You can pick up your Bibles at Habakkuk. Habakkuk 3. If the Lord wills it, we'll stop at the second last part today. It's from verse 12 to 15. From Abba Kik's prayer to Abba Kik 3. And if the Lord wills it, next week we'll look at the last part. The climax of the whole book and of Abba Kik's prayer. Let's read the whole chapter to get the whole picture of Habakkuk's prayer. The whole chapter is his prayer. Habakkuk 3. A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet in the way of Shihonot. Gentlemen, I have taken the time to read it. I was afraid. Gentlemen, call on your work in life in the middle of the years. In the middle of the years, let it be known. And then, think of receiving. God comes from Teman and the saint of the mountain Paran, Selah. His majesty covers the sky and the earth is full of his love. And shine, as sunny as it is there, rays of light on his side. And there is the embrace of his power. In front of him the plague walks out, and a choir of blood pulls out behind him. He stands up and lets the earth shake. He looks and lets the nations tremble. The eternal mountains crumble and sink the old, old devils. Paws of the old times. For him. I see the tents of Kisang with them over the roof, and the tent covers of the country are shaking. Is it against the rivers over Jirra? against the rivers that have ignited the towers, or against the grimaces of the seas that ride with the horses of the conquerors. Jelte me ont bloot is ie boog, Besweer is die peile derie woord, Sela, Tot rivieres spluit ie die aarde, Die berge zien ie en bewe van angst, Een wolke breekt storm voorbij, Die wereld vloet vreef zij stem, Steek zij handen omhoog, Die son, die maan, blij in ille woonplek, Bij die luch van ie peile wat voorbij schiet, Bij die glans van flikkerende spies, In gloominess you enter the earth. In pain you thirst the nations. You retreat to the salvation of the people, to the salvation of the saved. You crumble the head of the house of the godless and reveal the foundation to the naked soul. You pierce with your own arrows the heads of your leaders, who are struggling to disperse you, who have cried out as if they want to swallow the miserable in the sky. You enter the seas with your horses on mighty waters. When I heard that, my insides trembled. My lips trembled at the sound. Desire came into my bones. Yes, I trembled where I stood because I had to wait patiently for the day of caution that it would strike the people who were attacking us. Although the fire-tree will not bloom, And on the vineyards there will be no fruit, The strength of the olive-tree will be exhausted, And the sowing-land will not yield any food, The little fairies will disappear, And there will be no beasts in the stables. At least I will weep in the years, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The years, years are my start, And He makes my feet like those of a horse, And He puts my feet on my shoulders. for the music layer on snare instruments. It is the Lord's Word. Our focus this morning is on verse 12 to 14. As you have seen, the theme is again the same. It's a celebration of the theme, the glory of the Lord is coming. It's the theme of this whole prayer of mine, from verse 3 to verse 15. It's what I've seen and what I've said to you. That whole part is a vision that I've said to you and we can summarize it. The holiness of the Lord comes. The Lord Himself comes in His holiness. And this is the fourth time that we are standing still at the same theme. And we are standing still, little by little, so that we can immerse ourselves in the details. So that we can see the dots. The dots that Habakkuk saw. It is important when you come to the prophet's books. First see the dot. Look at the dot that he describes. We have already looked at a lot of psalms. Psalms from Habakkuk's time. Psalms from Joshua's time, Richter's time. We will now see Richter's time, Joshua's time, the Sun, Moon and Star Psalms. And all these Psalms that make up Habakkuk, I can say in verses 16 to 19. I can't just read verses 17 and 18 and 19. You can't say that if you don't understand the prayer, the whole revelation that I have seen. So I have seen the Lord come. The Lord who says He comes Himself. He sees Him. He sees the Lord. It is the Lord Himself that comes. He sees how He is going to send someone, a king, the descendant of David. And He sees how He is going to be a servant to those who are sent. And He sees how, as we are going to see now, He is going to come as the Saviour. He is going to be a Saviour to do His work. He comes as a human being. That is what I have seen, how He looks at the Mediprankies and the past, and with that He looks at the future. He does not see. The last time he saw us, what did I see? The warrior king is on his way, his bow is unblown, he is ready to shoot down his arrows, his arrows of death on the nations. And as he arrives, on his horse, over the earth. It's like getting on a train track, and the train arrives. He comes. Habakkuk feels it. He comes. His arrival is as great as the flood of Noah. We saw it last time, we will see it again now. His coming is so great that the sun and the moon stand still to look. We will see again now, just looking further into His coming. How He comes and what He does, when and how He comes. In this last verse, before I react to the vision, we see the beauty, the beauty of the Lord who came to redeem his people, to destroy the enemy. And he does it with his own self, with his Christ. So verse 12 says, in the grimness you enter the earth, In towers you threaten the Nazis. This is a bit of an answer to verse 8's question, is it against rivers that the towers are on fire? No, it's not against rivers. Rivers are the pranks. It's against the Nazis. Against their enemies. It's against the proud enemies, as we saw last time. Here comes something new. And again, it's important to get the prank. What did I see here? The lords of the leadership, the King of the Crusaders, stood up. He was already standing with his bow and his sword, and you get that image again. He stepped forward like a mighty king. That's where he entered the earth. He stepped forward like a mighty king to the leadership of his leadership. He was like a king who was powerful. fearlessly steps forward on the battlefield. He is going to defeat this enemy. And he marches forward. The earth can barely resist this march. His footsteps let the mountains wobble and quiver. And in his tower, our Lord comes to thresh. And here's where it gets important, something that hasn't come out so clearly in Habakkuk's prayer yet. Such a thirst, such a great thirst. He comes to trample. The marching is not only before and after the enemy, it is also above the enemy. He comes to torture the enemy so that his blood spills. Now these doors are the methods to separate the calf from the sheep. The calf, the house of the sheep, is just as loose, it blows away, it burns, they burn it. In Psalm 1 we talk about the Godless that blow away like the calf. Now, on the threshing floor, they had this beast or mule that walked over the grain. To make it even finer, they had a piece of plank that they dragged behind it. And with all this dragging and kicking, the grain rolled and the grain came loose from the coffin. That's threshing. That's what Jesus is going to do. The great warrior king comes with his horse power. His horse that attacks the mighty roaring waters. The mighty roaring waters that devour you. When you hear it. And he tramples the nations. Thirsts the nations. This is what the Lord did with his own people. You will see it in verse 21. He tramples and thirsts the people. The Israelites are thirsty. And that's what I expected from them. I'm talking about the Lord's judgment, the judgment of the people. And in the end, it will come to every proud heart and every proud nation. They will be thirsty. Why? Well, to spread or burn the proud calf, so that the King can be armed and guarded. He is going to kick the Nazis out, so that his people can be saved. It's the next verse. It's the goal for this process of thirst. It's what the Lord is doing all the way. It's what he's doing now. Jesus comes. We've seen it a few times. Jesus doesn't just come one day. He's busy coming. I've seen it too. It's not just this one day thing. He's busy coming. He's the coming one. And when he comes, and the way he comes thirsty, That's what He does. He pushes His enemies before Him, so that His people can be kept between them. So that you, the believers, can be kept between them. It's what we've been doing here and there. In Egypt, with the exodus. And how will God do it? The African says in verse 13, But I think that's a good reason to translate it like what King James says, I have a King James from you, that says, King James says, Salvation with thine anointed. God draws out to the salvation of his people, to the salvation with his own. This same is the Hebrew word, Mashiach, or Messiah, or in Greek, Christ. It's a more well-known language. God draws out as the king of the warriors, on the march, to thirst, to save his people, with his Christ. God comes to the salvation of his people through his Christ, who will thwart the nations and trample them. I think it is important to mention this idea of Christ. People expect that Christ, as the Messiah's King who will come, which is so clear in the New Testament, will appear a lot in the Old Testament. But it is not so much in the Old Testament. The believers in the Old Testament would have put these versions together here and there, and eventually see what is revealed in the New Testament, to get a picture. We have to look at the few verses. Just in the prophets, there is just one more time where this word appears. This Messiah, this Messiah Christ. And that is in Isaiah 45. And there it refers to Queen Chores, which the Lord calls upon to trample the nations. And that is not to say that Chores is the Messiah that I am talking about today. But if you look at the whole of Isaiah, And you can see that the picture is being built up here, of the great expected servant that will come. On one side, he is a king like Chorus. He will physically overthrow the nations, bring down God's judgment on them. But he is also, if you just go a few steps forward, before and after Chorus, the leading servant. He is the expected servant who will die in the place of Israel, for their salvation. And it seems and sounds so controversial, this warrior king and the leading servant. How is it possible that it is one person, the Messiah, the Messiah of the Lord? How is the King of Kings going to destroy his enemies, and in the process be a Knight who will lead his people? How is this going to work? And this is not just tension and boredom. If you have to read the whole Bible, sometimes this is the tension of Genesis 3 verse 15. As we are going to see now. How is it possible that the Lord will save his people in his own image, because he is King of Kings and a leading servant? How is that one person a lamb and a lion? Well, this is the mystery, the miracle of the Gospel. It is the Good News. The King defeated his enemies by lying to his people. And this is the miracle that comes out in the rest of the verses. By lying to the cross, he crushed the head of the snake. In any case, the rest of the verse makes it so much clearer that this is the long-awaited Christ who will come to defeat his enemies and save his people in the process. The rest of the verse says, "...he will break the head of the house of the ungodly, and will bleed the foundation to the neck." It's very long. Just the first sentence, "...he will break the head of the house of the ungodly, of the godless one. The head of the house of the godless one. The leader of all the godless nations in every pride. As the Lord has done in the past with the heads, the kings, the pharaohs, the head of the tribe, so he will eventually destroy the head of the whole house of the godless. All of them, who were pranks in the Old Testament, all follow one leader. The leader of the house of the Godless. It is the leader who stands against the Lord and his company. It is the great opponent who stands against the Lord and his company. It is He who is behind the great waters, and the rivers, and the seas, against whom their towers were set ablaze. It is He who incites the Nazis to raise the sword against the God of Israel. It is He who is going to bite and try to mislead the people of God. It is He who wants to kill the Messiah. It is the great snake, the dragon, the Leviathan monster, Satan. And He who is going to come, the Messiah, He will break the roof of the house of the Godless pride. He will do as you have already promised in Genesis 3. He will crush your head, Satan. This is what will happen. And He will do it by bleeding out His foundation to the neck, says the rest of the verse. If that house's owner is going to be cut off his legs, all support is going to be bled out for destruction. And he's going to be bled out to his neck, to where he's going to be killed. And that's where the head is going to be pulled open. It's like a neck that is being kicked open, someone who is kneeling, and he puts his boot on his neck so that it is open, ready for the body and the head to be cut off from each other, with a big blow. Is he a messiah? It's the same as Psalm 110. He says, He will spread his whip over a great land, and his enemies will become a footstool for his feet. His enemies will become a footstool for his feet. He won't just sit on his chair and beat his enemies. He will put his head on their necks. that He can destroy you. And then He is a footpath for His enemies, for His feet. He will step on their necks to break it. He will do it, just like with the invasion of the country, because I had a look at pictures from the past. And there are pictures here from the past of Israel. Joshua 10. Look at the picture. And remember, this is just a preamble of what Jesus will do. When they brought out the kings to Joshua, the kings in revolt against the lords, Joshua called all the men of Israel and said to the leaders of the warriors who had gone with him, Come, father, put your feet on the necks of these kings. And they all came and put their feet on their necks. And Joshua said to them, Do not be afraid or frightened, but be strong and courageous, for so the lords will do with all your enemies, when we ask them. After that Joshua struck them down and killed them. And they went up on five poles. And they hanged themselves through the night. Can you imagine that? The fervor of it. The blood that spills. King Jesus is doing it. Verse 14 goes on to describe this victory. The enemy comes with his head to destroy the people of the Lord. They came to spread the people of the Lord. Habakkuk is also a part of that people. But they will eventually attack each other. That's what Habakkuk says in verse 14. Every farmer with his own arrows, the head of his leaders, who storm to spread me, to spread the people of the Lord. They come to spread the king too, like the calf. Although I have seen this vision, he does not remove it from his context. He sees this vision in his context, where he is. He sees these enemies, these enemies of Taquio Piteer are on their way to me. They come to destroy the Church of the Lord. To take away the life of the Lord. He sees what he sees so that he can apply it. for his fellow citizens, as we will see next time. It's not just an old thing from 10 years ago, this is from now. The enemy is against you in his own way and they are coming to destroy the seed of the woman. All that is also in the promised seed is the one who believes in the One who comes. And the enemy comes as if they are shouting, as if they want to devour the miserable in the sky. He's going to devour the miserable, the poor, the poor of the spirit, the beggar who has nothing. Nothing to trust except himself. He's going to try to drag him out into the woods and devour him like an animal in the night. This is the wickedness of the God of Moses and his chief. The great snake comes to destroy the church, but the irony is that he will destroy it himself. Because of the great king. The great pride will be overcome with his own spears and arrows. This is the great irony of the whole scripture. Because the snake will bite the Messiah's hook, his head will be chopped off. Through every king's revolt against the Lord and his people, they destroy themselves. This is what the Lord will do all the way in history. All the kings, all the presidents, all the leaders who revolt against Jesus, just destroy themselves. Here in this life and after. That's the point of the 2nd verse. Again the pride. You think you're building a castle. You're going to be destroyed. You're going to get your own medicine. Like Haman on the gallows, which he set up for murderers. Like Daniel's enemies, who just disappeared in the lion's den, where they threw Daniel. Just as the Lord and the Lord's, the kings of Canaan, were cursed by self-destruction, so the Lord will do with the head of Darius. As the Lord promised, in other places also, where the final battle, Zechariah 14, verse 13 says, On that day, the day of the Lord, a great confusion of the Lord will come among them, so that one will grab the hand of the other, and the hand of one will hold him to the hand of the other. The enemy is going to kill themselves. This is exactly what happened in the greatest event in the history of mankind. Jesus was killed. The leading servant led a lot of people. He was the Messiah Himself. He took the greatest responsibility and leadership. He carried out all the promises of Revelation 2. He underwent the most despicable humiliation. The enemy's spears pierced his back. His jaw was bleeding. But it is precisely the scythe that the enemy did not expect. It is the great tension of this history of the whole scripture. Everything eventually comes to an end. Look at what the snake does. Look at what the snake does. Look at what the snake does. And in the end... Look at what the king does. He is bitten. And then his head is torn apart, the snake's head. Through the suffering servant, Jesus became the conqueror king, the King of Kings. It's so good. The evangelical mystery is revealed to us. This is who Jesus is. He is the One who, even though He was beaten and crucified, He tramples. He tramples the seas with His horses. He tramples the high, throbbing, mighty waters. Habakkuk sees this. He sees. In his vision, together with the believers before him and after him, he sees the Messiah. He sees, he is part of the salvation of the Lord, he is part of the people who, like the miserable ones in the sky, want to disappear. But he is also, the salvation is also the King who is described in the rest of this passage. He was hit by the snake while He was on the cross. So, the Lord goes out to save His people. How will He save them from the great power of the devil? How will He save His people from the clutches of Satan? How will He play out the salvation of Genesis 3 verse 15? He will save them by becoming human again. He will punish them for what they did. He will give them their rights. He will curse them so that they can get their blessing. He will save them by conquering death, so that death no longer has a place for us. That is the great enemy. And when he lifted up his sword, the great snake cut off his hands and legs. And he destroyed the kingdom of Satan, so that the redemption would come to him. And that's exactly what happened. The redemption came to Jesus. And then to come back to verse 13, he speaks of salvation of the people, salvation with the saints, salvation of the people. Salvation of what? From what are they saved? On the one hand he says, the Hebrews of the last part of the verse, it sounds like this, Lashah et Mashiachah. It's Lashah, Yashah, Christ. Yahshua, Jesus. The words come so close together. This is what the Messiah has done. He is going to be Yahshua, He is going to be Jesus. He is going to be redeemed. And on the other hand, you draw to the redemption of the people with Jesus Christ. With the redemption of Christ. The angel confirms it when he says to Joseph, you have to call Him Jesus. Because it is He who will deliver His people from their sins. And then He can answer us. What is this salvation from? From sins. That's the big enemy. Sins. That's the problem in this world. It's not just people who don't love us. Sins are the big enemy. And Jesus came to deliver His people from their sins. And with this you give us the answer to the great question of your scripture. How will the Messiah deliver us from the great enemy and deliver us from our sin? Well, by being Jesus Christ to die on that cross. By defeating the enemy and by delivering his people from their sin. By bearing their punishment and by giving them their justice. Now, Christ is constantly trying to come, to trample the nations, to thwart them. He is trying to drive Satan with his battle car, to drive him so that he can no longer distinguish the blood and the mud from each other. He promises it in Romans 16, the God of peace will soon trample Satan under their feet. What he did to the cross, he is now working out in history. He is trying to smear the overcome Satan, who has already overcome, at the cross. He was smashed at the cross, and now he is smearing his son in history. Until his second coming. And he does it every time another one is introduced into Christ. He does it every time another proud heart dies. Every time another proud nation comes to an end. This is not the beginning of the Gospel. Christ has already beheaded the snake, but he makes the victory a reality in history, until it eventually leads to the final victory when he returns. But that does not mean we wait for the living here and above. Not only are we lost in Christ, but we are also thirsty, as Isaiah 41 speaks of it. Look, I will make you a sharp new thirst, which has many teeth. You will make mountains thirsty and fine meal, and devils like sheep. You will drive them out, and the wind will take them away, and the storm will scatter them. But you will rejoice, you will be famous among the saints of Israel. And then Romans 16 says, God of peace will soon be trampled under your feet. After Christ had trampled Satan under his feet, he said, Satan will be trampled under your feet. We will judge the nations, but we as a church, the seed of the woman, will already be busy with this good. Our Word about victors, about the great enemies, about our sins, Satan and the world. We can therefore fight and kill. And the injustice, the injustice in our own hearts, sins in our own hearts and then in our own homes. Then I can fight against the sins in my community, that I can see for Jesus. We are going to fight with the sword of the Lord, the sword of His Spirit, with the Word. We thirst for mountains and hills. The hills become so barren because of the church work. You can see how big it is, what we are doing here. It's not just a club that comes together every Sunday to listen to one of their messages. The church work is like thirsting for mountains. By the proclamation of the Gospel. Jesus said, that's why we can fight the dragon. Do you see Habakkuk's hope here? His hope in the salvation that is coming. Do you see his faith that he confronted with himself? His new vision, his new world view. How he looks at world history. And more importantly, how he sees Christ who is coming into world history. Every time still, just so that we can see His beauty and beauty, His Majesty. Do you see the warrior king riding to save? The lamb that was slain for us. He took out his sword and cut off the snake's head when he said, It is done. Amen.