Introduction

This morning, we want to focus our attention on part two of God’s response to this second lament of Habakkuk. Just to summarise for you briefly, in Habakkuk 1:1-11, we considered Habakkuk’s first lament, his first complaint to God about all that he was experiencing. We found a man deeply troubled by the godlessness and the wickedness in the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

Remember, for instance, that it was only by the Lord’s sovereign intervention that Judah, the Southern Kingdom of Israel, had not been exiled with the Northern Kingdom when the Assyrians conquered and took them away. The king of Judah at the time of that Assyrian invasion was Hezekiah. In 2 Kings 19:14-19, we read about Hezekiah’s prayer to the Lord that staved off the exile. Hezekiah prayed to the Lord and said: "Lord, the God of Israel enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, Lord, and see. Listen to the words that Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God." And further down, he said: "Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord, are God."

The Lord answered Hezekiah’s prayer in the most remarkable way. The Southern Kingdom was not exiled because of his prayer. The Scriptures tell us in 2 Kings 19:35: "Then it happened that night that the angel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead." So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. God answered the prayer of the righteous king; He heard his cry and staved off the attack.

Sennacherib of Assyria had already begun his advance on Jerusalem, and God through Isaiah told Hezekiah that their only hope was in the Lord, and so he prayed. In archaeology, we have discovered Assyrian records of the invasion of the Holy Land. These are the words of the Assyrians: "As for him", that is Hezekiah, "I confined him inside the city of Jerusalem, his royal city, like a bird in a cage. I set up blockades against him and made him dread exiting his city gate." But when all was lost, when the conqueror was on the doorstep, God intervened according to the prayer of the king.

Habakkuk’s time, the context that we are in, is some one hundred years later. Sadly, the goodness of God in sparing Judah has been repaid with escalating evil. Habakkuk is now crying out. He feels like his prayer is not being answered as Hezekiah’s was. The law is disregarded; violence and injustice pervade life in Judah.

We considered God’s first response to the prophet. We learned that the Lord was going to bring judgment against Jerusalem through the Babylonians. Enough was enough. But then we saw that Habakkuk struggled with that answer, understandably. He thought to himself: "How could a holy God, whose eyes are too pure to look upon evil, use a wicked, pagan nation?"

Last week, we considered God’s first response to that objection. He instructs Habakkuk, and you and me, that He can and will use the evil of man for His own purpose, but it is for His righteous to remain faithful to Him unconditionally in a broken world. That is the lesson of the book of Habakkuk.

That was part one. Now this morning, we come to part two of God’s response, as God unleashes a series of woes here in the remainder of the chapter, five, to be exact, which sound as sirens to the world, to all who will hear these words. Habakkuk had brought his protest and said, in essence: "God, I thought You were holy. How can You raise up the wicked against Your own people?" God says to Habakkuk: "I am holy, and here will be the fate of all the unrepentant wicked. Woe be unto them."

Now we ask the question: what is a woe here? We read the word "woe" five times in the remainder of this chapter. What is a woe? In prophetic literature, a woe is most often a judicial indictment pronouncing divine judgment on a person, a nation, or a people. A woe of God in Scripture expresses the divine mind with respect to the evil that is in men’s hearts and actions. These are the natural impulses of a holy God against all that is unholy. Woes are the just disposition of a God who is perfectly just and without sin.

There is a sense in which we must speak carefully and reverently about the judgment and the woes of God upon our fallen race. Isaiah said of the reality of God’s judgments that "Sheol from beneath is excited over you to meet you when you come." In other words, nothing is so real and so pervasive as the judgments of God upon a fallen world. Nothing is coming so swiftly upon mankind than judgment, unless they be saved through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

These woes, in a way, are very much a comfort and a reassurance to Habakkuk, because God is confirming that His stance against the wickedness Habakkuk sees is unchanging. These are timeless woes in a real sense. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says of this portion: "The five woes recorded in this chapter are true not only with respect to the Chaldeans, but as a universal principle in history. Everything that is evil is under the judgment of God."

This section of woes divides naturally into two cycles. The heading I have for the first cycle, in vv. 6-14, is "Woes for Violence".

Woes for Violence

Habakkuk was not the only prophet to foresee the Lord’s coming judgment upon Babylon. In Jeremiah 50:23, the prophet refers to the Chaldeans as "the hammer of the whole earth". But that is not a compliment, because the next thing Jeremiah says is that they are "an object of horror among the nations". You see, when you live in God’s world, your aspiration at a national level should never be to be known as the hammer of the whole earth, because God will come after such a nation.

These first three woes especially condemn the violent. The first woe, in vv. 6-8, speaks against the man of evil gain. This is a condemnation against the unjust gain of the violent Chaldean king, and a promise that God is going to turn his exploits upon his own head. Notice in verse 6 that it talks about loans that have been given out: "who makes himself rich with loans", the text says. Babylon took no loans; rather, this is the sarcasm of God. They plundered every nation in the cities that they conquered, and God treats it like a loan that must be paid back. He is saying: "Soon your creditors will come knocking. Those whom you have trodden down will rise up against you in time."

This is the same principle that Jesus articulated in Matthew 26: all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. Look at Habakkuk 2:8: "Because you have looted many nations, all the remainder of the peoples will loot you." God never lies, friends. He never lies. This word was fulfilled a generation later. The great armies and the city of Babylon fell to the Medo-Persian forces of Cyrus in 539 BC. Great Babylon lasted barely a generation. Those whom they had formerly conquered then rose up and conquered them in return. In Daniel 5:30, we read: "That same night, Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was slain."

Dear friends, God will not be mocked. Our Creator is a God of great and exacting vengeance upon the wicked. No one gets away with anything in the end. When the blood of the innocent is spilled, He will have His vengeance, and the scales will all be balanced. In Galatians 6:7, it says: "Whatever a man sows, he will also reap."

In the opening of Genesis, you will be familiar that when the blood of Abel was spilled onto the ground by his brother Cain, God said to Cain: "The blood of your brother is crying out to me from the ground." In other words, God sees when the innocent fall. The same is true today. God hates the murderer, the man of bloodshed. The psalmist tells us that God’s bow is bent against the wicked; He has made the hellfire hot, and He will have every bit of divine retribution that is owed to Him for the wickedness of man.

Think of Haman in the book of Esther, the man who thought himself untouchable. He built a great gallows into the sky to hang the man that he hated, Mordecai the Jew. And what did God do? He reversed his wickedness on his own head, and Haman was hanged on the very gallows that he had built for Mordecai. God turns wickedness on its head. Psalm 7:15-16 says: "He has dug a pit and hollowed it out and has fallen into the hole which he has made. His mischief will return upon his own head, and his violence will descend upon his own pate."

See also the second woe, in vv. 9-11. God says: "Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to put his nest on high to be delivered from the hand of calamity." The Babylonian kings sought to build for themselves a lasting dynasty, a safe haven that could not be touched, like Cain, who after killing his own brother founded a city after the name of his son to multiply his own name. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was no different; he tried to make his city impenetrable. Archaeology tells us that the city walls of Babylon were forty metres thick, built to be impenetrable by any army. Many of the bricks of the city were stamped with Nebuchadnezzar’s name and his royal title; many of them are in the British Museum today. He was trying to build a dynasty for his own name.

Obadiah prophesied the same judgment: "The arrogance of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in the loftiness of your dwelling place, who say in your heart, 'Who will bring me down to earth?'" It is all pride and vanity, thinking oneself untouchable by God. Look at Habakkuk 2:11: "Surely the stone will cry out from the wall and the rafter will answer it from the framework." As Babylon conquered other cities and nations, they plundered and built with the resources extracted from the conquered. In this way, God says that the stones you have stolen, the rafters from the trees that you have cut down in other lands to build your own cities, will cry out for vengeance.

The teaching point, of course, is that you cannot fortify your life against God. Every evil dictator who has come and gone through generations past thought himself untouchable, fortifying himself. But there is no place you can hide, no bunker you can build, no amount of money that can make you untouchable. Our lives and our destinies are in the hand of God.

The third woe begins in verse 12. It condemns the city built with bloodshed and promises warmongering nations that they will meet their doom eventually. There are thousands of years of application and examples on this point. I think of Hitler, who sought to build the thousand-year reich, a lasting dynasty, a supremacy to spread the power of Germany into the world and through Europe. Where is that vision now? God swiftly humbled the exultant.

I by no means want to say that Ukraine is somehow an innocent, saintly nation without corruption, but nonetheless, Vladimir Putin’s warmongering will guarantee that God holds him to account. I would not wish to be that man on the day he gives account for his expansionist, warmongering policies, which have claimed the lives of thousands of men from his own nation and that of another, lives forfeited, and for what? God says: "Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed." God condemns such actions, and their reckoning will come.

Verse 13 says: "Is it not indeed from the Lord of hosts that peoples toil for fire and nations grow weary for nothing?" Again, as we have seen, this is the sarcasm of God. All that nations of war will gain is fire, since in time the cities they built by plunder will be burnt to the ground by another. All for what?

What do we learn here? The lesson for us, brothers and sisters, is a reminder that God cannot and will not allow evil to go unpunished. He wants us to know that He has defined the house rules for His world; the house rules for His world belong to God. In 2015, the F1 superstar Lewis Hamilton, a multiple-time world champion in Formula One, had an invitation to sit in Wimbledon’s Royal Box to watch the tennis final. But he missed out because, when he arrived, he was denied entry for failing to meet the dress standard. He failed to meet the house rules. Friends, God has set the house rules in His world, and He will exact His vengeance upon the violation of those rules. Time and time again in His Word, we read of His judgments and of His call for man to repent. We must each be prepared to meet our Maker, and we must be found standing in the grace that is in Jesus Christ, the only One who can spare us from the judgment, who came down that we might be saved.

The application of this first point takes us straight to the gospel of Jesus Christ, doesn't it? Recall with me that one of the great themes we have seen in Habakkuk is that God can and will harness the wickedness of man for His own righteous purposes, and He will judge man for his evil. Here, God is reminding the Chaldeans and Judah that evil will not have the last word. They will not continually slay the nations without sparing, because God has not lost His grip.

When we look at the cross of Christ, we can see just that. In the most undeniable way, God proved Himself sovereign in the lives and destinies of men. Satan must have thought he had won the day at the cross of Christ. Think about it: he inspired Judas to betray Jesus; he inspired the Sanhedrin to revolt against Him, and the mob to cry out, "Crucify, crucify!" Pilate felt apathetic; justice was not going to be served. Herod made a mockery of Christ. They released Barabbas and killed the Son of God. Nails were driven through His hands and His feet; He was dead. The soldier pierced His side to confirm, and water and blood flowed from His side. God has lost the war; Satan must have thought, "I have had the victory here over the Christ."

And yet the centurion said, "Surely this man was the Son of God," as he watched Him die. Then they discovered that the veil of the temple had been torn from top to bottom, and many of the dead were raised and seen and witnessed. The demons must have reeled, and Satan wondered. Then, as the third-day sun broke through, the angel descended, the stone was rolled away, and Christ emerged from the grave. Evil and the judgments of God are not the final word for our race, my dear friends, because death has been defeated for all who believe. God has shown Himself capable of harnessing evil and bringing judgment upon it. The most wicked thing that has ever happened in this world occurred at the cross of Christ.

Look at the end of this first cycle of woes in verse 14. Look at what God says next: "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." It is not man’s glory that deserves centre stage, but God’s. The exultant, self-glorifying Babylonians must see that. Some, such as Calvin, see this as referring to God being glorified as the downfall of Babylon is foretold and feared. There is an aspect of that, but more likely we have here a statement of the eschatological intent of God, the big picture, the view of God and His glory and knowledge coming upon all the world. In other words, this is where we are going to end up eventually; this is where the world is heading, with the glory and the knowledge of God consuming the world over.

This will ultimately be fulfilled at the return of Jesus Christ. The idea underlying God’s glory filling the whole earth is that there will be no room for rival glories, no room for self-exalted man. All human efforts to exalt ourselves and leave a name for ourselves must be destroyed. The glory of God filling the earth is the creational goal. Scripture foreshadows this coming cosmic state throughout: we read of His glory filling the tabernacle, and of His glory filling the temple, the meeting place between the human and the divine. But the goal was much larger: that the world would be His temple, and the church, His present temple, would multiply and fill the earth with His glory. Psalm 72:19 says: "And blessed be his glorious name forever, and may the whole earth be filled with his glory." Isaiah 59:19, which Habakkuk is citing and developing, says: "So they will fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun."

The very reason that Israel as a politico-spiritual entity existed was that the light of God’s glory and knowledge would be made known to the nations. Their failure followed Adam’s failure, but Jesus has done the work necessary for the fulfilment of that vision. As Gregory Beale says, "the spread of knowledge will be completed by Christ Himself at His final return." This is the grand goal of creation in Habakkuk 2:14.

As an application here, just think: if this is the direction of creation, where is the direction of your life heading? With the years that God has appointed for you to have left, what is the trajectory? Who are you living for? What is your orientation? Is it an orientation for self, or is it an orientation that the whole earth might be filled with the glory and the knowledge of God? Because that is the goal; that is where we are going. He has given you life; He has loved you in Christ. Do not waste your life on yourself with whatever time you have left. In the end, all that will matter is what legacy we leave for Christ. Only what we do for Him shall last. Orientate your work, your business, your retirement, all of these things, and aim them for glory.

The fulfilment of this vision is perhaps best stated in 2 Thessalonians 1:10, where Paul, speaking of Christ, says: "when he comes to be glorified in his saints on that day and to be marvelled at among all who have believed, for our testimony to you was believed." Beautiful. Pray, friends, that you might catch a vision of what shall be someday, and let it inform you each day how you ought to live.

Woes For Vain Glory

Let us move on to the second cycle of woes: "Woes for vain glory", in vv. 15-20. In these last two woes, God warns the immoral, and He warns the idolater. I use the title "vain glory" because if you look at the end of verse 16, the Lord says that an utter disgrace will come upon their glory. Likely, again, this refers to Babylon. But what is their glory here? As we have seen, this is the sarcasm of God. Their uncovering of people’s nakedness is a way of dishonouring people. The Babylonians were known to get people drunk enough to manipulate them and compromise them in degrading ways. Their glory, therefore, is what they do to pleasure themselves, what they do with their power, and it is a false glory. It is a vain glory, and it will end in their utter ruin and shame.

It will be the same for all who practise such things. Perverse immorality dominates our world more than we even know, but God knows. All who practise immorality are under the judgment of God. Verse 16 says: "You will be filled with disgrace rather than honour. Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness. The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you."

Capture the idea here of just how powerful this language of the cup in the Lord’s right hand is. In the Bible, when we read of the Lord’s cup in His hand, it means His holy judgments are impending. It is the cup of divine justice, wrath, and indignation in view. Listen to the way it is used in Revelation 14:10: "He also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb."

Friends, do you know where else in the New Testament we learn of the cup of the Lord’s anger? It is in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night that our Lord Jesus was betrayed. Jesus prayed that night: "Father, if it is possible, allow this cup to pass from Me." And yet He surrendered to the Father’s purpose: "Yet not as I will, but as You will." What was in the cup that Jesus spoke of? It was God’s judgments against Rhys’ immorality, against Rhys’ idolatry. It was against your idolatry and your sin. That was what was in the cup passing before Christ as He was made a curse for sinners. Christ, the spotless One, became sin for us. He took that cup and He drank it down to its dregs, and the Father’s judgment fell upon the Son that it might pass over us. Humanity will be made to drink of this cup themselves if Christ has not drunk it for them.

Look at this final woe now. Here, God shows Himself against man’s idolatry; the Lord attacks idolatry. The chief god that the Babylonians worshipped had the name Marduk, commonly known as Bel, which means "lord". The idols of man are no gods. Habakkuk calls these man-made idols "teachers of lies". They do not communicate the truth of God at all. As David Prior says, they are "tools of Satan, the father of lies, and are therefore spiritually highly charged and very dangerous".

There are perhaps few sins of man more reprehensible than idolatry, especially that form of idolatry which takes something created and forms it into something to be worshipped. Idolatry saturates our world to this day. In Western nations, it largely takes different forms, but in many parts of the world and cultures that have had less exposure to Christianity, their idolatry is merely a developed form of what people have always done through human history: bowing down to things they have made. If anyone has travelled to India, you will understand this especially. Instead of worshipping the Creator, they make gods from wood and stone, overlay them with gold and silver, and worship the creature rather than the Creator, as Paul says in Romans 1. Idolatry is satanic; it is demonic, and God will judge the idolater.

I am reminded of that scene in 1 Kings 18 where Elijah mocked them at noon and said: "Call out with a loud voice, for he is a god! Either he is occupied or gone aside, or is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and needs to be awakened." He mocked the pagan worship of false gods. The gods of man are no gods at all. There is but one God.

We learn about Him here as we conclude in verse 20. At the end of these woes, we get a glimpse of God Himself: "But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him." This final verse feeds into the purpose for which Habakkuk was given: that it is always sensible to trust God unconditionally. Why? Because the Lord is in His holy temple. In other words, He is enthroned in heaven. He is all-powerful, all-sovereign. He is the giver of life, the taker of life; blessed be His name. Let all the earth be silent before Him.

To fall silent before One enthroned in this way communicates that we should contemplate, surrender, trust, and worship this God only. Our silence is a necessary response as we hear of His woes and judgments, which are terrifying. May we all be found in grace this morning. May we be standing in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only One in whom we can be spared the impending judgments of God. Let us pray.