Imagine a tool box. It is rather nondescript; a dull gray in
color with a handle on the top and plastic clasps on the front, both colored
black. It has obviously seen some use;
there are scuff marks on the corners and a few paint smudges scattered here and
there. Inside is a motley assortment of
well used tools. The bright chrome of
the tool heads contrasts with the varicolored rubber grips on the handles in
blues and oranges and yellows. There is
a tool for every job in this box; screwdrivers, wrenches, ratchets and sockets,
a tape measure, a hammer, and a level. A
few of the screwdriver heads are rough where the metal has been sheared away
from heavy use. The hammer has one of
the claws opposite the head partially broken off. But every tool is still perfectly
serviceable.
Now let's modify the
image just a little. Let's suppose that
the carpenter who owns this tool box and the tools inside just happens to be a
metal-smith with his own smithy. Rather
than purchasing these tools at a hardware store he actually made them
himself. He took rods of steel and cut
them into bars after heating them to red hot.
Then he took one bar for each tool, heated it again and forged it into
the shape he desired. Finally, he
finished the job by attaching a handle.
These tools aren't just implements to be discarded whenever it is most
expedient. They are labors of love for
the smith/carpenter. He enjoys the
process of making and then using his tools so much that he gave them
names. Although the claw end of the
hammer is damaged, the carpenter has no intention of discarding it. When he has free time he plans to repair it
in his workshop.
With one more addition
our picture will be complete. Let's further
suppose that the carpenter made good use of his time as a young man, and
learned not just blacksmithing and carpentry as trades, but was also educated
in electrical engineering and software design.
He understands the principles of chip-set manufacturing and constructing
circuit boards. He is skilled at writing
software applications to perform a myriad of tasks. And he took these skill sets and applied them
to his instruments. He designed and built
miniature silicon chips and inserted them into the body of his tools. These chips allow them to perform a variety
of extra tasks that would not ordinarily be associated with common carpentry items. They can record the number of times they've
been used, the cohesiveness of the molecular structure of their metal (in other
words, how close they are to breaking), trigger a tiny alarm in a built in
speaker which lets the carpenter know when they are approaching structural
failure, and even use logic to determine what the optimal striking / driving
point or torque is, depending on which type of tool is being used. Calling these items one of a kind is a vast
understatement!
With this image established we will follow our
carpenter to one of his jobs. This
particular assignment is a roofing job, with hundreds of nails to be driven
into the particle board which covers the roof trusses of a house under
construction. The carpenter knows that
his hammer is going to pull extra duty today as the tool of choice. After a long day in the hot summer sun, he
drives back to his work shop. When he
arrives he checks his hammer over to ensure it remains in good working
order. The hammer has recorded for him
that it was used 568 times that day. The
ache in the carpenter's shoulder confirms that assessment. The structural report shows no error codes,
meaning that failure is not imminent. He never coded logic into the hammer's
chip to detect when it is being lifted or carried. It certainly has no need of a rear facing
camera to see the face of the man wielding it.
It simply knows in its limited approximation of intelligence that it
performed a job today by striking 568 nails.
The carpenter wearily puts his trusty nail driver back into the tool box
and retires for the evening.
This picture of tools
made for a purpose with a creator who designed them, produced them, and uses
them at his whim is a parallel of the picture that God paints in response to
His prophet's frustration and complaint that we looked at in the last chapter. God opens this divine answer in Habakkuk 1:5
with authority and strength:
“Look among the nations! Observe!
Be astonished! Wonder!
Because I am doing something in your days -
You would not believe if you were told.”
One of the fascinating
elements that we see in scripture of the communication between God and man is
the dispensing of formalities that God tends to employ. If one of us were speaking with Habakkuk and
he voiced his concerns about the evil pervading his country and the
corresponding perversion of God's law, our tendency would be to commiserate
with him for a few moments before giving him our actual response. We would comfort him with platitudes and
empathy, real or feigned. God doesn't
bother with any of that. He cuts right
to the chase just as He did in Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus in John
3. The timid Pharisee comes to Jesus at
night and in verse 2 opens the conversation with “Rabbi, we know that You
have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do
unless God is with him.” This was
not at all what Nicodemus wanted to get at in his dialogue. What he really wanted to know was how one
gained access to the kingdom of God. But
in a typical human prevarication he beat around the bush with this opening
salvo, probably intended as a compliment to butter up his target and try to
gain points with Him. How do we know answers
about the kingdom was what he wanted?
Because of Jesus's reply in the next verse. Jesus had no need of human compliments. He was completely immune to human pride which
flattery is intended to inflate. And He
saw right through Nicodemus's pretense to what was in his heart when he said “Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of
God.”
It is this same pattern
of dispensing with formalities and cutting right to the heart of the issue that
we see in Habakkuk. God jumps right past
all of the unimportant fluff and gets straight to what His prophet needs to
hear. And in what a manner He does
it! It's like a bucket of cold water
dumped on Habakkuk's head. Because by
telling him to “Look among the nations!
Observe! Be astonished! Wonder!”
God is driving home the point that He knows perfectly well how fickle
and flighty humans are. This is the same
reason the preaching of the word of God is always relevant to the hearers. Humans have a tremendous capacity to forget
the things they should know. We cut
corners at the earliest opportunity. We
take the path of least resistance whenever possible in a monumental love affair
with pragmatism. And we all too often
fail to pay attention to what God is doing.
Psalm 19:1-2 says “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and
their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to
night reveals knowledge.” Yet in
spite of this evidence of God at work all around us how often do we actually
stop to pay attention? The answer is not
much. Jesus said in John 5:17 “My
Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” Yet how often do we ascribe the trials,
turmoil, and even the jubilation of our lives to human agencies rather than to
the one who empowers those agencies and in whom they all “hold together” (Colossians 1:17)?
The answer is most of the time.
This is exactly the point God is making here in Habakkuk 1:5.
He is not averse to using
sarcasm in the scriptures when describing human stupidity. So it's as if God is saying to Habakkuk (and
to us) “Wake up you dummy! I'm doing
things here that you can't see because you can't stop staring down the length
of your nose. In fact, my ways are so
utterly foreign and mystifying to you that you wouldn't even believe what I'm
about to do if someone told you.” This
is in fact an echo of the same message God communicated through the prophet
Isaiah approximately a century before Habakkuk came along, in Isaiah 55:8-9 - “For
My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the
Lord. For as the heavens are higher than
the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your
thoughts.” As we discussed in
chapter two, the writings of Isaiah were almost certainly very familiar to
Habakkuk. Yet in spite of this Habakkuk
then and we today insist on taking glory from God continually by giving credit for
what we experience to circumstances, fortune, or other people instead of to Him.
What did this divine orchestration
of circumstances look like in Habakkuk’s case?
What were the tools that God pulled out of his tool box for this
job? It was the Babylonian Empire…
“For
behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
That
fierce and impetuous people
Who
march throughout the earth
To
seize dwelling places which are not theirs.
“They
are dreaded and feared;
Their
justice and authority originate with themselves.
“Their
horses are swifter than leopards
And
keener than wolves in the evening.
Their
horsemen come galloping,
Their
horsemen come from afar;
They
fly like an eagle swooping down to devour.
“All
of them come for violence.
Their
horde of faces moves forward.
They
collect captives like sand.
“They
mock at kings
And
rulers are a laughing matter to them.
They
laugh at every fortress
And
heap up rubble to capture it.
“Then
they will sweep through like the wind and pass on.
But
they will be held guilty,
They
whose strength is their god.”
There are a few items to
note here. First is that there is a
clear sense of almost fatherly pride in this description of the Babylonian
army. Consider the adjectives that God
uses to describe them: fierce and impetuous people who march throughout the
earth, dreaded, feared, horses swifter than leopards, keener than wolves in the
evening, their horsemen come galloping from afar, and they fly like an
eagle. The reader gets a sense that this
is a proud father describing his beloved son to someone else. Perhaps the son is a baseball player or a
soldier. And the father takes great
pleasure in delighting over the talents and abilities of his child.
This may seem utterly
misplaced coming from God and directed toward the Babylonians. But consider what we have already examined in
chapter one about the relationship between man and God. Humans are Imago Dei. As such they are
images or representations or facsimiles of who God Himself is. They are examples of divine handiwork. Our tendency is to view Babylon exclusively in
the context of their historic barbarism and cruelty, their paganism, and their
toll in human life and circumstances.
But in doing this we ignore the bigger picture of God’s sovereignty and
His oversight of all creation. Just like
the carpenter with his hand-made and one of a kind tools, God’s perspective on
all of humankind is radically different from ours because He views them, all of
them, as the pinnacle of His creation.
Lest we doubt this truth, consider a fundamental gospel passage such as
John 3:16: “For God so loved the world”. God’s stated reason for sending Jesus as an
atoning sacrifice was because of His great love for the world, the people, whom
He had created.
Now, it must be said that
there is a flip side to this fatherly pride which is the second point of note
from the passage above. Namely that God’s
opinion of the Chaldeans is not completely rosy. And He is no stranger to sarcasm when
appropriate. In Isaiah 44:19 we read: No one recalls, nor is there knowledge of
understanding to say, “I have burned
half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an
abomination, I fall down before a block of wood!”
We see a similar attitude
here in Habakkuk as God demonstrates His mastery of the back handed
compliment. Woven in between the praises
and the fatherly pride described above is a thread of disdain, criticism, and rebuke. It is so understated and almost casual that
you might have missed it at first glance.
But look again: seizing dwelling places which are not theirs, justice
and authority originating with themselves, coming for violence, collecting
captives like sand, mocking at kings, and laughing at rulers. None of these are godly character qualities
and/or actions. They do not reflect the
attitudes or motivations that God exemplifies and Christ modeled. God doesn't come right out and mark the
difference between the positive and negative qualities of the Babylonians. But it should be understood that one who
knows God as He has revealed Himself in His word should be able to spot the
difference between godliness and ungodliness.
Can you pick out the
sinfulness and tell it apart from the righteousness? Or are you so distanced from the word of God
that it is primarily your own wisdom, upbringing, and preferences which form
the worldview that you use to judge the merit of what you see around you? On the other hand, if you have discernment
over what is biblical when you view others, are you able to apply those same
lenses onto your own life? Do you seize
things that don’t belong to you? Now
most of us would immediately rush to assure that we are not thieves. But do we take small things and brush them
off as inconsequential? Do we steal time
from our employer, taxes from our government, or offering from our church which
by extension is stealing from God?
Are you a violent
person? Again most would quickly assure
that that is not the case. But don’t
make the mistake of thinking that violence is only physical. Words can often do just as much damage as
fists, even if the effects are more difficult to see. Are you a husband who dominates his wife and
crushes her spirit with the words that he speaks? Are you an un-submissive wife who undercuts
and blocks the efforts of your husband at every turn in a passive aggressive
form of violence to his character, his self-esteem, and his role in the
home? Are you an impatient parent who
snaps at the slightest infraction of your children and rather than coach them
to godliness just make them fear putting a foot wrong and incurring the wrath
of their parent?
Do you mock and make fun
of whoever the current President of our country is because you disagree with
his policies and beliefs? Do you
discount the biblical truth that God has placed him in this position of
authority? Do you ridicule instead of
praying for him?
Does your “justice and
authority originate with yourself” in the sense that your own pride, ego, and
selfishness is what drives how you spend your time? Do you consider your offering to the church
as a bonus that you will only pay if the leaders appease you? Do you wield your authority in your secular
job like a club, dominating your subordinates instead of treating them as
equals? Do you consider the highway your
personal purview and antagonize those who dare to stray into your domain?
If any of these
descriptions apply in any way to you (and let me be clear that no matter how
much you try to disseminate we all fall into those categories somewhere) then
you had better go back and re-read that passage above. And this time realize that God isn’t just
describing the ancient Babylonian Empire, here referenced as “the
Chaldeans”. He is describing the irony
of man, created in the image of God, who rolls around in sin like a pig frolicking
in the mud. He is describing you!
After this
double edged description of the Babylonians God finishes His response with a
closing of such finality it is frankly astonishing in the vast scope
encompassed within its simplicity.
“But they will be held guilty,
They
whose strength is their god.”
This is so
understated that our tendency might be to glance over it or skip past it
casually. We want to see fireworks. Our minds are so small that we cannot
conceive of something as being powerful unless it is blindingly obvious. But power that requires such advertising is
not true power. God doesn't need a
voluminous diatribe against the sins of Babylon to finish them so utterly they
had no hope of rescue. The same approach
was seen by Elijah at Horeb in 1 Kings 19.
The Lord sent a strong wind, an earthquake, and a fire yet He was not in
any of these displays of supernatural power.
His voice finally appeared at last in just a “gentle blowing”. In a
similar way here in Habakkuk where God almost casually passes sentence what He
is doing is pronouncing ultimate doom upon the Babylonians. When the judge of all the universe says that
you’re guilty then you truly have no hope.
You are without recourse, without appeal, without defense.
And what was
the source of their guilt? It was not the
atrocities they were committing against the nations, which would all too soon
include Judah. It wasn't the destruction
of the temple or the taking into exile of the Jews. In Jeremiah 51:24 God makes it clear that the
evils of Babylon went beyond what was necessary for Judah’s punishment when He
says “But I will repay Babylon and all
the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion
before your eyes,” declares the Lord.
But this evil was just the outworking of the root of the issue, which is
revealed here in Habakkuk. Namely, the
Babylonians had as their god their own strength. This was the decisive factor in God’s mind
which condemned them. It seems like
overkill to us that God would make such a big deal out of someone trusting
themselves rather than Him. But He makes
it clear here that there is no middle ground or gray area. Either we put our trust in God and rely on
His strength or we are held guilty. And
notice the general nature of the pronoun which is used; they. This verdict extends beyond just the
Chaldeans and is leveled against anyone who follows in their footsteps of
stealing God’s glory by making anything else the object of their affections.
Now then,
having examined God’s response to Habakkuk’s complaint in some detail, what is
the big picture here? What is He
communicating to His prophet? Habakkuk
complains about the evils and atrocities in Judah that are perverting God’s
character and causing injustice to reign supreme. The Lord responds by describing the
Babylonian Empire that He is raising up.
How does this help answer Habakkuk’s concerns? The answer is that God is explaining how He
is going to see justice done. He is
going to use the Chaldeans to punish Judah for their iniquity. They are the “tools” He will commit to the
task of righting the wrongs that Habakkuk was seeing as well as those that had
taken place before his time. This was
not a new methodology for the Lord. He
utilized the Assyrians the exact same way in 722 B.C. when they invaded Israel
and sacked Samaria.
In Isaiah 10
God describes Assyria as “the rod of My
anger and the staff in whose hands is My indignation”. He goes on to say “I send it against a godless nation and commission it against the
people of My fury to capture booty and to seize plunder, and to trample them
down like mud in the streets.”
However, just as Babylon later would pervert the righteous justice that
God used them for, so did Assyria before them: “Yet it does not so intend nor does it plan so in its heart, but rather
it is its purpose to destroy and to cut off many nations.” And ultimately the Assyrians were judged just
as Babylon would be, not for God’s use of them in judgment but for the pride of
their own hearts which perverted that judgment: So it will be that when the Lord has completed all His work on Mount
Zion and on Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the fruit of the arrogant
heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness.”
The point here
is that both Assyria and Babylon were tools in the hands of the Lord. Living, breathing, thinking tools yes. But still tools nonetheless. Just as in our example at the beginning of
the chapter, although the hammer had a chip which allowed it to record how many
times it had struck a nail in a single day that doesn't mean it was responsible
for its own swinging. And lest you think
that example is far-fetched and compromises too much of human volition,
consider the words of the Lord in Isaiah 10:15.
In reference to Assyria just a few verses after what was highlighted
above he says this: “Is the axe to boast
itself over the one who chops with it?
Is the saw to exalt itself over the one who wields it? That would be like a club wielding those who
lift it, or like a rod lifting him who is not wood.”
Our minds tend
to recoil from such descriptions of humanity.
We insist that no, we have some measure of control. God cannot possibly be sovereign in such
minute detail that He uses people like pieces on a board. You may very well be squirming mentally right
now, arguing with me over the accuracy of what I’m saying. If so, then let me drive the dagger a little
deeper with a modern day example. As
stated in chapter one, often we tend to read scripture with a clinical view
that is detached from the reality of what the biblical characters were
experiencing. But let’s bring this
example of Babylon that we find in Habakkuk into the present day.
“For behold, I am raising up ISIS, those fierce and
impetuous terrorists who march throughout the Middle East to seize dwelling
places which are not theirs. They are
dreaded and feared; their justice and authority originate with themselves. Their tanks are swifter than leopards and
keener than wolves in the evening. Their
armored columns come speeding, they come from afar; they fly like eagles
swooping down to devour. All of them
come for violence. Their horde of faces
moves forward. They collect captives
like sand. They mock at presidents and
the United Nations is a laughing matter to them. They laugh at every city and use artillery
and missiles to capture it. Then they
will sweep through like the wind and pass on.
But they will be held guilty, they whose strength is their god.”
Does this make
you uncomfortable, this notion that God could possibly use ISIS for His own ends? Wouldn't God have nothing to do with such a
barbaric and cruel Islamic caliphate who wantonly terrorizes Christians and
murders people without conscience? Yet this is exactly the same thing He did with Babylon in Habakkuk’s day. He used as a tool an empire that was exceedingly
cruel, put many Hebrews to the sword, laid siege to Jerusalem for so long that
mothers began to eat their own children to stay alive, and burned the city to
the ground?
The point is
not whether God is using ISIS in a similar manner. I am by no means a prophet and the words I write are not authoritative
except where I quote scripture. The
issue is not whether God is actually doing this. The point is, what would be your response if
He did? Would you decide that enough was
enough and this God is too bloodthirsty for you? Would you decide that a God who defines love
in a manner that also includes punishment and suffering for people is not
really a God of love after all because He doesn't fit into your nice little definition of love that you have created in your own image? Let’s stop playing games with the sovereignty
of God. Either He is sovereign and has
absolute dominion and authority over all of His creation or He is not. There isn't any middle ground here. A nation cannot be partially sovereign over
its territorial waters. If it lacks
authority in an area then it is not sovereign in that area. Any person on earth who understands how
modern nations operate would accept this.
But why do we then turn around and strip God of this same prerogative?
The answer is
that we cannot stand the thought that someone other than us is in control of
things. Our hubris demands that we fight
for every scrap of authority we can muster.
It compels us to seek our own glory and the satisfaction of our own
whims. It asks the same question that
Satan asked of Eve in the garden: “Did
God really say…?” And don’t think
that just because you are a Christian you are immune to being deceived. Colossians 2:8, addressed to Christians in
Colossae, says “See to it that no one
takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the
tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather
than according to Christ.” This
warning is just as relevant for us today as it was for the Christians in the
first century. Our perception of the
world around us should be defined by the Bible, not by our own understanding or
the propaganda of a pagan and satanic world system whose primary goal is the
destruction of God’s character and reputation.
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