SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/13/2016
9:34 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Exploitation
of People
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Habakkuk
2:12-14
Message of
the verses: “12 “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed And founds a
town with violence! 13 “Is it not indeed from the LORD of hosts That peoples
toil for fire, And nations grow weary for nothing? 14 “For the earth will be
filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the
sea.”
Now before we get into looking at these verses I
want to talk for a moment more about covetousness, the subject we had for our
last SD on the book of Habakkuk. We
mentioned that it was the last of the Ten Commandments in our last SD, but in
my daily Bible reading this morning there was a story from the book of Joshua
where the covetousness of one man caused the death of not only his family, but
also a number of Israeli soldiers. You
can read this story from the book of Joshua chapter seven and verses sixteen to
twenty-six.
The kingdom of Babylon was built by bloodshed, the
blood of innocent victims. Slave labor
was how it was built and because it was slave labor there was no care for those
who were doing the work, and if they got tired or died they just replaced them
with more slaves. The problem, at least
one of them was that they were proud of what they accomplished. Babylon, the city was one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world, as they actually had a form of air condition in
that city. The walls that went around
that city were very high and very thick and the Euphrates River ran through
that city so if an enemy came against it they could close the gates and live
off the land inside the city and drink the water from the river. Again the problem was how all of this was built,
at the expense of others who were forced to do it.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “In contrast to the shame and
infamy of Babylon, God promised that His glory would one day cover the earth
(v. 14). The ‘glory’ of Babylon didn’t
last, but the glory of the Lord will abide forever. Certainly, the Lord was glorified when
Babylon fell before her enemies in 539 BC (See Jer. 50-51), and He will be
glorified when the Babylon of the last days is destroyed, the final great world
empire that opposes God (Rev. 17-18).
When Jesus Christ returns and establishes His kingdom, then God’s glory
will indeed cover the whole earth (Isa. 11:1-9).”
We can gleam a spiritual truth from this lesson and
that is we saw what Babylon built was done without God, as man did it by
himself, and so as we are living our Christian lives we are to build our lives
on the Word of God, and when we get to heaven the things that were built through
us by the power of the Holy Spirit will last.
Paul speaks of this when he writes about the Judgment Seat of Christ in Ro
14:10 “But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard
your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of
God. 2Co 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment
seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body,
according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the
one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12
Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious
stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each man’s
work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed
with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If
any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. 15
If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be
saved, yet so as through fire (1 Cor. 3:11-15).”
2/13/2016 9:58 PM
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