God in His Glory
Notes
Transcript
The Character of God
The Character of God
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. On shigionoth.
Lord, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.
Repeat them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.
God came from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens
and his praise filled the earth.
Habakkuk responds to the Lord by allowing his focus to shift. Habakkuk recognizes that the world around him is broken and fallen, and yet, there is One who is over the world.
Habakkuk responds to the brokenness and distress around him by seeing that the Lord has come. He comes from Teman, the fertile river valleys to the south, and from Paran, the mountain region to the south. It is through both of these locations that the Lord led his people in the Exodus.
The concern is that we miss the Lord for who he is in times of distress and heartache because we do not know the Lord. We have become so biblically illiterate that we embrace things that are grossly offensive to the Lord.
When we miss who God is, we fail to long for the Lord. Selah, a time to pause and reflect. Reflect on who God is and reflect on how we relate to Him.
The Authority of God
The Authority of God
His splendor was like the sunrise;
rays flashed from his hand,
where his power was hidden.
Plague went before him;
pestilence followed his steps.
He stood, and shook the earth;
he looked, and made the nations tremble.
The ancient mountains crumbled
and the age-old hills collapsed—
but he marches on forever.
I saw the tents of Cushan in distress,
the dwellings of Midian in anguish.
Were you angry with the rivers, Lord?
Was your wrath against the streams?
Did you rage against the sea
when you rode your horses
and your chariots to victory?
You uncovered your bow,
you called for many arrows.
You split the earth with rivers;
Habakkuk delivers a powerful theophany. Theophany describes an appearance of God in great power and glory. In response to the cries of Habakkuk in chapter 1 and 2, God reminds Habakkuk’s heart of His authority. God is in control. Today just as he was yesterday and just as he will be tomorrow.
When we become caught up in the horizontal, what is happening in our immediate circumstances, the only way to break our paralysis is to shift our eyes and hearts to see vertically to see God who is beyond our circumstances.
With the Babylonians on the brink of invasion, with the Lord preparing to sift Judah in a very painful way, Habakkuk’s eyes have shifted upward to see the authority of the Lord. He looks back to what God did during the Exodus.
God has delivered victory over victory to the people of Israel. Here too, the Lord will be faithful to provide victory for His people, but this victory is over spiritual foes and not physical foes.
The Works of God
The Works of God
the mountains saw you and writhed.
Torrents of water swept by;
the deep roared
and lifted its waves on high.
Sun and moon stood still in the heavens
at the glint of your flying arrows,
at the lightning of your flashing spear.
In wrath you strode through the earth
and in anger you threshed the nations.
You came out to deliver your people,
to save your anointed one.
You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness,
you stripped him from head to foot.
With his own spear you pierced his head
when his warriors stormed out to scatter us,
gloating as though about to devour
the wretched who were in hiding.
You trampled the sea with your horses,
churning the great waters.