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CHAPTER 11

MERCY AND TRUTH, FAITH AND FORCE,
HABAKKUK AND HOLINESS

In the last Chapter, we considered the blessed feature and fact of reality. It applies by the power and the mercy of God, to man when he finds in the word of God, the Bible, what the case actually is. Dreams may horrify or delight; reality however is necessary, preferably from an early age! Now we consider some of the great features of spiritual reality, and in so doing, turn to a fascinating text in Habakkuk, and compare it with Hosea 6 and Matthew

Habakkuk 2:13

TRUTH AND TRANSLATION

It is not of the Lord that people build just for burning, wearying themselves in futile efforts, for as far as He is concerned, His desire is that the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14), and He will do it. This is far different. However, in the sins of man these things are sure to happen, by a perversion of His pity, a naked engulfment of His justice and a lurid living contrary to His will. In that way, the results can appear as a penalty, the very futility a virtual appointment of the Lord, as cancer from smoking tobacco.

It is usual to translate at the start of Habakkuk 2:13, though it is only one linguistic option, Is it not of the Lord ? However the notable Berkeley Version has the other, It is not of the Lord. The text simply has 'NOT OF THE LORD'. Grammatically, it lies open.

It seems apparent that both thoughts are there: God in His desire and heart is far from being the cause of such corruption with its sure results, as listed in the text, and it is not from His heart or mode of willing that it proceeds. But if man insists on the acme of corruption, then he can build for subsequent burning, and become a centre for futility. God is indeed of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and it is not of Him that men avoid His mercy, and make a gamble of His judgments. Habakkuk's question has this sublime, divine answer!

Thus the entire discourse from Ch. 2 burns and turns on the corruption present, the twisting and turning like that of a high spirited animal, a horse in revolt. In contrast, salvation does not lie in works of power and self-importance, of pride and self-affirmation, in using 'nature' for self-advancement, but the just - wait for it - must live by faith. Such is the teaching.

The just, those who follow the Lord and His free gift of righteousness (as in Psalm 32, 71, Romans 5:17) are not to be engulfed in the evils, or succumb to the twisted triumphs of the unjust, but in accord with the promise and the premise of divine power, by faith await the performance of the peace, the restoration of the righteousness which is to occur, as presaged in Habakkuk 1 and in the third chapter exhibited in times to come, when judgment will finally crush aborted liberties sedulously making sin king and evil the Prince. Meanwhile, those who are His own, will LIVE by this trusting attitude to divine power and prediction, intention and provision. The just will live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4). It does not depend on what man will do for his own salvation, but on what God will do, the divine operations. Faith is to embrace this and to turn the back from what is far from the desire of the Lord.

Is then the translation of 2:13 to be as in Berkeley, or as in many others ? The main point is to capture the sense, which is both deep and demanding, as set forth above. God Himself, as in Amos 4, is certainly superintending due results of utter folly, but it is far from His desire that either the evil cause or its consequence occur. In context, the thrust from FAITH as the living mode, not SIGHT, let alone the unsightly, and the prescription of faith in dramatic mode in the midst of the unfaithful, would appear to be central. It is in this overall context that there is made that delightful declaration that it is NOT of Him that such flagrant inflammations occur, for His is the desire in due course, for the implementation of a far more telling model, one of purity and purging, with indignation poured out as He saves His people, establishing His Messiah as in Psalm 2.

These good conclusions come from the very heart of the Lord, and while as in Jeremiah 51:58, because of the foul sins of evil exemplar, Babylon, "her high gates will be burned with fire, the people will labour in vain," their efforts are already on a lost cause, "labour for burning," so here there is a similar vein. It is the fiasco and folly of labour for what is to be merely for the burning. This, however, is not merely set in terms of futility for sin's eventual outcome. Rather the whole book of Habakkuk is directed towards a major principle. To be sure impudent grasping is common, men with nets seeking to grab men for their own advancement (Habakkuk 1), but this is NOT what God has in mind for man, now recommends or will allow to be at all in place at the end. Then, when He acts, the purge of power and the purity of truth will join in judgment.

Firstly in its own time, He will act to smash the sovereignties that do the evil, using His mighty power, delivering His own Messiah and through His establishment, the remnant of His people (Isaiah 49, 10:11 - 11:10). Secondly, His sinning nation will be delivered from the potencies of murder, and brought to His domain of rule (as in Psalm 2, with Habakkuk 3:13); and thirdly, He will cause the earth not only to be so rescued. It will actually be so FILLED with the glory of God as to resemble the waters covering the sea (Habakkuk 2:14), and the knowledge of this will likewise flush the earth (Isaiah 11:10).

This is not yet among the nations, or Israel; but it will be. God is emphatically not willing to behold iniquity (Psalm 94). Vast is His intention beyond this temporary permission for its self-exhibition as vain and futile, and indeed, the fire will burn up what is being furiously built by those who face only futility. HE is NOT like that: such is the flow of Habakkuk. It is not of the Lord that such futile bustle brings only ruin; though it IS assured because it is contrary to Himself, that futile is its force, and temporary its leverage.

In view of this ultimate context, therefore, one agrees with the translation of the Berkeley Version, "it is not from the Lord of hosts that the people labour," it is not from Him that they labour only to feed the fire, that is, that they so work in futility, to make and to build what is facing an early ruin in flames.

When it comes to the people of the Lord, who live by faith, by contrast, their works follow them, like a puppy dog. "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works follow them."

THE BEAUTIFUL PARALLEL

The parallel in Hosea 6 is intense, and cited by the Lord, who told some blind to spiritual realities, to go and see what is written (in Hosea 6:6):

"But go and see what this means,
'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' "

He does not wish to inject sacrificial loss as the continuing calamity (or for that matter as a continuing offer on the Cross, where He was offered but once), but mercy. There His ultimate desire lies, there His heart lodges its yearning, in His own goodness. You will need to wait (Habakkuk 2:3-4); for it to come to this world (as when He returns, as in Isaiah 59 and 11, Psalm 72); but it is important not to confuse the futility of rebuked evils with the agility of the Lord to inject mercy, deliverance, the causes of His heart, His own, beyond all judgment, and hence to bear the judgment Himself, applying that only where unbelief rules (John 3:19, 36)..

Thus He would act, and now has acted at Calvary, if by any means any might find Him. He is not merely not far from each of us, but came to be one of us, so that now the case is the more manifest yet.

Habakkuk is transfixed with ultimates, the contrast of now with then, of evil deeds with divine intentions, the exhibition of the goodness of God even in the snake pit of human unholiness and gross grasping, and whether in Ch. 1 or 2 or 3, this is his theme. Hence in keeping with this, and so very like Hosea 6:6 and the terms of Matthew 9:13, the beautiful statement comes: It is NOT OF THE LORD, that nations labour to build for the fire, to exercise untold energy for what is but the flame of futility, the judgment on their foul deeds to follow them.

THE DIVINE WARNING SYSTEM IS OPERATIVE

Yet as in Amos 4, there is a divine warning system in view, and His judgments are often intended to alert. There is the judgment implicit in the remorseless pursuit of evil. It becomes assured in the end. The text is grammatically open to this reading, and true it is. Yet in this context, one does not find the liberty to select this option for the reasons above.

Both aspects then may be taught; both apply; but the greater is the protestation of divine mercy, which from first to last in Habakkuk, is the answer. It is this which is to be received by faith, to be held contrary to current and contemporary iniquities, as seeing Him who is invisible, and despising the riches of this world, like Moses (Hebrews 11), knowing the nature of Him who is eternal, immortal, beautiful in holiness, the judge who allows the testing, but does not delete the triumph to come, BECAUSE that is who He is, the author and agent of mercy and goodness and the God of faith, who is available in but contrary to this world. It is He whose ways do not change (Malachi 3:6, Psalm 102:26-27) , because they are everlasting (Habakkuk 3:6).

So is He justly shown in Habakkuk, requiring the patience of faith, not aligned with what is out of alignment, not supporting the leaning wall, but giving it time to fall, that in the end His wisdom will be seen, His power tasted, every evil tested, invested and exposed, filled with the follies of grasping man; and every mercy will be shown, even to the repentant, to those who have lived by faith and not by sight, in the presence of the only God who is there, the God of all mercy, whose word is truth. So vast is His kindness, so patient is His testing, so ample is His way: for "it is not of the Lord that the peoples labour to feed the fire," that His people categorically diverge, depart from the evil and wait for and on the One who is good. As enjoined in Habakkuk 2:3-4, they wait in faith, for the wonder of the vision will surely come.

When faith has finished its own toils, and man has gained his own spoils, then it will be seen, the vision of spirit in the victory on earth and over its ways. Till then it is not of the Lord, but of man and his monstrous machinations that the evil grasps only to lose, and that what seeks to preserve its life, merely loses it, feeding the flames of corruption with the presumption that God does not see! (Malachi 2:17, Psalm 94:7).

So far from this fatuity being so, it is as far removed from the glory of God as a desert from an ocean.

Indeed, this depiction is almost precisely the tenor of what Christ declared as seen in Matthew 24, the mounting evil, its day of wrath, its desolations and wars, its immoralities and mordant operations proceeding till the earth should become unlivable except He returned;. Then is His coming in power and His exposing the evil, gathering of the elect, the entire remnant, who are His, as a man gathers wheat and not chaff. Judgment of the nations will ensue, and those who are His will find the mercy on which they rely, even their good deeds remembered, while the evil, depicted as goats, will find the judgment they spoke against, spoken against them, their evil deeds being set before their unbelieving faces.

Meanwhile, as in Habakkuk 3:17ff., faith does not do some kind of spiritual accountancy practice, but believing and acting, is not fazed by loss, but continues to rejoice in the Lord, whose mercies never fail and whose ways are perpetual. Blessed is the provision of the Judge Jesus Christ (Acts 17:31, Habakkuk 3:13), the Messiah, who is both the bridge to heaven, and the path to earth from the heavenly holiness of the Lord. Narrow is the return path, but it is free. Choice are its pastures and rugged its rocks; but it is guaranteed (Isaiah 35:8-10):

"A highway shall be there, and a road,
And it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.
The unclean shall not pass over it,
But it shall be for others.
Whoever walks the road, although a fool,
Shall not go astray. ‎
No lion shall be there,
Nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; It shall not be found there.
But the redeemed shall walk there,
And the ransomed of the LORD shall return,
And come to Zion with singing,
With everlasting joy on their heads."
They shall obtain joy and gladness,
And sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

This is not yet among the nations, or Israel; but it will be. God is indeed not willing to behold iniquity. Vast is His intention beyond this temporary permission for its self-exhibition as vain and futile, and indeed, the fire will burn up what is being furiously built by those who face only futility. HE is NOT like that: such is the flow of Habakkuk. It is not of the Lord that such futile bustle brings only ruin; though it IS assured because it is contrary to Himself, that futile is its force, and temporary its leverage.

THE BEAUTIFUL PARALLEL

The parallel in Hosea 6 is intense, and cited by the Lord, who told some blind to spiritual realities, to go and see what is written (in Hosea 6:6):

"But go and see what this means,
'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' "

Thus He would act, and now has acted at Calvary, if by any means any might find Him. He is not merely not far from each of us, but came to be one of us, so that now the case is the more manifest yet.

THE DIVINE WARNING SYSTEM IS OPERATIVE

So far from this fatuity being so, it is as far removed from the glory of God as a desert from an ocean.

Meanwhile, as in Habakkuk 3:17ff., faith does not do some kind of spiritual accountancy practice, but believing and acting, is not fazed by loss, but continues to rejoice in the Lord, whose mercies never fail and whose ways are perpetual. Blessed is the provision of the Judge Jesus Christ (Acts 17:31, Habakkuk 3:13), the Messiah, who is gboth the bridge to heaven, and the path to earth from the heavenly holiness of the Lord. Narrow is the return path, but it is free. Choice are its pastures and rugged its rocks; but it is guaranteed (Isaiah 35:8-10):