I’m Dana Matchmaker Congdon.
I’ve been coming to the conference for twelve years. For most of those years, I’ve worked with young people. They locked me into the upper tower with these young people for the week.
Some of these young people grew up, and that’s why last year I had to go in among the singles and see if I could help them join together.
We had quite a wonderful year. I’m glad to hear that testimony from Steve, and we’ll see what happens to Steve.
I do thank the Lord for this conference. It was twelve years ago that I came for my first conference. At that time, I was a minister in a denominational church in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I came, and I was undone.
Lance was sharing that week on the principles of fellowship, and every one of those messages was like an arrow in my heart and in my ministry. What he said was right. Where I was standing was wrong.
It began a whole sort of change in my life. So for twelve years, I’ve been coming back. I’ve been blessed in so many ways to receive from the ministries here.
I look forward every year to coming to this conference, and I enjoy these times eating that conference sandwich, as I call it. Stephen shares; he’s sort of the rice cake. Then the other bread is the good old Jewish rye.
Usually we have Danish ham in the middle—one of my favorites. And I apologize for the fact that it’s filled with bologna this year.
Lance quoted to me, “Can anything good come out of Long Island?”
Well, I think twelve years ago, I knew what I wanted to share, because I knew all things back then. It’s the humor of the Lord that the very year you’re not sure exactly what to share, you’re invited to speak.
Well, I’ll go along with the joke. I would like to share with you why I’m in a bit of consternation. It’s because the Lord is transforming me.
I’m in the midst of metamorphosis. I’m neither tadpole nor frog—somewhere in between. I don’t know exactly what my calling is in the body of Christ.
But I’d like to give you just a little history before I share something, because I believe they apply.
In 1964, I was saved. In 1966, I felt called to the ministry. I went to what I call cemetery—actually, seminary.
In 1968, four years after becoming a Christian, I became the pastor of a church. Not the wisest thing. How many of you have been Christians more than four years here? Well, you see, you should all be pastors by now.
But mistakes are made, and it was a real learning experience. I got through cemetery, and they screwed a double halo on my head: one, now that I was a reverend; and they also made me a missionary.
I was a missionary, and they sent me up to heathen territory—which was New York—to be a missionary up to New York.
Well, I won’t go into the story of why I resigned a pastorate and this mission calling and left the particular denomination, because all of that’s not the point. One of the reasons that I felt so uncomfortable in this particular role is that I never felt that I was a pastor.
I was raised by precious parents. I am blessed with a precious wife. I have great kids. I have my health. And I wanted to serve the Lord.
Yet I always felt an impatience when it came to dealing with people who needed help. I just wasn’t much of a shepherd. Just sic me on some people to preach the gospel, and I’ll do it. But to understand weeping, pitiful people was just too much.
I never felt I was a pastor. I still don’t.
But over the last three years of my life, I suppose most of you know, three years ago my oldest son died in a car wreck. It wrecked my life.
For the last three years, I have had the most amazing discovery. I just don’t know quite what to do with it. The discovery is that God is a shepherd.
Because I found out I was just a sheep. I thought before I was a warhorse, you know. Nothing could make me vulnerable. I’m just a sheep.
And I would like to boast in Christ. What is a sheep? For three years, when I would quit, He would go out and bring me back. If I got caught in a bush, He’d pick me up and put me in His arms.
When I had nothing to say, He just let me be silent. When I was feeding on the wrong food, He always took me to green pastures.
I just am seeing something I never saw: how much God cares for people. I never cared much for myself, really.
I’m not self-centered in my concern in the sense that, you know, I have aches and pains and tell everybody and wimp around. But as I became vulnerable and found out I was just a human being, I began to see how much God loves human beings, because He’s been so gracious to me.
I suppose what I’ll be sharing in the next few times that I have to share is that Jesus is the Shepherd of our souls. He’s the One who restores and captures the hearts of Christians gone astray, and He can restore us—even some of us who might call ourselves veterans on this living way.
I’d like for you to turn to Romans 15, just as a scriptural thought.
Romans 15. I’d like to just read verse 4.
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning,
that through patience and through comfort of the scriptures
we might have hope.—Romans 15:4
Now, for the young Christian, there are many things that spur them on: faith in Christ, novelty, the excitement of living in Christ and being a new creation.
But for saints who’ve plodded along for a few years, we find that not only does faith become our life, but we find that hope is an important fuel to the heart that would persevere.
We notice here that Paul is talking about the hope that comes to us. The fuel of the persevering heart is hope ignited by the encouragement of Scripture.
Paul says the Scriptures given to us in the old days—the prophecies, the Old Testament Scriptures—were given to ignite that fuel of hope in our hearts, to keep us burning and moving as we follow the Lord.
It doesn’t make any difference whether the revelation is within the Torah of God as to Who He is in His holiness and His love, or whether it is the consolations of the Psalms given to comfort our hearts, or the miracles of God’s moving in the history of the Old Testament.
I would like to share in the four times that I have the comfort we gain through the prophets: the comfort of the prophets.
Now, it would be much too comprehensive to fully undertake, but I just want to share in the lives of four prophets the comfort of Scripture—the comfort of the Word of God—and ask that God would comfort our hearts through these words given to us in earlier days.
Could we just pray together before we begin?
Father of all comfort, Shepherd of our souls, we thank You for the hope that burns within us when, against all hope, we put our faith in Christ and find that sufficient to give us life.
We would pray in these times, in a simple way, that You would manifest Your shepherd love and come into this auditorium and especially touch those people who need to be restored.
Lord, help us. For the Lord Jesus’ sake. Amen.
I would like to look, for the first two times together, at the lives of two prophets who were themselves comforted: Habakkuk, whom we’ll look at today, and then Elijah tomorrow.
Then I’d like to take two other little books among the minor prophets and show how the prophets themselves comforted the people of God through their words, by looking at Haggai and then Malachi.
So if you want to read some minor prophets, this is your chance.
I’d like you to turn to page 888. It’s the only way you’ll find Habakkuk. Or, for some of you, you can just close your Bible tightly where the gold leaf is basically untouched. This is Habakkuk.
What’s your favorite verse in Habakkuk? Which ones do you daily claim? I’ll read you a few while you turn there.
For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
as the waters cover the sea.—Habakkuk 2:14
“Oh yeah, I remember that one. That’s one of my favorite ones in the book of Habakkuk,” right?
Okay, here’s another one:
But the Lord is in His holy temple:
let all the earth keep silence before Him.—Habakkuk 2:20
Oh, yeah. The most popular one, if you can rate it by times used in the New Testament, is this:
But the righteous shall live by his faith.
—Habakkuk 2:4
That’s from Habakkuk 2. We’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes.
Now, when we turn to this little epistle—this little book, this little prophecy—it’s interesting that we know nothing about Habakkuk. There’s just nothing about him historically.
He doesn’t tell us who his mom and dad are or exactly where he lived. We can infer from the book that he was living in Judah, and also that he was living probably around 600 BC, just before the Babylonians—here called the Chaldeans—were to swoop down and destroy Judah and Jerusalem.
He was in this period just before the invasion of the Babylonians, when they would capture Judah and Jerusalem and the people of God and, of course, take them away into captivity.
The wonderful thing about this little book—it depends how you look at it—for me, it is a blessing and encouragement to us, as I want to share this morning, is that Habakkuk opens up his life to us.
He shares this book, as it were, as part of a personal diary. We see how he is dialoguing with God, what he is sharing with God, what God is sharing with him, and he passes it along to us.
The outline is very simple for this book. It is basically in three parts. There are two dialogues: Habakkuk speaks, God answers; Habakkuk speaks, God answers.
Then there is this third and interesting chapter, the last chapter, that is called in Habakkuk 3:1, “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, set to Shigionoth.”
Now, Shigionoth was not one of Habakkuk’s friends. Shigionoth is a word that we’re not sure exactly what it means. That’s why they leave it in the Hebrew, figuring them.
But it probably—at least people are willing to give it a shot; you know rabbis are always willing to give some reason for a word—basically means an emotional poem, maybe a song-poem. It is a very emotional and wonderful sort of expression of the heart.
It would be instructive for us just to look at the last few verses. If you’ll jump all the way to Habakkuk 3:17, here’s a song you may know:
For though the fig tree shall not flourish,
neither shall fruit be in the vines;
the labor of the olive shall fail,
and the fields shall yield no food;
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 in the God of my salvation.The Lord God is my strength,
and He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet,
and will make me to walk upon my high places.For the Chief Musician, on my stringed instruments.
—Habakkuk 3:17-19
I like that last verse, being a guitar player myself.
But this book starts out in desperation. Then something happens as Habakkuk is crying out to God. God answers him.
I’m not so sure if it’s the actual answer that changes Habakkuk’s heart, as to what the answer meant to him, that could turn his desperation, his agonizing, into a song like that: “Yet will I rejoice in the Lord.”
Now let’s look at the content a little bit more fully. First, notice in Habakkuk 1:1, it says, “The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.”
We find Habakkuk immediately engaging in question and agony and desperation and restlessness and struggling.
O Lord, how long shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear?
I cry out unto Thee of violence, and Thou wilt not save.
Why dost Thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold perverseness?
For destruction and violence are before me;
and there is strife, and contention riseth up.
Therefore the law is slacked, and justice doth never go forth;
for the wicked compass about the righteous;
therefore justice goeth forth perverted.—Habakkuk 1:2-4
That’s his first dialogue. He’s in a bit of agony, as you can see.
Some people could just casually look and say, “Well, he’s having a dry spell in his prayer life.” But I think it’s more serious than that.
He has received the burden, and he’s praying about the thing. He’s saying, “God, what’s the matter? What’s going on? I’m praying; nothing’s happened. Have You ever been in that place before?”
And there’s no deliverance. I mean, I’m down in the pit, and they’re closing it in, and there’s no—.
Your justice is just being ignored. Your laws are being spurned. And the wickedness that Habakkuk sees would be one thing if it were just the Babylonians and all of their sinful wickedness that was bothering Habakkuk, but he was bothered as well by the sinfulness of the people of God.
And there was no justice. There was a suspicious silence from God.
You know, one of the phenomena of meteorology that really impresses me is that silence that comes just before big storms. You go outside, the wind stops, the air gets still.
You know something’s fishy. Now something’s going to happen. You head for cover. I cover up my golf clubs and barely make it inside. It always happens when I go out to play golf.
If you want to know when it’s going to rain, just ask me what day I’m playing golf. That’s fishy silence just before the skies open up.
This was sort of the situation. He was praying, he was praying, he was seriously praying, and nothing was happening.
Let’s look a little bit at God’s answer. Habakkuk 1:5. It doesn’t satisfy Habakkuk’s heart, by the way. We think if God would just answer, it’d be okay. Sometimes when He answers, it causes more problems.
Behold ye among the nations, and look,
and wonder marvelously;
for I am working a work in your days,
which ye will not believe though it be told you.
For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
that march through the breadth of the earth,
to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.—Habakkuk 1:5-6
They are dreaded and feared. Their justice and authority originate with themselves, et cetera, et cetera. And I’m sending them down. They’re just going to sweep over the land, take everything in their time.
Well, Habakkuk doesn’t say, “Well, thank You very much, God,” and get off his knees. He brings up his second dialogue—his complaint. I don’t know what to call it exactly.
Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, Thou hast ordained him for judgment;
and Thou, O Rock, hast established him for correction.
Thou that art of purer eyes than to behold evil,
and that canst not look on perverseness,
wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously,
and holdest Thy peace when the wicked swalloweth up
the man that is more righteous than he?—Habakkuk 1:12-13
Why hast Thou made men like fish of the sea, which are being swept up by a net? And he goes on with his complaint.
Why? It seems, if we look at it casually, that now Habakkuk has a theological problem: God is holy; how can there be this kind of allowance of injustice, this allowance of treachery, this sweeping of evil over the land unchecked?
But I would like to suggest something a little deeper. Because if this is the extent of Habakkuk’s problem—he’s having theological problems with God, some doubts about that, and he hasn’t had his prayers answered in a while—it would make Habakkuk appear to be a rather shallow man who doesn’t know God very well.
But in fact, Habakkuk’s problem came because he knows God well. It isn’t just some kind of shallow, impetuous impatience of a young believer who’s prayed three times and God hasn’t answered.
This is a man who’s deeply stirred and troubled because he knows God and can’t understand what’s going on—not somebody who thinks he knows God and has a theology that now isn’t working.
Let’s look at it once again. In Habakkuk 1:3, notice part of Habakkuk’s stirrings:
Why dost Thou show me iniquity,
and cause me to behold perverseness?—Habakkuk 1:3
It’s God Who gave him the burden. You see, if it was just Habakkuk’s own burden, his own special interest, that would be one thing. But God gave Habakkuk a vision and said, “Look at this wickedness. Look at this evil.”
Habakkuk said, “I see it.” He gets down on his knees and starts to pray, and it gets worse, not better. “God, why are You doing this to me? Why do I have a burden, and I’m praying, and nothing’s happening?”
There’s something deeper here underneath these questions. I believe these questions are symptomatic of what we could call struggling faith.
Habakkuk has struggling faith. He knows God, but he doesn’t know what’s going on. He has faith in God.
You notice he says, “I know that You’re everlasting, and I know that we won’t die.” He’s got trust in God. It isn’t that he doesn’t believe God is going to help.
No, there’s something deeper. There’s a deep questioning going on in his heart. He knows God, yet he’s struggling to believe.
You know, when you have a burden that comes from the Lord, and you pray, and there are no answers, there is no deliverance, what is the usual sort of logical process that begins to form in your mind?
“I know God’s faithful. I know He gave me a burden. And I have prayed, yet without answer. Therefore, something must be wrong with me.”
It isn’t so much the questions that are bothering Habakkuk as the questioning.
If you look at Habakkuk 2:1, as he ends his second argument, or stating of the case, he concludes this:
I will stand upon my watch,
and set me upon the rampart,
and will look forth to see what He will speak with me,
and what I shall answer concerning my complaint.—Habakkuk 2:1
He expects fully to be reproved. There must be something wrong. “I don’t understand what’s going on. There must be a defect in my faith.”
And he bravely says, “I will now go and stand and wait for God to come and reprove me, wait for God to come and correct me. This is the best thing that I can do.”
Now here we see Habakkuk. He’s actually more or less standing in this position that he stated: restless, discouraged, confused, feeling perhaps disqualified.
And God answers him. God the Shepherd answers him.
You know, God comes to him not with condemnation. God doesn’t come to him and say, “Yes, you fool. You’re just unbelieving. You didn’t pray long enough. You only dipped six times in the river, and you know My principle’s got to be seven times before I answer.”
God did not come and chide. God did not come and reprove. God spoke to Habakkuk’s heart, and something happened in this man’s life that made him a praiser and an exalter, that turned him into one who writes Shigionoth.
And what was the answer? Well, the bottom line that I would like to describe—this is only one facet of the book of Habakkuk, but I hope it helps us this morning—is that God came like lightning to this man and said:
Struggling faith is faith.
Habakkuk had the idea somehow that his struggling faith must be a symptom of lack of faith. But God comes to him and, through His expression to Habakkuk, says, “No, your struggling faith is really faith. The righteous shall live by faithfulness.”
Notice what the Lord actually says. In Habakkuk 2:2, the Lord comes with His answer to the heart:
And the Lord answered me, and said,
Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets,
that he may run that readeth it.
For the vision is yet for the appointed time,
and it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie:
though it tarry, wait for it;
because it will surely come, it will not delay.Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him;
but the righteous shall live by his faith.—Habakkuk 2:2-4
And if you’ll notice in the footnote, it says “faithfulness.” The righteous shall live by his faithfulness.
And what’s the Lord saying? Well, picture Habakkuk. He says, “I must have nothing. I’ve become discouraged. I’ve prayed; nothing’s happened.”
And God comes to him and says, “No, your struggling faith is faith. Sometimes questionings are actually faith exercise.”
Now, sometimes questionings are doubts. Sometimes questionings are exactly as our brother Stephen shared last night: somebody asks a question and doesn’t wait for answers. Just doubt.
But you may have questions, as our friend Habakkuk did, and stay before God—faithfully asking, faithfully standing on the watchtower.
God comes and says, “That struggling faith is faith.”
In other words, God, as it were, comes and says, “Habakkuk, I know that you’re struggling because you know Me, but you just don’t know what I’m doing.”
There’s a whole lot of difference between that kind of struggling and the struggling that just leaves God alone in confusion.
“No, Habakkuk, if you’re struggling because you know Me, you really have got a line on Me. You know that I’m up to something, don’t you? You just don’t know what it is.”
“There is a vision, but I have to wait for the right time to release that vision. Here it comes. It is given to you now, Habakkuk. But you have to wait for that vision sometimes. There’s a waiting process.”
And somebody who has vision is always out of step. They’re always ahead of their time. They’re always out of sync. They’re always seeing something that other people don’t see.
It always makes you feel, “Why am I always out of sync with what everybody else is into? I’m saying, ‘Repent,’ and everybody’s saying, ‘Praise.’”
I’m saying, “Stop,” and everybody’s saying, “Go.” Always out of sync. What’s the matter with me?
Well, it may be. Now, I’m not saying some people are just out of sync. That’s it.
But some people have a vision and don’t understand what’s going on.
Notice how the Lord comes to him with this verse: “The righteous shall live by faith.”
What I like is the comparison in Habakkuk 2:4. It makes a contrast that I think could be applied to faith:
Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him;
but the righteous shall live by his faith.—Habakkuk 2:4
Now, some people imagine that faith is that kind of proud, boastful cockiness and self-assurance that knows exactly what God’s going to do.
They’ve got God all figured out. They know exactly what He’s going to do. He can only do things the way I think He’s going to do it.
Now, he says, “As for the proud one, his soul is not right within him.” There is a whole sort of aura today of faith within the body of Christ that basically is this: you stand proudly or boastfully on certain things, and God has got to come through for you.
Because that’s the way God is. He wants to be twisted around like that. He wants you to stand confidently. He doesn’t want you to have any doubts. You should never say anything that would ever say that you have a question.
Stand bold, confidently, with all the answers. Christian omniscience is a manifestation of the omniscience of God.
But when you get down the road long enough, and God pulls enough plugs on your theology and your omniscience, you come to the place where the righteous one really lives on the feathery edge—in his faithfulness.
Standing on the ramparts right there, not knowing the answer, but knowing something’s up and knowing God. But that doesn’t mean we’ve got all the plot written up.
You know, when I went to seminary, I learned exactly what the book of Revelation was all about. Now I have no idea.
I used to know a little. Then I heard Lance share on it three times. I really wasn’t sure at all.
I have a feeling that faith, as described here—truly recovered faith—is in the man not who boastfully says, “Oh, I know God’s going to do what I want Him to do.”
It is the one who stands there and says, “I know God. I can’t figure out what’s going on, but I know God. And when He comes through, He’s coming through right.”
“I’m going to wait until He shows up. Yeah, I might have to wait a while, but I’d rather be on the watchtower, even though I don’t have all the answers. I want to be here.”
And I think God’s saying, “Habakkuk, that’s righteous. That kind of struggling with God, that kind of holding on and not letting go until God really comes through—that’s faithful.”
Sometimes, dear saints, we can’t claim that our confidence is in what’s going on around us. Sometimes we’ve only got about one thing to hang on to: some kind of knowing inside that God’s up to something.
It may be something new. As God said, “If I told you what I’m going to do, you wouldn’t even believe.” It’s such a new and living way.
You know, we need to learn the principles of God. We need to learn the doctrines of God. But then just hold on to your hat and hold on to God’s leg, because He’s going to do it differently than we ever expect.
They come down to the place where all we have is God and our knowing that He’s up to something. Then He breaks through and shows us something.
Even then, when He gives us that kind of vision and we declare it, everybody says, “What? What did you say? What, are you crazy? You’re out of sync.”
Habakkuk had the pleasure of standing up in front of the Jewish leaders of that day and saying, “The Babylonians are coming to get us, and they’re going to sweep over us like locusts.”
All the religious leaders believed Jerusalem was impregnable. Nobody could defeat the holy city.
Habakkuk had the pleasure, as a man of God, to say, “We’ve had it.” Just like Jeremiah, they were popping the guns. “All right, men, drop your arms before we fight. Stick your hands up and just let them come on in.”
Jeremiah got thrown in the clink, and Habakkuk probably didn’t have much better.
He was willing to stand in the new vision, declare what God wanted, even before it came to pass.
Well now, brothers and sisters, I don’t know how much this applies to you. But I believe in my heart some of you must be waiting on those ramparts. I would hope so.
Waiting for God to come through on those things that He’s spoken to us. What will our position be?
It just gets down to practical areas in our life, doesn’t it?
I remember one thing that happened to me as an illustration of this when I was still a pastor in a church. Having gone through seminary, I began to question some Scriptures and take some of the critical methods used in examining Scripture that the school would teach.
It caused some questions in my heart, and those questions formed more questions like yeast. Questioning has a way of rolling, rolling, and rolling, until one day it came to a sort of climax.
I went into my office and was supposed to prepare a message for Sunday. When I looked at what I was trying to share, it was all dust. I didn’t know if I believed anything that I was going to have to say.
It had been something festering in me for the longest time, and I finally just closed the stuff. I said, “Don, I don’t think I can stay in the ministry, because I just don’t know what I believe in the Bible.”
“I have so many problems with this passage and that, and Professor So-and-So in this book. I’m so confused. I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
“I don’t see how I could possibly minister the Word of God when I don’t even know what I believe in the Word of God. On that basis, God, I really believe I’m disqualified. I just think that I need to quit.”
And I was serious. I was on my knees and I was crying, and I was going to go and tell my wife that we just needed to resign and quit. How can you be a minister and not believe the Word of God you’re speaking?
Well, as I sat there, I got back up in my chair and just sat there with my closed Bible. I didn’t know what to do.
I just felt, as it were, God coming to me in His restorative shepherding way. This may amaze you, what God spoke to me, but He said simply, “What do you believe?”
I said, “That’s just the problem. I don’t know.”
I felt again this pressure: “What do you believe?”
And so I cataloged a minimal statement of faith. I knew that I had been saved. I knew that Jesus came into my life. I knew that there was something going on of His Spirit in my life. I knew that He loved me.
That’s about all that I knew. And God came to me like a shot and said, “Then speak the thing that you know, and I’ll give you more faith.”
I thought He was going to kick me right out. I said, “Well, no, that’s not adequate. That’s all You believe? What about the Old Testament? What about dispensations? What about Revelation?”
And all He said was, “Speak the things that you know.”
I got up that Sunday morning in that church, and I tell you, I just spoke on the gospel of Jesus. What power there was, and freedom, and what resulting faith. It built my faith to believe some more.
I had had spirits of unbelief and doubts just flying all over my soul. But when God helped me through that time, I saw that He wasn’t demanding some kind of theological omniscience, some kind of orthodox fancy.
He said, “Just share the things you really know. That’s living faith, and I’ll give you more faith. Now just press on.”
I had so many questions, but He had faith—the faith, the faith. And I tell you, I still don’t understand this whole thing. I’ve gotten to the place where I believe when I don’t understand something here, it’s my fault, not it.
Precious how God saved me at that moment, and how God wants to save us too.
I know some of you probably have been standing there on the ramparts, just praying for your children. The more you pray, the worse they get.
And that can be a real problem. You can feel disqualified. How can you serve God in such a situation?
Every time you want to take one step forward, you get knocked back by some circumstance that you prayed over until you just exhausted all prayer. You become discouraged and say, “God, where’s Your deliverance? Where’s Your answer to prayer?”
“I don’t understand how You could be loving and leave us in such a thing.”
Some people are in a corporate body of people that’s almost dead. You prayed for real fellowship and life, freedom of the Holy Spirit to be among us.
The more you pray, the more dust blows through the meeting. You prayed until you figured the best thing to do was move to Babylon. But you wait. You don’t know what else to do.
Some people, in their personal lives, sometimes sickness comes, and you’ve tried everything. You’ve had hands laid on you, oil poured all over you, sent off handkerchiefs, given money, confessed your sin.
You’ve tried just about everything, and you’re still sick. And what else do you do?
We, as the people of God, run into these kinds of situations. And what else can we do?
I just took in vision and principles of church life like a dry sponge when I first got into this. I have since found out that externally, it seems like almost none of the principles work. You ever notice that?
We get together with a small group of people, and we’re standing on turf ground. Here we are, all one in Christ—a great set—and we fight over what oneness means.
Why is it that it’s so depressing to gather together with people of the same vision and go through a systematic expose that none of these principles work?
Ah, but we are prone to look on the surface of things, to evaluate based on immediate results.
And when God said He’s going to build the church in your particular area, He did not say, “Really, in three years—that was your addition.”
He faithfully grabs hold of a few people who cannot do anything else but stay on the rampart. He does it through ups and downs, and ups and downs, and prayers, and defeats, and Babylonians coming in.
And some folks stick. And that’s His church. Those are the folks going on.
Those are the folks, I believe, to whom God says, “The righteous ones, living by faithfulness on that feathery edge of faithfulness right out there.”
They’ve learned the principle. Now mind you, when God has a principle and it is God, it does work.
I just add as a footnote that God spends the rest of Habakkuk 2 telling Habakkuk, “Listen, My woes still work.”
He says, “Don’t let anybody fool you. Babylonians might come in and have their day, but My woes still work. Woe to the man who cheats, and woe to the man who’s proud, woe to the man who steals from people, woe to the man who runs over people’s families for his own sake.”
That’s what the rest of Habakkuk 2 basically says. God says, “I’m going to have My day. Everything I said is coming to pass. You hang on to that, even when it looks like everything I have said is a lie.”
Now, we stand right now at a crossroads, and there are principalities and powers looking around at us. They’re looking to see how we’re going to stand in this whole matter.
Are we going to agree with circumstances around us that seem lousy, that seem filled with Babylonian hordes, that seem rife with disbelief and people disobeying God and evil?
Are we going to stand here and say, “I think the thing doesn’t work,” as if it’s the thing?
This matter of church life is not the thing. This matter of church life has to do with whether Jesus is really Lord.
There has to be a looking through circumstances and a standing there in a vision that may defy the circumstances until, in fact, that vision comes to pass.
Now, if we’re all mired down in mediocrity, how is God ever going to pull us up? Well, you know how He does it. He gets a few people out of sync, who’ve got some vision, to stand in the place of vision.
They exemplify the vision in their own lives, and people begin to be drawn toward that reality.
A man of vision like Habakkuk will always be out of time. No sooner will people catch up on the plateau of that vision than something further will draw them up.
Are you willing to stand in that place?
Our Scripture this morning for prayer was this matter of standing in the gap, building the wall, being there where the righteous live—not with boastful, cocky assurance that we know everything that’s coming down, but with faith.
Are you willing to sing a Shigionoth in the midst of tough times?
I might say just a few notes of conclusion here. Number one: the situation didn’t change at all. Habakkuk changed, but the situation didn’t change a bit.
Notice, if you would, Habakkuk 3:16:
I heard, and my body trembled,
my lips quivered at the voice;
rottenness entereth into my bones,
and I tremble in my place;
because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble,
for the coming up of the people that invadeth us.—Habakkuk 3:16
“I have to wait quietly and watch the Babylonians come in and do their job.”
You might even be in a situation like that, where you know the judgment of God is going to have to come in. You’re standing right there, and God says, “Don’t move. You stay right there.”
That’s the context in which Habakkuk says, “Though the fig tree does not blossom, there be no fruit, no calves, nothing outwardly to show it, yet will I rejoice in the Lord.”
Ah, some transformation, huh?
You know, it isn’t really that God gave Habakkuk anything new, as it were, except to show him what was already in his heart. Sometimes that’s all we need to see.
Somewhere deep down inside there, in Habakkuk’s heart, there was a knowing that he was on the right track. There was a knowing that he was sniffing the wind in the right way. He couldn’t make sense of it.
It didn’t all come to pass until God gave him that vision that helped him and encouraged him in that time. He just moved instinctively. There was something there.
And God says, “Don’t keep beating on yourself because I haven’t answered your prayers, Habakkuk. I’m just going to do it a new way.”
Habakkuk says, “That’s it. I’ll rejoice in the Lord over that.”
If God wants us to go through this time of distress, you know what He’s done? He’s given me hinds’ feet to climb up the tough mountains during these tough times. That’s good enough for me.
Choirmaster, strike it up. Let’s sing the song. If we’ve got to go, we’ll go down praising.
I believe that’s a tremendous issue today among God’s people. Are you going to go down singing and praising God? Now, that’s faith.
Now, when I’m talking about boasting, I want to propagate boasting in the Lord—exulting in the Lord. “I will joy in the God of my salvation.”
Now, that’s exactly the kind of strength that we need in our faith. I’m just saying sometimes we’re not quite clear exactly how God’s going to do it.
I confess my ignorance about some of these things. I haven’t been sure why the Lord took my son home since He took him home. I don’t know why He does things like that.
But I’ll joy in the God of my salvation.
Nothing else has showed me what a Shepherd I’ve got. Well, I’ve had to bank on the Shepherd a lot of times.
He’s raised up people, been patient with me—people who cared for me, manifesting the Shepherd’s love.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
—Psalm 23:1
There’s nowhere else to go. The situation doesn’t always change when you give your whiz-bang prayers.
But if you’ll notice, on your feet there’s a little change going on. He’s giving you the grace to walk in tough places when they have to be.
And His promise is that fuel for the hope within our persevering heart: everything He says He’ll do, He’ll do—and perfectly. Wait for it.
Share the vision with other people who have a similar heart, and watch them run.
Rather than feel disqualified, take comfort in the fact that we can come to a Shepherd Who heals our hearts in these anxious moments when we pray and there is no answer.
I don’t know. I don’t know. But God’s coming through. He’s going to come through.
And if He can change us, transform us into those who don’t need to understand everything to hold on to Him, well then I think you’ve got a bunch of watchtower folks, rampart people—the righteous who live by faith.
I thank God for great times of grace, but I also believe that we are learning in tough times. He still is with us.
I thank God for the mountains, and I thank Him for the valleys, and I thank Him for the trials He’s brought me through.
For if I hadn’t had a problem, I wouldn’t know that God could solve them. I wouldn’t know what faith in Christ could do.
Are you singing with me?
Through it all,
through it all,
I’ve learned to trust in Jesus,
I’ve learned to trust in God.Through it all,
through it all,
I’ve learned to depend upon His Word.
Father, we would come to You, the great Shepherd of our souls, and pray especially for people here this morning who feel somehow disqualified, condemned, or done in by circumstances overwhelming, by things too great to understand.
Would You just apply to their hearts that their standing before You is faithfulness indeed; that their testimony—that the work of God is to believe in Him Whom He has sent—is sufficient for the hour.
Help them stand in the place of faithfulness. Let their testimony be, “God will come through.”
We do thank You, Lord, that Your great recovery shepherding staff reaches out even among us. We would see the greatness of the kingdom of God. We would hear the great messages that thrill our souls, that, O God, would cover our hearts.
Bring back the flow. Let us be singers of Shigionoth, the blessers of God.
And we would pray with Habakkuk, even in the midst of tough times:
O Lord, revive Thy work in the midst of the years;
in the midst of the years make it known;
in wrath remember mercy.—Habakkuk 3:2
Breathe upon us, revive us, restore us to fullness, even as You have declared You would do.
We bank on Your faithfulness beyond our understanding of theology, principles, and answered prayer. We hold on to a living God Who will never sell us short.
These things we know: that God is good, and His mercies endure forever. Amen.