Habakkuk 2:19 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.
20 But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.
It is amazing to observe false religion and those who follow it. Cain is the first one to develop a humanistic religion. He assumed that he could take God’s Word and change it and it would still be good. He assumed that God would accept anything brought to Him with a “sincere” heart. Of course we know Cain’s heart was not sincere toward God. He believed in himself, but he did not believe in God. If he would have believed in God, he would never have assumed that he could make God bow to his wishes.
In our text, God continued to point out the sins of Babylon. God began to point out the folly of idolatry in the last woe. Now He further pointed out the woe to those who would look at wood and tell it to awake. There were some very good craftsmen in Bible times. They had great skill in carving and fashioning wood into an image. Man was created with intelligence. Man had much greater abilities to do things in Bible times than we do now. The problem then was the same as it is now. Unless God is guiding the intelligence of man, he will use it for all kinds of evil.
It is astounding to read the history of Catholicism, which is rooted in the Babylonian philosophy, and consider how anyone could believe in Catholicism. There is a saying that goes something like: ‘if a man will not accept the truth, he will fall for any version of the lie’.
The Babylonians had developed quite a sophisticated religion. It was a lie. How can anyone think they can take a piece of wood and carve it into an image and then expect it to have power. To think that the chunk of wood is going to teach you how to live. Those who follow false religion are actually quite proud and deluded. They think they are so smart that they can imagine things and they will come to pass.
That is still a popular belief today. Norman Vincent Peele was famous for positive thinking. So was Robert Schuller. Their message was “the power of positive thinking”. Robert Schuller ran out of positive thinking and he died. After his death, his children proved they did not buy into his lies and they developed their own. His empire collapsed and it was sold for pennies on the dollar. It crumbled just like all false religion will.
The Babylonians were not content to just have that wooden image. They needed to dress it up with gold and silver. It needed to have some shine to it. It would glisten in the sun and that would make it all that much more powerful, so they assumed.
God had taught the nation of Israel to make the ark of the covenant from Shittim wood. They were to overlay that wood with gold. The purpose of the gold was to represent the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. That ark of the covenant was a type of Jesus Christ as were all the instruments in the tabernacle and later in the temple. None of those items were designed by God as items to worship. When Jesus Christ came and laid down His life and shed His blood for the sheep, those types were done away with.
God proved that the ark had no power if He did not reside on it. When Eli’s sons took it into battle against the Philistines, God removed His glory from it and the Philistines captured that ark and set it before their false god. God needed to teach the Philistines that He is greater than their false god and He knocked their false god down twice. He also plagued the Philistines with emerods. They became afraid of that ark and wanted to send it back to Israel. They did not know exactly how to do that so they built a new cart and set that ark on that new cart. They took two milk cows that had just freshened and took their calves away from them and hitched them to that cart. They reasoned that if the milk cows would take that ark back to Israel, then they had done the right thing. The Bible tells us those cows went lowing all the way back to Israel. God also showed the Jews that ark was not just a box when God rested upon it.
Israel had chosen to reject the true God and they followed the pagan nations and they made themselves idols as well. They went into exile because they chose to trust in idols rather than the true God.
There are too many Gentiles today who think that the Jews adopted their designs for the ark and other vessels and practices from the Egyptians. They fail to distinguish between what God commands and what the world does.
New Evangelicalism is built on this same lie. It has rejected the true God and it has replaced Him with their imaginary god. Their Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible.
As we read in our text, that wooden or stone image has no breath. There is no life in it. It cannot give life. In Genesis 2 we read that God breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living soul. Only God can give life to an inanimate object. Man was formed from the dust of the ground. That dust was just a heap on the ground until God breathed His breath into it.
Israel had been blessed with the truth and they had the privilege of helping the nations to see the necessity of knowing the true God. The nations needed to know the true God. As we noted, God showed Himself to them in many different ways, but He wanted Israel to receive a blessing from showing the nations the true God.
Habakkuk was again reminded that God knew exactly what He was doing. As He judged Babylon, He was also showing why He needed to judge Israel through the Babylonians. Israel had the truth and they threw that away and replaced that with these dumb idols.
Today, in the Gentile world, most churches have done the same thing. Churches that once had the truth have forsaken it. They have adopted the world’s methods and assume that God is blessing them because they have the numbers and they have the money.
If you listen to politicians, you know that is the philosophy they run under. I saw a report this week that stated that the leading candidate for the liberal leadership had raised 2 million dollars, and one of his competitors only had 600,000 dollars. It is the money that buys the votes that puts the person in a place of power. That is how the world works. That is how most people choose their religion. It is based on how fancy a building a group has and how many people attend that group.
As we see in our text, most people are not very wise when it comes to making important decisions.
Habakkuk was reminded that the LORD is in his holy temple. It did not matter that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. It did not matter that Jerusalem lay in shambles. The LORD was still on His throne and the remnant of Jews that knew Him were still on the right road. Daniel and his three friends were still on the right path even though they were in a minority for most of their lives. We never read of a massive revival among the Jews in Babylon. We have noted in the book of Esther that the Jews in Persia were very secular Jews. They did not turn back to God. They tried to blend in.
But the LORD is in his holy temple. God commanded all the earth to keep silence before Him. It is important to become quiet before the LORD. We need to listen to Him. He is so much wiser than man and His ways are so much higher than man’s ways. We need to stop letting the world dictate to us how to live. We need to submit to God’s Word and know His peace and serve Him faithfully.
Pastor Bartel
