Word of Salvation – Vol. 54 No.7 – January 2009
God Has the Last Word
A Sermon by Rev John Zuidemaon Habakkuk 2:5-17
Text: Habakkuk 2:5-17 (Sermon 4 of 6, on Habakkuk)
Scripture Readings: Habakkuk 2:5-17; Psalm 140
Suggested singing: BoW 170; 139a; 329; 188; 509
Beloved people of the Lord.
Sometimes when evil seems to reign and it is replaced with even more evil, we question whether God has things in hand. I guess in some ways that is what Habakkuk is doing, albeit not in as many words.
He has seen evil and corruption in his own land and wonders why God doesn’t do something. And then God tells him that He is going to raise up an even more wicked nation to punish his own people. God’s answer raises some questions, not only in Habakkuk’s mind, but also in ours, because we also see the evil and corruption in this world and the perplexing problem that they seem to not only get away with it, but live in luxury to boot!
Well before we despair, God answers Habakkuk’s questions and no doubt a few of our own and may it encourage us. In our text God shows Habakkuk and us the ultimate end of evil and he does so by using five taunts, mentioned in verses 6, 9, 12, 15 and 19. Today we look at the first four.
It may seem that those who are evil and puffed up, whose desires are not upright, have the last word; but be assured it will not last forever (vs 4). God will have the last word. Yes, God is going to use the Babylonians to punish his people for their wickedness, but afterwards, he will also punish the Babylonians for their wickedness. He will have the last word and not the wicked Babylonians!
God knows the Babylonians are wicked. He knows that they are arrogant and full of pride and who trust in their own strength. And He knows that they are often fuelled by alcohol and never at rest. Verse 5 actually mentions the false courage and energy that drunkenness creates.
We see it on TV when drunken youth attack police at schoolies events or on New Year’s Eve. We saw it with this Corey character in Melbourne who had a drunken party for his five hundred friends. We see it at sporting ventures on occasions. It’s nothing new! We see it in Scripture. On the night king Belshazzar of Babylon was killed, he had been carousing with his nobles at a banquet (Daniel 5). They mocked God by drinking out of the vessels brought from the temple of God. Then the hand of God appeared and wrote on the wall and that ended the mockery of God.
Babylon along with their arrogant kings are not going to have the last word in history. God has the last word! The Babylonians may be powerful and mighty but not all powerful and not almighty.
Notice that all the taunts in Habakkuk 2 begin with the word “woe” and they describe the crimes of the Babylonians. The first crime is theft and excessive bloodshed in verses 6-8 and I paraphrase, “Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! Will not your debtors suddenly arise… and make you tremble?” Verse 8 – For you have shed man’s blood – they have destroyed everything!
Well says God, “Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn?” (vs 6). In other words, a day is coming when the nations the Babylonians have plundered will stand and mock the fierce oppressor!
The conquering Babylonian army crushed their foes and stole their belongings. And those who are plunged into debt were left helpless with no one to turn to. But here, God gives them hope by saying that the “debtors will suddenly arise. Will they not wake up?” (vs 7). “Absolutely! Yes!” is the implied answer.
The crime of theft is as old as mankind. Not a week, not even a day goes by when someone somewhere doesn’t complain of being robbed. When the floods were inundating towns in Queensland in 2008, police had to deal with thieves. My son worked in a hardware store, and almost everyday somebody would steal or try to steal something, even power drills and chainsaws. You hear the warnings in big stores. They have a special code that warns their staff to keep an eye on a certain section where someone is seen behaving in a suspicious manner.
The Babylonians used their God-given power to go way beyond God’s will, but a day of reckoning will come! The Babylonians will be their victim! They will be summoned to give account and there will be no escape.
The Babylonians were guilty of excessive bloodshed. Their cruelty was horrific. Defeated kings had to watch while their sons were killed and then their own eyes were removed! They destroyed everything and everyone in their path!
In verses 9-11 we have a similar theme of unjust gain. Because of their corruption and extortion, the Babylonians live in luxury and in their fortified castles surrounded by their protective armies while everything else lies in ruin.
There is nothing new under the sun. Corruption from crime and drugs and other extortion rackets are rife. Think of the leaders in impoverished countries like Sudan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, and former President Suharto – and there are many others – who have stolen revenue from the people for their own private gain. And while they do so, they themselves live in palaces protected by private armies, seemingly free from the law while their own people remained impoverished and the prisons are full of their opponents.
Think of company directors who have misplaced and misused the superannuation funds of their workers. The Ansett collapse, One Tel, and many others. Sure they spend a time in jail, but only minimal and then they return to their mansions on the harbour, while the average normal worker loses the lot!
Yet God knows all this, and he pictures the stones of their luxurious houses crying out and the beams in the wall will echo their sound. “Corruption, greed, extravagance and waste” (vs 11). There will be no escape for these men who have made gain at the expense of the poor and underprivileged. Jesus said that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, and that is no more true than for these people.
The third woe appears in verses 12-13. God hates it when ruthless rulers use slaves and others under their control to build their safe places and when they’re of no further use, or when they grow weak and tired, they are killed and replaced.
The Babylonians had built huge walls around their city. Yet when the appointed time for the destruction of Babylon came they would be as rice paper for the fire. Jeremiah 51:58 records, “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Babylon’s thick wall will be levelled and her high gates set on fire; the peoples exhaust themselves for nothing, the nation’s labour is only fuel for the flames’.”
The fourth woe is contained in verses 15-17. It’s a picture of Babylonian debauchery, where men and women are so drunk that all their inhibitions and modesty are destroyed. It’s hard to give concrete examples, but if any of the shows that are seen on late night television are anything to go by, then we know it surely happens.
“Now it is your turn!” God says to the Babylonians. “It will be you who will be filled with shame. No longer will you receive the glory because of your conquering army returning with their prisoners. God’s vengeance will be poured out on Babylon and none will escape. The violence you inflicted in one particular shameful massacre in Lebanon will be inflicted on you.” Apparently the Babylonians ravaged the cedar forests of Lebanon to adorn their own temples and palaces. The Assyrians and now also the Babylonians were known for their cruel treatment of animals. Well says God, this is what will also happen to you! Much of this was fulfilled when King Cyrus captured the city in about 538 BC.
So that is the picture we have before us. God will use Babylon to punish his people, but there will be a worse judgment and punishment coming on Babylon. The wicked may triumph for a while, but it is not going to last. Their doom is sealed. God will have the last word.
I guess the question we ask is, “Why does God allow it?” I don’t think we can fully understand, but let me say at least this that all these things are allowed ultimately for God’s glory! Note verse 14, and I think it is key to this passage. God assures Habakkuk, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (vs 14).
The nation of Israel saw the Lord’s glory during the wilderness wanderings, even when they complained and tried to choose another leader (Num 21)! Psalm 19 mentions that the heavens declare the glory of God. Psalm 24 speaks about the King of glory filling all the earth.
The Babylonians have done much to dampen the Lord’s glory. But a time is coming when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God. As the waters cover the sea, so the glory of God will cover the earth, as verse 14 states.
Congregation, when you see the righteous or the less wicked stagger under evil powers, don’t despair. That doesn’t mean we should be passive and just stand idly by, not at all. But also pray and watch for the Lord’s action. Suddenly our Almighty God shows his power and manifests his own sovereignty.
The evil, worldly man may make a fortune by his corrupt business methods and arrive at the top for a while. But see the end of the ungodly! Look at him dying upon his bed; see him buried in a grave, and think of the doom and woe that are his destiny!
But it doesn’t just happen at the end of a man’s life, it also happens in real time! History is full of examples. In the Garden of Eden the serpent had a great victory over Adam and Eve for a time. But God had the last word with the promise of the Saviour to come who would defeat him!
For four hundred years God’s people suffered in Egypt and then God brought them out with a mighty hand. Read the book of Judges: numerous examples of how God acts to save and protect his people. The giant Philistine Goliath taunted the Israelite army and taunted young David when he came to fight him, “Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks?” (1 Sam 17:43). But God had the last word and felled him with a slingshot and a stone. Think of the Assyrian Sennacherib, when he taunted Hezekiah and his God, suggesting that Hezekiah’s God was weak. God sent his angel and 185,000 soldiers died in one night!
Let us not forget, our God is God over all the nations and all the peoples of this universe. He is God over powerful nations, cruel dictators, and over the poorest individual that moves upon the face of this earth. Without his grace they would not exist for a moment.
Martin Lloyd Jones says that we as Christians should feel sorry for the ungodly that “they were fools enough to become drunk with temporal success. Their end is fixed.”
(Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, From Fear to Faith , IVP, 1953, p 54)
Perhaps I should mention another taunt. Some 2000 years ago, the crowds mocked and taunted the Son of God as he hung on the cross – “Save yourself, come down from the cross if you are the Son of God… he saved others but he can’t save himself” (Mt 27:40-41). But then the Son of God not only died, but did what seemed impossible by rising from the dead and gaining life for all sinners who repent and believe! Evil seemed to have triumphed, but God had the last word and it is the best word.
The Apostle John described it like this: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Just as God encouraged his people in Habakkuk’s day, let us see the encouragement we have received in history but especially in the giving of God’s Son. Satan and evil, and the Hitlers and Osama bin Ladens and Mugabes and the Babylons of this world will not have the last word.
Revelation 18 speaks about the fallen Babylon, the picture of evil and falsehood. Their end is sure – they will be ruined in a moment.
Verse 10: “Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!”
Verses 16-17b: “Woe! Woe, O great city, dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls! In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!”
Verse 19: “Woe! Woe, O great city, where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth! In one hour she has been brought to ruin!”
However, the righteous who live by faith in Jesus Christ have a wonderful future. “Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have the right to the tree of life” (Rev 22:14).
Congregation it is this wonderful truth that evil will not have the final word that brings us here today. It’s that truth that drives us to share the gospel with others. It’s this truth that causes us to continue labouring for the Lord for we know it is not in vain! I say again, the victory doesn’t belong to the evil dictators, evil nations or evil spirits. They will not have the last word! The best word and last word is God’s Son and his glory will fill the earth. Let’s continue to trust in him for he will prevail.
Amen.