Audio  If you walk into a major bookstore, like Barnes and Noble, you will find the books conveniently arranged by category. If you are looking for a book on business management, there’s a section for that. If you are looking for a book on financial planning, there’s a section for that. If you want a book on foreign policy, they have a section for that too. But what if you want a book that covers all those subjects? Well, you have to go to an entirely different section of the store and find one book that deals with all those topics. It’s called the Bible. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that the Bible was written to be a textbook on those subjects. The Bible is the Word of God, written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to reveal the nature and will of God to humanity. But God’s nature and will come to bear on how we handle money, how we handle our business affairs, and how leaders should lead. And when it comes to what the Bible says about these matters, there are promises, examples, and warnings. We have been studying the little book of Habakkuk for a couple of months now. It is a little book, but it has a lot to say. I think many of you have discovered how surprisingly relevant to our day and time this 2,600 year old writing is through our study. I remind you yet again that Habakkuk was burdened about the immorality, idolatry, and injustice that was rampant in Judah. These were God’s chosen people, but the nation was filled with corruption. He cried out to God about it, and God’s answer was surprising and even more troubling. God declared that He was raising up the Babylonians (called here the Chaldeans) to be His agents of judgment upon Judah. God would discipline His people by bringing a foreign nation in to overtake them, just as He had repeatedly promised them that He would do. It burdened Habakkuk to consider that God would use violent pagans to do His work, and that the chosen people would suffer at their hands. The righteous would suffer alongside the wicked as this judgment came upon the whole nation. Habakkuk cried out in 1:13, “Why do You look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they?” Whereas the book began with the prophet asking “how long” God would allow corruption to run rampant in Judah, it soon turned to Habakkuk asking God “how long” He would allow the Babylonians to dominate the world. The section of the book that we are entering into today contains the answer to that question. God’s message to the prophet is that a day of reckoning is coming for Babylonas well, and it was coming soon. Though they shot to prominence rather suddenly, their position as a global power would be short lived – less than a century. And here in verses 6-20 of Habakkuk 2, their downfall is vividly described in five statements of “Woe.” Earlier in verse 6, the Lord said that the nations which Babylonhad subjected in its wave of terror and cruelty would eventually take up a taunt-song against them, even mockery and insinuations about them. And these five woes are those taunt-songs by which the nations who fell victim to Babylon’s tyranny would ridicule them in their demise. The words are an altogether certain promise of God’s judgment, but sung in such a way by the nations as to make sport of Babylon, adding to their shame. The word “Woe” translates a Hebrew exclamation that some have translated as “Ha!,” “Ahah!”, or even “Ah!” So, woe is most definitely pronounced upon the Babylonians, but almost with tongue in cheek, as the nations laugh at the downfall of their oppressors. The first of these “Woe” statements concerns God’s judgment upon Babylonfor its dishonest gain. Babylonamassed matchless wealth and land through their militant expansionism, but here we find the dangers of such dishonest gain spelled out. And the warning is not for ancient Babylonalone. In a society in which one’s worth is measured in dollars and cents, and in which the allure