Popular culture
is rife with stories of humans conversing with animals. In 1950 a film was released about just such a
phenomenon. It starred James Stewart as
a whimsical man with an invisible six foot tall rabbit named Harvey for a best
friend. Although in the film “Harvey”
never speaks he is the subject of much conversation and hilarity due to the
comedic nature of the movie. More famous
is the fictional tale of Dr. Dolittle.
First seeing print in 1920 the original story “The Story of Doctor
Dolittle”, spawned a series of children’s books as well as repeated film
adaptations over the decades since. In
this imaginative account Dr. John Dolittle is a physician living in Victorian
England who, due to his penchant for harboring animals ends up losing his
medical practice but in turn learns to speak to the animals who cost him his
living. As a result he becomes a
veterinarian and has many adventures with his non-human companions. Stories such as these fire our imaginations
and open us to the prospect of the extraordinary. But even so, they seem to almost still be in
the realm of possibility. Those who own
pets can attest that often our furry companions have a tendency to exhibit
traces of human characteristics. Whether
it’s a sideways glance, an arrogant saunter across the kitchen, a fear filled
cower when thunder crashes overhead, or a sheepish glance after being caught in
some nefarious misdeed animals can have an extraordinary capacity to act like
us. So when we read a story like “Doctor
Dolittle” or watch a film like “Harvey” it doesn’t seem so far-fetched. But to my knowledge there has never, or at
least very rarely, been a story about a rock that talks or a piece of wood that
answers. Such a concept seems rather
ludicrous and would probably make for a very boring movie because it seems so
far removed from reality as to make it nonsense. But that is precisely the angle that God
plays in His second woe against the Babylonians in Habakkuk 2:9-11.
We have already
seen the first divine woe, or proverb, enjoined against this pagan nation. And as stated previously, although there is
some overlap from one woe to the next there is also an amazing spectrum of
application across a broad view of the reality that is God’s creation. In the case of this second taunt against
Babylon we find Him condemning evil material gain as being contrary to the
fundamental laws of nature He has devised.
Consider the text of verse 9:
“Woe to him who gets evil gain for his
house
To
put his nest on high,
To
be delivered from the hand of calamity!
The crime on
display is immediately obvious. God
specifies that it is evil gain that is of concern. Much like in the previous woe where He is not
blanket condemning all forms of debt, this woe is not aimed at anyone who
acquires possessions or dwelling places.
Rather it is those who do so through evil means and unscrupulous
agendas. There is a clear element of
pragmatic thinking that we can observe in the actions of the sinner. Pragmatism dictates that the end justifies
the means. A modern example would be
embryonic stem cell research. Advocates
might argue that the medical benefits to society which can be obtained through
harvesting the stem cells of aborted fetuses are worth the cost in slain unborn
children. Actually, they would probably
advance the notion that the fetuses being harvested are not really children at
all, but we won’t even consider that possibility. So these crusaders for the greater good of
humanity would say that in this case the end justifies the means. The “end” of a great advance in medical
understanding is worth the “means” of the slaughtering of the unborn. We can even see this type of thinking in the
biblical record of history. In Genesis
chapter 27 the familiar account of Jacob and Rebekah’s deception can be
found. Isaac, being old and well
advanced in years, desired to bless his firstborn son, Esau. But his mother Rebekah, favoring her younger
son Jacob, conspired with him to deceive Isaac into blessing Jacob
instead. Jacob happily went along with
the plan. His only hesitation was fear
of being caught and calling down a curse on his head rather than a blessing. In the minds of these two schemers the means
they had to utilize to achieve the end they desired was irrelevant. It did not matter that what they were doing
was dishonest, hurtful, and selfish. All
that mattered was the objective, the end if you will.
In a similar
way the scene being described in Habakkuk 2:9 by God seems to be focused on the
ends desired. The sinner’s focus is upon
obtaining safety and security. Although
it remains unstated, this is probably in the interest of protecting one’s
family. On the surface it seems like a
noble pursuit. We certainly ought to
endeavor to provide shelter for our loved ones if at all possible. In fact, in certain circumstances we are even
commanded to do so. 1 Timothy 5:4 gives
the following instruction: but if any
widow has children or grandchildren, they must first learn to practice piety in
regard to their own family and to make some return to their parents; for this
is acceptable in the sight of God.
So obviously this is a priority in the sight of God. But as He reveals to Habakkuk in our passage,
woe to those that resort to evil for the purpose of accomplishing this
goal.
Typically our
immediate response would be drawn to those against whom such corruption is
being perpetrated. Our hearts would go
out to these victims of the evil of mankind.
We would perhaps decry the advantage being taken of them in order to
secure the safety and protection of the wicked.
But that is not where God chose to place the emphasis in verse 10:
“You
have devised a shameful thing for your house
By
cutting off many peoples;
So
you are sinning against yourself.
This statement is extremely counter to human thought
processes. We who are only capable of
seeing what is thrust right in front of our faces, and then still sometimes
disbelieving, can hardly conceive of such a thing as the oppressor in reality
being the victim. Who of us, upon
reading a news story of a rapist, would view the perpetrator of the crime as
the one who in reality has been victimized by sin? No, we would curse the rapist and demand
retribution against him from the government.
We would casually toss around misquoted biblical epithets such as “an
eye for an eye”. And we would certainly
feel compassion for the one who had been raped; rightly so. But it is doubtful that it would ever cross
our minds to feel any pity for the rapist.
Our perception of reality is so skewed toward self-interest that we
would focus exclusively upon the obvious and visible human tragedy. Yet this idea of the sinner victimizing
himself with his own sin can be seen throughout the Bible. It was Adam who was the most adversely
affected by his own sin, considering that it resulted in his physical and
spiritual death as well as separation from the intimate relationship he had
once enjoyed with God. Abraham’s lack of
faith and attempts to manufacture his own future with Hagar ultimately brought
him more trouble than it was worth.
David’s great sin with Bathsheba and Uriah plagued him the most in the
end, even though it was Uriah who suffered death in the short term. To underscore the whole point Solomon has
this to say in Proverbs 28:13: He who
conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes
them will find compassion.
Clearly the biblical record bears out the truth that
God is presenting here in this woe against the Babylonians. But He isn’t finished yet. Although this revelation of self-inflicted
sin definitely gets the point across the Lord wants to drive this truth home in
such a way as to cement it in Habakkuk’s mind and ours as well such that we
will not soon or easily forget it. He
does so by calling attention to inanimate objects. As mentioned before we tend to easily
associate human traits to animals. But
that would be too easy and simple minded for God’s purposes here. He instead draws a connection between this
sin of evil material gain and the very creation which surrounds us:
“Surely
the stone will cry out from the wall,
And
the rafter will answer it from the framework.
The Lord isn’t being literal here. In verse 6 we clarified that the conquered
nations taking up a taunt-song against Babylon was symbolic for God’s own
condemnation and ridicule of the pagans.
In the same way here He is not saying that stones will literally yell
and be answered by rafters. He could
certainly cause that to happen should He choose to. But there is a more fundamental and less
pedestrian object in mind here. Namely,
that the commission of the sin being described is so alien to the essence of
the universe and the laws with which God constructed it that on an elementary
and primal level the creation itself will rebel against the perpetration of
such sin.
Why is this such a big deal? I mean, sure, we’re talking about sin
here. We’re discussing the violation of
another person’s rights and prerogatives in order to acquire safety and
security for oneself. But is such a
thing really such a big deal as to cause even nature to call foul? To answer this question we need to keep in
mind the following truth. It is not the
specific characteristics of the sin on display that is the real issue
here. It is the thought processes and
motivations, the world view and philosophies that are driving these actions
which are the real target of God’s wrath.
Think about the “why behind the what” in this
situation. What is it that is driving
the Babylonians, or any other person throughout history, to follow this pattern
of behavior? Notice again the two
elements that make up the sin. First is
the attempt to establish personal security via immorality. Second is an objective of manufacturing
safety against calamity. Both of these
stink of a man centered focus on manipulation, on scheming, on machinations, on
an endeavor to force circumstances to bow to one’s will. It is a godless and heathen approach to life
which has no part of God’s intention. He
structured the entire universe to depend solely upon Him for sustenance, longevity,
and order. The sins being depicted are
diametrically opposed to such design.
This is the real source of the problem and it is why the Lord paints
such a fundamentally graphic image of rocks and wood decrying these
perversions.
It would be fantastic if the Bible offered a
counterpoint to what God is condemning here.
Fortunately for us it does. Over
against this model of the shameful decrepitude of human nature stands the
shining example of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It behooves us to consider how He lived His earthly life in contrast to
what is being described here in Habakkuk.
And in so doing we will state emphatically; Christ had no concern for
personal security and safety. His only
concern was for accomplishing the will of His Father. Repeatedly He thrust Himself into dangerous
situations where His life was in danger from the Jewish authorities. In fact, Jesus both opened and closed His
ministry by stepping into close proximity with threats. In Matthew chapter 4 we read the account of
the temptation of Christ in the wilderness.
Setting aside for a moment the mental and spiritual assault waged by
Satan, consider the ramifications of going 40 days and nights with no food.
Recent medical history contains examples of people
actually dying after shorter fasts than what Jesus endured. In 1978 a man died of pneumonia after fasting
for 29 days. His body didn’t have the
energy to fight off his infection due to lack of nutrition. More recently, in 2010, a woman died of heart
failure after 21 days of fasting. In her
case, the body’s stores of minerals necessary for cardiac function were
depleted to the point that her heart could no longer function. These examples should not be taken to
indicate that no one fasts for long periods of time safely. Many people do. But it must be understood that long fasts
such as Jesus’s are not without very real physical risks. This was how the Son of God chose to begin
His work in service to His Father.
On the other end of Christ’s ministry the danger He
courted is much more obvious; namely, the cross. He knowingly and willingly subjected His comfort
to discomfort, His pride to shame, His body to pain, and ultimately His life to
death all according to the direction of God.
The body Jesus inhabited was of little consequence to Him because He
trusted that the Father would provide Him a new one. The life that He lived was of low priority
because He had His sights set on the heavenly rather than the earthly realm.
In between the temptation and the cross is recorded
for us multiple incidents in which Jesus threw safety to the wind. In Matthew 8:23-27 that we looked at two
chapters ago the Lord allowed His physical safety to be placed in jeopardy
during a storm on the Sea of Galilee. In
chapter 12 of the same book He challenged the Pharisaic notion of what was
lawful on the Sabbath. Verse 14 gives
their reaction: But the Pharisees went
out and conspired against Him, as to how they might destroy Him. The next chapter records a visit to His
hometown of Nazareth where He was ridiculed because of His teaching. The parallel account in Luke 4:29 even tells
us that the crowds were so enraged by Jesus’s claims that: they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of
the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the
cliff. Again in Luke 6:10 the Son of
Man challenged the establishment and risked His continued safety by healing a
man on the Sabbath. Verse 11 offers
insight into the minds of the religious leaders: But they themselves were filled with rage, and discussed together what
they might do to Jesus. Never one to
back down from a confrontation over truth Jesus continued to show the Jews’
sinful hearts to them. In Luke 11:40 He
called the Pharisees foolish ones. From
verse 42 to 47 He pronounced five woes against first the Pharisees and then the
lawyers. And we have already seen how
dire of an invocation it was for a Hebrew to call down a woe upon someone
else. So needless to say, after being
insulted so grievously by this man Jesus, verses 53 and 54 say: the scribes and the Pharisees began to be
very hostile and to question Him closely on many subjects, plotting against Him
to catch Him in something He might say.
It was a powder keg of enmity that Christ created for Himself by
speaking the truth yet He never backed away from it. In fact, we can state very emphatically that
the Lord continually pushed the envelope of safety in order to accomplish the
work He had been sent to do. In John
chapter 7 the Feast of Booths is approaching.
Jesus has already made a reputation for Himself as a troublemaker for the
religious authorities. He was a marked
man in Judea, in the vicinity of Jerusalem.
As the feast drew nearer He was ministering in Galilee, to the north. He could have easily remained there to allow
the political situation to settle down a little. But instead, in verse 10 we read: But when His brothers had gone up to the
feast, then He Himself also went up, not publicly, but as if, in secret. And in verse 14: But when it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the
temple, and began to teach. The
wound He had inflicted upon this sinful generation of Jews was open and
bleeding. And now Jesus really began to
pour salt on it. The episode in
Jerusalem continued to escalate, culminating in chapter 8 with two incredibly
provocative statements. First, in verse
44 He accused the Jews of being born of Satan: You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of
your father. Then in verse 58 He
cast the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back by saying: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham
was born, I AM.” He was literally
calling Himself Yahweh. This the Jews
could not take without inflicting retribution.
They got their wish a short time later with His crucifixion.
So it is exceedingly evident that from the beginning
to the end of Christ’s ministry and all points between He courted danger
because of the dividing nature of the truth He spoke. As opposed to the evil depiction of the
Babylonians using wickedness to set up places of safety and security for
themselves, Jesus thought only of His Father’s business. He trusted the Lord to accomplish His divine
will through Him. If that meant He had
to die, then of what consequence was death compared with the promise of eternal
glory which awaited Him? What Jesus
evidenced in His life on earth was nothing less than a complete divorcing of
His motivations and desires from any human passions and considerations. Instead of a man centered scheming to force
circumstances to bow to His will He preferred to simply be carried along by God
and poured out as a drink offering for His glory.
All of this begs the question. How do we respond to this example of
Christ’s? Should we proceed at once to
pull up our tent stakes and move to the heart of the inner city of a major
American city so as to go into the crack houses and the gang headquarters
preaching the gospel? I believe the
answer to a proposition such as that one is “not necessarily.” Make no mistake, if God calls us to such a
ministry then we had better be willing and ready to go. But even in the examples given of the
personal danger Jesus placed Himself in we find evidence of His efforts to
protect Himself from harm. When He was
in Nazareth and the crowds, incited by their anger, were preparing to cast Him
off the cliff, Luke 4:30 tells us: But
passing through their midst, He went His way. Later, at the aforementioned Feast of Booths
in Jerusalem, after intentionally infuriating the Jews to a fever pitch, John
8:59 gives this insight: Therefore they
picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the
temple.
So there is an element of wisdom to be applied in the
service of the Lord. But notice where
the wisdom came from with Jesus. Earlier
in the same chapter of John, in verse 20, we read the following: These words He spoke in the treasury, as He
taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come. What this verse means is that the time for
Christ’s arrest, trial, condemnation, and execution in fulfillment of scripture
had not yet arrived. It was not
appropriate for Jesus to be stopped from speaking at this point because it was
not God’s pleasure for Him to be stopped yet.
So even in the application of wisdom to see to His personal safety Jesus
still was not exhibiting a man centered frame of mind. Even here He was committed to operating on
His Father’s time table. And this is the
key for us to determine how we should live our lives in emulation of Christ’s
life. We must be committed to God’s game
plan, not our own.
There is a classic old saying: “Don’t throw the baby
out with the bathwater.” I believe God
is not calling for us to throw all sense and responsibility out the window in
an effort to serve Him. But on the flip
side He is also not calling us to comfort and ease and peace of mind. There is no compatibility between a fallen
sinful world and the message of the gospel.
In John 15:18-19 Jesus said: “If
the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would
love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the
world, because of this the world hates you.” This means that if we publicly declare our
allegiance to Christ via our actions we can expect to be placed into some uncomfortable
or even dangerous circumstances with people who are hostile to us because they
are hostile to our Lord and Master, Jesus.
Further, we are called to go to the dregs of society;
people we most likely are not at ease around.
Jesus repeatedly associated with tax collectors, prostitutes, and
Samaritans (in the Jewish mind as bad as hanging out with a homosexual in most
of our sanctimonious Bible belt minds).
The Lord’s entire strategy of ministry to the strays of human society is
summarized in Luke 15:2-7: Both the
Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, “This man
receives sinners and eats with them.”
So He told them this parable, saying, “What man among you, if he
has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in
the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds
it? When he has found it, he lays it on
his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he
comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them,
‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that in the same way, there will
be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over
ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Woe to us if we act like the Pharisees in
this example.
Why do we shy away from these types of
encounters? Odds are good that it’s
because we are too committed to our own comfort. In most cases our failure to take the gospel
to the lost has nothing to do with fear for personal safety, especially here in
the United States where we have the great benefit of a system of laws designed
to protect us and enable to voice our opinions.
Rather, I believe that usually we fail in this area simply because it’s
too far of a stretch outside of our personal comfort zones. Just like the Babylonians our goal is to “put
our nests on high to be delivered from the hand of calamity”. And although the measures we take to ensure
this security may not be overtly evil as it was with the Chaldeans, if the root
of our motivations is the same, that is to manufacture our own comfort through
inaction where theirs was through action, then the same condemnation is
applicable to us as well. If this is the
case then, in the words of God from 600 B.C., woe to us.
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