Reading
SAA Notes
Habakkuk’s second complaint asks why God allows evil, cruelty and economic oppression. God’s answer is: judgment is certainly coming upon God’s people. Judgment (the woes) will also come upon the agent of God’s judgment on Judah, Chaldea, for her violent ways. Faith in God as in Daniel – verses 13,14 and 20 – will guard God’s people through the Chaldean invasion.
SJA Notes
* Dear God, please write Your word on our hearts today.
“But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
There are four woes called out by Habakkuk’s preaching in this passage.
Woe #1: To the one who heaps up what is not their own.
Woe #2: To the one who gets evil gain for his house.
Woe #3: To the one who builds a place on blood and sin.
Woe #4: To the one who makes those around drink their cup of wrath.
Woe #5: To the one who worships an idol.
These are the outworking of rejecting God’s good law.
Greed. Injustice. Lawlessness. Manipulation. Terrible violence. Depravity.
And idolatry.
BUT.
A coin-truth here, one of the big absolute realities, is in this verse,
“But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
Are we anxious because of the broken morality we see in the world today?
BUT THE LORD IS IN HIS TEMPLE.
Are we stressed because of the apparent success of greedy ways and injustice and lawlessness?
BUT THE LORD IS IN HIS TEMPLE.
Are we fretting over the idols we struggle with in our own lives?
BUT THE LORD IS IN HIS TEMPLE.
This is a wonderful strong absolute truth and reality to wrestle with.
Our Lord and King, the Almighty God, the Maker and Creator of all things, the Just God, Holy God, Righteous God – He is in His Holy Temple.
* Father God,
Please remind us that You are in Your temple. Your holy temple.
When the world’s influence bears down, when the weight of concern and worry hover and bring darkness, when our sight shrinks down and we start to fear what is around us – Remind us Lord, please Lord God.
Let all the earth keep silence before You.
Amen.