The title of my message tonight
is From Fear to Faith. From Fear to Faith. My reason for preaching this
message, my desire for you who seek to live in this world of
woe for the glory of God, is that the God of all grace may
fill you with all joy and peace in believing. Just in proportion as we believe
God, we live in peace. Just in proportion as we believe
God, we walk before him in the joy of faith. I want so much
for you and for me that God may fill you with all joy and peace
in believing that ye may abound in hope through the power of
the Holy Ghost, that which I desire and crave
for us. Only God the Holy Spirit can
perform for us, for we believe only as he gives us grace to
believe. Turn with me, if you will, to
Habakkuk Chapter 2. As you may have observed, I haven't
preached from this prophecy of Habakkuk in a while because I
have been studying the prophecy continually since the last message
I brought to you several weeks ago, and I have found much that
I have overlooked in the past, so I'm going to look at this
second chapter and preach several messages to you from this before
we move on again to chapter three. Habakkuk's world was in chaos. His world was turned upside down. Everywhere he looked around him,
he saw darkness and vanity wickedness and confusion. He saw the hand
of God's judgment upon the nation that he loved, upon his people,
his cherished people, not just upon a physical nation, but Habakkuk
understood that the nation of Israel was the nation God had
chosen through whom he would send the Messiah, the Redeemer,
the woman seed, by whom alone God has established his worship
in this world and through whom he would send the word of his
grace into all the world. He understood that this, the
church of God, the outward professed people of God, men and women
called by the name of God, were now experiencing divine judgment. God's prophet Habakkuk, in the
midst of heartache and confusion, threw himself back upon the promise
and character of God, and there he found peace. He threw himself
back upon the promise and character of God and found rest for his
soul. Moved from fearful apprehension
of those things that God made him understand he was doing to
peaceful faith in the Lord God. Look back at God's promise in
chapter one. Though Habakkuk beheld evil all
around him, spiritual wickedness in high places and low places,
though it appeared to all outward appearance as though wickedness
prevailed everywhere and the calls of God was overturned. The Lord God promised his prophet
that he would perform his purpose of grace. Nothing would be changed,
nothing altered. He assures his prophet that he
will perform his covenant promises, that he will accomplish the salvation
of his people, that he will perform everything he swore himself to
before the world began. Look in verse 5. Behold ye among
the heathen and regard and wonder marvelously for I will work a
work in your days which ye will not believe though it be told
you. Acts 13. And the prophet Isaiah
tell us plainly, this prophecy is talking about the accomplishment
of redemption by Jesus Christ, which God proclaims through the
preaching of the gospel throughout our generation and the generations
yet to come as in generations gone by. That's the promise of
God. He will save his people. The
promise of God is sure. Let us believe it. We know that
all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are the called according to his purpose. This is God's
providence. This is God's providence. With
every tick of the clock. With every event in time. God. is performing his good work
of grace. He's saving his people. That's
what God's providence is. When it appears that darkness
and disorder, wickedness and ungodliness prevail everywhere,
in your house, in the church house, in the White House, as
it is in our day, we have one option, and that option is to
fall back on the arms of God in his providence, in his purpose,
in the promises of his grace. That's all. That's it. There's no understanding what's
going on, no way to apprehend it, no way to deal with it except
to believe God. God's promise is sure. We know
it sure because his character is good. And Habakkuk found God's
character the solace of his soul. He eased himself with the realization
that if God sends pain, his purpose is to profit our souls. If he
sends bitterness, it is to benefit us. If the Lord God sends heaviness,
it is that we may be partakers of his holiness. If he sins sorrow,
it is for our salvation. Look at verse 12. God's very character assures
us of these things. In the midst of this prophecy,
as the Lord announced what he was going to do with the Chaldeans,
destroying his people, Habakkuk looks to the Lord and says, Art
thou not from everlasting? Oh, my God. Oh, Lord, my God,
mine holy one. We shall not die. Lord, you're the immutable, eternal,
unalterable, unchanging God. We shall not die. You made your
promise. You made your covenant. You brought
us out of Egypt with a high hand and by your mighty power, we
shall not die. I was just reading this morning
or yesterday morning, I've forgotten, Moses makes his intercession
to the Lord when the Lord said, step aside, I'll destroy these
people, I'll raise up a nation from you. Moses said, Lord, these
are people you made a covenant with. These are people who wear
your name. These are people you've wrapped
up your honor in them. You've set your glory in them. Lord, deal with these people
as you said you would. And thus the Lord spared Israel
as Moses pleads the very character of God as the reason why he should
spare his people. And Habakkuk seizes that. He
says, Lord, you're from everlasting. No matter what things look like,
no matter how things appear, we shall not die. Oh, Lord, thou hast ordained
them. Thou hast ordained them, the Chaldeans, the wicked, the
oppressor, the ungodly, the blasphemer, the scandalous person, those
who set themselves in opposition to you, those who would destroy
you. Those things that that bring
you pain and sorrow and heartache Lord you have ordained them for
judgment And notice what he says concerning that judgment and
Almighty God Almighty Rock of Israel thou hast established
them for correction Now this is the judgment he's talking
about It's his correction of his people Lord, you've established
these things, these men, these events to correct me. To correct my unbelief. To correct
my love of the world. To correct my departing from
you. To correct my slothfulness and
my negligence and my lethargy. to correct my coldness and my
indifference. You have established them. Everything I experience, every
foe I face, every pain I feel for my good, for the good of
your people. That ought to give us peace.
That ought to solace our souls. Habakkuk, cast himself on the
promise of God and the character of God. Now, before I proceed,
I want to directly speak to you who are yet without Christ. Ralph Barnard gave good counsel
to preachers when he made the statement, we ought to preach
to folks like everybody we preach to is going to hell right now. I dare not presume that any of
you sitting here have ever known the grace of God and speak to
you as though you have no need to concern yourself for eternity. I have no idea in whom God has
performed his work of grace or in whom he has not performed
it. But for you who believe not and you alone know who you are,
You alone know who you are. I don't know whether I'm a believer
or not. I beg to differ. You do know whether you believe
God or not. You do know whether you believe
God or not. If you believe not God. If you do not trust the Lord
Jesus Christ. The wrath of God abides. The wrath of God abides on you. And there is but a breath between
you and hell. Take a breath, will you? If God doesn't give you another
one, you're going to hell. That quick. The very same fury, just anger
and wrath that fuels the fires of the damned in hell abides
on you outside Christ. There's no reason for you to
have any idea that God is in any way gracious to you or merciful
to you or loving to you. Outside Jesus Christ, nothing
is revealed to men except the wrath of God. He that believeth
not on the Son of God, the wrath of God abideth on him. That's what the book says, Don.
The wrath of God abides on him. But you don't have to die. You don't have to go to hell.
God declares that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. God's
found satisfaction for His justice only in the sacrifice of His
Son. He cries by His prophet, why will you die? Salvation is
to be had for believing on the Son of God. If right now, You
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what God says. And if
thou shalt believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, thou shalt be saved. Is that what the book says? That's
what it says. Believe him. God Almighty calls
you to believe him. God help you to believe him.
All right. Looking back at chapter 2 and
just keep your Bibles open here Here is a waiting prophet Waiting
for God to speak Waiting for God to answer his prayer In chapter
2 we hear this faithful prophet Speak as one determined to wait
on the Lord He knows that the best thing he can do in the midst
of his great concern is wait on God. In every trial, in every
gut-wrenching experience, the very best thing we can do is
wait upon the Lord, wait in submissive expectant faith. Wait, look at
Habakkuk 2, verse 1. I will stand upon my watch. I
will set me upon the tower and will watch to see what he will
say unto me and what I shall answer when I am reproved. Come back to Isaiah 40 for a
moment. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 28. We're talking about waiting on
the Lord. I'm not talking about just, uh, well, God's going to
have his way. God's going to do what he will.
We just wait and see what he does. No, I'm talking about waiting
in anticipation, waiting with an eye of faith, waiting with
confident faith in the Lord. God waiting, expecting God to
do what he said. Isaiah 40 verse 28 has now not
known. Hast thou not heard that the
everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth,
fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his
understanding. He giveth power to the faint,
and to them that have no might he increases strength. Even the
youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly
fall. But they that wait on the Lord
shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings
as eagles. They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint. Did you notice the comparison?
The young men and the strong fall to this side and fall to
that. The young men and the strong, they're overcome by this or that. But those who wait on the Lord,
Those who look with expected, confident faith to the throne
of God, they shall not be moved. They will run and not be weary. They'll walk and not faint. Habakkuk
said, I will watch to see what He will say to me. Oh, how we
need to hear God speak. How we need to hear what God
says in His Word. Having presented his problem
to the Lord, Habakkuk said, I'll leave it there. Cast thy burden
upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee, the psalmist said. He shall
never suffer the righteous to be moved. We admonish one another
in the spiritual song, take your burden to the Lord and leave
it there. And the first part of it, we don't have any trouble
with. We don't have much trouble with that. Take your burden to
the Lord. And then take it to your neighbor
and take it to your priest and take it to your counselor and
take it to your doctor and take it this place and that. No. Take
your burden to the Lord and drop it off right there. Leave it
there. Leave it there. Our tendency,
rather, is to fall on our knees when we're crushed by God's providence
and tell God the thing that's worrying us and get up and go back to worrying
and trying to figure out what we're going to do. Anybody not guilty? That's our
tendency. Under Psalm 37, hear what God
says. Hear what God says. Psalm 37, fret not thyself because of evildoers. We fret far too much because
of evildoers. I suspect in this congregation,
from the pulpit to the last folks sitting on the back pews, I suspect
in this congregation, in a week's time, we spend considerably more
time listening to, reading about, and talking about Mr. Obama and
what he and the ungodly folks whom God has put over us as leaders
are doing. than we do about God and His
throne and His goodness and His grace and His providence. And
Mark, I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed before God. Fret not thyself because of evildoers. Well, don't fret too much. No,
that's not what it says. Don't be too concerned. That's
not what it says. That's not what it says. Don't
let it bother you. Don't let it bother you. God
Almighty established this nation as he has established every nation
in history for one purpose. And that's the glory of his name
in the saving of his people. And as long as God sustains the
nation, it shall be sustained. And when God is determined to
destroy the nation, it shall be destroyed. And God does right. God does right. Fret not thyself
because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against workers
of iniquity. Oh, I wish I had that power.
For they shall soon be cut down like the grass. and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. So shalt thou dwell in the land
and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord
and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. That's what he said. He'll give you everything you
want. Everything you want. Everything you want. Do I need
to remind you? His glory. His will. The saving of His people. Is
that what you want? Delight yourself in Him. He'll
give you the desires of your heart. Verse 5. Commit thy way
unto the Lord. Trust also in Him. And He shall
bring it to pass. Well, but I'm concerned about
my children, my grandchildren. We're at that age, aren't we?
Commit your way to the Lord. He'll bring to pass what you
want. He will save His own. And He
shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment
as the noonday. When God gets done, He will set
all things in the right order. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently
for him. Fret not thyself because of him
that prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked
devices to pass. Cease from anger. Forsake wrath. And fret not thyself
in any wise to do evil. All right, back here in Habakkuk.
Here's the second thing. First we see the prophet waiting
on God. Now we see him on his tower. He went to the tower and
stayed there. How happy, how blessed we would
be if we would do just that. I want you to look at two texts
of scripture. First is in Proverbs chapter 18. Proverbs chapter
18. Christ is our high tower, our place of refuge. He is the city of refuge, the
tower of refuge. unto whom we should flee and
abide in. Proverbs 18, verse 10. The name
of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it
and is safe. All right, now turn to Colossians
chapter 3. And just listen as I read a couple of passages of
scripture. The Lord is my rock and my fortress. my deliverer,
my God, my strength, in whom I will trust, my buckler and
the horn of my salvation. He's my high tower. The Lord
is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is
the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? This
man, Christ Jesus, is a covert in the time of storm. He's the
one in whom we hide. Now the apostle says here in
Colossians 3, If ye then be risen with Christ, set your affection
on things above, not on things on the earth. Where Christ sitteth
on the right hand of God, our life is hid with Christ in God. Run to him, flee to him, take
refuge in him. Habakkuk quit looking at his
trouble. He started looking to the Lord,
the rock of Israel, the triune Jehovah. If we look to the Lord,
we cease to look to our troubles. And as long as we look at the
troubles, we won't look to him. It's just that simple. You can't
see both ways. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Let
your moderation be known to all men, the Lord's at hand. Be careful for nothing. In everything, give thanks. With
prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passeth
understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ
Jesus. Like a back hook, we need to
get up into our watchtower and set ourselves there and wait. Wait with expectation for our
God to work. Make your way to the mercy seat
and you might stay out of the madhouse. Go quickly to your
high tower. Quit whining and start believing
God. Quit whining about God's providence
and about all the evil that you experience and all the pain and
heartache and believe God. Believe God. All right, here's
the third thing. Back here in Habakkuk. Habakkuk set himself upon his
tower and he said, I will watch to see what he will say to me. He expected God to answer him. He waited with expectation. He goes to God and says, Lord,
show me what you're doing. Show me your way and your will. Now watch to see what God will
answer. God give us grace to expect God
to speak to us. Rex, imagine this. Just imagine
this. Here's a man at prayer expecting
God to answer him. Imagine such a thing. Expecting
God to answer him. Expecting to hear from God. How often we pray and expect
nothing. We mouth our words and anticipate
nothing. We say our prayers. God teach
me to quit saying a prayer and teach me to pray. And if we learn
to pray, we'll learn to expect from God. When you open his word
and read your daily portion, You ought to expect God to speak.
When you come here to the house of God, O Spirit of God, let
us come expecting God to speak. When we walk with Him by the
way, expect Him to speak. It's called
communion. It's called living with God.
It's called walking with God. Habakkuk is waiting for the Lord
to undertake in answer to his prayer. His sight is fixed on
God. He's expecting God to answer
his prayer. And he does this in numerous
ways. The Lord answers by his word. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
light to my pathway. This word is that by which God
guides us through this world. It is this word by which God
makes his will known. He makes us to know his will
and his way. He reveals himself and speaks
to us by his word with the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, guiding
us in his word and guiding us in his way. Turn back to Isaiah
30 for a second, Isaiah 30. Verse 18. Now, I realize people will hear
this and they'll say, well, that's ambiguous. How do you know when
God, the Holy Spirit, is directing you? How do you know when God,
the Holy Spirit, has spoken to you? How do you know anything
about an inner witness of the Spirit? If you ever experience it, you'll
know it. Few times in my life I have known
with absolute confidence what God would have me to do and I've
known with absolute confidence what God was going to do by the
witness of the Spirit. Look here in Isaiah 30 verse
18. Therefore will the Lord wait
that he may be gracious unto you. Therefore will he be exalted
that he may have mercy upon you. For the Lord is a God of judgment.
Blessed are all they that wait for him. For the people shall
dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. Thou shalt weep no more. He will
be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry. When he
shall hear, he will answer thee. And though the Lord give you
the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction. Yet shall not thy teachers be
removed into the corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy
teachers, and thine ears shall hear a word, a word behind thee,
saying, This is the way, walk ye and Now turn to Acts chapter
16. Let me show you another example of
this. By his word, by his spirit, and by his providence, these
three things together, God works to show us his way, to guide
us in his path, to answer our prayers, to show us his will.
The Apostle Paul and Barnabas are here in Acts chapter 16. And when they had gone through,
verse 6, gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and
were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after
they were come to Bithynia, they assained to go into Bithynia,
but the Spirit suffered them not. And they, passing by Bithynia,
came to Troas, And the vision appeared to Paul in the night.
There stood a man in Macedonia and prayed him, saying, come
over to Macedonia and help us. And after he had seen the vision
immediately, we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly
gathering that the Lord had called for us to go to preach the gospel
unto them. Therefore, loosing from Troas,
we came with a straight course We came with a straight course
to Samathasia, and the next day to Nicopolis, and from thence
to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia,
and the colony. And we were in that city abiding
certain days. And on the Sabbath day, we went
out to the city by a riverside where prayer was wont to be made.
And we sat down and spake unto the women which resorted thither.
and a certain woman named Lydia. All of that, all of that, all
the opening of doors and shutting of doors, all the opening away
and blocking away, all of that, because there's a certain woman
named Lydia, for whom the time of love had come, whose heart
the Lord would now open. Thus he sent Paul to preach the
gospel to her. Let me see if I can give you
a personal illustration. First time I came here to preach
to you, I didn't have any question at all that this is the place
God had for me. I had no question at all concerning
it. If you men had approached me
six months earlier, I wouldn't have come here to be your pastor
under any circumstances. Wouldn't have done so. But the
lie I can tell you, for A year before I came here, God had opened
the door of ministry to about 30 Bible college students, our
place all the time. They're there every Sunday. Shelby
fixed dinner for them every Sunday. And I wouldn't have left them. I wouldn't have left them. They
wouldn't do it. And then just that quick, when the new semester
opened up, There was one church in the whole world that Bible
College made off limits to their students. They'd go to any other
church in the world, except look out Baptist Church where Don
Fortner's preaching. And God shut that door. Just flat shut
the door. I'm talking about that quick.
Had he not done so, I wouldn't be here right now. God opens
doors. and he shuts doors and by his
word and by his spirit and by his providence sweetly forces
us to walk in his will and makes us to know his way. You understand
that? Habakkuk said, I'll watch and
I'll wait to hear what God will say to me. Let us watch to see
what he will say. Habakkuk stood on his tower making
use of the means God had given him, listening and watching. Let us do the same. Then fourth,
look at verses two and three, and understand that God's grace
is sure. The Lord gives Habakkuk a very
clear answer. He doesn't take away the prophet's
pain. He doesn't stop the Chaldeans
from coming. Isn't that what he wanted? Well, sort of. Sorta. That's what he thought he wanted.
The pain was real. And God didn't take it away. The Chaldeans are still coming.
Israel's still going to Babylon. I'm going to destroy this place.
I'm going to use the wicked to do it. But the Lord God speaks
a word of grace and makes Habakkuk to understand that his grace
is sure. And the Lord answered me and
said, write the vision, make it plain upon tables, that he
may run that readeth. For the vision is yet for an
appointed time, 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. The vision, of course, is Christ's
coming, the accomplishment of redemption, God performing his
work of grace in and by Christ Jesus the Lord. Now, as Habakkuk
gives this word, he tells us a vision and he speaks it specifically. He tells us a specific thing
to happen, speaking of the glory of the Lord filling the earth,
speaking of this wondrous thing that God would do in the earth.
The vision is spoken plainly in plain, clear words. It is
spoken for a specific time, an appointed time. You go back and
read the Old Testament prophets concerning the coming of Christ
in his first advent. I mean, you get out a calculator
to figure it out. The prophets today, these pretend
prophets, and I'll have more to say about this next week,
the Lord willing, but these pretend prophets today, they're talking
about, well, maybe it's Not God's prophets. In this book,
the word is specific. It's given in detail so there
can't be any backing up. Can't be any backing up. The
Lord God calls his prophet to understand and rest in the fact
that all his works of providence, no matter how painful, no matter
how bitter they may be in their experience, are his chariots
of salvation. And he says in verse 13 of chapter
3, thou winnest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine
anointed. And then this fourth verse closes
by describing two groups of people, two groups of people sitting
here. Two groups of people bobbed up
in your house and two groups in my house. Two groups in the
community where you live and two groups in this little community
right here. Two groups in all the world, just two. Proud, obstinate
rebels who will not believe God. And sinners made righteous and
just by the grace of God. who live by faith. Only two groups
there are. Behold, his soul which is lifted
up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith. Martin Luther was raised in Roman idolatry,
and he was involved in all the ungodly religious shenanigans
of the papal church in his day, until one day he came across
this passage of scripture, the just shall live by faith. And
it tormented him. It tormented him. Not only, he
said, did God require us to obey his law, he requires faith and
we can't do either. and it tormented him. He said,
before those words broke upon my mind, I hated God and was
angry with him because not content with frightening us sinners by
the law and by the miseries of life, he still further increased
our torture by the gospel. But when, by the spirit of God,
I understood those words, the just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith. Then I felt born again like a
new man. I entered through the open doors
into the very paradise of God. The just shall live by faith. The man who lives by faith in
Christ is righteous. The man who doesn't is unrighteous. Will you or will you not trust
the Lord Jesus? If ever we come to know God,
if ever we learn to believe on the Lord Jesus, we will begin
to learn something. We'll begin to learn something
about the peace of God that passeth understanding as Habakkuk expressed
it in the last verses of this third chapter, chapter three. Although the fig tree shall not
blossom, neither shall the fruit be in the vines. The labor of
the olive shall fail and The field shall yield no meat. The
flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd
in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength. He will make my feet like iron's
feet. He will make me to walk upon
mine high places. And now the God of hope fill
you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound
in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Amen.