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- A short note on God’s Judgement: What Habakkuk Saw
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Hebrews 10:31
(Tip: this snippet is part of series which can be found here)
God provides many descriptions of his judgements. These include past judgements such as when he removed Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden (Gen 3), the worldwide flood (Gen 6-8) and the ten plagues that destroyed the Egyptian empire’s power, thus freeing Israel (Exo 7-12). Each judgement reflects that He is holy, graceful, loving, merciful, patient, powerful and wise. They also reflect that He is righteous and sin will never go unjudged.
As well as providing detailed records of past acts, God also outlines future judgements such as the one he gave Habakkuk in a vision. God promised Habakkuk that He would judge a very unholy nation who were persecuting his fellow citizens. The vision describes a frightening picture and reminds us that God’s judgement is inescapable (Heb 10:31). As part of His description of impending judgement, God shows He:
- can use the things that once defined strength to render weakness. (Hab 2:7-8).
- turn the things that gave power and safety into burdens of oppression (Hab 2:11)
- will hold people accountable for the shame and the pain they cause. (Hab 2:16)
- is the only true God (Hab 2:20)
Just as God held these people accountable, He will hold us accountable (Rom 2:11, Heb 9:27). While we may not be guilty of the same sins – we are all sinners (Rom 3:23). However, God, in love sent his Son (the Lord Jesus Christ) to die for our sins and He willingly experienced the judgement we rightly deserve. If we accept that He did this, we accept him as our Saviour (1 Tim 1:15) and instead of experiencing God’s wrath (Joh 3:17,36) we receive eternal life (Rom 6:23, 10:9) and nothing can take it away from us (Rom 8:31,37-39).
When we all get to heaven,
what a day of rejoicing that will be!
When we all see Jesus,
we’ll sing and shout the victory!
Whoever believes in the Son HAS eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son SHALL NOT SEE life, but the wrath of God remains on him. John 3:36