The Wonder of Habakkuk 2:4 Dusting Faith

This is the Truth Network. Bible Wonders of Habakkuk. Oh, the Dalit verse of the second chapter of Habakkuk will be something I will probably be digging around in for the rest of my life. What a verse. What a verse. Obviously of this verse as we talk about it, but I had never really connected the first part of the verse to the second part. How important the first part of the verse is to the second part of the verse. So I know you're going to recognize the second part of the verse, but oh, how important the first part of the verse is has to do with the meaning and certainly with the letter Dalit. And the letter Dalit, as you may know, is King David's name, right?

Dalit vav Dalit and has to do with humility and servant and of course so much to do with love as we talked about it so many times in the Song of Solomon. So here we go. Behold, his soul, which is lifted up, is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith. And so it's really, really neat. There's some very important changes I want to make to the verse in English that I think are helpful. I certainly think so that we're talking about the soul of this person that is puffed up and the Jews take that which is translated lifted up. And when they translate it, when Rashi translated it, they use the word puffed up, which I think is very, very much appropriate in that the letter pay has to do with this blowing and that this person is blown up and blown up by essentially his own mouth.

Which is kind of cool. And it says it's causing his soul to be not upright in him. In other words, in him is kind of like where he lives. He lives in this place where his mouth is king.

I mean, that's where this person that is puffed up lives. But the righteous, which is the opposite of this guy, to some extent, the just, right, in order to live with God, we've got to be justified, which requires Christ. The zadik, as it is described in Hebrew, is the very word that Habakkuk uses here, the Holy Spirit gave him. And so when he says the just, that word just in Hebrew is zadik, and that zadik is the righteous one, which is essentially Christ. But the operating letter in the word zadik, the first letter is a zadik, which is the word or the concept of right.

But then the second letter is a dalit, because you've got to be humble. And we're going to get into all that in a minute. And then it ends in a kuff because that idea of proximity of being close to God is everything to do with the righteous. And how, because this is going to come where I said that the other thing that's here in this verse for the second part is when he says the righteous will live in him faith. In other words, that faith is in, it's where he lives.

He lives in a place where he is trusting Christ in him. I mean, that's what the zadik does. And so you have this idea of the first guy who's puffed up and lived in pride, which is clearly talking about Nebuchadnezzar, and I get all that looking at the big story. But what I want to look at is me, right? Because I struggle all the time with pride and being puffed up and thinking that I'm right versus this idea of the zadik, which is living in this place of God is the one that's doing all this stuff.

Not me. It's not my mouth. It is God's mouth. And it's so important to really, I think, getting all that I can get out of this verse. It really applies to me personally.

It really does. Is this me that's living all puffed up and thinking that I'm right and the things that I say in all this, or have I embraced the 119th Psalm? Okay, so when you look at the verses of the 119th Psalm when it comes to the Dalit section, I thought about these this morning and how cool that it is when you think about, well, I'll just go through them, because I think it's completely applicable to go through these verses to show how much they're connected to this idea here. Because the very first verse in the Dalit section is, Is my soul cleaves to the dust, quicken me according to thy word. In other words, in order to get out of being puffed up, you know, I need, like Spurgeon said, I need to get a whiff of my inner cesspool.

I need to get down there in the dust and cleave, you know, that idea of butt dust. Right. And what King David said is helping him, right, is to get to where he needs to be in order to be the servant that he needs to be. He's first got to cleave to the dust so that he can be quickened, because if you don't die, right, you don't do what God said, which is all why we love him. We're going to do his commandments. If we don't die, we don't get into the dust in order to be planted in order to come up.

Right. So there, you know, the idea of my soul cleaves to the dust is critical. And then I've declared my ways and thou heardest me, teach me thy statutes. Well, the statutes end in that kuff. And that idea of that faith is going to come as I actually confess my stuff, my inner cesspool.

And he comes in and changes my proximity. I mean, there's the second verse in the Dalit section. Why that's so important when it comes to looking at this verse, the third verse, make me understand the way of thy precepts. And so I shall speak of thy wondrous works. Well, as I've talked about in previous episodes, that idea of precepts is literally into your hands. I commit my spirit.

And and again, that idea of getting in the dirt leads to him quickening us, which gives us an opportunity to speak of his wondrous works, which it's him and his mouth that's speaking in this case. You see, not my puffed up mouth. And that's my problem.

Right. That that I'm really asking God to help me with. And then, oh, baby, what he hits me with, then remove from me the way of lying and grant me thy law graciously. Oh, what a treasure that verse is again, my inner cesspool.

How many times do I choose things other than the truth? Right. And if I'm going to live by faith, that word is immuna, which has everything to do with truth and belief in God. I mean, that that word is very much connected to what happens.

Right. The very next verse in the Dalit section says, I have chosen the way of the faithful and set thy judgments before me. I mean, and that that idea is so connected to this verse.

It's unbelievable. I've chosen the way of the faithful. Here we are, the Dalit verse.

You see the connection like, oh, my goodness, how spectacular can that be? And then it says, I cling to your testimonies. Oh, Lord, let me not be put to shame again. I don't want to be the guy in the first part of the verse.

I'm going to cling to your story, not my puffed up mouth or my puffed up pride. And then again, we see in the last verse, my favorite verse of the Dalit section, 119 Psalm. I will run in the path of thy commandments when thou enlargest my hearts. You remember what we saw in the second verse was, I want you to write this vision so that people can run when they read it. Well, here we go. I mean, this is our opportunity to run.

Right. But in all this, we have to die to ourselves in order to be lifted up. And I can't help but go back as I was thinking about this verse and to see it in action.

This is what it looked like for me. And I know I've told you this story before about when I had this family member attempt suicide. And and then my other family member needed to move and I helped her and all these things happened.

We we didn't have heat in the house. And I got up the next morning and was so angry with God. So angry with God.

I can remember taking the gloves off. You know, here I am with my puffed up mouth and I'm like, OK. Now, normally I know what I'm in this time in my quiet time that I'm going to thank you for all the stuff that you've done for me. But right now, I'm mad because my loved one won't even let me visit them after spending the night in the hospital through the suicide attempt. And I've got no heat and I'm freezing like, really, God could not at least have heat in the. And as I am processing that in my mind and my puffed up mind. Praise God. Praise God. He helped me get a smell of my inner cesspool.

Right. All of a sudden I thought, oh, wait a minute. My loved one lived.

Oh, oh, wait a minute. He sent this amazing nurse to help them, you know, through one of the more painful things that they had. In other words, I could just see God's hand all over it, how he had come and rescued me in the midst of all this. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, how did I get to where I was in that puffed up place versus where God is really, really, really the hero of the story and completely saved my bacon in so many different ways.

Right. And the whole idea, if we can get to that place of totally letting our souls cleave to the dust and coming down, you know, from our high hound and whatever that may be. Oh, what what a joy that is. And I love this verse in so many different ways, as obviously we'll turn back to it time and time again. But I just love the contrast of it. And I love to look at it in my own life.

Like, how can I apply this? Because I know all too often I am so puffed up and I don't want to be there. I want to live in. I don't want to live in my puffed upness. I want to live in faith.

Right. In the faithful there where I am experiencing God in the moment. Again, I'm so grateful for your listening and for you thinking about who you might share this podcast with. I'm so grateful for the people that shared it recently. It certainly made an impact. As the podcast grows, I am so grateful that that you're taking this journey with me. Thanks for listening.