SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.
SPEAKER_01: I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_01: I've never heard a pastor teach on Habakkuk.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm sure pastors have because it's a book of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying I've never heard anybody teach on it.
SPEAKER_01: And I hadn't thought of Habakkuk ever as far as a book to teach from until I was flying to Atlanta in June, and God really spoke to me for a word that He had for me, and I'll get to that word later, not today, but I'll get to it probably in a week or two.
SPEAKER_01: It's going to be actually a short series because only three little chapters, very short book.
SPEAKER_01: But if you've ever been someone who has cried out to God about something and felt like God wasn't hearing your prayers, raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have felt lonely and felt like God had abandoned you?
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: The book is for you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Abacuck's about.
SPEAKER_01: So Habakkuk is a prophet, very unique prophet in scripture, in that all the prophets, and he's in, and by the way, some of you are, you just go to the table of contents.
SPEAKER_01: You'll find it.
SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of people don't know where it's at.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you like, and it's only it's only like three pages, so you could easily skip it.
SPEAKER_01: It's the fourth to the last book of the Old Testament, just to give you a hint, or you just go to the table of contents, and people are always embarrassed, like, what if someone sees me looking at the table of contents?
SPEAKER_01: Well, the reason you're worried about that is because there's so many just like you.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so go to the table of contents, you can find it.
SPEAKER_01: But um, what's so great about Habakkuk, I think, is that it's a journey.
SPEAKER_01: You guys, it's a journey of faith.
SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna see today the depth of the agony of the burden that Habakkuk's carrying.
SPEAKER_01: But then in a couple weeks, we're gonna get to the end, the last three verses of Habakkuk 3, 17 through 19, where this guy is transformed.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he has changed from anxiety to praise, from fear to faith.
SPEAKER_01: So I've entitled it A Pilgrimage to Higher Ground, that I believe God often takes you through deep depression, takes you through deep pain, even takes you through what appears to be defeat in order to do a work in you.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you know that God needs to work in you before he can work through you?
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, you can't give away what you don't have.
SPEAKER_01: So until you've gone through the depths of God's discipleship in your heart, you have nothing to give to anybody else.
SPEAKER_01: And so, as God works things, and it's usually through hard things, difficult times in our life, you then become a better person.
SPEAKER_01: You become a woman and a man of character.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know about you, but I can tell you from all the years of listening to speakers and uh either in the political or the religious realms, that when someone I'm listening to has been through some really, really dark times and they've come out of it in a positive way.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about who come out of it in a bitter way, but they've come out of it in a victorious way.
SPEAKER_01: I listen to that person.
SPEAKER_01: That person catches my attention because here's someone that God worked in so that he could now work through.
SPEAKER_01: That's the book of Abakat.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what we know about life.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what we know about life is that life is not easy.
SPEAKER_01: Life is actually difficult.
SPEAKER_01: So it's David who writes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
SPEAKER_01: Now, how could David say that because he had walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and he had feared evil, right?
SPEAKER_01: So he so we go through shadows of death, we go through shadows of depression, we go through anxious things in our life, so that God can build us into someone who can say, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil.
SPEAKER_01: It's Jesus who said, In this life, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, be of joy, because I have overcome the world.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that great?
SPEAKER_01: So that's the book of Habakkuk.
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of a theme of Habakkuk, is there's a journey.
SPEAKER_01: He's in the valley, you're gonna see today, he's in the valley, and we're gonna walk through this great, great book into the high places of faith in his life.
SPEAKER_01: And this is important because the enemy, Satan and demons, want to keep you in the valley.
SPEAKER_01: That's what demons do.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I came that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say there that in this life sometimes the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I come to give life an abundant life.
SPEAKER_01: No, he says it's true.
SPEAKER_01: It's part and parcel with living now, just as it was in 600 BC, that we're gonna go through tribulation, and God wants us to learn through going through hard times that He has overcome the world.
SPEAKER_01: You haven't overcome the world.
SPEAKER_01: He has overcome the world through you.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's working in you so that he can work through you.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the character of Habakkuk.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you four character qualities of Habakkuk so we understand who we're listening to.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, Habakkuk is utterly honest and vulnerable with God.
SPEAKER_01: There's no more vulnerable book in all of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The prophets, most of the major prophets, which would be guys like Jeremiah, which actually he's a contemporary of Jeremiah, Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel, along with the minor prophets, and that would be like Habakkuk and Jonah and others, always begin with a word from God.
SPEAKER_01: So they they get a revelation, a vision from God, they get a word from God, and then they uh they write it down for us.
SPEAKER_01: But this is the only book of the Bible where it actually starts with a complainer, where it starts with a guy who's actually upset at God.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna see in chapter one that Habakkuk's pretty ticked off at God.
SPEAKER_01: So he's very honest and he's vulnerable with God.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, Habakkuk is a man of faith and prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the irony is that he's upset at God because he doesn't seem to be answering his prayers.
SPEAKER_01: He sees the evil that's happening from the rising Babylonian empire of that time, and yet he's praying about it.
SPEAKER_01: He's seeking God.
SPEAKER_01: So you could look at it from the, oh, well, look at him, man.
SPEAKER_01: He just seems like he's a doubter, he has no faith.
SPEAKER_01: Actually, he's got great faith because instead of him becoming bitter about it, he takes it to God, and you're gonna see the journey that he's on.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, Habakkuk is a man who waits and listens for God to answer his prayers.
SPEAKER_01: So Habakkuk doesn't just like throw it out there and then walk away.
SPEAKER_01: He's actually gonna stay there crying out to God for God to show up.
SPEAKER_01: And then fourthly, and I think the most important theme is Habakkuk is a man on a pilgrimage from the valley of fear and anxiety into the higher ground of faith and praise.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that exciting?
SPEAKER_01: That you don't have to stay in your fear and anxiety.
SPEAKER_01: You do not have to stay in your fear and anxiety.
SPEAKER_01: You will experience fear and anxiety.
SPEAKER_01: And if you tell me you don't, then I'd say you're a major league poser.
SPEAKER_01: Because we all go through fear and anxiety, but you listen, guys, you don't have to stay there.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to learn, we've all got to learn, to be authentic with people and with God, but then to wait on God to come and take us and guide us into the higher ground of faith, joy, purpose, and vision and destiny for our lives.
SPEAKER_01: So look at chapter 1, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Look at chapter 1, verse 1 of Habakkuk if you found it.
SPEAKER_01: So, in my Bible is page 875.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 1, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Really short verse in a very short book of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna see something, underline or circle burden.
SPEAKER_01: So, church, oftentimes our prayer life begins with some kind of a burden.
SPEAKER_01: God puts a burden on your heart.
SPEAKER_01: He puts a burden on your heart for your kids.
SPEAKER_01: He puts a burden on your heart for the school, he puts a burden on your heart at your job.
SPEAKER_01: He puts a burden on your heart for America.
SPEAKER_01: He puts a burden on your heart for the election coming up.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: I remember this would have been in 2019.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I remember.
SPEAKER_01: It was 2019.
SPEAKER_01: So what is that?
SPEAKER_01: Five years ago, 2019, I was in the hot tub at our house when a burden came over me that someone was about to assassinate President Trump.
SPEAKER_01: It was crazy.
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't even thinking about it.
SPEAKER_01: I think I was thinking about football, okay, or something, like Georgia football or something like that, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, my point is I wasn't in the hot tub to pray.
SPEAKER_01: I was in the hot tub just relaxing.
SPEAKER_01: And this burden just came upon me that in the White House, and I could see stuff in this vision that someone was working behind the scenes to kill President Trump.
SPEAKER_01: And so I turned that into intercession and I began to pray.
SPEAKER_01: And I think I even sent out, if I remember, I sent out a text to about 10 people to pray, and nothing happened.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe that God put the burden on me, and he probably put the burden on thousands of others that were available and open to him to pray, and that actually thwarted the work of demons that were probably behind that.
SPEAKER_01: And so the context of Habakkuk is that there's great fear, there's great anxiety, there's moral decay in Israel and around the Asia Minor and Palestinian area at that time that Habakkuk feels.
SPEAKER_01: That's the burden that he's carrying.
SPEAKER_01: So, what makes Habakkuk interesting is it seems as though, he says here, it's a burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw.
SPEAKER_01: So he sees something.
SPEAKER_01: Now, just to put it in context, for over 150 years, the Assyrians have been ruling the area.
SPEAKER_01: And then as we move in to the turn of the century, which would be the 600 into the 500th century, we see we see an Assyrian and Egyptian alliance that occurs.
SPEAKER_01: Then the great leader of the Assyrians is killed in battle.
SPEAKER_01: I have trouble pronouncing his name, Ashrub.
SPEAKER_01: So Ashrub was killed in battle in 627 BC.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna throw out a few verses so you understand.
SPEAKER_01: I think most of you know this, but when you're talking about before Christ BC, the progressive dating in a chronological way is always going to be less and less.
SPEAKER_01: And then starting with AD, with the time of Christ, then it increases.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So when I say 627, or if I say 702 to 627 BC, 702 is in the past, 627's near.
SPEAKER_01: So in 627, the great Assyrian king, Ostrabenopel died, and he was the last great king of Assyria.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Josiah becomes the king.
SPEAKER_01: So Josiah is king, he's a good king in Israel, and he brings reforms.
SPEAKER_01: This is actually after Manasseh.
SPEAKER_01: Manasseh was a bad king.
SPEAKER_01: So then Josiah comes in, but then he's killed in the Battle of Megiddo in 609.
SPEAKER_01: So about a hundred years later, okay, it's important.
SPEAKER_01: But in that hundred-year gap, Babylon's rising to power.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the Assyrian-Egyptian alliance is defeated in a major battle, in which, uh the battle of Karmish, and in that battle, a guy named Nebuchadnezzar comes into power.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to, the reason I'm sharing all this is not to give you a history lesson, but to understand sort of the context in scripture.
SPEAKER_01: So that means, listen, this is what it means.
SPEAKER_01: It means that Habakkuk is of the generation of Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_01: So if you've read the book of Jeremiah where he cries out to Israel to repent for their sins, well, that's because the sins of Manasseh have continued even under Josiah.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, Josiah was a good king, but he didn't pull down all the high places where the idolatry was happening.
SPEAKER_01: And then when Josiah's son comes in, he's as bad as Manasseh.
SPEAKER_01: So the context here is of empires, major empires, taking over Israel, taking over Judah, attacking Judah.
SPEAKER_01: First thing that Nebuchadnezzar does when he comes into power and has subjugated the Assyrian-Egyptian alliance is he actually comes, pretty interesting, he actually comes to Jerusalem and doesn't do anything.
SPEAKER_01: So he comes to Jerusalem, almost like pretends he's gonna attack, and then he backs off.
SPEAKER_01: And I think what he was doing is saying, don't mess with me.
SPEAKER_01: Don't mess with me.
SPEAKER_01: And then he takes the young, noble men from Jerusalem back to Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why we have the book of Daniel.
SPEAKER_01: So this is in that context of Daniel, this is in the context of Jeremiah that this book is being presented.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the situation.
SPEAKER_01: There's great fear and anxiety.
SPEAKER_01: There's fear and anxiety internationally.
SPEAKER_01: There's an old saying that when elephants fight, the grass gets crushed.
SPEAKER_01: And what that what that means is that when great empires fight, smaller nations get crushed in the process.
SPEAKER_01: And Judah and Israel were very, very small.
SPEAKER_01: So he's carrying a burden, moral decay, fear, and violence.
SPEAKER_01: But turn now, keep your finger or your or your marker in Habakkuk, but turn to 2 Kings 21, if you would.
SPEAKER_01: Go to the left.
SPEAKER_01: Go left.
SPEAKER_01: If you go to Genesis, you've gone too far.
SPEAKER_01: But 2 Kings 21, and I wanted to just go through a few verses about Manasseh, because this is the context that Habakkuk is prophesying to his own country, his own nation, what they look like.
SPEAKER_01: So 2 Kings 21, Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king, and he reigned 55 years in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: His mother's name was Hezbah, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abomination of the nations, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: He raised up altars for Baal, made a wooden image, as Ahab, king of Israel, had done.
SPEAKER_01: He worshipped all the hosts of heaven and served them.
SPEAKER_01: He also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem I will put my name.
SPEAKER_01: And he built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Also he made his son pass through the fire.
SPEAKER_01: He practiced Susa.
SPEAKER_01: He used witchcraft and consulted spiritus and mediums.
SPEAKER_01: He did much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'll go to verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, and he filled Jerusalem from one end to the other, besides his sin by which he made Judah sin and doing the evil in the sight of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So this guy practiced witchcraft.
SPEAKER_01: This guy actually, it appears that he actually sacrificed his son on the altar of fire to some unknown God that he was worshiping.
SPEAKER_01: He worshiped the stars, the moon, the planets.
SPEAKER_01: So very much a kind of new age version of what we have today of worshiping all the planets.
SPEAKER_01: He practiced child sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: He shed innocent blood.
SPEAKER_01: And whenever you see the scriptures talking about shedding innocent blood, it always means children.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is a confusing time, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: It's very confusing for Judah.
SPEAKER_01: It's a very confusing time for Israel because they're not following the Lord, and yet they are the nation in that area that purports to worship God.
SPEAKER_01: And as I said, there had been good kings.
SPEAKER_01: But now they're in moral decay.
SPEAKER_01: It's not that different today in America.
SPEAKER_01: If you were to look at the history of our nation, what we were founded on, what our Constitution and Bill of Rights says, you would think, and I've heard immigrants tell me this, that when they first came to America, they were solidly under the impression that this is really, really a godly place, and they soon discovered that it was worse than their nation that didn't purport to be a Christian nation.
SPEAKER_01: And so what are some of the things that we see today?
SPEAKER_01: We see a nation in decline.
SPEAKER_01: We are definitely a nation in decline.
SPEAKER_01: We have the worst health care in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And we just finished the health series that I did on Kingdom Health, so I don't need to go into that.
SPEAKER_01: The evangelical church is its weakest it's ever been in the history of our country.
SPEAKER_01: We've seen pastor after pastor acquiesce biblical truth to cultural fads that come along.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the good news, though.
SPEAKER_01: I like what Martin Luther once said.
SPEAKER_01: He said, your church will never be ruined by a blacksmith.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he meant by that.
SPEAKER_01: He meant that the pastors may be messed up, but the pews are not.
SPEAKER_01: And it's really true.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's great influence from the pulpit for sure, and I know that it does influence us, but what we do see is I think what we're observing is evangelical faith is on the rise in America.
SPEAKER_01: The church, the big Eva of the evangelical church may be in decline, but people are coming to know the Lord left and right.
SPEAKER_01: Roe v.
SPEAKER_01: Wade has come down, and yet what we see is a militant advocacy for abortion in certain states, especially in this state.
SPEAKER_01: So I mentioned Amendment 79 last week.
SPEAKER_01: And this is really important you guys know about Amendment 79 and that you vote no on Amendment 79.
SPEAKER_01: Amendment 79 will cement abortion as a right in the Constitution if it passes.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why is that important?
SPEAKER_01: Because you can have amendments that go through ballots that we vote on, and a decision is made by whoever got more than 50%, whoever got the most votes.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: But if you submit something and it becomes a part of the Constitution, then it's a whole different thing to change than the need for two-thirds vote in Congress.
SPEAKER_01: So it's really hard.
SPEAKER_01: So Amendment 79 is to make the right to abortion a part of the Constitution.
SPEAKER_01: It uses your taxes to fund abortion.
SPEAKER_01: And then here's the kicker.
SPEAKER_01: The third thing you need to know about Amendment 79.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a kid at school and they need a Tylenol, the nurse is supposed to call the parents and say, can we give your child a Tylenol?
SPEAKER_01: But with this Amendment 79, there's no need for parental permission for an abortion.
SPEAKER_01: So they can do it anything they want with an abortion, and yet you have to have parental permission for Tylenol.
SPEAKER_01: That's how messed up our system is.
SPEAKER_01: So vote no on Amendment 79.
SPEAKER_01: And but and come and come and pray.
SPEAKER_01: We're praying for a major revival in our country every Wednesday at noon.
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of you came out last week.
SPEAKER_01: And so in the month of October, we're praying from noon to one.
SPEAKER_01: Come and then we focus entirely that hour on revival and a kingdom of God revolution in our nation on Wednesdays.
SPEAKER_01: So join us for that.
SPEAKER_01: And we're praying also for the defeat of Amendment 79.
SPEAKER_01: Never have we had a political party, never have we had a political party that has censored speech on the level that's happening today.
SPEAKER_01: Even for me, I'm getting I'm I'm still learning, but I'm being coached all the time because I always say the wrong stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And so from time to time, My messages get pulled down because of censorship.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's mainly coming, if not exclusively coming, from the Biden administration in relation to big tech.
SPEAKER_01: Our southern border, you want to talk about an existential crisis?
SPEAKER_01: Existential crisis is the border.
SPEAKER_01: So according to which article you read, somewhere between 7 and 11 million illegal immigrants have come across the border under the Biden administration.
SPEAKER_01: So they are attempting.
SPEAKER_01: Does everybody understand this?
SPEAKER_01: You're like, what?
SPEAKER_01: I was talking to someone that now why would they do that?
SPEAKER_01: It must be people who are being persecuted.
SPEAKER_01: Like, no, they want to actually literally transform our country.
SPEAKER_01: They want to transform our country and remake it in a new way.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a prediction now of over 600,000 Ukrainians have been killed in the war with Russia.
SPEAKER_01: That war should have been stopped years ago.
SPEAKER_01: They already had a peace treaty, and um, and it was the United States is the one that messed it up.
SPEAKER_01: And then we have the growing crisis in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And for the first time in our nation's history, we have a man or a woman running for president who's had two assassination attempts.
SPEAKER_01: Our cities are a cesspool of crime and gang violence.
SPEAKER_01: So we're at a real crossroads, gang.
SPEAKER_01: Do you get it?
SPEAKER_01: You see what's happening here?
SPEAKER_01: And yet, what we need, and I think God's settings up for, is a great revival.
SPEAKER_01: A great revival.
SPEAKER_01: I listen to podcasts a lot, I listen to a lot of secular news, and I can tell you right now, I've never seen so many people coming to know Christ that are actually newscasters and podcasters.
SPEAKER_01: People who are just digging God's word, they're reading God's word.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you got Tucker Carlson that for 18 months all he did at night was read God's word.
SPEAKER_01: You got so many like there's dozens of them.
SPEAKER_01: And what's exciting is these guys are total secularists, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But they're discovering Jesus through reading the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: So I think there's almost like a Bible revolution happening right now.
SPEAKER_01: And Habakkuk would have said, that's what it's all about.
SPEAKER_01: So look, go back to Habakkuk, look at chapter two, look at Habakkuk chapter two, and look what Habakkuk says, and we'll cover this more in the weeks ahead.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk 2.12.
SPEAKER_01: Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, who establishes a city by iniquity.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the peoples labor to feed the fire?
SPEAKER_01: And nations weary themselves in vain.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: This is so cool.
SPEAKER_01: For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, there are hundreds of verses in the Old and New Testament that God is going to come and that all the nations will hear.
SPEAKER_01: That God's going to come, there's going to be a great revival.
SPEAKER_01: There's going to be a move of God's thing.
SPEAKER_01: I think we're on the precipice of that.
SPEAKER_01: I think we're very close to a great and mighty move of God.
SPEAKER_01: And this church will be packed out at every service.
SPEAKER_01: And there'll be lines of people going out that door to get baptized every week because God's glory is filling the earth as the waters cover the sea.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so now that's the good news.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's get to the bad news.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Go back to chapter one and let's read the dilemma.
SPEAKER_01: Let's read the valley of the shadow of death that Habakkuk is in and what he's feeling.
SPEAKER_01: And for some of you in this room, you may be feeling this way too about our country, about your own life.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've been through a divorce, maybe you've been through a diagnosis of cancer.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But this is how this book begins.
SPEAKER_01: The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw, oh Lord, how long shall I cry and you will not hear?
SPEAKER_01: Even crying out to you, violence, and you will not save.
SPEAKER_01: Why do you show me iniquity and cause me to see trouble?
SPEAKER_01: For plundering and violence are before me.
SPEAKER_01: There is strife and contention arising.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, the law is powerless.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the Torah.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the scriptures are powerless.
SPEAKER_01: Justice never goes forth.
SPEAKER_01: For the wicked surround the righteous.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, perverse judgment proceeds.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you look at some of these trials of the last couple years, that's the way you might feel if you care about it.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you just think, like, what they always get off.
SPEAKER_01: Or these people are never brought to justice.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the way Habakkuk feels.
SPEAKER_01: He's crying out to God.
SPEAKER_01: It appears that he's been praying for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: He sees what's happening with Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: He sees what's happening with the temple.
SPEAKER_01: He sees what's happening in Israel and Judah.
SPEAKER_01: And he's very, very frustrated.
SPEAKER_01: And Jeremiah is struggling also.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah's a contemporary of his.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what he says: Righteous are you, O Lord, when I plead with you, yet let me talk with you about your judgments.
SPEAKER_01: Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
SPEAKER_01: Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?
SPEAKER_01: You see, Jeremiah's struggling with this too, and you struggle with that.
SPEAKER_01: It might be just on a personal nature.
SPEAKER_01: But that's what goes with this life, man.
SPEAKER_01: Life is hard.
SPEAKER_01: God is a mystery.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it feels like that he's shut up heaven and he's not speaking.
SPEAKER_01: Later on, Jeremiah writes, Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed?
SPEAKER_01: Will you surely be to me like an unreliable stream?
SPEAKER_01: As waters that fail?
SPEAKER_01: So one of the remarkable features of the Bible is that God can take it.
SPEAKER_01: Our God, the Christian God, the God of the Old and New Testament, He can take our complaints.
SPEAKER_01: Moses complained.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah complained.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah complained.
SPEAKER_01: David complained.
SPEAKER_01: And God can take it because listen, guys, God's doing something in you, so he can do something through you.
SPEAKER_01: And you wouldn't go there.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: You would not go there on your own.
SPEAKER_01: God has to take you there through the hard things because he's building in you a lack of trust in you and a greater trust in him.
SPEAKER_01: Bible scholar Christopher Wright comments quote, so if you find yourself sometimes racked with questions, unable to see a way to short sort them all out in your head, and perhaps questioning God Himself, then quite frankly and quite biblically, you're in good company.
SPEAKER_01: But you see, here's the thing that makes it interesting.
SPEAKER_01: So here's Habakkuk crying out to God.
SPEAKER_01: I imagine he was on his knees and he's crying out to God.
SPEAKER_01: He says, How long, how long?
SPEAKER_01: I see violence all around.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to use the word violence six times in the book of Habakkuk.
SPEAKER_01: He's crying out to God, but listen, he's crying out to God.
SPEAKER_01: That's really important.
SPEAKER_01: Because we see across Christendom right now with a number of more of like kind of your more in the Christian music industry, what we call deconstructionism.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone heard of deconstructionism?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, good, not many of you.
SPEAKER_01: Don't study it.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: But there are there are a number of people that are deconstructing their faith.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
SPEAKER_01: I'm reconstructing my faith.
SPEAKER_01: How about you?
SPEAKER_01: Because as I go through stuff, I go, you know, I don't really have the capacity to know how to handle that.
SPEAKER_01: So I've got to reconstruct my faith.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're confused about parenting, I'm sure nobody here is like that, but if you've ever been concerned about your parenting and things aren't going perfectly for you, reconstruct your faith.
SPEAKER_01: Don't deconstruct your faith, reconstruct your faith.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Habakkuk understood what had happened to Israel in the Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: This would have been on his mind.
SPEAKER_01: Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage they were under and they cried out.
SPEAKER_01: And their cry came up to God because of the bondage.
SPEAKER_01: So God heard their groaning.
SPEAKER_01: And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: And God looked upon the children of Israel and God acknowledged him.
SPEAKER_01: You see, he's praying because he knows God does hear.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying it seems like you don't hear, but he knows God hears.
SPEAKER_01: He wouldn't be saying it.
SPEAKER_01: He's not speaking just to the sky.
SPEAKER_01: He's speaking because he has an intimate relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, if you're going through something, keep crying out.
SPEAKER_01: Keep crying out.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about you figuring out the solutions, it's about God coming with the solution.
SPEAKER_01: But you can miss it.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: You can miss it if you quit.
SPEAKER_01: God never forces us to pray.
SPEAKER_01: He invites us into the throne room of prayer so that He can bring deliverance in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember a really, really difficult time in my life where it seemed like everywhere I turned, closed door, closed door, closed door.
SPEAKER_01: For five years.
SPEAKER_01: Five years prayer walking, five years prayer walking every morning.
SPEAKER_01: But you see, what God was doing in that five years is He was building into Steve Holt something that I couldn't learn any other way.
SPEAKER_01: And so the pilgrimage of discipleship is this God often delays your deliverance in order to form us for his deliverance.
SPEAKER_01: He wants the credit, he wants the glory, he wants the power in your life because he did it.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes he has to take us to the end of ourselves before he can work in us in order to work through us with the new person that he's developing in us, his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to look at Psalm 3.
SPEAKER_01: So just flip to Psalm 3, and I want to close with this.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 3.
SPEAKER_01: Because I know that Habakkuk would have read, it wasn't called Psalm 3 back then, but he would have read this Psalm and he would have known it.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why he keeps crying out to God.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, how they have increased who trouble me.
SPEAKER_01: Many are they who rise up against me.
SPEAKER_01: Many are they who say of me, there's no help from him in God.
SPEAKER_01: You ever heard that from people?
SPEAKER_01: There's no help from God.
SPEAKER_01: But you, O Lord, are shields around me.
SPEAKER_01: My glory in the one who lifts up my head.
SPEAKER_01: And I cried to the Lord with my voice, and he heard me from his holy hill.
SPEAKER_01: So God's inviting us up to ascend the hill of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Abacuck's about.
SPEAKER_01: So the next several weeks, we're going to look at the journey of the shadow of death, the journey of the valley, ascending up to where Christ is.
SPEAKER_01: Because, man, when we get to the end of this book, you're gonna, your mind and your face are gonna be blown away with the journey in such a short period of time, what God does in Abaca, and what God can do in you and in your life.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.