The Unexpected Ways of God - Habakkuk: Pilgrimage to Higher Ground

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

So we're in the book of Habakkuk Church, and so we last week we began the book of Habakkuk, and I entitled it A Pilgrimage to Higher Ground because Habakkuk is very, very frustrated.

He's a frustrated prophet.

Some of you in this room may feel like that you have gifts prophetically and you wish you didn't.

Because sometimes we have insight into things, and it's frustrating to see things not going the way we would think they should go.

And in the mysteries of God, God is working out his plan.

And so the book of Habakkuk is very interesting because here in chapter 1, which we're going to be in again today, we see the lonely despair that Habakkuk feels as he cries out to God.

And he actually argues with God for what God is about to do through the Babylonians or the Chaldeans that are coming.

And I shared last week that this is a time in the history of Judah where spiritually it's very, very dark.

Judah has turned to idols, and even though the good king Josiah has tried to make changes, still the vestiges and the imprint of Manasseh is still there.

And so you have corruption from within, and then you have a huge enemy coming from without, and Habakkuk is despairing.

Now, what we're going to see in the coming days is that in chapter 2 and 3, there's a transition that's going to occur in Habakkuk, and he's going to move from depression to worship, from a lack of understanding to what God's doing, to an ability to walk by faith.

And so if you'll look at chapter 2, chapter 2, verse 4, one of the great verses of the Bible, which the great doctrinal books of the New Testament, which would be Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, quote from behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him, but the just shall live by faith.

So this great verse was what touched a man named an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther, as he was grappling with issues of his own in relation to the church and the ecclesiology of the church and the ecclesiology and the theology of the church at that time in the medieval times in the 16th century, he came across Romans 1.17.

And in Romans 1.17, the writer Paul quotes Habakkuk too, the just shall live by faith.

And so you could argue that this is a theme of the book of Habakkuk because Habakkuk's going to have to learn to walk by faith with the struggles that he's going through.

And men and women, God calls us to walk by faith.

Many times walking by faith means we can't see what God's doing.

We don't understand what God's doing.

It could be national, it could be, it could be corporate in your church, but oftentimes it's personal in nature.

Where you're going heart through hardship in your own life, it might be your marriage, it might be your singleness, it might be your job, it might be an illness that you're battling, and you have to walk by faith.

And so one of the great lessons of the Christian life is that you're not God.

Now you may think you are sometimes, but you're not.

But God is God, and He's still at work in your life, even though you're going through difficult times.

And the book of Habakkuk is a story of a man on a pilgrimage to the higher ground who's coming out of the valley of despair to higher ground.

But he makes an interesting statement in chapter 1, verse 4.

So look at chapter 1, verse 4.

Habakkuk says, the law is powerless, and justice never goes forth.

Pretty big statements.

We used to always say in our family, don't say always or never.

Justice never goes forth.

For the wicked surround the righteous, therefore perverse judgment proceeds.

Now I find it interesting that when Pentecost came and the Spirit of God moved, there was an outpouring of the Spirit, and you could argue, as Luke does in the book of Acts, who wrote the book of Acts, the history of the early church, that the early church was surrounded by wickedness.

Both the Jews opposed the church as well as the Romans opposing the church, but the Spirit of God fell down.

So the question here is there any justification for what Abackuk is dealing with when he says the law is powerless.

Men and women, look at me.

The word of God cannot be shackled.

The word of God cannot be bound.

And in the first century, the Jews and the Romans surrounded the church.

They killed Stephen, and after martyring Stephen, they saw the kind of the applause of the Jews at that time, and then James was martyred, surrounded by wickedness.

And yet look what Luke writes in the book of Acts about what happened with the Word of God as it moved forward.

The Word of God spread and the number of disciples multiplied greatly.

Acts 6, 7.

The word of God grew and multiplied, Acts 12, 24.

So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed, Acts 19, 20.

Men and women, God is on his throne and he's working out things even in the midst of some of the difficulties we're even experiencing today.

And Habakkuk has to deal with that.

So God now responds.

Look at verse 5.

God's now responding to Habakkuk.

Look among the nations and watch.

Be utterly astounded, for I will do a work in your days which you would not believe though I were to tell you.

Now, if you heard that from God, doesn't that sound really positive?

Like, yeah, God's gonna do something really mighty.

He's gonna do something that's really supernatural, and he's gonna come and he's gonna deliver us.

He's gonna deliver us.

Okay, let's read on.

Verse 6.

For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans.

That's the Babylonians.

I'm raising them up.

A bitter and hasty nation, which marches through the breadth of the earth to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.

They're terrible, they're dreadful, their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves, their horses also are swifter than leopards and more fierce than evening wolves.

Their chargers charge ahead, their cavalry comes from afar, they fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.

They all come for violence, their faces are set like the east wind, they gather captives like sand, they scoff at kings, the princes are scorned by them, they deride every stronghold, they heap up earthen mounds and then they seize it.

Then his mind changes and he transgresses, he commits offense.

And listen to this: ascribing all of this power to his God.

So just when Habakkuk wants to be astounded by God for what he's gonna do in such a positive way is obviously gonna bring revival, right?

No, God says, I'm actually gonna use the Chaldeans.

I'm judging Israel, I'm judging Judah.

Because of your idolatry, I'm using evil powers to judge you because you have not committed yourself to me.

And I think God is saying to Habakkuk, take your eyes off your myopic view of what you think is right and look at the big picture.

I'm doing something that you can't even understand right now.

I'm gonna astound you with what I'm doing in my work.

Jeremiah understood this, same time period, we believe.

It's interesting, Habakkuk never names the king he's under, but most theologues and most historians believe this is the time of Jeremiah.

And Jeremiah got the same word, the same word from God.

And so the reason Jeremiah's persecuted is because he's actually siding with the Babylonians.

He's saying the Babylonians are coming because God has opened the door because it's judgment on Israel.

And so when I'd go hunting for elk or deer, I look for the higher ground.

I'm always looking for the higher ground.

Because when you get on the higher ground and you put up those binoculars, by the way, I saw a commercial last night.

I was watching football.

It was a commercial that came out and showed a guy with sunglasses and he had his binoculars.

He was supposed to be like a special ops guy and guy.

You don't wear sunglasses with binoculars.

You know, but you take your glasses off and you look, you you put your glass up as close as you can, and now you can see.

You can see for probably up to a half a mile or more with binoculars.

And it's amazing what you can see.

God's saying to Abakah, go to the higher ground, and I want you to see what I'm up to.

That I am not shackled, my word is not shackled.

The knowledge of God is going to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

So look at chapter 2.

This is the theme of Abakkuk, verse 14.

The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

God is raising up in this time period Nebuchadnezzar.

God is going to use Nebuchadnezzar, and it actually says in Jeremiah, this is interesting, that Nebuchadnezzar is God's servant.

You see this in Isaiah, where it says of Cyrus.

Cyrus, who's a pagan king, is God's servant.

So God often uses evil people, evil nations, evil intentions in every way for him to move, to set up things, that his, that the knowledge of the glory of God would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

And so in the 7th century, this is probably what was happening in the streets in the 7th century, 100 years before, when the Assyrians came, when the Assyrian-Egyptian Empire was strong, which lasted for about 150 years, there in the 7th century, they came, they surrounded Jerusalem, and then there was this, there was this move of God.

It appears through angelic spirits, angels came down and destroyed the Assyrian army.

So here is Israel again saying, well, he's going to do it again.

And Habakkuk and Jeremiah say, he's not going to do it.

He's not going to do it this time.

Nebuchadnezzar is coming in.

The Babylonians are coming in and they're going to destroy Jerusalem.

Martin Lloyd Jones, writing on Habakkuk, says this: quote, there are those who use the Bible in a narrow sense as being exclusively a test book of personal salvation.

Many people think and seem to think that the sole theme of the Bible is that of a man's personal relationship to God.

Of course, that is one of the central themes.

But that's not the only thing.

Ultimately, the main message of the Bible concerns the conditions of the entire world and its destiny.

And you and I as individuals are part of that larger whole.

So God is saying to Abac at church, watch, look, listen.

There's a bigger work going on here.

There is a work that I'm going to accomplish in my time that would so incredibly amaze you.

Now look at verse 12.

So the prophet obviously doesn't get it yet.

He says, Are you not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my holy one?

We shall not die.

Oh Lord, you have appointed them for judgment.

The Babylonians for judgment.

Oh rock.

You have marked them for correction.

Now he's got good theology here.

He says Lord twice.

He says holy one.

He speaks of the rock, but he has a misunderstanding of God's work at this time in history.

Verse 13.

Why do you look on those who deal treacherously?

And hold your tongue when the wicked devours.

A person more righteous than he?

Why do you make men like fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler over them?

They take up all of them with a hook, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their dragnet.

Therefore they rejoice and they're glad.

Therefore they sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their dragnet, because by them their share is sumptuous and their food plentiful?

Shall they therefore empty their net and continue to slay nations without pity?

He's saying, How could a holy God, a loving God, allow evil to accomplish his will?

It's a great question.

It's one of the great questions, one of the great theological questions of all time.

How can a loving God, a good God, allow evil?

Especially when he's going to speak to Abacu that my goal in all of this is that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

And the just shall walk by faith.

And so God is at work in the midst of that.

God is at work in a mighty way.

Even in Nebuchadnezzar's life.

Even in Nebuchadnezzar's.

Okay, these are all minor prophets, it doesn't take long.

Go to Daniel chapter 4, and let's look at what God does.

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

He was actually called Nebuchadnezzar II or Nebuchadnezzar the Great.

Considered one of the great leaders of all time.

But especially at that time, he had the hanging gardens, beautiful palace that he built.

So here's what happened.

He goes, he sacks Jerusalem, he takes some of the Jewish noblemen and makes them his servant.

That's where we get the book of Daniel.

The book of Daniel is this time period.

And just to give you an idea how evil he is, the first thing he does with all the noble children that are going to serve him is he castrates them.

So he castrates them.

They become eunuchs by force.

And then they begin to serve him.

They change all their names.

But then something interesting happens.

Along comes these three guys named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

And Nebuchadnezzar builds an idol, makes everybody bow down, and these and these three guys say, we're not going to bow down.

And he likes Shadrach, Meshach.

They're like his best servant.

But because of the edict that he's given, he begrudgingly decides they have to be killed because his pride and his arrogance is greater than his wisdom.

And so he throws them into the fiery furnace.

You remember this from Sunday school, right?

They throw them in the fiery furnace.

And then Nebuchadnezzar can't sleep at night.

He comes running in, he looks, and there's not three guys in the furnace, there's four.

And he sees something of a God.

And we believe it was a pre-incarnate Christ because he's going to call him an angel.

And the scriptures, as Daniel wrote, is a capital A angel, so the pre-incarnate Christ, is in the fiery furnace, and they're saved by God.

Now pick it up at chapter 3, verse 28.

Look at chapter 3, verse 28.

Nebuchadnezzar now sees what's happened, starting at verse 26.

He praises God.

And then in 28 he says, this Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him.

And they have frustrated the king's word.

He's saying that about himself.

They frustrated my word because of their God and yielded their bodies, that they should not serve nor worship any God except their own God.

Therefore I make a decree that any people, nation, or language which speaks anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made an ash heap, because there's no other God who can deliver like this.

I wouldn't say he's totally saved yet, okay?

So, you know, just blow them away, man, like rip them apart.

Okay?

But this is Nebuchadnezzar, God's servant, who couldn't have been ministered to except through what happened in Jerusalem years before.

Well, he's not done yet.

So then Nebuchadnezzar goes through a period where he actually loses his mind.

And for seven years he's insane, and then God comes upon him and brings back his sanity.

So, still in chapter 4, here's his response in verse 34.

Look at verse 34.

And at the end of this time, we believe it was seven years, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored him who lives forever.

Now listen to what he says.

This is amazing.

By the way, nobody in Israel except for the prophets are even saying this as Jerusalem goes under with Nebuchadnezzar.

Now, Nebuchadnezzar says this for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation.

All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing.

He does according to his will in the army of heaven.

And among the inhabitants of the earth, no one can restrain his hand or say to him, What have you done?

And now jump down to verse 37.

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth, and his ways justice, and those who walk in pride, he is able to put down.

Men and women in history, God always uses even pagan leaders, even atheists, even those who actually hate God to actually accomplish God's will.

I think of Alexander the Great as he came and went across the civilized world at that time in the Middle East and then across in and really that whole what we might call Asia Minor took over that whole area.

It was a setup by God for after Pentecost, it was the Greeks that first really gave their lives among the Gentiles that gave them lives to the Lord.

And then the Romans came into power.

And when the Romans came into power, one of the things they do is they set up a common language.

And they set up roads, and they set up a system that enabled the gospel to go forth like it had never gone forth before.

There was this group of separatists in England who had issues with the Church of England.

The Church of England persecuted them and that little group from Scrooby, England came together and came to America and founded America.

They're called the Pilgrims.

After that, a few years later, the Puritans who were trying to purify the Church of England realized it was hopeless.

They left the Church of England, came to America, and also founded the churches that they founded.

God used the Roman Empire.

God used Alexander the Great.

God used the Church of England.

And over the last 50 years.

We've seen what's happened in our schools.

We've seen what's happened in our political realm.

And guess what God's doing?

He's raising up believers in those areas that are doing new things and expressing themselves in new ways.

The reason we have Christian high schools is because we had pagan high schools.

The reason we have Christian universities is because the culture had so taken over our universities.

And so at each stage there is a move of the Spirit where God actually orchestrates and allows evil for him to carry out his purposes in a mighty way.

So let me give you four things that I see that God accomplishing his will in unexpected ways.

God works in unexpected ways.

Everybody say that.

So let me give you four thoughts on that.

Number one, God is not limited by your expectations and prayers.

God is not limited by your expectations and prayers.

You're myopic.

We're all myopic, by the way.

As much as we try to be, you know, big picture, the reality is we we focus on our own lives.

And in the midst of that, I think God takes our prayers and he uses them in a mighty way.

I think he's using Wednesday afternoon, noon to one.

We come, we're praying for revival.

We're praying for a move of God.

We're praying for God to move tonight at our healing service at 6.30.

Praying for God to move at noonday.

We're praying for that to happen tonight in a mighty way.

Number two, God uses our pain to build his gain.

God uses our pain to build his gain.

So God allows difficulties in your life because he's working something into you so that he can work it out of you in the days ahead.

Number three, God cannot work through us until he works in us.

God cannot work through us until he works in us.

So he uses these difficulties and these struggles.

I mean, who would have believed we'd be where we are right now as a country 25 years ago?

And yet we are.

And you're here.

You're stronger, you're more faithful, I believe, because of what we're going through than you would be otherwise.

And then fourthly, God is building you into more than a conqueror.

Guess what?

You can't be more than a conqueror if you have nothing to conquer.

I know nobody likes to hear that.

I want to be more than a conqueror.

I love singing praise about being more than a conqueror.

And then he puts a mountain in your way.

And you have to be more than a conqueror.

So turn to Romans 8.

I want to close with this.

Turn to Romans 8, the great, one of the greatest chapters of the whole Bible, Romans 8.

In Romans 8, Paul is expressing to us how we become more than conquerors.

How we become mighty, powerful men and women of God.

Romans 8.28.

Look at Romans 8.28.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to his purpose.

So just stop right there.

So that means that if you love God and you're called according to his purpose, then God's using everything that happens in your life for good.

But if you don't love God and you're not called according to his purpose, that also means that everything happened in your life is not working for good.

You're on your own, man.

You're on your own.

I think that's a bummer.

Here's a theological statement.

It's a bummer to be on your own.

It's a bummer to be on your own.

So those that are called according to his purposes, and you're walking with him, he's going to use everything that happens in your life for good, for whom he foreknew.

He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

So see what he's doing?

He's using negativity, he's using difficulties, he's using mountains in our life to conform us to the image of his will, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called, whom he called, these he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified.

Now, jump down to verse 35.

So this is where this is going.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, see what he's saying?

You're gonna go through tribulation.

Is it tribulation?

No.

Is it distress?

No.

Is it persecution?

No.

Is it famine?

No.

Is it nakedness?

No.

Is it peril or sword?

No.

You can't be separated from the love of God.

But he's saying that because that's what they're experiencing at that time.

But he says in verse 36, it is written, For your sake we are killed all day long.

We are counted as sheep for the slaughter.

Verse 37, yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Church, we're gonna go through dark times.

We're gonna go through dark times in the next 30 days.

Promise you.

Go to the higher ground.

Go to the higher, walk by faith.

The knowledge of the glory of the Lord is going to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Anybody been to the ocean lately?

The waters really cover the sea a lot.

God's covering, he gives us, he makes these hyperbolic statements to let us realize I'm in control.

I'm working out my plan.

Thank you for listening to the Corn for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholtonline.org.

God bless.