SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: So you have your Bible or your device, I encourage you to make your way to the Old Testament prophet of Habakkuk.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a Bible or a device with you, you can use the black Bible in the seat back in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: If my dyslexic tendencies are not functioning, I think it's page 786.
SPEAKER_01: Although it might be 876 or 678.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's 786.
SPEAKER_01: 786, I believe.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: We have heard already from Peter this morning that we should take care.
SPEAKER_01: Take care that you are not carried away and lose your own stability, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Peter suggests that if we are not growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be prone to lose our stability.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way, as Dana has just prayed, if we give in to disappointment and discouragement without orienting ourselves in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be prone to take our discouragement and disappointment to discontentment to, what was your word, Dana?
SPEAKER_01: Metastasizing, something like that.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk, the prophet, is an excellent case study of how to handle those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk was disappointed.
SPEAKER_01: He was discouraged.
SPEAKER_01: You might even say that he was on the verge of becoming angry with God.
SPEAKER_01: He was uncertain with his world.
SPEAKER_01: He couldn't make sense of it.
SPEAKER_01: He asked questions.
SPEAKER_01: He prayed to God, seeking answers, seeking understanding.
SPEAKER_01: And when God did give him a response, it didn't help.
SPEAKER_01: What do we do when disappointment and discouragement and lack of understanding invade our lives and tempt us and take us off track, potentially even to the place of instability?
SPEAKER_01: Well, Peter, I think, echoes the answer in the scripture passage that was read for us earlier.
SPEAKER_01: But scripture, or the scripture that Peter puts in there in 2 Peter chapter 3, is merely echoing other places of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Particularly, I think, the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_01: For the book of Proverbs echoes a very profound theme.
SPEAKER_01: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and understanding and wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: For example, Proverbs 2, verse 6 says that the Lord gives wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: From his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
SPEAKER_01: You want knowledge and understanding?
SPEAKER_01: You listen to what God says.
SPEAKER_01: Similarly, Proverbs 15, verse 33 says, the fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Fools, on the other hand, hate knowledge and understanding and do not choose to fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So knowledge and understanding and wisdom all come from above.
SPEAKER_01: And the path to receiving knowledge and understanding and wisdom for life is through fearing the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We can say that a little bit differently, perhaps from God's viewpoint.
SPEAKER_01: God Himself grants knowledge and understanding of that knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: And he gives the wisdom then to apply that understanding and knowledge to all of life.
SPEAKER_01: And the means by which God does that is by fearing Him.
SPEAKER_01: The pathway to knowledge, understanding, and wisdom is critical for a life of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Living as God's people in a fallen world is not easy.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Eric.
SPEAKER_01: Great point.
SPEAKER_01: You will face trials of many kinds.
SPEAKER_01: It is not easy.
SPEAKER_01: We often feel as though we lack the necessary knowledge to go forward.
SPEAKER_01: We lack understanding to process what's going on in our own lives, much less the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_01: We do not always understand what God is doing, and so we cry out for wisdom and understanding in order to live faithfully, especially when we're uncertain, hurt, disappointed, discouraged, lost.
SPEAKER_01: We've observed all of those things during our walk through the short book of Habakkuk.
SPEAKER_01: The prophet struggled to make sense of his world while not understanding God's ways.
SPEAKER_01: But he still desired to follow God faithfully.
SPEAKER_01: So we're sort of at an impasse.
SPEAKER_01: God says, here's who I am, here's what I do.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk says, I don't understand, and God says, that's right, you don't understand.
SPEAKER_01: So what do we do?
SPEAKER_01: When God says, my ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts, but follow me faithfully anyway, what do we do?
SPEAKER_01: Well, God gave the prophet Habakkuk knowledge and understanding of the divine perspective and of God's actions.
SPEAKER_01: But he didn't always comprehend how that meshed with his own life in his own world.
SPEAKER_01: But what Habakkuk does is really profound.
SPEAKER_01: He teaches us that living a life of faith amid an uncertain world requires fearing God.
SPEAKER_01: The fear of the Lord is the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: We want to get to the of wisdom part, of knowledge part, of understanding part.
SPEAKER_01: Let's not miss the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: The fear of the Lord is the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: Our passage for this morning is Habakkuk chapter 3, verses 1 through 16.
SPEAKER_01: If you have your Bible or device, if you'd follow along as I read it, it says, A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet according to Shigeonoth.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear.
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of years, revive it.
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of the years, make it known.
SPEAKER_01: In wrath, remember mercy.
SPEAKER_01: God came from Timan and the Holy One from Mount Peran.
SPEAKER_01: His splendor covered the heavens.
SPEAKER_01: The earth was full of his praise.
SPEAKER_01: His brightness was like the light, rays flashed from his hand, and there he veiled his power.
SPEAKER_01: Before him went pestilence and plague, followed at his heels.
SPEAKER_01: He stood and measured the earth.
SPEAKER_01: He looked and shook the nations.
SPEAKER_01: Then the eternal mountains were scattered.
SPEAKER_01: The everlasting hills sank low.
SPEAKER_01: His were the everlasting ways.
SPEAKER_01: The curtains of the land of Midian trembled.
SPEAKER_01: Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord?
SPEAKER_01: Was your anger against the rivers, or your indignation against the sea when you rode on your horses, on your chariot of salvation?
SPEAKER_01: You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows.
SPEAKER_01: You split the earth with rivers.
SPEAKER_01: The mountains, they saw you and writhed.
SPEAKER_01: The raging waters swept on, the deep gave forth its voice, it lifted its hands on high.
SPEAKER_01: The sun and the moons stood still in their place.
SPEAKER_01: At the light of your arrows they sped.
SPEAKER_01: At the flash of your glittering spear, you marched through the earth in fury, you threshed the nations in anger.
SPEAKER_01: You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed.
SPEAKER_01: You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck.
SPEAKER_01: You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret.
SPEAKER_01: You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters.
SPEAKER_01: I hear, and my body trembles.
SPEAKER_01: My lips quiver at the sound.
SPEAKER_01: Rottenness enters my bones.
SPEAKER_01: My legs tremble beneath me.
SPEAKER_01: Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: The way Habakkuk chapter 3 begins here is significant.
SPEAKER_01: Says it's a prayer of Habakkuk according to Shigeonoth.
SPEAKER_01: And if you look at the very end of the book, you will also see that it was intended to be written and to be used by the choir master along with stringed instruments.
SPEAKER_01: That means that what we hear is a lyrical prayer, it is a prayerful hymn.
SPEAKER_01: Here is a man who has been impacted by the word and the revelation of God, and this is what results from that impact.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I've heard the report of you, and your work do I fear.
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
SPEAKER_01: This prayer song encapsulates the central messages of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_01: The prophet expresses his trust that God will be faithful to his word, all while acknowledging he fears the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Our last verse for this morning is verse 16, which describes physical trembling and quivering.
SPEAKER_01: It encapsulates the prophet's response, his fearful response, to understanding life from God's perspective.
SPEAKER_01: We've already thought and talked about in previous weeks how we are not like God.
SPEAKER_01: We struggle to see our present in light of the end.
SPEAKER_01: If we describe it from God's vantage point, but describe it in human terms, we might say that God looks as at a thousand years as if it were just one day.
SPEAKER_01: He can see the end of this world and keep it in mind at every single moment.
SPEAKER_01: A marathon is like a hundred-meter sprint to God.
SPEAKER_01: He can see the end, though it's miles and miles away.
SPEAKER_01: But we who are bound to time struggle because we don't understand God's mind and we struggle with the length of our race.
SPEAKER_01: Our hundred-meter dash feels like it's two marathons sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Our race feels long and we cannot always see the present in light of the finish line.
SPEAKER_01: But there are moments when God graciously gives and enables us to see life through his eyes.
SPEAKER_01: The third chapter of Habakkuk is one of those chapters.
SPEAKER_01: God has raised Habakkuk's line of sight to glimpse the larger picture of God's universal and even eternal work.
SPEAKER_01: And this song, this prayer, is the result of what Habakkuk has seen and heard.
SPEAKER_01: What we hear from the heart of Habakkuk is grounded in the reality that God is a saving God.
SPEAKER_01: This whole portion is full of language from Israel's history, pointing to God's work of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: You probably heard it especially in verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed.
SPEAKER_01: This is about the reality that God saves.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk could stand wherever he was, looking at life and his world with all of its uncertainty, with all of its confusion, and be grounded in the fact that God saves.
SPEAKER_01: He could look at his history and know God saves.
SPEAKER_01: He works toward the salvation of his people.
SPEAKER_01: And so when God revealed to the prophet that disaster and destruction and even death lay ahead of God's people, the prophet could remind himself that God works toward filling the world with his glory by saving his people.
SPEAKER_01: And that must always be a ground for God's people.
SPEAKER_01: You will be driven and tossed by the wind on the stormy sea of life if you are not grounded in the reality that God is a saving God who has already acted in history to deliver his people.
SPEAKER_01: You must ground today and tomorrow and the rest of this year and the rest of your life in the truth that God is working to fill the world with his majestic glory, including saving his people.
SPEAKER_01: That truth became Habakkuk's grounding reality as he processed life through God's eyes.
SPEAKER_01: We see in verse 2 that God gave the prophet a verbal kind of report.
SPEAKER_01: He heard it.
SPEAKER_01: Yet there is also a vision that he saw.
SPEAKER_01: We see that in verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: And that hearing and that seeing shook him.
SPEAKER_01: It shook him.
SPEAKER_01: And then he recorded it as God told him to in chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: He recorded it to be read and to be felt as though we are hearing and seeing it.
SPEAKER_01: What God showed the prophet moved him to fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_01: But in the end, it led him to trusting God no matter what.
SPEAKER_01: As we hear it, and as we see it, we should be moved to fear and trembling and toward trust in God no matter what.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what happened to Habakkuk and what should take place within us.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk shows us first that fearing God is the path to knowing God.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk knew God's word already.
SPEAKER_01: We saw that back in chapter 1 and verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: He knew the law, he knew the Torah, he knew God's character in chapter 1, verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: He understood all about God.
SPEAKER_01: He understood his word.
SPEAKER_01: He has some indication that he was familiar with the Psalms, that he knew Isaiah's prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: This is a learned man in the words and the ways of God.
SPEAKER_01: But he's confused and concerned when his perspective on life and his world doesn't align with what he believed to be true about God.
SPEAKER_01: So Habakkuk's perceptions prompted questions that God addressed by speaking and revealing.
SPEAKER_01: That vision gave the prophet some perspective.
SPEAKER_01: It enabled him to see God's vantage point.
SPEAKER_01: And so hearing God's report moved the prophet to fear.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Oh Yahweh, that name for Israel's covenant God, I have heard.
SPEAKER_01: I heard the report, and I fear you.
SPEAKER_01: I fear your work.
SPEAKER_01: What does Solomon say?
SPEAKER_01: The fear of the Lord is the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: It is the beginning of knowledge and of understanding and of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk was genuinely unsettled about what God was doing and about to do.
SPEAKER_01: And he feared what that meant for his people.
SPEAKER_01: But even more, Habakkuk feared his God.
SPEAKER_01: Look at how he describes God.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: His splendor is overwhelming.
SPEAKER_01: Covers the heavens, such that the earth is full of his praise.
SPEAKER_01: So his splendor is overwhelming, his praise is everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 4, his brightness is blinding.
SPEAKER_01: And also in verse 4, he has to control his power, presumably so that the earth isn't destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5, destruction and death result from his power.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 6 is his immensity is greater than this planet.
SPEAKER_01: His strength surpasses that of any nation.
SPEAKER_01: I read an article about how governments are now using the abilities of artificial intelligence in warfare.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that might be great for nations, but it doesn't stand a chance against God.
SPEAKER_01: God is greater than any nation.
SPEAKER_01: Also in verse 6, his position as creator causes the land formations to react.
SPEAKER_01: Over our Easter season, we studied earthquakes.
SPEAKER_01: The mountains quake in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: Here it says they were scattered.
SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 10, they saw you and writhed.
SPEAKER_01: Verse six, we also see that Habakkuk understands that God is eternal.
SPEAKER_01: His were the everlasting ways.
SPEAKER_01: So Habakkuk's only response to this overwhelming nature of God's character is to pray for mercy.
SPEAKER_01: He's heard what God's going to do.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to send this foreign evil nation to wipe out peoples, to conquer Judah, Habakkuk's own people, and he says, God, the only thing that I can do is to ask that you would remember mercy in the midst of your wrath against sin.
SPEAKER_01: The revelation of God's glory and majesty combined with God's power and sovereignty was a terror to the prophet.
SPEAKER_01: He acknowledged God has a right to be full of wrath.
SPEAKER_01: So he asks for mercy.
SPEAKER_01: God's revelation to the prophet Habakkuk humbled him so that he was filled with awe and fear, such that his body shook.
SPEAKER_01: When was the last time we were that afraid of our saving God?
SPEAKER_01: God revealed himself to his prophet.
SPEAKER_01: That revelation humbled him.
SPEAKER_01: That's an essential truth, I think, for modern believers.
SPEAKER_01: As you work through scripture, you find that your heart, otherwise known as your experiences, your feelings, your sensations, are not the means by which God draws people into greater significant relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what he uses.
SPEAKER_01: He uses the revelation of his being.
SPEAKER_01: He uses his word that's been recorded for us.
SPEAKER_01: The knowledge of God that comes through fearing God, revealed in the scriptures, is the primary means of drawing closer to your God.
SPEAKER_01: But beware.
SPEAKER_01: If you desire to fear your God through the revelation of the scriptures, you might fear him in trembling.
SPEAKER_01: The beginning of verse seven may describe some of the vision that Habakkuk saw.
SPEAKER_01: The verbs here changed to hear from hearing to seeing.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's describing the effect of the pouring out of God's wrath.
SPEAKER_01: Peoples trembled.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: Mountains writhed, the sun and the moon stood still as God threshed the nations in his anger.
SPEAKER_01: We can't say for sure what Habakkuk saw.
SPEAKER_01: Some scholars contend that Habakkuk is reviewing history, that he's reviewing God's saving work on behalf of Israel in the past, like the Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: Some argue that he's reviewing what God showed him he's about to do with the nations of Assyria and Babylon and so on.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever the case, there is a shift here.
SPEAKER_01: The first part of chapter 3 describes this majestic revelation of God, such that he is so glorious and so majestic that he can't be contained and can't be looked at.
SPEAKER_01: His power has to be held back.
SPEAKER_01: And the prophet feared God, and that fear led to knowing God.
SPEAKER_01: That fear and knowledge made Habakkuk stop his questions, and it motivated prayerful worship as he shook in his sandals.
SPEAKER_01: Now, he knows God.
SPEAKER_01: He knew his word and he knew his God.
SPEAKER_01: He believed in his God, that's why he was a prophet.
SPEAKER_01: But now he really knows God.
SPEAKER_01: His fearing God has led to knowing God.
SPEAKER_01: What we find next is that knowing God is the path to understanding God.
SPEAKER_01: What does Habakkuk understand?
SPEAKER_01: After this revelation, he's heard this report, he's seen this vision.
SPEAKER_01: What does he understand?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he understands in verse 7 that God's plan involves more than just the prophet's people.
SPEAKER_01: You remember all the way back to chapter 1 in the first three or four verses, all Habakkuk complained about was that God wasn't doing things for his people and for his word and for his name.
SPEAKER_01: God, no, that now reveals that he is working in everyone.
SPEAKER_01: The scope of God's work is far greater than we usually think.
SPEAKER_01: That's hard for us as human beings to comprehend and to really process because it means we have to let go of our pride.
SPEAKER_01: It means we have to realize God isn't just about me.
SPEAKER_01: God is working on a much grander scale that involves millions and billions and maybe more people.
SPEAKER_01: Now the prophet begins to understand that God's work is not just in his life or in his people's life, but it goes beyond him and his pride.
SPEAKER_01: Growth in knowing God is in part accepting the truth that God is working on a massive scale of which I am only a speck.
SPEAKER_01: Yet while I'm only a speck in God's plan, He cares for me.
SPEAKER_01: He knows me intimately, such that He knows the decreasing number of hairs on my head.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that humbling?
SPEAKER_01: Here is this massive, omnipotent, glorious God who puts me in my place.
SPEAKER_01: And yet at the same time, he reminds me that he knows me and he cares for me.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk's understanding that.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk began by complaining, God, there's sin all over.
SPEAKER_01: Why aren't you doing something about it?
SPEAKER_01: Now he understands God is doing something about it.
SPEAKER_01: I just don't understand it.
SPEAKER_01: I can't always see what God is doing, but he is angered by sin and he will address it.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, in verses eight and verse 13, he understands that God's wrath and action against sin do not at all negate his saving work.
SPEAKER_01: It goes along with it.
SPEAKER_01: God can deal with sin and save his people all at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: How can he do that?
SPEAKER_01: By his greatness and his power.
SPEAKER_01: That's what verses 9, 10, 11, and 12 encapsulate.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk now is beginning to move from that knowing God to understanding God, about beginning to apply that knowledge to life and his world.
SPEAKER_01: So what does Habakkuk conclude?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13, verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk concludes that God has and will act for the salvation of his people.
SPEAKER_01: He will do that.
SPEAKER_01: That is his character.
SPEAKER_01: No matter what life looks like for you, and no matter how much you question what God is doing or where God is, you can believe and know and understand God is working towards the salvation of his people.
SPEAKER_01: You can know and believe and understand that God has and will judge the wicked.
SPEAKER_01: It may not feel like it.
SPEAKER_01: It may feel like the Psalms all over again.
SPEAKER_01: Why do the wicked prosper?
SPEAKER_01: Why is this going on?
SPEAKER_01: Where are you, God?
SPEAKER_01: Why aren't you dealing with those people?
SPEAKER_01: Why do they have all of the success?
SPEAKER_01: God has and will judge the wicked because in verse 14 we realize God is a divine warrior who defends his character and saves his people.
SPEAKER_01: And if you look at verse 15, we also see that God is the unparalleled creator who goes where he wants and does what he wants.
SPEAKER_01: You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of the mighty waters.
SPEAKER_01: Most likely this comes from Psalm 77.
SPEAKER_01: It's a pretty fascinating passage of scripture that recounts God's work in the Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: So Psalm 77 is a psalm of praise to God for his work in the Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: It's also connected with the psalmist himself.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 15 of Psalm 77, we read, You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: Then most likely, picturing the division of the waters of the Red Sea, it says in Psalm 77, 16, When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, the deep trembled, the clouds poured out water, the skies gave forth thunder, your arrows flashed on every side, the crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind, your lightnings lighted up the world, the earth trembled and shook.
SPEAKER_01: Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters, yet your footprints were unseen.
SPEAKER_01: You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
SPEAKER_01: Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters, yet your footprints were unseen.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that the way that God works in your life?
SPEAKER_01: You look back and you see, God has taken me through places.
SPEAKER_01: I can't see how he's done it.
SPEAKER_01: I just know that I once was over there and now I'm over here.
SPEAKER_01: They were scared to death.
SPEAKER_01: They thought they were going to die.
SPEAKER_01: Seasoned sailors, seasoned fishermen who had experienced everything that the Sea of Galilee had thrown at them throughout their lives.
SPEAKER_01: They were afraid, and yet here comes Jesus walking on the water.
SPEAKER_01: His way was through the sea.
SPEAKER_01: His path was on the water, yet his footprints weren't seen.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk is beginning to understand his God as he takes what he knows and he begins to apply it to his life.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's return to the question of what Habakkuk understood.
SPEAKER_01: He made some conclusions about his God after some understanding, but let's return to that question of what he understood.
SPEAKER_01: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and understanding and wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: We saw how the prophet feared God, and that led to gaining knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: And now we've seen that Habakkuk began to consider his world, his people, and his life from the vantage point of that new knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: That's understanding.
SPEAKER_01: He interprets his circumstances and his life situations not from his senses, but through God's revelation.
SPEAKER_01: So what did Habakkuk now understand about his circumstances in his world?
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you four things quickly.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, Habakkuk understood that Yahweh is God, and he is not.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk's been humbled, he's been put in his place.
SPEAKER_01: A lot like Job was.
SPEAKER_01: When you have a revelation of who your God is, and you now you now know and understand the greatness and the majesty of your God, you recognize he is God.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm not.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, Habakkuk understood that Yahweh is God and works all things toward his intended goal for history.
SPEAKER_01: Even, even if it means using unexpected and evil people to accomplish those ends.
SPEAKER_01: Put differently, Habakkuk now understood that God is God, and God's ways are not Habakkuk's ways.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, Habakkuk understood that God's character remains unchanged and immovable.
SPEAKER_01: He is the omnipotent creator who fills the earth with his glory at the right time while being the perfect and complete salvation for his people.
SPEAKER_01: What a comfort is that for us.
SPEAKER_01: One day you're going about life, and the next day you're diagnosed with terminal cancer.
SPEAKER_01: One day you're going about life, everything's perfect and fine, and the next day a close friend of yours has their life up-ended.
SPEAKER_01: With all kinds of stories.
SPEAKER_01: Life changes.
SPEAKER_01: But when you begin to know and understand that you have an unchanging God, suddenly the landscape is left less shifting.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't move as much because you're resting in your knowledge and understanding of an unchanging God.
SPEAKER_01: Now we should all get to that place of understanding.
SPEAKER_01: And many of us can and do.
SPEAKER_01: We genuinely fear our God.
SPEAKER_01: We come to know him through his word.
SPEAKER_01: We read his word.
SPEAKER_01: We study it.
SPEAKER_01: We listen.
SPEAKER_01: We begin to understand his ways of working in his world.
SPEAKER_01: But that is the point where things get tricky for most of us.
SPEAKER_01: We can get stuck right there and never move beyond, never progress beyond fearing, knowing, and understanding.
SPEAKER_01: So what does it look like to go one step further?
SPEAKER_01: Well, understanding God is the path to trembling before God.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: I hear.
SPEAKER_01: And my body trembles.
SPEAKER_01: My lips quiver at the sound.
SPEAKER_01: Rottenness enters into my bones.
SPEAKER_01: The prophet heard the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: And his legs became like jelly and jello, shaking, quivering.
SPEAKER_01: From hearing.
SPEAKER_01: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a unique path there that we don't often recognize.
SPEAKER_01: The fear of the Lord is the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: That fear may be small at the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: It may include a portion of genuine fear of an extraordinary and powerful being, and it may involve an element of awe and reverence for who God is and what he's done.
SPEAKER_01: But that fear of the Lord grows.
SPEAKER_01: It increases over time as our knowledge of the Lord broadens and deepens.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a tree that grows bit by bit.
SPEAKER_01: Its roots go a little bit deeper, it gets a little bit taller each year, yet it's consistently growing, even if it's imperceptible.
SPEAKER_01: And as our knowledge of the Lord increases, so does our fear.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord causes then our understanding to increase as our knowledge and fear grow.
SPEAKER_01: And that as that understanding of God's character and his ways expands, so does our fear.
SPEAKER_01: So imagine a chain.
SPEAKER_01: All linked together.
SPEAKER_01: We have fear and knowledge and understanding and wisdom all linked like a chain.
SPEAKER_01: But as one link is strengthened, so is the next link strengthened, and so is the next, and so is the next.
SPEAKER_01: And it might be imperceptible, yet over time you begin to recognize my fear of the Lord is different.
SPEAKER_01: My knowledge is different, my understanding is different.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk feared the Lord at the beginning of chapter one.
SPEAKER_01: As we progress through the book, we can see how God granted him knowledge through revelation, and that knowledge led to understanding, all of which increases his fear.
SPEAKER_01: And now, near the end of this prayerful, worshipful song, we hear how that growth impacted him.
SPEAKER_01: I hear, and my body trembles.
SPEAKER_01: My lips quiver at the sound, rottenness enters my bones, my legs tremble beneath me.
SPEAKER_01: It's fascinating to me that Habakkuk doesn't tell us why he was so afraid.
SPEAKER_01: But the options are limited, I think, to what he has written here.
SPEAKER_01: That means he is shaking in fear either from the reality that the Babylonians are coming.
SPEAKER_01: He's shaking in fear because the understanding of God's plan to use those evil people for his divine purposes.
SPEAKER_01: Or he's shaking because of his increased and renewed understanding of God's person and character.
SPEAKER_01: All of the above.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's simplest to see Habakkuk's trembling as a combination of all of that.
SPEAKER_01: The prophet grew because of his interaction with God and God's revelation.
SPEAKER_01: His understanding of God's ways and works increased.
SPEAKER_01: His knowledge of God's ways and works and character expanded.
SPEAKER_01: And as a result, Habakkuk's fear of God's omnipotent power, his omniscient understanding, and his universal work deepened his fear.
SPEAKER_01: It elevated his awe.
SPEAKER_01: It expanded his reverence and his respect for his God.
SPEAKER_01: And all of that makes him all jiggly.
SPEAKER_01: You might know a little of how that feels.
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever felt the satisfaction of finding where you are on a map.
SPEAKER_01: Now, some of you are terrible with directions and maps.
SPEAKER_01: You might not get this illustration.
SPEAKER_01: I've enjoyed in my younger years backpacking in the mountains where there are no trails.
SPEAKER_01: So you use a topographical map and you have to find out where you are on the map.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it can get a little scary if you can't find where you are on the map.
SPEAKER_01: Life feels uncertain.
SPEAKER_01: You begin to look at your watch and see how many hours of daylight you have left.
SPEAKER_01: But if if you study the map and and you find your way to exactly where you are on the map, you gain a sense of peace and joy and fright and satisfaction all at the same time because you begin to think, well, what if I hadn't found where I was?
SPEAKER_01: I might be spending the night out here on the mountain by myself.
SPEAKER_01: If you can't find your way on the map, you might end up lost.
SPEAKER_01: You might remain lost or uncertain.
SPEAKER_01: Who knows what would happen?
SPEAKER_01: There's a fright, there's a terror that's there, but there's also a peace and a joy and a satisfaction.
SPEAKER_01: Ah, that's where I am.
SPEAKER_01: Similarly, there is satisfaction in recognizing that you are more in awe and fear of your God's greatness and power and sovereignty than you used to be.
SPEAKER_01: Because you find yourself in a place of terror of the greatness of this God, and yet in awe and reverence that He cares for you all at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: There's a bit of astonishment when you find yourself shaking because of who your God is and understanding his ways and his character anew.
SPEAKER_01: That's a sign, friends, of spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_01: It's a sign of the fear of the Lord, leading to knowledge and understanding.
SPEAKER_01: It's a sign that you grasp God's revelation more and more.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where the prophet Habakkuk found himself.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the end, though, for this morning.
SPEAKER_01: There's one more element we need to notice.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 16, near the end.
SPEAKER_01: Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon the people who invade us.
SPEAKER_01: My friends, trembling before God is the path to trusting God.
SPEAKER_01: It's a hard path.
SPEAKER_01: Truly trusting God comes after our fear has led to knowledge and understanding and a sense of reverence and awe and trembling.
SPEAKER_01: And then we're in a place to throw ourselves on the only one capable of sustaining us.
SPEAKER_01: We need to hear this prophet's statement in conjunction with chapter 2, verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: We looked at last time.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silent before him.
SPEAKER_01: God's revelation impacted the prophet, and that impact went to the core of his being because now he understood I need to zip it.
SPEAKER_01: I need to keep my questions to myself because that leads me to distrust.
SPEAKER_01: He is trembling now.
SPEAKER_01: And that is the path that God has used to lead the prophet to trust him.
SPEAKER_01: Trust didn't mean he no longer trembled.
SPEAKER_01: Trust didn't mean he understood God's ways in his world perfectly.
SPEAKER_01: Trust didn't mean that Habakkuk no longer feared the evil that was running rampant in his world.
SPEAKER_01: Trust meant that he more fully knew his God and he more clearly understood his God.
SPEAKER_01: And in his trembling reaction, he was brought to trust his God.
SPEAKER_01: Habakkuk didn't like what God was doing.
SPEAKER_01: But he trustingly submitted to God's sovereign and good purpose because now he understood that God would make everything right because he's going to fill the earth with his glory by saving his people.
SPEAKER_01: God would deal with the Babylonians.
SPEAKER_01: So we can see then that the faith that fears God is the faith that lives.
SPEAKER_01: The faith that fears God is the faith that lives.
SPEAKER_01: God told Habakkuk that the proud Babylonians were upright, were not upright righteous people.
SPEAKER_01: But those who are righteous will live by their faith.
SPEAKER_01: That's chapter 2, verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: The righteous may be like a tree planted by streams of water that grows little by little, but still growing in fear, knowledge, and understanding of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: But as you grow, your fear of the Lord is enhanced with greater awe and reverence.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you will actually tremble in fear because your awe of God is driven by knowledge of his greatness and the understanding that his ways are not yours.
SPEAKER_01: Other times your awe is driven by your astonishment of his love for you.
SPEAKER_01: That he would save such a worm like me.
SPEAKER_01: But your growth brings you to the place where you can then trust him day by day, moment by moment, month by month, year by year, because you live by faith in God who works all things for his glory and for your ultimate salvation.
SPEAKER_01: So we find ourselves in the prophet's shoes when we recognize that God has purposes unnumbered.
SPEAKER_01: Each one of those purposes good and glorious, even when we cannot see the goodness or feel the goodness or recognize the glory.
SPEAKER_01: As we grow in fear of the Lord and our knowledge and understanding and wisdom, it's all part of God's grace to give us perspective, to help us see our life and world through his eyes.
SPEAKER_01: And that perspective helps us see more clearly that he is God and we are not.
SPEAKER_01: And while we trust, we trust in the one who first loved us and gave himself for us.
SPEAKER_01: Even when we were unlovely.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, thank you that you are the one we can fear.
SPEAKER_01: All powerful, yes, all-knowing, yes.
SPEAKER_01: Eternal, yes.
SPEAKER_01: The beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, the lion of the tribe of Judah, yet that lion is also the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_01: The Lamb who gave his life for us to redeem us from the wrath of God against our sins so that we might be saved and ultimately saved.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord, increase our fear of you.
SPEAKER_01: Cause us to know you and to understand your knowledge and light of our world and our circumstances, to be wise people who tremble in your presence and trust you no matter what.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.