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SERMON
Yet I Will Praise Thee
When we can't escape our circumstances we must trust God's ultimate plan
Jill Briscoe |  Printer view |
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That's what Habakkuk wisely does. "I will wait till I see it from your viewpoint. I'll wait till you get my perspective in order." "Be still and know that he is God" is what it's all about. We do this so badly. The longer we know Jesus, the worse we are at standing on our high tower. If we're in Christian work, we're the worst at having a quiet time, because there are so many holy substitutes.
I suppose sometimes it's a little bit like saying to God, "Well, here I am on the high tower. What have you got to say?" God leans out of heaven and says something we don't want to hear, and like Elijah we shut our ears and put our cloak over them to shut out the still, small voice. We cannot shut out God's voice, however, and Habakkuk didn't. God said to Habakkuk, "The answer to your questions is a who. It's me. I am the answer. I am working out my purposes."
In chapters 2 through 5, he explains that he is indeed working out his purposes. "Write down the revelation. The revelation waits an appointed time. It speaks of the end. It will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it. It will certainly come and will not delay." What is God saying? He's saying, "The wicked will be punished in the end, and the earth will be full of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."
The wicked will be punished in the end. God is just, and he lays out a whole lot of woes in this chapter. In 2:68 he says, "The enemy will come. Babylon will be here. He will amass your wealth. He'll rape you of all your money. But sin is like a boomerang. You throw sin, but be sure: your sins will find you out. It will come back to you, and though the Babylonians will rape you of all your wealth, they will lose it in the end." He explains that in verses 911. So God tells him, "Yes, this is going to happen, Habakkuk, in your day and in your time. There is no escape. The Chaldeans are coming. Be sure this is going to happen. You're going to be living by faith in the middle of it."
This wonderful verse, "The just shall live by faith," is right here. How do we cope with an answer we don't want to hear? How do we embrace a situation that's tough? "The just shall live by faith." Those who trust in him who is faithful will become like him. "Trust produces endurance, and that's what's going to happen to you, Habakkuk, and to the people you serve." The man who shows his trust in God by his faithfulness to God will find God faithful in keeping him.
Henrietta Mears, shortly before she died, said this: "I wish I had trusted him more." I don't want to die and on my deathbed say, "I wish I trusted him more." I'm sure I will, however, because I find trust very difficult. I find obedience very easy, but that's my temperament. As my husband says, I'm a sort of person. Those sort of people who are very organized and find obedience easy. The people like my husband find trust easy. So you have to work at what you're not good at temperamentally.
Getting a good look at the "Chaldeans" in my life and having faith that God will keep me when they've overrun me is very hard for me. I wrote a little book called Harrow Sparrow. I wanted to write for children and tell them that God does not promise a sparrow will not fall, but he does promise it will not fall without the Father. We cannot promise our children they will not get hurt. We cannot kiss every hurt better, nor can God in this life. But he promises to be there when the sparrow falls, and that's realism.
You add realism to revelation and you're in for a experience. What God does for Habakkuk at this point, in 3:311, is give him a vision of the holy one coming from Edom. His glory fills the world, and all nature is convulsed before him—and the prophet, too. "I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled" (3:16). What's he talking about? Has he seen the Chaldeans? Oh no, he's seen the Lord. That's what he's talking about, and that's what happens when you get a vision of God. That's what happened to Isaiah when he got into God's perspective and he saw the world in the rotten mess it was, and he said, "I'm undone. I'm unraveled." That's the word—like a ball of wool. I need God to put me back again, because I've seen the mess everything's in. But he was able to see it from God's perspective and say, "Here am I, send me. Let's go and do something about this mess." Habakkuk likewise, once he had seen God, instead of waiting in his ivory tower forever, was ready to do something about it. He was resolved to be faithful forever. "Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us." In other words, he knew he couldn't escape the invading army, but he also knew God would eventually judge the Chaldeans as well.
When we can't escape our circumstances we must trust God's ultimate plan
What are our prayers like when we see the Chaldeans on our horizon? Don't you pray to escape them? Don't you say, "God let them go on to that person next to me. Don't let them overrun me." Of course you do, if you're natural at all. That's my first prayer when I see the Chaldeans approaching. But what do we do when God says "You can't escape it"? What do we do when we return from the hospital and the doctor has said, "It's not going to get any better"? Well, we pray on for healing. But are we willing when the healing doesn't come to accept something we cannot change? He resolves to be faithful, joyful, and watchful—whatever. Encouraged by God, you can do anything. Habakkuk leaves the "Will he do it for me?" to him and gets on with business. It's God who is the answer to all this big stuff in the end.
I have a dear friend in heaven. Joanie was her name, a wonderful lady. She had a terrible battle with leukemia and other forms of cancer. But I think it was one of the most triumphant deaths I've ever experienced. Joanie was a very brave lady. The day she died, she called me. I could hardly hear the voice, because she was about to go to heaven and see Jesus. She said, "Jill, it's Joanie. I've just called to say ." It was as if she were going on a trip somewhere. I said, "Oh," rather taken aback, and I listened. This very faint voice said to one, "It's true, Jill. It's all true. Tell them it's all true. I'll see you in heaven."
I remember that, because Joanie was somebody who had gone through this whole thing that I've explained to you in principle, asking her questions. She realized the Chaldeans were trampling all over her life and that God had said, "This is how it's got to be." I had seen her embrace God's answer. God had given her a vision of himself.
We've got to get all that in place before the Chaldeans come knocking at the door. It's very hard to learn all that in a hurry or in crisis, so while we are celebrating, before they ever appear, how is our relationship with God doing? It'll tell once they're on the doorstep. So we need to be in the Bible. We need to be praying regularly. We need to be growing, learning all we can, learning how to minister before it happens.
As Ruth Graham's little poem so succinctly puts it,
I will lay my whys before your cross and worship, kneeling,
My mind too numb for thought, my heart beyond all feeling,
And worshiping realize that I,
In knowing you, don't need a why.
It's that mountaintop of faith we all need to know how to climb, where we lay our whys before his throne in worship. Habakkuk saw himself in perspective, and that's what you do on the mountaintop. It's part of the plan and purpose of God.
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