Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: Habakkuk

  • Closing With Joy in the Lord

    Closing With Joy in the Lord

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 19, 1995.

    About this sermon

    The series closes where Habakkuk himself closes, rejoicing in the Lord regardless of circumstance, the difference between preaching that merely informs and preaching that actually transforms. Every one of the elect participates in God’s saving acts the same way Habakkuk does here, Old Testament events and New Testament events cut from the same cloth. Habakkuk’s own early unbelief, oddly, makes him kin to figures throughout the New Testament who struggled the same way before faith took hold.

    More sermons from Habakkuk · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading from Habakkuk 3 for the last time. We’ll begin at verse 8. Did the Lord rage against the rivers, or was thy anger against the rivers, or was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride on thy horses, on thy chariots of salvation?

    Thy bow was made bare, the rods of chastisement were sworn, thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. The mountains saw thee and quaked, the downpour of water swept by. deep uttered forth its voice, it lifted high its hands. Sun and moon stood in their places, they went away at the light of thine arrows, at the radiance of thy gleaming spear. In indignation thou didst march through the earth, in anger thou didst trample the nations. Thou didst go forth for the salvation of thy people, for the salvation of thine anointed. Thou didst strike the head of the house of evil to lay him open from thigh to neck. Thou didst pierce with his own spears the head of his throngs. They stormed in to scatter me. Their exaltation was like those who devour the oppressed in secret. Thou didst tread on the sea with thy horses, on the surge of many waters.

    I heard, and my inward parts trembled, at the sound my lips quivered, decay entered my bones, and in my place I tremble. But I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.

    The Lord God is my strength, and he has made my feet like hinds’ feet, and makes me walk on my high places, for the choir director on my stringed instrument.” Then Galatians chapter 2, verse 20. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. who loved me and gave himself up for me.

    Our God, we are conscious of your children around the world, and how you add to your household by bringing into our company those whom you are redeeming from the ends of the earth, from all of the nations. There is preaching here this morning, but there is also preaching around the globe.

    And Lord, it will be your servant who enter into the proclamation of your word from heaven, that there might be that full assembly gathered, and no seat left unfilled. Father, we are also mindful to pray for governments over nations, and for the government that is over us. We pray for our President and for our leaders. Lord, we are asking that there would be the maintenance of righteousness, such as is a restraint to evil, a help to good. We pray that in this manner we may have a peaceful life, that we might be unharassed, and that your servants who proclaim your word around the globe might also wonderfully experience your blessing in this regard. May nations be at peace, and may your word progress. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    What makes for good preaching? How can you tell good preaching from not so good? Or from that which is just outright horrible? The criteria may not be what you think. Last week, we stated that good speaking ability, personal charm and charisma, the knack for illustration and the gift for inspirational and motivational communication, do not translate of themselves into good preaching.

    Paul has told us what stands central for him in his ministry. He speaks of it repeatedly throughout his letters. He tells us that he preaches Christ. His testimony comes to us particularly in the Corinthian epistles. I’m thinking of 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 23. Also chapter 2, verse 2. as well as 2 Corinthians 4, verse 5. In each of those texts, the Apostle Paul is telling us that the heart of good preaching is the proclamation of Christ. Good preaching, therefore, above all, is preaching Christ.

    But this morning, we want to go on a bit further with this basic commitment in order to make another observation about the nature of good preaching. And once more, the criteria may not be what many think. For instance, fine-tuned use of application. does not translate into good preaching. Nor can we say that good preaching is essentially a matter of adroitly linking up with the congregation along the psychological line, grabbing them in their nor is it cleverly tying in with them in their lives individually, so that there is this immediate recognition from them to you that you know all about them.

    There is that kind of preaching that immediately strikes a responsive chord. We are liable to say, in keeping with this kind of preaching that the preacher has gotten inside of my head. He spoke to my heart this morning. He applied the word of God directly to me. Such preaching may seem to us wonderfully practical, direct, easily accessible, just the kind of preaching we want. But let me tell you, for all these things, the immediacy, the application, the easy accessibility, for all these things, the Gentiles seek in their public speakers.

    And others, while they may not be Gentiles themselves, don’t seem to know any better. Not that we wish to encourage men toward preaching who lack air sensitivity about the psychological aspects of humanity, or seem to lack all sensitivity to the particulars of the lives of those who are congregated before them. What value is preaching that is out of touch, seemingly obtuse, to such an extent that it communicates, apparently, an indifference to the people. However, merely projecting a spirit of involvement with the congregation, a familiarity with or simply insisting upon a fine method of application does not touch the heart of good preaching. In fact, commitment to these very things and a well-developed style along these very lines can leave you far removed from the dynamics of good preaching. in the genuine biblical sense. Let me state the case straight out. Good preaching does not apply the text to you. Good preaching applies you to the text. Good preaching is essentially proclamation, first of all, of what God has done specifically in Jesus Christ.

    But it is also proclamation about your relationship to God’s great saving act and to the history of revelation and redemption as a whole. the latter part of this proclamation enterprise that is concerning us this morning, specifically your relationship to God’s Great Saving Act and to the history of Revelation. Is it as most expressed these days that you stand at a distance from God’s Great Saving or at a distance from God’s Word itself concerning these great saving acts which God has performed?

    And is it the preacher’s task, then, to take the Word from its context back there, set in that primal setting, and make that Word relevant and meaningful to you in your own unique time and circumstance? Is that what’s going on in preaching? In other words, is it the case that over there, over there is the word. Speaking to another era, another situation, while you are standing here in 1995, with the preacher’s task of bridging the gap between you and that text by bringing that text to you, and applying it to you, and making it meaningful to you.

    I suggest to you that the biblical approach is just the opposite. on the biblical scheme. The Preacher does not take the Word and apply it to you so much as he takes you and applies you to the Word. The Preacher does not then draw the Word into your world. Rather, the Preacher declares to you that the Word is, first of all, drawing you into its world.

    Now, by this, of course, I do not mean that you must all go out and buy sandals. And I don’t mean by this that you have to live in houses made of sun-dried bricks, or trade your car in for a camel. What I mean, and what the Bible means, is that the great saving work of God and the history of salvation itself are what define you. As you are made through the power of the word and by the spirit of regeneration, no mere nor no mere inquirer into a distant ancient event, but a participant in that event and in the history of salvation and its great drama. You are not on the outside looking in. You are in it. Now, let me give you two brief illustrations of what I’m talking about. I want you, first of all, to look at Exodus chapter 13, verse 8.

    Here you have the revelation of God concerning the Passover. And God is giving instruction here through Moses to the fathers about how the fathers are to communicate to their children the meaning of the Passover. And this is what the fathers are to say to the children. They are to say, this is what the Lord did for me when he brought me out of Egypt. Now, I want you to notice there the use of the first-person pronoun. This is what the Lord did for me.

    Now, say we are dealing with a Jewish father who lives 600 years after the Exodus, after the Passover. Or, say we’re dealing with a Jew, a Jewish father who lives 1400 years in the time of Christ, after the Passover, the first Passover. Do you think that that father would speak in the very same words? Do you think that father would say to his children, this is what the Lord did for me when he brought me out of Egypt? Your response might be, well, how can that be? He wasn’t even there. He wasn’t even in Egypt. How can he speak in the first person? How can he say, this is what the Lord did for me when he brought me out of Egypt? He wasn’t even there.

    The biblical point is that he was there, that he is a participant, and it is this particular great event of salvation that defines him. It is the preacher’s task to declare that to the congregation. I invite you to read through the book of Deuteronomy. Moses’ final sermon to the people of God in this very light, how he deals with that generation as if that generation, the subsequent generation to the one that had come out of Egypt, is spoken to as if it were a participant in the very events themselves.

    Now, the other illustration that I have for you is from Galatians 2.20, the text that we read this morning. Here Paul is doing the same thing that we find in Exodus 13 verse 8. But you’ll notice that now there’s been a change, hasn’t there? For the great saving act from God is not that typical and preparatory act of the Exodus in Egypt, but rather the conclusive final act that has been accomplished by God in Jesus Christ.

    Notice now how Paul defines himself in terms of this act by God. He defines himself as if he were present. Paul wasn’t even at the crucifixion. But he talks about that crucifixion and also the resurrection of Christ not just as if he were present, but as if he were a participant in those events.

    I am crucified with Christ. Now I live. I live by virtue of the resurrection of Christ. The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. The preacher’s task is to proclaim to you your inclusion in the great saving work of God in Christ’s death, resurrection, and even his return. Your place in the history and the drama of salvation. Now we’re getting to the heart of not just good preaching, but great preaching.

    The question becomes for us, in light of this, how do we properly preach Habakkuk? Particularly now, how do we properly preach Habakkuk when it comes to the proclamation of our relationship to the great saving work of God? First of all, we must ask ourselves, what is the great saving work of God for Habakkuk?

    You tell me. What is the great saving work of God for Habakkuk? Do you think it’s any different than that father that we spoke about earlier in Exodus chapter 13, verse 8? Do you think it’s any different than what we’ve already commented on with respect to Moses and his great sermon in Deuteronomy? The great saving act of God for Habakkuk is the Exodus. In the Exodus, God came for the salvation of his people.

    Now, there is evidence of this throughout the prophecy. We can make reference of a couple of chapters in the first two chapters, but we’re going to go beyond that and look at the third chapter particularly. Here, in the great prayer of faith from Habakkuk, the prophet twice reviews the complexity of events that accompany the exodus and include also the settlement in the promised land. First there is verses 3-7 and then verses 8-14, parallel sections of this prayer which cover the same terrain, the same period of time. But you will note that Habakkuk, in the final analysis, sees himself directly participant in these great saving acts.

    He speaks of it in verse 14 particularly. That’s why I interjected the first personal pronoun there in the 14th verse when I read it this morning. Those of you who are following along New American Standard realize I changed the text at that point. Why? Because literally it is the first personal pronoun in that 14th verse.

    Habakkuk is interjecting himself into the drama. “…thou didst pierce with his own spears the head of the throng. They stormed in to scatter me.” That’s what the text says, not us. It’s not in the Hebrew. Their exultation was like those who devoured the oppressed in secret.

    Habakkik interjects the first personal pronoun because he is a participant in the drama. That’s the way he understands it. He is speaking as one who has experienced himself the onslaught which his forefathers endured when the nation was overrun in the time of the judges.

    But further, verse 16, he again speaks in the first person of his direct participation And this in response to what you find in verse 15. That’s why I read verses 15 and 16 together. I don’t separate them, for that 16th verse is the Prophet’s response to what you find in that 15th verse. He is speaking now about his direct participation in the response to the sound of God’s treading upon the Red Sea with his horses that caused that sea to boil, as it were.

    So the prophet’s identity is established in relationship to the Exodus, the great saving act of God. But we must also notice, in connection with this, in order to fill out the proclamation of the history of redemption, even from an Old Testament point of view, we must notice that the coming of God in the Exodus which figures so prominently in the consciousness of Habakkuk, is not the only coming of God that Habakkuk speaks about.

    There is another coming. There are two comings. You’re starting to get the pattern now, you’re starting to get the feel. There are two comings of God in Habakkuk. There is the coming of God in the Exodus, but there is also the coming that is promised from God through the Chaldeans who are going to overrun the world and overrun Judah. God came and he is coming again, and Habakkuk lives between the two comings. Wait a minute, this is starting to sound awfully familiar. Do you understand? Do you understand what’s going on? He lives between the two comings.

    This is what makes Habakkuk gospel. So any proper preaching on Habakkuk must relate you to the first coming of God, in light of the impending second coming of God. That’s what makes good preaching. And it must tell you that your only hope in the second coming of God is your proper relationship to and participation in the first coming.

    As things have worked out in Habakkuk, as we’ve surveyed Kim personally, we realize that he doesn’t have a good relationship to the First Coming, and he must be corrected in his attitude and estimations. He hasn’t appropriated it rightly. Now, if I have to spell it out for you at this point, Seeing all of this now in New Testament terms, you understand the parallel.

    The Old Testament exodus is to the Chaldean invasion, as the New Testament redemption in Christ is to Christ’s Second Coming. There it is. Now I have some of you sitting there dumbfounded. not knowing whether to write or what to do, I’ll repeat it. The Old Testament exodus is to the Chaldean invasion, as the New Testament redemption in Christ is to the Second Coming. And just as Habakkuk lived between the two comings, you live between the two. There is no proper application of Habakkuk apart from that observation. None. None.

    That is what the Holy Spirit is intending you to hear in Habakkuk. Just as Habakkuk is called by God to a true justification by faith predicated upon God’s free and gracious love, to an undeserving people in the exodus, so we are called to a true justification by faith, predicated upon God’s free and gracious love for an undeserving sinful people through Christ’s death and resurrection.

    Such faith is not that of self-righteousness. It is not that of a self-righteous Pharisee. be it a self-righteous Pharisee that is on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians, or a self-righteous Pharisee that appears in one of Jesus’ parables congratulating himself that he isn’t like other sinners.” Habakkuk used to be like that Pharisee in the parable. He used to be like that Pharisee on his way to Damascus with orders to arrest the Christians. Instead, such faith is that of the breast-beating publican, such faith to which Habakkuk himself has been brought. Such faith is not that of, say, the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son. That’s the way Habakkuk used to be.

    As he pointed out to God, you will remember God’s gross injustice to him and to Judah, just as the elder brother did in that parable with respect to his own father’s gross injustice at his reception of his sinful son. And such faith as is here set before us in Habakkuk, is not that of the rich, young ruler that regrets the demands of the kingdom—I have to give it up—or grieves over losses that the kingdom brings with respect to the things of this world. that the gospel of that kingdom might confer upon us true riches in glory and God himself. At one time Habakkuk was very much like that rich young ruler, but now he is like Jesus Christ, by whom he is crucified to the world and the world to him, and all for the sake of the true inheritance, God himself.

    Truly good preaching places you in the text and within the history of salvation. It declares to you who you are and where you live with respect to God’s sovereign timetable, namely, in the first coming of Christ, looking for the second coming. And it plainly tells you that a life filled with self-justification, anger at God for his injustice, and regret over the loss of the things of this world, cannot stand when Christ returns. good preaching tells you, God mercifully deals with you now, lest you come up before him in that great day with attitudes that prove that you never knew him, and that you never were truly justified by faith. with Habakkuk in tow, I hope that you have been properly preached to today.

    Now, our Father, may the message from your prophet work wonderfully in our souls, that we may be challenged with respect to our faith, that we might again assess our relationship to Christ and our participation in his death and resurrection. And Father, we ask for your mercies as we live in these days, that we would realize that we are a people who live between the two comings. And Father, we ask that we as a congregation may be determined to help one another that we may stand brightly, gloriously in the approaching day, and that the fellowship that we have here in this church will never be severed, even through eternity. We pray it in Jesus’ name, who has gone before us, in whom we have our life and being. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Preaching an Arcane Text

    Preaching an Arcane Text

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 12, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Bad preaching treats a text like Habakkuk 3 as too obscure to bother with; good preaching, the kind Paul models even with the Old Testament’s most arcane passages, finds Christ in it anyway. Verse 13 in particular repays that kind of close attention. God’s own work in Habakkuk moves him from selfish anger to real faith, not by argument but by transformation.

    More sermons from Habakkuk · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    We are reading again this morning from Habakkuk chapter 3. We are at verse 8, reading to the conclusion of the chapter. This is Habakkuk 3, verse 8 and following give you attention to the reading of God’s holy word. Did the Lord rage against the rivers, or was thy anger against the rivers, or thy wrath against the sea? that thou didst ride on thy horses, on thy chariots of salvation.

    Thy bow was made bare, the rods of chastisement were sworn. Thou didst plead the earth with rivers. The mountains saw thee and quaked, the downpour of water swept by. The deep uttered forth its voice, it lifted high its hands. Sun and moon stood in their places.

    They went away at the light of thine arrows, at the radiance of thy gleaming spear. In indignation thou didst march through the earth, in anger thou didst trample the nations, thou didst go forth for the salvation of thy people, for the salvation of thine anointed, thou didst strike the head of the house of evil to lay him open from thigh to neck, thou didst pierce with his own spears the head of his thrones. They stormed in to scatter us. Their exultation was like those who devour the oppressed in secret.

    Thou didst tread on the sea with thy horses. On the surge of many waters I heard, and my inward parts trembled At the sound my lips quivered, the decay entered my bones, and in my place I trembled, because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us.

    Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olives should fail, and the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exalt in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he has made my feet like hind’s feet, and makes me walk on my high places, for the choir director on my stringed instrument.

    I am determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Pray together. Set before us, O God, set before us well your person and work, and may our consideration be of you and of your Son. May we, Lord, rejoice in this one who has preeminence. May we know that he has come for us, that he has lived and ministered for us, that he has died upon the cross for us, and that he has been raised for us. And Lord, may it be also plain and clear to us that this which he has done for us includes us, that we might live in him. Bless us now, O God, as we give our attention to your word. And may we be profited for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

    How do you know a good sermon when you hear one? How do you tell good preaching from not so good, or from that which is outright horrible? The criteria may not be what many think. For instance, good speaking ability, or the ability to put together a fine demonstration of public oratory, does not translate in itself into good preaching. Nor can we say that good preaching is essentially a matter of the communication of personality, or charm, or magnetism, or charisma, that seems to have the ability to attract a crowd, or to attract a following. Nor is good preaching essentially the knack of good storytelling, relating fine, prized, and true evangelical folklore. It is not the act for colorful illustration, much less is it the gift for motivation, that ability to motivate an audience to action, be it ethical or spiritual or even social.

    For all these things, the Gentiles seek. And others, while maybe not being Gentiles themselves, don’t seem to know any better. Not that we wish to encourage men toward preaching who simply cannot face an audience, or men who seem to lack almost entirely all rhetorical skill, or men, say, with flat and dull minds who bring no appropriate use of the imagination to their task whatsoever.

    But these aspects are more technical matters, more aesthetic matters. And while not unimportant, they do not touch the heart of good preaching. Good preaching has to do with higher things. Take Paul for an example. Here is a man who, by his own admission as well as by the opinions of others, lacked some of those public speaking attributes and skills. But this man did speak about good preaching.

    He spoke to the heart of it when he said, in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 23, that he preached Christ. A few verses further in that epistle, a text which we have just read, chapter 2 verse 2, Paul goes on, he says, I am determined to know nothing among you Corinthians except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And later in his Corinthian correspondence, 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 5, he would say, we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord. Good preaching is, first of all, an above-all-else preaching Christ.

    It is just such preaching as this that stands, as it were, with Jacob at the Jabbok and wrestles with the word of the Lord as Jacob himself wrestled with the angel of the Lord, until the Scripture text itself offers up its blessing. Think about the Apostle Paul and the way in which he used Scripture. Think about his citation of Old Testament texts. It is enough to prove our point. We witness Paul, for example, bringing the widest range of Old Testament passages to do service to Christ and the Gospel. Colossians 1 verse 17, a text which we cited this morning in our call to worship. In that text, Paul preaches Christ on the background of Genesis 1-1, the very first text in Scripture. as he ascribes creation, nothing less than creation, to Christ and for Christ. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6, a context which we have already cited, sets before us Genesis 1 verse 3, that text which says that God commanded the light to come forth and shine in the darkness.

    And what about Genesis 1 verse 26? and Genesis 2.24, the texts that speak about the creation of man and woman. Paul preaches Christ against the background of these texts when he describes for us the love which Christ has for his bride, the Church, in Ephesians 5.

    Abrams, justifying faith in Genesis 15-6, anticipates the gospel of faith according to Paul in both Romans 4 and Galatians 3. The story of Sarah and Hagar, something that seems to be so far removed as that. According to the Apostle Paul, in Galatians 4, prophesies the battle between those who are of the works of the law and those who are of the salvation by grace through faith. And what about the exodus from Egypt and God’s provision for the children of Israel in their wilderness wanderings?

    These, too, are ultimately about Christ, so says Paul. He boldly states to us in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 4, speaking about that rock from which the water came. The rock was Christ. And then, as if there’s no limit to the audaciousness of this apostle, in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 9, he sees the fulfillment and the application and implication of Deuteronomy 20, verse 9, that passage that has to do about not muzzling oxen when they’re treading out the grain, as specifically intended to speak about the financial support that those who preach the gospel are to receive for their service. This man sees Christ everywhere, and he is determined to proclaim Him in his ministry.

    Need I go on to cite the seemingly innumerable passages from the Psalms, the wisdom literature, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the prophets themselves that further establish this point. Just one more illustration in order to cap the thing off. In one of the most astounding texts from my point of view, Romans 10, verse 18, where Paul quotes from Psalm 19, verse 4. We all know that psalm.

    It speaks about how God’s glory reverberates throughout the whole created order. But Paul takes that verse from Psalm 19 and applies it to the message of the gospel that is going out to the whole earth. We think that that passage is about general or natural revelation. Paul says, no, it’s about redemption and special revelation. It is about the gospel.

    If Paul’s letters and his communication in them are, in a genuine sense, then model for our preaching, if his wrestling with Old Testament texts is patterned for preachers today in their own struggles with the Holy Scriptures, then at the heart of good preaching is the proclamation of Christ, and the bringing of every preaching enterprise captive to the obedience of Christ.

    Now this is not to say that every sermon will be perfectly obvious in this regard, nor that every sermon will be equally powerful with respect to it. But truly, it is to say the heart of every sermon must beat with the message about Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. It must be with that message about Him, His creational energy, His saving efficacy, and His vivifying immediacy to the benefit of all His Church throughout the ages, by virtue of His eternity with the Father and the Spirit, and by virtue of His vicarious sacrifice and His glorious resurrection. There should be no argument about this here, and truly there should be no argument about this in the Church of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Nor should any of you ever allow yourself to be deceived, regardless of the man’s personal magnetism. Good preaching preaches Christ. Now with this commitment, plainly in hand, we return to Habakkuk. And our question is, how is Christ preached from Habakkuk? How is Christ preached from Habakkuk? We might look first of all to the obvious. And we might judge that the obvious is discovered for us, presented to us, in that third chapter, the thirteenth verse.

    Particularly the second line that speaks about the Lord’s anointing. You understand that behind that word, anointed, stands the Hebrew masyach, from which we get our word Messiah. And many have judged that this, then, is an explicit reference to the Messiah, to the coming Christ.

    For instance, the translators of the King James Version, if you have a King James with you this morning and you have been reading along in it, you may have noted the way in which they approach this text. They translate the first two lines of verse 13 this way. Thou, being God, thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with, underscore that preposition there, with, Now, get the full force of that, what the translators of the King James are endeavoring to communicate.

    Here, in this translation, the Anointed One stands with God, yet at the same time separated from the people who are mentioned in the first line of the verse. And the Anointed One, in the second line of that verse, is in fact then the agent of salvation. That is, the One by whom and through whom God saves His people, the One who accompanies God in His saving activities.

    Now, we’re not going to argue with the theology. That’s great theology. And there is tremendous attractiveness to this position, for no other reason than it leads to a straight-up, easily grasped proclamation of Christ from the text. It is also a very powerful point for proclaiming Christ, especially in the context, because you’ll notice that the verse goes on to speak about the striking of the head of a house of evil.

    We can see in that a reference to Satan, Ethan. But as well, this approach to the text has potential going for it in that it ties the entirety of the prophecy together in the person and work of Christ. trying to weave the thing together as a whole. Now, if we realize that the coming of God that is now being commented on in verse 13, thou didst go forth for the salvation of thy people, for the salvation with thine anointed, if we see that the coming of God there mentioned in verse 13 is bound to the coming of God announced at the beginning of the prophecy, then the message becomes this throughout Habakkuk’s prophecy. God’s approach in judgment upon Judah and the nations is to the end, that he might save his own people through his Anointed One, whom we know as Jesus Christ. But there is another translation of the 13th verse of chapter 3, in which the reference to the Messiah is not as obvious. Yet I venture to say this translation lends a more complete interest into the temperament of the prophet and the prophecy, and sets before us a fuller proclamation of the person and work of Christ.

    The alternative translation is found in most modern versions, such as the New American Standard, the NIV, or the New English Bible. Take one of them, the New American Standard, which we have read from this morning, and here we find the words as we begin in that thirteenth verse, thou didst go forth for the salvation of thy people, for the salvation of thine anointed, rather than with the preposition of.

    Here, the people and the Anointed stand not in opposition, but in apposition. That is, they are parallel to one another, referring to the same entity. The Anointed, then, in the second line of the thirteenth verse, becomes a collective noun, and most naturally refers to the people of God as a whole. But still, even given that, The use of the word anointed in this context is quite significant because this is the only place in the entirety of the Old Testament where that term is applied to the people of God.

    That is a signal. We need to take note of that. So despite the collective reference then, are we dealing here with something much more than just an alternate way of speaking about the people of God? For instance, could it be that the Prophet is bringing God’s people and the Messiah together in the most intimate fashion, as if the people were themselves included in the Messiah. To speak of the one is to speak of the other.

    Now, your first reaction to that proposition may well be negative, quite negative, because it sounds like Both the people and the anointed are in the same situation. Both are in need of an experience of salvation. Both need to be saved. If we see Christ in this passage and along these lines, we might be taken back by this thought. After all, we say, Christ didn’t have any sin. He wasn’t in need of salvation. Messiah doesn’t need to be saved himself. Don’t you see? That is precisely the point.

    Habakkuk’s proclamation of Christ at this juncture is so thorough, so deep, so profound, that he sees the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, to be so absolutely identified with his people, that he takes to himself their condition in totality. And it will be by so giving himself over to this identification with them, out of his love and in it, becoming the object of salvation, that he will also become the agent of their salvation.

    As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5.21, He who knew no sin became sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And how thorough this identification of Christ with his people in the case of Habakkuk himself.

    Think of the man and what we have discovered about him. Here is a man at the beginning of his prophecy infected with self-righteousness and self-pity. A man just as likely to hide behind the law as to live by it. Furthermore, here is a man who stands short of New Testament fullness and completion, which shall be found only in and through Christ.” Here is an arrogant, angry man, an incomplete man, yet it is to this man that God comes. It is this man that has made the prophet.

    To this man, God comes to such an extent that he enters into this man, making this man’s arrogant and angry words his own. Consider how the process of inspiration at this point parallels the process of incarnation. God takes to himself the anger of the prophet. He takes to himself the arrogance of the prophet, the self-righteousness of the prophet, even as he causes this man to be the instrument of his message.

    So great is God’s love. that he does this in the interests of his plan and purpose, and that this man, by such action from God, might be transformed, might be changed. Likewise, Christ enters the flesh of sinful humanity, and on the cross takes to himself our offenses, that he, with all his own in him, might undergo the salvation. that they are to experience. The Christ who needs no salvation undergoes salvation that those who need salvation might be saved. The one who needs no justification, needs no adoption, needs no sanctification, undergoes all of these things in order that those who do need these things might experience them in the full.

    Seeing Christ, therefore, in the prophecy of Habakkuk is more than seeing him then in a single text, like Habakkuk 3.13. but seeing him in the totality of the prophecy and even in the prophet himself.

    And I trust that you are seeing Christ this morning. Likewise, preaching Christ from Habakkuk, the mans that I preach in as bound out of his love to the Prophet, and to all of us who are like the Prophet, to the end that we in him might be brought from self-righteousness and arrogance and anger, from sin to sanctification, from death to God’s justification in life, from the old to the new, through Christ’s own condescension to know and experience these things, even to the extent of his vicarious death for us, and his glorious resurrection for us. I trust that I have preached Christ to you this morning.

    Our Father, we realize that your church is desperately in need of good preaching. We ask, Lord, that our Savior would be front and center in the minds and consciousness of those who would proclaim your word, and that your people congregated would not then be dismissed without having been confronted with Christ from the text. And in our considerations, Lord, may we meditate upon the greatness of your love. So great your love that you take to yourself our infirmities, our doubts, our fears, even our unrighteousness, our sins. And you bear all of this that we might be spared. Father, there is no salvation like this salvation. And Father, we pray that we might then be wonderful stewards of the blessings you have given us. And in exercising our responsibility as stewards, may we do all that we can to ensure that our pulpit and other pulpits in your church throughout the world are determined to know nothing of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Rejoicing Amid Desolation

    Rejoicing Amid Desolation

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 5, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Habakkuk rejoices in the book’s closing verses despite total agricultural and economic collapse, a change only God could work in him. The same God works that change from the Old Testament to the New. ‘He makes my feet like hind’s feet’ in verse 19 is Christ’s gift, sure footing on desolate ground.

    More sermons from Habakkuk · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    We are reading first of all this morning from Habakkuk chapter 1, and then turning over to Habakkuk chapter 3. Habakkuk 1, verse 1, gives you attention to God’s holy word. the oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw. How long, O Lord, will I call for help, and thou wilt not hear?

    I cry out to thee, Violence, yet thou dost not say. Why dost thou make me see iniquity, and cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me, strife exists, and contention arises. Therefore, the law is ignored, and justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous, therefore justice comes out perverted.

    Turning over to chapter 3, verse 15, While it’s tread on the sea with thy horses, On the surge of many waters, I heard, and my inward parts trembled. At the sound, my lips quivered, decay entered my bones, and in my place I trembled, because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls.

    Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he has made my feet like hind feet, and makes me walk on my high places, for the choir director on my stringed instrument. Our Lord, your word is refreshment to us, and Father, you supply us strength from your word. What opportunities are ours? To hear your word week by week, and also, Lord, to delve into that word personally. Father, may we be trained in the word and by it. And Lord, as we take in your word, may we take in the full and complete message of that word. And yes, that which is central to it, your glory and our salvation. This we pray through Christ, Amen. Habakkuk’s great prayer, here in chapter three, concludes with him speaking in the most interesting way about what the Lord has done for him.

    He says, the Lord has made his feet like hind feet and has made him to walk upon his high This prophet, you will recall, had begun his prophecy with a complaint that the Lord was doing nothing. When God told Habakkuk that he was about to do something, that he was about to act by sending the Chaldeans to overrun Judah and Jerusalem, Habakkuk could find no comfort in such news, nor any reason for praise. But now, At this prophecy’s conclusion, Habakkuk seems literally possessed of an uncommon spirit of praise and rejoicing that seems to be inexplicable in light of those things that had concerned him previously. The violence and wickedness in Judah and in Jerusalem, which he had been compelled to see every day and at every turn, that’s still there. The threat now of the impending invasion by the Chaldeans, that has added its own weight to the consciousness of this man. And throughout the prophecy, this threat becomes all the more real and all the more immediate, its consequences more and more clearly perceived. Habakkuk now, at the conclusion, even in his great prayer of faith, describes what’s coming as the day of distress, verse 16 of that third chapter.

    And as verse 17 goes on to tell us, this impending invasion by the Chaldeans holds out the devastating prospect of barren trees, fruitless vines, fields seemingly incapable of a crop, and flocks and herds Yet this Habakkuk, who formerly ranted and raved at God for doing nothing, and then ranted and raved at God when God said he was about to do something, this man now praises God because God has acted in him and for him to make his feet like hind feet, causing him to tread upon his high places. Once more, verse 19, chapter 3. Habakkuk is a changed man. He is a changed man.

    And you must note that this man is changed specifically, indirectly, because of the work of God. That is what he is confessing here. For he says that it is God himself who is the one who has worked for the transformation of him. God makes his feet like kind feet. God makes him to walk upon his high places. And so it is with all genuine, all true religious change, transformation. God does it. God is the one at work, because we are incapable of changing ourselves. God comes.

    God comes upon Jacob, a professional deceiver, and the man is transformed. God comes upon Moses, and the man is transformed. He comes upon a king, Manasseh, the wicked king, Manasseh, more wicked than any known in the history of Judah, and the man is changed. He even comes upon Job, and the man is changed. The Job of chapter 42 in Job is different than the Job of chapter 1. And in Jesus Christ, God comes upon many, does he not? He comes upon an adulterous woman, and she’s transformed. He comes upon a thieving tax collector, and the man becomes a paragon of virtue. He comes upon a proud Pharisee, and this Pharisee becomes the epitome of humility.

    And what might we say about ourselves? Are we not those upon whom God comes in His holy and precious word? We then, being those who have been wonderfully and marvelously changed, if that is the case, then enabled to enter in full-faced, enter into the praises of Habakkuk, with which he concludes his prayer. But it is true, is it not?

    We confess it. God has come upon us. He is the one at work to transform us. And what is the nature of the transformation? I do not mean this in any simplistic, moralistic sense, but He came upon us and transformed us in many real and practical senses. For some of us, you see, Some of us were changed. We having learned about sensuality, we having learned even about the details of sexuality in the backseat of a car. Some of us having been changed. Is it not true? Will you not confess it?

    Some of us having been changed, our mouths frittery, foul, abusive, even blasphemous. Some of us expressing deception and deceit from the earliest age, learning even to steal from our own parents. Some of us used to drink ourselves blind-eyed drunk. in order to cover over our disappointment with life, in order to fuel our rage, in order to deaden our pain, or just be one of the guys. Some of us have been cruel gossips, selfish brats, crybabies obsessed with self-pity.

    But God, by his word, has changed us. Now, in Habakkuk’s case, you might have thought, here, at least, is a man who is not in need of change. After all, he’s a prophet. He is also a priest, which seems to be the indication of the setting of this psalm, with which his prophecy ends. Here’s a man who doesn’t need to be changed. Here’s a man who understands the law, who’s been raised in the faith. But what might some of us say concerning our own situations? I was born in the church. I was born to the faith. I was raised in the assembly.

    I don’t need change. that you do, if it is but to participate in the change that you observe in the prophet Habakkuk, the transformation that comes in Jephthah, and that in order that you might be brought to the same extraordinary praise that he expresses at the end of his prayer.

    Here, the prophet glories because God has made his feet like time’s feet. Now, at first glance, you may not be impressed by the fact that God has changed Habakkuk into a mountain sheep, into a mountain goat. But that is the figure that the Prophet uses. What he means by that figure is that God has made him now sure-footed. And it is precisely with this image, with this figure of the sure-footed mountain goat, that Habakkuk now presents to us the change that has come upon him by the action of God. You see, Habakkuk, at the beginning of his prophecy, had imagined himself nothing if he wasn’t sure-footed.

    Here is a man of perfect confidence, a perfect confidence in his righteousness, assured of his own moral and religious outrage about the violence and the wickedness that he witnessed every day in Judah and in Jerusalem. Habakkuk’s cause at the beginning of the prophecy and his perception seemed to be just. solid in his piety, righteous in his indignation, that’s the Habakkuk of chapter one.

    But observing, but observing the prophet in that setting and with that attitude, your response may well be, well, what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with being incensed like a baggage at moral decay and perversion, at social and judicial injustice? What’s wrong with that? Doesn’t God want us to be sensitive to the violations of his law? Doesn’t he want us to be sensitive to the effects of such violations upon our society, upon our culture and our civilization?

    But oddly enough, God cannot leave Habakkuk, nor can he leave us with such attitudes. You see, the real question for Habakkuk, even at the beginning of his prophecy, is this. despite the rightness of his cause, that his motives are just and righteous. How does he know, despite the rightness of his cause and the insistence that he has with regard to the law, that his own motives are not skewed and tainted? How does he know that? How does he know whether his true motivation isn’t one in which he means simply to ensure for himself the best possible vantage point in his own selfish pursuits? The wicked, the violent, are taking my property. That’s mine. I’m the one that’s coming out on the short end of the stick in the court of law. I’m losing, and it is supremely embarrassing for me.

    For all his certainty that his cause is just, and that he is sure-footed in his confidence before God, in actual fact, As God knows, Habakkuk is very unstable indeed, and now it is out of his mercy and in his love that God acts, for he cannot leave Habakkuk where he is, and he will not leave you in a similar condition. for whether Habakkuk or you acknowledge it, the position taken up by the prophet and you with him is quite precarious.

    Just how precarious it is begins to dawn on us when we realize that Habakkuk can actually wrap himself up in the law, and a righteousness which is of the law. and never know just how unstable he is. For the law of his circumstance at the beginning of the prophecy comforts him, it reassures him, it tells him that his cause is just. With the law on his side, he reacts against the wicked, and even calls upon God to come to his aid in the interests of his law. But what if Habakkuk gets his wish, What if God responds to Habakkuk in keeping with the way in which Habakkuk has expressed himself at the beginning of the prophecy? What if God comes to Habakkuk’s aid in ways that Habakkuk expects, and acts in the interest of his law in ways that Habakkuk expects? Is there any guarantee in that that Habakkuk will not harbor a spirit that would rejoice simply because his own self-interests have been secured and salvaged, thus securing him in an essential worldliness that builds upon his own precious possessions and privileges. Coming to this position, Habakkuk now is insular.

    He has an unassailable position. He is untouchable. Not even the law touches him. The law seemingly is on his side. For how can you prosecute the case against such an interior attitude? How can you carry a man like that into a law court and give a judgment against him? How then does the law possibly deal with Habakkuk’s heart when it seems that the law so clearly supports his just cause? If the truth be told then, Habakkuk, with law in hand, is able to take his stand. He is even able to hide himself in the law. The law can become a cloak for him. hiding a deep-seated self-righteousness.

    Maybe you need an illustration. Maybe it will wake some of you up. Suppose I live in a community, Pittsburgh or Chicago, Suppose I live in a community where I am of one race and the police are of another. I see I have your attention. Suppose someone of my race is stopped by the police one night, and in the course of the arrest, or as a consequence of that arrest, mysteriously dies. But suppose that I, with others, am outraged.

    And in our appeal to the law, yes, plead the law’s case, invoke the law, and hope for justice. And suppose at the end of this ordeal a judgment is rendered that satisfies my sense of what the law should say and do, my sense of justice, even. It now appears that my cause is righteous. The law has been upheld. The law is on my side. I now walk away from the case vindicated and with a deep sense, not only of the righteousness of my cause, but that I myself am righteous. I am on the right side of the law. But what if the truth of the matter is this, that regardless of my high regard for the law, regardless of the justice of the verdict, I am a horrible racist? What if that’s the truth?

    How does the law touch me? It can’t. The law actually becomes a place to hide from me. The law has been served. And I’m innocent. So what if the truth that I’m a horrible racist and that I am not so much motivated by a high regard for the law or an outraged sense of justice as I am by deep-seated personal hatred. For blacks, for whites, But is my hatred on trial? No. The law has spoken. And I’m untouched. Even my heart is untouched. And I walk away from the case unchanged.

    It is the mercy of God that he not leave me in that condition. It is the mercy of God that he robbed me of all of my supposed sure-footedness, my imagined righteousness. It is a mercy of God that he robbed me of the righteousness of the law, a righteousness which the law itself supports, that he might then give me the true and genuine righteousness of God. This righteousness is a gift. It is a gift mediated to us through faith.

    In it we are changed, and in that change, we are made then those who are truly sure-footed enabled to rise above the limitations of judgments of men and of this world to the regions of the judgments of God that pierce into the soul and mind of men and women and deal with the issues of conscience. You, friends, are exposed.

    But what a marvelous grace is ours in this faith by which this gift is mediated to us, making us then those who are sure-footed, with a sure-footedness that comes from God, not from ourselves, enabling us so that we might bound from peak to peak in the heights of glory, in the kingdom of the freedom of the sons of God, this which has been granted to us. even through our Lord Jesus Christ. And that Habakkuk now knows he being in glory. And so do we, do we not, that such sure-footedness, such righteousness, such glory, such freedom, such an inheritance, as is spoken of here at the conclusion of this praise, is found nowhere else but in Jesus Christ our Lord. who died for our sins and was raised for our justification.

    Our God It is a very difficult thing, even for us at times, to face ourselves, particularly when we are so confident about ourselves. Lord, may we be confident of you, may we be confident of your actions with respect to us personally. And may we have a confidence that is born of genuine change and transformation, whereby we are removed from under a righteousness by the law to that righteousness which is by faith and Jesus Christ. to this end, that our purified consciences would continue to be purified by the grace of our Savior. And we, Lord, in the change which you have effected, then sure-footedly leaping from peak to peak in the exalted regions of the kingdom of our God. We pray this, our Father, for your sake, in the name of Jesus Christ, with the help of the Spirit. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Trembling, Then Surrendering

    Trembling, Then Surrendering

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 29, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Habakkuk’s prayer reviews God’s mighty acts across the Exodus and Judges, the same history rehearsed to steady his own trembling heart. He trembles genuinely at God’s coming, no false composure here, and then surrenders to it completely. Christ’s own surrender, on our behalf, is what makes that kind of trembling surrender safe for us as well.

    More sermons from Habakkuk · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    We are reading this morning Habakkuk chapter three, the prophecy of Habakkuk, the third chapter. I’ll give you attention now to the reading of God’s holy word. A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, according to Shigyona. O Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid. O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known, in wrath remember mercy. God came from Canaan, and the Holy One from Mount Paran.

    His glory covered the heavens and the earth was full of His praise, and His brightness was as the light He had horns coming out of his hand, and there was the hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet. He stood, and measured the earth he beheld, and drove asunder the nations, and the everlasting mountains were scattered. The perpetual hills did bow. His ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Kushan in affliction. and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

    Was the Lord displeased against the rivers? Was thine anger against the rivers? Was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation? Thy bow was made white-naked according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.

    The mountains saw thee, and they trembled. The deep uttered his voice and lifted up his hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their habitation. At the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear. Thou didst march through the land in indignation. Thou didst thrush the heathen in anger. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed. Thou runest the head out of the house of the wicked by discovering the foundation unto the neck. Thou didst strike through with His stave the head of His villages.

    They came out as a whirlwind to scatter me. Their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly. Thou didst walk through the sea with Thy horses, through the heap of great waters. When I heard, my belly trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself that I might rest in the day of trouble. When he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops. Although the fig tree should 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 hind feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.

    To the chief singer on my stringed instruments. Father, your spirit with the word that you have given, your spirit comes and ministers to us as we hear your word, as it is read for us as we read it, as it is proclaimed to us and as we profit from it. Lord, may there be a seriousness in us about your word. And Father, may you find in us a willing submission, even to the benefit of our faith, that we might indeed live by faith and thus be declared righteous. In Jesus’ name, amen.

    My wife was making an observation to me about one of my sermons. I don’t like her to do that often. It’s usually very painful. But on this occasion, she was saying how glad she was that she stayed with me throughout the course of the sermon. Because at the sermon’s conclusion, she realized just how well that sermon was constructed and how well it came together. It was from the conclusion of that sermon that she was able to see the appropriateness of the whole.

    Along these lines, you may remember that I have repeatedly advised that we read biblical books backwards. Now, what I mean to say by that is this. It is helpful to read the books of the Bible with their conclusions in view, with the understanding that those books are deliberate in their construction, and that they are pressing toward an appropriate end point, and that all the pieces fit. We have come to the end of Habakkuk, and by now we at least know where to find him in the Bible. But also, as we come to the end of this prophecy, we find here a confirmation for the case we have been prosecuting throughout the course of these messages on this prophet. As I take up the final verses now of Habakkuk, I want, first of all, to say a few words about the structure of this prophet’s great, if not overpowering, prayer that makes up this last chapter in the prophecy.

    Now, I do this because I now believe that I have made a mistake in the ordering or maybe better, the structuring of the verses, the divisions of the verses. And I want to correct that mistake this morning. Look with me, first of all, at the parameters of this third chapter. We might not make a great deal out of the parameters, but I want you to consider the parameters just for a moment.

    This chapter begins with a superscription in verse one, in which this chapter is specifically identified as a prayer from Habakkuk. But then there follows this odd notation. In some versions, it appears according to Shigionos. Now, any time you see a word like that in the Bible, Shigionos, that is virtually incomprehensible and untranslatable, you realize that the translators and the commentators really are at a loss as to what it means specifically. They have a general idea But they’re worth it.

    We know this much about this term, that it is a reference to the manner in which this prayer is to be appropriated by the congregation as it comes together for corporate worship. This prayer, then, was to function publicly. and in a corporate congregational setting.

    But now, notice how neatly this psalm prayer ends. The last part of the 19th verse, it may appear as a tack-on in your Bible translation, but once more we have a reference that has to do with the manner in which This psalm is to be appropriated in the corporate setting of worship. The statement is, for the choir director on my stringed instruments. Now, the balance of this psalm prayer is not just attached to these notations that appear at the beginning and ending of this psalm. But it also relates, the balance relates, specifically to the content. The content itself as we move through the prayer in its entirety.

    In order to understand this, notice then, in the second place, the strong personal note that rises from the second verse. But then let your eyes drop down to verses 16 through 19, with which the psalm ends. And there again, notice the strong personal note. The first person pronoun, in an intensive, emphatic fashion.

    The prophet speaking. But as you note this personal reference by Habakkuk, also takes stock of the similarity of content as you move from that second verse to the conclusion of the prophecy and its final verses. For instance, verse 2 opens with the prophet speaking in the first person, as we’ve already noted, but there also admitting that he has now heard the Lord’s report. Moving on, he confesses his terror at this report, and then he involves himself in a petition for Israel, the people of God.

    Now, match that with what you find in verse 16 at the conclusion. There is different vocabulary here. There is an expansion of terminology, to be sure. But the intention of the prophet moves along the same vein. It would seem that with verse 16, Habakkuk, in his prayer then, has returned to the sentiments with which he began in verse 2.

    And whereas in verse 2, he expends himself in petition for Israel that she may live, that she may understand the workings of the Lord, In verses 16 through 19, Habakkuk expresses the understanding and supplying strength that now adorns his own faith, such faith as makes him to live as a true son of Abraham, as a true Israelite indeed.

    But now, with regard to this matter of structure and ordering, I have this question. Where exactly does this last section in the prayer begin? Does it begin with verse 16, as I have been suggesting? Here I am making my confession, admitting my mistake. Does it begin with verse 16, as I have been suggesting, as we have worked our way through this chapter? Does it begin with verse 16, as, in fact, the New American Standard Version would lead us to believe? For that’s how it organizes its paragraphs. Verse 16 begins the last paragraph in the third chapter in the New American Standard Version.

    There are alternatives. There is a traditional division for this last section that comes to us from the King James Version, at least the King James Versions that I was able to consult, for I don’t believe the paragraph divisions were part of the original text.

    But in those versions of the King James that I have consulted, the division is delayed until verse 17. Now, I don’t accept that division suggested by the traditional King James, but one thing that that division does do is that it brings together verses 15 and 16.

    And that being the case, this means that what the prophet hears, on which he comments in verse 16, This means that what the Prophet hears, what causes him to tremble internally and to waste away in his body, what sets him up for the present coming of God in the invasion of the Chaldeans, because that’s the issue, is the previous coming of God. Mentioned in verse 15, when God tread on the sea with his horses, causing the mighty waters to boil. Now, I’m no fan of the New English Bible, but the New English Bible gets it right.

    They divide the text, I believe, correctly, because the New English Bible sees that verse 15 belongs with the final verses of this prayer, verses 16 through 19. And thus, the point of division is between verse 14 and verse 15. Now, what proves this division of the text? It’s what we find in verses 3 through 14.

    I’m backing up with you now, so that by the time we’re done, we’ll have the whole prayer in front of us, all of the verses considered. It’s what we find in verses 3-14, namely, a section that appropriately divides into two subsections, verses 3-7 and then 8-14. Now, why do I say that? Because you see, these two subsections virtually parallel one another and say the same thing, although with different language. Let’s consider them.

    First of all, verses 3-7. It mentions at the outset in verse 3 that God comes from Taman. It moves then to the conclusion of verse 7 where it mentions the distress to the tents of Cushan and to the tents in the land of Midian. What is going on here in verses 3-7? Habakkuk, in his prayer, has literally taken us on a whirlwind review of God’s great saving work, as it focused on, first of all, the Exodus generation, God coming from Canaan in the wilderness, revealing himself there, and found to extend itself through the period of the Judges, when Cushan and Midian figured in the Lord’s chastisement of His rebellious people.

    It is a whirlwind review of God’s mighty acts as you move from the Exodus experience through the time of the Judges. But now I want you to look at verses 8-14, and I want you to see there that the Prophet in his prayer is going to repeat himself. He’s going to go over the same material again. It’s more inclusive, it’s a bit more expansive, somewhat more ornate and descriptive, but nevertheless he’s covering the same territory.

    These verses move from the wonders at the Red Sea, referred to in the rivers and the sea, and God riding upon his horses and the chariots of his salvation in verse 8, to the onslaught by many and repeated enemies during the time of the Judges brought into view as you read about how the heads of tribes have their heads pierced by God’s activity. References in verse 14 to the time of the Judges. This reflection on the time of the judges, then, concludes with verse 14, thus bringing to an end the section verses 8 through 14, parallel to verses 3 through 7. But having established this now, this means that verse 15 begins the final section. A conclusive declaration from Habakkuk of his faith. Therefore, the outline of Habakkuk’s great prayer of faith is as follows.

    1. Confession and faithful intercession for the people of God.

    2. Prayerful review of the coming of God. in the Exodus through the time of the Judges, verses 3-7. Parallel to it, verses 8-14, review of the coming of God in the Exodus through the time, the period of the Judges. Then, verses 15 through 19, at least the opening part of 19, confession and triumph of faith. Verse 19, the last line, postscript. Now, for those of you who are literarily attuned, Yes, the pattern of this prayer is chiastic. It runs A-B-C-C-D-A. That’s the pattern of the prayer. But now, having laid out this pattern, It’s imperative that we press on to the significance of the pattern and the meaning of the prayer’s conclusion.

    By placing 15 verses 15 and 16 together, we are now able better to see the impact of the coming of God upon the prophets. The approach of God mentioned in verse 15 as we have already stated. This verse that reads, Thou didst tread on the sea with thy horses, and on the surge of many waters. This mention of the approach of God here is a reflection on God’s appearance at the Red Sea in the Exodus events.

    But rather than The record of this awesome onslaught by God at the Red Sea, leaving Habakkuk classically self-satisfied, emotionally smug and secure, confidently insulated because he is assured that he, at least, is on the right side. Presently, now, at the end of the prophecy, Habakkuk is overwhelmed.

    As he thinks about the Exodus, he is overwhelmed. He’ll get the force of that. He’s a Jew. He has been standing in the confidence of his religious tradition all along. When he reflected on the Exodus experience, that didn’t mean that he trembled, that meant that everybody else trembled. But now, at the end of this prophecy, we find Habakkuk, the Jew, trembling as he thinks about the Exodus. He might well tremble about the invasion of the Chaldeans, which is coming, but here you have him trembling in light of the prior event of God’s coming, the Exodus itself. Habakkuk is overwhelmed.

    Listen to his language as he describes his state, drowning of its force and its emotional content. He is as shaken internally now as the mountains that he has mentioned earlier in the prayer. They were dislodged, they were melting away, and now he is shaken to his very foundations. And internally, he is seething as the waters themselves those mentioned in verse 15.

    They boil, and now he internally is boiling. He is so unsettled. He goes further. He says that in his inward parts he’s dissolving. He tells us that his bones are rotted away at the report of God’s coming, even here as it reflects upon the exodus. He ironically quivers. His lips quiver so violently that he blathers. Can’t even get his words. Have you ever been that frightened? You couldn’t talk. But it isn’t some earthly fear. that is causing this.

    It is the oncoming of God. His legs shake so violently that, as in a severe earthquake, he cannot even maintain But there is a very interesting aspect that we need to consider in this response as it is articulated by Habakkuk here in verse 16. You see, by so describing himself in this way, Habakkuk is much like the Canaanites, who are reported on in the book of Joshua, who when word reached them of God’s mighty works at the Red Sea, they literally lost their breath. Now I want you to think about that.

    This man is a Jew. For him, there were no people more wicked than Canaanites. For him to express himself along these lines then means that for Habakkuk, All former confidence is gone. Any vestige of self-righteousness has been removed. He now sees himself as no better than a Canaanite, whose heart melted and spirit died at the news of God’s great deeds at the Red Sea, who looked with dread at the prospect of the coming invasion of the Israelites. commented on in Joshua 5, verse 1, were marked upon by Rahab in Joshua 2, you may recall. Just as the Canaanites sat in dread of the invading Israelites, so Habakkuk sits in dread of the promised invasion by the Chaldeans. as God, for the sake of his great salvation, once came upon the sea and from there moved on to overwhelm the Canaanites, so God comes, for the sake of his great salvation, to overwhelm Habakkuk and all his fellow Israelites. And Habakkuk, who once saw himself as morally and religiously and ethnically superior to the Chaldeans, now sees himself no better than a Canaanite. The prophet therefore not only prays with a ready sense of the history of redemption upon his lips, and a deep awareness of the immediacy of God’s coming, but he has a profound grasp of his own unworthiness and his own corruption.

    There is more. Habakkuk now sees himself as positioned for suffering and judgment as verse 16 ends, because I must wait quietly for the day of distress for the people to arise who will invade us. Habakkuk’s acceptance of this sentence now indicates more than resignation to the inevitable. that the invasion is coming and there’s nothing we can do about it.

    What we have here is a surrender to God’s justice and the expression of a spirit that is reaching out toward the coming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. However, in Jesus’ case, the surrender is of one who, unlike Habakkuk, knew no sin, but became sin that Habakkuk and others with him might become the righteousness of God. Jesus waited patiently and quietly. Jesus waited patiently and quietly upon the cross as the justice of God came upon him. He, receiving the sentence of the unrighteous in himself, even the judgment of death for so that as many who place their confidence in him might be justified, might be accepted in God’s sight as righteous, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to them and received by faith alone.

    In conclusion, we must allow the full weight of Habakkuk’s words to grip us. What Habakkuk is experiencing here, in his inner and outer body, as he awaits God’s coming, is death. As he goes on in verse 17, to describe the devastation that overtakes the land. He sees all the curses that were enumerated in the book of Deuteronomy coming upon the land because God’s covenant has been broken. That land that was once flowing with milk and honey. But Habakkuk likewise sees the death of the land and the loss to him of everything that he holds dear. He is a Jew after all. And in this massive mural of death and loss, We are now privileged by the revelation of God to observe in Habakkuk a newfound faith that reaches on toward maturity.

    Once he had boldly declared in God’s faith, chapter 1, verse 12, we shall not die, but now he admits to death, he admits to its necessity, even to its inevitability, that he might even die to himself.

    To all his pretense, to all his foolish self-righteousness, to all his imagined moral, ethical, and racial superiority, to all the vain hopes so inseparably attached to the land, the earth, and its securities, and this that he might live to God. Yes, God comes, and oh, the horror! But it is the true faith that sees in this coming of God an assured salvation, a salvation for those of you who by faith trust in him, not only to provide for your righteousness, but to raise you up to exalt him, to confess him as your salvation, your strength, this one who has enabled you to become a conqueror, no more than a conqueror, as you with transcendent glory dance upon the mountaintops and claim God as your sole and sufficient reward. and that through Jesus Christ, into whose death and resurrection you have been privileged to enter. Let your prayers be like Habakkuk’s. O Lord, from death to life, even when we imagined that we lived, you have exposed our foolishness, and you have taught us afresh that we must move from our securities to you as our security. And Father, the road that we travel in order to come to that point, does it not strip from us all self-righteousness, every boast in ourselves, every glory that we might imagine for ourselves, because we think that we have a superior morality, a superior religiosity, a superior racial strength. Lord, you are coming, and when you come, all of that will be meaningless.

    But when you come, You will be enough for everyone who has waited in faith through Jesus Christ.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Praying God’s Own Acts

    Praying God’s Own Acts

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 22, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Habakkuk builds his prayer almost entirely from Scripture’s own language, and our prayers should draw on the same material. Cornelius Van Til reportedly prayed the same way, saturated in biblical language. Real prayer takes part in God’s saving acts, reaches beyond ourselves to others, and keeps the end in view.

    More sermons from Habakkuk · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    We are looking at Habakkuk 3, and we are beginning at verse 8, and reading through verse 15. This is Habakkuk 3, then verse 8. Give your attention to the reading of God’s word. Was the Lord displeased against the rivers? Was thine anger against the rivers? Was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation? Thy bow was made quite naked according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. and they trembled.

    The overflowing of the water passed by, the deep uttered his voice and lifted up his hands on high. The sun and the moon stood still in their habitation. At the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear. Thou didst march through the land in indignation, Thou didst thresh the heathen in anger. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for the salvation with thine anointed. Thou woundest the head out of the house of the wicked by discovering the foundation under the neck. Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages. They came out as a whirlwind to scatter me. Their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly. Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses through the heat of great waters.

    Pray with me. Thy word, O God, brings life. And Lord, as we know that to be true for ourselves, we know it is true for our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world. Even today, Lord, there is the proclamation of your word to the ends of the earth, and there are those who are being called from darkness to light. Prosper your word, Lord. May your servants in all humility proclaim the greatness of Christ, and may the excellence of the salvation of our God be published abroad with clarity and effectiveness. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen. How do you pray? How do you pray? Now, please understand me.

    My reason for asking this question, against the background of Habakkuk’s prayer here in Habakkuk 3, is not to call attention so much to the style of your prayers. as it is to the content of those prayers. You may recall that I preached earlier on this prayer, and remarked on how our prayers might move beyond the mere shopping list style that we so often fall into. We might, therefore, absorb something of the biblical tone in prayer, something of its rich poetic range and dramatic intensity, rather than having our prayers sound like the all-too-disinterested prose of the evening news. But truly, my interest this morning is not to comment on the style of our prayers. Much more, I want to look at the content, and I want you to do that with your eye on Habakkuk’s prayer, particularly these verses which we have read this morning.

    First of all, I would ask you. How much do the mighty acts of God provide content for your prayers? Or are you so self-preoccupied that even those great mighty acts cannot intrude? How much do the mighty acts of God provide content for your prayers? Now, by asking this question, we are setting then the scriptures themselves at the heart of our prayers.

    And in order to illustrate, look at these verses with regard to Habakkuk’s prayer. Habakkuk chapter 3. Aren’t you struck with the broad, extensive use by Habakkuk of the works of God as he reflects upon them in his prayer? His prayer becomes a hymn in which he reflects upon the wonders which God performed in Egypt, and even at the Red Sea. possibly even at the Jordan, particularly as he mentions the rivers and the sea, verse 8 and verse 15, the verses that begin and end this section of his prayer. Do you see what Habakkuk is doing in his praying?

    He’s not just grabbing ideas out of the atmosphere. He’s not just making it up as he goes. There is conscious reflection here, there is conscious meditation. And what is his meditation focused upon? It is focused upon the mighty acts of God, so that when you hear him speaking about the rivers and the sea, You are to hear him reflecting prayer-like upon what God has done in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and even conceivably at the Jordan. The history of God’s mighty works stands at the root of the prayer. It isn’t just emotion carrying him along. Is it religious sentiment, simply religious sentiment, that drives him? He is consciously meditating upon, reflecting upon, what God has done. Scripture itself provides the content, at base, for the prayers that are formed.

    You move along in the prayer, the image of God riding his horses and his chariots. This is no mere poetic way for Habakkuk to talk about God, imaginative, he being such a creative fellow, really good at religious poetry. The prophet has something specific in mind, namely God’s appearance in his theophanic glory. Accompanied by his host, manifest before Israel in his cloud, and in the plume of fire.

    Again, the verse that begins this section, the verse that ends it. Verse 8 and verse 15. At the opening of verse 9, Habakkuk sees the Lord’s conquest of the Egyptians as the work of a mighty warrior, the Lord is a man of war.” I love that verse out of Exodus 15, in the King James Version. Habakkuk sees the Lord’s conquest, then, of the Egyptians as the work of a mighty warrior. God himself with bow and sheath and spears foresworn. In the last part of verse 9 Habakkuk prays about the Lord cleaving the earth with rivers.

    What is this about? By this he means the Lord opening up streams for Israel in the wilderness. as he brings forth the water out of the rock. Concrete, historic event behind the prophet’s language in prayer. The astonished and trembling mountains, mentioned in verse 10, this has in mind the appearance of God at Sinai, does it not? Where he comes in his magnificence upon that mountain. But we move on, as if Habakkuk in his prayer is giving us a reflection upon the history of redemption, the history of salvation, the reference to the flowing waters. Those waters being touched in their depths so that they cry out and then they lift up their hands, this is a reference to the crossing of the Jordan or the entrance of God’s people into the land of Canaan. Do you see what he’s doing? This is conscious reflection. These prayers end up being hard work, meditated and concentrated. Verse 11.

    Hasn’t you, I’m sure you know, if you know your Bibles, If you know the story, verse 11 has in view the events of Joshua chapter 10, when the sun stood still and Joshua and Israel vanquished their enemies on that day, that extraordinary day, that day unlike any other day that there has ever been.

    And actually here Habakkuk sees the radiance of God’s weapons as such that the heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon, because of their shame and now their uselessness, retire from the scene. So we have moved from Egypt and the Exodus into the wilderness wanderings, to the crossing of the Jordan, into the land of Canaan. And with verses 12 through 14, we have here a reflection on the period of the judges, as God often went forth in the cause of the salvation of his people. And in that context, delivering a fatal blow to the kingdom of Satan in the interest of the kingdom of glory. Thus, the references in these verses to the striking of the head is undoubtedly a combination of reflections on the stories in Judges 4 and 7, respectively. In the prayer text, we have Jarel.

    Remember her? The wife of Heber, driving a tent peg through the skull of Sisera, the commander of the forces of the Canaanites. And in the latter text, Judges 7, you have Gideon so shocking the Midianites when his three hundred men at once blow their trumpets, and the Midianites turn on each other and kill each other with their own weapons.” Wow! What a prayer!

    And of course, inflicting a wound to the head of the house of evil cannot help but call to mind the original gospel promise from the Garden of Eden, when it was stated by God that the seed of the woman would in fact crush the head of the serpent. How extensively, then, Habakkuk’s prayer draws upon the history of salvation, the stories of God’s saving acts. How extensively those prayers draw upon scriptural content. My question for you this morning is, how extensively do your prayers draw upon the biblical accounts. I heard Cornelius Van Til pray many times, in private and in public. Never on any of these occasions that he failed to confirm what we find here in Habakkuk 3.

    One of the most memorable occasions on which I heard him pray was after a lecture by Dr. Hans Ruckmacher, the great Dutch art critic. Ruckmacher’s lecture was on the death of culture. as that was reflected in modern art. His lecture was especially depressing. But Dr. Van Til was asked to pray after the lecture, and his prayer carried us through the history of salvation from Genesis to Revelation. with such a sense of hope and concentration upon the certainty of God’s activity on behalf of His people, that the entire audience, our judge, to a person, was lifted.

    After the Amen, I looked up, just in time, to catch the expression on Ruckmacher’s face as he flashed an unmistakable thank you to Van Til. Ruckmacher spoke for us all. It was glorious. And it really put both modern art and modern culture in their places.

    We desperately need more scripture informed and scripture filled prayer. Prayer particularly carried along not by the feeling of the moment, but by the great appreciation for the mighty acts of God. The second thing I would ask you about your prayers is this. Now we get complicated.

    Just how much are you aware of your own personal involvement in those mighty acts? I’m talking about this as if you were there, as if you saw it. as if you experienced it. Do you pray then with a sense of participation, even as you reflect upon the mighty works of God, His saving deeds, and particularly the saving acts of God in Jesus Christ our Lord? Habakkuk had that sense of participation.

    He prays as if he had personally observed all these marvelous events that he lists, as if he had been there, as if he had witnessed them himself. He doesn’t stand, therefore, at a distance from the events. but instead considers himself in ready contact, even in covenantal contact with them. These things happen for me. These things happen to me. Here is my history. Here is my identity. This is who I am.

    In fact, so strong is this sense in Habakkuk that he cannot help but express himself in the first person. And that’s why I read to you this morning from the King James, because the King James preserves the force of that first person in verse 14, where Habakkuk makes reference to the enemy in, in the language of the King James, like a whirlwind, to scatter in, to scatter me. In other words, in the terms of that 14th verse, Habakkuk sees himself directly involved and participating in the previous onslaughts that had been experienced by Israel when it was threatened by the nations and by the tribes within and from outside of Canaan during the period of the Judges. And not only so. So great is Habakkuk’s sense of participation.

    He cannot help but see all Israel involved and participating in him. He speaks for them. They are in him. He is in them. It’s as if they are a single person, one man. The dynamics of such a consideration are incredibly complex and deep, and far beyond what we can deal with adequately this morning. For now, let us make note of the identification that the Prophet expresses with the people of God. He is bound to them.

    Let us note that such identification in verse 14 has in view an identification with God’s people particularly in suffering. And that such identification draws back its present situation As Habakkuk identifies himself with Israel during the days of the invasions, during the times of the judges, so he gives expression to the identification of himself with his fellow Judeans, as they with him await the onslaught in the coming invasion by the Chaldeans. Such an attitude in the prophet has signaled for us a radical change in the man. So great is that change that it indicates to us the intrusion of a Christ-likeness upon his consciousness.

    Not just me, but me with all the rest of God’s people. Do you know why I plead with you for a prayer meeting? Do you know why I plead with you at prayer meetings? That you pray specifically for others. We are forced in that direction, even as we see that our identity is with them, and they are in us, and we are in them. We cannot abstract ourselves from them any more than we can abstract ourselves from God’s people throughout the ages. The constraint of it all, the discipline of it all, comes to bear upon us because we are forced to consider others. What is that spirit that is at work in us if it is not the spirit of our Savior, who gives up himself for us, and who even now in heaven praise for us the others to whom he is inseparably joined as if he with us were one man.

    My question then for you this morning is to you in your prayers have that sense of your own personal involvement in the history of salvation and in the great works of redemption? And do you realize something of the solidarity that you have with all of God’s people and they with you?

    Do you show the mind of Christ in your prayers. Finally, the last thing I call to your attention this morning is this. How real in your prayers is the certainty of God’s coming? I’m liable to get dramatic up here. I mean, in your life, in your prayers, are you ready for Him to appear right now? In fact, are your prayers informed by that reality?

    There is an immediacy to Habakkuk’s prayers, there is an alertness in his prayers. God is near, God is at hand, and not in the sense that God is everywhere at all times, but in the sense that God is about to make his appearance for the sake of bringing all things to a conclusion. in the very sense in which Jesus speaks about it when he teaches his disciples to pray, Thy kingdom come. What do you think Jesus has in mind? That’s what he has in mind.

    You are praying for the end of the world. And it’s not without reason that that petition is right there at the beginning of the prayer. In the same way, the New Testament instructs us with regard to our prayers. You hear the glorious prayer that comes out of the New Testament? Come, Lord Jesus. Even so, quickly come. But you’re saying to yourself, the coming of God is a fearful thing. Indeed it is. And it’s fearful for Habakkuk.

    You note what he says in verse 2 of this prayer, where he admits his fear and prepares himself for the onslaught of God’s wrath, because God’s wrath is real to the man. Still, as you move through the prayer, You find that his prayer, as it rehearses God’s mighty acts and expresses the prophet’s intimate involvement with those acts, beams with a confident expectation and a resilient faith, an expectation and a faith that remains resilient, particularly in light of the fact that God is coming. Such a disposition is impossible apart from what Habakkuk has gone through in the course of this cross.

    It is impossible, apart from the movement that takes place in the man, where formerly he was not prepared for God’s coming, but now he is. And how is he prepared? By God’s coming to him in revelation, in communing with him, in ministering his saving work to him, in convincing him. of the reliability of his provision. By this route, this man is enabled to be free of his own duplicity, to be free from the stain of his own corruption. He is enabled to believe fully in his God, and to accept the message that has come from his God, that just shall live by faith.

    How are you going to get through the coming judgment. The just shall live by faith. Even though it is a fearful thing, even though you are trembling, you are expectant, hopeful, and filled with faith. You are going to come through it. and your prayers should show it. How do you pray? Are your prayers informed by the scriptures? by the record of God’s mighty deeds and the saving work of our God in Jesus Christ, in your prayers you have a deep sense of your own participation in those redemptive mighty works. And are you assured as you pray that God is coming and may come any moment. And are you in your prayers expressing faith that is confident and expectant? And those for sure that the just shall live by faith. And that there is now therefore no condemnation. for them that are in Christ Jesus.

    Oh God, in light of how Habakkuk has prayed, we might not pray at all, thinking that our prayers will be so inferior and beggarly. But Lord, may the spirit that drives him drive us. And in our prayers, O God, may there be heard the testimony to your great works and to the content of scripture. May we delight, Lord, in the fellowship that we have in these things with your people and with our Savior. And may our prayers always look to the day of your appearing. Lord, you are preparing us. And Lord, make it evident to us that you are doing just that by the way we pray. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Questions Finally Satisfied

    Questions Finally Satisfied

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 15, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Chapter 3 has its own clear outline, and set against chapter 1 it marks real movement: the same questions that once went unanswered now find satisfaction. Christ’s own quiet response to the Father’s will, without complaint, supplies the pattern Habakkuk is finally learning. Satisfaction, it turns out, comes from trust, not from having every question resolved.

    More sermons from Habakkuk · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    We are reading Habakkuk chapter 3 once more this morning. This is the prophecy of Habakkuk chapter 3. Pay heed to the words of God. A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet upon Shigiomen. O Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid. O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make known in wrath, remember mercy. God came from Canaan and the Holy One from Mount Perun.

    His glory covered the heavens and the earth was full of His praise. and his brightness was as the light. He had horns coming out of his hand, and there was the hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet. He stood and measured the earth, he beheld, and drove asunder the nations, and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow. His ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Kushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

    Was the Lord displeased against the ridders? Was thine anger against the ridders? Was thy wrath against the sea that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation? Thy bear was made quite naked according to the oaths of the tribes. Even thy word, thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.

    The mountains saw thee, and they trembled. The overflowing of the water passed by. The deep uttered his voice and lifted up his hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their habitation. At the light of thine arrows they went. and at the shining of thy glittering spear.

    Thou didst march through the land in indignation. Thou didst thresh the heathen in anger. Thou runnest forth for the salvation of thy people, even the salvation with thine anointed. Thou runnest the head out of the house of the wicked by discovering the foundation unto the neck. Thou didst strike through with his staves, the head of his villages.

    They came out as a whirlwind to scatter me. Their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly. Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters. When I heard, my belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness entered into my bones And I trembled in myself that I might rest in the day of trouble. When he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.

    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 hind feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instrument. And then turning over to Matthew 11 and verse 16, a few verses here, Jesus speaking, “‘But whereunto shall I liken this generation,’ Matthew 11, 16, “‘it is like unto children sitting in the markets and calling unto their fellows and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced. We have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he hath the devil. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, behold, a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.

    But wisdom is justified of her children. Our God, we have given ourselves in our gifts this morning, and we give ourselves again now as we give our attention to your word. Help us, our Father, that we might be attentive to our good. And even as we are profited, may we be a source of profit to others. Therefore, Lord, may we help them to hear. We ask this, O God, in Christ’s name. Amen. There has been movement. There has been movement in the Prophet Habakkuk. Movement of the most profound sort.

    For Habakkuk is now a changed man. different in the third chapter of his prophecy from what he has been in the first two chapters. One way to see this change in the man is by looking at the eighth verse of that third chapter. is Habakkuk’s praise-filled prayer that explodes upon us following the crushing spiritual ordeal through which he has been brought in chapters one and two. And this prayer in chapter three is comprised of four sections. First, in verse two, the prophet confession and petition. The Prophet himself now overcome with abject humility as he prostrates himself before God, he becoming limp because of his fear, trembling before the Lord. but at the same time giving expression to his great confidence and faith in making intercession, in uttering petition not for himself, but for God’s people, for Israel. The second part is verses three through seven, and here is the prophet’s rhapsody on the coming of God. The vision that he has with respect to the coming of God overwhelms him, and in this rhapsody he draws language from the stories of God’s previous invasions of the plane of history. those invasions, particularly in the Exodus under Moses and its aftermath, giving perspective then on the current crisis for Judea, since Judea is presently threatened with the invasion from the Chaldeans, the Babylonians.

    But as Habakkuk has learned, And as it’s expressed in verses three through seven of that third chapter, it is not the coming of the Chaldeans that he needs fear. As awesome and as horrible as that may be, but rather the coming of God. Jesus said it this way six hundred years later. Do not fear those who kill the body and not the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

    At the same time, Habakkuk’s tone in verses three through seven is filled with faith and expectation. It’s as if he is actually welcoming the coming of God, as awesome a thing as that is. He is welcoming the coming of God, and looks toward it with faith and with expectation, reminding us also of Jesus’ instruction to his disciples with regard to their prayer, as they with faith and with expectation are to pray to their Heavenly Father, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. in earth as it is in heaven. What is it about our prayers, what is it about your prayers, that you can actually consider the awesomeness of the coming of God and simultaneously welcome that coming? It is only if you have faith, as described in scripture, that you can be involved in such prayers.

    The third and fourth part of the prayer in chapter 3 appears now, appear in verses 8 through 15, and 16 through 19 respectively. This last part, verses 16-19, is Habakkuk’s matchless declaration of his fealty to his God and to his Lord. We will be getting to those verses in future messages, but this morning we are interested in the third part of the prayer, verses 8-15. Now, I said at the beginning of this message that verse 8, which begins this third part of the prayer, provides us with an angle of vision on the change that has overtaken the prophet. Well, notice the form this verse takes.

    It is a question, a rather extended question. Did the Lord rage against the rivers? or was thy anger against the rivers, or was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride on thy horses on the chariots of salvation?” Now admittedly, this is a rhetorical question, but a question nonetheless. And you might not think anything of it if it had not been that Habakkuk had peppered his previous approaches to God with questions. Look at them. Those previous approaches are like a litany made up of questions.

    In his first approach to God, verses two through four of the first chapter, we find questions at the head of both verse two and three. How long, O Lord, will I call for help? and thou wilt not hear,” verse 2, followed by, “…thou dost not make me to see iniquity, and cause me to look on wickedness,” verse 3. But now drop down to Habakkuk’s second approach to God, beginning in the twelfth verse of that first chapter. Once more, we start out with a question. Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One?

    This question may well appear innocuous and rhetorical by itself, but it must be read in the light of what follows. Habakkuk asks two crucial questions in verse 13. First, why dost thou look with savor on those who deal treacherously? Followed by Habakkuk’s most revealing of questions, Why art thou silent when the wicked swear off those more righteous than they?

    But the prophet isn’t done yet. In verse 14 of that first chapter, he asks once more, Why hast thou made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things, without a ruler over them? And finally in verse 17, Were all the Chaldeans therefore empty their net, and continually slay the nations without sparing?

    To say the least, Habakkuk has been a man full of questions. But as such, he is not the child, whose constant stream of questions are mere puffs of innocent But neither is he a humble seeker, whose questions rise from sincere curiosity. Instead, these questions are honed. They are sharpened like the edge of a knife. This is not to say that Habakkuk is devoid of a certain form of piety, or even devoid of faith altogether. Nevertheless, his questions cut.

    They contain accusation against God. And as Habakkuk mouths them, They set Habakkuk in the role of the adversary. You see, as Habakkuk asks those questions in the first chapter, it is as if God were on trial, and Habakkuk were the prosecuting a turn. But that was the way of it in chapter one. We have said, however, that Habakkuk now is a changed man. In chapter three His role is reversed.

    He is no longer, by his question, attacking and prosecuting God. Rather, by his question, he is defending God. Habakkuk’s new line of interrogation is therefore designed to set up the presentation of the world’s intention in the revelation of his wrath and indignation upon the earth. And that is the salvation of his people, even the rescue of his anointed. At the expense of the vanquishing of the power of the house of evil, which arises pass over that thirteenth verse of the third chapter. Habakkuk, therefore, is no longer the ones of God that he explains his ways to him. Rather, Habakkuk, by his prayer, shows that he stands ready to explain God’s ways to God’s people, and even to the world. Still, there is something more to Habakkuk’s questions in that first chapter. That the man’s the change for Habakkuk if he is to stand with God.

    What I have in mind lies along these lines. There is something in this man’s disposition that defies satisfaction. As he is in chapter one, there is something operative in him that defies satisfaction. In his first approach to God, verses two through four of that first chapter, Habakkuk complains because God has not acted. But then in his second approach, beginning in the twelfth verse, he complains bitterly because God has told him that he’s about to act. in his present condition, there, in chapter one. Not only will nothing suit the man, nothing can suit the man.

    Do you wonder about the roots of bitterness in yourself? If you are susceptible to something within you, that defies satisfaction? Is the truth about you that you never will be satisfied, regardless of what God does? But why is it true? Why is it true that Habakkuk, this man, is one who has within him something that defies satisfaction? Because he is afflicted by an inner deep-seated perversity. Though he is a Jew, though he is a believer, though he is a prophet, though he is a priest in God’s house, he is afflicted by an inner deep-seated perversity. And what is the nature of this perversity?

    Well, do you remember that I called Habakkuk’s last question in chapter 1, verse 13, his most revealing question of all? That question posited Jewish moral superiority over the Chaldeans. and at the same time exposed Habakkuk’s quantitative view of righteousness. We, and I, are more righteous than they. Therefore, Lord, you can’t destroy us. In fact, if we suffer in any way, it’s unfair.

    The liability of this position is that it can never know satisfaction, because in confidently asserting its own inherent superiority, it cannot tolerate any real or perceived injury. It makes no sense. How can I be in this position? How can I be in this situation?

    Well, I’m more righteous than they are, therefore these sorts of things should not be happening to me. There’s injustice abounding in Judea. Why should I be constrained to look upon this wickedness? a reflection on Habakkuk’s own personal estimation. He’s even more righteous than his fellow Judeans. This disposition can never know satisfaction because and confidently asserting its own inherent superiority, it cannot tolerate any real or perceived injury. It cannot tolerate any real or perceived injustice.

    But what are you going to do? Life is full of real and perceived injuries and injustices. How are you then going to live? How are you going to face existence if not with an increasing mountain of bitterness within you? I have been wronged. I have been done wrong. I have been cheated. I have been dealt with unfairly. I don’t deserve this sickness. These circumstances are unfair to me personally. Why? Because in that I don’t deserve them, I am superior. Now, of course, you can turn this into a racial and gender thing. Need we talk about that?

    Since life is full of real and perceived injuries and injustice, there can be no satisfaction. And since God, yes, for those who have faith, either stands idly by while these injustices and injuries are compounded for me, and actually is guilty of perpetrating them himself, then in the end we can’t even be satisfied with God. He is the enemy.

    If left unchecked, God knows how great is mercy. If left unchecked, this attitude leads to a generation described by Jesus, which wanted the austere John the Baptist to dance to their flute. and the gregarious Jesus to mourn to their dirge.” Such a generation will never justify the wisdom of the kingdom of God. If left unchecked, God knows, O how great his mercy, that such an attitude leads to a religious position among men and women, boys and girls, incapable of understanding the gospel.

    Incapable. that the just shall live by faith in the sovereign saving activity of God. Contrary to that gospel is the one that asserts its own righteousness on the basis of an imagined superior standard. Those who are of the gospel and love the gospel know that they will never be satisfied except in Christ, who is the very righteousness of God given to us as a gift.

    God would not have Habakkuk come to him in the last day with an attitude that stands contrary to the gospel. God would not have you come to him in the last day with an attitude that stands contrary to the gospel. He would not have you to complain about the injustice of his dealings with you on that And to that end, he even presently, as he did with Habakkuk, causes you to look upon the wickedness, causes you to look upon the injustice and the injury. To that end, he allows Chaldeans, Babylonians, whoever, to overrun the world. He even permits you to be swallowed up by the contemptuous.

    That in the trial of your faith, which is more precious than gold, you with Habakkuk may put all your questions to rest, while you rest in Jesus your Savior, who for your sake completely and quietly rested in his father’s care. Do you note the difference? Not just as you move from Habakkuk 1 to Habakkuk 3. But as you move from the Old Testament to the New, where are the questions like those that Habakkuk uttered in chapter 1 in the New Testament? They’re not there. They’re not there. and they are not to be in you.

    Our Father help us, for we may feel that we are a long way from the conclusion of the matter as opened up for us in Habakkuk 3. And it is true, Lord, we struggle. Our emotions run high. Even our prejudices are supercharged. that in the final analysis we are compelled to look at you and we pray father that you will take from us that seed of bitterness that may well grow into a full-blown tree even into a forest because we are offended by you and your actions we even resent the fact that you have made us as we are. Lord instead, may we know the quiet repose in the faithful and wonderful embrace of our Savior God, and may we rest in you to the full satisfaction of our souls, even as we live beneath the ark of your sovereignty. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Chaldeans, God’s Coming

    The Chaldeans, God’s Coming

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 24, 1995.

    About this sermon

    The Chaldeans’ advance is, in a real sense, God’s own coming, judgment arriving in the form of an invading army. Habakkuk’s prayer here carries the same shape as the Lord’s own prayer, God’s name and kingdom set above personal concerns. Real prayer, on this model, rehearses God’s mighty acts rather than only listing requests.

    More sermons from Habakkuk · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are beginning our reading in Deuteronomy chapter 33. We are reading verses 1-5 before we turn over to Habakkuk’s last chapter. I am reading this morning from the New American Standard Version. Give your attention to the reading of God’s holy words.

    Now this is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the sons of Israel before his death. And he said, The Lord came from Sinai and dawned on them from Seir. He shone forth from Mount Paran. And he came from the midst of ten thousand holy ones At his right hand there was flashing lightning for them. Indeed, he loves the people. All thy holy ones are in thy hand, and they followed in thy steps. Everyone receives of thy words.

    Mark Moses charged us with a law, a possession for the assembly of Jacob, and he was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people were gathered, the tribes of Israel together.” Then Habakkuk chapter 3, beginning at verse 1. A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionys. Lord, I have heard the report about thee, and I fear. O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of years, in the midst of the years make it known, in draught remember mercy.”

    God comes from Tamim, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His splendor covers the heavens, and the earth is full of His praise. His radiance is like the sunlight. He has rays flashing from his hand, and there is the hiding of his power. Before him goes pestilence, and plague comes after him. He stood and surveyed the earth. He looked and startled the nations. Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered, the ancient hills collapsed. His ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Kushan under distress, the tent curtains of the land of Midian were trembling.

    Our God, we know that you have given to your people the means of grace. We thank you for the means that we have in prayer, and the means that we have in your word. We rejoice, Lord, when we are able to see these means brought together. as we pray with respect to the Word, and as we approach the Word, that we might profit from the Word, but also as the Word itself sets prayers before us. Lord, may we be instructed along these paths that we might prove to be a better people in our prayers. And also, Lord, a better people because we have heard what you have said, even to the point that you have instructed us for our prayers in your words. We pray this through Christ, in his name. Amen.

    Habakkuk says, in verse 3 of this third chapter, in his great prayer, that God is coming. But I thought the Chaldeans were coming. Isn’t that what God himself had told Habakkuk in his first response to the Prophet’s complaint back in chapter 1, verse 6? Yes, God had said that the Chaldeans were coming, and Habakkuk gives every indication full recognition that that, in fact, is going to take place.

    He gives recognition of it even as his prayer begins in verse one of that third chapter. The report concerning the coming invasion is enough to make this prophet tremble to shake in his boots. He knows what the invasion of the Chaldeans, now promised by God, will mean to Judah. He realizes that it will be devastating beyond belief. If there had already been carnage in Judah, because unscrupulous Jews were viciously attacking their fellow countrymen, even as Habakkuk had pointed out to the Lord, you may recall, in verses two through four of that first chapter. If there had already been that carnage, now the bloodletting at the hands of the Chaldeans will far exceed it. such horror, such suffering, the mind can scarcely take it in. And this is imminent because the Chaldeans are coming. You will excuse the Prophet if this preoccupies him.

    His mind is fervent. Put yourself in his position. All that you know and want is coming under threat. Your home is about to be overrun. Some of you read war literature. It’s not very pleasant. It is especially unpleasant when you read about what happens to civilians. How they seem so defenseless. So unprepared. and yet so thoroughly preoccupied with what is coming. Think of the Second World War and its devastation. Yes, the carnage visited upon the soldiers of the different armies, but also the carnage that overtook the civilian population.

    The Germans are coming. What are the Poles thinking? The Japanese are coming. The Russians, the Allies, even from the other side, what that means to those to envision it. Wouldn’t your minds be completely filled with thoughts of the coming invasion, the coming onslaught?

    And Habakkuk, yes, we say, naturally, has his brain filled with thoughts about this coming invasion. The Chaldeans are going to overrun the Judeans. But now, as you witness his prayer, his praise-filled prayer, with which his prophecy concludes, the most remarkable thing happens. Habakkuk sees past the Chaldeans, he sees beyond them, to the coming of God.

    And which is more frightening? Which is more terrifying? We are liable to say that the Chaldeans or the Nazis or the Japanese, this is more terrifying. Our minds may be preoccupied with the devastations that may overtake us, but now, Habakkuk, in this most remarkable way, sees past the Chaldeans.

    This is what the Lord has been pressing him to do all along, so that he might be prepared, past the invasion of the Chaldeans, for the invasion of God and his Holy Host. Here then is his preoccupation. This now has become his great concern. If there were the other concerns punctuating his comments to God along the road previously in the prophecy, now we come to his greatest concern, his greatest interest, that which overshadows everything else.

    Earlier in his prophecy, it was that Chaldean invasion that seemed the greater threat. Now comes God’s invasion, and it is greater. Earlier it was the coming of the kingdom of the Chaldeans, now it is the coming of the kingdom of God. Jews in Jesus’ day may be worried about Romans. Jesus tells them about the coming of the kingdom of God.

    They’re worried about themselves, their livelihood, their property, their families. They’re worried about provision, what are we going to eat? How are we going to live? We’re being taxed to death. Jesus announces the coming of the Kingdom of God. Habakkuk prays, but then you note Jesus also teaches his disciples to pray, and what is foremost in that prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples? Is it not, Thou Lord, be thy name? When? When you come, God, in all your glory. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

    Jesus here then giving expression to the same perspective, even tapping off that perspective that informs Habakkuk in his prayer in Habakkuk 3. The prayer of Habakkuk and of Jesus Christ, the one that he teaches his disciples, is of the same spirit, and the center of it is the coming of the kingdom of God. And if you were to investigate the prayers that you find throughout the New Testament offered up by various saints, for instance, the Apostle Paul, I dare say that you would find the very same spirit animating his prayers. And what might we say of that final prayer with which the New Testament ends in Revelation chapter 22?

    Come, Lord Jesus, even so, quickly come. Don’t be surprised by that ending. After you have gone through the entirety of the book of Revelation, and you have seen all of the horror spelled out for you on the pages of that apocalyptic book, you come to the end, and the most important thing is set before you, the supremacy of the coming of God.

    Everything else is a minor tremor by comparison. But Habakkuk now sees God, verse 3, coming from Taman, and from Mount Teron. What is this all about? I didn’t even know there were such places. Besides, I thought God came from heaven. We are told that God is coming from Teman and from Mount Pera.

    We are greatly helped in understanding these references by the passage that we also read this morning, Deuteronomy 33. and particularly the second verse of that 33rd chapter of Deuteronomy, where we read these words, “…the Lord came from Sinai and dawned on them from seer. He shone forth from Mount Paran It’s obvious that this passage in Deuteronomy speaks about the appearances of God in the territory south of the promised land, south of Canaan, when God in fact came to Israel to bless Israel with his law and with his guidance while they sojourned in the Sinai peninsula. Seir, another name for Edom, Canaan also. a word that refers to the southern territories proximate to Eden, Teran, southern boundaries of the land of Canaan.

    All of these names arise out of that territory and out of Israel’s past, the time of their sojourn in the wilderness. But now Habakkuk prays, forming his prayer out of the background of the history of salvation, That’s what informs his prayer, his recollection of and reflection upon God’s mighty work, which he has already performed. But now he envisions God moving again, but not upon journeying tribes in the wilderness to bless them, but upon the settled tribes as they have established themselves in the land. He comes this time not to bless, but to judge. The reference in this prayer by Habakkuk to this territory and to these events is appropriate, for that territory to the south speaks to the Israelite about the wilderness experience and about the giving of the law. But that’s how Habakkuk’s prophecy began, you recall.

    Chapter 1, verses 2 through 4. Habakkuk’s complaint is that the law is presently being ignored. No one pays any attention to it. that God is rising so according to Habakkuk’s prayer and expectation, as it were from Sinai afresh, to adjudicate his law perfectly now, and to bring about perfect justice.

    But I ask you now, just how perfect will that adjudication of his law and that enactment of his justice be. What is Habakkuk himself prepared to admit? Previously, he thought that perfect adjudication of God’s law meant that all of the Chaldeans were going to be judged instead of the Jews, because Jews are inherently more righteous than Chaldeans. we can go even further. The prophet Habakkuk imagines, originally, that the perfect adjudication of the law would mean, yes, that there would be wicked Jews judged, but Habakkuk himself, being innocent, would escape, he being more righteous than they. But now God’s perfect adjudication of his law is coming. And that, with the compliance spirit of the prophet, obvious and friendly in view, he knowing that when God comes adjudicating his law perfectly, he will do so indiscriminately, and that adjudication will have Habakkuk himself in view.

    No one is excluded. The Chaldeans come and you might be spared. They might not even touch you. The Nazis might come and you might escape. Many did. escapes God. This very powerful truth is communicated by Habakkuk, although very subtly. It comes through as we look at the language of verse 3 and compare it with the language of chapter 1, verse 12. Our clue, as we move from one verse to the other, is the repetition of this name for God, Holy One, The Holy One, My Holy One. You see it in both of those texts.

    While the term is the same, Habakkuk 3.3 and Habakkuk 1.12, the prophet’s disposition in each verse is utterly different. In chapter 1, verse 12, Habakkuk gives expression to an arrogant self-assurance in which he presumes upon God, we will not die, that is our confidence. And I am so bold to claim the Holy One as my own, He is my Holy One. Therefore, you see, according to chapter 1, verse 12, and the spirit of the prophet speaking at that time, God is quite settled.

    He is quite settled and immovable in his commitment to the covenant. He is immovable in his devotion to Israel. Therefore, although Israel may be chastened by the Lord, which he freely admits, corrected for sin, yes, he admits that, she will not be ultimately under any permanent threat.

    Israel is not and cannot be in jeopardy. And even more than that, God cannot move. Do you get the connection? God cannot move. He is permanently bound to me. He is permanently bound to my people. He is permanently bound to Israel. He cannot move. It is impossible for him to move. Therefore, he cannot come. because it cannot move.

    God cannot come to Israel because God is already there, and he is there in such a way, imagine sabbatic, that he can be perfectly sure of his prominence. and security, his absolute security. Therefore, Habakkuk’s acknowledgment that God is his Holy One is as that term reflects upon supposed Jewish invincibility and even Habakkuk’s own invincibility. He cannot be touched, not even God can touch him.

    But in Habakkuk 3.3, all that changes. For the prophet now, chastened himself, transformed, sees God on the moon. Shaking every presumption every Jewish and personal presumption.

    For the just man, the man who lives by faith, always stands and prays in expectation of the coming of God. the man of faith, the just man, has as his presupposition the coming of God. This man then goes on in his prayer, he sees himself in the light of the coming radiance, like the rising of the sun. That being then compared with the approach of God. The coming of God means the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

    A statement that rises out of The prophecy itself, chapter 2, verse 14, and here in chapter 3, it means a new visitation like that at Sinai, when God’s splendor covers the heavens like his bestment, and his praise fills the earth as from 10,000, no, 20,000 of his angelic hosts who accompany him at his coming.

    Verse 3. It is all so dramatic, it is all so poetic. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t real, it isn’t true, it isn’t historical. In fact, the historical is at the very foundation of it. But what sublime poetry! The greatest drama is being played out in front of your eyes as tabaccic praise. And this kind of drama and poetry should inform your prayers. Don’t allow them to become sterile. or commonplace. Allow yourself to be drawn into God’s mighty deeds, and allow those deeds to inform what you say before Him, giving testimony that you yourself have accepted those deeds on your behalf, and you have participated in them by faith. What grandeur! What glory! God’s dazzling brilliance is overwhelming. As Habakkuk contemplates it in his prayer, reflecting upon the sign I experienced, projecting it, yes, for his present time, but also for the future.

    God’s coming is like an explosion of light, lightning bolts shooting from one of his hands, his other hand closed, rather concealing the remainder of his power that is hid from our sight. And like his coming in Egypt, he pushes chaos before him, and devastation is left in his wake. But then the God who has been on the move takes his stand, he stops, he comes to rest. And then he stops and scrutinizes the earth. It is not for the comfortable flatteries of the self-satisfied, nor is it for the vindication of Jewish claims, or the vindication of the self-righteous, anywhere, anyplace, in all the world. Now when God comes to rest, when God stops, when He scrutinizes the earth, He terrifies the nations.

    They are shaken, these people who think themselves so established, themselves so immovable, so unstoppable, they are displaced. In fact, whatever of this world is considered permanent is shattered before God, who himself is eternal. The mountains and the hills, thought to be eternal and perpetual, dissolve. Verse 6. For God and his ways are everlasting.

    And what about those whom God has used to chasten his people? What about the power they displayed? What about the power that the Chaldeans are to display in bringing Israel to ruin? Even they turn to quivering masses and their invasions look like a picnic in the woods when compared to the coming of God.

    And this is the significance of that 7th verse. And the mention made there in that 7th verse of Cushan and Midian. The immediate problem for Habakkuk had been the Chaldeans. But here in the 7th verse Habakkuk poetically reflects upon the threat which had preceded even that of the Chaldeans in the early chapters of Judges. There are certain references made to Cushan and to Midian as those whom the Lord unleashed and sent upon his people to punish them for their sins. But they, now, as surely as the Chaldeans, are as nothing before the coming visitation of God. The tents collapse. Even their tent curtains tremble because they are so frightened.

    Who then can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? And who presently can pray with such straightforwardness and expectation as Habakkuk prays? Only that one who has been transformed by the gracious workings of God, who has turned in faith from all self-righteousness to the provision of God himself, that one who, before his final appearing, comes in mercy, just as he did to Habakkuk.

    If the invasion of the Chaldeans is like the end of the world, the revelation to Habakkuk before that invasion functions as gospel to the man, and communicates grace for his transformation. It is the coming of redemption. The end of the world awaits the coming of God. But before it arrives, God graciously visits the world in his Son for you. That you might be able to live by faith and pray like a bat. Oh God, your visitation to us in Jesus Christ has meant mercy instead of wrath.

    But Lord, we know the day is coming when you shall appear. And we ask, Father, that as we find ourselves in this world, we would take to heart truly the lessons we learn from Habakkuk. May we, Lord, by your grace, be among the just, those who live by faith, that is, faith in your provision for us. And Lord, may we be able to pray. Pray in the right way, where you are the very center of the prayer. and all your activities for your people are central to our praise and petitions. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Diminished, Focused on God

    Diminished, Focused on God

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 17, 1995.

    About this sermon

    The history of salvation, God’s own unfolding acts, takes real priority here over Habakkuk’s personal spiritual renewal, though both are happening at once. Habakkuk diminishes himself throughout this prayer, turning attention away from his own experience toward God’s action. That same self-diminishment anticipates Christ’s own relentless focus on the Father rather than himself.

    More sermons from Habakkuk · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    We are reading once more this morning Habakkuk chapter 3, reading it from a different version than we did last week. This morning we will be reading it from the King James Version. Give your attention now to the reading of God’s Holy Word, Habakkuk chapter 3. A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, upon Shigiun. O Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid. O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make known. In wrath, remember mercy.

    God came from Canaan, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise. And His brightness was as the light. He had horns coming out of His hand, and there was the hiding of His power. Before Him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at His feet. He stood and measured the earth. He beheld and drove asunder the nations. and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow, his ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Pushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

    Was the Lord displeased against the rivers? Was thine anger against the rivers? Was thy wrath against the sea that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation? Thy bow was made quite naked according to the oaths of the tribes, even by word. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.

    The mountains saw thee, and they trembled. The overflowing of the water passed by. The deep uttered his voice and lifted up his hands on high. The sun and the moon stood still in their habitation. At the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.

    Thou didst march through the land in indignation. Thou didst thrash the heathen in anger. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed. Thou woundest the head out of the house of the wicked by discovering the foundation unto the neck. Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages. They came out as a whirlwind to scatter me. Their rejoicing was to devour the poor secretly. Thou dost walk through the sea with thine horses through the heap of great waters. When I heard my belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice.

    Rottenness entered into my bones and I trembled in myself that I might rest in the day of trouble when he cometh up unto the people. he will invade them with his troops. 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 my kind feet, and he will make me to walk upon my high places. Then a verse from Galatians, chapter 2, verse 20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Pray together.

    Lord, we would not be strangers to your word. And Lord, if we are confessing that we know your word this morning, help us in our listening that we might hear all that you have to say. But Lord, if we are indeed strangers to your word, may it be that this prayer of ours is prompted by your Spirit, that we would be strangers no more. But know your word, and know it well, even for the saving of our souls. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. Habakkuk, the prophet, clamors for our attention.

    And he does so for two reasons. First, he is a man in whom there is affected not just a remarkable change, but secondly, a change, a transformation of ethical proportions. By this I mean that we see in a package both an amazing personal renewal and a transition, a transformation suggestive of the transition and change from one age to another, from one estate to another, one environment to another, one world to another. Because this is true, Habakkuk is a man in whom we see the pattern of personal renewal, as he moves from his former faith in chapter one, a faith which is crippled much too much by unrighteous whining, to a mature faith in chapter three, in which he, despite and beyond what he immediately sees, entrusts himself wholly to God and to his eternal faithfulness. but also Habakkuk is a man in whom we see the pattern of the history of salvation. As if in one man, we are witnessing something of the movement from the old era of faith and its inadequacies in the Old Testament to a new era of faith and its excellency in the new. Now, in considering this, you might well ask yourself, which has the priority? The personal renewal in Habakkuk himself, or the way in which he embodies the transition in the history of God’s comprehensive plan, the transition from Old Testament to New.

    You might well think that the personal renewal has the edge, that it has the priority. This is, after all, what immediately grabs our attention, is it not? We are riveted by the stories of conversion. We are grabbed hold of by the stories of personal salvation. How we delight to hear about the transformation of an individual, someone who is moved from a life of drunkenness to a life of godly sobriety. How we rejoice to hear about someone who is given over to lasciviousness, moved by God’s grace to become a vessel of purity. So in asking the question, what has the priority, what has the edge, we are most likely to respond with, of course, the personal renewal of the man. For we all love and are drawn to stories about personal transformation. I remember as a child, the Old Testament story that fascinated me most.

    It was not the story about Daniel and the lion’s death. It was not the story about David fighting Goliath. It wasn’t even the story about Samson pushing out the piers in the Temple of David. As much as I was fascinated by the pictorial representations of that event, Now, as fascinating as all of those stories and others were to me as a young boy, the story that mesmerized me was that of King Manasseh.

    As some of you may recall, Manasseh was the son of King Hezekiah, and he has been called the most wicked king in the history of Judah, if not the most wicked man. that ever lived. But the verses that caught my eye at a very early age were these. 2 Chronicles 33 verses 10 through 13.

    And the Lord spake to Manasseh and to his people that they would not hearken. Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his father, and prayed unto him. And God was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then the Master knew that the Lord, He was God.

    To this day, it is difficult for me to read that account without being deeply moved by it. And which of us who love the Lord are not moved by the stories we hear even presently, of genuine conversion. Stories about people wonderfully transformed by God’s almighty mercy from lives of destructiveness, even self-destructiveness, lives of arrogance, hatred, deceit, lasciviousness, to lives of grace and glory, and that for the sake of God and for His kingdom. So yes, you and I quickly say, if for no other reason than the level of the spiritual amazement which these stories cause and the emotions that they draw from us, personal renewal has priority over the more general and seemingly less personal account of the change and transformation that occurs in the history of salvation. But you know, even though I am still deeply moved by that story about Manasseh’s conversion, I now see much more in that story than I did when I was a child.

    And maybe as I read it, you picked it up too. Manasseh was a king who reigned a century before the Babylonian captivity, and yet he now, in his person, goes into that captivity before the people go into that captivity. He, in his person, serves as a prophecy to them. You must see in the man more than the man.

    You must see the comprehensive sweep of the plan and purpose of God, the history of salvation. So it was that Manasseh went into that captivity as if before the people going in, they went in with him, and there he with them were humbled, and then they were restored by God’s graciousness to the kingdom. Manasseh’s personal renewal soars to greater renewal that God works in the life of his people and for their sake. In fact, we can say that the greater change for God’s people in the history of salvation has the priority over the individual transformation as important and as essential as that individual renewal is. Our personal renewal is but a participation in the greater renewal, and that’s what makes it secure.

    And I might add, utterly different than the conversions that are reported in other religions. Now, nothing less than what I have been saying here is the case for New Testament believers. You will agree with me, I trust, that there is no more dramatic conversion in the New Testament than the conversion of the Apostle Paul.

    But what do we find here? Does Paul place his own conversion center stage? Does it have first place in his own consciousness? Not that you can’t find him telling the story about his conversion. You find that in the Book of Acts. But when you turn to the epistles, what do you find? You find there the man subordinating his own personal transformation to the history-changing events of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

    Listen to the man, what he says once more, Galatians 2.20, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

    And if that’s not enough for you, turn to Galatians 6.14, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross. of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. You see what the Apostle Paul is doing in these texts. There is an obvious and deliberate subordination by him of his own renewal to the epic, defining events of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He subordinates his own experience to the experience of Jesus. That’s what it means for him to live. That’s what it means for him to be in Christ. In fact, that is what it means for him to deny himself. that Christ might be all in all.

    But getting back to Habakkuk, we have maintained all along in our study that we have here a wonderful account in this prophecy of personal transformation and renewal. As the prophet moves from his quantitative view of righteousness expressed in chapter 1, verse 13, and his attitudes about God’s injustice—not his justice, but his injustice in that first chapter—as he moves from that to the adoption of, the acceptance of, a qualitative view of righteousness, and to a position in which he is going to vindicate, justify God in praise-filled prayer, such as appears in chapter three. But we also have maintained that Habakkuk’s story anticipates the great day in which God’s glorious message of justification by faith will shine forth brightly in the radiancy of the gospel, in a day when the stuttering faith of the Old Testament is left behind, for the faith which in its coming makes all previous faith seem like it was no faith at all. the movement not just personally, but redemptively historically, from faith to faith. So we said at the outset of this message that Habakkuk is clamoring for our attention for two reasons.

    But one is the matter of renewal, change, transformation as it affects the prophet and affects the history of salvation. The second is the thorough God-centeredness of the prophet in the resolution of the entirety of what he has to say. Now, if you scan that first chapter of Habakkuk, it will become evident to you, I believe, that there is the note of, the evidence of, a man-centeredness, particularly a self-centeredness, in what Habakkuk has to say. For instance, is it really, is it truly God’s honor that is foremost to the prophet, that motivates the prophet?

    When he speaks as he does in verses two through four of that first chapter, is it genuinely God’s honor that is in view? Or is it that there is concern about possessions, there is concern about one’s viability in the land. And how can Habakkuk be sure? How can he be sure unless he is prepared to let all things go for the sake of God? And in verses 12 through 17 of that first chapter, Is God there seen for all that he should be seen to be? Is the prophet there concerned for God, for his honor, for his justice, for his person?

    Or is he more concerned with his own assessment of relative righteousness in comparison with those who are around him, claiming as he does that yes, the Jews, inclusive of himself, are more righteous than the Babylonians who are going to invade the land.

    But in chapter three, there is no question about the absolute supremacy of God in Habakkuk’s thinking and in his praise. Habakkuk finds himself at the opening of his prayer, verse 2, quaking before the prospect of God’s appearance. He is so utterly, thoroughly God-centered. He is nothing less, as the prayer progresses, he is nothing less than self-forgetful, self-denying, in light of the incomparable picture given him of the Lord, moving through the earth as a triumphant warrior, verses 3 through 15 of that third chapter. And in the end, verses 16 through 19, we find the prophet not simply malleable before God or in God’s hands, but totally content in his submissiveness since he knows that God is his only true and genuine reward. It is for God’s sake, in the end, that Habakkuk awaits, in faith, the God who shall prove to be to him his true and only satisfaction. Not the land, not what he has acquired, not his possessions, not the promise of longevity in it even, but the Lord himself. Here is Habakkuk’s satisfaction and delight as the prophecy concludes, and the center of his praise-filled prayer.

    There is a marvelous illustration of this self-forgetfulness, for the sake of God and his kingdom, given us in the life of Josiah the king, the grandson, I might add, of Manasseh. You may recall that during Josiah’s reign, The Book of the Law was rediscovered in the Temple, if Helkiah put himself to refurbishing the Temple and repairing it in Josiah’s day, 2 Chronicles 34. But upon hearing the Law as it was read in his presence, Josiah trembled with great fear and sent forward from Huldah the prophetess as to what the Law might mean in its sanctions and pronouncements. Paul had then sent word back to Josiah, yes, peace for you, Josiah.

    The Lord is pleased with you and with your repentance, but there shall be inevitable destruction upon the nation. But the amazing thing is what follows from that point. Josiah, upon hearing these words, then leads the nation in corporate repentance. But why? Why would you repent? You’re going to lose the land anyway. What good is your repentance? What do you hope to preserve? What do you hope to gain? Do you hope that even by this demonstration of piety you might be able to assert once more your own superior self-righteousness in comparison with others?

    Absolutely not. The message is clear. The nation is lost. All your possessions are gone. Self-righteousness is vain and purposeless. The only reason to join in that corporate repentance led by Josiah is for the sake of God and God alone, because you love him and you want him. The land’s gone. The city’s destroyed. Will you obey for the sake of God alone? And just having the promise of God is not enough for you.

    The Lord then, even from the beginning, and I will say from the garden of Eden itself, intends to become his people’s reward. And now, you see, Habakkuk must be taught that lesson. All God’s children must be taught that lesson, despite the loss of the family farm. despite the loss of the stocks and bonds portfolio, despite the loss of the dream house and the American dream, despite the feelings of the fig trees and the vines, the feeling of the produce in the field, the slaughter of the herbs.

    Were you listening as we concluded Habakkuk’s prayer? Everything is gone. The lesson from Josiah then coincides with the message from Habakkuk, a message that is expertly and finely articulated in and by Jesus Christ, our Savior, whose God-centered life gains for him the true reward which he is delighted to share with you. The God-centeredness we observe in our Savior has been anticipated by Habakkuk. The complete satisfaction in and with God that we observe in Jesus Christ has been anticipated in Habakkuk. Don’t you, then, Habakkuk-like, find your rest and perfect satisfaction in Jesus Christ, whose personal renewal in his death and resurrection has meant the transition of the ages and the coming of a new world? a world in which you, by your personal renewal in faith, have been assured a share. Our God, we rejoice and rise with a message from your prophet Habakkuk, even as we live with him through his personal change, even as we are compelled to acknowledge that there is something even greater going on in him than that personal change.

    And also, Father, as we are introduced by him into a wonderful God-centeredness, and that for your glory. That you might be the very center of our existence, Lord, in all of our conscious activities. That we might acknowledge you to be so. That we might be done with self-righteousness. That we might be done, O God, with comfortable comparisons with others, and even a tax upon your integrity and justice. that ours might be a vindication of our God. In praise build prayer. And we found it to be submissive, even as Christ is submissive, and also satisfied with you, as your Son is satisfied. We pray these things through Him, by the police here.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • God Changes Habakkuk

    God Changes Habakkuk

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 10, 1995.

    About this sermon

    In chapter 3 God transforms Habakkuk, and the change runs deeper than a shift in tone. Until now Habakkuk has represented a Judaism trapped in false righteousness, and here God shows him what saving faith looks like. His prayer widens to include all tribes, beyond his own people’s concerns.

    More sermons from Habakkuk · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Our scripture reading this morning is Habakkuk chapter 3. Give your attention to the reading of God’s holy infallible word. I will be reading from the New American Standard Version this morning. a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigiona. Lord, I have heard the report about thee, and I fear, O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of years, in the midst of years make it known, in wrath remember mercy. God comes from Canaan, and the Holy One from Mount Paran.

    His splendor covers the heavens, and the earth is full of His praise. His radiance is like the sunlight. He has rays flashing from His hand, and there is the hiding of His power. Before Him goes pestilence, and plague comes after Him. He stood and surveyed the earth. He looked and startled the nations. Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered. The ancient hills collapsed. His ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Kushan under distress, the tent curtains of the land of Midian were trembling.

    Did the Lord rage against the rivers? Or was thy anger against the rivers? Or was thy wrath against the seas, that thou didst ride on thy horses and on thy chariots of salvation? Thy bow was made bare, the rods of chastisement were sworn, thou didst cleave the earth with the mountains sobby and quaked, the downpour of water swept by, the deep uttered forth its voice, it lifted high its hands.

    Sun and moon stood in their places, they went away at the light of thine arrows, at the radiance of thy gleaming spear. In indignation thou didst march through the earth, in anger thou didst trample the nations, thou didst go forth for the salvation of thy people, for the salvation of thine anointed.

    Thou didst strike the head of the house of evil to lay him open from thigh to neck. Thou didst pierce with thine own spears the head of his throngs. They stormed in to scatter us. Their exultation was like those who devoured the oppressed in secret. Thou didst tread on the sea with thy horses on the surge of many waters.

    I heard, and my inward parts trembled. At the sound my lips quivered, decay entered my bones, and in my place I trembled, because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, Though the flocks should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord.

    I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like pine’s feet, and make me to walk in my high places. And then just briefly from Romans chapter 3, verses 29 and 30. Is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of the Gentiles also, if indeed God is one. And he will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

    Pray with me. Lord, we are likely to be swept away by your word, such is its power, its force. But by your grace we are enabled to stand, that we might profit from your word to the that it might be evident in earth and in heaven that we are the people of God. So then, Lord, may our congregating here be our standing for the reception of your word. And may each of us be prophet. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

    Habakkuk chapter 2 begins with the prophet stationing himself in his watchtower, waiting for God. That’s the first verse of that second chapter. Habakkuk 2 ends with the Lord enthroned in His holy temple. The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him.” Verse 20.

    Habakkuk 2 begins with the prophet preparing his response to God for what he perceives are God’s injustices to Israel. Habakkuk 2 ends with the Lord silencing all the earth. with reverential awe of him and all of his ways. Habakkuk 2 begins with the Prophet anticipating God’s rebuke. Habakkuk 2 ends with the Lord having delivered that rebuke in such a way that it leaves the Prophet a changed man. Habakkuk 2 begins with the prophet poised for further wrangling and argumentation with God. Habakkuk 2 ends with the Lord having so dealt with the prophet that the prophet is now prepared to utter the only appropriate sounds in the midst of that commanded silence.

    Praise filled prayer. Oh, you are set up for this third chapter. It is all so wonderfully deliberate. We are set up for those only appropriate sounds in the midst of the commanded silence before the Lord. Praise filled prayer. Are you ready? Are you ready?

    It is now then, this praise-filled prayer that commands our And the first thing we realize about it is that it is a confession. Particularly now, at first, it is a confession of sin, an acknowledgement of the same. The spirit of this confession You will note, therefore, is quite different than the spirit we found in Habakkuk earlier. For here, now, is genuine humility, true and mature worship, proper submission before the Lord.

    God is the edge in Habakkuk’s tone. No more postured assault upon God. for the injustices that Habakkuk judges God is guilty of. No more hint of a swagger in the man, of a self-righteousness in the prophet, for this man has been undone. He has been unraveled by God’s revelation to him. and most specifically by God’s gracious dealings with him.

    He now knows that as those invading Chaldeans, they are the ones who are coming to overrun Judah, Now he knows that as those invading Chaldeans are vile and wretched sinners, he had no question about that, you may recall. Of course, Chaldeans are vile and wretched sinners.

    They are so by definition. But as he knows that these invading Chaldeans are vile and wretched sinners, as he has also understood his fellow Jewish countrymen, some of them at least, are vile and wretched sinners, he now knows for certain that he is a vile and wretched sinner. before the Lord’s gracious dealings with him, Habakkuk held to a quantitative view of righteousness. I plead with you to understand this point.

    In so many ways, Habakkuk is representative of Judaism. he holds to a quantitative view of righteousness. The Jews are quantitatively more righteous than the Chaldeans, and he, Habakkuk, is quantitatively more righteous than many of his unjust and bloodthirsty Jewish countrymen. Those less righteous than he were deserving of wrath. But surely he, Habakkuk, the priest and the prophet, was not deserving of wrath, because on the quantitative scale, he was more righteous than others. But the opening words now of Habakkuk’s prayer are testimony that he no longer believes in such a view of righteousness.

    Lord, I have heard the report about thee, and I fear thy work. Lord, I have heard the report about thee, and I fear thy work. These words from the Prophet do not stand in isolation. They directly reflect upon the Lord’s opening words to the Prophet back in chapter 1 verse 5. You will recall what the Lord said as he made his opening remarks to Habakkuk. Chapter 1, verse 5, “…look among the nations, observe the astonished wonder, for I will work a work in your days that you will not believe, even if you are told about it.” Now that statement from the Lord, through the Prophet, was directed towards the Israelites, those inhabitants of Judah.

    But why would these Jews not believe what the Lord has to say? Because the work God was about to work was the bringing on of the onslaught of the Babylonians or the Chaldeans, who would destroy everything in their path, including the Jews. But the Jews believed themselves to be invincible, because they were more righteous. because they were God’s covenant people. And thus, they had concluded in their own minds that God could not, not only would not, but could not destroy them. It was impossible for them to stand in jeopardy whatsoever.

    About its initial response to this message from the Lord, It’s first one of cocky religious self-confidence. Note what he says in verse 12 of that first chapter. We will not die. We cannot die. Next he moves on to indignation. Verse 13 of that first chapter, why are you silenced, Lord, when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they?

    And finally, Habakkuk is defiant as he situates himself in his watchtower, preparing his next volley against the Lord. Chapter 2, verse 1. You see, by the time we’re done reviewing Habakkuk’s attitude, we conclude that he as well is numbered among those in Judea who do not believe truly what God has said, in the sense that he is not willing to accept it and entrust himself to the Lord in the midst of it.

    But what do we find now at the opening of his prayer? we find, as I have indicated, a confession. A confession that is acknowledging his sin. He confesses now that he has heard the Lord’s awesome message. That is, he has truly heard it in and with faith. And now he no longer chafes or argues. Instead, as he confesses, He stands trembling in reverential awe and in fearful expectation of God’s coming righteous judgment.

    He who once imagined himself immune and secure before the onslaught of God’s wrath, even presuming upon God’s covenant and the exclusive relationship the Lord had sustained with Israel, he who once imagined himself immune and secure has come to realize that he is anything but immune and secure. Where before he was as solid as his watchtower and as immovable, now he shakes in fear his self-confidence, his self-righteousness, and his presumption laid waste. that even more, Habakkuk trembles in fear because he knows himself now to be just as vile and wretched as any Chaldean and as any fellow Israelite. There is none righteous, no, not one, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But these opening words in Habakkuk’s prayer are not merely a confession of sin, and thus a repentance. They are also a confession of faith. Now just how powerful and satisfying a confession this is may be difficult for us to see from our available translations of this text. We would do better to translate this second verse this way, “‘Lord, I have heard the report about thee, and I fear thy work,’ that is, thy coming judgment.”

    And now there follows, in succession, three parallel imperatives. In the midst of the years, make him live. In the midst of the years, make him understand. In wrath, remember mercy. Now what does Habakkuk mean by this very strange manner of expression? We are greatly helped in grasping his intention if we focus on the first of the imperatives. In the midst of the years, make him live. You see, Habakkuk now as he had originally played off of the Lord’s statement in chapter 1 verse 5, is playing off the two previous occasions in the prophecy where the notion of living is prominently displayed.

    You will remember once more, take note of, again, chapter 1 verse 12, where the prophet confidently asserted, we will not die, in other words, we will live. That in his self-assurance. You will also remember chapter 2, verse 4, where the Lord says, the just shall live by his faith. But now in chapter 3, verse 2, the prophet acknowledges that life is wholly and completely in the Lord’s sovereign disposition, in his hands. Originally, chapter 1, verse 2, he in his self-righteousness says, we will not die, to which the Lord responds, oh yeah? Says who? Says you? Let me tell you who will live. He who is righteous by faith, he alone will live.

    The prophet is now convinced that life is a matter holy in the Lord’s discretion, holy within the Lord’s sovereignty. And as a consequence now, he pleads for the life of Israel as if pleading for the life of a single man. In the midst of the years, make him rich. Who is the him? The him is Israel.

    The king is the people of God who are standing in jeopardy under the threat of God’s wrath. So now the prophet is acknowledging that life, even eternal life if you will, is holy. Something that is in God’s control. Salvation and life belong to him. and believing that life is a matter grasped in and by faith, just as the Lord has said, Habakkuk now prays that Israel would understand. In the midst of the years, the next phrase says, make him understand, make him to understand. What is it specifically that Israel must now understand? They must understand that the just live by faith, and by faith alone. That is the central message.

    They will not live by their pedigree. They will not live by their family tree. They will not live because they have a good lineage. They can boast about their church membership or their church association going back for generations. They cannot boast in their circumcision. Would you dare boast? in your religious associations and your family heritage. If you do, you are a fool. If Israel can’t make such a boast with all going for it, as is plain on the surface, then how might you make such an approach to God?

    That is then opening for this prayer. Yes, a confession of his sin and unworthiness, but also a confession of his unfaithfulness, for he has been worked upon by the Lord. He has been brought to the point where he has understood and grasped. The just shall live by faith. those who are just by faith who shall live. Only that. Are your prayers informed by the same reality? Are you utterly casual in your prayers? Presuming upon the Lord Why, of course, Lord, you listen to me, that’s your business. That’s what you’re there for. The beginning of a Baptist prayer is model for the beginning of your own.

    You must begin. with an acknowledgment of your unworthiness. And you must progress with a confession of your sure and certain faith in God and your trust in all of his doings. Now there’s one more aspect to this confession which we will briefly look at in conclusion. And that is, in addition to being a confession of sin and a confession of faith, this is a confession of solidarity. What do you think?

    Habakkuk, the justified man, now satisfies himself that he is secured while the rest of the nation goes to hell. What move for man? For he is drawn to those with whom he has been placed in fellowship. He is constrained to consider the others who are in jeopardy. So it’s not merely a personal prayer in which the personal pronoun I dominates to the exclusion of all else. For the focus is going to be finally upon the full salvation of God’s people in their entirety.

    He will not allow that to be removed from his view. He cannot allow that to happen. And do you see what is at work then in the prophet? It is nothing less than the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Why, Jesus has died, he’s gone to heaven, he’s secure up there. Why doesn’t he care about the rest of us? But you know that he now makes intercession without fail for you day by day. You have difficulty mustering a sentence for other people. But Jesus Christ has devoted himself to pray for you.

    Enough of this personal salvation stuff that forgets about the company of God’s children throughout the world, and his elect who are being gathered to his throne. That vision will impress itself finally upon the mind of those who have a biblical faith, when in the midst of the years, God sends his own son. When in the midst of the years, in the midst of the certain and coming wrath, he remembers and performs his mercy. And in that day it will be apparent to Habakkuk that his prayers, yes, were not merely for the sake of himself or for the sake of those Jews with whom he was in close fellowship, but for the sake of Chaldeans and Babylonians who were his enemy. For that grouping, for God’s people, is one in which there are those gathered from out of all of the tribes of the earth, as all of the earth is assembled in silence before him in his holy temple.

    And I will make my house a house of prayer for all people. And that’s how you got here. That’s how you got here. Let us pray. O Lord, even by the one who is at your right hand right now making intercession, teach us to pray. For we know, O God, that his spirit is at work even in Habakkuk, as Habakkuk prays. And Lord, as we would then look to Habakkuk’s prayer, we are taught, we are instructed. May we then, who are justified by faith, pray our prayers, acknowledging our sin, humbly declaring our faith, and recognizing fully, then, the solidarity that is ours with all others who are saved by you. Hear us, O God, yes, to the glory of your name and the good of the Church, We pray it through Christ. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Proud Man Judged

    The Proud Man Judged

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 3, 1995.

    About this sermon

    Habakkuk 2 breaks into a clear outline, each woe aimed at a different form of the same underlying pride. God’s judgment on ‘the proud man’ in verse 4 is not aimed only at Babylon; Habakkuk himself shares in that same wickedness. Only the perfection of Christ can silence the self-righteousness this passage exposes in everyone.

    More sermons from Habakkuk · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    This morning we are reading from Habakkuk chapter 2 and we are beginning at verse 2 to the end of the chapter. This is Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 2. Give your attention to God’s holy word. I’m reading from the New American Standard Version this morning. Then the Lord answered me and said, Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time, it hastens towards the goal, and it will not fail, though it tarries, wait for it, for it will certainly come, it will not delay. Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him, but the righteous will live by his faith. Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man so that he does not stay at home. He enlarges his appetite like shields, and he is like death, never satisfied.

    He also gathers to himself all nations and collects to himself all peoples. Will not all of these take up a taunt song against him, even mockery and insinuations against him, and say, Woe to him who increases what is not his, for how long, and makes himself rich with loans? Will not your creditors rise up suddenly, and those who collect from you awaken?

    Indeed, you will become plunder for them. Because you have looted many nations, all the remainder of the peoples will loot you. because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land and to the town and all its inhabitants. Go to him who gets evil gain for his house to put his nest on high to be delivered from the hand of calamity. You have devised a shameful thing for your house by cutting off many peoples. So you are sinning against yourself.

    Surely the stone will cry out from the wall and the rafter will answer it from the framework. Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with violence. Is it not indeed from the Lord of hosts that peoples toil for fire and nations grow weary for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

    Woe to you who make your neighbors drink who mix in your venom even to make them drunk so as to look on their nakedness. You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness. The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you and utter disgrace will come upon your glory. For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you and the devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, to the town, and all its inhabitants.

    What prophet is the idol when its maker has carved it, or an image, a teacher of falsity? For its maker trusts in his own handiwork when he fashions speechless idols. Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, to a dumb stone arise, and that is your teacher. Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all inside it. That the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him.” And then two verses from Romans chapter three. verses 27 and 28, where then is boasting, it is excluded.

    By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Pray with me. Father, we are in need of refreshment from you. And Lord, as we have given ourselves to the tasks set before us, so also now, Lord, we would give ourselves in worship of our God. We pray, Father, that you would sanctify our rest, even as you bless our labor. Lord, bless the labor of those who work with your word, and may we all be profited by them. And help us, O God, that we would see the labor of our hands in light of the word that you have given. that we might be obedient servants of our God. This we pray through Jesus Christ, Amen. Although the thoughts of this prophecy bearing Habakkuk’s name, are very deep and quite complex. The outline of this book of Habakkuk is very simple.

    The first two chapters present us with an argument, a dispute between the prophet and the Lord. while the third chapter presents us with the Prophet’s prayer of faith in conclusion. Now, the argument, the dispute in those first two chapters runs this way.

    Chapter one, verses one through four, the Prophet expresses his distress that the Lord has not acted in the interest of his law and. Against those in Judah guilty of violent lawlessness. Chapter one verses five three eleven. Then gives to us the Lord’s first response. the Chaldeans are coming. Or, as we have come to know them, the Babylonians are coming as the instruments of God’s justice. The prophet, then, reacts to this devastating news, chapter 1, verse 12, through chapter 2, verse 1. And in his reaction to the Lord’s response, he does not hesitate to point out to the Lord the injustice of the Lord’s solution. How can the Lord allow the wicked, that is, these Chaldeans, these Babylonians, How can the Lord allow these wicked to devour those more righteous than they, particularly us Jews?

    Now that’s verse 13 of that first chapter, and essential to your understanding of the mind of the Baptist and his argument. The Prophet’s posture subsequently in his watchtower. That’s chapter 2, verse 1 now. The prophet’s posture in his watchtower indicates that the Lord’s solution hardly satisfies Habakkuk.

    But even though Habakkuk is hostile, even though he is argumentative to a false message, the Lord graciously speaks to him yet again.” Chapter 2, verses 2-20, the portion that we have read this morning. It is this second answer from the Lord that leads Habakkuk to the offering up of his great prayer with which his prophecy ends in the third chapter. When the Lord, therefore, again answers Habakkuk through the course of that second chapter, it is to the end of making Habakkuk a different man than he was at the beginning of that chapter. Chapter 2, the portion that we have read this morning, consequently takes on the greatest significance since it contains the word from the Lord that brings about change in the man. And all of us standing where we do, sensing however faintly The need for change in ourselves are drawn to what the Lord has to say to Habakkuk. Well then, what does the Lord say that has such impact on this man?

    The charter text is verse four. Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him, but the righteous will live by his faith. Now grasp the import of this text, and here I have in mind more than its supreme theological interest. I have its literary impact, if you will, in mind.

    For by this statement, the Lord will outline the remainder of the prophecy, even to the conclusion of the third chapter. You will notice that the rest of chapter two is merely an exposition of the first part of that fourth verse. In other words, verses 5 through 20 lay out for us, then, the description of the proud man, his wife, and God’s judgment upon him. Chapter 3, on the other hand, becomes the filling out of the second part of that fourth verse.

    Here, through the gracious work of God, is the testimony in prayer, prayer from Habakkuk, the testimony from him of the man of faith who has been blessed immeasurably and declared to be righteous. It’s all a setup, then. For the Lord has set up Habakkuk’s testimony of faith in chapter 3 by the exposure of the proud man in chapter 2. Let us look then at the exposition of the proud man. Verse 5 in chapter 2 provides the crucial insight into the proud.

    They are insatiable. They are never satisfied. Wine betrays the proud man so that he does not stay at home. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and he is like death, never satisfied. The proud are insatiable. They are never satisfied. But why? Why are they never satisfied?

    Because rather than living by faith, they live for and in terms of the things of this world. They live by sight, and what they see, they must have. and they cultivate an inquisitive spirit within themselves because of their desire to control and manage what they observe.

    The proud, therefore, become like little gods in the world, managing their realms, realms which they consider to be their own. The Lord now, as the prophecy continues, reads out five woes, that is, five sentences of judgment against the proud. Verses six through eight, the proud increase what is not theirs, but they are told that their end will be impoverishment. Yes, they have sought to enrich themselves, but in the end they will be poor. What they have visited upon others will, in the end, be visited upon them. This is a maxim of the kingdom of God. You reap what you sow. As you have dealt with others, so you shall be dealt with yourselves.

    Verses 9 through 11. The proud seek security to build for themselves an impregnable fortress, but they do this at the expense of others, even though it means the ruination of their neighbors. God will execute his woe upon the proud by causing their very houses, the ones they built for their own safety, to become their undoing. The stones and the rafters will revolt. Verses 12 through 14. See the proud seeking through injustice and violence to make a name for themselves.

    But such an enterprise is doomed to failure, because the earth is not destined to be filled with the evidence that it belongs to the proud and the vain. Rather, as that fourteenth verse tells us, the earth is destined to be filled with the evidence that it belongs to the Lord. And the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

    In verses 15 through 17, the proud are compared to rapists who take advantage of their victims by plying them with liquor. It’s not a very pretty picture. But as they have done, so the Lord promises it shall be done to them. The cup that they have passed out comes round to them in the end. Verses 18 through 20 expose idolatry as the work of vanity, the proud, you see, trusts in his own works. Here is the one who believes in works’ salvation. The works of my own hands shall save me. The root of works salvation is idolatry.

    There is nothing to fear in an idol. It cannot as much as speak. That when the Lord holds court in his holy temple, he will speak. and all the clamor of the proud will be silenced. The Lord is in His holy temple, where all the earth keeps silence before Him.”

    Here, then, is the Lord’s response to Habakkuk’s second complaint. It builds off of the Lord’s testimony about the proud, that they are not righteous and that they shall not live, in contrast to the righteous. But how exactly does this response that we have just reviewed, this response from the Lord to Habakkuk, bring about change in Habakkuk? Is it that Habakkuk now is assured, given his complaint about the Babylonians, is it that Habakkuk is now assured that the Lord intends to bring judgment upon these Babylonians, these wicked people who are about to overrun Judea? And with that confidence, he’s feeling much better. As we read through the series of woes in verses 5 through 20 of that second chapter, we might think that that is exactly the case.

    Who, like the Chaldeans, are insatiable, avaricious, haughty, vain, rapacious, idolatrous? Surely the Lord, in the woes that he pronounces, is speaking about the Chaldeans. Or is he? Surely the Lord is speaking about those people over there. Surely the Lord is speaking about the notoriously wicked.

    Those that we can immediately identify. But you will notice the universal tone that the Lord uses throughout these verses. Did you catch it as we went through there? The universal tone. It was hard to say, as you went through those verses, that only Chaldeans were in view. For what the Lord has to say here is deliberately broad and inclusive.

    What about the proud in Judah? Is pride the private property of Babylonians? What about the proud in Judah? Had not Habakkuk himself begun his initial complaint to the Lord by pointing out to the Lord the wickedness rampant in Judah? Chapter 1, verses 2 through 4. What about Jews, then, against whom Habakkuk invades, who are insatiable?

    What about Jews? who live by sight and not by faith? What about Jews who make themselves rich at the expense of others? Who build their own safety nets upon the ruination of their neighbors? Who seek immortal reputations through violence and at the expense of the Lord’s claim upon them and his claim upon the world? Who give vent to their lusts and who worship idols? even if that idol is merely the mental, spiritual, religious monument to their own works, which stand at the center of their religion. Chaldeans? Well, broadening things a bit, yes. Judeans? But what if we take the whole matter a step further?

    What if the whole of God’s response to Habakkuk is more brutal still? What if Habakkuk, in hearing the Lord’s response, in being confronted by the comprehensiveness of that response, what if Habakkuk sees not just Chaldeans under the Lord’s just sentence, not just his fellow compromised countrymen, but himself? What if, in hearing these woes read out by the Lord, Habakkuk has the sense that he personally is being brought under divine wrath? That he can’t simply point to wicked Chaldeans or unrighteous Judeans. That he has to point to himself. I maintain that that is precisely what Habakkuk sees. And it is this that brings transformation, change.

    Have you thought about change for yourself? Have you wished that you were someone else? Have you longed to do better? have you wished to understand? There will not be that progress for you. There will not be that change. There will be no transformation for you unless you see yourself under the woes of God, liable to His judgment and in need of His mercy and grace. No more of these flattering comparisons. between yourself and someone else.

    Why, it’s obvious I’m better than they. It is my contention, then, that this is exactly what Habakkuk sees. As those woes are read out over him, he understands that he’s included. He no longer can subscribe to the quantitative view of righteousness, imagining himself more righteous, yes, than the Chaldeans or his fellow Jews, for he himself has been undone. And he now knows more than ever that there is not one righteous, no, not one. Where, then, is Boston? It is excluded. By what law? The law of work? No, but by the law of faith. But we maintain that a man is justified by faith and not by the works of the law.

    Habakkuk, in a manner appropriate to him in the time in which he lived, hears the gospel. And that gospel says, the just shall live by faith.” Habakkuk knows that although he hardly sees the full salvation that is coming, or the full solution for his sin, he must cast himself completely upon God, and upon those things that are perceived only by faith, grasped only in that way. And in time, that is, in the words of the Apostle Paul, in the fullness of time, that is, at the end of time, the object of Habakkuk’s probe comes to light with radiant clarity. Jesus Christ shines forth, not only as payment for Habakkuk’s sin, delivering him from the woes under which he stands. But this one, Jesus Christ, also stands forth as the author and the perfecter of that faith that Habakkuk is called to express. Here then, finally and fully, is that one whom the Lord, in his response to Habakkuk, would have not only habatic, but you to trust, if he and you are to escape the wrath that justly comes upon us.

    Here is the one who summarily puts to an end all of our self-flattering comparisons with others, who provides solution for all of us who cry out, as did Isaiah, Woe is me! I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. This one then, Jesus Christ the righteous, who enables you to erupt in praise-filled prayer, just as Habakkuk does at the conclusion of his prophecy, to erupt in praise-filled prayer as one who lives by faith, as one who has been declared righteous. by God. Will the rose then touch you if you live by faith? There is therefore now no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus. Have you heard this message? Do you believe it? Do you love it? If you do, you will live.

    O Lord, we who have closed with you, who have confessed our faith, may we, Lord, be strengthened even as we hear the word, this means of grace, that we might continue in our faith by grace. But Lord, I also pray for those who may not have faith, for those who struggle so desperately. May it please you in your kindness to deal with them as you have dealt with Habakkuk, and may the transformation you work in them be such as to bring forth praise-filled prayer, such as we hear from Habakkuk himself. But Lord, help us, help us all. We who have faith with regard to those who do not. And those who do not, O God, may they be helped immeasurably by your blessings communicated here today, even to the point. of believing in Jesus Christ and receiving newness of life. This I pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.