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.