The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 202: God's Judgment (2023)

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

As we continue journeying through the prophets, Fr. Mike helps us understand the oracle concerning Tyre and also points out that God's judgment will always be completed. Today we also begin reading the Book of Habakkuk and learn about the five powerful woes we can all relate to. Todays' readings are Isaiah 23-24, Habakkuk 1-2, and Proverbs 11:1-4. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 202, day 202. We are reading from Isaiah chapter 23 and chapter 24. Also, the prophet Habakkuk chapter one and two.

We only hear Habakkuk for two days, as well as Nahum for two days, Joel for two days. We got Zephaniah, Baruch. He's gonna be three days. But kind of these shorter, minor prophets, Habakkuk one and two. And we're also reading Proverbs chapter 11, verses one through four.

As always, the Bible translation that I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. And As always, the Bible translation that I'm reading from is the revised standard version, second Catholic edition, and I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. You can also subscribe to this podcast by clicking on subscribe, and you'd be subscribed. It is day 202, reading Isaiah 23 and 24. Habakkuk chapters one and two. Here's the deal. I'm going to say Habakkuk, and I'm going to say Habakkuk because ever since I was a kid, I always said Habakkuk. And then I hear people saying it's Habakkuk and I'm like, okay, well, I've heard it both ways. Habakkuk chapter one and

two Proverbs chapter 11 verses one through four. The book of the prophet Isaiah chapter 23, an oracle concerning Tyre, an oracle concerning Tyre. An oracle concerning Tyre. Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste, without house or haven. From the land of Cyprus it is revealed to them. Be still, O inhabitants of the coast, O merchants of Sidon. Your messengers passed over the sea, and were on many waters. Your revenue was the grain of Shehor, the harvest of the Nile.

You were the merchant of the nations. Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying, I have neither endured labor pains nor given birth. I have neither reared young men nor brought up virgins. When the report comes from Egypt, they will be in anguish over the report about Tyre. Pass over to Tarshish, wail, O inhabitants of the coast. Is this your exultant city, whose origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her to settle afar? Who has purposed this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth? The Lord of hosts has purposed it, to defile the pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth. The Lord of hosts has purposed it to defile the pride of all glory,

to dishonor all the honored of the earth. Overflow your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish. There is no restraint anymore. He has stretched out his hand over the sea. He has shaken the kingdoms. The Lord has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its strongholds. And he said, you will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon. Arise, pass over to Cyprus. Even there you will have no rest. Behold, the land of the Chaldeans. This is the people. It was not Assyria. They destined Tyre for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers. They raised her palaces. They made her a ruin. their siege towers, they raised her palaces, they made her a ruin. Wail, O ships of Tarshish,

for your stronghold is laid waste. In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the harlot. Take a harp, go about the city, O forgotten harlot. Make sweet melody, sing many songs that you may be remembered. At the end of seventy years the Lord will visit Tyre, and she will return to her hire, and will play the harlot with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. Her merchandise and her hire will be dedicated to the Lord. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the Lord. Chapter 24. Impending Judgment on the Earth. Behold, the Lord will lay waste the earth

and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest, as with the slave, so with his master. As with the maid, so with her mistress. As with the buyer, so with the seller. As with the lender, so with the borrower. As with the creditor, so with the debtor. The earth shall be utterly laid waste and utterly despoiled, for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and withers.

The world languishes and withers. The heavens languish together with the earth. This word. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and few men are left. The wine mourns, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh. The mirth of the timbrels is stilled, the noise of the jubilant has ceased. The mirth of the liar is stilled. No more do they drink wine with singing. Strong drink is bitter to those who drink it. The city of chaos is broken down.

Every house is shut up so that none can enter. There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine. All joy has reached its even tide. The gladness of the earth is banished. Desolation is left in the city. The gates are battered into ruins. For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, as at the gleaning when the vintage is done. They lift up their voices, they sing for joy over the majesty of the Lord, they shout from the west, therefore in the east give glory to the Lord, in the islands of the sea to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the righteous one. But I say, I pine away, I pine away, woe is me. For the treacherous deal treacherously, the treacherous

deal very treacherously. Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth. He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble. The earth is utterly broken. The earth is torn apart. The earth is violently shaken. The earth staggers like a drunken man. It sways like a hut. Its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls and will not rise again. On that day, the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven and the kings of the earth on the earth. They will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit.

They will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished. Then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed. For the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem. And before his elders, he will manifest his glory. The Book of Habakkuk, Chapter 1. The Prophet's Complaint. The Oracle of God which Habakkuk the Prophet saw. O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?

Or cry to you violence, and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongs and look upon trouble? Destruction and violence are before me, strife and contention arise. So the law is slacked, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted. Look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days

that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am rousing the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the breadth of the earth to seize habitations not their own. Dread and fearsome are they. Their justice and dignity proceed are they. Their justice and dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the

evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle, swift to devour. They all come for violence. Terror of them goes before them. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and of rulers they make sport. They laugh at every fortress, for they heap up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men whose own might is their God. Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for chastisement.

You, who are of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on wrong, why do you look on faithless men and are silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? For you make men like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. He brings all of them up with a hook. He drags them out with his net. He gathers them in his seine, so he rejoices and exults. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his seine. For by them he lives in luxury and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly slaying nations forever? Chapter 2. God's reply. I will take my stand to watch and station myself on the

tower and look forth to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint. And the Lord answered me, write the vision, make it plain upon tablets so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its time. It hastens to the end. It will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it. It will surely come. It will not delay. Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith. Moreover, wine is treacherous. The arrogant man shall not abide. 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. Shall not all these take up their taunt against him in scoffing derision of him and say, woe to him who heaps up what is not his own?

in scoffing derision of him, and say, Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own! For how long? And loads himself with pledges. Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be booty for them, because you have plundered many nations.

All the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you. For the blood of men, and violence to the earth, to cities, and all who dwell therein. Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm. You have devised shame to your house by cutting off many peoples. You have forfeited your life. For the stone will cry out from the wall and the beam from the woodwork respond. Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity. Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that peoples labor only for fire and nations weary themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters

cover the sea. Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink of the cup of his wrath and makes them drunk to gaze on their shame. You will be sated with contempt instead of glory. Drink yourself and stagger. The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you and shame will come upon your glory. The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you. The destruction of the beasts will terrify you. For the blood of men and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell therein. What prophet is an idol when its maker has shaped it,

a metal image, a teacher of lies? For the workman trusts in his own creation when he makes dumb idols. Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, awake, to a mute stone, arise. Can this give revelation? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver. There is no breath at all in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. The book of Proverbs chapter 11. Riches do not profit in the in his actions, but who continually reminds us that those who choose you, even if they are devoid of everything else, are choosing the right path. Even those who have wealth, even those who have power in this life, ultimately we fall

into your hands. And so we ask not just for more wealth and not just for more power. We ask for right relationship with you, right relationship with each other. And even in our hearts, Lord God, we ask for right relationship in ourselves that we can be the kind of men and women who not only say yes to you with our, our minds and say yes to you with our, our voices, but say yes to you with our entire lives. Help us to say yes to you, to your wisdom and to walk in wisdom this day and every day in Jesus name. We pray. Amen. Name of the father the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Okay. So, okay, we're in the middle of Isaiah. Well, not quite the middle, maybe more like the first third, because we have 66 chapters of Isaiah. We're still in the book of woe, right? In that book of condemnation. And so I just invite you, don't get discouraged yet, because especially, here's what I'm proposing, projecting, predicting, one of the two, one of the four, one of the three, is that this time through the prophets is gonna be some of the most difficult time you and I have when it comes to the Bible. Now, you might've thought,

and I was gonna be Leviticus. I thought it was gonna be Numbers. I thought it was gonna be Deuteronomy. And maybe it was, maybe it will be. But my thought is, as we journey through Isaiah for the next 40 some days or so, and as we journey through Jeremiah and Ezekiel coming up, my guess is this is going to be challenging because of the fact that here in chapter 23, it's an oracle concerning Tyre.

And you might be like, okay, I don't mention Tarshish. I mentioned Cyprus, might mention Sidon. You might think, okay, some of those names are familiar, but I don't know what they're talking about. It's kind of this cloaked language. It's this mysterious prophetic language that basically is saying a bunch of stuff about a time and a people from a long way away and a long time ago. And it might be difficult for us to recognize, okay, how is God speaking to me today?

Well, sometimes we just recognize God is speaking historically. He's speaking through Isaiah and he is making it very clear. This is the message or an oracle concerning Tyre. And sometimes it's very clear that this is concerning all of us. So my prayer and my encouragement is at times it's going to be kind of like words in, words out. I don't get this. I don't know what they're talking about. So I'm going to try to put some context.

So we have Tyre. Tyre is one of the coastal towns, right? In that Mediterranean area on the Mediterranean Sea. And so one of the recognitions we have is the reality that the land of Tyre had become wealthy and the land of Tyre had, because of that wealth, just like everyone else had forgotten its creator, had forgotten its maker, had forgotten the one who blessed it. And so you have God's words here that are saying in verse nine of chapter 23, the Lord of hosts has purposed it to defile the pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth. Basically you've gotten so much,

you've gotten so wealthy, you become so powerful among the nations that you've forgotten the Lord, your God. And so what's going to happen is the Lord will allow the Chaldeans, the Assyrians to come in. And it says is your stronghold is laid waste. And in that day, this is verse 15, Tyre will be forgotten for 70 years, like the days of one King. And at the end of 70 years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the harlot. Basically it says she'll return to her higher and play the harlot with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.

Basically, even after 70 years, this is what's going to happen when the Assyrians come in and destroy Tyre. She'll come back and she'll become wealthy again. And she will also turn back to her wealth and think that that's her worth, that her wealth is her worth, that her power is what makes her important. And yet in verse 18, the last verse of chapter 23, it says that her merchandise and her hire will ultimately be dedicated. I'm putting in the word ultimately will be dedicated to the Lord, not stored or hoarded, but her merchandise, those things that were her was her power, right? Her, her wealth will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the Lord. And that some

people have said that that is a prophecy, not only of the immediate restoration of Tyre after 70 years, after the Assyrians, the Chaldeans come in, but that ultimately Tyre will become Christian because that's part of Tyre's history is that it became Christian early, early in the history of the, of Christianity that Paul himself found many Christians there in Acts chapter 21, verse 4. And now it's suffered a bunch under persecutions, but, and also under times when Muslims had conquered it and reconquered it. But ultimately Tyre had found a purpose in belonging to the Lord. And so that could be one of those things again, where like, okay, here's the prophets they're talking about. I have all these things that are so random and historical. And yet also you have chapter 24, where it talks about the impending judgment on the earth.

And one of the pieces that just, again, poetic language, part of the poetic language is oriented towards recognizing that God's judgment in this chapter 24, remember, this is the book of woe, the book of condemnation. God's judgment is going to be all the way to the end. What I mean by that is another way to say it is the judgment of the Lord will always be completed. That it talks about fear in the pit and the snare are upon you. And so those who flee the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit. And if you come out of the midst of the pit, you'll caught in the snare.

Basically, the judgment of the Lord will always be completed. And this will happen from the windows on high are open and the foundations of the earth are shaken because not only is the judgment of the Lord going to be completed, but it's going to touch everything. And that's what the next verses from 19 to 20 are talking about. It says the earth is violently broken open. The earth is split open. Its transgression shall be heavy upon it. It will fall and not rise again. It will touch everyone in verses all the way to the end. 21 through 23 of chapter 24 talks about how this will be from those who are unimportant, say prisoners,

all the way to those who reign, those who are kings. The moon will be disgraced, the sun ashamed because the Lord will bring his judgment and God will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem. And so there's ultimately, right, this is, this is meant to be a word, not only word of warning, but a word of promise. And that promise is that even though there is a judgment that's coming, a condemnation for those who fall away from the Lord and turn their backs on him, rebel against him. There's also the promise of God will reign ultimately. And there in Judah, he will reign on Zion. He will reign in Jerusalem. Now that's the word of Isaiah. What about Habakkuk and as i said um habakkuk is how i always said it growing up but

i i've heard it heard it both ways now habakkuk and habakkuk the interesting thing about habakkuk or habakkuk as he's not necessarily prophesying to jerusalem he's not necessarily prophesying to the people of judah he's kind of just calling out saying, here's the deal. There is wickedness on this world and God is going to answer it. And so he calls out and he points out five woes in chapter two, because Habakkuk in chapter one, he sees all the things that he sees, right? He says what he sees, that he basically points out there are people who have turned away from the Lord and they abuse each other. They use each other.

And who is going to bring judgment? And then in chapter two, it's God's reply. And there's these five woes that happen that talk about God's judgment and the woe to those who are basically practicing unjust economics, right? Those are the first two woes that God declares through Habakkuk is woes to those who practice unjust economics. Next is woes to those who employ slave labor, woes to those who use other people. There's a fourth woe, and that's those irresponsible leaders who make his neighbors drink of the cup of his wrath, makes them drunk to gaze on their shame, and just goes on and on

about that. And then the final prophet or final final woe is woe to those who trust in idols, idolatry being that fifth woe. And one of the pieces that the prophet Habakkuk is making very, very clear is he's basically saying that what's happening and going to happen from the Babylonians, what's going to happen in Babylon. And this is kind of what the context of Habakkuk is. What's going to happen in Babylon is going to happen to every nation that I remember hearing a commentary that said most nations eventually become Babylon, that most nations, all these woes, a woe of using people wrongfully, a woe of slave labor, a woe of unjust rulers, a woe of turning to idolatry, turning away

from the Lord. What's happening in Babylon, these woes ultimately happen to every nation. And so this is the call for all of us. Again, here's the words of the prophets that yes, were contextualized in their time, but are also telling us something very important. Tomorrow, we're gonna hear the last chapter of Habakkuk and it's Habakkuk's prayer that he turns back to the Lord. And even though he knows,

just like the wise people of scripture know, that just what happens to Babylon is going to happen to all nations. Most nations, they fall just like Babylon has fallen. And Habakkuk is going to utter a prayer that not only talks about this falling, but also talks about the Lord's role in bringing his own glory. The Lord's role, not only bringing judgment, but his role in bringing about his own glory

that he can be known. I hope this makes sense. You know, we can get really, really lost in the prophets. We don't want to get lost. And if you lost your footing just for a day, if you lost your footing and thought, man, I don't know about Tyre and Sidon and all these places in Isaiah. I don't know about Habakkuk, talking about Babylon. Don't worry.

Show up tomorrow. It's going to be great. We're going to keep walking with Isaiah for the next number of days, Habakkuk for one more day, then Zephaniah, then Baruch, then Ezekiel, and it's going to be fine. Just keep on walking, keep on reading, keep on listening, keep on pressing play. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike, and I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless. you