Address—T. Cedarland
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169 Lord, we can see by faith in thee a prospect bright, unfeeling, where God shall shine in light divine, in glory never fading, a home above of peace and love, close to thy holy person. Thy Saints shall dare see glory fair and shine as thy reflection. 169.
Lordly.
And save my faith in the.
Prospect, Christ.
Where God shall shine in my life and glory.
And everything.
And shall I?
Refresh.
The difference?
And when our spirits.
Downward and where you fall in love life.
Surrounded.
No more.
Right here, Ministers. Jennifer.
Upon your way to unholy.
No more to thank, love.
Well, I kind of had in mind tonight to take up something that might be.
In line for those who are younger, but as I look out in the audience here, I see that perhaps most of the room is that those that are as old or older than I am. So as I was thinking about that and sitting there, I felt the Lord would maybe help me take up something else tonight than what I had in mind. So I would like tonight, with the Lord's help, to look back in the Old Testament to a book in what is called the Minor Prophet. Somebody mentioned at the conference about.
Older brothers may be spending time in the minor prophets and how a brother Barry in his old age was still in the Gospel of John. But you know, the Bible does say that all Scripture is profitable and there is not one portion of the Word of God where there isn't blessing to our souls. And I believe so many times we get looking at some of those books like Zephaniah and Hagee I and Zachariah and Malachi. And we go through those books because we try to read through the Bible. And sometimes we don't understand just how the book gets in and where it goes or how it goes together. But we see a verse here and there that we enjoy.
And life and so we underline that verse and maybe enjoy it. And yet there's so much there. We we finish that booking so well, most of that I didn't understand. I'm sure the Lord has something more for me, but I don't understand what it is. Well, tonight with the words help, I'd like to take up one of those books, the book of Habakkuk. And if you would turn with me, please to that book. Perhaps we can look through there and see what the Lord can give us from one of these books and maybe we can come away.
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And you'll feel like you have a little grasp, a little understanding of the how this book fits into the word of God.
And that we can all learn something tonight that will help us if we get into the Scriptures that was going to say that these books were sometimes referred to as the minor prophets. You know, I personally don't like that term real well because I don't think there's any part of the word of God that is minor.
And so we could say, although these people were.
Are referred to as the minor prophets, their ministry really, so to speak. They're batting in the major leagues, not the the miners. They're very important books to look at. And so we'll look at this book, the book of Habakkuk, and we'll read through a bit of it. Not every word first, but just enough so we can kind of see how it comes together.
Chapter one of the book of patrol in verse one the burden which Habakkuk or Habakkuk of the different ways is pronounced Habakkuk the prophet did see Oh Lord, how long shall I cry? And thou wilt not hear even cry out under thee of violence. And thou wilt not say why does thou show me iniquity that's caused me to behold grievous force smiling and violence are before me. There are that raise up strike.
And contention therefore the law is slapped, and judgment does never go forth, for the wicked does compass about the righteous, Therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.
Behold thee among the heathen in regard and wonder marvellously. For I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told you. For lo, I will raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation which shall March through the breath of the Lamb to possess the glowing places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful. Their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves.
And their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from afar, and they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.
Then shall they come all for violence. Their faces shall suck up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand, and they shall stop at the kings, and the Princess shall scorn unto them, and they shall deride every stronghold, for they shall heat dust and take it. Then shall his mind change, he shall Passover and offend them, Tooting his power unto his God.
Are shall not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my holy one, we shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment, and Almighty God thou hast established them for correction. Thou art a pure eyes, and to behold evil and chance not look upon iniquity. Wherefore look a star upon them that deals treacherously, and hold us by tongue, when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he, and maketh man as the fishes of the sea, and as creeping things which have no ruler over them.
They take up all of them with the Angel and Chuck them in their neck and gather them in their dread. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. Therefore they sacrifice under their net and burn incense under their dread, because by them their force in this path.
And their meat is plenteous. Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually display the nations?
Chapter 2. I will stand upon my watch, I will set me upon the tower, and will watch and see what he will say unto me, and what shall, what I shall answer when I am recruited? And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, make it plain upon the tables that he may run it. Read it, for the vision is yet for an appointed time, but the end. But at the end it shall speak and not lie, though it Terry wait for it, because it will surely come.
It will not tarry. Behold, his soul, which is lifted up, is not upright in him, but the just shall live by faith.
And skipping down to verse 14, in the middle of all of these woes that are given in this chapter toward the heathen, verse 14 it says, For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
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And verse 20, Let the Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silent before him. A prayer of the back of the prophet, a foreign sugar knife. Oh Lord, I've heard thy speech and was afraid, O Lord, revived my work in the midst of the years.
And in the midst of years make known in wrath, remember mercy.
Verse 16.
When I heard, my belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice rocking. This entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, and I might rest in a day of trouble. When it cometh up unto the people he will invade with his troops. Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall there be any fruit in the vines. In the labor of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat. The frock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the styles. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will join the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength. You will make my feet like times feet. You will make me to walk upon my high places to the chief singer on my screen instruments.
Well, as we.
Look at this book we see just to get the setting. It's a book that was written about 600 BC.
Habakkuk was a contemporary of Jeremiah. The prophet is what we could call a pre captivity prophet. If you remember the children of Israel were carried into captivity because of their idolatry and their sin for 70 years. Jeremiah was that weeping prophet that went and warned them that if they didn't turn back to God they would be carried away captive and havoc lives during that time and prophesied during that time.
There was a time where the king Jehoiakim, when the word of God was brought to him on the scroll, he took his pen knife and he cut it up and he threw it in the fire because he didn't want to read what the Lord had to say to him. He didn't like what the Lord had to say to him. And so that gives a little bit of a setting after the time and his pocket lived and he was a man who could look out and see all what was going on in Israel and he wasn't indifferent to it because verse one says the burden back of the prophet, you see.
You could look out and see all of those troubles and burdens.
And it weighed heavy on his heart. And I'd like to say that if we were going to give a little outline of this book, maybe something that if you have a pen tonight, you might just write down because you'll find this something that might be helpful. If you're going to go through this book and study it on your own, that we could say that in chapter one, you find that the prophet is wondering and he's worrying. He's wondering and worrying. And in chapter 2, when he goes up on his watch, his high tower, he's watching and he's waiting.
And in chapter 3.
We find that he is worshipping and witnessing. So he starts down in the valley, depressed, down in the dumps. We could say, as John Bunyan could put it, he's in the slew of his farm and he's down there in the valley. He's wondering and worrying. Looking at his circumstances, his eyes are not really thinking about what God is going to do. He doesn't know, but he's wondering and worrying. As we said, chapter 2. He's watching and waiting and Chapter 3.
He's worshipping and he's witnessing.
But in chapter one we find that he accuses the Lord of three things. He accuses the Lord of first of all in verse two, of being indifferent.
He's praying and God is answering his prayer. He thinks. He says, how long the Lord shall I cry and I will not hear, How long shall I cry unto thee of violence and I will not save it accuses the Lord, we could say, of being indifferent. In this chapter. He's going to accuse him of being inactive, not doing anything. He shows him all the problems and trials and doesn't do anything about it. And he's going to accuse the Lord of not only being indifferent and inactive, but he's going to accuse him of being inconsistent. Because when God tells him, look about it, I'm going to answer your sirs. I'm going to work the work that is so wonderful and marvelous. You're not even going to believe it though, if he told you.
Then when he sees how God is going to answer his prayer, he says, God, you can't do it that way. Are you going to punish your children of Israel with your people, with a nation that is more wicked than they are? That wouldn't be fair. That would be inconsistent with your character. And so that's when he goes up on the high power watches to hear how he's going to be reproved. So as we mentioned there, those are three, three accusations. And sometimes we can get to where we feel the same way. We get all burdened down.
We're down in the valley. We get down in the dumps. It's trials and problems and difficulties we get occupied with. Maybe there's problems in the assembly, maybe there's problems out on the farm and we want to get some crops planted. And they just, the rain just keeps coming and coming and we just think it's never going to stop. One brother up in Iowa Falls told me, he said I got up at 5:00 in the morning and I heard the rain come down and my wife says, well, where are you going, honey? He said I just have to get up. He said I got up and paced the floor and I got down on my knees and I praised and then I felt better.
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You know, it's nice, but that's what the backup did when he had this burden. He took it to the Lord so many times. When we have a burden and a problem, we tell everybody else about it first. We tell our brethren about it. If we tell our husband and wife, we complain to them about the problem or whoever. Remember just recently back home.
I had taken a trip off to Vancouver, BC and I was coming home and I had a package that a brother in the meeting had given me to deliver to another brother.
And I tucked it under the seat of my car as I went through customs. I guess I thought, well, maybe they'll ask me what's in that package. And I wasn't sure what was in it. So I thought I'll just tuck it out of sight so that you don't want any difficulty here. But I got all the way back down and the brother called me and said, do you have a package for me? I said, yes, I do. I went out to the car to find it and I couldn't find it. And I looked in my office and I looked throughout the house, everywhere where I put things, and I couldn't find it anywhere. Am I was trying to complaining a little bit and saying I just can't figure it out. I don't know what I did with that.
Finally my wife says to me, Well, dear.
Great about it, and I had to admit that I hadn't. And so she said, well, why don't you pray about it? It's wonderful to learn. Jesus help me so it can help us when we get in those kinds of depression too and things don't go quite right. So I got down and I prayed about it. It wasn't long before I found that package that I was looking for and was able to give it to the brother, it turned out. But I think here this property saw those things and he took the burden to the Lord.
Let's just say this too, that there are two extremes that we can have.
In problems with problems and difficulties, why is it we can be indifferent to them completely and almost close our eyes and isolate ourselves from problems and not want, even almost pretend they're not there? And Habakkuk wasn't that way. He had a real heart for the people of God. He loved them and he could see them in this condition and so that.
His heart was there, but we can go to the other extreme and we can get overburdened and we can get so burdened that we get our eyes off the Lord and we get down in the dumps and we get depressed.
And that's not right either. A few weeks ago, back home, I was in the town where I live. I was asked to take the funeral of a young man, 31 years old. He was a man who.
Was a professing Christian, seemed to be a very happy man, and he went to church in our community every Sunday. He went to Bible studies. Fact, he'd even visited the meeting in Gig Harbor a couple of times.
But in a moment of disparity of his life left behind the three children, ages 6 and four or two, and a beautiful wife left all that behind.
And people were wondering, well, how could somebody who was a professing Christian ever come to that point? Well, we're mentioning a little bit that it's like the disciples, you know, when the Lord, they came to the Lord and they said, Lord, we have here 5 loaves and two fishes. But what are they among so many? You know, we can look at the magnitude of our problems, the 5000 that need to be fed, and we can get overwhelmed or we can look at the minuteness of our own.
Resources, our own sufficient insufficiencies and become underwhelmed or we can get our eyes on the Lord Jesus, that one who is all sufficient and the one who's able to do exceedingly abundantly. But all that we ask you, thank you, and we can become encouraged to go on.
One brother, one time in a meeting, somebody said, you know, you just don't seem to be overwhelmed by the problems. The rest of us here, we're just, we're going through these problems and you just go on like everything is fine. And the brother said, no, He said, I, I trust and I feel these problems and difficulties just as much as you do. He said, but I don't allow it to let me, I don't allow it to interfere with my enjoyment of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, Satan is busy trying to bring things in to our lives.
Through the trials and problems to cause us to have things interfere with our enjoyment of the Lord Jesus and we need to always be on guard. If we don't allow something come in, it would spoil our enjoyment of the Lord. Well he said, how long shall I cry? And the second time he says, and thou wilt not hear even cry on the day of violence. And I will not say that the second time that word cry is used in the Hebrew, it actually could be translated to screen.
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Maybe some other lives here can know what it's like to have frustration in the house and the kitchen where you get to the part you can say.
I could just scream. Maybe nobody's ever said that, but I've heard that said before by someone in a moment of frustration, and that's how the back he was. He was at the point where things irritated him so much he could just scream.
But he says, why do you show me this uniqueness? He looked out and he saw the contention and he saw the strike. We saw all those things and this is in God. You're not doing anything about it. He says the law is slack and judgment doesn't go for it. Seemed that way to him.
Israel had turned to idols, they were backsliding far away from God. Here's his faithful prophet, and God says I am working. Verse 5. Behold ye among the heathen, and regard and wonder marvelously, for I will work a work in your days which you will not believe, though it be told you.
And then he tells him how he's going to raise up the Chaldeans and come away and still come through the land and carry them into captivity. They'll sweep through the land and they're going to chase them, the people of God, and bring them back to God.
So God says I am working well back in like the way God was going to do it. And so he says, God, you're pure eyes and to behold evil and cast not look upon iniquity or injustice. Are you going to chasten your people with a nation that's more wicked than they are?
And he says, you know, they the heathen, they go out and they fish, and then when they catch their fish, they worship their nests.
These people, that's what was going to happen. They're going to worship their weapons of war. They'll look at their own strength and they're not going to worship you. And so God is going to show Habakkuk that he is going to deal with the heathen tube and bring them around and punish them. But first he's going to deal with his people, Israel. So God may use things in our lives that we might think we may not understand what's happening.
That he works everything out for good. It says all things work together for good, but I love God and to them that are called according to his purpose. He doesn't do things the way we do. His thoughts are not our thoughts. Neither are our thoughts his thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God's ways higher than our ways. But God is working everything out for good and sophomatic at the beginning of this book, so to speak, He's saying as it were gone, you're doing it wrong.
But by the time we get to the end of the book, he's saying, God, you're doing everything right. And that's what the Lord is wanting to do in the trials and difficulties in our life. And the things that are happening is he's trying to bring us around to the point where we can say, like the Beckett could, at the end of the book, I will rest in the Lord.
I will rejoice in the Lord. I will rely on the Lord gets his eyes off his problems and realizes that God is completely in control. So as we mentioned in chapter one, he's wondering and he's worrying. And verse one of chapter two really could go at the end of chapter one. So chapter divisions are not inspired. They say that these chapter divisions were made.
By a man.
Way back in the early 1500s, I believe it was, it was going on horseback from the city of Paris to the city of Lyons. And he traveled back and forth and as he did, he went through the Scriptures and he put the divisions in there. And Mr. William Kelly makes a comment about that. He said said this. He said that a man would have done a lot better to be in a closet on his knees rather than on his horse just putting the tractor divisions in. So sometimes when we look at the traffic divisions, we can say.
It could have gone perhaps in a little better place. Those are not inspired. The Scriptures are inspired and the book of Psalms. God did divide all those up, and those chapters are all divided rightly. But sometimes we find that it's good if the chapters could have maybe been placed in a different place. And so a backup finishes in verse one of chapter 2. I will stand upon my watch, set me upon the tower, and will watch and see what He will say unto me, when I shall answer, and when I am reproved.
So now not only is he in the first chapter learns how to.
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Bring his burden to the Lord, but now he's listening to the Lord for an answer. Sometimes we take our troubles to the Lord, but then we don't stop and listen to what the Lord has to say to us. Remember Samuel back in the Old the Testament? Eli told him to say, Speak Lord and I serve him, hear him. It's real easy to talk to the Lord, but how much time do we spend whistling to what he has to say to us? It could be said that in chapter one of his book we find that the prophet is signed.
And in chapter 2 he's silent. And in chapter 3.
He's singing.
He signed many silent listening to what God has to say to him. And then at the end he's actually come to that point where he's singing and rejoicing in the Word. You know, if we were silent more often and listening to what God was saying to us in our difficulties, we would be able to rejoice like this property. And this is one of the few books in the Bible where we actually get a dial out back and forth between God and one of his servants. And that's the whole way that this book goes. You know, in the book of Job, sometimes you see a dialogue between Job and his friends.
And between Lihu and Job and so forth throughout the book. But here's a book where we find a back. It comes with its burdens of God. God answers him, and Habakkuk gives his answer back. And now he's going to sit and listen to what's going to happen when he is reproved. He's up on his tower, he's watching, and he's waiting.
He's learning to be quiet and listening to God speak, you know, sometimes in order to wake us up in the middle of the night because He has something to say to us. Those are some of the best times I know in my own personal life that I have with the Lord. You do 3:00 in the morning, the Lord will wake me up. Maybe it's because I said something to somebody that I shouldn't have said, and He'll bring it to my attention and I'll realize that I need to go to that person and try to get straightened out. The Lord is faithful.
Somebody said when you can't sleep at night.
Don't count sheep, talk to the shepherd and I like that you can't sleep. Don't talk **** don't count sheep, or some people do, but talk to the shepherd. Take advantage of those hours in the middle of the night when you're laying there and you can't sleep and speak to the Lord and let Him speak back to you. Sometimes I get up out of bed and I get out of a pen and a paper and I write down clocks if the word will give me on some burst or something, because I'm afraid when I go back to sleep I'll wake up in the morning and I'll be like Nebuchadnezzar. When he had his dreams, he said The thing is gone for me.
And so often that's the way it is. And so I'll give a little PM count and I'll write down some thoughts. Speak to us if we listen. He wants to fellowship with us. And primarily he speaks to us through his word as we read the word of God. I've never heard a audible voice from heaven saying to him do this or Tim do that. But I've heard about school small voice in my heart, and I believe you have two. And as we open up the scriptures and read it, he speaks to us from his word. And so it's not just through the.
Chapter as quickly as we can, but let the Lord say what He has to say to us from each verse and each line, and each chapter from His good word.
Well, he gets his answer. God speaks to him in verse two and it says here and the Lord answered me first. He listened and the Lord gave an answer and this is what the Lord says. Write the vision, make it plain on the tables that he may run that read a fit for the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie military wait for it, because it will surely come to pass. Behold the soul which is lifted up.
Is not up right in here, but the just shall live by faith. So Habakkuk is told from God to take and right this reason down. And this is the prophecy that comes in later on in this book and in the next or in this chapter and in the next chapter.
And it says, write it down, make it plain upon the tables. You know, one of the things that I think about that is that not only is he making it readable, but the word of God is plain when God speaks to us. It usually the problem isn't with God not being able to make himself plain. The problem is either we haven't read the passage carefully so we already have our minds made-up what we want to do, or we just simply don't want it to be that way.
Otherwise, normally the Lord wants to communicate His word to us in a way so we can understand it and do something out of it. So he tells the prophet, make you find upon the tables that he may run, that we didn't just say this.
But it doesn't say that he that he shall read it, but it says that he may run that readeth it. And so in other words, it's not enough to read the word of God. But the whole purpose of prophecy in the Bible isn't just to stuff our head full of knowledge so we can kind of understand how a dispensational chart goes together, but it's to have an effect on our lives. When he says that he may run that readeth it, he's not thinking that he'll run away and be scared, but it will stimulate people who read it to live for the Lord.
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And that's the effect that prophecy should have on us. As we think of the menace of the Lords return and things shaping up in our world, as we see the European Common Market all coming together and the common currency and the barriers have brought down and the very shadows of fulfillment of prophecy right here before us. We know that God's prophetic time clock is stopped and it won't start again until the Lord takes the church out.
So we're not looking for any prophecies to have to be fulfilled until the Lord comes. But as we study prophecies, we study the Word of God. It shouldn't be just to say fill our heads full of knowledge, but it should stimulate us to live for the Lord and to share the Lord with other people, and to seek to be an encouragement to our brethren and a help to our brethren in the enjoyment of his love and of his person. And so he says that he may run that readeth it goes on to say.
The division is yet for appointed time military.
He says don't carry, wait for it because it will surely come. It will not tarry. Now that verse is quoted in the New Testament in Hebrews 10, verse 37. It's amazing. There's a number of verses in Advocate, at least four that come to mind, or three that come to mind right now off the top of my head that are all quoted in the New Testament. So if you say again, it's a very important book.
We've already skipped over one of them, but this is the second one that's quoted in the New Testament and there it's referred to it says get a very little while and he that shall come will come. It's referring to coming of a lawyer, whereas here this verse is referring to all of the prophecy. It says it shall come to pass.
Whereas in Hebrews he shall come, that's a part of the fulfillment of the prophecy is the Lord's coming. And then the third verse that's quoted in this book is in verse four. It says, behold, his soul is lifted up, which is lifted up is not upright in him. That's the Columbians and their pride. But it says, but the just shall live by his faith.
Now the apostle Paul was a man who picked up this book and read it, and it stimulated him to run for the Lord, and he quotes in his epistles.
This book, the just or this verse, the just shall live by faith. He quotes that three times in the New Testament. Once he quotes it in the book of Romans, once he quotes it in the book of Galatians, and once he quotes it in the book of Hebrews. And in the book of Romans. The emphasis is on the 1St part of the verse, the just, the just, shall live by faith. The question in the book of Romans is how can a man be justified with God? That's the question Job asked.
It's answered in the book of Romans how God can be both the just and the justifier. And so the emphasis that Paul uses it in Romans is on the just. And in the book of Galatians the emphasis is on shall live. He is saying they're in Galatians now. Look, you didn't get saved by keeping the law. You got saved by faith in Christ. And so you think now that you were saved by faith that you're going to live.
The Christian life by keeping the law, No, you live a Christian life. It's a life of faith. And that's the emphasis in relations. Whereas in the book of Hebrews it is the emphasis is on by faith. That's in Hebrews hands. And we find that full 11Th chapter of Hebrews is the faith chapter and it gives accounts of all of these men of God who faithfully live for God by faith. So later on in this chapter, God shows Habakkuk all of these woes that he's going to pronounce on the heathen.
And he shows them. There's 5 words that are mentioned here, and they're all things that characterize the gentile world.
Right up from the time we hear people talk about the times of the Gentiles. When did that begin? Did it begin when the day of Pentecost? No, the church began at the day of Pentecost. But the times of the Gentiles really began when Israel was carried away into captivity in the Old Testament and Nebuchadnezzar was reigning there on the throne. And we see where the Gentiles began to dominate the world. And even when the Lord came, Israel as a nation was in captivity or under the ******* of Rome, and they were looking for him to deliver them from the Rome. And but during the times of the Gentiles, Gentiles.
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These five blows characterize what the world is going to be like until the Lord comes and sets it straight. And so in verse 6, there's a woe to him that increases that which is not his. There's selfish ambition. In verse 9, there's a little against covetousness and pride. And in verse 12, there's a woe to one who would exploit others even to the extent of murder. And verse 15, there's a woe to him that maketh his neighbor drunk.
He may look upon his nakedness. There's drunkenness and immorality and in verse 19, there's woe to him that saith the wood awake and to the dumb stone arise and it shall teach. There's a woe against idolatry. People have idols today and all these things are going around us today. We have people who are covetous and proud. We have people who are idolatrous and people who are immoral and drinking and all these things going on. And God says, I can see all this in the Chaldeans and this is what's going to characterize.
The world until I said it right, but it says to the back the just shall live by faith. In other words, he gives them three things to take him through that difficult period of time. Now we're getting around to where things might be relevant to us tonight. Those three things are things that will help us as we go through this life, even now as we wait the coming of the Lord because we're living right now in the time to the Gentiles, the Bible says Jerusalem will be trotted down by the Gentiles.
Times the Gentile people killed and the first one as we mentioned is in verse four. The just shall live by his faith we see God's grace and in verse 14.
We see God's glory and in verse 20 we see God's government, God's grace, God's glory, and God's government. He's saying to Habakkuk, I'm going to give you the grace to go through it. You live by your faith.
One of these days the earth is going to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. It gives them a vision of the millennial time when the Lord sets up His Kingdom. We're not looking for that immediately. We have a hope of something even sooner than that, and that is the rapture of the church. But we need to have a worry before us if we're going to make it through this world with all of its corruption and problems.
And last of all, you see God's government. He says in verse 20, the Lord is in his holy temple, He's still on the throne and let all the earth keep silence before him. In other words, he's saying I'm on the throne and everything is in my control, so don't worry. It says in Psalms 46, be still and know that I am God. We may see problems and difficulties in the assembly or in our marriages or whatever. God is going to set it right. And I just say this about God's grace. The just shall live by faith.
Someone asked Mr. Moody one time.
They said, Mr. Moody, do you have the grace to die for the Lord?
He said no I don't, but he said if the Lord called me to do it.
He said if the Lord called me to do it, he'd give it to me.
And I think we can say that about any problem that we might face in our life, that if the Lord called us to go through it, He will give us the grace to go through it. That's why by faith. And we need to be characterized by a life of faith and His grace. As we go through His life and we come into the assembly, we're all different.
I'm standing here today and I'm Paul and Slim, and maybe there's someone else out here that's short and heavyset, you know, if you were to walk through a garden of tulips.
And you went through acres and acres and acres of tulips.
Might get pretty bored after a while.
And so the Lord doesn't just have a garden that's all flowers that are exactly the same, but it shows in the dandelion here and a gaffa bill there, and we're all different.
And I like to think of it this way. There's a little saying that helps me a little bit. And I enjoy this. It feels like this, that diversity.
Plus Unity.
Equals maturity. Say that again, diversity plus unity equals maturity.
If you have people with different exercises, maybe we have some people here that feel stronger one way and others feel a little strongly another way. We all have different exercises, but the key is not necessarily to try to make everybody fit into my mold. God isn't in the business of making someone who said cookie cutter Christians where we all look like we're stamped out of the same mold. I remember having some gospel meetings in Gig Harbor and Brother Dave Whitaker, who grew up in Iowa, came to those meetings.
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And he was telling me, he says, you see those ladies all sitting up there in the front row. He says those ladies belong to a group that are called Go yeast or two by twos.
And I said, how do you know that? He says it's real easy to spot him. He said they all look like they've been stamped out of the same mold. They all have their hair in a bun. They all wear the same colored dresses, and they all look very much the same. And they look like we might say they're cut right out of the same cooking mode. But the Lord hasn't made us that way. He's made us all different. And so he wants us to go on together. He throws someone said he puts a bunch of cats and dogs all together and so to speak. And he tells us to get along.
And it's the Lords desire that we go on together. It says brethren dwelling together in unity. I'll, I'll spell sweet and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. And so the challenge in this can help the assembly when things are right, though there might be different exercises. We'll balance each other out and we'll go on together.
We need to be careful that we don't get the idea. Remember, Brother Albert Hale sang one time as he traveled. He said, you know, I used to go into some homes and I'd see certain things there in the house. They were certain magazines in the house and things that were there. And he said, after I leave, I'd say to myself, these people are kind of loose.
Then he said I'd go into other homes and see how things were done and when I would leave. I'd say these people are kind of legal.
And he said, I found myself saying as I walk out of one of some of those homes, well, Albert, you're just about right, aren't you?
You know, sometimes we can get feeling like, well, we're the ones that are right and everybody else is out of left field and right field. It's true. The Lord commends kings for not turning to the right hand or to the left in following the Lord. And I covet that spirit. I want to be one who doesn't get over here on this extreme or that extreme.
But real spirituality is to appreciate all of our brethren for who they are and what they are and what the Lord has made them. That isn't that we would tolerate things in their life that weren't right. We love them that would seek to be a help and correct them. They're going on in sin or something where we see they're headed for danger. But yet spirituality is gone in diversity and still have unity and that's maturity. That's true in the home too.
And the Lord never made a refined, when you get married that often, opposites attract. If we have the same strengths and weaknesses, we wouldn't need each other. And so my wife can remember names and details and phone numbers and I, I just don't remember those things very well. And those things I remember that she doesn't remember. And we compliment each other. And that's the way it is in the assembly. The Lord has given all different exercises and we need to go on together and not make waves.
Sometimes we can be indifferent to the needs of others.
And I live in a little town called Gig Harbor.
Illustration tonight that when we come into that harbor by water in a boat, there's a sign outside the mouth of that harbor and that sign says on it slow.
Leave no wake.
And what that means is, you know, somebody become a reason for that sinus. Somebody could come speeding in there and their boat and they could be pulling a water skier or maybe doing 30 miles an hour or 35 miles an hour and just having a wonderful time. But the waves coming off from the side of that boat will ripple through the water. And there's boats that are docked along the side of the harbor and they can hit those boats and those boats can smash into the dock and they can do millions of dollars worth of damage.
There's literally millions of dollars worth of fiberglass in that harbor where somebody could be happily sitting down to their dinner, anchored there in the harbor, and they're just ready to eat a nice meal. And all of a sudden the big waves from the wake of that boat come rolling across the hardware and hit that boat and there goes whatever they have to drink that night, the spilling over and the food spills, and it would spoil their dinner. What I think about that is Christians, every one of us leave off a certain wake.
I hope when I come to pallet at the brethren here won't say well, I'm sure glad he's gone. He left a very unpleasant wake, but I hope that they would be able to say well, you know Tim's visit was an encouragement. We really appreciated that he came and helped well each one of us should desire to be exercised before the Lord that what kind of an effect we have on others because the scripture says no man liveth to himself or die after himself. And so in the middle of a difficult time, just like a back of lids when things in the world were a mess.
00:45:16
You can see everything going to ruin and among God's people as well. God says I'm going to give you 3 things about you that are going to take you through. One is my grace, the other is the vision of the future glory. And last of all, I want to tell you about my government. I'm still on the throne. I'm still in control.
The Lord Jesus is still son over his own house. Sometimes we think it's up to us to try to solve the problems and the difficulties. But in second Timothy chapter 2 and verse at the very end of the chapter, it says there the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men says patient uniqueness, instructing those that oppose themselves if God for adventure will bring them to repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. In other words, it's God who really changes the heart. We can take the word of God and gently bring the principle before somebody, but.
We're not there to strive and try to force somebody to conform to the way we think they should conform it. Just gently take the Word of God and bring the principles and let the Lord do the work. The work is the Lord's work. It's not our work. And sometimes we spend a lifetime learning that. Well after Habakkuk got all of this from the Lord, in chapter 3, we find the worshipping and the witnessing a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet.
Upon Chigenabe.
Oh Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid. O Lord, revived my work in the midst of the years, In the midst of years make known, and in wrath remember mercy.
So when he heard the word of the Lord, he trembled when he saw what God was going to do in bringing these Talibans down and all the judgments that were going to come. But he says revive my work in the midst of years. He prayed for his people. Still, let's not give up on the work of the Lord and say, well, things are so weak and they're so near the words coming.
Let's just give up and justice point of despair and be burdened and kind of go through the motions of coming to meeting and still making the meetings and so forth. No Habakkuk prayed that God would revive his work in the midst of years, and I believe his prayer was answered. And that remnant that came back and Ezra and Nehemiah's time, that even in the midst of God's judgments, it was a little revival that took place. And there were those who did go back, not the whole nation of Israel, but there were a few that went back and it was time interruptable time, 1St and Ezra in the Dmias time. And there was a people when the Lord came.
That's why I believe no matter how bad things may appear or how weak the testimony may be of the people of God, we can still pray and we can still be exercised about the Lords work to see that it keeps going forth in our day. We could still be exercised about the gospel.
And we can think of those that are on foreign fields or those that are seeking to serve the Lord and we can pray for them, we can encourage them, we can support them. Those works are going on in our assembly where somebody teaching the Sunday School class or whatever outreach it is we want to.
Pray for that work, encourage it, support it, and all the different functions that go on in the assembly. We don't want to get the mentality that the Lord is through working because He never quits working. He's always working. Even when I'm back, it didn't think he was the Lord, says Habakkuk. I'm going to work at work that is so marvelous that you won't believe it though if He kills you. Well then, as we mentioned in verse two, we find Habakkuk is praying and in verse.
Verses 3 through 16 we could say he's pondering, and then for the rest of the chapter he's praising. But in verses 3 through 16, he gets a vision of all of the greatness of God. He sees some of these things have to do with what the Word has done in the past, and many of them have to do with what the world is going to do in the future. And as he ponders the greatness of the Lord and the power of the Lord and who he is, and this victory of the Lord actually coming in and judging all these nations that oppose Israel.
Then he ends up praising the Lord. And I just say this, that a backup, you have to remember was an Israelite prophet.
And all of Israel's blessings in a future day, we know they're all based on sovereign grace and the work of the cross. But they are also based on the fact that God is one day going to take all these nations that are oppressing Israel and have oppressed Israel down through the years. And he's going to judge them all. And then he's going to give Israel the rightful place, and they're going to be the head and not the tail. And that's coming. And that's all fulfillment of this prophecy that sees in this book. Now He's rejoicing in the victory of God over the nations. And the Lord Jesus, when he comes back, is going to rule the nations with a rod of iron. He's going to judge them.
00:50:17
And bring Israel into their place of blessing. But for the believer, those of us that are part of the church.
We're we can rejoice in the victory of the of the cross and the fact that we have a home in heaven. We're going to be with the Lord in a heavenly portion in the Father's house. And it's true we're going to reign with him over the earth. But Israel today for the most part is grinded to the victory of the cross. Their eyes will be open when the Lord judges the nations.
But today they're for the most part blinded to the work of the cross. And Israel was going on.
A indifferent to their Messiah. One day they'll look on him whom they pierced, and all the tribes who mourn because of Him. But today we can rejoice, not necessarily in the fact that the Lord is going to judge the nations, though we rejoice in that.
We can rejoice in the victory that the Lord has given us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Also that in first Corinthians 1557, thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. While when Habakkuk gets hurt, all these judgments that God is going to bring up the nations. Then in verse 16 he says, when I heard my belly trembled. Remember in Isaiah 66 there's a verse about he to tremble at thy word as it is 66 two, but he says, when I heard my belly trembled.
Quiver at the voice. Rottenness entered into my bones. I trembled in myself that I might rest in a day of trouble.
As we mentioned at the end of the chapter, we found we said I will rest in God and verse 18 He will rejoice in God and the Lord. And in verse 19 He's going to rely on the Lord, the Lords of strength. But here it said I might rest in a day of trouble. I think in Matthew 1128, the Lord says, come unto me. All that labor and a burden, a backup was burdened at the beginning of his book. Now he can rest in a day of trouble. And then in verse 17 he says these words that are often included.
Says all the fig tree, although the fig tree shall not blossom.
Neither shall there be any fruit, neither shall fruit be in the vines.
The labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat. The flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy, and the God of my salvation, so he.
He could see the Taliban just ready to come down and sweep Israel and take away all of their herds and all of their flocks and all of their fruit and destroy their vineyards and leave the land a waste. And yet he could rejoice.
How could he do that because his hope was in something better than just what was down here. His hope was now becomes in the Lord himself. You know so often it's so easy to get taken up with things here that rob us of our joy and that's what Ted Robbie back of his joy as he saw the burdens and he saw his beloved nation and all these things ready to be wiped out. He was burdened and now he can say God, you're doing everything right. We can bring this up to modern times and say though.
The stock market crash and though that the jobs wanted lists in the paper be a mile long and no jobs available, and though it keep on raining right into the month of June and finally not able to plant their crops or whatever, we can still rejoice in the Lord. Or we could look at it in a spiritual sense and say will there be not much food in the assembly, not much food on the vines, no oxygen in the stalls? Maybe not those servants of the Lord that once labored that seemed to be able to have such power and way they ministered.
And such a help to the brother and and now those it seems so.
Small and powerless compared to those men of old. And we can look at all these things and we can despair or we can be like a back. We can say I'm going to rejoice in the door. There's a verse in Jeremiah chapter 2 and verse 13. We won't turn to it tonight. You might make a note of it, but I just quoted it to you. Jeremiah says remember he's writing a similar time as Habakkuk. He says my people Speaking of the people of God, he says have committed 2 evils.
He says #1 The first evil. He says that they have forsaken me. It found him of living waters.
And then he says the second thing is and reviewed to themselves cisterns, which are broken cisterns that hold no water.
00:55:04
You know, that verse is really spoken to me recently as I thought about that. But anything that we make to try to find our satisfaction and happiness apart from the Lord Jesus is only a broken sister.
It may be a good thing itself to take a marriage. I have a happy marriage. I trust those of you in this room tonight that are married have a happy marriage too. But if I try to find all my happiness in my marriage and there's problems today, Christian couples and they hit married with expectations in their life partner that only the Lord can meet.
And pretty soon after they've been married for a few months, they find out that this man who they thought was Mr. Wonderful was so great after all, or this woman who they thought was going to be the girl of their dreams. And they find out that she may be very beautiful, but sometimes she can get into a bad mood or something and everything isn't perfect and wonderful. And, you know, if we try to find all of our happiness in a marriage which is wonderful and good as that is, we are going to be disappointed and we will find out eventually.
That it's a broken cistern that can hold no water. And if they try to find all our happiness in our job or our career, and we can maybe go to college and we go to school and we get out into this job that we study for and we think is going to bring us lots of fulfillment to find out that it's only a consistent pretty soon there's things that go wrong and things just don't turn out the way they thought they were going to turn out. And if we try to find all of our happiness.
In our possession.
We get things and pretty soon they don't satisfy or they break or they rust. And I believe it's a lifelong process that it takes us to learn. And all of us in this room are still learning it, and we sometimes continue to learn it over and over again.
First could say all of my springs are found. Indeed, the Lord Jesus is the true fountain of living waters. If I try to find all my satisfaction and fulfillment in the assembly, in the meeting where I go, I may get there and think it's just a wonderful group of brethren. But after I've been there for a while, I find out that they all have the old nature in them too, and I find out that that doesn't satisfy. Maybe I think the Lord's given me a ministry and I'm going to find my fulfillment in that, and I go out and preach the gospel.
And my whole source of fulfillment is to see souls saved in a man will induct as a broken cistern because brethren, there is only one second satisfying. Habakkuk learned that lessons and that is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Few people out here on the farm, no farm no what his sister is about than I do, but I believe that a cistern is something that would kept they would store the rainwater in and it would catch the water and they would have his sister and sometimes down on the ground next to the house.
But if a cistern was broken, the water would leak out and you might go to it to get some water and find out it's dry. Like the little hymn writer could say, I tried the broken cisterns, Lord, but all the waters failed. Even as I stooped to drink, they fled, and they mocked me as I wailed. And there's another hymn that says.
About the Lord Jesus Christ Exhaustless springs. The water is free, all other streams are dry.
And I believe that's the lesson that Habakkuk learned. And even as he could see everything ready to be wiped out and the enemy coming in and everything to end in what might seem to be disaster, the Lord had given her vision that there was going to be something far greater to come. And he could rejoice in the Lord. He could rely on the Lord. He could rest in the Lord. So he said the Lord first, the last verse is my strength. He will make my feet like hindspeed, Hines like a deer, and can jump over great obstacles.
He will make me to walk upon five places to the chief singer on my string instruments.
Well.
Just say this, remember years ago a reading about a story of the man who his name is in the back of his hymn book. His name is RC Chapman. He wrote a number of hymns in the Little Flock Hymn book. But there was a division among the brethren and Mr. Chapman went with a different brethren known as the Open Brethren.
And one day Mr. Darby was walking down the street with a group of men brethren, and they passed RC Chapman coming the other way. RC Chapman was a very kind of, what we would say, a saintly looking man with a long beard. He came walking down the road the other way and one of the brothers walking with Mr. Darby made a little bit of a critical remark or a snide remark about Mr. Chapman, saying how could he end up going with those other brethren?
01:00:09
Mr. Darby answered back, he said.
Don't criticize RC, he said. We talk about the heavenlies. He dwells there.
And you know, we see how a backup was able to raise above these problems and say, speak with like time, speed, and he could dwell in high places. And yes, how much greater those of us who are now know the Lord and we're part of the church, the bride of Christ, and receded in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We should be rejoiced in the Lord. We should be happy. Hopefully when we meet one another, we don't greet one another like with sour looks on our faces and look like we've been baptized in pickle juice or lemon juice or something. But then we can have the joy of the Lord that will reflect in our lives that we're not controlled by outward circumstances, that we have found a fountain of living waters.
That can satisfy in a way that all the other broken systems can. And that's the person of the Word, Jesus Christ. So may the Lord help us to keep our eyes on him. And the little time is left till he comes to take us to be with himself. And now that we have a little bit of an outline in this book of Habakkuk, maybe when you get to glory, one of the persons no doubt you're going to meet there is the prophet Habakkuk. And he may say to you, have you ever read my book? And you can go home tonight and you can read it and see how it goes together a little bit with what we've given tonight.
You can say yes to back if I read your book and I enjoyed it and there was some helpful things for me there that were blessing for my soul where all scripture is possible. May the Lord bless that book to us. Perhaps there are time we've done. We could just close a little.