Habakkuk 2:20

Habakkuk chapter 2, verses 18 to 20, what profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it, the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein to make dumb idols. Woe unto him that saith to the wood awake, to the dumb stone, arise, it shall teach. Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it. But the Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him. And then, if you would, in the New Testament to the book of John, John’s Gospel, chapter 4, verses 22 to 24. Jesus speaking here says, Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is that, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit. They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. May God bless to us His Sacred and Holy Word this morning. Some people are just too talkative. They’re like the young man who went to Socrates, the great philosopher, to learn oratory. On being introduced, the young man talked so incessantly that Socrates decided he was going to ask for double fees. When the young student protested about why he was charging double fees, he said, well, I have to teach you two sciences. One is how to hold your tongue, and the other is how to speak. The wise man says, Solomon says that there is a time for everything under heaven. And one of the things he says is there is a time for silence. There’s a time to keep silence, Ecclesiastes 3.7. Our text is a case and point. And indeed, it’s not just a suggestion, but it is a command to keep silence before Jehovah God. Habakkuk has been given a divine rubehacko. revelation about the downfall Babylon. We’ve gone through the Taunt song now, where there are five woes pronounced against particular sins of Babylon and God’s judgment against them. The last sin we dealt with was the sin of idolatry in verses 18 and 19. The chapter concludes with a command that all the earth should keep silence before the true and the living God. Now let me begin by saying this. You need to learn to worship God and spirit and truth, but the Lord is in His Holy Temple, the text says. John’s gospel here indicates to us how true worship is to take place, and Jesus is teaching us here about it. It’s certainly not like the heathen worship, is it? For we find in the, in our temple, text here in Habakkuk, the word but as a contrast, the heathen worship their idols, but our God is in heaven. And so there’s this contrast between the heathen gods and idols which the heathen have invisible representations for their gods, in the form of images and so forth. But John 4 tells us about the non-material aspect of true worship. It is in spirit and in truth. You should never think that the glory of the incorruptible God could be made like under four-footed beast and birds and corruptible man. And creeping things of this earth, this Romans chapter 1 indicates to us. God is a spirit. And he must be worshipped in spirit. We cannot think of God in the same manner as we think of a physical body that we have. God is a spiritual being. He that cometh the God must believe that he is. that he exists. He’s invisible. You can’t see him. He must be seen by the eyes of faith,. He that comes with the God must believe that he is, and he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. There are many who claim to be worshipping God, but true worshippers are chiefly those who engage their hearts in the worship of God. God God complains about people who draw near to me with their mouth and their lives. lips, but their hearts are far from me, as we read in Matthew 15, 8, and 9. Modern worshiped is basically designed to appeal to the flesh. The focus is on beautiful pictures, ornate images, and icons, and hangings and pictures, and all kinds of wonderful, glorious rituals that people go through. It’s all appealing to the but you must worship in spirit and not put the priority on your physical senses. God is to be conceived of spiritually and we are to avoid all carnal and material conceptions of our God. Now with that in mind, notice here in chapter 115 of the book of Psalms, if you would, what the scripture says about the Lord God being in heaven. Psalm 115 and 1 to 9. Not unto us, O God, not unto us, O God, not unto us, but unto thy name, give glory for thy mercy and thy truth’s sake. Wherefore should the heathens say, where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. They have eyes, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. They have ears, but they hear not. They have noses, noses they have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they handle not. Feet have they, but they walk not. Neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them, so is everyone that trusteth in them. O Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Here again, we have the contrast between the heathen gods and the true God. Down through Israel’s history, there were times when heathen nations overran them the temple gets ransacked. And we find that was the case with Babylon. And then this gave occasion for the heathen to sneer with contempt at the true God. The question his existence, as we see in verse 2 here of Psalm 115, Wherefore should the heathens say, where is now their God? His temple is destroyed? Where is he? But our God is in heavens. He can’t be confined to some temple made by man. He’s not the kind of God that your gods are like. The invisible God dwells in heaven. He can’t be constricted. He has absolute power and authority. Above all the, it exalts him above him, all the idols of this earth. Indeed, there is no comparison. He made everything why they had to be made by an amane. the idols themselves. He’s in heaven, they are on earth. He does whenever he pleases, they can do nothing. He sees the distresses and hears and answers the prayers of his people and saves his people. They are blind and deaf and dumb and senseless and motionless and impotent. Therefore, there’s a call here in verse 9 to trust in the Lord for the idols cannot help their worshippers. And I think we have the same idea in our text here in a backup. God is a spirit. He’s not to be worshipped by images and by idols as we see the heathen doing. Notice also that true worship recognizes one God who rules overall. He’s called the Lord here. Jehovah God. We read in Psalm 114. the Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord’s throne is in heaven. His eyes, behold, his eyelids try the children of man. Scripture says the Lord is a great God and a great king above all God. Psalm 953. God declares in Isaiah 446, thus saith the Lord, I am the first, I am the last besides me. There is no God. So there’s no other God. He’s a great king above all gods. And he’s in his holy temple of heaven itself, as the scripture tells us in Psalm 11. For his throne is in heaven. That’s where he dwells and exists. And he dwells there and exists there as a judge of men, to try man, to examine them, all their thoughts and all their actions, because man is accountable to the Lord God. This is the God. This is the God, all men, are called the worship. And notice that, as for the worshippers of man-made gods, Jesus says, you worship, you know not what? You don’t know what you’re doing. You have no knowledge of the true and living God. Sadly, most people, for them, the true God is the unknown God, as Paul says to the Athenians. People ignorantly worship, because they don’t know the true God. And so, Habakkuk here, dealing with with those who are spiritually clueless to say, look to the Lord, and he is in his holy temple. He is in heaven ruling over all the earth. That’s who you should be worshipping. So true worship recognizes one God who rules over all. True worship is to be based upon God’s revealed truth. We are to worship in truth, the Bible says. Now, you’ll notice here, that worship is not to be reduced to what feels right to you. You know, what gives you an emotional high. True worship is biblical, quiet, reverential, and occupied with God himself. We could look at the regulative principle of worship in Deuteronomy 12. And the scripture says, you must not worship the Lord by any of the rights, and the rituals of men. The idolatrous customs are an abomination to the Lord. It’s God’s prerogative to determine how he is to be worshipped. And Scripture indicates to us whatever is not commanded by God to be done in worship is forbidden. Absolute worship of God is what he commands. Acceptable. worship is limited by his revealed will. No good intentions, no religious zeal, no popular method can justify violating the regular principle of Deuteronomy 12, 29 to 32. Whatever I command to do, you do, don’t add to it, don’t take away from it. Friends, images of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, are most dangerous. Roman Catholic Church teaches that the image is not itself to be regarded as divine. It’s just, we’re told, in aid to help you in worship. As Pope Gregory once put it, images are the books of the unlearned. The untaught masses need something visible to help them worship God. However, if you examine the sin of Aaron’s Calf, Golden Calf, we mentioned it last week. It shows that what they did in making this golden calf was not that they were coming up with a different God. You’ll notice that they were worshipping Jehovah as an image. They were worshipping the image, and this is supposed to represent Jehovah God. And God condemned them for the use of this image in his worship. These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar. before it and Aaron proclaimed, made proclamations and said, Tomorrow is a feast unto the Lord, Jehovah. Exodus 32, 4 and 5. So we’re not even to use an idol in the worship of the true in the living God. It was a Roman Catholic priest in England. He was once talking to a young boy who belonged to his parish, but he happened to be going to a Protestant school in the neighborhood. And the priest tried to persuade the young boy that He ought to be praying to the Virgin Mary and he should bow down before the image of Mary to help him and aid him in his prayers. But the boy, having been taught some scripture in the Protestant school, knew some divine truth and he refused to pray to Mary and he came up with a novel way of addressing the priest and here’s what he said. He said, please your reverence, I read in the gospel that when the Virgin was on earth, going home from Jerusalem, she lost her son. She couldn’t tell where he had gone and was three days searching for him before she found him. Now, if she couldn’t take better care than that of her own child, who was so near to her? I’m thinking it’s mighty little care she’ll take care of me. We am far away from her. Out of the mouth of babes. Sometimes you get some brilliant thoughts. So I thought that was pretty good. We should we should, though, pray that we’d be kept from idolatry and image worship. First of all, we should know what biblical worship is. And we should realize that we should cultivate a love of God in his ways so that we don’t bring in all the ideas of the heathen into our own worship. And pray that God would preserve the pure worship of his church. So you need to learn to worship God in spirit and in truth, this is the God you’re to worship, the true and living God. Secondly, you need to learn that there’s a time to keep silence before God, for he says let all the earth keep silence before him. Now, why would we have to keep silence? What is this silence all about? Well, there’s several things I suggest to you. The first has to do with stop your proud boasting. Look at Isaiah 47 with me. if you would in verses 5 to 7 Isaiah 47 Verses 5 to 7 Sit thou silent and get thee into darkness O daughter of the Bout of the Chaldeans For thou shalt no more be called The Lady of Kingdoms I was wroth with my people I have polluted mine inheritance and give them into thy hand and thou did show them no mercy upon the ancient hast thou heavily very heavily laid thy yoke. Thou saidest, I shall be a lady forever, so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. Babylon saw itself as the lady of the kingdoms. They expected to remain in that position forever. They were always going to be the greatest kingdom. There’s a certain pride and arrogance that we see. coming out of Babylon here. But God promises to knock her from her throne, so to speak, to put her down a few pegs, so that she sits in silence. As the verse 5 indicates, sit thou in silence. Numbed by her shameful fall, Babylon will sit in silence and no more be boasting. God knows how to shut the mouth of the proud, that bring them low, cause them to dwell in what he calls darkness here. And this means, you know, the bondage and misery, bad things being brought upon the nation. God was angry with his rebellious people, and for a time he let the Babylonians chastened them, but nevertheless, Babylon exceeded its purpose, its duty, let’s say, to act as God’s chasing rod and ruthlessly exploited the Israelite, showing them no mercy whatsoever. Jehovah disapproves of her cruelty, her pride. And so Babylon thinks nothing could possibly occur to upset her superstar status. God says, I got news for you. You’re going to sit in silence. You’re going to be so shamed when I bring you down. She never gives her behavior toward others a second thought. But God is thinking about it. And there’s going to be a divine reckoning. And when that day comes, Babylon will sit in silence. Her pride will be knocked out of her. Not long ago, the Nazis were world beaters. As nation after nation fell before Germany’s Hitler. Hitler boasted of a thousand-year Reich in Germany was the lady of the nations at that time. A superpower. The queen of the nation, so to speak. During the reign of Nazi power, terrible evils took place. We know about the concentration camps and the Jews being slaughtered and so forth. No one could stand up to Germany’s military might. The Blitzkrieger, the lightning warfare, was truly frightening to be whole. And yet God’s woe was pronounced against Nazi Germany. Now, if you go to a history book and you pull out the history book and look at the years 1944, 1945, and you look at Germany and look at the photographs that shows the devastations of the various cities of Germany by round-the-clock bombing by the allies. Hitler wasn’t boasting anymore. He was silent. His pride was curtailed. His Third Reich lay in ruins. You ponder those pictures and you see them. You see the shock and the horror on the German people as they have endured this unbearable bombing day and night of their cities. Righteousness exalteth the nation but sin is a reproach to any people and obviously this principle could be applied to the individual as well as nations, but the proud and the boastful God abases them and he silences them. A second thought is this. Show a respect and awe for the true God when you behold. His judgments on the earth. Look at Zachariah, if you would. Chapter 2, verses 6 to 13. Zachariah Chapter 2 verses 6 to 13. Here we have God telling the Israelites to get out of Babylon because the judgment’s about the fall. Ho, ho come forth and flee from the land of the north, saith the Lord, where I have spread you abroad as the four winds of heaven, saith the Lord. Deliver thyself, O’Reuth. God. Deliver thyself, O’st. Zion that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon. For thus saith the Lord of host, after the glory hath he sent me unto the nations, which spoiled you. For he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye. For behold, I will shake my hand upon them, and they shall be as spoiled to their servants, and he shall know that the Lord of host has sent me. This is speaking of Christ, by the way. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion. for I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people, and I will dwell in the midst of them, and thou shalt know the Lord of hosts, which have sent me unto thee. And the Lord shall inherit Judah, his portion in the Holy Land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be silent, O all flesh before the Lord, for he is raised up out of his holy habitation. God’s people are to flee Babylon. God’s about to meet out punishment. God’s people are the apple with his eye. He’s going to protect them and watch over them. They’re going to sing and rejoice when God pays back Babylon for the evil she’s done to Israel. Now, when this happens, all flesh is to be silent before the Lord. They are to fear and reverence the Lord worldwide. For when God is raised up, out of his holy tab abatation. When he stands up to act, let’s say, when he’s about to bring about the judgment, to meet it out, he’s going to bring a devastating blow, everyone should fear the true and living God when they see what he does. You know, when I was younger, I remember one of my sisters or my brother getting spanked by my father, and a fear of my father came up. on me and I wasn’t you know I wasn’t cheering I was watching in shock silence thinking I may be next for something I’ve done and come under my father’s wrath and receive the same punishment it was time for self-reflection it was a time of quiet resolve to avoid provoking my dad to anger this is what was happening on the international scene and Zachariah is predicting the time when God’s judgment is so severe Babylon, all the nations stand there in horror and in silence. It’s a time of learning. It’s a time for you to stand in awe of the judgment of God, of the God of the whole earth. A third thought is this. Stop contending with God. Let’s look at Job chapter 40 in verses 1 to 5. Job 40 and 1 to 5. Moreover, the Lord answered Job and said, shall he that contendeth with the almighty instruct him, he that reproof God, let him answer it. Then Job answered and said, Behold I am vow, what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer, yea twice, but I will proceed no further. Now, if you read through the book of Job, you see that he has been disputing with the Lord. He feels like he’s gotten a bad deal here, that somehow, rather, God’s dealings with him have not been fair. And he has demanded a hearing with God. He puts it in a sense of, I wish there was a court situation where I could come and plead my case before God. They could maybe even question God. And tell him about this mistreatment that he’s getting and plead his case before the Lord. Well, God has now appeared. out of the whirlwind, you remember? And he demands that Job substantiate his claims and these accusations he’s made against the Lord. Job, however, is silenced before the Lord. he shuts his mouth. He says, I’m not going to speak another word about it. He’s resolved not to speak rashly again. He will not prescribe any more as to what God should do or should not do. He realizes his sense. place. And what we find here is that man should not contend with his maker. Realize that God is in heaven and you are on earth. Let your words be few. There we should be silent. There’s a time to be silent before such a God. Silence suggests Job has been convinced he was wrong and he shouldn’t try to justify himself. He’s going to suppress all those passionate feelings he’s had. You know, it’s It’s very easy to second-guess God. It’s very easy to murmur and complain against God. We always think that we know if we could judge the world, we would do better, it seems. Actually, however, if we had to present our case before the Lord, if God stood before us, we’d be just like Job. We wouldn’t know what to say. We would be silenced. And we’d be awestruck. We would hold our tongue. And so we should stop continuing. tending with God, we should quietly submit to God’s punishment. Let’s look at lamentations, if you would. Right after the book of Jeremiah, there’s this little book of lamentations. And this book of lamentations has to do with the fall of Israel to Babylon. And notice what is said here. I’ll begin with chapter 2 in verse 10 of lamentations. The elders of the daughter of Zion sit up. the ground and keep silence. They have cast up dust upon their heads. They have girded themselves with sackloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. Then if you would, chapter 3, beginning with verse 25. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke of his youth. He sitteth alone and keep us silence because he hath borne it upon him. He puteth his mouth in the dust. If so be, if so be there may be hope. He giveth his cheek to him that smitheth him. He is filled full of reproach. After the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, There’s this time of lamentation. There’s a lot of mourning. There’s a lot of sorrow among God’s people. And they have to wait for God’s deliverance from Babylonian captivity. And so the people of God here are told to resolve to quietly wait upon the Lord. There’s not to be any quarreling with the Lord. To quietly submit to divine chastening, no murmuring, no grumbling against the Lord. because he sent this hardship in their life. They’ll have to give their cheek to be smitten here and have personal disgrace and dishonor, but they are to do it in submission to the Lord. And so they take their punishment and be quiet about it because they know they deserved it. And with regard to ourselves. There are times when God chastens us, and the best thing that’s for us to do is to silently accept it realize this is what we deserve. There’s a good account of Aaron. Remember, God sent fire out from the altar and devired Aaron’s two sons who offered foreign fire, or strange fire, not authorized fire, before the Lord. And we read, Aaron held his peace. He didn’t say anything. He was silently accepted the devastation that fell upon his two sons. No murmuring against the Lord, but quiet submission as he bore this tremendous loss. Oh, that all God’s people might emulate Aaron in this regard, remembering how Israel’s murmuring and complaining in the wilderness how what it led to, and the problems associated with it. So you need to learn that there is a time to keep silence before the Lord. Socrates found his students so talking if he demanded double fees. I’m going to have to teach you to be quiet as well as to speak. Scripture indicates there is a to keep silence. And here is one of those here in our text. We need to learn to worship the Lord in spirit and in a truth, and we learn that there is a time to be silent before the Lord. Have we learned these truths? Let us close with a word of prayer.