The Just Shall Live By Faith
One sentence in Habakkuk launched the Protestant Reformation.
What does "the just shall live by faith" mean — and why did it change the world? Five words in Habakkuk 2:4 — quoted three times in the New Testament — ignited the Reformation when Martin Luther grasped their meaning, and they remain one of the most consequential statements in the entire Bible. In this sermon, Dr. Toby Holt examines what God meant when He spoke these words to a prophet bracing for Babylon's coming power, how Paul used them to anchor the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Romans and Galatians, and why this single verse is the answer to every anxious soul wondering how to stand before a holy God.
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Questions This Sermon Answers
This is God's core answer to Habakkuk's complaint. The righteous person — the one declared just before God — does not live by sight, by explanation, or by resolved circumstances. He lives by trust in God's character and promises. The Hebrew word for faith here is emunah, meaning steadfastness and faithfulness — an active, enduring trust rather than a passive feeling. Paul quotes this verse in Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11 as the foundation of justification by faith alone.
This single verse runs through the New Testament like a thread. Paul cites it as the basis for the entire gospel — that righteousness before God comes through faith, not works (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11). The writer of Hebrews quotes it to call persecuted believers to endure (Hebrews 10:38). When Martin Luther read Romans 1:17 and saw this principle clearly, it triggered the Protestant Reformation. Few Old Testament verses have had greater theological impact.
God pronounces five woes against Babylon — the very nation He said He would use as His instrument. The woes condemn: (1) plundering others to build oneself up, (2) getting rich through dishonest gain, (3) building a city with bloodshed, (4) shaming and degrading neighbours, and (5) worshipping idols made of wood and stone. Each woe exposes the moral bankruptcy of Babylon and makes clear that God's use of Babylon as an instrument does not exempt Babylon from judgment.
Habakkuk 2:20 is a commanding theological statement: whatever chaos surrounds you, God has not abdicated His throne. He is present, holy, sovereign, and in control. The command for silence is not passivity — it is reverence. When Habakkuk is tempted to panic at the coming Babylonian invasion, God's answer is: I am still on the throne. Be still. This verse directly addresses the reformed doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty.
God tells Habakkuk to write the vision down and wait — because the appointed time is coming and will not fail (Hab. 2:3). The answer to divine silence is not that God is absent or unconcerned. It is that God operates on a schedule that does not match human impatience. The Westminster Confession of Faith 5.7 teaches that God's providence extends to all things, and that apparent silence is not inaction.
Reformed theology grounds justification entirely in the righteousness of Christ received through faith alone. Habakkuk 2:4 is the Old Testament root of this doctrine. Paul's use of the verse in Romans and Galatians shows that the principle of living by faith — not by works or merit — is not a New Testament innovation but the consistent witness of Scripture from Moses through the prophets. The Westminster Confession Chapter 11 teaches that justification is an act of God's free grace, not of human effort.
In chapter 1, Habakkuk could not see past the injustice around him. By chapter 2, God has expanded his field of vision — he can see that Babylon will face judgment, that God's purposes are moving forward, and that the righteous have a path forward: faith. The circumstances have not changed. What has changed is Habakkuk's understanding of who controls those circumstances.
1. Justification by Faith Alone
Habakkuk 2:4 — "the just shall live by his faith" — is the Old Testament foundation for the Reformation's central doctrine: sola fide. The Westminster Confession of Faith 11.1 states that God freely justifies those He calls, "not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone." Habakkuk was not told to earn God's favour. He was told to trust in it.
2. The Sovereignty of God Over Pagan Empires
The five woes of Habakkuk 2 confirm what chapter 1 established: God governs even wicked empires according to His holy purposes, and holds them fully accountable for their wickedness. This is not contradiction — it is divine wisdom. As R.C. Sproul writes, "God never does evil, yet He governs all things including the evil that men do." WCF 5.4 directly addresses this, teaching that God's use of secondary causes — including sinful human actions — does not make Him the author of sin.
3. Faith as Active Endurance
The Hebrew emunah behind "faith" in Habakkuk 2:4 carries the sense of steadfastness, firmness, and reliability — not a feeling, but a posture. The writer of Hebrews quotes this verse in the context of calling believers to endure persecution without shrinking back (Hebrews 10:38–39). Reformed theology has consistently understood saving faith as involving knowledge, assent, and trust — an active, persevering commitment to God, especially when circumstances argue against Him.
4. The Text: Habakkuk 2:2–4 (NKJV)
"Then the Lord answered me and said: 'Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.'"
Continue studying: explore the full Book of Habakkuk sermon series, or browse the complete Reformed Sermon Archive.
About The Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt serves as the third President of New Geneva Theological Seminary (Colorado Springs, CO), founded 1993. An expository preacher with over 1.9 million sermon downloads on SermonAudio.com, Dr. Holt brings over 17 years of pastoral experience to his verse-by-verse Bible teaching. New Geneva offers fully online, Westminster Confessional theological education — M.Div., Th.M., D.Min., and other degrees.
Summary. In this expository sermon on Habakkuk 2:4, Dr. Toby Holt of New Geneva Theological Seminary teaches that when the wicked triumph and the righteous suffer, God's people are called to trust Him rather than demand understanding: the just shall live by faith, not by sight or reason. Preaching from the Reformed tradition, Dr. Holt shows how Habakkuk's confusion over God raising up the Babylonians resolves not in an explanation but in a summons to faith in God's character, timing, and word — the same truth that later broke Martin Luther and sparked the Reformation.
When Life Confounds Our Senses and Reason
You know, the human eye has many different parts. It has retina and cornea and pupil and the like. And when all these different parts of the eyeball are doing their job, it helps the eyeball and the one who hosts the eyeball to make sense of the world around it. And the human brain works the same way.
It has a lot of different parts, and all the parts of the human brain are utilized to process the input of the senses to help us to understand our circumstances and the world around us. The human body is hardwired to understand. All of our senses are used to give us a better sense of reality, a better grasp of the world around us.
With that said, even though our whole body is hardwired to make sense of our circumstances, there are so many things that make no sense at all. There are things that confound our physical senses. There's the saying, I can't believe my eyes. There's things that confound our physical senses, and there's things that confound our reason.
Moreover, there are things that confound our sense of right and wrong, our sense of judgment. When the wicked triumph and the righteous suffer, that can break our brains, as Habakkuk's was. We don't get it. When the wicked triumph and the righteous suffer, it goes against our sense of how things should work.
Continue reading the full transcript 30-minute read · 14 sections · every section links back to the audio
The Problem of Divine Justice: When the Wicked Triumph and the Righteous Suffer
Not only how things should work, but if God is there and He's good and He's just and He's holy, how things must work if He is these things. If God is good and holy and if He's sovereign, if He's in charge of all things, then our sense is that everything around us, including our own circumstances, should work in a way that reflects that He's in charge and He's good and He loves us.
And when the world doesn't look that way, when the doctor reports some news to us that we don't want to hear, when we open the newspaper and some dreadful thing has just happened, we don't understand. We say, God, You're good, You're holy. I've been in Sunday school. I nodded my head.
I've sung the songs. I know this to be true. And I know You're in charge. If You're not, You're not God.
It's in the job description. So I know You're in charge. I know You're good. But I don't know why this has happened.
I don't know why all manner of terrible things are going on in the world around me. Help me. Help me understand. If you've ever wondered, thought, asked questions like that, you're not alone.
And you shouldn't feel especially bad either, because Habakkuk asked the same thing. In fact, all the prophets had questions. Moses had questions. People throughout Scripture have tried to understand what's going on.
And sometimes God answers, as we see in this morning's text. Sometimes God gives us some clarity in what He's doing, and other times He doesn't. Can you be content with that? Why does Jenny have cancer?
Why do hurricanes hit? Why does all manner of wickedness occur? Why are so many good folks down on their luck? Why have you and I as believers shed so many tears over so many years if God is good?
Habakkuk's Complaint: God's Good News and Bad News
“Are You not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, You have appointed them for judgment; O Rock, You have marked them for correction.”
— Habakkuk 1:12 (NKJV)
In the first part of chapter 1, Habakkuk looked around and the things that were going on in Israel, as bad as we sometimes think things are going in our country, our nation, the world right around us, Habakkuk saw all manner of wickedness that eclipsed what we now see. And his question was, okay, God, You see the same things I'm seeing.
This is your people, your nation. You called him out of the wilderness. You've appointed this as Your holy people, Your chosen people. So how long can You sit back and let all this transpire?
Well, God, as we saw in chapter 1, God had some good news and He had some bad news. Now, the good news was this, that God was on His throne and He did see what was going on. He did see what was going on. And what's more, it tells Habakkuk, I'm going to do something.
I'm not retired. I'm not just going to sit back on the cosmos and look down on the world I've made through a telescope. But I am engaged, I am active, I am proactive, and I am coming to deal with the very wickedness you're worried about. So there's the good news.
The bad news is this. You are not going to like the way that I deal with the wickedness. God says that He's seen His people's wicked ways and that He's going to raise up the Babylonians to deal with them. Now, as we saw last week, that didn't make any sense to Habakkuk whatsoever.
He did agree that the people needed to be disciplined. He did agree that that needed to happen. But the problem that he had fundamentally was this. He says, our people are wicked.
I get that, God. In fact, that's why I was praying to you. When are you going to do something about it? But hold the phone here, God.
Did I hear you right? The Babylonians, did you say? The Babylonians? So you're telling me, God, that we're a wicked nation, but your plan is you're going to take an even more wicked nation, a nation so terrible, so dreadful, they make the things we're doing look like child's play, and they're the ones you're going to choose to come and deal with us.
That made no sense. That made no sense to Habakkuk whatsoever. But nevertheless, that is what God is doing.
Why the Babylonians? The Prophet's Second Question
All right, if you would, let's look at Habakkuk's actual complaint or his second question. Let's look at verses 12 through the first verse of chapter 2. Let's look at that together. Verse 12 says this.
Are you not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have appointed them for judgment. O Rock, you have marked them for correction.
He knows enough to know that if God said it's going to happen, it's going to happen. He doesn't like it, but he knows God's going to do what God has said He's going to do. Verse 13. You are of purer eyes than to behold evil.
You cannot look at wickedness. So why do you look on those who deal treacherously and hold your tongue when the wicked devours a person who's more righteous than he is? It's a sliding scale here, obviously, righteousness and wickedness. How can you use he who's even more wicked to devour someone who's more righteous?
Verse 14. Why do you make men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler over them? They take up all of them with a hook. They catch them in their net.
They gather them in their dragnet. Therefore, they rejoice and are glad. Therefore, they sacrifice to their net. They sacrifice to their fishing net.
Don't lose what that means here. They burn incense to their dragnet. They're fishing here. They make a god out of.
They're that dumb. They're making idols out of their fishing gear. Why, oh God, would You turn to them? Verse 16.
Therefore, when they sacrifice to the net, they burn incense to the dragnet, because by them their share is sumptuous and their food is plentiful. Shall they therefore empty their net and continue to slay nations without pity? I will stand my watch, set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what he will say to me and what I will answer when I am corrected. oh lord you have appointed the chaldeans for judgment is what he says.
Waiting on the Lord When You Do Not Understand
Now, verse 12 again, he doesn't argue with what's going to happen, but he doesn't understand it. A lot of times we can be in that same boat. We know God's in charge. We know He'll do His sovereign pleasure, but we don't necessarily understand why.
Now, Habakkuk knew that his people had become increasingly pagan. They turned to idols. They were violent, increasingly violent, and they were unfaithful in their their dealings. And yet, as we said, it blew his mind that God would use the Babylonians of all people to bring to bring judgment, because they were just the worst of the worst.
They were bad news. They were bad news. And so he didn't understand it. And in a nutshell, that's that's what he's arguing, verses 12 through 17.
You could argue that his original question of how long, remember, that was his first question. His second question boils down to this: why them? How long until you do something? Then God answers, and God answers with, I'm going to do something, but it's going to be the Chaldeans.
And so Habakkuk's next question is, why? Why them? I get it, you got to do something, but why? Why them?
And after presenting his argument, after reminding God that this is not the choice Habakkuk would have made, Habakkuk says, but You, oh God, Your eyes are pure, You know what You're doing. I guess, he says, I'll just stand back. I'll do what I've been doing as a prophet. I'll go up to my watchtower, so to speak.
I'll go sit on my ramparts and I'll see what you're going to do and I'll consider what I'm going to answer when I'm corrected. You know, that's actually one of my favorite verses in the whole book of Habakkuk because I can relate to this. So on the one hand, Habakkuk doesn't understand. He doesn't get what's going on here.
And furthermore, he doesn't really approve of what's going on. We've been in that same boat, I trust, where you don't know what God is doing and when you see what God's doing, you don't necessarily like it. So Habakkuk's in this situation. However, as much as he might not have liked or understood these things, in chapter 2, verse 1, he says he's going to wait to hear God's response to his prayer, to his question, at which time the prophet anticipates that he's going to learn something, anticipates that he's going to be corrected.
Our Lack of Understanding Does Not Invalidate God's Goodness
You know, in my own life, there are many times when I've told God that I don't get it. I'm not a prophet or a son of a prophet, but I've asked God how long. I've asked God what He's doing. I've argued, so to speak, about the fairness or the perceived fairness of certain actions.
But over time, I've learned this. I've learned that my lack of understanding, it does not invalidate God's actions. The fact that I don't get it doesn't mean it's not good. The fact that I don't understand doesn't mean it's not right.
The fact that I don't know my right hand from my left at times, as God's people oftentimes don't, doesn't implicate His goodness when He does something I don't get. Now, when I finally understand on that great day what God has been doing, through the benefit of retrospect, I expect I'll have one of those great aha moments.
I suspect all of us have some aha moments coming down the road when we see what God has been doing. But for the moment, if you don't understand, if you don't get it, join the club. With that said, the doubts we have will in time be corrected. There are things you wonder about now.
Right now you see through a glass darkly, so to speak, but the day will come when we see clearly. But are you okay with the fact that that's not today? Are you okay with the fact it's probably not tomorrow either? Can you wait on the Lord?
Because that's what faith is. The just don't live by understanding. The just live by what? Faith.
In a nutshell, that's how God's ultimately going to answer Habakkuk. He's going to say, Habakkuk, I'm with you. And I love your heart. And I understand what your concerns are.
But you've got to trust me. My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. As far as the heavens are above the earth are my ways and my thoughts above your ways and your thoughts.
Would that be enough for Habakkuk? Well, we'll see by the time we get to the end of the study.
God's Answer: Write the Vision, for It Will Surely Come
“Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.”
— Habakkuk 2:4 (NKJV)
Let's look at verses 2 through 4. So Habakkuk has just said, I'm going to stand on my ramparts. I'm going to wait and see what God has to say and see how I am corrected. Then in verse 2.
Then the Lord answered me and said, write the vision and make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it will speak, it will not lie. Though it tarries, though it is delayed, so to speak, though it tarries, wait for it, because it will surely come.
It will not tarry. Behold the proud. Behold the proud, his soul's not upright in him, but the just shall live by faith. All right, I want you to notice with me, in verse 2, that God tells Habakkuk to write down His words and to make them available to His people.
It is better, it's far better, to have a difficult word from the Lord than to have no word at all. God's people sometimes went through a famine of His word. That was much more difficult in a lot of ways than those times when God spoke and they just didn't like what He had to say.
It's better to hear a difficult word from God than just to have silence. Even if God's people were heading into a tough season, a season of discipline, there had to be some comfort in knowing that God was still holding their hand and still speaking to them. Those of us who've had parents who've disciplined us at times, at the end of the day, a good parent, A good parent disciplines the child because he loves the child.
The same is true with God. How much worse it is, how terrible it is for a parent just to give a child over to the sinfulness the child wants to pursue. It was far better for God's people to hear God's word even if it was difficult words than if God had been silent.
The Doctrine of Providence: God's Appointed Times and Seasons
Now, verse 3, God goes on to address the delay that Habakkuk has been concerned about. And what he says in short is he says, look, Habakkuk, though it seems like it tarries, it really doesn't. Though it seems like it's a ways off, if you only knew, Habakkuk, this is going to happen in your season, in your time.
Be careful what you ask for. And the ocean of eternity here and now is a drop of water. We get so caught up in what God should be doing today or tomorrow, what have you. And when we ask questions like, when is God going to right all the wrongs?
Know this, He will right all the wrongs, but He will do it in His time. In His time, a living God, a holy God will redress every drop of evil. And those of us who've been hurting, those of us who've been scarred by evil, or just the byproducts of living in an evil world, those of us who've cried rivers of tears, it's exciting to know that a time is appointed, and it is coming, and it's closer today than it was yesterday.
There's a time coming when Jesus is going to wipe every tear from every eye. And from that point forward, there'll be no more tears. Just because it seems like it's slow in coming doesn't mean it really is. When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we'll look back at the sliver of time, the sliver of heartache, and it will seem like a drop of water in the ocean of eternity to us.
In any case, God wanted Habakkuk to know that the delay, so to speak, it was just a matter of perspective. In God's eyes, the justice that was coming, it was right on schedule. Though it seemed like it tarried, it did not. God has a reason for every season in the life of His people.
The good times, the joyous occasions like what was celebrated in this platform just about 24 hours ago, God has appointed times and seasons for everything under the sun, as we see in Ecclesiastes. Some of those seasons are difficult. And let's not hide it and pretend that they aren't. It's the prosperity teachers that will tell you that Christianity has nothing but wealth, health, and prosperity.
Those of us with a little gray up top know that that doesn't shake out. It doesn't quite work that way. Those of us who are in the faith know that the actual opposite is true, that life is difficult. We live in a fallen world.
To pretend this isn't a fallen world and it doesn't have fallen ills is to deny reality. Theology is not opposed to reality. Theology helps us understand reality.
Three Encouragements for the Hard Season
In any case, many of us are in a hard season right now, in the middle of difficult times. And if so, there's three encouragements. There's three encouragements that God would offer us. Number one, your hard season will end.
Your hard season will end. Number two, your hard season has a purpose, even if you don't understand it right now. And number three, is that even as you go through this hard season, that God is with you. So often we think that tough times are just trials, as if God is standing there like the PE coach with the stopwatch and the whistle.
That's not the way it works at all. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me. That rod and the staff, they comfort me. Your presence with me, even when things are tough, even when things are miserable.
It's good to know, God, that this won't last forever, That there's an end date to my hardship. It's good to know also that this hardship has a purpose, even if I don't get it. And more to the point, while I'm hurting, while I'm confused, I know that you're bearing me up. There's no evil that will not be dealt with, no tear that will not be wiped away in God's time.
Affliction as the Refining of Faith
Everything you're going through will refine and strengthen your faith, and that's part of the reason you're going through it. Part of the reason you go through difficult times is so that your faith might increase. You may not like to hear that, but it is true. Paul prayed, God, I have a thorn in the flesh, please take it away.
God says, My grace is sufficient for you. Paul's faith would grow more through his affliction than if everything was roses in his life. The amount of times I've ministered to folks who've come into the office, you know what happens is folks come in, and if they come in and meet with a pastor, it's not because everything's going great in their lives.
It's usually because something is going bad. But it's in those circumstances, I've found, it's in those circumstances that folks are most likely to turn to God, to come to church, to read the Bible, to pray, all these things. Their spirituality gets a rocket boost through hardship. God knows that that's the way we work.
He knows our faith grows more when times are difficult than if we find a pot of gold in our backyard tomorrow. So if God loves us, the reality is He will permit and even decree some of the difficulties we face. Some of the things we wish, the thorns of the flesh we wish he'd take away are the very things we need to grow our faith.
God will grant us, through His love for us, things we would never call down upon ourselves. And if we understood it in a way we will understand it one day, we would say, God bless it. It's not easy to understand, and that's difficult to apply in some circumstances. We look back at some of the hardships and losses we've faced.
I recognize that. But it doesn't mean it's not true. Even if we don't understand it, and even if we don't know how to apply it to losses that we've engaged in times past. In any case, even as we're going through these things, God does not abandon us to our circumstances.
He walks with us through it. Even as we're confused, even as our eyes and ears are stopped up at times, even as tears come down our cheeks, our hand is grasped in His. His arms hold us tight even in that hour.
The Proud and the Just: Two Ways to Live
“Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.”
— Habakkuk 2:4 (NKJV)
Now with that said, verse 4. In verse 4, we come to the most famous verse in the whole of Habakkuk, the most quoted verse in Habakkuk that you'll find within the New Testament, and that's this. Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him, but, there's a contrast here, but my people, God's people, the righteous, the just, shall live by faith.
Now the proud, again, I believe is a reference to the Chaldeans. Their soul is certainly not upright in them. They live by virtue of their own strength. If you were to look at Nebuchadnezzar, remember Nebuchadnezzar?
He thought that his strength was the most virtuous thing on the whole globe. One day he's walking through his garden commenting on all the great things that he's done. It's that moment when God strikes him. That's a different sermon, one I'm looking forward to get to when we study Daniel.
But nevertheless, people tend to, and certainly the Babylonians tended, to esteem themselves with regard to their power, their virtue. The Romans would later do the same thing. The proud see themselves as the measure of all things, and they live and act accordingly. And to some extent, Judah had started to do the same thing.
Israel had started to do the same thing. In verse 4, when God tells Habakkuk to behold the proud, He's implying that this bunch of violent, heathen, rebellious people, the Babylonians, ironically, that's exactly what Israel had been aspiring towards. Israel had been becoming more and more like the pagans, more and more like the Babylonians at each given day.
The Babylonians had made gods of their own desires and wants. At the end of the day, their culture, the Babylonian culture, their god was the one they saw in the mirror, which is how Nebuchadnezzar could make up a gold image that reflected really his own reign and his own rule and have people bow down to it.
The God in the mirror was the God of the Babylonians, but that's what was happening in Israel. Really, it's happening even in our day as well. You're far more tempted to worship a God you form out of your own wants and desires than a God who says things that you don't like. The God of the Bible does say things that you won't like or don't conform with the way you want to live your life.
And the temptation in our world, even in evangelical culture of our age, is to redefine that God, to rewrite that God, to modify who He is and what He said to better fit us. That doesn't end well. The Babylonians were the apex of that. And God was looking at Israel and saying, you all are doing the same things.
There's irony in this.
The First Lesson of Theology: There Is a God and You Are Not Him
Unrighteous men find their God in the mirror. Unrighteous men want to control the world around them. By contrast, the righteous live by faith. The righteous don't pretend that you can reshape the world in your image, and you don't want to.
It's not your objective. But you know One who can, one whose image is worthy. And one of the reasons I think that life throws us curveballs is because in facing those curveballs, we learn to look up to God, to turn to God, to trust in God, to listen to His word in ways that we otherwise would not.
And the man who learns to look to God, whether it's through hardship or when things are going well, the man who learns to look to God in all things, sink or swim, rain or shine, the man who learns to look to God has learned the most basic lesson of theology, the most basic lesson of theology that the Babylonians hadn't gotten as they tried to worship self, most basic lesson of theology that our culture, our nation, our world needs to hear is this.
There is a God and you are not Him. It's 101. And when I say that, I literally mean that. The first day of systematics, that was literally what was on the board.
There is a God. You are not Him. And this God has told you how to live. What are you going to do about that?
Are you going to yield to that? If you are a created, that presupposes a creator. Who do you think runs the show? If it's the creator and He has told us, He's given us a giant volume of how we're supposed to live, what we're supposed to do, are we not to bend the knee to that?
Or are we to take that and Him and brush to the side and do our own thing? What did the serpent come in and tell Eve? The serpent said, hath God said? Did God really say?
Should you really do what He said? He doesn't really want what's best for you anyway. He's just jealous you're going to be like Him. You could coin the things the devil said, that the serpent said in the garden.
It is the same message in our culture today. So how do you respond? Like Eve? Like Adam?
Biting into that fruit? How do you respond? And don't think that this is just a temptation that's for someone else. It's something you and I must deal with as well.
In any case, there is a God. We are not Him. No matter how hard the Babylonians or the Enlightenment or secular humanism has tried to take on to God's divine prerogative or to elevate man above God, it doesn't change the reality that God is there. He has made us and we are called to yield to Him.
In tough times, that becomes more obvious. When things are going bad, we have more of a sense of the way things work and we're more likely to act accordingly.
The Five Woes: God Will Judge the Proud Nations
All right, let me look now at our final verses, verses 5 through 20, and then I'm going to close. But I want to read verses 5 through 20. It's a little bit of a lengthier passage, but I want to read it so that you'll understand that God, although He was going to use the Babylonians, even He tells Habakkuk, I am going to use them.
But at the end of the day, he says, they're not going to get away with what they think they're getting away with. He says, I will deal with them. And then He's going to utter five, five woes. That's not a word you want to be on the receiving end of.
Five woes. Let's look at verses 5 through 20. And he's talking about the Babylonians in general, although the proud would fall in this category as well. Verse five, indeed, because he transgresses by wine, he is a proud man.
He does not stay at home because he enlarges his desire as hell and he is like death and cannot be satisfied. He gathers to himself all nations and he heaps up for himself all peoples. Will not all these take up a proverb against him and a taunting riddle against him and say, woe to him who increases what is not his, how long?
And to him who loads himself with many pledges. Will not your creditors rise up suddenly? Will not they awaken who oppress you, and you will become their booty? Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the people shall plunder you.
This would ultimately happen to Babylon because of men's blood and the violence of the land and the city and all who dwell in it. Woe to him who covets evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of disaster. You give shameful counsel to your house, cutting off many peoples and sin against your soul.
For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the timbers will answer it. Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed and establishes a city by iniquity. Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people's labor to feed the fire, and nations weary themselves in vain?
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as waters cover the sea. Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to battle, even to make him drunk, that you may look upon his nakedness. You are filled with shame instead of glory. You also, drink, be exposed as uncircumcised.
The cup of the Lord's right hand will be turned against you. Utter shame will be on your glory. For the violence done to Lebanon will cover you and the plunder of beasts which made them afraid because of men's blood and the violence of the land of the city and all who dwell in it.
What profit is the image that its maker should carve it? The molded image, a teacher of lies, that the maker of its mold should trust in it to make mute idols. Woe to him who says to wood, awake, or to silent stone, arise, it shall teach. Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and yet there is no breath in it at all.
But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silent before Him. That is an indictment, not just on the Babylonians, but on any nation that would raise its head against the one who has formed it. This is what God is saying.
You think you're something else, oh Babylon. You think you're special. You think because you've taken out the nations that you're something else. Well, watch out.
Your season is coming. You have not escaped My notice, and you will not escape My justice, is what God is saying to the Babylonians. The cup of My right hand will be turned against you. Now, it would not take long.
Again, none of this stuff, if you stand back and look at history, stand back and look at it for a little while, you see, it doesn't take long for God to do what He's going to do. In a short amount of time, the Chaldeans were crushed, just like the Assyrians before them, and like the Medes and the Persians and the Romans would be.
Every nation that raises its head up against God, God deals with it. He does it in His time, but He deals with it. In God's time, a series of five woes would befall Babylon. God would not abide with them forever.
God would not abide those who lifted themselves up and returned to their own strength.
Your Strength Is in God Alone: The Faith That Broke Martin Luther
But to his people, he says, look, if you want to avoid their future, their fate, the outcome, he says, then you need to understand this. Your strength is not in your forearms. Your strength is not in your sword. Your strength is not in your army.
Your strength is in Me, your maker alone. The just, the righteous, shall live by faith. Not faith in themselves. And not faith in the abstract.
Have faith in faith or hope in hope. No. The just shall live by faith in what I have told them and in who I am. This was His message. It was those words that broke Martin Luther.
There's a story that Martin Luther, he's going to climb up a great stair on his kneecaps, like all the pilgrims alongside him. He's going to climb up on his kneecaps, the idea that he gets more holy along the way. And somewhere along the way, he looks and he sees what's going on around him.
He looks at all those who think they're going to work their way into God's good pleasure, all those whose kneecaps are bleeding all over the place. And in that moment, he understood this, the just shall live by faith. And the story says he got up from there and he went home. The world has never been the same since.
The just shall live by faith. The Babylonians would have done well to heed this. Israel would have done well to heed this in the seasons yet to come. You would do well to heed this now.
Whatever is going on in your life, if you think you can outwork it, outrun it, bring it to the One who has made you. Turn to God with your hurts, with your ills. The God who is able to bend kings and nations and even circumstances to His will who is capable of lifting you up and giving you a confidence that you desperately need.
It's not to say that your problems will all dissipate. In this life, we will have trouble. Anyone who tells you something else is selling you something. In this life, we will have trouble.
But in this life, we're not alone. We have our God. And we are called to be a people of faith in Him. Let's pray for the grace to do so now.
More in The Book Of Habakkuk
Continue the verse-by-verse series.
