Habakkuk 3:17-19

Habakkuk chapter 3 verses 17 to 19 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like Heinz’s feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places to the chief singer on my stringed instruments. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word this morning. Although Ben Franklin was not, a Christian. He was a deist, as I understand it. He did have a profound respect for the Bible. On one occasion, when he was in Paris, and he was meeting with some sophisticated despisers of the Bible, those who were supposedly cultured, they were on a diplomatic mission for the United States. These skeptics were mocking, Franklin, because he believed in the Bible. So Franklin decided that he would find out how much they actually knew about the Bible. So he got some paper, ancient-looking manuscript, he wrote out on it a portion of Habakkuk chapter 3, closing with these words that I just read for you this morning. When he went in, to meet with the cultured, sophisticated people, France, he brought in this ancient-looking manuscript. And he said that he had an ancient poem that he’s been pondering and he’d like to read it for them. And so he read it. They were impressed by its stately beauty. And Franklin, you know, he holds out the manuscript and he reads it all off. And when he was done reading, they gave it extravagant praise. What a magnificent piece of verse. Where had Franklin found it? How could they obtain copies of it? They were astonished when he told them it’s a back of chapter three that I got this section, this portion of scripture. What makes these verses so powerful? What makes them so moving? Well, my opinion, it’s the courageous way in which a backhook here embraces all the calamities that are going to befall his nation, and nevertheless, he triumphs over it. He triumphs over all these calamities. How his God can enable him to rejoice even with the loss of all things. Now, we have to pay careful attention of this. good lesson for us. This is the key to doing the same thing in our lives if we could gain the same perspective that Habakkuk has. I’ll begin by saying this. You can rejoice in the Lord in the darkest of times. Verse 17, he talks about the fig tree failing and the fruit not being on the vines and so forth. And then he closes all this out by saying, yet, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. He will rejoice in the Lord despite the loss. Now, why is he saying this? He’s envisioning the devastation that’s going to happen to Israel when the Babylonians come and conquer the nation. And when the Babylonian army comes, Israel will be plundered. It will be stripped of all they have. If you ever read the book of Joel, and you get to chapter 2, he talks about this locust plague. It comes along in. Before it, before it, there’s everything’s green, and afterward there’s nothing left. Well, if you read it carefully, I think he’s talking about a nation coming from the north. And I think he’s talking about the Babylonians. When they come in, they’re going to just, like, like, locusts, they’re going to eat everything, they’re going to destroy everything. They’re going to strip land bear. And I think that’s what he’s talking about here in this text of scripture. There’s going to be a loss of livestock. They’re going to eat their crops. They’re going to eat their crops. Their fig trees. Their vines and so forth. They’re going to take all the fruits and vegetables off of them. Everything’s going to be left behind. This is the devastation of war upon the land. And to the victor belongs to spoils. What Israel is going to experience is total economic and social ruin. It seems survival is going to be impossible, doesn’t it? Doesn’t look good, does it? So the Babylonian invasion, I think, is envisioned here. But let’s talk about dark times in your life. As you read this, you might think, but I live in America. The land of plenty. It’s hard for us, perhaps, to envision what Habakkuk is talking about. After all, you walk in the giant eagle and there’s food on the shelves. Every shelf is loaded. There’s plenty of food everywhere. But can you have a picture shelf going to the grocery store and finding everything totally bare? Now, sometimes if you go to the grocery store right before a huge storm’s going to hit and try to find toilet paper or bread, you might be in trouble. But could you imagine if it was worse than that? Then you go in there, I can’t find anything because everybody grabs it and it’s gone. You can’t get cereals or vegetables or milk or meat or eggs or oils or or bread or anything. No fruit. Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, eventually nothing to wear. There’s an enemy roaming through the land. It’s hard for us to picture that. Suppose you had a backyard garden. People just came through and just took everything out of it. Suppose you had chickens. You know, you ate the eggs and raised some chickens. me come along and they’re all gone too. This is what we’re talking about. This is a worst case scenario. But I want to broaden this out a bit because I want you to picture whatever dark time comes in your life. Not just this kind of situation, which may be difficult for us in America to envision. It’s not usual for us to experience something like this. Well, whatever dark event occurs in your life, this is a place. In one of his volumes on texts that made history, Frank Boreham tells of a conversation he once had with a parishioner named Jenny McNabb. He said she was a bit of a Pauliana, and he said to her one day, but supposing Jenny, and she quickly stopped him. And she said this, don’t you have anything to do with supposing? I know them all. Suppose I’d lose my money. Suppose I lose my money. Suppose I lose my health and all the rest. When those supposings come knocking at my heart, I just slam the door and I don’t let them in. And maybe some believe that’s good advice. Why were you over a clammy that could happen? Habakkuk here, I’ll have her, want you to contemplate. What if the worst thing happens? Then what? He’s asking you to do some supposings here. What if you lose your job? What if you’re devastated financially? What if you have cancer? What if you lose a spouse? What if you’re confined to a wheelchair? What if you lose your house? Think about the darkest possible moment you could have. He doesn’t want you to slam the door and bolt it shut and say, well, I’m not going to even go there. He wants you to think about that. He wants you to ponder it. Take your worst fear. Imagine it to be a real fear. reality. So imagine the worst possible scenario where you’ve lost all the comforts and mere material blessings of life. And the conclusion is, you can still have joy in the Lord. Isn’t that the conclusion? Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord. The loss of all material possessions must not disturb your joy in the Lord. You know, joy is an elusive thing for the man of this world. He’s pursuing it. He’s always seeking it. He can’t seem to find it. People amass great possessions and wealth, and they think it will bring joy. But millionaires have testified that they’re not happy, even with all that they possess. Notice Abakok tells you that it is the believer who lives by faith, as he mentioned, in chapter 2 that can rise above the most devastating circumstances and rejoice in the Lord. He lives by faith, not by sight. You have what the world doesn’t have. You hold the key to true happiness and joy in life, and that is knowing God through Christ, the Savior. Because whatever happens to you in life, that does not affect your relationship to God. Or at least it shouldn’t affect your relationship of God. Joy is a spiritual grace. It’s produced and sustained by the Holy Ghost. The Bible says, for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. It’s not what you can touch, what you can eat, You can drink the physical things. It’s spiritual in nature. Now, friends, the difficulty that we often have is we let circumstance dictate whether we’re happy or sad. Circumstances are constantly changing, and therefore our joy tends to go up and down like a roller coaster. But this isn’t what spiritual joy is supposed to be about. A minister once read a note, was written to him by a woman after he, he had spoken at a conference. It was a Christian conference, and she wrote him a letter, and she told how she got married late in life, and what a relief it was to finally have a husband. And she said before marriage, she said, every night, I’d hang a pair of men’s pants on my bed, and then she would kneel down beside the bed and pray to God that he would please fill that pair of pants with a man and give her a husband. Now, obvious, this woman was, obsessed with getting a husband. All our happiness of life had to be with getting a husband. The problem is your joy cannot be wrapped up like this in circumstances alone. We can’t tie everything to circumstances. What if it was God’s will that she doesn’t get a husband? Then what? She’s going to be unhappy the rest of her days? Is that how you’re going to live your Christian life? I remind you that Paul didn’t marry. And yet, if you can’t find a more joyful guy under the worst possible circumstances, circumstances. Paul writes, rejoice in the Lord all way, and again, I say rejoice in Philippians 4-4. It’s a commanded duty. You don’t have any wiggle room. You’re commanded to rejoice. It doesn’t say, well, if you feel like it, rejoice in the Lord. No, he says, rejoice in the Lord. There’s no option to that, is there? and then it’s a constant duty. He says, always. He doesn’t say just rejoice in the Lord when everything’s going good and you feel like it. Under all circumstances of life, rejoice in the Lord. It’s a constant duty. Remember even the bad things that occur in our life are actually being worked for our good. It’s a contested duty. And again, I say rejoice. He says it twice because he knows that our heart’s going to struggle with that. You know, that rejoicing always is not an easy thing to do. We tend to fight against that. Your heart isn’t easily inclined to do. it. Notice that the Bible doesn’t speak about special experiences of joy. It talks about always rejoicing, regardless of what is presently happening. So the loss of all material possessions must not disturb your joy in the Lord. Notice your faith must be in God himself and not in merely the good things that God gives you. One could be happy if the fig tree is blossoming and there’s fruit on the vines and and they’ve got plenty of sheep in the fields and so forth. Remember the story of Job? Remember how Satan accused Job of being a fair-weather Christian? Why? Sure, Job serves you, Lord. Look how good you’ve been to him. Now, if you take all those things away from you, he will curse you to your face. That’s what he says, in his sense, to the Lord. Let me take these things away from you. from him from and he will curse you to your face God but Satan found out that Job’s faith and his chief joy was found in the Lord and knowing the Lord I know that my Redeemer liveth. Poor Job lost everything in one day too. The wealth, the possessions, the children is even later his health. He rents his garment, he mourns his garment, he mourns over that. But there’s something about Job. He worships the Lord. He still worships the Lord. Why does he do that? Naked, I came out of my mother’s womb. Naked, I’m going to return to the Lord. Blessed it be the name of the Lord. He’s not moved by these things to the point where he loses his joy in the Lord. Friends, there is a cost to following. Christ it may cost us land, it may cost us property, it may cost his family. Faith, however, grasp onto the promises of God, clings to them. And in the darkest moment, finds a reason to rejoice. You may not have any property or lands. But you’re a child of God, an heir of all things, right? You may not have fruits and fruits. crops and so forth. But your sins are forgiven in Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the shepherd of your soul. God’s providence is watching over you. Your soul is eternally secure. Aren’t all these things a reason to rejoice? This is why Paul says, what we go through in this life is a light affliction. Yeah? There’s light affliction in this light, but look, what we have ahead of us. There was a story about the Christians at Tocoa Falls, article in the Macon Telegraph in News November 5th, 1978, Macon, Georgia. The writer was at Greg MacArthur of the Associated Press. The title of this was, Psychologists Baffled by Tocoa Survivors. In 1977, the Tocoa Falls Dam broke, flooded the Toccoa Falls Bible Institute. 39 people were drowned. The U.S. government sent a group of psychologists to help the survivors. Their help was turned away as unnecessary and unneeded. Robert Nuttall, a psychologist himself, reported that the experience actually changed the way the government researchers viewed the aftermath of natural disasters. Here’s what was raised. Christians at Toccoa, who had suffered the loss of loved ones, were in better mental state than other communities we studied, who were the most part were not hit as hard. Their very strong religious commitment gave them an understanding and an explanation for what had happened to them, which the people in the other communities did not have. Because of Toccoa, we had to change our theory about psychological reaction to disaster to include cultural values. As the college buried its dead, survivors expressed their faith that the tragedy somehow was part of a divine plan. This belief allowed that COA survivors to avoid the hostility felt by most victims of natural disasters. The people of Dakota were far easier to deal with than those in other communities. They were helpful, friendly, and less hostile. Faith in God reverses the worst of possible situations. It need not shatter your joy in the Lord. So you can rejoice in the Lord in the darkest of times. Imagine the worst possible scenario, and yet you can say, I can rejoice in the Lord. Secondly, why you can rejoice in the Lord in the darkest times is taken up in verses 18 and 19, where he says, in the second part of verse 18. I will join the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like Heinz’s feet, and he will make me to walk upon the high places. Mine high places. First, God is your Savior. That’s a good reason to rejoice, isn’t it? This is the basic principle, is that you’ve turned your eyes away from the things of the world. You’re looking at the things that are heavenly. and your relationship with God. Have you not been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world? Is your name not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life? Did not Christ love you and give himself for you? Did he not come to save his people from their sins? Were you not effectually called by the Holy Spirit? Don’t you have spiritual graces granted to you? Is not your salvation according to an everlasting? everlasting covenant that God has made with you? You notice the word Lord in verse 18 here is capitalized. It’s the covenant name Jehovah. Can you not suffer the loss of all things and count them as dung that you may win Christ as Paul talks about? Isn’t it better to lose everything in this world as long as we have Christ? So God is your Savior. Secondly, God is your strength. The Lord God is my strength. strength. When it appears that all is lost and every human support has been knocked out from under you, God uphold you. God sustains you. He giveth power to the faint and to them that have no might, he increases strength. They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. Isaiah 40, 29, and also verse 31. Or as Paul puts it in the New Testament, I can do all things through Christ, which strength with me in Philippians 413. God is the author. He is the sustainer not only of natural strength, physical strength, but spiritual strength as well. He strengthened your heart when it’s ready to faint under affliction or trial. He strengthens your spiritual graces. Hope, faith, love, patience. He increases them. He enables you to endure these dark souls. circumstances. He gives you the strength to do the most difficult tasks. To oppose the most powerful enemies like sin, Satan, and the world, to bear up under the most trying of burdens. I like what Paul says in the New Testament. He says, when I am weak, then I am strong. He asked Christ to take away the thorn and the flesh that he had. God says, through Christ to him, well, my grace is sufficient for you, Paul. So he says, when I’m weak, then am I strong? It’s not him, but it’s God strengthening him that counts. And when God’s hand rest upon you, now power in heaven and earth can stop you, you’re invincible. They shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee. For I am with thee, set the Lord to deliver thee. Jeremiah 119. God is your strength. God, grant you a way of escape. He will make my feet like Hein’s feet. Now, a hind is a female deer. Hein’s feet, here’s a reference to the swiftness, the nimbleness, if you would, of a deer. When a predator comes along, the deer just prances off, he hops off, he scampers off, if you would, swiftly, bounding about through the woods and gets away. They are prolific jumpers. Deer can jump fences. They can jump walls, overfallen trees, They escape in that man. When such a description as having Heinz’s feet is applied to the believer, it usually involves two things. One, either that we run swiftly in the commandments of the Lord, or two, God enables us to escape. some type of trial or calamity that’s upon us. Here I think he’s looking at the calamity because that’s what the context seems to indicate. We can escape. The believer is able to surmount every obstacle, like a deer leaping over the wall and we get out, we escape, we get away. No trial or temptation has taken you, but such is as calm and the man. God is faithful. He will make what? A way of escape for you. As 1st. Corinthians 10 13 tells us that you may be able to bear it. Whatever trial comes into your life, God grant you a way of escape. God enables you to be victorious. He will make me to walk upon mine high places. High places are usually the places of pagan worship. They set up gods for pagans. I think Abakakak is looking back to the time when when Israel would be overrun with an enemy those high places would be places where pagans would set up their worship. They’re going to get overrun by the Babylonians. And the worship of God, of course, is going to suffer. The temple will be destroyed and so forth. But the implication here is that the enemy is going to be driven out. Those high places don’t belong to them. They’re my high places to Babac. They’re not the enemies. They’re not Babylon’s. They’re mine. They’re the Lord’s places. And so we find here the idea of restoration of true worship. They’re going to be freed by the decree of Cyrus to come back to the land and to restore the temple and so forth. And in the end, the people of God would overcome the Babylonian captivity, return to the land, and God would enable them to be victorious. This is what God always does for his people. people. For thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, and all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Romans 8, 36, and 37. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Lay not wait, a wicked man against the dwelling of the righteous. Spoil not his resting place. For a just man falls seven times and rises up again. Proverbs 24, 15, and 60. You know, there’s a natural hatred of the world for the righteous. The righteous is always trying to entrap you know, dig the pit for the or the wicked are always trying to dig a pit for the righteous, take advantage of him, crush him to the dust, overwhelm him. What does the Christian say? Don’t rejoice against me. Don’t think you’ve won. Why? Because I might fall seven times, but I will rise again. God will lift me up. God shall deliver you six out of six troubles in the seven. No evil shall touch you. You make me cast down me. You’ll never be destroyed. You’ll never be overcome. This is our confidence. In the end, we will prove to be victorious. So this is why you can rejoice in the Lord in the darkest of times. My third point and final point is this. How can you express your rejoicing in the Lord in the darkest of times? Well, the book closes with the chief to the chief singer on my stringed instruments. He began his prayer with fear and trembling, but he concludes it with joy and triumph, and he says, we’re going to sing about it. When Hannah prayed, we know that she went her way, did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. She believed that God would help her, and he did. So we’re back finding the same thing here. Finding help from God. He publishes his experience to the benefit of all the people of God. That he might bolster their spirits. Do you remember the Bible tells us in the book of Psalms, when Israel went into captivity, they hung their harps in the willow trees. And the Babylonians would say, why don’t you play one of the songs of Zion for us? How can we play a song of Zion? When the land is devastated. The temple is destroyed. We don’t have the heart for it. But what does Abakakou say here? Get the harp down. Start playing because we’re going to be victorious. We will overcome this. And now you see the reverse. This song or psalm is for the chief singer associated with temple worship. It’s going to be used in public worship to the encouragement of all the people of God to sing about our triumph in the Lord. Evidently, the public. singing of this Psalm was short-lived because God did not see fit to put it into the Psalter for us to use today. There are several songs, the song of Miriam, the song of Deborah, that are not in the Salter because it was not God’s purpose for us to sing them. By the way, Psalm 90 is a song of Moses. It is in there. God saw fit to add that one to the Salter, but not these other ones. But the first one. The principle expressed here is important. He that is afflicted and has prayed to the Lord, may be put at ease, may be merry and express his joy in singing a psalm. Singing of the Psalms, and these are God-given compositions, is important because what you’re doing is you are confessing the truth of what God has revealed. You’re saying that we are going to be victorious because God promised us victory. We are going to overcome our enemies. When we sing the Psalms, look how many of them talk about overcoming the enemy, being victorious through Christ. In other words, you’re expressing your joy in the Lord, believing you’re going to overcome your present distress by God’s grace. Psalm singing is a New Testament duty. We see that in James 513 and Colossians 316. We’re triumping in Christ, our king. over all enemies. God is pleased when you sing in faith, believing that what he has promised he will do. Isn’t that what Abakhaq’s doing? You promised you’ll deliver us, you promise you’ll restore us to the land. I believe you, we’re going to sing about it. And so we have this song. Well, Ben Franklin’s ancient manuscript impressed the French skeptics, but really, it was just a portion of how Backhook chapter three. What makes this chapter so moving and powerful is that how Habakkuk embraces all these calamities and yet he says, we’re going to triumph over this. By God’s grace. Carefully ponder our text. It provides the key for doing the same thing in your own personal life. We’ll let us close with a word of God’s.