When God Rebuilds...Ezra-Nehemiah Part 08 Ezra 3:7-13 Humble Beginnings

 February 25, 2024

From The Series: When God Rebuilds…

Part 08 Humble Beginnings

Ezra 3:7-13

Mountain View Evangelical Missionary Church

                Good morning. We are continuing our series from the Book of Ezra. I hope that you are seeing, as I am, a parallel between the Israelites who were returning from a period of exile under the Babylonians and later the Persians, a return to their land and their methods of worshipping their God, the One True God, Yahweh and the parallel to our church here at Mountain View Evangelical Missionary Church.

                I hope that you can sense the renewed sense of purpose and direction that is coming from the entire leadership team here at Mountain View. This is not just from the new guy in the pulpit. The Board Chairman is committed to a renewed hope for this church. The Board is unified in moving forward in very positive ways to reach our community and to be of service to the church members. In about 10 days at our AGM, you as a congregation will be able to show your support of the renewed vision and purpose that the leadership team is working towards.

                I hope that you can sense that the Lord is present in this work and that we are constantly looking to the Father for guidance through our prayer time and our Sunday Services. I hope that you see as I do, that we can find a blueprint, a pattern, a method if you will, of how one should do church in the pages of Scripture.

                It is true that there is some freedom in how the liturgy, or order of service, should occur, and that the Bible does not provide exact specifics on how every detail of a church service should occur, there are clear guidelines and boundaries that are set in the Bible.

                We are going to see a few of those examples today in this passage, but it is true that as a Christian church, as a body of Believers that are under the New Covenant with Christ, our superior examples are found in the New Testament. But, the Old Testament, for Believers, is constantly pointing forward to Jesus. From Genesis to Malachi, the Old Testament lays the foundational work for a proper relationship with God, and the supreme example of godly living is exemplified for us in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

                But first, let’s do a quick recap of what we have observed so far in the Book of Ezra:

u  Thus far, we have seen a theme of continuity:

u  In the first chapter, we saw the continuity of the faithfulness of Yahweh. The Bible tells us, that God first moved in the heart of Cyrus and then in the hearts of the people to stir up the desire to restore their relationship with the One-True God.

u  In the second chapter, we saw the continuity of the community and the return to their land. We saw how the people responded to that working of God in their lives. We saw how they stressed the continuity of the bloodlines of those returning so that there would be unity in the fledging new community. A sense of shared vision and purpose in their lives. An ability to come together, and work together for the good of a common goal. A goal that was not just shared among themselves, but a goal that was also shared with God. A goal that was blessed by God. A goal with a Godly purpose behind it. A goal with a unifying purpose behind it. A goal that brought the returning exiles back to their roots and back to a proper relationship with the Father.

u  This return of the proper relationship should put us in mind of the work that Jesus did on our behalf, on that Roman Cross nearly two thousand years ago. Jesus, a man, but more than a man, a fully human-fully divine being, stepped into His own Creation and walked among the pinnacle of that work of Creation, the ones that were created in His image, mankind. Jesus the Creator lived among and taught and ministered to His sheep as a way to bring His rebellious Creation back into a proper relationship with Himself and the Father. A being, who though divine in nature, did not consider His divinity more valuable than the need to redeem His people back to Himself. The God that was so loving, that He bore the consequences of our sins on His body, so that the penalty that was due to the Father by us, was paid in full by the actions of the Son. You parents should be able to identify with this. How many of you have had one or more of your children disregard your teaching to them? How many have children or nieces or nephews who have been disobedient and walked away from sound parenting only to go off and commit errors in their lives? Some of them have done major actions that have had severe consequences. Some have made multiple mistakes, often repeating the same ones no matter how many times we bail them out, yet we still continue to love them and want the best for them. That level of love, is the love that Jesus Christ has for us, only multiplied by an astronomical factor. A love that is so immense and so perfect, that it could only be divine love, a love from God for His children. A love so forgiving, that no matter how many mistakes we have made in the past, or are currently making, a love that is so pure and forgiving and accepting, that it becomes a perfect gift, a gift that we call Grace. A gift that is available for you, and all you have to do is ask the Father to reveal it to you, and accept Jesus as your Saviour and Lord, and put your faith in Him because of the finished work that Jesus accomplished on the Cross. A work that is so perfect and so complete, that we cannot add to it in an attempt to seek forgiveness from God based on our own merit or works.

u  So, in the second chapter, n a time before the redeeming work of Jesus had occurred, we see the return of a faithful remnant that would resume the relationship and the proper worship of their revealed God, Yahweh. The God that called these people into a special covenant with Himself.

u  In chapter three, these first two chapters move towards the continuity of worship and the restoration of the Temple.

 

                Turn with me in your Bibles to today’s passage, and let’s read together the scripture that we will be looking at today. Please turn in your Bibles or on your devices to the Book of Ezra, chapter 3, starting at verse 7.

READ EZRA 3:7-13

                The three main points that I am going to try and cover this morning, as I see them in this passage are:

1) Continuity-we are not free to be an unbiblical church.

2) Conflict -change will often bring conflict.

3) Comparison -our church versus the biblical example.

            Let’s dive into this passage a little deeper and see how we can apply these words to our lives today.

Verse seven says, “⁷ Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters, and gave food and drink and olive oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so that they would bring cedar logs by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, as authorized by Cyrus king of Persia.” We are going to see in a minute that there is an intentional parallel between the telling of these events and the wording of the descriptions from the building of the first Temple by King Solomon. I don’t think that these parallels are simply a literary device. I am sure that the leaders of this project intentionally repeated the steps that Solomon took in their rebuilding process.

            This repetition leads to a sense of continuity. A connection is being mad, a reconnection, if you will to their glorious roots and relationship with Yahweh. The leadership would be doing these things in this intentional way to bring legitimacy to their actions.

            I am sure that there was discontentment among some of the returning families when their genealogies could not be verified. I am sure that there were grumblings about why are we doing these things this way. Why are we being so particular about these things? Can’t we compromise a little to be more inclusive or less offensive? Why must I prove that I am a Levite, why can’t you just let me serve in the capacity that I wish?

            There are good reasons for maintaining these standards. One reason is that we are called to live a holy life as followers of Jesus. For those with a Wesleyan background, that call to holy living goes deep, that is one of the core tenets of the faiths that are based on the teachings of John Wesley: a call to a holy life and exemplary living. A call to clear biblical living.

            Wesley taught that genuine faith produces inward and outward holiness. The regenerative process inwardly cannot help but find expression in an improved moral character outwardly. Evidence of this change in your life should be obvious to those who know you. Theis doctrine of holiness is grounded in the command to “be holy as God is holy” as found in Leviticus 19:2 and elsewhere in the Old Testament.

            Jesus commanded, “Be perfect therefore as your Father in heaven is perfect” as found in Matthew 5:48. Jesus also taught that true Christian discipleship requires loving God with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving neighbor as self (Mt. 22:34-40). Wesley understood perfection in the theological sense as having to do with maturity of character and ever-increasing love for God. The New Testament word “perfection” translates from a Greek term that means maturity or completion: it does not mean flawlessness.

            Wesley referred to this as “Christian Perfection” but it did not carry with it the idea of excellence, but of maturity.

            In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul addressed this very thing about maturity in both the Believer and in the church. Paul said, “Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. ² I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. ³ You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly?”

            Paul is telling the church in Corinth that he is concerned for them for they are still acting in worldly manners. They were not exhibiting the signs of maturity that Paul was hoping they would have shown by then. Paul explains that when he was with them, he gave them the spiritual milk because they were babes, mere infants in Christ and they were not yet ready for solid food or for meatier teachings about God and Christ.

            But it is obvious from the tone of the passage that Paul did not expect them to remain infants in their faith. Paul desired, as Wesley later taught, that the Christians would grow in their maturity and leave worldly habits behind. Jealousy and quarreling were highlighted as being particularly immature.

            Paul is not saying that we will not have disagreements. Of course we will, but Scripture clearly outlines how we are to handle these disagreements. These instructions are directly from the mouth of Jesus.

            Turn with me to chapter 18 of the Gospel of Matthew. Many of you will be thinking of verse fifteen and following, but we are not going there. That passage has to do with unrepentant sin in the church and not necessarily the sins among those within the church. It can serve as an example of the steps one could use to reconcile. But I want us to look at verse 21 and following for a biblical example of forgiveness among followers of Jesus.

READ MATTHEW 18:21-35

            We see in this parable the example that Jesus lays out for us in dealing with a fellow Believer, a fellow servant in the Kingdom work, and when we have a disagreement with them. Do not lose the point here: this does not refer only to times when we borrow money or goods from one another. This account illustrates that when we hold something against someone, or when we know that they are hurt or upset with something that we have done, we should go to the Brother or Sister and talk with them directly.

            We are not to go to others in the church, or in our circles and talk about this hurt without first seeking to reconcile with the person directly. That is gossip. We can talk to someone else to seek genuine counsel from them. Perhaps we need the insights of another to verify if what we are feeling is truly accurate. But, we are to not just complain about the offending person, we are to seek them out and reconcile with them.

            Peter asked at the start of the pericope, how many times should we forgive someone, seven? Peter thought he was being magnanimous by offering to forgive someone seven times, but Jesus turns Peter’s generosity on its head by proclaiming not seven, but seventy times seven times. The account ends with a dire warning: “³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” If we are not willing to reconcile and forgive one another, the Father will deal with us as He dealt with the ungrateful servant in the account. The Father will fail to show us mercy as well.

            Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus these encouraging words to help them along in their maturing process, “¹¹ So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

            Paul then goes on, “¹⁴ Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. ¹⁶ From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

            Paul not only tells us the proofs that we will see that we are maturing in Christ, “the speaking in love”, “the growing in Christ”, the failure to be tossed back and forth by the waves and blown about by false teaching and deceitful teachers”. Instead, we are to join the body and become an active part in the body, by listening to the God-ordained method of evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

            Paul is telling us that continuity to the biblical examples of the church will keep us maturing in Jesus, as Wesley said, working on our Christian Perfection, living and pursuing a life of holiness, as a method to grow closer to Jesus.

            Let’s go back to the Book of Ezra and look at verses 7 and 8 together.

READ EZRA 3:7-8

            We see some practical examples here of accomplishing sacred work. God chooses to accomplish His goals through the means of ordinary men and women. We see the paying of wages and the hiring of skilled workers to begin the restoration work on the temple. The ordering of supplies such as Cedar logs from the neighboring province of Lebanon that would have also been under the control of King Cyrus.

            The word “authorized” in the NIV has a better translation of it in the ESV where it is translated as “grant” and this brings to mind a more complete concept of the idea behind the word. The word grant here is similar to what we see today when used between levels of government. The grant was not just the approval or permission being granted by Cyrus, it also refers to the payment of the transaction. Just like the Federal government and the Provincial governments both give permission and money to the local government for infrastructure contracts, that is what Cyrus is doing here. Cyrus is not just permitting Lebanon to sell the Cedar to Judah, but Cyrus is also providing the funds with which to pay the Lebanese for their lumber.

            In verse 8, we see the mention of the timeframe for the start of this phase of the project, “the second month”. The mentioning of these facts, the month of the year, (which by the way would have been April-May of our calendar year) and the use of food to pay for the goods, even down to the mention of the port of Joppa where the logs would be floated down from, are all details that are paralleling the building of the first Temple by Solomon.

            We don’t have time to turn to them and read this morning, but the 2 passages listed in the bulletin from 2 Chronicles will show you the parallel. I don’t think that this was just a literary device. I am sure that in order to remain faithful to the Old Ways, the builders would have used the same materials and the same methods, only on a smaller scale as they had a smaller budget and timeframe to work with.

            Remember we saw two weeks ago how King David had begun accumulating the building supplies that Solomon would need, long before Yahweh permitted construction to begin. So there was continuity to the Old Ways, but look at a little further down in verse eight where it mentions the age of Levites that were given responsibility for the work. They are mentioned as being twenty years old and older to do the work, but this was an age that was younger than had be authorized before. In Leviticus, the priests were limited to 35 and older, and King David expanded the age range down to twenty-five in his day, but here we see a lowering to the age of twenty and this may have been due to purely practical reasons. There may have been a shortage of older men to work on the build.

            But look who is mentioned as working together, the laity, the lay people, the working class were present helping (the builders), the priests were also contributing, and finally the Levites were all working in tandem to achieve their goal.

            Look at verse ten to see what they did to celebrate this second important milestone in this journey; They sang and worshipped their God in the familiar ways. Listen, “When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord, as prescribed by David king of Israel.” Stop there for a moment.

            Do you see how King David is referenced here in this passage? “David king of Israel”. This is a very unifying title to be given the leader. Not “King David” which can sound like classism, but David king of Israel, a king for the entire country, a king for all of His people.

            The priests adorned their vestments and with reverence, joy, praise, and thanksgiving, the priests came forward and led the worship of God’s people. Lead them singing from David’s Psalms, one of which Psalms we read together this morning at the start of the service.

            Look in verse 11 how the people responded, “And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD…” But there was not just rejoicing. Verse 12 tells us that, “Many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud…” Many of the older folks wept, they were not joyful, for they were making the comparison of this Temple to the glory of the previous Temple from the days of Solomon.

            There was the beginning of conflict among the group, but we will see in the coming days that there was also conflict coming from outside the community as well. In the coming weeks, we will see why unity within the community is vital for the continuing health of the church. We have enough enemies outside the church, we should strive for unity within the church.

            When a church is working for God and accomplishing things for the advancement of the Kingdom of God, Satan will try and derail the church through conflict. The enemy whispers in our ears sowing seeds of discontentment. He may try and cause trouble between members, he may try and attack family members and use them to derail us. Strife and conflict are the hallmarks of the devil’s work.

            The lack of conflict may be a sign that your church is no threat to Satan at all and he is perfectly willing to leave you as you are, simply bobbing in place and being ineffective.

            Sometimes we will hear things like, “That’s not how we do things around here”, or “We’ve never done it like that before” which are both deadly expressions for a church. Or, “Well, that’s so-and-so’s job, we just let them take care of it” without ever looking to see if the person is doing a good job or not, or if the person is being overwhelmed with the duties.

            What if that person who is doing the work leaves the church and no one else has ever been shown or allowed to do those duties, where does that leave the church? Suddenly we are left scrambling, or perhaps a successful ministry must come to a close. Neither of those options is desirable.

            Look at the final verse in today’s passage, “^No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.” We see Scripture telling us that from a distance, the sounds of pain and the sounds of joy are indistinguishable from each other. The sounds of joyful laughing and sorrowful crying are very similar. From a distance. But, if we are close, if we are familiar with each other, if we are a family, and truly act like one, where we are willing to be vulnerable and let people into our lives to help with the pain and celebrate the joys with us, then we will have people who will truly come alongside and walk with us.

            To be a family, we have to have trust. To have trust, we sometimes have to be willing to be vulnerable with each other. To be open and honest, to be authentic with each other. To be loving and respectful of each other.

            Families disagree from time to time. Family members hurt each other from time to time. Sometimes its unintentional, and sometimes it is sinful and intentional. The immature Christian wants everything to be done their way and in their manner. Like an infant, they desire for things to be done their way. The mature Christian looks to reconcile with those who are separated from them. The mature Christian is willing to put personal preferences aside to achieve common kingdom goals. The mature Christian seeks Scripture to be their guide, not other churches or other Christians.

            So this leads us to our final question. How do we compare biblically? How does our church stack up against the biblical example? Are we following the examples laid out in this passage? Are we doing the practical things like stewarding the money well and investing in the things that are required? Are we paying attention to the strict standards that we see in Scripture? Are we worshipful and grateful for the small milestones that we will accomplish along the way? Are we maturing or seeking to mature as Christians? Are we doing our best to pursue holy living as outlined by John Wesley? Are we meeting our obligations as members of this family? Whatever those obligations are? I don’t know what the Holy Spirit is calling you to do. I know the Spirit is calling you to do something! But I do not know, nor can I tell you what the Spirit is calling for you.

            Obedience is another sign of maturity. We have all seen young children throw a fit in the grocery store when they didn’t feel like listening to their parents. The mature child listens and does what is asked from a sense of love for the parent. How do you feel about your Father in Heaven?

Habakkuk 1:12-2:1 Is It Proper to Question God?

 August 6, 2023

Habakkuk 1:12-2:1 Sermon

From the Series: Habakkuk: A Prophet for Today?

Mountain View Evangelical Missionary Church

Is It Proper to Question God?

Good morning, it is so good to be back with you for another Lord’s Day Service. Thank you for having Marilyn and I back once again.

This morning, I’d like to continue our study of the Book of Habakkuk. We covered the first half of the first chapter last month and just to help you remember, I’ll do a quick recap.

We saw last time that Habakkuk was given a prophecy or an oracle from God. Interestingly, the word in the original Hebrew is massa which we translate here as “oracle”, but it can also be translated as “burden.” We will see as we progress through the book, that this prophecy certainly was a burden for Habakkuk as well as the entire people of Judah.

Something I neglected to mention in the first message was that the events listed in this prophecy were given ahead of time and it took approximately 66 years for all the events to unfold.

We saw that the primary reason for Habakkuk calling out to God was due to the corruption that was happening within Judah and from its rulers. The prophet called out against the violence, destruction, and injustice that the people were experiencing at the hands of their rulers. He felt that Yahweh was not aware of what was going on and that God was ignoring the cries for help from His people.

In the second verse, Habakkuk complains, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” Some commentators claim that this was done in an aggressive and confrontational tone, but I don’t see that here. I think that Habakkuk was using a persistent yet respectful tone when he was addressing the LORD.

Then we see that Yahweh answers, but it was not at all what Habakkuk was expecting. In essence, the LORD tells the prophet, “Look around and truly see and you will be astounded. I am at work already. I have been holding back this little group of miscreants called the Chaldeans, or you may know them as the Babylonians, (think King Nebuchadnezzar) and if you think it is bad now, wait until you get a taste of this bunch. They are a law and a justice unto themselves, they are proud and haughty, and brutal, and they think their own strength is their God. This group worships themselves and their accomplishments as their God.

And we see here, as so often is the case, that God does not act or do things in the way that we think they should be done. So, Habakkuk continues the conversation, but with a bit more respect and conciliation in his tone, and raises a second question.

So, I thought I might start by asking a question of you.

Have you ever had an occasion where things were getting to you, and you started to have some doubts and you cry out to God with a question? Maybe the situation was the unexpected death of a loved one, or maybe you received a devastating diagnosis from your doctor. 

A natural response in our fallen state is to cry out, “Why me Lord? Why is this happening to me?” We are not alone in questioning God. We can find many instances in scripture where people have cried out to God in anguish looking for answers or reasons for the situations that they were facing. On Father’s Day, we saw how Job cried out to God after suffering his loss.

David cried out to God numerous times, and they are recorded in the Psalms he wrote. Many of the prophets also cried out to God, sometimes in anguish over what they saw in their people's behavior. Other times, they cried out from the vision that they had received. When Isaiah received his vision of the LORD God sitting on His throne in all His Glory, Isaiah cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Once Isaiah had been exposed to the wonder and majesty of God, he fully recognized just how sinful he truly was. Isaiah knew that even his mouth was unfit to proclaim God’s truth to God’s people, so in the vision, one of the seraphim flies to him and touches his mouth with a lump of burning coal and proclaims, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” This is a wonderful foreshadowing of the work of Jesus to come.

So, we see from Scripture numerous examples of people crying out to God and asking questions of Him. When we do this in our own lives, we are in good company.

It is possible that these difficult situations could even lead one to begin to question their faith in God. This is exactly the situation that we will see in today’s passage from the Book of Habakkuk. Please turn with me in your bibles to Habakkuk, chapter one and we will pick up the account of Habakkuk in verse 12. Habakkuk 1, verse 12.

READ HABAKKUK 1:12-2:1

PRAY

We see in this passage that the Lord’s answer that Habakkuk had received caused a faith struggle in the prophet. The answer was not what he had expected. God had told Habakkuk that He was going to raise up the Chaldeans, and God was going to use this “bitter and hasty nation” to bring judgment to God’s own people.

Habakkuk believed that the Lord could not tolerate wickedness, yet he noted that evil prospered. A thought that we can share with the prophet from our circumstances today.

We will see that Habakkuk sought an explanation he could pass on to his audience, but none was forthcoming. 

Lord willing, in the future, we will see by the time we get to the end of this book and the end of the conversation between Habakkuk and God, we will see that the prophet realized that the near future would lack visible reasons to believe, leaving only faith in God’s promise. Without immediate, material evidence of God’s love, he would have to say, “Although the fields produce no food … yet I will rejoice in the Lord”.

Let’s look a little closer at the first couple of verses of today’s passage.

READ HABAKKUK 1:12-13a

I think that we should look at this entire passage, the passage that some of your Bibles will mark with the heading “Habakkuk’s Second Complaint”, not simply as a complaint issued against God, but rather as a prayer offered up to God. A lament if you will. A lament is a type of prayer that one offers up to God while suffering. We see from this passage that the prophet fully expects to receive a response.

With that thought in mind that this is indeed a prayer, let’s see how the prophet begins his prayer. It is offered up with reverence and respect. It almost seems like Habakkuk is backpedaling a little after receiving the answer from God that he did.

Habakkuk starts with the recognition of some of God’s attributes, “Are you not from everlasting…” This is an attribute that the Bible speaks of often throughout the Old and New Testaments in various forms. Yahweh is the everlasting God (Isaiah 40:28), the everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6). He is described as an everlasting King (Jeremiah 10:10), and Redeemer (Isaiah 63:16). 

The Lord is a God of everlasting kindness (Isaiah 54:8), everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3), and everlasting mercy (Psalm 100:5; 103:17) who has established an everlasting covenant with His people (Hebrews 13:20). His kingdom is everlasting (2 Peter 1:11), as is His salvation (Psalm 45:17).

Everlasting does not just refer to the God that will exist into the future, but it also refers to the God that has existed from all eternity. The God that was before time and creation began. That’s the mighty God that Habakkuk was addressing and that is the same mighty God that we serve today. God does not change, and if we are entirely honest, God’s created people do not change either.

Of course, societies and civilizations come and go. Empires rise and fall, but people in our core, have not really changed. Technology and tools have made our work easier and made us more productive, but our combative and disobedient will remains. 

The great Christian writer C.S. Lewis had an expression he called “chronological snobbery”.  He defined it as this, “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate of our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited”. In other words, whatever we do today, and whatever belief we accept today, is the correct one, and whatever was believed in the past must be incorrect because it has been replaced by our superior belief system. The “snobbery” comes from the fact that we believe that ours is the correct belief. It is correct simply because we believe it. 

Societies decline because morals change, and what we call sin, becomes more readily accepted by culture. In our sophistication, we turn our backs on the very foundational teachings that allowed society to flourish in the first place. 

But Scripture tells us that God doesn’t change, only the people’s attitudes towards Him change. We see examples in the Old Testament of Israel and her people turning their backs on God and His Laws time and time again, and God must bring judgment on them in an attempt to bring His beloved people back to Him.

And before you fall prey to chronological snobbery, take a good look around at our present-day circumstances and try to explain to me how we, here in Canada, are any different from the Israelites in the day of Habakkuk.

Now back to verse 12, we see the prophet mention another attribute of God. “My Holy One”. So, not only is God everlasting, but He is also Holy. The word Holy when used as an attribute of God is defined as “the moral and ethical wholeness or perfection; freedom from moral evil.” So that is the definition of the word Holy when used as an adjective to describe God. 

Holiness is the verb form of the word Holy. Holiness is the action word and holiness is not just reserved for God. Holiness is one of the essential elements of God’s nature that is required of His people. We are required to pursue holiness in our lives, as followers of Jesus Christ.

Holiness may also be described as “sanctification” or “godliness.” The Hebrew word for “holy” denotes that which is “sanctified” or “set apart” for divine service. The Bible is clear that God’s people are called to be holy and to pursue holiness.

Exodus 19:5-6 states, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.” These were direct instructions from God to Moses, for God’s people.

After being freed from slavery in Egypt, God continues with His instruction to His people to show them that they were now “sanctified” or, set apart by God, for God… and they were no longer to act like the people from the surrounding cultures. In Leviticus 20:23 God instructs His people, “And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.”

Now, I know what some of you are thinking, “Yeah but, Paul, that is the Old Testament, and we now live in a time of Grace. C’mon man get with the times, we don’t have to do those things now. Stop being so picky!”

Fair enough. That is the Old Testament. We do live in a time of Grace. We have a new covenant found in the New Testament. Do you understand what that covenant is? 

Jesus, who is God from time everlasting, came to earth. Born of a virgin, Jesus took on human form in addition to His deity. Jesus did not just come into existence 2,000 years ago. Jesus took on human form. He was fully human and fully God. In time past, before Jesus was on earth, he agreed with the Father, to voluntarily lay aside some of His divine abilities to become the perfect and sinless human substitution for God’s wrath.

Jesus taught the Apostles, and through them and through His Word, the Bible, Jesus teaches us today how we may attain this Salvation. Jesus and the Father produced a way to repair the broken relationship between mankind and God. A relationship that was broken between the Creator and His creation, when original man disobeyed God while they were still in the Garden as recorded in Genesis chapter 3.

According to John 10:11 in the words of Jesus, He said of Himself, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus laid down His life as a penal substitution for us and satisfied the wrath of God that was due to us. He laid down His life through His death on a Roman cross, was buried in a borrowed tomb, and then three days later, Jesus picked up His life again and was resurrected. The resurrected Christ is the one that wants a personal relationship with you. You are the reason that He went to the Cross. I am the reason that He went to the Cross. It was my sin and your sin that required the sacrifice of Jesus to lay down His life for us.

Now do you understand what He has done for you? Now that you understand, let me ask you a question, “Do you love Jesus?” I would like you to understand what Jesus has accomplished for you so that you may find His joy and His peace in your relationship with Him.

That is the new covenant that is proclaimed in the New Testament. Now, a covenant is a legal agreement between two parties, like a contract but even more binding. God is the one party in the agreement and we, His people are the second party.

God is the primary mover and shaker in this agreement, He is the initiator, and the bulk of the responsibility falls on His shoulders. Since He is the initiator and the Creator, He gets to set the terms of this agreement. Jesus carries the load, as the Hymn says, “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe”.

What do we “owe” Jesus? We owe Him our obedience. Again, let me ask you, “Do you love Jesus?” Jesus challenges us directly with this question found in John’s Gospel. In John 14:15 Jesus asks his disciples, and by extension, He asks each one of us that calls ourselves a follower of Jesus, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

We are called by Jesus to be holy, to pursue holiness, not from a sense of trying to earn something, …for Christ has already given us the gift of Grace through His sacrifice, …but we obey because we love Him.

Holiness was not just an Old Testament quest. The Apostle Peter in his epistle 1 Peter 1:14-16 implores the followers of Jesus to be, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

The Apostle Paul also calls us to obedience through love, through the love of others. In 1 Thessalonians 3:12 and 13 Paul writes, “…and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” 

Through love for one another, we pursue holiness, we grow in our sanctification, to become more like Jesus. Obedience is holiness. 

That was the definition of a Holy God, and the requirements that a Holy God asks of His people, the pursuit of holiness in their lives. That was the God that Habakkuk was addressing. He was making known to God that he was aware of exactly who God was.

But in verse 12 Habakkuk reminds God of a promise that Yahweh made to His people, specifically to the father of the Nation of Israel, Abraham. Just to make sure that you all are still awake out there, turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis 17:5-8.

READ GENESIS 17:5-8

This is the promise that Habakkuk is reminding God that He made to His people starting with the patriarch Abraham. That God had established an everlasting covenant. There is that word “everlasting” again. Habakkuk is not claiming divine protection from death for each individual in Judah. How can he, we all die! The promise that Habakkuk is clinging to is that God will not let His people be wiped from the face of the earth. That Yahweh will protect a remnant of His people and be in an everlasting covenant with them.

Let’s pick up the account back in Habakkuk Chapter 1. 

PAUSE

Look with me at the second half of verse 12. Habakkuk continues in his prayer to the LORD, “ O Lord, you have ordained them”, them being the Chaldeans that He is going to let loose on Judah. “…you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.” 

A couple of things here: The word “Rock” is often used figuratively to refer to God as Creator, a refuge, the sustainer, and as a symbol of God’s strength. Second, we see Habakkuk recognizing that the Chaldeans will be a legitimate judgment on Judah and well within God’s right to do so. Reproof is another word for reprimand or correction, and scripture is clear in several places that God has a right to rebuke us when we sin, and we are also to rebuke fellow Christians when we see them caught in sin. 

Leviticus 19:17 instructs us, “‘Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt.” Scripture makes it seem that not correcting your brother’s or sister’s sinful behavior would be the equivalent of hating them. I know this thought really upsets our modern-day sensibilities. We are told to just mind our own business, but that is not what God’s Word instructs us to do. Corrections must be made with gentleness and respect, and Mathew chapter 18 lays out the whole proper procedure to do the correction.

Some of us even reject the correction when it comes from God! We find ways to justify our guilty behavior by saying things like, “That law doesn't apply today .” or, “We are under Grace now, so I don’t have to worry about that”. These lies that we tell ourselves and tell others really are detrimental to our walk with Christ. As I said earlier, holiness is obedience, and we are called to be holy.

Look at verse 13 with me. READ Habakkuk 1:13

We see the prophet challenging God’s behavior trying to use God’s own attributes against Him. Of course, the statement that god “cannot look at wrong” is a misapplication of the concept of God’s eyes. First off, this is what is known as anthropomorphism, which is the application of human physical traits to a spirit being such as God. God is spirit, so He has no literal eyes. Second, this statement fails to recognize two other important attributes of God, namely that He is all-knowing and omnipresent. God cannot help but look at the evil of this world, because of his omniscience and omnipresence. Where could God possibly go to escape the presence of evil?

But this is a ruse, a false premise being established by the prophet so that Habakkuk can repeat his question from verse three, “Why Lord?” Habakkuk’s second set of questions rephrases, intensifies, and expands the original question in light of the new information given in Yahweh’s response. The key question of the chapter (and the book) is asked in both sets: “Why do you tolerate wrong?” (1:3b), and “You cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?” (1:13b).

Others have asked the same or similar questions of God in the Bible. People from Job to the psalmist as well as the prophets Jeremiah and Malachi. So, if you have asked God similar questions, you are in good company.

In verse 14 and following, Habakkuk goes on to use the sea and a fishing metaphor for the impending chaos that the Chaldeans are going to bring upon Judah.

READ HABAKKUK 1:14-15

The hook, the net, and the dragnet are all used in fishing for various purposes. The hook is used to catch a single fish, and the net or gill net, which is probably what is meant here, is used to catch specific species of fish based on the size of the openings in the net. Smaller fish slip through the net, while larger fish simply bounce off and swim away. A dragnet is an indiscriminate method of fishing, and it ensnares everything large and small that falls within its reach.

Interestingly enough, all three of these techniques and tools have been shown to be used in ancient warfare. Cave paintings have shown hooks and nets being used against one’s enemies in times of war. The dragnet would have been a terrifying image for the hearers of this prophecy, the thought that everything in the path of the Chaldeans would be swept up and carried off by them into captivity. And of course, we know from history that this is exactly what happened, and it is referred to as the Babylonian exile.

Look at verse 16 with me.

READ Habakkuk 1:16

“He sacrifices to his net”. The prophet is of course referring to the Chaldeans and their army. What he is saying here is that the Chaldeans were worshipping their own strength. We make sacrifices to, or for, the things that we make into idols in our lives. It may be an object, like a car or a house, or it may be a sport like hockey, football, or golf. Maybe it's your job or your business or farm? Not that these things are bad by themselves, but when they take the place of priority over God in our lives, we have turned them into an idol.

When we think of the word “Idol” what comes to mind is the image of a wooden, stone, or metal statue that we bow down to. That’s one definition. Another definition is the things to which we make sacrifices.

Billy Graham is credited with saying, “Give me five minutes with a man’s checkbook, and I will tell you where their heart is”. Today, I would say, “Show me your bank statement and your Google calendar and I can tell you where your priorities lie.” We may not make blood sacrifices to the idols in our lives, but we do sacrifice our time and money to the things that are important to us.

Another form of idolatry is fashioning the God of the Bible into a god of our own making. When we pick and choose which teachings we will obey, or when we ignore certain attributes of God, we are not worshipping the One True God, but rather we are worshipping an idol of our making. A god that bows to us instead of the other way around. 

When we teach that God is only love and ignore His Holy and Just aspects of His being, then we are worshipping an idol. When we live our lives ignoring the coming judgment, we are worshipping an idol. When we ignore the clear teachings found in the Bible and contort God’s Word to fit cultural ideas rather than having culture bend the knee to God’s teachings, we are worshipping an idol, a god of our own making, a false and pagan god, just like the Chaldeans.

Habakkuk is confirming what the LORD said back in verse 11 when He was describing the Chaldeans. “…guilty men, whose own might is their god!”. 

But look at the second half of verse 16, who can blame them for worshipping their tools of war and their own strength, for the bible says, “for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich.” For many that is all that matters in this world, right? Results. What will it get me?

Look with me at the final verse of chapter one.

READ HABAKKUK 1:17

Habakkuk asks one final question of God. It is a version of every lament, “How long, O LORD, how long?” Habakkuk is trying to confirm with God that there will be an end to the carnage. 

This is a legitimate question. The thing that we forget, and while we are in the middle of the suffering it is easy to forget, that “this too shall pass”. Empires come and go. Conquering armies are in turn defeated or simply return home. While suffering will always be with us, individual trials will come and go.

Now there is an unfortunate chapter break here because the first verse of chapter 2 actually belongs with chapter one because it is the ending of the lamenting prayer from Habakkuk.

READ HABAKKUK 2:1

Habakkuk finishes his prayer to Yahweh with a statement of submission to God’s authority.

“I will station myself on the tower and look out to see what He will say to me”. That is the proper way to submit questions to the LORD. Acknowledging that we will wait on Him for the answers.

CONCLUSION

At the beginning of this passage today we saw that Habakkuk was processing the shock of the news. We heard it also in his statement of incredulity, “We will not die!”. Immediately, however, he said that he believes Yahweh concerning the Babylonians: “You have appointed … you have ordained” (1:12b). In one verse Habakkuk progressed from incredulity to acknowledgment of the facts through his trust and knowledge of Yahweh. Even though Jerusalem will be captured, and God’s people exiled, they will survive as a people, for God is a Rock of refuge. “We will not die” becomes a cry of hope for the future.

Habakkuk raised objections that we also echo today. Both he and we realize that we don’t like the world we see or the world as God describes it. Our implied question to God is twofold: (1) “Why don’t you destroy the wicked?” or at least don’t sanction their success; (2) “Why do the wicked exist at all?” Be careful with the second question. We tend to think of evil as being on a sliding scale, but to God, all sin is wicked and detestable. We are there on that scale somewhere.

Questions and lament are part of a believer’s burden, and honest dialogue with God is a necessary form of relationship with him. Lamentation and questioning are God’s gifts to the believer. They provide a pathway of honest faith and faithful conversation with him in horrible times. One-third of the Psalms are prayers/songs of lament.

Jesus himself lamented faithfully to the Father from the cross, using the words of Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. Like Habakkuk, Jesus models for us the possibility of being honest with God about our situations through lament without guilt.

Habakkuk’s protest is faithful and inspired because it is done out of the conviction that God is good all the time, even in death and dying.

Habakkuk implies that he knows God has made the world and people “like fish in the sea.” The real problem is that he doesn’t like it, not that he doesn’t understand it. Let me repeat that, the real problem is that he doesn’t like it, not that he doesn’t understand it. God’s world gives the wicked and the violent too much freedom. Isn’t that truly the reason why we reject some of God’s teachings? It’s not that we don’t understand it, it’s that we don’t like it or like the fact that we must submit to it. When we pick and choose like that, we are placing ourselves in a position of judging God. We can question Him; we have no authority to judge Him.

Who here hasn't struggled with questions regarding God or the circumstances that we find ourselves in? In these times of struggle, we must ask ourselves, "Why do we worship The Father?” Just because he gives us good things, or because of who He is and the salvation He has given us?

Times of trouble may test our faith and our relationship with God. 

I want to leave you with a couple of definitions of faith from a couple of famous Christians. I mentioned C.S. Lewis earlier and here is how he defined faith, “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

And finally, the early church Father Augustine said, “Faith is to believe what you do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.”

I implore you to place your faith in who God is and His unchanging nature and not in the circumstances that you may find yourself in.

PRAY