Word of Salvation – Vol. 54 No.3 – January 2009
The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
A Sermon by Rev John Zuidemaon Habakkuk 2:2-4
Sermon 3 of 6, on Habakkuk
Scripture Readings: Habakkuk 2:2-4; Romans 3:21-31
Suggested singing: BoW 371; 191; 471; Rej 295
Beloved people of the Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the most important teachings of Scripture is found in our text. Note verse 4b, “But the righteous will live by faith” . Now I wish to focus on that today, but let’s first look at the context.
Let us note that the Lord is speaking and note what he says in verse 2, “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it…” Habakkuk has complained twice and now God is answering his second complaint, but he wants all his people to hear what he has to say.
Our God reveals his will. God, through his prophets under the power of the Holy Spirit has recorded what he has said, so that 2,600 years after the days of Habakkuk we may read and learn about God and particularly the way of salvation. And Habakkuk is told clearly in our text, not just to write it down but to make it plain. In other words this message should not be lost but be made clear!
In the original Hebrew this verse contains two commands and it has a sense of urgency about it! Write it down Habakkuk! Make it plain! And then get the word out there, for judgment is coming! Get the herald to run with it. Go to the villages and the towns of the land and read out aloud everywhere what their God has said about the coming judgment!
Habakkuk isn’t asked whether he likes the message or whether he feels comfortable with it or even whether he thinks the people will like it! He is commanded to write it down, make it plain so that a messenger can run with it.
And what does Habakkuk need to make plain in verse 2? Namely this: that the Babylonians are coming as God’s instrument of judgment. Now this is a terrible message. The Babylonians are more wicked than God’s own people. They are mighty, they are ruthless, and they show no mercy!
It’s the last thing that Habakkuk wishes to hear and no doubt it is the last message that God’s people wish to hear! Yet that is the message he must write and make plain. God wants his people to know before it happens that judgment is coming. God’s desire is that people everywhere may hear about it so that judgment will not take them by surprise.
We need to remember that Habakkuk proclaimed this message somewhere between 640 – 610 BC. If people in Habakkuk’s day are anything like people today, then it is highly probable that this message was scoffed at. Months and years would go by without a Babylonian invasion and you can imagine the sceptics crying out, “When will this ‘judgment’ come on us that Habakkuk spoke about? They’re only words! Scare-mongering by the prophets! He told us that the end would be horrible, that Babylon would invade us – all false.
And so God adds a further word of caution in verse 3. “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay” (vs 3).
In other words, God already knows and anticipates what people will say, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. On the contrary it will happen! God’s promises would be fulfilled as they were in the days of Noah even though it is not a palatable message! None of God’s promises would prove false. It would come to pass just as God had told Habakkuk.
And here, too, just as sure as night follows day, the Babylonians did come and judgment did come upon God’s people in Habakkuk’s day. And it was terrible. In Ezekiel 5 we read about what was to happen when the Babylonians invaded. A third would be burnt, a third would be put to the sword and a third would be scattered!
King Zedekiah was captured, his sons slaughtered before his eyes, and then his own eyes were removed and he was thrown into prison where he died. It’s just horrific!
So then, what are the faithful remnant in Habakkuk’s day to do? God, through Habakkuk speaks the heart of the gospel to encourage the remnant in Israel. The faithful remnant must live by faith.
Now congregation, I want to zero in on these words for a moment so that you may see their importance. They are quoted in the New Testament on three occasions. In Romans 1:17 Paul reminds his readers that the righteous will live by faith. In Galatians 3:11 he reminds them that we are not saved by works but by faith. In Hebrews 10:38 the writer reminds the readers to live by faith! Now what exactly does this phrase mean? Let me mention a few things it does not mean!
First, it does not mean that we are saved because we have such a great faith. Sometimes you hear people almost bragging, “I have great faith,” or they have another throw-away line – “Keep the faith.” But what kind of faith are they talking about? Faith in what? Who is the object of their faith?
The prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel put all their faith in Baal. Every sect or cult member has his faith. JWs have faith. Muslims have faith. Even airline passengers have faith! But this is not saving faith! The Bible directs our faith into Jesus Christ and him alone. And let me add, the Bible is not wishy-washy on this point.
There are so many verses in Scripture that speak about Jesus as the only way of salvation. John 3:16, “…whosoever believes shall not perish but have eternal life”; John 14:6, “I am the way the truth and the life – no one comes to the Father – not one gets to heaven without me! There are many more.
It’s not that we don’t have faith. We do, but even if our faith is as small as a mustard seed we are saved because our faith rests in our strong God who has done all that is required in the person of his Son to save sinners.
In Acts 16 Paul and Silas are freed from their chains after a violent earthquake occurred. And when the jailer woke he was about to commit suicide, but Paul shouted out, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” And after speaking with Paul and Silas the jailer asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Now Paul’s answer wasn’t, “Keep the faith.” Paul replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). The righteous live by faith in the Lord Jesus and his completed work!
Second, this faith is not a belief in yourself! Today you have people who are ultra confident about their ability to handle any situation and come out on top. They seem to say that so long as they do the right thing, think the right thing and say the right thing, all will be well!
They are great achievers – and yet more often than not they are resistant to the gospel. They feel they do not need this religion stuff, the church or the Christian faith. And sometimes when these people go through life-threatening situations – heart surgery and cancer scares – we hope and pray that there may be some sort of softening in their hearts against the glorious gospel – but more often than not there is no change – instead, quite often there is a further hardening of their hearts. The object of their faith is themselves.
Habakkuk speaks about such a person in our text: “See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright” (vs 4). Instead of living by faith in their Saviour God, they trust in themselves. Why people do that is really very strange when you think about it, especially when we consider the uncertainty of our lives! We don’t even know whether we will wake in the morning from our sleep!
Jesus warned those whose faith was in themselves or their earthly gains. It could all be taken from them by such things as a little moth or some rust. We could add a tiny virus; one cancerous brain cell, or one corrupt human being.
Third, we don’t have faith in our works. You hear people say, “I’ll go to heaven because even though I’ve done a few bad things I have done many more good things.” This is the faith of Islam, that God has some scales, on which he weighs our deeds and everything depends on which way the scales tilt.
In Daniel 5 we have the story of King Belshazzar, the ruler of the mighty Babylonian Empire. He was holding a banquet for a thousand of his nobles, carousing and celebrating his triumphs, and then suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall. The king’s face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.
And to cut a long story short, Daniel was sent for and asked what the words meant. He said to the king, “You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting” (Dan 5:27), and that dear friends is true for every life. God has weighed you, not by your standards but by his own perfect standards and he has found you to be wanting. So faith in one’s own personal goodness is a delusion.
Perhaps one other I should mention. I hear it all the time. People say they believe in God so they’ll be fine. James reminds us that even the devil believes in God and shudders. There are millions in this world who believe in God, but Scripture teaches that unless they also believe in His Son as Saviour they will not enter heaven.
So that this terrible end will not happen to you, allow me to give you two essential ingredients of what it means to say that the righteous will live by their faith.
First you must have a deep knowledge of the truth and that everything God reveals in his Word is true! The wonderful love of God as seen in the wonderful way of salvation can only be found in God’s holy Word. You won’t find it in the “Watchtower” or the Book of Mormon or in the Koran or the Women’s Weekly!
The truth can only be found in God’s holy Word, and it clearly teaches that a saving faith attaches itself to the Lord Christ. Only in the truth of God’s Word will you learn about Jesus, God’s Son, who he is and what he has done and why he died and what he will still do.
The best ministry strategies are those that are targeted to focus our attention on Jesus Christ for he is the answer to life’s big questions. Mission statements, purpose statements, vision statements, leadership training may all have their place, but may they never replace good sound biblical teaching that directs all our attention to Jesus the Saviour of sinners.
Second you need to believe what the Bible says is not only true, but that it is true for you! It is one thing to know something, it is something else to believe and embrace it.
It reminds me of the Parable of the Sower. Some people hear the good news and receive it simply as information. It doesn’t do anything for them. Others will try and argue that if God wants me to believe then he’d better do a job on me. That’s a cop out. The fact that you already hear the good news is a work of grace by the Holy Spirit. All you need to do is to believe and embrace it fully and once you have done that you will quickly realise that this too was part of the Holy Spirit’s work!
When the Apostle Peter finished his first Pentecost sermon the people were cut to the heart and they cried out, “What must we do?” These people not only heard but were convinced that they had to respond to the knowledge they’d received. This is the great work of the Holy Spirit.
When Jesus says “come”, we come. That is saving faith in Jesus Christ. Knowledge about the Lord Jesus is essential but it won’t save you. Even a conviction that you need him and that he is the only Saviour is not enough. True saving faith in Christ means throwing yourself body and soul upon him, trusting him to save you for time and eternity.
That is the response of a man declared righteous by God, and for the rest of his life he lives by trusting in Christ. He is not interested in talking about how great his faith is or isn’t. He simply says, “I am the chief of sinners, but thankfully Jesus died for me.”
Congregation, in some ways our passage is an Old Testament foretaste of the New Testament Great Commission. We as Christians today live in similar times as Habakkuk did. Some people in the church say that even though God’s Word speaks clearly about the end and the time of judgment, they reckon that so much time has now elapsed that it must have meant something else.
And people outside the church say that God’s Word is fantasy and the more brazen ones even dare to say it is all rubbish. In fact, ministers and others who come with the message that judgment is coming are often ridiculed as being fanatical or too negative.
Well, I do think we need to be sensitive, but somewhere along the line we need to speak the truth of all God’s Word. After all, that is our calling as Christians. It may not be what people wish to hear, but it is certainly what they need to hear.
And just as sure as night follows day, God’s Word says that all who believe in Jesus are saved! That’s the great part! It also says that a final judgment is still to come and we too need to make that plain and clear and run with it. Why? Because our God is a loving God who does not wish anyone to be lost.
To those people who say it is fantasy or too negative or just a pack of lies and scare-mongering, I also say, “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”
So let’s be busy with bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to sinners so that they may repent and believe. For Scripture is clear, only those who are clothed with the righteousness of Christ and trust fully in his completed work are saved and are welcomed into heaven.
Amen.