it.[3]”

I have been emphasizing the importance of community and the feeling of family to be found in a local body such as ours. Those are admirable traits to be sure, but they should never take the place of our first love Jesus Christ. For without Jesus, a church is simply a community organization, no different than a community hall or a Lion’s Club. Both are admirable things, but they will never be able to save the lost sinner, because they both lack the Gospel message of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

Let me dismiss you with this doxology:

²⁴ “The Lord bless you and keep you;

²⁵ may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

²⁶ may the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace."

Go in peace, you are dismissed.

Pastor Paul’s Points:

1) John was a herald for Jesus Christ.

2) The religious leaders failed to hear him.

3) Are we guilty of the charge: "He stands among you, yet you do not know Him?"

Question to meditate on this week:

Do you recognize that today’s pastors are the equivalent of John the Baptist?

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[1] https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/article/sin-and-forgiveness/

^[2] James Strong, Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon (Woodside Bible Fellowship, 1995).

[3] Jim L. Wilson and Lee Peter, “The Growth of Atheist Churches,” in 300 Illustrations for Preachers, ed. Elliot Ritzema (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015).

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[i] Benjamin Espinoza, “Baptism,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

 

Habakkuk 2:2-5, How Shall the Righteous Person Live?

 How Shall the Righteous Person Live? Habakkuk 2:2-5

This morning, I would like to continue our series from the Book of Habakkuk. This will be our third sermon in the series and there will likely be three or four more in this book then, when we have finished Habakkuk, we will go on to the book of Nehemiah.

The events in Nehemiah take place after the prophecies we are studying here in Habakkuk have been fulfilled; after the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel were carried off by the Persians and the people of the southern Kingdom of Judah were carried off by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar.

The prophetic statement in Habakkuk 3:16 is fulfilled in 539 BC when the Persians defeated the Babylonians. We will dive into that a little deeper in a few lessons time.

Before we look at today’s passage let me ask you a question: How Shall the Righteous Person Live?

We saw in our previous lesson together that Habakkuk recognized the Holiness of God, and we examined together that holiness is one of the attributes of God that are transferable to us, and we are expected to live a life of holiness as followers of Christ.

We discovered that holiness does not mean sinlessness, it does not mean perfection. Holiness means obedience to God’s teachings. As young Joshua told us in his message in August, we are to strive to live like Jesus by avoiding people or situations that will cause us to sin. We are to resist old habits and temptations by keeping short accounts with God for our thoughts and actions.

How then, shall the Righteous Person live? Does our personal relationship with Jesus Christ impact our daily life? Does our relationship with Jesus cause us to live differently than our godless or pagan neighbor? Can we honestly claim, “I am a Christian, therefore I live differently than my lost friend or family member?” If not, maybe you need to ask yourself, “How can I turn my life around and start walking in the way of Jesus?”

In the passage that we are going to look at today, the LORD answers Habakkuk with an impactful statement that applies to us even today. “The righteous shall live by his faith”. Here is a bit of a teaser: That statement may not mean what you think. I will explain further when we get to that portion of the message, so stay tuned.

Today, we will look at the importance of faith in our daily walk with Christ. Even though this prophecy was written over 3,000 years ago, I promise there are timeless messages that still apply to us today.

Let us look together at the book of Habakkuk 2:2. This morning I will be reading from the NIV translation.

READ HABAKKUK 2:2-5

PRAY

We have seen in our previous messages that Habakkuk lived from 612 to 589 BC. He was a prophet to the Southern Kingdom of Judah like the prophets Jeremiah and Obadiah who were also alive in the time of Habakkuk. All three prophets were used by God to try and warn the people of Judah of the impending judgment that was coming to them, but the rulers and the people refused to listen.

In 605 BC, the first captivity of Judah occurred, and Daniel was taken… In 597 BC the second captivity of Judah happened, and Ezekiel was taken captive…, and finally, in 586 BC the Kingdom of Judah fell and remained in ruins for 50 years until 536 BC when some exiles were allowed to return and began to rebuild.

For the context of what the fulfillment of this prophecy from God looked like for the people of Judah, one can simply read the Book of Daniel to see what living in exile under the Babylonians looked like.

But all of that is yet to come for the people of Judah at the time of the writing of this book. By the time that the original audience would have been reading this part of the prophecy, they would have recognized that they had reached the apex of the book. God is going to answer both complaints and explain why the wicked rule in Judah and the more wicked Babylonians will also rule. Yahweh is about to instruct the prophet on how to speak to his congregation, and God does not want them to miss the apex either.

Look at what Yahweh says in verse 2, “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”

We see God giving the prophet clear instructions on what he was to do with this prophecy that Yahweh was giving to him. This was not a private prophecy that Habakkuk was to keep to himself. This was a prophecy to be shared with the whole Kingdom of Judah.

“Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets”. The original Hebrew makes it obvious that this information is to be written in such a way that the information is to be plainly declared to the people.

Look at the second half of the verse. Some translations simply say, “so he may run who reads it”.

This brings us to the first of Pastor Paul’s Points: identify the pronouns. Throughout today’s passage, we will see a fair number of pronouns used, and some of them are used in the middle of a contrasting statement which will often make it difficult at times to follow exactly what the original author intended. I will show you exactly what I mean here in a moment, but for now, let’s take a quick turn through this passage and take a few moments to identify the pronouns.

This is not only helpful in this passage, but it is a great rule of thumb to use whenever you are studying scripture. This is a technique that I learned back in Bible College, and this is a technique that I taught and use in the weekly bible study that we hold in our home for young adults.

Let’s go through the verses and identify the pronouns. Starting at verse 2.

^“Then the Lord replied:” So far, so good. No pronouns here, just the name LORD in all-caps which represents what? The Tetragrammaton. In Hebrew was known as the four letters “YHWH” which denoted the Holy and personal name of God. Not exactly a pronoun, more like an alias as the Hebrews felt that God’s name was too Holy to actually speak or write down.

Continuing in verse 2, let’s see if we can find a pronoun, “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets” stop right there. “Make it plain on tablets”, make what? The word “it” here is referring to the revelation that Yahweh is giving to Habakkuk. The LORD wants Habakkuk to write the message down that Habakkuk is receiving, on tablets in such a manner that the meaning will be clear to all who read it. The “it” being the revelation, the prophecy from God.

Carrying on in verse 2, “so that a herald may run with it.” Ok, in this little section we have two pronouns. I just mentioned earlier that in the original Hebrew, a pronoun is used to indicate the person reading the prophecy. The ESV translates the Hebrew as, “so he may run who reads it”. The Legacy Standard Bible says something very similar. The King James Version says, “That he may run that readeth it.” And the Christian Standard Bible says, “so one may easily read it” and the CSB doesn’t even mention running in the main body of the text. Yet the footnote that accompanies this passage says, quote “Literally: one who reads in it may run”. End quote.

So, I think that here, the NIV does a pretty good job helping us to determine who is running and why he is running. The man who reads the prophecy is running because that’s his job.

In ancient times, a herald, in a primarily illiterate culture, was like an ancient-day anchor on CNN. It was his job to go from town to town and proclaim the news.

But, what about the second pronoun here in this short section, the second “it” of verse two? This “it” is also referring to the prophecy that was written on the tablets. That was the news that the herald was running from town-to-town proclaiming. The prophecy that the LORD is about to dictate to Habakkuk.

Moving on to verse three,

“³For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.” OK, stop there for a second, another pronoun, another “it”. The LORD is still referring to the prophecy that He is dictating to Habakkuk. “The revelation awaits an appointed time”. Remember this line and we will come back here when I make my second point.

 Let’s continue with verse 3. Pay close attention here because the meaning of the word “it” is about to change. The subject of the pronoun is about to change. The LORD is about to move from referring to the prophecy and begin referring to the coming judgment that the prophecy represents.

 “Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.” “Though it linger”, with that phrase Yahweh has shifted the subject of the pronoun “it” in the sentence to His coming judgment. Yahweh is no longer speaking about the prophecy; He is referring to the actions that the prophecy is speaking about. The three pronouns, the three “its” if you will, all refer to the same thing and that is the punishment that God is about to pour out on the Kingdom of Judah.

 When we look at the words, “The revelation awaits an appointed time” from verse three and the words, “Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”  These two sentences contained in verse three make the second point in today’s sermon. “The LORD’s promises are certain”. Yahweh is telling Habakkuk that though it may appear that my judgment is not arriving, though it looks like I’m delaying in delivering on my judgment, make no mistake, this promise is certain and will happen.

What God was showing Habakkuk here was… that the prophet needed to adjust his sense of timing. What Habakkuk needed (and received from Yahweh) was a larger and slower worldview, one that allowed for God’s slow-moving justice. God moves on His own schedule, and what may seem like a long delay to us, is God’s perfect timing.

 This thought reminds me of another passage that I was reading and reflecting on this week. Romans 9:22-23 says, “What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?  What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—even us,”. Paul is telling us here in the Book of Romans that God delays His judgment as a sign of mercy and to make God’s riches of His Glory known to us. His Patience is one of the biggest indicators of how much God loves us.

 Let me ask you something. Does that thought make you uncomfortable… the thought that God judges people or nations…and that He pours out His judgment and wrath on them? If we are being honest, it kind of makes a person squirm a little, doesn’t it? In this day and age when “anything goes” and we are constantly being told “not to judge”, or “it's not my place to judge” the fact that there is a Holy and Just God sitting and judging us makes us uncomfortable.

 The, ”it’s not my place to judge” excuse was used by a couple of people in the movie we watched Wednesday night. When the interviewer asked the question, “Is abortion wrong?’ a couple of folks tried avoiding answering the question by making the statement, ”it’s not my place to judge”. We avoid passing judgment on the actions of others because we want to avoid the thought that God is passing judgment on us.

 I mean if God is love, then He can’t possibly have a problem with the way that I am living right? I mean I’m a good person, especially compared to my neighbour, and you should see how he lives, so based on my neighbour I should be going to heaven, right?

 As sinners, we want God to be loving and not judging. Judging someone is unloving, at least that is what culture would have us believe. “Love is love” we are told, even when it is the most immoral type of “love” that mankind can imagine. Even if it is the most destructive type of love to the family and to society, we are told to accept it and not be judgmental because “love is love”.

 Being truthful is also being loving. Imagine, you see a young couple running through a meadow, laughing and kissing and holding hands and staring longingly in each other's eyes completely oblivious to their surroundings. They are so wrapped up in each other’s love that they don’t even know you exist.

 Would it be a loving thing to yell at them and break their trance, and bring them back to the real world? To scream at them like a madman and tell them to wake up and pay attention to the world? Would that be the loving thing to do?

 It would be loving, if… they were staring into each other’s eyes so intently that they didn’t realize that they were running towards a cliff and they were about to fall to their deaths. If they were about to “love each other” right off a cliff, the most unloving thing for you to do would be to remain silent and watch it happen.

 But that is exactly what too many people, and dare I say it, too many churches with too many complacent preachers are doing right now in our country. They remain silent while our society is loving itself right off a cliff.

 Now, don’t misunderstand me. I am not judging anyone because I think I have it all together and I am so perfect. The exact opposite is true. I’m just as much of a mess as they are. My answers and my wisdom do not come from me, it comes from God’s Word and His Holy Spirit. It is only because of His intervention in my life that I am no longer running towards the cliff with the rest of them.

 And, of course, I still sin. Every day, I commit some type of sin against God. I am a constant disappointment to myself in my lack of perfection. But I am not a disappointment to God. I serve an all-powerful and all-knowing God, who chose to love me enough to show me the truth of my life.

 He loved me enough, to reach out to me in a very personal way and save me from running off the cliff. Jesus loved me enough, to wake me up and knock me off the path of destruction and hell, and He loved me into heaven and an eternal relationship with Him. He knew every sin I had committed and every sin I would commit after He saved me, but He still chose to love me enough to save me.

 Stay with me here, I know it seems like I lost my way. The uncomfortableness that we experience when we feel that God is judgmental and is judging our lives and the way that we are living… is the wake-up call of a loving Father using the Holy Spirit to knock us off the path of destruction.

 When we feel uncomfortable with our actions and the thought that God is judging us, that is the Holy Spirit yelling at you to wake you out of the trance of self-love as you run towards the cliff. Society tells us, “Love is Love”. Bookstores are filled with books in the self-help section on how to “love yourself”, and even preachers are telling you that “God is Love” and the preacher stops there because they want you to be happy.

 I want you to be happy too. But I don’t want you running blindly off a cliff happily on your way to hell!

 God cannot love us so much that He violates His own character. He cannot love us enough to ignore our sins and thus ignore His Holiness and His perfect Judgement. But what He can do is find a way, to love us back to Him without having to rely on His own stubborn children to find a way on their own. What is that way? I’m glad you asked.

 The way back for us sinful children… to come back to a loving relationship… where we will be accepted, unconditionally by the Father… is through the completed work of Jesus on the cross.

Only by trusting in His work completely, and not on any of our actions to earn favour with the Father, can we be restored to God.

 It is a thing called Grace. God sees the sin of man… God judges man… God must condemn man to hell.

 God came up with a plan before the foundations of the world were laid. Before He even made the first man. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit made a path back to Him. God sent His Son, to be born of a virgin, to add humanness to His eternal Godliness, and to live a perfect and sinless life. Only then, could Jesus be offered up as the perfect lamb without blemish and be sacrificed as an atonement for all those who accept the gift of Grace.

 This sacrifice was done on the very day that all of Israel were making their yearly sacrifices at the temple in an attempt to be right with God.

 The sacrifice of the blood of Jesus was so perfect that God the Father no longer required the blood of innocent animals to be offered to Him as a way into a relationship with Him. The Father was pleased with the work of the Son and accepted His sacrifice on our behalf.

 All that we must do, is to repent, to change our attitude and actions from sin toward obedience to God. Place our trust in the completed work of Christ and then we will receive His righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus, and be clothed in that so that we may stand before God as heirs and adopted children of His.

 If you do not know Jesus is this way, if you are not secure in your Salvation and relationship with Jesus, then please come and talk to me after the service. It doesn’t matter if this is your first day in church or if you have been coming to church for forty years, if you don’t have security in your relationship with God, then you may not know the True and Living God and we should have a discussion. A judgment-free discussion.

 Alright, let’s get back to the pronouns in today’s text. Verse 4 and the first half of verse five continues, ⁴ “See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness-- ⁵ indeed, wine betrays him; he is arrogant and never at rest.” Stop right there for a moment. The break in the verse here is at an unfortunate place. Verse 5 should have started after this period right here. This entire passage is one thought with a contrasting thought in the middle. We have a lot of “he’s” and “him’s” and they do not all refer to the same person.

 First, let me point out the contrasting statement in the middle, “but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—” this is a new person that is introduced into the thought and is referring to someone different from the rest of the sentence. We will come back to this in a second.

 The first and last part of this verse refers to the enemy, the Chaldeans, also known as the Babylonians whom God is about to unleash on the Kingdom of Judah. God is warning Habakkuk that the people of Judah are about to experience unholy terror in their nation.

 I use the word “unleash” here very intentionally. God is about to “unleash” the Babylonians. He is not causing them to sin, the LORD is simply removing His restraining hand from the hearts of the Babylonians and turning them over to their own sinful and lustful intentions unhampered by the influence of God.

 Look at the remainder of verse five, “indeed, wine betrays him; he is arrogant and never at rest. Because he is as greedy as the grave and like death is never satisfied, he gathers to himself all the nations and takes captive all the peoples.” Again, the pronouns here are all referring to the Babylonians. The thought and meaning behind the reference to wine was seen as the unsavoury practice of plying someone with much drink for the express purpose of taking advantage of them in a sexual manner.

Isn’t it interesting that the greed and the lust of the Babylonians are compared to the grave? In the original Hebrew, the words would have been “as wide as Sheol” as the ESV translates it into English. This thought relays the message that “as wide as” was an ever-expanding area and Sheol represented death and the grave, so the passage conveys the thought that the grave never “fills up” and just as the grave is never “full”, the greed and the lust of their natures are never filled, the Babylonians are never satisfied.

God identifies the exact sins that are driving the Babylonians: pride drives their desires and arrogance; lust also drives their desires; and finally, greed is also driving their actions in the invasion that is about to happen. These are the impulses that Yahweh is about to remove His restraining hand from and to give them over to.

Now, for the final point of today’s sermon, let’s go back to the contrasting point in the middle of verse four, “but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—”. The author of Habakkuk, who of course is God Himself, really throws a curveball here. There are two pronouns in this little statement and at first glance one would think that they are referring to the same person, the righteous person. I’m going to show you that they are not referring to the same person. We are going to use Scripture to interpret Scripture.

First, the righteous person as applied to us today, is referring to those who have placed their trusting faith in the completed work of Jesus Christ. They are righteous, not because of what they have done, but rather, because of the righteousness of Christ that is bestowed on us when we accept the gift of Grace.

Paul, in his second letter to the church in Corinth, said this of Jesus, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” What Paul is saying is the “righteousness of God” is essentially the covenant dealings between God and his people, who are given a new humanity. Their heart of stone is replaced by Jesus with a heart of flesh. The covenant represents a sacred and binding relationship between God and His people.

The righteousness of Christ does not make us perfect or sinless. Rather, we are clothed, or covered if you will, in the righteousness of Christ so that our sins are no longer held against us by the Father. Because Jesus paid the price, we can enter a rightful relationship with God as heirs and adopted children of the Father.

That is who the righteous person is, the one who is in a proper relationship with God the Father because of the actions of Jesus Christ the Son on the Cross at Calvary.

So now that we have identified the righteous person, who does the pronoun “his” represent when God is telling Habakkuk about “faithfulness”? “but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—”.

First we must define the word “faithfulness”. In the original Hebrew, the word used carries with it the meaning of trustworthiness and integrity in a moral sense. Because it is used in a moral sense, it is used to reveal God’s character, and it is often used in a sense of praise towards God.

So who’s faithfulness is God referring to here?

Well, we know that God is not referring to the Babylonians. Yahweh had just finished telling Habakkuk that “the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright.” That certainly doesn’t sound like a righteous one or a person of faithfulness.

God is not referring to Habakkuk the prophet. God did not say, “But the righteous person shall live by your faithfulness”. Nor, is God referring to the faithfulness of the scribe who wrote down the prophecy, nor of the herald who ran with the prophecy from town to town.

As a matter of fact, would you want to rely on the faithfulness of any man? Would you want to depend on the faithfulness of a friend, spouse, or relative to ensure your righteousness?  Who then is this person on whom we should rely on their faithfulness?

Again, using Scripture to interpret Scripture, turn with me to Galatians 2:20. Paul makes it clear whose faithfulness we are to live by.

READ GALATIANS 2:20

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

The one who trusts God in faith lives faithfully by his Word. Conversely, the one who is faithful to his Word also clearly trusts it and has faith in the One who gave it. Jesus is the only one who is trustworthy enough to be faithful and thus deserving of our faith.

I’m running out of time here so let me conclude with these thoughts.

CONCLUSION

The enduring message of Habakkuk is carried in the words “The righteous will live by his faith”. These words are quoted three times in the New Testament (Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38). The original Hebrew is “the righteous will live by his faithfulness,” or, possibly, “the righteous will live by its faithfulness” referring to the word of God given to Habakkuk in this “revelation,” that we looked at today.

The righteous will believe what God is about to say and live by trust in his word and thus in Yahweh himself. The meaning of this text (and its use by people of faith through the centuries) relies on the relationships between the faith and faithfulness of the believer and the faithfulness of God.

 Finally, these forms of judgment are not swift. Like history, they take time. God’s delay is a sign of His patience and love for us.

 Father, we thank you for your Word. We thank you for the power of the Holy Spirit to interpret and understand your Word. What a marvelous gift you have given your adopted sons and daughters.

We thank you for your faithfulness and your unchanging Nature. You are the same today as you were yesterday and as you will be tomorrow and for all of eternity.

We can build our faith and lives on the firm foundation of You and Your Son. It is in the completed work of Jesus that we can rest assured that we have Salvation and that we will spend eternity with You.

Because of this, we thank You for Your Grace and for Your Love, Amen

Finally, let me send you off with this benediction:

"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

 Colossians 3:17

 

Have a blessed week.