If you will turn again with me
to the book of Habakkuk, I want to bring this final short message
to us from this book this evening. Habakkuk chapter three, beginning in verse 16. When I
heard my belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice. Then verse 17. Although the fig
tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines.
The labor of the olive shall fail. 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,
and he will make my feet like hinds feet, and he will make
me to walk upon mine high places to the chief singer. All of this
third chapter is a prayer. If you notice back in verse one,
it begins a prayer of Habakkuk. And last time I spoke to us on
just part of his prayer, and that part was found in verse
two, where the prophet prayed for revival. Verse two, O Lord,
I've heard thy speech and was afraid. O Lord, revive thy work
in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make
known, and wrath remember mercy. These last verses that we just
read of chapter 3 could well be a part of Paul's letter to
the Philippian church. It sounds so much like his writing
there in Philippians when he said, rejoice in the Lord. Philippians
chapter 4. And verse four, he said, rejoice
in the Lord always. And again, I will rejoice. And Habakkuk says, yet I will
rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. And again, the apostle Paul said,
I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound everywhere. And in all things, I am instructed
both to be full and to be hungry. both to abound and to suffer
need. And the prophet speaks of suffering
need when the fig trees shall not blossom. Not going to be
any figs this year. And figs was a very important
part of the diet of the Israelites, the cakes of figs. No fruit in
the vines, that is the grapes would not produce. The grape
vines, there'd be no wine. The labor of the olive would
fail. The olive oil, such an important part for the Israelites. And the fields, the fields where
the wheat and the barley was produced would yield nothing.
And the cattle would be cut off in the stalls. Paul said, I know
how. I've learned how to be a baste. In looking at this last part
of his prayer, I want us to consider one thought, and it's this thought
that I see expressed in these two words, trembling and rejoicing. Trembling and rejoicing. Habakkuk began his prayer with
trembling. Verse 16, when I heard my belly
trembled, But it ends rejoicing in verse 17, verse 18. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
trembling to rejoicing. I might say from trembling to
rejoicing. This made me think of Solomon's
words in the book of Ecclesiastes when he said, better is the end
of a thing than the beginning thereof. Better is the end of
a thing. The end here is rejoicing. The
beginning is trembling, trembling. And I want us to think about
these two thoughts in regard to these two areas. First of
all, in God's work of salvation, and then in God's work of providence
for his people. First, the believer's experience
in God's work in salvation. We began with trembling. We began
with trembling. What was it that caused Habakkuk
to tremble? Well, it was that he heard God's
speech, God's word. If you look back in verse two,
O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and I was afraid. What was it
that caused the prophet to tremble, it was hearing the word of God. And the same may be true in this
matter of salvation. We may be walking along through
life as free as a bird, as the old hymn said, or as the old
song said, free as a bird, free as a breeze, not a worry in the
world. And then all of a sudden we hear
God's word, God's speech, Maybe we hear this word of God, for
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now that
doesn't maybe cause a lot of trembling at first because of
that word all. For all have sinned. And we see
ourselves in a large group, all, no exceptions, all have sinned. And you know, in numbers, people
find comfort. And so maybe that doesn't cause
much trembling at first. We have all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. We think to ourselves, well,
I'm like everyone else. There's really no difference.
I've done a few things that I shouldn't have done. Been a few things
I wish I hadn't have done. but that doesn't cause me much
worry, much concern, doesn't cause me to tremble. But then,
suppose we hear these words from the Lord, from the sole of the
foot, the sole of the foot, even to the head, there's no soundness
in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, They have
not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
That causes some trembling because that does picture a very awful
condition. When we realize that's God's
estimate of man, even though it's placed there concerning
the nation of Israel, but it is a description of each one
of us individually as sinners before God. From the soles of
our feet to the top of our heads, there's no soundness in us. The
heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
That causes us some concern, maybe some trembling. Then maybe we hear this word,
the soul that sinneth, it shall die. The soul that sinneth, it
shall die. And what kind of death is that
speaking of? Oh, I know we will all die physically. But what kind of death is that
particular text speaking about? The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. It's speaking about eternal death. Eternally separated from God
and everlasting burnings. That causes us to tremble. Well,
I must do something about this. So most of us, like Christian
and Christians and Pilgrims Progress, rather, we meet some false prophet
and he gives us a clue or an idea. Well, you know, you need
to go to Mount Sinai. You need to go over there to
Mount Sinai. And so we get over there by Mount Sinai, that is
the law, and we begin to try to observe the law and keep the
law and believe that by doing so we are going to solve our
problem, we are going to make ourselves right before God. But what we find is the mountain's
all on fire. And there's thunderings and loud
voice. God is speaking from that mountain. And that causes us to tremble. We've realized that we are like
the Israelites when they were down in Egypt after Moses was
sent there to them. Remember, they were slaves in
Egypt. And when Moses went in to Pharaoh
and said, let my people go, Pharaoh said, make it harder, make their
work harder. Don't, don't cut the number of
bricks they have to make, but just don't give them any straw.
Now they've got to go find straw for themselves to make brick.
And we find ourselves like that. We're required to make brick,
but we're given no straw. We're required to be holy, to
obey God absolutely, but we have no strength, not in ourselves. The law requires perfection,
but I'm not able to perfectly obey it. That causes some trembling. Then I ask, how did I get into
this fix? How did I get into this mess? How did I come to be such a person? estranged from God, alienated
from God, under the wrath of God, children of wrath, even
as others. How did this happen? How did
I get into this situation? I came into this world with a
sinful nature, which I inherited from my father, Adam. I sin, I sin, and I am not able
to obey God's law. perfectly because of what I am. I sin because I am a sinner. You see, Adam's the only man
who ever became a sinner by sinning. The rest of us were born sinners. And that causes us to tremble. I have an unclean or sinful nature,
and I cannot bring a clean thing out of an unclean vessel. And
then I hear verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now listen to me. I understand that this trembling
that I've tried to speak of tonight is not the same for all of God's
children. I understand that. But I am going
to say this because I know it's so. A person must be lost before
he will ever be saved. A person must be lost. I don't
care how good they seem outwardly, how they've been raised in a
Christian home and a good church and all of that, a person must
be lost. before they're ever found. Reminds
me of a friend told me this years ago. I met him out in California,
but he visited a church somewhere in the Midwest, Sunday morning
service, and he said as he was going out the door, the preacher
was greeting the people leaving, and he asked the preacher, he
said, how long have you been saved? The preacher said, oh,
I've always been saved. And the man said, that's too
long. That's too long. I understand when I preach about
experience like this that not everyone has the same experience. I know that. I want to make that
clear because it's not our experience. It's Christ who is the Savior.
But I do believe that a person, I know this is so, a person must
be lost before he will ever be saved. But you see, that's the trembling,
now we come to the rejoicing. What was it that caused Habakkuk
now to rejoice? It was the truth about the Lord. And what is it that causes a
sinner who trembles, who recognizes himself to be lost, to be a sinner
before God, what is it that causes him or brings him to this place
of rejoicing? Well, it's the truth. It's the
truth. It's the gospel of the grace
of God. The truth that God sent His only
Son, His only begotten Son into this world to be the propitiation
for our sins, for my sins, for my sins, for your sins, for all
the sins of those who trust in Him. God sent His Son into this
world to be the Savior. His Son lived in this world for
over 32 years without sin. You and I, we sin from the womb,
going astray, speaking lies. He was in this world for 32 years
plus without sin, though he was attacked by Satan. You know,
we read of the temptation of the Lord in the wilderness. Don't think that's the only time
that he was tempted and tested by Satan. His whole life was
a life of testing and being tempted and attacked by the evil one,
the God of this world. But every time that Satan came
to him, he found nothing in him. Satan comes to you, he's got
something to work on. He comes to me, he's got something
to work on. Well, not when he came to the
Lord Jesus Christ, no, no. Nothing to answer to his temptations,
he continued steadfast, unmovable, always obedient to the perfect
law of God, both in his thought and in his words and also in
his deeds. And then according to God's determinate
counsel, that's what the apostle Peter said, God's determinate
counsel and foreknowledge. He was nailed to a cross. He was crucified upon a very
shameful cross. And the reason they put him in
the middle, they wanted everyone to know of these three, here's
the one that is the most despicable of all, the most guilty of all,
because he claims to be the son of God. These other two are thieves,
yes, but this one, is the worst of all. What is the truth of what really
happened there? You know, at three o'clock in
the afternoon, the darkness covered the earth. You couldn't see,
no one could see what was going on. What was really happening
then? Lord Jesus Christ, as the sinner
surety, was doing business with the Father. He was doing business
with the Father on behalf of his people. He was satisfying
God's justice in every way. He died in the sinner's place,
burying our sins in his own body on the tree. We sang a hymn just a few minutes
ago that spoke of his sufferings, of his bloody sweat in Gethsemane,
and his cursed death upon the tree, shedding his precious blood
to redeem, to redeem, to buy back all of his chosen people. All of those who trust in him,
His body was then laid in a borrowed tomb, and on the third day he
walked out. When he appeared to his disciples,
his 11 disciples, on the day of his resurrection, they didn't
at first believe he was there in body. You know why? They thought it was too good
to be true. Too good to be true. They knew
he had died. They knew he had been borrowed
and his tomb had been sealed. And now here he is. Here he is
in their presence with the marks of the nails in his hands. It's too good to be true. But
it is true. It is true. God declaring to
those disciples and them to us and all the world that God testified,
yea, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Now comes the rejoicing. Trembling
first, yes. But then comes the rejoicing
when by the grace of God we're able to look to Him and to know
that we have peace with God. We have peace with God through
His dear Son. He has reconciled us unto God. But then, secondly, the believer's
experiences in God's providence We experience trembling. If our faith, if our faith were
perfect, we would not experience trembling in this world. We wouldn't. But our faith is much like the
faith of that father of that son who said, Lord, I do believe,
help thou my unbelief. Our faith, while our faith is
not perfect, it is in a perfect Savior. And our faith is in His
perfect salvation. But our faith is not perfect. The Apostle John wrote, there's
no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear. Because
fear hath torment, he that feareth is not made perfect in love.
I wonder how many of God's children have read that verse of scripture
and trembled. Trembled. Their flesh reasons,
well, then I must not be a child of God because perfect love casts
out fear and yet I still have fear. I experience things that
cause me to tremble. Things in God's providence that
cause me to tremble. But here's the question. Do you
have perfect love? Perfect love casteth out fear. Do you have perfect love? Of
course you don't. Only God has perfect love. Only God has perfect love, and
the same is true about faith. Only the Lord Jesus Christ had
perfect faith. He never doubted, he never questioned,
he never had any concern about the truthfulness of God. No matter
what he experienced, he knew this was his Father's will, whatever
it was. The cup which my Father hath
given me, shall I not drink it? He knew that things did not come
into his life per chance, per accident. There's no such thing
as fate. There's a world of difference,
my friends, between fatalism and God's providence. A world
of difference. Many people are fatalists, but
God's children, we rest in a personal God who Controls all things and
works all things after the counsel of his own will Our faith is not perfect and
therefore we meet with experiences in this world which cause us
to tremble I know we read in Job how he received those messages
and those things that God allowed Satan to do to him and how he
praised God. And we marvel at that. But you
know, later on in that book, just a few chapters over, it
says, that which I feared has come upon me. That which I feared. No doubt. Some of us here tonight,
we have some fears, some things that we imagine we may experience
in this world, and it causes us to tremble. Most of those
things we'll never experience, but it does cause us to tremble. Habakkuk here describes what
I would call the worst case scenario. I mean, if you can Imagine anything
worse than what he described here, let me know after the service.
Because everything needful, everything needful and necessary for life
in this world for an Israelite, he says, is completely cut off. Everything. The flocks, the fields,
the olive trees, the vineyard, everything. is gone, nothing,
the worst case scenario. And yet here we come to rejoice
in. Now it may take a while for a
child of God to rejoice. We experience God's providence
and to us they're not the most pleasant things to experience,
things God brings and allows in our lives. sickness, many other things I could mention. It may take a child of God a
while, but before long, he can be rejoicing. He can be rejoicing. As he begins
to meditate upon God's word, God's promises, God's oaths,
God's covenant, he's enabled to rejoice. We come to rejoice realizing
that while our circumstances may have changed for the worst,
as far as we are concerned, our God, our circumstances may have
changed, yes, and as far as we are concerned, It seems like
they've changed for the worse for us, but our God has not changed
one iota. There's no shadow of turning
in him. We come to rejoice in because
like Habakkuk, we realize the Lord God is my strength. Notice what he said. Verse 19, the Lord God is my
strength. In our weakness, He is our strength. And the weaker we become, the
weaker we see ourselves and know ourselves to be, the more we
recognize that God is our strength. He is our strength. We come to
rejoice Him because like a backup, God makes our feet. The hind's feet. What's a hind? Well, I think it was a gazelle,
something like a deer. A gazelle is not only able to
stand, but a gazelle is able to run upon the rocks on the
tops of the mountains. So God enables us not only to
stand, but to run our race that He has set before us, looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We come to rejoice in Him, because
like Habakkuk, He will make us to walk upon mine high places. For Habakkuk, what did that mean?
Well, it meant that Israel would be restored. Yes, Israel. would
be taken into Babylon, 70 years captivity, but they would be
restored to their own land. God would bring them back. For
us, it means, for me, it means what the words of this hymn declare. There waits for me a glad tomorrow,
where gates of pearls swing open wide. When I've passed this veil
of sorrows, I'll dwell upon the other side. Someday beyond the
reach of mortal kin, someday God only knows just where and
when. The wills of mortal life shall
all stand still, and I shall go to dwell on Zion's hill. That's the hope that we have
tonight. God brings his people from trembling
to rejoicing. Trembling in ourselves, in our
own power, our own ability, but rejoicing in the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray the Lord would bless these
thoughts to those of us here this evening. going to ask the
men. We're going to observe the Lord's
Supper like we've done for the last two times now. We'll have
you come by