Reorienting Truths

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†CALL TO WORSHIP based on Hebrews 4:14-16

Pastor Austin Prince

Minister: We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens: Jesus, the Son of God.

Congregation: We will hold fast our confession.

Minister: For he is not unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, he, in every respect, has been i tempted as we are. Yet he lived without sin.

Congregation: Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace! Here we will receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

†PRAYER OF ADORATION AND INVOCATION

O God, we trust in your power to create, to sustain, and to enable. But we could not trust if we did not know that you are always near. Be with us Lord, as we are gathered here to worship you. Help us not to check our minds or our hearts at the door, but enable us to bring all that we are to you, so that you might make us into what we ought to be. We pray this because of, and in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

†OPENING HYMN OF PRAISE #230

“Holy, Holy, Holy!”

†CONFESSION OF SIN & ASSURANCE OF PARDON

Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth in his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellow man (Ps. 15:1-3). Let us confess our sins…

Congregation: Father in heaven, we thank you for the freedom you have given us through the life, death, and resurrection of your Son. But we confess today that we often live like slaves.

Instead of living like you delight in us, we avoid you in shame and guilt.

Instead of receiving your favor as a gift, we try to earn it with our efforts.

Instead of pursuing your purposes, we cling to our own agendas.

Forgive us. Embrace us. Cleanse us. Heal us.

We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

CONTINUAL READING OF SCRIPTURE James 1:19-27

Steven Hoffer, Elder

THE OFFERING OF TITHES AND OUR GIFTS

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYERS

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

†PSALM OF PREPARATION #42B

“As Pants the Deer for Flowing Streams”

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION

Heavenly Father, may you grant us to comprehend your holy Word according to your divine will, that we may learn from it to put all our confidence in you alone, and withdraw it from all other creatures; moreover, that also our old man with all his lusts may be crucified more and more each day, and that we may offer ourselves to you as a living sacrifice, to the glory of your holy name and to the edification of our neighbor, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. —Zacharias Ursinus

SERMON // Reorienting Truths // Habakkuk 1:12-17

Text Habakkuk 1:12-2:1

Habakkuk 1:12–2:1 ESV

12 Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof. 13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? 14 You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. 15 He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad. 16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich. 17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever? 1 I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

AFTER SCRIPTURE

Every word of God is perfect, let his people bless his Holy name.

INTRO

The Victory Stele of Esarhaddon, housed at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, depicts in stone what Habakkuk describes here of the Babylonians. With hooks they would pierce the lips of their captives and daisy-chain them in a line, hook by hook, lip to lip, marching their victims hundreds of miles in humility back to Babylon to their god, Marduk. You dare not slow down and you dare not trip and fall, lest you rip the hook out of your own lip or yank at the hook of others. Like catching fish in a wide net, this wicked empire goes forth, swallowing up nations and living in captured luxury. Emptying their nets, this great war machine goes back for more, swallowing up more kingdoms. So successful do they seem to be that they begin to worship their nets, the strength of their own might, as god.

If you remember the story of King Hezekiah, perhaps his later years set the tone for the quandary that Habakkuk the prophet is in. Hezekiah was sick, but he pleaded with the Lord for health and the Lord blessed him with fifteen additional years to reign, but when the Babylonian king Baladan’s son, Merodoch-baladan, sent a present and a get- well-soon envoy to Hezekiah, (for they both shared a common enemy of Assyria at the time), Hezekiah showed the prince all the treasures in his house. When Isaiah the prophet asked Hezekiah what he had revealed about the kingdom to the Babylonians, Hezekiah said that he showed off everything — every treasure and every secret. With palm on his forehead, Isaiah prophesied to the prideful king that a day would come when “all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?”” (2 Kings 20:17–19, ESV)

“And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh his son reigned in his place.” (2 Kings 20:21, ESV)

Situated in this time slot between the internal corruption of pride and idolatry and the foolishness of the kings of Judah and the raging barbarity of the Babylonian dragnet, Habakkuk wonders what in the world God is doing, and how he will make good of this.

Last week, our focus was Habakkuk’s first complaint, the complaint against the wickedness of his own nation and God’s seeming silence in its judgement. But God did answer Habakkuk by telling Him that He would indeed judge the wickedness of Judah by bringing them into Babylonian captivity.

In essence, Habakkuk’s first complaint is answered. God will deal with the wickedness of His people. But now Habakkuk is confused by God’s strange methods. Why use Babylon? Why such seeming harshness? Which brings us to today’s text, Habakkuk’s second complaint — a complaint against Babylon. (Btw, it’s much easier to complain about the wickedness of other than to complain about the rot in our own hearts.)

The core of that complaint sounding like this from v.13:

“why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?” (Habakkuk 1:13, ESV)

How would we phrase this in our common parlance? “God, why do you let bad things come upon good people?”

What Habakkuk is trying to do is untie this Gordian knot. “God, if you are sovereign, then you can stop this. God, if you are good then you will want to stop this. So why aren’t you stopping this? Is it that you are not sovereign or that you are not good?”

And through Habakkuk’s line of questioning of this second complaint, what he is doing is leaning on his own understanding. He is pressing into what his expectations of God are and coming up short. Habakkuk cannot find in his own mind a good answer to God’s behavior. He doesn’t understand God’s timing and He doesn’t understand God’s methods. And he is beginning to become disoriented and discouraged.

What are you to do in those moments? The moments or seasons, years or lifetimes even, when God’s ways seem hidden to you?

What does Proverbs 3:6 tell us to do when we are leaning on our own understanding? It goes on to say that we are not to lean or press into our own minds but to acknowledge Him in all of our ways. Which is what Habakkuk begins to do. It’s what reorients him in his confusion.

Look at vv.12-13

v.12 — Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die.

Habakkuk begins to recall who God is. He is from everlasting. None of the world’s events are catching Him off guard. There are no surprises. He calls the Ancient of Days “My Lord, my Holy One”. This is YHWH, the covenant God of Israel. He has bound Himself to us. He is slow to anger and overflows in steadfast love — “We shall not die”. Habakkuk knows that God isn’t going to wipe them out. They are not being abandoned or destroyed. This is like Abraham walking Isaac up to the mountain for sacrifice. “I trust you God; you will not abandon me”.

“O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.”

Again, Habakkuk is being reoriented by what He knows of God. The Lord is a rock, our unmoving stability when all the world is sinking sand. The rise of Babylon isn’t a threat to Israel as a covenant people, but it is a threat to their pride. And God is wielding them as an instrument of judgment and reproof. In the course of time, it turns out that Israel is much better off being exiles in Babylon, having their temple destroyed, and repenting than being prideful, corrupt, and free. God will not be mocked. Our highest good is almost never what is comfortable.

v.13 — You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent?

God’s eyes don’t look upon sin passively or apathetically. Of course he can see it all, but He never looks upon it with approval. Neither the sins of Babylon (which will get its due at God’s timing), or of Israel’s sins. God is just and will be just. Nothing will escape his notice. No stain of sin’s poison will go by Him undealt with. “So, why the silence now, God whom I trust?”, Habakkuk asks.

In the silence, we must affirm who God is even when our eyes deceive us. When the next day or week or year is a mystery. We must trust the heart of God when we cannot see the hands of God. Which is difficult if we don’t know who He is. This is where God speaks with absolute clarity. He has revealed himself to us — His patience, His character, His sovereignty, His steadfastness, His fullness of love. “He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” (Colossians 1:15, ESV). We don’t always get to know what He is up to, but we are able to know Him, and that’s enough.

Remember last week we went ahead and gave away the thesis of Habakkuk, that the righteous shall live by faith (Hab. 2:4). God presses upon us against our pride. Against leaning on our own understanding. He presses us away from independence or idols for stability and pushes us towards Himself. But if we could have it our way we would have faith-free lives. We want clarity and surety that we can control and understand, but what God wants us to see is that we can have clarity and surety in Him, but we don’t get the control part.

The covenant-keeping and everlasting God is good and kind and present and He is working all things for good, just not in the ways that we would often choose ourselves.

This line of thinking is exactly what is picked up in the NT. Remembering God is a way of reorienting oneself amidst difficulty and confusion. Listen to Paul from Romans 8:

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31–39, ESV)

Why is this recollection of God’s character so helpful and comforting? Because we also recall God’s exhaustive sovereignty.

It isn’t that God has a great big heart but cannot do anything about our troubles. It isn’t that God is indifferent to our situations or impotent to change our situations. It’s something else entirely. God is so good and so magnificent that, as Joseph said, “what you meant for evil God used for Good” (Gen 50:20). God’s exhaustive sovereignty means that nothing can happen in this world that God cannot use. It isn’t that He merely knows what is going to happen but can’t control it, nor is it that God has taken away the agency and choice of those who are acting and treating them like puppets. It’s as Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” God can turn even the wicked appetites of man and the dark narrative of sin in our world and bring about whatever He wishes.

Pharaoh may want to enslave the Israelites, but God can use it. Babylon may want to conquer Israel, but God can use it. The Romans may nail Christ to a cross, but God will use it. If sin were rampant and uncontrollable, you may be threatened by it. But as it stands, in the hands of our sovereign God, nothing in all of creation can separate you from the love of God. He is exhaustively sovereign.

He can use the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Romans, the hospitals, the car wrecks, the job loss, and the silence.

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28, ESV)

“for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” (Acts 4:27–28, ESV)

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16–18, ESV)

The Babylonians may have turned to worship their devices of torture, but we don’t follow them. We don’t define success the same way these wicked nations do. We don’t worship the cross, we worship the Christ of the cross. Our paradigm is completely different. What the world thinks is loss is so often gain through God. Our paradigm is one of faith, that even the most horrific thing that has ever happened in our world, namely the crucifixion of Christ, was exactly what was used as the blazing center of God’s glory and exhaustive sovereignty.

No matter what is coming in your life it will all be used for your good. And you may not know why. You may wait in silence for a month, a year, or a lifetime. But our security isn’t in our understanding, it’s in God. The success of faith isn’t that you trusted when you couldn’t see and then you find out the answer. Sometimes, often times, the success of our faith doesn’t get the answer or the ending, but we get God, and that is resounding answer. That is the goal of faith.

The righteous don’t live by their cunning. They don’t live by their works. They don’t live by their comfort. They live by their faith.

Which prompts Habakkuk to make his next move. What are we to do when the ways of God are not our ways?

Look at Habakkuk 2:1:

“I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.” (Habakkuk 2:1, ESV)

Habakkuk positions himself to watch and to listen. He is the student and God is the teacher. No longer is he looking inwardly to his own understanding in confusion. No longer is he looking outwardly at the Babylonians in the chaos. He is watching the dawn, marking the sovereign hand of God and waiting to be taught.

“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:30–31, ESV)

“But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” (Micah 7:7, ESV)

Ending a sermon like this with a call to wait feels unresolved. But I think it’s a good stopping place for two reasons. 1) It’s where the text ends for today. It raises the right questions before we move on to the thesis of this book next week. But 2) It draws our attention to precisely the emotional focus of the text — what do you do when you aren’t given simplistic answers? The tension is a good tension — a real tension, what must we do with it?

The irony is that we all know that silence can be deafening. And in the silent we reorient ourselves by recalling who God is. And we wait, listening for an answer, crying,

Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds Help us grasp the heights of Your plans for us Truths unchanged from the dawn of time That will echo down through eternity And by grace, we'll stand on Your promises And by faith, we'll walk as You walk with us Speak, O Lord, 'til Your church is built And the earth is filled with Your glory

†HYMN OF RESPONSE #172

“Speak, O Lord”

†THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM

Leader: Lift up your hearts!

Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord.

Leader: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

Congregation: It is right for us to give thanks and praise!

Please turn to pg. 852 in your red Trinity Hymnal

Baptism of Nehemiah, Gideon, & Miriam Yacoub

Baptism is a naming ceremony — setting someone apart as a Christian. As we behold that this morning, let us confess together what those who carry that name believe from the Nicene Creed.

‡CONFESSION OF FAITH

The Nicene Creed P. 852

You may be seated

BAPTISMAL REMARKS

Like a pitcher pouring cool water on a parched face and hands, like a warm spring rain that falls to the earth, so God’s favor and blessing on believing parents spills and splashes over to land on their children. This is how Paul told the Corinthians that the children of even one believing parent are holy. Not saved, but holy.

There is a confusing tendency to think of baptism as a cleansing ritual: a display of sin being washed away. There are Old Testament baptisms and ritual washings that surely did intend to showcase that important work of God.

But that can’t be the meaning of the baptism commanded by the New Testament. Jesus was the first to receive that baptism, and until he took ours at the cross, what sin did Christ have to wash away? Our Lord’s baptism was not for washing away; it was for setting apart. This is what circumcision represented to God’s people in the Old Testament, but in the New, and it’s fitting when you think about it, the sign through which God would set apart his people, this more inclusive sign, would not require the shedding of blood.

When Scripture calls our children “holy,” it is not saying they are saved, but “set apart.” Baptism acknowledges and seals the “set apart-ness” of Christian people and families from the world. An adult who is converted ought to be baptized as they enter the Christian community. Children of Christian parents enter that community by faith as well – but not their own, that of their parents.

These covenant people, even the children, are privileged to hear the Word of God, participate in worship, be regular subjects of prayer, and live within Christian fellowship. Church life is filled with privileges; “get tos” not “have tos,” that belong to us and not to the world at large.

In the family and household of God, we also have greater responsibilities than the world. Whether inside or outside of the church, faith in Jesus Christ is the only thing that can save. But Jesus tells the parable of the unfaithful servant to teach that it is worse, even than the unbelieving world, for those who are baptized, yet never come to repentance and faith in him. Baptism grants these children many privileges, but not the privilege of heaven. That privilege is theirs only as they live up to the covenant responsibilities: repent & believe.

This baptism sets them apart for God, signifies a promise from God, and seals his covenant obligations toward God. God made a promise to Abraham, “To your offspring, I give this land.” Moses told the people that this “shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever.” David said, “the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children.”

Ezra told God’s people that their faithfulness provides God’s blessing as “an inheritance to your children forever.” Through Isaiah, God said, “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring…” And at Pentecost, Peter brings all this together, connecting God’s prophetic promises to us, the church. He concludes, “For the promise is for you and for your children…”

John & Amanda, Nehemiah, Gideon, & Miriam’s baptism is a renewal of God’s covenant promise to his people. With its flowing water, baptism shows forth that fountain of blessing which eternally springs from the heart of God. It puts the baptized beneath that fountain and offers the promise: if you believe, you will be saved. The fountain of promise flows this morning, for all of us, if we have faith to see it.

In light of God’s gracious covenant, to us and to our children, let’s stand and sing together Hymn 191 – Our Children Lord in Faith and Prayer.

BAPTISMAL HYMN

"Our Children, Lord, in Faith and Prayer

THE BAPTISM OF Nehemiah, Gideon, & Miriam Yacoub

You may be seated

John, Amanda, Nehemiah, Gideon & Miriam, please join me.

What is the name of this child?

By whose faith may we set Luke apart for God?

“Our faith is in Christ.”

Nehemiah Yacoub - I baptize you in the name of Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

What is the name of this child?

Gideon Yacoub - I baptize you in the name of Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

What is the name of this child?

Miriam Yacoub - I baptize you in the name of Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Covenant of Grace: We are the family and household of God and Nehemiah, Gideon, & Miriam have been baptized into this family. I charge you therefore to love them as family is to be loved: with honor, service, compassion, help in times of need, and prayer in all things.

Salvation isn’t achieved for these children in this moment of baptism, only the ratification of a covenant. Salvation comes by faith in Christ. May we serve Nehemiah, Gideon, and Miriam by example, prayer, faith and stirring one another up to love and good works.

Please take time this morning after the service to welcome them into this family.

PRAYER

Let’s pray:

Our almighty and eternal God, how often you speak through water. You judged the unbelieving and unrepentant world with the flood; and in mercy, you saved and protected believing Noah and his family. You drowned the obstinate Pharaoh and his armies in the Red Sea; and in mercy you led your people through to the dry ground. Now, with water, you speak to us and these children by baptism: “believe, and be saved.” We ask that in your mercy you will look graciously upon them, that they may, by your grace, cleave to Jesus in true faith, firm hope, and ardent love. Give faith, and where you have, persevere that faith to the last day, where they may appear without terror before the judgment seat of Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit our one God lives forever and ever, Amen.

†OUR RESPONSE #212

“Come, Thou Almighty King”

To the great One in Three eternal praises be,

hence evermore. His sovereign majesty

may we in glory see, and to eternity love and adore.

†BENEDICTION: GOD’S BLESSING FOR HIS PEOPLE

The Lord of peace Himself gives you peace; at all times and in every way. The Lord be with you all.

Full Transcript:

Amen. You may be seated. Our text for today is from Habakkuk chapter 1, verses 12 through chapter 2, verse 1. Habakkuk 1, 12 through 2, 1.

Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O rock, have established them for reproof. You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. He brings life.

All of them up with a hook. He drags them out with his net. He gathers them in his dragnet, so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet, for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever? I will take my stand at my watch post and station myself on the tower and look out to see what he will say. What he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. Every word of God is perfect. Let his people bless his holy name.

The victory steel of Esserhaddon, which is housed at the Pergamum Museum in Berlin, depicts in stone what Habakkuk describes here of the Babylonians. With hooks, they would pierce the lips of their captives. They would pierce the lips of their captives. And daisy -chain them together in a line, hook by hook, lip to lip, marching their victims hundreds of miles in humility back to Babylon, to the house of their god, Marduk. You dare not slow down, and you dare not trip and fall, lest you rip the hook out of your own lip or yank the hook out of others.

And like catching fish in a wide net, this wicked empire seems to be going forth, swallowing up nations whole and living in captured luxury. Emptying their nets, this great war machine goes back for more, swallowing up more kingdoms. So successful are the Babylonians. They seem to be that they begin to worship their own mechanisms of warfare. They worship their dragnets. Their strength of their own hands has become their gods.

They contar with great Unity and Eternity and link with God. These are warriors of the Pharaoh's life, and a get -well -soon envoy to Hezekiah, for they both shared a common enemy at the time of the Assyrians. Hezekiah showed the prince all of the treasures in the house of Judah. And when Isaiah the prophet asked Hezekiah what had he revealed about the kingdom to the Babylonians, Hezekiah said, well, I showed them everything. And I showed them every treasure and told them every secret.

With a palm on his forehead, Isaiah prophesied to the prideful king that a day would come when all that is in your house and that which your fathers have stored up to this day shall be carried away to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord, and some of your own sons who will come from you, whom you will father, will be taken away and they will be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.

Hezekiah's response? The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good. For he thought, Why? Not if there will be peace and security in my own days.

And Hezekiah slept with his fathers and the most wicked of kings, Manasseh, his son, reigned in his place.

Situated in this unique time slot is the internal corruption of pride and idolatry and the foolishness of the kings of Judah and the raging barbarity of the Babylonian dragnet. Habakkuk wonders what in the world God is doing and how he will make good of this situation.

Last week our focus was on Habakkuk's first complaint. The complaint against this wickedness of his own kings, the wickedness of his own house, his own nation, and God's seeming silence for judgment. But, as we learned last week, you can sort of peek down there in the early verses of Habakkuk if you want to look, God did answer Habakkuk's complaint. By telling him that he would indeed judge the wickedness of Judah by bringing them into Babylonian captivity. In essence, Habakkuk's first complaint was answered. God will deal with the wickedness of his people.

But now, Habakkuk is confused by God's strange methods. Why use Babylon? Why such seeming harshness? Why use Babylon? The call for judgment in the house of God was answered, just not in the way that he expected, not in the way that he wanted, in a way that brought confusion. Which brings us to today's text, Habakkuk's second complaint. A complaint against Babylon.

Now, by the way, it's much easier to complain for us about the wickedness of others than to complain about the wickedness and rot in our own hearts. This second complaint of seeing the wickedness and the frailty and the corruption of others is much easier than pleading like Habakkuk on the wickedness in your own camp. But the core of his complaint sounds something like this. Look at verse 13. Why, God, do you oddly look at traitors, the Babylonians, and remain silent when the wicked swallows up a man more righteous than he? Sure, we might have corrupt kings, but surely we're better than Babylon. He's confused as to why. He's confused as to God's method of answering his first complaint.

How would we phrase this in our common parlance today? It's a phrase you've all heard. Maybe you've asked it yourself. God, why do you let bad things come upon good people? God, why would you let bad things happen to good people? What's your plan here? What is your attention span here? Certainly, in my own self, I'm confused. What Habakkuk is trying to do is to untie this Gordian knot, God, if you're sovereign, then you can stop this. God, if you are good, then you will want to stop this. So why aren't you stopping this? Is it that you're not sovereign, or is it that you're not good?

And through Habakkuk's line of questioning of his second complaint, what he is doing is he is leaning in to his own understanding. He's pressing in his own mind and articulating in his own words what his expectations are, what his expectations of God are, and he's coming up short. Habakkuk cannot find in his own mind a good answer to God's behavior. He doesn't understand God's timing. He doesn't understand God's methods. And he's beginning to become disoriented and discouraged.

And what are we to do in those moments? The moments, and if we're honest, the seasons, the years, and if we're really close to students of the Bible, even the lifetimes. You don't get the answer. What do you do? When God's ways seem hidden, where do you look? What does Proverbs 3, 6 tell us all to do when we're leaning on our own understanding? What are we to do after that? It goes on to say that we're not to lean or press into our own minds or look inside of ourselves for comfort and look inside of ourselves for the answer. But in all of our ways, we are to acknowledge Him. We are to press outward.

Which is what Habakkuk begins to do. And it's what, in the midst of this silence and confusion and disorientation, begins to reorient him. Look at verses 12 -13 with me. Verse 12.

Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die.

Habakkuk begins to recall who God is. He is from everlasting. None of the world's events are catching God off guard. There are no surprises. He calls the Ancient of Days My Lord. My Holy One. This is Yahweh. This is the covenant name for God. He's the God of Israel. He has bound Himself to these people. What do we know of Him? He's slow to anger. He abounds, overflows in steadfast love. Habakkuk says we shall not die. Habakkuk knows that God isn't going to wipe them out. He's not just going to annihilate them and crush them. He's not going to be faithless to His own words and His own covenant. That can't happen.

They're not going to be abandoned. They're not going to be destroyed. This is a little bit like Abraham walking Isaac up to the mountain of sacrifice going, we're going to come back down. I don't know how, but we're both going to come back down.

God is faithful.

He who promised is faithful. He goes on in verse 12 to say, O Lord, You have ordained them as a judgment and You, O Rock, as a rock. Habakkuk is being reoriented in his doubt and in his confusion by what he knows of God. Not his logic and how he can parse it out in himself. Not in his own expectation. He's leaning on the character of God. The Lord is a rock. Our unmoving stability when all of the world can be sinking sand.

The rise of Babylon isn't a threat to Israel as a covenant people at all. It is a threat to their pride. It is a threat to their corruption. It is a threat to their just religion, their dead religion of having their temple and doing their sacrifices. If you remember from last week which they have now filled with other gods from other surrounding nations. And God is wielding the Babylonians as an instrument of judgment and reproof. Habakkuk sees it now.

In the course of time it turns out that Israel is much better off being exiles in Babylon having their temple destroyed and repenting than being prideful, corrupt, and having their own freedom. God will not be mocked. Our highest good is almost never what is comfortable. Our highest good is almost never what we would choose to make us most comfortable. That's not the definition of success. We're a church that would probably articulate ourselves in some sort of probably pride of not being a prosperity gospel. We're not preaching health and wealth as to manipulate God and yet subtly sometimes we can still believe in a sort of prosperity gospel in the sense of circumstances. That when you're walking with God everything's easy. It's peaceful and it's good.

It turns out that you can be the son of God and be crucified on a cross. It's not always easy and a student does not rise above the level of his master. Our highest good is not always our comfort. God loves us still. It goes on in verse 13 to say you who are of pure eyes then to see evil and cannot look at wrong. Why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent?

God's eyes don't look upon sin passively or apathetically. Of course this text doesn't mean that he doesn't see it. No, he can see everything but it means that he never looks upon it with approval. God never looks upon sin and winks at it. God never looks at sin and says that will not be dealt with one day. God never lets anything go under his notice that will not be fully paid with perfect and holy justice. His eyes do not look over sin. There is not a place where the curse is found where God is not going to actively make it right. How far is the curse found?

Our God is sovereign. He will not look upon it with approval neither the sins of Babylon which will get its due in God's timing. We'll look at that in chapter 3. Or Israel's sins. Israel's sins don't get a pass either. God is just and will be just. No stain of sin's poison will go by him undealt with. So why the silence now God? God whom I trust. In the silence we must affirm who God is even when our eyes deceive us. When the next day or week or year is a mystery we must treat the heart of God and trust the heart of God when we cannot see the hands of God. Which is difficult. It's impossible to do if you don't know who God is.

This is where God speaks with absolute clarity. He has revealed himself to us. Not always his plans. Do you see that throughout scripture? God reveals himself to us not always his plans. He has revealed to us his patience. His character. He has demonstrated over and over again his sovereignty. His steadfastness. His fullness of love. He, Christ, is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn of all creation. Colossians 1 .15 We don't always get to know what he's up to but we are able to know him. And that should be enough. It's hard.

It's hard because as we know we're called to live by faith but everything in us wants to live by sight. Everything in us wants to go over the plans with God and coordinate with him what would suit us and our timing and what would make us feel the best. And we can remember last week we went ahead and gave away the thesis of Habakkuk which we'll look at next week. That's in chapter 2 verse 4. That the righteous shall live by faith. God presses us against our pride. Against leaning on your own understanding. He presses us away from that. Away from independence and away from idols that give us a sense of faux stability. There's no stability at all. They always let us down. And he pushes us past those. Towards himself. Into his sovereign hand. That's real security.

But if we could have it our way we would live faith free lives. We want clarity and surety that we control and we understand but God wants us to see that we can have clarity. Sure. And you can have surety. That's fine. You can have that. But you don't get the control part.

You can have assurance. You can have stability. He's stable. Come to him. He'll give you rest. You can have that stability if you want it. But you don't get control. He has no reins that you can whip him. He has no handlebars where you can control him. He has no steering wheel where you can redirect him. But he's good.

The covenant keeping and everlasting God is kind and he's present and he's working all things for good. It's not in the ways that we would often choose for ourselves. This line of thinking is exactly what is picked up in the New Testament. Remembering God is a way of reorienting ourselves amidst difficulty and confusion. Listen to Paul from Romans 8 as he sort of picks this same tactic up as Habakkuk. When confusion comes or difficulty comes, how does one reorient themselves in the silence? Listen to Paul. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? And he knows God. He knows God's character. He's leaning in.

He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with us graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It's God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised? Who is at the right hand of God? Who is indeed interceding for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things that might come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Why is this recollection of God's character so helpful and comforting? because we also recall God's exhaustive sovereignty.

Exhaustive sovereignty. What does that mean? Well, it isn't that God is great in heart. He really has compassion on us, but he can't do anything about our troubles. That's not the God we have. It isn't that God is indifferent to our situations. It isn't that he's impotent to change our situations. It's something else entirely. God is so good, in fact, so magnificent that as Joseph says, what you meant for evil, God can even use for good. Genesis 50 verse 20. God's exhaustive sovereignty means that nothing can happen in this world that God cannot use. It isn't that he merely knows what's going to happen, but can't control it. Nor is it that God has taken away the agency and choice of those who are acting and they're merely performing as puppets. It's not that either.

As Proverbs 16 9 says, the heart of a man will plan his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. God, listen to this, can turn even the wicked appetites that exist in the world and in our dark narrative of sin and bring about whatever he wishes. Pharaoh may want to enslave the Israelites, but God used that. Babylon may want to conquer Israel, but God did use that. The Romans may want to nail Christ to a cross, but God used that. If sin were to run rampant and to be uncontrollable, you may actually be under threat. You, Christian, might be able to get hurt. You might need to live in fear if God can't control these things. But as it stands in the hands of an exhaustively sovereign God, nothing in all of creation can separate you from the love of God. He is exhaustively sovereign.

He can use Babylonians, Egyptians, Romans, hospitals, car wrecks, and job losses, and he will use the silence. Romans 8, 28 reminds us, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. Let me read you again, just to press the point, from Acts 4. Listen to the way the argument is phrased. For truly in this city there were gathered against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. Herod was against you, Pontius Pilate, along with all the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. A man may choose his path, but the Lord will direct the steps. You think your world is chaotic? You think it's out of control? I bet you haven't thought a second about the earth flying around the sun at 67 ,000 miles an hour right now. We're booking it. And yet we're just sitting still in this room. God's in total control. And the Christian's testimony, it's a lived out testimony. The righteous live by faith. It's potent, and it's hard, and sometimes confusing. But the reminder, like we studied in Sunday School again and again and again, is that God will do as he pleases. And he's working even in the mystery, or even in the silence, or even in the confusion, for our good. One more text, 2 Corinthians 4. So we don't lose heart, though our outer self is being wasted away, the inner self is being renewed day by day, for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are not transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. The Babylonians may have turned to worship their own devices of torture, but we don't follow them. We don't define success the same way these wicked nations do. We don't worship the cross. We worship the Christ on the cross. Our paradigm is completely different. What the world thinks is loss is so often gain through the gospel. Our paradigm is one of faith. Even the most horrific thing that has ever happened in our world, in human history, namely the crucifixion of Christ, was exactly what was used as the blazing center of God's glory in his exhaustive sovereignty. May God recalibrate us in what we see as success, not in the strength of our own hands. We do not worship the dragnet. It's actually oftentimes suffering. It is the life of faith that God uses such strange methods. No matter what is coming in your life, it will be used for your good, and you may not know why. You may wait in silence for a month, or a year, or a lifetime, but our security isn't in our understanding, it's in God. Our success of faith isn't that you trusted when you couldn't see and then you find out the answer. That's not success either. Sometimes, oftentimes, success of our faith doesn't get the answer or the ending that we want, but we simply get God. That becomes the answer. That becomes, as it turns out, the goal of faith. It wasn't throwing yourself in trusting and then finally getting what you wanted. The ease and the comfort came later. No, the throwing and the trusting is into the hands of God. God is pushing you towards himself. The righteous don't live by their cunning. They don't live by their works. They don't live by their comfort. They live by faith, which prompts Habakkuk to make his next move. What are we to do when the ways of God simply aren't our ways? After the wrestling is done, when the questions stop, what next? Look at chapter 2, verse 1. I will take my stand on my watch post and station myself on the tower and look out to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint. Habakkuk positions himself to watch and to listen. When the questions are over, he is the student. God is the teacher. No longer is he looking inwardly to his own understanding in confusion. No longer is he looking outwardly to the Babylonians in the chaos. He is watching the dawn, marking the sovereign hand of God, and waiting to be taught. Isaiah 40 says, Even youths shall grow faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, shall mount up on wings like eagles, and shall run and not be weary, shall walk and not be faint. Micah 7, 7 But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Now, be candid here as your pastor for a minute. Ending a sermon like this with a call to wait feels unresolved.

But I think it's a good stopping place for two reasons. Number one, it's where the text for today ends. But it raises the right questions before we do move on to the thesis of this book, which we will get to next week, that the righteous live by faith, where we lean in to what that looks like. It's not a pat and simplistic answer. This is a hard one to resolve cleanly. think that's the point. Which brings me to number two. Ending a text with a call to wait draws our attention to precisely the emotional focus of this text. What do you do when you aren't given simplistic answers? The tension is a good tension. It's a real tension. What must we do with it? The irony is that we all know that silence can be deafening. And in the silence, we reorient ourselves by recalling the God who is known. We turn our minds away from the inward self, and away from the chaos, and we point them to Him. And we can be steady, sort of like Peter looking at Christ. He can walk on the water. You look away. You're done. You're sinking. You can reorient yourself. And another strategy is to wait. To wait in faith. You listen for an answer. You stop speaking. You mount yourself in a position on the watchtower. And you keep your eyes on the dawn. And God will answer you in His timing. But you can trust that He's coming. You can trust that you're safe. You can trust that we shall not surely die. He who promised is faithful. And you can cry out, Speak, O Lord. Renew our minds, as the song teaches us. Help us grasp the heights of your plans for us. Truth's unchanged for the dawn of time that'll echo down through eternity. And by grace, we'll stand on the promises. By faith, we'll walk as you walk with Speak, O Lord, till your church is built, and the earth is filled with your glory. You know what, too? In God's mercy, as Christ prepared for the cross, you know what He told His disciples? As I go away, I'm not leaving you alone. I'm going to send you a helper, comforter. I will be with you always. When the world seems chaotic, be at peace. I have overcome the world.

Father, we do feel the confusion when we don't see your plans, when darkness seems to hover over us with a shadow, when surely it would be better if our marriages, our culture, our politicians,