Habakkuk 3, What Are You Doing It For?

Habakkuk’s Prayer for Revival and Mercy

Habakkuk chapter three, hear the word of the Lord. A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth, I'm guessing.

How else you pronounce that.

Oh, Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work.

Oh, Lord, do I fear.

In the midst of the years, revive it. In the midst of the years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy. God came from Timon and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His splendor covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.

His brightness was like the light. Rays flashed from his hand, and there he veiled his power. Before him went pestilence, and plague followed at his heels. He stood and measured the earth. He looked and shook the nations.

When the eternal mountains were scattered, then the eternal mountains were scattered, the everlasting hills sank low. His were the everlasting ways. I saw the tents of cushion and affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

Was your wrath against the rivers, oh, Lord? Was your anger against the rivers? Or your indignation against the sea? When you rode on your horses on your chariot of salvation, you stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows.

You split the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you and writhed. The raging waters swept on. The deep gave forth its voice. It lifted its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped, at the flash of your glittering spear.

You marched through the earth in fury. You threshed the nations in anger. You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck.

You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret. You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters.

I hear, and my body trembles. My lips quiver at the sound. Rottenness enters my bones. My legs tremble beneath me. Yet, I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls.

Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the deer's. He makes me tread on my high places to the choir master with stringed instruments.

Why We Ask What We Are Doing This For

That would be you, Justin, I guess.

Well, what are you doing this for?

I mean, what are you here for? What is it? Funny, no one asks that about your job, do they? No one asks, well, what are you working?

Why do you work?

They might ask you why you chose this particular line of work, but everyone knows that you're at your job to make money. You've gotta make money to pay the bills, to put food on the table. You might love the slogan, love what you do, and you'll never work a day in your life, but you realize the reality is there are days in which you just wanna stay in bed, no matter how much you might like your job most of the time.

But you've gotta make yourself do it, and you do that because you know exactly why you must. In business, no one asks competitors, other businesses doing the same thing, why are you competing against me?

You hatin' me? You trying to drive me into bankruptcy? We have at least three Chinese restaurants competing against each other right here, and they don't accuse each other, do they? No, we just know. We're just trying to make a living, too.

You know, in the famous words of the Godfather, it's not personal, it's just business. And no one asks that about dating, or marriage, or family, do they? Why are you doing that? No one asks, why do you wanna get married?

All things bizarre. Or why do you wanna live with your family? We just all naturally understand that that meets certain needs. If you're playing a sport, like baseball or basketball, no one asks you, why are you doing that?

Why are you bouncing that ball and trying to get it through that middle rim? No, we just, no one asks a kid, why are you spending so much time playing video games? No, we just know he does it for the fun, because he likes to do it.

Now, if someone is doing something we don't see the enjoyment in, it looks kinda weird, why are they doing that? They like to work out hard, they like to run a lot. You know, people probably ask runners, why do you do that?

Well, it's not just to keep the pounds off.

It relieves stress.

It gives a sense of satisfaction when you're done. Okay, people might get it then, once you explain it. But then people understand you're doing everything you do for some motive, for the happiness, for some happiness you're trying to achieve out of it, some reward, some joy that it gives you.

They know that you're not doing whatever you do just to afflict yourself. We know exactly why we're doing it. So why are you here? Why do you do the church thing? This whole Christianity stuff. What's that about?

You're doing it for some reason. I think religion, church, is unique in that why people really do it is often different than why they say they do it. We know why we go to work. Do we know why we go to church?

Oh, we might know the right answer. Okay, well, to worship the Lord, to hear the Word, to be with the body. Nice pat answers. You learned them very well. But do an experiment, right? You have an experiment, you control things.

You take something out, see how things change. You know, we're still singing the praises, still preaching the Word. The body is still here, but take something out. Maybe the boyfriend or girlfriend is somewhere else.

Family member is somewhere else. Or maybe add something to it. You can make a lot more money by working on Sundays. I mean, what if everybody around here wants to eat Chinese food on Sunday morning? Does that change things?

The golf course is available. The game is on. The family is doing something else. And I'm not talking about exceptional, there are exceptions when you can be aware. I'm talking about just as a regular practice.

If it were really about God, the Word, the body of Christ, why would any of those things change whether you're here or not? If your life is, though, if your life is really about the relationship and, you know, with the sweetheart, and you just came to church because you didn't have anything better to do at the time, it wasn't getting in the way.

And then suddenly when he or she is elsewhere, maybe church then does get in the way. He or she is gone, so are you. If it was always about proving to mom or dad about how good a Christian you are, then suddenly maybe they don't care anymore, or maybe they're not around anymore.

Then neither are you. What's to say about you? You might love to sing, let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also. But if your one major kindred says, I'm out of here, and then you are too, you are just singing in empty words.

No matter how many times we repeat that covenant with almost every service of the Lord's Supper, it still doesn't change the fact that you're only here as long as the relationship lets you. If you're only here as long as you're not losing too much money, you're still serving money, not God.

People often say they love God, they wanna hear his word, but look at their actions. Take some incentive away or add a disincentive to come to see why they're really here. But why are you doing this? If it costs something, would you still be doing it?

If family disapproved, even pressured you to do something else, would you still be here? If the best time to have your shop open, by far, was Sunday morning, would you still be here? If the cool kids, including that special someone who would just rock your world, whether you get a relationship with him or her, if they were going to the movies every Sunday morning, would you?

If golf was free on Sunday mornings, would you be out there swinging at two below par? Oh, but someone will say, okay, okay. You're talking about church and serving God like they were the same thing. They're not, you dumb preacher.

You know, I'm worshiping God on those 18 greens out there in his creation, his wonderful creation, worshiping him by hitting a little white ball or by holding hands with a sweetheart or by being with family, by serving family, by making money for them.

That's serving God. True, those things can be serving God and true that serving God and going to church might not be the same thing. Usually, though, that's precisely because of the reasons why people go to church.

If they're just going through the motions, just looking respectable, doing it for the family, just about the image, the self, they wanna, maybe just for themselves, they wanna look like they're good Christian people and so they do it.

Maybe they do it for the family because mom and dad, whoever's pressuring them to. If they're really just doing it to, if they're doing it for that reason, if the whole church is full of people who are doing it for that reason, yeah, it's probably not much about God, is it?

But if they're really doing it to worship the Lord, the church is full of people who really want to sing his praises and who really want to hear his word and really want to walk together in Christian love.

That's what the church is about. People are, they're all like that, or most of them, like that. I think it is then at least part of what it means to serve God. I think it's a big part. Why am I doing this?

Well, that's what Habakkuk answers. And he began, you remember, by asking God, why are you taking so long? Implied to that is, why am I bothering to pray? I'm bothering to be a prophet and preach his word and pray.

I've prayed and prayed and prayed and nothing seems to happen.

What's the use?

The Lord speaks to him twice. And the Lord, and at the end, the Lord says, the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. So Habakkuk, now having encountered God in this prayer, God had spoken to him, corrected him.

Habakkuk then responds, who knows how much long after this conversation with the Lord, he wrote a psalm. It's a prayer set to stringed instruments in two parts, the prayer and the praise. Oh Lord, he begins in verse two, I've heard the report of you.

Sounds a little like Job, if you remember in Job 42, after the Lord appeared to him and humbled him with question after question, Job replied, I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.

Therefore, I despise myself and repent and dust and ashes. Habakkuk's kind of like that, a little different though. Habakkuk had heard of the Lord and now having heard from the Lord, he fears his works.

He puts together what he's heard of God's works. He didn't put that down. It's not as though that's bad to hear of it. You need to hear of it. But he puts together what he's heard of God's works in the past, what he's encountered with God here and he trembles.

If people come to church, a church, not really committed to one particular church, they just go in somewhere as maybe it's because it's a dating opportunity, that's what the sweetheart is or because that's what mom or dad expect or maybe because it'll bring good luck to the business, God will see it and send more business our way or maybe just because there's nothing better to do right now.

You know, the NBA games don't start till later this afternoon, so might as well. Then that shows they don't really know God very well. That's their attitude. Or they may have heard about him. Maybe they've read about him, maybe even very good solid theology books about him, but they've had no real encounter with him like Job and now Habakkuk have had.

Nothing that they've encountered that makes them now tremble at his word. Their words are empty words because deep down they think God's word as well as they might know it are just more words. They've heard a bunch of words, they've gone to church, Sunday school lessons and sermons,.

Words, words, words, who needs anymore?

Habakkuk has heard God's word and what God has done in the past and now he's encountered him and so he knows to fear. Look at the kind of God he now knows to fear. Here, the Lord is a worker and the Lord is a warrior.

What has God worked in the past? Well, whatever that is, Habakkuk prays, starting in verse two, work that again, Lord. In the midst of the years, he says, an odd phrase, but in this age on earth now, while I'm still alive, while I have my years on earth, revive it.

Redo what you've done in the past, Lord, do it again. Rework it. Then he says, reveal it. Again, in the midst of the years, in this present evil age, not in some eternal heaven after we're all dead in there, but like what Jesus taught us to pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth in this time, in the midst of the years.

Make it known, Habakkuk prays. Reveal your work, oh Lord, that people may see it, that they'll stop believing in a small pet God who exists for their convenience, to bless their work, make them prosperous, give them secrets to good relationships, and help keep the kids in line.

No, rework and reveal. And while you're doing this, Lord, bringing in the Babylonians, remember, to discipline and correct us, afflicting injustice, destroying empty hypocritical religion, all about how we can use God for our convenience.

While you were doing this, and here's his major prayer. In wrath, remember mercy. Habakkuk, the prophet, knows God. He's heard about what God's done in the past. Now he's encountered him in his present.

He knows the Lord is not the pet God many believe him to be, a God today, a God without wrath. A God without wrath is easy to reduce to a pet. You know, you got a pet in your life to give you a little bit of sweetness, greet you when you come home with a happy, exuberant wag, and you think God's the same way.

However he wags at you, whatever he does for you. You certainly aren't gonna sacrifice anything big for your pet, even your pet God, are you? Oh, sure you might. You know you need to feed him with your offerings, your little bit of religion, maybe your church attendance.

You gotta give him a bone, right? But you aren't gonna seriously serve him, are you? If he gets to be too much of a burden, if he actually has wrath at you, if he starts to try to run your life, you might have to put him down because he exists.

I mean, don't we assume it, don't we? He exists for your pleasure. Now a God like that is easy to put after the family, the relationship, the money, the good times, but he's not the God that Habakkuk had heard about and now encountered.

That God, the true God, had wrath, and so Habakkuk prays, in your wrath, now that I know it's for real, remember mercy. You need to know the true God, and you need to know about him, and you do know about him through what he has done.

That's why much of the Bible is history. It's his story, and it shows us who God is. So we don't have this kind of domesticated picture of God as someone we can use for our blessings that we want to squeeze out of him, and if we can't use him for the cash and the middle-class American lifestyle, get what we want, then what good is he?

So in his prayer, Habakkuk recounts some of the history that shows who God is, that is his story. He begins, God came from Teman, which means it's in the south. So God came up from the south. That's when he brought them out of Egypt in the Exodus.

In verse three, he's the Holy One. He's high above our world. He's high above our agendas. He's high above all the little things we try to use him for. He's not our pet. He came from Mount Paran, also known as Mount Sinai, where the Ten Commandments were given, where they made the covenant with God there.

So far from being a cute, adorable little God, his splendor covered the heavens. The universe declares the glory of God, the infinite greatness and the power of who he really is. The earth was full of his praise, Habakkuk says, as the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, hardening Pharaoh's heart, that he might show his power in him, crushing the Egyptian army in the sea.

Miriam got her tambourine out and danced, and Moses sang, I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and the rider are thrown into the sea. News of that got all out around the nations there.

So even a generation later, Rahab would have faith in the Lord because of what she heard of what the Lord had done. The Lord's brightness was like the light of the sun.

In verse four.

His rays, literally his horns, like Moses, it glowed with the radiance of the glory of the Lord when he spoke with the Lord. His rays, the Lord's rays flashed out. Moses had to wear a veil just so people could talk to him.

The Lord has to veil his majesty, or otherwise people will be overwhelmed by his power. When the word was made flesh, he was veiled in human flesh. This is Habakkuk's prayer. What he's heard about the Lord, what he knows this true God is really like.

He's not the God of what people call today therapeutic, moralistic deism, all about teaching us how to be good little boys and girls, and making us feel better about ourselves, helping us overcome our little psychological problems out of his sheer abundant sweetness, and leaving us to do our own thing most of the time.

Unless we get in a jam, we need some help. You know, we have a final exam or surgery and need to call on him. No, he's not that kind of genie in a bottle God. He's the God in verse five who brings pestilence before him like the blows he struck Egypt with.

They follow him. He's the great God who measures the whole earth in the palm of his hand, who with a look shakes the nations and they crumble, who scatters the mountain ranges that you thought would last forever, who flattens hills.

His were the everlasting ways, more lasting than the tectonic plates that built up those mountains. He lifted up judges like Aphneel and Gideon to take down Cushon and Midian. That's the work God has done.

If you want to know what God is like, look at what he's done. He's not the tame pet God people often make him out to be these days. God is kind of sitting back, you know, wringing his hands. He's really sorry when bad things happen to us, but there's really not much he can do about it.

So give us a hug or a footprints poem to make us feel better. If that were the true God, it would make sense that we put family or money or relationships or good times ahead of him, but it's not. Look at his work and pray that he rework and reveal it.

Then starting in verse eight, we see that the Lord is a warrior. Hardly ever hear God call to that today. Puritans would call God that all the time, but here, notice how Habakkuk describes God. First though, realize that our picture of God determines what we think the church should be, what kind of people should lead it, what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be what we call spiritual.

If your picture of God is of a teddy bear, cuddly and cute, soothing, comforting, as long as you don't grow up and realize it's just inanimate fluff, can't do anything for you. If that's your picture of God, then you'll probably think of church as a therapy session, a sentimental place to massage you into relaxation with positive and encouraging thoughts that relieve your moral stress, relieve your feelings of guilt or inadequacy.

So you leave feeling light and inspired and nice and happy after this all over. The leaders in it should always, of course, be sweet and smiling, warmly accepting of you in all your choices, inclusive is a new buzzword, kind of a cross between politicians and counselors.

To be spiritual then is to be, it's gonna be soft and mild, affirming. Sin, if it is recognized at all, it's kind of like, man, you're hurting yourself, you should do better, you can do better, is dealt with by gently encouraging, maybe coaxing, keep coming, especially keep coming to church, please, please, please, which will, of course, the church will never directly address your sin, but we hope enough good vibes will wear off on you, on the person, and eventually the person will decide to stop the sex outside of marriage or the serving money or the lies or the rebellion or the hypocrisy or whatever it is they've fallen into.

The idea of directly rebuking sin is out of bounds, can't do that. The idea of church discipline is just bizarre, what a crazy thing. After all, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, they say, and God, of course, is just one big, huge blob of honey, sweet and nice to us all the time.

We wonder then, no wonder, I should say, no wonder that many men are disinterested with the church or absent, but that's not the God of the Bible, well, certainly not the God of Habakkuk. He is here a warrior, look how he's described.

That's why Habakkuk's prayer to that warrior is, in wrath, which he now knows God has, remember mercy. As a warrior, he has, notice in verse eight, wrath, anger, indignation, he shoots arrows in verse nine, the mountains writhe in reaction to him, seas and rivers moan and lift up their hands and surrender because he's conquered them.

He makes the sun and the moon stand still. He has spears and he marches through the earth in fury in verse 12. He threshes the nations in rage, it says. Look at that, I'm not making this up. It's not against nature itself, of course, that he's angry.

Habakkuk asks kind of rhetorically in verse eight, is it against the rivers that you're angry? No, of course it's not, it's not against the rivers or the sea or the mountains that he has indignation. It's against the people, the nations, in verse 12, the sinners who are afflicting his people.

He goes out into the earth in the midst of the years, in this age, and he judges and destroys nations for their sins against his people. If they enslave his people and deny them justice, he brings them to Gettysburg and slaughters them in the fields there.

If they force the church to serve the Nazi state, he bombs their whole cities to ashes and crushes them on all sides with Russian and American and British armies covering their whole country. If they crucify Christians and annually require everyone to trample images of Christ to prove they aren't Christians, as happened in Nagasaki, he obliterates the city with an atomic bomb.

If they brag to the world that their atheistic materialistic state will bury the rest of the world, they close the churches in their country thinking no one needs to hear that anymore. He humiliates them by crumbling their nation into pieces.

So now fewer and fewer people even remember what the Soviet Union was. So don't feel comfortable, Americans. Think what he will do to a nation that perverts marriage and celebrates immorality and is now beginning to try to force Christians, his people, to support that or suffer.

He is not a helpless spectator watching us and kind of wishing for the best, psychologically comforting us, helping us to get through, but there's really not much he can do. That's why there's only one set of footprints in the sand, you know, during the hard times.

No, that's not him. He's a warrior marching in a fury, tearing through his enemies, but for the salvation of his people. In verse 13, there's the purpose. In wrath, remember mercy, Habakkuk prays. And the purpose of God's wrath is first his own glory, sure, and then also mercy for his people.

He went out, God went out, Habakkuk prays, into this world. We know now he went out from heaven, not to judge the world, but so that people from every nation of the world might be saved for the salvation of your anointed, literally your Messiah, your Christ.

He saved the anointed one from his enemies. Through the cross, through death, so that he could save his people. Through that, he crushed the head of the serpent, the devil, the ruler of this present evil age.

He has conquered him and laid him bare so that now we can tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing can hurt us. The Lord is a warrior who has pierced the heads, the principalities and powers, the gates of hell that oppose him.

The gates of hell tried to scatter the church, had to quench it when it started by persecution in the Roman empire, sending Christians to be killed by the lions in the arena. The gates of hell tried to destroy the church by burning at the stake during and after the reformation, when the gates of hell tried to stamp out the idea of a biblical church, rejoicing at the opportunity to do away with Puritan preachers who troubled them with the truth.

The gates of hell use hypocrisy today, telling us we can be big and successful. Only we compromise a little with sin. Only we don't try to take captive every thought to the obedience of Christ and punish every disobedience.

But the Lord is a warrior, trampling the strongholds of the world, even to the furthest islands of the sea. He goes all over the sea, it says, surging over all opposition until their obedience is complete, until every enemy is under Christ's feet so that even death itself is conquered, and then we can taunt it.

Where's your sting now, death? But for now, the battle rages on. The enemies, the world, the flesh, the devil, the gates of hell, principalities and powers, death, our enemies in this age, they still rage against the Lord and against his anointed, and we still tremble.

We quiver at their rage.

We're afraid.

Still, in the midst of the years, in this present evil age, we fear what the world can do to us. We do, let's be honest. We fear they can seduce our children. We tremble at the diagnosis, at the coming funerals.

We do.

Yet, in verse 16, that we may have prayed before,.

You know, how long, Lord?

Will you wait to act?

Yet, now we know the Lord has acted. He's gone out into the midst of the years, into this age.

He's a warrior.

He's already gone out for the salvation of his people and his Christ. The kingdoms of this world are now becoming the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Indeed, he must reign now until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

And while this is going on, while he is reigning at the end of verse 16, oh, we were complaining before. Why are you taking so long, Lord? Though now we know. Yet, I will quietly wait. Who are willing to wait now?

For the day of trouble. That's the day of judgment. The day when they are finally completely put under his feet. When these forces of injustice, of death, are all our enemies that we've been complaining about.

When they are finally conquered. Yet, for now, I will quietly patiently wait. For their total defeat to come.

Living by Faith Through Loss and Suffering

How can you do that?

How can you patiently wait for God to finally defeat sin and the death and the enemies, all the things that take away your life? How can you serve him and go to church and read your Bible and pray, and yet still, I mean, face it.

Well, maybe it depends. But you're not getting what you serve him for, are you? I mean, you aren't living forever in your body now. Not this body, at least. Your relationships aren't always perfect. And even if they are good, death eventually takes one of you away first.

You're not always prosperous and healthy and living the high life. And is that what this is all about? Is that what this is about?

To get that?

But you're not getting it yet, are you? So what are you doing this for? First, there was the prayer. In wrath, remember mercy. And next, there's the praise, starting in verse 17. We praise him, though, though the fig tree should not blossom.

Business is down. You're making a loss. Nor fruit be on the vines.

You're unemployed.

The produce of the olive fail. You worked hard to have a career, but there's no openings now. And the fields produce no food. You're desperate. The flock be cut off from the fold. You have nothing in savings.

And there be no herd in the stalls. Family, government can't help. Though all that.

What are you doing this for?

This Christianity for? Because it's good for the family? What if it requires the opposite of you to hate your mother and father and children and spouse for the sake of Christ? What if the mom decides to break the covenant?

Do you just then follow?

What are you doing this for?

Though it cost you your job? Because to be a Christian is to be a, you know, you're gonna say it. Be a Christian is to be a bigot and a hater, and we can't have those kind of people working for us. What do you think your boss might say?

Though customers boycott my business. Though my family scolds me constantly. Though my husband or wife opposes me because of it. Though I'm still single. Though the doctor says it's cancer. Though I'm the one left alone after a funeral.

What are you doing this for?

Can you then?

Rejected, poor, and scolded, and lonely, and sick.

Can you then?

Praise? Though, whatever the though. If you don't have a though yet, you will have a though one day. Some awful thing, some dreadful loss. And then we'll see why you're doing this.

Though.

Whatever awful, dreadful thing comes to you. Yet, can you say yet? Yet, despite the though, undeterred by the those. Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will praise. Now, not a mindless escape from the reality of the those.

You know, Habakkuk doesn't deny the reality of the those. The fig tree not blossoming, the vines not producing, the fields not growing, that's real. The rejection, the bankruptcy, the unemployment, the cancer, the grief, the silence of an empty house, whatever it is, that's real.

But despite it all, yet, I will take joy in the God of my salvation. You know he's the warrior who went out for your salvation, who raised Christ from the dead, who is bringing all your enemies under his feet.

You know that so deeply that even when those enemies sweep over you, leaving you trembling, you say, yet, I will rejoice in the Lord. That's the kind of faith that the righteous live by. So living by that faith, God, the Lord, gives you strength, strength to rejoice through all the those.

He gives you a sure-footedness, like a deiters, so that you don't collapse when you suffer. If the wife or husband you thought was strong surrenders to sin, you don't stumble. If it starts to cost you business to be a Christian, you don't wobble.

If the government starts to punish you for what you believe, you don't cave in, you're steady, because you know that the Lord is a warrior who has gone out for you. He will make you tread in victory over all your enemies.

So, go back again, get out the guitar, get out the instruments, sing it now, praise. Even if you're in the crosshairs of temptation and the clamps are being put on you, sing it and praise, yet, no matter what happens, yet, you will rejoice in the Lord.

Joy in the God of My Salvation

Well, that sounds nice, doesn't it? But let's be honest, that's unreal, come on. It's all unreal. I'm suffering, I have to solve this suffering now. I have to solve it first. I need God to do this for me now.

That's the only thing I can think about. Is that what you're doing this for? No, it's not unreal. The suffering is real, sure. It would be unreal to say the fig tree not blossoming is an illusion, the fruitless vines are deceptive, the barren fields, the rejection, the loneliness, the disease, the bankruptcy, all that is nothing.