“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.” (Habakkuk 2:4-5 ESV)
Juxtapositions can be helpful. Identifying a stark contrast between options can aid in clarifying confusing situations. Such is the case with the passage before us today. As the Lord continues his prophetic exchange with Habakkuk, he draws a distinction between the wicked and the righteous. The former is “puffed up,” while the latter “live[s] by his faith.”
At the heart of this distinction is the issue of confidence. The phrase at the beginning of this passage, “his soul,” refers to the previously mentioned “guilty men, whose own might is their god” (1:11). The confidence of such a man is in his own strength, which is how we understand the statement that “his soul is puffed up.” He is consumed with self-confidence, even to the point of self-worship. Thus, his soul “is not upright within him.” His vanity and arrogance are an affront to the holiness and righteousness of God. He who is made by God seeks to usurp the deity of God and place himself atop the throne. Such an attitude is reminiscent of the people of Babel, who sought to build a city and tower to “make a name for [themselves]” (Genesis 11:4).
Pride is the oldest sin and the root from which all other sins flow. Man believes he knows better than God and therefore disobeys him. Pride is a denial of the sovereign rule of God and an attempt to claim autonomy. While man is a willful creature capable of and responsible for making decisions, only God is autonomous. Man is not a law unto himself, though all of human history is a testament to his attempts to be such.
In short, the wicked men of Babylon rejected their position as created beings accountable to their Creator. These “kings of the earth set themselves . . . against the LORD,” yet “he who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision” (Psalm 2:2, 4).
The irony of such pursuits is that they neither end nor satisfy. God says these arrogant men are “never at rest” but stumble around as drunken men. Their greed, like death, is insatiable and drives them to seek more and more. Said another way, their greed makes obtaining rest or peace impossible. Greed is never content, and peace and rest require, at least to some degree, contentment. Their hearts are held captive to their greed, as they—like all who rebel against God—reject the rule of the Prince of Peace only to chain themselves to the tempestuous idol of their own avarice.
Unlike the promises of God, which are sure and full, the promises of sin are empty. While the person following the impulses of greed “gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples,” these achievements only increase his desires rather than satisfy them. The solution Habakkuk gives is not to keep pursuing “just a little bit more” but to “live by faith.”
True peace is found when we “serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Psalm 2:11). It is only when we abandon the pursuits of self-rule that we find true satisfaction. As John Calvin says, “the defences of this world are not only evanescent, but also bring always with them many tormenting fears . . . God never disappoints the hope of his people.”
Like fierce and starving wolves, the wicked man is consumed by the gnawing hunger of greed, and even his sleep is made restless by knowing there is more to be gained. “It is in vain that [he] rise[s] up early and go[es] late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil,” for only the Lord “gives to his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2). Habakkuk knows that he need not anxiously toil and instead trusts God. As the Apostle Paul later described, we can fully trust the Lord who “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11), and “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
Only those who humbly abandon the pursuit of autonomous rule will find the only true rest available.Take it from Solomon, who sought every earthly pleasure but found only disappointment, concluding that the only true pursuit is to “fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). While the wicked live by their greed, may the righteous live by faith.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
We are so prone to seek gain and pleasure in this world. Turn our eyes from things that moth and rust destroy to faith in you, as the Creator and Sustainer of all things, that we may find rest.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Prayer Requests:
- Tuesday: Pray for missionaries serving at the Seigu Medical Clinic in Papua New Guinea.
- Wednesday: Pray for missionaries and students serving on short-term trips with Storytellers Abroad as they produce visual communications to further the work of ministries around the world.
- Thursday: Pray for missionaries and national partners serving at New Life Prenatal Center in Peru.
- Friday: Pray for teachers and students at Santiago Christian Academy in Chile.
- Saturday: Pray for the ministry of 7 Rivers Outreach as they minister to rural Zulu communities in South Africa.
- Sunday: Pray for missionary church plants that are experiencing low attendance and financial shortages.
- Monday: Pray for missionaries and educators serving with Horizon Education Network as they develop innovative and accessible tools and resources.
