Good morning. Welcome to Trinity Reformed Baptist Church, Jackson, Georgia. It's December 28th, 2014. Join us now as Brother Steve Martin brings us a message from the Word. Good morning. Would you please turn to the book of Habakkuk in your Bibles again? This sermon is entitled, What to do until God sends revival or Christ returns. As a Christian, what ought you to be doing until God should seek to send revival or Christ should return? Or to put it another way, if you're a Christian who has a pulse and has much engagement at all in the culture, if you're over 30, you have a sense of seeing your culture decline in your lifetime. At 66, I've seen things happen in the course of my life that I never thought would happen. I've seen sins that are bold in the street and braying like jackasses that at one time stayed in the cracks in the crevices and never dare show their face in public and now they're bold in the streets. Things that have happened to our society, when I moved from Chicago to North Atlanta as a child in 1955, we moved into a neighborhood of about 50 houses. There were no divorced families in 50 houses and only one widow. I was just reading a statistic yesterday that in the state of Colorado, since they've legalized marijuana, they estimate that one out of every five adults over the age of 18 is a recreational marijuana user now. Surely good things do not bode for the state of Colorado in the haze that's to come. It's not the proliferation of divorce. It's not the breakdown of the family. It's not the increase of drugs. It's not 1,001 other things we could list. They're all symptoms of a bigger problem. that God has taken his hand off of our culture. And if you would read Romans 1 beginning about verse 18, it says that because man would not have God in his knowledge, God has sent his judgment. And the rest of Romans 1 is an acknowledgment of what judgment looks like when God pours it out on the culture. Not the judgment that comes at the end of time when each person must stand before God and give an account of their life and be sentenced either to heaven or to hell, but a judgment that comes upon a culture in space and time history. A judgment that can come in your own lifetime. Such a thing that you didn't see as a child, you now see as an adult. And that's what's happened. If you again go back and read Romans 1 verses 18-32, and you see the downturn of our culture, you see God saying three times, and God gave them over. And God gave them over. And God gave them over. And we've lived to see that in our lifetime. We've lived to see that in our lifetime. So what ought Christians to be doing if God doesn't send revival right away or if Christ doesn't return in whatever time we have left as a nation, what ought we to be doing? So I'm going to try to do four things. each of the about the same time frame number one, we're going to go back and look at chapter one of the look at the historical context. What's going on at the time of the prophet Habakkuk in the Old Testament that we think there's sufficient parallels to look at it again today, and we'll see there are many parallels between what was going on in the nation at that time and what Habakkuk wanted to see happen and what God subsequently said he was going to do. And then we're going to jump over to chapter 3 and look at Habakkuk's plea for national revival. God's going to work in his heart. He's going to pray that God would send a revival. Number three, we're going to see Habakkuk's praise for God's past faithfulness. God has a track record with Israel. He has a track record with his people. If you're a believer, God has a track record with you. In eternity past, he purposed to love you. In space and time history, he called your name. God the Holy Spirit caused you to be born again. You really did repent. You really did believe. God didn't repent for you. God didn't believe for you. That really was you repenting. That really was you believing because of a prior work of God in your life. And then, over the course of your life, God has been helping you grow through all the stumblings and starts and stops and getting up and falling down. God has a history with you, and he's going to go back and review God's past faithfulness to his people. And then it will conclude at the end of the chapter of three with Habakkuk's purpose in his heart. He purposes in his heart that I will find God as my joy and my strength, no matter what happens to my culture. At the end of all things, The most important thing is not what's going on in America. It's not what's going on in the south side of Atlanta. It's not what's going on in the south. It's not even what's going on in my extended family. It's my relationship with God and what kind of a God he's purpose to be to me and what kind of a person I want to purpose to be to him. So let's look at each of these four things. Let's go back to chapter one for a moment. What to do until God says revival and let's look at the back of historical situation. At this time Judah, like the northern kingdom of Israel, had brought God's judgment on her. The background is that the smaller or minor prophets are called, they're not minor because they're unimportant, they're called minor prophets because they're smaller prophets in terms of numbers of pages. But the nation is, God has used nations to chastise his people. Remember prior to this there had been a breakdown and there had been split into two kingdoms. Ten tribes were started worshiping in a bogus worship in a bogus place. and God cut the top 1210 northern tribes off the two southern tribes, Judah and Benjamin remained faithful and they had their temple worship in Jerusalem. But Judah, like the Northern Kingdom, brought God's judgment on herself by apostasy. What is apostasy? Apostasy means a falling away. It means I no longer hold of the truth. I don't care about the truth. I may have the trappings of God and religion. He may be on our coin. He may be on our money, he may have a cross on his church, but in terms of everyday life, God has nothing to do with how we live our lives, and there's been a great falling away. Now, what happens is when we give up on God, so to speak, He gives up on us and He gives us over. He gives us over. Three of the most sobering verses in the Bible I mentioned earlier are in Romans 1, 126. God gave them over to debauchery. verse 28, God gave them over. Verse 32, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. They could care less. Everything was fair game. Anything they wanted to do. There was no restraints. Sin would have its full head. Well, what happened in Judah and the two southern tribes that were still worshiped in Jerusalem, they thought, we've got the temple. We're the faithful ones. God still is going to be good to us because We still have the temple and we're the good guys, but that's not what God says. And they have slid off to and there are possibly ungodliness. You know what the word ungodliness means? It means God is not really big in your thinking when you get up in the morning, like before you were a Christian. And if you're still not a Christian, this is how you get up in the morning. What do I want to do today? What's my day about? What's the life is about me? It doesn't factor in at all. As I said last week, having lived the first 21 years of my life as a non-Christian, I remember very clearly what it was like to be a non-Christian. God didn't factor into my life at all. I wasn't shaking my fist at a God who may or may not be there. I just didn't care. It was all about me. And that's a sign of how bad you are off if you never even hardly think about God, or maybe you happen to come to church once in a blue moon. Ungodliness means building your life on anything else but God. I don't factor God into what I'm doing or how I'm living. And the consequence that flows out of that is unrighteousness. Unrighteousness means God's laws have nothing to say about how I live. You can say laws or principles or way of living, but like the Ten Commandments, they don't factor into a non-Christian's life. He doesn't care about honoring the Sabbath. He doesn't care about honoring his father or his mother. He doesn't care about having no other gods before God. it's all about him or her and so on godliness. God isn't anything in my life gives way to unrighteousness righteousness is the word has to do with the rightness according to the law. I'm not right with God's law and I don't care and that's how they live their lives and that's where Judah was. Judah's slide into oblivion and judgment was temporarily halted. There was a hero of the Old Testament named King Josiah who came around. and he was a young boy when he first became king, and one day he had the guys cleaning up the temple. Now, the temple was not a small building. It was not even a big building. It was a humongous building. If you've ever been downtown to the World Congress Center, where they have giant conferences, that's the size of the temple. You have all these anti-rooms and side rooms and breakout rooms and stuff like that, and they were cleaning out a closet, and they go, hey, here's these scrolls. What is it? It was the Book of Deuteronomy. They had lost a big chunk of the Old Testament, and they found it. And so, King Josiah had a red in his presence. He goes, whoa, it says major things here about how kings are to live, how kings are to rule, how kings are to be under the authority of God, and how they're to lead their people. We've not been doing these things. And so, the finding of the book of Deuteronomy, the reading of it, the believing and repenting brought about a national renewal, so to speak, led by King Josiah. But then a sad thing happens when you have top-down reformation of top-down renewal. If the top is taken away, the renewal stops, and King Josiah was killed in battle as the Egyptians were about to invade. He went out with his army and he was killed in battle, and there goes the renewal. Well, the kings that came along afterwards said, well, let's go back before Josiah. We were doing a pretty good job of removing all scraps of interest in the one true God, and they continued to assure God's judgment by paganizing Judah. Well, let's look here in Chapter 1 verses 2 through 4. I said we'd look at Chapter 1 again. Habakkuk is pleading with God for a revival and reformation of true religion. He says, How long, O Lord, will I call for help, and you will not hear? I cry out to you, violence! It doesn't have to be what happened in Ferguson, Missouri. It doesn't have to be what happened in New York City. It doesn't have to be what can happen in any school in America or any downtown in America. we have our violence. He says, I pray about the violence. Yet you do not say, why do you make me see iniquity and cause me to look on wickedness? I see what's going on in my culture. It makes me sick. It burdens my heart. I see people destroying their lives. I see families destroying their families. God, why don't you do something? Yes, destruction and violence are before me, strife exists and contention or battling arises. Therefore, the law is ignored and justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous, therefore justice comes out perverted. Well, that sounds like yesterday's newspaper or tomorrow's headlines. Now, what's about to happen is something that will scare about nearly to death. He actually starts physically trembling, his lips quiver, his bones shake. This one of the scariest things he can imagine is foretold by God. It begins in verse five, and he says, Well, this is what I'm going to do. I've heard your prayer. This nation does need a revival badly. So what I want to do is in the Calvin's. This is a fierce drive that was way up north of the country, and I would have them come through and they're going to scour the countryside and destroy Israel. About that time, how back his mind is He goes, time out, time out. Maybe you didn't quite hear what I said. I said, our nation is going down the drain and we need a revival of true religion. We need a renewal of the truth. We need you to come in mercy and bring about a change. He said, I am bringing about a change, but what's going on in your nation is too deep for a, it's merely a covering kind of renewal. I'm going to scour the land. I'm going to go deep when I bring about my renewal. So, he says in verses 12 through chapter 2, verse 1, he says, I'm not going to use a soft cloth to clean Israel. I'm going to use a steel brush. Now, if you've ever worked out in your garage, you know the purpose of a steel brush. Well, if you want to get scale or rust off of something made of metal, a soft cloth isn't going to do it. You're going to need to use a steel brush, not even steel wool, a steel brush. What does that mean? Well, that means you're going deep. Can you imagine someone using it on you? I got this skin problem. No problem. I got my steel brush. I'll take care of it. No, you don't understand. This is a skin problem. You don't use a steel brush on a skin problem. Use a soft cloth. If you're older, maybe than 45, you may remember a disease that used to be primarily in children. You'd see it and hear about it. I haven't heard about it in years, but my kids haven't been small in many years. It was called impetigo. And if a tiger was an infection, the children would get in a frequently be around their nose and their mouth stuff like this. And the only way you can get rid of it besides taking the medicine was you had to take a cloth, a strong cloth, and you had to scour off all the scabs. I hope none of you ever had to go through that. I listened once as my mom did it to my sister and listen to her howl and wail in the bathroom while the impetigo scabs were being scoured off. It was unpleasant, but it was the only way at that time. Maybe medicines are new. Maybe you don't have to go through that. But besides taking the medicine, you had to have a scoured off. And God saying, What's wrong with Israel is so, so deep, so systematic. It's in the race system of the nation. It's going to require a scouring. It's going to require me taking not a soft cloth, as you would wish, but a steel wool to clean this out. Now, what Habakkuk goes on to say in verses 12 through chapter 2, verse 1 is, don't your covenants mean anything to you? Don't your covenant people mean anything? Haven't you made solemn agreements? Haven't you entered into these solemn bonds with your people? Are you going to violate these? Have you forgotten your people? Doesn't your covenant mean anything? I mean, if anything, you ought to be judging the Chaldeans. They're worse than us. They're far worse than us. They don't even acknowledge you and there is unrighteous as we are in terms of their daily lives. But God says, but I have a covenant relationship with you. I have promised to be your God and you will be my people, but you're not being my people. So I'm going to chase you and I'm going to chase you like some parents threaten their kids. When I get through spanking you, you're not going to sit down for six months. I'm sure parents are much more balanced today than when my day, but that was a threat that would hang over our heads. You don't want to be so spanked that you can't sit down for six months. But God says, so to speak, to Israel, I'm going to spank you. I'm going to spank the nation. They won't be able to sit down for some time. I'm going to do a deep cleansing work in your life, and my temporal judgments are my deep cleansing times. When I cleanse, I go deep. Look at chapter two. And there's a couple of interesting verses here for you to meditate on in Chapter 2, and I'm not going to even spend much time with them. One of them is in verse... I changed my Bible so things are in different places in different Bibles. One of them is in verse 14. Chapter 2 is a long condemnation of the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, and what God's going to do to them. He says, yes, I am going to use them and they're going to destroy utterly the social fabric, the buildings, the cities, everything in Israel. I'm not making them do that. That's just what they want to do, but they're going to end up being my servants and I will ultimately nuke them for what they do to you. It's like what God says to Joseph's brothers. They really did mean evil to you. but I'm using their evil intent for my holy and good purposes and only a sovereign, infinitely holy God can use other people's wicked motives to accomplish holy ends in someone else's life. He says in verse twelve, Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with violence. Is it not indeed from the Lord of hosts that people toil for fine fire and nations grow weary for nothing. In other words, look what's going on here is this nation destroys Israel. But, in contrast, verse fourteen, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. There will come a time when my glory will cover the earth. Now, as he goes on in chapter two, he's rebuking the nation and he's rebuking the Chaldeans and he says, in verse eighteen, for people who are idolaters, What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it or an image, a teacher of falsehood, for its maker trusts in his own handiwork when he fashions speechless idols. He's mocking here the whole idea of adultery. You had this block of wood and you made an idol out of it and now you're worshipping it. Come on, you just made it. It was a block of wood a couple hours ago and now you've carved it to look like something and you're calling it a god and you're worshipping it. And God's basically saying how stupid is that? Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, awake to a mute stone, arise, and that is your teacher? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all of inside it. It's nothing. It doesn't exist. It's just something you made up. But the Lord, all capitals, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, God's covenant name, Yahweh, the God of gods, I am who I am, I shall be who I shall be. The Lord is in his holy temple, but all the earth be silent before him. It's like in Psalm 40, it says, Be still and know that I am God. And sometimes when you're worried and frantic or running your mouth or calling all of your five best friends to hear the situation and pray with you. Maybe sometimes the best thing is just to be quiet. We tell our kids don't say shut up. So this is be still and know that I am God and it says here in light of all this going on. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him. Almighty God is on his throne. His temple is not being rocked. His throne is not being rocked by the affairs of men. God is God. And he will be treated as God and his people need to learn to trust in him as God and not simply one like them, but a little bit bigger. what's his plea for national revival. Well, let's look at chapter three verses one through two. He said, I'm sending these people. They're going to destroy Israel. They're not going to get any credit for it, because their evils and the motives are evil, and I will ultimately destroy them. But chapter three verses one through two, a prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, according to Shagayanach, which they believe is a musical term. Lord, again, he's dressing him by his covenant name, the God who enters into solemn covenants with his people. I have heard the report about you. And I fear. Oh, Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years, make it known in wrath, remember mercy. I believe you what you say that you are sending this nation to punish our nation. I get that. and it's going to be fearsome. That's so scary, I can't even believe what's going to come. But I know the kind of God you are, and he addresses him by his covenant name. He says, I know that you're the covenant God. You have said in your covenant, if you want to read something scary, go home and read Deuteronomy chapter 26, 26-28, where God says, if you ever leave me, the things that I did to the Canaanites who lived here, and I had you do to the Canaanites, It'll be nothing compared to what I do to you. Your hair will curl if it's straight, and if it's already curly, it will straighten out. You will not believe what I do to you if you leave me." And he says, I'm counting on you to be faithful. We may be faithless. We may be fickle, but you're not. You're not like us. You're not like me, a prophet. I've heard the report about you, and I fear, Lord, revive your work. Come back and do a gracious work in our midst. Come back and do a gracious work in our midst. Don't let your justice entirely consume our nation. We're thankful that God is a God of justice. Sin does not get off scot-free. As your pastor said, and I've said I think before from this pulpit, every sin ever committed in the history of the world will be punished. It will either be punished on that unbelieving, unrepentant sinner who will not have a savior to represent him or it was represented on Christ on his cross and he bore your guilt of your sins, every one of them in your place. But every sin will be punished. No sin gets off scot-free. No sin evades judgment. No sin gets a slick lawyer. No sin stays in the bushes where it can't be detected. every sin ever committed in the history of the world will be punished either on Christ for the believing center or on the unbelieving center, the unrepentant center for themselves. Habakkuk says, God, you're a God of mercy and judgment. You said judgment is coming. It will come. I don't doubt it. please don't forget that you're a faithful God of mercy to you would have never said this in the first place. If God was a God of judgment and if this table here represented the planet Earth and it's covered with fleas. It's not just covered with fleas, but they're fleas with big mouths and they got attitudes and they're cursing the God who made them. Now, if I was God, I'd take out one of these old-fashioned spray guns, you pump it like this, and I would just spray the table and be done with it, and just wipe the table clean, and we'd start over with new fleas. But God didn't choose to do that. God chose to extend His mercy. In wrath, He remembers mercy. He doesn't exterminate all the rebellious human beings on planet Earth. His Son becomes a human being to represent an innumerable host of people whom He will pay the price for. He is a God who remembers mercy in the midst of wrath. John Wesley said during the Great Awakening in England, and it's a science thing, it's an important thing to read a little bit of history. If you read about what conditions in England were like prior to what we call the Great Awakening in America, in England they call it the Evangelical Awakening. If you read about what was going on, England was worse than America today. You go, pfft, could never be. It was worse than America today. We said, well, we got all these people on drugs. Gin was a nickel a pop. They had babies born who weren't crack babies. They were gin babies. They were alcoholics at birth. Their mothers were so sodded with gin. They used to have times when they had to cancel Parliament. Why? Because they're a bunch of numbskulls? No, they didn't have enough guys sober to have a quorum. You go, that's probably what's wrong with our people up in Washington. But they've never actually come out and said they were all drunk on the floor of Congress. but they at times when they didn't have enough sober man to have a quorum that let Parliament meet the top of sports of the day were bull baiting, bear baiting, that's where you'd have a bull in a pit or a bear in a pit or a stockade and you'd stick dogs on them and see how long they'd live. Or even better, go to a hanging and bet on how long the guy's legs would kick after they'd dropped the noose on him. That was the sports of the day. Orphanage was really a workhouse for children, and many orphanages had a reputation of 100% mortality. If you went in there, you never came out alive. They worked you to death. Six-year-old kids were chimney sweeps. They could crawl up a chimney, and with a brush, they could bring all the soot down on themselves, and maybe die of lung cancer at eight or ten. But hey, we got clean chimneys, and we made some money. That was just some of the feel of what was going on in England. And John Wesley had enough perception to say, Our nation is so bad, so bad, it's a nation ripe for mercy. Wouldn't it just be like our God to reverse all this stuff that we've done? And in wrath, remember mercy. To get to the place where all these things are going on, you're already in a state of wrath. to have these things going on where the state of wrath today the problems that you talk to your friends about what's wrong with America that shows Romans one is true were under a state of wrath already the question was is will just stay there or will in wrath. He remember mercy and send something like a revival or the return of Christ. A revival is when God moves in the hearts of many people in the same way he does when he saves a single person. A single person begins to think differently about their life. They begin to reevaluate their life. They begin to think they're not so smart as they thought they were. They begin to realize that the truth about God that they're hearing is true. That it's an accurate diagnosis of humanity and an accurate diagnosis of them. And they believe the truth about Christ is the only solution for their problems. And that there is a repenting of living for themselves and running their own life and singing, I did it my way, and looking to Christ and wanting Christ to be the Lord and Master of your life, and needing Him and seeing that you need Him as the Savior. And that happens in one person's conversion, but multiply it by thousands, by ten thousand, by a hundred thousand, by half a million. And an area changes. The salt is distributed, resisting decay. Light is disseminated. The darkness flees. And a revival is when God does those things in tens of thousands of people's lives. God has revealed many times in Scripture that he's a God of mercy, and so Habakkuk says, I'm calling upon that aspect of your character, your mercy, your covenant mercy, that nuking us would not be the last word, that destroying Israel would not be the last word. Again, God says, when I cleanse, I go deep. I'm not going to use a soft cloth on what is your problem. I'm going to use a steel brush. But when I'm through, it will be cleansed and it will be renewed. So, what Habakkuk says here is, he says, well, I see that you're going to use the steel brush. I see that the times of chastening are coming. Bring it on. Help us to endure it. Help us to come out the other side, refined and renewed. and that's verses one and two. I have heard the report about you and I fear, O Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years. That's the years of misery that are coming. In the midst of the years, make it known in wrath, remember mercy. But then in chapter three, verses three through the end of the chapter, we have Habakkuk's praise because he recounts God's faithfulness. One of the things that's really helpful, if you're under the pile, is to think of God's past faithfulness. Their songs count for many blessings. Name them one by one. And we know that, and we never do it. We almost never do it. I've actually made assignments to people, and they had to start counting up their blessings. And they went through the better part of a legal pad before they got it. I'm incredibly blessed. But look at verses three and four, for example. These are verses recounting God's powerful work at the time of the Exodus from Egypt. God comes here from Timan and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His splendor covers the heavens and the earth is full of His praise. His radiance is like the sunlight. He has rays flashing from His hand and there is the hiding of His power. and then remember in verse five of the plague and pestilence that he set out, not just the pestilence he set out in getting Israel out of Egypt, but when the people gave in to idolatry and he set a pestilence among his own people to chasten them. Before him goes pestilence and plague comes after him. In verse six, he stood and surveyed the earth. He looked and startled the nations, yet the perpetual mountains were shattered, the ancient hills collapsed. He's using metaphorical figurative language. He's saying the whole. He said, when Israel started moving through the Middle East to its appointed place, I shook the nations. I shook the mountains. Everything was being turned upside down. His ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of cushion under distress. The ten curtains of the land of Midian were trembling. These are places that God had his people conquer. God, you were faithful. How do we get here in the first place? Why are we even in this land? Well, we used to be subject to the Egyptians. We were slaves for three hundred and four hundred thirty years. Almost three forty. Somewhere long, long time. Four hundred and thirty years. We were slaves. And then what happened? You said the time is right. I'm going to bring you out by my strong right arm. Moses is my point, man. He's going to be the man who's called the deliverer. But I will bring you out and I will do supernatural things to deliver you. verses eight through fifteen. He just goes to a whole list of things that he triumphed over for his people. And I won't even read those. You can go ahead and read them on your own. So, how does he respond? In verse sixteen, I heard and my inward parts trembled at the sound my lips quivered Decay enters my bones and in my place I tremble. What's going on here? Is it possible for a believer to be trusting the Lord and have great trepidation at the same time? I believe it is. Some of you have heard of a woman who was a missionary in Congo prior to 1960. In 1960 there was an and the Belgian government was thrown over, and the Africans who lived in the Congo took over their own nation. Unfortunately, they didn't discriminate between Belgians and white people who weren't Belgian, and so they were killing all the white people. And there was a missionary woman who lived there, and the natives called her Mama Luka, because she was a doctor, and she was like Luke in the Bible, so they called her Mama Luke. She was the doctor who came to help them. And Helen She said, I found out a distressing thing. I never even entered my brain before. I'm asleep in my cabin one night. Suddenly, the door burst in. People pick me up out of my bed. Someone knocks me down, and with the first punch, I lost a tooth. I'm laying on the ground, and someone kicks me in the jaw and breaks my jaw and knocks several teeth out. I'm dragged out in my nightgown into the back of a truck with several other ladies. and I did not know that you could have abject terror and the peace of God both going on in your head at the same time. I knew the Lord was with me, and I knew that somehow he would take care of me, and I was scared to death. Can you see what's coming sometimes and say, This is what I got to do. I don't want to go through the surgery. I don't want to go through the series of things that are happening. I have to do this. It's very scary to me, but God says he'll be with me. So, I tremble, I shake. I got to do this hard thing. But God said he'd be with me. And I think that's his condition here. Prophets and pastors, laymen and officers can talk about God and have some knowledge of God. And then God can come really close and he can explode our kind of casual slushy thoughts about him and intimacy with him or relationship with him. Habakkuk's overwhelmed with the realization, again, of who God is and who he himself is or is not. So what does he purpose to do? We talked about how he pleaded for revival, and then we looked at his praise for God's past faithfulness in most of this chapter. But in the end of verse sixteen and then the rest of the chapter, a couple of verses here, He says, I purpose that I want to be faithful no matter what. Look at verse 16, the second part. Because I wait patiently for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us. This is still going to happen. But I'm accepting it, though I'm scared to death. Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive tree should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flocks should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, our nation has been devastated. Food supplies have disappeared. Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength and he has made my feet like hinds feet and makes me walk on my high places. Now, what's going on here? In 2000, end of 2011 and 2012 were very hard times for me and my family. Perhaps our hardest in our lives. And there was a very sobering lesson that I learned that I think Avakic is talking about here. God has a plan. God has a sovereign plan and he's going to work it. Thank God I'm in that plan. But the plan isn't about me. God has a sovereign plan. And if you're a believer, you're in that plan, so to speak. But the plan isn't about you. And what that means is God could be doing big things. And yes, he's watching over me and I'm over here kind of sucking my thumb watching it all happen. but it's not ultimately about me, and I shouldn't expect it to work itself out such that it's all about me. He will take care of me, he'll never leave me nor forsake me, but it's not about me. He has bigger fish to fry than just little old Steve Martin. It says here in verses seventeen through nineteen that God is still worthy of being loved and worshipped for who he is. even if our nation would be destroyed, even if our nation goes down the drain, and he only preserves his church physically and spiritually, and it gets really hard. But he's still worthy to be praised. If you ever go to a prayer meeting, you can tell something about the maturity of the people who are there by how they pray. Most prayer meetings can't stay on praise very long. They start on price usually adoration, but at about thirty seconds it goes to Thanksgiving. Lord, thank you for this and thank you for this and thank you for my kids and thank you for my job and thank you for my health and thank you for my house and thank you for my clothes. We go through all the things we thank him for that he gave us. But adoration comes prior to Thanksgiving. It means, God, I adore you for who you were, for who you are. And if you'd never created anything, if you'd never created me, if you'd never created all this stuff, you'd still be worthy of love and adoration and praise and amazement. But it's really hard, unless I'm spiritually minded going into a prayer meeting, to stay on the adoration. God, you're so great. If I think about who you are as revealed in Scripture, it's mind-boggling. You spoke the universe into creation. He used to stay in everything that happens moment by moment. You're a God who's holy, holy, holy and does not wink at sin. But you're a God of incredible love and mercy who will give your own son to rescue guilty sinners. These are all things about who God is and I haven't started talking about what he's done for me personally. I haven't started thanking him yet. But Habakkuk says, I want to exult in you. Did you notice that little word exult? It looks like the word exalt, but the word exalt, it's a stronger form of being excited. To exalt means you're so excited, you're just, you want to jump up and down. I will exalt in God. He is the one who moves my soul. He is the one who makes me sing. He is the one who gives me a step. He is the one who gets me up in the morning. He is the love of my life. And though all this other stuff go away forever, how long? I will exalt in to God of my salvation. Again, Habakkuk is not saying, I'm resigned to the fact that misery and hell are coming, and we just got to endure it until it's over with. He's not saying that. He's saying, I get what's coming. I'm scared about what's coming. I'm not into pain. I'm not into suffering. If you can see, imagine if you've seen pictures of what Europe was like after World War II, or what Japan was like after World War II, and imagine being a believer, living in those countries, and seeing what was to come and go, you're going to live through it, but your nation will be destroyed, and you'll be picking through the rubble, looking for a dead rat that you could cook and feed to your family, like Korean families I knew after the Korean War. I know how hard it's going to be. I'm not just resigned. I really do rejoice in you. I do find my joy in you because, you know, when you take stuff away and we look at what's left. When I lived in Indianapolis in the seventies, there was a man in my church. He was eighty-seven years old and he was about as spry as a forty-five year old. I mean, the guy was wiry and active and he could make you tired pretty quick. He said, you know, I was a nominal Christian. until I was 68. I know what happened when you were 68. He said the Lord took my wife away and I will come to realize that she had a great relationship with Christ and I didn't and she'd been my everything when she's taken away and suddenly I realized I've been writing her coattails. I've been pulling along on her behind her skirt our whole personal life and she's going to be with the Lord And I want Christ to be my everything like he was my wife's everything. And so he took my wife away from me so she couldn't be my everything and he is my everything now and I am so thrilled. Have you ever heard of the book by Sheldon Van Auken, A Severe Mercy? He's a professor at the University of Virginia. He and his wife get married. They get fixed. We don't want children to come between the bliss that we have in our immature relationship. So they're just there have money to spend their summers yachting on the Chesapeake and teaching at University of Virginia in Charlottesville. And he has to spend one year abroad and goes to Oxford. He studies under C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis is a disturbing man who talks to him about Jesus Christ and a man who's merely a man wouldn't have said and did the things that Jesus Christ did. And he begins to lead this couple to Christ. And they both become professing Christians. And they go back to the University of Virginia, and they live in Charlottesville. They start living for Christ. They're Christians a couple of years, and then the wife comes down with cancer, and a virulent form of cancer. And she dies after several months of struggle, and she goes to be with the Lord. That's obviously good for her, but her husband's left, and he writes C.S. Lewis about how hard it is. And C.S. Lewis writes back very lovingly and straightforwardly. It was very obvious to other people that you and your wife really idolized each other. She was your idol, and you were her idol. So the Lord, in severe mercy, took your idol away from you, so you would find your all in Him, not in her, and not she and you. And Von Auken said he was exactly right. I didn't want to hear that. It was like a steel wall scouring over my glaucoma, the covered eyes I couldn't see. And that's exactly what it was. If we lost everything but had Christ, should people feel sorry for us? In 1988, I believe, I was driving down Sandy Creek Road in Fayette County, and there was a man who was on the radio in Atlanta for only about eight months. He was so abrasive that they just got rid of him. but he was a New York City abrasive guy, and he was reading an article from the Wall Street Journal about Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, as for those of you who are older than 45 may remember. This televangelist got caught in this big scandal, and Jim Baker lost everything. And in this article, Jim Baker is saying, I've lost my PTL network. I've lost my Heritage USA theme park. I've lost my mansion with its air-conditioned doghouse. I've lost my reputation. I've lost my marriage. The only thing I have left is Christ. And the guy stops reading and goes, Now, wait a minute here, Jim. What's the deal? For all these years, you've been telling us if you have Christ, you have everything. He's so great. He's so wonderful. Send me your money. Christ is all you need. And so all the stuff's been taken from you and all you have left is Christ. And we're supposed to feel sorry for you. So, which is it, being stuck with Christ as a bummer or having Christ as the greatest thing imaginable? And I started going, yeah, give it to him, you know, turn the knife. And then I went about another 50 feet and crossed the railroad tracks on Sandy Creek and the Lord goes, how about you, Buster? When the Lord called me Buster, I know good things don't follow. He said, well, Buster, what about this in your life? What if I take that? What about this in your life if I take that? I started thinking of several things that were very important to me. What if all you had left, Steve, was me? Would you be so chipper and jolly and happy and rejoicing in me? And I started crying on Sandy Creek Road because I knew it was true. I'm Jim Baker, too. I have all this stuff that I pile up in my life, and I say that Christ is really great, but then if I'm stuck with just Christ, I might be tempted to feel sorry for myself. Do you have Christ is exceedingly precious to you. Could you go through this and say, as Asaph did in Psalm 73, Who have I in heaven but you and on earth? Nothing I desire except you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. He says here that having the Lord makes my feet like a deer's feet in high places. God is my strength. He makes my feet like the deer's. He makes me tread on high places. I have to admit that too often that has not been the truth for me and so the Lord says I will do what I have to do to make my people love me again and to love me first and foremost. Jesus told the Ephesians in Revelation 2, you've left your first love. All these other things are more important to you than I am. I'm supposed to be your first love. So I close by asking you a couple of questions. Do we plead for God to be merciful to our nation in its crisis? As I said, Romans 1, 18-32, if you will go home and read it, it shows you our nation is already under judgment. The question is, do we intercede and plead for it? Lord, for the sake of your name and for the sake of your people who are here, would you have mercy on our wicked nation? Second, do you praise God? Are you able to praise God for his past faithfulness to you? Can you even count the times he's rescued you from your idols and your trials? Have you ever sat down with pencil and prayer and recounted the blessings of God over the course of your life? Think of all the times in history God has been gracious to our nation and its people. Have you purposed in your heart to trust God no matter what? Have you come to know the Lord as worthy of being loved and worshipped for himself no matter what goes on around you or is in your life? If he takes all the stuff away and just leaves Jesus, are you to be pitied and prayed for? Or are you to be one who sees very clearly what is the greatest love of your life? I've too often been immature and selfish, and Jesus plus other things were what to make my life happy. And Habakkuk says, I'm learning that having Jesus, so to speak, and nothing else is really the source of my joy. Is the joy of the Lord your strength? Is it my strength? God help us to answer these questions. Let's pray. Father, as we go forward into the new year, as we think about our lives and our toys and the things we worry and fret about and focus on, the things that we give our attention and our time to, would you help us to sift through all this and ask ourselves important questions? Are you the love of our life or are you activity number 26 in a big week? Are you the joy and strength of our life or are you just one of the things that tax on our lives to make our lives better? Lord, forgive me and forgive my brothers and sisters for the times we have left you in the lurch and have found other things to be our bubbles, bubbles and bright shiny beads. Would you help us to be a people who love Jesus Christ first and foremost and to be able to say Christ is my strength. He is my joy and he can never be taken away from me. Come what may. Come cancer or national disaster, Christ can never be taken away from me. Lord, make us into a people like Habakkuk learned to be. For Jesus' sake I pray. Amen.