The Lord is in His holy temple

“But the Lord is in His holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”

– Habakkuk 2:20

The book of Habakkuk unfolds a remarkable progression in the life of a prophet of God.

At the outset, we see this man wrestling with God over what will happen to his countrymen in the face of grave and great sin.

Through the course of the text, though, there is a shift. As God answers Habakkuk, and as Habakkuk – as he states in chapter 2, verse 1 – waits to see what he will answer when he is corrected.

He goes from a man wrestling with God, to a man who embraces God in worship and in praise.

And as the Lord wraps up His words to close chapter 2, He offers a phrase to hang over that time, and over our time, and over any time:

“But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence – let it hush – before Him.”

The earth may chase after these dead idols and false gods, and it will.

Mankind will continually seek increase of what is not his – and that manifests in evil, terrible ways.

But the Lord is in His holy temple.

It is a truth we lay over whatever we face, ever: God sits enthroned in glory.

He sees all things, and knows all things, and has power over all things. He is present, and with you, always. Let the earth keep silence before Him.

God does not cease to rule on high – regardless of how much this world may seem to spin into chaos.

He is in His holy temple enthroned in righteousness, meaning His presence is without flaw, or weakness, or imperfection.

And He has given us entry into His perfect presence – not through our works, or our disposition, or our character but through the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

There is nothing we can say or that we can do to earn presence or position there.

And in this remarkable transaction, He separates us from our own selfish pride, and welds us instead to His nature.

We can keep silence, and peace, because our God is enthroned in glory in His holy temple – composed and constant and consistent. Not for a moment lacking in the fullness of what true love actually is: Patient, kind, selfless, unfailing.

The enemy of God doesn’t love anyone. He loves himself. And he plays deeply upon people’s love of themselves. And that self love, like the grave, is unsatisfiable.

But God loves you. He loves those around you.

He is in His holy temple, and He has thrown the doors of that temple wide open in the Name of His Son, Jesus, for anyone who would enter in, washed and made clean by His blood.

And then, the miracle: God sets up a temple within your heart for His Spirit to occupy and indwell. To lay His glory and His mercy and His grace over you, and work these things through you.

In that truth, we can rest in silence as He speaks His will to us – regardless of what we face and regardless of present outcome. We can rest in silence, and in peace, because God sits enthroned through eternity.

And in His great love with which He has loved you, He has made that eternity open to you through the person of His Son, Jesus.

Joey Crandall is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Carson Valley.