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Take a breath, find your place, and read deeply. Discover the joy of reading God’s word with the Immerse New Living Translation (NLT) Bible.
This daily Bible podcast will take you through the Bible in a year following the Immerse Bible Reading Experience. So grab your family and small group and go through the Bible in a year together with Immerse. Each of the 6 volumes is available online or at your favorite Christian bookstore.
Nancy: Welcome to immerse: the
daily bible reading experience.
day 200 and 60
immersed in Habakkuk.
Habakkuk lived around the same time as
NAMM in the period when the Babylonian
empire was gaining ascendancy over.
The Assyrians we're told nothing
explicitly about the prophet
himself, but we do have some
intriguing clues about his identity.
The contents of the Book of Habakkuk
are presented in a unique style, quite
different from the other prophetic books.
Rather than bringing a message
from God to the people, Habakkuk
engages in a dialogue with God.
He also includes a song
complete with musical notations.
His opening complaint to God resembles
the opening of a lament Psalm, a
literary form used by God's people.
Especially after the exile
to express deep sorrow.
As the book opens, Habakkuk
is identified as a prophet.
At that time, the term prophet
could be applied to certain
Levites who served in the temple.
They were responsible to proclaim
God's messages to the accompaniment
of liars, harps, and symbols.
As Chronicles puts it, given the character
of his compositions and his identifying
title, Habakkuk May well have been
one of the Levite temple musicians.
We get a further suggestion of this
when he ends his dialogue with God by
accepting the difficult things he's heard.
The Lord is in his holy temple.
Let all the earth be silent before him.
This could indicate the prophets
close ties to the temple and that his
messages were spoken and recorded.
There.
Habakkuk begins by complaining
that the people of Judah.
Are using their reprieve from Assyrian
domination to engage in renewed injustice
and violence against the vulnerable.
God responds that as a consequence,
he will soon allow the Babylonians
to subjugate the kingdom of Judah.
But Habakkuk protests that the Babylonians
are just as cruel and idolatrous as the
Assyrians and far worse than the people
of Judah whom God is about to judge.
The prophet asks.
Should you be silent while
the wicked swallow up?
People more righteous than they.
God assures Habakkuk that the Babylonians
of themselves will be judged and
punished for their own sins in due time.
This vision is for a future time.
It describes the end and
it will be fulfilled.
If it seems slow in coming.
Wait patiently for
it'll surely take place.
The Lord then announces a series
of woes against the Babylonians.
Five times God promises that
sorrow awaits them for their
violence, extortion, and idolatry.
In response, Habakkuk quietly and
confidently accepts what God has
said and then composes a song.
In the song, he first reviews
God's past deeds of deliverance.
He portrays these in terms of a
theophany, a description of God
coming down to earth in great power.
A literary device also
found in many of the Psalms.
Even though all seems lost at the
moment, the history of God's previous
demonstrations of mercy brings hope.
Habakkuk sings of what the Lord has
already done, resting in the knowledge
of the redemption that is surely coming
again, I have heard all about you.
Lord.
I am filled with awe by your amazing
works in this time of our deep need.
Help us again, as you did in years Gone by
the Prophet Habakkuk.
This is the message that the prophet
Habakkuk received in a vision.
How long, oh Lord must I call
for help, but you do not listen.
Violence is everywhere.
I cry, but you do not come to save.
Must I forever see these evil deeds?
Why must I watch all this misery?
Wherever I look, I see
destruction and violence.
I'm surrounded by people
who love to argue and fight.
The law has become paralyzed and
there is no justice in the courts.
The wicked, far outnumber the righteous,
so that justice has become perverted.
The Lord replied, look
around at the nations.
Look and be amazed for I am
doing something in your own day,
something you wouldn't believe
even if someone told you about it.
I am raising up the Babylonians,
a cruel and violent people.
They will march across the
world and conquer other lands.
They are notorious for their
cruelty and do whatever they like.
Their horses are swifter than cheetahs
and fiercer than wolves at dusk.
Their chariot tears charge from
far away like eagles, they swoop
down to devour their prey on.
They come all bent on violence.
Their hoards advance like a desert wind
sweeping captives ahead of them like sand.
They scoff at kings and princes
and scorn all their fortresses.
They simply pile ramps of earth
against their walls and capture them.
They sweep past like
the wind and are gone.
They are deeply guilty for
their own strength is their God.
Oh Lord, my God, my holy one.
You who are eternal.
Surely you do not plan to wipe us out.
Oh Lord, our rock.
You have sent these Babylonians to
correct us, to punish us for our
many sins, but you are pure and
cannot stand the sight of evil.
Will you Wink at their treachery.
Should you be silent while
the wicked swallow up people
more righteous than they are.
We only fish to be caught and killed.
Are we only sea creatures
that have no leader?
Must we be strung up on their
hooks and caught in their nets
while they rejoice and celebrate?
Then they will worship their nets
and burn incense in front of them.
These nets are the gods
who have made us rich.
They will claim.
Will you let them get
away with this forever?
Will they succeed forever in
their heartless conquests?
I will climb up to my watchtower
and stand at my guard post there.
I will wait to see what the Lord says
and how he will answer my complaint.
Then the Lord said to me, write my answer
plainly on tablets so that a runner can
carry the correct message to others.
This vision is for a future time.
It describes the end and
it will be fulfilled.
If it seems slow in coming, wait
patiently for it will surely take place.
It will not be delayed.
Look at the proud.
They trust in themselves and their
lives are crooked, but the righteous
will live by their faithfulness to God.
Wealth is treacherous and the
arrogant are never at rest.
They open their mouths as wide
as the grave and like death.
They are never satisfied in their greed.
They have gathered up many nations
and swallowed many peoples, but
soon their captives will taunt them.
They will mock them, saying, what?
Sorrow awaits you.
Thieves.
Now you will get what you deserve.
You've become rich by extortion.
But how much longer can this go on?
Suddenly your debtors will take action.
They will turn on you and
take all you have while you
stand trembling and helpless.
Because you have plundered many nations,
now all the survivors will plunder you.
You committed murder throughout
the countryside and filled
the towns with violence.
What sorrow awaits you, who build big
houses with money gained dishonestly.
You believe your wealth will buy security.
Putting your family's nest beyond
the reach of danger, but by the
murders you committed, you have shamed
your name and forfeited your lives.
The very stones in the
walls cry out against you.
And the beams in the
ceilings echo the complaint.
What sorrow awaits you?
Who builds cities with money gained
through murder and corruption?
Has not the Lord of heaven's
armies promised that the wealth
of nations will turn to ashes.
They work so hard, but all in vain,
for as the waters fill the sea,
the earth will be filled with an
awareness of the glory of the Lord.
What sorrow awaits you who make
your neighbors drunk, you force
your cup on them so you can gloat
over their shameful nakedness.
But soon it will be your
turn to be disgraced.
Come drink and be exposed.
Drink from the cup of the
Lord's judgment and all your
glory will be turned to shame.
You cut down the forests of Lebanon.
Now you will be cut down.
You destroyed the wild animals,
so now their terror will be yours.
You committed murder throughout
the countryside and filled
the towns with violence.
What good is an idol carved by man
or a cast image that deceives you?
How foolish to trust in your own creation?
A God that can't even talk.
What sorrow awaits you?
Who say to wooden idols, wake up and
save us to speechless, stoned images.
You say, rise up and teach us.
Can an idol tell you what to do?
They may be overlaid with gold and
silver, but they are lifeless inside.
But the Lord is in his holy temple.
Let all the earth be silent before him.
This prayer was sung by
the prophet Habakkuk.
I have heard all about you.
Lord, I am filled with
awe by your amazing works.
In this time of our deep need.
Help us again as you did in
years gone by and in your anger.
Remember your mercy.
I see God moving across the
deserts from Eden, the Holy
one coming from Mount Paren.
His brilliant splendor fills the heavens
and the earth is filled with his praise.
His coming is as brilliant as the
sunrise rays of light flash from his
hands where his awesome power is hidden.
Pestilence marches before him.
Plague follows close behind.
When he stops the earth shakes.
When he looks the nations tremble,
he shatters the everlasting mountains
and levels the eternal hills.
He is the eternal one.
I see the people of cushion
in distress and the nation of
Midian trembling in terror.
Was it in anger, Lord, that you
struck the rivers and parted the sea?
Were you displeased with them?
No, you were sending your
chariots of salvation.
You brandished your bow
and your quiver of arrows.
You split open the earth
with flowing rivers.
The mountains watched and trembled
onward swept the raging waters.
The mighty deep cried out
lifting its hands in submission.
The sun and moon stood still in the
sky as your brilliant arrows flew
and your glittering spear flashed.
You marched across the land in anger
and trampled the nations in your fury.
You went out to rescue your chosen
people to save your anointed ones.
You crushed the heads of the wicked
and stripped their bones from
head to toe with his own weapons.
You destroyed the chief of those
who rushed out like a whirlwind
thinking Israel would be easy prey.
You trampled the sea with your horses
and the mighty waters piled high.
I trembled inside when I heard this.
My lips quivered with fear.
My legs gave way beneath me and I shook In
terror, I will wait quietly for the coming
day when disaster will strike The people
who invade us, even though the fig trees
have no blossoms and there are no grapes
on the vines, even though the olive crop
fails and the fields lie empty and barren.
Even though the flocks die in the
fields and the cattle barns are
empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will be joyful in the
God of my salvation.
The sovereign Lord is my strength.
He makes me as surefooted as
a deer able to tread upon the
heights for the choir director.
This prayer is to be accompanied
by stringed instruments.
This concludes today's
Immerse Reading experience.
Thank you for joining us.