Yet, I Will Rejoice
Habakkuk 3:1-19
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
First Baptist Chenoa
06-02-19
The Heart of Worship
If you had of visited Soul Survivor Church in England, you would have been impressed. England is a very secular nation but this church had exploded in size and several artists were writing songs that other churches were singing. The church looked healthy.
The worship leader, Matt Redman, writes:
“There was a dynamic missing, so the pastor did a pretty brave thing,” he recalls. “He decided to get rid of the sound system and band for a season, and we gathered together with just our voices. His point was that we’d lost our way in worship, and the way to get back to the heart would be to strip everything away.”
Reminding his church family to be producers in worship, not just consumers, the pastor, Mike Pilavachi, asked, “When you come through the doors on a Sunday, what are you bringing as your offering to God?”
This led to some awkward silence at first but soon the services were filled with heartfelt prayers and new songs sung with just the voices.
Reflecting on that journey, Matt sat in his bedroom and wrote this song. It was a response to what he had learned.
“When the music fades / and all is stripped away / and I simple come / longing just to bring / something that’s of worth / that will bless Your heart / I’ll bring You more than a song / Cause a song in itself is not what You have required / You search much deeper within / to the way things appear / You’re looking into my heart / I’m coming back to the heart of worship / and it’s all about You / It’s all about You, Jesus / I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it / when it’s all about You, all about You Jesus.”
The best songs are born out of a journey. And that is what we are going to study this morning.
The End of the Book
Chapter one he begins with a series of questions. He looked around at his culture and asked why would God allow so much immorality and violence? Was God on vacation? Did He not care?
God’s answer is absolutely stunning to Habakkuk. He would use the ultra-violent, godless Babylonians to correct His idolatrous people.
Habakkuk cries out, “I object!” He agreed with God that Judah deserves judgement but, good grief, the Babylonians are so much worse! What God is planning doesn’t seem right or fair.
Habakkuk positioned himself on the watchtower and waited for God’s answer. God tells him to write the message down on tablets that a herald could run throughout the land and proclaim the message to the faithful.
What was the message? Judgement is coming for Babylonians. They would be utterly destroyed. It would happen. You can count on it. Judah was to wait in patience hope for God’s promised intervention.
Last week, we studied the five woes that God pronounced on Babylon. Yes, God would use the Babylonians to discipline Judah but they would be ultimately destroyed by God’s wrath.
It would happen. It was certain. But they would have to trust because it wouldn’t happen in their lifetimes.
That brings us to chapter three. If chapter one is characterized by wondering and chapter two by waiting, then chapter three is all about worship.
It is a prayer and a song that Habakkuk wrote in response to His journey of wrestling with God and embracing God’s Sovereignty over all. Its is a psalm of submission to the God who doesn’t give him answers but gives hims something better - His presence.
We know it’s a song because of the term at the beginning “On shigionoth,” which seems to be a music term and the instruction at the end, “for the director of music. On my stringed instruments.”
It has three stanzas and then an ending that functions as a bridge. Basically the entire song is Habakkuk 2:4 set to music - the righteous shall live by faith.”
The Jews would sing this song in faith through the hard times that were coming and teach it to the next generation.
Opening Prayer - The Response
Let’s look together at the first stanza and see Habakkuk’s response to the message that God gave concerning the judgement on Babylon. These verses should be familiar because they are our theme verses for the year.
Habakkuk doesn’t asked for deliverance. He doesn’t ask for the Babylonians to change their minds. He asks for God’s purposes will be fulfilled.
Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy. (Habakkuk 3:1-2)
After all that Habakkuk had heard from God, there was nothing more to say. He stands in stunned silence at the greatness of God’s work. He has been changed by this journey with God.
He started out complaining about the way God was doing things but now he bows in awe of God. He is basically saying what we learned in the series on the The Lord’s Prayer - Your kingdom come!
He asked three things of God:
Repeat them in our day. Habakkuk prays that the deeds that are part of the collective Jewish memory would happen again in their time and bring revival and restoration.
Reveal: In our time make them known. Habakkuk asks God to act on their behalf like He has in the past.
Remember: in wrath remember mercy. Habakkuk knows that they cannot escape the judgement that is coming but He calls on God’s mercy to see them through it.
Job responded very similarly at the end of his journey with God:
“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6)
When you have these kind of experiences with God, you are not the same afterwards.
Stanza 1 - The Warrior-Deliver God
The next stanza of the song is written in the third person and begins with a very ancient name of God “Eloah.”
“God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens and his praise filled the earth.
His splendor was like the sunrise; rays flashed from his hand,
where his power was hidden. Plague went before him; pestilence followed his steps. He stood, and shook the earth; he looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains crumbled
and the age-old hills collapsed—but he marches on forever.
I saw the tents of Cushan in distress, the dwellings of Midian in anguish.” (Habakkuk 3:3-7)
This verse describes the Exodus event when God delivered His people from Egypt and led them to Sinai. Teman is in Edom in the south and Mt. Paren is in the Sinai wilderness.
The theme is the glory of the Lord in His coming. He is glorious. He is brilliant. He is bringing judgement - plague and pestilence (burning fever). The earth shakes. The mountains quake. The hills (where false gods were worshipped) collapse before Him. Nothing can stop Him.
Cushan and Midian had oppressed His people but now they were in distress and anguish.
Stanza 2 - The Cosmic Warrior
“Were you angry with the rivers, Lord? Was your wrath against the streams? Did you rage against the sea when you rode your horses and your chariots to victory? You uncovered your bow,?you called for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers; the mountains saw you and writhed. Torrents of water swept by;?the deep roared and lifted its waves on high. Sun and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows at the lightning of your flashing spear.” (Habakkuk 3:8-11)
This stanza is in the second person and begins with the covenant name for God, Yahweh.
Habakkuk describes a cosmic battle where the Lord, the divine warrior, shepherds, protects, and delivers his people.
Rivers, mountains, sea, sun and moon are all affected by God’s judgement of sinners and the rescue of His people.
Deborah wrote a song that describes just such an event.
“When you, Lord, went out from Seir, when you marched from the land of Edom, the earth shook, the heavens poured, the clouds poured down water. The mountains quaked before the Lord, the One of Sinai, before the Lord, the God of Israel.” (Judges 5:4-5)
Habakkuk recalls the incredible rescue at the Red Sea when the Israelites were trapped and God heaped up the waters so they could walk through on dry land.
The clouds poured down water, the heavens resounded with thunder; your arrows flashed back and forth. Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, your lightning lit up the world, the earth trembled and quaked. Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. (Psalm 77:17-21)
God uses nature, water, fire, clouds, rain for His deliverance purposes.
Verse 11 is an illusion to an event recorded in Joshua 10 about a battle where God made the sun still in the sky:
On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel, “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon. “So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel! (Joshua 10:12-14)
Stanza 3 - The Deliverer
“In wrath you strode through the earth and in anger you threshed the nations. You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one. You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot. With his own spear you pierced his head when his warriors stormed out to scatter us, gloating as though about to devour the wretched who were in hiding. You trampled the sea with your horses, churning the great waters.” (Habakkuk 3:12-15)
In this stanza, God totally defeats the cosmic and earthly powers to save Judah.
We see three kings in these verses.
We see the king of Persia named Cryus, who God calls His “anointed one.” In 536 BC, Persia would utterly destroy the Babylonians.
And we see the king of Babylon, crushed, stripped, with a spear in his head.
And we see see God the King going out to judge the nations and deliver His people. Verses 215 is another allusion to the Jews crossing the Red Sea.
Bridge - Yet I will Rejoice
In chapter 2, we see Habakkuk on the watchtower bracing for God’s answer to his questions.
Now, he has a very different posture of body and heart:
“I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound;
decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.” (Habakkuk 3:16)
His questions weren’t answered. They would not be delivered. Babylon would be judged but not before they wreck Judah and carry them into exile.
His heart pounded. His stomach was in knots. His lips quivered. His legs felt like jello.
He was undone in the Presence of God. Instead of complaining about what God was doing and was planning to do, he now will wait patiently for the day of calamity. He didn’t understand the way it was going to happen but he understood God. He knew who God. He had grown in his trust of Yahweh.
Near the end of the book of Job, he proclaims:
“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him…” (Job 13:15)
And then we come to the other best known, loved section of Habakkuk:
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,?though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord I will be joyful in God my Savior."
The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights. (Habakkuk 3:16-19)
The choicest staples of the land, figs, grapes, and olives will be a distant memory.
The necessities, wine, cereal, vegetables, milk, mutton, wool will be scarce.
War is coming. Famine is coming. Invasion is coming. Exile is coming. Sure Babylon will get theirs but that is in the distant future.
Habakkuk will lose everything.
There is nothing to be thankful about it. Nothing. Yet…
He has made a choice. A choice based on who he knows God to be.
The name he uses for God in these verses in Adonai, which means Lord, master, owner. Habakkuk has found his solid ground in submission to the Sovereignty of a good and gracious God.
He is transported in praise to God like a deer on the heights.
What Can We Learn?
The first week of the series, I introduced the concept of “The Dip.” When we come to faith, we are like that deer. We are on the mountain top. But then something happens.
Grandpa dies. You lose your job. The tests comes back and the doctor is
concerned.
You go through a crisis of faith. There are two options. You can either bail on God or wait and worship. I’d like to look at three things that Craig Groeschel reminds us of:
Remember what God has done.
In his song, Habakkuk recounted God’s power and presence in the history of Israel.
When we are in the dip and God seems to be silent and everything is. going sideways we need to remember what God has done in the past.
It starts with being in the Scriptures and knowing all the ways that God as been faithful.
But it also means remembering what God has done in your life.
A couple of years ago, I was invited by a friend to speak at a pastor’s conference in Trinidad and Tobago. We had just moved back from Florida and were in trouble financially. We had no money for the plane ticket.
We decided that we would tell no one my need but simply pray and ask God to provide if He wanted me to go.
One of the students in our student ministry. Got married and asked me to be the DJ. I had never DJ’d ever but I had a fantastic time.
The next day, I was laying in my pool reading a book when Chloe and Graham came over and gave me a card to think me for being a part of their wedding.
After they left, I opened the card and it read, “We are not sure why, but God told us to give you this. He must have something planned for you.” In the envelope was $500 cash! Which paid for my plane ticket and my baggage!
When things are looking bleak, I remember back to experiences like this.
How about you? What experiences do you look back on to remind you of God’s faithfulness?
When something like that would happen in Israel, they would pile up rocks as a symbol for them to remember God’s goodness.
We have a similar symbol -this table. If God did nothing for me except the cross, it would be enough. For it was there that in wrath He remembered mercy. The wrath that God felt for our sin was poured out on Jesus instead providing mercy for us and a relationship with God.
Jeremiah, in his Lamentations over the destruction of Jerusalem, declared,
“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lam 3:21-24)
[Communion]
2. Accept what God is doing.
Habakkuk didn’t put his head in the sand. He knew what was coming was going to be really hard. It wasn’t going to be fun. His teeth chattered. His body ached. But he decided to wait patiently.
Maxine’s mother was an amazing woman. She worked for Living Bible International and then started her own ministry called, “Royal Treasure.” Royal Treasure ministered to women of wealth and helped them fund the kingdom causes their hearts were drawn to.
It started with a backache at Christmas. The backache was a very rare form of cancer.
She called me and had a very serious conversation with me. She said, “If I get healed, I will get to shout it from the rooftops. If He heals me in the best way, I get to be with Him. Remember Jefferson, either way I win.”
Chuck Swindoll has said that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond to it.
The Apostle Paul knew this:
“I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Phil 4:12-13)
We love to quote that verse out of context. It doesn’t mean that I can dunk a basketball. God can help you to be content and joyful no matter the circumstances.
A guy that I follow on Twitter, tweeted, “If you praise God publicly, He will bless you publicly.” I responded, “Not always - Habakkuk 3:16-19.”
Instead of fighting what God is doing in your life, get quiet and submit to it.
3. Trust in what God is going to do.
You can’t have a chapter 3 faith until you have a chapter 1 question and a chapter 2 season of waiting.
After nearly 30 years of being a Christ-Follower, I agree with Craig Groeschel who said:
“I’ve walked with Jesus for enough yesterdays to trust Him with all my tomorrows.”
Based on God’s faithfulness, on His goodness, on His promises, do you trust him with your tomorrows?
Habakkuk wouldn’t live to see the Babylon’s mopped up by the Persians and the remnant of Jews return to the Holy Land. But He trusted God.
Most of the heroes in the Hall of Faith chapter (Hebrews 11) didn’t live to see what God had promised, but they trusted God with what they couldn’t see or understand.
Jesus said that He would never leave you or forsake you. He said that heaven is real and that those who trust in His sacrifice on the cross will go there to be with Him forever. In the end, we win and evil will get stomped.
We are going to end this service with a song by The Afters called, “Broken Hallelujah.” While you watch the video, remember what God has done, submit to what God is doing, and rejoice in what He’s going to do.
