All right, ladies, I don't know if any of you have kids in the swordsman club where they're memorizing verses. And this past week, my son, my youngest, he's in the swordsman, and he had to recite the Old Testament books of the Bible. And there's this song, and you might have heard it, and it's the 66 books of the Bible song.
It's like, Genesis, I'm not going to sing the whole thing. But there's this part that says, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, oh, Malachi. And I just kept thinking about that part over and over again.
And I don't know about you, but before this week, could you find Habakkuk in your Bible? I mean, anytime you're at church and they say, turn to Habakkuk, you're like, where is... Okay, it's only three chapters long.
It's kind of hard to find, so... So I've learned if you go to Matthew and you just go back a couple of pages or you have a bookmark and you just go back a couple of books, like four books, you're going to land on Habakkuk. So it's right before Zephaniah and after Nahum. So Habakkuk is just such a special book personally for me.
He has really used this book when I had times of questioning. This book is located in... The prophets part of the Old Testament, you have your historical books. There's 17 of those from Genesis up to Esther. And then you have five of the poetical books from Job to Songs of Solomon.
And then you have your prophets, right? There's 17 prophetical books. And they're divided up into your major and minor prophets.
And Habakkuk is a minor prophet. And they're named like that only because the major prophets are longer. And then the minor prophets are just a shorter message.
However, because it's a minor prophet, it has a major message. And we are going to see that today. You probably saw that throughout this week as you've been sitting before the Lord.
So the author is Habakkuk himself, and he was mentioned as the prophet. So in chapter 1, verse 1, and then chapter 3, verse 1, which seems to indicate that he was a professional prophet. And then in the closing statement at the end of chapter 3, it says, to the chief musician with my stringed instruments, it suggests that he may have been a priest connected to temple worship. And I thought that was pretty interesting. He is a prophet which is simply a spokesman or a speaker.
And a genuine prophet in scripture is a person illuminated, inspired, or instructed by God to announce future events. Now today, I don't know if you've seen your feeds of YouTube or not, but there'll be a title that says, God spoke to me in a dream. We have to be aware of that, ladies, because there are false prophets out there as well, which is a contrast to the prophets like Habakkuk. 2 Peter 1 20 to 21 says, Knowing this verse that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation.
Prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And so this should be based on Scripture. And when we hear a prophecy, it should also convict us, and it should also make us... maybe do according to the Lord's will because scripture in 2 Timothy 3 16 is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine which is instruction for reproof which is conviction of sin for correction which is restoration to obedience and for instruction and that's training in righteousness and that's learning to live into conformity of God's will And that's what Lisa mentioned earlier, that when we go to him and we end our prayer being in the will of God, and we find that peace, that's exactly where we need to land.
But there are some people who are not okay with just being in the word. In 2 Timothy 4, 3 through 4, it says, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers. and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.
So ladies, if you have any friends or know anybody who's saying, oh, you need to listen to this person, and they're just not biblically sound, don't listen to it. Don't be led into that. Now this book, as the author of the study says, it could have taken place at the time of Manasseh or Josiah, and they say Manasseh because of the list of sins that are listed in the first few verses in chapter one. However, the description of the Chaldeans in Babylon were a world power, which was not true at that time of Manasseh. And then for Josiah, because the moral and spiritual reforms at that time, because Josiah was a good king, It doesn't fit that situation either, so we kind of like to land on Jehoiakim's reign, and that's what some scholars believe as well.
And he was a godless king who led the nation down a path of destruction, and the prophet Jeremiah refers to him as, yet your eyes and your heart are for nothing but for covetousness, for shedding innocent blood and practicing oppression and violence. That was 2217. So this was just before Nebuchadnezzar first invaded. Nebuchadnezzar is the king of Babylon, and he was first invading Judah.
And that's when he took captives. That was Daniel and his friends, if you recall that in the Bible. So at that time, Israel is divided into two kingdoms. You have your northern kingdom of Israel, and then you have your southern kingdom of Judah.
And that is where this prophet was. is in the southern kingdom. And this book was written because Habakkuk was commissioned to announce the Lord's intention to punish Judah by this coming deportation of Babylon. Excuse me.
Judah the nation was repeatedly called to repentance, and the nation stubbornly refuses to change her sinful ways. In 2 Chronicles 36, 14 to 16, it says, Moreover, all the leaders of the priests and the people transgressed more and more, according to all of the abominations of the nations, that's the surrounding nations, and defiled the house of the Lord, which he had consecrated in Jerusalem. And the Lord God of the fathers sent out warnings to them by his messengers, rising up early, sending them because he had compassion.
on his people, and on his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy. God will judge disobedience.
And in Deuteronomy 28 15, there's a choice. You could be cursed or you could be blessed. And in 28 15, it says, but it shall come to pass if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes which command you today that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. And I don't know if you were here a couple weeks ago when we did the prayer service on Sunday morning and Pastor Jack went through Deuteronomy 28 listing all of those curses, most of them, and that's a message. I feel like this book is such a parallel to America and that we have been called repeatedly over and over to repentance.
And so now Habakkuk, he's a person who trusted God, but yet he was perplexed. And have you ever been there? I mean, you trust the Lord, but you have questions, maybe on a personal level, maybe things have happened to you and you just...
It doesn't make sense and you want to see justice happen and that's where I was before I read Habakkuk several years ago and the Lord brought this book to me to show me that we can come to him with his questions. Now in Habakkuk 1.1 the burden is the judgment or the sentence so when Habakkuk heard of the judgment that was coming that's what he was burdened with but he starts with verse 2 that says, Oh Lord,... How long shall I cry out to you and you will not hear and even cry out to you violence and you will not save? Why do you show me iniquity and cause me to see trouble?
For plundering and violence are before me, there is strife and contention arises. Therefore the law is powerless and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, therefore perverse judgment proceeds.
He's thinking that God is not working. at this time, and he's seeing the sin that Judah is involved in, and that God isn't doing anything about it. But isn't God working all of the time?
There's a song that says, even when I don't feel it, you're working. Even when I don't see it, you're working. He never stops working.
And then in verse 5, God responds and he says, look among the nations and watch. Be utterly astounded for I will work a work in your days which you would not believe though it were told you. And I'm going to pause right there because I really wanted to just put myself into Habakkuk's shoes. So if you can kind of track with me.
If I were... Habakkuk, hearing this right now, I would be thinking, I am going to look around all of those nations. Look at how horrible these nations are.
And the Lord said he's going to go to work. Okay, Lord is going to work. And just last week, right, Hezekiah, in that study, the Lord, when he went to work, what did he slayed? 185,000 Assyrians. So I would be thinking, okay, you slayed 185,000 Assyrians.
You're going to slay so many more people. Lord, you do that. And then God goes on and says, For indeed, I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.
They are terrible and dreadful. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. And then he goes on and just lists how horrible and how violent of this nation is that he's going to rise him up.
And so now this just leaves Habakkuk even more perplexed. How can a holy God use a sinful nation to accomplish his purpose? And so here we have Habakkuk. He says, Lord, you are from everlasting in verse 12. Oh Lord, my God, my Holy One, we shall not die.
And he remembers the promises of God that Israel wasn't going to die. He's remembering the promises to Jacob and to Moses and to Abraham and Isaac. Jeremiah 31, 35 through 36 says, Thus says the Lord who gives the sun for a light by day and the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea and its waves roar, the Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from me, says the Lord, Then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation for me forever.
And then Habakkuk goes on and says, O Lord, you have appointed them, the Babylonians, for judgment. O rock, you have marked them for correction. You are of pure eyes and can behold evil and cannot look on wickedness. Why do you look on those who deal treacherously and hold your tongue when wicked devours a person more righteous than he?
This is where it gets really personal and where it got personal with me because he's calling Judah righteous but in the first part of Judah wasn't he just mentioning all of the iniquity that Judah was doing so he's going from iniquity and sinful to calling them righteous well I can do the same thing and when I very first signed up for Bible study my very first Bible study lesson The book was called Respectable Sins, and I think the Lord was saying, before we start studying a book in my word, we're going to look at all of these sins that I want to correct, and you know, self-righteousness, or sins of judgment, sins of sarcasm, and these things, and you know, I really thought I was signing up for Bible study, but the Lord was signing me up for heart surgery. But let me let you in on a little secret. Every single season of Bible study is heart surgery, isn't it? If we allow the Lord. But he is the perfect surgeon and he just cuts away the things that he doesn't want us to have so we can see and be more like Jesus.
So... God must judge disobedience. And Judah is in the same wickedness as the Babylonians in their sin. And God has to do something about that. In Psalm 14, 2, the Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
They have all turned aside. They have together become corrupt. There is none who does good. No, not one.
And then Romans 3, 9 to 12 says, What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.
There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside.
They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one. And so now, after that, in verses 14 through 17, he's basically asking the Lord, are you going to reward them for heaping up all of these people because of their corrupt cruelty and for their idolatry?
And then in verse 14, 1 of chapter 2, you just have to love Habakkuk's heart because he says he will stand his watch and he sets himself on the rampart. He's going to watch to see how the Lord, what he will say to him and what he will answer when he is corrected. And I don't think Habakkuk is there like I'm going to be corrected. I don't think that was the case. I think he was there really wanting to know, Lord, show me.
And I think we need to check our hearts too in how we approach the Lord. Are we swift to hear the Lord like Habakkuk is? James 1.19 says, So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. And this is one of my favorite verses in James 1.21.
It says, Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive the meekness. Receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. And meekness is gentleness. And for the believer, it begins with the Lord's inspiration and finishes by his direction and empowerment. And it is a divinely balanced virtue that can only operate through faith.
And so do you want to be used by him? You probably do, right? So this is how we approach the king of the universe. is in meekness.
And so God says to him, write this vision and make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it. And he did. He wrote it down.
And now we have it, ladies, and we can run and tell people. And these visions, these are for an appointed time. So this is all prophetical.
And I don't know if you have any junior high or high schoolers because there's a prophecy conference coming up. I have three, two in high school and one in junior high, and they're going. And it's funny because they were asking me, are you going to sign me up for the prophecy conference?
They want to go. So if you have any young people, go. But the Lord has already told us the future. And then it says here, it will not tarry.
And sometimes we think that the Lord might be taking too long. Because God is working and he is doing something. In 2 Peter 3, 9, the Lord is not slack concerning his promises, some count slackness, but is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So now we come to the contrast. In verse 4, it says, Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith.
And the Lord wants to bring people from this side to people to this side, right? And that is what the Lord's work is, is to bring people from the proud heart who think they can reach God any way that they think they can, to faith in Jesus Christ. There is salvation, salvation of the Jews and salvation of the Gentiles. But some people like to think that they know the way and in Proverbs 14 12 there is a way that seems right to man but its end is the way of death.
John 3 36 says he who believes in the son has everlasting life and he who does not believe in the son shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him and the just is the one who is righteous and only God can consider somebody as righteous. He's looking for the faith. that you have in his son and then it will be accounted to him as righteousness.
Romans 4 3 says for what does the scripture say Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness so it is his belief and then the author of the study that did bring up some verses that were in Galatians and in Hebrews and Romans right where the just shall live by faith In Galatians, we wonder, well, what does that look like, to live by faith? Galatians 2.20 says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
In the life that I live now, in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So we die to the old self, and we crucify the old self, and we live for the Lord. And we do the things that the Lord has called us to do. And we want to be pleasing to him.
Hebrews 11, 6 says, But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So what does your life look like? And I don't know if you've heard the saying that goes, tell me you're a mom without telling me that you're a mom. And then you might see a woman getting ready for a date with her husband, and then she's got like a kid's sticker on her back or something, right? It's like, yeah, she's a mom.
Well, we can say we're Christians, and I think a lot of people want to say, tell me you're a Christian without telling me you're a Christian. Tell me you believe in Jesus without telling me that you believe in Jesus. So what is that going to look like? It might look like being more respectful to your husband. It might look like loving on your children and giving them the response that is holy when it's hard.
It's exercising patience and counting it all joy when we fall into various trials. And it's going to be opposite to what the world says because the world says you deserve this and you deserve to be having your your me time. But the Lord says that we die to ourselves.
and we serve one another. And so let's move on to chapter three and Habakkuk. He's now seeing the Lord for who he is and that he is going to work and he says, oh Lord, revive your work in the midst of your years. And his work is to redeem.
And maybe you might be in need of personal revival yourselves to be part of his work. Maybe you need to be restored in your soul. And I would invite you to read all of Psalms 119. So many occasions of the Lord reviving David.
And David just saying, you have revived me. I need you to revive me. One of the verses in 149 of chapter 119 says, Please hear my voice. According to your loving kindness, O Lord, revive me according to your justice.
Psalm 80, 17 says, Let your hand be upon the daughter of your right hand, upon the daughter of man whom you made. strong for yourself, and I put the word daughter in here because we are all ladies in this room, and so Habakkuk in chapter 3, he goes on to magnify the Lord, and he talks about the greatness of God, and that's what we need to do. Sometimes we go to God with our problems, and we make God really small, and we think God doesn't know what he's doing, but we're to magnify him. Psalm 34 3 says, oh magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name. name forever.
And verse 4 says, I sought the Lord and he heard me and he delivered me from all of my fears. He has a plan, ladies. Verse 13 of that chapter says, You went forth for the salvation of your people, for salvation with your anointed.
You struck the head from them, from the house of the wicked, by laying bare from foundation to neck. So God is in the business of saving souls. And sometimes we just need a help with our perspective and going from fearing the things that are around us to the fear of the Lord.
And we need to repent from a wrong perspective. Just like Job did when God said, to Job, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? And Job in chapter 42, verse 6, but now my eyes see you, therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. And Lord, And guys, we are at this time of repentance in America that the Lord is calling us to repent. Have you been afraid of the future?
Have you been hearing of things to come? Don't let them wear you. Yes, things are going to get worse.
And I don't know what that means. But we're hearing it, right? COVID, I think, was a dress rehearsal to what's going to happen.
And ladies, if you were wearied with that. how are we going to do later on when things get worse? Jeremiah 12, 5 says, If you have run with the footmen and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? And in the land of peace in which you trusted, they wearied you, then how will you do in the flood plains of the Jordan?
So don't be discouraged. No matter how bad things are going to be. We had my son's birthday a couple weeks ago, and we asked him, what do you want for dinner? And he said, steak.
Do your kids like steak? And so my husband, he grilled up some steaks, and then as we're eating, my husband and I were saying, you know, we don't know how much longer we're going to have this. And so this book was reminding us that the God of Israel, the true God, he is the one in control of every single event, and he can be trusted even in the mysterious circumstances of life that appear to contradict his sovereign control. When he is our source of comfort to us, we can say, like Habakkuk, In verse 17, and I'm going to say this in terms of where we can understand, because it starts here with, though the fig tree may not blossom.
Do you guys like avocados? I love avocados. The avocado tree shall fail to blossom.
Although there's no milk in the fridge for the kids. There's no oil to make your cakes. There's no In-N-Out or Chick-fil-A.
No ice lattes or there's no money in the account. There's not even a source of income. Verse 18 says, yet I will rejoice in the joy of the Lord God, my salvation.
And it says, the Lord God is my strength. He will make my feet like deer's feet and he will make me walk on my high hills. I was talking with Lisa a couple weeks ago and it was brief about Habakkuk.
And she was. was telling me about a time where she was watching some goats on the side of a cliff, and I guess on the side of a hillside, and the goats, they would kind of walk, and then they had their babies behind them, but there's a cliff like right next to them, and she's like, we were so scared that they were going to fall off the cliff, and I was like, gosh, that sounds so fascinating, and so when Lisa tells something, I'm like looking it up, right, and I had to tell you, I looked it up online, and it's now one of my favorite things to do. to watch, but you have these goats that are just like hopping around, and they hop from place to place, and they defy gravity.
The rocks are kind of falling beneath them, but they're just, they're able to tread, and they're able to go, and the Lord designed them to be in that element, and they're able to get food, and they're able to stay away from predators, and so when I think about that, I think about us, and us being being in our high hills and the Lord has given us everything that we need to be the mom that we should be, the wife that we should be, the employee that we should be, the single mom raising kids, taking them to school, and then serving at church, making food for your neighbor who's sick. Maybe you're a caregiver and you're doing these things on your high hills, just serving God. and then as I was thinking about that imagery I was imagining a lion at the bottom of the hill and the lion is looking up and he sees this goat and he's just looking around and lions have very big paws right can a lion climb up the side of a mountain.
No, they can't. But if he's looking around, he's going to get hungry eventually, and he's going to leave. And so I just kept thinking about that. As their eyes are just on the Lord, as our eyes are...
are just on the Lord, fixed on him, we can be on our high hills and we don't need to let doubt weigh us down or the questions weigh us down. Instead, we take our questions to the Lord. In Psalm 55, 22, it says, cast your burden on the Lord and he shall sustain you. He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.
So we can take our questions straight to God, and we can go from questioning God to praising God, just like Habakkuk did. We can go from troubled faith to faith triumphant, and we can... end in praising the Lord. We can praise him for who he is.
We can praise him for what he does, and we can praise him for his plan. And there's a song that we've been singing lately, and it says, Lord of hosts, you're with us, with us in the fire, with us as a shelter, with us in the storm. And we can trust in him. He will be with us through anything. Let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much that you are our Lord of hosts, that you are our everlasting God. that you raise us up on wings like eagles. You never faint and you never grow weary, Lord, and we can walk and not grow weary.
We can run and not be faint ourselves, Lord, because you are our source of strength. And we love you, Lord, and we ask that you would go before us. In Jesus'name, amen.
Thank you, ladies.