Hind's Feet on High Places

This is the concluding phrase in this minor prophet we've been studying the last several weeks together.

Habakkuk has been struggling in regards to the future of his nation.

He knows that his people will be judged by a foreign power, and his brothers have no moral ground upon which they can in any way charge the character of God.

We have learned about the identity of this people, we've learned of the nature and the character of this enemy.

We begin with a complaint and we end with a chorus.

In chapter three, Habakkuk begins to sing.

Singing doesn't change his circumstance.

Singing will not change the terror of the enemy.

Singing will change him in the middle of his circumstance.

And I want us to notice this last verse, verse 19, it deserves its own emphasis.

The Lord God is my strength.

And he will make my feet like Hein's feet.

And he will make me to walk upon mine high places to the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

Can we all read that verse together?

Mike, uh Habakkuk 3, verse 19.

Habakkuk 3:19

Ready to begin?

The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like Heinz's feet, and he will make me to walk upon my high places to the chief singers on my stringed instruments.

If you're in the habit of marking things in your Bible, I want you to notice the word my, my strength, my feet, my high places, my stringed instruments.

The power of Christianity is in its personal pronouns.

This is my story.

This is my song.

This has ceased to become the Lord's table.

This is my table.

It's my church.

It's my faith.

Jesus has become real to me.

I hope you can say the same.

And here in this concluding portion, I want us to look for just a moment at what Habakkuk has learned about God.

What a waste it would be to go through a trial in our lives and to learn nothing about God.

Can I ask you a question?

What have you learned about God lately?

Habakkuk learned that when he faces the mountains of his life, the Lord will not remove the mountain.

The Lord will give him strength to climb it.

Let's bless the reading of his word in prayer and then we'll search the scriptures.

Our Father, we are so grateful for the love of God extended in Christ.

And not just the love of God extended in Christ.

Thank you, Lord, for the presence of God extended through the Holy Spirit.

As we have exalted the Son and His sacrifice, and we've acknowledged you as our Creator, and the Holy Spirit has comforted our hearts.

Now, as we receive the Word of God today, I pray that it might have free course in our lives, that it might accomplish the purposes for which it was rented, printed so many years ago.

That you might speak in all of our hearts.

And Lord, as we come to the table this morning, help us to have a heart that's open and prepared and receiving forgiveness, remembering the grace of Christ extended upon a cross and the salvation that we have in you.

Draw our hearts ever closer to you.

And as we discover you in the light, we'll find each other in that place.

And we as a church will have fellowship together.

And we thank you for your love to us.

Guide and bless.

This time we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for standing and be seated together.

In the middle of this crisis, Habakkuk asserts that the mountain upon which he was to cross was his mountain.

He will make me to walk upon my high places.

Habakkuk does not disown his burden.

His mountain would not be cast into the sea, but would remain.

But God desired to give Habakkuk a victory greater than the movement of the mountain.

God wanted to give Habakkuk strength to climb it with the help of God.

In the middle of our trials, in the middle of the struggles of our lives, we often believe that the thing that God must do is to remove the mountain, but God doesn't always move the mountain.

Our pastor used to speak of the parenthesis of our lives.

If I were holding a great novel in my hands, and somewhere between the first chapter and the last, there was a parenthetical expression, and he would say, Our troubles are like that which comes between the parenthesis of our lives.

Not forever.

Just for this period of our life to teach us something about God.

Our mountains are not forever.

God is eternal.

Psalm 90, verse 1: Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

The mountains we face may take many forms, trials and adversities and uncertainties and spiritual battles or seasons of overwhelming responsibility in our lives, but our confidence rests not in the strength of our ability.

But our trust is in the sufficiency of our sovereign Lord.

I want you to notice, first of all, the phrase, my high places.

My mountain.

Can we all say that together?

My mountain.

I want to ask you a question this morning.

What's the name of your mountain this morning?

What is that thing that is before you in your life that you struggle with strength to climb?

And in the moment of this struggle, Habakkuk recognized that God has given me an opportunity in my life to find an ability I had in myself that I did not know I had before.

God will not remove this trial, God will not remove this storm from his life.

The Apostle Paul, who prayed in 2 Corinthians chapter number 12, of a thorn in the flesh, which he calls the minister of Satan to buffet me.

Of this thorn, Paul says, I pray three times that it might be removed from me, and God does not give him grace through the removal of the burden.

God says, I'll not remove the thorn, but he said, My grace will be sufficient for thee.

That my strength will be made perfect in weakness.

It is his mountain.

Now notice the expression here in verse number 19, he will make me to walk upon mine high places.

Maybe note that in your Bible.

Now I thought about that phrase very quickly in the scripture as something we see in other places in the Bible.

First of all, what do these high places represent?

Well, first of all, we know that high places in Scripture were places of idolatry.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 28, verse 25, the scripture says, and in every city of Judah he made high places to burn incense unto other gods and provoked to anger the Lord God of his fathers.

He said, Sometimes these high places in our lives are places of idolatry or things in our lives that take the place of God.

Not just things we worship to with our physical needs, but things we worship in our hearts, things that we believe have become significant for our survival, that which we place in front of God.

In other words, sometimes they're physical, sometimes they are abstract high places, places of idolatry.

But there's a second place I was thinking these high places appear.

That occurs in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12, where Paul says, and I've been reminded of this verse often recently.

Ephesians 6:12

We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness.

Can you help me, church?

Against spiritual wickedness in high places.

It is impossible for you as a Christian to press on for God without pressing up against the devil.

Paul said to the church of Thessalonica, I would have come unto you time and again, but Satan hindered us.

That which we often blame on each other, that which we often blame on the world, is a consequence of the spiritual battle in which we find ourselves on a daily basis.

We must be fitted in the armor of God to withstand the wiles of the devil, because Satan will roam around your life a thousand times looking for a toehold.

And when he finds a toehold in our life, he gains strongholds that are hard to break and only can be broken by the power of our great God.

Maybe they're places of idolatry, maybe places of spiritual wickedness, but the Bible says that our God is not just the God of the valleys, he's God of the mountains.

Micah 1, verse 3.

Micah 1:3

For behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.

Things that are over our heads and beyond our ability are below his feet and are nothing greater than our God.

I want them to bring this chart up.

I was thinking about that which God leads us through in our lives.

Notice what David said in Psalm 23, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.

Isaiah 43 says, Sometimes we walk through the rivers and the floods.

When thou passest through the waters, what did he say?

I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee.

Verse 2, when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned.

Some through the water, some through the flood, some through the fire, but all through Christ's blood.

Sometimes we walk through dark valleys, sometimes we walk through rivers and floods, and even in the midst of the flame.

And now Habakkuk says, sometimes God will lead us on high places.

And the Lord God is our strength.

He will make our feet like hindsfeet.

He will make us walk upon high places.

Listen carefully.

It's not whether or not you're in a valley today or on a high place today or in a fire or in a flood today.

The circumstance does not matter.

It is that God is with us as his children everywhere we may go in our lives.

Aren't you grateful this morning for the promise of the presence of our great God?

We shall forever live with him.

To be with him will crown it all.

To see his face before him fall, we shall be forever with Christ.

The Bible says that to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord, and we shall be with him forever.

But I want to tell you something.

Until I am forever with him in those heavenly places, he is forever with me now.

Praise God, we have the promise of his presence.

My mountain.

Abakuch has now come to the conclusion that judgment is coming.

The Chaldeans are imminently to come upon the city of Jerusalem, but he has no fear because he's begun to sing in the midst of his trial, and God will make him to climb those steeps that once caused him great fear because he no longer fears the enemy, he's found a God that he fears greater than anything he could fear in his life.

My mountain.

Notice secondly, my moment.

What Habakkuk once saw as impassable, he is now passing over.

One of the things that we ought to learn as a Christian is that God will fit us for the battle in which he enlists us.

And we learn to sing, Lord, don't move that mountain.

Give me strength to climb.

We have too often preached a health and wealth, name it and claim it, blab it and grab it.

Of a God who calls us to a life of ease and prosperity.

But it still exists in the scripture that foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, and the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head, and we are certainly not greater than our master.

But God will equip us for the fight in which he enlists us.

We learn as Christians to depend upon the power of God in our lives.

Notice, first of all, what God has appointed.

He said here in verse 19, He will make my feet like hinds feet.

Now he's talking of a deer in this passage.

He'll give me the feet of a deer who can tread upon high places.

He made my feet.

Now the word made here is to arrange, to set, to fix.

We have some video that we can scroll.

This is from Italy.

It's not a mountain, but it's a dam that's been built, and these deer will risk their lives.

If you are fearful of heights, you might want to close your eyes a few times as the video scrolls.

But there's a certain, there's a certain vitamin that comes through this dam as it gets wet, and the deer will crawl up this steep embankment to lick the salt from the stone as it bleeds from becoming wet with water.

These mountain goats, I told them when I scrolled this video, you guys aren't going to be listening to anything I'm saying, and that's okay.

Notice how they are uniquely equipped to navigate steep and rugged terrain that would be treacherous for many other animals.

Its powerful legs and its specialized hooves have remarkable balance to allow them to climb narrow ledges and scale seemingly impossible heights.

There's a good shot right there.

How many of you, your stomach is turning just a bit?

The mountain does not become less steep because the goat is there.

Rather, the goat has been designed with the ability to navigate difficult terrain.

God has equipped us to navigate difficult terrain.

On May 29th, 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers in recorded history to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

After many failed attempts, they finally conquered the impassable mountain.

And here's what Hillary said.

He said, It's not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

The Apostle Paul says, Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my glorying of you.

I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in our tribulation.

For when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest.

But we were troubled on every side.

Without were fightings, within were fears.

Nevertheless, God that comforts those that are cast down comforted us by the coming of Titus.

God has arranged us to navigate difficult terrain.

But hold on a second.

I'm not saying you have the power to navigate difficult terrain.

Maybe the greatest shooter in basketball history is alive today.

Years ago, Steph Curry, I was watching Steph Curry playing in the NBA finals, and Steph Curry had turned down millions of dollars from Nike and other companies.

He he wrote a contract with Under Armour, and he used to write on the sole of his shoes, Philippians 4.13, I can do all things.

I can do all things.

He was really close.

We can do all things through Christ that strengthens us.

God has appointed trials in our lives.

Listen carefully.

Troubled born in the Spirit of Jesus Christ produces greatness in the life of a Christian.

It takes a storm now and then to remind us to depend upon God.

He's arranged it so in our lives.

He has made my feet like Hein's feet.

He has appointed me.

He has equipped me.

God does not always remove the mountains we face, or he doesn't always make our paths easier, but he provides the strength and ability and sure-footedness we need to climb the challenges of our lives.

Just as the mountain goat is equipped for these heights that we saw a moment ago, God equips his children to navigate difficult circumstances of life.

God may not flatten the mountain before us, but he can strengthen our feet to overcome our obstacles with the help of God.

This is our moment.

This is your moment to climb for the glory of God.

When I was in college, God taught me a great lesson.

I was traveling with our college group, and we had the privilege of going to the world headquarters of Baptist International Missions, and we were there that particular week when a candidate's week, these were new missionaries, were being trained before they went to the field.

Do you know that a hundred young people that surrender to missions, of the 100 young people that surrender to missions, ten of them eventually make it to the field?

Ten of them.

Of the ten that make it to the mission field, less than five will stay longer than one term.

And I remember the sermon preached to those young candidates 25 years ago.

A verse taken from the Proverbs, and here's what the pastor said.

If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

And God put something in my heart.

How many times I've become tired with the climb of my trials to be reminded, if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

And what I've discovered is when I am faint, I'm not climbing in God's strength.

I'm climbing in my strength.

So God doesn't remove the mountain to make it easier for us to live our lives in our own strength.

God keeps the mountain to teach us that if we're ever going to learn to climb, we must rest upon his strength and his power in our lives.

This is our moment.

This is our mountain.

But praise God.

This is my Maker.

He will make my feet like Hein's feet.

Now, for just a moment, humor me for just a second.

I I want to remind you as we close the book on Habakkuk what we've learned about God.

Go back to chapter 1.

He says of God in chapter 1, verse 12, He is a holy God.

Art not thou from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my holy one.

We serve a holy God.

He

Said, he is a just God.

That's verse 13.

Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity.

Wherefore lookest thou upon them that dealt treacherously and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devour the man that is more righteous than he?

Habakkuk is saying, You are a holy God.

You are a just and righteous God.

Chapter 2, verse 2, He is a revealing God.

It is God that reveals the truth to us.

He said in chapter 2, verse 16, He is a God of judgment.

The cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory.

Last verse of chapter 2 the Lord is in his holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before him.

He said, Our God is a sovereign God.

But when he gets to chapter three, Habakkuk becomes infatuated by the character and faithfulness of God.

Some of us could talk about the longitudinal, latitudinal, vertical, environmental, chemical, physical aspects of the mountain we're facing.

We've memorized its biography.

But what do we know about our great God?

Habakkuk begins to say, our God is a gracious God.

Verse 1 or verse 2, he's a merciful God.

Verse 5, before he went the pestilence and burning coals went forth at his feet, he stood and measured the earth.

He's the unchanging God.

His ways are everlasting.

Verse 13 of chapter 3, he is a saving God.

And finally, he says in verse 18, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

Habakkuk trusted in the Lord, who is the Lord of nature.

Here in Habakkuk 3, it's the only place outside the Psalms that the phrase Yahweh Adonai, the sovereign Lord, is mentioned.

This name emphasizes the power and unmatched majesty of our God.

In other words, Habakkuk used the strongest names for God available.

God is my sovereign Lord.

And that's what we've come here to remember.

The power and majesty and greatness of our great God.

As we close today, I ask you a question.

What could you in great detail describe in chapters one and two of your life?

The nature of the enemy, the coming of the enemy, the scale of the mountain that you face.

But I'm encouraging you this morning to write a third chapter to your story.

It's a story that God writes out of the troubles of our lives, that He will appoint us and He will equip us to walk on high places.

I've heard my wife say so many times that God allowed things into her life to comfort her and to turn that comfort inside out to help others.

We have a podcast and often we have folks from our church that tell their story.

We had the story of a young lady in our church who went through a great trial in her life, the death of her mom.

She said, I hated that verse.

That we are comforted, that we comfort with the comfort by which we are comforted of God.

I hated that verse.

But it is God who appoints and equips us with a purpose greater than ours to bring greater glory to us through pain than he could ever teach us through pleasure.

Let's embrace our mountain.

Let's embrace our moment.

Let's embrace our Maker and allow Him to give us strength to climb and be victorious for the glory of God.