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, March 5, 1995.

We are reading this morning from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, chapter 3, and we are beginning at verse 11. Pay attention now to the reading of God’s holy words. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident, for the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them.

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak at the manner of men, though it be but a man’s covenant, yet, if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereunto.” Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made, he saith not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before God in Christ, the law which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law, then, against the promises of God?

God forbid, for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily, righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, We were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

But after that faith is come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster, for ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye all are one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.”

And then turning back to Habakkuk, Habakkuk chapter 2, beginning at verse 1. I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower and will watch to see what the Lord will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.” And the Lord answered me and said, “‘Write the vision and make it plain upon the tables, that he may run that readeth it, for the vision is yet for an appointed time but at the end it shall speak and not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith. Let’s pray together. Grant, almighty God, that as it cannot be but that, owing to the infirmity of our flesh, we must be shaken and tossed here and there by the many turbulent commotions of this world. O Grant, that our faith may be sustained by this support, that thou art the governor of the world, and that men were not only once created by thee, but are also preserved by thy hand, and that thou art also a just judge, so that we may duly restrain our stones. And though we must often have to bear many insults Let us yet never fail until our faith shall become victorious over all trials, and until we, having passed through continued succession of contests, shall at length reach that celestial rest which Christ Thy Son has attained for us. Amen.

Is there such a thing as a proud faith? Is there such a thing as a vain and arrogant faith? Such a faith rising from a soul that simply is not right before God. If there is such a faith, then we, in thinking about it, may well be shaken to the very ground of our religious existence, stricken at the heart of our confidence and certainty about things. we have been taught that faith is essential for a proper relationship with God.

We are convinced that it is indispensable to a proper religious life. And being Protestant, children of the Reformation, we have embraced, we say we have, We have confessed as much. We have embraced the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone, thus underscoring the indispensability, the essential character of faith to a proper confession. It may well be our habit of mind to think of faith even as something that is inherently good, faith commending itself, faith being its own virtue. But I ask you once again, is there such a thing as a vain faith, a proud faith, an elegant A faith that, far from helping us, actually proves to be our undoing.

Now, as we look at Scripture, at the very least, we know, do we not, that all faith is not good faith. The most extreme example is found in James 2, verse 19, where James tells us that even the demons believe and shudder. In that regard, it may well be that the demons are doing better in their faith than many are doing in theirs. Or at least the demons shudder. But yes, there is this testimony from Scripture that all faith is not good faith.

From the Old Testament there is abundant evidence of this very thing. Time and again we are told about the heathens and their faith. We are told also about apostates within Israel who have a faith of sorts, a faith that has been misdirected, a faith that has even been directed towards idols. And in that, the apostates of Israel keep company with the heathen. There is an example given of this misdirection with regard to the heathen in Habakkuk. Later on, in chapter 2, verse 18, the Lord denounces through his prophet the heathen idol-maker, the one who trusts in the works of his own hand. expressing a faith, but a faith that is wrong.

But what if you imagine yourself to be a faithful servant of the Lord? looking over and surveying your life, you are conscious of only naming the name of the Lord in your religious devotion and in your worship. What if you are one who has never taken a drink from the cups offered to idols? What if you are someone who has never taken the names of a false god upon your lips? Could your faith prove itself proud and vain, and when examined, reveal an unrighteous soul? a soul that yet stands short of where God would wish it to be, where even He has determined to bring it in the history of His dealings with His people.

But what if you were a priest, like Habakkuk? What if you are a prophet, like Habakkuk? What if you understand all of the ritual for the sanctuary? What if you know the Levitical code backwards and forwards? What if you know the covenant, its terms, and its historical expression?

And even in your faith, claim all of these things. What if in your office and in your doctrine, what if in your piety, you stand apart from the rabble, expressing an Orthodox faith, a faith from all accounts or external assessments, that appears to be flawless? Is it possible that you are possessed of a vain faith, of a proud and arrogant faith? A faith that is faulty, that is infected? A faith that falls short of genuine fullness? But not only that. A faith that is incapable of going on to fullness, to completeness, and to perfection, that is incapable even of welcoming that fullness when it is manifested and revealed from God.

Habakkuk. believe. But Habakkuk’s faith is vain. It is proud. There is even the streak of arrogance in it. But because of the Lord’s dealings with this man, that will change. Just as the dealings of the Lord with Israel and its vain and proud faith will bring about change for many, blessing them in the gospel of Jesus Christ with a pure justification through a faith that is true, mature, humble, and genuine.

And as I said, here at the beginning of Habakkuk’s prophecy, the Prophet’s faith is vain, it is Despite its appearances, it is flawed. There is even a streak of presumption in it, and it is tending towards self-righteousness. If it is allowed to stand in the final analysis, it will stand short of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It will be incapable of pleasing God.

Habakkuk has Jewish faith. At best, Habakkuk has Jewish faith. But God who loves this Jew, God who loves the Jewish people, will lead neither him nor them at the level of this Jewish faith, for God is determined to bring them beyond the limitations of such faith as is expressed by even the best of Judaism. And God is determined to do that because He knows that such faith as is expressed here by Habakkuk and others within Israel, through its limitations, will finally fail, breeding in those who possess it and express it that which is spiritually unattractive and even repulsive, no, even more deadly.

This kind of faith, left to itself, is lethal. Fatal. So God, in his infinite wisdom and in his profound love, will intrude upon good, faithful Jewish Habakkuk in order to deliver him from his goodness from his faith, from his Jewishness, and ultimately from himself.

And that in order that he might bestow upon this man a full and blessed faith and bring him into the kingdom of his beloved son. What we observe God doing in Habakkuk then touches the wide range of God’s redemptive purposes and intentions. For it not only supplies us with a supreme lesson, if not the supreme lesson, with regard to the nature of faith from the Old Testament, but it provides us with a summary of what God is doing in the history of salvation as He would move His people to the arrival of that final faith in the appearance of Jesus Christ, His Son, setting before His people the accomplishments of His Son in the gospel.

Have you ever been struck by the way the Apostle Paul expressed it to himself in Galatians 3, verse 23, and again in verse 25? In verse twenty-three, the Apostle says, but before faith came. And then in verse twenty-five, he says, but now that faith has come. Have you ever puzzled over those statements from Paul? What could Paul possibly mean by these phrases? Is he talking about his own personal experience when he came to faith? Is he speaking about the Damascus Road experience, which he underwent?

Is this to be linked up with other experiences that people have in coming to Christ, their own personal beliefs, the interior workings of God as those individuals are brought to faith? even touching upon the psychological inner state of those individuals as they are brought along this line? Before faith came, verse 23, but now that faith has come, verse 25. here is not speaking about his personal experience.

He’s not talking here about the Damascus Road. He’s not talking about something that is interior to him at all. He’s talking about history. He’s talking about an event that has taken place. He’s speaking about the historical revelation of faith, or as he speaks of it at the end of verse 23, the faith which was later to be revealed. That is, after the administration of the law and in the administration of the gospel, the coming of Christ and all that that means.

But note the extremities of Paul’s language in this regard. Let it sink in. Paul speaks of the era prior to the coming of the gospel as if it were an era, an epoch, devoid of faith. as if it had no faith at all. Faith then coming on in the gospel is a deluge of blessing so great is it, so pure is it, that it makes everyone under the law seem as if they had no faith whatsoever. We have moved into the era of faith. Faith has come now. And it makes everything that appeared previously appear to be as if it were no faith at all.

But it is precisely this transformation of the ages that God previews for us in the coming of faith. accomplished in the prophet Habakkuk. The early Habakkuk, at the beginning of the prophecy, presents to us a faith prior to its perfection in the gospel. The later Habakkuk, that we will see expressing himself in chapter 3 in Habakkuk, Sets before us faith drinking deeply from the well of its glorious end in Jesus Christ. The early Habakkuk is Judaism. Old Testament faith, under the tutelage of the law, which is described and categorized by the Apostle Paul as no faith at all. later Habakkuk, is Christianity. New Testament faith found in the gracious faith of Christ Jesus. Habakkuk’s move then from his earlier faulty faith to his later glorious faith is prophecy itself.

Therefore, the prophecy is not merely the words, the prophecy is the man. You look at the man and he becomes a prophecy of that which is going to come about. We see in the man here, set out in front of us, in Habakkuk, the movement from one age to another, from the old to the new. You’re going to see it worked out before your very eyes, and that before it happens. But just how does the limitation of the old And even more to the point, how does the vanity, how does the pride of Habakkuk’s faith under the old order show itself?

You must understand, as you read early Habakkuk, that the center of this man’s world is the land and the law. The center of this man’s world is the land and the law. But both the land and the law introduce a fatal pride into Habakkuk’s faith. they will bring it down. Regarding the land, as Habakkuk would express Judaism and its expectation and hope, Habakkuk cannot, at the outset of his prophecy, envision any future without that land. Regarding the law, Habakkuk is convinced that the law guarantees the judgment of the wicked, thus their removal from the land, and the prosperity of the wicked, therefore his enrichment in the land. And that prosperity that comes to him as righteous sets God’s seal upon him and his estimations of God’s covenant and design. The law and the land are linked in the mind of the prophet. The reward of God is the land and prosperity in it, mandated for the righteous by the law. faith for Habakkuk at this point in his life is the certainty of this arrangement, the guarantee of this arrangement.

He, in his confidence, is so exalted in his estimations and assessment of these things that he blurts out in the middle of the twelfth verse of the first chapter, we will not die. God has pronounced judgment, it’s coming. But the prophet now responds in that twelfth verse, we will not die.

That is, we, the righteous. I am included among the righteous. We of Judah, we who belong to this nation, we who have our center in the capital of Jerusalem, who perform the sacrifices in the temple, we will not die. Such as have faith like me, we will not die. His vain and proud faith goes on. in that verse.

Thou, O Lord, hast established these Chaldeans, these Babylonians, who are going to overrun Judah, merely to discipline us. They can’t destroy us, they will not kill us. Their intent Your intent with regard to them is merely that they would discipline us. Thou, O Rock, hast established them merely to correct us, for thine eyes are too pure to look at evil, and thou canst not look on wickedness with favour.”

This is the ingeniousness of a proud and vain saint, for you see It will take even the misconstruence of God’s covenant and His law, and it will lock God up in His own covenant, and lock Him up in His own law, and declare to the Lord that He is absolutely powerless to touch those who have now assessed themselves to be righteous. You cannot touch me, God, and I call upon your law and your covenant as testimony to that fact. You cannot touch me. You must reward me. You must preserve me. And more particularly, you must reward and preserve me in the land and in this world. I am righteous. Therefore, God, you must, you have no choice, you can do no other, you must maintain me.

But for me to say this, I have nearly opened up. the fatal flaw of this flawed faith. For if what Habakkuk is saying is true, then the law itself rises above God, and God himself must submit to it. He has no choice. He has no option. from the integrity of God in keeping his promise, in being faithful to his covenant, and set this in the context of the misconstruence of that covenant and that law. But how much faith is flawed How much faith is misdirected? How much faith misses the mark along these precise lines?

No, not just in Jewish circles, but in Christian circles. This attitude of mine then looks at God and sees beyond God even principles, laws, and rules that are exalted above God. principles and laws being inviolable. Not even God can change them. They are true eternally for all people in all circumstances. And the invoking of these laws, these inviolable laws, even the faithful implementation of these laws and principles, guarantees prosperity. It has to come, and not even God can hold it back. You do this, you will prosper. Automatic. In the judgment of these who have a faulty faith, it is not otherwise. But the judgment comes on in full force, and prosperity in this world is removed. What then of your faith? Notice how frail and how faulty this faith is in Habakkuk’s case.

Verse 13 of that first chapter. The first part of it finds the prophet expressing his bold confidence. God cannot look on wickedness with favor, he asserts. Here is his compliments, but note how quickly the collapse comes in the prophet. The verse doesn’t even end before the prophet himself has collapsed, and his faith has collapsed with him.

The last part of that thirteenth verse finds the prophet using nearly the same words that he used at the opening of the thirteenth verse, but now he’s asking, why dost thou look with favor on the wicked? He is saying, thou canst not look on the wicked with favor. He ends up by saying, why dost thou look with favor on the wicked? Habakkuk’s collapse, and this is evidence of God’s grace in him, the mercy is beginning to work, he’s being drawn on. Habakkuk’s collapse is abrupt and sudden, and he collapses, he caves in before the terror of God’s onslaught and judgment. His faith to this point has proved itself not only vain, but weak, petulant, frantic, and even incensed.

For you see, he can’t even count on the law anymore. The law will not guarantee to him his rightful place within the land. It will not even guarantee his rights. I can’t even get a fair shake. The Babylonians are coming. They’re going to rob me of everything that is my right by law. Prosperity and security have been guaranteed to me under the covenant and by the law. And I am incensed at this injustice.

Habakkuk’s collapse, then, is tied to the land and the law. Because Habakkuk is outraged when it appears the land will be taken and the law will stand idly by and do nothing to prevent it. Habakkuk, in his faulty face, got it wrong, as Judaism tended to do under the law.

The land is gift, but it is provisional and temporary gift. You are meant to look beyond that temporary provision to that which is eternal and everlasting. And the law, although good and righteous, is set to convert the soul. Psalm 19. That is, to effect transformation, serviceable to the transition of the ages itself. The law was never intended to be an object of faith, or to provide that guaranteed shelter for all self-righteous protestations, much less be catapulted into the category of being eternal in the sense of being enthroned above God himself.

So Habakkuk, now at the beginning of chapter 2, climbs the steps, spiritually, metaphorically, of his watchtower. Can you see him? He’s dragging himself up those steps. He is a broken man, he has been utterly devastated, and he climbs those steps he knows, because in reaching the top of those stairs, he will receive, as he states, the rebuke and the reproof of the Lord.

I will stand on my guard post and station myself on the ramparts, and I will keep watch to see what he will speak to me, and consider how I might apply when I am reproved. His world, his Jewish world, has been shattered. It lies in ruins. And you may even hear the echo of Paul in the prophet.

O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Even the faith, such faith as I have had, does not justify me. But by the grace of God, he will be brought to that greater faith, beyond his vain faith, and even beyond the faith of shuddering demons. that that is another story to express.

Help us, O God, look upon us in your mercy for the sake of your lest there be discovered in us a vanity, and surely, Lord, we are without excuse. If we could generate an excuse for Habakkuk, standing short of the gospel as he does, what excuse is there for us? Lord, may our faith be sincere and genuine, free of self-righteousness and hypocrisy. Deliver us, Lord, from vanity and pride, from willful arrogance, and an attitude of mind, O Lord, whereby we would exalt even your law above you, and demand that you submit to it, you having no choice at all but to reward us. May we live by faith, and thus, Lord, hear your righteous and glorious commendations that we are just. 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.