Habakkuk: The Prophet Who Says What We're All Thinking | Pastor PJ Berner

Well, I wonder if you've ever felt like you know better than God.

The laughs in the room convinced me that you, you probably have

felt that from time to time.

Uh, you may not.

Say it that way.

But we've felt that, and, and let me explain a, a couple of

areas that I've felt that before.

Uh, times that I've felt like, God, what are you doing Right?

I, I love them now.

But, uh, eight years ago in some change, when we found out that we were having

twins and we already had three kids, that's a moment where I was like, God.

You sure about this one?

What are you doing right now?

Uh, that was one of those moments in my life or, uh, when I lost more

seriously, when I lost one of my dear friends back in California who died

and, and left his young family behind.

That was a moment, you know, I wrestled with God on that one.

Or maybe you've had a situation like this where, uh, in the early weeks

of COVID you were wondering, okay, God, what in the world are you doing?

Or perhaps I could recount and I, I won't, but all of the different

ministry situations, the difficult times in ministry that I've had to,

to sit in my office and just pray and say, okay, God, I, I, I don't

understand what you're doing here.

I think all of us have probably had times where we feel like maybe we

know better than God, and there are times in life we experience these

situations, and those are the times that we ask the questions of God, God, why?

Why now?

Or why not, or what even still matters anymore, y'all, when, when one of our

fellow pastors died suddenly, as I was just alluding to a moment ago, uh, there

were weeks afterwards that I struggled to figure out how to regain any sort

of sense of normalcy in ministry.

What even matters anymore, how do I show up and go through

the motions and, and do these.

Things that we're doing.

I was the college pastor at the time.

How do, how do we do games with college students when this guy who is 39

years old just died and left behind his family and kids times like that.

God, what are you doing?

Habakkuk is a book for those times.

It's a book for those times, those times of losing a job or losing

a loved one or losing a child.

Those times of marital strife, those times when you have to trust God when

you're not really sure what God is doing.

That's what Habak helps us do.

Habakkuk helps us trust God when we're not really sure what God is doing.

Let's get into it as the book opens.

Uh, before we get to the, the text itself, just to remind us of the,

the, the nuts, the nuts and bolts of, uh, the, the book here, its

author is the, the title Habakkuk.

Habakkuk was a, a prophet, uh, he was a prophet who had a deep concern for

justice, as we're gonna see in the book.

He was a prophet who was also a, a theologian, as we will

find out in the book as well.

And he was also maybe even potentially a Levite, as he had a, a very

knowledgeable depth of understanding of the past of, of God's work.

And we'll see some of that in chapter three.

But Habakkuk is the author, the date around six 40 to six 15.

So we're right in between the two exiles, 7 22 bc.

So before this, the Northern Kingdom, Israel was carried

off by the nation of Assyria.

They're judged by God and carried off into exile.

Well, in 5 86 bc, the Southern Kingdom, the kingdom of Judah is

gonna be taken out by Babylon.

God is gonna judge the southern kingdom of Judah.

They're gonna be taken into exile.

That is really the subject of the book is God's gonna be telling Habakkuk that

that's what he's going to be doing here.

But Habakkuk wrote, right kind of in between there, six 40 to six

15, that timeframe BC the audience.

Is Habakkuk and no, I didn't accidentally transpose, transpose

the, the author or the title here.

Uh, this is a conversation.

Between Habakkuk and God.

Habakkuk doesn't prophesy to anyone in this book.

God prophesies to Habakkuk.

God and Habakkuk have an intimate moment that we get to eavesdrop on

and it's gonna help us understand how God is a God that we can trust even

when we don't know what he's doing.

So the audience of the book is the prophet himself, Habakkuk, and I've been going

through the key words, uh, with these different books that we've been studying.

And the key word here that I want you to take away is the

word trust, the word trust.

And there's a lot that goes into our trust or our faith isn't there,

especially during those times that we don't understand what God is doing.

Open up with me in chapter one.

It says this, the oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw, oh Lord,

how long shall I cry for help?

This is Habakkuk addressing God again, addressing Yahweh.

Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help?

And you will not hear or cry to you violence, and you will not save.

Why do you make me see iniquity?

Why do you look idly at wrong?

Destruction and violence are before me.

Strife and contention arise.

So the law is paralyzed and justice never goes forth for the

wicked, surround the righteous.

So justice goes forth.

Perverted habak, addresses God with these complaints about the context, what was

going on all around him at this time.

Which in the nation of Israel was not a time of, of moral and

spiritual, uh, prosperity, but a time of moral and spiritual decay.

There was rampant idolatry.

There was child sacrifice taking place.

There was oppression.

Jeremiah describes in Jeremiah seven, oppression and murder and theft and

adultery and idolatry and deceitfulness, Habakkuk's looking around at all of

this saying, God, what are you doing?

In fact, his question is one that maybe makes us squirm a little bit.

God, why do you idly look at wrong?

He says the law is paralyzed.

Again, Habak, the prophet theologian knows who God is, that God is a God

of justice, that God's a God of law.

In fact, if we go back to Deuteronomy 19, you may have that chapter memorized,

and if you do great, the rest of us, we will just need a, a brief reminder here.

Tongue in cheek.

Nobody has that memorized, I I, I imagine in the room.

But Deuteronomy 19 is all about the laws of justice, what is

right, and what is good, and what Israel should have been doing.

And Habakkuk says, the the law is paralyzed.

Justice has been perverted.

I wonder if we can resonate with any of that as we look around our world today.

Now we are not Israel.

You've heard me say that multiple times.

America is not Israel.

Israel is not America.

And, and, and the church is not Israel.

Um, still we can resonate I think with the feeling of the prophet here as we look

around even maybe at a macro level, and we see just the, the rampant celebration

in the, in the, the, the blood lust for the murder of the unborn through abortion.

Or we look at the abuse that happens in different sectors, or we look at

the riots that take place, or we look at these other examples of injustice

all around us when we say God.

Are you, are you, do you see this?

But how about on a micro level?

How about in, in our own lives personally?

Maybe you're in a working environment where there's, there's

rampant corruption at work.

God, are, are you, do you see what's going on here?

Do, do, do you notice what's going on here?

Or perhaps there's sins that others have committed against you and you're going,

God, are you not gonna do anything?

Or maybe you've worked really hard and demonstrated a work ethic

with great integrity and it's just gone unnoticed and unrewarded.

I I, if you can't think of any situations yourself that parallel habakkuk's,

just open up your news browser later on today and you'll be flooded with them.

Like Habakkuk, we can grow frustrated with what seems to be

God's apparent idleness at times.

Those times when we don't know what God is doing and it's difficult

to trust because it looks like God is just not doing anything.

It looks like God's just idle and we like, like the, the prophet can, can sit here

and say, God, why don't you do something?

But like Habak, like Habak would come to know.

At least we need to learn and we need to understand that God is never idle.

He's always actively ordaining and working out his perfect and sovereign plan.

So our first point this morning is, do you think about trusting God

when you don't know what he's doing?

Is this humbly acknowledge God's sovereign plan?

Humbly acknowledge God's sovereign plan.

I can't tell you the number of times that my plan has been

consistently foiled by God's plan.

And you know what?

2020, looking back on it, I'm always thankful for that.

In fact, if I had my way, I probably wouldn't have the job that I

have, the wife that I have, the family that I have, and perhaps

not even the faith that I have.

But because of God's perfect and sovereign plan, I do have those things.

But that doesn't mean that I always liked his plan.

Doesn't mean that I was always sitting there going, oh yeah,

this makes total sense, God.

In a moment of condescension in our text here, God is gonna answer

Habakkuk and actually clue him in on what he actually is doing here.

God owed Habakkuk no response, but he gave him one anyways, and in giving

him one, he gives us one to help us understand something about who he is.

Look at verse five.

Look among the nations and see Habakkuk wonder and be astounded.

For, I'm a doing, I'm doing a work.

In your days that, that you wouldn't believe, even if I told

you he's gonna tell him anyways.

For behold, I'm raising up the Chaldeans.

Okay.

Chaldeans is another name for the Babylonians, that bitter and hasty nation

who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings, not their own.

They are dreaded and fearsome.

That word fearsome is the same word that's used in relation to the fear of God.

He's saying they instill that fear in others.

Their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.

Jump down to verse 11.

They sweep by like the wind and go on.

Guilty men whose own might is their God.

Now at this time in, in history, the Babylonians were really just kind of

coming on the scene, but they were known to be the the next power player.

Assy is on the way down, and in fact the Babylonians are gonna

be the ones in six 12 BC who take the Assyrians out completely.

Habakkuk has heard enough about the, the Babylonians to know that this

is not gonna be good news, but God says, look, they're, they're powerful.

He says in verse six and seven, they are devastating.

Verse eight.

They are brutal in their execution of their plan and their their attacks.

In verse nine, they are their own God, even whose own might is their God.

As we're thinking about God's execution of a sovereign plan, I I, I, I

wonder, have you ever been shocked by something that God has done?

Have you ever just been slack jawed, just your mouth is open going, God,

how is this a part of your plan that would've been the impact of what

Habak was hearing God say to him?

At this point, we read it on the backside of the cross, knowing the rest

of the story, as Dave Harvey used to say, and it loses its impact for us.

This would be like, and again, not to conflate American, Israel, 'cause

they're not the same, but this would be like God saying to you today, Hey,

you know what I'm going to use, I, I, I'm going to use China to come into

America and I'm going to use China to completely destroy everything here

That, that, you know and see because of the great wickedness in this nation.

It's that moment that so often happens where we just

say, God, what are you doing?

And again, remember, that's what Habakkuk's about.

It's a book about trusting God when we don't know what God is doing.

What does Proverbs three five and six say?

King Solomon says this.

He says, trust in the Lord with all of your heart when it's going your way.

I'm glad you're chuckling because if your Bible says that, I get rid of it.

That's not what it says.

King Solomon says, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and then what comes next?

Do not lean on your own understanding.

Have you ever wondered why he says that?

It's because so often you need to trust God when you don't understand God.

That's what's going on in Habakkuk chapter one.

That's what might be going on in your life right now.

You're sitting there saying, God, I, I don't understand.

I don't.

I don't know why my marriage is the way it is.

I don't know why my children have rebelled against me.

I don't know why I got this health diagnosis.

I don't know why.

God, I don't, I don't understand,

and I just find it so encouraging that we have a passage like Proverbs

three that says, you know what?

Trust the Lord even then

and don't lean on your own understanding,

because we serve the God who says, my ways are not your ways.

When the flood comes and takes out dozens of children when the accident happens.

When good friends move away, when you don't get the job, when the

political candidate you voted for doesn't win the election.

When you need a new roof, when the medical bills mount, when the

pregnancy test comes back negative again when rent goes up again,

God is still sovereign in those times.

His plan is still active.

He's not passive.

He's not asleep.

He's not unaware and he's not disinterested in what

you're going through.

He's working his plan to perfection in your life.

It's these moments that we have to trust and acknowledge

humbly, his sovereign plan.

We have to remember his plans when it doesn't feel like we should trust him.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.

That was something that Habakkuk was gonna need to do and need to learn, but

he wasn't gonna get there right away.

In fact, look back in our text at verse 12, Habakkuk says this.

He says, are you not from everlasting?

Oh Lord, my God, my holy one.

We shall not die.

Oh Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment and you O Rock have

established them for reproof.

You who are of pure eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong.

Why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows

up, the man more righteous than he.

Habakkuk hears God, say, Habakkuk, I'm not idle.

This is what I'm doing.

And Habakkuk says, you can't do that.

I wonder if you've ever been there with God.

If we're honest with ourselves, I'm sure we have.

Not only questioning God, why are you doing this?

But God, you shouldn't do this.

This doesn't seem like this is what's best.

Habakkuk appeals to the covenant nature of God.

Here in chapter one, verse 12, he says, he says, you Lord, you are from everlasting.

Oh Lord, Yahweh, my God, Yahweh, the covenant name of God, that

relationship with his people.

And he says, you are from everlasting.

In other words, he's appealing to God's immutability.

The God you never change.

And he says, but what you're saying you're gonna do seems

like you're, you're shifting.

And he goes on and he says, we shall not die.

His understanding of the Babylonians were that when they came through,

there was nothing left behind.

When when they set their sights on a target, they decimated

that target completely.

And so Habakkuk saying, God, you're gonna bring them against us.

That would imply that we're gonna be no more at all.

And Habakkuk saying to God, appealing to his covenant relationship

against saying we're not gonna die.

In fact, back in Leviticus 26, 44 through 45, even as God is talking about the

judgment that he's gonna bring upon Judah, if they're disobedient to the law,

which is why he's gonna judge them here.

But in Leviticus 26 44 through 40 45, God told the people of Israel

and the people of Judah, listen, I'm not gonna destroy you completely.

I won't make a complete end of you.

And so that's why Habakkuk says, we're not gonna die.

He says, you've used them for reproof.

Really it's, it's them.

And then he reminds God of God's character in case God forgot, you

have eyes that are too pure to see evil and cannot look at wrong.

Habakkuk would seem to be implying that that would imply that he can't use the

Babylonians because the Babylonians are somehow too evil for God to ever use.

But if, if God can't use.

Evil and wicked people in the accomplishment of his plan, then

God could never do anything.

It's an uncomfortable element of his sovereignty, but it's true.

We see it abundantly clear right here.

God is the one.

And by the way, God is not passive in his sovereign plan.

He's the one actively raising up the Chaldeans.

He's the one that he says elsewhere is gonna whistle for them as

though from the ends of the earth, God is bringing this to be.

And the prophet just can't wrap his mind around this.

He can't understand how this can happen.

In fact, he pits God against Nebuchadnezzar.

He says in verse 14, you Lord, you make mankind like the fish of the sea.

And they're your creation.

But then he pits him against Nebuchadnezzar.

He says he verse 15, brings all of them up with a hook.

He drags them out with his net.

He gathers them in his dragnet.

So he rejoices and is glad.

God, the ones that you have made, he's putting himself out there as

the one that they belong to him.

Now, you're okay with that?

God, how can you be okay with this?

Therefore he sacrifices to his net.

He makes offerings to his dragnet for by them.

He lives in luxury and is rich in his food.

Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?

I'm gonna take my stand at my watch post and station myself on the tower and look

out to see what he will say, God, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

I, I appreciate Habak and his honesty right here.

I, I, I don't think this is a, a pride that's a self-centered

pride, but it's still pride.

Nonetheless, he's positioning himself ready to debate God.

He says, I'm gonna listen to see what God's gonna say, and then I'll, I'll

figure out what I'm gonna say back to God.

God's gonna respond as we'll see here momentarily by reminding

Habakkuk that there's a bigger picture that he's not seeing

that's so important for us, y'all.

As we're looking to trust a God whose ways we don't always understand,

it is immensely important that we remember our finitude and his finitude.

It's immensely important that we remember that we are the

creature and he's the creator.

It's immensely important that we remember that his ways are not our ways and his

ways are perfect so that even when we can't see the end, we can still trust him.

Another facet of God's sovereignty in our acknowledgement, uh, of, of

his perfect plan is to acknowledge that he also always knows better.

Point number two, humbly admit that God knows better humbly

admit that God knows better.

I, I If you have kids, you understand this right?

You understand when you give instructions to your kids and

their, your kids, just look back at you like you're from outer space.

You tell them to go do something and they look at you like, certainly

you can't want me to do that.

That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard on the face of the planet.

And you look at them and you think, you know, you, you, you can do it.

You can do it with a sore butt or you can do it just willingly.

Choice is yours on this one.

Bucko.

That's like us.

And God, so often he tells us what he's doing or what we need to do and we're

like the impetulant child that looks at him and says, you can't be serious.

You can't be serious.

And that's a little bit of what Habakkuk's doing here, though.

I think his motive is good.

His motive is still for the glory and justice and holiness of God, but

he's missing this key component that God is the God who knows better.

Habakkuk has put God in the docket and is calling God to

explain and justify himself.

How often y'all have our actions and reactions to circumstances in life

revealed a heart that questions the Lord.

We may know in the vacuum, we may know on Sunday morning that God is

sovereign and has a perfect plan and works it out according to his will,

and his perfect plan is always good.

We may know that on Sunday morning, but on Tuesday afternoon when the bad news comes,

our reactions and actions betrayed that.

We don't necessarily always believe that

when we complain about our spouse or our children.

When we complain about a situation at work, when we stew in frustration,

when our plans don't come to fruition, when we make rash decisions without

counsel, just trying to get out of a trial as quickly as we can.

Instead of sitting in it and saying, God, what are you trying to maybe teach

me right now when we're not praying?

You know, these are all ways that we are.

Effectively communicating to God.

God, I know better than you do.

When we grumble about our circumstances, y'all are fantasize

about a different reality.

We are in essence telling God, you made a mistake and I know better.

God answers Habakkuk again.

He condescends to the prophet.

He doesn't consume him in fire.

He lovingly, graciously merci mercifully.

Respond to the prophet.

In verse two says, the Lord answered me.

Write the vision and make it plain on the tablet so he may run.

Who reads it for still?

The vision awaits.

It's a point in time.

It hasten to the end.

It will not lie.

If it seems slow.

Wait for it.

It will surely come.

It will not.

Delay.

Delay.

Behold, his soul is puffed up.

It is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

God's response to Habakkuk is such that he says, Habakkuk, you need to

trust that I do indeed know better and listen what I'm about to tell you.

I want you to write it down.

And he says that because he says it it, it may not come as

quickly as you want it to come.

It may not happen according to your timeframe.

But Habakkuk, I want you to write this down and know for sure that it will come.

And in the meantime, Habakkuk, here's your job.

You ready?

Habakkuk?

Your job is to live by.

Faith that probably that verse sounds familiar to you.

The righteous shall live by faith.

Paul picks it up in Romans and applies it to salvation that the righteous

person is saved by his faith.

The writer of Hebrews is gonna grab it and he's gonna apply it to our endurance

and our perseverance, our steadfastness throughout our lives as believers

that the righteous adheres to Christ and, and sticks with Christ by faith.

Well that comes all the way back here.

This is where it begins with God's words to Habakkuk as, as Habakkuk is

looking at God going, what are you?

What are you doing?

Are you sure about this?

God, I think I might know better than you do on this one.

God, God's gonna say, Habakkuk, I do have a plan that you can trust,

but as you wait, you need to trust that my plan is always better,

and you're gonna do that by faith.

You're not always gonna be able to see what God is doing

with the trial in your life.

You may never, this side of eternity, know what God is doing with the trial

in your life, but you can maintain a confidence that he's doing something.

You can have a faith that he's good.

You can have a faith that says, God, I'm going to to trust you, and in

the meantime I will remain patient.

One of the best ways that you can humbly admit that God knows

better is by staying patient.

In the midst of the trial,

God tells Habakkuk of Babylon.

In the rest of this chapter, he says they are going to get what they deserve.

Justice will be done to them as well.

Habakkuk, it's a reminder that, like we talked about last week, that

that God's perspective is eternal.

God is not bound by our timeframe.

God will see to it that every sin is dealt with, that every offense,

that every injustice is addressed.

And that's what he's reminding.

Habakkuk, write the vision down Habakkuk, I'm gonna deal with them.

In fact, he goes in, in the rest of chapter two with these woes,

these curses of judgment against the Chaldeans, the Babylonians.

And God is going to deliver this justice.

He's gonna say there in verse 16, you will have your fill of shame instead of glory.

Speaking of the, the, the ruler there of Babylon, you will have

your fill of shame instead of glory.

Drink yourself and show your uncircumcision the

gentile nature of these.

These evil people that were coming against God's people.

The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you.

The wrath that he is using you to execute will be executed upon you and

utter shame will come upon your glory.

The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction

of the beasts, so forth and so on.

So God says to Habakkuk, I will deal with Babylon.

They will know.

That I am God.

In fact, he goes on to say the whole earth will be full of the glory of the Lord.

Verse 14, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters

cover the sea and so Babylon.

This nation that was all about their own glory would be humbled

and their glory would be supplanted by the glory of the Lord.

Again, God's saying, Habak, it's gonna happen.

You may not live that long.

It may not be according to your timeframe, but trust that it will.

When we don't know what God is doing, one of the best ways that we can trust

that his will and his way is better, is by remaining patient and living by faith.

That's not possible in and of ourselves.

Our flesh is going to grate against that with every ounce of its being.

It's gonna say, man, I don't want to be patient.

I don't want to live by faith.

I want results.

But with the spirit dwelling within us, we can overcome that.

This is what it means that, as Paul writes in Philippians chapter four,

that we can have a peace that surpasses what understanding, which would imply

that there's a peace that we need when we don't understand that can be ours

through the spirit, or we can live by faith in the promise that Paul records

in Romans eight, that God is working all things according to our good.

That is that we would be made more like Jesus.

We can wait and we can trust in the midst of the plan and say,

God, your way is better than mine.

I wouldn't do things this way, God, but I'm gonna trust that your plan is better.

When you're tempted to complain about a circumstance in life, perhaps stop

and ask yourself if you might be implying that you know better than God,

because we need to remember God's place in our place, and that's

where he ends in chapter two.

He says, look at verse 20, but the Lord is in his holy temple.

Let all the Earth, including you, Habakkuk, keep silence before him.

This is that moment where God is saying, okay, enough is enough.

You've challenged my goodness, you've challenged my holiness.

You've challenged my character.

You've challenged what I'm doing.

Now it's time to simply trust me and submit to me.

The good news is, is Habak is not Jonah.

Habakkuk gets the message.

In fact, look at chapter three with me.

Says this, a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet according to the shaana.

And you're all better off because I mispronounced that Hebrew word for you.

But Habakkuk's gonna respond with this prayer.

And I love the prayer.

He says, oh Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work.

Oh Lord, do I fear in the midst of years, revive it in the midst of the years.

Make it known in wrath.

Remember mercy.

And so the prophet appeals back to what he knows to be true about God.

Now he's appealing back saying, God, you are right.

I know who you are.

I know.

And if he, he's gonna go on in chapter three here and talk about the works

of God specifically during the Exodus, how God led his people out in such a

powerful way from slavery in Egypt and brought them into the promised land.

And Habakkuk is gonna say, Lord, I'm asking you to bring those

years back in the, the midst of your, your, your time right now,

the judgment that you're bringing.

Lord, I I would ask that you revive the, the good times that

we've had, the, the goodness that you've showed to your people.

And so Habakkuk, praise in your wrath.

Lord, please remember mercy too.

The vision that Habakkuk saw here and heard from the Lord encouraged him in

the face of the impending judgment at the hands of the Babylonians, that God

was going to in fact see to justice being administered, and it reminded

him of God's past faithfulness in tearing, taking care of his people.

Which gave him the confidence that he would continue to do the same.

So when we don't know what God is doing, there's that moment that we can get

to a sense of peace, and this indeed is part of the peace that surpasses

understanding, that's rooted in our understanding, in our memory of all

the good that God has done to us in the past, where we can get to the place of

saying, God, if you've been faithful in the past, you'll be faithful to me still.

I want you to note here that God doesn't tell Habak Habakkuk.

It's all gonna be okay.

He doesn't tell Habakkuk, Hey, Habakkuk, the Babylonians aren't

as scary as you think they are.

He doesn't tell Habakkuk, Hey, everyone you love is gonna

come through this thing, fine.

Habakkuk is still gonna have to face the reality of the impending judgment that

God was bringing, but he's gotten to the place now with God's gracious help.

To say, okay, to live by faith means to trust in who you are.

And part of that means rehearsing who we know him to be, who he's

proved himself to be time and time again over our lives in the past.

So our final point this morning is this, humbly, remember

God's past kindness humbly.

Remember God's past kindness.

To help bolster and strengthen your trust in God when you

don't know what God is doing.

Remembering how faithful he's been to you and your family in the past is

gonna help you walk by faith in the moment that he will be faithful to

fulfill his promises in the future.

When

the twins were newborns every morning, they woke up.

Just irate that they had not yet been fed.

We fed them every day.

It's like, why don't you remember this?

Well, because all the brain chemistry and everything else like that, we

can't expect too much of, of infants.

Right.

They don't know.

'cause they don't remember because they, they're not

there yet in their development.

I remember Amanda, I think, shared this with our, our ladies, but there was a, a

professor that we had back at Masters who he and his wife adopted a little girl from

a, an Eastern bloc country and they are a Soviet bloc country and they, they brought

her home and they took her to church and.

They're sitting in church and her number flashes up on the screen

that says, Hey, you need to come to the, the kids' ministry wing.

So they get up quickly.

This is their, her first Sunday at church, and they go back into the kids'

ministry wing and they, they open the door and they're wondering if maybe she

just is scared and she's crying and she's upset because this is all new to her.

Well, no, she's happy as she could be.

She's sitting at the table, in fact, and she's got so much food in front of her and

she's just mowing down on all this food.

It was every single other kid around the snack table that was in tears.

The reason being she grew up in a situation where she

had to fight for her food.

So when they passed out snacks, she was like Game on.

And all these little Southern California kids that had no clue what was going

on, they just got mugged by this little kid from, from Eastern Europe.

And she just grabbed it all and brought it in.

Why?

Because she had not been shown the past kindness enough to

know that, you know what?

You're gonna have food today and you're gonna have food tomorrow, and you're

gonna have food the next day too.

You know, we need to remember God's past kindness to us in the times,

especially when we don't know what he's doing, because it reminds us

that he's good and he loves us and he's gonna continue to provide for us.

Don't hear me say the trial's gonna be taken away immediately.

Or per, perhaps this side of eternity.

That's not what we read about in Habakkuk.

The Babylonians still show up,

but I want us to land here to, to understand why this is, how

this all fits together with, with what Habakkuk says in the end.

Look at verse 17 with me.

He says, though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit beyond the

vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food.

The flock be cut off from the fold, and there'd be no herd in the stalls.

He's depicting, uh, an apocalyptic wasteland here.

In.

In fact, this is the, the imagery of a war, war torn country.

This is what Babylon would do to the nations that they came through.

They would destroy the crops.

They would destroy the herds.

They would take away all the sources of what Israel needed to be able to

subsist to be able to simply live.

Habakkuk says, even if that happens, God, he says in verse 18,

yet, I will rejoice in the Lord.

I will take joy.

The God of my salvation.

That's the key here.

When you remember how faithful God has been to you in the past, it reminds you

that God will always be faithful and there is a promise if you are in Christ, that

is yours this morning, that no trial, no tribulation, no amount of suffering,

no loss can ever take away from you.

And that promise is that one day you will go to be with him forever, and there will

never be another Babylon in your life.

There will never be another trial that comes against you.

There will never be another sickness.

There will never be another moment of strife in a relationship.

There will never be another moment of injustice in your life.

And then you will be with him and in the, the twinkling of an

eye, revelation 21 will be here.

And you will realize, man, this is what it is for God to be with us as

our God, for us to dwell with him.

He's gonna wipe away the tears.

There's no more sickness.

There's no more sorrow, there's no more devastation, there's no more enemies.

There's, it's, it's gone.

And not just for a, a, it's not a vacation.

That you're headed towards.

It's an eternity that you're headed towards that way.

God's been faithful in the past.

He's shown himself that way.

Part of the reason is, is so that when we don't understand what he's doing right

now, we remember that that's the promise that ultimately matters for us, and

that nothing can take that promise away.

Nothing will change that.

If you are in Christ, you are in Christ forever.

And he will see to it that he brings you home to be with him.

The righteous can live by faith and hold onto that no matter what happens.

So Babylon may come now,

but they won't be there then.

You know Babylon may come and take away health now.

May take away relationships, now.

May take away a job now,

but it can't take away your future with Christ.

So in the end, we can say with Habakkuk, Lord, if you take everything

and I've got nothing left

yet, I will rejoice and I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

I hope this morning that you know that confidence.

I hope this morning that you.

Feel that I hope this morning that you can say, yes, I, I, I have a

future confidence that I'm in Christ and I will be with him forever.

If you don't have that this morning, you can before you leave this place,

it's not a prerequisite of certain amount of Bible knowledge.

It's not about cleaning yourself up before you come in here and sit down.

It's not about who your family is currently or was or any of that.

It's about surrendering in faith to Jesus.

The Bible talks about it as a transaction of repenting from our

sins and putting our trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

The transaction that takes place there is that you get his full righteousness.

And he gets your sin, all of it, and he goes to the cross, which

he's already done, and he paid the penalty so that the receipt left

on your life says paid in full.

If you'll repent from your sins, which simply means to turn to do an

about face, to turn from your sins and to trust in Jesus as your Lord and

Savior, that he died on the cross for your sins, that you can be forgiven,

that he rose again from the dead, so that you will live with him forever.

This morning, you can walk out with that guaranteed future promise

that nothing can take from you.

So I hope if you haven't done that yet, that you'll do

business with God this morning.

Will you stand with me as I pray and we'll be done?