“Knowing God”

John was driving home late one night when he picked up a hitchhiker. As they rode along, he began to be suspicious of his passenger. John checked to see if his wallet was safe in the pocket of his coat that was on the seat between them, but it wasn't there! So he slammed on the brakes, ordered the hitchhiker out, and said, "Hand over the wallet immediately!"

The frightened hitchhiker handed over a billfold, and John drove off. When he arrived home, he started to tell his wife about the experience, but she interrupted him, saying, "Before I forget, John, do you know that you left your wallet at home this morning?"

It is said that one of the most frustrating things in life are people who make accusations or complain about things that they no nothing about. Those who make decisions without getting all the facts. Or those who make decisions on things with facts that are not true. We say… stop playing judge and jury in a situation you know nothing about!!! We say before you step to me you better make sure you got your facts straight. Hello? We don’t like it when it is done to us. How do you think God feels when we do it to Him? Uh oh. Buckle up.

One one the many reasons why we find ourselves disappointed with God, is that we either have no information about God’s character or we have bad information about God’s character. We see events unfolding in our world and culture and we think how in the world could God allow these things to happen. Many times I find the no information people… and I say, do you read your Bible? God has done things like this throughout all history. Many times I find the bad information people… and I say, who told you that? God has totally done that many times in the Scriptures. The ole how come you don’t know or who told you that?

Shane you don’t understand… I became a Christian because I was told that if I come to Him he will save my marriage. My marriage was not saved. He lied to me. Why did He do this to me. He is not a Good God. Try Jesus and you’ll see that your life will get better. Bad things are happening to you and if you come to Christ they will all go away. Who told you that? Bad things happen to us to remind us that we live in a sinful world were we have sinned and fallen short and if we want to be saved from the wrath to come we will trust in Christ for rescue. The scriptures teach that the blood of Christ saves us from sin not unhappiness.

Hopefully today as we look at our passage we will get a better picture of the character of God and maybe next time we face a difficult situation, we wont have to hear the how come you don’t know or who told you that? Let’s take a look.

Habakkuk 1:12–17 NLT

O Lord my God, my Holy One, you who are eternal— surely you do not plan to wipe us out? O Lord, our Rock, you have sent these Babylonians to correct us, to punish us for our many sins. But you are pure and cannot stand the sight of evil. Will you wink at their treachery? Should you be silent while the wicked swallow up people more righteous than they? Are we only fish to be caught and killed? Are we only sea creatures that have no leader? Must we be strung up on their hooks and caught in their nets while they rejoice and celebrate? Then they will worship their nets and burn incense in front of them. “These nets are the gods who have made us rich!” they will claim. Will you let them get away with this forever? Will they succeed forever in their heartless conquests?

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the world of our God stands forever.

The Informed Question

Thy Will Be Done

The first thing we will look at is how getting a clear picture and information of the character of God will cause us to ask better questions in times of difficulty. Second, we will see how these characteristics lead us to find hope in Christ and in Christ alone in accordance to the will of God.

Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world cause us to lose sight of and confuse the clear character of God in the scriptures, it is the truth of scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit that will open us to know that truth and the truth will truly save and set us free.

I. The Informed Question

- Hold on to what we know to be true about God.

A. I think that it is safe to side with the many scholars who believe that some time has passed between Habakkuk’s first complaint and his second one. The Babylonians are now here and not some distant power whose arrival on the world stage is just a prediction. They’re here, and Judah is experiencing their tremendous brutality.

B. And now Habakkuk is concerned and wondering how in the world can this be furthering God’s will and purposes. Furthermore, how in the world is it that His people should be subject to the tyranny and abuse of such a nation…of such a people.

C. It might have been like… um Lord… I thought you were joking. I thought you were just kidding. How is this possible? How can God who is holy and righteous use such people… a people like the Babylonians to straighten out His own people? Yes our people are being bad but you are gonna use a worse people to make them good again? Do we not see here that the cure is worse than the disease?

D. Now Habakkuk gives us a great picture as to how we should address the Lord in times of our own difficulty. Rather than doubting and rebellion, the prophet does not allow this situation to undermine his faith in God. Instead he first reiterates to the Lord what he knows to be true concerning the Lord. Then he allows that to be his foundation as to what will direct his questioning.

E. Get together what it is we know for sure about the Lord and allow that to be our foundation. We cannot allow our emotions and circumstances to cloud our judgement as to what we know to be true about the Lord. What is certainly true will shed light on what is incomprehensible.

F. First of all, we see Habakkuk call the Lord… “my God.” Yaweh. The covenant name of the Lord. You are the Holy One who is actively involved with His people. We are your people called by your name.

G. When we are having a difficult time, we have to cling to the theological and doctrinal truth that God the father is our Father and Christ is our King and Savior. We need to first believe that we are his and we are called by His name. We must believe that we are children of the most high, we are in his hands, and that we abide in Him as He abides in us. We must believe that we are co-heirs with Christ, washed in His blood, baptized and empowered by the Holy Spirit, bearing fruit and a cup that is running over with life and life more abundant.

- If we don’t believe this, then we will continue to fall into this idea of moralistic therapeutic deism. We feel that God does not bother with us unless we are in need. All the rest of the times in our lives we are on our own. Then this causes us to only look to God when things are going bad. This causes us to believe that we serve a relatively impersonal God who only comes to save the day. But then we question when we do not feel like he saved the day. He is an absentee landlord who is not taking care of His responsibilities. He does not really care about me. We question who He is when we say where were you when I needed you most. We begin to believe that Jesus is a means to an end.

- If we don’t believe this then our walk with Christ is reduced to simply following Him, when the intention of the Lord for us is to live in Him. To be united with Him. To abide in Him daily. He is the vine and we are the branches… we can do nothing without Him. To live is never ever ever apart from Christ… He said that he will be with us always till the end of time. If we don’t believe this then we approach the Lord as only a 911 call and not the Lord who is with us always. We lose the power of our relationship and we question the Lord… where were you when I needed you most. We think that Jesus is a means to an end.

H. If we don’t believe this then we will be prone to reject our faith, the truth and ask all the wrong questions leading to wrong conclusions resulting is serving the wrong god. Again bad knowledge of God or no knowledge of God causes Idolatry.

I. Second we see that Habakkuk asserts that the Lord is from everlasting. The Lord is eternal. Even though the nation that is punishing us is brutal, I know that they are only here because you brought them here. You are from everlasting they are not here because of their own strength, but they are your tool of discipline.

Deuteronomy 33:27 NLT

The eternal God is your refuge, and his everlasting arms are under you. He drives out the enemy before you; he cries out, ‘Destroy them!’

J. And when Hezekiah’s faith began to fail the eternality of the Lord was given so that he could find comfort.

2 Kings 19:25 NLT

“But have you not heard? I decided this long ago. Long ago I planned it, and now I am making it happen. I planned for you to crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble.

K. Habakkuk is reiterating the biblical fact that God is eternal, because it means that nothing that is happening is a surprise to God, nothing that is happening is too big for him to grapple with, nothing that is happening to hard for him to handle, nothing that is happening is beyond his control. He has known about it all along.

L. When we are having a difficult time, we have to cling to the theological and doctrinal truth that the Lord is eternal and that no matter what is happening we know that He is not surprised by it. He has known about it all along. We have got to hold on the the biblical fact that the Lord is all knowing and that the Lord is all powerful. We have got to believe that He is not learning or is shocked by what is happening. He is not bound by something stronger or is an absentee landlord. He has decided all things. He has planned all things. Everything in the world...

Colossians 1:16 NLT

for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.

Romans 11:36 NLT

For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.

M. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ. We have got to believe that this is true.

- If we don’t believe this then we will reduce Christ into a simple possibility. We hope that Christ will be able to do something about this… hopefully the universe wont get in His way. So many bad teachings about the character of God has reduce Christ and made Him more like a mere man than the Son of God. As a result many today do not think that Christ is really able. Bad teaching concerning the character of man, giving him too much freedoms and giving God too much limitations in His dealing with us in the end causes us to doubt what he can know and can do in aiding mankind today.

-If we believe do not believe this then we unknowingly operate in the futile and become disappointed with God and blame Him for our error. Many are adamant in declaring that God will never interfere with our free will. They say God will never make anyone stop rebelling and have faith in Christ. So do you then believe that God is doing and has done all that he can do to bring your unsaved loved ones to Christ?

- Yes of course. Then why do we pray that God will bring them to salvation. Im not asking God to make them believe, Im asking for God to send someone to preach the gospel to them, yeah but he would have to make a person go and preach to them against their will. And he would have to make them say the things they need to hear that God knows that they need to hear so they wont say what they want but what God wants. We pray for it. But they say God will never make someone do what they don’t want to do… Oh so he would never do something like send a big fish to swallow up a person who did not want to go to a place that God wanted and have it spit them out right where He wanted them to be?

- If we don’t believe this then we will be prone to reject our faith, the truth and ask all the wrong questions leading to wrong conclusions resulting is serving the wrong god. Again bad knowledge of God or no knowledge of God causes Idolatry.

N. Third, Habakkuk declares the fact that the Lord is pure. The Lord is free from any moral impurity. This is clear in the scriptures. The purity of God was a lesson that was continually taught in Israel. You can’t approach God without it. You cannot walk with God without it.

Deuteronomy 23:14 NLT

The camp must be holy, for the Lord your God moves around in your camp to protect you and to defeat your enemies. He must not see any shameful thing among you, or he will turn away from you.

Psalm 34:16 NLT

But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil; he will erase their memory from the earth.

Psalm 5:4 NLT

O God, you take no pleasure in wickedness; you cannot tolerate the sins of the wicked.

O. The Purity of God is not something under debate and to speak against it is a clear violation of the scriptures. But common Shane no one would ever say that God would ever break the law. Right? Wrong. This is so bad. This is so heretical. You would not believe me if you did not see it yourself.

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P. When we use human examples to teach theology or teach about the character of God instead of the scriptures, we will run not just into error, not just heresy, but make God more like man and we will approach him more like a buddy than our Lord. Of course God did not break the law for love. There is no scripture that will defend this point… none at all. It was an emotional appeal. Not a scriptural one. There are many problems with this. His theology foundationally is really messed up.

- But while the illustration is effective on an emotional level, on a biblical level it is flat out wrong. Where the child has had an innocent accident, the Bible says that we have willfully committed acts of rebellion and transgression against our divine Lord; where the child is physically injured, the Bible says we are spiritually dead. Of even greater importance, God’s law is not a speed limit, a list of rules drawn up to govern human behavior. Rather, the law is God’s revelation or manifestation of his own character. The law is who he is. If he were to go against His law would mean that he is contradicting himself. Our God would be a living contradiction… How is this possible?

- Furtick means to show that God demonstrates the magnitude of his love by his willingness to break his own good law, as if God says “I love you so much that I will break my own law to save you.” But God can and does give a much greater demonstration of his love—he keeps the law! At the cross God demonstrates his love to us “in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God displays the magnitude of his love not by breaking the law but by satisfying the law. And he dies it in the most painful way possible.

- If we don’t believe that God is pure then we will lose the truth that the greatest possible expression of God’s love is not breaking the law but keeping it. The cross is definitive proof that God is not a law-breaker but a law-keeper.

- If we don’t believe in the purity of God… If God breaks the law, the law is still in effect because there has been no justice, and that is the worst possible news. If the law is still in effect, I am condemned by it and God is downright evil for promising a false hope. If I have committed murder and a judge tells me I can go free anyway, I remain guilty. His decision to break or circumvent the law has no bearing on my guilt or innocence.

- How can we have hope or trust when we don’t believe this? How do we know that God will not do wrong against us when he feels like He needs to. We will in the back of our minds always question whether God is really a good God. How are we gonna explain the bad things that happen that God ordains to happen for the benefit of His people and for His glorious purpose.

- If we don’t believe this then we will be prone to reject our faith, the truth and ask all the wrong questions leading to wrong conclusions resulting is serving the wrong god. Again bad knowledge of God or no knowledge of God causes Idolatry.

II. Thy Will Be Done

- All of your promises are yes and Amen

A. And this is the beauty of knowing the character of God. Getting a clear picture of who God is from the scriptures is where we are gonna find hope. Christ being who He said He is and Christ doing what He said He is gonna do is absolutely foundational to our hope.

B. Again being who the scriptures say He is and doing what the scriptures said He would do is vital to life and life more abundant. The scriptures are clear that we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The scriptures are clear that we are enemies of God by nature.

C. The scriptures are clear that if we believe that Jesus is who He said He is… He is the Christ the Son of the Living God, we will have life in His name. And we will find life when He does what He says He would do and what did. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and He was buried...

D. He became sin who knew no sin and we might become the righteousness… He came to seek and save that which was lost. All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your hearts that God...