Turmoil Of A Believing Prophet

Well, good morning. It's wonderful to see each of you. Glad to have our visitors here as well, and we welcome you to Redeemer Covenant Church. What an honor it is that you've chosen to worship with us this day, and for all of our members, it's so glad to see you again. As I was thinking, as we were entering a new book, the book of Habakkuk, You might need all my introductory time to find this book, but if you start in Matthew and go back about four or five books, it's towards the end of your Old Testament.

But as I was thinking, pastors pray for the people. This is part of our calling and our duty as your elders. But I want you to know that pastors need the people to pray for them desperately. The dangers are plentiful. The dangers of our own despair can be often felt. The burden is weighty to bring the Word of God to you, to do it in an honoring way to God, in a faithful way. It feels the burden as Habakkuk probably felt as he describes the burden that he carried.

John Newton, you probably know him as the hymn writer, but he was also before that a slave trader and a blasphemous wicked man who God saved by grace. He was also later a preacher and a pastor. And he told his congregation in 1776 their need for them to pray for him He said this, I'll quote, he said, it is no small thing to stand between God and the people of God, to divide the word of truth or right, to give everyone their portion, to withstand the counter tides of opposition and popularity, and to press those truths upon others. The power of which I at times feel so little of in my own soul. A cold, corrupt heart is an uncomfortable companion in the pulpit. What he was proclaiming is he needs your prayers, as I do, for the fervency to come forward, for the power of the word of God to come out, and we need the spirit of God to work.

Well, we are in Habakkuk. Hopefully, you've found it by now, and maybe you've heard it pronounced different ways. I've heard lots of people say different ways. Habakkuk, Habakkuk, Habakkuk. I confuse myself, but however I say it throughout the next few weeks, that is the way it should be. And so, if it changes, then take it up with my boss.

But it takes us back to the Middle East. Say back, we've never been to the Middle East. Well, it takes us back to this area geographically and also back some 2,700 years ago. You say, wow, well, what is this for us? We are an advanced people, right? Progressing. Well, I want us to realize that times have not changed. It seems like a long time back, but you will see as we examine this text that it feels like it was written yesterday. It was a different world and a long time away, and we might be tempted to think, well, it was so long ago, how is this going to benefit us?

But we will recognize that the commonality that man has not changed, in fact, nothing has changed. The way it was then is the way it is now, shorthand of Solomon. Nothing has changed. There's nothing new under the sun. Evil still flourishes. Man still departs from God. God changes not. Amen. He is the unchangeable God, and God does good all of the time.

Habakkuk, the prophet, his concerns are of God's people at the time, but his concerns are the concerns of God's people for all time. The shared prayers that we have are the prayers of the Habakkuk prophet. And the prophet has a burden. And we're going to look at the first four verses. We'll probably be much in the historical books today as well to make sure we understand the time and the context of where we'll be the next weeks in Habakkuk.

The prophet is unique in his office. And I say that to let us know that we are not like him in that degree. but we are like him as believers in the concern that this believing prophet had. Now this believing prophet, when he spoke, he spoke the words of God. Now there is a, to the preaching and to the pastoral office, there is a proclamation, there is a prophetic role, a prophetic ministry, but I am not saying anything new, but what God has said. If it is said anything new, then it is untrue. But there is a prophetic office that all pastors have.

But the book of Habakkuk is the story or rather the prophecy of a believer's conflict of faith. He wrestled, he struggled. In fact, the name Habakkuk means one who wrestles or one who embraces. Embracing God but at the same time wrestling with what he sees around him and wrestling with God with the questions that he will ask.