What He could do, and whom He could use to do it, in our own day. If He could use a force of terror like the paganīabylonians to do His bidding in Judah’s darkest days, then imagine God moves in a mysterious way, and He is able to use “ Babylon was the axe in the hand of the Most High to cutĪt the height of its pride and idolatry.” Would be on the receiving end of such judgment at the hand of the Babylonians. Land when the sin of its inhabitants required the intervention of His wrath ( Gen 15:12-16), so now they Just as He had used Israel to overtake the Promised Nation against from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoopsĪfter enduring their disobedience with great patience over centuries, theįullness of time for judgment had finally come, and God would act swiftly toĭeliver on His promise. People turned away from Him, He would “bring a Through Moses, the Lord had promised that if His Question, we must remember that God had warned His people of the potential for Of a holy God, we have started off on the wrong foot. It fair of Him to do so? Anytime that fallen men begin to question the fairness The hidden impulse of God” that this and every other nation rises and falls.Ĭalvin says, “God … can employ the vices of men in executing his judgments.” Is Here is (in the words of Calvin) that it is “not by their own instinct, but by That Babylon does as it pleases according to its own desires, God’s message Where is God in all this? Well, He is the One who is That of a bloodthirsty savage with an unquenchable appetite. Wolves hunt in the evening, and so the image is Leopards, being able to outrun and outmaneuver any other force. Metaphors to them from familiar and ferocious animals – they are swifter than They advanced on horseback, chewing up great distances with relative ease andĪble to move swiftly and nimbly against their targets. Their military power was like nothing the world had ever seen. Their necks as well!” They will do as they please, and that meant bad news for Their investigators in,” they may have said in our day, “we have a noose to fit They will not answer to any king or council. “Their justice and authority originate with themselves,” Verse 7 says that they wereĭreaded and feared because there was no earthly authority or power which could One knew which direction they might turn next. Who march throughout the earth to seize dwelling places which were not theirs. They are described in verse 6 as fierce and impetuous people Something in your days.” He is already at work, and had been long before it Something about this mess?” And God says here in response, “I am doing Habakkuk cries out, “Lord, how long until you do “I’ve been praying to you, God, and you aren’t doing anything!” But what he wasĪbout to learn, and what we must learn as well, is that God is always at work,Įven when we do not notice. In his prayer in verse 2, he essentially says,
Ourselves as believers in this God often fail to notice His hand in motion. The world often doesn’t notice it it never gets reported in the news. See an even larger and greater sign which says, “God at Work.” But over and above all these signs, we need to
These are the signs of “Men at Work,” exercising our depravity inĪ wide variety of expressions. Signs cautioning us of “Men at Work.” Because human nature has been warped andĬorrupted by sin since the fall of Adam, the world has been filled withĭestruction. Terrorism, injustice, and evil, we need to see the world marked similarly with “Men at Work.” When we look at the world around us, with all of its violence, Those of us who drive regularly along Gate City Boulevard here have becomeĪccustomed to seeing the signs every day which caution us with the message, With that in mind, let us dive into our text and explore how God moves in a It is that God may be moving in a mysterious way in our day and time as well. Nonetheless, as we see how the prophet answers Habakkuk, weĬan make application to our own times, and draw certain conclusions about how But unlike Habakkuk, we do not haveĪ word from God telling us specifically what it is that He is up to in the Of the righteous which we see taking place. Today are perplexed about the moral degradation, social injustice, and the oppression Is a direct verbal announcement about what is soon to take place in the nation. His answer here is both comforting and confounding. Heĭeclares that He is at work in the midst of it, though He moves in a mysterious Peril of His people He sympathizes with the suffering of the saints. Not been blind and deaf, unconcerned and uninvolved after all. His answer is a message for the entire nation. Finally, as we come to verse 5, the silence of heaven isīroken and God speaks.
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