WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.560 All right, we're gonna read together from the Old Testament, 00:00:04.560 --> 00:00:08.800 from the book of Habakkuk, the prophet, chapter two. 00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:12.620 I'm gonna start reading at verse six instead of verse five. 00:00:13.640 --> 00:00:15.800 So we do have Bibles at the back. 00:00:15.800 --> 00:00:17.559 Feel free if you'd like to grab one. 00:00:17.559 --> 00:00:18.719 There's people grabbing them now. 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:20.600 Feel free at any time to grab one. 00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:22.719 That's no problem at all. 00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:26.839 And we're gonna read from just the top of page 786, 00:00:26.839 --> 00:00:28.480 starting from verse six. 00:00:32.039 --> 00:00:35.359 This is God's holy word, verse six. 00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:39.719 Shall not all these take up their taunt against him 00:00:39.719 --> 00:00:42.960 with scoffing and riddles for him and say, 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:45.760 woe to him who heaps up what is not his own 00:00:45.760 --> 00:00:49.799 for how long and loads himself with pledges. 00:00:49.799 --> 00:00:51.879 Will not your debtor suddenly arise 00:00:51.879 --> 00:00:54.879 and those awake who will make you tremble, 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:57.359 then you will be spoiled for them 00:00:57.359 --> 00:00:59.040 because you have plundered many nations. 00:00:59.040 --> 00:01:02.600 All the remnant of the people shall plunder you 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:05.040 for the blood of man and violence to the earth, 00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:07.439 to cities and all who dwell in them. 00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:11.480 Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house 00:01:11.480 --> 00:01:16.240 to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm. 00:01:16.240 --> 00:01:17.859 You have devised shame for your house 00:01:17.859 --> 00:01:19.840 by cutting off many peoples. 00:01:19.840 --> 00:01:21.480 You have forfeited your life. 00:01:22.439 --> 00:01:24.159 For the stone will cry out from the wall 00:01:24.159 --> 00:01:27.679 and the beam from the woodwork respond. 00:01:27.679 --> 00:01:29.959 Woe to him who builds a town with blood 00:01:29.959 --> 00:01:32.239 and founds a city on iniquity. 00:01:32.239 --> 00:01:34.399 Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts 00:01:34.399 --> 00:01:37.120 that people labor merely for fire 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:39.879 and nations weary themselves for nothing? 00:01:39.879 --> 00:01:42.280 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:45.079 of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 00:01:46.359 --> 00:01:49.199 Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink. 00:01:49.199 --> 00:01:51.959 You pour out your wrath and make them drunk 00:01:51.959 --> 00:01:54.479 in order to gaze at their nakedness. 00:01:54.479 --> 00:01:57.319 You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. 00:01:57.319 --> 00:02:01.459 Drink yourself and show your uncircumcision. 00:02:01.459 --> 00:02:04.399 The cup in the Lord's right hand will come round for you 00:02:04.399 --> 00:02:07.039 and utter shame will come upon your glory. 00:02:07.919 --> 00:02:10.639 The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you 00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:13.599 as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them 00:02:13.599 --> 00:02:16.400 for the blood of man and violence to the earth, 00:02:16.400 --> 00:02:19.240 to cities and all who dwell in them. 00:02:19.240 --> 00:02:21.519 What prophet is an idol when its maker 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:24.960 has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies, 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:27.920 for its maker trust in his own creation 00:02:27.920 --> 00:02:30.180 when he makes speechless idols. 00:02:30.180 --> 00:02:35.080 Woe to him who says to a wooden thing awake, 00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:38.320 to a silent stone arise. 00:02:38.320 --> 00:02:39.360 Can this teach? 00:02:40.260 --> 00:02:42.360 Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver 00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:44.680 and there is no breath at all in it. 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:47.960 But the Lord is in his holy temple. 00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:51.040 Let all the earth keep silence before him. 00:02:51.039 --> 00:02:52.039 This is God's word. 00:02:57.759 --> 00:02:58.599 Thank you, Corey. 00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:05.560 So this is our fourth of five sermons 00:03:06.519 --> 00:03:08.079 going through the book of Habakkuk. 00:03:08.079 --> 00:03:09.079 So if you have a Bible, 00:03:09.079 --> 00:03:10.959 please don't, hopefully you've just had it open there 00:03:10.959 --> 00:03:13.599 to read, but please don't close it. 00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:15.399 Very often in the Bible, 00:03:15.399 --> 00:03:18.159 something that you'll see is that God 00:03:18.159 --> 00:03:20.719 draws people close to himself, 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:22.319 lets them get really close, 00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:25.199 maybe close enough to wrestle with him even. 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:28.960 And in that experience, in that proximity to God, 00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:31.000 the person has changed. 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:32.840 And having changed the person, 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:37.840 what God does is send them back into the world, 00:03:38.120 --> 00:03:39.840 send them back into their lives. 00:03:39.840 --> 00:03:42.479 Okay, you think of, if you know the Bible 00:03:42.479 --> 00:03:44.240 and the prophet Daniel, 00:03:44.240 --> 00:03:46.599 you know, at the end of the book of Daniel, 00:03:46.599 --> 00:03:48.960 God draws him close, God gives him 00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:52.640 an utterly astonishing apocalyptic vision 00:03:52.640 --> 00:03:56.719 of the end of history, of the world changing. 00:03:56.719 --> 00:03:57.840 And at the end of all of it, 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:01.200 God tells Daniel, in effect, okay, 00:04:01.200 --> 00:04:04.280 go back and live your life now as a changed person. 00:04:04.280 --> 00:04:06.480 We think of Jesus and his disciples 00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:09.200 spending three years close to him. 00:04:09.200 --> 00:04:12.040 And what does he do then, having drawn them so close, 00:04:12.040 --> 00:04:14.760 I send you into all the earth. 00:04:15.760 --> 00:04:18.439 And that's an experience that Habakkuk, 00:04:18.439 --> 00:04:20.480 the prophet has as well. 00:04:21.399 --> 00:04:22.759 If you're joining us, 00:04:22.759 --> 00:04:25.719 this is your first time in this sermon series, 00:04:25.719 --> 00:04:27.120 looking at the book of Habakkuk. 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:29.319 It's this short book, it's only got three chapters. 00:04:29.319 --> 00:04:31.959 It's one of the minor prophets in the Bible. 00:04:31.959 --> 00:04:33.319 And it's the story of a man 00:04:33.319 --> 00:04:36.159 who can see terrible times on the horizon. 00:04:36.159 --> 00:04:38.040 There's an invading army that's about to come 00:04:38.040 --> 00:04:40.399 and take over where he lives, 00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:44.240 with the goal of assimilating them to its own worldview, 00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:46.360 to its own religion, to its own ethics, 00:04:46.360 --> 00:04:48.520 its own language. 00:04:48.520 --> 00:04:51.199 And Habakkuk is someone who can see all of that coming. 00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:54.280 He knows it's coming, and he wrestles with God. 00:04:54.280 --> 00:04:56.920 He calls out to God, God lets him come close, 00:04:56.920 --> 00:04:58.520 close enough to ask, what are you doing? 00:04:58.520 --> 00:05:01.280 And I won't let you go until you tell me. 00:05:01.280 --> 00:05:04.280 And in the midst of all of that wrestling with God, 00:05:04.280 --> 00:05:07.360 of Habakkuk being so close to God like that, 00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:11.720 God blesses him by telling him something really profound, 00:05:11.720 --> 00:05:14.040 profound enough to change his life. 00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:17.080 And that is that God tells him when he's up close like that, 00:05:17.080 --> 00:05:20.080 about the kind of person that Habakkuk needs to be, 00:05:20.080 --> 00:05:23.319 bearing in mind the evil times that are coming. 00:05:23.319 --> 00:05:27.600 And that is that Habakkuk needs to be a righteous person 00:05:27.600 --> 00:05:31.080 in an increasingly unrighteous world. 00:05:31.080 --> 00:05:33.720 He needs to be a just person in an unjust world, 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:35.160 and the way that he needs to do that, 00:05:35.160 --> 00:05:37.560 or how to become that is by faith. 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:40.160 Okay, God tells him that he has to be a just person 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:42.600 who lives by his faith. 00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:46.360 Now, if you've read the New Testament, 00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:48.400 you'll know that the way that the New Testament teaches us 00:05:48.400 --> 00:05:50.640 to understand Habakkuk on that point, 00:05:50.640 --> 00:05:53.600 with what God tells him, this truth that changes him, 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:57.520 it's that we are saved by our faith in Jesus, 00:05:57.520 --> 00:06:02.520 in his faithfulness to God on our behalf. 00:06:02.520 --> 00:06:05.000 And that then becomes that gospel, 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:07.760 that good news becomes the source of how we live 00:06:07.760 --> 00:06:10.600 in the unrighteous worlds in which we live. 00:06:10.600 --> 00:06:12.840 But Habakkuk is someone who gets close enough to God 00:06:12.840 --> 00:06:15.320 to hear that in his own way, in his own day. 00:06:16.200 --> 00:06:19.120 God shares the gospel with him up close, 00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:22.800 tells him that he needs to be a righteous person by faith 00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:24.720 in that unrighteous world. 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:29.720 And then having told him that, this transforming truth, 00:06:30.360 --> 00:06:35.360 God is about to send Habakkuk back out into this world 00:06:35.879 --> 00:06:37.760 where the Babylonians are coming. 00:06:37.760 --> 00:06:40.439 The times are bad and they're about to get a lot worse. 00:06:40.439 --> 00:06:44.360 So God calls him close in order to send him back into that world. 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:50.360 And back into a world where the rubber is about to hit the road 00:06:51.560 --> 00:06:53.439 with Habakkuk learning, 00:06:53.439 --> 00:06:56.720 what will it mean to be a righteous person by faith 00:06:56.720 --> 00:06:58.639 in evil times? 00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:00.360 So the key question that we're thinking about 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:03.240 in this sermon tonight is that question there. 00:07:03.240 --> 00:07:07.040 How do you live by faith in the worst of times? 00:07:07.040 --> 00:07:10.480 And we're thinking about that tonight 00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:13.360 just with two points for the sermon. 00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:18.360 And the first is why are these evil times? 00:07:18.960 --> 00:07:21.760 Are what's so wrong with the Babylonians? 00:07:21.760 --> 00:07:23.800 What's so wrong with the world that we live in? 00:07:23.800 --> 00:07:24.840 So why are these evil? 00:07:24.840 --> 00:07:26.000 Why are the times evil? 00:07:27.080 --> 00:07:28.840 And that's our first point. 00:07:28.840 --> 00:07:32.160 And that's an important question for you to think through 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:33.320 as you listen to this tonight 00:07:33.320 --> 00:07:36.120 and as you think about the book of Habakkuk. 00:07:36.120 --> 00:07:40.959 It's important for you because Christianity comes to you 00:07:40.959 --> 00:07:45.959 assuming that the way things are in the world around us 00:07:45.959 --> 00:07:49.040 and the way things are in every human heart, 00:07:49.040 --> 00:07:51.639 bar one in history and that's Jesus, 00:07:51.639 --> 00:07:55.360 but the way things are in every human heart is wrong. 00:07:55.360 --> 00:07:57.680 It's not how things should be. 00:07:57.680 --> 00:07:59.160 And Christianity comes telling us 00:07:59.160 --> 00:08:01.040 that everything needs to change. 00:08:01.040 --> 00:08:02.240 The world needs to change. 00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:03.120 You need to change. 00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:05.079 I need to change. 00:08:05.079 --> 00:08:08.519 And it comes to us asking, do you want it to change? 00:08:09.719 --> 00:08:13.879 But if your assumption is actually fundamentally, 00:08:13.879 --> 00:08:15.919 I quite like the way the world is. 00:08:15.919 --> 00:08:18.800 I don't think the world needs to change. 00:08:18.800 --> 00:08:22.360 And I want to stay as I am. 00:08:23.639 --> 00:08:26.079 If that's your assumption starting off, 00:08:26.079 --> 00:08:28.919 then the Christian message will seem really counterintuitive 00:08:28.919 --> 00:08:30.120 to you. 00:08:30.120 --> 00:08:34.159 So it's really important to ask why are the times evil? 00:08:34.159 --> 00:08:36.000 What's actually wrong with Babylon? 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:39.519 And then our second point is, 00:08:39.519 --> 00:08:43.399 how do you remember God in these evil times? 00:08:43.399 --> 00:08:46.399 So our first point then, why are the times evil? 00:08:46.399 --> 00:08:49.079 What was actually wrong with Babylon? 00:08:49.079 --> 00:08:51.879 So we're jumping into the chapter at verse six here. 00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:55.679 Shall not all these take up their taunt against him 00:08:55.679 --> 00:08:57.159 with scuffling and riddles for him? 00:08:57.159 --> 00:09:02.159 And say, if you think of where we are 00:09:02.159 --> 00:09:04.759 in the book of Habakkuk, God has just told him 00:09:04.759 --> 00:09:06.519 to live by faith. 00:09:06.519 --> 00:09:09.879 And then God starts to give his own perspective 00:09:09.879 --> 00:09:12.240 on the Babylonians, on this evil empire 00:09:12.240 --> 00:09:15.399 who are about to arrive to try and assimilate them. 00:09:15.399 --> 00:09:19.839 And there's a really important detail here in verse six 00:09:19.839 --> 00:09:22.639 that's staring you in the face as you read it, 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:25.679 but it's very easy to gloss over and to miss 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:30.679 as you read through the verse, which is that this, 00:09:30.679 --> 00:09:33.799 so the part of the chapter that we read there 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:36.039 is actually, it's a song. 00:09:36.039 --> 00:09:38.479 And it's a specific kind of song. 00:09:38.479 --> 00:09:40.319 It's a funeral dirge. 00:09:41.839 --> 00:09:44.519 So a dirge is a song of lament. 00:09:44.519 --> 00:09:46.879 You sing it when someone has died 00:09:46.879 --> 00:09:48.439 or when something has died. 00:09:49.639 --> 00:09:54.039 And there are two kinds of dirges in the ancient world 00:09:54.039 --> 00:09:55.719 and also in the world today. 00:09:55.719 --> 00:09:58.159 If you are sad about the person 00:09:58.159 --> 00:09:59.719 or the thing that has died, 00:09:59.720 --> 00:10:01.960 if you thought it made the world a better place, 00:10:01.960 --> 00:10:06.279 then your dirge is tremendously sad and you lament. 00:10:06.279 --> 00:10:10.840 But we live in evil times, in a fallen world. 00:10:10.840 --> 00:10:13.279 And there are plenty of people who die 00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:16.759 or regimes that fall and lots of people don't think 00:10:16.759 --> 00:10:18.920 that they made the world a better place. 00:10:18.920 --> 00:10:22.080 So the dirge becomes a celebration. 00:10:23.519 --> 00:10:26.200 People rejoice that something has fallen, 00:10:26.200 --> 00:10:28.200 that some evil person has died. 00:10:28.200 --> 00:10:33.200 And if you live in Habakkuk's day 00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:36.040 and an evil regime has fallen, 00:10:36.040 --> 00:10:40.360 the kind of dirge that you sing becomes a sort of taunt, 00:10:40.360 --> 00:10:44.360 a mockery, a mocking song for the thing that has just ended. 00:10:45.280 --> 00:10:48.600 And that's what we have in verse six. 00:10:48.600 --> 00:10:51.560 All the people who have been oppressed by the Babylonians 00:10:51.560 --> 00:10:53.640 shall not, all of those people, 00:10:53.640 --> 00:10:56.879 take up their taunt against them with scuffing, 00:10:56.879 --> 00:10:58.840 with mockery, with riddles. 00:10:58.840 --> 00:11:00.600 This is a kind of song that's about to come up. 00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:04.320 So the kind of dirge for someone 00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:06.879 whom you're really glad to see the back of becomes, 00:11:06.879 --> 00:11:11.080 you proclaim the woes against that person, that regime, 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:12.879 all of the ways that they were awful 00:11:12.879 --> 00:11:15.159 and that you're glad that they're not there anymore. 00:11:15.159 --> 00:11:17.679 So this, what we have next is five woes, 00:11:17.679 --> 00:11:20.879 W-O-E, not W-O-W. 00:11:20.879 --> 00:11:25.200 Ways that this funeral dirge for the Babylonians 00:11:25.200 --> 00:11:26.960 is going to be sung. 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:33.400 And one way you could think about this section 00:11:33.400 --> 00:11:38.240 of Habakkuk two is this is the Old Testament version 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:41.960 of a really important chapter in the New Testament, 00:11:41.960 --> 00:11:44.400 which is Revelation, last book of the Bible, 00:11:44.400 --> 00:11:45.879 Revelation chapter 18. 00:11:46.920 --> 00:11:51.920 In Revelation 18, it's like Habakkuk but amplified, 00:11:51.919 --> 00:11:55.039 and it's about the whole of human history 00:11:55.039 --> 00:11:58.079 from the fall up until judgment day at the end, 00:11:58.079 --> 00:12:01.559 where the world is all held together as Babylon the Great, 00:12:01.559 --> 00:12:04.079 this evil world, this fallen world, 00:12:04.079 --> 00:12:06.679 this world in rebellion against God, 00:12:06.679 --> 00:12:10.479 and Babylon the Great in Revelation 18 falls. 00:12:10.479 --> 00:12:12.719 History as we live in it now comes to an end. 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:16.319 And when Babylon the Great falls, 00:12:16.319 --> 00:12:18.719 when Jesus returns and judgment day happens 00:12:18.719 --> 00:12:20.799 and the world is going to be made new, 00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:24.199 when Babylon the Great falls in Revelation 18, 00:12:24.199 --> 00:12:26.319 there are two groups of people who react 00:12:26.319 --> 00:12:28.599 to Babylon the Great falling very differently. 00:12:29.559 --> 00:12:33.000 There are people who loved Babylon the Great, 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:35.679 who loved its food, the spices, 00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:37.559 the fine clothes that they could wear. 00:12:37.559 --> 00:12:41.759 They loved the life of luxury and comforts, 00:12:41.759 --> 00:12:43.759 pleasure that they had within it. 00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:46.719 They profited from it, they did well through it. 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:50.439 And they mourn, they weep bitterly 00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:52.640 that Babylon the Great has fallen. 00:12:52.640 --> 00:12:54.440 But there's another group of people 00:12:54.440 --> 00:12:57.040 who paid the price for all of that luxury, 00:12:57.040 --> 00:13:00.520 people who were oppressed, people who were trampled on 00:13:00.520 --> 00:13:02.840 by Babylon the Great, and they were joiced, 00:13:02.840 --> 00:13:05.920 and they say hallelujah that Babylon the Great has fallen. 00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:13.360 Now, this might, you might sit here tonight 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:15.000 listening to me talking about this right now 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:18.200 and think that these two worlds that I'm describing 00:13:18.200 --> 00:13:21.160 both sound incredibly alien, 00:13:21.160 --> 00:13:22.520 a million miles away from your experience, 00:13:22.520 --> 00:13:24.600 because you don't live in Bronze Age Babylon, 00:13:24.600 --> 00:13:28.680 and also some kind of future apocalypse in Revelation 18. 00:13:28.680 --> 00:13:31.240 You might think this is all really detached 00:13:31.240 --> 00:13:32.640 from your experience. 00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:38.240 But if that's you, what I want to do tonight 00:13:38.240 --> 00:13:40.320 in the first point in the sermon, 00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:43.360 why are the times evil, what's wrong with Babylon, 00:13:43.360 --> 00:13:45.640 what I want to do is show you that, 00:13:45.639 --> 00:13:50.639 that the Babylon that Habakkuk describes, 00:13:51.559 --> 00:13:53.639 or that God describes the Habakkuk, 00:13:53.639 --> 00:13:56.799 Babylon the Great that you see in Revelation 18, 00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:59.199 those are the worlds that you live in, 00:13:59.199 --> 00:14:01.399 and that is the world that you live in, 00:14:01.399 --> 00:14:06.399 and that I live in, and it's a world that needs to change, 00:14:07.159 --> 00:14:09.240 and it's a world that is going to change. 00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:14.519 And that's why these verses begin with a dirge, 00:14:14.519 --> 00:14:18.360 with a funeral march, and there's something about that. 00:14:18.360 --> 00:14:20.559 You might just read this, 00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:22.759 in our culture we don't read out loud, usually, 00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:24.360 we read silently in our heads, 00:14:24.360 --> 00:14:27.799 which is quite a recent invention in history. 00:14:27.799 --> 00:14:30.399 If you were reading this in Habakkuk's day, 00:14:30.399 --> 00:14:32.480 it's all out loud all the time, 00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:34.799 and Habakkuk only got three chapters, 00:14:34.799 --> 00:14:38.000 and each chapter is a song, song one in chapter one 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:40.639 is his How Long O Lord Sam, 00:14:40.639 --> 00:14:43.439 the song in chapter two is the funeral dirge, 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:45.240 which is almost the comedic moment, 00:14:45.240 --> 00:14:47.960 because Habakkuk is looking at this invading army 00:14:47.960 --> 00:14:49.680 who are about to come to take over, 00:14:49.680 --> 00:14:51.600 and the song that they've got playing in their heads 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:55.080 is a triumphant, you know, the march of the conquerors, 00:14:55.080 --> 00:14:57.320 but God chooses a completely different song, 00:14:57.320 --> 00:14:59.160 and they arrive to a funeral dirge 00:14:59.160 --> 00:15:02.160 because their doom is already secure. 00:15:02.160 --> 00:15:04.160 Okay, so you have to think about this musically 00:15:04.160 --> 00:15:06.040 as you read the book, and then chapter three then 00:15:06.040 --> 00:15:08.560 becomes Habakkuk's song of praise, 00:15:08.560 --> 00:15:10.440 living amongst the Babylonians. 00:15:10.440 --> 00:15:15.440 And so God actually is the one who chooses a funeral dirge 00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:21.000 for the Babylonians because he thinks that the world 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:23.520 that they represent needs to change. 00:15:23.520 --> 00:15:25.960 So as we get into then the five woes, 00:15:25.960 --> 00:15:29.360 it's really important that you get this sense 00:15:29.360 --> 00:15:31.320 that hits you in all your senses, 00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:34.560 that God is at work changing this world. 00:15:34.560 --> 00:15:37.320 So the dirge, this lament, this taunting of them 00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:40.120 has five woes, and the first one, 00:15:40.120 --> 00:15:42.720 we're gonna go through these pretty quickly. 00:15:44.039 --> 00:15:45.159 There are five of them. 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:48.679 So the first one is a woe against people 00:15:48.679 --> 00:15:51.039 who are trying to get wealth and power 00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:53.519 based on dishonesty and greed. 00:15:53.519 --> 00:15:55.399 So this is in verses six to eight, 00:15:55.399 --> 00:15:57.519 where it talks about woe to people 00:15:57.519 --> 00:15:59.799 who heap up water on their own for how long, 00:15:59.799 --> 00:16:02.840 and who loads himself with pledges. 00:16:02.840 --> 00:16:06.799 Now what this is talking about is people who become wealthy 00:16:06.799 --> 00:16:10.199 by taking advantage of the poverty of others 00:16:10.199 --> 00:16:14.699 to trap them in unfair exploitative contracts. 00:16:15.599 --> 00:16:20.000 Some of you will have seen Wonka, the movie, 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:22.240 came out last year, great film, 00:16:22.240 --> 00:16:26.519 and it's this backstory to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 00:16:26.519 --> 00:16:29.879 but it's really a story about exploitation 00:16:29.879 --> 00:16:33.000 because there are these people who take advantage of the poor 00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:36.759 by making them sign contracts that they haven't really read, 00:16:36.759 --> 00:16:38.399 and then once you sign the contract, 00:16:38.399 --> 00:16:40.319 you spend the rest of your life as their slave, 00:16:40.319 --> 00:16:41.799 and then Wonka is the savior figure 00:16:41.799 --> 00:16:43.679 who manages to save them from it, okay? 00:16:43.679 --> 00:16:45.919 And it's a powerful story because of, 00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:48.159 even as a kind of fun story, 00:16:48.159 --> 00:16:50.399 it's a really powerful story because of the evil 00:16:50.399 --> 00:16:52.639 that explains this, okay? 00:16:53.720 --> 00:16:58.240 But actually, you can find this all throughout our world. 00:16:58.240 --> 00:17:01.000 The level of global politics with the ways 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:04.480 that wealthier nations exploit poorer nations, 00:17:04.480 --> 00:17:08.360 you could start zooming in, okay? 00:17:08.360 --> 00:17:09.880 In the UK this summer, 00:17:09.880 --> 00:17:13.279 the wealthiest family in the UK, 00:17:13.279 --> 00:17:16.680 four members of their family were sent to prison in Geneva 00:17:16.680 --> 00:17:19.079 because they had taken people from India, 00:17:19.079 --> 00:17:22.880 and they were paying them, I think it was seven pounds a day, 00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:24.200 in effect to be their slaves. 00:17:24.200 --> 00:17:25.839 They were paying more for their dogs 00:17:25.839 --> 00:17:29.200 than for these human beings who were working for them. 00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:31.240 We could zoom into Scotland, 00:17:31.240 --> 00:17:35.720 where we have ongoing problems with workers 00:17:35.720 --> 00:17:37.279 being taken over from the Philippines, 00:17:37.279 --> 00:17:40.519 from West Africa to work on Scottish fishing boats. 00:17:40.519 --> 00:17:42.359 Their passports are confiscated, 00:17:42.359 --> 00:17:43.519 they're made to sign contracts 00:17:43.519 --> 00:17:45.319 that are well below the minimum wage, 00:17:45.319 --> 00:17:48.240 and they're made to work in brutal conditions. 00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:51.160 Okay, so this is a thing, 00:17:51.160 --> 00:17:54.599 not just in Babylon in the Bronze Age, 00:17:54.599 --> 00:17:56.000 or in Revelation 18, 00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:58.799 this is talking about woe to the kind of world 00:17:58.799 --> 00:18:01.440 that we live in. 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:04.799 Second woe is people who want to build dynasties 00:18:04.799 --> 00:18:07.559 for themselves, verses 9 to 11. 00:18:07.559 --> 00:18:10.240 So this isn't so much just dishonest gain for yourself, 00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:13.119 but it's the way that you want to build up a house, 00:18:13.119 --> 00:18:15.399 and that's not house in terms of a building, 00:18:15.399 --> 00:18:18.720 more like the house of Medici, 00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:20.639 or the house of Bonaparte, or something like that. 00:18:20.639 --> 00:18:24.159 You want to build a dynasty for your family, 00:18:24.159 --> 00:18:26.000 and here's how this worked in Babylon, 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:29.359 the kind of mentality that you needed to have 00:18:29.359 --> 00:18:30.720 if you were like this. 00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:34.440 I am going to build a house, a dynasty, 00:18:34.440 --> 00:18:36.319 and it will be great, 00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:38.680 but it has to be greater than yours, 00:18:38.680 --> 00:18:41.359 and you are now my competition. 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:43.640 We are now, you are a threat. 00:18:43.640 --> 00:18:46.200 I want my house to be safe from your house, 00:18:46.200 --> 00:18:48.359 so we're now in effect in an arms race. 00:18:49.599 --> 00:18:54.400 And what's astonishing here is the way that God, 00:18:54.400 --> 00:18:56.480 God's perspective on it, 00:18:56.480 --> 00:18:59.440 really exposes the idolatry that goes with, 00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:01.560 you know, empire building, thinking. 00:19:02.800 --> 00:19:04.720 The house you are trying to build, 00:19:04.720 --> 00:19:07.519 the house you think you're trying to protect, 00:19:07.519 --> 00:19:08.920 will actually turn around at the end 00:19:08.920 --> 00:19:12.080 and tell you that it hates you for what you've done to it. 00:19:12.080 --> 00:19:13.120 That's there in verse 11. 00:19:13.120 --> 00:19:15.840 You build up this house, a place of safety, 00:19:15.840 --> 00:19:20.040 and the bricks and the rafters call out against you. 00:19:20.040 --> 00:19:23.360 Now, let me take this story again 00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:26.119 into, let's say, our world of stories, 00:19:26.119 --> 00:19:28.399 the kind of stories that grip us. 00:19:28.399 --> 00:19:29.839 Have you seen the Godfather? 00:19:31.439 --> 00:19:35.479 Michael Corleone starts off with an idol, 00:19:35.479 --> 00:19:37.479 which is his family, and the family business, 00:19:37.479 --> 00:19:39.879 and it's a criminal business, but it's a family business, 00:19:39.879 --> 00:19:44.079 and the bigger his commitment to building up his house, 00:19:44.079 --> 00:19:46.000 his dynasty, to making it a place 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:47.799 that is safe from all threats, 00:19:47.799 --> 00:19:49.759 the more he gives to that, 00:19:49.759 --> 00:19:52.359 the more the family starts to hate him. 00:19:52.359 --> 00:19:55.359 And at the end, he's bitter, he's isolated, 00:19:55.359 --> 00:19:57.679 his idol has turned its back on him. 00:19:57.679 --> 00:19:59.159 Have you seen Breaking Bad? 00:19:59.159 --> 00:20:00.359 Some of you will have. 00:20:00.359 --> 00:20:03.159 Walter White, his idol is his family, 00:20:04.319 --> 00:20:07.119 and he will do anything to look out for them, 00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:08.879 and then decides even crime, 00:20:08.879 --> 00:20:11.199 and then he really does build a huge empire, 00:20:11.199 --> 00:20:14.079 a drugs empire, all the while thinking, 00:20:14.079 --> 00:20:16.479 but this will make my children's future secure 00:20:16.479 --> 00:20:20.159 when I'm gone, and at the end, spoiler alert, 00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:22.800 his family hates him. 00:20:22.800 --> 00:20:26.759 Have you seen, or read, Frankenstein, 00:20:26.759 --> 00:20:27.960 that someone who has this idol, 00:20:27.960 --> 00:20:30.800 which is, I will create life, 00:20:30.800 --> 00:20:35.000 and he makes his creature, Frankenstein's monster, 00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:36.960 and then the idol, the thing that he creates 00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:39.640 eventually turns around and says, I hate you, 00:20:39.640 --> 00:20:41.519 I want to kill you. 00:20:41.519 --> 00:20:43.360 And all of those stories in our culture 00:20:43.360 --> 00:20:46.759 are all retellings of the same story from the Bible, really, 00:20:46.759 --> 00:20:50.160 which is the story of how we ruin things 00:20:50.160 --> 00:20:51.599 by turning them into idols. 00:20:53.759 --> 00:20:55.799 You will do anything to build up your idol, 00:20:55.799 --> 00:20:58.599 to serve your idol, you give it all of your love, 00:20:58.599 --> 00:20:59.440 and at the end of the day, 00:20:59.440 --> 00:21:02.319 because you've asked it to be something that it cannot be, 00:21:02.319 --> 00:21:03.680 it turns around and says to you, 00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:05.519 I hate you for what you've done to me. 00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:10.680 And don't we live in a world where 00:21:11.640 --> 00:21:15.799 the temptation to build our own little empires, 00:21:15.799 --> 00:21:18.159 maybe you're not Walter White, 00:21:18.159 --> 00:21:20.559 but you have your own little empire, 00:21:20.559 --> 00:21:25.559 and the way that we imperil things that we think we love 00:21:25.599 --> 00:21:30.279 through that kind of idolatry ends up where this ends up. 00:21:30.279 --> 00:21:31.919 The next one was really short, 00:21:31.919 --> 00:21:34.319 and it's about violence in verse 12, 00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:36.159 people getting what they want, 00:21:36.159 --> 00:21:39.879 not by persuasion, not through love, 00:21:39.879 --> 00:21:41.919 but through power and coercion. 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:46.160 And so, the world has not changed 00:21:46.160 --> 00:21:47.680 since Bronze Age Babylon, 00:21:47.680 --> 00:21:52.360 from international war to playground bullies. 00:21:53.840 --> 00:21:56.680 And then there's a woe in verse 15, 00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:01.640 that's against people who degrade things 00:22:01.640 --> 00:22:03.680 that God made to be good, 00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:05.840 and who treat them as though they're worthless. 00:22:05.840 --> 00:22:09.440 And it starts off by talking about wine and the human body. 00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:13.120 And the Bible has a lot to say about wine. 00:22:13.120 --> 00:22:15.880 There's a lot to say about the misuse of wine, 00:22:15.880 --> 00:22:19.480 but fundamentally, the Bible, 00:22:19.480 --> 00:22:22.120 so here I'm thinking of Psalm 104, 00:22:22.120 --> 00:22:26.120 which is a long Psalm all about God's creation 00:22:26.120 --> 00:22:28.680 of the world, of good things, 00:22:28.680 --> 00:22:31.799 and the way that he provides for that world and sustains it. 00:22:31.799 --> 00:22:32.799 And it's a really epic, 00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:35.600 it's like an Attenborough nature documentary, 00:22:35.600 --> 00:22:37.440 but with God as the narrator. 00:22:37.440 --> 00:22:40.840 And wine features there, 00:22:40.840 --> 00:22:43.840 and it says that God gave human beings wine 00:22:43.840 --> 00:22:45.880 to gladden their hearts. 00:22:45.880 --> 00:22:48.240 So fundamentally, it's a positive thing, 00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:51.000 a good thing that can be misused. 00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:52.720 And the Bible says a lot about that as well. 00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:55.640 And the Bible also has a lot to say about the human body, 00:22:56.840 --> 00:22:59.279 that God is the Lord of our bodies, 00:22:59.279 --> 00:23:02.680 that the human body is a sacred thing, 00:23:02.680 --> 00:23:03.799 that it is a beautiful thing, 00:23:03.799 --> 00:23:06.440 that God made our bodies free. 00:23:06.440 --> 00:23:09.840 And God has made our bodies for His glory. 00:23:09.840 --> 00:23:12.840 And because of that, our own bodies, 00:23:12.840 --> 00:23:13.840 and the bodies of other people, 00:23:13.840 --> 00:23:15.440 are things that we should honor. 00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:19.440 But the woe and Habakkuk starts off 00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:22.039 by talking about people who take these two things, 00:23:22.039 --> 00:23:23.920 wine and other people's bodies, 00:23:23.920 --> 00:23:26.160 and twist them, degrade them, 00:23:27.759 --> 00:23:30.080 use wine to get other people drunk 00:23:30.080 --> 00:23:32.120 so that you can exploit their bodies. 00:23:32.119 --> 00:23:37.119 And this is an exceptionally hard thing 00:23:39.799 --> 00:23:41.199 to talk about in a sermon, 00:23:42.399 --> 00:23:43.919 because this isn't abstract, 00:23:43.919 --> 00:23:46.359 and this is not ancient history. 00:23:46.359 --> 00:23:49.039 We still live in Babylon. 00:23:51.679 --> 00:23:56.519 And Babylon in this way is a terrible place, 00:23:56.519 --> 00:23:58.039 a place that needs to change, 00:23:58.039 --> 00:24:02.319 a place where men do awful things to women. 00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:06.480 We live in a city, we live in an age where 00:24:08.319 --> 00:24:10.440 a lot of women in nightclubs 00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:12.799 don't take their eyes off their drinks, 00:24:12.799 --> 00:24:14.559 because we still live in Babylon. 00:24:15.759 --> 00:24:16.960 We live in a world where it's just, 00:24:16.960 --> 00:24:19.519 it's not a surprise when you turn on the news. 00:24:19.519 --> 00:24:24.039 And another super rich, powerful man 00:24:24.039 --> 00:24:26.519 is exposed as having used that power, 00:24:26.519 --> 00:24:28.480 and often alcohol as well, 00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:31.079 to entrap and to abuse the women 00:24:31.079 --> 00:24:34.240 who are part of the empire that he has built up. 00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:38.200 There was another, it's regular in the news cycle. 00:24:38.200 --> 00:24:40.519 We still live in Babylon. 00:24:41.879 --> 00:24:45.639 But then the war moves from degrading wine 00:24:45.639 --> 00:24:50.639 and human bodies, it moves from that to animals and trees. 00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:55.640 So in verse 17, it talks about the violence at Lebanon. 00:24:56.640 --> 00:24:58.840 And you can see by reading other, 00:24:58.840 --> 00:25:00.440 elsewhere in the prophets in the Bible, 00:25:00.440 --> 00:25:01.880 that that's actually, the thing in the Bible 00:25:01.880 --> 00:25:04.759 that Lebanon is really significant for is its trees. 00:25:06.759 --> 00:25:09.720 Spectacular, glorious trees, it's still the national symbol. 00:25:09.720 --> 00:25:12.000 And the violence at Lebanon is people who turn up 00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:15.280 to this place of beautiful ancient trees 00:25:15.280 --> 00:25:19.280 and hack them to bits for short periods of time. 00:25:19.279 --> 00:25:22.720 For short term conquests with no care, 00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:27.039 no gratitude to God for the creation, 00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:29.279 for those trees are God's trees. 00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:35.359 So there's woe to those who trash God's creation, 00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:40.359 and also who inflict destruction wantonly on animals. 00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:47.399 We still live in Babylon, and God hates those things. 00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:50.200 And then the last woe in verse 18 00:25:50.200 --> 00:25:55.200 is against Babylon as a place where people worship idols. 00:25:55.560 --> 00:25:58.000 Now, you know, I said in the first sermon 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:00.120 that you can see a lot of Babylonian cultures though, 00:26:00.120 --> 00:26:02.480 if you go to the British Museum in London, 00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:06.519 if you go to the City Museum in Berlin. 00:26:06.519 --> 00:26:09.560 And if you've done that, you'll have seen Babylonian idols. 00:26:09.560 --> 00:26:10.840 And they're these tiny, 00:26:10.840 --> 00:26:13.480 a lot of them just little bronze figurines, 00:26:13.480 --> 00:26:15.000 like tiny little toys. 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:20.000 And it might feel easy for you today 00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:24.960 if you're an irreligious, secular, Western person 00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:28.680 to say, I kind of looked down on that. 00:26:28.680 --> 00:26:31.240 My culture is way more sophisticated. 00:26:31.240 --> 00:26:34.000 It seems stupid to me to think that this little bronze thing 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:37.599 is something that you would bow down before and worship. 00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:41.079 So I can't be an idolater because I don't have any, 00:26:41.079 --> 00:26:43.000 I don't worship idols. 00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:44.400 I just don't have them. 00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:48.480 And I'm from a more sophisticated culture. 00:26:49.440 --> 00:26:51.040 Maybe you find it ridiculous 00:26:51.040 --> 00:26:52.480 that someone in the Bronze Age 00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:55.640 had this little metal figure that they worshiped. 00:26:55.640 --> 00:26:58.200 But here's the thing, if you were to say to an ancient 00:26:58.200 --> 00:27:00.680 Babylonian, you are an idolater, 00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:04.600 that person would say, no, I'm not, 00:27:04.600 --> 00:27:07.560 because this is not an idol, this is my God. 00:27:07.560 --> 00:27:08.680 Okay, because the thing in Christianity 00:27:08.680 --> 00:27:11.600 that makes an idol an idol is that it's a false God. 00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:14.399 It's a thing that you take from within this world 00:27:14.399 --> 00:27:17.399 and you treat it as though it is God, but it's actually not. 00:27:19.679 --> 00:27:22.399 You take, you create an idol 00:27:23.559 --> 00:27:25.919 whenever you take anything that is not the living God 00:27:25.919 --> 00:27:27.159 and you make it your ultimate, 00:27:27.159 --> 00:27:30.919 you make it your guiding star, your highest good. 00:27:30.919 --> 00:27:35.919 And that can be something that you don't have yet 00:27:36.159 --> 00:27:39.919 in your life, but that thing convinces you, you need me 00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:43.640 and if only you had me, then you'd finally be happy. 00:27:43.640 --> 00:27:45.200 Your life would finally have its meaning, 00:27:45.200 --> 00:27:47.440 you would finally be satisfied. 00:27:47.440 --> 00:27:49.320 And it can be things that you have, 00:27:49.320 --> 00:27:50.920 that you think, I just need to keep on getting 00:27:50.920 --> 00:27:53.440 more and more of this, and then eventually, 00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:54.720 it will satisfy me. 00:27:55.600 --> 00:27:59.160 And the thing is, you can turn anything 00:27:59.160 --> 00:28:01.279 in this world into an idol. 00:28:02.279 --> 00:28:04.880 If you were an ancient Babylon, you would express that 00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:07.279 by having this little bronze figurine and saying, 00:28:07.279 --> 00:28:11.160 this is my God and I will do anything for it 00:28:11.160 --> 00:28:13.440 because it's the ultimate thing in my life. 00:28:14.399 --> 00:28:19.399 But the city of Edinburgh is full of people whose lives, 00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:21.720 all have things like that. 00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:26.319 Have things, having a life that worships something, 00:28:26.319 --> 00:28:27.879 that's not optional. 00:28:27.879 --> 00:28:29.319 We all have that. 00:28:29.319 --> 00:28:31.200 The question is just, what do you worship 00:28:31.200 --> 00:28:32.319 or whom do you worship? 00:28:32.319 --> 00:28:37.319 Will it be an idol or will it be God? 00:28:38.839 --> 00:28:43.039 Will you take a finite thing and expect it to, 00:28:44.039 --> 00:28:45.599 even if it's a good thing, will you expect it 00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:48.439 to be your life's ultimate thing? 00:28:48.439 --> 00:28:53.119 Or will the true, the infinite eternal God be that for you? 00:28:54.319 --> 00:28:57.639 If you choose to center your life on a finite thing, 00:28:57.640 --> 00:29:02.640 the last of Habakkuk's woes puts this challenge to you, which is 00:29:03.840 --> 00:29:07.680 that you take something and you ask it to be 00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:09.720 what it never can be. 00:29:09.720 --> 00:29:11.400 Inherently, it is not. 00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:13.800 You take a finite thing and you ask it to give you 00:29:15.520 --> 00:29:18.560 the satisfaction that only something infinite could give you. 00:29:18.560 --> 00:29:20.880 You take a normal thing and ask it, 00:29:20.880 --> 00:29:24.360 feel to me like an ultimate thing, be that in my life. 00:29:24.359 --> 00:29:29.279 And you ask it to do what it can never do, 00:29:29.279 --> 00:29:30.759 what it can't deliver. 00:29:32.639 --> 00:29:34.959 And the way that Habakkuk challenges you to think like this 00:29:34.959 --> 00:29:38.039 is if you do that with your career, 00:29:38.039 --> 00:29:42.559 if you do that with the ideal of a relationship 00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:46.159 or living in a particular neighborhood 00:29:46.159 --> 00:29:48.639 or having a particular look 00:29:48.639 --> 00:29:50.279 or being accepted by a particular group 00:29:50.279 --> 00:29:51.919 or any of those things, 00:29:51.919 --> 00:29:54.319 if you take one of those finite things and say, 00:29:54.319 --> 00:29:57.919 be my ultimate and my infinite thing, 00:29:57.919 --> 00:30:00.839 give me that satisfaction that makes my life worth living 00:30:00.839 --> 00:30:05.839 every day, are you any more sophisticated? 00:30:06.839 --> 00:30:10.159 Really, can you look down at all on someone 00:30:10.159 --> 00:30:13.319 who takes a wooden statue and says, awake? 00:30:14.319 --> 00:30:19.000 Or takes a bronze figurine and says, speak to me. 00:30:19.960 --> 00:30:22.720 Habakkuk's woes says that these are the same things. 00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:26.400 You have no superiority over them for that. 00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:32.759 So this is why the times are evil. 00:30:32.759 --> 00:30:34.279 This is why we still live in Babylon, 00:30:34.279 --> 00:30:36.759 this world that God wants to change. 00:30:36.759 --> 00:30:39.200 And in that world, it's our second point, 00:30:40.200 --> 00:30:43.079 you're called to remember God in those evil times. 00:30:43.079 --> 00:30:45.440 I wanna say this really briefly. 00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:47.880 There are two verses here in the middle of this dirge 00:30:47.880 --> 00:30:49.680 where the tune completely changes. 00:30:49.680 --> 00:30:52.400 If you think of the dirge all as being in a minor key, 00:30:52.400 --> 00:30:53.800 there are two verses where all of a sudden 00:30:53.800 --> 00:30:55.360 it's like a completely different piece of music 00:30:55.360 --> 00:30:56.640 is breaking through. 00:30:56.640 --> 00:30:59.880 And they're in verse 14 and verse 20. 00:30:59.880 --> 00:31:03.360 In verse 14, all of a sudden, in the midst of this dirge, 00:31:03.360 --> 00:31:05.720 for the earth will be filled with the knowledge 00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:09.360 of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 00:31:09.360 --> 00:31:11.400 But then you're sucked back into the dirge for a moment. 00:31:11.400 --> 00:31:14.400 And then at the end of the dirge, verse 20, 00:31:14.400 --> 00:31:16.360 but the Lord is in his holy temple, 00:31:16.360 --> 00:31:18.440 let all the earth keep silence before him. 00:31:18.440 --> 00:31:23.440 So verse 14 says everything will change. 00:31:24.400 --> 00:31:26.840 And verse 20 says that's the thing 00:31:26.840 --> 00:31:30.000 that your faith latches onto in this world. 00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:32.160 Let the whole earth keep silent before him. 00:31:38.360 --> 00:31:39.680 A great example of this, 00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:42.320 I wanna try and summarize extremely briefly 00:31:42.320 --> 00:31:43.840 because it's quite a long story, 00:31:43.840 --> 00:31:46.920 but it's Nicholas Nicolby by Charles Dickens. 00:31:46.920 --> 00:31:48.800 It's a great story of someone, 00:31:48.800 --> 00:31:50.720 of actually a couple of people, a family, 00:31:50.720 --> 00:31:54.160 who are trying to live by faith in effect in evil times. 00:31:54.160 --> 00:31:55.960 And it's a picture of what it looks like 00:31:55.960 --> 00:31:58.480 to live through truly awful circumstances 00:31:58.480 --> 00:32:00.680 and to see all the kind of woes and violence 00:32:00.680 --> 00:32:03.840 and exploitation and everything that Habakkuk talks about. 00:32:03.840 --> 00:32:05.519 And but the story changes at the end 00:32:05.519 --> 00:32:07.279 and there's this powerful redemptive ending. 00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:08.920 It's a very Christian story. 00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:12.680 And the turning point at the very end 00:32:12.680 --> 00:32:14.600 before finally all these wrong things 00:32:14.600 --> 00:32:15.920 in the story are put right 00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:17.560 is the most evil character. 00:32:17.560 --> 00:32:19.160 He's like the king of Babylon in the story. 00:32:19.160 --> 00:32:23.039 He looks out the window into this gloomy street in London. 00:32:23.039 --> 00:32:27.320 And what does he see but a busker who is singing words? 00:32:27.320 --> 00:32:31.640 And the words that he's singing are Habakkuk 2,14. 00:32:31.640 --> 00:32:35.240 He's singing for the glory of the Lord 00:32:35.240 --> 00:32:38.600 will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. 00:32:38.600 --> 00:32:40.720 And it's a turning point in the whole story. 00:32:40.720 --> 00:32:43.320 So that's just a tip on the side 00:32:43.320 --> 00:32:44.279 that if you want to get a feel 00:32:44.279 --> 00:32:48.519 for the kind of effective power of Habakkuk's woes 00:32:48.519 --> 00:32:51.519 and how good news bursts into those woes, 00:32:51.519 --> 00:32:53.000 that's what Dickens is drawing on 00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:54.519 at the end of Nicholas Nicolby. 00:32:55.480 --> 00:32:57.240 And knowing that that's the case, 00:32:57.240 --> 00:33:00.879 having this burst into the worst of times, 00:33:00.879 --> 00:33:02.920 that one day everything will change 00:33:02.920 --> 00:33:05.879 is the thing that helps you keep silent 00:33:05.879 --> 00:33:07.279 in peace before God. 00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:11.079 I started off with the question, 00:33:11.079 --> 00:33:12.879 what's wrong with the world? 00:33:12.880 --> 00:33:15.120 And I'll save this to conclude. 00:33:15.120 --> 00:33:17.480 The reason I asked that, I said, 00:33:17.480 --> 00:33:19.320 is because Christianity assumes 00:33:19.320 --> 00:33:20.600 that there's a lot wrong with the world 00:33:20.600 --> 00:33:22.920 and that the world needs to change 00:33:22.920 --> 00:33:24.560 and that we need to change. 00:33:25.480 --> 00:33:27.640 And there are lots of things in Habakkuk's dirge 00:33:27.640 --> 00:33:30.440 that are easy for us to see at a cultural level. 00:33:30.440 --> 00:33:31.600 Yes, we want that to change. 00:33:31.600 --> 00:33:33.240 We want less violence. 00:33:33.240 --> 00:33:35.440 We don't want the oppression of the poor. 00:33:35.440 --> 00:33:37.480 We don't want people to be degraded. 00:33:37.480 --> 00:33:40.720 Now if you sit and really stare at these woes though, 00:33:40.720 --> 00:33:43.720 it's a harder picture for our culture to embrace. 00:33:43.720 --> 00:33:45.440 Did you notice in the fourth woe 00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:48.960 that it condemns what the culture around us would say 00:33:48.960 --> 00:33:52.440 are sort of good progressive liberal sexual values, 00:33:54.400 --> 00:33:56.120 which alienates, let's say, 00:33:56.120 --> 00:33:58.480 the secular left wing of our society. 00:33:58.480 --> 00:34:00.600 But then right after that, it condemns 00:34:00.600 --> 00:34:02.440 the kind of attitude that would say, 00:34:02.440 --> 00:34:03.920 let's burn down the rainforests 00:34:03.920 --> 00:34:05.839 and do intensive cattle farming 00:34:05.839 --> 00:34:08.840 so that we can have cheap hamburgers at McDonald's, 00:34:08.840 --> 00:34:11.760 which would be more like the secular right wing of our culture. 00:34:11.760 --> 00:34:14.440 And Habakkuk's woe there challenges both of those. 00:34:14.440 --> 00:34:17.360 Okay, so there are ways that our culture 00:34:17.360 --> 00:34:19.320 would sort of wrestle with these woes to say, 00:34:19.320 --> 00:34:20.880 we want the world to change, 00:34:20.880 --> 00:34:23.200 but if you sit and think about them for long enough, 00:34:23.200 --> 00:34:25.720 it's a hard change that's being asked. 00:34:25.720 --> 00:34:27.880 But nonetheless, I think for a lot of people in our culture, 00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:29.120 and maybe this is you, 00:34:29.120 --> 00:34:30.920 you look at Habakkuk's big picture and say, 00:34:30.920 --> 00:34:33.480 I agree that the world needs to change, 00:34:33.480 --> 00:34:36.240 but because in our culture, 00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:39.759 what we assume is that we're the masters of our own lives, 00:34:39.759 --> 00:34:41.399 I don't need to change. 00:34:42.839 --> 00:34:44.679 And I'm much less comfortable with God saying 00:34:44.679 --> 00:34:47.039 that I need to repent, I need to become different, 00:34:47.039 --> 00:34:50.439 but I'm happy for the rest of the world around me to change. 00:34:50.439 --> 00:34:53.439 God can change the world, but He has no right to change me. 00:34:53.439 --> 00:34:56.759 And if that's you, Christianity says, 00:34:56.759 --> 00:34:59.719 don't you see that the world is you, 00:34:59.719 --> 00:35:00.919 that you need to change, 00:35:00.919 --> 00:35:02.759 you need to embrace a completely new way 00:35:02.759 --> 00:35:05.239 to live in this evil world. 00:35:05.239 --> 00:35:07.719 And through Habakkuk, God's message to you is, 00:35:07.719 --> 00:35:11.159 you need to be a righteous person by faith in Jesus 00:35:11.159 --> 00:35:14.159 in this world if you are going to be the first fruits 00:35:14.159 --> 00:35:15.679 of the change that God is bringing, 00:35:15.679 --> 00:35:17.959 that He promises in verses 14 and 20. 00:35:19.239 --> 00:35:21.000 In the gospel God draws you in, 00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:23.039 He lets you get close enough to wrestle with Him 00:35:23.039 --> 00:35:25.159 in order to share that good news with you, 00:35:25.159 --> 00:35:27.559 that you can change, that you must change, 00:35:27.559 --> 00:35:29.679 and that by faith you can. 00:35:29.679 --> 00:35:31.359 Even though you're an unrighteous person 00:35:31.359 --> 00:35:32.479 from an unrighteous world, 00:35:32.479 --> 00:35:35.000 He will gift you righteousness in Jesus, 00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:37.440 and having done that, He will then send you back out 00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:40.480 into this world to live out that faith there. 00:35:41.880 --> 00:35:43.719 What will that look like? 00:35:43.719 --> 00:35:46.480 Come back next Sunday nights for the last sermon. 00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:48.360 We'll look at this in chapter three. 00:35:48.360 --> 00:35:49.880 Let's pray. 00:35:49.880 --> 00:35:52.800 Father God, we thank you for the hope of the gospel, 00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:57.719 for the light that it shines into our dark world. 00:35:57.719 --> 00:35:59.920 We thank you for your commitments to this world 00:35:59.920 --> 00:36:01.639 that you have made for your own glory. 00:36:01.639 --> 00:36:03.159 And we thank you that one day, 00:36:03.159 --> 00:36:05.079 as you promised us through Habakkuk, 00:36:05.079 --> 00:36:08.159 the knowledge of your glory will fill this world 00:36:08.159 --> 00:36:10.000 as the waters cover the sea. 00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:10.960 So Lord, because of that, 00:36:10.960 --> 00:36:13.599 we pray that you would help us to be still before you, 00:36:13.599 --> 00:36:17.359 to be calmed, to be quieted, to know that you are with us. 00:36:17.359 --> 00:36:18.679 And because of that, 00:36:18.679 --> 00:36:22.039 you would help us to live by faith in this world. 00:36:22.039 --> 00:36:33.880 Amen.