We'll turn back to Habakkuk chapter
3. Habakkuk chapter 3. I've called
this message God's marvellous work in world history. God's
marvellous work in world history. In the plan of God, what is the
purpose of world history? Right? Think about it. This is
a really important point. Really is an important point
to get this, to understand it. You know, it's the framework
to which you fit everything you see going on around you and the
things that happen. You need a framework. The world
around us has got a godless framework. It's a godless, hopeless, futile
framework. It's a lost framework. It's an
empty framework. I heard when I was having breakfast
this morning, the radio was on, And that commentator, Will Self,
was talking about how he loves space and how he can't possibly
believe in intelligent design because what he sees suggests
that there's no such thing as a God. And I think you poor,
deluded man, In all of your worldly wisdom, thought so special that
the BBC employs you to speak and pontificate on your wisdom
to the rest of the world around, and yet your wisdom is foolishness,
it's just empty, it's just shallow, and it's hollow, and it's got
no hope in it, absolutely no hope at all. So it's important
to know, in the plan of God, what is the purpose of what we
see going on? What is the purpose of world
history? It is, as I've told you before, it is the canvas,
you know, where the artist paints his picture, it's the canvas
on which God paints the story of his grace in salvation. That's
what it is. All of it. The great empires
of the ancient world. Modern world and everything that
has happened since Christ returned to glory. Everything that happens
is the canvas of events in this sinful world on which God paints
his grace in salvation. Because what is the greatest
glory of God? What is the greatest glory of
God? You see, if you've been listening,
your mind should know. Exodus 33, Moses said to God,
God, show me your glory. And God said this, I will be
gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy. Sovereign grace is the greatest
character, the greatest outshining of the person of God. And this
is what we learn from Habakkuk, this little book of prophecy.
All scripture speaks of Christ. These are they, said Jesus, these
scriptures are they which speak of me. Why shouldn't this book
speak of him? Oh, how do you find Christ? The
superficial reader would say, well, there's no Christ in the
book of Habakkuk. Ah, that's because you've not been looking.
You see, all scripture speaks of him. Beginning at Moses and
the prophets, the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Emmaus
expounded to those two disciples in some of the scriptures where
it could be found no in all the scriptures the things concerning
himself and so we do we look for Christ everywhere including
here let me recap Habakkuk lived about well he wrote this about
600 years before Christ came at the time that the Chaldeans
Nebuchadnezzar Babylon they were coming to take The nominal people
of God, Israel and Judah, they were taking them into captivity
for 70 years. Why? Because they'd followed
after idolatry. They had committed spiritual
fornication. adultery, unfaithfulness. They'd
walked away from God, and God said, if you do, I'll take you,
I'll take the land off you, I'll take you into captivity. And
they took no heed, and they went into captivity. And in Habakkuk's
day, he saw in the land all around him the people that were supposed
to be the people of God behaving as anything other than the people
of God. There was injustice, there was
shocking maltreatment, one of another, neighbour against neighbour.
And Habakkuk said, I'm crying out, how long is this going to
go on? And God says, I'm bringing the Chaldeans. Oh, what? But they're worse than us! How
can you use a nation that is worse than us? To punish Earth
doesn't seem fair, does it? No, they're coming as God's instrument
of judgment. How do we know that they're God's
instrument of judgment? Habakkuk 1 verse 6. Who said,
I raise up the Chaldeans? Who said it? God said it. God
said, I raise up the Chaldeans. Don't ever forget that. He rules
in the affairs of men. And all the time that he brings
the Chaldeans to inflict this judgment and take them away into
captivity for 70 years, all the time God promises to perform
what he says in verse 5 of chapter 1 is his marvellous His marvellous
work. It's a marvellous... What is
marvellous? The marvellous work of God is the salvation of His
people, is the justification of His people who are sinners
like everybody else, yet He justly, He is just and justified, He
justly, He justly redeems His people and saves them from their
sins. And the people He justified,
while all this is going on, whatever is happening, Whether it was
then or whether it's now, the just, the justified ones live
by faith. They live by faith looking and
seeing what Christ then was going to accomplish, now what we look
back and see he has accomplished. We look at the faithful work
of Christ. The just shall live by his, Christ's
faith, his faith in accomplishing all that God the Father gave
him to do. God will judge and will punish all sin. all the
earth shall know the truth of God and the lie of Satan he says
that, he says the earth shall be covered with the glory of
God as the waters cover the sea but all the while we saw in chapter
two last week all the while that God is then judging the Chaldeans
and the Babylonians because they were puffed up in themselves
and although they were his instrument for a while yet he took their
kingdom away from them seventy years later and replaced them
with the Medes and the Persians who came in and it's quite remarkable,
read Isaiah 45 written 850 years before Christ and yet these events
happened 500 years I'm not quite sure but
there or thereabouts a long time afterwards exactly as God had
said through Isaiah the Medes and the Persians came through
the back gate when the Babylonians under Belshazzar were drunk with
their drinking party and the writing had come on the wall
and that very night he took the kingdom away from them. All the
while, God is in his holy temple. What is it for God to be in his
holy temple? What was the temple of the Old
Testament a picture of? It's not some spooky building
where you get a shiver down your spine when you walk in. It's
not like what our cathedral builders in this country in the Middle
Ages tried to create. You know, I mean, they're magnificent
works of art, it's absolutely staggering to go and look at
what the ingenuity of man achieved. But you know people expect you
to go in there and have this sense of awe and reverence come
across you and that there in that place is the presence of
God. There's more of the presence of God in this room with us this
morning than there is in any St Albans Abbey or Westminster
Abbey or St Paul's Cathedral or any of these great buildings.
There's no presence of God there, it's just idolatry, it's just
form. It's just an outward appearance
of religion, and the truth is not in it, it's a hollow shell.
No, God is in his holy temple, which is in his gospel. The temple,
every bit of it, was about how God reconciles sinners to himself. How God remains just, and justifies
sinners. That's what the temple was all
about. God is in his holy temple. Therefore, how should you react?
A good idea is to keep silent. Let all the earth keep silence
before him. Silence. Silence. Somewhere else,
God says, be still and know. In this busy world where we're
Surrounded by busyness, where we have busy lives, all around
us we're inundated with information. There's never been an age when
there has been a bigger tidal wave of information flowing over
everybody, all of the time. Even as I speak, the phone on
silence in my pocket buzzes as the various emails and texts
come in. And I don't want them, but I
can't stop them coming in. We're absolutely flooded with
stuff. And yet God says, be still and
know that I am God. Silence is a good thing. Stop,
think, be silent. Do you remember in Revelation
chapter eight and verse one, in all the midst of all of those
things going on, there was silence in heaven for half an hour. I
know it's symbolic language, but you know, stop and think,
stop, pause, Don't always be doing something. Don't always
be filling your mind with what the media can throw at you. Stop.
Pause. Think. Pray. Wait. Look. In chapter 2, I will stand
upon my watch and set me upon the tower and will watch to see
what he will say to me. He's waiting. He's waiting. Wait for God to speak to you. Wait. So we come to chapter 3. which is a prayer it says right
at the start we don't need to puzzle about what it is it is
a prayer chapter three is a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet it's
a prayer for understanding and it's a prayer that gives understanding
in summary it says this this is it in summary all the events
of history demonstrate and work together for God's purposes of
salvation. That's what they're for. Believer,
if you believe in God, rejoice in this. You have nothing to
fear in this world. You have a hope which is absolutely
solid. You can look for it expectantly
on the tiptoe of faith. Unbeliever, heed the warnings. As John the Baptist said to the
Pharisees, the religious do-gooders, he said to them, you, what did
he call them? Nest of vipers, didn't he? You
nest of vipers, flee from the wrath to come, for surely by
the nature of the character of God and the nature and the character
of sin, there is wrath to come. Seek the Lord, the scripture
implores us, while he may be found. So I want to look at this
prayer of Habakkuk. And I want to look first of all
at the tenor of Habakkuk's prayer. The mood of it, the style of
it. And the style is in the style of a psalm. It's in the style
of a psalm. a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet
upon Shigionoth, which is songs. It's a sung thing. It's like
the Psalms, in that the Psalms are the songs of the book of
God. It's a sung thing. And also, what marks it out,
you know throughout the Psalms you keep seeing that little word
Selah. S-E-L-A-H. Selah. And nobody really knows what
it means. Not really, definitively. you
have to deduce it from what people have written who've had wisdom
and experience but apart from the Psalms that word doesn't
appear anywhere else in the scriptures except these three times in this
chapter three of Habakkuk that's the only place else where it
occurs in the whole of scripture and people think and quite rightly
that it means to stop and to think and to pause that thing
that's just been, sila, don't rush on, stop, hold on, hold
on, you'll miss it, stop, think, pause. It says amen, so let it
be. Somebody very wisely has suggested
that it actually means God, God, God, and in the sense that God
is here. God is, you know, when we read
it down here, God came from Teman and the Holy One from Mount Paran,
Selah. God is here, God is here. Be
careful, be careful. God is here. Do you remember
when Moses came to the burning bush when he was in Midian and
he was keeping the sheep of his father-in-law. He'd fled from
Egypt having killed that taskmaster and he fled because he was fearful
for his life and he's in the wilderness in Midian and he's
uh... he's going about tending the
sheep and he sees a bush that he's burning but the bush, you
know if we were to set fire to one of these bushes, well we
did the other day we had a lovely bonfire of a couple of big bushes
that we've taken out and uh... if you go down the garden now
you won't see anything left of them they've been consumed but
the bush that Moses saw burning was not consumed because It was
God that was there speaking to him. And who was speaking to
him? If God speaks to a man, who is it that's speaking? It's
his son. It's the Word. In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God. It was the Lord Jesus Christ,
pre-incarnate, speaking to him. And what did he say to Moses?
He said, Moses, Moses, yes, here am I, Moses, take your shoes
off your feet. Why? The land, the ground that
you're standing on is holy. We need some reverence here,
Moses. You're a sinner in the presence of a holy. Take your
shoes from off your feet. This is, this is a mark of, you,
you, you bear in mind where you are and in whose company you
are. And there's that sense in this word Selah. God is here. You know, metaphorically, take
your shoes off your feet. You're in a holy place. Think
about this. We need some reverence. And in
verse 2, Habakkuk says, Oh Lord, I have heard thy speech. He's
heard what God has said. about what he's going to do with
the Chaldeans and how he's going to use them as an instrument
of judgment and then how he's going to judge them and take
them away I have heard thy speech and I was afraid afraid yes because
he's got to live through it even if he knows the end of it he's
still nervous about it because he's got to live through it those
Chaldeans are coming with their with their rapid horses and their
fierce warfare and their impressive military machine to
overrun his country. He was afraid. And he says this,
O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years. In the midst
of the years, make known. In wrath, remember mercy. He says, I was afraid. He's no
longer saying to God, Let's talk about this. What do you think
you're doing raising up Chaldeans to come and judge us? This is
the sort of language he'd used earlier on. Why are you doing
this? He's not saying, what do you
think you are doing God? No, not at all. Rather, he's
more in the position of, do you know as it says in Romans 3.19,
when the law of God comes into the heart of a sinner, and really
shows you what you are, and do you know what the result is?
Ah, but, ah, but, excuse, excuse, not a bit, that every mouth might
be stopped. You've got nothing to say! You
just brought in Plum Guilty. Nothing to say. I know God is
just. God who is holy, who is of purer
eyes than to behold iniquity and cannot look upon sin, he
is perfectly just to condemn me to hell from his presence
because I am incompatible with the very nature of the God who
has made me. Every mouth stopped. but he's
saying here let us think about what all of this is about here's
the prayer in the middle of it when he's afraid and when he's
heard the speech and he's afraid and he knows what's going to
happen he comes back to the core of everything revive, perform
your work in the midst of the years. Let it be known in the
midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make
known. In wrath, remember mercy. Let it be known. And at the same
time as you are being justly righteous in indignation against
sin and judging and punishing it, remember mercy. Revive your work in the midst
of the years. What is this work of God that
he's praying? That's the prayer. In summary,
that is the prayer. Revive your work in the midst
of the years. That is the request. That is the petition that Habakkuk
brings before God. What is this work of God? Habakkuk 1 verse 5, it is that
marvellous work of salvation. Do you know when it talks of
Christ, Christ himself said, the Lord Jesus Christ said that
he was the chief cornerstone that the scriptures had spoken
about. And he said the religious folks stumbled over it. The Greeks
thought it was just foolishness, the Jews, the religious folks,
they thought it was a stumbling block. That's 1 Corinthians chapter
1. but it's the power of God and it's the wisdom of God. And
what is this marvellous work? Well, Christ himself, being the
chief cornerstone, he says, it was marvellous in our eyes. It's so unexpected, it's so different
from what the logic of man Even the best of men would think up.
It's marvellous in our eyes. It's his marvellous work. And
it's definitely coming. Chapter 2, verse 3. The vision
is yet for an appointed time. What's the vision? Christ is
coming is what the vision is in the midst of the years. This
is the work of God. In the midst of the years, Christ
is coming. The vision is yet for an appointed
time. But 600 years before he came. But at the end it shall
speak and not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it,
because it will surely come. It will not tarry. And when Christ
himself came, born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod
the king, you know, all those scriptures from the Gospels,
When they took him to be circumcised, as was the custom of the law,
to the temple, there was Simeon. And Simeon was waiting, because
he knew it would come, it would not tarry. It would come. God
had promised him, you will not see death before you see the
Lord's anointed. And there was that Anna, that old prophetess
who had been praying. And she was just delighted when
she saw this baby who had come, because the vision that she'd
been expecting, as all faithful people had then, they could see
it had come. It had come there. No, it's a
marvellous work. The work of salvation. The work
of God becoming man, that he might satisfy his own broken
law on the behalf of the people that were the people of his choice,
whom he loved from before the foundation of the world. What
is the work of God? The Jews asked Jesus that in
John chapter 6, verse 29. They said, what is the work of
God that we might do it? And Jesus said to them, this
is the work of God. This is the work of God. This
is God's work. that you believe on him whom
he has sent. Yes, in a sense, the work he
wants you to do is that you believe, but God doesn't want and never
get. God always gets what he wants. God always accomplishes
what he wants. This is the work of God, and
this is his work that he performs. He causes you to believe on him,
Christ, whom he has sent for the purpose of salvation. This
marvellous work, this work of God, that Habakkuk prays to be
revived in the midst of the years is God sending his son in the
midst of the years. The years? World history. In
the midst of world history, God sending his son. Ah, but, but
don't we know that the history of, of, of the universe is, is
however billion, billion years it might be? Don't we know that
it's billions and billions of years? And we're talking about
a little pinprick, as they say, the last few seconds of the 11th
hour. That's the time that we're living in now. They say it's
so insignificant. Well, that's the lie of Satan,
to try and convince you that this isn't true. No, God governs
history. Everything we see, nothing's
incompatible with science, truly, but what we see is the way God
has created things. And this is for God sending His
Son in the midst of the years, in the midst of world history,
in the middle of it, on the pivot of it. His coming 2,000 years
ago is on the pivotal moment. Do you remember in Revelation
when we were looking at the numbers, and we saw three and a half quite
a lot? Time? I can't straighten my fingers,
times two of them and half a time, three and a half, three and a
half, right? 1260 days, 42 months. of thirty days. This was the
numerics of it. And before Christ came there
was a three and a half. And after he comes there's a
three and a half. Not exactly, not mathematically,
numerically precise, but symbolically. What's three and a half plus
three and a half? Seven. Seven is the number of perfection. Seven is God's number of perfection. At that time, God sent forth
his son. In Daniel, the book of Daniel,
in chapter nine and verse twenty-four, we read, and this is the vision
that was given to Daniel. So he's in Babylon and he's about
seventy years after So he's in about 530 BC and he has this
vision and it says, 70 weeks or heptads are determined upon
thy people and upon thy holy city to finish the transgression
and make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity
and bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal up vision and prophecy
and to anoint the most holy. know therefore and understand
that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and
to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the prince shall be seven weeks
and three score and two which I'm not going into the details
but it talks about Messiah coming and being cut off and making
an end of sin and performing his work when the fullness of
the time was come I keep quoting this, don't I? God sent forth
his son, made of a woman, not just born of a woman, made of
a woman, made under the law. Why? To redeem, to buy back those
who are under the law, his people, that they might receive the adoption
of sons. children of God to redeem his
people from the curse of the law by being made a curse for
them remembering mercy when all calls for wrath for throughout
the scripture as Deuteronomy 4 verse 30 says for the Lord
thy God is a merciful God and Habakkuk remembers that God's
sole purpose in all things is to display grace, to save sinners
while remaining just, and to justify while still being a just
God. Isaiah 45, 21, a just God. Doesn't change on that. Sin must
be punished, but he punishes it for his people in his Son. A just God, and a saviour. who
because he's a merciful God and a gracious God saves his people
from their sins. And Romans 4.25, a just God,
one who is just and yet justifier. of those sinners who trust his
Son. The promised work of God, this marvellous work, will come
at exactly the right time, just as the prophecy was given to
Daniel. Messiah, the God-man, will come to make satisfaction
to the broken law of God. Where sin abounded amongst the
people of God, Grace, Romans 5.20, grace did much more abound. So why should we believe this
is possible? Habakkuk then goes into a review
of God's workings. Verses 3 to 15, and I can see
from the time I'm going to have to be brief and speed up as usual. Verses 3 to 15, it's a review,
it's a psalm, it's a song in poetic language. You know, it
doesn't state literally one thing after another. It's poetic. It
constitutes a review in poetic language of God's past dealings
with his covenant people. Why should Habakkuk believe that
God will perform his marvellous work of salvation? Look what
he's already done to that end. In verse 3 there's an allusion
to Mount Sinai and we won't look at it now but it's Deuteronomy
33 verse 2. In verse 4 we see his power displayed. This is all about God's dealings
in history with the people that were the nominal people of his
choice representing his true church. In verse 5 you've got
an indication of the plagues of Egypt perhaps. The way he ordered history for
the benefit of his people. Verse six, he stood and measured
the earth. This is bringing them into the
promised land. These people who were symbolical of the true church
of God and contained the true church of God. And he brought
them into the promised land and divided it up amongst them. He
measured the earth, he drove asunder the nations. It was all
scattered before him. Verse seven, there are things
that you, you know, I think it's really, Not necessary to try
to pin what is this symbolizing to every event of the history
of Israel, but just to get the basic principle of it. Verse
8, the rivers, the Nile, the Jordan, the sea, the Red Sea.
God used all of these things for the purposes of saving his
people, of bringing him through, of bringing them through it all.
And notice again in verse 9, there again, Selah, stop. Think. Pause. You're on holy
ground. Why? Look what he says next.
Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. Is this, I don't know,
I'm not speaking definitively, but is this referring to where
with the wilderness wanderings and the people were crying out
for water that God instructed Moses to smite the rock, to strike
the rock with his rod. And that rock split open, and
what came out? Gushings of water. What's that
symbolic of? It's of Christ, smitten for sin. And when he was smitten for sin,
as he says, the Spirit of God gives gushings of spiritual water,
like a fountain within. Is that not what it's talking
about? He's verse 10 talking about the flood of Noah's day,
how he preserved his people, the mountains saw thee, they
trembled, the overflowing of the water passed by. It's as
if he's recounting all of the ways in which God has ruled and
controlled the history and the doings of this world for the
one purpose of saving his people from their sins. He's verse 11
referring to Joshua, where in the days of Joshua we read The
sort of thing that people just cannot get their heads around.
You see, God upholds all things by the word of the power of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He can stop the astronomical
bodies doing what they normally do, miraculously. If he's God,
why can't he? Oh, couldn't possibly. Oh yes,
he can. He's created it all. He sustains it all. He upholds
it all. They stood still. What for? For the purposes of
the salvation of his people. He did march through the land,
verse 12, with indignation. Now distressed the heathen in
anger, he did everything for the purpose of accomplishing
the salvation of his people. Verse 13, thou wentest forth
for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine
anointed. Is that not clearly saying, this
is the marvellous thing? God comes, not only does he control
history, but he steps into history in the person of his son. We
don't celebrate Christmas as a religious festival, because
that's just full of paganism. Yes, we get together as families,
we exchange presents, but it's just a midwinter brightening
up of the dark skies and And it's nice to spend time with
family, so I don't have any time for this idea that you're being
unfaithful to God if you get together with your family at
Christmas. I think that's just taking things too far. But God
did come into this world in the person of Christ, and that is
absolutely critical. Almost certainly wasn't at the
time of year when we celebrate Christmas, almost certainly not.
But he did, and that's the important thing, that God went forth. Why did he go forth? For the
salvation of his people. What did the angel say to Joseph?
Mary's espoused husband, you shall call this baby that was
in the womb of Mary, you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. He, Christ, shall save his people,
the people the Father gave to him before the beginning of time,
he shall save them from their sins. Thou woundest the head
out of the house of the wicked by discovering the foundation
unto the neck." Is that not the utter destruction of Antichrist
and everything to do with Antichrist? As Jesus said when he was speaking
to the crowds in Matthew chapter 12, he talked about binding the
strongman of the house and spoiling his goods, spoiling his house.
He came into this world to bind the strongman of this house.
This is what Habakkuk is praying about, to save his people from
their sins, that he would come and he would satisfy the offended
justice of God by his substitutionary work, so that, what is the end
of it? Jeremiah 50 verse 20, in those
days, in those days of judgment it's speaking about, in that
time when this world is brought to an end, saith the Lord, the
iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, the iniquity of those people
for whom Christ died shall be sought for, and there shall be
none. They can't find any. they can't
find any. The sins of Judah, they shall
not be found, for God says, I will pardon them whom I reserve. We could look at Psalm 68, look
at it in your own time, we haven't got time now. But again, it's
echoing exactly the theme. This is God's marvellous work
in the midst of the years, where he comes into history. This is
the work that Habakkuk is praying, revive it, he's praying in accordance
with God's will, and when we pray we're told in accordance
with God's will, we get what we ask for, because it's the
will of God. This is what Habakkuk prays for.
That's what he does. 14 and 15, they, I think, are
reinforcing the utter destruction of Antichrist. Thou didst strike
through his staves the head of his villages, etc. The binding
of the strongman. Now then, what is Habakkuk's
reaction to this situation, to this psalm that he's been inspired
to write. What is his reaction? Verse 16. When I heard, my belly trembled. My lips quivered at thy voice.
Rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself. Firstly,
he had a deep and humbling awe and a godly fear before God at
seeing such holy power displayed. You see, he has, as it were,
gone into the sanctuary. He's gone in, you know, in Psalm
73, where the writer thinks everything's grossly unfair, and how hard
he's tried to serve God, and it's all been such a hard slog,
and yet he looks at those people that never bother with anything
to do with God, and what a good time they're having, and he says,
and I thought to say this, and I thought, no, I'll offend against
the people of God. I don't want to do that. And
then he went into the sanctuary of the temple, and in there he
saw the things of the gospel, and he saw the things of God's
marvellous work. And then he says, then understood
I their end. I understood the end of those
who reject God. And so his reaction is one of
standing back. He's said Selah three times. God's here, think, stop, think
about this. And his reaction is awe and godly
fear. It's somewhat like Daniel's reaction
when he had a vision of Christ in Daniel chapter 10. And you
know he, do you remember he's there with people by the river
in Babylon and he sees this vision and the people that were with
him were aware that something was going on and they were terrified
and they fled but Daniel he says when I saw him you know like
John when John saw the risen glorified Christ in the beginning
of Revelation Daniel says the life drained out of his body
there was no strength left in him But he was reassured and
he was comforted. And so Habakkuk is reassured
and comforted, that I might rest in the day of trouble, when he
cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.
He'll do everything that he said he will do. But then in verse
17, what is his ending reaction? This is how he views things.
This is how he understands things. Although the fig tree shall not
blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of
the olive shall fail and the fields shall yield no meat, because
with this invasion of the Chaldeans is coming great economic hardship
on Habakkuk and the people around him. The flock shall be cut off
from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls. The lesson is, as the New Testament
says, that the quality of life we have and the enjoyment that
we have for the child of God does not rest in the abundance
of the things that we possess. It doesn't. It rests in the knowledge
of God. Whatever happens in the purposes
of God, I know, says Habakkuk, he's going to accomplish the
purpose. He's going to revive his work
in the midst of the years. He's going to come forth for
the salvation of his people. And we know as New Testament
believers looking back, he has come forth for the salvation
of his people. He's come with his anointed,
because that's the way he accomplishes it. His anointed, his Christ,
he's come. And so he says, whatever happens,
however bad it gets, whatever happens, as Paul said, whether
in want or in abundance, I have learned to rejoice in the Lord,
to be content. Yet, he says, I will rejoice
in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. I will rejoice in Him. I know
what it's all about. I know where it will all end.
I don't need strength of my own. Look, verse 19, the Lord God
is my strength. He will give me my lame and aching
and unfit feet. He will make like Heinz feet. Heinz, dear, you know, have you
seen them skipping over rocks? They just seem to be able to
go anywhere. He will make me to walk upon mine high places
to the chief singer on stringed instruments. I don't need strength
of my own to cope with what's going to come. The Lord God is
my strength. As Philippians says, Paul says
to the Philippians, 4.13, I can do all things through Christ
which strengtheneth me. We were hearing Don Faulkner
preach yesterday, and one of his points was that one about
the thorn in the flesh. And when I am weak, then I am
strong. I am strong in the Lord when
I am weak in the flesh. The more I know that I have no
strength in my own flesh and my own thoughts and my own power
and I know that everything I have and am for all eternity is based
on the strength of God. He strengthens me. I know that. His strength is made perfect,
says Paul, in my weakness. Take this thorn away from me.
No, no. Three times he asked, no, no,
no. You're going to learn, Paul. My strength, God's strength,
is made perfect in your weakness when you learn that you can do
all things through Christ, which strengthens me. I can understand
this world. I can understand what's happening
all around. I have a clear knowledge of where I'm going. And whatever
comes my way, I am assured I can handle it in the strength of
God that He gives me. And therefore, I rejoice in the
Lord. Amen.