God's Care

If you had the opportunity to sit down and ask God one question, what would it be? Now for those of you who think this way, let's just sort of go ahead and rule out that asking for more questions is not an option. And let's also not be impulsive and we'll resist the temptation to ask something trivial like, did Adam have a belly button or how old is the earth or something like that. This is our one shot to talk directly with God. I think some of us may seize an opportunity to answer some theological dilemma we've had. Can you explain the Trinity? Help us to understand that. Or the Incarnation? God, how does this mystery work? Some of us may ask more ontological kind of questions. Who am I? Why am I the way that I am? What am I here for? What was I created to do? Questions like that. I think if we really drill down, if we really think about it, a lot of us would ask questions that are moral in nature. So for instance, why, God, did that terrible thing happen to me? Or why did that good thing not happen to me? Or why did that good thing happen to that person? I would suggest that asking those kind of questions, wondering about those kind of things, is actually really good and healthy and normal for human beings. We are actually hardwired to know that there is right and wrong, fair and unfair. I'm sure already in the nursery that discussion is taking place. It's not fair that she took my toy. It's good for us as human beings to seek understanding, especially to seek it from God. And so asking those kind of questions is actually a good thing. And this is one of the reasons that our text this morning is such an interesting book of the Bible. It contains an actual account of a conversation between a man and God. We're going to be in the book of Habakkuk this morning. It's found on page 785 if you're using a Pew Bible. If you don't have a Bible, feel free to take that with you as our gift to you. If you are using your own Bible and you need help finding Habakkuk, the best advice I can give you is go to Genesis and turn left to the table of contents and go to the page that's listed there. I'm assuming telling you it's between Nahum and Zephaniah won't be of much help to you. Habakkuk is another message in the series on the minor prophets. And we've seen their minor, not in message, but in length only. We'll be able to read the whole book of Habakkuk this morning. And Habakkuk is really a unique book in the whole Bible. There's really not another one like it. And it's certainly very different from the rest of the prophets. Most of the prophets' messages are God's word coming to a prophet who then gives it, passes it on, preaches it to the people. Habakkuk is not like that. It's as if we've had the opportunity to open up someone's prayer journal and read about a conversation that they've had with God, and now we get to look in on that. We don't know anything else about the person of Habakkuk. This is the only place in scripture that his name is mentioned. We don't know where he came from. We don't know who his parents were or anything like that. But we do, from the text, know about when he's writing. So he's writing towards the end of the Assyrian Empire. So in 722 BC, Assyria took over Israel in the north. They ruled as a world power for about 100 years. And it seems like we're right on the tail end of their reign as the next world empire, Babylon, is rising up. And so we're somewhere in the early 600, What I hope for us to see this morning in Habakkuk is that God is absolutely worthy of our worship because he is sovereign and just and merciful. And we'll consider three points as we track roughly through the book. They're gonna track mostly with the chapter divisions there. We're gonna see why, wait, and worship. So that's your outline this morning. Why, wait, and worship. So let's look together at Habakkuk chapter one, verses one to four. The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw. Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear? Or cry to you violence and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity? And why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me. Strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous. So justice goes forth perverted. We see right from the get-go, this is an intense book. Habakkuk is distressed. He needs help. He needs help from God. He's witnessing violence. He's surrounded by evil, destruction, strife, contention, injustice. And this is especially troubling for him because he's looking within Judah, within the nation of God's people. Judah had been relatively faithful. Israel had already gone after idols, fallen away. They were under the authority of the Assyrian Empire. Judah was relatively independent at this point. But now they seem to be on the same path of idolatry that had led their brothers into captivity. And so Habakkuk is crying out to God, how long? God, why, why are you letting all of this happen? Why don't you intervene? Why don't you do something about it? Now we need to note, first, the importance of this question. First, that it's a question. It's not an accusation. Habakkuk is genuinely confused. He's genuinely trying to understand, to make sense of what's happening around him. He doesn't understand why God is allowing all of this sin to remain among his people who should be following him faithfully. Habakkuk's questioning is not wrong. It actually stems from a right view of God. Habakkuk's saying, God, I know you could do something about this. You're powerful, you're sovereign, you're wise. You could stop this. So why aren't you? I don't understand. Maybe you can relate to that question this morning. You spend enough time with the news and I think you will quickly find yourself asking, why? There's violence all over the world. It seems like every day we come across a new story related to sex trafficking or war or terrorism. There's injustice all around us. There's the oppression of women, the oppression of children, the oppression of the poor, there are corrupt governments. And many of these things happen even within the confines of our own country. So think of the racial tensions and the violence that has characterized much of the headlines over the last year especially. Many of you are aware of the recent scandal with Planned Parenthood, the selling, the trafficking of human body parts. 55 million lives aborted since 1973. It's only natural for us to cry out, why? God, why? Why are you letting all this happen? God, why don't you do something? And even in the church, Why is it that Christianity seems to be dominated by voices who don't submit to God's word, who preach that God's will is your comfort and your happiness now, that the reason you don't get what you want is because you don't have enough faith? Why does a gunman walk into a church in Charleston and kill nine people? Just read this week about a 40-year-old seminary student. Three kids, one on the way, killed in a car accident. There's no indication in the book at all that Habakkuk is wrong, that he's sinful in asking his questions. And so if you're here this morning and you have questions about what's going on in the world, about God, about his rule over the world, and you're asking, and you're here this morning, let me encourage you to ask those questions. It's a good thing to ask. Don't ignore those questions. It's not somehow more spiritual to just sort of bury them and pretend that they're not there. Faith, as we'll see a little bit later on, isn't a blind trust. One of the worst things you can do is just let those questions kind of linger because they're going to spread in your soul. They're going to cause you to doubt God and your relationship with Him and other things in this life. So ask your questions. There are answers out there. It's very unlikely that you're the first person who's had the question that you're dealing with. There are answers in God's word, there are answers among God's people, both the ones who are around you in this room and the ones who have written helpful things for us throughout the centuries. Go to someone, if you have questions, go to them and just say, hey, I'm wondering about this. Have you ever thought about this before? I'm really struggling with this. And let that question set you both on a quest to learn more about God, to grow in your love and your trust for Him. So ask your questions, but don't accuse God. There are some answers that only God has, and he's very clear about that. He says in his word, there are secret things that I keep for myself, and there are revealed things that are for you. Before you accuse God, consider that as his creation, you are not at the center of the universe. It's possible that you lack an answer because you don't have the mind of God. You don't understand all the things he does. You are a creature, he is the creator. Maybe our own inability to understand, and not that God doesn't have perfectly good answers for himself. I want us to see that it's encouraging that God allows us to do this. God isn't threatened by our questions. Christianity isn't a house of cards that looks very impressive on the outside, but it's actually really fragile. You can push on it. It will hold up to scrutiny. So ask your questions. But even more amazing that God lets us ask questions is that he answers questions. So let's look at verses 5 through 11. Look among the nations and see. Wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. Sounds pretty good. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome. Their justice and dignity go forth from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle, swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men whose might is their own God." Habakkuk cries out to God, God, why aren't you doing something? And God replies, oh, I'm doing something. I'm not ignoring the evil in Judah. I'm not allowing anything to go unanswered. I am bringing punishment. I'm bringing judgment. I'm gonna use the Chaldeans or the Babylonians to bring judgment upon my people. And we can tell by the description here, this is not going to be pretty. It says, they are a bitter and hasty nation. They are proud. They define justice and dignity themselves. They're violent. You get the sense here, it's like a stampede, like an avalanche. They are big and strong and fast, and they utterly destroy everything in their path. No kings or armies or fortresses stand in their way. They just laugh at them. They seize and devour and gather and scoff and pile up and take. Total devastation. You think Habakkuk regretted his question? Well, maybe it's not so bad after all. Maybe I'm not quite as eager for justice as I thought I was. Israel had fallen about a hundred years before, 722 BC. And Judah was doing okay for a while and then started on this downhill path. And then the amazing thing happened to Judah. King Josiah comes along and they discover the law and they institute all these reforms and they get rid of idolatry. And there's a bit of a revival. And then as soon as he's out of the picture, Judah goes right back to idolatry. And I wonder if Habakkuk wasn't praying for another Josiah, for another revival, for God to put the right king back in place, to put things in order and get us back on the right track. Are we prepared for answers that we don't expect? Do we pray to God because we've already solved the problem, we already know how things need to work out and we just need God to endorse our plan to kind of sign on the line for us? Or do we make our request of Him in humble acknowledgement of our limited ability, of our limited knowledge, and of God's greatness and His omniscience? Many of us this morning are bothered by the trajectory of our country. Things do not seem to be going well. And I think this text challenges us to ask ourselves, are we prepared to follow God's will no matter what it is? Will we be as eager to follow God and trust God if he puts the right president in place who makes the right reforms and gets us back where we should be as if he puts the wrong president in our mind? If the nation gets worse, if we're invaded or attacked by another nation, will we still trust God? One of the Bible's great themes about prayer is that God always gives us what we would have asked for if we knew everything that he knows. But that only works, we only understand that if we have the eternal vantage point. God is working all things for our eternal good, for our sanctification, for our holiness. And so often we don't have the foresight to see, to acknowledge how trials, how tribulations come to us so that God establishes in us, forms in us character and endurance and hope. We would never plan our paths that way. We would never choose that way. We also would never get holy on our own. God's answer to Habakkuk is unexpected. It complicates the issue, makes it harder to understand what's going on. And sometimes God just does this. He is sovereign and we are not. He's the creator, we are the creation. We have to assume that his mind is bigger than ours and we aren't always going to get it. The question for us is will we trust him anyway? Habakkuk is troubled by God's response. So we've had Habakkuk's complaint, God's answer, now Habakkuk's response to God's answer. Verses 12 through 17, chapter one. Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as punishment, as judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof. You who are of pure eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, Why do you look idly at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. He brings all of them up with a hook. He drags them out with his net. He gathers them in his dragnet so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet. For by them he lives in luxury and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever? We see Habakkuk is still believing. He's still trusting. He starts with who God is. He's eternal. He's personal. He's the covenant God of Israel. He's my God. He's faithful. He's good. He says, I know we're not gonna die. I know you have promised and you're gonna deliver on those promises to your people. That's what I know to be true about you, God. but I still don't understand. God, how can you use them? Sure, we have our faults, but them, they are more violent, more greedy, more oppressive, more godless. This seems completely unjust. God, how can you do this? Again, Habakkuk is coming to God with a question. He's trying to understand. He's not accusing God. And we see his resolve in chapter two, verse one. I will take my stand at the watch post and station myself on the tower and look out to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint. So he's asked his question, he assumes that there is an answer out there, and now he waits for that answer from God. What about you? If something is bothering you, if you're troubled by something this morning, What are you gonna do about that? Will you take it to God? Will you entrust it to Him and wait upon Him? Or will you go your own way and draw your own conclusions about Him and about the world? This brings us to our second point, God's answer to Habakkuk, wait, wait. So let's look at verses two and three of chapter two. The Lord answered me. So we need to stop right there. Notice again God's grace in answering Habakkuk. God is not threatened, he doesn't have to defend himself, doesn't have to say anything, but he does. He graciously and mercifully answers, he continues the conversation, he continues to talk to Habakkuk, to reveal more about himself. So God says, write the vision. Make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time. It hastens to the end. It will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it. It will surely come. It will not delay. So God says, here's the vision. Here it is. Write it on the tablets. Put it in the headlines. Share it on Facebook. Tweet it. Pin it. Whatever you need to do, everyone must know this is going to happen. And here's his message. I am sovereign. There is an appointed time for justice. I have set it, and everything is running exactly according to my schedule. I work all things together after the counsel of my will. Nothing thwarts my purposes. If it seems slow to you, then that's on you. Wait for it. It will happen, because I have declared it to be so. Verses four and five then go on to summarize the message of all of chapter two, this whole section. Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol. Like death, he never has enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples. God reveals to Habakkuk that there is no injustice. That just as he will use the wicked Babylonians to judge Judah, so also he will bring justice upon their sin. Their day will come. And so what we learn from this section is that there are really two kinds of people in this world. There are the righteous and the wicked, the righteous and the greedy, the righteous and the selfish, the sinful, the proud. Their life is characterized by indulgence, by consuming, by selfishness, by using, all those things. And we see the problem in the text. There's never enough. It's a bottomless pit. It's just like the grave. Death never says, oh, I've had enough. No more death. I'm full. No. It's always seeking more. It's always open to more. No amount will satisfy. The other path is characterized by trust, by humble dependence upon God, by waiting upon Him, by faith. How often do you live? Sort of an odd question, isn't it? But I ask that so that we understand what it means to live by faith. Living describes a manner, a way of life, and not an activity. So true faith, saving faith isn't something that you put on for a few hours when we gather on Sundays or for a few minutes first thing in the morning or before and after meals and before bed. It's not something that you do. And it's also not an inward quality that some people have and some people don't. So we think some people are kind of artsy, some people are good at math, some people are natural leaders and so on. Some people have faith. No, it's not like that. It doesn't come naturally. Faith is a way of life, a manner of life. It's a way of thinking and speaking and acting that's always informed by and responding to God's revelation of Himself in His Word, what God has said and what He's done. Let me say that again. Faith is a way of thinking and speaking and acting that's always informed by and responding to the realities of who God is and what He has done. The person who lives by faith lives by faith instead of strength, or intellect, or wit, or intuition, or accomplishments, or identity like family, and friends, and parenting, and all of those things. Faith is the governing identity. It's faith that takes shape in various forms and various roles as it interacts in this world, but it's ultimately faith. It's God's wisdom that governs. The other path is the path of the Babylonians. They don't live by faith. They live by their own name, their famous wine, as we hear about in this text. But as God says, their wine is a traitor. It betrays them. And so beginning in verse six, God starts to pronounce woes of judgment, the coming judgment, the certainty of judgment against Babylon. And these verses show us that God doesn't allow any of their evil to go unpunished. He sees everything and he repays them perfectly. So let's start reading chapter two, verse six. Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say, woe to him who heaps up what is not his own, for how long, and loads himself with pledges? Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? then you will be spoil for them because you have plundered many nations. All the remnant of the people shall plunder you for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. So the Babylonians have been bullies. They've lived by conquering, intimidating, putting everyone in their debt. but eventually that will come back upon them. Their debtors will rise up. They'll all band together and overthrow their reign. They will intimidate and Babylon will be plundered. God will see that it is so. when my grandfather was in elementary school, very young, first grade or so, there were some middle school age boys. Everybody was on the bus together and walked home together and everything. There were some middle school boys that were always picking on the little ones, taking from them and just very, very mean, very much bullies to them. And one day, the older boys, the high school boys, had enough. And so they got the middle school boys, they knocked one of them on the ground and they took my grandfather and set him, six year olds, straddled upon this middle school boy. And they handed him a brick and said, hit him. Boom, smashed him right in the face, knocked a tooth out. Hit him again. Boom, smashed him, knocked a tooth out. Justice came upon them. Now whether or not you agree that that was right retribution, it still illustrates the fact of what God is saying here. That He will return the violence, the bullying upon Babylon. Verse 9. Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm. You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples. You have forfeited your life. For the stone will cry out from the wall and the beam from the woodwork respond. So in their conquest, they're amassing all these resources. They can create a sure place to live far away from their enemies, huge thick walls protecting their cities. They are insulated, they are safe. But God says even the house will cry out against you. Even the walls and the woodwork will cry out and will come down upon you. Perfect justice. Verse 12, woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity. Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that people's labor merely for fire and nations weary themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. So the Babylonians are seeking to build a name for themselves. They are going to do it by any means possible. They want to establish a city. But God assures them that in the end, it is his name and his name alone that will stand. Verse 15, woe to him who makes his neighbors drink. You pour out your wrath and make them drunk in order to gaze at their nakedness. You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink yourself and show your uncircumcision. The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you and utter shame will come upon your glory. The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction of the beast that terrified them. For the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them. Babylon has lived by humiliating others with violence and perversion, but God will pour out His wrath against them. He will expose them as nothing. Verse 18, what prophet is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation, where he makes speechless idols. Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, awake, to a silent stone, arise. Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver and there is no breath at all in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. These people have lived in idolatry. They've depended upon themselves and they've created idols that represent that. But God says their idols are powerless to stop the one true and living God. When he determines to act, nothing stands in his way. So we are assured in this text that God is not blind or indifferent to evil. He sees all of it. He records all of it. And he promises to bring every single bit of it back on the Babylonians. And we know from history that he did. He raised up another foreign power about 60 years later who overthrew Babylon, 539 BC. God's justice is perfect. And that's good news for us this morning. It's good news because none of our complaints go unanswered. God sees all of the evil taking place right now, all the evil in our lives, all the evil all around us. He sees it all. He will not allow it to go unanswered or unpunished. He will bring about perfect justice. But that's also bad news for us this morning. because we know that God sees our own sin, our own injustice, our own violence. The same seeds of greed and pride and selfishness and security and violence and idolatry that we see in Babylon are in our hearts as well. God sees and God knows and God will bring about justice. The only way out of that judgment is for us to live by faith. This is crystal clear in the New Testament. So Paul quotes Verse 4, and says in Romans, he is not ashamed of the gospel because in it the righteousness from God is revealed from faith to faith because the righteous shall live by faith. God provides righteousness for those who live by faith. In Galatians, Paul contrasts faith and the law. The one who lives by the law keeps having to obey the law, keeps having to live to the law, but the righteous live to be declared innocent, to be justified by God on the basis of their faith. So faith means looking to God to provide salvation from His coming judgment. Trusting Him with your life now and with your future. But that whole concept actually introduces a new problem. How can God do that? How is God righteous in dealing out judgment to some and not to others? And friends, the answer to that question is the exact heart of the Gospel. Because Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world to save sinners. He lived a perfect life of obedience to God. He died a death of a criminal, of a sinner before God. He was buried, he was raised on the third day, and ascended into heaven. God has maintained perfect righteousness, perfect justice, because he poured out all of his wrath upon Jesus. Jesus stood in the place of sinners by taking the judgment that we deserved and by living the life of perfect righteousness that we owed to God. Therefore, God is perfectly just, because the only one who could cry out that God is unjust is Jesus, and he himself willingly entered into the suffering on behalf of sinners. God is also just to forgive. He can show mercy because he has poured out his wrath. He has justly dealt with sin in Jesus, and so he is free to forgive. If you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, that's the message that you have to hear. The only right response to that truth is to confess your sin to God, to repent of it, and to look to Jesus in faith, to seek God's word and his people to learn what that means. Please talk to me or someone after the service if you don't have confidence in the gospel. If you're here this morning and you are a Christian, is that the message that defines your life? The author of Hebrews encourages Christians to persevere through trials because the righteous live, they keep living, they go on living by faith. Where is it in your life now that you're tempted to lose sight of the gospel, to live by something other than faith in Christ? Confess that to God, seek help from brothers and sisters in Christ. Habakkuk gives us an amazing picture of the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of human beings. This isn't foresight that God's talking about. He's not just saying, I see kind of how these Babylonians are headed and this is not gonna end up well for them. No. God says he raised them up in chapter one and he will judge them for their evil. God is bigger than we like to admit, friends. This is a tension that the Bible introduces without really giving us a good, clear answer. He's God. We're not. The fact of the matter is that God uses evil to accomplish His good purposes. The Gospel is the best example of this. In Acts chapter 2, we have the record of the first Christian sermon. And Peter says, men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, this Jesus, listen to this, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. The most evil thing human beings have ever done is kill God's son. And yet, this was the definite plan of God. By this infinitely evil act, God accomplished infinite good for his people. And friends, if that's true of the cross, can it not also be true of the evil in your life and mine? Evil is around us, it's inside of us, but that does not mean that God is absent. The Bible is clear that God is not the author of evil, it's not his idea, it's not his creation, but he does use evil to accomplish his good purposes. He's bigger than we like to think. Do you trust that this morning? This is an intense passage, friends. This teaches us that God is absolutely sovereign. It warns everyone who lives their lives apart from God. He will judge. But it's a compassionate warning. You see here the fruitlessness of a life lived without faith. No matter what, there's only one way to find ultimate meaning in life, and it's in God. This is the great purpose for all creation. God is bringing it to pass. One day the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God. It's a call for all of us to live by faith, to wait for God to bring about every good thing that He promises. Living by faith means that your life is increasingly faith-filled. You're being informed and transformed and constrained by the knowledge of God and His Word. Are you living by faith this morning? I want to look at that last woe again. Verse 18, what prophet is an idol? when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies. For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols. Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, awake, to a silent stone, arise. Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath in it at all. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. Idols are nothing. They're made with hands. They teach lies. They have no power. They cannot speak. But God is real. He's alive. He reigns from his temple. Let all the earth keep silent before him, and he will speak. God's answer to Habakkuk is not what he expected. And often his answers to us are not what we expect. He says, I'm bigger than you realize. Be silent. Wait and listen. How do we respond? This leads us to our third point, worship. Why wait and worship? We don't know how much time has elapsed between chapter two and chapter three. It ends with that exhortation, let all the earth keep silent before him. And I think we feel the weight of that, that there is a pause, there is time elapsed here. And so after some time, whatever time it is, Habakkuk responds. And he responds with a song. So we see in verse one and verse 19 that this is not just a song for himself, it's a song written for all of Israel to sing together, to teach Judah about worship, to lead them in worship. So let's look at that song together. A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionov. 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 Timon, 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 Kashan 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 on your chariot of salvation? You stripped the sheaf from your bow, calling for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you and writhed. The raging water 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 heads 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 flock be cut off from the fold 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 tread on my high places. Habakkuk responds to God's revelation with a prayer song of worship. So let's take a minute and just observe some elements of true worship. First, true worship fears God's power. So Habakkuk responds with fear, with reverential awe. You stand alone as God, you've spoken, I've heard. You are all powerful, you will do as you please. Second, true worship embraces God's purpose. So Habakkuk isn't just submitting to God's will, he's embracing it, he's asking for it. God, revive it, make it known, do what you've said you're gonna do. Third, true worship pleads for God's mercy. A true worshiper understands his utter dependence upon God to show mercy to undeserved sinners. Habakkuk models this for us. Fourth, true worship rehearses God's deeds. So in this long section, verses 3 through 15, Habakkuk goes back to what he knows to be true about God, what he's said in his word, what he's learned from his people. God is a mighty warrior. It says he stood and measured the earth, his bow and his spear in his hand. His splendor covered the heavens. The earth was full of his praise. His brightness was like the rays. His brightness was like light and rays flashed from his hands. These revelations of God, these pictures of God, you can't hardly take them in. He's revealed just a glimpse of himself and it's so overwhelming, it's so powerful. We're left in awe. God is sovereign over nature. It says the whole earth trembles before him. The mountains shake and crumble, bowing down to him. The sea lifted up his hands as if to surrender. God, I'm yours, do what you want with me. And even the sun and the moon move and stop at his beckoning. He controls the pestilence and plagues that came upon Egypt. God is sovereign over people. It says he looked and shook the nations. He threshed them. He marched through the earth in fury. He threshed them in anger. He crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck, piercing them with their own arrows. No one opposes God. And all of that majestic power that's been seen from the creation through calling out his people, bringing them out of Egypt, bringing them into the promised land, all that has been disposed for their good to God's anointed king. God has always been and continues to be at work for the salvation of his people, for the purposes accomplished through the son of David, Jesus. So God brought them out, he brought them into the promised land, he spread the sea, he buried Pharaoh's army, he delivered them from many enemies and he's continued to work and continues to work to this day for the salvation of his people. Many times it looked hopeless, many times it looked like there was no way out, there was no option, but God intervened, he worked and he continues to work. Now let's remember now, this is a prayer, this is not a Sunday school lesson. And notice how much of this prayer is talking to God about God. There's really one request, kind of the general one, revive it, make it known. The one request that I think we really identify is, in your wrath, remember mercy. God have mercy upon us. Most of Habakkuk's prayer is rehearsing truths about God, about what he's done, and responding to those truths. Is that what our prayers are like? Fifth, true worship confesses doubt. So after all of that survey of all the wonderful and awesome things God has done, it still doesn't settle the matter. So in verse 16, he says, I hear in 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. Despite all the good that God has done, despite his confidence that God will continue to work, That doesn't mean that somehow all the trouble that he's bringing upon Judah is not real or painful. Habakkuk knows the Babylonians are still coming and he's afraid. Christianity is not ascetic. We don't think that pain isn't real or that trials aren't real. We don't deny or minimize those things. Christians are called to see through their pain with the eyes of faith, to trust that God is at work beyond what we see, waiting upon him to bring salvation in his time. So true faith, I mean, true worship confesses doubt. And then six, true worship resolves to trust. So let's read 17 through 19 again. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no fruit. The flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, and 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 tread on my high places. So these doubts don't ultimately lead Habakkuk to despair, but to trust, to faith, to confidence in God. And these have to be some of the most beautiful words in all scripture. Unless we miss it, let's remember it's hard for us to get into his frame of mind. It's not talking about a hobby farm or garden that kind of didn't go well this year. He's describing utter desolation. Though the bank account is empty, the credit cards are maxed out, the stock market crashed, I'm unemployed, my house is foreclosed, there's no food in the pantry, no gas in the tank, yet I will rejoice in the Lord and take joy in the God of my salvation. For Habakkuk, security and provision, all of those things go beyond his immediate circumstances. To have God is to have everything. So God is his strength. Just like a deer who can flee to the mountains and take refuge in the rocks where no one can get to him, so it is with God. His relationship with God makes him utterly secure. What about you this morning? Whether you're here with little or much, are you rejoicing? Are you rejoicing in the God of your salvation? What if you were in Habakkuk's shoes? What if you received the news that things are gonna get just about as bad as they can get? What is it that you're holding onto that would cause you not to rejoice in God? If I didn't have this, God is not worthy of my worship. Well, consider, brothers and sisters, that that may be killing your soul. How do we get to this place? How do we get to, like Habakkuk, where we can look into just desolation, we can look to utter hopelessness and say, yet I will rejoice, I will take joy in God. Well, I think we do it the same way Habakkuk did it, by remembering who God is and what he's done, by listening to his word, by looking to God. And friends, let's appreciate that we have a much better view of God than Habakkuk had. Habakkuk looked into this cloudy future, saw dimly the vindication of God's anointed king. We have it declared plainly to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Friends, Jesus walked the same path that I've described this morning. In the garden, he cried out, why, God, why? Can't there be another way? And God answered, wait, wait, as he came upon him in judgment. And then on the cross, Jesus said, into your hands I commit my spirit. He worshiped, he worshiped with the very last word as God crushed him. And so brothers and sisters, Jesus sympathizes with every one of our questions this morning with our waiting, but he also leads us in responding to God in worship, trusting him even unto death. But Jesus is more than our example. He's our substitute. He went through all of that for us so that we never have to. We never have to have God's full wrath poured out upon us. So our song is much more developed than Habakkuk's was. Because through the gospel, we have even more confidence, more clarity of God's perfect judgment and mercy. We read about that confidence earlier in Romans 8. That's sort of the song of the Christian. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. It is a glorious passage. But what Paul says in Romans is not that God's love keeps us from tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and sword. God's love doesn't mean that we never have to go through those things, but it says that even in the midst of those things, God is with us. His love is upon us. The gospel is the absolute evidence of that. Do you believe that this morning? That's what it means to be a Christian. It's to live by faith to the end, to trust God despite sometimes his dark providences, to see all of your circumstances, everything that you're going through in light of the gospel, and to be confident, to trust and worship God for his love. In a few minutes, we're gonna sing It Is Well, the hymn It Is Well. Some of you may know that Horatio Spafford, the author of that song, was a successful and wealthy businessman, lawyer, and he was involved in supporting lots of Christian ministry. He had lived the kind of life a lot of us at one time aspired to. I want to be successful and wealthy and I'll use my money to build up God's kingdom. And everything was going really well until 1871. Early in the year, his only son died. Shortly after that, a great fire in Chicago caused him severe financial harm, and in order to recover and rest, he sent his wife, they planned a vacation to England, he sent his wife and his daughters away ahead of him, and he was gonna join them later. But in October of 1871, I'm sorry, October of 1873, that ship on the way to England was struck by another ship, and it sank, and 226 people died in the Atlantic Ocean, including all four of the Spafford girls. And so when she arrived to England, she sent a telegram back to the states with two words, saved alone. utter devastation had come upon this family. What would you have done in that situation? If you get that telegram, you get that call, everything is gone. I'm sure that Mr. Spafford initially responded with a why. It's natural for us to wonder that. But it didn't stay there. Because history records that on the ship to England to be reunited with his wife a few months later, he wrote these words. when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blessed assurance control that Christ hath regarded my helpless estate and has shed his own blood for my soul. My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! O my soul! Utter devastation came upon him and yet what he was thinking about is his sin and forgiveness and God's mercy. And brothers and sisters, I would submit that that is exactly the response of worship that God is calling us to this morning. It's what it means to live by faith. It means that we move away from the whys of our circumstances to the worship of God's sovereign justice and mercy. To know that our greatest burden is sin and that God has dealt with it fully and finally on the cross. And that Jesus will one day return to bring us into the very presence of God Friends, sorrows and trials will come, Satan is at work, but Christ has regarded us, and he's died for us, and he's secured our place with him in glory, and so, brothers and sisters, it is well with our souls. The Bible tells us that Jesus is going to return one day as a mighty warrior, like we read about in chapter three, to bring about final judgment, to tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God. But for those who live by faith in Christ, That day is a day of vindication, of salvation, of being rescued from God's righteous judgment. So brothers and sisters, let us live by faith in that truth. Let us wait eagerly for the day of the Lord, and let us help each other to do so as we say together, Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll, the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend. Even so, it is well with my soul. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we come to you as your people, Lord, acknowledging your absolute sovereign reign as our king, confessing, as we already have sung this morning, Lord, that we, even when we know your will, even when we see it, we murmur at it still. We don't trust you. as we should, Lord. And yet we know that you are trustworthy. We know that you are faithful, Lord. We have reason upon reason to know that you are absolutely for us. And Lord, we need no reason other than the cross of our Savior, Jesus Christ, to look to him and see your commitment to us. Help us to learn this morning to trust you, to wait for you, to move from the whys of our circumstances to worship for who you are Thank you, Father, for your perfect mercy, for your love, your commitment to us in your Son, Jesus Christ. And we pray all this in his name, amen.