Thankful

00:02 These are strange times in which we live. These are difficult days in a number of respects. I do believe that God is preparing the church, that God is strengthening the church, that God is giving us step-by-step preparation for whatever's ahead. We do not know. 00:20 We know some general things, but we don't know the extent of all that is coming. And yet, God is preparing us. Everything that we go through is a preparation for something else. And I don't know about you, but it has been my opinion for quite some time that the American church is weak. And in some respects, 00:41 we at Living Water here have been weak. Weak when it comes to faith. Weak when it comes to prayer. Weak when it comes to really trusting God with our all. And I believe God wants us to do that and wants us to be strengthened by His Spirit with might in our inner man. 01:01 There's a song that goes, "There is peace in Jesus." Their little boat was tossed upon the stormy sea. The disciples wake the Master, crying, "Lord, save us, please." Then Jesus spoke with authority. 01:16 He commanded, "Peace be still." And instantly, every wind and wave obeyed the Master's will. So many times I'm tossed about upon life's stormy sea. And though the winds of trouble blow, my Savior pilots me. I know peace be still guides my little boat. 01:38 I'll not fear the wind and waves. For He who's kept me safe this far will guide me all the way. War and strife on every hand. Violence spreads throughout the land. He speaks to me just a dove with broken wings. 01:57 Troubled times within and without give men just cause to fear and doubt. But through the gloom and the darkness flees with a song of hope we can sing, "There is peace in Jesus." In this troubled world today, "There is peace in Jesus." And the world can't take it away. 02:16 And though there's turmoil all around, until now I have found, "There is peace in Jesus" in this troubled world today. Invite you to turn in your copies of the Scriptures to the book of Habakkuk. When Duane texted me and said he had lost his sense of taste and smell earlier in the week, 02:36 I figured it was COVID and I figured he really shouldn't be needing to preach this morning. So I offered to step in for him and we rearranged the preaching schedule somewhat. And so I wasn't planning a Thanksgiving message, but I reached back to a message that I preached maybe in 1986 or 1989, something like that before we were living in Indiana. 02:57 And the Lord led me to this text in Habakkuk 3:17-19 where the prophet says, "Though the fig tree may not blossom nor fruit beyond the vines, though the labor of the olive may fail and the fields yield no food, 03:16 though the flock may be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls." Now that doesn't sound like much of a Thanksgiving, does it? 03:26 That doesn't sound like much turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing and cranberry salad and pumpkin pie and ice cream and pecan pie and all the things that we may have enjoyed: ham or biscuits and gravy or whatever it was on your menu. Doesn't sound like much to be thankful for. And yet here is Habakkuk saying, 03:48 "Though everything around me crumbles" (verse 18) yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. 04:01 The Lord God is my strength and He will make my feet like deer's feet and He will make me walk on the high hills. And I know it's easy to thank the Lord and praise the Lord when things are good. 04:16 It's easy when the table's full and surrounded with family and the bank account isn't lacking and we've got plenty of work and plenty of jobs and plenty of comfort. It's easy to thank the Lord, is it not? And it's easy to say, "God, we praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all ye creatures here below. Praise Him all above ye heavenly hosts. 04:37 Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." It's easy, but it's another thing when things are bad. 04:43 I don't think necessarily things are bad in our lives right now as a church, but nevertheless in our community, in our church, in our hearts, in many of us, there's just a sense of unrest in many people's lives. Just a sense of unrest. Maybe a sense of fear. 05:03 Maybe a sense of wondering when the next shoe is going to drop. Maybe a sense of wondering when God's going to speak again to try to get the attention of this old world. 05:17 And I'd like to encourage us this morning that no matter what happens around us, when we walk by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the providence of God, in the sovereignty of God, in the goodness of God, when we walk by faith, 05:32 we can give thanks and we can joy even when things around us may not be such that we would give thanks necessarily like we're normally accustomed to. And Habakkuk went through a process. You see, learning to walk by faith is a process. It's a process of taking those baby steps. 05:51 And then as the years go by and we've tested and saw that the Lord is faithful and we see it again and again and again. And then we can trust that the faithfulness of God from the past is also the same God that's going to take us through. 06:06 And yet when we get hit with another wave of something, it's easy to forget those things. As it was this week, I had to remind myself. I had to remind my wife that we walk by faith. We don't speak words of fear and unbelief even though we're not creating reality. 06:26 We are contributing to the reality around us. And so we walk by faith. And I said, "Honey, we've seen the Lord faithful time after time after time after time. He's got this. 06:37 He's got this." And yet even in the stillness of the morning or during the night, those thoughts of fear and doubt can flood in around you and take possession of your mind like the pilgrim said on the road to the eternal celestial city that, "Fear took possession of my mind and I fled." Got off track. 06:59 Got off the course. So what is it that Habakkuk has to teach us this morning? Well, first of all, we see how bad it was. And it was a whole lot worse for Habakkuk than it is for any of us today. It was a whole lot worse. And if you look at chapter 1:1-4, Habakkuk has some questions for God. He says, 07:18 "How long, O Lord, how long shall I cry and You will not hear? Even cry out to You violence and You will not save. Why do You show me iniquity and cause me to see trouble? And for plundering and violence are before me. There is strife and contention arises. 07:37 Therefore, the law is powerless and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous. Therefore, perverse judgment proceeds." And if you break those words down, you see that there was violence and that there was mistreatment. And God was silent for a while in Habakkuk's life and to his questions. 07:59 And then there was injustice, iniquity all around. The word iniquity there has the idea of emptiness. It's specifically used of the emptiness and meaninglessness of an idol. So it could be implied here, Lord, we're seeing idolatry around us. And we're seeing trouble, troublesome times, 08:19 wrongdoing, toil, wearying effects of just the grind, the daily grind of sadness and of sorrow and of destruction. 08:32 He uses the term here plundering and violence, destruction and violence all around, spoiling and ruin and strife and conflict and contention. And then he says in verse 4 that the law is powerless. It's paralyzed. And sometimes it feels like that way in our world around us. 08:51 Why didn't somebody stop these 08:55 corrupt people from breaking the law and from paralyzing the law? It has the idea of something that's sluggish or ignored. And justice never goes forth. And even if it does, some people think it's unjust and other people think that it's just. 09:13 And so you have verdicts coming from juries and you have division among the people. And you have in our lay, you have people that look at a jury decision and you've got some that celebrate it and some that curse it. And so even if there is a sense of justice, who knows what justice really is? And justice never goes forth, it says. And the wicked surround the righteous. 09:32 The wicked hem in the righteous. And the judgments that are proceed from the courts are perverse and wrongheaded. And justice is distorted and perverted. And that was the setting that Habakkuk comes to his crisis of faith that culminates in verses 17, 18, and 19. 09:53 So you don't just jump in to 17, 18, and 19 of chapter 3 without realizing the anguish of soul that Habakkuk and the Jewish people, the Hebrew people, the Israelites were experiencing this at this time. This is around the time when Josiah, King Josiah, which the Bible says there was never a king like him before and never a king like him afterwards, 10:13 who just wholeheartedly followed the Lord. And they discovered the word of God which had been hidden in the temple. And they discovered that word and it was taken to Josiah. And Josiah cleaned house. And I tell you what, he cleaned house. He cleaned house at the house of God. He cleaned house in the temple. He cleaned house in his own family, in his own life. He cleaned house in the nation. 10:33 And yet now he's gone and Habakkuk sees that all of those reforms, all of those reforms have now been discarded and the people are back to serving idols again. And because of that, God answers. God answers. And sometimes we don't particularly like the answer that God has for us. 10:54 And Habakkuk wasn't particularly fond of this answer. And so God said, "I'm going to bring the Chaldeans" (verse 6). (verse 6) I'm raising up the Chaldeans, the Babylonians. And they're going to come in and render judgment on the nation of Israel. And so Habakkuk, things are going to get worse before they get better. 11:15 And that's the context in which chapter 3:17-19 is. It's going to get worse or worse and worse before it gets better. And this people are a bitter and hasty nation. They march through the breadth of the earth and possess dwelling places that are not theirs. 11:33 They are terrible (verse 7) and dreadful in their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. They are their own authority. They are their own law. Their horses are swifter than leopards and fiercer than evening wolves. And their chargers, their cavalry, their horsemen are swift and swoop in for destruction. 11:54 They are people of violence and of 12:00 stoic strength. And they gather captives and scoff at kings and deride strongholds. Anything that they come up against, they think is just another one, another challenge for them to meet and overcome. They change their mind at a whim and they transgress. They commit offense and ascribe all of their power to the gods of the Babylonians. 12:22 This is what's coming, Habakkuk. This is what's coming. This is what's already been declared and determined by God. And so Habakkuk complains to God again and says, "God, how can this be? You are pure" (verse 13). You are pure. 12:38 And how can your eyes behold anything impure and you're judging us and yet the Babylonians are worse than we are and you're going to use them to destroy and discipline the nation of Israel? And God says, "It's going to happen. You cannot look on wickedness" (verse 13). 12:57 You hold your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he. And he just pours out his heart to God. And then the Lord answers him in chapter 2:2. "Write the vision. Make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time. But at the end it will speak and it will not lie. 13:16 Though it tarries, wait for it because it will surely come. It will not tarry. Behold the proud. His soul is not upright him, but the just shall live by his faith." I think that's the key passage right there. The just shall live by faith. Job had a similar trial. 13:37 We could talk about Job this morning. We're not going to turn there, but we're going to think about him a little bit. Both Job and Habakkuk were righteous men who struggled with some of the same things: Habakkuk in relation to the nation, Job in relation to himself. Both were men of righteousness. 13:54 Both suffered intensely with trying to make sense of what was happening in the world around them. Both cried out and questioned God. Even questioned God beyond what we would feel would be appropriate to question God. But out of the anguish of their soul, the questions were legitimate. 14:15 They were heard by God. And they both came to the same conclusion in a similar way in spite of opposition. And the conclusion that Job came to in Job chapter 2 was, "Naked came I into the world and naked shall I return and go out of the world." And it says that Job, 14:37 when he had that first wave of crisis, worshiped the Lord. And he said, "How can I accept good things from God and not sad and hard and evil things from God?" His wife was bitter. She rejected God in subtle ways. She tempted him to do so in overt ways. 14:58 And we're tempted to do the same. Not that we would actually reject God, but some people do in times of adversity. But we quit praying. We quit seeking. We quit praising. We quit worshiping. We get bitter. We pity ourselves. And many times we have what we would think is a right to pity ourselves, 15:19 a right to feel like life is hard. 15:22 But then Job's response in Job chapter 13:15, when Job had experienced even wave 2 where it afflicted his body and he was at the door of death and feeling like God had abandoned him and his health was completely shattered and God was distant, 15:43 Job said this: "Though he slay me, yet will I" (what?) "trust him." I will trust him. I will praise him. 15:53 "The just shall live by faith, by his faith in the goodness of God, his faith in the sovereignty of God, his faith in the fact that God sees from a different perspective." Oh, then Habakkuk 3 says, 16:10 "The Lord will make my be my strength and help me to walk on the high places." Reminds me of the song, "I want to scale the utmost height and catch a glimpse of glory bright." But here I'll pray till... I can't help me, Tom. Till what I found? 16:32 "Till heaven I found, Lord, plant my feet on higher ground." So that's the point. That's the place where we can see what God wants us to see and be what God wants us to be. 16:47 Now, to make this all worse, we have to recognize that what Habakkuk is experiencing here of having no fig tree blossom, no fruit on the vines, no labor of the oil, 17:05 no fields of flocks and food and herds and stalls. What he's experiencing here is not just an economic downturn, but he's experiencing a spiritual crisis in the land. 17:21 Why don't you turn with me over to Leviticus chapter 23? No, it's not Leviticus 23. 26. "And listen to what God said to the children of Israel when he made his covenant with them." Now, 17:40 his covenant with them was slightly different than his covenant with us. His covenant with them promised that if you are faithful, you will experience material blessings. If you are unfaithful, you will not experience material blessings. 17:55 Our covenant with God is a spiritual covenant that if you are faithful, you will be seated with Christ in the heavenly realms wherein dwell all blessings of the Spirit. We are not promised physical prosperity as they were. But we're talking about Habakkuk here. 18:14 And so we look at Leviticus chapter 26. And God said in verse 3, "If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season. The land shall yield its produce and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit." Does that sound like what's missing in Habakkuk 3? 18:34 "Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing. You shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land safely. No Babylonians pressing in. I will give peace in the land and you shall lie down and none will make you afraid. 18:53 I will rid the land of evil beasts and the sword will not go through your land. You will chase your enemies and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight. Your enemies shall fall by the sword before you. For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you, and confirm my covenant with you. 19:13 You shall eat the old harvest and clear out the old because of the new. I will set my tabernacle among you and my soul shall not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God and you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt that you should not be their slaves. 19:30 I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright." The covenant included prosperity materially. And that is lacking. 19:44 And we could go on and we could read about the curses and about the blight and about the lack of produce and about robbing the children, destroying the livestock, making them few in number. You could read all those things about being punished for their sins. And that's exactly what Habakkuk is experiencing here. 20:03 He's experiencing the spiritual depravity and apostasy of the people around him and of the nation that he so loved. 20:14 It's one thing to experience economic downturn, but it's another thing to experience spiritual apostasy and to watch other people experience spiritual apostasy and to know what to do with that. You see, even in the new covenant, while our blessings are not primarily spiritual or physical, 20:35 they are primarily spiritual, the devil will still try to steal. He comes to steal and to kill and to destroy. People will try to steal your joy, try to steal your happiness, try to steal your integrity, try to steal the people of the world around us, tries to steal and kill and destroy. 20:56 And circumstances will try to steal and kill and destroy. If we allow those things—family problems, mistreatment, apostasy, bills, taxes, standing alone, whatever it is that may be pressing in upon us—the enemy means for it to steal, kill, and destroy. 21:16 But God, even in our lesson this morning, who was it that inspired? One passage says it was God. The other passage says it was Satan. Could it have been both? Could it have been God using Satan to accomplish his purposes of getting the people of Israel's attention, getting David's attention? 21:39 And yet we know that Jesus is our peace. There is peace in Jesus in this troubled world today. Jesus is our peace. 21:51 So really, if Jesus is our peace and doesn't just give us peace, then no one can steal our peace unless they steal Jesus. Amen? You get that? Jesus not only gives peace—he does that—"Peace I give to you, 22:13 my peace I leave with you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." He gives us peace, but he is our peace. So we can start praising him. We can live by faith. We can walk by faith. There's three things that we need to use this morning to walk by faith. 22:30 Number one, we need to understand that God is in everything for his children. Do we believe that? That God is in everything? I remember maybe you've heard me use this illustration before, but I was at a church having meetings and a young lady, mother, wanted to meet with me and the pastor. And so we met together and she had all kinds of difficulties. 22:50 I mean, her marriage was difficult. Her children were difficult. Her in-laws were difficult. The church was difficult. Everything was difficult. And as much as I wanted to enter into sympathy and I tried to—and I wanted to pray with her—and I just felt I needed to ask her a question. In all of the difficulties that you've described—and we care about those things. 23:10 We do. We'll pray for you. We want the best for you. 23:13 But in all of those difficulties, have you stopped to think, "Where is God in this? Where is he?" And then we had the privilege of telling you, you know what? God is in your circumstances. God is in you. Katharine Marshall in her book said, 23:34 "If God is in you, he is in your circumstances." Amen? Well, how many of us would know that God is with us? He is in us. So therefore, he is in the circumstance. And Katharine Marshall also says this. 23:50 It's a statement that I've pondered on and gone back to many times—that when we experience things that are difficult, we oftentimes want to know who to blame it on. Blame it on God. Blame it on the devil. You ever get frustrated knowing who's to blame with something? 24:11 So some people will say, "Well, blame it on the devil. He's the one who kills, steals, and destroys." And other people say, "Well, God is sovereign. He's in our circumstances. So is God sovereign or is Satan sovereign? Is Satan in charge or is God in charge? Or is God using Satan to allow us to get our attention?" And sometimes those things get fuzzy and muddy in our minds. 24:31 But I like what she said, "Blame it on Satan, I might. But see God in it, I must." Well, that brings peace. It brings peace. Brought peace to me. "Blame it on Satan. 24:46 He will use anything to exploit to any degree that he can and oppose the work of God and the people of God. But see God in it, we must. He would hold me at that point until I did. 25:02 He held me firmly there until out of desperation I bowed to him." Yes, God will hold us right there until we recognize his hand in everything. It was C.S. Lewis that says, "God whispers in our pleasure, speaks in our conscience, 25:23 shouts in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." Sometimes his megaphone to rouse a deaf church, a deaf Christian. And so God is in everything. 25:39 The second thing that we need to be convinced of is that God is sovereignly good. He is sovereignly good. Oh, there's a temptation when you're Job to think God is bad. There's a temptation when you're Habakkuk to think that God is bad. 25:58 There's a temptation to think God—if you're going to use bad Babylonians and punish bad Israel by using worse Babylonians—how can you be good? How can you be loved? 26:15 But what is needed is for us to look with the eyes of faith. "The just shall live by his faith." And what I did not read for you this morning was chapter 3, the first part that leads into chapter 3, verse 17, 18, and 19. 26:34 "O Lord, I have heard your speech and was afraid. O Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy." That's where David was coming from this morning in our lesson. 26:48 He knew that even in God's judgment, God's discipline, that God was a God of mercy and that God's mercy could be counted on more than man's. Man, abrupt and rude and ruthless, has no mercy at times. Then it says, "God came from Teman, the holy one from Mount Parin. 27:08 His glory covered the heavens and the earth was full of his praise. His brightness was like the light. He had rays flashing from his hand and there was power and there his power was hidden. Before him went pestilence and fever followed at his feet. He stood and measured the earth. He looked and startled the nations and the everlasting mountains were scattered. 27:30 The perpetual hills bowed. His ways are everlasting." O Lord, verse 8, "You are—were you displeased with the rivers? Was your anger against the rivers? Was your wrath against the sea that you rode on your horses, your chariots of salvation? Your bow was made quite ready. Oaths were sworn over your arrows. 27:49 You divided the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you and trembled. The overflowing of the waters passed by. The deep uttered its voice and lifted its hands on high. 27:59 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation and the light of their arrows went and the shining of the glittering spear." And it goes on and on and on to see God in a sovereign way, who is a sovereignly loving God. It reminds me of Job again. 28:18 When Job saw God, he said, "My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." Again, Job on a personal level. 28:34 Habakkuk on a national level coming to similar conclusions that faith in God means that we give God the freedom to be God and trust in his goodness no matter what. Not because things are going well, but in spite of the fact that they aren't. Number three, 28:57 not only do we need to realize that God is in every circumstance, not only do we realize that God is sovereignly loving, but we need to see life from God's point of view, from God's perspective. It's at that point that we can start praising. We can start praising. 29:17 We can keep praising. We can walk by faith. We can live by faith. For without faith, it is impossible to please God. And so Romans chapter 1, the basis of the gospel is faith. In the finished work of Christ, in the person of Christ, in the cross, 29:37 in the gospel message, knowing that it's by faith that we live and move and breathe, not by sight. If you are a sight-driven Christian, you are going to have difficulty in life and you'll have difficulty in death. 29:55 But when we believe that that which is unseen is real and that which is un—that we cannot figure out is knowable in God, we can praise. 30:09 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," Paul writes, "who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." Rejoice. 30:22 Rejoice in the God of our salvation. Joy. In fact, the Christian Standard Bible says, "I will celebrate in the Lord and I will joy in the God of my salvation." Have you celebrated this week? Did you celebrate Thanksgiving? Of course, you did in some form. You're going to celebrate Christmas? 30:42 Probably. What does that look like? We don't know from day to day. But we can celebrate the Lord. Celebrate the goodness of God. Celebrate our faith and joy in the God of our salvation. You see, happiness, someone has said, is dependent on happenings, but joy is dependent on Jesus. 31:04 So not only is he our peace, he's our joy. "The joy of the Lord is my strength." 1 Thessalonians 5:16, "Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything, give thanks." That's what Habakkuk is coming to. That's what Job came to. 31:23 And it's only as you live by faith in the goodness of the sovereign God, who is in every circumstance, in every situation, in the midst of it all. In the midst of it all. 31:37 I guess the thing that we need to realize here in verse 17 is that even though nothing goes right ever again, we can rejoice. We can joy faithfully, trusting in God. 31:58 We bring our burdens to the cross. We have someone to cast our cares upon. I was speaking to someone recently who has no God to cast their care upon. You don't believe in God, then there's nobody there to cast your care upon. 32:18 There's nobody there to go to prayer. There's nobody there who can sovereignly take control of your circumstances. There's nobody there to give you a sense of direction. There's nobody there. It's like the atheists who called up Dial-a-Prayer and nobody answered because they don't believe. They don't accept God. 32:37 And so there's no place to go when times are hard. But there is peace in Jesus. It is real. We walk by faith. I come back to that song that I quoted at the beginning. "There is peace in Jesus in this troubled world today." Do you believe that? Do you believe it? 32:57 It's awfully weak. I think you better say amen a little bit louder. Do you believe there is peace in Jesus in this troubled world today? There is peace in Jesus and the world can't take it away. And though there's turmoil all around, until now I have found there is peace in Jesus in this troubled world. 33:17 Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your goodness. Lord, would you continue to remind us, remind us day by day that our faith is not in something unreal. 33:34 It's not in something that is made up. It's in a person. It's in you. That you are good. You are God. You are sovereign. You are Lord. You are present in our circumstances. You are present in us. 33:51 And you have promised that you'll never give us more than what we can handle when we access your grace by prayer and praise. And Lord, we need to learn. I need to learn to walk by faith, not by fear, 34:12 not in discouragement, not in depression, although those things always tend to press in upon us in some form or another, trying to kill, steal, and destroy. 34:26 But Lord, let us learn to trust you, to walk with you, to talk with you each and every day, to hear your voice saying, "Come close. Come near. Draw near. 34:41 Try me and see if I am up to the challenge." And when we have tried you, you have been more than faithful so many times. Sometimes, Lord, you make us wait. Sometimes you wait until what to us seems like the last moment or even after you should have acted, 35:04 like Mary and Martha with Lazarus. Lord, if you'd have been here, things wouldn't have turned out the way they did. And yet, Lord, you didn't fail them even after it looked hopeless. You will not fail us. 35:16 And even when it appears that you did not answer in the way that we wanted, we can still trust you that you are good and that you will bring good out of evil, tragedy, discouragement, all those things if we trust and obey. 35:40 And so, Lord, grant us your peace. Fill us with that sense of wellness in our soul, a sense of wellness that we can say with the songwriter, "It is well with my soul. 36:00 Though Satan should buffet and trials should come, let this blessed assurance control that Christ hath regarded my hopeless estate and has shed his own blood for my soul." And we pray these things with Thanksgiving in the name of Jesus. Amen.