The Old Testament lesson is the first chapter of Habakkuk, the 12th through the 17th verses. So we continue to make our way through this book. Remember that Habakkuk is a contemporary of Jeremiah. He lives at the end, near the end, of the life of the southern kingdom. And just before the southern kingdom is overrun by the Babylonians and his cry that righteousness should be restored to the land is answered by God with this promise of judgment at the hands of the Caldeans. And then these verses, 12 through 17, are Habakkuk's response to God's answer, an answer which disturbs him terribly and which leaves him in a state of perplexity and as you read through these verses with me, observe how Habakkuk deals with himself in the midst of his time of perplexity. Are you not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One, we shall not die. O Lord, you have appointed them for judgment. O rock, you have marked them for correction. You are of pure eyes then to behold evil and cannot look on wickedness. Why do you look on those who deal treacherously and hold your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he? Why do you make men like fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler over them? They take up all of them with a hook, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their dragnet, therefore they rejoice and are glad, therefore they sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their dragnet because by them their share is sumptuous and their food plentiful. Shall they therefore empty their net and continue to slay nations without pity? The word of the Lord, thanks be to God. Father, again, our hearts yearn to be fed, to be strengthened, to be encouraged, to be moved by your grace and mercy. And so please come and be among us, please give us your spirit that your word might settle in fertile ground and take root and bear much fruit to the glory of your name. We ask for Jesus' sake, Amen. You may be seated. My children have an edition of Alice in Wonderland which is a serious abridgment of the original. It's one of those picture books which is made for young children who haven't yet learned to read and it's filled with pictures and it's about this big and each of the pictures it feels a page. And one of the illustrations in particular in that book has stuck with me. Many of you have read this classic work, Alice in Wonderland, and one of these illustrations has stuck with me. Alice is looking for the white rabbit and she comes to a tree in this illustration and perched in the tree is the grinning Cheshire cat, mischievous, I don't... I'm sorry, to those of you who are cat lovers, I don't like cats and... Oh, we've divided the house on that one. And when I look at this picture of this Cheshire cat sitting up in the tree grinning from ear to ear, everything I believe about cats comes into focus, clear focus, and poor, poor Alice is standing at the base of the tree and says to herself, now which way shall I go? And the cat says, if I were looking for the white rabbit, I have to get here where you can see me. If I were looking for the white rabbit, I'd go that way, that way. And on the tree and other trees are nailed all kinds of pointers going in every direction of the compass. And Alice, frustrated and perplexed, stands before this smug Cheshire cat, not knowing what to do or which way to go. And you can almost hear Alice saying to herself, oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do? What shall I do? Where shall I go? Now that's somewhat humorous and we know the story, we know that in Lewis Carroll's fantasy, Alice finally makes her way out of Wonderland. She awakens from her dream and everything is as it was much to her relief. Well, a back at doesn't awaken from his dream to find everything just as it was. He is perplexed, he is frustrated, he is discouraged, he has plunged into the mystery of the unfolding purpose of God. And unlike the parable which we read in Matthew's Gospel, a parable which does have an explanation, an observable explanation, an explanation which comes into focus clearly in the person and work of Jesus Christ who confers forgiveness upon people at any stage in their lives as young children and on their deathbeds, giving to each the same wage eternal life and the blessedness of heaven forever, there is still a perplexity for Habakkuk and he is uncertain about which way to turn. Very quickly let me remind you why he is perplexed. In the first four verses he has cried out yet again that God would come to his people and purify them as he looks across the land as he considers the church of his day he sees apostasy. Apostasy at every level, they forsaken the covenant, they no longer believe what is true, they have gone after foreign gods, they have played the harlot, they have prostituted themselves with foreign gods. There is injustice in the land, they are not treating one another with the grace and kindness and compassion and forgiveness which was to signal to the rest of the world that God was in the midst of them. There were to be a light shining in dark places and the light which people were to see was their righteousness, the exhibition of the grace of God in their midst not just in their thinking but in their loving, in their desiring and in their acting and Habakkuk is perplexed by all of it and for who knows how long he has been pleading with God and asking God to come and to do something to raise the standard, to lift the standard of righteousness and godliness and truth in the midst of Israel. And God has not answered and he cries out now in his despair how long O Lord, how long and then he receives an answer but the answer is not the answer that he wanted, not the one he was looking for. He receives instead this mystery, this overwhelming mystery that the caldians, this tribe, this pagan nation to the east and nation notorious for its butchery and treachery and injustice. This nation will be raised up by God and will be the instrument in God's hands for the purification of Israel. God will be pleased to use something someone manifestly unrighteous. God will be pleased to use a nation which is at a polar extreme from the character of God for the judging of Israel and Habakkuk is overwhelmed, he is perplexed, he does not understand, he stands before the grinning Cheshire cat and he is not laughing. Which way do I go? How do I respond? Now that sort of perplexity is a perplexity experienced I'm certain by every Christian who has ever lived or is living now. And if it's not a perplexity which you have yet experienced I hate to be the bearer of bad news but sooner or later you'll experience it. There will be some circumstance in your life, some event, some longing, some desire, some surprise episodes, something which will turn you upside down and you will be flung into the mystery of the uncertainty of the unfolding of the purpose of God for history and it will be an enormous stretch for you. Paul writes to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10 and says of Moses and Israel in the 6th verse and then again in the 11th verse that those things happened to Moses and Israel as examples for us and then in the 11th verse he goes on to say that they are there for our instruction. He's thinking specifically of Moses and the Israelites and their Exodus out of Egypt, their wilderness wandering and their deliverance into the land of Canaan. But that admonition to the Corinthians is an admonition which has application to us today with respect to Habakkuk. There is something for us to learn from Habakkuk as he responds to the perplexity in which he finds himself. How does he handle it? What does he do? The manner in which we respond to perplexity. We'll do as much to alay our fears and calm us and reassure us as the answer, the final outcome to our prayers and struggles. In fact, it seems to be the case that responding to our perplexities in a wise way is even better for us and does more to us, if you will, than the final relief, the final end to the perplexity, the final answer to our prayers. Pay attention to Habakkuk and notice how he responds and remember that method and approach the manner in which we approach these things is critical for us, if we're to survive them. I don't want them in my life any more than you do, but in the midst of them the scriptures give us instruction about how to respond to these perplexities and to this mystery. I want you to know first of all that Habakkuk has learned to stop and reflect. He's learned to stop and reflect. He's learned to stop and to think. If you look back at verse 11, there's a remarkable statement which needs to be set in stark contrast with verse 12. As God unpacks this promise of the coming of the caldians, he concludes that promise by saying this. He's already described how mean and despicable and unjust these people are, and as if that were not bad enough, he says this in conclusion about the caldians. Then his mind changes and he transgresses. Then his mind changes and he transgresses. He commits offense as scribing this power to his God. The caldians up to this point have just been like any other run-of-the-mill pagan nation. They're mercenary, they're mean, they're cruel, they're heartless, they murder, they bludgeon, they rape, and they pillage. And we would look at those events and we would say those are vile and despicable things worthy of the judgment of God, but God says in this last verse they do something which is infinitely greater, infinitely more offensive than any of these actions which they will perpetrate against the Israelites. They ascribe to their God the power and the glory for the accomplishing of these feats in Israel and then Habakkuk response after he has heard from God. He responds by stopping, by taking a step back, and by asking the rhetorical question. A rhetorical question is a question the answer to which the speaker knows. He asks the question, but are not you from everlasting. Oh Lord, my God, my Holy One. Folks in the midst of the perplexity we need to learn the art of talking to ourselves. I mentioned this in the Sunday school class this morning and last week and made reference to a wonderful book by David Martin Lloyd-Jones which is a collection of sermons called Spiritual Depression, its causes and cures. David Martin Lloyd-Jones was a physician who was familiar with physical illness but who had to learn to develop an acuity or a perception with respect to emotional disturbance and mental illness. And Lloyd-Jones after years in practice and then going into the ministry became convinced that about 90% of what we suffer from, what we think is depression is actually spiritual in nature and he put together this series of sermons for people who are in perplexity. And in the first two sermons he refers to Psalms in which the Psalmist takes himself in hand and speaks to himself and reminds himself again and again and again of things which are unalterably and inviolably true. He calls at the art of learning to speak to yourself, learning to talk to yourself rather than listening to yourself. It's a subtle and fine but wonderful distinction. It happens to all of us. We wake up in a panic in the morning because of this perplexity we find ourselves in. We're working through the day and suddenly this cloud descends upon us and our hearts are gripped with fear and we don't know what's going to happen and we find ourselves listening to ourselves. That this certainly means the end of the world. It certainly means the end of my life. It certainly means I'm going to lose my job. It certainly means I have cancer and I'm going to die. It certainly means my children will hate me and will never love me because I've been such a poor parent over the course of the last two weeks. How many of you have seen parenthood? Remember in the one scene Steve Martin is sitting in the grandstands and he's reflecting upon his son and the kind of parent he's been with respect to his son and there's this one scene where the son is up in a tower at a university someplace and he has an M16 rifle and he's shooting people willy-nilly and Steve Martin thinks to himself it's all my fault. It's because I was a bad parent and his life comes crashing down around him and he feels this sense of being overwhelmingly guilty. Lloyd Jones argues that it's necessary for us in those moments to take ourselves back again and again to things which we know to be true. And in the third chapter he talks about the cross and the sufficiency of the cross for every violation of the law you have ever committed. And he says when you get up in the morning the first thing you should do is look yourself in the mirror in the bathroom and no matter what's looking back at you. You remind that face that's staring back at you in the mirror that you are forgiven and you are free and the cross is sufficient and you are a child of God. And there is nothing in all the creation which will ever separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus ever again. You talk to yourself as you stare at yourself in the mirror and you remind yourself of these things that are true. That is what Habakkuk does. Are you not the everlasting one oh God my holy one and my God. And in his response he uses the personal name of God oh Lord oh Yahweh and that takes him back immediately to Exodus chapter 3. And Moses who stands before a bush which is filled with fire but the fire does not consume the bush and what is communicated to Moses and then to Habakkuk by that name. That God is self-existent. That he is a flame of fire to be sure but he does not depend upon anything for his existence. The fire does not need the bush. He is what he is. He will be what he will be. His character, his existence, his person are inviolable and unalterable. He does not change. And then Habakkuk has this simple little statement after he asks the rhetorical question as he contemplates the Babylonians, the Caldeans running roughshod over the whole of the nation. And acting out all of these acts which are described in the earlier verses as he contemplates that he makes this bold statement we shall not die. How does he know that? He is reminding himself again. What is he reminding himself of? He is reminding himself of the covenant. He has reminded himself that God has entered into relationship with his people, that God has gathered that people to himself. And he is remembering Genesis 15. Remember Genesis 15? I have heard our CSA that if he were lost on a deserted island the one book he would want to have of all of the books would be the Bible. And the one book in the Bible that he would want to have of all of the books in the Bible is the book of Hebrews, but the one passage he would want to have in all of the Bible from any of the books of the Bible is Genesis 15 because it is in Genesis 15 that God tells Abraham to slay the beasts and God puts the beasts down. Or Abraham puts the beasts down after he has slain them. And there is half of a cow over here and the other half of a bloody and butchered cow over here. And the half of a bloody beast here and the half of a bloody beast there and another here and another here and another here. It is a gauntlet, it is a pathway. And after God has made these promises to Abraham in which he promises to give him descendants and a land and a hope and that he will never leave him or forsake him, this smoking pot comes down from heaven and it passes between the beasts. And God is saying to Abraham Abraham if I am not faithful to these promises which I have made and what has happened to these beasts will happen to me. I put my integrity, my person, my existence on the line. And I cannot die and because I cannot die and I cannot violate myself Abraham you will not die and every promise will be fulfilled. The back exists, we will not die. How does he know that? The beasts and the pot and the promises of God. What is his method? It is to stop and it is to reflect and it is to think about things which are inviolably true and so he quiets himself. And what if after you stop and what if after you remind yourself what is true and what if after you seek to rest in the promises of God and you find that you are not responding well? Does that ever happen to you? The wonderful outcome of the book of Habakkuk if you jump ahead to the third chapter and the last couple of verses is that he comes to a place of contentment with God, a place of peace and rest, a place of assurance, a place where he says something like what Job says in the midst of his discourse, in the midst of his perplexity, Job cries out even though he slay me yet will I trust him? Habakkuk gets to that place. If the vines bear no fruit, there are no oxen in the stalls, if there is no harvest to be gathered, it doesn't matter. For the Lord is mine and I am his. He gets to a wonderful place of rest and contentment. What if you are not there? What if you are not at a place of rest and contentment, a place of assurance and quiet? See I know that you struggle, I know that you do these things, I know that you seek to find answers and you seek to remind yourselves of promises and I know that sometimes your hearts are not still and you tremble and you are afraid and you wonder what the next day is going to hold. What if you are angry, what if you are resentful, what if you are bitter? And there seems to be no resolution, I am pressing this because so often it seems to me we take the advice of someone like Habakkuk, you take the advice of someone who is a preacher and who is more spiritual and more godly than you are and who always practices these things with perfection and who always knows peace and rest and assurance in his soul and you say why can't I be like him and your guilt gets compounded and your perplexity increased and at some point I am convinced you conclude that you have disqualified yourself. And at that point I want to ask you some questions, I want to ask you, is your unbelief, is your lack of resting in God sin? Yes it is and don't you minimize it for a minute, don't dance around it, don't avoid what is the inevitable conclusion that it is sin. But another question is the cross of Christ, big enough, big enough for your bitterness, for your uncertainty, for your perplexity, is the cross of Christ big enough for you in the midst of your confusion, in the midst of your doubt. Let me ask you another question, based upon your reading of John chapter 10, in which Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and they know me and they follow me. I and my father are one, no one will snatch them out of my hand, no one will snatch them out of my father's hand. Let me ask you, who has hold of whom? Who has hold of whom? Who had hold of Job? Who had hold of Habakkuk in the midst of their perplexity and before they came to the time, where they enjoyed rest and peace and assurance?
See here's the question, does your continuing struggle disqualify you?
You remember the story that Hunter Dockery told before he left of playing a card game with his son Jonathan on the floor in their living room and having the television on in the background and listening to this PBS thing about orphanages and about kids that get sent back to orphanages and Jonathan lifts his head and says to his father, daddy, will you ever kick me out of the family? And he takes him in his arms and he says never, never, never, is the cross big enough for your perplexity. If you say no, do you see what you've said? But the cross of Jesus Christ which is infinite in value is not big enough for you, and you don't want to say that, who has hold of whom in the midst of your perplexity? I wish so much that my Heavenly Father, would do for me, could do for me, what Jonathan's father did for him literally and physically take me up in his arms and hold me and comfort me and remind me. He doesn't do that. This is a faith walk. We walk by faith and not by sight nor touch nor smell nor hearing. We walk by resting in the promises of God that it is true and yet even when our resting in the promises of God is impossible for us, the question you ask is, is the cross big enough and who has hold of whom? It's a wonderful passage in the Psalms. Psalm 73, verse 21 and following. Do you remember this? This Psalm which wrestles with the very same things, Habakkuk is wrestling with the psalm of Asif and Asif sees all of this injustice and he sees the wicked gaining the ascendancy and doing well and he sees the righteous being beaten down and hurting and without.
And he's perplexed about it and he complains about it and in the midst of his perplexity he sees that they are in fact the ones in a dangerous place because they are opposed to God and God is opposed to them and then as he reflects upon his struggle in verse 21, he says this. Thus my heart was grieved and I was vexed in my mind. That's where Habakkuk is. That's where Job was. That's where you have been grieved and perplexed in your minds. You were foolish and you were ignorant. The Psalmist says it of himself. It's true of me. It's true of you. He says I was like a beast before you. A beast. A raven maniac. And then what does he say? Nevertheless, I am continually with you and you hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with your counsel and afterward you will receive me to glory. You see even in his perplexity he knew that the lover of his soul would never let go. So how do you respond to your perplexity? Let me encourage you to lay hold of and cling to these promises and do the best you can to talk to yourself but let me remind you that when that man in the mirror speaks more loudly than you. And when the doubt and the guilt and the fear seem to overwhelm you, the cross is big enough for it all. And he will never let you go. Let's pray together. Father, take your people by the hand. Thank you for the promises which you have given to us. Thank you that when you say never, you mean never.
Thank you that you will continue to hold on to us even though we should slip and fall and stumble and hurt ourselves very badly. And thank you that you will raise us up. And I pray for people in this congregation now whose hearts are breaking before we're struggling with uncertainty, without or with fear. I don't know how you do this. I just know that you do and pray that you will yet again gather them up in your arms and whisper in their ears that it will be all right. That you will not leave them alone. So hold them and keep them. Hold us all and keep us all for the sake of Jesus. We ask in His name and for His sake and now receive to yourself our gifts, our tides and offerings for Christ and His kingdom in His name we pray. Amen.