God’s Chastening among the Nations

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If you’ll turn with me to the book of Habakkuk, the book of Habakkuk, that’s not one we talk about very often. It’s toward the end of the Old Testament, toward the middle of your Bible, a few books after Jonah, if you don’t know, Habakkuk chapter 1. We’re continuing with the series on God’s sovereignty and the plans that God works, the principles that God uses as He works all the craziness and the chaos of our world together.

he does have plans in mind and he does have purposes in mind. And as we’ve studied the last few weeks, some of those principles are he works things together for his glory. And last week we talked about God works things together for the redemption of his people.

This morning I want to talk to you about God working things together for the chastisement of his people, for the chastening of his people. You know, the Bible says in the book of Hebrews that the Lord chastens whom he loves. It says in Hebrews chapter 12, verses 5 and 6, and ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children.

My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. So the writer of Hebrews is talking to the Hebrew Christians as God’s people and reminding them don’t be upset when God chastens or when God disciplines you because when God disciplines you, when God chastens you, He does that to those He loves.

And sometimes we feel like, why is God doing this to me? Why is God allowing this to happen to me? And we don’t realize that sometimes, as I’ve mentioned in previous weeks, sometimes the bad things are meant to work for good, to bring redemption.

Sometimes the bad things are meant to show the power of God in rescuing us from those things and building us back from those again and to show His glory. Sometimes, though, things happen in our lives that are meant to chasten or to discipline us. And chastening and discipline are not always necessarily the same thing as judgment.

There will come a day when God will reward the deeds of mankind, good and evil. He will reward us based on whether we have trusted Christ or not. And if we have not trusted Christ, we will be rewarded with punishment at that day of judgment.

And that is because of God’s justice. He said, here’s the action, here’s the natural consequence. You break this law, here’s the consequence.

And it follows as a natural thing. Sometimes, though, as his children, he allows things in our lives and he brings things in our lives, not just to punish us, but as a means of discipline so that we’re not broken on the other side, but so that we are brought into line with what he wants. It’s just like with our children.

We’ve not gotten to where we have to discipline Benjamin just a whole lot. He still doesn’t understand. But I know from observing my parents that the point of discipline, I didn’t always think this growing up, but I see now the point of discipline was not just to crush us under their thumb.

It was to keep us where we needed to be. It was to bring us out in the right state on the other side. And that’s how God chastens his people, and we’re going to look at that in the book of Habakkuk here.

We’re going to read through a long passage here, but I’ve only got four points this morning instead of five. So the last two, I’ve had five, so I can’t guarantee you that’s going to make it any shorter. So I told a church once when I started preaching without notes, I have no notes tonight.

So that may mean the message is shorter and that actually went on longer. So anyway, chapter 1, verse 1 of the book of Habakkuk. And well, before I read it, just to give you a little background, we talked a few weeks ago about Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar.

And what was going on in Daniel’s day was that Daniel was one of the Hebrew children in captivity of Babylon. He was there in King Nebuchadnezzar’s court after the Israelites, the people of Judah, had just rejected God one time too many. Over thousands of years, they had just forgotten God time and time again.

And God finally said, enough. And he sent the Babylonians in. And they came in and they conquered Israel.

And Babylon, let me tell you, was a wicked, wicked place. And they came in and they conquered Judah. And they killed some of them.

They took some of them off in captivity. They destroyed the cities for the people that they left behind. it was just not a good situation for Israel.

They were in bad shape. And God had told through several prophets that if they didn’t amend their ways, if they didn’t turn back to God, that this was the future that was coming. Not just as a punishment, but because God wanted to correct them and point them back to him as discipline, as chastisement.

And so he sent the Babylonians in to conquer Israel, and he said that they would have control over Israel for 70 years. And while Daniel was written in the middle of this time when they’re still in captivity of Babylon, Habakkuk was written right around the time Babylon was about to come in, or maybe even while they were under siege. And Habakkuk writes these things as he talks to God because he sees not only the wickedness of his own people, but he sees the wickedness of the Babylonians.

And he, like Job, has some questions for God. And what I think is interesting about Habakkuk is if you read the end of Job, where Job begins to ask questions of God. And who among us wouldn’t if we had to go through the things that Job went through?

As Job begins to ask questions of God, God begins to, I call it, cross-examine him. He’s on the witness stand and God is the prosecutor. And it’s not a comfortable line of questioning.

And at the end, Job feels about this big because of the things he had asked God. And yet Habakkuk asked God these questions and God answers Habakkuk and has a conversation. That tells me it’s not always wrong to ask questions of God.

The difference is in the spirit in which it’s done. If we’re trying to understand God’s plan, if we’re trying to understand how things happen, and use that to better understand God, and use that to better understand His work and to serve Him, there’s nothing wrong with asking questions. If we’re asking questions to accuse God because we think we’re righteous and we deserve better, that’s when it becomes a problem.

But Habakkuk asks God questions based on what he sees, and that’s where we pick up in chapter 1, verse 1. It says, the burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear?

Even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save. Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? For spoiling and violence are before me, and there are some that raise up strife and contention.

Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth. For the wicked doth compass about the righteous. Therefore wrong judgment proceeded.

So he’s talking not only about his own people, but he’s talking about the people of Babylon that they’re seeing coming. God has prophesied for years through his prophets that the Babylonians were going to come and were going to take over Judah, and they did not listen to God. And finally, they’re seeing it coming, the people of Israel.

And even then, I keep using the terms interchangeably. At some point after Solomon, Israel split into two kingdoms, the northern and southern. The northern was called Israel, and at this time they’d already been wiped out by the Assyrians.

This is the kingdom of Judah, but they’re part of the original people of Israel. And so Judah was finally starting to see, oh my goodness, this was true. What God said through Jeremiah and the others is coming true.

And yet they’re still not turning back to God. And so Habakkuk cries out and says, how long will I cry out to you, God, and you will not hear? How long will I see this wickedness and this violence and you will not save us?

He says, I see sin and wickedness all around me. And he says, the law is slacked. The law is ignored, and judgment never goes forth, and the wicked surround the righteous, and wrong judgment proceeds.

Wrong is just everywhere around him, and he’s crying out to the Lord, trying to understand why these things are so, not only from his own people, but from the Babylonians. In verse 5, it says, Behold ye among the heathen, and regard and wonder marvelously, for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. This is God speaking to Habakkuk now.

He says, look among the heathen, because I’m about to work a work that you would not believe even if somebody told you. For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans. That’s another term for the Babylonians.

They were related to the Babylonians somehow. For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful.

Their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. So he says he’s going to raise up these Chaldeans and they are vicious people. He says they are terrible and dreadful.

And their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. That means they didn’t recognize God’s authority. They thought they were the law wherever they went.

Their horses are swifter than leopards and are more fierce than the evening wolves. And their horsemen shall spread themselves and their horsemen shall come from far and they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. Those are scary things if you’re facing down an opposing army.

Leopards are incredibly fast. He said their horses are faster than you can imagine, and they’re more fierce than evening wolves. Now, we don’t have to, we don’t have to, this is not something we worry about a whole lot, I guess, unless you live way out in the wilderness. But from what I’ve heard, up until the last hundred years or so, wolves were a major threat to humans.

Until, I don’t know if it’s until we got guns, I know we’ve had guns more than the last hundred years, or there were just so many of us out in the wilderness, or whatever it was, somehow the tables turned. But wolves, I know in Europe at one point were one of the leading causes of death during the Middle Ages. Anywhere you’re unprotected from civilization, the wolves are a threat.

And so for them, these evening wolves, the ones that crept in at dark and could eat a man alive, that’s what he’s comparing these people to. And the horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far, and they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. I had Christian wanted to go to Blockbuster the other night, and she got some, it was a Christian movie, she got some movie about the Amish people, and I was working on stuff for today, so I didn’t get to watch it, but then the next day, I said, if you’re getting a movie, I’m getting a movie.

So I don’t know if any of you have ever seen Meerkat Manor years ago on Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel. They follow these little, I don’t know if they’re some kind of cat or dog, or whatever they are, some critter, I guess is a good word for it. some little family of critters in the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, and they follow them around, and I used to watch this series on TV.

My mother watched it too, and Christian said it. She thought we were talking about a soap opera at one point, and I said, no, they’re meerkats. Anyway, they made a movie out of it.

Christian hated the movie because they were running from the lions, and they were running from the snake. Oh, it’s bad. There’s a scene where they’re running from this eagle, and this eagle was not taking no for an answer, And the meerkat just ran as hard as he could, and he tripped, and the eagle was swooping, and that eagle was not giving up.

And the meerkat ran some more and ran and ran and ran, and at the end, the eagle wanted the meerkat just a little more than the meerkat wanted to escape, I guess, because the eagle got him, but you watch him come down, and it was a sad moment. You see the other meerkat start to cry, and you feel bad for him. This eagle, just the intensity that he came swooping down out of the sky with, and he hit that meerkat so loud you could hear it and got his talons in, and he took that meerkat back, and thank goodness they didn’t show him feeding it to the babies, but they showed him carrying it back up to the nest. And as I’m reading this passage, I think that’s exactly what he’s talking about.

That eagle had such intensity. He hit that meerkat as hard as he could because he was going for it with everything he could, and there was just no hope for that meerkat. And he says these people will come in, and they will fly as the eagle that hastes, that hurries to eat.

They’re going to be on you. People of Judah, these Babylonians, are going to be on you like an eagle on a meerkat, and you’re not going to stand a chance, because they’re going to come in with that much intensity. It doesn’t say like an eagle on a meerkat.

That’s my paraphrase. And they shall come to you all for violence. Their faces shall sup as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.

They’re going to gather you up like your sand, and they shall, in huge numbers, Because the Bible talks about the descendants of Abraham being as numerous as the sand and as the stars. And they’re going to scoop you up in such great numbers, and they’re going to carry you back to their country. And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them.

And they shall deride every stronghold, and they shall heap dust and take it. And this was fulfilled. Habakkuk, God told Habakkuk this, and Habakkuk told the people, well, these people came in and played the kings of Judah.

before they finally took over the country, they came in and played the kings of Judah like it was a game of chess. One guy they’d put on the throne and they’d let him reign there for a little bit until he irritated them and then they’d ship him off and put in somebody else. These guys were their puppets.

And when they finally came in, they tore down the walls of Jerusalem, they tore down everything they could and turned the area into dust. Folks, prophecy is real. God knows exactly what he’s talking about because he sees all of human history as though it’s just the blink of an eye. And they shall scoff at kings and the princes. These kings and these strongholds that were meant to protect the people of Judah, they couldn’t even hide behind these things.

Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over and offend, imputing this his power unto his God. So at some point he’s going to say, look at what we did. It’s because of our God.

And God said, and that’s when things are going to change. This is kind of a bleak picture for the people of Judah. It looks like utter destruction if God left it off there, but he doesn’t.

Habakkuk starts asking him again in verse 12, Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine holy one? We shall not die, O Lord. Thou hast ordained them for judgment, and O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction.

So Habakkuk then realizes, wait, God has promised certain things to his people. He’s promised that we would go on as a people, that he would preserve us, and because he intends, like I said last week, to bring redemption through the people of Israel through that bloodline, And so Habakkuk realizes some of the promises that God has given in the law and in the prophets and in the Psalms. He realizes those things and he says, we will not die. And he realizes, oh God, you’ve sent them for correction.

You’ve sent them to us not to utterly destroy us, but to correct us. You’ve ordained them for judgment. And oh, mighty God, thou hast established them for correction.

As he talks to God, Habakkuk realizes what God is really at work here doing. Thou art of pure eyes to behold evil. Speaking to God still.

Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity. Wherefore, or why, lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue, when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he. So he asked God, he said, your eyes, you are so holy, you’re so pure, you can’t even look on evil.

You can’t focus on this sin and iniquity in your presence. And he says, so God, why do you, he says, look on them. God, why do you grant this to them who are less righteous than your people.

And at this point, Habakkuk is right in one sense, and he’s wrong in one sense. I think the Babylonians probably were a little more unrighteous than the people of Judah. Maybe not by much from some of the stuff I’ve read that the people of Judah were involved in.

But they were still God’s chosen people. There was a remnant that still listened to God. And with the Babylonians, they were just wicked.

But at the same time, the people of Judah were not pure and perfect, and neither were the people of Babylon. So he’s comparing, yeah, when we’re compared to the Babylonians, the people of Judah look pretty good, but you know what? When we compare all of us to Almighty God, we don’t look so good.

And I don’t think he realized that at that point. Because he’s asking God, why are you allowing these wicked people to run all over people that are more righteous than they are? God, why are you allowing this to happen to good people?

And make us men as the fishes of the sea and the creeping things that have no ruler over them. God, why are you allowing this chaos, this anarchy to go on? And they take up all of them with the angle, and they catch them in their net and gather them in their drag.

Therefore, they rejoice and are glad. He’s talking about them scooping them up like fish. And once you’ve got the fish in the net, I don’t know, I may be wrong.

Last time I talked about fish, Brother Don told me there is one that jumps in the boat. I knew it. There’s always the exception.

There may be some fish. Do you know of any that fight back if you put them in the net, other than sharks? I don’t want to say something that’s wrong.

If I’m wrong, y’all can tell me later. But for the most part, if you catch fish in a net, they’re pretty powerless to resist it. I mean, unless they’ve got some kind of sharp fins or they’ve got teeth and they can get a hold of you, they’re pretty powerless to resist the net.

And he says, the people of Babylon are scooping us up like fish in a net. And then they’re rejoicing and they’re glad. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net and burn incense unto their drag, because by them their portion is fat and their meat plenteous.

Shall they not therefore empty their net and not spare continually to slay the nations? He said they look at their gods and they look at what they’ve done and they rejoice in the evil that they’ve done to us. And what’s to stop them from emptying their net and going after more fish?

Once they’ve done this to the people they’ve already taken off, what’s to stop them from doing this to everybody else? He asks God. And then he says in chapter 2, verse 1, I will stand upon my watch and will set me upon the tower and will watch me what he will say unto me and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

So he says, I’ll stand here and I will watch and I will listen to God and I will see what God has to say and how I will respond when I’m reproved. Reproved means basically he got on to him. He set him straight.

And so Habakkuk knows that his thinking is wrong because he doesn’t see things the way God does. And so clearly he has come in as somebody who has these questions, but he’s humble enough to say, God, these are my questions, but I know my thinking is wrong. And so I’m going to listen to what you have to say.

And so we don’t see someone that’s asking God questions, God, why is this happening to me in an accusatory manner, but more of a, God, why? Please help me understand what you’re doing, because I’m going to sit here and wait until you correct me. That’s hard to do, because we don’t like to be corrected.

I know I don’t. I need it. I need it.

And hopefully I can come back when I make a mistake and say, yeah, that was wrong, and this is what I should have done. This is what I should have thought. But we all need correction from God.

We all need that reproof. And Habakkuk was somebody who was humble enough to say, yes, I’ve got these questions, and I’m going to be bold enough to ask them of God, but I’m also going to be humble enough to realize he’s going to correct me because my thinking is wrong when he gives me these answers. And then he waited for God’s answer.

In God’s answer in chapter 2, it says, And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and make it plain upon the tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie, though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry, meaning it will not wait forever. God’s talking about the vision, I believe, of the restoration of His people because it had been told time and time again that God was going to discipline them and then He was going to bring them back.

He wasn’t just going to leave them down and defeat it. He was going to restore them. And He said, the vision is not yet, but wait for it.

Write it down. It’s coming. Behold, His soul, which is lifted up, is not upright in Him, but the just shall live by His faith.

He’s talking about the Babylonians. Their souls were lifted up in them. That doesn’t mean, oh, I feel so lifted up, so spiritual. That means they thought themselves higher than they really were.

Their souls were lifted up. They were proud of themselves because of what they had managed to do. He says, but the just shall live by his faith.

Yea, also because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home who has enlarged his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people. Shall not all these take up a parable against him, a taunting proverb against him and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his. How long?

And to him that ladeth himself with thick clay. Shall they not rise up suddenly and shall bite thee and awake that shall vex thee? And thou shalt be for booties or treasure unto them.

So he says these people of Babylon who’ve come out and they’ve oppressed so many nations, their time is coming. Because how long can they walk in this wickedness when the people that they have hurt will not rise up and bite them? How long can they act this way does not come back to get them.

Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee because of men’s blood and for the violence of the land and of the city and of all that dwell therein. You have mistreated, people of Babylon, you’ve mistreated so many people, they will rise up against you, God tells Habakkuk. Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil.

Thou has consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people and has sinned against thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. I’m going to stop right there.

He goes on for the rest of chapter 2 describing the punishment that’s coming for the people of Babylon. But we get the idea already of where God is going with this. Punishment will come for Babylon.

I want to go back and focus on God’s interaction with Israel here because it’s about God’s chastening of those He loves. And we can see some principles in here about how God is at work to chasten his people. We hear the question all the time, and this really could have been the theme of the series, I guess, too, why do bad things happen to good people?

And there are some good answers, there are some short answers, there are some bad answers. Some people say bad things happen to you if you’re bad, and good things happen to you if you’re good. And to some extent, that’s right.

God does reward and God does punish. But at the same time, God is not up there keeping score and repaying, What’s the act for act based on what we do? The Bible says he causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. However, there are consequences for disobedience.

A lady I know was over at the house Friday night, and she’s a kindergarten teacher at a Christian school where I used to substitute teach, and she was talking about telling her kindergartners this phrase. She said it’s become so ingrained in her that when anybody’s kid gets hurt from running, she said her husband turns to her and says, you’re a cold woman because she repeats this phrase. She tells her kindergartners that obedience brings blessings and disobedience brings consequences.

Now, that doesn’t mean that we disobey God and He’s immediately going to zap us, but we will have to give an account for what we’ve done. Doesn’t mean that every time I do something good, God’s going to send candy out of heaven. God will reward those who trust in Him and those who follow Him, but it’s not always immediate.

But that’s true in life, that obedience brings blessings and disobedience brings consequences. She was telling the story of a little girl that went running down the hall, and they’ve been told, you do not run. You don’t run in school.

And she fell down and skins her leg up, and the teacher said, what’s the phrase? The little girl said, I imagine it in my mind as she’s sobbing back tears. Obedience brings blessings, and disobedience brings consequences.

Now, she didn’t tell the little girl, okay, if you run, I’m going to knock you down and cut your leg open. No, it’s just a natural consequence of things. Sometimes things happen just as a natural consequence.

Think of people at the game last night. You go out and get drunk, you’re going to have a hangover the next morning. I’ve never had one because I’ve never drank in my life, but I can’t imagine that it feels good.

And some people this morning, Christian even said it in the car on the way over here. Some people in Fayetteville this morning are very, very hungover. And God did not give them that headache to say, Derek, you were bad last night, you’re going to be punished.

That’s a natural consequence. It’s a natural consequence. Sometimes God brings things, though, that are a God-brought consequence.

There are consequences to our disobedience. And there are blessings for our obedience. Like I said, they are not always immediate.

They are not always immediate. Some of the godliest people I know, some of the people I know who have done the most to bring people to Jesus, are some of the people that have some of the hardest times scraping by month to month. And the prosperity preachers tell us, if you’ll just follow God, if you’ll just have that faith, He’ll make you wealthy.

Well, not necessarily. But there will be blessings in heaven for their obedience. And I know plenty of people who are running around doing things that they ought not to be doing and are prospering.

We say, where are the consequences? The consequences will come. But for us as believers, sometimes God does put things in our lives to chasten us and to bring us back to the right spot where we need to be, just like a parent.

The Bible talks about God being father, and it’s no mistake that they describe him as a father. That’s exactly what he is. And I want to look at just four things here real quick about the chastening of the Lord.

And remember I said chastening is different than punishment. Punishment, the intent is just to meet the demands of justice and tear somebody down for what they did. And sometimes if it’s just, it’s deserved.

But chastening says there’s an element of punishment here, but the intent is not just to do justice, but it’s to restore you on the other side, put you back where you need to be. And we see in this passage that the chastening of the Lord causes His people, causes His children to seek God. The chastening of the Lord causes His children to seek God.

That’s his intent when he chastens us is to turn us back to him. He chastens us because we wander away, because we disobey, and we have to be brought back to him. We have to have our attention and our hearts turned back to him.

In verses 1 through 3, we start of chapter 1, we open the book with Habakkuk crying out to God. He says, O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? And cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save.

Why dost thou show me iniquity? and cause me to behold grievance for spoiling and violence are before me. And there are those that raise up strife and contention.

We see him crying out to God from the beginning. And Habakkuk was probably a righteous man, probably somebody that cried out to God all along. But Judah as a whole, this was their problem.

They had turned their backs on God for so long that they were not crying out to him. They were crying out to the king. They were crying out to the military.

They were crying out to their economic might. but they were not crying out to God. They were not looking to God to be and to provide what they needed.

And so God sent the Babylonians, and even at the threat of the Babylonians coming in, Habakkuk cries out to God. As far as Habakkuk is concerned, mission accomplished. It took the actual punishment.

It took the actual Babylonians coming in, though before Judah as a whole turned back to God. But it caused them to cry out to God, and we see this in the book of Judges time after time, when they would forget God, and God would send in a country to oppress them, and suddenly they’d cry out to God for deliverance. What God wants is for us to look to Him to be and to provide what we need.

And when we begin to looking to other things to provide for us, when we begin to worship other things, when we begin to bring idols into our lives, God will chasten us to cause us to cry back out to Him. So we think, why is this happening? Well, sometimes God brings things into our lives so that we will recognize our need for Him again, and we’ll cry out to Him all over again, like we should have been in the first place.

And folks, I don’t say these things, God, everything bad that happens that God caused. I told you last week I was very glad that when I made out the schedule for this series

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