Habakkuk 2:15-17

Habakkuk chapter 2, verses 15 through 17 for our text and study this morning. Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puteth thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness. thou art filled with shame for glory. Drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered. The cup of the Lord’s right hand shall be turned unto thee. Shameful spewing shall be on thy glory. For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beast, which made them afraid, because of men’s blood and for the violence of the land of the city and of all them that dwell therein. May God bless to us the reading of His Sacred and Holy Word this morning. I read about some slave-making ants that live along the Amazon River. It seems that these ants every so often would send out a swarm of ants from their nest they would invade a colony of weaker ants, and they would kill off the guards, go in and take their larvae of their worker ants, the cocoons, and they would carry those cocoons back to their hive. So that when these foreign ants were hatched, they thinking that they belonged to the new hive, they would do all the work and help out the people. who stole them, and that’s how they continued to grow in advance. They used slave later. They exploited other ant colonies. Well, Babylon here is portrayed to us as the exploiter of the nations, taking advantage of the other nations. God has been revealing to a back hook in his people, his coming judgment on the Babylonians. This section of Hebrews, or excuse me, Habakkuk chapter 2, is known as a taunt song because there are five woes pronounced against the Babylonian wickedness here. Each one is dealing with a different aspect of their sin. Each one highlights a particular sin and God’s judgment upon it. Well, here Babylon is condemned for their exploitation of the nations. However, it must be clearly understood that God punishes exploiters in every age, and what he has to say here about the Babylonians, not only applies to nations, but it certainly would apply to individuals as well. Whoever is guilty of doing what Babylon does will come under God’s wrath and have his woe pronounced against them. I’ll begin by saying God’s woe rest upon you as an exploiter of others. Verse 15, woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that putest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness. The first thing he says here, you provoke God when you encourage others to join you in your sin. Now, the picture that we have here is making somebody drunk. Not only you drinking, but you’re encouraging others in such a way that you’re making them drunk as well. Often kings would compel their subjects to drink wine whenever they drank a glass of wine, wine for wine glass for wine glass. And people would become staggering drunks because the king himself was, overindulging. Remember in the book of Esther, there was a wise decision by the monarchs of Persia. They had a law in their kingdom where in drinking none should be compelled. Every man should drink according to their own pleasure. In other words, you didn’t have to drink. Nobody, not even a king, could compel you to drink. Well, you can imagine during weddings and birthday parties and anniversary parties and so forth, guests may be compelled to toast the bride and the groom or the person being honored and it repeatedly happens and people get drunk. You can see that occurring. People who go to the bar, you know, people are buying rounds of drinking for everybody and people continue to drink and become drunk. So picture someone overindulge it, becoming drunk. So they are staggering drunks, but they’re also impostering. on others drink, putting the bottle to their lips so that they become drunk and engage in the same thing with them. So everybody is plastered or drunk as a skunk, as they say. That’s the picture we have here. Now, it could be that it is speaking of literally drinking in this particular passage of scripture. But, of course, it could be taken in a… figurative sense that it is being drunk with ambition. The Babylonians with their unending desire, a form of intoxication, for conquest, would allure their neighboring nations into the same thirst for war and plunder and wealth. Weaker nations, being fearful of the powerful Babylonians, would want to join in with them, get a treaty with them. And of course, the Babylonians would exploit them. I’m taking their soldiers, their wealth, and their supplies for the Babylonian campaigns elsewhere. They would use their soldiers up in their own, in their campaigns as well. So the soldiers from these other nations would be joining the Babylonians in whatever they were doing. So these nations were led into the same kind of madness as the Babylonians for power and dominion. But they were deceived in this regard. For when the Babylonians used up their supply of soldiers and their goods and finances, then took advantage of them, then, of course, they would be weakened, and then they would be turned, the Babylon would turn on them, and put them under their thumb more forcefully. So the other nations were forced to drink the intoxicating brew of the Babylonians in their conquest, Babylon is acting as friends, but ultimately they would be exploiting and conquering these other nations. So if we take it in a figurative sense, then of course we can see it in this involving someone else in your conquest, in your efforts, in your ambition to conquer the world. But the sin in general that we’re dealing here is the idea of alluring someone into the sins that you are engaging in, so that they are drunk also, as the text indicates to us. Woe unto him who gives his neighbor drink so that both are drunk. We can apply it the ambition. We can provide to power and wealth, as we already mentioned. Look in scripture and you look at Proverbs chapter 1 where the thief says this, come with us. Let us lay wait for blood. Let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause. We shall fill our houses with spoil. Cast your lot among us. Here they are trying to draw some young person into their thievery ring that they might get wealth that way. Come join us, luring them in to their own sin. worthy or the adulterer that we read about in Proverbs chapter 7 come let us take our fill of love until morning let us solace ourselves with loves the man of the house is away we can play look at judas said to his brothers he said come let us sell him to the ishmaelites and god his brothers persuaded them to sell the poor joseph the slanderer we find it does this too. In Jeremiah’s day, the Israelites said this, come, let us devise devices against Jeremiah. Come, let us smite him with the tongue and let us not give any heed to his words. Jeremiah 1818. You have an idea you’re trying to bring people in to your sin. In the New Testament, Jesus told the parable of the vineyard. And in the parable of the vineyard, remember what the vineyard worker said, when the owner of the vineyard finally sent his son to those he had lent out the vineyard to. Come, let us kill him. Let us seize his inheritance. Now, Jesus was portraying in that sense, in that particular parable, what was happening that the Jewish religious leaders were conspiring together that kill the king’s son, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And so the Pharisees realized he was. He had spoken the parable against them, as the text tells us. But they were, the idea, you’re bringing other people into your sin. Or false worship. In Deuteronomy 13, too, there are Israelites say, come, let us go after other gods. You’re luring somebody on and on we could go. You could see how people can be guilty of this. You provoke God when you encourage others to join you in your sin. Notice also, you provoke God when you provoke God when you provoke God when you. you allure others into sin to take advantage of them. Not only are they alluring them into their sin, but they’re doing it in order that you may look on their nakedness, it says. Now, being exposed naked here involves shame, humiliation. You remember Noah, when he got drunk and he was naked and it was shameful. that the two sons that covered him up, they didn’t even look. Remember they walked backwards with the blanket or the cover and put it over him so that they wouldn’t see his nakedness? Nakedness is used of the overthrow of nations at times. Captors strip the conquered nations of everything, so there’s complete exposure. Here Babylon makes a nation drunk in order to see their nakedness. to overthrow them, to then gloat over them. Babylon would keep the nations cowed and submissive by subjecting them to indignities and stripping them of self-respect. This is the way they maintain their vast empire. Keep everybody in line. It is quite common to allure someone into sin in order to exploit them in some fashion in order to exploit them in some fashion. you find if you look into our world today, you know, men will get young girls hooked on drugs in order to get them into prostitution. Our person is lured into robbery, a plunder and wealth with the idea of being a thief because it’s easy money. But after the heist is successful, the master thief shoots his partner, keeps everything for himself. All the jewelry, the gold, the coin, the furs. and he, in other words, he double-crosses the person, takes advantage of it. Women have been known the sexual allure man manipulate them into murdering their rich husbands so that they will inherit all the wealth. And then as soon as the husband is shot, all of a sudden she cuts off all communications with the guy and leaves him high and dry for the police to find as the murderer, and she lives on with the wealth for herself. in her husband’s estate. What the scripture tells us is God is taking note of all these kinds of things. When people exploit others, and they do so to take advantage of them, God is taking note. You know, when David got Uriah drunk to take advantage of him, send him down to his house, and hide his own sin, God took note of that, what David was doing. God takes note of that. of these kind of things. So God’s woe rests upon you as an exploit of others. Secondly, you find God eventually brings a fitting punishment upon the exploiter. Verse 16, thou art filled with shame for glory. Drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered. The cup of the Lord’s right hand shall be turned onto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory. The sinful course you follow to advance yourself will bring you shame. It will fill you with shame. Thou art filled with shame for glory. What God is saying here is that Babylon’s exploitation of other nations is going to boomerang. It’s going to come back to haunt them, is what he’s saying. Instead of obtaining greater heights of glory, Babylon, is going to experience shame. You think you’re going to get glory. I’m going to bring shame upon you. Through their conquest and the extension of our empire, Babylon acquired earthly prestige and fame, but now the tables are going to be turned. You’re going to be filled, a cup that’s all the way up to the maximum. It’s filled. You’ll be filled. Get a maximum amount of disgrace. You’re going to be brought low. God says. If you read in Jeremiah, God mentions all the nations that the cup of the Lord’s wrath is given to, and they have to drink of it. And then he says, Babylon, you’re going to drink it last. You’re going to drink it too. You’ll be the last one to drink it, but you’re going to drink it. And so they have to drink it as well. Shiba, a royal officer or official of Judah, desired to make a name for himself. So he built this beautiful sepulcher. He carved into the rocks of the mountains. And it was there for all to see as an eternal memorial to him. When he died, he was going to be buried there, and everybody will see this beautiful sepulchre that he’s made. He was counting on Israel’s chariots’ power to win military honors for him. But what he was so proud of would utterly disappoint him him because he wasn’t. He wasn’t trusting in the Lord, as the scripture indicates to us in the book of Isaiah 22. His chariots would not win the day, and he would be captured. Taking into Babylonian captivity, he never got buried in his beautiful tomb. So it’s up there empty, and so what he thought was going to be a lasting memorial to him ends up being a shameful remembrance of the fact that he didn’t get buried there, that he went into captivity. That’s what we feel. find here God doing with the wicked. Look at Josea chapter 4 and verses 6 and 7 if you would. Just a few books back toward the front of the Bible. Josea chapter 4, verses 6 and 7. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because thou hast rejected knowledge. I will also reject thee. Thou mayest, thou shalt be no priest to me. Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God. I will also forget thy children as they were increased. So they sinned against me. Therefore, I will change their glory into shame, God says. Here the Israelites, because of their pursuit of other gods, going to Bethel and Beth Avan and so forth, God here, instead of following the Lord, God says, yes, you should be following me. should be serving me, but you’re serving these other gods, I will turn your glory into shame. What you gloried in as a priest, you’re no longer going to have that glory. I’m going to take it away from you. That’s the same idea that we have here in a back loop in this situation. Israel gloried in their false gods and their shrines, they built for them, the golden calves, but these false gods shall not save them when the enemy invades. They’re going to be left without hope that will look like fools for putting their trust in these idle gods rather than the true and living God. In the New Testament, look at Philippians chapter 3, verses 18 and 19. We also have a similar kind of statement here. Paul writes here, for many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they’re enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame who mind earthly things. They gloryed in their supposed freedom in Christ pursue sinful desires. They claim to be liberated from the moral, the law’s moral restrictions. And Paul says, their real God was their belly, their own desires, their own lust. That’s whom they served. And their supposed freedom does in fact make them slaves to sin. Their mind is completely occupied with earthly pleasures. Ultimately, these false teachers bring shame and destruction upon themselves. Many claim to be wise, but in the end, they prove to be fools, as the scripture says. Jeremiah says, thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Near let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man, man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that gloryeth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth in me. We should glory in knowing the Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation that is found in him. That’s what we should glory in. Not in other things. The sinful course you follow to advance yourself will fill you with shame, God says. God carefully measures out the appropriate, punishment. for you. Now he says here, the cup of the Lord’s right hand shall be turned unto thee. You’re going to drink also, your foreskin is going to be uncovered, and the cup of the Lord’s right hand shall be turned unto thee. The Lord carefully measures out the appropriate punishment for you. It’s called a cup here. The measuring measuring of all afflictions and judgments is in God’s hand. He is the one who measures them out and gives you the cup to drink. No one can add or subtract from them nor remove them till the blow of the punishment is endured and therefore they’re called a cup here, a set measure, and the cup of the Lord’s right hand, which is irresistible. You must drink of it. You’ll notice that Jesus in the New Testament said to the Pharisees, fill you up the of your fathers with regard to your sin so that you would drink the wrath of God’s wrath, the cup of God’s wrath. So since Babylon drinks last, the bitter drags of the cup are left for them to drink. They get the worst of it and a more severe punishment. Now what stands out here is the retrobutive aspect of this judgment that God pays back in kind. Again, we see this. You reap what you sow. If Babylon seeks to uncover the nakedness of others, while you’re going to be shown, your uncircumcision will be exposed. Perhaps his stating here of being uncircumcised indicates they are heathen who worship false gods. And because they don’t worship the true and living God, they will have judgment fall upon them. But the idea is they will be exposed to. If Babylon makes other nations drunk, God is going to force the bottle to their lips until they stagger in their own vomit, is what he says. Their disgusting vomit will be spewed on their glory, ruining it. When people over drink, one of the ways the body trying to keep itself from alcohol poisoning, how it gets rid of the alcohol, it just, it vomits. It tries to is to get it out of your system one way or the other. And so we have the vomiting here. But the point is this. People are paid back in kind. That poetic justice occurs with God’s judgments. This fact should give us pause. What you do to others will be done to you. God will see to it. In the book of judges, we mentioned this before, the mutilation of Odonai Bizik. He was not only humiliated to have his thumbs cut off and his big toes. But you can imagine try to pick something up without any thumbs or try to walk without a big toe. You lose your balance. So the idea is that he’s incapacitated in many ways. He’s rendered ineffective. He can’t wield a weapon anymore. Such harsh treatment frequently was employed by Israel. And most people would think, well, that’s out of sync with the God of the Bible. No, it’s not. Remember, God is a God of justice. He told those who were rulers that they are to judge according to the law and pay back an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth. God governs the world according to perfect justice that a person reads to what he shows. This is a New Testament Prince. What is the maximum of Christ’s kingdom? What did Jesus say? With what measure you meet, it shall be measured to you again. Matthew 7.2. Whatever you measure out, you get measured back to you. This cruel king, Adonai B, Zic, acknowledges, as I have done, so God hath requited me. He didn’t need a sermon on it. He didn’t need someone to preach to him and tell him, I got what I deserved. He knew he got what he. deserved. He realized it. Even evil men recognize God’s hand at work at times repaying them. You should carefully reflect on this principle because it’s bound to be played out in your own life. When we gossip of others, when we display unrighteous anger, when we treat others harshly, when we have no patience with others, when we’re hypercritical of others, we’re intolerant of small mistakes, when we ignore those in need, there may be a day when that all comes back to haunt us. Even when you were truly wronged, you must realize that God set this into your life for some reason. You may get quite upset when someone wrongs you, but we ought to reflect on the fact, how have I provoked the Lord? Have I caused this to come upon me by how I have behaved myself? So God, would have you carefully think back upon your treatment of others. It may be reason for. Thirdly, we find God takes special notice when you are an exploiter of his people. Verse 17. For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts which shall make them afraid because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land of the city and of all them that dwell therein. You find Babylon’s violence here displayed upon Israel’s land, animals, and people. This is violence done to Israel’s natural resources that are mentioned first. This Lebanon that’s mentioned. Lebanon was a luxuriant, wooded region. A lot of the people God by the Lord. The forest of Lebanon was particularly famous for its magnificent. and cedars. We sing about it. One of the songs we talk about the voice of the Lord splitting the cedars of Lebanon and so forth. Well, the violence was done to the forest of Lebanon by the Babylon. Maybe they used their axes and their saws to cut down the trees for sieging the cities that they were conquering or for their own building projects elsewhere in their empire. They chopped down all the trees here in Lebanon. toppled the forest, so to speak. They were ruthlessly using the land. And they used the wood for these purposes that I’ve mentioned. They didn’t regard the regeneration of the tree, so they stripped the land bare. There’s an interesting passage in Isaiah 148. When God’s judgment is going to fall on Babylon, listen to it says here, yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, at Babylon’s fall. And the cedars of Lebanon, saying, since thou art laid down, no feller has come up against us. Since God brought you low, nobody’s chopping us down anymore. So violence done to Israel’s natural resources. We see the plundering of Israel’s animals here in the spoil of the beasts. Now, what seemed that beast here is a general term, it could be used in two ways. It could be used of their domestic animals. It could be used of wild animals. Animals grazing around the outskirts of Lebanon’s forest were often used for sacrifices like oxen or sheep or goats or rams. We read in Isaiah 4016 and Lebanon is not sufficient to burn in the sacrificial fire, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. So there must have been a lot of animals there. If this refers to the wild beasts like the deer or the elk or the lion or the bear or something of this nature. These were game for hunter. It was food that people would eat. The beasts then were either the people’s source of wealth, as we find in the book of Job, and or food supply. But either way, the land is stripped bare of these things. So the actions of the Babylonians would bring a terrifying calamity upon them in taking away food supply and taking away their wealth. and then we have the slaughter of the people of Israel. all who dwell therein, the cities and so forth. The violence of Babylon extended beyond trees and animals to the people. The land itself would undergo a suffering. Their attitude was to exploit exploit and destroy people without concern for anyone. Now you find that God is a especially concerned as we see from this text about the exploitation of his people. The focus of this verse specifically relates to those who are called God’s people. God promises to cover here or the smother the Babylonians here. And to make them afraid to terrify them because of what they have done to the people of God. Does God care about trees and animals? Well, he does. Ultimately, these things belong to God. Psalm 104.16 says the trees of the Lord are full of sap, the cedars of Lebanon, which he planted. He said, they’re my trees. You’re cutting down. Psalm 5010, for every beast of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills. The animals are mine. So the property, the resource, the animals of the people of God certainly belong to the Lord. In the way, we realize it or not, all our wealth and all our resources are really the Lord’s. We are just the steward of them. We just administrate God’s goods. That’s all we do while we’re hearing this life. When someone cheats and steals or covets from you, they’re actually stealing God’s possessions. They’re stealing from the Lord. obviously God’s people are considered his children. Any harm done to them is a harm done to God’s family, and it provokes him to wrath. In the book of Zachariah, there’s a promise. It relates to our Lord Jesus Christ as the king of his people, as the angel, the angel of the Lord, or the messenger of the Lord. And as king, he’s got to come and punish those people who harm his people. And here’s what it’s says in Zechari 2.8, He shall send me, God shall send me, the Lord Jesus Christ, unto the nations, which spoiled you, the people of God, for he that toucheth you, touches the apple of my eye. God is sensitive to the afflictions of his people, his anger burns against those who harm his people, and exploit them. Just as the pupil of the eye is so sensitive to the touch that it’s well protected. So God protects his people. And when they are harmed in any way, God is provoked to wrath. So there are slave-making ants in Brazil which exploit other ant colonies and use their workers for themselves. The wicked Babylonians exploited other nations and plundered them. But God says here that obviously there’s going to be a payback. There’s going to be a judgment. God’s woe rest upon you. This can be applied to anyone who exploits others. You find God eventually brings forth a fitting punishment upon the exploiter, and God takes special notice when you exploit his people. That is what we find here in our text. Well, let us close with a word of prayer.