Habakkuk 3

Discussion Questions

1. A.W. Tozer said, “What comes to our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Pastor Tom asked us, “What is the report you have heard of the Lord?” When you think of God, what descriptions immediately come to mind?
2. Where did these descriptions come from? (e.g., Sunday school, a parent, culture, experience, Nature, the Bible) How do those thoughts about God’s character affect how you view your past, current and future situations?
3. The Scripture we studied is called “the Psalm of Habakkuk” because it is written as a song intended to be performed with musical instruments. Eugene Peterson said, “Poets use words to drag us into the depth of reality itself.” What in Habakkuk’s poem stuck out to you, and did it give you a larger view of God’s character?
4. “’Rejoicing in suffering’ does not mean Christians should act happy about tragedy and pain when they feel like crying. Rather, the Bible aims the spotlight on the end result, the productive use God can make of suffering in our lives. To achieve that result, however, he first needs our commitment of trust, and the process of giving him that commitment can be described as rejoicing.”  Do you agree with Yancy that trust is a form of rejoicing?
5. Ultimately, as we sing the song “He is Making All Things Right”, how can our hearts be transformed from a position of worry and doubt to choosing a way that is full of faith, trust, and rejoicing?
6. Pastor Tom gave us additional scriptures to read to encourage us and provide historical context and a larger view of our salvation history. Did any of those resonate with you?

Transcript

My name is Tom Yarbrough. I am your associate pastor of Congregational Care. This is not where I usually am at this point in the service. You may have noticed that. And in fact, I’ve never been here at this point in the service except for the service previous to this one. So, we want to welcome you this morning. We’re glad you’re here. We want to welcome anyone who might be joining us online this morning. Some of our stats over the past week tell us that we’ve had folks viewing from right here in Nashville, Greensboro, North Carolina; Arlington, Massachusetts and as far away as Singapore. So, wherever you are, near or far, we are glad you’re with us and we pray the Lord blesses you.

Today we are finishing up our three-week study of the three-chapter book of Habakkuk. And in case you weren’t here for those teachings the last two weeks, or in case you just need a reminder, I’ll do a quick review. But first, let me pray for our time in the Lord together this morning: Lord, as we open Your Word, give us ears afresh and eyes anew. Spirit, teach, tend and encourage us. Guard my mouth that in my excitement this morning I wouldn’t say anything to confuse or to misrepresent You in any way, Jesus. I ask this in Your name. Amen.

We’ll put a timeline up on the screen to remind you where the book of Habakkuk falls in some of the history of the Jewish people. Habakkuk is considered a pre-exilic work, which simply means that it was written before the Babylonian exile. When we’re talking about the Babylonian exile, we’re talking about the invasion of the Babylonians led by King Nebuchadnezzar. Jerusalem was destroyed; much of Judah was carried off into captivity in Babylon. We read books like Daniel, Esther, those sorts of books that are written during that time.

The coming Babylon invasion, in fact, is revealed in the book of Habakkuk to Habakkuk by the Lord in this very unusual exchange that they engage in. We want to remember though the book of Habakkuk is largely about the fact that when God seems silent, we can be assured that He’s working. He’s working in our world. He’s concerned about corruption; He’s concerned about injustice. He’s concerned about suffering. It’s an invitation for us to live by faith even when we don’t understand God’s ways.

So just as a means of review, we began the Book of Habakkuk in the first chapter with Habakkuk crying out to the Lord. He has this initial complaint, which is, “Lord, why do I have to look upon the wickedness, the corruption, the violence that’s happening in Judah and You don’t seem to notice, and You don’t seem to be doing anything about it?” And he’s crying out, he’s saying, “Lord, are You there? Do You hear? Do You see? Do You care?” And God answers Habakkuk and says, “Oh, I’m working, Habakkuk. I’m working in a way that you wouldn’t believe if I told you.”

And He reveals to him that He is raising up the Chaldeans. We can also call them the Babylonians; it’s the same people, and He’s going to use them as an instrument to judge Judah. He describes their military might, and they’re this very formidable and fierce army. Really, it’s a cavalry. We’re talking about horse-mounted soul soldiers that ride through the Earth. And there’s this description of them that leaves us with this sense that their approach is what we’d call “scorched earth.” They leave devastation, they leave destruction, they take captives. And Habakkuk says, “Lord, wait. You’re holy. How can you use a wicked people to judge people less wicked? How can you use someone as wicked as the Babylonians to judge Judah?” He says, “I don’t understand this.”

But he has faith. He says, “We will not die.” He acknowledges God’s holiness. And he says, “I’m going to my prayer tower,” or some translations say “the ramparts.” “I’m going to stand in place and wait on You, Lord, for You to address my second complaint.” And God does address that complaint. And as we get into Chapter 2, as Matt taught last week, God answers, and He starts by making this very clear delineation for Habakkuk, this dichotomy of humanity. He says, “There are two kinds of people. There are those who are full of themselves and puffed up. And there are those who live by faith, and those are the righteous.” It’s almost as if he’s saying to Habakkuk, “What’s it going to be, Habakkuk? Are you going to live by faith or are you going to be like the former category that I’ve described?”

And He certainly doesn’t think much of that former category. In fact, He lays out five woes that He holds against the Babylonians, five things that He’s going to judge them for. He says, “They’re not going to get away with their wickedness. In fact, in the end, the nations that they have invaded and overrun and treated this way are going to laugh at them. That’s what’s going to happen in the end. Don’t worry, Habakkuk, I am going to judge them.” And then we end with this very powerful verse at the end of Chapter 2 in which we’re told, “The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him.” And I love how Matt did such a good job of ending our sermon last week with some meditation on three verses. We had about 90 seconds to just meditate on that in silence.

I think it’s safe for us to say that Chapter 3 is the result of Habakkuk being silent before the Lord. We have to remember going into this, we haven’t heard from Habakkuk since he went to his prayer tower and said, “I’m going to wait.” So, we haven’t even heard his response to this idea that the righteous shall live by faith. But after worship, meditation, silence before the Lord, we get to this beautiful psalm that we have in Chapter 3. And I think what we’re going to see here is a different Habakkuk, different from the one we see in Chapter 1. Something has changed. We’re going to see how and why that change has taken place. So, this is written as a psalm. I’m going to try to read mostly without stopping, but I do want to stop for a couple of things as we get into this Chapter 3, verse 1 of Habakkuk.

“A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet according to Shigionoth.” I’m going to stop right there because that’s a weird word, and I break for weird words. We’re not just going to blow past that. I can’t tell you exactly what that means, what that translates as, but most scholars believe that’s probably a dynamic directive for the music that goes along with this psalm. This is probably a musical instruction. This is wild intense music. This is tumultuous music. So, as we read this, I want you to think this is not “I Love You, Lord,” and “Your Mercy Never Fails.” That’s not what’s happening here in this verse, in this chapter that we read. We’re going to test to see if we have any old rich Mullins fans out here. It’s probably a lot more like “When he rolled up his sleeves, he wasn’t putting on the ritz. Our God is an awesome God.”

That’s so much better than the first service. And honestly, that probably doesn’t even capture the intensity that we have here, but that’s more the direction I go whenever I read this, is this idea of God’s might and His power. Let’s go to verse 2 here. “O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear.” He says, “I have heard the report of you.” I love how The Message says this. If you ever read The Message, it can be a helpful companion to Scripture. It says, “God, I’ve heard what our ancestors say about you.” I think Peterson got it right when he said it that way. That’s a great way to read it. “I’ve heard what our ancestors say about you, and it scares me, scares me a little. I’m in awe.” He’s saying, I know Your reputation.” Not only has Habakkuk heard this answer from God to his complaints, but he’s also heard about God. He’s heard about God from the Psalms. He’s heard about God from the traditions and the songs and the hymns of His people.

And you may notice from the timeline there, these people have had 800 years plus to be hearing these things. He hasn’t had that long, but that’s how long these songs have been sung. That’s how long these traditions have been passed down. So, he knows God’s mighty works. He knows God’s character displayed in the life of His people and the children of Israel. So, he’s got something to meditate on just like we did last week. We weren’t just emptying our minds at the end of that sermon; we were filling our minds with something. We were filling our minds with the Word of God. And I think that’s exactly what Habakkuk did. So, as we continue to read, I want you to keep this question in mind. Coming in here today, what is the report that you’ve heard of the Lord? What’s the source of that report? I think this is so important. Where are you getting your story about God? That’s what I’m asking. Let’s keep reading.

I pointed out the musical instructions. You’re going to notice some very high language here. This is poetic language that we see in this Psalm. Books of prophecy are filled with poetic language. The Psalms are filled with poetic language. We see that a lot. In an ancient traditional sense, that makes perfect sense. That checks out because we’re going to reserve our highest forms for highest praise, for heroes, for victors, for kings, for God. Poetry can explain what’s grand, what’s incomprehensible, what’s unfathomable through the use of similes and metaphors. You remember from English class? I was raised by an English teacher, so all of this is old news for me in a way. It makes it relatable, that’s what I’m saying.

I can’t comprehend how big and how powerful God is, but I know how big a mountain looks, and I know how powerful the sea seems to be. So that’s a good starting point for me when I think about God’s power and God’s might. Eugene Peterson says it so well, and he’s saying it within this context of poetry in Scripture. He says, “Poets tell us what our eyes, blurred with too much gawking, and our ears dulled with too much chatter, miss around and within us. Poets use words to drag us into the depth of reality itself.” So, as we read this next section together, keep in mind we read these passages as highly figurative descriptions of literal events, okay? Let’s keep reading the second half of verse 2. He says, “O Lord, I’ve 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.”

Now verse 3. “God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah.” It’s a musical interlude meant for reflection. “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 Cushan 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 sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows. Selah. 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. Selah. 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.”

And now in verse 16, he moves into this description of his present experience. This is what’s happening to him as he worships, as he receives this hymn, as he considers all that God’s revealed to him up to this point. “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.” I can’t help but wonder if the music starts to calm there. If this is sort of the breakthrough in the wild intense music. It might be.

Verse 17, “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 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. To the choir master: with stringed instruments.” That’s his arrangement note. He said, “This is pretty good. I hear strings. I think I hear strings on this.”

Raise your hand if you remember the Bowflex machine. Yeah. What about Winsor Pilates? Remember those? No? No? No Pilates people? It’s great for your abs. What about Nordic track? Anybody remember the Nordic track? This is a kind of sad picture of the original Nordic track. I chose that picture because it just looked like a machine that had known better days to me. That’s just what it felt like to me. I’m talking about products that were sold via infomercial. Apparently, there are still infomercials. For those of you who stream all of your viewing, you don’t know, but there’s this way of selling things where you buy episode-length ad time, and you do basically a giant commercial. We used to see things like blue blockers, sunglasses being sold on late night TV, and garden hoses that could store away really easily. And steak knives that could cut through Coke cans because I’m always like, “Ah, I can’t slice my Coke can. I need a better knife.”

But what was really exciting was the exercise equipment, because the exercise equipment interviewed the users. They had testimonials and they had before and after pictures, and they had transformations that they were selling, right? You buy this exercise equipment, and you can be transformed. And the before and after pictures were always like sad to happy. Before it was always like sad. And after it’s like elated. They smiled on the after pictures.

My family was convinced, and we got a Nordic track. I remember thinking, “Is this really what skiing feels like?” It was like a medieval torture device. It had pulleys and slides. We used it for about three weeks. The whole family took turns. And then for the next 15 years we hung our laundry on it, because we had a lot of things that couldn’t go in the dryer. We lived on the edge. So, we had a lot of things. Our clothes fit perfectly, perfectly. And I was husky so my jeans couldn’t dry.

Here’s my point. I think what we’re seeing here is a transformed Habakkuk. And if Chapter 1 is the “before” photo, then Chapter 3 is the “after” photo. But the question becomes, what transformed him from what we see in Chapter 1 to what we see at the end of this chapter? So, let’s go back to the question I asked at the beginning. What comes into your mind when you think about God? Why should we even be concerned about this? A.W. Tozer said it so well in The Knowledge of the Holy. He said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” It’s going to determine what you care about; we know that. How you see the world, certainly what’s important to you, what or who or how you worship.

So, what’s the story of God that you know? What’s the source of that story? Who told you that story? Is it from God’s Word? Did you get your story from people in your life who maybe talked one way about God but acted another way in a way that didn’t model that? We’ve all been guilty of that. I’ve been guilty of that. Did you get your story from higher education? Did you get your story or are you getting your story from TikTok? From Hollywood? These could be questionable sources. Do you know if your source and your story are trustworthy? Or do you need to interrogate that a little and ask some questions? Does your story result in praise, in adoration, in wonder and worship, in trust and peace?

I’m going to go as far as to say that if the report we’ve heard doesn’t lead us to a posture that’s like the one we see Habakkuk end up with here, we might be dealing with unreliable information, false information. We might be telling ourselves a story that isn’t accurate or true. And we see that’s important because what Habakkuk’s doing here with this psalm is he’s recounting to himself the story of God’s faithfulness to His people. He says, “I’ve been told this story my whole life, and now I need to tell it to myself.”

And he goes on to say there in verse 2, “Yes, I’m in awe and I’m in fear at your works that I’ve heard about, Lord. I’ve been told this story and I’m in awe.” And then he says, “Do it again. Do it in my time. Do it now. Show Your might. Show Your power, Your ability to rightly judge, to rescue the way You did back then. But while we’re experiencing this terrible holiness and this right wrath of a God that demands silence from all the Earth when He’s in His holy temple, Lord, please remember mercy.” So, he asks that. He knows. He knows he can depend on God. He’s asking for mercy along with wrath.

So, in this main section of the song from verse 3 to 15, we see how Habakkuk allows this story of God’s faithfulness that he’s heard from God’s Word, these songs, these traditions over 800 years, to bear witness to God’s character. We’re going to put a slide up with some additional reading for you. You may want to make a note of these chapters, or you can get on our website to our resources and access these. I really encourage you; this will greatly enhance your reading of Habakkuk if you go through some of these.

The similarities between what we read here in verses 3 through 15 and what we read elsewhere in Scripture, especially in these verses; we shouldn’t see them as just coincidences of inspiration. In other words, even though he received this prophetic hymn, he wasn’t just inspired to write about the Lord in similar ways that we see in the Exodus or in the Psalms or in Judges or in Joshua. No, I think if this sounds like the song of Moses, it’s because Habakkuk knew the song of Moses. And if this sounds like the song of Deborah and Judges, it’s because he knew the song of Deborah. And if this sounds like the song of David in Psalm 18, it’s because he knew the song of David. He knew the accounts of God working for the good and deliverance and rescue and even judgment of his people. And that’s what he’s turning to here; he bears witness to the trustworthiness of Yahweh and His word.

I’ll briefly mention some of the references that he’s making here. Verses 3 and 4 when he talks about God coming from Teman and the Holy One from Mount Paran – this is Exodus language, right? This is what I mentioned earlier. This is salvation language. This is the area south of Canaan where God was seen as coming out on behalf of his people. This is where the nation of Israel was introduced to God to begin with. This is where God veiled his glory on Mount Sinai, and He said, “No, no, no. Set up a barrier. People cannot witness my glory.” So, this would’ve meant something to the nation of Israel. They would’ve heard these kinds of descriptions in terms of the geography, and they would’ve said, “Oh, that’s a salvation route. That’s a rescue route. That’s where God led us out.” This is meaningful.

If you jump down to verse 13, you see more salvation language. “You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed.” And yes, His people were set aside. They were anointed in a sense, but he’s also talking about this preservation of Judah, which is where this Davidic line would come from, where the Messiah was promised to come from. So, by protecting His people, He’s ensuring that the Messiah can still come. Habakkuk was right when he said earlier to God, “We shall not die” in Chapter 2. And then when we get to verse 16, we see Habakkuk, as I said earlier, having this very personal experience. We might call it a somatic experience.

I see a lot of clients in a therapeutic context, and one of the things we talk about is what’s happening in our bodies, anxiety and trauma and things like that. I think what we’re seeing here is this collision of the experience that he’s having. This is wrecking him and it’s resulting in him describing this in his body in a very particular way. This is a reality upheaval for him. And he describes how it’s affecting his body because he knows the present, and it’s a devastating and distressing present. That’s why he’s asking God to do something. He knows something very troubling about the future, the immediate future, because God’s revealed to him how He’s going to judge Judah. And now he’s received this re-articulated hymn that’s somehow set in the past, but it also evokes this renewed certainty about the future. This transformation and this collision just wrecks and rocks his body, and we see this collision of fear and awe and anxiety and hope and dread.

I also believe that he’s absolutely wrung out from intense worship. When was the last time that you worshiped like that – where you could feel it in your body? But where does he go? In the second half of verse 16, he says, “Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. I will quietly wait.” For Habakkuk, worshipfully recounting the story of God first results in a resolve to wait. Waiting is hard. This is interesting because he doesn’t say, “Okay Lord, I’m going to brace myself for what I know is coming.” He’s looking beyond that, how God is going to exercise all of His justice. He says, “God, I believe You’re going to make things right.” We sang it earlier. “You’re going to make things right. I’m going to trust Your word and quietly wait.”

So how does he adopt this posture? The story of God that he has just recounted to himself assures him that he’s not on his own in his waiting. Paul Tripp says it like this, “It’s vital to understand that waiting isn’t an interruption of God’s plan. It is His plan. And you can know this as well: the Lord who’s called you to wait is with you in your wait.” God called Habakkuk to wait. We saw it in Chapter 2. He said, “Wait for it. If it seems slow, wait for it. It will surely come.” And now we see Habakkuk’s obedient response.

What do you need to quietly wait for this morning? I’m going to tell you again; this is language of the Psalms. And the Psalms give us a voice for waiting. So, if you are waiting for something and you need to be encouraged to quietly wait and adopt this kind of posture, I cannot recommend anything more than go to the Psalms. Go to the Psalms, meditate on the Psalms. They give us a voice for waiting. Reach for them like Habakkuk did.

Secondly, for Habakkuk, worshipfully recounting the story of God results in a reason to rejoice. At verse 17, “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.” I’m going to stop right there. It feels to me like he’s just given us six reasons not to rejoice. Did you see that? He just gave six reasons not to rejoice. And in our time, we might not completely relate to these agrarian situations. Some of us might if you grew up in a rural culture. Certainly, in some countries they can very much relate to this. Here in Nashville, we might not understand why it matters if the fig tree produces yield, if the olive yields, if the fields and the herds are okay.

Habakkuk is describing total devastation. Don’t miss that. What he’s saying here is, “I know total devastation is coming.” And the story of God’s faithfulness has allowed him to adopt a posture of rejoicing even though he knows what’s coming. If you want to have a better idea of the extent of what was to happen to Judah, read the book of Lamentations, it describes the destruction of Jerusalem. It’s devastation.

Imagine this posture. Let’s put this in terms we might understand better. What would your lyric be if this was your Psalm? “Lord, I’m at the end of my rope financially, and I don’t know how to get to what’s next, yet I will rejoice. Lord, my marriage is falling apart. I’m grieved that it’s not what I thought it would be, yet I will rejoice. Lord, my children continue to make decisions and choices that hurt and disappoint and destroy, yet I will rejoice. Lord, I feel like all I ever do is fight with my parents and there’s conflict in my house and I’m tired of it, yet I will rejoice. Lord, I don’t remember the last time I was victorious over that besetting sin or that old addiction, yet I will rejoice. This isn’t what I thought my retirement years would look like. These are supposed to be golden years, and they’re not, yet I will rejoice.”

What’s your lyric this morning? I want you to know that those things I just named and all the things I didn’t name that I could have, someday Jesus is going to make them untrue. He’s going to wipe away every tear from every eye. And if there’s something you need to walk away from with this book, it’s that, “I’m doing a work in your days that you would not believe.” He’s making all things right. We sang it earlier. Jesus is on the move. This is not a Pollyanna kind of upbeat positive mindset. We’re not pretending there’s no suffering, no such thing as devastating circumstances. Philip Yancey says it like this, “Rejoicing in suffering does not mean Christians should act happy about tragedy and pain when they feel like crying. Rather, the Bible aims the spotlight on the end result, the productive use God can make of suffering in our lives. To achieve that result, however, He first needs our commitment of trust, and the process of giving Him that commitment can be described as rejoicing.”

But how do we trust and rejoice when things are not good like he’s describing here? What was Habakkuk doing that allowed for this posture? I’ll tell you; he was rooted deep in the promises of God. He was rooted deep in a story that he knew was bigger than him; it was bigger than the trouble that was coming, it was bigger than the circumstances. He knew that God was still working, still writing the story. The story was an anchor for him in the storm of these circumstances. “Lord, I have heard the report of You. I know You. I know Your reputation. Now let me remind myself of Your goodness, of Your might, of Your power, of Your mercy. Let me meditate on the story until I begin to overflow with praise, with worship, with peace, and then I become a witness to the watching world.”

Why do you think we meet every Sunday and teach through the Word of God and sing these songs together? It’s because we need it. We need to hear it. We need to hear each other saying it. We need to root in something. It’s why we gather.

Finally, for Habakkuk, worshipfully recounting the story of God results in a reinforced faith. Let’s look at verse 19. “God, the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the deer’s. He makes me tread on my high places.” God hasn’t just made him strong. God is his strength. Compare this to Chapter 1, verse 11. Go back a page here. “Then they sweep by,” talking about the Babylonians here, “then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their God. Their strength is their God.” Habakkuk says, “My God is my strength.” Look at that contrast. He’s given us a testimonial about his faith transformation because God has changed him through worship, through meditation on God’s word.

And I wanted to say, I don’t think that Habakkuk was some 90 lb. weakling in faith at the beginning of this. That’s not what I’m getting at. He clearly knew that he needed to reach out to God. He clearly had the faith to do that. But in that moment, he had his eyes focused on what was happening in Judah. And then he had his eyes focused on the Babylonians. And now look at where his eyes are. They’re firmly fixed on God, on the Lord, on his faithfulness. And when he says, “You make my feet like the deer to tread on my high places,” again, very much like Psalm 18. Look at what he’s saying. This isn’t just, “Well, it would be fun to be a deer. What animal would I like to be?”

And it’s not escapism. This isn’t, “Dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away.” No. What’s he saying here? He’s saying, “Lord, I see you strengthening me and equipping me for the terrain of my future. And it’s going to be rough terrain and I’m going to need to get to some high places for safety.” And listen, most of us, I’m going to say probably all of us, we’re not going to hear from God specifically what our future looks like in this way that Habakkuk has. But I can promise you, if you’re within the sound of my voice, you fit into one of three categories, if not all of them. You either have been through some really challenging seasons. You are in a really challenging season, or you are heading for a really challenging season. There’s no way around it.

Imagine praying today, “Lord, equip me for the terrain of my future. Lord, I know that hard times are going to come, and some of that might even look like devastation in my life. Make me like a deer so that I can get to the safety of high places in those seasons.” I want to ask, we’ve got the youth in here today, young people: imagine a more appropriate prayer to be praying at your age than, “Lord, equip me for the terrain of my future.” Imagine that. “Equip me for what finding safety is going to require. Give me willpower, give me focus. Give me a clear sense of direction, a sense of who I belong to. Give me integrity to be able to climb out of the mess of our self-obsessed, and sometimes even nihilistic, culture into some safety, or maybe even the strength to take a stand for you, Jesus.”

And when I say safety, I’m not talking about physical well-being. We don’t know if Habakkuk even survived this Babylonian invasion. We don’t know what happened to him. But I think he’s referring to soul safety here. He’s referring to a sure-footedness. He’s rooted deep. He’s choosing to live by faith. He knows that puts him on secure footing regardless of the disaster ahead. Look at how he grew toward faith in this process of asking questions of God and then trusting the answers. George MacDonald, a fantasy writer who was a predecessor and a major influence on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien among others said, “A man may be haunted with doubts and only grow thereby in faith. Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to the honest. They’re the first knock at our door of things that are not yet but have to be understood.”

Habakkuk needed to understand. But what ultimately led him to this reinforced faith was worship and meditating on God’s word. And that’s true for us as believers today. Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, “Faith comes by hearing, hearing through the word of Christ.” Faith is a response to God’s revelation of Himself through His Word. And for Habakkuk, this reinforced faith brings the assurance that God is listening, and that God is working. And that even though he may not understand the how, the why is starting to come into focus for him.

The late Jay Vernon McGee has a good commentary on Habakkuk, and he says it this way. “This little book opens in gloom and closes in glory. It begins with a question mark and closes with an exclamation point. Habakkuk is a big WHY? Why God permits evil is a question that every thoughtful mind has faced. I think that this book is the answer to that question. Will God straighten out the injustice of the world? This book answers that question. Is God doing anything about the wrongs of the world? This book says that He is.”

Habakkuk took his why to God and to God’s Word. And he knew what the very first of the Psalms said about the man who is blessed, whose delight is in the law of the Lord. “And on his law, he meditates day and night. He’s like a tree planted by streams of water that yield its fruit in season.” He knew the promise of God for salvation, and he knew that that meant he could trust God. So why are the promises of God so important? Warren Wiersbe says it this way, “We don’t live on explanations, we live on promises, and the promises of God are based on the character of God.” Compared to Habakkuk, how much more do we have to draw on when it comes to God’s word and character?

Consider this. You and I here today have the fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation in Jesus. And we know that Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise of the future to set all things right. Habakkuk asked for mercy in wrath based on what he knew to be true about God’s character. But today, on this side of history, on this side of the cross of Calvary, we have the ultimate example of God’s wrath and mercy, meeting for our good at the cross. They met in this way. God took His own wrath upon Himself and the person of Jesus. That’s the wrath that we deserve. And instead, we got His mercy. Jesus paid the price once for all sin.

We have an empty tomb to remind us that the one who can rob death of its sting can someday turn its own weapon against it and death will be no more. In wrath, remember mercy. And ultimately, he did, and that is good news. We’ll be coming to the table in just a moment to give our thanks for that. So, we can rejoice in the safety of our souls because of this truth, and we can rejoice in the hope of the resurrection because it’s the assurance that all that is wrong in our world, just like Habakkuk was asking God to address, all that’s wrong in our world is going to be set right someday. And that includes making each one of us new.

Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice.” Why? Because the cross and the resurrection of Jesus are always true. That’s the story we should be recounting to ourselves. “O Lord, I have heard the report of You, and it moves me to worship and thanksgiving and rejoicing and faith.” But if this isn’t the story that you know, and if this idea of security for your soul or rejoicing and suffering is new for you, and you’re curious about what it means to trust God, I want to encourage you to talk with one of us after this service. Talk with someone in the prayer team in the back. I guess that’d be the Bissels. We’d love to talk to you about Jesus this morning.

Let’s pray together: Father, thank You for this time together this morning. Thank You for a fresh look at Your faithfulness through this old text. Lord, like our ancient brother, Habakkuk, we ask for You to continue to renew Your work in our time and in our hearts. We’re so thankful for Your abundant mercy. Lord, remind us that You’re with us in the waiting. Overflow us with Your spirit so that we might rejoice in all circumstances. Strengthen our faith as we continue to lean on Your word. We ask all this in the matchless name of Jesus. Amen.

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