The Righteous Shall Live by Faith

Introduction

Read Habakkuk 2:2-20

Habakkuk 2:2–20 (ESV)

And the Lord answered me:

“Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. “Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.” Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say, “Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own— for how long?— and loads himself with pledges!” Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them. Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. “Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm! You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life. For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond. “Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity! Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. “Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink— you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness! You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision! The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory! The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. “What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. when he makes speechless idols! Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”

I. God, the Just Judge (vv. 6-20)

First, we need to see that God is answering Habakkuk’s complaint that wickedness seems to win and to reign over God’s creation. He is having a hard time seeing how God’s holiness and goodness is displayed in the midst of such violence and wickedness.

As we look through the last 15 verses of Chapter 2, we can see that God’s sovereign plan will be victorious over evil and wickedness.

A. Justice will be dealt and wickedness has its own inherited consequences. (vv. 8, 10, 16)

Habakkuk 2:8 (ESV)

Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.

Habakkuk 2:10 (ESV)

You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life.

Habakkuk 2:16 (ESV)

You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision!

The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory!

When a nation acts so wickedly and unjustly towards others, they are actually storing up natural consequences by turning the other nations against them. A nation that acts so treacherously will not last long in the midst of people who see and experience their injustice.

This is the same idea that Paul communicates in Romans 1:24-31

Romans 1:24–31 (ESV)

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Sin doesn’t just deserve judgment and discipline, sin is its own judgment against sinners. When we willfully choose to rebel against God and His good law, we automatically receive the judgment against sin because of the consequences of death that sin brings. It deceives us into thinking that it is profitable for us and that we are actually benefiting from it, but by the end of our lives we realize that we have actually destroyed our lives by giving into our sinful desires and we have earned the just judgment for our sin. Evil may seem to win for a time, but in the end it will self-destruct and the same will go for the Babylonians.

We do not need to fear that God is losing the battle against evil, first, because God is actively judging wickedness, but also because by its very nature, evil will bring about its own judgment and destruction because of how God has created and designed the world.

B. The wicked will have no where to turn for safety (vv. 18-19)

Habakkuk 2:18–19 (ESV)

“What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies?

For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols!

Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise!

Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.

We also see that evil and wickedness will be defeated because it has placed its trust in false gods. Remember, last week we looked at how the Babylonians worship their own strength, their own dragnets for capturing and defeating the other nations.

But look at how sad the image of this is. The gods the Babylonians create are the ones they trust to get them through. How foolish is that? If we can create a god to worship, it by nature makes us more powerful than that god. That god will not be able to do anything for us that we cannot do for ourselves. There is no life within that god, there is no strength within that god that we do not already have. Those who place their faith in such gods will be left to fend for themselves.

II. The Wicked Are Puffed Up in Pride (vv. 4-5)

A. The Wicked are those who outright reject God

God wants Habakkuk to see that there is not really a distinction between those who are kinda wicked and those who are more wicked. There’s no distinction between those who are kinda righteous and those who are less righteous than they.

This was Habakkuk’s complaint about God using the Babylonians. How could God use a people more wicked than they were to bring judgment upon Judah? God is showing Habakkuk what true wickedness and true righteousness look like.

Yes, the Babylonians were an extremely wicked people, filled with violence and rejection of the One, True God. They do not even claim to follow and worship the LORD God and they celebrate their violence and their power. However, they are not the only wicked ones in this story.

B. The Wicked are those who profess to follow God, yet live life their own way and in their own pride

The wickedness of Judah is just as great. The wicked man’s soul is puffed up in pride, it is not upright within him. The Judeans who are living in wickedness are also doing so in pride and arrogance.

It is interesting that sinful lifestyles today are pridefully claimed and embraced. In fact, right now it is almost impossible to go anywhere, do anything, or watch anything without seeing the pride and celebration of the sinful, alternative lifestyles of people around us.

It is also easy to point the finger at the wickedness of the world outside, and yet so easy to miss our own sin and wickedness within ourselves. We may not live life in the same way as those outside of Christ, but we can live life with just as much pride in our own strength, wit, and self-righteousness as they do. Our sinfulness leads us to take pride in our own abilities and our own “righteousness” which is just as wicked as anything the world is guilty of.

Romans 1:21 (ESV)

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Romans 1:29–30 (ESV)

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,

Our pride in our own “goodness” and “self-righteousness” actually leads us to reject God, to fail to honor Him as God and to commit these abominable sins. This is why we gossip, because we believe we have lived life better than someone else, or we slander to make ourselves believe we are better than someone else. As we show contempt upon others, we become haters of God for we are hating someone created in His image. We become haughty and boastful. You see how this works? Even those who believe they are righteous become just as wicked as the lost world around us because of our pride and self-sufficiency!

This has been the ultimate temptation since the beginning of time. Adam and Eve were presented with the idea that they could be like God knowing good and evil. They desired the comfort of believing they could be good enough on their own, that they could justify themselves. It all comes down to pride. However righteous we believe we are, the pride that leads us to that belief makes us just as wicked as the most evil person we know.

This is why Paul, even in his self-righteous Phariseeism could declare that “I am the chief of sinners.” He realized his pride in his own works of righteousness made him as evil and wicked as the sinners he was trying to avoid.

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble

James 4:6 (ESV)

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Proverbs 3:34 (ESV)

Toward the scorners he is scornful,

but to the humble he gives favor.

III. The Righteous Live By the Faith in God

But now we see, just as the wicked are puffed up and arrogant in their own righteousness and abilities, those who are righteous live by faith in the righteousness of another. They realize that they are not righteous on their own, but are completely dependent upon the grace and righteousness of God for them.

In order to understand what God is saying here, we can look to the New Testament to see how they interpret this verse.

A. We are Justified By Faith - Romans 1:16-17

Romans 1:16–17 (ESV)

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

In his letter to the Romans, Paul will spend some time with them looking at the wickedness of all those who live apart from Christ Jesus. In Romans chapter 3 he examines the reality that we are all sinners and that there is really no one righteous.

Where then is our hope for righteousness? If righteousness is our only way into the presence of the Father, how can we be righteous?

Paul makes it clear that the righteousness we need comes only as we live by faith and dependence upon the good news of the grace and mercy of God in Christ Jesus.

“The righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith...” “the righteous shall live by faith.” Paul is quoting Habakkuk here to show us that our only hope to be made righteous and to escape the just judgment of God against sin is to humble ourselves and to live by faith in the finished work of Christ upon the cross!

B. Not Justified by Works or Ethnicity - Galatians 3:11

Habakkuk, in his second complaint to the Lord, seemed to be under the impression that his people, though they had wandered from God, were more righteous than the Chaldeans, simply because of who they were. But we are going to see that our right standing before God has nothing to do with our works or our ethnicity or our nationality.

Galatians 3:11 (ESV)

Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Paul is speaking to the Galatians because they are being led astray by the Judaizers. The Judaizers were a group of religious zealots who claimed to believe in Jesus, but believed that He could only save those who became Jews themselves through circumcision and then obeyed the requirements of the law.

They were, in essence, saying you have to change your ethnicity and nationality to that of the Jewish people, and then you have to live like a good Jew in order for God to save you.

This is almost the mindset that Habakkuk has that God is seeking to correct. God is telling him that the Chaldeans are not wicked because they are not Jews, but because they are not living by faith. Likewise, the Judeans are not righteous simply because they are Jews. They can only be made righteous as they live by faith in the righteousness of God. If they do not live by faith, they are just as wicked as the Chaldeans and any Chaldeans who come to God in faith can be made as righteous as Abraham who was counted righteous by faith as well.

C. We Persevere by Faith - Hebrews 10:37-39

But while we are not saved by the righteous works of the law, our living by faith will allow us to persevere when evil and wickedness come against us.

Hebrews 10:37–39 (ESV)

For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Here, the author of Hebrews quotes Habakkuk 2:4 and says the righteous one will live by faith. However, God has no pleasure in those who shrink back from the faith they claim, those who give up too soon. However, those who live by faith are not those who shrink back or who give in to the pressure of the world around them. The faith of God’s righteous ones will persevere and endure to the end.

After these verses, the author of Hebrews proceeds on to the chapter of faith and looks at how faith changes the lives and character of those who live by faith in the living God.

By faith, Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. Through faith, Noah obeyed God and constructed the ark in order to save his family. By faith, Abraham obeyed God by going out to the place God told him about. The list goes on and on.

The point of all this is that these men and women were not counted as righteous because of their works of obedience, but rather by faith they were made righteous and God produced works of obedience through them.

Therefore, these men and women could not boast in their works, but only in God as God produced the works of righteousness in them and revealed His righteousness through them.

Likewise, we cannot boast of anything in ourselves. We can only boast of Christ and His saving work on the cross, knowing that it is His finished work that saves us and produces His good works within us.

Romans 1:16 (ESV)

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Galatians 6:14 (ESV)

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

D. We Live By Faith Knowing God’s Glory will Be Victorious (vv. 14, 20)

Why can we boast in the cross? Because through the Cross and the Resurrection, we see the victory of God’s glory in this world over evil and wickedness!

Habakkuk 2:14 (ESV)

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Habakkuk 2:20 (ESV)

But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”

Finally, God shows us that His own glory will be victorious over the earth. He is showing Habakkuk that God will have the last say over evil and wickedness. God is working at making His glory known over the face of the earth. Even if we do not see it where we are, we can know that God is working throughout the world to make His glory known. And so, the righteous live by faith knowing that God will have the final say even when it appears wickedness is prevailing. The cross reminds us that wickedness has already lost and that it is only in the cross that we can boast

Conclusion