In verse 5 God begins to tell Habakkuk that He knows Babylon and Belshazzar. That they relentlessly pursue what they want but have no rest. Their sins know no bounds. Their quest for more and more of the sin in their lives will do them in. Sin will betray and deceive them. But, they do not know it yet.

God is telling Habakkuk that He will do what He said He would do. The Chaldeans will take their land and property because Judea has sinned against God. He reminds Habakkuk that because He is sovereign, He can use an evil people like them as a tool of grace in the life of Judea. He will not look over their sin. The Chaldean's sin will be their downfall. Here God speaks of their sinful pursuits, pride, practices, pleasures and sinful praise that will lead to their eventual downfall.

Did Habakkuk know what it meant to "be still and know that I am God"? Be watchful and focused on God and not on what is going on around us. The greatest evidence of our faith being real is that we can wait and not be discouraged. If we lose focus and become discouraged, we quit listening to the voice of God and, many times, quit praying. God is always speaking but we need to be in a place where we can receive and respond.

The just shall live by His faith. We don't know how long Habakkuk was waiting for God to speak after his complaints at the end of chapter one. Here he begins to hear God speak. We are reminded that God knows what is best and when it is best. When we don't understand what and why God is doing, he remains faithful at all times. But we have a blessed hope. With that hope we can continue to walk and wait by faith.

In answer to Habakkuk's cry, God teaches him to focus at what He was doing through another nation. God gives revelation here but not explanation since He previously told Israel what was about to take place. Habakkuk needs to learn of God's ways and His willingness to go to any measure or any depth to work repentance in His people.

Does God seem to be confusing at times? Habakkuk does not understand why God would use a nation much less righteous than his own as a tool of grace. He has not lost faith in God but is bewildered and confused at how God could use a wicked nation and still maintain His own holiness.

Habakkuk saw the desperation, the destruction and degradation of Judea through the eyes of truth. What the people of Judea learned to accept as being "okay" was unacceptable to Habakkuk, the prophet. But to Habakkuk what God said made no sense to him. What God did not do made no sense. What God was going to do made no sense. He had to learn to embrace the Lord by faith even when he perceived that God made no sense to him whatsoever.

Hebrews 11:7 provides a full glimpse from God's Word of what faith is, it is manifested and what it brings. Faith's full picture is painted in the portrait of Noah. Noah's life and witness by his faith lived out exposed and condemned this world. This is what faith looks like, how it begins, how it is demonstrated, how it is steadfast and how it continues on year after year..

Enoch was walking with God in a time when every man was self-centered and self-satisfying. He had a testimony and faith that pleased God when no one else wanted anything to do with Him. In this message Pastor Mack Tester describes the repentance, the reality and the rapture (or translation) of Enoch.

May this passage of Scripture be a time of reflection on all that God has done for us. Not only that, but also a time of examination of what is coming out of us. The "vineyard" is not a place; it is a people. God equates Israel as the 'vineyard". To ever be at rest in all the provisions of God - our Canaan, the life of the Lord Jesus - do we allow God to cultivate us day by day, moment by moment and second by second? God expects that the fruit of our lives be true to the vine that was planted within us. That vine is Jesus Christ.