“You will be filled with shame and contempt instead of glory. Drink also and be like an uncircumcised heathen. The cup of wrath in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you, and foul shame shall be upon your own glory.” [Habakkuk 2:16]
This is us. When we read Habakkuk, we read about the Babylonians
and the Judeans. God proclaimed who He would use to bring his judgment upon the
Israelites. But, we need to look closer at this. We deserve God’s judgment,
too.
I must be honest, I wanted to see God take the Chaldeans down.
I mean, hey, they destroyed Judea and the whole area. They overthrew the most
horrific army of the time, the Assyrians. In our minds, they deserve judgment,
right?
Why would God allow such a heinous and horrific army to
invade and overthrow them? Consider the sins of the Judeans according to God’s
judgment in verses 6-7 & 8b-19. The overarching sin of the Judeans
according to God was their greed. He spoke of this in verses 6-7. God said
their debtors will rise against them and they will taunt them with derision.
They amassed wicked gain and lived on a higher plane of existence than people
around them (vs 9). God further stated the Judeans shamed their own people and
made them destitute without caring for them (vs 10). They worked for futility,
falsity, and emptiness trying to satisfy their burning greed (vs 13). This
futile work would end up destroying what they had done. Their work amounted to
nothing. They worked for perishable things instead of things that mattered (vs
14). These Judeans even encouraged and made their people drunk to disgrace them
and bring shame upon themselves (vs 15) to make themselves look better than the
other Judeans.
When we compare the Chaldeans with the Judeans, not much difference
exists between them. They each were greedy. Both people groups willingly
destroyed other people to get what they wanted. The Chaldeans did it with
physical violence and destruction. The Judeans did it by taking more money than
necessary for services and loans to make themselves wealthy. If that wasn’t
enough shame, they caused their fellow countrymen to get drunk. This made the
rich seem more glorious and the drunkard, the one they made drunk, lose his or
her glory and cause shame. Both nations caused people to be shamed because of
their greed. Both people chose to step on people to make themselves appear
bigger to other people and nations. They did not care about the physical and/or
spiritual destruction they caused the people.
Surely, we don’t do that, do we? “We work hard for what we
have; we deserve it,” you say. “That beggar on the corner can go get a job and
work like I did,” you think. “I want to be able to go to the spa each week.”
This attitude can go on and on. There is always something else you can buy or that
you want. Advertising marketers hungrily gain your attention and help create a desire
in you for something so you are never satisfied completely. The greed this
breeds in your heart can lead you to be stingy with the money God gave you. It
can make you have a “better than thou” attitude as you compare yourself to
someone else. This attitude and desire to want more than you need comes from
discontentment with what God has given you. You want what someone else has so
you can be as good or better than them. Maybe you want to buy a flashier car
than your frenemy across town. Possibly you want to move into “that”
neighborhood because people consider you wealthy if you live there. You can’t
help someone else by giving them a loan because you might need that money to
fulfill one of these desires. Hoarding money for your own use and not
considering the plight of someone else is greed and harmful. You do this to
draw more attention to yourself as if you are a god. It is setting yourself up
to be higher than someone else. This then puts the other person in their place,
below yourself.
This grasping and hoarding of resources God calls
covetousness. If you will remember, covetousness is a sin spoken against in the
Ten Commandments. It makes you put your desires over God’s. You end up thinking
of yourself as your own god, not caring that you don’t know everything, you’re
not perfect, and you are mortal. The
things you buy or do with your hoarded money become your idols, your gods. They
are more important to you than almighty, eternal God. In verses eighteen and nineteen,
God proclaimed woe on the Judeans. He said the Judeans made an image from
something God created. The Judeans trusted in these things to give them
satisfaction and fulfillment, but forgot all manmade things fade away. They
rust and are destructible. These idols cannot help their owners when God’s
judgment comes upon them. There is not one breath in them. They are not alive,
nor powerful.
We each hoard our possessions and won’t share at times in
our lives. We get a promotion and an increase in pay. Instead of living with
enough and having resources left over to help people, we move up the chain to a
higher plane of living. This allows us to show other people we are wealthier
than them, to gain notoriety, or it allows us to have a beach house. Possibly
we can go on ocean cruises each year while we pass the same person on the
street who wants a job we could afford to give them or help them get training
to have a marketable skill. Perhaps with our hoarded money we buy a boat or
plane or fourth car or motor home instead of asking God for what use did He
give you the raise, bonus, or gift. Each of these and many unmentioned examples
are like how the Judeans. They had enough. All good things come from God. He
provides for our needs. Sometimes, God provides for someone else’s needs
through the gifts He gives us.
For the Judeans who had received God’s mercy continually for
their repeated sins over the centuries, the time of God’s judgment was upon them.
Habakkuk wrote this prophecy sometime between 626 and 605 BC. The
Chaldeans/Babylonians invaded and destroyed the Judeans in 586 BC, just 19-40
years later. God said in 2:3, though the prophesied judgment of God seemed to
tarry, it would occur at the right time. “Wait for it because it will surely come,”
God said.
God’s judgment against the Judeans and Chaldeans was right
and due. We recognized that from the start, didn’t we, when we read they
devoured whole nations, shamed the people, destroyed livelihoods, plundered
people? Our using every cent of money we receive for ourselves also deserves
God’s judgment. We have more than we need. God means for each person to be a
channel of His blessing, not to hoard everything for him or herself. You say, “I
only have two loaves of bread in my house. That is barely surviving.” Still, a
person lives down the road or in another neighborhood with no loaf of bread.
That person is not surviving. For others of us, we say, “Someone needs to take
care of that.” It could be that “someone” who should be you taking care of it
is you. God provides each person with skills, time, and His plan and purpose
for his or her life. Seek God asking if He wants you to fill that need with
your time or physical resources. Jesus told His followers in Matthew 7:7 to ask
and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking for
those who ask receive, those who seek find, and for those who knock the door
will be opened. We take that to heart and do those three things for ourselves. God
answers and provides physical, spiritual, and mental things. We love it when He
answers our prayers. Other people ask, seek, and knock, but you are holding on
to the things God wanted to use to answer that other person’s prayers. That is
hoarding. That is greed. That is destroying other people just as the Chaldeans
and Judeans did.
Just as God judged the Chaldeans and Judeans, He still judges
today. We are the Judeans and Chaldeans of this age. When our neighbor goes
hungry, homeless, thirsty, or naked, we did not show love to God (Matthew
25:35-40). But, when we feed, house, quench thirst, or clothe someone, we show
God we love Him and our neighbor (the person in need). To these people, God
will give rewards. To those who hoard and harm other people, God will judge
just like He did the Judeans and Chaldeans. We should search our own heart to determine
if we are hoarding and greedy, or helping and generous.
Lord, please show me
where I have failed and sought my own will. Show me where I have harmed people
by not helping and through that have not loved you. Forgive me of my
selfishness and lead me to Your path again. Please lead me to know where and
when to give or help someone else. Amen.
