How much death do you want?

Habakkuk 2:4 (MSG, emphasis added)

"Look at that man, bloated by self-importance—

full of himself but soul-empty.

But the person in right standing before God
through loyal and steady believing
is fully alive, really alive."

I love how the MSG translation reads on Habakkuk 2:4. I wouldn't study in this translation, but it does at times provide an imaginative way of reading. God is speaking here to Habakkuk about two different kinds of people: the proud, self-righteous, and worldly in contrast to the humble, righteous, and faithful.

It really doesn't take much for us to be worldly these days. The world is clever. C.J Mahaney writes, "A love for the world begins in the soul. It's subtle, not always immediately obvious to others, and often undetected by the people who are slowly succumbing to its lies….Today, the greatest challenge facing American evangelicals is not persecution from the world, but seduction by the world."¹

We are being seduced by lies and we slowly, often willingly, begin to believe the lies. We fill up with the lies until we can't fill up anymore only to find ourselves empty, void, hollow. Our souls become empty, but we can't tell because we are bloated with self-importance. We don't realize that we are actually filling ourselves with death. Death is empty, death is void, death is hollow.

In Habakkuk's time, idols were carved of stone or wood and covered in gold or silver. They were made by the hands of man. Today, idols are not in the form of sculpted statues, but the lies these idols tell are no less seductive. They are created by man for man. The nature of man is what John Calvin would call, "a perpetual factory of idols."²

God continues his narrative to Habakkuk by saying this (in the MSG translation again):

Habakkuk 2:18-19 (MSG, emphasis added)

"What's the use of a carved god
so skillfully carved by its sculptor?
What good is a fancy cast god
when all it tells is lies?
What sense does it make to be a pious god-maker
who makes gods that can't even talk?
Who do you think you are—
saying to a stick of wood, 'Wake up,'
Or to a dumb stone, 'Get up'?
Can they teach you anything about anything?
There's nothing to them but surface.
There's nothing on the inside."

Worldly idols are dead. They have no meaning, no substance, nothing on the inside. They offer nothing but death. The world is selling death and we are buying. How much death do you want? You get to choose.

We have to ask ourselves, where have the lies gotten us so far? If we seriously consider what influence the world has on our souls we will be able to see just how empty we are. Then we can stop buying death from the world and start investing in the alternative, and there is an alternative. The alternative is life, the alternative is glorious, the alternative is Christ. Christ came to give us life, abundant life. C.J. Mahaney also writes, "Worldliness is so serious because Christ is so glorious."³

How much death do you want? Will you listen to the lies, or will you listen to the truth?

Habakkuk 2:20 (MSG)

"But oh! God is in his holy Temple!
Quiet everyone—a holy silence. Listen!"

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¹ Worldliness, pg 20, edited by C.J. Mahaney

² John Calvin, Institutes, Book I Chapter XI Section VIII

³ Worldliness, pg. 35, edited by C.J. Mahaney