Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 24, 2016 | Route 66 - Habakkuk

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January 24, 2016 | Route 66 - Habakkuk · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Were more people who said good morning by far than the people who said good when I asked you how you were doing.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a perfect sermon for you.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a hard um week, hard month actually, here at uh Topeka Bible.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um it's always hard when sickness and when death attack the youngest and the weakest of us.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that has happened.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting this morning, we are uh on a journey through the Bible called Root 66, for the 66 books of the Bible, and we have arrived at about the 35th book, the eighth minor prophet.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: The name is Habakkuk, just try saying that.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Habakkuk, yeah.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now try spelling it without looking.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So but I've uh titled the book, the theme of the book, a defiant faith.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And those of you that know about little five-year-old faith, uh, will will understand the sort of double meaning there that this is a little girl who, even well before her birth, defied the odds until this last week when she slipped into the arms of Jesus.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: But this is a theme that's larger than her, and and that I think is appropriate, perfect for this morning.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I preached on uh this this book, Habakkuk, three years ago.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the special things about this book is that even though it's only like 50 56 verses long, three chapters, by the way, you're still trying to find it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's you know, in there.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody who uh in previous service said, you know, I picked out the Pew Bible and and it just flopped open to it.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I said, well, three years ago I preached a series on the book of Habakkuk.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things we noticed about the book three years ago is how unique it is that it's a conversation back and forth.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: The only book in the Bible like this, a conversation between the writer, the author, and God himself, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel, the only true God, and it's this conversation where the prophet speaks and then God replies, and then the prophet replies, and then God speaks, and back and forth.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, even though it's so short, back then we noticed there are no less than four great verses, some of the greatest verses in the Bible, in this book.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had a we did a scripture memory challenge.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not expecting that even those of you who went through that challenge will remember the verses, but I am expecting that you'll join me at least in saying them out loud as I flash them on the screen right now.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the first one is Habakkuk 2.4.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Say that with me, Habakkuk 2.4.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: The just shall live by faith.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're familiar with that, you've heard that verse.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Paul repeats it uh several times in the New Testament.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: The next verse, Habakkuk, say it with me, 2.14.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Habakkuk 2.20.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Habakkuk 2.20.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is in his holy temple.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let all the earth keep silent before him.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of the book, these great verses, Habakkuk 3, 17 and 18, though the fig tree does not bud, and there is no fruit on the vines, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the uh uh four verses that I mentioned to you that we uh uh tried to learn.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'd like to take you through this book, this conversation between the prophet and God, which starts off in the first four verses with a sort of prayer of frustration.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of a prayer, you know, that you will sometimes hear uh the day of prayer.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: If any of you have ever been down to the Capitol and prayed, then you're familiar with this kind of a prayer.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a prayer for, you know, revival or new leadership or something.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Habakkuk, the prophet, looks up at God and tells him he's just sick of the whole thing.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's sick and disgusted by the mess in his country, he's sick and disgusted by the government tyranny, by the ripoffs, by the violence, by the criminality, by the immorality, by all of it.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he says in verse 2, after introducing himself, this is the oracle or burden of Habakkuk the prophet, and we know that this puts him just before the fall of Judah to Babylon in about 610 BC.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: He says, How long, Lord, must I call for help and you do not listen?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I'm not just upset at what's happening on the streets of Jerusalem.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm upset with the fact, Lord, that you don't seem to be active and moving on this.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not happy with the fact that you appear to be sort of like a couch potato waiting for the NFL game to start.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like the fact that things are just a mess around here, and I've prayed, and nothing seems to be happening, even though you're supposed to be the one in charge.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm ticked and upset about how messed up life is, and by the way, that's what you and I need to do when we're ticked and upset at the way that life is messed up.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: We do need, like Habakkuk, to take it to God.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, Hello, is anybody there?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: How long are you gonna let this go on?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I cry out to you about violence and you don't save.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Key word of the book, I think.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you force me to look at injustice?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: He has five words, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, that describe what's going on in his society.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oppression and violence are right in front of me, strife is ongoing, and conflict escalates.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Justice never prevails, justice is perverted.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, how long must I wait for your justice?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: We need a shake up here, we need a revival, we need a new government, we need something.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: How long must I wait?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And God's response, and by the way, I if you've you need to feel that yourself.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: I felt that yesterday reading about another school shooting in North America up in Saskatchewan where four innocent people die.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: I uh, you know, I feel this way when, you know, I read what Wednesday the news comes out about a 17-year-old Pakistani Christian girl walking home from beauty school with her two best friends, ages 18 and 20.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and a car pulls up with three, you know, Muslim guys who start, you know, wanting, you know, making sexual advances.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the girls say, We're Christians, we don't do that until we're married and so forth.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the and the Muslims yell out, you infidels are only good to service us, and then they run them down with a car, and 17-year-old girl lies dead today because of that.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I cry out to God, you know, how can you allow something like that?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: That seems so unfair.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: When I just got a I just got a tweet a few minutes ago that uh, you know, we support a work in Turkey and a bomb just went off close close to the church, and nobody heard at the church, but I mean right down the street.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, and a few people die.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, What's happening, Lord?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: How long does this have to go on?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and God responds.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And God responds in an interesting way.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Okay, justice is coming.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm bringing Babylon.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the nations, God says, and observe, be utterly astounded.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I'm raising up the Chaldeans, Babylonians, that bitter, impetuous nation that marches across the earth's open spaces to seize territories not its own.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's uh, you know, not the answer, God, that I was looking for.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uh hoping for a little revival, you know, hoping for a new king or whatever.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is this is, you know, and I mean uh, you know, uh Habakkuk's response is, hold it, God.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know your theology, I know the theology, your eyes are too pure to look on evil, meaning the Babylonians.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can't tolerate wrongdoing.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you do that?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you tolerate those who are treacherous?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you silent?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: While the wicked swallow up one is more righteous than himself, meaning us.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're like little orphan annie compared to the wicked witch of the West that you're now bringing on us.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I tell you that our engine here in Jerusalem has got engine problems, and you say, okay, I'll solve it with a rock.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is just not, you know, by the way, have you ever asked a question and then wished you could take it back when you heard the answer?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ever been like that guy that went to the barber, you know, for a for a haircut and a shave, and as he's sitting there and the guy's barber starts to shave.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she's gorgeous, it's not that beautiful manicureist.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: He calls her over and says, Would you give me a manicure?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm getting, you know, a shave.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, sure.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so he starts flirting with her.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: She's giving him a manicure.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says to her, Would you go out with me tonight?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: She says, No, I can't.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm married.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, just tell your husband you're too busy.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, she says, tell him yourself he's giving you a shave.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's when you sort of wish, just when you wish you had an ask, you know, you'd like to take back the question.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or I was reading, you know, you know, these lists of worst things ever, you know, the worst animal rescue ever in Britain when the firefighters went on strike and the British Army took over, and an elderly woman calls and says, I got a my cat's up a tree.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Army says, No problem, we can take care of that.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: They come and get the cat down out of a tree, and they celebrate, and she says, Thank you, and then they drive out of the driveway, run over the cat, and kill it.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Worst animal, sorry, worst animal.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a dog guy.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was a funny story.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, worst animal rescue ever, and that's a lot what's happening here.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you got, you know, God, we've got a little problem, and God says, okay, I'll I'll I'll kill it.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, wipe out Jerusalem.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and and you can understand then why Habakkuk is aghast and says, really, God, really, that's massively unfair.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Please tell me you've got a plan B, because this plan A makes absolutely it's the worst plan you've come up with since unleavened bread.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's going on here?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's a, you know, and then he concludes this response to God by saying, Listen, uh, we won't die.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've decided, you know, I know you better than this, and you've said you're gonna bring him, and I know the Babylonians kill everybody, but I know we're not gonna die, and I'm gonna stand here at my guard post and station myself on the lookout tower.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna watch to see what he'll say to me and what I shall reply.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Convinced, convinced, uh that God will say, uh, yeah, good point.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make any sense.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: How long must I wait for your justice?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, that's how the logic went at the beginning.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: God's answer, I'm bringing Babylon.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And now the prophet says, Whoa, how is it just to discipline your people by letting them be destroyed by a far more evil power?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what God's answer is?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Oh, I'll take care of Babylon later.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: In the end, all evil people will get what they deserve and justice will come.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: You need to trust and wait and hush.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, no, there is no plan B.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're going with my plan, you know, and uh I'll just make sure that Babylon gets judged too.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Again, uh, God, listen, that's that's not the answer I'm looking for either.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: But that's God's answer in in chapter two.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And those of you who are so who've been frustrated, like who of us hasn't been, at the fact that God, you know, I mean, it just seems like God works this way way too often.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Think of 1917, you know, so many Christians in Russia praying that the Tsars would be overthrown, Nicholas.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's such tyranny.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: So so they're overthrown.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: By whom?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lenin and the communists.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: That worked out really well.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then in 1959, so many Christians in Cuba praying Batista is such a he's such a thug.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's just so they pray that Batista will be overthrown, and he is.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: By whom?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Fidel Castro.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: In 1979, the Christians in Iran, the Shah is just, he's he's he's he's overbearing, he's a tyrant.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and so what happens?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here comes Khomeini and the Islamic fundamentalists?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: God, well, what's going on?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then even more recently, in the Middle East, you go, wow, I mean, it's it's it's so bad for Christians over there to take in the land of Syria.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: God brings along ISIS.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: That you say, I don't understand, I don't understand this, and God's answer is, well, I just got to tell you, this is my plan, and in the end, I can promise you that I'll set everything right.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in chapter two, God goes down and he makes sort of five guarantees or five promises that everybody will get in the end what they deserve.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, Mr.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Ripoff will get ripped off.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: If anybody's ever ripped you off at work or wherever you are, or now internationally, they'll get ripped off.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Since you have, he's God speaking to Babylon, basically, says, woe to him who amasses what is not his.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then in verse eight, since you've plundered many nations, all the peoples who will remain will plunder you.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, Mr.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Indestructible will destruct.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody in your life that tortures you that seems indestructible too high and mighty, God says, Woe to him who dishonestly makes wealth for his house, to place his nest on high to escape the reach of disaster.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: It won't work.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'll destroy you.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Promise number three, big city boss is gonna see it all burn up.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed, verse 12, and founds a town with injustice.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna burn, verse 13.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Promise number four, people who humiliate others will get humiliated.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 16, the cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you, and utter disgrace will cover your glory.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Promise number five, money worshippers, or we could say Wall Street worshippers, we could say Hollywood worshipers, we could say sex worshipers, we could say anybody who worships who's addicted to anything other than God is gonna end up looking really stupid one day.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: What use is a carved idol, verse 18?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Last line, verse 19.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: It may be plated with gold and silver, but there's no breath in it at all.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: God says, one day I'm gonna set everything straight.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna happen.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not the way that the way you want, not as quick as you want, but in the end, all evil people will get exactly what they deserve, and justice will come.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what you need to do is, and hidden in this chapter are three of those great memory verses.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: First, you need to trust, you need to trust me, the just shall live by faith.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that verse is correctly used by Paul in the New Testament to talk about the beginning of eternal life.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is, that moment when, you know, as you wander through the world thinking that somehow you can live and get to heaven by your own good behavior, the fact that you're 20% better than the people who live around you on your street, that God says, no, that that simply won't work.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: A pane of glass is broken by the smallest of cracks, and even though your crack may not be as big as the person you know down the street, you still are lost, your pane of glass is still broken, you still are not good enough to get into heaven, and and so as a result, as a result, you're doomed.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Except for one thing, that I sent my son Jesus Christ to take your sin and everybody else's and hang on the cross for it, so that if you lay down your deadly doing and pick up faith and just simply fling yourself upon me and trust me for salvation, look at the cross, there's my sin.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm inside Jesus Christ by faith, he died for me.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then you know what?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'll forgive your sin, make you part of my family, I'll give you eternal life.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: You will come to life by faith.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: But then, of course, through the rest of your life, that I think I spit right on you there.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I got way too excited.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just spraying, you know, out of here.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: But too much information, I understand that, you know.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: I understand why that's that's why the balcony begins filling up first.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: But um but so the rest of your life, the rest of your life, that's how you continue to live each day.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: You live by faith as you've received the Lord.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Colossians 2.6.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: So continue to walk in him.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not only should you trust, but you should wait, you should be patient.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: You need to wait for this all to come about.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I will set it straight in the end, but one day the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: 2.14.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, you know what I'd recommend?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'd recommend a little respect and reverence.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'd recommend you hush.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is in his holy temple.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let all the earth keep silent before him.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: You see, you march your way like Habakkuk does through this, you know, complaining and so forth, and you get to this place, and if you're like Habakkuk, then like Habakkuk at the end of chapter two, with your hand over your heart, you're saying, I trust you.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you have faith.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you're saying, I will wait, and you have patience, and you're saying, I'll quit complaining because you have reverence.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where the prophet is at the end of chapter two, which is why in chapter three, Habakkuk just busts out with this remarkable song of praise.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: The situation hasn't changed, the circumstances are exactly the same, but in chapter three, you know, the the doubt has turned to faith and the complaining has turned into a worshipful, a praise song.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, verse one.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I stand in awe of your deeds.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Revive your work in these years, make it known in these years.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: In your wrath, remember mercy.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I know it's gonna happen.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm shuddered to think that you're about to bring this kind of pain on us.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's happening in your life, right?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: From the lives of many of you right now.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: January is a really tough month.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Loss and pain and suffering.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, please remember mercy at this time.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Woman comes up to me this morning, and she's way too young to have to say this.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: She says, I just got the news this week, I have a malignant cancer.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we gather around my wife and I and someone else, and we hug her and we pray and we cry out and cry for mercy, cry for grace, cry for healing.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because it doesn't seem right that a that a woman that young, basically, you know, should should already be with cancer.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the that's the world we live in, and it is a world of pain, and it's a world of trial.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And in a sense, you could put the whole Bible under these two words, wrath or judgment and mercy or grace.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and the thing is, we all deserve to be over here under wrath and judgment because of who we are, until until we realize that God took the wrath and judgment, put it on his son Jesus Christ, and now who we are is we are objects of grace and objects of God's love and mercy.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so then, of course, what Habakkuk does is is then he does something like what we saw last week in the book of Nahum.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Okay, I've just out of faith and trust, I know that God is the great warrior, and God the warrior is gonna, he's coming to set things straight.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he starts singing this out, verses three and following.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: God comes from Temon, the Holy One from Mount Puran, his splendor covers the heavens.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: The earth is full of his praises, brilliance is like light, rays, lightning rays are flashing from his hand.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: He stands and shakes the earth, verse six.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: He looks and startles the nations, the age-old mountains break apart, the ancient hills sink down, you ride on your horses, your victorious chariot.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Verse eight, you took the sheath from your bow, the arrows are ready to be used.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sun and moon stand still in their lofty residence at the flash of your flying arrows, at the brightness of your shining spear.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: You march across the earth with indignation, you trample down the nations in wrath.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: You come out to save your people, to save your anointed.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Bottom line, what he sings and what he prays in chapter three is this Yahweh is the great warrior God, the wielder of lightning, and he's coming to set things straight.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Again, circumstances haven't changed at all.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: But he's moved from doubt and worrying complaining to what I call perfect faith.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: You see it, I think, described wonderfully.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Best in place in maybe in the entire Bible, these four verses ending the book of Habakkuk, because they describe the three aspects of perfect faith, aspects that I I don't imagine you necessarily think of when you think of faith.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: But they're all here in the first, most surprising is.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: The perfect faith trembles.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: It trembles like a lean to.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm picturing it with the tornado on the way.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: It shudders, it trembles, it's it's full of fear.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I heard, Habakkuk says, and I trembled within.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is verse 16.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: What did he hear?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: He heard heard God say he was going to bring the Babylonians.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I heard and I trembled within.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: My lips quivered at the sound.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I trembled where I stood, because I must wait quietly for the day of distress.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect faith begins by trembling.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually, and you say, really?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I say, yeah.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Think of Abraham, the father of our faith, and how his life has just seemed like moving from one spot of fear and trembling to the next.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And yet his is the model of faith.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Think of King David we think of.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's full of faith in his Psalms.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, as you read the Psalms, you find again and again, starting in Psalm 3, that he's shuddering, he's trembling, he's in the cave, he's hiding.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And yet he's throwing himself on God.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Think of Jeremiah, he's called the weeping prophet.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's weeping, because the distress is about to come.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's a buddy of Habakkuk.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And like Habakkuk, he sees that devastation is coming to his beloved city.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he can hardly handle it.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's trembling.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist in the New Testament.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you say he was a strong man of faith.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody who can eat grasshoppers and wear those clothes.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, he was like that until he got thrown in jail.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then do you remember what he said?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: He sent a message to Jesus saying, you know, I'm starting to wonder, are you really the guy?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Are you really the right one?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: And faith's beginning to tremble as he faced death.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: He began to tremble.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: He began to Paul.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, Paul says, 2 Corinthians is full of this.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Conflicts without fears within.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Fears.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Fears are part of faith.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, fears are the first stage of faith.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because you have to have something that attacks your faith so that you genuinely have something to tremble at.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect faith really trembles because the next stage of faith is that perfect faith is defiant.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Despite what's coming on you, it defies it.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: It says, you know what?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be like a ship that just tacks straight into that giant wave.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go right at it.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is why there's at least one great old song that I grew up singing that I can't sing anymore.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: That goes, uh, that goes, uh, whatever happens, uh, you know, all you know, uh God will take care of, God will take care of you.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: All you may need, He will provide.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: God will take care of you.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing you ask will be denied, God will take care of you.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you know my problem with singing that?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love that song.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Growing up in a little Baptist church.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can't sing it anymore because I know it's not true.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just know all that that somehow all you need will be provided.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, in the Psalm 23 way, but not instantly, not right now.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing you ask will be denied.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, come, again, are you kidding?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's poppycock.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's not my language, that's Habakkuk's, okay?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because many of the things that we ask, he will deny.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, he'll take care of us.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I've got to understand that that there's something I have to defy, and that is I have to be defiant in the face of the fact that not all of my prayers are going to be answered.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Habakkuk puts it this way He says, though the fig tree doesn't bud, and there's no fruit on the vines, though the olive crop fail.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I thought God would supply all of that stuff.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Habakkuk says, No.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: These are not essentials, by the way, for life.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Figs, grapes, olives, those are the crops that you raised.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: They were tasty, took to market, sold so that you could buy other things.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the non-essentials are gonna go.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Babylon's antagonist, but then he hits the essentials.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And though the fields produce no food, wow, no grain, no cereal, no bread.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Though there are no sheep in the pen, there goes our meat.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And though there are no cattle in the stalls, and the fact is it really could be on when there are no cattle, this is actually gonna happen.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: No milk anymore.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: These are essentials for life.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And though this thing's the essentials, the non-essentials, though they are all gone yet, still, defiantly, I will rejoice in the Lord.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you probably have thought of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo, the premier examples of divide, defiant faith in the Bible, perhaps.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Remember 80-foot idol?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: When the music starts, you gotta bow down.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Defiantly they stood.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of stand out when you're standing and thousands of people are kneeling.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: So stand out, so they get drugged before the king.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: The great king says, uh, you know what?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think you better bow down, or else I'm gonna throw you into a fiery furnace.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, you know what?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're not gonna do it.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now we think our God will deliver us.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then comes those four great words.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: But even if not, but even if not, still, still, we refuse to bow down to anyone but Yahweh God.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so what happens?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, he throws them into the fire, and then uh and then the fourth appears, and they are unharmed, they are unsinged, but the real point of this is not that they are rescued, the real point of this is that they had this defiant faith that God honors and that God wants all of us to move to as we tremble.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think the reason this is my favorite phrase about faith, and the fact I think of it all the time over the past 20 years or so, is that some of my favorite authors, writers have used this.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: For example, C.S.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: In the screw tape letters, he has the big demon say to the little demon, Wormwood.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: He has him say, the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please the enemy, that is, God is their enemy, that please the enemy best.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be deceived, Wormwood.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Our cause is never more in danger than when a human looks around upon a universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished and asks why he has been forsaken, and here it comes, and still obeys.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can't help thinking that C.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: S.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis had that thought about a defiant faith because his mentor, 50 years before, George MacDonald, had written, that man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth, that means the lack of his feelings and desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts and failures, and say to him, Thou art my refuge.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: But this phrase, defiant faith, was seared forever upon my heart.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: When a fellow Wheaton grad and Dallas Seminary grad named Jim Means went out, went out to teach at Denver Seminary, and uh, and then his wife, his beloved wife, contracted a malignant cancer.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: She had been his partner and his girlfriend ever since he was in grade school, and she played violin in the band, and he played clarinet.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up boyfriend, girlfriend in high school, married at you know, at age 20 at Wheaton College, went on to Dallas Seminary, and he got a degree, then he went to teach at Denver Seminary, and after been there just a few years, she was diagnosed with cancer, and they prayed and they kept thinking she might be delivered, but it just kept getting worse.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he nursed her just amazingly for 15 years, and then she died at about age 40, and he was absolutely distraught.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to die himself.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to quit teaching at the school and whatever else.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, his therapist was that he wrote a book, I love this book, called A Tearful Celebration.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he says in that book, this my favorite little paragraph, he's asked constantly, Well, how do you survive?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: You loved her so much.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Well, I survived by practicing, here it is, a defiant faith, a faith that scorns the circumstances, obstacles, and impossibilities.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: This brand of faith, flung into the teeth of wild circumstances, doesn't tremble before the tyrants of earth or the demons of hell.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: It challenges the fiends of hell to hurl their fiery darts.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: It exalts, though he slay me, yet will I trust him.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: It stamps a defiant, nevertheless, over everything.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is the defiant faith Habakkuk had, he says.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect faith is defiant.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a faith that is attacked and trembles, but then you decide you determine to have a defiant faith, and you will find that God will do something remarkable for you.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: He will raise you up, he will plant your feet on the mountaintops.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: You've seen it.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you visited hospice or the hospital and you thought you were going to go encourage somebody, right?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then you walk out and you go, they encouraged me.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had that happen?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that remarkable?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, how could they do that?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is sure their faith trembled, but they have a defiant faith in God, and as a result, their faith has risen above the whole storm and above the whole fray and above the attack in such a remarkable way that they're completely above it.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: The verse in Habakkuk 3 that closes the book is, Yahweh, my Lord, is my strength.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: He makes my feet like those of a deer and enables me to walk on mountain heights.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: That deer could be mountain goats, the same word in Hebrew.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: I yell it, but but you've seen it perhaps.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you've maybe climbed to 14,000 or in Colorado, whatever, and then you know you're you're sucking air.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's been four hours, you're whatever.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: You just climb hands and knees.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: I remember climbing hands and knees to get on the top of Mount Lincoln, you know, finally, and then I look over and there's some stupid mountain goat, you know, that's just clambering up and running around, and you're going, you know, give me a break, give me your legs, or something.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's and but that's there's something you see that happen to people, don't you?
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: You sometimes see that.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're absolutely at the end of themselves.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're trembling, they're fearful, and they have a defiant faith in God.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then somehow God just lifts them up and they rise above the storm.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect faith.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it does.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect faith rises above the storm.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: And again, some of my favorite writers, some of my favorite stories uh, you know, illustrate this.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think of the voyage of the dawn treader, Narnia, and they the goal of the ship, it was heading east.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: They really wanted to see the face of Narnia, the land of Narnia again.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not Narnia, but the land of Aslan.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted to see Aslan, the lion, the Lord.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so, uh, and and of all the people on shipboard, the bravest was the king of the talking mice, whose name was Repacheep, everybody's favorite little character.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: And while the prince and and and the other characters, you know, were full of doubt and kept wanting to turn the ship back, Repacheep was determined.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: He knew that, you know, if you go to the Far East, basically that means death, you know, but but he still, he was just determined.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: He had that kind of a defiant faith.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says it at a critical juncture close to the end of the book.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: My own plans are made.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: While I can, I sail east in the dawn treader.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when she sinks, I shall swim east with my forepaws.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's a defiant faith.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of faith you can have even as you face your own death, tremble, defy, and then rise above.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes it's harder to live with this kind of a faith than to die with it, isn't it?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're alive, but it's a loved one, and your heart just just dies within you.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, for example, of someone who's lived with that kind of a faith most of her life.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think of Johnny Erickson Tada.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think of the story she told not long ago about being a speaker at a at a women's conference, and they took a mid-morning break, and so she was in her wheelchair, of course, in the women's restroom.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Came out, and there were other women at the sink, and one woman she said is putting on her lipstick and looked down at her and said, Johnny, I'm just so amazed at you.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: You are always so, you look so good, you're always so put together, you're always so full of joy.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do it?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Johnny says, uh I told her, I don't.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do it.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you mean?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: She said, and all these other women who watched said, Would you like to tell me what it was, would you like me to tell you what it was like this morning?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Really typical morning?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, Yeah.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, she said, you know, at six o'clock, my husband Ken went off to work.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I stayed in bed there.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then at seven, I I heard my friend who comes in the morning.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: This this woman, friend of mine, she she came in the door at seven o'clock.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and as she was fixing coffee, I prayed a prayer.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: She said the same prayer, really, I pray every morning.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: I prayed, oh, oh Lord, my friend will soon give me a bath, get me dressed, sit me up in my chair, brush my hair and teeth, and send me out the door.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have the strength to face this routine one more time.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have no resources.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a smile to take into the day, but you do, me.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: I have yours.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: God, I need you desperately.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Johnny says, the woman said, Well, how did that what happened when she came in the bedroom?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And Johnny says, Well, same thing that happened every morning.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: I turn my head toward her and I give her a smile sent straight from heaven.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not mine, it's God.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said to the women, nodding toward my paralyzed legs, whatever joy you see today was hard won this morning.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: A trembling faith, a defiant faith, and in the end, a faith that rises above.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Songwriter, I like, wrote a song about this, and it's it's sort of a prayer, and I'd like you to recite this with me here at the close as sort of our Habakkuk prayer.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Will you do that with me?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, say it with me.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, give us faith to be strong, give us strength to be faithful.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: This life is not long, but it's hard.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Our bodies are fragile and weary as we stagger and stumble.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Give us faith to be strong, give us a defiant faith.