Lots of people will tell you that the key to happiness is
something like this. Live in the moment, stay focused
on the present, don't get sucked into the past, don't worry about
the future. There's some wisdom in that
advice. While I wouldn't say that living
in the present is a sufficient path to happiness, it's
certainly true that being wrongly attached to the past or
the future can rob us of what the present has to offer.
The Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal reflected on these issues
400 years ago, writing We never keep to the present.
We recall the past. We anticipate the future as if
we found it too slow in coming and we're trying to hurry it up.
Or we recall the past as if to stay.
It's too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander
about in times that do not belong to us and do not think of
the one that does. So vain that we dream of times
that are not and blindly flee the only one that is.
The fact is that the present usually hurts.
We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if
we find it enjoyable we are sorry to see it slip away.
We try to give it the support of the future and think how we are
going to arrange things over which we have no control for a
time we can never be sure of reaching.
Let each of us examine his thoughts.
He will find them wholly concerned with the past or the
future. We almost never think of the
present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light
it throws on our plans for the future.
The present is never our end. The past and the present are our
means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but
hope to live. And since we are always planning
how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never
be. So past, present, future.
We long to recall the past. We mentally live in the future,
caught up in our own dreams and designs and plans and schemes.
Why? Because, as Pascal says, the
present usually hurts. This morning we continue our
series in the Old Testament prophetic book of Habakkuk.
We'll cover most of chapter 3, verses 1 to 15.
The prophet Habakkuk knew something about living in a
present that hurts. He's surrounded by a society
that is disintegrating through sin and idolatry.
Injustice is rampant. So he calls out to God to do
something about it. And God promises to raise up the
Babylonians to judge his people, Judah.
But that seems even worse to Habakkuk.
How can God use evil people to judge evil people?
So the Lord reveals to Habakkuk that one day he will judge the
Babylonians and He will deliver his people fully and finally.
Until then, what can the righteous do?
Wait patiently for God to fulfill His promises.
Trust that his plans are good and wise, and they will
eventually come to pass. That is an overview of the book
so far, the first two chapters. Now when we come to Habakkuk 3.
Habakkuk has humbly received God's word.
He has submitted himself to what God has revealed, but he's still
wrestling with the prospect of a painful present.
He is about to suffer the devastation of being invaded by
Babylon. A whole lot of bad stuff is
going to happen to Habakkuk between now and when God
fulfills His promises. A whole lot of bad stuff is
going to happen to all of God's people between now and when God
fulfills all of His promises. So how can Habakkuk handle?
How can we all handle? How can you handle all the bad
stuff that will happen between now and the fulfillment of God's
promises? That's the question our passage
addresses. Please follow along as I read
Habakkuk 3, verses 1 to 15, A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet
according to Shigyonoth. Oh Lord, I have heard the report
of you and your work. Oh Lord, do I fear.
In the midst of the years, revive it.
In the midst of the years make it known in wrath.
Remember mercy. God came from Teeman, and the
Holy One from Mount Poran Sailor.
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 nation's.
Then the eternal mountains were scattered.
The everlasting hills sank low. His were the everlasting ways.
I saw the tents of cushion and 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. Sailor, 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 speed 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.
Sailor 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. How can you handle all the bad
stuff that will hit you between now and the fulfillment of God's
promises? How can you not only survive,
but spiritually thrive in a painful present?
Here's the point of our passage in one sentence.
Remembering God's past and resting in God's future brings
grace for now. I'll say that again.
Remembering God's past and resting in God's future brings
grace for now. Before we walk through the
details of the passage, I'm going to give a little bit of an
overview exposition to help us get our bearings.
Looking at verse one, a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet
according to Shigeon oath. Now the book began in chapter 1,
verse one, the Oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
So even though chapters one to two incorporate Habakkuk's
responses to the Lord and his laments, it's primary content is
the prophetic visions that the Lord revealed in response to
Habakkuk's prayers. Now the rest of the book, all of
chapter 3, is Habakkuk's prayer in response to the Lord's
visions. This marks a change in genre and
a change in tone. It also likely marks a change in
Habakkuk's stance toward the Lord and his revelation.
Habakkuk is done lamenting. He's done wrestling.
Now he's going to pray a prayer of petition and remembrance.
But this is not just a prayer. It's also a song.
Verse one says according to Shigyon oath.
It's hard to know exactly what Shigyon Oath means.
It's a Hebrew word that shows up only twice in the Old Testament,
once here and once in the heading or superscription to
Psalm 7. So all that we can really gather
is that it means it's a song for worship.
All of Habakkuk 3 is not just a prayer, it's a Psalm.
We also see this at the end of verse 19, in a phrase familiar
from the Psalms very last bit of the book to the choirmaster with
stringed instruments. This means that Habakkuk's
prayer is not just something he prayed, it's something all of
God's people were to pray. It's not only something they
were to pray, it's something they were to sing in corporate
worship. In other words, all of Habakkuk
chapter 3 gives us a model of how to respond to God's
revelation, especially when that revelation is troubling or
disturbing. When God announces coming
judgement, when God announces perplexing providences, how
should we respond? We should respond by praying and
singing in ways like Habakkuk does here.
Now the content of Habakkuk's prayer in the sense of petition
is in verse 2. Oh Lord, I have heard the report
of you and your work. Oh 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.
We'll come back to this all in more detail later, but for now,
I just want to focus on the phrase in the midst of the years
because I think it gives us something of a key to our
passage. In the midst of the years.
Habakkuk has in view a time in between.
But between what? I think the best answer is that
in the midst of the years refers to the time between the two acts
of judgement that the Lord has revealed in his dialogue with
Habakkuk in chapter 1, the Lord revealed that a punitive purging
judgement is going to fall on the whole people of Judah very
soon. Historically speaking, this
probably happened within two decades.
And then in chapter 2, as we saw especially last week, the Lord
revealed that He will one day completely condemn Babylon and
all oppressive nations, and He will completely save and deliver
His people. One day.
He will unleash a full and final judgement, and He will
accomplish a full and final salvation.
So what's Habakkuk asking? He's asking the Lord to continue
His work, to preserve His people, to sustain their faith
in the time between these two judgments, the near judgment and
the far judgment. Now, the time between is also a
fantastic one phrase description of the whole Christian life.
As Christians, we live in the time between Christ's
resurrection and His return. As Christians, we live in the
time between our new birth and the coming of the new creation.
We have all kinds of encouragement and assurance from
what God has already done, and yet we're exposed to all kinds
of trials and hardships until God completes His work.
We live in the time between. So what do you need God to do in
the time between? You need Him to revive His work.
You need Him to show His work to you anew.
You need Him too in wrath. Remember mercy.
So how does God do that? What's the answer to Habakkuk's
request? Now, the rest of the passage
through verse 15 does, in one sense, continue the prayer.
But it's a prayer of rehearsal. It's a prayer of recital.
It's a prayer of declaring what God has done and will do.
So all of verses 3 to 15 are a reminder of God's saving work in
the past, and they're a refresher about the future work
of judgement and salvation that God will accomplish.
Verses 3 to 15 look both backward and forward now as
we'll consider the details when we walk through the passage.
Some parts of the passage refer explicitly to what God did in
the past when he delivered his people from Egypt at the Exodus,
and some parts of the passage refer explicitly to what God
will do in the future when he completes his work of salvation
and judgement. But a whole lot of the passage
refers to God's saving work in terms that could fit either the
past or the future. It might seem a little general.
It might seem a little vague, like you can't tie it to one or
the other. That difficulty or that
ambiguity is actually one of the key points of the whole passage.
What God did in the past guarantees what He'll do in the
future. What God did in the past is the
model for what He'll do in the future.
If you look at the cross and resurrection, you see how it all
will end. How can you not only survive,
but spiritually thrive in a painful present?
Remembering God's past and resting in God's future brings
grace for now. Now for the details.
We're not going to walk through the passage exactly in order,
though pretty close. We'll focus on God's past, then
God's future, then our present, past, future, present .1.
Remember God's past, Remember God's past.
That's what Habakkuk does in some ways throughout verses 3 to
15, but especially in verses three to seven.
Look again at verse 3. God came from Tea Man and the
Holy One from Mount Poran Salah. His splendor covered the
heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.
Tea Man and Mount Poran are located in the wilderness of
Edom near Sinai. They are between Egypt and the
Promised Land, so to speak of God coming from Tea Man and
Mount Poran. It's a way of describing the
whole arc of the Exodus, from the plagues in Egypt to the
people's rescue from Egypt, to the giving of the law at Mount
Sinai, to their wanderings through the wilderness, through
their entrance into the land and their conquest and inheritance
of it all. That is what God did for His
people when He came to their rescue.
That's the key verb. On the one hand, this was a
response to their cries. Exodus 2 verses 23 and 25 tell
us that the Lord, the people, cried out to the Lord in their
oppression and affliction, and the Lord heard them.
And the Lord remembered His covenant promises to Abraham,
and He answered those covenant promises.
He answered their request. He fulfilled His covenant
promises through coming to their rescue.
The Lord responded to His people, but no one forced him
to. No one compelled him to.
God kept His promises because of His own perfect character and
flawless integrity. And verse 3 portrays God's
saving work as the result of His own sovereign initiative.
He came, He took action, He changed everything for His
people. And when he did, verse 3 says
His glory and praise filled the earth.
God's saving work not only delivered His people, it also
displayed His glory. Why did the Lord send plagues on
the people of Egypt? Exodus 914 says so that you may
know that there is none like me in all the earth.
Verses four and five. 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. The Exodus both revealed and
concealed God's power. It was open but hidden.
It was unmistakable. But if you were hard hearted
like Pharaoh, you could continue to reject it and blind yourself
to it. What did Pharaoh say?
Who is the Lord? That I should obey his voice and
let Israel go. Now the references to pestilence
and plague here in verse 5 are some of the details that
specifically fit the Exodus. We know it's talking about that
past work of Deliverance, but then verses 6 and seven continue
to echo the Exodus, but in terms that seem to broaden the view to
something wider. He stood and measured the earth.
He looked and shook the nation's.
Then the eternal mountains were scattered.
The everlasting hills sank low. His were the everlasting ways.
I saw the tents of cushion and affliction.
The curtains of the land of Midian did tremble when God
delivered his people from Egypt. Creation itself trembled.
We heard some of that earlier in Exodus 15, and we'll see that
theme again and again in our passage.
Mountains here are called everlasting because by our
standards, they're stable. They don't change as much or as
quickly as rivers or forests or fields.
Mountains stay put, but only God's ways are actually
everlasting. Mountains last longer than us,
but only God is eternal. Only God is creations, ruler and
Lord and judge. And he demonstrated all that
when he saved his people. These verses seem designed to
suggest that he's going to do that again, but on an even
grander scale. In verse 7, the reference to
Kushan and Midian likely refers to peoples who live to the
southeast of Israel who heard what the Lord did in the Exodus
and they were afraid of Him because of it.
When you look back at the Exodus, what do you see?
You see God's faithfulness to His promises.
You see His infinite majesty. You see His power over creation.
You see His judgement against sin.
You see His work of liberating from oppression.
You see that His grace can overcome and overpower any human
opposition. When you look back to the cross
and resurrection of Christ, what do you see?
You see that all humanity lives in a state of bondage worse than
being enslaved to Pharaoh. All of us are born into sin by
nature. All of us are born, as the
Apostle Paul says, slaves of sin.
As much as we like to think of ourselves as free, making our
own way and making our own destiny, we are enslaved to sin.
And we cannot break ourselves out of that bondage.
We don't have the power to do it.
We cannot work on ourselves to free ourselves from that inward
slavery. Not only that, but we've racked
up a debt. Our sin has created a mountain
of debt that we cannot pay off. So what did Jesus come to do?
He came to pay our debt by suffering God's wrath on the
cross. And he came to liberate us from
slavery to sin. He triumphed over death, He
conquered Satan, He ascended into heaven.
He poured out His Spirit all that to free us, all that to
break us out of our self-imposed prison in bondage to sin and
Satan. Jesus came to accomplish through
His death and resurrection a true and greater Exodus.
What Israel's deliverance was only a picture of is what He
holds out, what He achieved, and what He offers to everyone who
will turn from sin and trust in Christ.
If you've not believed in Jesus and turn from your sin, do so
today and trust yourself to Him. Submit to Him, repent.
Come to Him as your Saviour. When the present is painful, how
can you not only survive but thrive?
It's by remembering the decisive salvation God has accomplished
for you and all His people through the cross and
resurrection of Christ. Not only that, but like Habakkuk
does here, you should also meditate on the whole history of
how God has saved his people. One particularly fruitful way
you can do that is by studying passage of scripture that tell
that whole story or that tell a big part of it.
For instance, passages like Nehemiah 9, Psalm one O 6, Acts
7. Each of those gives us something
of a panoramic overview of how God has worked to save his
people. Let those surveys of God's work
stir up your confidence in God's faithfulness to his promises.
Habakkuk meditates on the exodus in view of his painful presence
to remind himself and us that God doesn't save his people in
vain. God doesn't save us and then
give up on us. God didn't rescue his people
from Egypt only to abandon them in the wilderness.
The God who brought them out of slavery will bring them into
their inheritance and His Kingdom.
God did not rescue you from sin only to give up on you.
The God who sent his Son to die for you is not a God who's going
to quit on you. God never quits halfway, as
Calvin put it, though the Lord did not daily shine forth from
heaven, and there were not conspicuous signs of His
presence as at Mount Sinai. Still we ought to establish that
He Himself is the same God who had exhibited such a clear
testimony of His power to the fathers, and that He is endowed
with the same power today and to the end of the world.
Although it may not be visible, although God now hides His power
and shows no sign of His grace, nevertheless reckon that not in
vain has He formerly appeared with so much power to your
Father's. When the present is painful, it
also helps to meditate on how God has been faithful to you to
provide for you and sustain you and care for you in your own
past. When Christian and I were
sharing with our good friend Welton Bonner about a hard time
our family was going through, Welton reminded us of First
Samuel Chapter 7 verse 12. Then Samuel took a stone and set
it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer.
For he said, till now the Lord has helped us.
Why did they say till now? Because if he's done it till
now, he's not going to stop. If he's done it till now, he's
not going to quit, he's not going to leave the job half
done, Welton said to us. The Lord hasn't upheld you in
your trials and use them to do good to you and others through
you, only to quit on you now. Brother or sister, know that God
is not going to fumble you at the five yard line.
God is going to carry you all the way home.
When the present is painful, remember God's past.
But God hasn't just given us a past to look back to.
He's also given us His promises to hold on to.
So point #2 rest in God's future, rest in God's future
now. To get us to rest in God's
future is one of the main reasons for Habakkuk's
remembering God's past. What God has done partially in
the past, he will do fully in the future.
The deliverance he's accomplished in the past is a
guarantee of it's a down payment on the deliverance he will
accomplish in the future. For the sake of completeness,
we're going to briefly walk through the whole second-half of
the passage, verses 8 to 15. We'll see that some of this
language refers to the past, some of it refers to the past in
terms that can also fit the future, and some of it,
especially verse 14, refers explicitly to the future.
Start with verse 8. Was your wrath against the
rivers, O Lord? Was your anger against the
rivers or your indignation against the sea when you rode
out on your horses, on your chariot of salvation?
Habakkuk's point here is that in the Exodus, God performed some
powerful acts of judgement by means of the created order.
He divided the Red Sea to let his people pass through, and
then he slammed it back together again to drown Pharaoh's army.
But his anger wasn't against the water.
It was against the people who opposed him and oppressed his
people. And so verse 8 also gives us a
picture and a preview of final judgement.
God will pour out his wrath forever on those who persist in
rejecting Him. Verses 9 to 11 describe more of
the effects of God's saving work on creation itself.
Again, Habakkuk describes the Exodus in terms that also fit
and resonate with Christ's second coming.
You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many
arrows. Sailor, you split the earth with
rivers. The mountain saw you and rise.
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 speed at the
flash of your glittering spear. The point here is that God's
power overwhelms creation. When God brings his saving power
to bear, creation itself cannot just go on as normal.
And what poetically describes the Exodus will be more
literally fulfilled at Christ's second coming.
The whole order of creation will be shaken.
This whole world and universe as we know it will be completely
stripped down and instantly rebuilt.
As the author of Hebrews puts it in chapter 12, verses 26 to 29,
citing Haggai chapter 2. At that time His voice shook the
earth, but now He has promised yet once more I will shake not
only the earth, but also the heavens.
This phrase yet once more indicates the removal of things
that are shaken, that is, things that have been made in order
that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.
Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a Kingdom that
cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable
worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
This is a warning that everything that you might rely
on for stability will be shaken, will be stripped away, will be
of no use before God's judgement.
This is a warning that whatever you think you can put as a
shield between you and God, whatever refuge, whatever good
works, whatever reasoning, whatever track record of the way
you've tried to live your life, if creation itself will give
way, we'll melt away, we'll collapse, we'll be shaken, we'll
be undone. How much more your excuses, how
much more yourself presentation to God of you should really
accept me because I've been a good person.
If creation itself will be shaken at Christ's return, no
human effort or achievement will be of any use on that day.
Verses 12 and 13 again return to the theme of God's judgement
against the nations that oppose Him and oppress His people.
You marched through the earth and 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.
Salah. Now I think the end of verse 13.
It is one of the places where the future focus becomes
explicit. This echoes God's ancient
promise from Genesis 315, right after Adam and Eve plunged the
human race into ruin and misery. To Eve, God promised, I will put
enmity between you and the woman, and between your
offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and
you shall bruise his heel. God granted A partial
fulfillment of this promise at the Exodus.
When Pharaoh was defeated, all the first born sons of of Egypt
were killed. He gave an even greater
fulfillment of this promise at the cross and resurrection of
Christ when Satan was disempowered and cast down.
But he will bring this promise to its full fulfillment when
Christ returns and destroys Satan's power forever.
On that day, Satan will be completely and forever defeated,
disempowered, done. And so we still look forward to
the day when he will fully crush Satan under foot.
Now, Habakkuk describes all this in the past tense, even those
events that clearly have a future fulfillment.
Why does he do that? I think mainly because it's all
part of the same prophetic vision.
In prayer form. It's a single seamless garment.
It's one big reminder that what God has done, he will do.
Even more So what God has started, God will certainly
finish. You might call this verb tense a
prophetic perfect. Habakkuk uses the past tense to
describe a future action, because God's future action is
so certain, it's as if it has already happened.
Verses 14 and 15 round off the passage by pointing forward,
then backward in quick succession.
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 many waters.
Now again, verse 15 is another poetic reference back to the
Exodus, when God showed His supremacy over the sea and over
any other force that might stand in the way of His plan of
salvation. But then how do we know that
verse 14 points to the future? Michael was pushing me about.
How do we interpret this passage earlier this week?
I think verse 14 is maybe the clearest instance of how it
points to the future. It's because Habakkuk is
Speaking of those who came to scatter me.
Who are those who come to scatter Habakkuk?
It can only be the Babylonians. God has promised it.
It's going to happen soon. Throughout the Old Testament
prophets, that verb scatter is used for the punishment of
exile. God's people are currently
gathered in their land, and they're going to be scattered
out of it as God's judgement against their sin.
So when Habakkuk says they came to scatter him, what he's saying
is when the invading Babylonian army comes to carry out God's
judgement against his people, he's going to be there.
They're not just coming for them.
They're coming for us. They're not just coming for us,
Habakkuk is saying. They're coming for me.
This is going to happen to me now.
For Habakkuk, that temporal judgement he suffers will not be
a sign of final judgement. We trust Habakkuk is saved and
spiritually safe in the hands of God.
So for Habakkuk, this judgement will be divine discipline that
further prepares him to inherit eternal salvation.
But in any case, Habakkuk is staring down disaster.
He knows the bad news of judgement that God has promised
against his people will also be bad news for him.
God's hammer will fall, and it will fall on him just as much as
on the wicked in Judah. Habakkuk's present is painful,
and it's only going to get more painful.
But Habakkuk also knows that after God judges his own people,
he will judge the people He used to judge his people.
He will reverse the direction of Babylon's arrows.
Right now they are appointed and soon to fly at Judah.
But when the grand day of judgement comes around, the
direction of the arrows will do a 180 and we'll come back
against the Babylonians. When Christ returns, God will
avenge all evils committed against his people.
He will establish a perfect, permanent Kingdom.
He will deliver us from all evil.
He will cover the earth with the knowledge of His glory as we saw
last week, He will banish suffering and sorrow forever,
and He will give the new creation a newness that will
never grow old. If you're not a believer in
Jesus, what do you most look forward to?
Or as you look back over your life so far, what are the things
that you have most hoped in? Did they come to fruition?
Did they satisfy? One problem with every earthly
hope you project out into the future is that you don't know
how long you have. If you are living for your own
hopes, all of them are uncertain of fulfilment.
Our family recently planted a garden for the first time ever.
We've had earth boxes, we've had little pots out in front of our
apartments we've lived in. This is our first garden
Christmas wanted once and she was a kid.
Our the previous owners of our home had a nice little tomato
patch in the back corner of the yard that we've heard was very
productive. And so just last weekend Rose
and I put up some fence posts and strung it around with deer
mesh fencing. Don't get me started about the
deer. And then the whole family.
Well, me, me, Kristen, Rose, Lucy, we all planted.
We planted tomatoes and cucumbers and jalapenos and
herbs and all kinds of good stuff.
It was a ton of fun. We are eagerly looking forward
to harvest. But planting a garden is an act
of hope. When you put those little plants
in the ground, there are no full grown vegetables sitting on them
and there are not really any full grown plants you're putting
in. The whole thing is done in hope.
Many, many things could go wrong between now and us eating a
single thing that comes from our garden, especially deer.
It takes hope to plant a garden. The whole Christian life is much
more sowing than reaping. The whole Christian life is much
more planting than harvesting. God may choose to cheer us in
various laborers by granting us to see evident fruit.
And we should see some fruit of growth, of holiness in our
others lives in in our lives and others lives as we walk with the
Lord. We should see ourselves being
renewed inwardly day by day. But there will be many efforts
whose fruition either won't come or won't be fully known until
the day when Christ's coming brings everything to light.
That's why we have to sow in hope.
How can you rest in God's future?
Fix your heart on the greatest good that will be yours on that
day, which is seeing God face to face.
Biblical hope is the confident and patient expectation of
seeing God face to face and being made forever happy in Him.
Hope is resting in God's promise, trusting it, relying on
it. Hope enables you to be calm and
confident in God's promise, no matter what seems to threaten
Him. Biblical hope looks forward
confidently to being eternally caught up in the triune life of
God, to being brought up and included in Jesus own sonship
from the Father. Hope waits on God to hand
deliver the life that is truly life, the life that God Himself
is now. If you are remembering God's
past and resting in God's future, what do you still need
to do? You need to do what Habakkuk
does in verse 2 back to the beginning of the passage .3.
Request God's grace for now. Request God's grace for now.
Verse 2 is the petition that sets the direction for the whole
passage. Oh Lord, I've heard the report
of you and your work. Oh 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. I want to focus on three aspects
of this prayer. Submission, adoration, and
petition. Submission, Adoration, petition,
first submission. Oh Lord, I have heard the report
of you. What's Habakkuk saying?
He's saying that he is accepting what God has revealed.
Message received, vision embraced.
Habakkuk has picked up what God is putting down.
He's come to terms with the two judgements God has promised, the
near judgement of God by the Babylonians against Judah, and
the far judgement of God against the Babylonians and all God's
enemies that will deliver his people.
Habakkuk is not disputing the near judgement, and he is hoping
in the far judgement here. Habakkuk is a model of
submission for us. He's a model of submission to
hard truths. Some things in the Bible are
hard to understand. Some things in the Bible are
hard to accept. Some are both.
A necessary ingredient in spiritual growth is the humility
to submit to hard truths you find in scripture.
And Habakkuk is also a model of submission to hard providences.
For Habakkuk, this hard truth will soon turn into a hard
Providence. This judgement will fall not
just around him, but on him. Though he himself is righteous,
he will suffer along with his people.
That's a hard Providence. And Habakkuk says to the Lord, I
accept it, I embrace it. Next, adoration and your work, O
Lord, do I fear. This fear is an expression of
reverent praise. Habakkuk declares that he
trembles before God's work. He recognizes that God's work is
sovereign and supreme. This work is A2 sided act of
both judgment and salvation. And Habakkuk trembles before
both. He trembles before both God's
wrath and his mercy. How can you grow an adoration of
God? One simple way is to begin the
times of private prayer by studying Scripture, and then by
praising God for something you see and what you've just
studied. Declare what you see of God's
goodness and majesty, Acknowledge God's greatness.
Name some feature of God's glory you see in his word.
Just like Amber LED us so well and praising God for his
character, his mighty works, his sovereign acts, Gather up what
you see in the Scriptures and translate it into praise of God.
So submission, adoration. Finally, in verse 2, we come to
petition in the midst of the year's, revive it in the midst
of the years, make it known in wrath.
Remember mercy. Habakkuk is asking God for
grace, and he's asking God for grace for now.
He acknowledges the justice and goodness of God's wrath, and he
knows that God is also abounding in mercy and forgiveness and
steadfast love. So he grants the rightness of
God's wrath, and he asks God also not to forget to be
gracious. Habakkuk is asking for grace in
the time in between, grace in the present, Grace to sustain
his faith and his people's faith.
Grace to renew the people's trust in God amid the
devastations that God's judgement is rightly going to
work. Habakkuk needed grace for the
moment, grace for the day, grace for right now.
My wife Kristen often wisely counsels others.
God does not give you grace for what you imagine.
God gives you the grace you need for now.
All of us who believe in Jesus need to depend on God daily.
Each day we need to draw fresh supplies from the well of God's
grace, the well of His promises, the well of His Word, the well
of His character. Just as you need to drink water
every day to survive, so you need to drink in God's grace
every day to survive spiritually.
Take the things that are hardest in your life and turn them into
prayer requests. Take the things you're most
anxious about and turn them into petitions for God's help.
Take the things you're most confused about and turn it into
a study plan for searching the Scriptures.
You need grace for now, and the only way you can live rightly in
the present is if you see everything about your present in
the light of God's past and God's future.
Your present must be anchored in God's past and God's future.
There are always temptations to live in the past you've had or
the past you wish you had. If you Daydream about past
accomplishments or achievements. You are marinating your soul in
pride if you let the loss of good things overwhelm your
present sense of God's love and mercy.
You're in danger of giving way to nostalgia if you can't stop
mulling over a wrong someone else did to you.
You are inviting bitterness to come in and remodel your life in
a way that leaves no room for God's grace.
Don't anchor your heart in your past.
Instead, anchor it in God's past, and similar temptations
confront us about the future. There are always temptations to
live either in the future you're planning for yourself, for your
good, or the future you're anxious and fearful will bring
you harm. Ambition can lead you to be
absorbed with your plans at the expense of God's promises.
Fear and anxiety can become overwhelming, all consuming.
You can become fixated on harms that might happen to you to the
point where you struggle to get any comfort from God's grace,
His presence, His promises. Don't anchor your heart in the
future that you either crave or fear.
Instead, anchor it in the future God promises.
Trust that God will come through for you.
Trust that the future that God will gift you is infinitely
better than anything you could achieve for yourself.
The solution to being wrongly attached to your preferred past
or dreaded future is to be rightly attached to God's past
and God's future. Remembering God's past and
resting in God's future brings grace for now.
To live in the present is not enough.
There is wisdom to be had from thinking about how to rightly
live in the present and not have it be hostage to the past or the
future. But any present you can build
for yourself is nowhere strong enough to withstand the
onslaughts of a haunting past or a fearful future.
What if your present is overwhelmingly painful?
What if your past is overwhelmingly shameful?
What if the future is overwhelmingly fearful?
No amount of self talk or positive thinking or mind over
matter can guarantee that you will survive or thrive in a
painful present. Only God's grace can do that.
Only God's mighty saving works, past and future, can do that.
And that's exactly what He holds out to all who trust in Christ.
God has proven His power and love and faithfulness through
the death and resurrection of Jesus, and one day what God has
granted to Jesus in his resurrection is what He will
give to everyone who believes in him and what He will grant to
this whole created order now and ever.
We confess Christ our hope in life and death.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we have heard
the report of you and we fear your work.
Father, we pray that You would revive your work to us, sustain
those who are suffering and struggling, comfort those who
are convicted in the midst of the years, make known Your work.
Pour out Your great greatness and grace upon us, we pray.
O Father, in wrath, remember mercy.
May you grant us to tie ourselves to Your promises and
not let go of them. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.