Habakkuk 2:4

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as waters cover the sea.

How much of the sea is covered by waters? Okay, everything, okay? He says, in the same way, all will know the glory of the Lord. The Chaldeans are going to pass on, but in the end, the whole earth will know the glory of the Lord. That's the direction things are going. Whatever happens around us today, we know that's the direction things are going. And then you see the Chaldeans were conquering, and their known world, and they were crediting their idols. The idols are made of wood and stone. No life in them. They can't talk. They can't hear. By contrast, you look back at 220.

But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him.

Yahweh is alive. He's a giver of life. He's in his holy temple. Yahweh deserves 100% reverence. Yahweh, the Lord, is in charge. It's not the Chaldeans. And then you come to chapter 3, and you have a response of Habakkuk. And he says, OK. I know what's happening. I understand this. The Chaldeans are going to come and they're going to slaughter us as Judeans. I understand that. Habakkuk says, I know I'm going to see this. He says, in the midst of all this, can you revive us, postpone this? Or at least, he says, in your wrath, be merciful to us, which is understandable. He would say that. Then, verses 3 through 15, you have God showing his power. Habakkuk rehearses Old Testament examples of God's power. He talks about the flood, the Exodus, Israel conquering Canaan, and what you see as God as being all-powerful. And then you see that Habakkuk really didn't need a strong Judah, he really needed a strong God. That's what he needed to rely on. So he needed to trust God, and he knows that God does what's always right. And so the righteous will live by his faith in God. He is sovereign. He's in control. We rest in him. And then before 16, basically you have Habakkuk saying, OK, I understand what's happening. I understand that the Chaldeans are coming. I understand that we need to be judged. I understand that. And God's going to judge them. And I understand what we're going to go through. And he comprehends that there's going to be a slaughter. He understands that. And that's what Verse 16, a very eloquent way, says,

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 wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.

So he says, the righteous will live by faith. That's true. But at the same time, I know what's coming. I tremble. And then the next step, He basically shows his faith. He's walking by faith. In verse 17, he shows basically when there's no outward hope, he's still trusting God. This is explaining about a whole devastation, a whole bleak world, nothing to eat, no food, no animals, no crops. Humanly, it's all hopeless. So in 17, he says,

though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold, there be no herd in the stalls.

" In other words, everything is outwardly hopeless. But he says, as a man of faith, And I think you see his evolving faith now. You think step-by-step, he says, okay, now I'm really being a man of faith. So in verse 18, he says, yet I'll rejoice the Lord. Why? Because he sees God as sovereign, God as powerful, and he sees God will always do what's best. God will always do what's right. So he says,

yet I'll rejoice the Lord. I'll take my joy in the God of my salvation.

And so he says, my rest is not in the government and the exterior things. My rest is in God, because he's sovereign. He's in control. He's in charge. So he says, 19,

God, the Lord, is my strength.

God has all power. He's trusting in him. He says,

he makes my feet like the deers. He makes me tread on my high places.

And I think that the idea there in the last two lines about, he makes my feet like the deer's, he makes me tread on my high places, probably he's referring to something like a mountain goat. And you remember, you've probably seen pictures of mountain goat. They'll run up and down a mountain over and over. Right next to them, it goes down hundreds of feet. And every time they go up and down, sure footage is amazing. He says, when I am entrusting God, he says, he makes my feet like this. Very sure, because he's in charge, he's sovereign. And so he says, Mike Pruss, he's the one that does that for me. We know the Habakkuk is going to see all this happening, but he still says, my trust is in God. So he has a trust in a sovereign God. And he sees himself marching on the high places, meant that God was going to be with him through whatever the Chaldeans bring upon them. Whether Habakkuk is brutally killed by them or taken away in captivity, we don't know. But he says, I'll walk by faith in my sovereign God. Now, this verse in Habakkuk 2.4 is used three times in the New Testament. One time is in Hebrews 10, and Hebrews 10.37, and the context here, of course, is faith next chapter, but here it talks about the need of endurance. And so he says in Hebrews 10.37,

yet for a little while, and the coming one will come who will not delay,

referring to the Chaldeans. And he says,

but my righteous one shall live by faith.

And that actually leads into the faith chapter, chapter 11. Actually, the end of Hebrews actually is the type of faith that you see Habakkuk describing. If you look at Hebrews 11, 32, it says,

and what more shall I say? For time will fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David, and Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,

Does it sound like he's walking in his high places? Does he sound like he's very confident there? That sounded like a kind of faith that's very, very confident. And then it says in 34,

quench the power of fire, escape the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, but foreign armies to flight.

Again, he's saying, This is like the people who walk on their high places very, very securely. Their steps are always secure. And so they're treading on their high places. They trust in God's sovereignty. And then you look at 36.

Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment.

Were they still walking, marching on their high places? Yes. Okay, you look down at verse 39, it says that they're all, they'll come in by faith. They were still walking by faith, this end of Hebrews 11, it's still talking about people by faith. But then in verse 37 it says,

they were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with a sword.

Were they still walking on the high places? Were they walking securely? Yes, because in the midst of that, they're walking securely and God was, God was their support, he was their sovereign, he was in charge of them still. Think of Christ going to the cross. When Christ was going to the cross, was he walking securely in his high places? Yes. Okay. What happened? He still got crucified. So I think that you look at what Habakkuk is saying is that you walk in your high places and whatever happens, God's sovereign, you're walking with him. You're walking securely in him. In the last five verses of Romans 8, there's some verses that we like to quote quite a bit. And Romans 8, 36 is a verse that caught up and we sort of sneak over. And it says,

for your sake, we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

We don't have around here, but I think obviously there are slaughterhouses around where they take animals and all day long animals go up and get slaughtered and they butcher them and end up in our grocery store. Okay, he says that's basically what he's saying that these Christians were like. And I remember about a half dozen years ago I was talking to a guy who had been in Mosul, Iraq when ISIS took over. And about every day, more than once, they'd have a big call and everybody would get together and watch somebody get beheaded and that was just part of it, all cheering stuff. So he's saying there's all day long, you see this happening. But then he says in verse 35,

who's gonna separate from the love of God?

Who's gonna separate from that love? He says,

so tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, as written, for your sake,

God's sake,

we're being killed all day long, we regard as sheep to be slaughtered.

And then in verse 37, no, in all these things, all the things in 35, all the things people slaughter in verse 36,

in all these things we are more than conquerors.

We're not just conquerors, we're more than conquerors because we're walking steadily on our high places. We're more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I'm sure, he's sure of this,

that death, life, angels, rulers, things present, things come, nor powers, height, depth, anything else in all creation will be as separate as the love of God, which in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So the top blessing that a believer can have is not comfort, not convenience. The top blessing is resting in God, trusting Him, following wherever He leads. The top blessing for a believer is to live by faith, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever that means, wherever that God takes us. You say, well, that ISIS example is pretty extreme. But actually, that's exactly what Habakkuk is talking about, that kind of carnage. He's talking about that. And actually, I would say that if you're believing Jesus Christ only works with prosperity and health, you've got deficient gospel. Our belief in Jesus Christ needs a stand for whatever you face, whether you're faced with devastating cancer, whether you're faced with persecution, whatever. And basically, our faith is in him, whatever he wants to bring to us, because he's the sovereign one. He's in control. He's in charge. So we rest in him. You know, Jesus talked about in John 10 about how we're in the hand of Christ. We're in the hand of the Father. So basically, through all of life, we come to him and say, God, you're in charge, I'm in your hand, I rest in you. Whatever you take me through, that's fine. So if he takes us through persecution, he takes us through cancer, he takes us through good things and not suddenly good things, we're in his hand, we trust him. So righteous man lives by faith, he puts his trust totally in God's sovereign protection over him. So we look at Habakkuk 2.4,

the righteous shall live by his faith,

We have 100% confidence in the sovereignty of God. We're trusting in his sovereignty over circumstances. We trust him in whatever he wants to bring in our lives. We're saying, I trust you. If you're the God who is willing and able to take me from death to life, and I put my faith in you, that faith continues on throughout the rest of my life. what force of people we are. What can be better than that? To know that he's the one that has us in his hands. Whatever he takes us through, he's going to take us all the way through to eternal life in heaven. So next week we'll look in Romans about A couple of other ways that this is quoted, like Romans 1.17 says a righteous should live by faith. In Galatians 3.11,

no one is justified before God, before the law, because a righteous should live by faith.

These are quotes again from Habakkuk. So in conclusion, Habakkuk was told by God the righteous should live by his faith. And then Habakkuk concludes by saying,

I hear, 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 trees should not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines. The produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food. The flock be cut off from the fold. There be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will give 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.

Let's pray. Our Lord God and Father, we acknowledge that we're the most fortunate people in the world if we're your children. We have no idea what's going to happen today, tomorrow, or anything else, but we know that we're in your hand. We live by faith, the same Habakkuk faith. We have that faith too. We rest in you. So tonight, we give ourselves to you. We rest in you. We trust you to be in charge of our lives. We trust you to be sovereignly in charge of everything that happens tonight, tomorrow, the rest of this week. the rest of this year, the rest of our lives. We thank you, we can trust in you. We rest in you, just like Habakkuk did. We have that same kind of rest in you. Thanks so much for the great privilege you've given to us to have that kind of faith in you. I pray in Christ's name, amen.