Habakkuk: Chapter Three

Good to be with you this morning. If we've not met before, my name is Josh and I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here because I really do actually believe that it's not happenstance that you're here. You didn't show up here on accident. God's got something in mind for you today.

He wants to teach you something. He wants you to connect with someone. He wants you to get connected in a new way. I don't know what it is, but my hope and my prayer is that you're open to it, that, that you're open handed, coming in today, saying, God, whatever you want, I'm here for. We sing those words.

Yes, I will. These are hard words to sing. And some of us had to grit our teeth today to say those words because we are in the deepest valley today now. But you showed up and I'm glad you're here. If you've been with us or watching online for the last couple weeks, we've been in this valley series in this obscure kind of forgotten book called Habakkuk and studying through this crazy difficult story of Habakkuk.

On week one, we said that Habakkuk was a prophet of God. And a prophet of God is someone that God chose to speak to and give messages to speak to other people. So God says, go tell these people these things. But Habakkuk is unique as a prophet because not only did he speak to the people on behalf of God, he also spoke to God on behalf of the people. He's the only recorded prophet in the Bible who does that.

Now, Habakkuk's name literally means to grab hold of or to wrestle with. And we said this plays out big time in this book of Habakkuk, especially in chapter one, Habakkuk sees that this group of people, the Babylonians, they're rising to power. They're sweeping across the known world and they are conquering and pillaging and capturing city after city, town after town, people after people. And God looks at or Habakkuk looks at God and he basically says, God, how could you let this happen? How could you watch as these terrible people come do terrible things?

This is not fair. And while we might not be perfect, they're way worse than us. How could you do this and still be good? And God says something outrageously disruptive to Habakkuk and it's something outrageously disruptive to us and our view of God. And this is why it's so important for us to bring the book of Habakkuk to the top and look at it here.

God says I am doing something Habakkuk, that even if I explained it to you in detail, you couldn't understand it. I am raising up the Chaldeans, the Babylonians. That's crazy. And we have to grapple with that. We gotta take a hold of that and wrestle with it.

Then in chapter two, Habakkuk settles with the idea that even though categorically he doesn't have a category for what's going on, he can't make sense of it. We talked about it in terms of other. God is doing something other. This is the duck billed platypus that we talked about last week. That thing that doesn't fit into the categories that nice and neatly.

And he settles with this idea and he says this is an other situation. But God is still good because I know his character and I trust him. Also in chapter two we read those powerful words that are on repeat in the Bible. The righteous shall live by faith, proving their faith to be real, true faith by placing their weight on. And as I was typing that out, I was thinking weight w e I g h t and we place our weight on it, but we're also placing our weight w a I t on it.

Our placing our weight on God in both senses is what proves and embodies and enacts our real faith. But he doesn't just wait on God to do what he wants God to do. He doesn't just wait on God to do what he wishes God would do. He waits on God to do whatever God wants to do. Because if God is who he says he is, and if Habakkuk cannot understand what's going on, then Habakkuk is the problem and not God.

And so he waits for God to correct his thinking. All this is a way oversimplification of the things that go on in chapters one and two. So if you haven't listened to those messages, please listen to those messages. And there's just gritty good stuff in there that's foundational for the rest of it. But chapter two ends with these words.

Habakkuk 2:20 the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him. He's seated on his throne. God's there. This drips of Psalm 46 and those words be still and and know yada know personally by firsthand experience.

Know that you know that you know because you've tasted it, that he is good, that he is God. Because if God is who he says he is. If he is still seated on the throne, if he is still sovereign over all of the earth and the heavens, then we can confidently wait, wait on his deliverance, no matter how long it takes. And as we transition into chapter three, we see Habakkuk's response to all this waiting and asking and seeking and eventually trusting. He does what any other human being would naturally do after all of this struggle and wrestling.

He does what any other human being would do when there's a prospect of being captured or. Or murdered by an evil nation. He writes an upbeat worship song. I'm not kidding, he does. The book of Habakkuk is full of twists and turns and unexpected results to things.

And chapter three is no different. If you're reading in your Bible, you might have a heading over chapter three that says Habakkuk's Prayer. And as we examine this chapter more closely, we see there's. It's kind of like a prayer and worship sandwich. It's prayer with worship in the middle and some more prayer at the end.

It opens with his prayer. We know that the middle section of this chapter is a worship song because there's a superscript and a subscript to the text. The superscript at the top says literally, a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, on or according to or in the style of Shigeanath. You know Shigeanath, Everybody sings those Shigeanathian songs, right? Well, the word Shigeanath is a musical term, and most scholars believe that it's a type of song that describes the style to be a song that's rapid, wild, passionate and ecstatic.

Just the kind of song you would write if someone was coming to murder you. And then the subscript at the end of the chapter tells us that this song is for the director of music. On my stringed instruments. This is a song Habakkuk has written. It's not a personal song.

He says it's for the director of music. He writes this song with full intentions that the worship leader would grab his guitar and lead everyone in singing this song. That's significant to note. And then the.

Sorry, I lost my point. Think about this. Babylonians are coming. Habakkuk writes an upbeat worship song. Why?

Because I believe that Habakkuk, knowing what's coming, is saying to himself, I need to send them with a song of hope that will anchor them to their faith. And as they go into captivity and judgment, a song to remind them of God's faithfulness through history. And his promise for the future. I think Habakkuk's song was similar to the slave songs that were sung in our country. Those songs have been called spirituals, and they were songs of sorrow and remembrance and worship and hope.

Even in the face of systemic dehumanization, these spirituals affirmed the humanity and dignity of those who sang them. The songs conveyed a deep connection to faith, a belief in ultimate justice, and a confidence in deliverance, whether it was for this life or the life to come. And they were expressions of resilience even in the face of. Of terrible circumstances. So think of Habakkuk's song like similar to these spirituals, as God's people walked the brutal 600 mile 4 month minimum journey by foot to Babylon, as they lived as captives for 70 years, some never to live again as free people, this song would be a song that strengthened them.

It would be a song that reminded them of God's power and reminded them of his promises and stirred up hope for a future deliverance. It was also a song that would have been passed on to the next generation. All of those who would be born in captivity, whose only home was ever captivity in Babylon, who did not get to experience firsthand God's faithfulness as well. This song would have taught them of God's faithfulness. And as we pick up in verse two, we read the top of the prayer.

This is the top of the prayer and worship sandwich right here. Habakkuk. 3, 2. Lord, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds.

Lord, repeat them in our day, in our time. Make them known in wrath. Remember mercy. Habakkuk has completely set down his complaining and questioning and wrestling to accept that what God is doing, while it's not something he can understand, it must be right. And he shifts from arguing with God to humbly accepting his sovereign decisions.

And he still asks for God's care and favor to go with them in even though he knows they're going into captivity. I love that line in wrath. Remember mercy. The idea is, lord, I know that we deserve your wrath, but I know who you are. I've seen your faithfulness.

And I would ask that even as we go to experience this captivity, that you will do miraculous and powerful things even in our day. And if you read the, the book of Daniel, all the things that are going on in the middle of this, God is faithful to Habakkuk's request. Then as we move from verse two to verse three, there's a shift in pronouns and this kind of delineates the worship section from the prayer section. And if we pay attention in verse 16, it'll flip back. So let's read this song.

It's a pretty exciting worship song. So if you just feel the need to dance or sing out the Shigeanathian type of song, you just go right ahead. Okay. God came from Temon, 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 shook the earth.

He looked and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains crumbled and the age old hills collapsed rich. But he marches on forever. I saw the tents of Cushan in distress, the dwellings of Midian in anguish. Were you angry with the rivers, Lord?

Was your wrath against the streams? Did you rage against the sea when you rode your horses and your chariots to victory? You uncovered your bow, you called for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you and writhed torrents and waters swept by the deep roared 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 his own spear.

You pierced his head when his warriors stormed out to scatter us, gloating as though about to devour the wretched who were in hiding. You trampled to sea with your horses churning the great waters, and none of you started singing like this is exciting. We don't know what any of it means, but it's exciting. Right? Well, there's a lot going on here.

There's a lot going on here. The imagery here represents a lot of what's going on. And it looks back on God's judgment and his faithfulness and his deliverance all through history. That's what's being laid out here. And those who sang this song would know this.

This would make sense to them. The opening lines of the song look back to the blessing that Moses speaks over the people before they go into the promised land from the mountain. There's language about God delivering his people from captivity in Egypt. There's language about him splitting the sea so that his people could walk through on dry ground. And then the chariots coming through and God closing up the waters on the Egyptians and killing them.

There's language of the battle of Mount Tabor that we read about in the Book of Judges where Deborah and Barak, they go in and fight against Sisera. Sisera has this massive army of chariots, over 900 chariots of steel. The Bible says that's a huge deal in this day and age. And they're taking these chariots down these dry riverbeds and this seems impossible for Barak and Deborah to stand up against them. And God sends this freak storm and a flash flood.

And as those chariots are going down those dry riverbeds, here comes the water. They all get stuck in the mud and they're defeated. There's language that refers to the battle of Gibeon where Joshua and his warriors are fighting and they pray to God and say, God, things are going really well, but it's about to get dark. Could you keep the sun in the sky? And God miraculously keeps the sun in the sky all night and through the next day so that they can win this battle.

This song is God's highlight reel of redemption and power and providence and promises fulfilled and, and battles won. This is a song that says, he is fighting for us. He is the mighty warrior. And it's a song that looks ahead to the future as well. There's that line, you came out to deliver your people to save your anointed one.

This is looking forward to Jesus. You crush the leader of the land of wickedness. What's the promise in the garden? That he will crush the serpent's head? This is a multi thousand year, multi layered promise.

This song. There's language of all of those things, of God's faithfulness. A day will come, we read in chapter two, this promise. A day will come when the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. And we said last week, that's that multi layered promise.

It's a promise that will be fulfilled in part in 70 years as they're pulled out of captivity in Babylon. It's a promise that will be fulfilled at the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And it's a promise that will be ultimately fulfilled at the end of time when Christ returns to bring us to heaven with him. And then we pick up in verse 16 and like I said, the delineation in pronouns shifts there. And we read Habakkuk's words.

He says, I heard. And my heart pounded. My lips quivered at the sound. Decay crept into my bones and my legs trembled Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Actually, throughout the rest of the Bible, Babylon as proper Babylon becomes a type of.

It's a type of an idea where any nation that does not honor God is Babylon. All throughout the rest of Scripture and different prophecies, Habakkuk says, I'm scared to death about what's going to happen. I don't want any part of this. But I know that my God is a God who keeps his covenant, who has never and will never forsake his people. He is good, he is perfect.

His power is unstoppable. He is indeed sovereign over everything and everyone. And Habakkuk says, therefore I will place my full weight on his promise, and I will wait patiently. I will step into captivity, and I will patiently wait for the day of deliverance. And then we read these famous words from the book of Habakkuk.

If you know any part of it, it's probably this. He says, 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. Habakkuk says in I know that the Babylonians are coming and they're going to take everything. They're going to take our joy of delicious sweet figs, they're going to take our wine, they're going to take our olive oil.

They're going to take all of our food and all of our livestock. They're going to take our entire economy, our entire access to life. They're going to take it all away. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. Actually, what's crazy about that language?

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God, my Savior. The literal Hebrew translation of that is I will jump for joy and spin around. That's nuts. And this is where Habakkuk lands.

What a transition from chapter one to chapter three. A modern version of these verses might sound more like, Though I lose my job, Though the paycheck doesn't come and the bills keep piling up, Though the dreams I've chased seem out of reach, Though my prayers feel unanswered and my heart feels heavy, Though my son or daughter is drifting further and further from faith, Though my marriage is in shambles, Though I buried my loved one, Though the fridge is empty and the car breaks down. Though the diagnosis is bad and the future seems uncertain, though my health is failing and my body does not do what it used to be able to do, and it feels like life is crumbling around me, I will trust that God is good and faithful and in control. And I will not only do that begrudgingly, I will do that joyfully. I will raise my hands in worship because he is the God of deliverance.

He is the only one who has shown himself again and again and again and again and again to be perfectly faithful. And we sang these words, I will. Yes, I will. When Habakkuk says I will, that shows us that, that he believes. This is not anything shy of a decision.

It's an act of his will. I am putting my effort into doing this. I will make myself do this. I will rejoice. This is the belief that God is who he says he is.

And he has a choice to either sink into despair or to rejoice. And he chooses to. To rejoice. But it's significant, his decision to rejoice. It is not a denial of his circumstances.

He's not just coating it with icing and sprinkles and saying, I'll just pretend like it's good. He is looking at God and saying, God is greater than this. God is greater than this. Paul David Tripp is an author. He wrote a book called Awe.

And in his book, one of the things that is so challenging to swallow is that when we are more anxious and more worried and more fearful than we are worshiping, then we are more in awe of our problem than we are in of God. In fact, to be more in awe of our problem is to accuse God that he is not who he says he is.

That's a tough one to swallow. And then chapter three beautifully ends with Habakkuk quoting a line from A Song of King David. David wrote these words 400 years before Habakkuk would sing them. These were psalms that Habakkuk probably went to youth groups singing. He went to church singing David's psalms.

And just imagine him pulling this out of his memory and drawing it up to remind himself that the same God who was with David then is the same God who was with him now. So it's Psalm 18 that he quotes. And I want to read the superscript, the. The introduction to Psalm 18 because it's significant and you'll notice it sounds really familiar. It says, for the director of music of David, the servant of the Lord, he sang to the Lord the words of this song.

When the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. Habakkuk grabs this example from David and puts it on like a blanket over his situation confidently. And I find it interesting because David wrote all kinds of psalms. He wrote agonizing psalms. He wrote psalms where he was doing the same thing Habakkuk was doing in chapter one, questioning.

He wrote songs of fear and sorrow and grief and worry and struggle. But Habakkuk didn't choose any of those. Habakkuk chose a song that David wrote after the battle had already been done. I believe that Habakkuk sang these words proclaiming that even though it might not be seen for 70 years, it was as good as done. It was as good as done because God said it would be done.

Therefore, he worshiped and praised. Not despite his circumstances, he worshiped and praised God, knowing that it was done. It was already written. It is already done. Church this is the hope that we have.

The battle is already won. Death has been conquered. Eternity with Christ exists.

And we read these final words. These are the words of David that closed the book and just put a nice exclamation point on the end of it. The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to tread on the heights.

Tim. In the face of anything. Our God is mighty to save. He's mighty to save. So what do we do with all this?

We could walk away and say, man, we had a great series on the Book of Habakkuk. I now know what's going on in the Book of Habakkuk, and it might never change us ever again. I have no interest in that. This should change our lives. This should change the way that we worship.

This should change the way that we live. This should bolster our faith and absolutely change us from the inside out. And I think one of the key reasons that most of us have never read the Book of Habakkuk, can't even pronounce his name, wouldn't know anything that's in there, is because Satan knows this is a giant key to unlock unbelievably potent faith. If we can swallow that God is actually who he says he is, if we actually believe that, if this was a church that believed that, imagine what could be done. So what do we do with this?

How do we let this change us? First, embrace the struggle. Embrace the struggle. Habakkuk's name means to wrestle. And all throughout the Old Testament especially, God chose to work with those who would grab ahold of him and wrestle.

That's what he chose. He looked at them and he said, I can work with that. And I promise you, you'll never wear him out. You will never wear him out. God wants us to wrestle with him.

And the book of Habakkuk shows us that. I heard one preacher say, you cannot have a Habakkuk chapter three kind of faith until you have had a chapter one kind of questioning and a chapter two kind of waiting. You cannot have a chapter three kind of faith until you have had a chapter one kind of questioning and a chapter two kind of waiting. Second is this. Be in the Word.

Be in the Word. You cannot remember what you do not already know. And you cannot write a song of God's faithfulness if you've never heard about it. This is the key to understanding of who God actually is. He is unchanging.

And if you are not in the Word, you will not know him. You will not have a song to sing. And the third is this. We all have a song of deliverance to write. We all do.

Some of us might be pretty fresh or new to this whole thing. The fact that you're even here today is a song of deliverance. Some of us might have generations of story. At some point I'll tell you my family's story and the backstory of both sides of my family. I promise you there is no path from them to here.

It's impossible. It's impossible. But I'm standing here because of God's faithfulness. And I got a song of deliverance written in my life. And you do too write your song.

What would be in your song of deliverance? And if yours is short, get back in the word. Cause you got a really long one. The fact that we are sitting in Cleves, Ohio talking about Jesus of Nazareth is insane. You can't get here from there.

God has been faithful and faithful and faithful and faithful. And he is unchanging. Right? Your song, what would your lyrics be? Jen Wilkins says, what we repeat in times of ease, we will recall in times of hardship.

And then this powerful quote from Paul David Tripp. He says, when you hit hard times, when your weakness is exposed, be ready for the enemy to whisper in your ear, where is your God now? And be ready to respond. He is where he has been and will always be with me in power, glory and grace.

There's another psalm of David that was famously quoted a thousand years after David wrote it.

Psalm 22. Jesus was on the cross, literally dying for us, being crucified. The most painful, horrible death that mankind could come up with. That's what it was for crucifixion. And he quoted Psalm 22.

We talked about this in our Songs of Summer series. Jesus is singing a song of death, David from the cross. It opens with those words that we've all heard. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning, oh, my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer by night and am not silent, yet you are enthroned as the Holy One.

And then it closes with these words. And all of this is a giant ripple echo from the Book of Job, through the Book of Habakkuk, through the New Testament, into Christ, all from David. It says, future generations will be told about the Lord. That's you and me, baby. That's you and me.

Jesus is on the cross and he sees you and he says, it's worth it because I'm telling you, it will happen. It will happen. He says, they will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn. For he has done is finished. These are Habakkuk's words and David's words.

It's Christ on the cross saying, it is done. It is done.

So I will joy myself in the Lord. I will proclaim his goodness. I will walk into whatever is in front of me, eyes wide open, not denying the reality of it, but trusting the reality that God is greater and he is good. We're going to share in communion together. If you didn't get a cup on your way in, just raise your hand.

Our team would love to bring you some.

Man. The night before Jesus hung on the cross, the night before he anchored himself to Psalm 22, he was crying out to God and saying, God, if there's any other way. If there's any other way, I don't want to walk through this.

Habakkuk did the same thing. If there is any other way, I don't want to walk through this. You're doing the same thing today, right now. If there's any other way, I don't want to walk through this. But Jesus said, but God, you're good.

So whatever you bring is whatever I will step into.

Just before he was crying out in the garden, he was with his friends. They were sharing a meal together. They didn't understand what was going on. He broke the bread. He handed it to them.

And he said, this is my body given for you. When you eat this, remember? And they had Nothing to remember yet.

And they would recall this. I can only imagine the moment, the first time after Jesus comes back, he's resurrected, that they shared this together. Wow, what that must have meant to them in that moment. This is my body given for you. When you eat of it, remember what I've done.

And he took the cup. He said, this is my blood poured out for you. The blood of the new covenant, the blood of a promise that will come. That will come. It has come.

And it will come. And it is done. And it will be done. It is all of that all at once. And he said, when you drink of this room, remember what I've done.

Almighty God, we are.

We're human. And I'm thankful that you don't expect us to be anything else.

That you receive our grumbling and our moaning and our tears and our sorrow and our grief and our quarrel, questioning and are wrestling. And you, you just were kicking and fighting and you just pull us in. You just pull us right in.

Thank you for that. Thank you. That you are a safe place to grapple and wrestle and struggle. Lord, would you change us? Would you change us, Holy Spirit?

Would you revive in us a new, greater, stronger kind of faith? Would you just blow on that coal and heat up the fire? That we would be a people, a generation, a church, a community of those who say, whatever comes, you are good.

And I pray especially for those who can't stand say that right now, who are listening, who are in the room, watching online. I pray for those who can't say that right now. They can't stomach it. Through tears and moaning and sorrow. They can't say it yet.

Lord, would you strengthen them? Would you help us as a community to come around them, to lift them up and encourage them and care for them?