Be Silent and Look to the King

So glad that you are here. Are you enjoying the weather as you walked in this morning? I know I am. Way better than last week where it was raining and hailing. Yeah, it was beautiful this weekend. I am glad you're here at church. If I've never met you before, I'd love to right after the service. My name is Eric. I'm the pastor here at the church, and I'll be right there standing by the door on your way out. We also have an iPad and an information table over there. If you're interested in more things about our church or ways to get connected, you can check that out. There's also comment cards. You can actually put your name and just write on there, I'm interested in connecting with the church. Drop it in the tithe box, and I'll try to connect with you this week through a phone call or text, or even if you want to meet, I would gladly do that for anyone that's looking to do that. So this morning, we're going to continue in Habakkuk. I know it seems like we've been in it for a while. That's because we have. We've actually been doing this for some time now. But we're going to kind of speed through the rest of it in the next few weeks. So today, we're actually going to be covering the whole rest of chapter 2, which is verses 6 all the way to verse 20. But we've covered a lot since then. There's a lot of history that we covered. there's a lot of background context, both historically and literary. As far as the literature goes, there's a lot of context. We've learned that the prophet Habakkuk is actually a professional priest and prophet. He's working and ministering in the temple at Jerusalem. This is during a time period where the kingdom of Judah was actually about to go through some pretty impressive, important reforms because Josiah discovered the book of the law in the temple. And basically read it, and he wept, and he goes, we've been doing this wrong this entire time. We need to get back on the right track. And so King Josiah started to reform. But as most of you know, if you've been in the series, Josiah died. He was killed by King Necho, who was the king over Egypt at the time. And they went into battle, and Josiah died, and all the reforms ceased. And Habakkuk, as the prophet and priest in the temple, is disappointed. Not only because Judah is no longer reforming. He's disappointed because of the wickedness that is now continuing within his own nation. He's disappointed because Babylon is now conquering all other armies, all other cities, all other empires. Assyria is gone. Egypt is about to be defeated. Babylon is literally on the horizon about to take over. And he's incredibly disappointed about that and angry and frustrated. And he asks God questions and he does something very different than all the other prophets. Remember Habakkuk, instead of listening to God reveal truth to him, Habakkuk first approaches God with questions on behalf of the people and himself, where he basically says, Lord, how long will you allow this wickedness to continue? And the Lord responds with something really interesting. Instead of giving him an oracle of salvation, the Lord actually says, well, just so you know, Habakkuk, judgment is coming. That's how I'm going to deal with the wickedness. And then Habakkuk responds with probably an even more profound question as the Lord reveals what kind of judgment is coming. Habakkuk then says, Lord, it doesn't make sense. If you're good and you're great, why would you use such an evil empire to judge, even though we have our own wickedness problem here in Judah, we are not nearly as wicked as Babylon. So why would you use Babylon, an even more wicked empire, to judge us a less wicked empire? And God gives him this answer, basically says, listen, I'm not here to tell you about all my motivations. I'm not going to explain to you all the reasons why, because that probably wouldn't even help. But he actually responds with this. There's two ways to live, Habakkuk. He's also giving this response to the people as well, and I believe he's giving us the same response today. He says there's two ways to live. One is to live with an inflated ego. The inflated ego is the person who like death will have an appetite that will never be satisfied. An inflated ego is one that's bigger than it should be. It's no longer confidence. It's now pride. And it just wants more and more and more and more. And it cuts God out of its life. It's a thing that cannot exist in a good relationship with God because an inflated ego literally pushes God out to the fringes and then completely out of one's life altogether. And God says, you can live that way. You think you can solve all your problems. You think you can deal with all your issues. You can try to inflate your ego and think that yourself is going to be able to fix those problems. He said, but there's a different way to live, and that is the righteous way. And remember how God says this in chapter two. He says, the righteous one will live by faith. And that verse has gone on throughout all of history to do unbelievable things. The apostle Paul quoted it twice in his writings. The writer of Hebrews quoted it in his writings. And then there's this guy named Martin Luther who started a little thing called the Reformation, who was literally reading Romans chapter one, which I believe is verse seven, which is based on Habakkuk chapter 2, and it changed his life and kick-started the entire Protestant Reformation as a result of those simple words through Habakkuk's questions, which is, the righteous one will live by faith. So after God gives that answer, God is actually, in today's passage, going to be continuing on in kind of his revelation to the prophet Habakkuk about what he is actually doing. And it comes in a really interesting format. You know, God is surprising. Have you ever like read the Bible and you're just really surprised at how God often responds? Okay, this is one of those for me. When I started studying this and reading it this week, it really, really surprised me because it was not what I was expecting God to do. What God is about to do in verses six through 20 is he is going to taunt and mock Babylon. I never thought I would ever read God doing that, right? You don't think of that when you think of God. You don't think of him as one to taunt or to mock, but he actually does it in these next few verses, verses six through 20. And it got me thinking, it got me thinking, man, taunting sometimes feels really, really good. And sometimes it's actually kind of appropriate. Am I right? Like there's some contexts, there's some situations where like a good solid just taunt at the enemy or at the person who thinks they're much bigger than what they really are. Sometimes just getting them with a simple jab of like, oh yeah, you think you're so awesome. Well, yours, and you hit them with some words, it can just be awesome. Well, there's some really amazing taunts throughout all of history. One of the greatest, by the way, was the country of Sparta. Sparta could taunt with the best of them. And then they could also back it up because they were some of the greatest warriors in all of history. There's a really famous one around the 4th century BC. There was Philip II, who was the king of Macedonia, was threatening the nation of Sparta. And I guess he sent decrees or somehow he was communicating with them. And basically it was like this. give up now because I'm going to come in, invade and conquer you. Okay. And Sparta responded with one word, if, if like, yeah, you have to conquer us first, dude. If you can actually beat us, then you can maybe conquer us and invade. How awesome is that? That's so cool. There was another great one. And this actually made its way into a movie, which is not historically accurate at all. So we're not going to talk about that. But there was a battle of Thermopylae, which is much before this in 480 BC. And the Persians apparently had an army that was so vast, you couldn't even see the end of it. And they often would say that they could shoot so many arrows that they would blot out the sun. And historically, it's recorded that one Spartan warrior named Dienekes responded with, well, then we'll just fight in the shade. I mean, that's amazing. I want to be that guy, right? World War II had some of the greatest taunts ever I've ever read. This comes from an American. This was America. During the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, which I believe is in Belgium, the German army basically surrounded them, and they started to demand the Americans surrender, And General Anthony McAuliffe just responded by shouting out, Nuts! Like, you're crazy! There's no way we're surrendering. Bring it on! Like, just one word. And it just, it raised the mood for everybody that was fighting. It was awesome. Winston Churchill was famous for his words. He said a lot of really interesting things. After the fall of France, Germany was threatening Britain, and Churchill famously mocked Hitler. He said, you know, we're waiting for that long promised invasion and so are the fishes. Which is the idea that he's like, yeah, Germany, you're going to try to make your way over the English Channel. The fishes are going to be the first person you meet. We're going to let you drown in the English Channel. That was pretty awesome. But there is no one greater. There is no greater taunt in history than this one I'm about to explain to you. It comes from the time of King Arthur when he rode up with his gallant knights to a castle that was occupied by French soldiers. And historians actually captured this on footage. Do you want to see? This is so glorious. You got to check this. The taunt is captured in this photo. It's this man right here. This French soldier, yes, he taunted King Arthur by simply saying, your mother was a hamster and your father's smelt of elderberries. Game over. And then he goes, now leave or I shall taunt you a second time, okay? If you didn't know, this is Monty Python's The Holy Grail, one of the worst but yet best movies in all of Hollywood. And it is one of the greatest, most memorable taunts ever. But all joking aside, this actually is what the Lord does. The Lord is about to mock and taunt the nation of Babylon. And honestly, they deserve it. They absolutely deserve it. Even though they're being used by God to judge the nation of Judah, they go far beyond that. They are doing evil. They are wicked. They are horrible. Their practices are terrible. But even more so than that, They think more highly of themselves than they should. And they need to be put in their place. And God, through the prophet Habakkuk, is actually gonna do that this morning. So we actually have a lot of scripture to read. All right, so get ready. We're gonna be standing for a while. They'll also be on the screen, but we stand here out of respect for the reading of God's word. We're gonna read verse six all the way to verse 20. I'll try to go quick so we can sit down here soon, all right? It says this, won't all of these take up a taunt against him with mockery and riddles about him? They will say, woe to him who amasses what is not his, how much longer, and loads himself with goods taken in pledge. Won't your creditors suddenly arise and those who disturb you wake up? Then you will become spoiled for them. Since you have plundered many nations, all the peoples who remain will plunder you because of human bloodshed and violence against lands, cities, and all who live in them. Woe to him who dishonestly makes wealth for his house, to place his nest on high, to escape the grasp of disaster, to have planned shame for your house by wiping out many peoples and sinning against your own self. For the stones will cry out from the wall and the rafters will answer them from the woodwork. Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with injustice. Is it not from the Lord of armies that the people's labor only to fuel the fire and countries exhaust themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord's glory as the waters covers the sea. Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring out your wrath and even making them drunk in order to look at their nakedness. You will be filled with disgrace instead of glory. You also drink and expose your uncircumcision. The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you and utter disgrace will cover your glory. For your violence against Lebanon will overwhelm you. The destruction of animals will terrify you because of your human bloodshed and violence against lands, cities, and all who live in them. What use is a carved idol after its craftsman carves it. It is only a cast image, a teacher of lies. For the one who crafts its shape trusts in it and makes worthless idols that cannot speak. Woe to him who says to wood, wake up, or to mute stone, come alive. Can it teach? Look, it may be plated with gold and silver, yet there is no breath in it at all. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let the whole earth be silent in his presence. Go ahead and you can have a seat. So remember, Habakkuk has asked the question. He said, why are you allowing this wicked nation to judge us? Essentially questioning God's tactics, God's plan. Why would you do that, Lord? And we do the same thing, right? That's not an uncommon thing to do. We don't understand why God does what he does, and we don't often understand his methods. And Habakkuk doesn't either. And so he questions him. And remember, Habakkuk also did respond in that question where he says, I'm going to wait at my guard post. Like, I don't understand everything that you're doing, Lord. I don't quite see why or how it's all going to work. But Habakkuk is saying, I will stand here and actively wait on you, Lord, looking out to the horizon to try to understand what it is that you want to teach me. And I think the Lord responds this way in part because Habakkuk is standing there as a guard at a guard post, looking out and waiting actively for the Lord. So God is, essentially God is expanding on what he's already said. He's already told Habakkuk that Babylon isn't getting away with their wickedness. Even though they're gonna be used as an instrument of judgment, they're not gonna be free of guilt for the things that they have willfully chosen to do. They will be punished. They are not getting off the hook. Now you might think, and as I thought this week, that kind of seems unfair, right? Doesn't it seem unfair that God uses them to do this thing as a tool of judgment against Judah He's using them to do that, but then he's going to be judging them essentially for the way they do that. Doesn't that seem slightly unfair? I would argue that it's not. It might seem unfair, but just because God uses them as a tool for judgment doesn't mean that God has taken away their free will to make certain decisions. They had decisions to make as an empire conquering the world at the time. They had decisions that they could have made that would have been a lot better than many of the decisions they made. God gave them quite a lot of leeway, quite a lot of free will to decide how they were actually going to do the thing they did. They made a lot of really bad choices. That is why they're being judged. It's not that they're being judged because they're doing what God has wanted them to do. They're being judged because as they're doing what God has wanted them to do, they still have a level of choice that they can make, and they've made many wrong choices. Now, we know that God is gracious in this because I've already read to this a few weeks ago, I already showed you, that the king of Babylon at the time actually repents. Remember, King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel is recorded that after he experiences his own kind of judgment, he comes around to put his faith and trust in Yahweh. He literally publicly declares that he no longer wants anything to do with other gods and idols, but yet Yahweh is his God. I'm convinced that one day in glory, I'm gonna be walking along those streets of gold and walk right past King Nebuchadnezzar. And I'm gonna get to look at it and go, please tell me your story. I wanna know how all that happened. I would love to hear how that went down. So God is giving them free will, giving them choices to make, while at the same time using them as an instrument of judgment against Judah for their wickedness. And God pronounces, because of their terrible decisions and their terrible choices and because of their sin, God is now announcing these woes or these taunts directed at the Babylonians. David Baker is a theologian. He wrote this concerning Habakkuk chapter 2. He said, her. Even though she looked invincible when Habakkuk was speaking, God's power would bring her low by the year 539 BC, which is actually when Babylon fell as an empire. It wasn't much longer after this. It was only like, I don't know, 50, 60 years later. Babylon's going to fall as an entire empire to the Persians, okay? So their empire, as great as it seems, as invincible as they seem and unbeatable as they seem, they aren't. And God knows that. So he's being mocked. The literary device that they're using is what's called a dirge or a lament. It's something that would normally be done at a funeral for the person who had died. And normally it was like you were mourning them. You were sad for what had happened to the person at the funeral. And that's kind of the style here that Habakkuk is writing in as God reveals this to him. But it's almost ironic. Like, it's kind of sarcastic, all right? It's not meant to be, oh, I'm so sad because Babylon is falling. It's ha, ha, ha, all right? In all caps, like a text message, ha, ha, ha, emoji with the crying eyes, Babylon's going to fall. Like, that's kind of the whole way that God is communing this. It's like, Babylon thinks it's so great. Oh, just wait, Babylon, 539 is right around the corner. You're about to fall to the Persians. David Baker, the theologian, as he explained this in his book and his commentary on this, he did something really cool that I want to present to you today. I think this is a really easy way to kind of understand this passage. He divides the five oracles or the five laments into essentially five themes. And as I read his work and studied him, I think they're really good. And that's actually what I'm going to be using today to help us kind of grasp what is going on this passage. And so there's a list, you should see it here on the screen. There's a list of the five different themes or kind of oracles, and this is kind of what they are. The first is the pillager, okay? The pillager. This is verses six through eight. And what he's talking about, what Habakkuk here, or God through Habakkuk is talking about, is the pillager is the one who takes goods from others in an unjust way. And this is what Babylon was doing. They weren't just conquering and then deciding to, you know, take what was enough or what they needed. They were taking it all. They were leaving the land, the cities, the countries, the people, the houses, the farms, everything you could possibly think of. When Babylon came in and conquered, they took it all. They were not leaving anything behind. And this is why people were left desolate. This is why the land, the Bible is giving the sense here that it wasn't just the people who had nothing. It was the literal land no longer had anything. It mentions throughout these oracles the country of Lebanon. And this time Lebanon was known well for its trees, its lumber. It produced a lot of the wood and the logs and the lumber needed to build really awesome buildings, especially the high quality stuff like in Jerusalem with the temple and the palace and all those sort of things. The Lebanon is the one that produced the wood. And it says Babylon came through and essentially destroyed all of that. It was literally destroying the forest. And it's not like it's, you know, it's not like the movie Avatar where it's like, how dare you destroy the trees they're living? It's more like you're destroying literally one of the best natural resources that we use to build our stuff. It's just gone. And so this is the pillager. They're taking things from others that they shouldn't be taking, and they're doing it in unjust ways. Habakkuk also uses some really interesting literary devices here. It's essentially, it's word play, where he uses a word that's a single word, but it has two separate meanings that are almost the opposite of each other. Like they mean kind of different things, but they kind of complement each other as well. It's a really interesting thing done in Hebrew. Let me give you an example of this. In verse 6, kind of B, all the way at the end of verse 6, it says, and he loads himself with goods taken in pledge. He loads himself with goods taken in pledge. Now, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us today. Okay, that's one of those verses where we read it and kind of go, all right, I guess that means what it means, and I'm just going to move on because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But in Hebrew, it had a much more important meaning. The idea was, is that when it says he loads himself with goods, the word there in Hebrew was the idea that you're taking the spoils of your victory. And that sounds like a good thing, right? You've won, you've conquered, you were victorious. Now you get to reap all the rewards of that. But the second part of that statement where it says taken in pledge is essentially the same type of word, except it means this, one who is stuck in the thick mud. So the idea here that Habakkuk is getting at is Babylon, the pillager, as they've unjustly taken everything that they shouldn't have, they're loading themselves up with treasure. Yay, good. But now they become so weighted down that it's similar to being stuck in the thick mud. And what was the Babylonian army known for, by the way? Their swiftness. their speed. They had an ability, unlike any other empire, to move the entire army from one place to the next. And Habakkuk is saying, yeah, because you think you're so awesome, because you think you're so invincible, the more you do that, the more you become stuck. Like the thing that made you great is now the very thing that's going to stop you. I mean, let's just stop there for a second and just kind of look at our own lives. How many times do the best things about us become the worst things about us because we focus too much on them. Sometimes the things we're really, really good at are the things that actually kneecap us or handicapped us or stop us in our tracks because we become too focused on those things because we think we're invincible. We think those are the things about our lives that are going to take us into victory. And those are the very things that actually take us into defeat. Babylon is no different. There's also a word around verse eight that they use, and I wanted to highlight this word because I think it's important. It says violence at the very end of verse eight, and violence against lands, cities, and all who live in them. Again, indicating that they're not violent only against people, but they're violent against the literal land, the buildings, the cities, and then the people that occupy all of it. They're violent. The word violent there is the Hebrew word shamas. It's the same word used to describe humanity right before the flood. The same type of word, the same description that literally caused God to look down on all humanity and go, that's it, you're done, we're starting over. That same description is used to describe what Babylon is doing to the land, to the cities, and to the people that occupy both. That's how bad it is. But God is basically telling them, you're not getting away with it. You think you can do violence. You think you can destroy whatever you want and take whatever you want. You cannot. Our next part here, the next woe is the plotter. This is verses 9 through 11. The plotter, unlike the pillager, is the one who gains through unjust practices. The word that would describe the plotter is this person is a cheat. They cheat at things. They work around the system. The pillager is the one who's taking things that don't belong. The plotter is the one who gets things that he doesn't deserve. And that's what Babylon is doing. Another theologian who has a similar name, so I'm sorry if this is confusing, but it is a different person. This is Kenneth Barker, not David Baker. So Kenneth Barker said, these Babylonians built their house by taking unfair advantage of others. They and members of the family benefited from the unjust gain. You know, Jesus said something very similar to this, by the way. Jesus, if we could do a cross-reference here up to the New Testament, if you look at Luke chapter 12, verses 16 to 21, Jesus actually taught about something similar. He said this, he said, a rich man's land was very productive. He thought to himself, what should I do since I don't have anywhere to store my crops? I will do this, he said, I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones and store all my grain and goods there. Then I'll say to myself, you have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself. But God said to him, you fool, this very night your life is demanded of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? That's how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. So this plotter person or this act of plotting and cheating or just gaining, constantly gaining and adding to our own kind of list of things we own, it's not going to turn out well. It's not going to turn out good in the end. God makes this clear. Babylon, no matter how much you get, no matter how much you build, it's all going to be destroyed. I mean, you can still go see some of their stuff today. Did you know that? You can still go over there to that part of the world and you can see some of the ruins, but they're just ruins. The glory of Babylon, it was literally one of the seven wonders of the world, was the hanging gardens of the ancient city of Babylon. It's nothing today. It is absolutely nothing. What was once one of the seven greatest things to look at in the ancient world is nothing today. The same is true for you and I. Anything that we can build, as great as it is will eventually become nothing. Like the Lord teaches us in Luke, everything you store up for yourself when you die doesn't matter anymore what you have here on this planet, what you have here in this life. It's not wise to put everything, all your stock, all your effort, all your time into what you can gain here. The Lord is teaching us, look beyond this. The next one is the promoter of violence. This is verses 12 through 14. The promoter of violence is one who kills innocent people. And that is what Babylon was doing. They weren't just killing those in the army. They weren't killing and murdering just in battle. They were actually going through and murdering the innocent, the ones who should not have been murdered. That was a choice. They can judge Judah without killing innocent people. They had that option and they chose to kill the innocents, the women, the children, those who couldn't fight in the first place, those who were just in their homes. Babylon came through and did shamash, violence, to all of them. And they promoted violence, promoted evil. There actually is, believe it or not, in that woe, verses 12 through 14, there is a beam of sunlight that shines through as a positive thing, right? Did you catch it when we were reading it? It's verse 14. It says, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord's glory as the water covers the sea. Now, this particular verse is interesting because what it does to the passage is incredibly significant. You see, up until this point, you kind of read this and you think it's very contextual to Babylon. You think, okay, this prophecy is all about Babylon and what's gonna happen to them. Like they haven't taken over Judah yet. Habakkuk is still living in a Judah that's relatively independent and free, even though Egypt has kind of some claim over them. So Babylon hasn't done that yet to Judah. Babylon hasn't come through yet and conquered that whole region. Babylon hasn't experienced the judgment that's going to be coming upon them shortly here in 539, just, you know, 40, 50, 60 years later. But what that passage does to the entire revelation that Habakkuk receives is this. It elevates the whole thing up to what theologians would call an eschatological level. Meaning, he's not just talking about Babylon anymore. He's actually talking about all time, the end times, the eventual glory of God, the eventual knowledge of God and his glory will be over everything, all earth. Every single person in all of creation will know exactly who God is. How cool of a verse is that? It brings the entire passage up into our time right now. It brings it right into our living rooms, into our lives where God's glory, no matter how dire the circumstance is, no matter how difficult it is, whatever it is you're dealing with or however crazy the world is around us, God's glory will be known in everything by everyone. That's what we have to look forward to. And God is reminding the Babylonians through the prophet Habakkuk, that that is exactly the case. And I think that's funny, personally, because I think Babylon would say, oh no, we're going to be remembered throughout all of history. And God's like, you've got no chance, my friend. You have no chance. You will not be thought of. No one will remember you. But God, the creator of all things, the one who ultimately achieves true victory in all things, will be remembered forever. And not as an afterthought, No, he will be remembered as king of now in the present. The next is the debaucher. This is the one or the action of intoxicating others for the purpose of shame, okay? Getting people drunk so that their nakedness is exposed publicly. You know, we might think, oh, that's, you know, funny. It's, you know, like people getting drunk today and doing really silly things out in public. We probably watch TikToks or videos and laugh at them and think it's hilarious. In fact, in today's world, that's even celebrated. But in this world, it was shameful. It was utterly shameful to be seen publicly in this manner. Shame on you, shame on your family. In this world, by the way, shame is far worse than doing anything wrong. Like you could do wrong and not get caught and no one cares. That's not true here. If you do wrong, it's kind of wrong no matter what, whether you get caught or not. But in this society, in this culture, it was far worse to have shame on you and your family than anything else. do whatever you want. Just don't get caught with it. And what they're saying here is that they were purposely getting other people drunk so that they would get caught in public, exposed, and then they'd be shamed. You know, Noah's sons accidentally saw their father and his nakedness and they were punished. And that was by accident. Babylon was doing it all on purpose. They were actually trying to shame and humiliate and punish people by getting them drunk and then having them run around like this. And then the final one is this, is the pagan idolater. This is the woe in verses 18 through 20. The pagan idolater is the action or the thing that we do where we begin to look for answers in the wrong place, okay? Here's why idolatry is odd to me, okay? I want you to think through this logically with me for just a second. I think that idolatry is odd because it kind of goes in this logical kind of progression, okay? There's things about this world and about our life that we don't understand, all right? Yes. So we want answers. So what does the pagan idolater do? They create an idol, an image, to explain the thing that they don't understand, to give them an answer to the questions that they are asking. It's the idol that they look to that answers all the things about this life that they don't quite know. But here's what's hilarious. The answer to the thing you don't understand was created by the one who doesn't understand the thing in the first place. Okay, does that at all make any sort of logical sense? I have a question, I need an answer. So I'm going to create something out of my own mind that's going to answer the question that I can't answer myself. The idol comes from the source who doesn't understand the question, therefore it cannot answer the question being asked. Are you tracking? It makes no sense. And yet, and yet, we live in a world that does this every single day. We, you and I, are guilty of this. We constantly look out into our world, into our culture, into the things, and they might not be little wooden, graven, gold-plated images, but there's things out there that we've created. Systems, processes, AI developments, computers, forms of government, the very act of voting. We look to those things that are created by human minds with human hands, and we look to them and we think, that's the answer to my problem. That's the answer to my question. I don't understand this world, but I'm going to find it in the very things that we've created. We're no different, absolutely no different. Instead of looking above towards God who exists outside of all of the created order, we look down below at our own works. Babylon was doing this. They're looking below at the created order, trying to find answers to questions that can only be answered outside of the created order. We are no different. And I love the way this all ends. I think, oh man, that's all doom and gloom and horrible. In a way, it is. But verse 20, verse 20, look at it. There's literally the word, but. This chapter has a giant but, and that's the one right there. I love it, right? Thank the Lord for it. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let the whole earth be silent in his presence. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let the whole earth be silent in his presence. Okay. This morning, I have absolutely nothing for you to do. Not one thing. You know, a lot of times I try to give you practical things of like, okay, here's the application. Go outside those doors, go do this thing, go live your life this way, go add this discipline, go change this way that you behave, whatever, whatever, whatever. Today, I have one thing that all of us need to do. Let all of us together collectively, got up and look to the king. Be silent and look to the king who sits on his throne in his holy temple. Do nothing other than bow your head in reverence to the king who sits on his throne, the one who just mocked and ridiculed and taunted the most powerful force on earth at the time and who can still mock and ridicule and taunt anything that this world has. And this time, that king sits on the throne in his holy temple. So be silent. Let's close our mouths. Let's bow our heads. Let's just give glory and honor and praise and everything we possibly can. Give it to the king right now, no matter what. Whether Judah is wicked or Babylon greedy or whether America is chaotic, it does not matter because God sits on his holy throne in the temple. The whole earth should be silent in his presence. So today there's nothing to do. There's literally no application I can give you today that you could go out and start adding to your life other than simply this, be silent. And I'm including myself, Eric, just be silent. Think to the king. In fact, how about we do it right now? Quiet for 30 seconds. Look to your scriptures, look to your king. Give him glory. Sometimes I think we need a strong reminder of this truth and I hope that that was enough to get you to see the importance of this, that God is still ruling and reigning. You know, the truth is right now, I understand politics are sharply in view for your life right now. They're probably right there in the front and center after what we just went through this week. I know of all things, I'm at least thankful that my phone isn't getting nearly as many text messages as it once did, thank the Lord. But it's still the, everything that happened is still right there in our view, and I get it. Some place faith in the politics because they think now all the problems will be solved because one thing happened one way. Some think everything is going to be destroyed because the politics went the other way. Both sides of those are placing their faith in the wrong thing. Both sides. If you've convinced yourself all your problems are solved or if you've convinced yourself the entire world is going to be destroyed, I would argue that you've placed your faith in an idol that has no answer for you. So whether you're on that side or that side, I don't know what side you're on, whatever side you're on, be silent. Silent. The king sits on his throne. And that's the only person you should ever be worried about. And that is the only person that could actually destroy your life or fix your life. It is the king, Jesus, who sits on his throne. So today's big idea is really simple, right? The big idea, be silent and look to the king. who rules and who reigns. Church, in this way, I want to be a part of a church that is silent all the time in front of Jesus. We don't need to be loud. We need to be humble. And I think God will do amazing things through humble, silent, lowly churches that do nothing except bow in his presence and give him all the glory and honor that he deserves. I believe God will use us if we do that. Pray with me, Lord. We love you and we give you everything we have. Lord, whatever happened in this world this week that's caused us to be hopeful or to be distraught, whatever it is, whatever we've placed our faith in, Lord, but maybe it's not even politics. Maybe our lives are ruined by who wins the ball game this afternoon or by what happens in our family lives or what's going on in our jobs. But Lord, we must recognize today and must confess to you that none of those things have true authority or power over us. Lord, we confess that we've placed our faith in the wrong thing time after time after time. So today, Lord, we confess that. We repent of it, move away from it. And this week, we simply be silent. We give you all glory, Lord. We give you all honor. We give you all praise. And we bow our heads to you, King Jesus, It's the only one who truly sits on the throne above all things. We love you, Lord, for that. In your name I pray. Amen.