"Sins of the Nation" Sermon: Isaiah 1:1-9

“Sins of the Nation”

[Isaiah 1:1-9]

February 25, 2018, Second Reformed Church

            This morning we begin a look at the book of Isaiah:

“The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.”

All we know about Isaiah is that he is the son of Amoz.  He preaches primarily to the southern kingdom of Judah and during the reign of four kings:  Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.  We don’t know when Isaiah was born or how or when he died.  However, in Isaiah chapter 6, we have Isaiah answering God’s call “in the year that King Uzziah died” – which we know was in 740 B.C.  And we know that Hezekiah died in 687 B.C.

What does that tell us?

If Isaiah begins preaching in 740 and continues until 687 B.C., that would tell us that Isaiah preaches for about 53 years.  However, there are texts that show Isaiah preaches during Uzziah’s reign, which began in 792 B.C., so it is possible that Isaiah preached for as long as 105 years. 

In any event, Isaiah preaches for a long time.

            We also know that Isaiah is a witness to the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians in 722 B.C.

            There are at least three layers to his preaching:  God’s Word for the people of Isaiah’s day.  God’s Word for the people who will fall under the Babylonian conquest some 200 years later in 586 B.C.  And God’s Word concerning the first and second comings of the promised Savior.

            The overarching theme of his preaching is that God is the Holy One of Israel.  God is the Holy One of Israel.

            Isaiah’s preaching begins with a condemnation of the sins of three groups.  This morning, we are looking at the sins of the nation of Israel – and specifically the southern kingdom of Judah.

            And we see, first, God adopts a people of His choice.

“Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the LORD has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.’ Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.”

            Isaiah begins to deliver God’s indictment against Israel by calling on the Creation witness.  In this courtroom scene, the heavens and the earth are witnesses against Israel before God, the judge and prosecutor.

            This is not unusual among the prophets.  Moses cries out, “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth” (Deuteronomy 32:1, ESV).

            We have an expression, “the walls have ears,” but in a very real sense – before God – the Creation does have eyes and ears and does witness before God.  Nothing shall remain hidden.

            The Lord has spoken – witness to it Creation:  God, in the highest greatness of His Mercy, chose a people to be His – Israel.  And God chose Israel out of all of the people of the world to come first out of the nation that He would raise up, give His written Word, and bring into the Promised Land.  God chose a people for Himself and made them His sons and daughters. God adopted a people for Himself.

            Under the reign of King Uzziah, the nation prospered and was at peace.  The stock market was through the roof.  Everyone had his or her own sports car.  No one had lack and everyone had more than each needed.  And their response was to turn their backs on God – to rebel against God.

            “Everything is just fine that way it is.  Why should I obey God?  Why shouldn’t I just enjoy myself?  Why should I bow to Him when I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps?  Even if God doesn’t like the way I live my life, God is God – God is love – so He has to forgive me – after all – I’m His son – He adopted me.”

            All was well, so Israel turned her backs on God as a nation and despised Him – and God rose up in fury:

            “The ox and the donkey know who they belong to – they know who they owe their thanks to – they know who they are to be loyal to – but this nation – the children I adopted from the seed of evildoers – they pile up sins upon themselves.  They are corrupt.  They have forsaken Me – the Holy One of Israel – they are totally estranged from Me – and they think everything is just fine.”

            Can we imagine?

            Orphans sinking in sin with no hope for a future – God chooses some to be His – He adopts them and makes them His people – He gives them His Word, a land, and prospers them – and they turn away from God and sin against God and despise Him – they don’t care that they were sinning against Him.

            Is this not a warning?

            Peter writes, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (I Peter 2:9-12, ESV).

            And Paul writes, “So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’  The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:12-17, ESV).

            May we remember that we are the adopted sons and daughters of the One Holy God and we owe thanks and obedience to Him.  Not that He will cut off any that Christ has died for, but we may endure suffering for our sins in this life as discipline to turn us back.  Let us obey our loving Father.

            Second, God wants His people to repent.

“Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.”

God calls to His children to repent and waits on us to confess our sins to Him and ask for His forgiveness as we promise not to sin again.  Just as that father waited with sure hope that one day he would see his prodigal son coming down the road to repent of his sin against the father, so God calls His children to repent and return to Him.

God asks Israel if they are going to continue to rebel against Him – if they are going to continue to be irrational.  They know they have sinned against God, and they have been struck down.  So, God tells them to stop and repent, and they will not be struck down again, but they continue.  Why?

You may have heard of conditioning experiments where animals are given a shock if they do one thing and a treat if they do another – or even nothing at all, but they are not hurt.  The animals are smart enough to understand the relationship between getting hurt and certain actions, so they stop those actions that cause them pain.  But God tells us that Israel is struck down and they rebel and they are struck down and they rebel and they are struck down – does that make any sense?  That’s not rational.  If you could stop the pain, why wouldn’t you?

But it’s more than that – God diagnoses their sin and rebellion as causing them to be sick in their head and sick in their heart, since from the top of their heads to the bottom of their feet – they are bruised and cut and sore and they do nothing to try to heal themselves.  They don’t bind their wounds or cover their sores or disinfect themselves.  That’s not rational.  They are being irrational.  It is irrational to sin against God – because God knows and as a just Judge must receive payment for the sin against Him – and all sin is ultimately against Him.

God calls His children to utter obedience:  “For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45, ESV).

And the same is true for the Israel of God today – all we who believe:

“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’ And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (I Peter 1:14-21, ESV).

Kevin DeYoung explains in his book, The Hole in Our Holiness, that we in the reformed church are very good at explaining what holiness is, but not so good at being holy – not so good at striving for absolute obedience – not for salvation, of course, our works are worthless for salvation – but in obedience and thanks to the God Who has saved us and adopted us as His children.

Why do we continue to disobey?  Why do we continue to sin?

Paul writes, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (I Corinthians 10:13, ESV).

What does that mean?

It means we always have the choice whether to sin or not, and we never have to give in to sin.  We are indwelled with God the Holy Spirit so if we choose to sin, we are rebelling against God and being irrational.

If we do not strive for absolute obedience in the joy of our adoption and salvation, we are asking to be struck down again – we are irrationally rebelling against our God and Father.  Let us respond to God’s Fatherly Love and His adoption and salvation of us by striving to be absolutely obedient to Him – let us truly strive to be holy.

Third, God disciplines His children.

            “Your country lies desolate; your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners. And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.”

            Isaiah foretells God’s discipline and Israel’s anemic reaction:  God would send the Babylonians to destroy Judah and take them into captivity – just as our friend Habakkuk was told, but this is about 150 years or so before Habakkuk – the Babylonians – the Chaldeans – would come and slaughter the people and take them into captivity some 200 years after Isaiah preached.

            At best, the reaction of Israel in Judah is to give up and accept the slaughter that God sent upon them.  At worst, they did little to fight against foreigners taking the land that God gave to His people – they did little to protect the Temple and the people of Israel.

            Some may say, “Well, this is God’s discipline of Israel, they ought not to fight it, but to just take whatever comes against them.”

            This is the wrong answer – they were not to enjoy foreigners coming against them and stealing and killing – and this has nothing to do with immigration.  The very least they could have done was fought against the Babylonians with everything they had to protect the women and children and God’s Holy Temple.  Being disciplined is not an excuse for being disobedient.  And it is surely not a reason to give up.

            The author of Hebrews writes, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11, ESV).

            Discipline is given to us to lead us to peace and to train us in righteousness.  It is not given to destroy us but to turn us around and follow the path that God has set before us.

            Finally, God is faithful.

            “If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah.”

            In punishing Israel for her sin – in crushing the nation by the Babylonians – God did not kill off everyone, but He chose to show mercy and leave a remnant, because God is faithful to all that He has said and promised – and God promised a Savior from the line of David.

            In the midst of the fall of the city of Jerusalem, Jeremiah writes, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him’” (Lamentations 3:22-24, ESV).

            Because the Lord is faithful, there were survivors of the devastation brought down upon Israel and Judah.

            Because the Lord is faithful, the Savior came to earth to save His people, making us sons and daughters of God, and He is returning.

            Because the Lord is faithful, the line of David did not end like Sodom and Gomorrah – as we read, “And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD. And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace” (Genesis 19:27-28, ESV).

            God adopts a people of His choice.

            God wants His people to repent.

            God disciplines His children.

            God remains faithful to us, even when we are faithless.

            Good news for the nation, isn’t it?

            Let us pray:

            Almighty God, we thank You for choosing and adopting a people in Your Mercy, for growing us and for disciplining us.  Help us to repent quickly.  Help us to rely upon God the Holy Spirit.  Help us to know that You are always faithful.  And may we strive after absolute obedience in joy and thanks to You for Your Son, our Savior.  For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

Reformed Wisdom

On Isaiah 1:3 -- "The papists, who are accustomed to set aside the true meanings of the Scriptures, and to spoil all the mysteries of God by their own fooleries, have here contrived an absurd fable; for they falsely allege that the oxen and asses in the stall worshipped Christ when he was born; by which they show themselves to be egregious asses.  (And indeed I wish they would imitate the ass which they have invented; for then they would be asses worshipping Christ, and not lifting up the heel against his divine authority.)" -- John Calvin, Commentary on Isaiah, vol 1, 41-42.

Reformed Wisdom

On Isaiah 1:3 -- "If it be asked how Israel could be the people of God and yet be so spiritually brutish, the answer is that election is of grace and not of works.  Israel's sin would lead to separation from God; His grace would preserve her until His saving purposes had been accomplished."  -- Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, vol. 1, 42.

"The Character of God" Sermon: Habakkuk 3:1-19

“The Character of God”

[Habakkuk 3:1-19]

February 18, 2018, Second Reformed Church

            This morning, we conclude our look at the burden, the weighty and difficult vision, of the prophet, Habakkuk. We will remember that Habakkuk is preaching just before the Babylonian captivity of the sixth century B. C. He is preaching about the same time as the prophet, Jeremiah.

            As we open Habakkuk's vision, we see him crying out to the Lord, asking God when He is going to do something about Judah's sin. When is God going to avenge His Name and put down the people who flaunt the Law of God? When will God listen and wake up and prove Himself the God Habakkuk preaches about day after day? And we see God's answer is utterly unexpected, "Don't worry, Habakkuk, I know what is happening among My people, and I am going to make things much worse: I am sending the evil, pagan Chaldeans to slaughter you and take you into captivity." So, we see that God sometimes uses indirect causes to carry out His Will; He may even use evil pagans to punish His people – even us.

            Habakkuk responds to the prophecy that God gives him -- "God, have You forgotten that You are Holy? How can You send these people, who are so much more evil than we are, to be the ones to punish us? This will look bad for You." And God tells Habakkuk that the just will live by faith. God tells Habakkuk – and us – to stop hoping in good works, rather -- hold firm to the promises and the salvation of God.

            God tells Habakkuk that the Chaldeans, though they will do God's Will in punishing Judah -- the Chaldeans will be punished by God for their sin. God speaks five woes -- five reasons -- five great sins for which God will ravage the Chaldeans. And He ends that word by saying, "But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him” (Habakkuk 2:20, ESV).

            Finally, this morning, Habakkuk responds by writing a psalm, a prayer, a hymn. This hymn is to be sung "according to Shigionoth," which may have been a tune. We see the verse markers by the use of the word, "Selah," in the text. And Habakkuk ends his hymn with instructions to the chief musician, or the choirmaster, that the hymn is to be sung with stringed instruments -- perhaps even the type of stringed instruments that Habakkuk himself played.

            The hymn is divided into four verses, and in these four verses, Habakkuk teaches Judah – and us – about the Character of God. It is a hymn Habakkuk wrote for Judah to sing throughout their seventy-year captivity.  Let us hear the Word of the Lord and learn as we receive God's Providence.

            Verse one (2-3a): "O LORD, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O LORD, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known;           in wrath remember mercy. God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah.”

Habakkuk says he receives the Word of God and it terrifies him.  It is a great and terrible thing to receive the Word of God. It is unimaginable favor that God has bestowed upon us that we should receive His Word. Yet, the Word of God exposes us, the vision of Habakkuk exposes him and the people of Judah -- it exposes us – who we are, what we believe, what we have done. And we are right to be afraid, if we understand that we have come into the presence of the Holy God.

            How does Habakkuk respond to this revelation – how should we respond in knowing that nothing is hidden from God and He is sovereignly bringing His Will to pass concerning us? Let us call upon the Lord, that He would revive His Work, in our lives, in this church, in the Church Universal. Lord, revive Your Work in us and in our land. Shine through us and blot out our sin, and even as we suffer on earth for our sin, for the sake of Your Son, and revive us, O Lord.

            Habakkuk pleads with God that in the midst of His judgement upon them, He would still be merciful. In the midst of captivity, he prayed there would be mercy. Not merely at the beginning of their captivity, not merely when the Lord was pleased to end their captivity, but in the midst of their captivity, when the days ran into days and weeks into weeks and years into years, and they would be prone to deny God and forget Him. Habakkuk asks that God would meet them and be merciful to them in the depths of their suffering.

            And God is merciful, even to us, in the midst of our sadness and discouragement. When children bring guns to school and open fire.  When we have hit rock bottom, God is there with mercy for His people. Let us pray that God would be merciful to us, especially in the midst of our darkest days, that we would not lose hope and sin against Him.

            The commentator, Edward Marbury writes that we should have hope because God is more glorified in His people than in any other of His creation:  "The Church of God is called the Work of God, to honour God, for God is not so glorious in any thing that he hath wrought, as in his Church, for therein mercy and truth met together, righteousnesse and peace kissed each other, our election adoption is to the praise and glory of his grace. You heard himself say to his Church, The work of my hands, that I may be glorified. For God is more glorified in those things which he hath wrought by Jesus Christ in our flesh and in those things which he doth for his sake, than in all other works of his hands" (A Commentary, or Exposition, upon Habakkuk, III.38-39).

            "For there is no lesson so hard for a child of God, to take out as to take up the crosse of Christ, and to follow him, to suffer the smart of affliction with patience and thanksgiving. For in the very regenerate man, the flesh is both strong and unruly, and nothing so contrary to the flesh, as affliction and tribulation is. Therefore doth God measure to his Children their portion and drought of this cup, because he knows whereof we be made" (Marbury, III.41).

And Habakkuk says we ought to keep in mind that God came from Teman, from Mount Paran -- that is, He came from Mount Sinai. Judah – and we – remembers God’s deliverance of His people from Egypt – of wandering in the wilderness – of receiving the Ten Commandments from God – and eventually moving into the Promised Land.

            Verse two (3b-9a): "His splendor covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. His brightness was like the light; rays flashed from his hand; and there he veiled his power. Before him went pestilence, and plague followed at his heels. He stood and measured the earth; he looked and shook the nations; then the eternal mountains were scattered; the everlasting hills sank low. His were the everlasting ways. I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. Was your wrath against the rivers, O LORD? Was your anger against the rivers, or your indignation against the sea, when you rode on your horses, on your chariot of salvation?  You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows. Selah.”

            The Lord comes out of Sinai. The Glory of the Lord fills the land. The praise of the Lord fills the land. The Power of the Lord fills the land. And God sends ten plaques down upon the Egyptians to show them that He is God and Israel are His people. And Israel repents and thanks God and is delivered by His Strong Arm. And we who been delivered ought to heed the Word of the Lord to the Church at Sardis, "Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent” (Revelation 3:3a, ESV).

God brought them out of slavery and brings us out of slavery. God gave them a land and divided it and used it as He saw fit, for His Ways are everlasting. So God also sets before us the whole earth as our inheritance, and the New Jerusalem with the full indwelling of His Kingdom. For now, our hope is strengthened by remembering what God has done, how He has delivered us, in remembering where we have been led by the Hand of our Sovereign God.

            Have we been thankful? What do we have to be thankful for? Edward Marbury writes, "Look to the common blessings of the God in generall: upon the Church in which thou livest, pay God his debt for the good he hath done, before thou find fault with the defect in it: recount what he hath done for the Common-wealth in which thou livest. Looke home to thine own family, to thine own person: recount thy spirituall graces, thy temporall blessings: consider what God hath given thee, what he hath forgiven thee, the preventions, the subventions of his love: what spirituall, what temporall evils thou hast either not felt by his keeping of thee or escaped by his delivering of thee: and to all, and to each both these say: The Lord be thanked. It is a small duty that is required of us, to repeat what God hath done for us" (III.70).

            Let us see that God brings terror upon the nations of Cush and Midian and all of the pagan world: they know that there is a God, and they are in terror of Him. But what wonders has God done for us? What wonders did God do for Judah? Habakkuk says, let's begin by thinking of the blessings that God has brought through the water:

            God divided the Red Sea that Israel could be saved: "Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.’ So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the LORD threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea.  The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left” (Exodus 14:26-29, ESV).

            God provided water for Israel in the desert: "And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.  Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.’ And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel” (Exodus 17:5-6, ESV).

            Habakkuk could surely name more, just from water, alone. Paul writes, “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off” (Romans 11:22, ESV).  And, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (I Corinthians 10:11, ESV).

Verse three (9b-13): "You split the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you and writhed; the raging waters swept on; the deep gave forth its voice; it lifted its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped, at the flash of your glittering spear. You marched through the earth in fury; you threshed the nations in anger. You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. Selah.”

The earth itself has the good sense to respond to the voice and the commands of God. The mountains, the rivers, the deep, the sun and the moon, they all responded to the Lord in humility and obedience and with thanksgiving. As we remember how the creation responds, let us ask ourselves, again, have we been thankful, are we thankful, in the midst of trial and tribulation, for Who God is, for all that God has done? Again, Marbury wrote, "Do not we thank God for it, and take it for high favour that he made us men, and did not make us stones, or plants, or worms, or fleas, serpents or toads; or any other kind of hatefull or hurtfull creature" (III.121).

            Remember what God has done, even causing the creation to change its route: "At that time Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, ‘Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.’ And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD heeded the voice of a man, for the LORD fought for Israel” (Joshua 10:12-14, ESV).

            The Lord, our God, our Sovereign Commander goes out before us in battle. He saves His people. He provides us with salvation. He causes the Savior to fulfill the prophetic word, "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” (Genesis 3:15, ESV).

            No matter what the battle, God is our leader triumphant, God is our Savior, and God will bring victory for His Name's Sake and for the Sake of His Glory in accomplishing His Will. Has God promised? So it shall be, without a doubt, by His Mighty Hand.

            Verse four (14-19a): "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.  I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold          and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places."

            What do we know about God? What do we know about His character? What did Judah know? What did Habakkuk know? Again, we are referred back to the Exodus: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" (Exodus 20:2, ESV).

            Deliverance from Egypt, from death, from sin, from the Wrath of God, is all by the Sovereign Will and Hand of God. It is according to God's Sovereign Good Pleasure that He delivered Israel from four hundred years of slavery by Himself, and it is by His Sovereign Good Pleasure that He chooses to deliver any one of us out of bondage to sin through Jesus Christ Alone.

            That did not give Judah license to sin and flaunt it before God – neither does it give us license to sin because all of our sin have been forgiven for the sake of Jesus Christ Alone. No – we are not to sin. And when we sin, we must remember, for our good and to God’s Glory, God may choose to send the Chaldeans against us. God may choose to punish us in this life for our sin through other people or things.  That should cause us to tremble!

Habakkuk knows the Chaldeans are coming. He knows they will be savage. He knows Judah deserves God's Wrath, and he knows they will receive a portion of it. Habakkuk does not look forward to it. Habakkuk does not enjoy the thought of the Chaldeans coming; it shakes him. He is sick to his stomach. His bones rattle and ache. He mourns his sin and the sin of Judah.

            Yet, he does not despair. Habakkuk says that he will receive the discipline of God's Hand as necessary, and even if there are no figs and no olives and no flocks -- even if there is no oil and no wine and no animals to sacrifice, even if it is physically impossible to carry out the worship of God as it is required in the Law -- and notice, Habakkuk thinks not being able to worship properly is worse than Judah being slaughtered by the Chaldeans -- even so, he will rejoice.

            Why? For four reasons:

            First, no matter how greatly he and Judah suffer, he will rejoice because God's Salvation is greater than anything that could ever come upon us in this world. Can we say that? Can we rejoice no matter how much we and our loved ones and our nation suffer, simply because Jesus and His Salvation are greater?

            Second, no matter how greatly he and Judah suffer, he will rejoice because God is his strength. He understood that his strength -- his ability to overcome and even survive -- did not come from himself. His strength comes from God. So, he knows he can never lose hope and fall away fully. Do we share that confidence? Do we know that our strength is from God our Savior, the Greatest Being in existence?

            Third, no matter how greatly he and Judah suffer, he will rejoice because God makes his feet like the deer. No, Habakkuk did not have little hoofed feet. No, he is saying that God makes him swift in spiritual things. He has the speed of the deer in the things of God. God takes control of his feet and makes him able to carry out all that God set before him. Do we believe we are able? We are -- not in ourselves, of course -- but we are able for everything God sets before us, because God makes us able by indwelling us with God the Holy Spirit.

            And fourth, no matter how greatly he and Judah suffer, he will rejoice because God will make him victorious in God in the end. No matter what he endures, no matter what he loses on earth, in the end, God will bring him to the heights, and he will have everything and more than he could ever desire in God. Are we willing not to fear losing everything for the sake of Christ? Can we suffer and mourn and still know that we have the greatest and the everlasting in Jesus Christ Alone? We can because it is God Who makes is so for us.

            That is the Character of the God we serve: He is Holy and Righteous. He accomplishes all things for His Glory. He has chosen a people for Himself, and He will bring every one of them to Himself on the last day. And despite the raging Chaldeans, in Him, there is no better place to be.

            Let us pray:

Almighty God, we thank You for the burden of Habakkuk. We thank You for the difficult word that You use evildoers to accomplish Your Holy and Perfect Will. Help us to rest in You and find our perfect joy in You, holding fast to You and Your promises, and Your Salvation, and not to the fleeting things of this world. For it is in Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.