Trusting God in Troubled Times.
This is the title of the sermon series we've been in, in the book of Habakkuk.
And we want to, we're going to wrap it up today.
Matt Saracen, your answer, your wish is going to be fulfilled.
Next week we're going to begin a series in the book of Revelation.
So if you want to read ahead, that's what we're doing.
We'll be looking at the first couple of chapters between now and the end of the year.
And then we'll come back in January and do the bulk of the book after January, or after Christmas.
So, but as we wrap up Habakkuk, trusting God in troubled times.
And if you haven't been here before, I just want to recap.
The troubled times that Habakkuk was facing were pretty dire, right?
First, the unrighteous were wreaking havoc in God's own people, their own leadership.
was corrupt and was oppressing people.
And so Habakkuk begins the book by crying out to God,
God, please do something.
Please act.
Respond.
Bring your righteousness to bear on this.
And God says, I will.
But it's going to be harsh.
It's going to be pretty severe.
This unrighteousness won't last forever.
I'm going to bring Babylon to bring judgment on the people.
And so then the second part of Habakkuk is him saying, okay, that's good.
But God, how can you use an unrighteous instrument like Babylon to judge your own people?
This doesn't make any sense.
And God responds by saying, though it might look like they're winning now, they won't win forever.
Unrighteousness will not win in any case.
I am a just God, and I will respond to evil.
And the righteous shall live by faith.
And that's what Pastor Nick talked to us last week about.
And before we go on and look at Habakkuk 3, I just want to stop and think about the troubles.
I don't know what kind of troubled times you may be facing this morning.
My guess is they're feeling fairly unlike the ones that Habakkuk used.
Maybe not.
Certainly we have faced our own share of troubles in this day.
I don't even need to list them.
Pandemic, social strife and unrest, wars in the world, political conflict, racism, sex trafficking, opium crisis, economic uncertainty, and more and more and more.
And that's on the global scale.
And then on a personal scale, as I look around the room, I know many of you have had your own troubled times.
Whether they be health crises, relational breakdowns, loss of security, various kinds, jobs, money, hopes and dreams dashed.
You've had your own troubled times.
How do we face those?
This is what Habakkuk 3 tells us.
How do we face these troubled times?
And in it, there is a beautiful expression.
You'll see when we get to verse 18, it's a verse you've heard many times.
But my hope is that you'll see it in the context of the whole book of Habakkuk to see how precious and beautiful it is as he expresses trust in God in the midst of troubled times.
So, if you want to turn with me to the book of Habakkuk, in the Pew Bibles, it's page 738 is where we're going to be.
We're going to be looking at Habakkuk chapter 3 today.
So, I need to find it as well.
There it is.
Okay.
Habakkuk chapter 3.
We're going to read and then we're going to pray and then we'll look at it for a few minutes together.
A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, according to Shigionath.
O Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work, O Lord, do I fear.
In the midst of the years, revive it.
In the midst of the years, make it known.
In wrath, remember mercy.
God came from Teman and the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His splendor covered the heavens and the earth was full of his praise.
His brightness was like the light, rays flashed from his hand and there he veiled his power.
Before him went pestilence and plague followed at his heels.
He stood and measured the earth.
He looked and shook the nations.
Then the eternal mountains were scattered.
The everlasting hills sank low.
His were the everlasting ways.
I saw the tents of Kushan in affliction.
The curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.
Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord?
Was your anger against the rivers or your indignation against the sea when you rode on your horses or your chariots of salvation?
You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows.
You split the earth with rivers.
The mountains saw you and writhed.
The raging waters swept on.
The deep gave forth its voice.
It lifted its hands on high.
The sun and moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped,
at the flash of your glittering spear.
You marched through the earth in fury.
You threshed the nations in anger.
You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed.
You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck.
You pierced with his own arrows the head of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me.
Rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret, you trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters.
I hear and my body trembles.
My lips quiver at the sound.
Rottenness enters into my bones.
My legs tremble beneath me.
Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food.
The flocks be cut off from the field, and there be no herd in the stalls.
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength.
He makes my feet like the deer's.
He makes me to tread on my high places.
This is to the choir master with stringed instruments.
Let's pray together.
God, we thank you for this word.
We thank you that you have spoken in various times, in various ways, Lord, through history, through people.
And yet, Lord, in all of these things, you present a consistent witness of who you are and what you are doing in this world, so that we might know you.
So we might not have to grasp or imagine or conjecture, but so that we might be able to read your word and know the kind of God you are.
Lord, be with us this morning as we read through this.
We pray that you will help us to understand it.
Lord, give us clarity of thought.
Give us tenderness of heart.
Lord, give us willingness of spirit to receive your word.
Lord, I ask for your help that you would help me this morning to speak your word as I ought.
Lord, we pray these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So we've talked about troubled times.
And what I want to present to you this morning is this hypothesis or this.
This is my thesis today.
That knowing God is the most important thing as you face troubled times.
Knowing God is the most important thing facing troubled times.
I think this is what Habakkuk wants us to see.
So as we're going to look at this, the passage breaks down into kind of two sections.
The first is, what did Habakkuk know about God?
And then secondly, how did Habakkuk respond in light of what he knew about God?
How is it that his knowledge of God helped him in troubled times?
So this is what we're going to look at this morning, if you're taking your notes.
So our first point then, what did Habakkuk know about God?
This is the first 15 chapters of this.
And we just want to note at the very beginning,
this chapter is unlike the other two.
The other two felt like prophetic oracles.
It was a conversation between Habakkuk and God.
Then we get to this one and suddenly the form changes.
This actually feels and looks like a psalm.
And in fact, it's not.
And it says in verse 1 that it's a prayer,
that this is a prayer of Habakkuk to God,
responding to what he's heard and seen in the first two chapters.
It's also a song because you see the musical notations,
you see the final comment.
So we want to think about this as a response that Habakkuk is embodying himself personally
and helping us to embody as well.
So what does he know about God?
Verse 2 says,
I have heard the report and your work, O Lord, do I fear.
Now he does not then expound specifically on this,
but I just want to remind us,
what is the report that Habakkuk would know of the works of God in the world?
If he went back and he read the books of Moses,
if he went back and he looked at the stories,
what would he remember?
He would remember things like,
God is a God who has delivered his people from slavery to a greater nation, Egypt.
God worked powerfully through plagues and through parting the Red Sea
and overcoming armies greater than they could have defeated on their own
in order to deliver and to save his people from that slavery.
And then he led them through the wilderness.
And in that wilderness, he revealed himself.
Remember, he revealed himself on Mount Sinai.
And he came with thunder and lightning and trembling and earthquakes on the mountain
as he revealed himself to Moses and gave the Ten Commandments and much more of the law.
Remember, during that time as well,
he defeated the enemies that sought to block God's people,
the kings of Sihon and Og, if you remember these.
But then he also judged his own people when they failed him,
whether it be the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai
or whether it be other times when they grumbled and complained and said,
God, you're not going to provide.
And he brought judgment to purify them and to help them see
that they were, that he was a God who was going to care for them.
And then finally, we would know that Habakkuk would remember
that at the end of the wandering in the wilderness,
then God brought them up into the promised land.
He literally stopped the Jordan River so that the million of people plus could cross the Jordan River
into the promised land.
And then he gave them favor and power to overcome the enemies,
sometimes through military might,
but more often through miraculous ways where God showed his power to defeat the enemies of God's people.
And through all of this story, Habakkuk would remember that the God that he knows is a God
who triumphs over his enemies and who has power over creation.
And this is what Habakkuk 3 through 15 shows us.
Look with me at it.
It talks about how he is triumphing over his enemies.
There are historical references.
Timon and Mount Paran are on the Sinai Peninsula.
The tents of Cushion and Midian are people who lived in the Arabic countries to the southeast of Israel.
And these were people who God's, Israel had to go through on their way to the promised land.
So he's reminding them, I have brought you victory over these things.
And then as Habakkuk continues to talk about God, he talks about them in military images.
These pictures of power and might riding on chariots and horses, trampling them,
unsheathing bows and arrows and piercing them with arrows.
He uses his image in verse 12 of threshing the nations.
Now, I don't know, has anyone ever seen threshing actually happen?
Yeah, Scott has.
So it doesn't happen very often.
Threshing is when you gather sheaves of grain and you put them on a hard surface.
And then those sheaves of grain are beaten in various ways, right?
And it might be with a hard stick or it might be oxen dragging these humongous blocks that are weighty.
And they just roll this stuff over these sheaves of grain.
And the purpose is to break down and separate out the good from the bad.
The stalks, the husks, all those things.
Maybe they have other uses, but what's really wanted in the grain is the kernel.
And so the threshing separates these things out.
And Habakkuk remembers, God has done this with his enemies.
God has done this with the peoples of the earth.
He is going to bring this judgment and power to separate out, to sort out God's people from those who would oppose him.
In all these things, God shows his power over his unrighteous opponents.
But he doesn't just say that in this section.
He also talks about his power over natural forces.
Verse 3 is this picture of his radiance, which is like the sun and the moon.
Verse 4 talks about brightness was his power.
As you keep going through the two immovable powers in the ancient world.
And even today, if you think about it, the mountains and the water, right?
We've learned a lot about how water is unstoppable.
When it rains too much, floods happen.
When the hurricanes blow the sea onto the shore, there is nothing that stops these powers.
And yet, what it says here is these things are laid low.
The eternal mountains are laid low by the coming of God, making a way for his people.
The rivers and the seas that he showed his power over, he trampled them with their horses.
It says, verse 10 says,
The mountains writhed and the raging waters convulsed at the coming of God.
Now, what you may not think about is that in the world that Habakkuk lived,
those around him, the Canaanites, the Babylonians,
they all had gods connected to these earthly features.
And they would worship these gods, and they would try to appease these gods
so that the mountain might not fall on them, or so that the floods might not come,
or so that the rain would fall.
And all of Habakkuk's imagery is to remind Habakkuk and his people
that God is a God who is above all other gods.
All of these small G gods, the God of the river, and the God of the sea,
and the God of the mountain, the God of the harvest, whatever it is,
they are nothing compared to the God of the Bible
who says, I have power over all of these things,
and they quake in my presence.
Nations threaten you, I will defeat them.
Nations that exile you, I will overcome them.
The forces that you think are beyond your control,
they are beyond your control,
but I will control them.
I will hold them.
And God comes in the midst of it,
and he reminds them in verse 8 and verse 13
that he is the God who is able to deliver his people from these threats.
He is able to save them for his glory.
Friends, I wonder,
do you believe what Habakkuk has seen about God?
Do you believe that God actually has power
over the greatest enemy that you face in your life today?
Whether it be the external forces of society,
whether it be individual people who actually hate you
or oppose you for your faith,
whether it be the forces of unrighteousness in your own heart,
do you believe that God is greater than these things?
Do you believe that when trouble comes upon you,
that God is not out of control or unable,
but that he is still a God who is strong enough
to do all of these things?
Friends, here's the amazing thing about Habakkuk.
He knew these things from Revelation that God gave him.
He knew these things from the history of what God had done in Israel.
But we as a church sit on the other side
of the greatest victory in all of human history.
Because the Son of God took on human flesh
and entered into this broken world
so that he might ultimately be the true deliverer
from our greatest enemies,
which are not the forces of society,
but are ultimately sin and death.
And Jesus came and he went to the cross.
And do you remember what the gospel writers say
about what happened at the cross?
When Jesus died, the earth quaked
and the sky went dark.
Even the creation convulsed at this work of victory.
Because it wasn't just that Jesus died,
but then that he rose again from the dead
to show that he had power over sin and death.
So that we might say as Christians,
there is no weapon formed against us.
There is no enemy.
There is no power in our world
that can overcome God, our Savior.
He has overcome them for us,
ultimately, truly, fully.
Jesus comes to us today and he says,
I am the victorious one.
When you join with me by faith,
remember that in the resurrection,
the victory is already won.
And friends, isn't this exciting?
We're going to preach on revelation.
And by next spring,
you're going to be so amazed
at how many ways God is reminding us
that at the end,
his kingdom will be forever.
What we just sang,
that God's kingdom will be the one
that will stand when all other things fall.
He will bring righteousness and judgment
and justice to the world
and he will save his people
to be with him in his kingdom forever.
And this is the God we need to see
in times of trouble.
This is the God that Habakkuk saw
in the sixth century BC.
And when he saw him,
he responded.
And this is what the second half
of this passage shows us.
How did Habakkuk respond to trouble
in light of what he knew about God?
Well, I think there are three things.
There are actually six,
but I'm going to try to combine them
because this is an incredibly rich passage.
And verse two has tons of stuff
that I'm kind of just skipping over.
I'm just going to admit that.
Come talk to me afterwards
if you want to talk about it.
Three ways in which Habakkuk responded
in light of what he knew about God.
First, verse 16.
I hear and my body trembles.
My lips quiver at the sound.
Rottenness enters into my bones.
My legs tremble beneath me.
Have you ever been
in the presence of a power
that's so great
that it literally makes you
quiver and shake?
The closest thing I can think of
is a natural power.
If you ever go to Niagara Falls,
I highly recommend taking the opportunity
to go down
because when you see it from the top,
it's really cool.
It's beautiful.
You go to the bottom
and you feel the power.
The whole ground shakes
because of the volume of water
that's falling in Niagara Falls.
And it's amazing.
So don't miss that.
Either on the Canadian side
or on the American side.
You can both do it.
Do it on either side.
It's wonderful, right?
This is what Habakkuk is saying.
When I see God this way,
I realize I'm so small
and he's great
and I tremble.
But that trembling
is not a subservient,
abject horror of God,
but it is a recognition
and an awe of a power
much greater than him.
And because of that,
then he says at the end
of verse 16,
yet I will quietly wait,
wait to see God
do what he's going to do.
And friends,
this is one of the hardest things
about this, isn't it?
Because we love a picture
of a big God
who's going to come
and trample over
all the enemies and win.
We want to be there.
But we want, you know,
if you're a baseball fan,
you're like,
but I want to be there
in October.
I want to be there,
you know, next month
when I can see the victory
and the championship.
But Habakkuk says,
no, we have to wait.
We have to wait for God
in his sovereignty
and his timing
to bring what we long for.
And friends,
we need to recognize
that God doesn't work
on our time.
He doesn't come
and rescue us
from our circumstances
when we want him to
sometimes, does he?
He doesn't act
to change or remove
those who oppose us
in our faith.
We need to recognize
that we can wait.
Partly because
Romans 5, 6 says this,
for while we were still weak,
at the right time,
Christ died
for the ungodly.
If God has all power
to do all these things,
can we trust him
that his timing
is going to be right?
Can we wait,
not with resignation,
not with despair,
but with hope
and confidence
and steadfastness
that God will do it?
So Habakkuk challenges this.
And it's kind of,
it's remarkable
because he goes on
in verse 17,
right?
And verse 17 says,
I will do this
even when I don't
see you at work.
I don't see you providing,
right?
Though the fig tree
should not blossom,
no fruit beyond the vines,
the produce of the olive
fail in the fields,
yield no food,
the flocks be cut off
from the fields
and there be no herd
in the stall.
Remember what Habakkuk saw.
He saw God
and his promises,
but did he ever see
the fulfillment of it?
Well, he saw Babylon,
we think,
probably.
He saw Babylon come
and bring judgment
on Judah.
But it is extremely unlikely
that Habakkuk lived
long enough
to see the fall
of the Babylonian Empire
70 years after that.
Habakkuk never saw
the victory.
He never saw
the restoration.
He never saw
God bringing back
his people from exile
and the rebuilding
of the temple,
let alone seeing Jesus,
the Son of God,
come and defeat
sin and death
on the cross
and in the resurrection.
Can we wait?
But we don't just wait
because verse 18
tells us
the second,
yet I will.
The first,
yet I will,
in spite of what I see,
yet I will wait.
The second one is,
yet I will rejoice.
I will rejoice.
And we need to do this carefully.
I don't have to rejoice
in my suffering.
I don't have to rejoice
in my enemy.
I don't have to say
cancer is good.
I don't have to say
this war is a blessing.
We can say,
no, this is evil.
These are bad things.
These are contrary.
These are forces
that run against
God and his kingdom.
But Habakkuk says,
yet I will rejoice
in the Lord.
The Lord with,
if you look in the ESV,
it's all those
little capitals, right?
The Lord Yahweh.
The Lord who is
the covenant-keeping God.
The Lord who revealed
himself to Moses
and delivered
his people then.
Yet I will rejoice
in the Lord.
I will take joy
in the God
of my salvation.
When we're in the middle
of troubled time,
Habakkuk points us
not to look at our troubles,
but to look at the God
who is over
all these things.
There's an old,
old worship song.
Some of you
who are over 40
may remember it.
God is too wise
to be mistaken.
God is too good
to be unkind.
So when you don't understand,
when you don't see
his plan,
when you can't trace
his hand,
trust his heart.
Rejoice
that there is a God
in heaven
who has all power
to make things right.
Rejoice that he has done
the most amazing thing
in sending in love
his own son
to die
not only for the
individual salvation
of us,
but ultimately
for the renewal,
the restoration,
the redemption
of the whole creation
when it will be restored.
Again,
Revelation is coming.
Revelation 21
is hanging out there
waiting for us
when the new heavens
and the new earth
will be made
and there will be
no more sin
and no more sickness
and no more tears
and no more dying
because he has come
and his redemption
will be complete.
And in this God
we can rejoice
even now
because what is coming
in the future
which is based on
what has already
happened in the past
can help us
in our present time
to rejoice
in God
who loves us.
If you don't know
who Johnny Erickson Tata
is,
you need to.
She's a remarkable woman.
She's lived now
for over 50 years
with quadriplegia.
It came through an accident
when she was in high school.
10 or 15 years ago
she also battled cancer.
She's not lived
an easy life.
And she has pled
to God,
God save me
from this trouble.
God deliver me
from this affliction
and I will praise you.
And God has said
no,
wait.
God has said
I want to use this
for your glory.
And you know
what's the most remarkable
thing about her?
She's one of the most
joyful people.
I've never met her
in person
but you see her
in interviews.
You see her
in other places.
Do you know
what she loves to do
almost more than anything else?
She loves to sing.
She loves to sing
the old hymns.
She loves to lift up
her voice
and praise God.
This woman
who's lived in a wheelchair
her whole life
who can't feed herself,
who can't get
in or out of bed,
who can't do anything
for herself.
And yet what she loves
to do
is to sing.
And we have
so much to learn
from her
about how to take joy
in the Lord
in the midst
of our trials.
Habakkuk says,
we can do this.
I will rejoice
in the God
of my salvation.
And then finally,
verse 19,
Habakkuk responds
with waiting.
He responds
with rejoicing.
And then verse 19,
he responds
with trusting.
With trusting faith.
Habakkuk says,
despite all that I see,
despite all the troubles
that I'm in the midst
of right now,
I am confident
God will carry me through.
He will be my strength.
And that doesn't mean
that he doesn't feel weak.
The whole picture
in Scripture
of strength
is that we feel weakness
and God displays
his strength through it.
So don't think
that knowing
that God is our strength
means that we're always
going to feel great.
We won't.
We will feel weak
and unable
and overcome
and overwhelmed.
And it's that point
when we turn to God,
when we trust in God,
when we remember God,
he says,
I will take care of you.
I will be your strength.
Not only that,
but that he will secure
our footsteps.
I don't know
if you've ever seen
mountain goats
leap
from ledges
that are smaller
than we could
even probably see
half the time
with their naked eyes.
They leap up
these sheer faces
that we would be terrified
to even be on.
We would want harnesses
and ropes
and tons of pitons
and a belay guy
to make sure
that we don't fall
to our death.
And Habakkuk says,
that's what it feels like
in these troubled times
and yet God makes our feet
like the mountain goats.
He will secure our steps.
We won't slip
and fall
and die
even though we're terrified.
He will not let our foot slip.
He will not abandon us
to the enemies around us,
the troubles that come
that threaten to overwhelm us.
In the end,
they will not do it
because he,
the Lord,
is our strength
and he sets our feet
on the heights
like the mountain goats.
and friends,
we know this again
because Romans 5 tells us
that it is the grace of God
through Jesus Christ
that we are now able to stand.
That's where our feet are secure
because we know
that Jesus has made us his own
and we stand in that place
no matter what comes at us
and we can stand firm.
Not because we have great footwork
but because he has made
our feet secure.
And this is what Habakkuk
has for us.
This is the God
that he wants us to see
this morning
to remind us
that this is the God
of the Bible.
this is what the Christian God
is
and how it can be
our help
in troubled times.
Let's pray.
Lord, thank you for this time.
I thank you for your word
and I pray, Lord,
that you would help us.
Lord, today,
as we go from here,
Lord, help us to meditate
on you
and who you are
and what you have done.
Lord, we are so often
distracted
and we set our hearts
and our minds
and our thoughts
and our gaze
upon other things.
Lord, help us to set
our gaze upon you
this morning,
this afternoon,
and this coming week.
Lord, that we would be those
who are filled with hearts
that are willing to wait
and glad
and rejoicing
and steadfast
in faith.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thank you.