Habakkuk 3:16-19 | You Are God Forever Praised

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

If you have been with us the last four weeks, I trust that you have heard echoes of that song in our walk through the book of Habakkuk.

That song was chosen on purpose to mimic what we find in that Old Testament prophet.

God has endless purposes for our pains, our agonies, our sorrows, the uncertainties and questions of life, the things that just come up that we are not expecting.

But Christ in his wisdom uses all of those.

He directs all of those, he plans all of those for his unnumbered purposes.

If you have your Bible again, I encourage you to take it and open to the book of Habakkuk.

If you are visiting with us this morning, we are finishing this study this morning.

And in the Seatback Bible, in the Pew Bible, it's on page 787 in that Bible.

We're going to read the end of Habakkuk chapter 3, beginning in verse 16 through the end of the chapter.

Habakkuk 3 · chapter mention

Habakkuk is here responding, reacting to the revelation of God, both in word and in sight that God has given him.

Again, beginning in Habakkuk chapter 3, verse 16, Habakkuk says, I hear, and my body trembles.

Habakkuk 3:16

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 the people who invade us.

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the grapevines, though the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, though 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 deers, he makes me tread on my high places.

To the choir master with stringed instruments.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we bow before you as the one who is our wisdom, the one who leads us as our good and great shepherd through the through the deep dark valleys of life.

We look to you as the one who walked that valley himself, who was lifted up on a wooden cross, like a like on a tree, so that our sins might be nailed to that cross, that we might be redeemed and reconciled to a holy God.

We look to you as our wisdom as we walk the path of life with our eyes set on you.

And we ask that as we consider these last few verses of the prophet's words, that we would be stirred to look to you again and again and again as our only place of wisdom.

We ask this to the praise of your glorious grace.

Amen.

When were you last terrified of the majesty of God?

When were you last terrified of the majesty of God?

You may recognize the strangeness of that question if you allow it to bounce around in your head a little bit.

You know, we will acknowledge our fright of fearful things in life.

Some of you may be terrified of heights.

Some might fear darkness.

Younger ones amongst us may still have fears of what's hiding in the closet or under the bed.

We all have monsters and fears of all kinds of evil things, of the imaginative things that live in the darkness and the evils of our world, of all of the unknowns of life.

We understand some of the fears that just echo around our world.

They stem from things that we cannot control.

But when did you last have a fear of beauty?

When did you last fear majestic and glorious things?

No?

Yeah, me neither.

My answer to those questions is remember ever being terrified by beauty, glory, and majesty.

And that's a little bit problematic for us.

Especially if we consider Job 13, verse 11.

Job 13:11

Job, Job spoke to his unsympathetic friends in Job chapter 13, announcing that God would rebuke them for their partiality.

Job 13 · chapter mention

And then he said these words Will not God's majesty terrify you and the dread of him fall upon you?

Listen to that again.

Will not his majesty terrify you?

Job used a word that describes how high and mighty and powerful God is.

Majesty means that God is so high above us in authority, in beauty, and glory that you have to lift up your eyes to see him, and when you do, it's as though you're blinded by looking at the sun and you are utterly overwhelmed and crushed by his weightiness, his glory, and his beauty and his majesty.

Job knew that seeing God unveiled in his majesty and glory would be terrifyingly beautiful.

And Job knew that he might die if he saw God's majesty.

But that didn't hinder that suffering man's hope and trust in his majestic God.

Listen to Job 13, verses 15 and 16.

Job 13:15

It says, Though he, that is that majestic God, though he slay me, though he kill me, I will hope in him.

Yet I will argue my ways to his face.

This will be my salvation.

That the godless shall not come before him.

You see, Job understood that God, in his unveiled majesty, would terrify him.

Yet, in a strange kind of paradox, that terrifying heavenly majesty was Job's only hope.

God's terrifying majesty was Job's salvation.

You know that Job's life was ruined.

All was lost.

It was taken from him.

And he desperately wanted to speak with God, yet he knew that if he did, God's majesty would terrify him, and he might even die before that majestic glory.

Yet Job's only hope was in the terror of God's magnificent glory and salvation, whether he had answers for the concerns of life or he remained uncertain and unanswered.

The prophet Habakkuk was in a very similar place.

He had not faced the personal terrors that Job lived.

But he was given a vision from God showing him the terrors of God's wise plan.

Job, Job worshiped in that place of terror.

What would Habakkuk do?

What would you do?

I hear.

And my body trembles.

My lips quiver at the sound.

Yet I will rejoice.

I will take joy.

For he is my strength.

And then he ends with to the choir master with stringed instruments.

That last line there is insightful because this chapter, especially, this last chapter was composed to be sung by a choir at the temple.

It's a prayerful song of voices accompanied by stringed instruments.

And that points us to the paradoxical intent of this entire prophetic book.

You see, Habakkuk learned, and God's people are to know that the unexplainable uncertainties of life, with all of its agonies and evils, all of those things should motivate us to sing of the terrors of God's majesty.

Why?

So that our hearts are drawn to hope and trust in his salvation.

These last few verses are the conclusion to that prayerful song.

The trust is evident, I think.

Habakkuk didn't receive the kinds of answers to his questions that he wanted.

But God did give him a brand new perspective on life.

God drew the prophet into the divine mindset to glimpse God's universal work and his eternal plan.

There are still no direct answers to Habakkuk's questions at the end of the book.

There are indirect answers, but no direct answers.

But God spoke and revealed to the prophet a message of his divine greatness and glory, the expansiveness of his sovereignty over the world, and the details of his plans of working within the nations on this planet.

And the overwhelming nature of that revelation left the prophet stunned to silence in the presence of God.

Even, we might say today, shaking in his boots.

And here at the very end, we see a pivotal response.

Habakkuk trusted in the power of God to save, even if God might kill him.

The divine majesty terrified the prophet.

But that terror moved him to worship.

He could proclaim that God will be forever praised, no matter what.

No, God's ways were not Job's ways.

And God's ways were not Habakkuk's ways.

And God's ways are not our ways.

We may never understand why God chooses what He does for us.

We may be driven to terror and to silence before our Father's power and majesty and understanding, but we can always trust Him, because He is the Lord of our salvation.

He has sent His own Son so that we might stand before Him without terror and without judgment, but instead in awe of His majesty and grace.

And these last few verses are the prophet's testimony of that kind of trust.

If we only look at it from a human perspective, Habakkuk's life started with bleakness and ended with bleakness.

There are no answers.

Instead, there's just, yeah, the Babylonians are going to come in and they're going to wipe you out.

And I am doing all of that.

It's my plan.

I raised them up.

I'm bringing them.

I'm carrying you off into exile.

That's bleak.

Nevertheless, Habakkuk trusts.

And my friends, you can too.

You can anchor your faith in the ancient of days if your hope rests in Christ alone.

And that kind of trust can transform how you face life's hurts, its questions, and its uncertainties.

And Habakkuk shows us how.

Looking to God with his unnumbered purposes and offering prayerful, worshipful praise before his terrifying majesty generates a persevering trust for the deep dark valleys of life.

Look at with me at how this happens in the prophet.

The first thing that we find here in verse 16 is that Habakkuk learned a very key component of trust.

And that is that trust can seek understanding.

It can throw its questions about life at an infinite wise God and still return to a place of trust when God's ways aren't ours.

That's not normal unless you trust God.

Remember that we don't observe anywhere in this book Habakkuk distrusting God.

Yes, he asks questions.

Yes, he says, I don't understand, I don't get it.

He wants to understand God's ways.

He desires wisdom.

The prophet's view of his life doesn't make sense based on what he knows of God.

He desires understanding.

He desires wisdom.

And so he's wrestling with the expression of God's ways of working in his world.

He's wrestling with his understanding of God without understanding.

God, why are you doing this?

I don't get it.

How does this mesh with who you are?

Habakkuk labored to comprehend God's way of working, but God reminded the prophet, my ways aren't your ways.

I don't work in the same way that you tend to think.

You see, God can work all things out perfectly because his perspective is eternal and it's not limited by time or by knowledge.

He can use even evil for his purposes and maintain his perfections without sin.

We can't do those things.

He is working to fill the whole earth with his glory, and one day the whole universe will proclaim that he is the one who is to be forever praised.

And verse 16, on the one hand, it feels as though Habakkuk has sort of resigned himself to God's ways.

Okay.

Guess that's just what's going to be.

But a a what will be, will be kind of attitude doesn't align with the expression of trust that we find in verses 17, 18, and 19.

I would argue that this isn't a fearful, powerless resignation to God's divine authority, but a trust that God knows what he's doing.

And Habakkuk is throwing himself on God's wisdom to say, I don't understand, but I trust you no matter what.

Now that kind of trust loves the one trusted.

It rests in the eternal majesty with the love of a son or a daughter.

That kind of love feels free to ask, Daddy, why are you doing that?

Father, I help me understand.

All at once, it is it is a love that comprehends, I don't understand, but my father does.

And I love him so I can fearfully approach his omniscience for knowledge and understanding.

But at the same time that it trusts in its eternal, in his eternal knowledge, that kind of trust trusts that my father knows everything, every detail.

And so he does not act without purpose.

He does all things well, so there must be a reason.

And I know that he loves his own, so my pain, my suffering, my questions, my confusion, and my circumstances must have a purpose in line with his mercy and grace.

And that kind of love also trusts that my father knows best.

Especially when I don't understand.

This kind of love feels free to seek out understanding, but in the end it rests in a childlike trust when his ways are beyond my comprehension.

I remember a story of Corey Tenboom telling about a time when she and her father were on a train, and there was some terrible news that she was asking her father about, and he knew that it was just too much for her.

There was no way that she could handle that.

And he said to her, My child, it's it's too heavy for you.

And she asked, Well, why is it too heavy?

How is it too heavy?

I don't understand that.

And he said, I want you to pick up my suitcase.

And she said, I can't.

It's too heavy.

He said, This is too heavy for you, too.

One day you'll understand, but right now it's too heavy.

It's a love that trusts that my father knows this is too heavy for you.

But he understands.

It's a love that trusts enough to throw oneself into the arms of the terrifying majesty of God, knowing that He is the Lord of our salvation, and our help comes from Him at the right time.

Habakkuk did that very thing.

The prophet's mind has caught up with God's revelation of what's coming to his people, and it's begun to impact his body.

Trembling and quivering consume him because of the terror of God's majesty and the fear of God's plan.

As with C.S.

Lewis's character Aslan, Habakkuk knew that God was good on the inside, but unsafe.

A terrifying majesty.

He's good, but he's not safe.

At that moment, at that moment we can imagine quivering knees, giving way and sinking to the ground as the prophet worshiped.

Yet I will quietly wait.

He rested in God's unnumbered purposes because he trusted in the God of his salvation.

So ask your questions.

Go to your heavenly Father with your concerns and with your confusion.

Tell him your problems and your perplexities.

Seek understanding from the God of all wisdom.

And if the answers that you receive do not satisfy your heart and soul, then let him satisfy your soul.

Tremble before him and sink to your knees and trust of his purposes.

Command your soul that no matter what happens, he is the God of your salvation.

That he is your strength.

You can trust his purposes, my friends, because he has already shown you that he is trustworthy, for he has given his son, his only son, the son he loves, for you, and he has nailed him to a tree.

He sent him to the tomb and he raised him from the dead.

And when you meet him on the mountaintop, like Peter, James, and John and all of his glory, you will tremble before him and quiver and command your heart to trust the goodness of your saving God.

When that happens, you can take another step like Habakkuk, because trust can offer praise.

Even when you can't see God working.

That's so hard.

It's so hard.

When you desperately want answers, when you desperately want to see God move, and there's nothing.

Habakkuk declared that he would take joy in the God of his salvation even when the simplest evidence of God's common grace disappears from the world.

Look at it.

In verse 17, the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines, and he goes on and he lists several items here.

This goes beyond the effects of ancient warfare.

This is beyond the Babylonians coming to ravage the land and carry off the local Jewish people to Babylon.

This is when creation itself refuses to function as it should.

For those of you that are older, this is depression-era language.

If the fig tree should not blossom, if you don't have blossoms on your fig tree, what happens?

No figs.

There aren't blossoms, there's not going to be fruit.

Fig trees were and still are a common food source in the Middle East.

You remember the story of Jesus walking along the roadside wanting fruit from a fig tree.

Very common food source.

He says, if that doesn't happen, if the trees don't function as they normally function, if there's no fruit on the vines, that means no grapes.

There's no grapes, that means there's no raisins, which is again a common storage food.

That means there's no juice for daily drinking needs.

There's no wine.

He says, if the olives fail, if the produce of the olive tree should fail, that means no olives and no olive oil.

No exports of the number one produce of the land, no oil for making daily bread, no oil for soothing wounds.

If the fields yield no food, that means no grains for your daily bread, the most basic type of sustenance.

If the flock is cut off from the fold, that means no lambs, no wool, no goats for milk, no meat.

If there be no herd in the stalls, that means no cattle, no oxen, no horses, no donkeys, etc., you can't plow your fields, you have no means of transportation, no means of hauling, no meat.

This is an intense description of scarcity.

Most of us have never seen this kind of scarcity, much less experienced it.

Habakkuk here expresses a fierce form of trust.

The revelation of God's ways is beyond his comprehension.

God's plan staggers the prophet to his knees, but it will not crush his trust.

What impact would we have on our families and our communities if we displayed this kind of trust?

The church is designed to be like a group of exiles who trust the God of their salvation through all of his unnumbered purposes.

God's people are called and empowered even to trust, even when the simplest evidences of his divine favor are absent.

What if our community could see us trust our God like that?

What would it do?

How would it affect the people around us if they knew that we were crushed, that we were sorrowing, that we were confused, that we were uncertain, and yet it only strengthened our trust in the God who saves.

This is a life and death trust.

It so loves God that it trusts him no matter what he brings to life in this fallen world.

Job, Job's friends and even his wife were astounded that he continued to trust God when every form of blessing, of goodness, and mercy was taken from him.

His wife commanded him, curse God and die.

Get it over with.

But think of what an opportunity we would have to speak of Christ in those times.

Now, if you haven't trusted in Christ yet, take this moment to do so.

Life in a fallen world hurts.

Pain and agony and sorrows and questions of all kinds will crush you.

Human leaders will fail you.

Government will fail you.

For that matter, even the church will fail you.

But Christ will not.

He is the only one who can sustain you.

He is the only one who loves you enough to take you through life's deep, dark valleys and prepare a table before you in the midst of your enemies.

Trust him as Habakkuk did.

Because if you do, that trust will begin to transform the way you think about life.

Trust can properly orient your perspective in a darkened dying world.

Notice that little word in verse 16, I'm sorry, verse 18.

Yet.

Yet.

That guides us to see the path of Habakkuk's faith.

The though, though all of these things happen, or that even if these things happen, expresses the human perspective on life.

Human beings in a fallen world may very well experience the consequences of sin in our world, whether it's the results of war, of famine, of disease, or even divine judgment.

Habakkuk recognizes that reality.

God's ways are not his ways, so he may live through some of those consequences of a fallen world.

But verse 18 shifts to the human response based on the influence of God's viewpoint.

We can frame it as a question.

What will I do if God brings me through the worst that this world has to offer?

What will I do?

How will I respond to God's ways, those that are not mine?

How will I respond to those?

And how will I react if God brings those things to my doorstep?

If suddenly my home is devoid of food and provision and blessing and mercy, and I have nothing?

Will I whine and complain that God is unfair?

Unhearing?

Uncaring?

Inattentive?

Will I let myself get carried away by my senses, by what I feel, by what I hear, by what I see?

Will I let the darkness of times and circumstances and sin and sorrow swallow me up?

That kind of response is quite normal for us.

We allow our limited, finite perspective on life to dominate our sense of reality.

And so we set up mental and emotional blockades to the healing work of God's word.

But if we genuinely love and trust the ancient of days, and his son, who gave himself for us, and his spirit, whom he sent to comfort and sustain us, then we can receive the revelation of his word.

We can believe him and we can trust his wisdom and goodness regardless of what we may face.

Notice the indications of Habakkuk's perspective change.

Habakkuk couldn't see God's hand at work in the first four verses of the book.

He looked around him and he saw just rampant wickedness and evil and nobody caring about anything, not even caring about God's word, and it seemed to him as though God was uncaring and inattentive, and he said, God, where are you?

What are you doing?

His perspective was limited, and his circumstances consumed him.

Now, look at the change.

It's as though we're hearing an echo of Job.

Though he slay me, though he kill me, yet will I hope in him.

Yet I will rejoice.

I will take joy.

His joy is not grounded in his experience.

He doesn't say that life has suddenly changed and I'm loving all of this pain and agony.

That's not what he's doing.

He's not saying, I love having unanswered questions.

No, he's saying, I know the one who has the answers.

And though he hasn't told me the answers, I still trust him.

His joy is not grounded in his experience, but in his covenant God.

The terror of his majesty has shifted to an awe of his majesty.

His perspective is no longer the arena of questions and uncertainty and agony of chapter one.

But it's now the heavenly arena of the beauty and the glory of God and his purpose and plan for eternity.

His joy is not grounded in the present uncertainty, but in the God of his salvation.

Friends, our world is prone to come crashing down around us when we lose sight of the one who upholds it moment by moment.

We are prone to moping, to sadness, and feeling overwhelmed when our eyes drift away from the one who causes all things to work toward good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

At this moment, the prophet realizes that God's salvation is not dealing primarily with earthly enemies like Babylon, but with eternity.

He says, That is where my strength is.

Yes, the prophet lived in trying times.

And his faith would be tried even more in the coming years.

Your life is no different.

You live in trying times, and your faith will be tested even more.

Job was despondent when his senses were overwhelmed by his circumstances, but now his eyes, his ears, his mind, his heart are in tune with God's perspective.

That God is his strength, that God, that Yahweh God, that covenant God is his strength.

Because Habakkuk trusts in him.

He has thrown himself into the hands of the God who has unnumbered purposes, because that God is his salvation.

And in the end, praise results.

I will rejoice.

I will take joy.

Praise results when the prophet senses his heart and his mind are in tune with God's word, because Habakkuk now understands in a new and fresh way that whatever life brings, whatever worldly powers prevail on the earth, whatever temptations and discouragements come, God is to be forever praised, for He is our strength and shield.

He is our salvation.

And in that we gain hints of the persevering faith of the prophet.

Because you see, in the end, trust can generate endurance.

Not because we are strong.

Not because you are an athlete or you have great endurance built up.

But because God is your strength.

You can have endurance not because your faith is strong, but because he is strong to cause your faith to endure.

There are some echoes here of Psalm 62.

In that text, King David saying, For God alone my soul waits in silence.

From him comes my salvation.

He only is my rock and my fortress, my salvation.

I shall not be greatly shaken.

I'm reminded of Amy Carmichael saying, it does not matter so much what we go through as how we go through it.

The prophet Habakkuk, I think, would agree.

He had to learn that lesson from God's word, saying, God's ways are not my ways.

So I will command my heart to trust when I don't know the answers, when God has not revealed to me his path.

He would add, Habakkuk would, that the unexplainable uncertainties of life, whatever it brings, agony, terror, fear, questions, pain, sickness, disease, all of those should motivate us to sing of the terrors of God's majesty.

Why?

So that our hearts are driven to hope and trust in his salvation.

Who sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be our wisdom for each step, each day of his unnumbered purposes, so that his people might praise him forever.

In that way, he says, the righteous will live by their faith.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, as we as we begin in just the calendar of our times, a season of summer, of maybe some relaxation, some refreshment of different kinds.

May you use it to strengthen our faith, to cause us to look to you in new and fresh ways.

That our vision would be taken off of our world, our circumstances, and our lives, and that we would begin to see things newly through your eyes.

Cause us to live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.