Habakkuk 2:5-20
- David Fairchild
- Feb 26, 2006
- Series: Habakkuk
INTRODUCTION
We have a proclivity to pick teams and not allow the Gospel to both critique and support differing views. Whatever team we are on, whether it is the republican or democrat team, that lens affects how we view these passages of economy, extortion, taxes, power, violence, environment, etc.
We are quick to openly critique cultural, economic, environmental, national, systemic, governmental, and corporate sin, while not realizing that these systems, governments, and companies are made up of people. We often pick a pet target to condemn and forget that sin is pervasive, but the answer is Christ. Christ redeems individuals and cultures because cultures are made of individuals. We are to cry out against injustice in these structures, but we do so looking at our own hearts.
We have a predisposition to support or critique certain systems or structures that coincide with our political party. We are Christians first, and our party much later.
STUDY
Pride mentioned in verse 4 is repeated again in verse 5, and is the foundation for all the sins which the LORD rebukes in His judgment of “woes” against these various people and their sins.
This is speaking of the Chaldeans’ sin and God’s response to their sin, yet, this was given so that we might see our own sin and how God views such sin.
It’s important to understand that we don’t have platonic dualisms and therefore the physical is important God (trees, animals, etc.)
What we will see from this study are two bookends that are filled in by particular sins. These are pride (v. 5) and idolatry (vv. 18-19) and all other sins can be traced back to these two.
This study is in juxtaposition to the ending of verse 4 where God tells us that the just shall live by their faith. Faith requires a stepping out of yourself, while pride is obsessively bent on looking inward. These descriptions and woes indicate to us what it looks like when you don’t trust God in living faith and love Him for what who He is and what He’s done on our behalf.
Pride and Greed (self-worship)
Verse 5- "Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant (prideful) man who is never at rest (satisfied). His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples."
Proud people are never satisfied! God’s truth reveals to us that self-esteem will only lead to utter depression. It can be national or personal.
The description of the King of Babylon is a powerful one. Like a man who starts with dignity and ends in disgrace, so is the king of Babylon who swallows up the nations like a frat guy on a perpetual spring break. The king is great and arrogant, opening his mouth as wide as hell and, like death, cannot be satisfied. He guzzles and devours. The wine goes down smoothly, and it feels soothing, so it is as he takes captive all these nations and is greatly pleased at with his conquests. This king is going to be full and drunk. But in the end, he is most disgraced when he must spew them all out and release them. His greed and arrogance will bubble out of him until he is forced to vomit out his conquests.
We know that this did happen when the king was destroyed by the Persians in 539 BC. He was forced to surrender all the peoples, which were his prize. This is how “wine is a traitor.” Our pride always comes back to us in judgment because one who is self-consumed and inwardly focused and satisfied with his actions or righteousness cannot look outside himself or see the need of a righteousness apart from his own achievements. To admit that he is without strength, resource, or a righteousness within himself is to cut across his all consuming arrogance and self-reliance.
Arrogant kings have found through history that if they gorge themselves on their power, not only do their neighbors despise their strength over them, but their own people will begin to turn upon them. This is what happened to the king of Babylon. His neighbors, the Medes and the Persians set themselves against him and destroyed him.
Greed is like hell in that it is never satisfied no matter how many occupants it houses. Greed keeps its mouth open even when it’s full. Greed causes restlessness, not peace. A person consumed with greed is usually so arrogant that he assumes his unending appetite is commendable and even righteous. Greed must be killed as death and hell are killed. Just as no one but Christ can destroy death and hell, so no one but Christ can destroy greed as well as all other sins. Peace and humility only come through the death of Christ who made peace for us by taking upon himself the scorn we deserved.
How have each of us become intoxicated with our own success? Some of you might think “I’m not successful, so I’m safe.” Yet, we know enough about our own hearts that if we are honest, even that comment is born out of pride.
Also notice that it is not wine that is evil, it is the arrogance and greed of a person that drives what is in itself desirable and pleasant to a place of perversion of such a joy. Like wine—food, money, sex, and authority are all things that are not evil on their own. But when a prideful and greedy person pursues them, they become twisted and misused. We have a proclivity to turn what God has intended for our good and pleasure into something that destroys us and brings great pain.
Because of our insatiable appetite driven by pride and greed, we work jobs we don’t like to buy junk we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t even like. It is a vicious and hollow cycle of despair.
God pronounces woes upon the Chaldeans, not because they are Chaldeans, but rather because they are sinners who make up a sinful nation. The sins of their leaders will affect all Babylonians, much like the sins of our families affect every relative, the sins of our friends affect all our friendships, the sins of those who call Kaleo home affect every person here this morning. Sin is never in isolation, it always has a wake affect that ripples out towards those around us.
God describes these sins in His five weighty woes and then reminds His people that He is not indifferent to sins—neither Israel’s, the Babylonians, or any nation or person.
We should listen carefully to these woes because in them we see what God abhors and what we ourselves are culpable for or capable of. I pray these woes drive us to repentance and ultimately to the only answer for these sins, which is Christ who not only deals with evil on a cosmic scale, but evil in our own hearts and lives. The great problem of evil can only be understood if we are honest enough to recognize that the evil we are so infuriated with doesn’t only reside out there somewhere, it resides inside of each and every one of us. The problem of evil should be a problem for us because we see that we are evil and God is holy. Unless someone is willing to confess this, then the intellectual problem they pose is nothing more than a moral smokescreen to excuse their own actions. If it’s God’s fault, then it’s not mine! Evil does exist; God does see it; God has dealt with it historically as we read of the Babylonians; He is dealing with it presently in each of our lives as we grow in Christ and grace; and He is going to deal with it permanently in the future.
Let’s see how He dealt with it historically by looking at these woes and then let’s ask in truth if He’s dealing with it presently as we turn from our sins in loving faith in Him. Before we jump in, let me simply say that if these woes become burdensome to you, that’s a good thing. Don’t fight the impact they are intended to have. If you hang in there, we’ll have hope at the end of this great passage of scripture.
We have to fight the temptation towards pride and judgment of others—pride in the way we spend our money, pride in the way we parent our kids, or teach our wives. Pride in the job we work, the amount we read, the amount we pray. Pride in our wives working or not working, how many children we have, etc. It is easy to see the speck of others sin while missing the plank in our own lives.
At the end of the day, God sees two kinds of people: those who trust in Him and those who trust in themselves. Unlike those who God says will live by faith by trusting in Him, those that live by faith in themselves will manifest their arrogance in all they do. This has a tremendous impact not only upon the person being judged by God, but also upon all those this person comes in contact with. We are like the Chaldeans in that we go about our day in pride and greed, affecting all those we come in contact with. Our sins affect individuals, cities, land, animals, and most importantly our sins insult a holy God who “will then repay every man according to His deeds” (Matt. 16:27).
FIVE WOES
The First Woe- Sin towards individuals
Theft, extortion, murder, violence to the land, the city and all its citizens.
Verse 6- “Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say, ‘Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own—for how long?—and loads himself with pledges (debt)!’"
The Babylonians became wealthy through extortion. They were demanding payment for protection, stealing what was not rightfully theirs, and placing their faith in what they piled up.
How long will this be allowed to go on? The next verse tells us that the debtors will rise up suddenly and destroy them.
Verse 7- “Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them.”
This is the judgment for these sins: The wronged will suddenly rise up in judgment.
The extortion of people and nations practiced by the Babylonians so that they might become rich has built up a burden of debt by the wrong they have done in acquiring wealth in sinful ways. The Babylonians thought they were taking from them, but in truth, the people will say, “We were only loaning to you. You are owe us both capital and interest.” The debt has come due.
This is the same for everyone who lives their life assuming they are pulling a fast one on God. They are piling up debt in their riches and one day their debt will come due and they will stand before a Holy God who is going to demand payment. The problem for them is that since their debt was never paid while they lived, it will go on for eternity because the One they owe is eternal and of infinite worth. If anyone attempts to pay this debt on their own, it will simply be another form of robbery— attempting to rob God of His glory. No man, woman, nor child can pay God off in their own resources, no matter how rich they think they are. As a matter of fact, in God’s economy, the richer you assume you are, the more impoverished you truly are before Him. All we can do is claim bankruptcy and ask for someone else to pay our debt. And there is only one rich enough in perfection to do so, and that is Christ. Christ is the only one who can satisfy the debt you owe to the God you have stolen from. If not Christ, then our sins will come upon us and our payment will be required! Consider the story of the rich man Christ spoke of in Luke 12.
Luke 12:15-21 “And he said to them, ‘Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’ 16 And he told them a parable, saying, ‘The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, “What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?” 18 And he said, “I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” 20 But God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.’"
Verse 8- “Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.”
From the earth to the cities and all who dwell in them, God shall strip and shame their enemy and seek justice for the acts done to them. God is going to turn their plundering upon them and plunder them.
This cycle of violence and plunder is the way of power in arrogance. Unjust power that is wielded to create wealth will be used to undo that wealth.
What are ways that we are using our power in unjust ways to the harm of people and nations? If you say that we are not, then you may have an overly optimistic view of the human condition. Our government, no matter how noble we assume it to be, is still made up of human leaders, and humans are by nature sinful. Do we honestly assume that power plays and arrogance do not influence how we make our decisions? Do we honestly assume that we are innocent of plundering people? In our history, have we ever plundered a people? How about Indians?
How about murdering? Do we murder? People say, “well most Americans don’t murder.” Really? So why is it that out of 1000 babies born this year there will be 600 babies that will be aborted? We don’t even know the actual figures because California doesn’t have to report its numbers. Take a look around this room. We should have another 90 people here, but they were aborted. Moreover, Christ says that if we have deep seated anger towards someone in a sinful way, then we have committed murder in our heart. We have to be careful not to jump too quickly when judging other nations, other political parties, or other people, lest we fall into hypocritical judgment, which will turn into our own judgment. Grace causes us to see our sin and be a humble people who cry out for God’s mercy upon those who are slaves to sin.
We have to fight the temptation to pick a team because we identify with their conservative or liberal ideology. Our only team is Christ’s, and His Gospel confronts both the conservative and liberal camps. Christ is neither a republican nor democrat. Not only this, we fail to remember that Christ wasn’t even an American! I say this only to remind each one of us here this morning that we don’t vote the party line, we are to examine all things through the lens of the Gospel and allow it to inform and form our worldview. A conservative and moralistic worldview that is without Christ is as much a stench to God as a liberal worldview. Both rely upon something other than the true Christ to save them.
Why should we not extort? Because Christ came from His throne in the form of a man and gave all for our redemption. Why should we not steal? Because we no longer need to find our satisfaction and joy, our meaning and purpose in the things that others possess.
You see, in God’s Kingdom, if we want power, we are to abandon our own and only then are we empowered with God’s power. If we want to be rich, we must claim we are bankrupt and we will be made rich in grace. If we seek power, we become ultimately weak. If we seek temporal riches over eternal, we lose it all and become the poorest of the poor. “What profits a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his own soul” (Matt. 16:26).
Gospel values turn the world’s values upside down because what the world values is not what God values. When we become Kingdom citizens, we are not only given new identity in our citizenship, we are also given new values that are in line with our new King. We then live out the rest of our days asking what our King values and responding to His loving and gracious, yet sovereign and mighty rule over our hearts.
In our day, are there corporations that profit off of sin? Of course there are. Mardi Gras is going on as we speak, and do you think that the loosening of the law has a direct impact on the profit that is being made? The big question in Vegas is whether or not, and how much, the state of Nevada should tax prostitutes. Not that they are concerned with the prostitution, but whether or not they should tax prostitutes. Their conundrum is over the “rightness” of taxing hookers! Did you know that we as a church would not be allowed to hold a raffle by law, to raise capital for something (not that we would ever do that) but that the state promotes the lottery like crazy!
The Second Woe- Sin towards your home
Verse 9- "Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm!”
Woe to you who make your money in sinful and selfish ways and then move far away and build yourself and nice safe home away from all that nasty crime down in the slums that you profited from.
There are many people that set up businesses in a particular country and then take advantage of those workers for a larger profit margin. However, they will not live in those countries because they don’t want to be around the environment they are profiting from, and they don’t want to live in the environment that they have created.
There are people that will purposefully profit off of a city and undermine its value purely for the purpose of making a nice nest for themselves out of harm’s way. How many more liquor and gun stores do you think we need in minority neighborhoods? At what point do we call it what it is? It is sinful that we take advantage of or promote sin within a city for the purpose of our gain and safety. We profit off of more liquor stores in poor neighborhoods because we know that there are more alcoholics per capita in those neighborhoods to sell to. Then, we take our profits and stay as far away from those places as we can.
No one wants to live around crime, but we don’t mind profiting off of it, so we do our crime away from our homes. I find it ironic that abortion doctors want safe neighborhoods and schools for their children while they go off to the minority neighborhoods (which are where Planned Parenthoods usually place themselves) and kill babies. If they are consistent with their worldview, they shouldn’t care about their baby’s safety, only their own.
Verse 10- “You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life.”
God says this is a sin against your own home. You’ve shamed your home by this type of activity. You have forfeited your own life.
Verse 11- “For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.”
Some people say, “well I’m not concerned because I have money and a good attorney who will bail me out.” Or you might say “No one knows, so why should I be concerned?” Well, God sees everything, and one day you will stand before Him and He will call you to give an account of your life. If there were any hope of lying or assuming no one saw, the very stones, beams and woodwork from your home will cry out against you! Can you imagine the stones of your home giving a testimony of your sin? Can you image that nice little hutch you bought with money you earned in a sinful way testifying against you before God? God can call inanimate objects to testify against us. When the Pharisees wanted the people to stop shouting out “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord…!” Christ says not to stop them otherwise “the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:39, 40).
This is the judgment for these sins: You will forfeit your life and your riches will only serve testify to your guilt.
The Third Woe- Sin towards your city
Verse 12- "Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity!”
Is it possible to build a city upon a sinful economy? How about Vegas? New Orleans? They are banking on sin in both of those cities because it’s what brings in the cash. It’s not just the cities or towns that are generally guilty; it is the owners of those businesses in the city. Do you know why it’s easier to get a building permit for a large porn shop than it is a church in a city? Because porn shops pay taxes and churches don’t. Most cities don’t care about the damage of the relationships of the married men and women who frequent them, or the sin they promote which are at times acted out against children in those neighborhoods, or the social decay that such places bring; they care about the mighty dollar. Churches aren’t looked at as a community building, city-loving and serving institution, and since they don’t pay taxes, what’s the use? Some of it is the fault of those who sit on city seats and some if it is the reputation of the church. Is this really how we want to move our children through their education—by taxing porn shops? This may not be the wisest answer to the building of our culture.
Verse 13- “Behold, is it not from the LORD of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing?”
Their work is not honoring to the covenant LORD, and these endless pursuits of self and things will only kindle the fires of hell against us. We will end our days seeing all as utterly meaningless. Our lives will have been spent chasing a vapor.
This is the judgment for these sins: Their life is spent fueling the fire of their judgment.
INTERLUDE
Verse 14- “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”
We should see this as the answer to our problems and read this with verse 20.
The Fourth Woe- Sin towards your neighbor and God’s creation
Perversion, Defiling and Shaming Image Bearers of God, Urban decay, Animal cruelty, Environmental and Ecological damage.
Verse 15- "Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink—you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness!”
The Babylonians were notorious drunkards. They would defile and shame their enemies by forcing them to drink so that they would get intoxicated, and they would strip them naked and stare at their nakedness in sinful pleasure. Then, they would scorn and ridicule them for their drunken nakedness.
We may not see this as directly applying to us in our day…unless you’re a college student. Then you will have learned the foolish equation of more alcohol equals less clothes and more shame. There are young men (and old) that have learned quickly that if they can get a young lady to drink, she’s apt to do more than she would if she was sober. This is not a new ploy. This has been going on for thousands of years. Men have learned more drink minus less clothes= more sex. Some of you ladies who are agreeing with me have to admit that you have learned early that more makeup minus less clothes = more attention. Let’s test this: ladies, if you dress up and go to a bar looking good, do you have to buy your own drinks? No! The men have learned to buy them for you. Is it because they like spending their money and sharing their alcohol with complete strangers? No! We all know what they’re after. I’ve gone into bars and I’ve never had a man who I have never met approach me immediately to buy me a beer. I wonder why?
What is the result? Next verse.
Verse 16- “You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision! The cup in the LORD's right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory!”
You will be shamed. God says that He will cause you to get your belly full of alcohol and He will strip you naked and you will then show the world your uncircumcision. This means that He will show the world the shame of you not being part of the covenant family. You will be shown to be an orphan and not God’s own.
Instead of glory, which you sought for yourself, you will receive only guilt and shame. Many of you are filled with guilt and shame this morning because of something you may have done last night. Let me just say that your only hope is Christ. Instead of looking to yourself and your shame, we are told we should look… Hebrews 12:2 “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Christ willingly took our shame upon Himself. He bore our sin upon the cross, and only He can rid us of our guilt and shame. Only He can cover our nakedness.
This is the judgment for these sins: God will openly expose your sin, and His cup of wrath will be poured out upon you, and you will be publicly shamed,
Environmental and Ecological Sin
Verse 17- “The violence (injustice) done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.”
Lebanon was the home to the most beautiful cedar trees. Woe to you who go into my forest lands and devastate them. Woe to you who go into my beautiful creation without regard to what I have made and destroy it without care.
Now, if you’re a republican, you have to admit that this God sounds like He’s from Seattle. If you’re a democrat, when I was speaking about these things like pride, and naked shame, they didn’t sound as alarming as the trees being clear-cut. Do you see my point? We want to box God and hyphenate Him. We want Him on our team, so we emphasize things that we are passionately opposed to and downplay those things we don’t think are sinful. God is not domesticated, and He’s not hyphenated. We can’t craft God in the image we want or we will end up under the next woe!
Think about how loving God is for His creation to be concerned about such things. We may not be comfortable with the fact that God calls treating His beautiful forests in such ways as the Chaldeans an injustice to them, and ultimately to Him. Our God is a God of beauty, and when He made this world He made it beautiful. He is the source and standard of beauty, and He is the sustainer of beauty. Something is beautiful in as much as it tends towards God. When it moves from Him, it becomes ugly. We can’t escape the plain truth that God cares for the material world. He cares about the rivers and oceans; He cares about the mountains and lakes; He cares about the air and soil; He cares about trees and flowers. Jesus says about the lilies of the field: Luke 12:27 “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
Christ has every right to determine the beauty of such a thing as a lily, since He was the very one who created it and sustains it even this moment.
Not only does God care about the plant world and environment, He also cares greatly about the animal kingdom. God doesn’t care only about us, but for His whole creation. Does this mean that it’s sinful to chop down a tree? No. Not if we need it and are not using in a way of gluttony or greed. Is it sinful to kill an animal? No. Not if we have need of it for food or for clothing. But to not replant when we’ve cleared a forest and cultivate it back to beauty, or to kill an animal purely for sport with no need for the animal other than as a trophy, I believe is an injustice done to them. Now, you can call me what you will, but I’m just going to stick with God on this one, because it was extremely convicting for me to think through and I have to go with Him.
Think about this: in the Garden, God placed animals under the man’s benevolent care. God created us to be stewards of animals. He holds us accountable for how we treat them. Proverbs 12:10 tells us, “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” Do you think that God cares about whether or not you take care of your animals? Of course He does. They are His creation, and we are to lovingly steward His possessions for His glory. This means we’re supposed to be caretakers of God’s property, including animals. Here is what we do: we take animals that are made for the wild and keep them as pets because they give us some sense of accomplishment or enjoyment, and instead of caring for them, we ignore them, go days without feeding them or giving them proper care and nourishment, and God cares. God cares because in the wild God would have fed them Himself. But as we take them into our home, instead of acting as a good caretaker of God’s creation, we live out the curse and fail to tend and nurture what God has made.
We are caretakers for the animals, but they belong to God, not to us: “For all the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills. Every bird of the mountain and all the animals of the field belong to me” (Psalm 50:10-11). King David was infuriated when he was told the story by Nathan that a rich man came and took the little lamb “who shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a child to him” (2 Sam. 12:3). David was angry that the rich man stole the precious pet from the man and David thought this man deserved to die because of the injustice done.
God populated Eden with animals, under the rule of people. God doesn’t make mistakes. God uses animals to fulfill His purposes. When God sent Jonah to rescue Nineveh, God expressed his concern not only for the people of Nineveh, but for its “many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city” (Jonah 4:11).
God’s care for the animals appears even in the Ten Commandments: “Six days a week are set apart for you daily duties and regular work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any kind of work. This included you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you” (Exodus 20:9-10).
Money Penny’s death (our guinea pig) underlined my awareness that because of our sin as humans and my sin personally, death came and took her and this broke my daughter’s heart. A dying pet should cause us to see our sin. The wages of sin is death, and death came because of sin.
Also, God cared for this pet. Her death didn’t escape God’s eye. Matthew 10:29 “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”
Every animal that dies does so because of sin, and every animal that dies does so in full view of our loving Father.
Yet most people look for hope in arrogance and pride in their own efforts and in their own strength. Their frustration and disgust is warranted, yet their conclusion and hope is not. Recently in the news, a man by the name of Rodney Coronado who is the head of the ELF (environmental liberation front) was arrested and charged with making an incendiary device 15 hours after the burning of a massive condominium complex in UTC. His anger towards what he saw as the destruction of land might be warranted or not, but his hope was in his own vengeance and wrath.
Why should we not destroy the environment? Because God made this world and all that was in it good, and we are called to care for His property as good stewards moving towards consummation, but living in redemption as citizens of God’s kingdom.
The Fifth Woe- The ultimate sin towards God and self
Idolatry
Verses 18-19- "What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols! 19 Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.”
All sin comes out of pride, and what pride leads to is idolatry. We are supposed to see that our whole life belongs to God—our pets, our land, our homes, our cars, our money, our sex, our food, our alcohol, our work, our image of ourselves, our family and any other thing we have to steward or bring us joy, all belong to God. We are either using all of these things for God’s glory, or we are worshipping them and they are idols. Our actions and affections for these things tend outward towards God or tend inward towards us, which is idolatry. That is why the opposite of Christianity is not atheism but idolatry.
We are all individually made and wired for worship. We will worship God or everything else. This is why many of you spend all your extra income on music and shows to see bands you really love. You give them your resources so that you can go and worship in an emotional euphoria. When was the last time you came to God’s house and worshipped Him with such enthusiasm? You even get butterflies and restless anticipation for the show to start.
Some of you worship your sports team. You wear their jerseys with your god’s name on your back, you go to their shrine which is the stadium, you spend your tithe to buy tickets, you work yourself up in a 3 hour state of screaming and yelling worship as you chant for your team and engage your emotions in such a way that nothing could distract you while you give glory to your team.
Some of you do this for your hobbies. Some of you for your education, feeling as if you will be complete once you get the degree you assume is going to bring you lasting happiness. Some of you worship your relationships or sexual experience and do all you can to get that sense of awe as you worship your god. And if you really want to know how to find the idols you worship, follow your schedule and your finances and you will end up at your god. Where do you spend your extra time, money, and energy? If Jesus was to sit down with you and go over your schedule and the things you are expending all this energy towards, would He see them as things that are bending towards Him in worship or towards you in idolatry? Are you about your agenda or His? Are you finding your satisfaction in Him or in things? Are you living out the mission of Christ in all these things or your mission for your pleasure? The ironic thing is that if you live to gain pleasure from these things first and not from Christ, you will end up miserable, because God didn’t just wire you to worship any thing, He wired you to worship Him alone. All other things can be enjoyed in their proper perspective when He is your great treasure first and foremost.
We see these types of idols and scoff at them because we don’t view ourselves as idolaters. These people shape an idol with metal and bow down to worship it. Do we?
Tell about the box in India that is made of wood and metal and they bow down and offer incense and food and homage to them. Our box is our TV. Our car is shaped and made of metal for us to worship.
It is not the things that you hate that will force you to bow down and worship them, it is the things you love that you will bow down and worship gladly. These things become your functional messiah and the false lovers of your soul. How many people do we know that have turned their back on Christ for a relationship? Many.
We hate to admit this but the plain truth is that everyone has to live for something—something that we think will give us a sense of significance and satisfaction. We all then have a "personal center," a bottom line, an ultimate value by which we sort through all the activities of life and set priorities. It may be career, possessions, appearance, romance, peer groups, achievement, good causes, moral character, religion, marriage, children, friendships or a combination of several. Without this "bottom line," our life would be completely meaningless.
This means, however, that everyone is a slave. Whatever we live for has control over us. We do not control ourselves. The things we live for enslave us with guilt (if we fail to attain them) or anger (if someone blocks them from us) or fear (if they are threatened) or drivenness (since we must have them) or despair (if we ever lose them completely). This means, then...
Even the most irreligious people are really worshipping something. Whatever thing or things from which we choose to derive our value become the ultimate meaning in our lives—thus it serves as a ‘god’ and gives us a sense of worth or `righteousness' even if we don't think in those terms.
Even the most religious people are not really worshipping God. Religious people may look to God as Helper, Teacher, and Example, but it is their moral performance, which is serving as their Savior. They are just as guilty and self-hating if they fail it, just as angry and resentful if someone blocks it, just as fearful and anxious if something threatens it, just as driven "to be good".
Verse 20- “But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him."
We should read this with verse 14.
Unlike the Babylonians who force their enemies to be silent, unlike the idols that are lifeless and silent, God’s Holy character is such that all the earth is to keep silent before Him. He is living and speaks, we are to be silent and listen when He does so.
A new quality of life results as you learn to joyfully repent of "idols", left-over systems of self-salvation. Under every problem there is something more important than Jesus that is operating as our functional righteousness and worth.
Without an experience of grace, all our good deeds are essentially self-interested, impersonal, and conditional. But the Gospel moves us to love and serve God for who He is in Himself—there is an entirely new motivational structure for why we obey His Word. People who give up on God were in it for something besides God, which did not come forth. The Gospel always exposes our pride and idolatry as the root sins that keep us from truly trusting Christ as Savior and Lord. Pride always leads to idolatry (worship of self), and idolatry is always driven by pride (what I make or do or am can save me).
Back to verse 14.
Verse 14- “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”
We hear all these things and if your heart is moved by the Holy Spirit, you’re probably thinking, “things need to be different.” The city should be different. The crime should be different. The spending of our money should be different. The way we engage relationships should be different. The way I consume alcohol should be different. The way I consume food should be different. My pride and greed should be different. These are all excellent conclusions. But the answer then is not you! The default mode of the human heart is works-based, self-willed religiosity. It takes nothing for us to try to fix ourselves because it is the normal response.
God is saying to us that these should be different in our day and in our lives, but He is the only one to change these things. Morality fails because we tell people to be good but they lack the resources to do so.
The world is a reflection of our own hearts and if we really want our world to change our hearts must change. Change comes from the inside out, not the outside it. Moralism attempts to change things from the outside, but only God’s grace can change us from the inside and work that out to our hands, feet, mouths, and wallet. All other attempts to pull yourself up by your bootstrap will only lead to further pride and further idolatry. What happens if you actually accomplish a better outward look? You become very proud of your accomplishments and your inside becomes darkened.
We don’t need to become better versions of what we once were, we need to become new people who are recreated, not just refurbished.
The whole point of God’s patience with all of this and God’s punishment of Israel by the hands of the Chaldeans and God’s punishment of the Chaldeans is so the knowledge of the glory of the LORD will cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. God wants His name to made famous, and His reputation to go out to the ends of the earth so that people will know that Jesus is God, that Jesus has come and died for their sin if they will only turn from their ways and cast themselves upon Him, they will be given all their heart longs and yearns for. They need not face judgment, and they need not worship themselves and the false lovers of their soul, for He will be their God and they will be His people.
God wants His knowledge to go out about Him! This is our mission!! This is how idolatry is dealt with! God loves us and saves us and then works through us as conduits to pass this incredible knowledge about Him. We are not to look at this world and all that is in it as a way to get things, but a way to get God!
God is calling us to His mission as the answer to all these sins! If your goal was to have people know Jesus instead of you living for yourself, your entire life would be radically altered. Are you willing to first be transformed from within so that you can inform this world that God loves and cares for it? You exist so the Gospel will go out!!!
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