Thank you, Mike. Well, if you have a Bible, turn with me to Habakkuk, chapter 3. We're going to look at verses 8 through 15 this morning. And this will be the 7th and 2nd to last sermon in our 8 week series on the Book of Habakkuk. So we've been on this journey for some time now, and it's hard to believe that we've got this week and next week. And that's it. So we'll be taking a look at Habakkuk 3 8 through 15. And it's on page 999, if you're going to use one of the big Blue Bibles that we have underneath the chair in front of you. Here now, God's holy and true Word. 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. You split the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you and rived, the raging waters swept on. The deep gave forth its voice, it lifted its hands on high. The sun and 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 and fury. You threshed the nations and anger. 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. 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. The word of the Lord, let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word. We thank you for its power and we thank you for its truth. We thank you for the way it challenges us and renews our mind and transforms us. So as we look at this passage in your scriptures this morning, Lord, would you use it in a mighty way in our lives? Would you help us to trust you more? Would you help us to see the glory of Christ, shine brighter? And would you equip us to run with the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations for it is in Jesus' name that we pray? Amen. There's a TV show or I think it's more of like a computer show now. It's one of the networks online that is releasing a TV show here shortly and it has to do with the story that's written in a book, a book from 1962 called The Man in the High Castle. And that was a book written about the idea that what if the Nazis in Japan had one, or two, what would things be like? And so this man wrote this book with that idea. Its subtitle of the book is an electrifying novel of our world as it might have been. And so it's kind of weird to think about, it's scary to think about what if the Nazis had one, what if America was under Nazi rule right now, what would that be like for us? Well here's a good news, it didn't happen. And it can't happen. In fact, the reason that the Nazis were taken down is the reason that all evil empires throughout the history of the world at some point are brought to their knees, they're destroyed. And historians look at different reasons and they try to figure out, well why did this certain evil empire, why did they get taken out? What decisions did they make that led to their demise? Or what things did they do that ultimately caused their downfall? But the grand story, the real issue is that God is the one who brings evil down to its knees, all through history as we'll see this morning as we move through our passage. And really we can celebrate this morning, especially in a time when we see a lot of evil in the world. We can celebrate that because of the cross, evil only prevails temporarily and will eventually be completely destroyed. That's what we're going to see this morning as we look at this next section in the book of Habakkuk, this next part of his prayer as he's been moving from being very, very perplexed about what's happening in his world at that time to the point where as we see next week he's rejoicing in God even though things are still falling apart all around him. So to focus on this this morning we'll talk about two things. Now we'll look at the text and we'll see the inevitability of judgment and salvation, judgment of God's enemies, salvation for God's people, and then we'll see the irony of judgment and salvation as well. So if you're making an outline just those two things, the inevitability of judgment and salvation and the irony of judgment and salvation. So keep your bibles open, we're going to walk right through this passage this morning. Let's look at verses 8-12 and talk about the inevitability of judgment and salvation. What we see here is that Habakkuk recognizes God's pattern of saving his people by judging their enemies. In this moment now, in the middle of Habakkuk's prayer, in verses 1-7 that we looked at last, he was speaking about God. Now he turns, he's speaking directly to God and he's speaking about this pattern that he sees where God saves his people by judging their enemies and ultimately we see him recounting three ways in which he knows this is true. He thinks about the Exodus, he thinks about the flood, and he thinks about the conquest of Canaan. So take a look at verse 8. This one has to do with the Exodus. He says, 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. So right at the end there, you see that he's talking about salvation of his people and he's not saying that God literally was riding in a chariot but it's a picture of God coming to save his people and notice that it's tied to his wrath, to his indignation. And then the same fell swoop, God judges the enemies of his people and then therefore saves them from him. And that's what Habakkuk is talking about here. He's saying that in the Exodus, God wasn't mad at the water that he used to judge the Egyptians. He was judging the Egyptians using water to do so. And that's why he's talking about the rivers and the sea. So think about this when the Israelites had been enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt for many, many centuries. At one point, God did send Moses to deliver them and in the process to set his people free, he brings down judgment on the Egyptians and the very first plague. Do you remember the first plague of the 10 plagues? It was God turning the Nile, the water in the Nile River, to blood. So that's one of the things that Habakkuk is talking about here. God wasn't mad at the water. His anger wasn't against the water. He made the water in the Nile, turned to blood. Exodus 7.21 says therefore the fish in the Nile died and the Nile sank and there. And so that the Egyptians could not drink the water from the Nile. There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. And so you see that the beginning of the 10 plagues begins with God using water to bring judgment on the people who are holding his people captive. And then also the end of that scene, the Exodus has water as well. Right, if you think about the fact that after Pharaoh finally lets God's people go, they're running out towards the wilderness and then Pharaoh changes his mind and sends his army out after them again. And then they reach a point, God's people, now they're free from being enslaved, enslaved, but you got Pharaoh's army coming behind them and the red seas in front of them. So you've probably seen the movie. What happens is Moses through God's power ends up parting the red sea. And there's these two massive walls of water and there's dry ground and the Israelites walk across the dry ground to the other side as Pharaoh's army then enters into the dry ground as well. And then what happens? God lets those walls of water go and they come crashing down onto Pharaoh's army. And in one swift catastrophic motion for the Egyptians, God judges the enemies of his people and therefore saves them from their wickedness, their ability to oppress them and hurt them. And so Habakkuk in thinking about the fact that the caldians are going to come and they're going to bring all this wickedness and this torment onto his people, he's remembering now wait a second. Whenever this happens, eventually God judges that people and then saves his people from them. So he thinks about the Exodus and then look at 9 and 10. Now he's thinking not only does this happen at the Exodus, but it happened at the flood. It's exactly what happened at the flood. God judged enemies and saved his people from them. So think about this. Verse 9 says, you strip the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows, you split the earth with rivers, the mountains saw you and rise, the raging water swept on, the deep gave forth its voice, it lifted its hands on high. And what he's thinking about is when God judged the world with the flood. So think about this. When the flood came at that time, God's words about all the people in the world except for Noah and his family. God said that everybody was wicked. This is in Genesis 6, 5 through 13. Every single human being at that point had become incredibly wicked. There were all corrupt, filled with violence. It says that every intention and thought in the heart of every human being was on evil continually. Like we see a lot of evil taking place around the world right now, but we can't even imagine the amount of evil that was going on and the amount of violence, the amount of wickedness taking place on the world. Meanwhile, God does have at least one person in his family that are still walking with him. Genesis 6, 9 says that Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation, Noah walked with God. So what happens? God brings down judgment on all of the wicked in the world in order to save Noah and his family, the remaining people that he had who were walking with him, who believed in him. So if you look at what's said here in 9 and 10, it goes right along with the flood. So he talks about the bow and the arrows, which is metaphorical for the lightning bolts. That's what they used to refer to arrows as if they were, or lightning bolts, as if they were arrows as a metaphor. So that reminds us of the 40 days of rain. It talks about the splitting the earth with rivers. Well, if it rains for 40 days, guess what happens? The water begins to build up and then all of a sudden there's rivers everywhere. And then he says about the mountains writhing. That's because in Genesis 7 it talks about the rising waters drowning the mountains basically. So it's this picture of the mountains even getting getting flooded going underneath the water in the flood, the deep voice. That's a reminiscent of Genesis 7 where after the 40 days of rain or during the 40 days of rain it says in Genesis 7, 11, the fountains of the great deep burst forth. So even more water comes up from the deep. And then of course he says it lifted its hands on high. Some commentators think that's talking about massive waves that maybe came through, but others think that it's referring to the place in Genesis 7, 17 where it talks about the water lifting the ark up to safety and farther and farther away from the people below. But nonetheless, you know, after hundreds of years of wickedness and violence, God has patiently endured that. And then finally that's it. He's had enough. He cannot tolerate anymore. And he brings down his judgment. And in that moment the judgment of all the wicked in the earth is actually the same thing that liberates that sets free Noah and his family as they are lifted up in the ark. So it's this pattern that we see not only at the Exodus not only at the flood, but now look at 11 and 12. Now I back it's thinking this is what happened with the conquest of Canaan. When God sent Joshua and the Israel army into Canaan, here's what he says in verse 11, the sun and moon stood still in their place. The light of your arrows as they sped at the flash of your glittering spear, you marched through the earth and fury, you thrashed the nations and anger. And if you know the story of the conquest, what happens basically it's referring exactly to what is said in Joshua 10, 13. So in Joshua 10, God has sent the Israelites into bring judgment upon the Canaanites. And in chapter 10, verse 13, it refers to God making the sun and the moon stand still basically to elongate the day to give Joshua and the Israelites the chance to finish attacking the Canaanites. Now I know that sometimes it's uncomfortable to think about God sending his army into wipe out a people, but at the same time if you look at what the Bible tells us about those people, it was like they were, they had gotten to the same point as things had gotten before the flood. The people living in that area were living in complete wickedness. The Bible mentions idolatry, incest, adultery, child sacrifices, bestiality. And there's all this wickedness taking place in this land. And it's not just the Bible. In secular historians acknowledge the exact same things. In fact, if you ever board, you could read Harry Hoffner's article, incest, sodomy and bestiality in the ancient Near East. Or maybe you skip that one. But either way, the point to see what I'm saying, there is this unbelievable amount of wickedness. Nobody's turning to God. Everybody is violent against one another, children are being murdered. And so God uses his people to bring judgment. And in the same fell swoop, he's bringing judgment on his enemies and on the enemies of his people. He's liberating his people, even though we know the story goes they didn't finish the job. But nonetheless, look at this verse 12. Then he uses an illustration to help us see what God is doing. He says that you marched through the earth in your fury, you threshed the nations in anger. And think about this, his anger, as we've already seen, was not against the earth itself. His anger is against the wickedness that is being carried out in the world, especially anything that's against his people. And so when he says that in verse 12, he's given this illustration, threshing, was an agricultural process in which the farmer once they had gathered all the wheat or grain of some sort, they would put it on the ground. And then they'd have a big oxen, big heavy beast of burden walk on it, and the weight and the hardness of the hooves would end up cracking the husk that's around the grain. And eventually you have a pile of husks and grain, and then the grain being heavier than the husks, you'd throw that up in the wind, and the husks would blow away and the grain would come back down. And so eventually what you'd have is just the grain. So Habakkuk is recognizing here the grain being like God's people, the husks being like the wicked, what God has done repeatedly as he's brought his judgment down upon wicked people, the evil regimes of the world, in order to liberate his people from them. So that eventually God has just his people. It's like if a teacher was a good teacher, and on the playground there was this bully that continued to pester the other kids or beat up the other kids. Eventually if the teacher recognized that it was happening, the teacher would remove that kid, and if brought back and he continued to be a bully, then she would probably remove him again. Eventually at some point the school would have to get this kid away from them for good if it seemed that he was never ever going to change. And the fall has made humanity, apart from the grace of God, increasingly bullish. That's what we've become. That's what humanity becomes over time. The evil in us grows and grows and grows. That's where all these evil empires come from. And so when someone or some people is continually wreaking havoc on God's people, he removes them. He brings judgment down on them so that he can liberate his people from their wickedness. So how do you apply this? How do you apply what Habakkuk is realizing here? I think one of the things that we can do in an application is recognize that when it comes down to the final judgment, we know that the Bible says that eventually Christ is going to return. He's going to bring judgment on people who don't believe in him and he's going to give salvation to those who do. And ultimately Matthew 25 and other places really give us a picture of exactly what's being illustrated in verse 12 as well where there's a separation. God will separate the sheep, his people from the goats because the goats will never bow. They will never turn. They will never live in such a way that they would be a blessing to one another. And so therefore when we think about the final judgment as uncomfortable, try to find a way to sugarcoat this, but there just really isn't a big part of what's going to happen in the judgment is God is going to remove from the earth all causes of sin and wickedness and evil. So that the new heavens and new earth will be a place where we live in perfect harmony with God at all times and perfect harmony with one another and as much as judgment is hard to acknowledge and swallow the judgment of anyone in eternal punishment and hell. The reality that what God is going to do, he is so determined to make this world a place where the knowledge of his glory covers the earth as the water covers the sea which we can understand to be he's so determined to make this world a place where we glorify and enjoy him fully glorify him and fully enjoy him at all times. That he's willing to judge those who won't bow and get them out of here so that we can have that unbelievably perfect experience of living with him and with each other in perfect harmony. I once said to a friend, thinking about something along these lines, I said to a brother in Christ, I wish God would just say, I wish Jesus would come right now and just end this thing. What's he waiting for? And my friend said to me, you know, I feel like that sometimes too but I have a lot of friends and relatives who are not yet Christians, they don't trust the Lord right now. If he comes right now they all go to hell so I'm okay with him waiting. And I think that's another thing that we can recognize here. Next week we'll see that Habakkuk in the end of his prayer says that he's going to wait. He's going to wait for the day of trouble to come on the people who are going to be bringing Habakkuk to the people in Judah. And I think we too can see God's patience in this that God made delay justice but he never disregards it. So judgment will come but there's this delay right now and I think it just points us directly to God's patience, how incredibly patient he is. Think about this. Look here at second Peter 315, Peter says, and count the patience of our Lord as salvation. Just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him. So Peter is saying, think about this, you can equate patience, God's patience with salvation. In the sense that as long as God is patiently delaying justice from coming, he's basically saving the people on the earth from experiencing the judgment that they will experience when Christ returns. So he's what's preventing him from bringing his judgment down is his patience. And so Peter mentions what Paul said about patience, look at this in 1 Timothy 1 15 and 16. This is what Paul says about the patience of God. He says, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. Look at this. But I received mercy for this reason that in me as the foremost, think about this, whose Paul. Paul was Saul, a persecutor of the church, a murderer of Christians, a terrorist, we might say. That's why he's referring himself as the worst sinner on the planet. And here's what he says, but I received mercy for this reason that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ may display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. He recognizes that the only reason God's judgment just didn't completely come down on him when he was killing when he was leading the charge against the Christians and persecuting them is because one day God was going to display his amazing patience with Paul that he was so patiently enduring what Paul was doing, but because he had chosen him to receive Christ by faith. What does that do to Paul? What that does to Paul, it makes him able to endure suffering from being persecuted for being a Christian because he knows that while he endures that more people are becoming Christians from all over the world. Paul says, remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, the offspring of David as preached in my gospel for which I am suffering bound with chains as a criminal, but the word of God is not bound. Here's what he says, therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. So I know this is hard to swallow. This has really been working on my heart all week, but the reality is that God has established a pattern. And so we know that eventually he's going to bring down judgment on all who are not his people to remove them to set up Jesus eternal kingdom where we will live in perfect harmony with him and with each other forever. And in the meantime, what we can know is that God is being patient as more and more people are hearing the gospel and they are becoming Christians, they're being forgiven of all of their sins because of what Jesus did on the cross. So like Paul, I think one of the things we can do as well is patiently endure knowing that yes, evil is happening in the world, but yes, more and more people are receiving eternal life through faith in Christ. So there's the inevitability of salvation and judgment and salvation, but there's also the irony. So let's look at that. Look at 13 through 15. Because Habakkuk also recognizes that God uses his enemy strength against them. Okay, this is important. This helps us understand why no world regime has ever dominated the whole world. Evil empires have always come crashing down in the Bible and in history. And it is because God uses his enemy's strength against themselves. Look at 13. He says, 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 five to neck. Now that second part is probably talking about Pharaoh once again, and we'll come back to the first part. But look at 14. He says, 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 pouring secret. You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters. So again, we see this picture of God bringing his judgment. But in this case, Habakkuk says it's for me. It's for him. So I think he's actually even projecting here and seeing into the future when God does bring judgment on the caldians. In some shape or form where Habakkuk is still there, he sees it happen or sees something happen where he realizes that God liberates him through the judgment of his enemies in some way. But nonetheless, notice that what he's focusing on 14 is that he says you pierced with his own arrows, the heads of his warriors. In other words, God takes the weapons of his enemies and kills them with them. So Palmer Robertson wrote a commentary on Habakkuk and he says something about this, I think, is really helpful, especially in light of what we're seeing in the world. What happened in Paris and what has happened all over the world in certain areas? Look at this. He says often, God's people find themselves severely disturbed because they see no visible power as strong as their enemies. But the prophecy of Habakkuk encourages the faithful to assume a strange perspective. They must look at the strengths of the enemy as the very source of their own protection. The stronger the enemy, the more sure its own self-destruction. For as God sovereignly raises up powers and brings them down again, he turns the strength of the enemy against itself. In other words, what Palmer Robertson is saying is when we see the enemies, when we see evil empires trying to rise up, when we see ISIS or Al-Qaeda or any religious extremist or any of these things that we begin to see, it looks like they're gaining power. It looks like they're killing more and more people. What are we going to do? We tend to get so focused on what are they doing? We forget the pattern. We forget to think, what is God doing? What is God about to do? And ultimately, what this is saying is that the stronger and more powerful and evil empires seems to be growing the less time they have on this planet before God brings his judgment upon them for our sake. In other words, we call the love of our enemies pray for those who persecute us. This is the time to do that because we know we see things like ISIS growing and all their growing power tells us that it won't be long. It won't be long. And then God will bring the hammer down on them. And so in the meantime, and what so amazing is this is a time in history that's unprecedented. There are more Muslims coming to Christ than any other time in history. It's phenomenal. I wish we could talk more about that maybe we will sometime. But the point is that there's this time where we are in this time of God's patience. And the more afraid we are of ISIS or something like that, it should simply remind us the bigger they are, the more powerful they appear to be, the sooner it will be that God will bring the hammer down upon them. And then they spend eternity in hell receiving judgment for what they've done. And when we think of the depth of our sin, we may not be beheading people, but when we think that we are as sinful as we truly are and that we have received salvation by grace through faith, only because of what Jesus has done. When we think about how unbelievably sufficient the finish work of Christ is that he would accept a terrorist, if a terrorist repents, God will accept him. Just ask the apostle Paul. That's how powerful. That's how huge the sacrifice of Jesus is. It pays for any and all those things. And that's how amazingly patient God is. That's why we should pray for all people who don't know Christ. And we should pray for those who persecute us. We should pray for ISIS because some of them will hear the gospel and be our brothers and sisters because they've received forgiveness from God. So you see that the irony of it that God uses his enemies, strengths against them. That's how they end up collapsing in on one another. But also we see that in that the cross is the proof of all this. The cross is what makes this all come together because what is the only reason that we're not God's enemies. And it's the cross is because of the finished work of Jesus and Habakkuk who lived way before Jesus came still was given by God a vision of this anointed, this Messiah, which is actually what that word is. Look again at 13. He says you went out for the salvation of your people for the salvation of your anointed. Now grammatically in English that sounds like it's saying that God went out to save his people and to save his anointed. But that's actually not what it says in the Hebrew. The Hebrew grammar is different in the way that it helps us understand something. So like for example, it is saying that God went out for the salvation of his people. He's not saying God went out for the salvation of his anointed. He's saying that God went out for to bring about the salvation that only his anointed could bring. So when it says the salvation of his anointed. It's like me saying this is the Bible of Matt. It's mine. He's not saying that the anointed needed to be saved saying that he would be the one doing the saving. So there's this this future vision of God. The reason God brings out this judgment. The reason he's bringing judgment down onto the wicked is to save his people from them. It's to give them the only type of salvation that can only come from his anointed from his Messiah. Who ironically comes and does not just lay waste to everybody but rather he goes and comes under the condemnation of God himself. He receives the judgment of God in our place so that you and I could receive his love and faithfulness forever.
The enemies God used their power against them. They were thinking we won. We've won here. Jesus is hanging on the cross. We've won. But in actuality Christ had won. We had won because he had paid our debt by dying on the cross. It's phenomenal. And that's what we need to understand. We don't want to minimize that. We never want to minimize the power of the gospel which Paul says I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God for the salvation of all who believe everybody. And as we think about that and then we pray for the gospel to go for it during this time where God is being very patient. We have to remember that even somebody who's the pinnacle of ISIS or Al-Qaeda you name it. Anybody God can at any moment turn their heart. He can change them. They can become a Christian. They can receive salvation by grace through faith. Anyone at any time. That's what we need to be thinking about now. Not the power of ISIS but the power of God to save. That's what our eyes need to be on. That's what our hearts need to be on. That's where our prayers need to be focused. I heard a story one time about a man who was very, very distraught and wanted to take out his frustration on somebody and there was a tent revival that had been going on in his town. And so he decided that he was going to take his gun and he was going to go and he was going to shoot the pastor in the middle of this thing. So he goes and he sits in the back and there's this worship service is taking place in the evening in this tent and and the preacher is preaching and the man is sitting there with his hand in his pocket on his gun waiting for his moment. Doesn't quite know how he's going to get close enough to the pastor but he figures he'll find a way. Pretty soon the pastor starts calling people forward saying look if you want to receive what Christ has done on the cross. If you want to be forgiven of all of your sins it's by grace through faith come forward come come forward now and receive forgiveness come and pray and receive the Lord Jesus Christ repent and believe and the guy thinks this is my moment. This is the time. So with his hand in his pocket he walks down the aisle. Everybody else is just thinking oh he's going to give his life to Christ but he's on his way to kill this pastor. But as he's walking he's thinking about what he's hearing and his heart is softening and when he gets pretty close he suddenly realizes he does not want to do that. He realizes what he really wants to do is to trust Christ he really wants that forgiveness that he's been hearing about. Now again everybody else is oblivious to what's going on and so thinking about what he was about to do he drops to his knees and he says I can't do it I can't do it. And everybody else is like sure you can't sure you can't go ahead you can do it. So he confessed what he was talking about that he wasn't talking about not giving his life to Christ he was saying I can't I can't do this I'm not going to go through with my plan he puts his gun down. He's forgiven he's welcomed into this body and stories like that show us that there's nobody beyond God's reach not you not the leaders of ISIS the possible wasn't your brother that you love that's not a believer. Your sister your mom your neighbor your best friend the power of the gospel so as we know that one day God will bring judgment down he will remove the wicked so that we can live in this perfect place after he's made us perfect. In the meantime God is being patient so let's be proclaiming the gospel and praying for those who don't know our king. And let's do that let's pray father I confess that I have been fearful I confess that there's mixed emotions on what we do about refugees or what we do about ISIS or al-Qaeda or there's fear about the hostility growing in the in the culture about what rights or liberties might be infringed upon there's it's so easy for us to to grow fearful. And would you Lord with the light of the gospel just obliterate that fear reminding us that you always save us. You've always saved your people and that a growing enemy the growing power of an enemy simply marks it soon demands would you would you let us be patient with you and would you let us be pursuing the lost with you as well. Because you pursued us and so we praise you forever in Jesus name amen.