Habakkuk 1:5-10

I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

The doom of a nation of conventional religionists

The Jews were such a nation. They prided themselves in the orthodoxy of their faith, in the ceremonials of their worship, in the polity of their Church. The doom threatened was terrible in many respects.

I. It was to be wrought by the instrumentality of a wicked nation. “I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs.” “Nabopolassar had already destroyed the mighty empire of Assyria, and founded the Chaldeo-Babylonian rule. He had made himself so formidable that Necho found it necessary to march an army against him, in order to check his progress; and though defeated at Megiddo, he had, in conjunction with his son Nebuchadnezzar, gained a complete victory over the Egyptians at Carchemish. These events were calculated to alarm the Jews, whose country lay between the dominions of the two contending powers; but, accustomed as they were to confide in Egypt and in the sacred localities of their own capital (Isaiah 31:1; Jeremiah 7:4), and being in alliance with the Chaldeans, they were indisposed to listen to, and treated with the utmost incredulity, any predictions which described their overthrow by that people” (Henderson). God employs wicked nations as His instruments. “I will work a work.” He says, but how? By the Chaldeans. How does He raise up wicked nations to do His work?

1. Not instigatingly. He does not inspire them with wicked passions necessary to qualify them for the infernal work of violence, war, rapine, bloodshed. God could not do this.

2. Not coercively. He does not force them to it, in no way does He interfere with them. They are the responsible party. How then does He “raise” them up? He permits them. He could prevent them; but He allows them. He gives them life, capacity, and opportunities. Now, would not the fact that their destruction would come upon them from a heathen nation, a nation which they despised, make it all the more terrible?

II. IT WAS TO BE WROUGHT WITH RESISTLESS VIOLENCE.

1. The violence would be uncontrolled. “Their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.” They recognise no authority, and proudly spurn the dictates of others. “They recognise no judge save themselves, and they get for themselves in their own dignity, without needing others’ help.”

2. The violence would be rapid and fierce. “Swifter than the leopard.” “Evening wolves.”

III. It was to be wrought with immense havoc. In the east wind, or simoom; spreading destruction everywhere. (Homilist.)

The Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation.

The Chaldeans

Very graphic is the description of this new and formidable enemy. Gather four lessons for ourselves.

I. The evil of sin. It separates the soul from God. Wherever sin is it makes the prophet’s roll to be written within and without. “Lamentation, and weeping, and woe.” “All unrighteousness is sin.”

II. National sins lead to national judgments. They are said to “defile” a land, and to be a “reproach” to any people. Direct judgments come on a nation for its sin; as on Sodom and Gomorrah, Egypt, Israel, etc. Then let our nation take heed.

III. The power of little things. “He heapeth up dust, and taketh it.” That is, the king of Babylon, by means of mounds of dust, would put himself on a level with the besieged, and rapidly overcome them. It needs no great means when God is using the instrument.

IV. The danger of false security. “They shall deride every stronghold.” When the Lord God is not there, the defence is vain. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth in, and is safe.” Every false hiding-place will be swept away in the coining storm. Last year I saw in Pompeii a cellar where eighteen persons had fled for safety in the time of the great overthrow, but it was a false refuge. They were all lost. There is something like that in spiritual things. Many souls are hiding in a refuge of lies. They are trusting to their own merits, or to God’s uncovenanted goodness apart from Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Without Christ, the God man, you are defenceless and exposed to storm and tempest. (A. C. Thiselton.)