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The Just Shall Live By Faith
Habakkuk 2:4
God is the Just One. He does not want any to perish. He wants to justify. This
is why he sent Jesus to die on the cross so that we could be justified. His love
is our incentive for believing, obeying, being justified and being able to live
in this life and in eternity.
Woodrow Wilson said, "Business underlies everything in our national life
including our spiritual life." This statement is nothing less than Idolatry! It
reflects the beliefs of many in America today. The national life is merely the
reflection of a collection of individual lives. Is our spiritual life ruled by
or based on our business life? Heb.11:1 says, "Faith is the substance...".
Here the word "substance" is the same meaning as Mr. Wilson's idea of
"underlies." The Bible says faith underlies life, not business.
Even ideas have consequences. President Wilson's idea had severe consequences!
When our fathers bowed their knees to the material god we became a materialistic
people. America can not live on bread (materialism) alone. We need to turn to
the Word of God for the faith it gives if we will live. In a world of
insecurities, ignorance and indifference we are questioning if even the just or
the righteous will survive.
This was Habakkuk's question to God when certain judgment was facing his nation.
How can even the righteous live when such wickedness is coming upon us? How can
a just and righteous God allow evil?
Gods answer in Hab. 2:4 is, "I am working my work in my own time and in my own
way but know that the just shall live by faith." They shall survive.
Physically and more importantly spiritually and everlastingly they shall
survive. For one who was questioning God this answer is comforting and gives
blessed assurance. This in turn leads us higher on the mountain of faith knowing
that judgments come so that God's righteous will be delivered from the same
wickedness which surrounds them.
Faith in a living and true God, and not business, is the foundation which
underlies every aspect of our national and individual life. A few years ago the
United States Chamber of Commerce began to accept that people must have faith.
Their perception of faith, as many churches today, was not the faith which comes
by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Rom.10:17). They sent out golden
calves and golden angels (guardian angels they called them) which men could use
as tie pins or ladies could use as decorative pins on their blouses. The
instructions stated that because of the economic uncertainties America was
facing that people are looking for faith in something. They offered to sell
these pins to churches and other civic organizations. The prices for which
churches could resell these pins could be more
than four times as much. These little pins were to give faith to insecure lives.
Business cannot be the foundation of our spiritual life. Business cannot make
gods to go before us and comfort us. The nation of Israel turned to its
merchants to lead them and to provide for them and the consequence was turning
from God.
As the ideas of social leaders have had severe consequences on life, so have
those expressed in the creeds, standards, manuals and any writings of men used
to determine fellowship. These writings of men substitute for the faith which
makes one just. Hiscox Standard Manual For Baptist Churches was a classic case
by quoting Eph. 4:5 that there is One Lord, one faith, one baptism, and then
substituting his manual for Gods word by claiming these things are no longer
true.
What was the substance or faith of the Jews in Habakkuk's day? What is the faith
of many religious people in our own day? If it is not the material gods it is
the writings of men. In his book, the Gospel Plan of Salvation T.W. Brents
stated, "We think it likely that more has been said and written on the subject
of faith than on any other subject connected with theology; and if every trace
of every thing that uninspired men have spoken and written could be blotted out
of human memory, we are not sure that the world would be greatly injured by the
sacrifice." Many writings of men ask us to have faith in God and in them, too.
The religious world is filled with men trying to be loyal to God and man or
riches. No man can serve two masters:... (Matt. 6:24).
In Acts 8:30-31 a man reading from his Bible asked another to come and help him
to understand what he was reading. Philip used the scripture to preach to this
man about Jesus (8:35). Any writing we confess to believing for the purpose of
fellowship must be ripped up and burned up. Any writing, teaching or preaching
that does not sit beside us as Philip did with the Ethiopian and lead us through
the scriptures to Jesus and the faith he gives is not worth much.
Turn to the book of Habakkuk and learn the life and death realities the prophet
faced. Turn to the inspired writings of Paul and other men in the N.T. to learn
the life and death realities that these early Christians faced. Read Rom.
1:17-18; Gal. 2:16; 3:11 and Heb. 10:37-39 and learn what these Christians were
facing. With each judgment we find God's wrath and God's deliverance. Gods wrath
is on the wicked. Gods deliverance is on the righteous. Those who live by faith
will increase their faith. Live your life dependent on God's word and during the
Babylonian captivity or the destruction of Jerusalem and the great tribulations
of Revelation or any other judgments of such fierce wrath and you shall
live and be delivered triumphantly. The life that we live we live by the faith
of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. By faith we will be able
to endure the severest of trials. We have a hope and a confidence and a blessed
assurance and the promise of an abundant entrance into the the everlasting
kingdom.
The just shall not live by the ideas of great social leaders or great religious
leaders. The just shall not live by material things or the teachings of good
men. The just shall not live by faith alone or anything that is short of a
believing, obeying, trusting and dependent faith in God and his Word.
How many read what others say about Christ? How many never search the Scriptures
daily to read Christ and to read what Christ says himself? How many will read
what God has to say about faith and about the just (righteous) and about the
life that they are promised? Will you?
The gospel of Christ is God's plan of salvation. Can we read it and learn? Can
we trust and obey it? How shall the just secure their hearts and live? Either
way one looks at it the answer is always by faith.
Read God's Word. Search it daily to see if these things are true. Prove your own
selves whether you are in the faith. Will you live and live abundantly?
By Mark Alan Turner
From Expository Files 1.8; August, 1994
