A little over a week ago I preached on the “Five Woes” declared against the Chaldeans in Habakkuk 2:5-20. Many crimes are listed in that passage, but I stressed that the Chaldeans were bloody-city-builders. The Chaldeans were brutal like Cain, who was the first bloody-city-builder (see Genesis 4).
God commanded man to multiply and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28), but man is not suppose to accomplish this with murder; God’s law forbids man to build civilization upon murder (Exodus 20:13). Because the Chaldeans committed the crime of bloody-city-building, that is, murderous-city-building, the Lord declared woes of judgment against them (Habakkuk 2:12).
It is disconcerting that so many contemporary nations are committing the same crime as the Chaldeans: at their worst, many contemporary nations are building civilization upon “strategic” murder (e.g., unjust war(s), euthanasia, abortion, etc.), or, at their best, many contemporary nations utilize “strategic” murder as a type of “flying buttress” that helps support the desired economic-political-sociological infrastructure (e.g., pharmaceutical abortifacients).
Discouragement comes easy for those who are faced with the grim prospect of contemporary nations that are bloody-city-builders, like Cain and the Chaldeans. However, for those of us who face the grim prospect of the modern world, these words by Herman Bavinck may be of comfort:
“The modern world appears to be extremely unsuited for the coming of God’s kingdom. Much more emphasis seems to be placed upon political and economic progress, and self-rule, than upon any search for God and any desire to listen to him. Sometimes we feel almost powerless. With fear and trembling we can only try each day anew to live close to God, and we can pray. More than ever before in our own weakness, we experience that God alone can help us and that he will help, if we pray. Thus, we learn in these tense years to understand again what Paul had learned by prayer and tears, namely, that the power of Jesus Christ is revealed to the fullest only in our weakness, and that therefore — no matter how contradictory it may appear — it is possible to take comfort in our impotence” (An Introduction to the Science of Missions, 217).