Tuesday, February 20, 2018

"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.

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