Please turn in your Bibles to Habakkuk chapter 3, Habakkuk chapter 3. Tonight's text will be verses 1 through 16. This is found on page 999 if you're using the Pew Bible. And for those joining us online, the words will be on your screen momentarily. Give ear now to God's holy, inerrant, and life-giving word. Habakkuk chapter 3, beginning in verse 1. A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, according to the Shigenoth. 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. God came from Taman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. 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. 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 writhed. 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 in fury. You threshed the nations in 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. I hear and my body trembles. My lips quiver at the sound. Rottenness enters into my bones. My legs tremble beneath me. Yet, I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. Let us pray. Great God in heaven, we give thanks to you for this study of the prophet Habakkuk. And we ask tonight that as we consider these ancient words once more, that you would help us to see that you are the same God now as you were then. That your purposes have not changed. That you go out for the salvation of your people. And you are a God who even in wrath remembers mercy. Amen. If God already knows, why pray? This is a question that many in the church ask and many outside of the church ask. Perhaps it's a question that has plagued your mind. If God sees all things, and he does, and if God knows all things, and he does, and if God has sovereignly foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, and he has, then what are you doing when you pray? You're certainly not making him aware of a situation that he had not previously been aware of. And as we heard this morning, he is sovereign over all things. You are not changing his divine decree. So then what are you doing when you pray? We need to have a good answer to this question now more than ever, in part because we need prayer now more than ever, but also because there is an ever-growing backlash in our culture against prayer. Non-believers see Christians speak about praying over situations and see it as some kind of religious platitude, some kind of excuse for not actually doing anything. Of course, we as evangelical Christians know that the Bible says to pray. We know that Jesus, before he gave us the Lord's Prayer, said, when you pray, assuming that you will, pray then like this. We know that the Apostle Paul, towards the end of his letter to the church at Thessalonica, said that we are to pray without ceasing. And certainly, that is a very good reason to pray. The Lord said, do it, and so we do it. But dare I say that our prayers will be better, stronger, more effective when we also understand why it is that we're praying and what we're doing. Before we can answer that question, let's just take a quick moment to briefly summarize what we mean by prayer. The Westminster Larger Catechism, which I take to be an accurate summary of the teachings of scripture, says that prayer, along with the word and the sacraments, is one of the outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates his benefits to us. So yes, there's a sense in which in prayer we are pouring out our hearts to God, and that is good, right, and appropriate to do. But there's also a sense in which the Holy Spirit uses our prayers to build us up into Christ. Our children's catechism defines prayer as asking God for the things that he has promised to give. But that leads us back to our original question. If God has already promised these things, and he cannot lie, both of which again are true, then why are we praying? Well, in part, because we need to meditate on those promises of God. We need to reflect on the things that God has promised to do. Dr. Doug Kelly wrote a book not too long ago to answer this very question. And he offers several good answers, but the one that we will focus on tonight is that rather than changing God's mind, what prayer actually does is it changes us. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is actually at work in our prayers. Paul writes, likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the heart knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And again, the larger catechism says that he uses prayers to work in our hearts and to bring to life right affections. That's praying in accord with the will of God, which is good and acceptable and perfect. And of course prayer does more than this. For example, some way while God has decreed all that will come to pass, he's also decreed to bring it about in answer to our prayers. That is also true. But tonight Habakkuk provides for us a great model for how prayer changes us. He shows us how reflecting on God's promises and character changes us. Habakkuk has encountered the Lord. He has both seen and heard the Lord's judgment against all unrighteousness. The Lord has pronounced his oracles of woe against all of the ungodly and now in chapter 3 we find Habakkuk reflecting on what he's seen and what he's heard and he responds in the only way a man of God can. He prays. Verses 1 and 19 of this chapter, the very beginning, very first set of words in the very end, clearly mark it off as a distinct section of the book. It begins, a prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, according to the Shigenoth. And the very last words address it to the choir master with stringed instruments. And because of these clear demarcations, along with, you'll notice, the word Selah appears several times throughout, many scholars, many critical scholars, doubt this section of Habakkuk's authenticity. And I only bring this up to show you how weak the argument actually is. They say, well, because the book sets it apart as a separate section, it must not have been written by Habakkuk. What's the only tangible piece of evidence they can bring? There's an ancient commentary on Habakkuk that was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls that ends at chapter 2, verse 20. That's it. That is the case against this chapter. A commentary is not a manuscript. Every Hebrew manuscript we have of this book includes this chapter. Also, the Septuagint, which is an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament that is contemporary with the writing of that aforementioned commentary, it also includes this chapter. And further, this chapter puts the perfect bow on this book. One commentator argues, without it, the book remains a fragment with no resolution of the prophet's lament. And in this prayer, Habakkuk does find resolution by turning his eyes away from wicked Judah. by turning his eyes away from the bitter and hasty nation of the Babylonians. And instead, he looks to the author and finisher of his faith. Habakkuk's prayer shows us how the Spirit uses prayer to redirect our hearts and minds to the promises and character of God. And we will see this modeled for us as we examine this prayer under three headings. Habakkuk's petition in verses one to two, Habakkuk's praise in verses 3 to 15 and Habakkuk's peace in verse 16. Habakkuk begins his prayer in verse 2, O Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work, O Lord, do I fear. What's this report that he's heard? It's the previous two chapters of the book. God is going to bring violent judgment against all the faithless in Judah. He's going to bring a judgment that is so severe that even the faithful will not escape temporal punishment, will not escape temporal suffering because of this judgment. Though the chapter 2 does promise that they will be preserved in it through their faith. Habakkuk has heard the word of the Lord and he is awestruck by the promises of God. God's word has pierced to the division of soul and spirit of joints and marrow. And it has discerned the thoughts and intentions of his heart. And so Habakkuk responds with this song of praise. There's almost an echo of Job chapter 1 going on here. the Lord has given. He has given great blessings, great benefits to Judah. And the Lord has taken away. He is going to send them into exile. Blessed be the name of the Lord. In spite of all this bad news, Habakkuk has resolved to sing a song of praise and to distribute it to God's people to also sing in his worship. And having reflected on God's report, Habakkuk then prays that the Lord would do the very thing he said. Habakkuk says, in the midst of the years, revive it in the midst of the years, make it known. It's as if he's saying, Lord, you have said that you're going to judge your apostate people. You have promised that you will keep your faithful ones through their faith. You have promised that you will judge the wicked Babylonians. Now do it. Do what you have promised. You have promised these things. Bring them to be. And what a great reminder this is for us that we too are to pray the promises of God back to him. That is the type of prayer that you can have much confidence in because Christian, your God delights in you holding him to his word. Think for a moment. Imagine a small child Maybe they're in a crib, and it's in the middle of the night, and they've heard a strange sound outside the window, or they've seen a spooky shadow on the wall, or they've had a bad dream. Something happens, and they wake up scared. And what do they do? They cry out for mommy and daddy. And when they do that, they're evidencing two things. One, that child believes their parents can protect them. And two, that child believes their parents will protect them. It is the same way when we pray God's promises back to him. We believe God can keep his promises and we believe that he will. The application here then is very simple. Read your Bible. If for no other reason, though there are other reasons, but if for no other reason then you might know the promises of God and claim them and pray them back to him. The Psalms are wonderful for this. I often pray Psalm 20 verse 5 over my children. May we shout for joy at your salvation and in the name of God set up our banners. May the Lord fulfill all of your petitions. But it doesn't have to be a Psalm. Epistles work for this too. Lord, I know that your word says all things work together for good to those who love you and who are called according to your purpose. I don't understand how this situation, this scenario is good, but you have promised you will work it for good. Do it. My favorite example of this is actually Jacob in Genesis 32. We heard about Jacob and Esau this morning. and Jacob is in this chapter on his way back to Canaan having left Laban and he's nervous about going back to Canaan because the last time he was there his brother Esau had threatened to kill him as brothers do and on his journey back scared he prays to the Lord please deliver me from the hand of my brother from the hand of Esau for I fear him that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But you said, I will surely do you good. God, I'm afraid of what Esau might do, but I'm going anyway because you promised you would do me good in this land, and so I go. And that's what's going on here with Habakkuk. He knows what the Lord has declared to him. He knows it's coming, and he knows that there's much to fear. And nevertheless, he prays that God would revive his work, that he would make it known at the right time in the midst of years, because he correctly believes that a revival of God's justice will bring about God's glory, that it will bring about the covering of the world with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And so he concludes his one and only petition in this prayer with these words, in wrath, remember mercy. Habakkuk is praying here with confidence that the Lord is certainly bringing wrath. That has been made clear. We know that our God is a consuming fire. We know from the second commandment that he visits the iniquity of the fathers unto the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate him. But Habakkuk is praying that he would also show his steadfast love to thousands of those who love him and keep his commandments. That he would not merely be a God who visits wrath, but that he would also be a God who brings mercy. Habakkuk is pleading with the Lord to remember who he is. Moses once asked to see the face of God. And the Lord told him, no man. can see my face and live, but I will give you the next best thing. I will tell you exactly who I am." And he declares, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. In wrath, remember mercy. This passage in Exodus is described by Alan Cole as God in self-revelation proclaiming his very self to Moses, his very essence. And in other words, this portion of Habakkuk's prayer is saying, God, do what you've said you would do and be who you said you are. And he's not praying this because he thinks that there's any real possibility that God would somehow forget who he is. He's praying this to remind himself of who God is. When Habakkuk prays, Lord, in wrath, remember mercy, he's praying that God would be who he's promised. And in so doing, he's tuning his heart to the promises and character of God. He's essentially praying, be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. Not be all else to me, save what thou art. Be who you are. So, friends, tonight, read your Bible and pray your Bible. And if you do this simple thing, you will grow in affection for the promises of God. Do you want to increase your faith? Pray the promises of God and watch Him work. Remember what the scripture says of Abraham. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but what? He grew strong in the faith. How? Giving all glory to God. How did he give all glory to God? Trusting that he was able to do all that he had promised. And my friends, this was not written for Abraham's sake alone, but for ours as well. Where does this confidence come from in Habakkuk? His confidence is that God will undertake to guide the future as he has the past. And that's what we see as he begins this second section, the section of praise, verses 3 to 15. And you may notice that this is by far the largest portion of the prayer. Why is that? It's because the petitions that he asks for and the peace that he finds at the end of it depend entirely on who this God is, the God beyond all praising. Beholding God and blessing His name changes everything. Return now in your mind to that child in the room, scared, crying for their parents in the middle of the night. As they're crying, the light comes on. And they see mom or they see dad. They see their protector standing there with them. And as we meditate on who God is, the light comes on in the middle of our fear. But unlike the parent who has to run into the child's room from across the hall or the other end of the house or wherever it may be, when this light comes on, it reveals the protector and defender who was always there in the first place. The idea is simple. Remembering God's mighty provision in the past gives us the confidence that he will be with us in our trials today and into the future. So in his praise of God in times past, Habakkuk turns to what is the great Old Testament manifestation of God's work amongst his people. He turns to the Exodus. Habakkuk recalls in verse 3, God came from Taman and the Holy One from Mount Paran. One commentator reminds us that there is general consensus that these geographical indicators refer to a region south of Israel in southern Edom. This brings to mind the delivery from the bondage of Egypt. This interpretation is confirmed if you look down at verse 7 with references to Kushan and Midian which are said to have witnessed God deliver his people and tremble. In Exodus 15, after Moses has led the people across the dry sea, he sings a song, and he sings, now the chiefs of Edom, this same region, they are dismayed. Terror and dread has fallen upon them because of the greatness of your arm. They are still as stone till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people who pass by whom you have purchased. So then, the vision is this. The Lord is rising up in the south, and He is marching into Egypt to ransom His people. And all of creation is singing His praise. His splendor covers the heaven, the passage says, and the earth was full of His praise. But before Habakkuk can get to the mercy, he recalls that at that time God was bringing with Him wrath for the Egyptians. Look at verse 5. before him went pestilence and plague followed at his heels." This is without a doubt a reference to the plagues that the Lord would rain down on Egypt as he declared, let my people go. And Verne Poythress would describe these plagues this way, the plagues in Egypt constitute a visual phenomenon. They offer a manifestation of God's power. Habakkuk knows his petition in Wrath, Remember, Mercy. He knows that that is agreeable to the will of God because that is precisely what he had done so many years earlier in the Exodus. And what great instruction this is for us as we plead God's promises back to him to remember his faithfulness in times past. This is part of why we focus so heavily on teaching our children the key foundational stories of the Bible. Little children here tonight, we want you to remember that as you study these stories at home in family worship, or as you hear them in Sunday school, or you study them in cat kids, or wherever it might be, that the God that you're learning about who created Adam and Eve, He created you. We want you to remember that the God who saved Noah and his family in the ark, he will save you in Christ. That the God who delivered his people from Pharaoh, he will deliver you from the power of the evil one. This is all for you, children. But you must believe the promises. And it is our prayer that you will. And we pray this prayer with confidence because the God we're praying to cause you to believe his promises has done that for us. I love the words of Psalm 46.1. I hope you know them well. The Lord is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. And that phrase, very present, it could alternatively be rendered well-proved. It's as if the sons of Korah are saying, God is your refuge and your strength now. And you can be confident in that because he always has been that for his people. And he always will be. He is well-proved. Or as Habakkuk puts it in verse 6, his ways are everlasting. He doesn't change. Kenneth Barker sums up this section of the prayer this way. He says, Habakkuk saw in a past event the work of God. God's power and majesty were the answer to Habakkuk's needs. Having seen the awesome God who led his people from the south into the land of promise, Habakkuk saw that God could deal with the sin of Judah and with the arrogance of Babylon. Did you know that that's true for you too? That the answer to the trial you're going through is to look to God's faithfulness in times past? Are you here tonight in a time of trial? Are you burdened over the loss of a loved one? Are you overwhelmed with responsibilities and duty? Are you concerned about a wayward child? He has been with you this far, and he will still be with you tomorrow. My friends, his ways are everlasting. How often grief hath not he brought thee relief. He is the same God he always has been to you. The greatest evidence that he will never stop loving you, that he will never stop being there for you, is that in a sense he never started. Jeremiah 31.3 says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. As far back as you want to go, my love for you has been there. Therefore, I will continue in my faithfulness to you." This takes us to the second part of Habakkuk's praise of God, that is for his purpose. Look with me at verse 8. Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? Was your anger against the river or your indignation against the sea? The implied answer is, of course, no. God's purposes transcend space and time. In this same prayer, he'll actually go on to reference God's work in the days of Joshua. He'll say in verse 11, the sun and the moon stood in their place. This was a generation after Moses. This reinforces and reminds us that God's work is not limited to one big event in the Exodus, but it is ongoing through redemptive history. And throughout this section Habakkuk is focusing his praise on the Lord in this language of God as a mighty divine warrior. The God who fights on behalf of his people. The God who has caused mountains to scatter in verse 6. The God who splits the earth with rivers in verse 9. He even tramples the very sea in verse 15. Another reference to the delivery in the Exodus. But I tend to doubt that we often think of God with this divine warrior picture in our mind. Admittedly, it would have been easier to visualize as God led the armies of Israel out into battle under Moses and Joshua and David and the rest. That's true. But he is still the divine warrior on behalf of his people. His purposes have not changed. His ways, they are everlasting. What is the purpose of all of this activity? Why does he do it? Verse 13. You went out for the salvation of your people. That's why. And friends, he is still in that same business. He is still in that same mode of doing things. For I, the Lord, change not. Therefore, you, children of Jacob, are not consumed. Even now, by the power of his spirit, he is at work in your life, continually subduing and killing the deeds of the flesh. He is protecting us from the fiery darts of the evil one. He is ruling and defending us. By restraining and conquering all of his and our enemies, he still leads us in the battle. Not merely against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against spiritual wickedness. And he must win the battle. God's purpose is much like that of a fireman rushing into a burning building. He's kicking down doors, clearing debris out of the way, but he's not there to destroy the building. He's there to save the person trapped inside. O. Palmer Robertson explains it this way, and he really summarizes the whole prayer. He says, this verse, verse 13, reminds the reader again that the overall setting of the poem is in terms of God's coming to his people, manifesting his glory and creation as he comes, and always with the ultimate intent of bringing salvation. God does not destroy the wicked simply for the sake of destroying the wicked. He destroys them for the sake of his people. God has a special people and he saves them from their enemies. Now the Hebrew in the second clause of this verse is very interesting. Our ESV renders it as we've read, you went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. And I actually have come to prefer the New King James rendering of this same verse. There's no textual issue going on here. This is purely a Hebrew grammar thing. But the New King James renders it, you went forth for the salvation of your people, for the salvation with your anointed. And this Hebrew word that is translated anointed, you may know, is the word Mashiach. It's the word from which we get Messiah. It is in the Messiah that Habakkuk's petition finds its answer. It is with or by means of the Messiah that God demonstrates for us both wrath and mercy. This is the way John Calvin takes it. He says, God has been from the beginning the deliverer of his people in the person of the Messiah. When God therefore delivered his people from the hand of Pharaoh, when he made a way for them to pass through the Red Sea, when he redeemed them by doing wonders, when he subdued before them the most powerful nations, when he changed the laws of nature on their behalf, all these things he did through the Messiah. And to which I would add the very next bit of verse 13 rather says, you crushed the head of the house of the wicked. Who crushes the head of the evil one? The Messiah. In Christ, on the cross, God manifests both His holy wrath against sin. He manifests His holy wrath against your sin. But it is also at the cross of Christ that He shows forth His mercy. The technical name for this is penal substitutionary atonement. And that is just a fancy way of saying the penalty that was owed to you, namely for your sin, eternal judgment and damnation, was poured out on your substitute so that your sins could be atoned for and that you might receive mercy. It's like the hymn writer says. Bearing shame and scoffing rude, condemned there in my place he stood. Sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah. What a Savior. What a Savior that in wrath remembers mercy for you. And so Habakkuk In his petition in verse 2, he has praised God who is able to bring this to pass. And now having seen the light, he turns and leaves us with our final heading, and that is Habakkuk's peace in verse 16. He says, I hear and my body trembles. My lips quiver at the sound. Rottenness enters into my bones. My legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us." The prophet, as you well know by this point in the book, has been on quite the emotional roller coaster. He has gone through all of the stages of grief. He has been angry. He has tried to bargain. He has been in denial. He's been depressed. And now he arrives at acceptance. What causes something like this to happen? He has cried out in the middle of the dark night of the soul with very real and legitimate fear. But the light has come on. He has seen the anointed one. He has seen the Messiah in whom is life and that life is the light of men. The difference is not the situation. The situation remains the same. The difference is his perspective. Now notice that before he gets to this great resolution of peace at the end of the verse, his body is still trembling in verse 16. His lips still quivering. There's rottenness in his bones. How do these go together? How does this go with peace? Think back one last time to the child in their crib. The light has come on. They've seen their protector. But there are still some leftover tears that are seeping out. There's still some lip quivering that remains. The crying is beginning to cease. The Bible says in Revelation 21 for that he still has tears of hours to wipe away. Habakkuk is still troubled by what's to come. But having seen the Lord. Having come to understand his purposes and reflect on them. He knows that while it is still troubling, it will be okay. It will work out for His good and for the glory of the Lord. The Bible does not claim that God comforts us by removing our afflictions. No. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of all comfort, who what? Who comforts us in all of our affliction, because he is there with us always, even to the end of the age. And in this prayer, Habakkuk has communed with God, the one who brings all comfort. And in so doing, he has found a peace that passes understanding. He has cast his burdens on the Lord because the Lord sustains those who do so. And while he knows that a day of trouble is still coming, He is resolved to quietly wait for it. What about you? What about you? The day of trouble that's coming in Habakkuk's situation, Habakkuk's time, was a mere type of the day of the Lord that we know is coming. We have talked about it many times through this book. And it may not come in your lifetime, but it is coming. If Habakkuk's God is your God, and I pray that He is, then you too can plead the promises of the Lord. You too can reflect on God's grace with you in times past. And you too can find the peace that passes all understanding as you wait for Him to fulfill all of His plans. And even while you tremble and quiver, you can sing as we will together in a moment, Be still, my soul. The Lord is on your side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to your God to order and provide. In everything, he faithful will remain. Yes, be still my soul, your best, your heavenly friend, through thorny trials leads to a joyful end. Let's pray. God in heaven, your word is faithful and true. And it tells us of those who build their house on the rock of your word, that the wind blows and the waves crash, but the house is able to stand because it's founded on your word. Would you help us to be a people that would be building our lives on your promises, and that we would find great comfort and peace in those promises, that our soul would be still now and always. In Christ's name we pray, amen.