Psalms 79, 74, 2 Kings 22 through 23:27 & Obadiah

The Invasion before the Invasion

From our reading of the Psalms in today’s study we might conclude that these Psalms speak of the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem and the destruction of the city and the temple. This would be an accurate conclusion. However, from our reading in 2 Kings 22 and 23, it is apparent that the nation has already been invaded, and that invasion started a long time ago.

Josiah is now the king of Judah. He will be the last “good” king. Josiah ordered the High Priest to begin a restoration project on the temple. Low and behold, as they are cleaning out the temple, they find a book. Turns out, that book is the law, the Law of Moses. This begs the question, what were they doing before the law of Moses was found? What were the High Priest and the Levites teaching?

Proverbs 29:18 declares, “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, But happy is he who keeps the law.” NASB 

It is clear from this proverb that godly vision and direction comes from the Law. The Hebrew word for vision is used in the first verse of Isaiah and Nahum describing the prophesies they received from God.  What is sad about this proverb is that it was written by Solomon who became unrestrained by the Law allowing idolatry to invade the nation. 2 Kings 23:13

From the description of the things that were removed and destroyed from the temple and the nation it is clear that the nation had been invaded by idolatry, immorality, and the beliefs and customs of the nations around them. Instead of Judah being a witness to those nations, the nations corrupted them. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be misled, ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” NIV

Of course, if the Bible is lost on the shelf and the religious leaders are not teaching from the Bible, how would one know what the Bible said?  Our proverb above makes it clear that we have a spiritual hunger inside us that can only be filled and satisfied by God. If we have no understanding of God and do not seek Him we will try to fill that hunger with anything and everything that crosses our path in life. We have a need to feed on the Word of God!

Josiah, as king, realizes the state of the nation and that they are in trouble. He attempts to bring reform, but there is a problem. The corruption of the spiritual invasion has gone on for so long that the people are established in the old ways. Through the years they have become strong in their ways and if there is going to be any change, they will have to be broken of the old ways.  The Hebrew word for strong is also translated “hard” or “hardened” in the Bible. It is used to describe a hard heart. It means to be strongly established in something. It is like a habit that we cannot break.  For further study on how a hard heart gets established you can read the study, “The Hard Life or the Strong Life” located under the “Shepherd My Sheep” on this website. I highly recommend this study.  

We need to be careful that we do not put the Bible on the shelf, casting off the warnings within.  If we allow our relationship with God to become a casual one, based on our convenience because of our many activities in our search to be fulfilled, we will eventually become hard to the things of God and on the road to brokenness. See Matthew 22:33-46

Our scriptures today contain important examples and lessons we need to learn from to prevent the spiritual heart disease of a hard heart.

 Be hard to the corrupting influences of the world and strong in your faith in God!

Pastor Dave

Habakkuk

 Woe

Habakkuk prophesied during the reign of Josiah. Josiah tried to bring reform to Judah but the people did not make any real change. They were at the temple on the Sabbath and would attend the feasts but would be back to their old ways as soon as they went out the gate.

Habakkuk saw the sins the people were committing and went to God wanting Him to do something. God’s reply is that He is about to send the Chaldeans to bring judgment on Judah. This shocks Habakkuk. The Chaldeans are far worse than the people of Judah. How could God use them? After questioning God regarding this Habakkuk determines to wait on the Lord for His answer in Chapter 2.

This is wisdom we can learn from. God’s ways are not our ways. Often with our prayers we try to direct God and expect Him to answer according to our plan. It is always better to seek understanding and God’s will when we lay our petition before the Lord and wait for His answer. God always has the greater perspective.

The answer comes quickly. God responds with five woes. As we read these we realize that the people were worse sinners than Habakkuk thought. We have a tendency to overlook the seriousness of our sins and judge more harshly the sins of others. This was also a problem Jesus dealt with. He said, “And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” Matthew 7:3 NASB

Jesus called those who did this, hypocrites. God told Habakkuk that pride had caused the people’s soul to be sick.

The tendency of our nature to judge the sins of others more harshly while giving ourselves a pass is based on pride. Pride blinds us and clouds our judgment. Verse 5 says that wine betrays by reinforcing pride. I have found that the more we repeat a certain sin the more blind we become to it. Often times it is a sin that is popular in the culture and we tend to rationalize it by calling it normal. But sin is not normal. It is common, but calling it normal is our way of making it okay.  

Reading Chapter 2 we might ask, were not these woes directed toward the Chaldeans? These woes are directed at sinners. God’s Word makes it clear that sin is falling short of God’s standard and all have sinned.

In Chapter 2 verse 4 we read that the one who is truly righteous will be living by his faith in God.

Pride causes us to get our eyes off of God and on ourselves. Soon we are thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought. The remedy for this is to get our eyes off of ourselves and onto God.  We need to humble our tendency to be prideful and put our faith in God. The life we live will exhibit where we have put our faith by the things we say and do. If we put our faith in ourselves or the ways of the world around us we may well end up doing the very things that God is pronouncing woes against in Chapter 2.

Once Habakkuk realizes God’s judgments are true he surrenders his will to God’s will. He is no longer trying to save the world, or direct God, instead he is trusting that God has it all in control and He knows what He is doing. He is in essence saying “thy will be done”. He is living by faith

 

“…the righteous will live by his faith.” Habakkuk 2:4b NASB

Pastor Dave