Habakkuk No.6 Total Confidence in God

The book of Habakkuk, chapter 3, the entire chapter, the book of Habakkuk, chapter 3. A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet on Shugyanath. Lord, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord.

Renew them in our day, in our time. Make them known in Wrath. Remember mercy.

God came from Teman, the holy one from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens and his praise filled the earth. His splendor was like the sunrise.

Rays flashed from his hand where his power was hidden. Plague went before him. Pestilence followed his steps.

He stood and the earth shook. He looked and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains crumbled and the age-old hills collapsed.

His ways are eternal. I saw the tents of Kushan in distress, the dwellings of Midian in anguish. Were you angry with the rivers, O Lord? Was your wrath against the streams? Did you rage against the sea when you rode with your horses and your victorious chariots? You uncovered your bow.

You called for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you and wretched.

Torrents of water swept by the deep road and lifted its waves on high. Sun and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows, at the lightning of your flashing spear. In wrath you strode through the earth and in anger you threshed the nations.

You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one. You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness. You stripped him from head to foot.

With your own spear you pierced his head when his warriors stormed out to scatter us, gloating us. Though about to devour the wretched who were in hiding. You trampled the sea with your horses, churning the great waters.

I heard and my heart pounded. My lips quivered at the sound. Decay crept into my bones and my legs trembled.

Yet I wait patiently for the days of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines. Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food.

Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my savior.

The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to go on the heights.

May the Lord bless this as it's brought to us. If you are reading from the authorized version of this prophecy, the opening verse in the first chapter will use the word burden instead of oracle. That's no real difficulty because Hebrew has many nuances, many sides of meaning.

And when you preach, as Habakkuk was a preacher, there is a burdensome aspect to that message, especially bearing in mind the context of what he had to, the people to whom he was delivering the message. But burdens are things that God lifts, can lift from a preacher as well as from a member of the congregation. In fact, I suppose it's true to say that the gospel message is directed to the alleviation of burdens.

The little chorus that we used to sing many years ago in Yorkshire where I was brought up, it spoke of the moment of making a commitment to the Lord and what happened as a result. I lost it on Calvary's hill. I lost it on Calvary's hill.

It tumbled and tumbled until it rolled out of sight. I was happy that night. I lost it on Calvary's hill.

And the it, of course, refers to the burden, the burden of sin. But there are some people who've lost the burden of sin and yet they still carry other burdens. And to some degree it's our target or should be to leave all our burdens with the Lord, to leave them at His feet because, well, He's able to cope with them.

I suppose it would be true to say that regarding Habakkuk, you might put a superscription underneath the name Habakkuk, the title of the book, and describe him as the man who lost his burden. For at the beginning it's there. It's a heavy one, the oracle, the burden that Habakkuk had.

It's a burden concerning his people. It's an increased burden when he realizes what God is going to do to those who are Jewish people who have violently and deliberately reneged against His law. And Habakkuk, this burdened preacher in the valley of despair, finds himself as a result of perplexity in seeing the purposes of God in the second chapter, rising to a watchtower and there waiting for the Lord somehow to give him some explanation as to what he has in mind, how is it that God can punish an evil people with a more evil people.

The burden increases. But by the time you get to the end of the last chapter, you find that the burden has been lifted. And the man who started with mourning is now dancing.

The man who was a worrier became a worshiper. I have more qualifications than anyone else to be a worrier. You may vie with me, but I'll take you on.

I mean I can worry about most incredible things. If it's hot on a Sunday, I wonder if we're going to have the heat on and that will boil everyone. If it's cold, I wonder if we won't have any heat on at all and so we'll freeze them.

I mean these are sort of part of the neurotic condition that has become part and parcel of me over the years. And you too, you have your own little idiosyncrasies, the things that you worry over, not so? There was a great Danish philosopher of last century and he was a Christian. And he talked about a farmer who on one day was going down the track and he's got his horse and his cart and his hay.

And he sees somebody who's got a burden on their back, a knapsack. And so he stops and he gives the individual a lift so that they would appreciate the help of not carrying the load. And he's been going on for a couple of miles and then he stops and he turns around and he sees that the person that he has given a lift to, sitting on the back of the cart, they still have the burden on their back.

They've been helped, but not completely. The individual could have unloosed the straps and taken the burden off and let the cart take the whole weight. Sometimes I think that's like us.

We know what it is to have our sins lifted from us. But there are other burdens that we still carry. And what we are to do is to bring these burdens to the Lord.

His is the burden of the church. His is the burden of our family. All that we would realize that God is with us to help us in all that we are endeavoring to do.

So where do you put yourself? Give a little sort of psychological test. Run it over. Are you a worrier? Are you an introverted sort of person? Are you like Habakkuk? Are you more like Amos? You're positive and powerful.

I've got a friend by the name of Wagner. He's a professor. He's a colleague of mine in the States.

And he's a professor of church growth at Fuller, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, seminary and Christian educational establishment in the world. Now Wagner is moving away from Fuller and at the moment he's just commuting in. And he's professor of the department of church growth.

But there's two other schools. There's the theology school, the seminary. And there's the school of psychology, which is a big one.

Now when he called in, he got the operator connected him to the wrong part of Fuller. And she gave him the school of psychology's line. And actually what he got was the hotline, the emergency line, the help line.

What Wagner had to say was so amusing, I made a note. So here's a professor of church growth calling in to the school of psychology. He's got the hotline operator with pre-recorded messages.

If you are an obsessive, compulsive person, press 1 repeatedly. If you are codependent, ask someone else to press the button for you. If you have a multiple personality, press 3, 4, 5 and 6. If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want.

Just stay on the line. If you are schizophrenic, listen confidently to the little voice within you telling you what button to press. If you are manic depressive, it does not matter what button you press.

Joking aside, we all represent some sort of psyche, some type of personality. And here is Habakkuk, and his name means wrestle. And he has been wrestling in a worrisome way with God.

He's had the gloves on, he's been boxing God because, well, he doesn't understand God's purposes. And God doesn't actually owe Habakkuk an explanation. Neither does he owe you some apologia for the way that he involves himself in this world or in your life.

We are to move by revelation, not by explanation. Habakkuk, you are to do what I tell you to do. And my providential dealings for your country, for this world, are the right ones.

I am working out my purposes. And it takes Habakkuk three chapters before he can realize the truth of that lesson. That Habakkuk is not to be a wrestler.

Habakkuk is to be an embracer, which also is one of the meanings of his name. And he moves from worrying God to worshipping God. He's lifted, and yet his circumstances don't change.

When you get to the third chapter, it's exactly the same political situation. When you go through all these chapters, you will see that externally nothing has happened at all, apart from God saying that he is in control. But by the time you get to that last chapter, you find this man saying, Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer.

He enables me to go unto the heights. What extraordinary change in conviction. You see, the difference is not in the external circumstances, but rather in the psyche.

In the heart of Habakkuk. And if only you would be more responsive, yielding your psyche, your personality, your soul to the Lord. Realizing that you have an anchorage in God.

How much easier it would be for you to cope. You see, mortals that we are, we start with externals. Lord, if only you would do that, and do that, and do that, then we'd be alright.

But the good Lord knows that our psychology is far more important than our environment. What we are as individuals. And when we are dealt with in the heart of our personality, when we get an anchorage in God, then we can cope.

So Richard Wurmbrand can tell you that sometimes when he was in that Romanian jail, with his cell infested with rats, in that remarkable book, one of the most interesting books I've ever read in my life, Sermons in Solitary Confinements, he said that the presence of God was so real that he danced with the rats in his cell. And that's not somebody that we're reading of two, three hundred years ago. He sat on a stool, do you remember, in this pulpit? Not that many years ago.

And there was the opportunity in our back hall to ask him the questions. It's when you have an anchorage in God, when instead of being a worrier, you become a worshipper, then you can cope as did Wang Mingdao with confinement in the Chinese prison. You can cope as did Anne Crosby with an emaciated, deformed body.

And I tell you, that lady who made such an impression upon this church was never known to publicly complain. It was quite extraordinary. She had an anchorage in God and a testimony that lived on, which actually produced a memorial service which was unique in my experience here at the TAB last Friday, with people who had been affected by Anne coming along to say their farewell to someone else.

But the reason why they came here was because they had met up, or one or two of them, with Anne, and they wanted to hear more about the God who makes difficult circumstances bearable and enables people to go on and live victoriously despite their infirmities, despite their conditions. I tell you that if you go to the slums of Calcutta, you will find some incredible Christians. In the most deprived parts of Pakistan and Southeast Asia, you will sometimes find a saintliness that is rarely discovered here.

I'm not saying it's never. And that, you see, gives evidence to support my contention that what is important is not the adjustment of the externals. What is important is the adjustment of the heart.

When that's in a right relationship with God, then you can cope. God forbid that you have sickness, but you can cope with that sickness. God forbid that you should know, not as a result of problems caused by yourself or a broken family, but you can cope with that.

Unemployment, whatever, if your anchorage is in God. You say that this is not practical. I tell you, this is the most practical teaching you'll ever hear in your life.

What does the man who's a multimillionaire do on his deathbed? It was George Bernard Shaw who said that we're all equal before the throne. We're all equal at the moment of departure. You brought nothing in, you take nothing out.

The only thing that you have at the end is a stability or lack of stability in your inner psyche, in your soul. And Habakkuk gives us, and thank God for this record, he gives us an impression of someone who is a worrier, a natural worrier. Probably he could outpace you and me, and he doesn't understand the purposes of God, and he says so.

One of the things that binds me to this book is its utter honesty. It tells us when its characters have difficulties, and Habakkuk has difficulties. God keeps certain secrets back from Habakkuk for a while, because if he disclosed them at an earlier time, then Habakkuk wouldn't have understood.

And if he did comprehend, he'd want to interfere. How remarkable are the ways of God. But you see, God does work.

He works individually in people's lives. He works communally in our world. Look at verse 5 of the first chapter.

Look at the nations and watch and be utterly dismayed. I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told. I told a crowd of people in the last few days of the incredible movement of God in our world, inasmuch as Jesus Christ His Son came into the world to die for their sins.

On first hearing, that is incredible. Tertullian, an old Latin Christian, who in his Latin tongue, when confronted with the gospel, says, I believe what's incredible. I believe what's impossible.

I believe what's irrational. At the human level, it seems that way. That God should step into time and space and take upon Himself flesh and blood and die in a bloodthirsty fashion on a cross.

That is incredible. You wouldn't believe it, but this is what I'm going to do, Habakkuk. Not just immediately involve myself in the political theater in your days, but ultimately I will move in time and space and even the angels' jaws will drop.

They will gape on the scene of God, the mighty maker, dying for man, the creature's sin. I am going to do something in your days you would not believe. I am going to work.

And you know, in one sense, Habakkuk leans forward. He really ought to be in the New Testament, this man, because what he's got encapsulated in those opening verses is Romans 8.28. All things work together for good, for the ultimate good of those who believe in God. Habakkuk, you believe.

You're a right. You're a man who lives by faith. And the man who lives by faith, Habakkuk, is a man who is singularly blessed.

And you read that great declaration, don't you, that the righteous will live by his faith in chapter 2. So by the time you get to chapter 3, here is Habakkuk, and God hasn't dealt with the external events in his life. He has just revealed himself to Habakkuk as the sovereign Lord. And Habakkuk knows that God is working his purposes out, and ultimately, ultimately, his glory shall cover the whole earth.

The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. Verse 14 of chapter 2. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him.

Verse 20 of chapter 2. So you see, Habakkuk has got this impression that God is in control, that God is answerable to no one, and Habakkuk is at peace with that. God wants you to be at peace too. You see, in one sense, spirituality is stimulated by theology.

That's not a final statement. It needs some qualification. But it is true that you never really have an experience outside of your understanding.

In other words, you come to God and you ask him for a greater awareness of his presence, but you have the theology that tells you that God is personal and can grant his presence for you to appreciate it. You need theologically priming. But religion, the Christian, the biblical religion is just not a matter of the mind, it's of the heart.

That's why it's singularly important to test a man's heart. Now, this theological acumen, that has a degree of importance, but not solely on its own. It's a combination of the mind and the spirit, the word and the spirit.

They're all balanced, you see. Well, here is Habakkuk, and his theology, well, he's been primed to some degree, but he's gone through an inner transformation in his psyche, in his soul. And here is this man dancing before God.

Tell him in the first chapter that this will be his experience within a matter of some weeks, and he won't believe you. God has to do something radical in Habakkuk. God has to do something radical in you and me.

You don't reason yourself into the presence of God. You believe, and then the reason becomes primed from what the Bible has to say, and you get confirmation. And so here is Habakkuk, and he's had an extraordinary experience of the power of God.

I heard my heart pounded, verse 16. My lips quivered at the sound. Decay crept into my bones.

My legs trembled. What is all that about? Well, you see, he realizes that this God, this great, this sovereign, this holy, this fearful, this angry God is going to pour out his wrath upon the world. Now, this teaching is not popular in the 20th century, but it remains in the Bible, in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament.

He knows what God is going to do. I will wait patiently for the day of calamity. There's not one thing that Habakkuk can do about that.

But he can be faithful before God. He can be faithful in his preaching. And so he starts to give you the anchor points that have brought him to the experience that is now his.

He'll give you the three R's, not writing, reading, and arithmetic. But he will tell you, first of all, I will rest in the Lord. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet Habakkuk will be at rest.

You see, what he's done is he's lifted out the basic ingredients behind the Jewish economy. How do you know that a man is prosperous in Judaism? Well, he's got his fig trees, he's got his vineyards. But if there are no figs, if there are no grapes, if the crops of olives fail, then he is in difficulty.

There's no food for the sheep, no food for the cattle. Then the stock exchange in Jerusalem is in panic. It's in anticipation of Wall Street, where Americans by the dozen kill themselves in that great financial calamity in the 30s.

But you see, Habakkuk says, despite that, despite what is bound to happen, happening, I'm going to rest in the Lord. I'm going to rest in the Lord. Wait on the Lord.

Wait patiently before Him. I will rest. But not only will I rest, yet, verse 18, I will rejoice in the Lord.

You know, it's interesting, isn't it, just going back on the business of resting for a moment. In the previous verse, he talked about his knees knocking. I mean, he was wobbly.

Do you know, I've got a feeling that there are too many WCs in most churches, wobbly Christians. But you see, stability comes to Hezekiah as he thinks through the sovereignty of God, and despite all that is going to happen, he, Habakkuk, can be at rest in the Lord. And that leads him from his wobbles and from the quiver of the 16th verse into songs, into the quaver of music, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Again, you see, he's anticipating Paul. Paul says what? Rejoice in the Lord. Well, yes, but he doesn't just say rejoice in the Lord.

He says rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Once more, Paul is not exactly writing to a church, himself in some wonderful conference center with all mad cunts.

Paul is writing to the Philippians, and he himself is knowing great deprivation, yet he tells them as he himself has experienced to rejoice in the Lord, to be joyful in God. And isn't it interesting, again, anticipating the New Testament, that when Habakkuk makes reference to God, he invariably uses the personal pronoun, I will be joyful in God my Savior. We saw that earlier on in the book, didn't we? Oh Lord, verse 12 of chapter 1, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die.

A man came to me at the end of the memorial service on Friday here in the Tab, and he said, I think that religion is something personal, you know. I said, you couldn't be more right. My Lord, my God, he rejoices in the Lord, in the God who is his Savior.

I will rest in the Lord. I will rejoice in the Lord. I will rely on the Lord.

And the third R, the Sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, a remarkable creature. I don't know how anyone can see a deer flee to foot and argue that there isn't a creator.

You watched a deer in and out the undulating hills and dales, they don't even interfere with its speed. Remarkable lies, the symmetry, how much you can learn from the realm of nature as to the handiwork of God. Now, says Habakkuk, who got his clogs on in the first chapter, he really had.

I mean, his progress was so small, it was so clumsy, but now he shifts from the clogs. And the only illustration he can get in terms of personal testimony is this Sovereign Lord, this Yahweh, who is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer.

And I move around with alacrity, with speed. There I was in the valley. I made it to the watchtower.

But look, he catapults me right to the heights, to the mountains. He enables me to go on to the heights. This is my God coaxing me, teasing me, giving me the opportunity to live a life of faith.

And so important is this message that he actually directs it, he actually dedicates it to the leader of the Philharmonic Orchestra in Jerusalem. For the director of music on my stringed instruments. What's he mean? Well, you see, these Hebrews, they could teach you a thing or two about worship.

I mean, there were a righteous company as well as an unrighteous company in Jerusalem. There were always those who were faithful. And Habakkuk says, I had such an experience of God, I've actually recorded it.

And I'd like, if you please, although Graham Kendrick hasn't come along yet, and even Charles Wesley is a little bit down the road, I'd like to offer you some music for you to sing to. So what should we sing, Habakkuk? Well, let's sing the Song of Rejoicing. The fig tree does not bud, there are no grapes on the vines, the olive crop fails, the fields produce no food.

Though there are no sheep in the pen, no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. You can almost dance to it as I'm singing it, can't you? I won't test you. If it was Latin America, I might try.

So, Habakkuk, you see, he's come all the way from being a worrier to a worshiper. From putting the boxing gloves on and punching the air with God facing him. He's now embracing the Lord, and he's heard the divine chuckle.

Because I've taught you before, God does chuckle. He chuckles at the immaturity of the people that he loves. Poor old Habakkuk, he thinks he can teach God a thing or two.

And God says, no, Habakkuk, I understand you, I understand your frailty. But you can't, because actually, Habakkuk, I got it right anyway. I always do.

I'm God. Submit to my sovereignty. Put your anchorage in me, and you'll be all right.

And Habakkuk learns the lesson, and so he gives us this creedal statement. I will rest in the Lord. I will rejoice in the Lord.

I will rely on the Lord. Resting, Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what Thou art. Rejoicing, Wang Mingdao told me, God is so good.

Relying on the memorial service that I conducted on Friday, they picked as the penultimate hymn, Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side. Habakkuk would probably have had that as his favorite hymn had he not written more himself in his day. Let's bow our heads in prayer.

We'll listen to the melody of an ancient or an old hymn being played. Then we'll sing a couple of verses and prepare our hearts for coming around the table of the Lord. But let's just pause for a moment and reflect on some of the things that I've just tried to share.

Take the notes which are a little bit more concentrated with some of the thoughts that are there that I've touched on and worked through them privately. May they be a blessing to you. Nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

189 as you're finding it. We'll go from the third verse. We shall march in the strength of God with the banner of Christ unfurled.

189 stand. We shall march in the strength of God with the banner of Christ unfurled. We shall march in the strength of God with the banner of Christ unfurled.

God bless the sea. Nearer and nearer be. When the earth shall be filled with the glory of God.

Do sit down. So God works his purposes out. He does things which are utterly beyond our ken.

We wouldn't have believed if someone had told us by our pure rationality. We would have said that God would never step into this world in terms of sending his son to die on the cross. But that death on the cross is a priority.

Because the world that he created eons ago is a polluted world. But it is God's world. The earth is his.

And the future of this world is sealed in the purposes of God. The earth will be covered with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. But to flush from our world all that which is polluted and unacceptable to the Lord took a sacrifice of monumental quality.

The Lord Jesus dying on the cross for us. So we go to a day that Habakkuk only saw by faith. The day of God's pouring out of his love in concentrated fashion.

We see the man on the cross dying for us. It melts our hearts. It prepares us to take bread and wine in remembrance of this incredible sacrifice.

This is what God prepared, decided to do before the foundation of the world. And if it told Adam, he wouldn't have believed it. But we know that what God said he would do, he has.

So turn to 511. And after a couple of runs at this, we'll go to 513. These are songs that only the lover of Jesus can sing.

O Lord, your tenderness melting all my bitterness. I receive your love. O Lord, you're beautiful.

511, we bring bread and wine to you as we sing. And this is for you if you trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior to participate of. Otherwise, just let the emblems go by, please.

511. 511. 511.

511. 511. 511.

511. 511. 511.

511. 511. 511.

511. 511. Lord, we've heard of you with the hearing of the ears, but in Christ Jesus we have seen you.

We stand in awe. Yet our awe moves into the intimacy of being children, and we embrace you and call you our Father. We know what it is to fear in terms of respect, and we know what it is to be familiar in terms of saying, Abba, Father.

We thank you that you've turned our worrying into worship, and we ask that you'll continue to engage us always in seeing you more clearly, in loving you more dearly, in following you more nearly, until the day dawns, when the sun never sets, and we're in the eternal dimension forever. This God is our God. Father, we're proud of you.

We're proud of your Son. We're thankful for the Holy Spirit. We bless you for the Christian faith.

Send us on our way, rejoicing, living for you, for Jesus' sake. Amen. Good morning.

God bless. Go home.