Habakkuk

And if you have, a Bible, you might wanna grab it and turn with me to the book of Haber Cook in chapter 3.

We've been going through this book. My dad, Morris cadet, has been preaching through this in the in the month of August, and we're on our our final chapter now. So let us read the word of the lord Habacook. Chapter 3. A prayer of Habacook, the prophet on Shigernoth.

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 Roth, remember mercy. God came from demon, the holy 1 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, but he marches on forever. I saw the tents of cushion 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 the victory?

You uncovered your bow. You called for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers. The mountain saw you and bribed torrents of water swept by. The deep roared and lifted its waves on high.

Son and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows at the lightning of your flashing spear. In wrath, you strove through the earth, and in anger, you threshed the nations You came out to deliver your people to save your anointed 1. 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 the sea with your horses churning the great waters.

I heard and my heart pounded. My lips quivered at the sound. Deckei 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. 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 sheep bowl and no cattle in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the lord. I will be joyful in god my savior. The sovereign lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer.

He enables me to tread on the heights for the director of music on my stringed instruments, dad. Well, thank you, Rory. Son. He is my son. That's not, you know, I'm not making that up.

So it's my fault. Okay. This is the final installment of Habacook, in the, month of August. I thank you for your very kind and warm welcome to me, amongst you. And I mean that with all my heart.

I really do believe I'm among friends, and I hope, though I don't know many of you very well, hopefully we are friends in Jesus, if nothing else, heading for the new creation where we will be friends forever and never fall out. How about that? I want to, turn you, in a moment to have a cook chapter 3 But we do need by way of recap to believe that all good comes from god our father for his glory alone. All good comes from god our father for his glory alone. And we do experience so much good, don't we?

In our lives, even though there is much violence in our world that we've already prayed about. Nonetheless, This is true that all good comes from our father who is in heaven. And therefore, all our happiness is in him. All our happiness is in him. We're not always happy.

There are great struggles in our lives. There is darkness and difficulty, yet all our happiness is in him. And we need to be convinced of that if we are to yield our lives to him in faith. We're not convinced about the fact that god is our whole happiness, then we'll never yield our lives. Why would we?

But if we are convinced, then we put our faith in Christ alone for an eternally right relationship with the god of his holy. And then we live out faithfully by the spirit in Jesus, a life that honors him in a world that doesn't want to honor him. Because we are convinced that Jesus is coming again to put everything right in his creation and remove evil forever. That's where Habekook has taken us in the first 2 chapters, if you wanna know. And now it's chapter 3 after a prayer.

Here we go. Lord come and do your work amongst us by your spirit through your truth. We gather Sunday by Sunday within Cornerstone or in other another church in order to meet with you the living god in the person of your son by the work of the spirit. We come to your truth because we need to reset our lives. We need to be our minds renewed in who you are and all that you've done for us.

So lord, Do your work amongst us in whatever way you want to this morning. Our lives are open to you and our hearts are yielded in Jesus' name. Our men. Okay. Have a cook chapter 3.

We have seen, if you like, that this prophecy is a kind of a journal of a person, maturing in faith, maturing in his trust in the living god. He has had deep questions about god, but he has turned away on 2 occasions from arrogant self trust and trusted in the words spoken to him. By way of answer. And now at the end of chapter 2 and verse 20, the Lord has commanded Habak and the whole of the earth to silence. And so the dialogue now stops There's a time to stop talking, and there is a time to pray.

Now we should always be praying, and we should always be talking to god. But sometimes, the questions need to end. And we need to act in faith by praying to the living god in the things that he is saying to us, as you've recently studied in the lord's prayer. So Habakook takes up prayer and chapter 3 is that prayer. As verse 1 indicates, a prayer of Habakook.

Actually, this prayer, as you can see, is set to music. There's a musical term in verse 1, and it sent verse 19, to the director of music. Habogook is putting this into the public domain that the believing community, would sing it. They would need to sing it, wouldn't they? The Babylonians are coming, and it's not a pleasant reality.

And they would need to sing this kind of stuff in the midst of that. We've heard of people working amongst situations of incredible, political violence and injustice. And this is right. Christians should try to work for justice in some measure, but we're never gonna get perfect justice in this world, and we better just understand that. So what do we do when there is no justice coming down the line for god's people?

Well then we must sing in prayer concerning the god who has revealed himself. We need to pray in faith. So this prayer has many moods we will discover. There is earnest pleading, excitement, perplexity, nervousness, confidence, faith, as I've said, and joy. The prayer as we must remember is the result of a forthright dialogue that Habakuk has had with god.

But as we enter chapter 3, we discover that Babicock is not the hero of the story. Hero Babicock is not saying we need to be clear. Look at them, the amazing faith that I'm showing the church. Now he's saying, look at the amazing god that we have. 2 points this morning.

Point number 1. We see trusting god and his word versus 2 to 15. Trusting god and his word versus 2 to 15. God has commanded as I have said all idolatry to be silent on the earth. Because idolatry is not worthy to be celebrated in his presence.

Top to do verse 20, follows verses 17 to 19, which is all about Babylonian idolatry. A no idolatry is worthy of a place in god's world and to be celebrated. And we need to take that because at heart, all of us know what it is to covet, don't we? Yes, we do. Well, I do anyway.

And what is covetousness? But gazing at something that is not god, maybe a good gift from god, but not god I'm thinking that it is god, and I must have. I must eat. I must buy. I must go to bed with.

I must visit. Good gifts that have been corrupted by covetousness, which is idolatry. And so god has commanded all idolatry to be silent on the earth. And the righteous man of faith, Habug, in this case, shows a way to speak on the basis of revealed truth. The righteous shall pray in faith.

Faith can have many expressions in our lives. It can take slightly different forms in some ways. But all of us, right across the board, if we are followers of Jesus, if we are children of god express faith in the same way we can all pray. It might be a sentence, maybe stumbling words, It may be a very long prayer that never seems to end. But Calvin is right.

The primary evidence of faith is prayer. Because it is self trust that believes that prayer is irrelevant. Because if we're trusting in ourselves, why would you bother to pray? Why would you bother seeking the god of heaven to do stuff? Lord, I've heard of your prayer, your favors too.

I stand in awe of your deeds, lord. Repeat or revive them in our day. In our time, make them known in wrath, remember mercy. So what does he do in prayer? 2 things.

Number 1, he prays for revival verse 2. I repeat it for you. Lord, I've heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds. Repeat them in our day.

In our time, make them known. In Roth, remember mercy. Psalm 85 is a commentary on those, and I read those to you. Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your unfailing love lord and grant us your salvation.

Habacook, you see, knows that Judah is our god's people on god's mission. God's people on god's mission through which god wishes to bless the nations, and the nations are all characterized by the same thing, by an idolatry, by worshiping other gods other than the living god. He knows that the Babylonians are coming under god so Judah learns to repent and return to god because they've left god for the gods of the nations. Yet faith cries out interestingly for mercy. So god's people leave their lukewarmness and come to a passionate heart for god's glory.

That's what's going on here. Revival then is the church's affections or are affections as Christians being so strongly inflamed for Jesus that his lordship becomes absolutely paramount in the entirety of our lives. Revival isn't god doing something different to what the church is always doing. No. It is an heightened awareness of the love of god in Jesus and his holiness over our lives that inflames our hearts.

I'm using the language deliberately. Inflames our heart. For affection. Think of the thing you most covered in your life. It is it eats leaksters, doesn't it?

The flames of affection within you, doesn't it? Yes. I don't know what it is. You know what it is? Well, that is the very precise thing or description that what happens to us as the spirit comes upon us in his power because he will inflame our heart with that kind of affection, not for the idolatry, but for Jesus.

And that is the reason why the church should continue to pray about the big issues. About praying for a reviving of our actions, for the son of god who loved us and gave himself for us. I might get excited this morning. There might be a bit of yelling. Desperately trying to stop it.

May I just say that my passion is Irish? Okay. I want to own that, but it's not all Irish. Some of it is gospel. Wonder of you can tell the difference.

Now we know that god is at work in his church at all times. I'm not saying he doesn't. And isn't yet I think the need of the hour in at least in my own life as an an aging man who has followed the lord Jesus for 50 years is a vibrant, lively faith that leaves no room for apathy or complacency. We do need to pray about our needs and our struggles. We need to pray against the injustices of our world.

We need to be deeply troubled by the violence that we see. Yet the most imperative need it seems to me is to cry out to the lord that he repeats his works of saving power to revive us his people. And therefore, the result of that reviving is the unbelieving culture is awakened to a need for god and is attracted to the very nature of the love of god in Christ. The culture awakens. You walk around the culture as much as I do.

You climb on a bus or a train. You you are amongst work colleagues or students, whom you study with. And you can see you can see In general speaking, there is no really awakened concern to know god. And there are many reasons given in our culture that they ought not to go anywhere near god. And trusting yourself.

But as a church revives in an inflamed love for Christ, so that rubs off. In the unbelieving culture. We move towards the culture with a robust understanding of scripture with with a deep understanding of Jesus and appreciation of all that he is for us. And as we move towards the culture on that basis, so we would anticipate as we pray that the culture is awakened, convicted of sin of righteousness and of coming judgment and comes to Jesus. A savior and lord.

We pray for revival. Isn't it interesting that Habock doesn't pray that God reverses his decree? Don't send the Babylonians lord. God is right and habakkuk rests there and it enables him therefore to pray this kind of prayer. If he gets stuck in chapter 2, he doesn't pray this kind of prayer, because he's always going to be trying to address the issue that god has answered and is not going to answer any further.

I know that romance or revival is a big danger, but a complete rejection of a moving of the spirit in significant ways is also an equally serious problem. In Roth, remember mercy. It's a short prayer, isn't it? There's a lovely prayer. Maybe you can take that prayer up this week in your own personal devotions or as you come together as a community.

In Roth, remember mercy. Edward says that god Roth is god's strange work, which he has to be provoked to. But mercy is god doing what he loves to do most That's lovely, isn't it? It's Edward. Not me.

God is against all sin and evil, roughness is settled right attitude in regard to that matter. But mercy is god's great heart of love through his son to forgive us as sinners. Crosses the crosses the place where god in mercy as he engaged in justice moved in wrath, remember mercy, because god never forgets mercy. To court Edwards as I finish this part about praying for revival. Quote, god has no pleasure in the destruction or calamity of persons of people.

He had rather that they should turn and continue in peace He is well pleased if they forsake their evil ways that he may not have occasion to execute his wrath upon them. He is the god that delights in mercy, and judgment is his strange work. We pray for revival because we are convinced about the mercy of god, even though god will have to visit his peep will have to visit this world in judgment. Secondly, Habercook reflects at length on the god who saves versus 3 to 15. Won't be so long in this.

But is this really true that god remembers his mercy even though he has to engage in wrath. Am I giving you a generational view of things? Or am I actually giving you a biblical view? Well, here we go. What does he do in these verses?

He reflects on the history of, his people. Exodus is probably in his mind and the great moving of god in power to to save his people and judge their enemies. So there are various, evidences of that through these verses. But what you notice is it's very long, isn't it? You wouldn't put this in a tweet.

Would you? I know nothing about tweets. I I don't know why I said that really good. But it's very long. If this is a sermon you're looking at your watch and going, when's this going to end?

Do we need such long reflection? Well, we do. And this is what Habicoke engages in. Mostly I think thinking through about Egypt and the exodus. There's references to Sinaiai and the Red Sea, probably the conquest of, the land when the sun and moon standing still in verse 11, but nonetheless, Some total of what these verses are saying to us is that god is marching forward as the warrior coming to fight for his people.

God is majestic in his description here, isn't he? He's the god of splendor and light and glory moving in his grace and mercy. Verse 6 as he marches on forever. What's god going to god doing today? He's marching on forever.

That's what he's doing. And look at this 8, did you rage against the sea when you rode your horses and your chariots to victory? What's he doing? He's he's riding forth, if you like, to victory. In Ralth versus 11 and 12, you strode through the earth and in anger, threshed the nations.

God is god. Our eternal champion arrives to save. And to save, he must defeat evil. And the good news my friends is that he will and is defeating evil. So Habuk and Judah need that vision as Babylon will ruthlessly invade the land.

And we need that vision as evil continues to invade the nations and give no glory to god. We must live as the hopeful loving people of god in that violence, which is wrong, which is wrong. And thus we need to remember how this story ends. We must not become complacent. Walter was a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz.

1 day he saw something incredible. Camp B had been created. 5000 Jews were placed there. They had v a vibrant Jewish cultural life. They could go to school.

They wore normal dress. They had books. They had music. They had entertainment. A few yards away from camp b was camp a in which Walter was full of bald thin inmates with striped uniforms.

Walter discovered that camp b had special treatment for 6 months. It was a show camp for the Red Cross inspections. And through am am in camp B, he warned camp B from camp A that they were going to be destroyed on the eighth of March 19 44. Camp b had the truth in word, and they could see the crematorium a few hundred yards away. Quote, the trouble was they never believed this scheme applied to them.

Complete complacency. Evil is over in some other political situation. Evil is not working in our culture, is it? But it is. And we would be a very complacent people who thought differently.

And the only thing that will bring perspective in our lives about this is our long soaking, saturation, meditation, on the great history of god working his saving power, saving his people and defeating evil, which is what you have in these verses. Therefore, we trust in god and his word alone. The word is our authority, and the word is our sufficiency, trusting in god and his word. Therefore, we pray by faith. Second point, trying to see what the time is.

That's a mere relevance, but no mind, I'm trying to see what the time is. Trambling that trust god versus 16 to 19. Beautiful verses, aren't they? Mostly always quoted out of context. You understand, of course, that the text is king when it's set in its context.

And it is when the text is set in its context that the that the spirit takes the truth so that we trust and are transformed. And I know that's where this church is, so I don't need to labor the point. Trendling that trusts god, real faith praise so that we can live for god. There is confidence and joy, even though there is fear. That is why you have Habagok, crying his eyes out in the in chapter 1 and now singing his head on in chapter 3.

And he is trembling, but he's trembling because of the god who has revealed himself. Verse 16. I heard and my heart pounded. My lips quivered at the sound. The k kept into my bones and my legs trembled.

So he's trembling because of the god of heaven who has revealed himself. And I said maybe on another sermon, our issue is our problem is that we have a small vision of god. And maybe a wrong big vision of ourselves. So how do we calm ourselves down? What's the technique, pastor Morris, former pastor Morris, no longer a pastor Morris, filling our hearts with god and his truth, even if it is overwhelming to us.

Because this is a safe place. JI Parker says there are 2 kinds of knowing about god knowing god. There is and he gives an illustration of, of some people sitting on a balcony looking, a mountain a kind of intellectual approach, to the mountain. They're not climbing the mountain. They're stuffing their red wine and discussing elements of the mountain and admiring the scenery, but you know, it's not practical.

It's intellectual. And we can have a knowing about god intellectually, can't we? It doesn't change our lives. Isn't useful on a Monday morning. When we're really facing some stuff.

In fact, it's irrelevant. But then there's another kind of knowing. There are people climbing the mountain. There are people facing the issues as they do that. That's a very different kind of knowing, isn't it?

And the knowing that god wants us to know is not simply an intellectual exercise, though intellectual is important. But actually in the practical reality of knowing god just in the mundane right where we are with all the issues that we have within our lives. And therefore, in that sense, we can take god with us wherever we are, even in verse 17. Read verse 17. Though the fig 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.

When the whole of culture has been destroyed economically, politically, And then every other way? That's quite something, isn't it? There are no essentials. There are no resources for life. There is cruel, slaughter, and disease, and there's no fun.

And it happened. Babylon came and took Judah away to exile in 5 86 BC. You can read it. Jeremiah will tell you about it. He tells you about it in lamentations.

Isaiah will certainly tell you about it. Judah opted for a war zone rather than the resting place of who god is. They opted for a war zone, not the resting place. But what happercut gives us as I finish? I am finishing.

It may take a while, but I I am finishing. I'm talking to myself now, aren't I? 3 things. As we finish. There are 2 yets in this section.

Having described his trembling in verse 16, verse 17, verse end of verse 16, yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation, invading us. Do you see it? I will wait patiently for the end because the end is coming, my friends, isn't it? Do we believe that there's going to become an end of this present history? I hope you do.

Jesus will march forward to take down the ultimate evil empire, sinful humanity that has sided in evil against God. It's coming, and this collective, sinful humanity can be accused of 1 big thing. The blood of the church is on its hands. The blood of Christ's church is on its hands. Revelation 18 and 19 would tell you that.

And the faithful and the truth, that's Jesus. I'm thinking of Revelation 19. We'll ride forth to to do complete justice and every single wrong here at every single wrong will be righted. And the justice of god is revealing his glory as evil as the evil violent world is removed and I say it carefully without mercy. Perfect, social, and universal justice will be done.

I will wait patiently. Secondly, I will rejoice in the lord and be joyful in god my savior. That comes in verse 18. There's the other yet. Comes at the end of that statement.

Yet, I will rejoice in the lord and be joyful in god my savior. What does the inner life look like when real faith shapes it. What does the inner life look like? The heart rejoices in the lord in the middle of the enemies. They're disappointed.

Paul and silas got thrown into prison, didn't they? In acts chapter 16, what did they do at midnight? What did they do at midnight? They sang praises, didn't they? Where was the worship band?

They weren't there? They didn't need to be there. Nothing against the worship bands you understand. Psalm 23 tells us that the lord, prepares a feast for us as these people, among our enemies. He anoints our head with oil and our cup overflows with joy.

Yes, we have our struggles. Yes, there's unhappiness in our lives. Yes, there are dark, difficult periods. Gotta say it. Gotta qualify it.

We We always seem to have to qualify it to be authentic. But it is equally authentic to say there is supernatural joy in the spirit, in the gospel through the lord Jesus Christ before the father. That is not dependent on our circumstances. I will rejoice in the lord and be joyful in god, my savior. Remarkable because he's giving this to the believing community who would know verse 17?

We don't know verse 17, do we? We'll go back to our homes today and have our nice meals and enjoy the comforts that god has provided for us and are not against those things. We live in god's good world, and he provides for us, doesn't he? But what happens if he takes them all away? Oh, never happen in UK, you know, fortress UK?

Well, it'll never happen. Sounds like a idolatry. Which is what it is. Yet, I will rejoice. We will rejoice in the lord, and you be joyful in god, my savior.

And finally, the third thing, there's not a yet on it, but it ends in verse 19 because the foundation of all of this comes to us. The sovereign lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to tread on the heights. Nimble footed under god's sovereignty to go on his mission for the world is verse 19.

Sovereign lord is our strength as we wait for the day of justice and glorious deliverance. And the picture depicted here is nimble footed deer moving at speed on Rocky Mountains. Now I believe that you can play Hampton Court golf course and there's deer grazing around trying to avoid your golf balls. Yes. I think I I believe that's true, unless somebody's telling me lies.

But have you ever seen deer on the mountains? They can I believe get up to 50 miles an hour? On some very rocky serious situations. And this is an image that is being used of us as people of god who are very sure about the sovereignty of god. Not very sure about all that god is doing and he's not always revealing those things to us, but we're very sure about his sovereignty and the nature of who he is, and we can be speedy, nimble footed people on mission for him.

There are 2 ways of thinking about the heights here. Number 1, we can live spiritually in the heights of knowing Christ and not drop into self despair. We can live spiritually on the heights of knowing Christ and not drop into self despair. We don't need to do it. As hard as it is, we may feel tempted to.

But under the sovereignty of god, a real understanding of who he is. We can have confidence in him. The other way of seeing the heights, is to remind ourselves that in Israel, there were heights of pagan false worship, weren't there? If you read your old testament, you'll discover them. And so here is Habacook encouraging the people of god to head for the heights where there is false worship.

Not to join in the false worship. That's nonsense, isn't it? But to say to the people all around them, to sing to them, to pray for them, to speak with them, to live before them, that there is a whole other way of living in true worship, of the living god, which is joyful and liberating, and eternally hopeful. I went to see Bruce Springstein once. I'm not old.

He was, Arsenal's football ground, and I I loved it. He's on there for 3 and a half hours, and he never goes off stage. And he's always singing. Many came to see him and worship. There was false worship.

Why would you worship Bruce Bringsley? And you might say, well, why would you worship Bringsley? Can't even sing. Well, I think he can. I want to disagree.

But I didn't go, and I have to say, I've done this on other occasions. At least within my heart is to say, well, thank you lord for music. But I thank you that you're greater than the music. Head for the heights of false worship. Where are the heights of cultural false worship today?

And you know what they are. They're not going to know any better. They believe they have the better story. They believe that they don't need god and the lord Jesus Christ and all that we stand for. We they even think that we're slightly weird, and maybe even dangerous.

Maybe some of you are dangerous. I don't know. I I maybe look a bit dangerous too. Don't answer that. But we have to head for the heights.

They're never going to know anything different. I am finishing now. The lord Jesus came to the greatest brutal and cruel reality that was ever brought against a human being. He is the son of god, the maker of heaven and earth, and the evil forces of sinful humanity invaded the sun, and sought to destroy him forever. He had lived out an in out in an incredible poverty of life in a stable and in Egypt in Nazareth and as a homeless preacher.

But in death, the spiritual poverty was appalling as he was abandoned by the father and he became sin for us. And as you heard last Sunday night, he went to hell for us and he cried out He cried out against this. Why have you forsaken me? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me?

It's verse 17, isn't it? Of habit 3? The in violent intent of the unjust though was the will of the father was the will of the father, not that he agreed with the unjust treatment of the son in that sense. He was against it, and yet he was using it. God, the holy 1 uses evil to gloriously deceit evil and save his people.

And we know that this was the sovereign plan of god that Jesus joyfully agreed to before he came. Even in god's mission on the cross. He knew the joy set before him that he would bring a humanity home to the father and present us faultless with great joy through the father. He knew that. He knew joy on the cross.

Check out Hebrews 12, 1 to 2. And then he wrote he he stormed the high places of evil in a sure footed purpose to take down evil among humanity, and then he rose to live forever and as ascend as king, mission accomplished, and now he reigns over us forever, even at this moment. So leave the world, my friend, if you haven't, spiritually and morally, and be saved by Jesus. Who loved you and gave himself for you. Let us live as his people by faith in the 1 who has put us right forever before the holy 1.

Let us live by faith in him. And then let us live faithfully and joyfully on god's mission every day of our lives, until he takes us home where we all live with him forever and forever, and the tears will be wiped away. And there will be no more evil. Amen? Amen?

Take a moment. Or do you see our trembling hearts? You are far greater than we can conceive. Yet we can wait patiently. Though we live in a violent world, a world that can do great evil.

We will wait patiently for the end when you will ride forth faithful and true Jesus. And you will do what you need to do in terms of universal social justice, and you will put every wrong right and produce most gloriously right world in which your glory, the knowledge of your glory, will fill it, and nothing else. Yet, we will rejoice in you, lord, and do rejoice in you this morning. We will be joyful in god, our savior. As much as we may be distressed, we may have difficulties, we may have real struggles in our lives, yet we will rejoice in you because you are our savior.

And so as we face another week, whatever that looks like, sovereign lord, you're our strength. Make our feet like the feet of deer, sure footed, and nimble footed. Running to the heights, not running to self despair, although we may be tempted to it, but knowing you, lord Jesus, and even going to the heights of false worship so that false worship in our culture will know that amazing love of your oh, your amazing love in your son. Saving us and bringing us 1 day to the ultimate glory of yourself. We commit ourselves to you are fresh in Jesus' name.