December 18
Habakkuk 1:1-3:19 | PS 137:1-9 | Prov 30:10 | Rev 9:1-21
A very important verse in Scripture is Romans 10:9, "that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." But what does it actually mean , to "believe". We read a troubling verse in James 2:19, "You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!" Never forget the demons, are fallen angels, who actually lived in heaven with God, so they know that God is real. Many state they believe, especially around Christmas time. Enveloped in the traditions, going to church, who doesn't like this story and everything else that surrounds it. But this is not belief. Stop for a moment and consider this event that we celebrate on Christmas. God, Himself, left heaven purely out of love for us, and took on the clothes of humanity. This downgrade is incomprehensible. He didn't choose royalty, but the humble origin of being born to poor parents and being born in a cave or stable. But more than that, the purpose of His coming was not fully realized until thirty years later, which are the events surrounding our Good Friday and Easter or Resurrection Sunday celebrations. He came to die in our place. We are not good (Romans 3:10-12) and cannot manipulate or work our way into heaven. It took a sacrifice. A perfect sacrifice, and only He could be that perfect sacrifice. Then He revealed to the world that sin and death were conquered once and for all as He walked out of that tomb. This is not a cute little story to be celebrated a couple of times a year. If you believe, this is the story that we place all of our trust, all of our weight, all of our hope upon. All, not some. We can look the part, for make-believers surround all of us. But there will come a time, when all of us are judged, and no one is going to fool God. Either we placed our hope and trust on these events or we did not.
You can't blame Habakkuk. A prophet living in the midst of sin and corruption, not understanding why it was going unpunished. So many of those living this way looked the part, as they would go to the temple, perform their sacrifices, etc., but this did not fool the prophet, as we read his question to God in Habakkuk 1:2-4, "O Lord, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear? Even cry out to You, "Violence!" And You will not save. Why do You show me iniquity And cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; There is strife, and contention arises. Therefore the law is powerless, And justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore perverse judgment proceeds." When God tells the prophet that He is going to use the Babylonians to mete out His justice, this even baffles the prophet more, as he asks God why He is using a group of individuals even less righteous than those in Judah to do this. This is the mistake of horizontal viewing. I'm better than him, and he is better than him, etc. Who are we to judge. He didn't understand, but we read this verse from this minor prophet, which was then quoted in the three major doctrinal books of the New Testament (Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews), in 2:4, "The just shall live by his faith". This verse launched the Protestant Reformation under Martin Luther. And what is faith? We read in Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." We don't have to understand. We need to trust and believe.
To understand that seeing is not believing, as we read in Revelation 9, in the aftermath of tremendous tribulation which has already killed off half of the human population (4 billion people), in ways in which there is no mistake that these judgments are being issued from heaven (Revelation 6:15-17), we read the response of the unbelievers in 9:20-21, "But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts." By the way, "sorceries" comes from the Greek word, "Pharmakeia", or drugs. It is time for all of us to become sober-minded. May we all stop walking around in the fog of everything surrounding us is okay, as long as we have our little "safe" enclave with our family, our house, our little celebrations. These events require a decision, not a meal and gift giving. Do you or do you not put your full weight, all of your hope, your entire life on the truth underlying the incarnation, along with the death and resurrection of the Son of God. If no, please reconsider. If yes, please stop the distractions and join His army and fulfill your commission which Jesus so clearly left us in Matthew 28:18-20. This holiday season, reach out to those who don't believe and tell them about your hope.
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: