Good morning, everyone. If you would turn with me in your Bibles all the way to the back of the Old Testament, once again to an obscure book, probably not one that you've spent a whole lot of time in the last year, the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk, and we will be looking at verses five through 11 today, so Habakkuk chapter one, verses five through 11. Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. So right in the middle of some Old Testament minor prophets, just a couple pages each, so easy to miss them. So if you would look with me as we get there, we'll give it just a second. And if you would follow with me as I read from the New King James Translation of the Holy Scriptures, verses five through 11. Look among the nations and watch. Be utterly astounded. For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you. For indeed, I am raising up the Chaldeans A bitter and hasty nation, which marches through the breadth of the earth to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and more fierce than evening wolves. Their chargers charge ahead. Their cavalry comes from afar. They fly as the eagle that hastens to eat. They all come for violence. Their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand. They scoff at kings, and princes are scorned by them. They deride every stronghold, for they heap up earthen mounds and seize it. then his mind changes and he transgresses. He commits offense, ascribing this power to his God. May the Lord add his blessing to his word. Let us pray together. Father, as we open up this passage, we pray, Lord, that we would clearly see your great control, your great providence, in spite of the uncertainty and evil that we see in the world, help us to wrap our minds around it and come away today with a greater worship and awe of you. Thank you, Lord, for your holy word. Thank you for these small books tucked away in our Bibles that we don't often see. May you impress upon our hearts and minds this little book of Habakkuk, Lord. May you use it for your glory, in Jesus' name, amen. As you recall, last week we talked about the first five verses, first four verses of Habakkuk, and it included what we surmised to be the burden that Habakkuk was bearing, because he spoke of it. And as he described this burden to us, we found that the burden happened to be that his people, who were the people of Judah. Now Judah was the southern tribe after the split that occurred post-King Solomon. You remember Solomon, because of his sin, lost the kingdom. Ten tribes went to the north, two to the south. The south was called Judah. The north was called Israel. Judah had a king in the line of David that sat on the throne for years and years. The northern tribes, they had a series of different lines and kings. The first one was a man named Jeroboam, but all of them were imposters. The northern tribe was much more prone to idolatry, and at a certain point in time, it was carried away into captivity, and now all that was left was the southern tribe of Judah. Habakkuk was a prophet to Judah. And what he was seeing, he was looking around him and saying, these are supposed to be God's people. We're the ones who are supposed to be doing what's right and just and good. We claim God is on our side. We claim to be followers of Him. And what did we see? What did Habakkuk see? He looks around and the word that kept coming up was violence, violence, contention, lawlessness. He looked around and he saw his people and they were not living for the Lord. They were not living righteously and godly. And so last week, we noticed how Habakkuk brings this burden to God and he says, oh Lord, how long shall I cry? And we worked into that, kind of what that burden entailed. We realized the burden that Judah was bearing was a fact that they were walking in unbelief. They were spiritual, right? They were like the church attender who checked the box off with the things of God, but really their heart was far from Him. The burden was unbelief. It was really idolatry. And we went through the history of the kings that were right around the time of this prophet Habakkuk. We talked about a very wicked king by the name of Manasseh. who caused his own children to walk through the fires of Molech. In other words, he took his baby child and sacrificed it to a false god, and he's a king of Judah. Manasseh, by the way, we didn't bring this up, it's theorized that Manasseh was the one who martyred Isaiah, the prophet. We read a little bit about it in Hebrews 11, where it talks about a person who was sawn in two, It's said that when Manasseh was pursuing Isaiah, they cornered him, and so he was inside of a tree, like a log, and they proceeded to cut that log in two with Isaiah the prophet. That's in history. It's a few sources that do back it up. I can't say that's biblical, but that was the tradition that we gained from it. There were wicked kings in Judah. It seems like when one would do some good, It didn't take but a second, and there was a wicked king that came up and undid it all. It's a terrible thought, but it seems to be true, not only in this time long ago, but in churches. How quickly, how quickly we flit in our direction. One moment, we're lit upon the things of God, we're delighting in his truth, and a change occurs, and where are we? We're in that cycle, just like Judah, just like Israel was. The burden was a burden of unbelief. Habakkuk cried out to God, how long? And we went through last week various actions of different kings. Manasseh, we talked about, Josiah, who was actually a good king, and then Josiah's son, Jehoiakim. We did apply some of it to the new covenant believer. We realized maybe we're not steeped in idolatry proper, right? We're not bowing to idols, but we do often bow the knee to things. Remember Paul the apostle linked covetousness and idolatry. And if you and I are worshiping things, if we're living for things, We're idolaters, and we're not truly worshiping the living God, right? Unbelief is the problem. It's the hub of this whole book, by the way. Habakkuk's main theme will come up in a chapter or two. It is the just shall live by faith. If you are a person who is a Christian, you live because of your belief In Christ, in God, you trust in him. You believe, you're not an idolater if you're living by faith, why? Because you're worshiping the true and living God. When you worship him, we don't worship the things of our hands. But notice today as we come to the next step, now Isaiah, or not in Isaiah, Habakkuk was crying out to God last week about Judah, and now God answers him. And this is the first answer. And I don't think Habakkuk is as pleased, even though we won't see how pleased or unpleased he was until next week, if the Lord wills. But look at the Lord's response. He says to Habakkuk, look among the nations and watch. Be utterly astounded. Literally it says, be amazed, amazed. He repeats himself there. That's what it literally says, be amazed, amazed. Be amazed, for I will work a work in your days which you would not believe though it were told you. Today, we're gonna be amazed at the work of God, amazed at God's handiwork. We need to be amazed, first of all, that God is not bound to act according to our human plans. Did you know that years ago when we first got into, when I first got into studying apologetics and that sort of thing, there was a, kind of the main guy was Josh McDowell, probably remember him. He wrote a little book and one of the things he said is, don't look at God as if he's a vending machine, right? We don't make God into our image and expect God to work exactly how we want him to, when we want him to. God is not impressed into our image. We need to be amazed that God is not bound to act according to our plans. The prophet says, look among the nations and watch, be utterly astounded, be amazed, be utterly astounded because of what he's going to do. He's going to raise the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, and that army is going to come, and they are gonna be the hand of justice, God's hand of justice, in dealing with a rebellious Judah. The people who have God's name, are gonna be judged by a people who don't. The Babylonians, if you will, the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans are portrayed as ruthless conquerors, as we'll see. The people of Judah are being told that their complacency and unfaithfulness has led to this drastic judgment. The amazement arises because God will use an evil nation to execute his judgment. This shocks the people. They wouldn't expect the covenant God to employ such an instrument. It reveals the depth of Judah's sin, God's control over all nations, even those who do not worship him. There are a lot of profound questions that come to life in this passage. God emphasizes his direct involvement in this event. His hands are not off. God isn't tied. He's not helpless. When the Chaldeans come up and the Babylonians come and they, as we'll see today, they converge on Judah and Jerusalem. God is not helpless in this situation. He is not weak. He's still on the throne. He's still sovereign. He's still in control. He's still loving and righteous and true. God's direct involvement in this event will show his power and his justice. And the people are called to pay attention. In verse one, look among yourselves, be astonished, be amazed. There's a warning in this verse. that one would not believe even if they were told. If someone tells you you're not gonna believe, the words of this prophecy would not be believed, by the way, until they happened. Spiritual blindness had taken over Judah, right? Though hearing, they do not hear. You know, spiritual blindness. They were blind. The word of the Lord had come to them over and over, not just with Habakkuk. The entire book of Jeremiah is about this. Over and over again, Jeremiah says, you know what, Judah, you need to surrender right now to the Babylonians. It's your only way out. Oh, Jehoiakim hated Jeremiah. Jeremiah is the one who Jehoiakim ripped up his book when Baruch the scribe brought it. He couldn't stand him, this pest. Put him in fetters and bonds and put him in a cistern. I don't wanna hear this guy. Over and over Judah heard the word of God. They wouldn't listen, even though they heard. They wouldn't listen. Be amazed that God doesn't fit into our man-made boxes, no matter how seemingly well they are constructed. Man constructs a religion and puts God into a box and expects God to do what he wants him to do. God does not fit into a box. You know, Job had some friends. Remember, the oldest book in the Bible is the book of Job. Job is the guy who goes through tremendous sorrow, suffering, And he has three friends who, to be honest, they're quite amazingly dedicated to him. If you read through it, they're like, wow, they're hanging out. I doubt our friends nowadays would hang out so long. I don't even think they spoke for like three days. They just sat there. And just, who does that, right, in our day and age? Well, it was a different time back then, right? Once they did start talking, Job probably thought, I wish they'd stop, please. But his friends believed that God worked a certain way, and they put him in a box. They believed that suffering was a direct result of divine punishment for sin, always. So they maintained that God's justice and wisdom were unassailable, and Job's refusal to confess meant he was pride and stubborn. They argued that Job needed to repent, and accept God's discipline and regain favor and prosperity, right? Remember how they just kept going at him. It's just, you know, probably not a good idea to preach through the book of Job if you're like a young preacher and go verse by verse through it. Probably get a little bogged down. People might say, I heard of a guy losing his church because he did that once. He decided, I'm going through the book of Job, verse by verse. After about a year, they're like, okay, let's move on. Anyway, they tried to put God in a box, and we know from the book of Job that there was a lot more going on than what we understood, a lot more in God's sovereign plan, in Job's trial and his persecution, his struggles, but it didn't fit into their box. The Lord rebuked them. Remember at the end he says, were you there? Remember how he goes through all those statements? Were you there when I did this? You weren't there. You think you know. We don't. Be amazed at God's incomprehensibility. That's a big word. I'm borrowing this, by the way. I borrow a little bit today from one of my favorite authors. I like Grudem. I like some of his work, and so I'm kind of synthesizing some things. God is incomprehensible. We can understand a lot about God. We know what God has revealed about himself, but we don't know everything. By incomprehensible, that means that God is, we're unable to fully understand everything about him. And the Psalms back this up. We read those sorts of things, by the way, when we have our call to worship. We do things for a purpose here on a Sunday morning, right? We have a bit of a liturgy. You know, when Tom or Tony or Corey reads that call to worship, that's usually kind of setting the tone about the greatness of the Lord. And we go from there. We work with the Apostles' Creed. We reestablish core beliefs that are very simple core beliefs of the Christian faith. Here's one psalm that says, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. There's a call to worship, right? But the fullness of God is not something we can fully know. And if somebody says that they do, especially when it comes to people's struggles and trials, someone says, I think I know what's happening, why this is happening to you. Oh, really? How do you have that perspective? You don't. They don't know. Some of the ways of the Lord are unsearchable. Some of the things that happen to humans, we don't understand everything. There's things that we don't know and we won't know. And we probably will know more when we see Him face to face. There are things that we'll never fully understand. We need to be amazed at God's incomprehensibility We need to be amazed at God's providence. And I wanna move into this second point here as we start into the main body of this text. And let me just kind of look here. If we look at verse four or verse five, I'm sorry, let me get my glasses. Verse six. Verse six, not verse four or five, but actually verse six, we read this. The Lord says, for I indeed, or indeed, I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation, which marches through the breadth of the earth, okay? I want you to just for a moment, as we follow the thought of Habakkuk's prayer, he says, be amazed. I want you to be amazed at God's meticulous providence. As he raised up this nation that didn't know him, and used them as a judge of a people who had his name fixed to them, who claimed to know him. God's providence is not a doctrine that says God will provide. That's part of it, sort of, right? God's involved in everything. When we pray and we pray for the food at the dinner table, we say grace, right? We acknowledge that God is the source of all good things, right? He's the giver of that. That does come into some aspect of providence. But meticulous providence or providence really is a doctrine of God's exhaustive governance concerning everything and covering even cosmic movements to the personal lives of individuals. That is the doctrine of God's providence. There are many scriptures which support this. It's a doctrine that is woven through the scripture that The details that are minor are not just left to chance, all right? Have you ever thought about that? Well, God must only be in control of certain things, and then there are just random events that happen, okay? Is God in control of the random things? If not, who is? What is, right? You're brought to this question. Prayer, by the way, when we pray, We are understanding and acknowledging that God is providential, that he's in control of the big things all the way down to the little things. We know this. If we pray to some God who can't control things, then what use is that, really? That's not God. God is able, he's in control. Let me read through these scriptures that speak of his control one more time. Because he's raising up the Chaldeans, and I'll read this passage, even though I'm not gonna go verse by verse through it. I'm gonna take a little detour. But it says, verse six, for indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation, which marches through the breadth of the earth. This is verse six, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves, verse eight. Their horses also are swifter than leopards and more fierce than even wolves. Their chargers charge ahead. Their calvary comes from afar. They fly as the eagle that hastens to eat. They all come for violence. Their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand. They scoff at kings and princes and are scorned by them. they derive every stronghold, they heap up earthen mounds and seize it. So this is the aspect where we're gonna talk about God's providence because God is raising up this evil army to punish his people. He says so in verse five, he says, I am raising them up. God is continually involved in all created things in such a way that he keeps them existing. He maintains them with the properties which he created them with. He works with them in every action, directs those properties to cause them to act as they do, and directs them to fulfill his purposes. In the book of Acts, Paul, when he was arguing this, he says, speaking of the Lord, he says, in him, we live, we move, and we have our being. The idea is that God actually holds all things together by his power. If you're a scientist and you're saying, you're doing a study and you're saying, well, what is it that keeps everything together? What is it? And scientists keep going deeper and deeper into the atom, right? Subatomic particle after subatomic particle. And there's unknown, what keeps it together? At the end of the day, it is God, He's holding everything together by the will of His might. He upholds His creation. He meticulously keeps it. He's involved in every action and He directs them to fulfill His purpose. God uses all things to fulfill His purpose. Are you ready for this? Including evil. Now let's take a minute. That doesn't say God is a producer of evil, but he uses all things for his purposes. God is sovereign even in dealing with evil. This was seen with Joseph. You remember the story, right? Joseph, his dad, buys him a coat of many colors. Parents with lots of children don't buy one kid a coat of many colors, right? Not a good idea. He's gonna end up in a cistern somewhere, being judged. Get everybody a black coat. No. At the end of the day, Joseph, after years, he was sold into slavery, remember? Goes off to Egypt as a young man, rises through hard work into the house of Pharaoh, becomes the visceroy, the second in command of Egypt. And years later, his brothers come back in famine. and he sees them, they don't recognize him, right? It just breaks his heart. He loves his brothers, right? And at the end, it was Joseph who said to them, when they were fearing for their lives, he says, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. God is even able to work through evil and bad things to bring about good and his glory. This is hard for us to understand. We know that verse in Romans 8, 28, we like to quote that one, all things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are the called according to his purpose. That is a powerful verse. It's a true verse. God is able to work all things for good, for those who are called. Even in the midst of evil, brother, sister, you only have to live a little bit in life to understand evil. That's why I like working with a diverse group in a church where you've got older men and women, spiritual leaders, and younger men and women who are kind of, they're spiritual leaders in development. The older we are, the more we see, That's right, we see God and we see him working in the midst of unideal situations, right? Difficult situations. And God, in his mercy, he's in a work, taking what's evil, making it good. I don't know he's able to do that. God is never the author of evil. He doesn't author it. The scripture says this in James, it says, let no one say when he's tempted, I'm tempted of God. God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. We know he's not the author. Each man is tempted when he's drawn away of his own desires and enticed. Even in all the yuck that led up to the crucifixion, Okay, do you know that wasn't a mistake, right? Do you think that the crucifixion just kind of happened because, oh, it was just a random chance? In Luke's gospel, the Lord says this, and truly the Son of Man goes as it has been determined. He's going forward, God's determined this, he's got a plan. But woe to the man by whom he is betrayed. So in spite of God sovereignly in control of the work of redemption and Calvary and all the circumstances, the horrible things that happened, right? Terrible things. God is still not charged with evil. It says, woe to the one who, the son of perdition. Evil is always attributed to coming from a person Human beings are fully accountable for evil actions. We're fully accountable. The scriptures teach that humans bear responsibility for their sinful choices. We can't blame God and say, he made me do it. Now in Romans 9, the Apostle Paul deals with that argument where somebody was wanting to blame God and say, well, if he's really that in control, then why does he blame us? And Paul says, you will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who resists his will? But indeed, oh man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, why have you made me like this? The creature cannot confront the Creator in areas that we think we understand because we put God into a box. God is beyond that in His greatness. We don't fully understand, but at the end of the day, we are accountable for our evil actions. Evil is real. We have to oppose it. Evil is a real thing. Evil's not an illusion. We're not permitted to do evil for any purpose. Saying, well, God uses evil for good, so I'm gonna use it for good. Can you see the rationale? It's the creature taking the place of the creator. A human cannot say, I'm gonna use evil for good. It sounds like those Marvel comic movies that are out there. I don't like to use popular references, but there was one movie where this, I don't even know what it was, decided he wanted to destroy half of the creatures in the universe to do good. You remember this storyline? One of those Marvel movies. I grew up reading Marvel comics, so blame it on my upbringing. They've really botched it up, by the way. But you can see that thought process evolving in our society, right? Well, maybe euthanasia's a good idea. Maybe we can do some good by doing something bad. I've heard that line in dance. Or the abortion issue. You know what? Let's just do some good by doing one bad. Stop! Stop! I should be yelling at myself. Stop! Don't talk that way. We are not able to manipulate evil for good. We can't do that. We can't take evil things, do something evil and say, hey, I'm gonna do good with it. That's not how it works. Somehow God is able in his sovereignty to make it come out for his good and for his glory and for good. There's a mystery in this whole thing. God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, there is a mystery that we will not fully understand. The scripture affirms that God ordains evil for his purposes, but it teaches he's holy and not capable of sin. Theologians like Birkhoff acknowledge that this tension is accepted as a mystery. It brings us back to the text here, doesn't it? Here, God is raising up the Chaldeans. He's raising them up for his purpose. Jeremiah says, you are my battle axe. God is gonna use the Chaldeans as his battle axe. They are bitter, they're hasty, they march through the breadth of the earth, they're terrible and dreadful, they judge. Have no outside law. Their horses are faster than leopards. They fight like evening wolves. They come for violence. They're determined. Their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand. They build siege mounts. They scoff at kings and princes. Wow. What are we doing on time? Hmm. I chuckle. You're not chuckling. I know. You're thinking, OK. OK. I wanted to look at a few scriptures so you can see just how God used the kingdom of Babylon, and he drew them out. He drew them out from their location, and they came all the way to Judah. And I think I will, I'll do this section, and I'm gonna cut out another section, because, what do they say about, how long you can sit, something about, you know, there's only so long we can sit and listen, and I'm aware of that. But I'd like you to actively engage with me just for a minute and turn with me to 2 Kings. This is good because you can follow along as I read. And this is the story of the Chaldeans coming out and attacking Judah. And I love stories. And you hear me say that a lot, right? Remember when I was, a few weeks back, I said, aren't you glad the Lord used stories in the scripture? Because stories are things we can all latch onto and understand. Not only did he use stories and narratives, but he used parables. So, the Lord himself described so many things in parables. So, 2 Kings, and again, we're doing some flipping through the scriptures, right? These are the books of history. Remember the books of history. Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, right? Those are your books of history in the Old Testament. So, 2nd Kings, chapter 23, verses 36 here. I think I'm on the right. 36 and 37. Here we see the son of Josiah, Jehoiakim. I'm just gonna read through. It says, so Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh, this is in verse 35, but he taxed the land and gave money according to the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh, Necho. So Judah, at this point in time, was trying to get Egypt to align themselves against Babylon, who they knew were coming. God had told Jehoiakim not to do that. He did it anyway. Jehoiakim, verse 36, was 25 years old when he became king, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zaduba, or Zabuda, the daughter of Padua of Ruma, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that his fathers had done. And in his days, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up and Jehoiakim, came up and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years. So a minute ago, Jehoiakim was giving money to Pharaoh to kind of fight a proxy war for him, and Babylon's coming up, takes Assyria, and now is coming south. And they're coming like the scripture said in Habakkuk. Their faces are set for the east wind. They're coming. They're conquering. They're plundering. Their horses are like leopards, I think it says. A very fast cat, right? So anyway, let me go back to the scripture here. Verse two, it says, and the Lord sent against him raiding bands of Chaldeans, bands of Syrians, bands of Moabite, and bands of the people of Ammon. He sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word which he had spoken by his servants, the prophets. Habakkuk was one of them. Verse three, surely at the commandment of the Lord this came upon Judah, to remove them from his sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done and because of the innocent blood that he had shed, for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon. Verse five, now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah? So Jehoiakim rested with his fathers. And Jehoiakim, his son, reigned in his place, and the king of Egypt didn't come out of his land anymore. For the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt, from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates. Verse eight, Jehoiakim was 18 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother's name was Nahushta, the daughter of El Nathan of Jerusalem. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done. Verse 10, at that time, the servants of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up against Jerusalem. And the city was besieged. And Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against the city as his servants were besieging it. And Jehoiachin, the king of Judah, his mother, his servants, his princes, and his officers, went out to the king of Babylon, and the king of Babylon, in the eighth year of his reign, took him prisoner. And he carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house, and he cut in pieces all the articles of gold which Solomon, king of Israel, had made in the temple of the Lord. And as the Lord has said, and also he carried into captivity all Jerusalem, all the captains, all the mighty men of valor, 10,000 captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths. None remained except the poorest people of the land. And he carried Jehoiachin captive to Babylon, the king's mother, the king's wives, his officers, and the mighty of the land he carried into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. All the valiant men, 7,000. Craftsmen, smiths, 1,000, all were strong and fit for war. These, the king of Babylon, brought captive to Babylon. And the king of Babylon made Matanah, Jehoiachin's uncle, king in his place and changed his name to Zedekiah. Zedekiah was 21 when he became king. And he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamuto, the daughter of Jeremiah of Limna, he also did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. For because of the anger of the Lord, this happened in Jerusalem. And he finally cast out from his presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. This is kind of the story that parallels what Habakkuk was talking about, right? So when you read in that passage in that minor prophet, the Chaldeans coming out and that description that's so fierce, this is what happened. Nebuchadnezzar came, initially he tried to be nice. And then when they rebelled against him, he came in and he razed the city. Ultimately, if you read into chapter 25, he destroys Jerusalem, takes captive, plunders everything, takes it away to Babylon. This is a story behind Habakkuk. By the way, who was taken? Who was one of the major prophets? Remember who was taken? Daniel. Daniel was taken right at the very beginning of Jehoiakim. Daniel was taken. We see that God in his meticulous providence is able to use a foreign king for his purposes, for his glory, even though we don't understand it. We trust and we see God's hand in his action. You know, Nebuchadnezzar was actually built up by God to accomplish the purposes which he was doing. And he comes through like a storm. We won't go into all the details, but part of what we're also amazed at is that verse 11 in the same chapter of Habakkuk, chapter one, this is our final verse. Habakkuk chapter one and verse 11. Part of the amazement of the prophet ends in verse 11 when he says, speaking of the Chaldeans, then his mind changes and he transgresses. He commits offense ascribing this power to his God. Nebuchadnezzar is raised up by God in his meticulous providence. Everything that he has is given to him by God. And at the end of the day, what does he do? Look in Daniel chapter 4 at some time. Nebuchadnezzar at the end of the day says, look at the Babylon that I have built. You remember that? Look what I have done. Man, even though God works in meticulous ways, bringing individuals to power, they can't see his hand at work. At the end of the day, they take credit for it and say, look what I've done. Sinful man, sinful man takes pride, cannot see God's handiwork. He cannot see it. Now, as we look in this passage, you might be wondering, brother Jim, how does this relate to me as a New Testament believer? And that's one of the questions, when anytime you're preaching through the Old Testament, you are certainly asking. Because we don't live in the national spiritual state of Judah, right? Our situation is different. We live in a gospel era, the church era. We function under a different set of criteria, even though many are the same. The beauty of this passage is that The apostle Paul doesn't leave it alone. He quotes it in the book of Acts chapter 13. I want you just to listen as I read. Paul, by the way, let me give a little prefacing for this. Paul is a missionary in the New Testament. After having been called by God to be an apostle, was ministering in this little tiny city called Antioch. and at Antioch, God separated he and Barnabas out, and they went on their first missionary journey, and they traveled all the way across to the island of Cyprus, Pathos, up into Turkey, to a little town called Antioch of Pisidia, and there Paul and Barnabas met with the Jewish people of the city and preached a sermon. And in preaching the sermon, Paul ends his sermon quoting from Habakkuk, from the very verse that we have right here, the very first verse, Habakkuk 1 and verse 5. And as Paul winds up his sermon, which we are winding up too, but as Paul was winding up his sermon, in the book of Acts, chapter 13, verse 38, Paul says, therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man, speaking of Christ, is preached to you forgiveness of sins. And by him, everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets comes to you. Here's the verse. Behold, you despisers, marvel and perish for a work I will work in your days, a work which will by no means you will believe, though one were to declare it to you. He quotes that verse right there in verse five, but he quotes it regarding Christ. Listen, you think the work of God drawing up the Chaldeans in his meticulous providence to judge Judah was magnificent? Consider this, Christ was delivered by the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God. He was taken by wicked hands. He was crucified and slain. God took evil and he rewrote it. He wrote it for good in his glory. And the byproduct was the work of Christ on the cross. And he says this, don't be a fool. Don't have ears that can't hear this message. Take hold of it. Christ offers forgiveness. Christ offers justification. That is no less of a miracle than God's providence in dealing with the nations in the fullness of time. In the middle of time, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. God's work is a marvelous work. We're called on not to miss that. If you miss that, you've missed the point. You can believe that God is sovereign, and he can be cold to you, but do you believe that he's forgiven you? Do you trust him as your savior? Do you believe in him that he's justified you? That's such a powerful thing in God's hand of providence. Brothers and sisters, be amazed. Be double amazed at what God has done. Let's pray today. Our Father, thank you for this word from Habakkuk, Lord. Thank you that there's so much about you we don't understand. but we rejoice in it. Somehow, in your infinite wisdom, you brought forth your son. You controlled all the circumstances. You took evil and you made it into good. You redeemed us, Lord. You've done a work of redemption and restoration. Thank you for Jesus Christ, our Lord. Bless us as we sing to you and close our service. Go our ways. Thank you for your goodness to us. In Jesus' name, amen.