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The Righteous Will Live By His Faith
2016 Habakkuk English Worship Service Message Habakkuk chapter 1, 2 Key Verse / Habakkuk 2:4 "See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright—but the righteous will live by his faith." The Righteous Will Live By His Faith The book of the prophets in the Old Testament has the message-pattern that the prophets deliver the message of God. The prophets work as the servants and the delivers of the words of God. However, the book of Habakkuk does not follow this pattern, but surprisingly he protests against God, questing toward God and requesting an answer from God. The questions of Habakkuk, actually complaints, are like these. Why is God silent even in the situation that justice is collapsed by the oppression of the evildoers upon the righteous. The answer of God to this question is that he will judge the oppressor, Babylon. The second question of Habakkuk is why God punishes Judah through the hand of Babylon who is more wicked than Judah. The answer to this question is that God also will punish Babylon and will deliver his people Judah someday. How do the modern Christians live in the world where the righteous seems to be suffered and the evil seems to prosper? What kind of work is God doing in this troubled world? The answer to these questions is that God rules over the world. So we should not worry, but only live by faith. Through this passage, let’s hear the voice of God, “the righteous will live by his faith!” The prophet Habakkuk worked as a prophet in the time of king Jehoiakim, who was the son of the great king Joshiah, took the position of the leadership on Judah whose dynasty sadly was almost ended. The king Joshiah, who was the father of the king Jehoiakim, successfully had finished the reformation of Judah, but died unexpectedly by the sword of Pharaoh Neco the king of Egypt at the battle of Megiddo. After that, Judah went under the control of Egypt, resulting radical waning of the nation’s power, recurring the idol worshiping, and being leading to national corruption. Then the prophet Habakkuk cried to God, seeing the corruption and collapsing of Judah the kingdom of God. He petitioned to God because of the violation, crime, immorality, quarrel, and conflict in the society of Judah. He asked God’d help for Judah, but there was no answer from God, and no sign for the recovery of Judah. So Habakkuk’s heart dropped down and down. What made Judah so corrupted? It’s because of the sins of king Manasseh and all he had done. He corrupted the wonderful reformation of Hezekiah his father. The evil things Menasseh had done were so great that nobody could uproot those evils from Judah. Even though Joshiah the king of the great reformation could not extinguish the fire of fury of God. In the society of Judah, idol worshiping and every kinds of evils were prevailed. The prophet Habakkuk had always been in his longstanding prayer for his country before God. Sometimes his heart was broken due to the corruption, violence, the lost of justice, and most of all, the silence of God even in this situation. But God was not sleeping. Then what was God’s answer? In 1:5-11, God answered that he would destroy Judah by the hands of a feared and dreaded people of Babylon. Their horses were swifter than leopard and fiercer than wolves at dusk. They were like a desert wind and gathered the prisoners of Judah like sand. The harsh punishment through Babylon would be too horrible to stand. But Habakkuk questioned again in verse 12 through 15 that why God was silent while the wicked Babylon had been swallowing up Judah who seemed to be more righteous than himself. Habakkuk was asking whether it was right for the wicked Babylonian foes pulled all of Judah up with hooks, caught Judah in his net, gathered Judah up in his dragnet, and so they rejoiced and was glad. To the second question God answered that he would also destroy Babylon, the wicked as well as the tool of judgment for Judah. God is the sovereign LORD who rules over the whole world by judging all the wicked, whether they are the chosen people or the tools of judgment. God’s judgment is right because it is based on what people have done. He is alive and is working in any time including this generation. Even though our time is so chaos and looked unrighteous, God is working and judging those who deserve to be punished. Let’s pray for our country and the world to be stood rightly. We just pray based on the LORD’s Prayer that Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth. Amen! Chapter 2 describes the judgment through Babylon. This chapter consists of 5 curses expressed in “Woe to him.” And in these curses we also find two gracious messages: first, how does the righteous live; second, God’s ruling over the whole world. First, the five curses. Verse 6 starts with the first curse against Babylon. “Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion!” The second curse is in verse 9: “Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain to set his nest on high, to escape the clutches of ruin!” The third curse is in verse 12: “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime!” The fourth is in verse 15: “Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin till they are drunk, so that he can gaze on their naked bodies.” And we have the fifth curse in verse 19: “Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’ or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’” In these five curses Babylon is expressed as the nation which deserves to be cursed and judged by God. The sins of Babylon are summed up as follows: first, their piling up money which is not theirs; second, taking unreasonable profit; third, establishing a city with bloodshed; fourth, making the neighbour be drunk and be naked to commit sin; and fifth, idol-worshiping. Based on the facts mentioned above, we come to know that even Babylon oppressed the nations including Judah showing off proudly his power and idols, God surely will punish Babylon and establish justice in the world. Because God is the living king of justice, he will surely punish the evil and evildoers of the world to devastation. So we can have a hope that God will judge and maintain this world with his justice and judgment. Second, the life of the righteous and the sovereignty of God. How does the righteous live and how does God reveal himself in this situation? Look at 2:4. The Babylon was arrogant, and his desires were not upright. But the righteous would live by his faith. To live by his faith means the way of life as well as to be alive when he lives by faith. And faith means that the righteous live in the faithfulness and royalty in the sight of God. This faith shines better in the darkness, as the lamp does at night. When we strive to live in our life, sometimes we find ourselves standing at a crossroad having a question whether we live by faith or by our own thoughts. At this point we should not compromise playing a double game. We should choose one way clearly with a reason why we trust in God and live a life of faith. Then God will surely bless our decision of faith and give a victory. Martin Luther provoked the Religious Reformation against the corrupted Roman Catholic of the time, saying that we would be saved only by the righteousness in Jesus Christ which could be given to us only by faith in God. Apostle Paul taught us that we can be righteous only by faith in God’s righteousness. The book of the Hebrew encourages us the modern Christians of this hard time that we should not shrink back but believe and be saved by faith. These kinds of faith pleases God and gives us life and salvation. We confess that we have faith in God in any troubled time. What does it mean more precisely for the righteous to live by faith? It is to believe the living God who is still working in this unrighteous world. The world seems to be controlled by the superpower nations such as Babylon or Egypt, which led the people of the minor power to suffer, and the righteous be flattened by the unrighteous. Even God sometimes seems to be absent and silent, however, in the eyes of faith God is living and is ruling over the whole world in his righteousness. God destroyed the brutal Nineveh who had trampled the Northern Israel by the hand of Babylon. Later God ended Babylon by the sword of Persia, and Persia by Greece, and Greece by Rome. When we think of our country Korea, we can not but worrying and praying. But when we put our trust in God the almighty and have a hope to live under his protection, we come to convict that the present and future of our nation is safe and will prosper. God who leads the wagon of history rules over the world, punishing those who deserve to be punished, and blessing those who deserve to be blessed. Sometimes the righteous suffers and the chosen people seem to be discarded, but even in that situation God also works judging the wicked and discipling his people through suffering. Then in his time will exalt his people in his glory. Therefore, faith is to believe God who rules over the world. Faith acknowledges of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. Faith confesses God's glory first before anything else. Faith has a vision that God's glory will cover over all the world. And faith is to see God who rules over the world taking his seat in his temple. Let us acknowledge that God is not silent in this troubled and unrighteous world, but takes his seat in his temple and rules over Korea and the world. Let us pray for our country in trouble and the world in conflict, so that God's glory be revealed and his will be done on earth. Amen! |
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