WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.720 So Habakkuk 1 and from verse 12, are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:11.700 One, we shall not die? 00:00:11.700 --> 00:00:17.839 O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for 00:00:17.839 --> 00:00:19.339 reproof. 00:00:19.339 --> 00:00:24.679 You who are of pure eyes and to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look 00:00:24.679 --> 00:00:31.240 at traitors, and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? 00:00:31.240 --> 00:00:36.039 You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. 00:00:36.039 --> 00:00:41.079 He brings all of them up with a hook, he drags them out with his net, he gathers them in 00:00:41.079 --> 00:00:45.679 his dragnet, so he rejoices and is glad. 00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:52.079 Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and makes offerings to his dragnet, for by them he lives 00:00:52.079 --> 00:00:56.000 in luxury, and his food is rich. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:02.039 Is he then to keep on emptying his net and merciously killing nations forever? 00:01:02.039 --> 00:01:07.319 I will take my stand at my watch post, and station myself on the tower, and look out 00:01:07.319 --> 00:01:13.039 to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. 00:01:13.039 --> 00:01:20.079 This is Gosward James. 00:01:20.079 --> 00:01:22.280 Thank you, Lewis. 00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:24.719 So we're looking at these verses from Habakkuk. 00:01:24.719 --> 00:01:28.679 If you have a Bible, please keep it open at that page. 00:01:28.679 --> 00:01:35.039 So if you were here last week, last Sunday night, the sermon ended on a cliffhanger. 00:01:35.039 --> 00:01:38.000 If you weren't here last Sunday night, let me tell you why. 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:45.799 So this is the one minute summary of what we covered in Habakkuk, sermon one. 00:01:45.799 --> 00:01:54.039 Habakkuk was a prophet, he lived 600 years before Jesus, and he lived in what for all 00:01:54.039 --> 00:01:58.319 intents and purposes was quite a small and significant place, in the grand scheme of 00:01:58.319 --> 00:02:00.359 things with how people looked at the world at that time. 00:02:00.359 --> 00:02:06.679 He was from the kingdom of Judah, a really small place, and in the background to his 00:02:06.679 --> 00:02:12.280 life in this small place, there had been a world war between the Babylonians on one side 00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:16.080 and the Assyrians and the Egyptians and the Alliance of them on the other. 00:02:16.080 --> 00:02:20.400 And the Babylonians had utterly destroyed the Egyptians, and the Babylonians are now 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:27.360 the only show in town in terms of world power, military might, and cultural power as well. 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:33.719 And the thing with the Babylonians is that they wanted to use that might to take over 00:02:33.719 --> 00:02:34.719 the world. 00:02:34.719 --> 00:02:39.319 They wanted to be a world empire, and the way that they thought about that was that 00:02:39.319 --> 00:02:42.759 they spread by assimilating people. 00:02:42.759 --> 00:02:47.680 Some of you are old enough, or some of you are just nerdy enough to remember Star Trek, 00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:48.680 the next generation. 00:02:48.680 --> 00:02:53.639 Do you remember the Borg, if I'm addressing you as that kind of nerd? 00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:56.840 So this was in the science fiction series. 00:02:56.840 --> 00:03:00.479 It's a race of alien cyborgs who want to take over the galaxy. 00:03:00.479 --> 00:03:06.280 They fly around in their Borg cube, this big cube-shaped spaceship, and they assimilate. 00:03:06.280 --> 00:03:07.280 That's how they spread. 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:10.360 If they catch you, they make you one of them, and they plug you into their system. 00:03:10.360 --> 00:03:15.400 You lose your name, you lose where you've come from, and you are now part of the Borg. 00:03:15.400 --> 00:03:19.400 And if they catch you, if they suck your ship in with its tractor beam, the message that 00:03:19.400 --> 00:03:22.719 you receive is, we are Borg. 00:03:22.719 --> 00:03:24.360 Resistance is futile. 00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:27.120 You will be assimilated. 00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:31.120 The Babylonians were like the Borg of the ancient Near East. 00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:35.960 They come along, and they tell you very meaningfully, we are the Babylonians. 00:03:35.960 --> 00:03:40.719 You will be assimilated, and resistance is futile, because nobody has an army to match 00:03:40.719 --> 00:03:41.719 them. 00:03:41.719 --> 00:03:47.719 Now, the thing is, that's great news for you if you're from a small country, as the 00:03:47.719 --> 00:03:52.719 Babylonians are spreading out, and you want to be a Babylonian. 00:03:52.719 --> 00:04:02.600 If you like power, if you are drawn to money, if you are attracted to spectacular culture, 00:04:02.599 --> 00:04:07.280 then Babylon is also the only show in town in the world. 00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:11.799 Have you heard of the hanging gardens of Babylon in Edinburgh 2024? 00:04:11.799 --> 00:04:12.799 You have. 00:04:12.799 --> 00:04:13.799 They succeeded. 00:04:13.799 --> 00:04:16.639 They were so impressive in their own way. 00:04:16.639 --> 00:04:19.399 And for a lot of people, it's, I, assimilate me. 00:04:19.399 --> 00:04:20.439 Let me become one of you. 00:04:20.439 --> 00:04:24.680 This is an upgrade on the life that I have. 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:30.180 But the thing with Habakkuk is, that he didn't want to assimilate, because he doesn't want 00:04:30.180 --> 00:04:31.959 to become a Babylonian. 00:04:31.959 --> 00:04:36.079 That's not just, you know, that you now eat Babylonian food, that you take on a Babylonian 00:04:36.079 --> 00:04:37.079 name. 00:04:37.079 --> 00:04:41.799 It's that you now get plunked into the collective of the Babylonian gods, and their chief god, 00:04:41.799 --> 00:04:45.399 Marduk, and you start to live by Babylonian values. 00:04:45.399 --> 00:04:52.159 A culture that worships power, that worships wealth, that worships its own culture, a kind 00:04:52.159 --> 00:04:54.759 of consumer culture of all of those things. 00:04:54.759 --> 00:04:59.719 A culture that does not believe in forgiveness, a culture of vengeance, all of these things, 00:04:59.720 --> 00:05:05.040 a culture that enslaves people, literally. 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:11.160 So Habakkuk is a prophet in a small place where you can see the Babylonians coming. 00:05:11.160 --> 00:05:17.480 It's like the Borg tractor beam has already latched onto the Judean spaceship. 00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:22.960 And the message is, we are the Babylonians, you will be assimilated, resistance is futile. 00:05:22.960 --> 00:05:28.120 So it's terrible news if you are Habakkuk, because the Babylonians are coming. 00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:34.840 And he doesn't want to become one of them, because Habakkuk has a relationship with God, 00:05:34.840 --> 00:05:37.879 with the Lord, with the God of Israel. 00:05:37.879 --> 00:05:39.319 And that shapes how he lives. 00:05:39.319 --> 00:05:41.879 And it means that he doesn't want to become a Babylonian. 00:05:41.879 --> 00:05:44.360 He can't just unbelieve the things that he believes. 00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:47.840 He can't just become a different kind of person. 00:05:47.840 --> 00:05:51.160 He wants to be faithful to God. 00:05:51.160 --> 00:05:57.399 And all of that is about to make his life exceedingly difficult. 00:05:57.399 --> 00:06:06.759 So in chapter one, before the verses that we read, Habakkuk begins by praying over and 00:06:06.759 --> 00:06:09.439 over, how long, O Lord, why do you let this happen? 00:06:09.439 --> 00:06:12.399 Why do you sit by and do nothing? 00:06:12.399 --> 00:06:14.120 And God gives him a response. 00:06:14.120 --> 00:06:16.599 Okay, Habakkuk, here is my answer. 00:06:16.599 --> 00:06:22.079 And God begins by saying, you would not believe what I'm going to do even if I tell you. 00:06:22.079 --> 00:06:27.199 And then what comes next is, here's my plan for how I'm going to save you. 00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:29.759 I am raising up the Babylonians. 00:06:29.759 --> 00:06:31.639 I'm actually sending them to you. 00:06:31.639 --> 00:06:37.920 And here is my description of just how awful they are, and they're coming. 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:42.959 And that is the cliffhanger that we get to by verse 11, just before we come into where 00:06:42.959 --> 00:06:46.079 we're looking at the chapter tonight. 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:54.399 The cliffhanger is how on earth is God going to save Habakkuk by raising up the very people 00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:56.879 that Habakkuk is terrified of? 00:06:56.879 --> 00:07:02.839 Now will God save the world from evil by raising up this spectacularly evil empire and sending 00:07:02.839 --> 00:07:06.560 them to a righteous man like Habakkuk? 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:09.680 But that's the only answer that Habakkuk gets at this point. 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:13.680 This is what I'm doing, and like I said, you won't believe it even when I tell you. 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:20.920 Now if you have, if you've read more of the Bible than just the book of Habakkuk, you 00:07:20.920 --> 00:07:26.480 might actually see the cliffhanger differently to maybe how Habakkuk was feeling at the end 00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:28.439 of verse 11. 00:07:28.439 --> 00:07:33.680 Because Habakkuk happens in the same kind of context as the book of Daniel. 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:38.480 Also even if you're not a Christian, a well-known story thousands of years on, have you heard 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:40.400 of Daniel in the lines then? 00:07:40.400 --> 00:07:41.400 Probably. 00:07:41.400 --> 00:07:43.480 Daniel's friends in the fiery furnace. 00:07:43.480 --> 00:07:48.360 Also a tremendously impactful story across the ages. 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:52.640 So Daniel's in the same kind of context, and Daniel and his friends are people who are 00:07:52.639 --> 00:07:57.120 assimilated, who are, or there's an attempt at assimilation. 00:07:57.120 --> 00:08:01.479 The tractor beam sucks them in and takes them all the way to Babylon to be assimilated, 00:08:01.479 --> 00:08:06.000 to be processed, to be turned into Babylonians. 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:14.360 But what makes the book of Daniel so fascinating is that in Babylon, in the belly of the beast, 00:08:14.360 --> 00:08:19.719 they somehow manage, Daniel and his friends, to integrate but not assimilate. 00:08:19.720 --> 00:08:26.640 They manage to forge out lives in Babylon, but without being of Babylon. 00:08:26.640 --> 00:08:32.399 And the end of the book for Daniel, when he's in this kind of world that he just then lives 00:08:32.399 --> 00:08:35.080 in, this becomes his home to an extent. 00:08:35.080 --> 00:08:40.480 The end of the book of Babylon ends with a really spectacular long vision that Daniel 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:43.000 sees that God gives him. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:47.879 And it's a vision of the future, a vision of what God is going to do in this world for 00:08:47.879 --> 00:08:51.279 the Babylonians have been raised up by the hand of God. 00:08:51.279 --> 00:08:57.639 And in this vision, which is far longer than anything Habakkuk was told, what Daniel sees 00:08:57.639 --> 00:09:00.799 is that God raises up the Babylonians. 00:09:00.799 --> 00:09:06.039 But after the Babylonian Empire, another bigger empire comes. 00:09:06.039 --> 00:09:10.000 So you know the kind of image of a fish comes along and then a bigger fish swallows that 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:12.200 fish and then a bigger fish swallows that fish. 00:09:12.200 --> 00:09:14.360 It's kind of like that, but with empires. 00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:16.879 So the Babylonians, they come and they go. 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:17.879 There's a bigger empire. 00:09:17.879 --> 00:09:20.279 There's someone else who manages to take over much more of the world. 00:09:20.279 --> 00:09:23.899 And then eventually that's Alexander the Great and the Greeks. 00:09:23.899 --> 00:09:28.279 And then after that power sweeps over the world, there's a bigger power still and it's the 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:30.279 Roman Empire. 00:09:30.279 --> 00:09:36.519 And by the time you get to the end of Daniel's vision, the very last chapter is what God 00:09:36.519 --> 00:09:43.440 does at the very end of what God is planning to do, which is that God raises up a prince. 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:49.800 The prince is, it's called Michael, a Hebrew word that means who is like God. 00:09:49.800 --> 00:09:54.320 And he is the one who saves Daniel's people. 00:09:54.320 --> 00:09:57.600 And at the end of the book of Daniel, end of this vision, this prince, Michael, who is 00:09:57.600 --> 00:09:58.600 like God. 00:09:58.600 --> 00:10:03.400 He is the one who ends history, that whole process of empire is rising and falling. 00:10:03.400 --> 00:10:11.840 And he ends it through a day of resurrection and judgment. 00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:17.600 And Daniel sees all of this and his question to God is how long? 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:18.600 Okay? 00:10:18.600 --> 00:10:20.840 It's like the question of how the cook begins with when will this happen? 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:27.399 And he's been given this vision of history and a microcosm in the most spectacular grand 00:10:27.399 --> 00:10:29.720 terms. 00:10:29.720 --> 00:10:33.960 But what he's told is you don't need to know that. 00:10:33.960 --> 00:10:36.400 That's far above your pay grade. 00:10:36.400 --> 00:10:39.639 Now go back and live your life. 00:10:39.639 --> 00:10:41.639 Carry on where you are in Babylon. 00:10:41.639 --> 00:10:45.080 You know that everything will be okay. 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:50.360 So Daniel gets, he gets quite a lot when God shows him a vision of the way things are going. 00:10:50.360 --> 00:10:54.600 But Habakkuk only gets Act 1. 00:10:54.600 --> 00:10:55.879 Only gets, well, here's what I'm doing. 00:10:55.879 --> 00:10:59.720 I'm raising the Babylonians, but then God stops. 00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:05.039 He just gets the, you wouldn't believe it even if I told you. 00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:09.240 And you only hear the first part of what Daniel gets in the long form. 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:13.720 But so if you've read the book of Daniel, you might see the already, you might already 00:11:13.720 --> 00:11:17.519 start to see God's plan to have revealed to Habakkuk. 00:11:17.519 --> 00:11:21.720 You can see more, you can see further than Habakkuk could see at this point. 00:11:21.720 --> 00:11:25.360 But and that's if you've read more of the Old Testament, if you've read the New Testament 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:31.960 in the Bible, think about this, if you've read the book of Acts, in Acts 13, we have 00:11:31.960 --> 00:11:38.440 Paul, Paul is the unlikeliest convert to Christianity in the New Testament. 00:11:38.440 --> 00:11:39.440 He was Saul of Tarsus. 00:11:39.440 --> 00:11:45.200 He was a guy who went around arresting and killing Christians, but then becomes a Christian. 00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:53.560 And Paul slash Saul is preaching a sermon in Acts 13 in a place called Antioch. 00:11:53.560 --> 00:11:59.480 And in this sermon, he's explaining how and why Jesus is the fulfillment to everything 00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:02.680 that was promised in the Old Testament. 00:12:02.680 --> 00:12:05.960 And he's preaching it to people who don't believe it at first, and who think that his 00:12:05.960 --> 00:12:09.080 message is just madness. 00:12:09.080 --> 00:12:18.400 That the savior of the world was this homeless, wandering Judean, a carpenter, and nobody who 00:12:18.400 --> 00:12:25.160 died on a cross, crucified like a criminal, and that this was supposed to be God. 00:12:25.160 --> 00:12:28.240 So people who hear this and think that that's madness. 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:33.480 And do you know what verse he chooses to preach on when he's trying to explain that this really 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:35.080 is the truth to these people? 00:12:35.080 --> 00:12:40.320 He tells them, quotes the Old Testament, look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish. 00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:46.000 And then he quotes this verse, for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:49.600 not believe even if someone tells you. 00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:52.879 It's Habakkuk 1.5. 00:12:52.879 --> 00:12:59.520 So Paul knew that when God begins describing his plan to Habakkuk, with you won't believe 00:12:59.520 --> 00:13:04.920 this even when I tell you, the Babylonians are just the very first part of all that God 00:13:04.919 --> 00:13:05.919 is doing. 00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:10.599 They're not the sum total of God's solution to the evil in the world around us and the 00:13:10.599 --> 00:13:11.599 injustice. 00:13:11.599 --> 00:13:14.039 They're just the very first part. 00:13:14.039 --> 00:13:15.479 There are stepings though. 00:13:15.479 --> 00:13:21.679 And however terrifying they looked, they're a pawn in God's hand. 00:13:21.679 --> 00:13:28.559 But the most unbelievable thing about God's plan was that however mighty the Babylonians 00:13:28.559 --> 00:13:31.919 would be, they would lose out to a bigger empire, like the Greeks and the Greeks would 00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:35.199 lose out to a bigger empire still like the Romans. 00:13:35.199 --> 00:13:43.679 And all it would take to destroy their empire, to save the world, to change things forever 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:53.879 would be a baby in a manger, would be a refugee child, would be a carpenter who has no place 00:13:53.879 --> 00:13:56.079 to lay his head. 00:13:56.080 --> 00:14:03.960 And ultimately it would be one naked man with nails in his hands and feet dying on a cross, 00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:06.240 crucified like a criminal. 00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:11.920 And then one lifeless body laid in a tomb. 00:14:11.920 --> 00:14:15.639 That was what God was going to do. 00:14:15.639 --> 00:14:17.120 And Paul knew that. 00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:23.960 But the thing is Habakkuk was hearing this 600 years before Jesus came. 00:14:23.960 --> 00:14:27.200 And all he knew was that God was coming next. 00:14:27.200 --> 00:14:29.440 The Babylonians were coming. 00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:33.879 Their tractor beam had you in its sights. 00:14:33.879 --> 00:14:39.960 So the question then at the cliffhanger is what do you think Habakkuk is thinking? 00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:42.759 What's he about to say next? 00:14:42.759 --> 00:14:44.080 Based on all that he knows. 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:50.080 Now to a lot of people in our culture, the natural reaction, what would be instinctive 00:14:50.080 --> 00:14:56.520 to us, what would be intuitive to us would be just to walk away from whatever God this 00:14:56.520 --> 00:14:58.440 was. 00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:03.720 Because in our culture we tend to think like this, a lot of us, you know, God, I will continue 00:15:03.720 --> 00:15:05.280 to believe in you. 00:15:05.280 --> 00:15:09.080 I will associate with you if you are good for me. 00:15:09.080 --> 00:15:12.259 But you better answer me as I want or I won't believe in you anymore. 00:15:12.259 --> 00:15:15.200 You better make sense to me. 00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:21.759 Because in our culture the place for God that a lot of us have is that really, you know, 00:15:21.759 --> 00:15:24.520 I am the main character. 00:15:24.520 --> 00:15:29.000 And God has this important supporting role maybe, but it has to be on my terms. 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:33.160 And the moment that it doesn't fit into the tiny box that I think God should fit into 00:15:33.160 --> 00:15:36.879 then, well, goodbye God, I don't need you anymore. 00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:43.200 So we have tremendous confidence in our own ability to make sense of the world, to make 00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:44.360 sense of God. 00:15:44.360 --> 00:15:49.680 And we find it counterintuitive to think about a God whose plans for the world or plans 00:15:49.680 --> 00:15:54.200 for our own lives go so far beyond our ability to comprehend them. 00:15:54.200 --> 00:15:58.000 So far that he has to begin telling us you are actually not going to believe or understand 00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:00.399 this when I tell you. 00:16:00.399 --> 00:16:08.200 And we treat God as possible insofar as he fits within the way that we think possibility 00:16:08.200 --> 00:16:09.360 can happen. 00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:15.159 But to a lot of people though, and a lot of traditional religious cultures, non-western 00:16:15.159 --> 00:16:17.600 cultures, it's very different. 00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:23.120 And if that's you, you might come from a very different place where your intuition is probably 00:16:23.120 --> 00:16:26.960 more like God owes me no explanation. 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:29.480 I'm not that important. 00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:34.800 You don't question God, you just accept your fate. 00:16:34.800 --> 00:16:39.200 So if you're a westerner and you face impending disaster, it's probably more likely that 00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:45.400 your gut reaction is, God, I am too important to be in this position, and I deserve better 00:16:45.400 --> 00:16:47.759 from you than this. 00:16:47.759 --> 00:16:49.680 So you need to shape up or ship out. 00:16:49.680 --> 00:16:55.080 Or if you're from a lot of other traditional religious cultures beyond the West, you might 00:16:55.080 --> 00:16:57.520 assume that you as an individual are not that important. 00:16:57.520 --> 00:17:00.400 God owes you no explanations. 00:17:00.400 --> 00:17:06.279 So the right thing for you to do is just to submit, accept your fate. 00:17:06.279 --> 00:17:09.639 But the thing with Habakkuk is, which we're going to see, is that he doesn't do either 00:17:09.639 --> 00:17:10.720 of those things. 00:17:10.720 --> 00:17:14.839 He doesn't react like either. 00:17:14.839 --> 00:17:20.799 Now what I want to show you tonight is that Habakkuk responds to impending disaster, to 00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:25.720 realizing, I, right now, am in the worst imaginable of times. 00:17:25.720 --> 00:17:35.359 The way that he responds to that is by faithfully wrestling with God. 00:17:35.359 --> 00:17:43.679 And that is such an unusual combination, because to wrestle faithfully with God like this says 00:17:43.679 --> 00:17:52.439 to God, I am not going to walk away from you, but I'm also not going to let go of you. 00:17:52.439 --> 00:17:59.279 But I'm not passive in my relationship with you, but we have a relationship. 00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:00.759 And you're not a statue. 00:18:00.759 --> 00:18:02.279 You're the living God. 00:18:02.279 --> 00:18:03.279 You're not silent. 00:18:03.279 --> 00:18:04.919 You are the God who speaks. 00:18:04.920 --> 00:18:05.920 You're not unknowable. 00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:09.360 You're the God I know. 00:18:09.360 --> 00:18:14.400 So what does it look like when you have that combination of things, that kind of relationship 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:19.720 with God, and it looks like disaster has struck? 00:18:19.720 --> 00:18:24.800 What it looks like, we've seen Habakkuk is that you wrestle faithfully with God, not 00:18:24.800 --> 00:18:30.360 walking away from him, but also not just treating him like he's unknowable, like he doesn't 00:18:30.359 --> 00:18:36.039 care or he's not meant to care or he has no relationship with you. 00:18:36.039 --> 00:18:39.039 If you were here last weekend, you were really paying attention. 00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:42.919 That's what the kids call when they talk about films these days. 00:18:42.919 --> 00:18:47.000 There was an Easter egg for you at the start of the sermon if you're really paying attention. 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:51.119 So Easter eggs in films, I'm told, are when people put tiny little details in for the 00:18:51.119 --> 00:18:55.119 folk who really love watching details and really opens up the story. 00:18:55.119 --> 00:18:58.479 So there was an Easter egg at the start of the sermon last week. 00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:02.680 If you'll remember this if you were there, hopefully. 00:19:02.680 --> 00:19:06.400 I was saying at the start of last week's sermon that Habakkuk is really mysterious in lots 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:07.799 of ways. 00:19:07.799 --> 00:19:12.599 We know very little about him as a person, even to the point that we're not sure how 00:19:12.599 --> 00:19:13.599 to say his name. 00:19:13.599 --> 00:19:18.079 Some of us say Habakkuk, some of us say Habakkuk, people probably say other things, but we 00:19:18.079 --> 00:19:23.200 don't even know which language his name is. 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:27.279 If you have a really good memory last week, I said the two main theories are, it's a Hebrew 00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:34.920 name and it means embrace or it's an Akkadian name and it's the name of a plant. 00:19:34.920 --> 00:19:43.680 So there was a guy a long time ago, a commentator, a Bible translator called Jerome. 00:19:43.680 --> 00:19:48.759 He lived way back in the fourth century and he thought a lot about what words mean in 00:19:48.759 --> 00:19:52.279 the Bible and whose name is in which language and that kind of stuff. 00:19:52.279 --> 00:19:53.960 He was really into that. 00:19:53.960 --> 00:19:59.079 And he had this really thought provoking argument, let this settle in your mind, just in terms 00:19:59.079 --> 00:20:02.880 of thinking about what the sermon means for you and the kind of person that can direct 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:05.519 you to be. 00:20:05.519 --> 00:20:06.759 This was Jerome's argument. 00:20:06.759 --> 00:20:11.120 When you hear the word embrace, and there's this Hebrew word, it sounds like the name 00:20:11.120 --> 00:20:15.319 Habakkuk and it means embrace, maybe your first thought is, well, that's someone who 00:20:15.319 --> 00:20:18.360 gives you a hug, right, and then they let go. 00:20:18.360 --> 00:20:20.319 But this was Jerome's argument. 00:20:20.319 --> 00:20:22.519 That's not the only way to embrace someone. 00:20:22.519 --> 00:20:28.079 Even someone embraces you and it just carries on. 00:20:28.079 --> 00:20:32.960 And you start to squirm and you want to get out of the embrace but they just don't let 00:20:32.960 --> 00:20:34.359 go. 00:20:34.359 --> 00:20:39.799 Then you realize that the person who's embracing you, this is a particular kind of embrace, 00:20:39.799 --> 00:20:43.879 what do you call someone who just won't let go of you and who's trying to make sure that 00:20:43.879 --> 00:20:45.920 you just can't get away? 00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:57.240 Now, Jerome's description of Habakkuk was that he is a strong and unyielding wrestler. 00:20:57.240 --> 00:21:01.840 So you hear embrace, don't think someone who's just giving you a hug for five seconds. 00:21:01.840 --> 00:21:04.480 Think of someone who actually just will not let you go. 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:11.279 And that is what he is like to God, someone who's wrestling with God. 00:21:11.279 --> 00:21:17.440 So Jerome said that in the book of Habakkuk, it's even baked into the main character's 00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:19.039 name that he is a wrestler. 00:21:19.039 --> 00:21:22.879 That's what it means in Hebrew about a wrestler with God, someone who just will not let go 00:21:22.879 --> 00:21:29.680 of God, who has a tenacious grip, an unyielding grip, who won't let God get away. 00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:34.480 And when you start to see that, that's there in his name and that's how he relates to God 00:21:34.480 --> 00:21:36.599 in a moment of disaster. 00:21:36.599 --> 00:21:42.199 It starts to help us think about the kind of people that the gospel can make us in lives, 00:21:42.199 --> 00:21:44.519 in the kind of world that we live in. 00:21:44.519 --> 00:21:49.959 Not people who just turn their backs on God because God makes no sense, or people who 00:21:49.959 --> 00:21:54.879 submit very passively to God as though we have no real relationship with him. 00:21:54.879 --> 00:22:02.319 What you see in Habakkuk is a real relationship with God, not with fake platitudes, but a 00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:07.679 really authentic openness, a rawness of his soul, what that looks like to have that kind 00:22:07.679 --> 00:22:10.079 of relationship with God. 00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:14.359 So we're going to think about what that looks like for Habakkuk in the verses that we read. 00:22:14.359 --> 00:22:21.399 So chapter one, verse 12, down to verse one of chapter two, thinking about what it looks 00:22:21.399 --> 00:22:23.279 like to wrestle with God for Habakkuk. 00:22:23.279 --> 00:22:28.159 And the sermon just has two points to help us think about this. 00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:32.320 And they're both points of comparison that really help us get into what it looks like 00:22:32.320 --> 00:22:34.840 to wrestle faithfully with God. 00:22:34.840 --> 00:22:40.600 So the first one is that he wrestles with God by praying, and in the prayer he compares 00:22:40.600 --> 00:22:46.880 God, directly to God, he compares God to a Babylonian king. 00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:51.279 So there's a comparison between God and the alternative. 00:22:51.279 --> 00:22:56.560 And then towards the end of the section, these verses, Habakkuk compares himself to someone 00:22:56.559 --> 00:23:03.480 who's standing up at the top of a watch tower and waiting and keeping watch. 00:23:03.480 --> 00:23:07.279 So let's start off with the way that he compares himself, or the way that he compares God in 00:23:07.279 --> 00:23:10.359 his prayer to the Babylonian king. 00:23:10.359 --> 00:23:16.039 So at this point in the chapter, we're in verse 12, at this point, God has answered Habakkuk's 00:23:16.039 --> 00:23:22.119 first question, how long, oh Lord, until you do something about this world? 00:23:22.119 --> 00:23:25.519 God responds to that with, well, you're not going to believe it, but it's going to make 00:23:25.519 --> 00:23:29.400 no sense to you, but I'm raising up the Babylonians and they are on their way, I'm sending them 00:23:29.400 --> 00:23:30.400 to you. 00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:32.960 So what's Habakkuk's first response? 00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:40.839 Now it's probably very hard for us to imagine ourselves into what Habakkuk felt like at 00:23:40.839 --> 00:23:49.639 this moment, in part because the kind of desperation that he probably felt, well, he felt that 00:23:49.639 --> 00:23:52.400 in a very different world to ours. 00:23:52.400 --> 00:23:56.759 And that's probably just far into most of us in our experience, I guess. 00:23:56.759 --> 00:24:01.120 Like what's it like to live in the ancient Near East, in a tiny kingdom with a tiny military 00:24:01.120 --> 00:24:05.080 when you know that the world's greatest military might have just defeated everyone else, are 00:24:05.080 --> 00:24:06.080 coming? 00:24:06.080 --> 00:24:10.800 And they have this express plan to assimilate your people, to take all of your most promising 00:24:10.800 --> 00:24:14.960 young people and take them away to Babylon and change your religion and change your names 00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:17.240 and change your language. 00:24:17.240 --> 00:24:19.840 Probably hasn't happened to most of us, something like that. 00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:24.839 So it's hard for us culturally to imagine, but I think what makes it even harder for 00:24:24.839 --> 00:24:32.559 a lot of us to imagine ourselves into his position is that the way he responds to God 00:24:32.559 --> 00:24:40.839 in verse 12, superficially it looks wild and uncontrolled, but actually the way that he 00:24:40.839 --> 00:24:47.319 responds is the product of a tremendously secure relationship to God. 00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:53.399 Ezekiel verse 12, are you not from everlasting? 00:24:53.399 --> 00:24:56.240 This is a rhetorical question. 00:24:56.240 --> 00:25:01.359 If you know what a rhetorical question is, it's not the kind of question that you ask 00:25:01.359 --> 00:25:03.839 because you don't know the answer. 00:25:03.839 --> 00:25:07.559 Rhetorical question is a question you ask because you know the answer, but nobody's willing 00:25:07.559 --> 00:25:08.559 to say it. 00:25:08.559 --> 00:25:14.720 So you ask the question to force the person you're asking to come clean. 00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:18.839 You ask a rhetorical question for dramatic effect. 00:25:18.839 --> 00:25:23.559 You ask as a way to highlight that you know that the person knows the answer and you're 00:25:23.559 --> 00:25:26.200 trying to get them to say it. 00:25:26.200 --> 00:25:37.240 And if you're learning how to use rhetorical questions as a young human being, it's a thing 00:25:37.240 --> 00:25:42.839 you have to have a lot of care in doing because it's very easy to ask rhetorical questions 00:25:42.839 --> 00:25:50.079 in a way that just slips into cynicism and rudeness and arrogance and sarcasm as a way 00:25:50.079 --> 00:25:53.399 of pushing people around. 00:25:53.399 --> 00:25:59.559 So some commentators have said about Habakkuk, oh well, his rhetorical question is really 00:25:59.559 --> 00:26:01.879 directed towards himself. 00:26:01.879 --> 00:26:07.639 It's a way of him reminding himself, yes, yes, it will all be okay because I've reminded 00:26:07.639 --> 00:26:11.480 myself that God is eternal. 00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:15.319 But I don't think that's actually what's going on. 00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:22.319 Where Habakkuk is talking to God in a moment of utter desperation, and he manages to talk 00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:32.480 to God in a way that is utterly honest, that's real, but above all, it presupposes a relationship 00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:41.240 between the two of them that can sustain that kind of desperate honesty where Habakkuk 00:26:41.240 --> 00:26:47.120 is absolutely at the limits of his sanity, where it feels like his life is being torn 00:26:47.120 --> 00:26:53.240 apart at the seams and things are just clinging together. 00:26:53.240 --> 00:27:00.319 For God has told him, I will be your God, you will be my people, you are my sheep, I 00:27:00.319 --> 00:27:02.079 am your shepherd. 00:27:02.079 --> 00:27:09.240 But in that moment, Habakkuk is really struggling to feel like that God is being true to himself. 00:27:09.240 --> 00:27:12.920 He feels more like a lamb that's about to be slaughtered. 00:27:12.920 --> 00:27:17.039 And in effect, he's crying out, aren't you my good shepherd? 00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:18.200 Aren't you supposed to be good? 00:27:18.200 --> 00:27:22.440 Aren't you supposed to be infinite? 00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:27.920 But he doesn't, here's the thing, okay, so it looks wild superficially, looks rude, 00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:36.680 a human being saying this to God, but here's where it's not completely uncontrolled. 00:27:36.680 --> 00:27:46.240 It's a very desperate rhetorical question that doesn't quite slip into, I'm walking 00:27:46.240 --> 00:27:47.880 away from you. 00:27:47.880 --> 00:27:52.840 This is the thing that's implied that I'm waiting for you to say is, yes, I'm not those 00:27:52.840 --> 00:27:55.080 things and I failed you. 00:27:55.080 --> 00:28:00.960 He doesn't quite go there because of the way that he ends his rhetorical question. 00:28:00.960 --> 00:28:05.960 Look what he calls God, my holy one. 00:28:05.960 --> 00:28:13.360 So there is an astonishing kind of desperate frayed edge honesty and there's affection. 00:28:13.360 --> 00:28:22.759 Okay, this is what it looks like to wrestle faithfully with God. 00:28:22.759 --> 00:28:29.960 So here's the key thing that you need to grasp when we're asking, how do we learn from Habakkuk, 00:28:29.960 --> 00:28:32.360 what it means to wrestle faithfully with God in bad times? 00:28:32.359 --> 00:28:41.159 Well, on the one hand, Habakkuk challenges God bluntly, directly with all of the fragility 00:28:41.159 --> 00:28:48.599 of a human life that feels like it's about to tip over the edge, but on the other hand, 00:28:48.599 --> 00:28:54.759 not for a second do we see Habakkuk as someone who thinks about giving up on God or walking 00:28:54.759 --> 00:28:58.839 away or stopping praying, stopping serving God. 00:28:58.839 --> 00:29:06.119 Now, Habakkuk has a relationship with God that can do both of those things together, 00:29:06.119 --> 00:29:09.480 not an either or, but a both and. 00:29:09.480 --> 00:29:13.599 As I said before, some people in the world, a lot of people in the world from traditional 00:29:13.599 --> 00:29:17.799 religious communities, they believe in an almighty power, they believe in our God or 00:29:17.799 --> 00:29:23.119 God's and in a lot of those cultures, you just don't question God. 00:29:23.119 --> 00:29:24.839 Those gods don't have a relationship to you. 00:29:24.839 --> 00:29:28.799 There's no relationship to call on to say, why are you doing this? 00:29:28.799 --> 00:29:33.399 I don't we have a relationship, but they're also in our part of the world, there are lots 00:29:33.399 --> 00:29:38.319 of people, modern Western people who have this enormous confidence in themselves. 00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:43.359 And if we can't understand what God is doing, we don't believe in God as a consequence because 00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:47.960 we set our own standards for what's plausible about God. 00:29:47.960 --> 00:29:53.639 But what you see in the book of Habakkuk is that the gospel is different. 00:29:53.639 --> 00:29:56.519 Look at how Habakkuk is different. 00:29:56.519 --> 00:30:01.359 Now he both challenges God and couldn't in a million years imagine walking away from 00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:06.279 God and the gospel produces those two things together. 00:30:06.279 --> 00:30:11.639 That's the kind of relationship with God that it gives you, which you start to see. 00:30:11.639 --> 00:30:15.400 That's a fruit of the gospel that you see in bad times. 00:30:15.400 --> 00:30:16.599 Okay. 00:30:16.599 --> 00:30:20.799 Like that lump of coal that starts to become a diamond under pressure. 00:30:20.799 --> 00:30:25.160 The way that I've heard, once heard another preacher put this, that I thought was really 00:30:25.160 --> 00:30:32.400 thought provoking is that the position Habakkuk's in at this point is like he's saying to God, 00:30:32.400 --> 00:30:39.040 if I can't figure out life with you, how on earth will I figure it out without you? 00:30:39.040 --> 00:30:40.040 Where else can I go? 00:30:40.040 --> 00:30:41.880 You have the words of eternal life. 00:30:41.880 --> 00:30:48.600 So here I am praying like this, wrestling with you, holding onto you and not letting 00:30:48.600 --> 00:30:50.240 you go. 00:30:50.240 --> 00:30:57.839 So he shows us what it's like to wrestle faithfully, unconditionally with God. 00:30:57.839 --> 00:31:02.039 And the way that he does that is in a prayer where he talks to God about what God is supposed 00:31:02.039 --> 00:31:06.359 to be like and where he compares God with the Babylonian King. 00:31:06.359 --> 00:31:12.680 So you see this in verses 13 to 17, wherein his prayer, he starts off saying, God, you 00:31:12.680 --> 00:31:14.240 are pure. 00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:15.240 You are perfect. 00:31:15.240 --> 00:31:17.839 Your eyes cannot look at an evil. 00:31:17.839 --> 00:31:21.359 They cannot look upon iniquity. 00:31:21.359 --> 00:31:26.959 So why are you looking idly at evildoers? 00:31:26.959 --> 00:31:27.959 You are good. 00:31:27.959 --> 00:31:34.399 But as the prayer goes on, he says, you created a world of people who ignore you. 00:31:34.399 --> 00:31:35.759 They don't treat you as their ruler. 00:31:35.759 --> 00:31:37.959 They live in chaos. 00:31:37.959 --> 00:31:40.399 Why? 00:31:40.399 --> 00:31:42.319 So that's the effect of verse 14. 00:31:42.319 --> 00:31:47.559 But then he moves into his comparison, where he starts off the comparison by saying, God, 00:31:47.559 --> 00:31:51.559 you create people and they're like fish in the sea. 00:31:51.559 --> 00:31:55.919 There is numerous as the fish of the sea, but the King of Babylon is like an evil fisher 00:31:55.919 --> 00:32:02.319 of men who comes along with a net and he takes the people you've created and he catches them 00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:03.839 and he devours them. 00:32:03.839 --> 00:32:05.960 And now he thinks they are his. 00:32:05.960 --> 00:32:13.480 If you read more of the Bible, is this starting to ring some bells with how Jesus describes 00:32:13.480 --> 00:32:16.119 and sends out his followers in the New Testament? 00:32:16.119 --> 00:32:20.519 I am making you fishers of men. 00:32:20.519 --> 00:32:24.679 But in Habakkuk, you see Habakkuk's prayer says that the Babylonian King is the evil 00:32:24.679 --> 00:32:26.199 fisher of men. 00:32:26.199 --> 00:32:28.079 He's out there to catch humans. 00:32:28.079 --> 00:32:32.279 And when he catches them, he doesn't think of you and the prayer. 00:32:32.279 --> 00:32:35.839 This King of Babylon doesn't worship you. 00:32:35.839 --> 00:32:36.839 Look at what he worships. 00:32:36.839 --> 00:32:39.399 He worships the net that he catches them in. 00:32:39.399 --> 00:32:44.239 He worships his own empire. 00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:46.799 And he treats his net as though it were a God. 00:32:46.799 --> 00:32:47.920 He sacrifices to it. 00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:53.279 He doesn't think about you, my Lord, my Holy One. 00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:57.880 Look at verse 16. 00:32:57.880 --> 00:33:02.279 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet. 00:33:02.279 --> 00:33:07.240 And this is where Habakkuk starts to pray about what the King of, why does the King 00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:11.279 of Babylon want to assimilate all of these people? 00:33:11.279 --> 00:33:16.519 Or by them, he lives in luxury. 00:33:16.519 --> 00:33:19.960 And his food is rich. 00:33:19.960 --> 00:33:28.639 If you wanted to find the best food from any part of the world in Habakkuk's day, you better 00:33:28.639 --> 00:33:31.839 get the Michelin guide out and go to Babylon. 00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:33.440 Because it's this world city. 00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:35.440 It sucks in people from everywhere. 00:33:35.440 --> 00:33:38.920 And it wants to have the very best of everything. 00:33:38.920 --> 00:33:42.759 But there's an underbelly to all of that. 00:33:42.759 --> 00:33:54.680 That it's this rapacious world empire that devours people, that enslaves the world. 00:33:54.680 --> 00:34:01.000 So this, when he prays and he compares God to this Babylonian king, the people the Babylonian 00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:04.920 king conquers, he conquers because he wants to be rich. 00:34:04.920 --> 00:34:07.840 He sits at the very top of the pyramid. 00:34:07.839 --> 00:34:17.199 The apex predator, the richest man in the world by oppressing the world. 00:34:17.199 --> 00:34:20.759 And he never thinks of you, my holy one. 00:34:20.759 --> 00:34:22.480 He habakkuk prays. 00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:26.759 And then he picks up again, what he prayed, as we saw last week, picks up the how long, 00:34:26.759 --> 00:34:28.639 oh Lord, prayer. 00:34:28.639 --> 00:34:33.960 You, God who are supposed to be holy and just and eternal, how long will you let him do 00:34:33.960 --> 00:34:38.119 this to the world, your world? 00:34:38.119 --> 00:34:44.639 It's quite a prayer to say this to God, to be able to hold these things together, to 00:34:44.639 --> 00:34:53.960 be so desperately, humanly honest and not to let go of God. 00:34:53.960 --> 00:34:58.199 And people like that are, in this world, are rare. 00:34:58.199 --> 00:35:04.639 You can only relate to God like that, if you know both God's holiness and God's grace. 00:35:04.639 --> 00:35:11.279 If you know the grace of God, it gives you the freedom to be real in your desperation, 00:35:11.279 --> 00:35:16.960 rather than having to sort of live within preset categories that, that meet in the soul 00:35:16.960 --> 00:35:19.279 up for you like, I walk away. 00:35:19.279 --> 00:35:23.879 Or I pretend to be happy even though I'm in the worst of times or, well, I don't have 00:35:23.879 --> 00:35:25.359 a relationship with God anyway. 00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:30.160 So He doesn't have an answer for me. 00:35:30.160 --> 00:35:32.079 So that's his first comparison. 00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:36.880 And then the second comparison, then in chapter two and verse one, is where he compares himself 00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:40.160 to a watchman on a watchtower. 00:35:40.160 --> 00:35:46.680 Now, city is in the part of the world that he lived in at that time, surrounded by a 00:35:46.680 --> 00:35:47.680 wall. 00:35:47.680 --> 00:35:48.680 And that wall needs watchtowers. 00:35:48.680 --> 00:35:52.160 So if you're doing your duty on the watchtower, you know, you're high up, you can see far 00:35:52.160 --> 00:35:53.160 into the distance. 00:35:53.159 --> 00:35:55.599 So you can see, is there a dust storm coming? 00:35:55.599 --> 00:35:58.719 Are there enemies coming? 00:35:58.719 --> 00:36:00.599 Invading armies, all that kind of stuff. 00:36:00.599 --> 00:36:07.920 Now, if this is your job, you're the watchman on the watchtower, is that a busy job? 00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:15.119 Well, you're probably not going to get your 10,000 steps in once you've climbed up the 00:36:15.119 --> 00:36:17.000 stairs, because you're in this enclosed space. 00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:22.719 And probably most days, there's not a lot for you to see at one level. 00:36:22.719 --> 00:36:25.439 Not a lot to show for what you've been doing. 00:36:25.439 --> 00:36:27.239 But is it a busy job? 00:36:27.239 --> 00:36:30.759 Well, even on the days when it looks like nothing is happening. 00:36:30.759 --> 00:36:33.919 Absolutely, it's a busy job. 00:36:33.919 --> 00:36:38.599 You're busy doing a very particular thing, and that is waiting. 00:36:38.599 --> 00:36:44.639 Your eyes are always scanning the distance, and your focus is always taken up with something, 00:36:44.639 --> 00:36:46.319 either what's happening or what's not happening. 00:36:46.319 --> 00:36:47.319 Right? 00:36:47.319 --> 00:36:48.319 But you are watching and waiting. 00:36:48.320 --> 00:36:57.400 Now, maybe a lot of us imagine waiting as waiting around, not really doing anything. 00:36:57.400 --> 00:37:00.160 Tell that to someone whose job is waiting tables. 00:37:00.160 --> 00:37:03.760 It's a waitress. 00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:09.280 They do the opposite of waiting around as they wait upon people, constantly serving, constantly 00:37:09.280 --> 00:37:11.240 focusing on the needs of others. 00:37:11.240 --> 00:37:17.640 And it's in a sense like that, that the Bible tells us repeatedly to wait on the Lord, like 00:37:17.639 --> 00:37:19.319 a watchman who waits. 00:37:19.319 --> 00:37:22.839 You know the expression to lie in wait of something? 00:37:22.839 --> 00:37:27.440 Even when you're not doing something, you are doing something because you're focused 00:37:27.440 --> 00:37:33.639 on something that is going to happen, and you are always making sure that you're ready 00:37:33.639 --> 00:37:36.480 for it when it does. 00:37:36.480 --> 00:37:41.960 So in that sense, the New Testament tells us to wait on the return of Jesus. 00:37:41.960 --> 00:37:47.519 He'll come, and he'll make all the sad things come untrue, and he'll change the world forever. 00:37:47.519 --> 00:37:53.400 And take away all injustice and evil and sin and oppression, and he'll wipe away every 00:37:53.400 --> 00:37:55.800 tear from our eyes. 00:37:55.800 --> 00:38:00.920 But now we lie in wait of that. 00:38:00.920 --> 00:38:04.840 And there's also that other sense of waiting then. 00:38:04.840 --> 00:38:09.119 We do so waiting on others, serving, being attentive to the needs of others. 00:38:09.119 --> 00:38:15.199 The way that Jesus tells us to wait on him, serving him by serving others, knowing that 00:38:15.199 --> 00:38:19.559 when he comes, he will serve us at a great feast. 00:38:19.559 --> 00:38:21.159 So what does that all look like? 00:38:21.159 --> 00:38:23.319 We take this back to Habakkuk himself. 00:38:23.319 --> 00:38:29.000 As he imagines, he compares himself to someone who climbs up to the top of the watch tower 00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:32.119 to look, to wait. 00:38:32.119 --> 00:38:38.759 Well notice this, that with impending doom, he doesn't freak out. 00:38:38.759 --> 00:38:42.879 Habakkuk doesn't panic. 00:38:42.880 --> 00:38:46.599 He imagines himself instead as somebody who climbs up the watch tower, somebody who is 00:38:46.599 --> 00:38:48.800 looking for a bigger perspective. 00:38:48.800 --> 00:38:53.320 That's why you go to the top of the watch tower. 00:38:53.320 --> 00:38:57.079 And he doesn't plan to be there for five minutes, looking for this bigger perspective on what 00:38:57.079 --> 00:38:58.079 God is doing. 00:38:58.079 --> 00:39:04.880 Instead, he says, I stationed myself there, and I'm there for the long haul. 00:39:04.880 --> 00:39:09.559 And the funny thing is though, in Habakkuk's world, if you think about it like this, normally 00:39:09.559 --> 00:39:11.599 why do you go up on the watch tower? 00:39:11.599 --> 00:39:14.839 You go up to keep an eye out for the enemy, right? 00:39:14.839 --> 00:39:19.119 This is your Scythe's security, your defense. 00:39:19.119 --> 00:39:24.759 But Habakkuk climbs the watch tower because he actually wants God's bigger picture, God's 00:39:24.759 --> 00:39:25.759 larger perspective. 00:39:25.759 --> 00:39:32.039 And he's there waiting for God's reply because I think deep down Habakkuk knows that when 00:39:32.039 --> 00:39:34.960 God started off by telling him, you know, you're not even going to believe it when I 00:39:34.960 --> 00:39:39.279 tell you, I'm raising the Babylonians. 00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:43.880 I think deep down Habakkuk knows, well, that can only be the start of God's plan. 00:39:43.880 --> 00:39:47.400 That can't be the total of it. 00:39:47.400 --> 00:39:51.360 So it has to be part of something bigger. 00:39:51.360 --> 00:39:59.280 So in Habakkuk's faithful wrestling with God, he's, by going up to the top of the watch 00:39:59.280 --> 00:40:04.780 tower in his mind, what he's doing is he's asking God, keep talking. 00:40:04.780 --> 00:40:05.880 Keep on telling me your plan. 00:40:05.880 --> 00:40:10.440 I won't let go of you until you tell me, until you bless me by telling me what you're doing 00:40:10.440 --> 00:40:13.200 in this world. 00:40:13.200 --> 00:40:18.039 Imagine this, imagine how differently you'd make sense of a battle if you were right in 00:40:18.039 --> 00:40:19.559 the middle of it, in the thick of it. 00:40:19.559 --> 00:40:22.320 You've got no time to think. 00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:25.320 You're only really aware of what's happening immediately around you. 00:40:25.320 --> 00:40:27.440 You're always reactive. 00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:30.320 Imagine how differently you would think of that battle if you were in a helicopter looking 00:40:30.320 --> 00:40:32.119 down over it. 00:40:32.119 --> 00:40:36.279 You see the same thing completely differently, right? 00:40:36.279 --> 00:40:40.799 And that's what Habakkuk wants from God. 00:40:40.799 --> 00:40:46.679 So what Habakkuk wants is actually the birds eye view that Daniel got, but that Habakkuk 00:40:46.679 --> 00:40:48.679 didn't, hadn't got yet. 00:40:48.679 --> 00:40:49.679 Okay. 00:40:49.679 --> 00:40:50.679 I'm up in the watch tower. 00:40:50.679 --> 00:40:51.679 Show me. 00:40:51.679 --> 00:40:52.679 There has to be more than this. 00:40:52.679 --> 00:40:55.359 And because of who you are, I know that there must be. 00:40:55.359 --> 00:40:56.359 So show me. 00:40:56.359 --> 00:40:58.279 I'm wrestling with you. 00:40:58.279 --> 00:41:01.079 Now, this is where we're going to stop tonight. 00:41:01.079 --> 00:41:06.480 But when I say this in closing, that Habakkuk climbs up to the top of the watch tower, so 00:41:06.480 --> 00:41:07.480 to speak. 00:41:07.480 --> 00:41:09.400 He asked God, keep on talking. 00:41:09.400 --> 00:41:11.039 Share your wisdom with me. 00:41:11.039 --> 00:41:14.000 Tell me what you're doing. 00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:17.199 But God doesn't give him that whole plan. 00:41:17.199 --> 00:41:22.079 In part, I think, because God wants to teach Habakkuk, knowing Habakkuk himself, he wants 00:41:22.079 --> 00:41:25.599 to teach him how to flourish in the worst of times. 00:41:25.599 --> 00:41:31.119 So what God does first, before giving him any bigger picture, is that God gives him a 00:41:31.119 --> 00:41:33.519 way to live, a principle to live by. 00:41:33.519 --> 00:41:38.960 And that's what we're going to look at next week, which is the just shall live by faith. 00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:43.279 Before God gives him a bigger plan or anything like that, he tells him how to live. 00:41:43.279 --> 00:41:45.000 And that's really important. 00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:46.319 And that's what we're going to look at next week. 00:41:46.319 --> 00:41:52.079 In this world of evil and injustice and the worst of times, which is Habakkuk isn't going 00:41:52.079 --> 00:41:54.400 to be walking the face of the earth in 600 years. 00:41:54.400 --> 00:41:58.320 He is in Babylon, or the Babylonians are coming now, and he needs to be taught by God how 00:41:58.320 --> 00:41:59.559 to live now. 00:41:59.559 --> 00:42:00.559 So that's what God does first. 00:42:00.559 --> 00:42:03.360 We'll see that next week. 00:42:03.360 --> 00:42:08.680 And after that, then God goes on to talk about, you think you know that the Babylonians are 00:42:08.680 --> 00:42:11.720 bad, wait till you hear my diagnosis. 00:42:11.720 --> 00:42:15.320 So then after having told him that you need to live by faith as a just person in this 00:42:15.320 --> 00:42:20.280 unjust world, then after that, God shows him his perspective on what's there, what's coming 00:42:20.280 --> 00:42:24.240 immediately. 00:42:24.239 --> 00:42:29.959 And then after that, God talks about how having raised up the Babylonians, Babylon the Great 00:42:29.959 --> 00:42:30.959 War fall. 00:42:30.959 --> 00:42:34.319 So it won't be a kingdom that will last forever. 00:42:34.319 --> 00:42:38.839 Habakkuk who hasn't freaked out yet doesn't need to freak out as it goes on. 00:42:38.839 --> 00:42:42.519 And what you're going to see in the book of Habakkuk in the next few sermons is that for 00:42:42.519 --> 00:42:44.119 Habakkuk, that's enough. 00:42:44.119 --> 00:42:46.759 He doesn't need the whole picture that Daniel gets. 00:42:46.759 --> 00:42:49.359 Instead, Habakkuk, the book ends in chapter three. 00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:54.400 So a few verses on from where we are tonight with a psalm of praise with Habakkuk saying, 00:42:54.400 --> 00:42:59.400 yes, I can, even if things are absolutely awful in my life right here, right now, I 00:42:59.400 --> 00:43:04.599 can rejoice in God, even if things fall apart. 00:43:04.599 --> 00:43:08.640 So that's how we're going to move through the rest of the book over the next three 00:43:08.640 --> 00:43:09.640 weeks. 00:43:09.640 --> 00:43:14.640 Next week on why you need to know what it means to live by faith as a just person in 00:43:14.640 --> 00:43:16.280 this world. 00:43:16.280 --> 00:43:23.160 Then how God sees this world and then how to let the best of times seep into the worst 00:43:23.160 --> 00:43:25.440 of times in your life as a Christian. 00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:26.440 Amen. 00:43:26.440 --> 00:43:28.960 Let's pray briefly. 00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:37.080 Our Lord, our God, we are humbled before you when we think of Habakkuk, the rawness, the 00:43:37.080 --> 00:43:44.280 honesty, the commitment that he had to you in being able to wrestle with you faithfully. 00:43:44.280 --> 00:43:49.880 We thank you that in all of that, he points us to Jesus Christ as the one who fulfilled 00:43:49.880 --> 00:43:58.000 Habakkuk and who was the answer to your every promise, the thing that we wouldn't believe, 00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:03.360 even if you had told us first, that by sending your own eternal Son into the world to become 00:44:03.360 --> 00:44:09.680 flesh, to live among us, to die for us, to be raised to life again, that you would make 00:44:09.680 --> 00:44:11.360 all things new. 00:44:11.360 --> 00:44:16.400 So strengthen us in our faith, in our love, in our hope because of the good news, because 00:44:16.400 --> 00:44:20.480 of the gospel revealed to us even in the book of Habakkuk. 00:44:20.480 --> 00:44:22.000 We pray this in Jesus' name. 00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:41.559 Amen.