04 How To Trust God When Judgment Is Coming (Habakkuk 3:1-19)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today is the fourth and final talk in a series on the Old Testament book of Habakkuk. Today we're gonna study Habakkuk chapter 3. The lecture notes are on the link below this podcast. Lecture notes are the handouts I would give you if this were an in-person talk. You can also go to those notes directly by going to wednesdayintheword.com slash Habakkuk 4. Habakkuk is spelled H-A-B-A-K-K-U-K. Thanks for joining me today. I'm so glad you're listening. We're finishing the book of Habakkuk today and let's review how we got here. Habakkuk speaks to two of the most fundamental questions of faith. How long will evil go unpunished? And two, why believe if I'm not exempt from the tragedies of life? When Habakkuk seeks God, his world is undergoing tremendous upheaval. Under the last king, which was probably Josiah, the nation experienced something of a renaissance. They turned away from idols, they turned back to the Lord, they reinstituted the Mosaic law, and they rid the government of corrupt judges and leaders. But now, under the current king, which is probably Jehoiakim, he is turning back the clock. He's undoing all the gains made by his father, he's turning the nation back to idolatry, chaos, and corruption. And in this situation, Habakkuk turns and he seeks the Lord, and this book is a dialogue between the prophet and God. In the first chapter, Habakkuk asks, Why do you make me see this? How long will this evil go on? He doesn't understand how this is a good thing. They had all these reforms under the last king, they were moving in the right direction, and now all of that's been lost and the nation is getting worse. God answers and he tells Habakkuk that the rebellion of his people is not going to last forever. He is going to discipline them and he is about to act in a surprising way. He is sending the Chaldeans, who are also called the Babylonians, to judge his people. Well that really confuses Habakkuk, and he turns to God again and says, Wait a minute, how can you let such an evil people have victory over your people? How can you let the Babylonians, who are a godless nation, a nation who ignores you, who doesn't even know your name and thinks they are God instead, how can you let them continually conquer other nations and even your own people? And yet despite his confusion, Habakkuk affirms his trust in God. In chapter two, one he says I don't understand this, this is seems crazy to me, but I will seek my God. I will stand and I will wait and I will keep watch to see how God will answer. And then in the rest of chapter two, God assures the prophet that in the end there will be justice. The oppressed will be vindicated, and the oppressors will be humiliated. God instructs Habakkuk to write this vision down on a stone tablet so that it will survive the fire and the siege and any warfare that's coming. And I think he probably wants the Babylonians to see it and repent, to see that while they thought they were autonomous and self sufficient, they were actually tools in the hand of God. He is predicting their actions about ten to thirty years before they take them. As evil as they are, God gives them the information they need to see and repent, but he assures Habakkuk that his judgment is coming, evil and wickedness will surely be judged. That brings us to chapter three, and here Habakkuk responds with a psalm, and his response is a beautiful account of faith. He accepts God's will and trusts, even though the immediate future is really dark and terrifying. Let's start with chapter three, verses one and two. A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Sh I don't know how to pronounce this, Shiganiath, something like that. O Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work, O Lord do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it, in the midst of the years make it known, in wrath, remember mercy. Now we're not exactly sure what that term that I couldn't pronounce means. Scholars think it points to some kind of metrical structure or musical setting for the psalm. Some think it refers maybe to an instrument that was played or accompanied this reading of the psalm. It's not really all that important that we know what it means. Scholars that know Hebrew say that this is a beautiful rhythmical composition and that each line in this psalm consists of exactly three words. So it probably was very musical and easily to have a musical accompaniment. And of course, that kind of rhythm and three-word grouping is impossible to translate into English. So Habakkuk starts this psalm with I fear, I've heard your answer, I've heard your report, and I'm afraid. And he has very good reason to fear what's going to happen is going to be horrible, brutal, and violent. Now you could understand this fear as fear in the sense of reverence or awe, and he's affirming his submission to God's will. But in light of how he closes this prayer down in 316, I'm inclined to think that he means fear here in 3.2 in the sense of dread or anxiety. So he's heard God's report of what's going to happen with the Babylonians coming, and he prays for God to revive his work and make his work known among his people in the midst of the years of adversity. So in the midst of the years between now and then, now and when these events are fulfilled, he says basically, please make your work known to your people. I think he must understand that it will be several years before these events take place, and he's praying that God will preserve his people through those years. So during the interval before judgment comes to his people, and especially the interval when they are in exile experiencing that judgment, Habakkuk asks God to continue his work of mercy and keep a remnant. In wrath remember mercy. He asks God to have mercy on his people even as his discipline comes upon them. God's wrath is well deserved, yet please mercifully limit its duration for the sake of your great name. I think that's the sense of what he's praying. Then Habakkuk describes his vision of God. Let's look at three through seven. God came from Timon and the Holy One from Mount Peron, Selah. His splendor covered the heavens and the earth was full of his praise. His brightness was like the light, rays flashed from his hand, and there he veiled his power. Before him went pestilence and plague followed at his heels. He stood and measured the earth, he looked and shook the nations. Then the eternal mountains were scattered, the everlasting hills sank low, his were the everlasting ways. I saw the tents of Kushan in affliction, the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. Now in this section, the English Standard Version puts all these verbs in the past tense, but if you read the New American Standard, it has them all in the present tense. So what's going on there? Well, my understanding is that some of the Hebrew verbs are in the future tense and others are in the past tense. And the question is whether Habakkuk is recalling past events in history or describing his vision of the future coming of God in judgment. Now sometimes in Hebrew, future predictions are put in the past tense, and they call that the prophetic perfect. The idea behind that is the event described as in the future, but God has predicted it. And because God has predicted it, it's guaranteed to happen, so it's as good as if it's already happened and it can be described in the past. And the ESV could be rendering this the past tense as that kind of prophetic past tense, or they could understand Habakkuk to be recalling God's past work. I lean toward the New American Standard present tense understanding. I think Habakkuk is describing the vision God gave him of his coming judgment. Let's look at three and four again. God came from Timon and the Holy One from Mount Peran, Selah, his splendor covered the heavens and the earth was full of his praise. His brightness was like the light, rays flashed from his hands, and there he veiled his power. Taman is a district in Edom, which is in the northwest, and Mount Param is in the southeast near Mount Sinai. So I think he's using these two geographical points to say from north to south or from west to east and basically everywhere. The picture is when the Lord comes he will be seen from everywhere. His glory will cover all the heavens and all the earth will see it and praise him. And all the powers of nature are subject to him. His glory is light and radiance throughout all the heavens and earth. His brightness is greater than the sun. His brightness is so great that like the sun he has rays of light beaming from his hands even as he veils or holds back his power. I believe that is more literally there is a hiding of his divine power. He's reigning it in is the idea. Now I don't think this is literal that he has literal rays flashing from his hand like some kind of superhero, but Habakkuk is trying to describe the glory and the radiance, and he's I think he's saying his brightness is so great that like the sun has rays flashing from it, it's like God has rays flashing from his hand because he is that glorious. three five and six before him went pestilence and plague followed at his heels. He stood and measured the earth, he looked and shook the nations, then the eternal mountains were scattered, the everlasting hills sank low, his were the everlasting ways. So pestilence and plague, one being the forerunner and the other bringing up the rear, indicate that the Lord is coming in judgment. His patience has ended and the day of judgment has arrived. Habakkuk describes the splendor of God's coming and then he turns to the reason he's coming. He is shaking the nations. He's come to avenge and to judge. He's come to judge his enemies. He stood in judgment and measured the earth. Now it was customary for a king who conquered a nation to measure it out and then divide it up among his people, and I think that's the metaphor here. God, the victorious king, is standing and measuring his kingdom. Now up to this point the coming of God has not actually touched the earth. He's been describing how it filled the heavens. Plague and pestilence have foreshadowed the effect it's going to have on the earth, but now we get to see it. God looks and stands and metaphorically sets his foot upon the earth and it shakes the nations. As his glory filled the heavens, so now his presence covers the earth from end to end. Huge mountains are cleft in half, hills sink low, nations melt away, nations tremble at his approach, and we see this bowing and shaking movement like an earthquake as the earth acknowledges its Lord and creator. Everyone and everything bows to his authority. We think that mountains and hills are everlasting, that they're just going to stand there forever, and there's no amount of time could elapse that will bring them down, but they just crumble before the Lord. It is the Lord's ways that are everlasting. What we think of as the everlasting hills and mountains are actually scattered before God. By contrast, his word and his will stand. Everyone and everything else bows before him. So we saw the response of the heavens and the earth, and we saw this brief notice that the nations trembled, now we see the response of the earth's inhabitants. In three seven I saw the tents of Kushan in affliction, the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. There's some debate over whether Kushan is an alternate name for Kush, which is in Ethiopia, and if that's the case, then Kush is in the west and Midian is in the east, and this verse is saying from west to east, everywhere the land trembled. Others think that Kushan is another name for Midian, and that these two phrases are exactly parallel, and the sense is that this is the people of the Sinai region, the people of that region trembled. But even scholars who go that route say they probably stand for all the people of the earth, and that he's talking about everyone everywhere. Tents and curtains are transitory, they can be torn and ripped and blown away. The picture is that their shelter is not going to protect them. They shelter themselves under tents and curtains in a futile attempt to shield themselves from the glory of the Lord, but their very tents and curtains tremble before him. Then Habakkuk asks a question, let's look at three eight through twelve. Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? Was your anger against the rivers or your indignation against the sea when you rode on your horses on your chariot of salvation? You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows, Sela, you split the earth with rivers, the mountains saw you and writhed, the raging waters swept on, the deep gave forth its voice, it lifted its hands on high, the sun and the moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped, at the flash of your glittering spear, you marched through the earth in fury, you threshed the nations in anger. Now this language about conquering the seas and splitting the waters may be an allusion to the parting of the Red Sea when God parted it to deliver the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. Habakkuk could be comparing this appearance of God in his chariot of war with his bow drawn, ready to rescue his people to the time when he rescued his people from the pursuing chariots of the Egyptians as he parted the Red Sea and let them cross over on dry ground. Habakkuk asks an interesting question, if he's indeed recalling that, was God angry with the rivers when he turned the Nile to blood? Was he angry with the sea when he parted it to let his people escape the Egyptians? No, God meant more by these acts. True, all the forces of nature recognize the almighty God and offer no resistance to his coming, but God is conquering the forces of chaos to bring judgment and the deliverance of his people. God is riding chariots of salvation, he is coming in judgment, but his purpose is to save, rescue, and vindicate his people. The bow is out of its sheath, ready to fire many arrows. When the bow was covered and put away, God's judgment was delayed, but now that delay is over and his patience is at an end. The mountains tremble, showers of water sweep the land and the ocean cries out. The sun and moon stand still in awe at the glory of the Lord. All of nature bows and submits to the Lord, but the outpouring of his wrath is not against nature, it's against the nations of the earth. God threshed the nations to avenge and deliver his people. It's interesting, it's no matter how unlikely the event, such as parting the Red Sea, or how terrifying, such as letting the Babylonians conquer Jerusalem, or how unexpected, such as the Messiah dying on a cross and being resurrected, all these things are working to bring about the salvation and deliverance of God's people. The purpose is salvation, and that's what Habakkuk goes on to say. Let's look at three, thirteen through fifteen. You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck, Saleh. 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. You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters. As powerful and awe inspiring as the Lord's actions are, his purpose is not to quell the forces of nature, but to vindicate his people and judge those who oppress them. This term anointed was properly used to refer to the Davidic King. The Davidic King was God's anointed one. In later times it came to refer to the Messiah, the one Davidic King who would rule forever. I think here in this context it's parallel with your people in contrast with the wicked, and probably means more generally God's chosen people or God's anointed people. The head of the wicked is crushed, he is laid bare from thigh to neck, a very visual image in which he is utterly destroyed. He says the wicked came in like a whirlwind, expecting to devour their prey, which is presumably God's people, and they expected to be able to conquer their prey and then drag them to a secret hiding place to devour them. But God pierced the wicked with his own arrows, the very destruction which the wicked intended to inflict on the children of God will it be in fact inflicted on them. In Hebrew poetry, the sea is frequently used as a symbol for evil and chaos. Not sure quite where that comes from. Perhaps it comes from parting the sea, or from the fact that Israel's early foes, the Philistines, were a seafaring people. At any rate, the sea is frequently used as a metaphor for evil or for the forces hostile to God, and I think that's the idea here in 315. You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters, I think is a poetic way of saying God is going to vanquish all those who are hostile to him and all his enemies. Habakkuk then closes with an expression of his faithful submission to God in spite of his circumstances. And this close, especially the last two verses, are among the most extraordinary expressions of faith in the Bible. They are a picture of what it means to submit faithfully to God, not because life is good, not because he's giving you what you want, but because he is the God of your salvation. three sixteen, I hear and my body trembles, my lips quiver at the sound, rottenness enters my bones, my legs tremble beneath me, yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. So at the report of this coming judgment that God was bringing the Chaldeans in to level Jerusalem, and the vision of the Lord's power, the prophet's bones turn to water and he has no strength. He considers the divine judgment that is coming in the form of the Chaldeans and he trembles in fear. One commentator described this as his belly melted. Hopefully I've not had that feeling, but you know when you're fine one minute and then you get some horrible news of a tragedy or a car accident or something, and it's like your stomach. Drops to the ground. That's what he's describing. He says rottenness entered his bones. The picture is the bones are the strongest, firmest, most hard part of his body, and all of a sudden they're rotten and brittle and can be easily cracked and snapped. He goes on his legs trembled beneath him. He was so paralyzed with fear and anxiety that he couldn't move and fell to his knees. Now before he told us I heard and I was afraid, and now we get this very visual description of the gut wrenching, heart dropping fear that he felt. Yet despite all of that, which is a pretty graphic description of how terrified he was, he waits and trusts in the Lord even on the day when the Chaldeans invade the land. The idea of that last verse is yet I shall rest in the day of trouble. When he shall come up against the people, even he who shall invade them with his troops. Even on that day I will trust the Lord, even on the day when the Chaldeans come to invade and destroy Jerusalem I will trust. Then he closes in three seventeen through nineteen, Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no flood, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God the Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the deers, he makes me tread on my high places to the choir master with stringed instruments. He says, though, if every outward means of support fails me, if I have no food, if I have no drink, if I have no produce, if I have no flocks, no wheat in the field, if everything is gone, yet I will trust God. If I lose everything necessary to sustain my earthly life, I will rejoice in the Lord of my salvation. He is the God of my salvation. I can lose everything in this earthly life, including my very life, because God has saved me. I trust in the God who has the power of eternal life in his hands. He can condemn or rescue my soul, and that is where my hope lies. The God who judges and threshes the nations will bring salvation and deliverance to his people. If you think about that, it's easy to praise God when life is good and life is smooth and everything's easy. When there's peace and prosperity and security and calm, it's very easy to say, sure I trust God, but it's much more difficult to trust when life gets hard, when there's no fruit on the vine and no wheat in the field. In other words, when there's starvation and famine. It's easy for us to trust God when He gives us what we think we want and need. But what about when He doesn't? Of course we're grateful and we rejoice when God showers us with the blessings of life like health and prosperity and peace, but sometimes in His plan those things are not to be had. What then? Habakkuk is giving us the picture. If we have faith, we still rejoice because we understand that God is coming in judgment and salvation and He is our only hope. There are times in our lives when we see God bring huge blessings and make things right and it's wonderful and inspiring, and we rejoice in those blessings. But there are also times when we don't see things made right, when it looks like the wicked are winning, when things are not going the way we want them to go, and yet we still believe. In both cases, as the sure footed deer can walk safely over a rocky mountain cliff without slipping, so our faith anchors us in that storm and carries us through that adversity. To close, let's review the major themes of this book. In chapter one, we learned what's going to happen in history from Habakkuk's time point that God will use the Chaldeans or the Babylonians to judge his people and they will devastate Jerusalem and take his people into exile. Habakkuk is shocked and asked how this can be, but he responds with trust, like a watchman waiting for God to act. In chapter two, God says, Don't worry, the Chaldeans are going to be judged for their own guilt, and in the end, justice and righteousness will prevail. And then in chapter three, Habakkuk gives us a prayer and describes the vision he saw of God's coming judgment, and he says, As hard as that judgment's going to be, I will meet it with faith and trust. Now we raise two theme questions, how can a loving God let evil continue? And why believe if I'm not exempt from the tragedies of life? And these themes emerged in answer. First, God is at liberty to do what He wants to do in the way He wants to do it in the time He wants to do it. And we talked about this in the previous podcast, but it does bear repeating. Remember in chapter one, God warned Habakkuk, what I'm going to do is going to surprise you. You can't even imagine the way I'm going to act because I'm bringing in the Chaldeans to judge my people. And sometimes God acts without regard to the way we think things should be done. His ways do not look anything at all like our ways. We think that God should do things in ways that seem reasonable to us and involve minimal pain, minimal discomfort, and minimal suffering. But God has bigger plans. He is not a big sugar daddy in the sky who's there to jump to do our will if we just pray hard enough. God acts and he judges and he uses whatever means he thinks is best. There are times we are going to be surprised, and there are times when we are most likely not going to understand why something is happening. But like Habakkuk, we watch and we trust and we wait to see how God will act. Second, God will always bring justice. Wickedness will always be judged. Now, yes, he may act in a way that surprises and confuses us, but he is not careless about what is right, what is true, and what is just. His righteousness, his goodness, his justice, those are at the core of who he is. He acts in ways that may appear to us with our limited knowledge to be unjust, unfair, or unkind, but it is our understanding that is lacking. When life is full of what looks to us like bad surprises, it's not a blemish on God's character. Injustice is part and parcel of living in a fallen sinful world. Life is not fair, bad things happen, but God is still acting in history, and he is acting in such a way as to bring about justice, goodness, and the salvation of his people. But he's going to do it in his way and in his timing. And then third, the righteous shall live by faith. The proud one who is against God, who thinks he's God, who is soul is not right with God, that one will be judged, but the righteous will find life by virtue of their faith. They will find eternal life in the kingdom of God. That puts the sufferings and tragedies of this world in perspective. We're complaining because life is hard or it seems unfair because we have to suffer through disappointment or tragedy or loss or even the chaos of war. But the righteous shall find life by faith. That's a reminder that this suffering is taking us someplace we very much want to go. This earthly life is not all there is. This earthly life is just the prologue. Our hope and our hearts are set on finding life in the kingdom of God. And Scripture teaches us that it is worth enduring whatever God calls us to endure now to gain life in His kingdom, because that's where real life is to be found and real blessings are to be found. In chapter three, Habakkuk gives us this beautiful picture of the perseverance of faith, even when the Chaldeans are knocking on the doorstep. God knows what he's doing, he will make things right, not always in a way we expect or even at a time when we may see it and understand it. It may be a future hope that won't be realized in our lifetime, but God will in fact come and save his people. Our job is to trust him no matter what, and to accept God's will even though the immediate, short-term future may look bleak or terrifying. As Habakkuk says, yet I will exalt in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation, the Lord is my strength. He has made my feet like Heinz feet and makes me walk on my high places. Life may be full of bad surprises, but they are outweighed by the glory that is to come. Thanks for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also seeks to show you how to figure it out. You can find all the episodes in this series on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. There is no charge, no spam, and no ads. It is all free to help you improve your study skills and understanding of scripture. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please take a moment to leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. RD music is graciously provided by my friend and favorite singer songwriter Reggie Coates. You can listen to more of his music and find his CDs on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.