Habakkuk 2:2-5
GOD’S CENTRAL REVELATION
[Daniel 5:1-31 / Isaiah 26:1-6]
Habakkuk had been troubled by ungodliness and injustice in Israel. But when God revealed that He was about to use the Babylonians to punish His people, Habakkuk asked God how He could use the ungodly to punish those more moral than themselves. It was a daring ethical question, for Habakkuk was asking God if He was doing right. The prophet had been waiting intently and apprehensively for God’s reply.
God said it is a matter of faith. Those that have faith in Him live right and do right. The proud do what is right in their own might. Pride and might did not make Israel right or justified and it would not justify the Babylonians either. Faith in God and faithfulness to His ways is all that can justify a man or nation before God.
I. God’s Clear Revelation, 2.
II. God’s Certain Revelation, 3.
III. God’s Clarifying Revelation, 4-5.
True to his profession, Habakkuk was a spokesman for God’s
revelation. He waited for God’s message, instead of pronouncing his own message. He was ready to carry God’s message to God’s people no matter what that message would be.
Let’s rejoin Habakkuk on the watch tower on the wall where he waited for God’s response.
I. GOD’S CLEAR REVELATION, 2.
In 2:2 God tells the prophet to take notes concerning what will occur. “Then the LORD answered me and said, "Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run.”
God did not disappoint His servant who was waiting for a reply. Habakkuk’s answer was received because of his disciplined watchfulness (2:1). In ancient days the watchmen were responsible to warn the city of approaching danger and, if they weren’t faithful to their task, their hands would be stained with the blood of the people who died (Ezek. 3:17-21, 33:1-3). It was a serious responsibility. We too, along with Habakkuk, bear the responsibility to warn people to change their mind and repent or turn from their unrighteous life and “flee from the wrath that is to come” (Mt. 3:7). May we be able to say with Paul “therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men” (Acts 20:26).
You get the impression that Habakkuk was anticipating a rebuke for his boldness before God, but the Lord graciously answered him giving him the revelation he needed to turn his worry into worship. He is commanded to record the revelation given on tablets. The noun revelation (hazon) denotes a vision transmitted to the senses (1 Chron. 17:15; Prov. 29:18). The clear and forthright message was to be inscribed on durable tablets (the usual medium for Babylonian not Hebraic writing) so that it could be preserved and more important, publicized.
The letters were to be large and legible enough to be read easily. So the prophet is instructed to reduce the vision to writing so that the people would have it for the future. For it’s message would not take effect immediately.
The one reading it was to run forth to tell it because it was a message of encouragement to Israel, telling her the means of salvation and the eventual destruction of Babylon. God is still in charge and is moving history towards the goal of the Day of the Lord and the establishment of His Kingdom.
II. GOD’S CERTAIN REVELATION, 3.
God tells the prophet in verse 3 not to let the people miss or dismiss the revelation though it will not happen immediately. “For the vision is yet for the appointed time. It hastens toward the goal, and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come. It will not delay.”
Every prophetic revelation demands a certain degree of patience. The Lord’s timetable and agenda usually differ from man’s. One must wait for fulfillment. The words wait for, or linger, suggest a delay beyond what is expected.
God’s words to Habakkuk were reassuring: the revelation waits for an appointed time. The prophecy pointed toward a future goal. Literally it “pants, breathes or blows” toward the end or goal. (Like a runner toward the finish line). The end means the termination of a certain object, activity or period of time. The reference to the end seems to signify not only the coming destruction of evil Babylonia, but the broader fulfillment of the messianic judgment in the fall of "Babylon the Great" at the close of the tribulation (Rev. 17-18).
God’s revelation will not prove false or fail. Though the deliverance was not to come immediately, it was certainly coming and the godly should wait for it. Delay is only in the heart of man. God is working out the details and timing according to His plan. For those in Judah about to experience the fearsome Babylonian invasion and captivity, this assurance of fulfillment should have been a great comfort. At God’s appointed time their barbaric captures would suffer divine judgment. The vision will not deceive or disappoint but will come to pass.
While the immediate application was for the end of the Babylonian captivity (some seventy to eighty years in the future - Babylon fell in 539 BC), the writer of Hebrews referred to this verse in his appeal for persecuted believers to persevere (Heb. 10:37). This quote stresses the messianic significance of this passage. The day is coming when the King of kings will return and institute perfect justice.
We too need to learn to wait for the Reward that Patience brings. A church member was finding it DIFFICULT TO BE PATIENT during a long hospital stay. Although she was a Christian, everything seemed dark. She feared that some sins from her past were too bad to be forgiven. I assured her that when she confessed them to God He forgave her. And her doctors reassured her that her depression would lift and she would get better. Still she found it difficult to wait for the light to break through.
Habakkuk too was perplexed and impatient. First he complained to God about the evils of the Israelites (1:2-4). The Lord responded by saying that He would use the Babylonians to scourge them (1:5-11). Then the prophet raised a new problem - Babylon was more wicked than Israel (1:12-17). But he didn’t act rashly. Instead, he showed his reverence for God by declaring that he would wait for Him to make things clear. When God spoke to Habakkuk again, He commanded the prophet to write the answer clearly so that it could be speedily proclaimed. But He also told Habakkuk that he would have to wait awhile before he would see all the wrongs made right. This delay was a trying experience for Habakkuk, but the answer did eventually come, and at just the right time.
When we face a long period of waiting for God to work, we must exercise patience and steadfast faith, leaving matters in His hands. God will reward us for our patience - but not too soon nor too late, for God is always on time. [Patience is a virtue that carries a lot of WAIT.] God seems to linger long to us, but He never comes too late.
III. GOD’S CLARIFYING REVELATION, 4-5.
Here the triumph of faithfulness is contrasted with the arrogant restlessness of those who leave God out of their lives. "Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith."
In verse four we have the summation and the central theme of the revelation and the book. The Babylonians are puffed up (´apal). Like a bloated toad these arrogant people hopped along toward destruction. They are swollen with evil passions. Their soul (napso) which includes the idea of desire or appetite (nepeš) was not right or not straight or level. Their soul is full of deceit and dishonesty having deviated from God’s standard. This way is the path to destruction.
Here in these next words we have the stark contrast with the proud and distorted whom God condemns with the man whom God approves. It is not only the key to the book of Habakkuk but is the central theme of all of Scriptures. The great principle of life is that the righteous will live by faith. A person is enabled to live righteously by his or her faith in God.
In vivid contrast with the proud the righteous persons live their life by placing their faith in God instead of themselves. A righteous or upright person is seen by his or her commitment to the demands of God. It indicates a right thinking and right acting person. The noun faith (munah, ̛aman) implies fairness, stability, certainty, permanence. It is commonly used of fairness applied to personal character and conduct which becomes evidenced in reliability. In Deuteronomy 32:4 God’s reliability or faithfulness is paralleled to His name Rock with its connotations of stability and security as a basis for reliance. One living by faith will be stable and reliable. His commitment to righteousness is genuine and steadfast. He would live. He will experience God and all that life holds, with faithfulness in His heart. He would not vacillate, be double-minded or hypocritical. The one who trusts in the Lord is the one who relies on Him and is faithful to Him and becomes steadfast and reliable.
This key clause the righteous will live by his faith sparkles like a diamond in a pile of soot in the context of this historical event. Those who live by faith also sparkle like a diamond among coal as God looks down on the people of earth. In the midst of God’s unrelenting condemnation of the proud stands this bright revelation of favor to those who live by faith. This statement is quoted three times in the New Testament (Rom. 1:17, Gal. 3:11, Heb. 10:38). In these New Testament passages the words will live mean to enjoy salvation and eternal life. Those saved by grace through faith are expected to live by faith in God also.
The impact of these words here is that even in difficult times those that are righteous must live by faith. Contrary to appearances, the judgment of God is selective and awe-inspiring in its precision. In the midst of disaster God’s grace is upon the righteous enabling them to live by faith (Ps. 91). The righteous must trust that God is directing all things according to His purposes. In contrast to the boastful ways of the boastful self-reliant, the unrighteous, the righteous are to live in reliance on God and in faithfulness to Him. Pride leads to death because it will not receive by faith the grace of God. God says to Habakkuk that He will preserve life if they will exhibit faith and wait in assurance that YAHWEH will act as He has promised in verse 3. The seeming all-powerful Babylonians will soon fall away from the world’s stage.
The way of the puffed up or proud is addressed again in verse 5. “Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man, so that he does not stay at home. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and he is like death, never satisfied. He also gathers to himself all nations and collects to himself all peoples.”
The general description of the proud Babylonians’ wickedness is made more concrete. They gave themselves over to the treachery of wine. Ancient writers confirm that the Babylonians were addicted to wine. Wine, like the Babylonians, is deceptive and unreliable. It deceives the drinker into feeling more important than is true. Although drunk to enhance one’s life, intoxication impoverishes, confuses, and destroys. The reference to wine is unexpected, but appropriate because it is associated with arrogance, unfulfilled greed and social injustice so often portrayed in the Old Testament (e.g. 1 Sam. 30:16; 1 Kings 20:12,16; Prov. 31:20-7; Isa. 5:11f, 22-23; Amos 6:6; Isa. 5:8-30). Indeed the Babylonian regime was over thrown while they were in the drunken pride portrayed here. Babylon was conquered while King Belshazzar and his leaders were having a drunken riotous banquet (Dan. 5).
Filled with pride, drunk with wine, the Chaldean is also thirsty for conquest. They can not rest. Their proud, restless nature stirs them up till they become greedy as the grave. Just as death and the grave are not satisfied, never say enough (Prov 30:15-16) until all come into its clutches so the Babylonians sought to take captive all the nations and peoples. Like some hideous monster Babylon opened wide her insatiable jaws to devour all peoples. Like death and the grave the Babylonians consumed the world but they were never satisfied.
But the evil nation would not continue unpunished. God’s judgment would fall, at His appointed time.
CONCLUSION
Thus we have set before us two ways, the way of life and the way of death. We have two types of characters, the proud self-reliant and those who live by faith in God & His word. And we have God’s manner of dealing with each at the proper time. and the manner of God’s dealing with each on the basis of divine principle. The proud, puffed up, dishonest, drunken, dissatisfied restless Chaldeans trusted in themselves and will have death. The just, godly and righteous live by faith in the Living God and will have life. God could not make the responsibilities and issues more clear than He has. They hold fixed for all time.
Which way have you chosen to live your life?
