Let's turn in the Word of God to the prophet Habakkuk. Prophet Habakkuk, Habakkuk chapter 3. And then with that, our New Testament reading, we'll begin with that actually, Romans chapter 1. It's not in your bulletin. My apologies. Romans chapter 1, and then Habakkuk chapter 3. Let's stand together. Habakkuk chapter 3 is a chapter which is about the wrath of God. Romans chapter 1, Paul, reminds us of the wrath of God. Verse 16, he writes, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. You'll remember that that phrase comes from Habakkuk chapter 2. We keep reading. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. that they are without excuse because although they knew God they did not glorify him as God nor were thankful but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened professing to be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man like birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves. Who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another. Men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error, which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. Being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil mindedness. They are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them. Now to Habakkuk chapter 3. A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet on Shigionoth. O LORD, I have heard Your speech and was afraid. O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy. God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise. His brightness was like the light as He had rays flashing from His hand, and there His power was hidden. Before Him went pestilence, and fever followed at His feet. He stood and measured the earth. He looked and startled the nations, and the everlasting mountains were scattered. The perpetual hills bowed. His ways are everlasting." I saw the tents of Kushan and affliction, the curtains of the land of Midian trembled. Oh, Lord, were you displeased with the rivers? Was your anger against the rivers? Was your wrath against the sea that you rode on your horses, your chariots of salvation? Your bow was made quite ready, oaths were sworn over your arrows. You divided the earth with rivers, the mountains saw you and trembled. The overflowing of the water passed by the deep uttered its voice and lifted its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their habitation. At the light of your arrows, they went at the shining of your glittering spear. You marched through the land in indignation. You trampled the nations in anger. You went forth for the salvation of your people, for salvation with your anointed. You struck the head from the house of the wicked by laying bare from foundation to neck. You thrust through with his own arrows, the head of his villages. They came out like a whirlwind to scatter me. Their rejoicing was like feasting on the poor in secret. You walk through the sea with your horses through the heap of great waters. When I heard my body tremble, my lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness entered my bones and I trembled in myself that I might rest in the day of trouble when He comes to the people. He will invade them with His troops." The grass withers. The flower fades. The Word of God endures forever. Lord, Your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We pray that tonight again You would guide us in our way by it. That narrow road that leads to life. Plowing up again our hearts. Changing what needs to be changed. Strengthening what needs strengthening. Lord, teaching us where we are ignorant. Encouraging us where we are afraid. Lord, when we are weary, we pray that You would lift us up. Lord, we come again particularly aware of our need this week for this Word. You alone have the words of life. Feed us, we pray, for Jesus' sake. Amen. So we turn to Habakkuk chapter 3 this evening, which is... I preach some occasional sermons in the morning. We are just picking up in our regular consecutive expository preaching from the prophet Habakkuk. I was on the phone with my brother this week, and he is a pastor in northern Ontario where there's still, I think, snow on the ground, and it's not quite as warm and spring-like as it is here. If I remember correctly, he lives about 1,000 miles due north of here. And they rent a building and the landlord locked the doors last weekend, didn't want any groups gathering. And so they met in a barn. And my brother said, and I asked my brother, what did you preach on? And he said, Habakkuk chapter three, Habakkuk chapter three, because it seemed fitting for our times. Now we happen to just be at Habakkuk chapter 3, and you're going to notice that it is fitting for our times, very fitting indeed. A little review before we get to the chapter. To get in your heart and mind a little of the dynamic of the book, its ebbs and flows. It begins with a specific problem in chapter 1 that the prophet is wrestling with, and that is Judah's rebellion. Judah's rebellion against the Lord, and the prophet is asking the question, Lord, why are You not dealing with Your people? Why do You show me iniquity and cause me to see trouble? How long shall I cry and You will not hear? God answers. And as He answers, The circle that this book deals with, as it were, begins to grow. And suddenly we move from one prophet dealing with one tribe to another nation, the Chaldeans. And God's answer is, I'm going to deal with Judah, I'm going to bring the Chaldeans. And the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, are going to be my agents of discipline for my wandering people. Judgment will begin in the household of God. Habakkuk now, if you remember, has a bigger problem. Chapter 1 in verse 13, you are of purer eyes than to behold evil. Oh, Lord, my God, my holy one. You cannot look on wickedness. And why do you look on those who deal treacherously and hold your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he? Habakkuk has a new perplexity before him. How can God use the more wicked to punish the wicked? God might deal with Judah, that would make sense, but is Babylon going to go scot-free? And God's answer had two parts. The first was a message for the prophet and for all those who follow the prophet by faith. Habakkuk, the just, shall live by faith. What I have spoken, I have spoken. It will come to pass. Write it down. The just shall live by faith. These are my decrees. These are my plans. These are my ways. Bow before my sovereignty. Remember my promises. Cling to me for salvation. I am the Lord. There is none other. The just shall live by faith. Second, and that's what we looked at last time in chapter 2, verses 4 through the end of the chapter, Verses 4-19 in particular. Habakkuk, I haven't missed anything. I haven't missed the sins of the nations. Habakkuk, I have seen and I know. I know what's going on in the world. I am in my holy temple. Psalm 11, and my eyes see, my eyelids test the children of men, and this is what I see Habakkuk, I see drunkenness, I see greed, I see theft, oppression, violence, murder, sexual perversion, idolatry, I see it all, and I have pronounced my woes against it, and I will judge the unbelieving world. I haven't missed anything. And now the circle of God's purposes, as it were, extends to all humanity, all history, all peoples. And Habakkuk is, you can imagine him backing away and seeing something of the holiness and the sovereignty and the majesty of God. He began with a narrow question. He's starting to see the width and the expanse of the knowledge and purposes and will of God, and particularly, he's coming to grips with the wrath of God. And that's what he sees coming. And that's what chapter 3 is about. It's a prayer. A prayer in response to the vision of coming judgment. It's Habakkuk having taken his steps back and now is driven to his knees in prayer. He's praying over what he sees coming. And we're going to really look at the two things that he sees coming from this prayer. The first one is going to be the main theme of the prayer. He sees the wrath of God coming. After his two questions and God's two answers, he is seeing with new clarity simply what we call the wrath of God against the unrighteousness of men. Romans 1. And then in that wrath, yet as it were, fiery hurricane of the wrath of God in the visions that he has been given, he also sees that God in wrath will remember mercy. So first, what Habakkuk sees coming, the wrath of God. Now, he's already aware of the wrath of God, I've said, from the previous revelation that he has received concerning God's judgment using the Babylonians and their cruelty to discipline Israel. He knows what that's going to look like. It's not going to be a surprise to anybody that when they come, what they actually ended up doing in history, which is, as I mentioned this morning in preaching on Daniel, removing Jerusalem, as it were, one brick from another until it was a leveled field of rubble, burning it, massacring the people and carrying off the exiles. This was the Chaldean way. Utter subjugation. He knew it was coming. He knew their reputation. The second thing, that he had seen in the vision was that in the five woes of chapter two, that God sees it all. And he had announced in those woes that he would indeed come to tear up and judge this sin sick world. And what Habakkuk has experienced in God's answers is that the freight train of God's unstoppable holy justice is on its way to humanity. Verse 16 of chapter 2, speaking to the one who gives drink to his neighbor, that you may look on his nakedness. The cup of the Lord's right hand will be turned against you and utter shame will be on your glory. Now we're going to look at this language of the cup of the wrath of God, but we'll just go one place in the Old Testament. Jeremiah chapter 25. For thus says the Lord God of Israel to me, take this wine cup of fury from my hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. And they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them. The prophets were familiar with this picture of the cup of the wrath of God. filled with, as the writer of Revelation, John in the Spirit, also receiving revelation from God, would understand the cup of God's fury. He speaks of the grapes of wrath, of the winepress, of the fierceness, of the wrath of Almighty God. The camera at the end of chapter 2 pans upwards and he sees the Lord in His holy temple. And this should remind us of Isaiah. But the Lord is in His holy temple. And so you have to have what's in the man's mind already, in his heart, impressed on his conscience, shown to him by the Spirit like John on the Lord's day, or Isaiah in the revelation of chapter 6. He is overwhelmed already by what he knows of the wrath of God. Think of what he had to do with this. He had to write this down, make it plain on tablets, tell the world that this was going to come, it was going to happen, that God meant what He said, He wasn't going to relent. He had to be sure that it would happen. Chapter 2 and verse 3. What does this drive him to do? Chapter 3 and verse 1, to fall on his knees and pray the prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. He starts to pray. And he pleads. He's afraid. Verse 2, I have heard your speech. In other words, everything that God has said so far. I have heard your speech, and I was afraid. He pleads mercy in view of this unstoppable coming wrath of God. Let's look at the depths of understanding of that wrath. Before we do that, what exactly is the wrath of God? Not a popular topic. It's His intrinsic holy indignation against sin. It's the settled opposition of His holiness against sin. And because He is righteous, The settled disposition of His uncompromising holiness against sin results always in judicial punishment. Another writer, it's His personal divine revulsion to evil. It's His personal powerful, His omnipotent opposition to evil. His steady, unrelenting, unremitting, uncompromising antagonism against evil in all of its manifestations, and his determination to judicially destroy evil. Hermann Bavink, his vehement wrath, rather, is a vehement, uncontrollable emotion, often in the Scriptures compared to burning, to fire, to heat, to smoking fire. In God, wrath is kindled especially by the sins of Israel against the covenant of grace, not first by the world. It's His wrath against desecration, against idolatry. It is terrible. It inspires dread. It brings pain, punishment, destruction, and everlasting condemnation. And this wrath will only be finally revealed in its completeness at the end of the age, in the day of wrath, the day of the Lord. Now Habakkuk has seen this. And he says, I fall on my knees before you, Lord God, because I am afraid. What did he see? Verses 3-15 He gives us, in his prayer, a prophetic understanding of the wrath of God that traces the movement of God from the wilderness to the promised land. In a sense, in this prayer, what Habakkuk does is he traces from the Exodus through the conquest into the promised land in the present day. And He sets in His prayer before Israel, before Judah, and before us, the movement of God both in wrath and for salvation. A couple of things we learn from this imagery. The first thing you have to see is that the wrath that He is speaking of, verse 2, the wrath of God flows from God unmistakably. This wrath that has caused him to fear flows from the Lord. Verse 3, God came from Timon, the Holy One from Mount Piraeus. Verse 5, before Him, God went pestilence. A thiever follows at His feet. He is the active agent. He stood and measured the earth. He looked and startled the nations. Verse 8, He was displeased with the rivers, the Lord Himself. Verse 12, you marched through the land in ignatiation. You trampled the nations in anger. Verse 14, you thrust through with his own arrow the head of his villages. You walk through the sea with your horses through the heap of great waters. God is the active agent here. He is the one who's visiting. His people in particular, but also the world with wrath. The second thing you need to see about this section is that it has in it movement or approach. God came. He came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Now you wouldn't think of these places, you probably aren't familiar with these labels for these places. Teman and Mount Paran describe areas to the far south in the wilderness. Mount Paran is a description also for the very same region, the Sinai wilderness. The beginnings of the wilderness wanderings of Israel just after the exodus through the Red Sea. And he's envisioning God, as it were, on the march towards Zion, towards the Promised Land, towards Palestine. The narrative here in the prayer traces Israel through Edom, Teman, to the Sinai region, Mount Paran, and reminds us of the time when God moved with His people, the Holy One of Israel, from Paran, from the Sinai region, moving across the wilderness to Israel. Look at verse 7, the tents of Cushan. In Chronicles, we're told that Cushan was one of the first to oppose Israel as they came into the Promised Land. Midian the same. There's movement from the wilderness through the early opposition, past Israel's early aggressors to the land. Verse 8 picks up the language of passing through the River Jordan. Reminds us of Psalm 93, the voice of the Lord on high, which is mightier than the many waters, the many waves of the sea. His power over the waters here, the flood is described here particularly in verse 15, rather the exodus, you walk through the sea with your horses through the heap of great waters, it's exodus language again. Can't help but think of our Lord Jesus in Mark chapter 4, He's on the Sea of Galilee with His disciples in the boat. The wind and the waves were raging. And he said, Peace be still, the same Lord over the waves and the wind and the sea. Verse 11 reminds us, going back to the Exodus and conquest language, surely of the day that the sun stood still when Joshua, in his victory described in Joshua chapter 10, called for the sun to stand still that God's people might have a victory in their war. The movement, the approach of God. the ways of God, God with His people, God on the march, God displaying His holiness and His power. The prophet also describes His glory on this march. Look again at verse 3, His glory covered the heavens, the earth was full of His praise, His brightness was like the light He had raised, flashing from His hand, and there His power was hidden. And then listen to this language, before Him went pestilence. He's the one who measures the earth, the nations. tremble before Him. The apparently permanent, everlasting mountains were scattered. The perpetual hills bowed. His ways are everlasting. This is the eternal God. They bowed to the Everlasting One Himself. Everything, animate, inanimate, mountains, rivers, seas, nations, creatures, All creation, as He passes by, trembles. And then fourth, notice, and this is critical, Habakkuk describes along this journey the effects of the passing of the Holy One of Israel, the Everlasting One, the One who has brightness like light rays flashing from His hand Power there hidden. What are the effects of God in history? Well, have you ever seen God? No one has seen God. Even the Incarnate One, we in our age, we have not seen Him with our eyes. Peter writes to the church, whom having not seen, you love. None of you have seen the Holy Spirit. But we have all seen His work, His ways, the effects of His holiness as He rides through human history. His power, His everlasting glory. What are the effects? Let me give you an illustration. Children, probably some of you in science class have heard of radiation. Can't see it? But if there was something radioactive here, just even a radioactive rock, particular element, uranium, let's say, I wouldn't have to touch it. I actually wouldn't even have to know it was here. It could be inside this pulpit. At the same time, the power emanating from that material mysteriously could burn me, injure me, and if I stood here long enough it could sicken me and die. The effect, powerful, unmistakable, only realized by its later visible effects. And there's something to that here with the prophet Habakkuk. Think of who he is. He's in those days where he's on his knees praying and he's asking, Lord, where are you? Where are you? What's happening in Israel? All this injustice and wickedness. Lord, where are you? Where are you? The God who has promised to be with his people. And when you tell me that the Chaldeans are going to come, Lord, don't you know what they're doing? Where are you, Lord? I can't see you and I can't see your ways. I can't see your judgments. What are you doing? It's really at the heart of Habakkuk's cry. And the vision that he receives is God saying, I am here. Watch me. Watch what I will do in history. Look at verse five. Before him went pestilence, plague, sickness. Before him went fever, Affliction in the tents of Cushan, in a certain nation, in a certain place, the curtains of the land of Midian trembled. Remember when I asked the priest to step into the Jordan River with the Ark of the Covenant, though you didn't see me or my form, you remember what happened. Remember when Joshua prayed to me, the invisible God in heaven, And the sun stood still as I held back the forces of the solar system in response to my praying, Mediator, Warrior King Joshua. Remember, when you walk through the sea, because I first walked through the sea with you, and my invisible hand divided the waters. The effects of the holiness and power of God in history are seen here. Verse 5. We could put it this simply. Novel coronavirus COVID-19. Earthquakes. Volcanoes. Verse 6. War. Verse 14, you thrust through with His own arrows the head of His villages. The fundamental reason for all of this These are signs that God is marching through the land with indignation and trampling the nations in anger. In other words, God was saying to Habakkuk, you see what's happening in the world when you see my ways and my judgments. It is I, the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, God, from Teman and from Mount Paran, marching across the face of the earth, heading for the promised land, executing my judgments in all the earth. Trampling the nations in anger. Not a popular thing to say, especially not this week. Judging nations. Beginning with the household of faith. 1 Peter 4 and verse 17. And if it will be hard for us, Peter says. We can't begin to imagine what it will be for those who will be condemned forever. This is the message of Habakkuk. Plain, unadorned, which links, listen carefully, real, providential actions of God, at first unseen to the unaided eye, the unspiritual eye, without faith, but with faith, We recognize and see the hand of God in all providence and all history. What does this do for Habakkuk? Look at verse 16. It makes him fall apart. When I heard my body tremble, my lips quivered at the voice. His voice started to shake. His body started to tremble. Rottenness entered my bones. I trembled in myself that I might rest in the day of trouble when He comes up to the people. He will invade them with His troops." Why did he tremble? First, he came to understand that he himself and the believing people of God may have to be swept through these judgments, these fires. And then second, He was gazing upon the incomparable holiness and majesty of God. And it dissolved him. Rottenness in my bones. My body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. It leveled him. He had the uncontrollable sensation of fear. Oh Lord, I have heard your speech and I was afraid. Let me get right to the point for you personally before we talk about all sorts of broader things. Some of you right now playing with sin. You have no idea. This was a vision. He wasn't actually living through. He was getting a prophetic forewarning. And the weight of the forewarning, much like John when he falls on his face in the book of Revelation before the holiness, majesty, glory of God, seeing His ways and purposes. This man is crushed. He comes to an end of Himself. He falls apart at just a vision. And it's not just a vision in that it's a small thing, but it's a forewarning of future reality. Paul says, therefore put to death your members who are on the earth because Christ is coming. Fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience. Kill sin. You know the wrath of God? Kill sin. Run from it to God for forgiveness and mercy. But you realize that there's a connection between A and B. If you're here this evening, and you're still playing with it, you're not repenting of it, your words and your actions, in your relationships, your home, with your children, in your private life, you're playing a game that you will lose. You need to repent. The final judgment I said earlier is described in the same terms. Revelation 14 and verse 19. We'll read that. Make it plain and clear in your heart and mind. So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trampled outside the city. Blood came out of the winepress up to the horse's bridles for 1,600 furlongs. Revelation 19. Jesus, on the white horse, in righteousness, He judges and makes war. People just forget this about Jesus. He's the agent of the wrath of God. He's the executor of punishments. His eyes were like a flame of fire. His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except himself. was clothed in a robe, dipped in blood, and his name was called the Word of God. The armies of heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed him on white horses. Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should strike the nations, and he himself will rule them with a rod of iron, Psalm 2 language, dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. He himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, and he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Wrath is what Habakkuk sees. Remember John the Baptist? Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Flee to Christ from the wrath to come. But what else does he see? He sees the mercy of God. The prayer is not just a prayer of humility, it's a prayer of intercession. Go back to verse 2. One of the most profound phrases in the Bible, O Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years. The prayer is a humble acknowledgment of the plain fact of the wrath of God exercised in history. But that's not the main thrust, as it were, or the only element of this prayer. It's the main in terms of its length. Revive your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make it known, in wrath, remember mercy. The prophet inside, as it were, the fiery hurricane of the wrath of God in this vision, finds himself still praying for mercy. This little phrase, in wrath remember mercy. Again, I think I mentioned this morning, but I'll say it again, we can't stop any of God's judgments in the earth, not this virus, nothing. Only God can. And our God does, because in wrath He remembers mercy. In the middle of this vortex of fiery indignation, Habakkuk has the boldness to call out for mercy. He prays for revival. He's a good prophet. That's what he was praying for at the beginning. He was praying that God would deal with Israel's sins. He hasn't let go. He's like Jacob, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And the second profound reason then for God's march from Sinai to Palestine in holy judgment is also for salvation, for Israel, and for the world. Because in the middle of all this wrath and in the middle of all this hurricane of judgment, there's hints of mercy. It all came already in verse chapter 2 when God said, whoa, whoa, whoa, five times. But in the middle of it all, He said, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. And we saw that His judgments were for purification, that He had an end in mind. But His glory, holiness, beauty, mercy, love, and the enjoyment of that by all his people would one day fill the earth. In Habakkuk's prayer, he picks up on the theme, and there's two fundamental reasons for God's march in holiness across the ages and across the earth and across the nations. The first is for purification and holy retribution for sin, wrath. The wrath of God revealed against the unrighteousness of men. It's coming. It will come. It's happening now. Can't be stopped. Write the vision down if it's going to happen. But there's a second purpose revealed. Salvation. Look at verse 13. For you went forth for the salvation of your people, for salvation with your anointed. You struck the head from the house of the wicked. Habakkuk is saying, I see what you're doing. I know, Lord, in your holiness you will judge the wicked. But I know there's something else you're doing. You're riding for salvation. God does not destroy the wicked simply for the sake of destroying the wicked, Palmer Robertson writes. He destroys them for His own namesake and for the sake of His people. as He saves them from all of their enemies. Who gets destroyed? Well, of the Babylonians, those who do not repent and turn, bow their knee to the Lord of heaven and earth. God will not miss, He's saying to Habakkuk, one injustice visited on His covenant people. God will save His people from their enemies. Why is he doing it? For the salvation of your people. He has saving mercy in mind. And Habakkuk, having seen this to be fundamental to God's character, that in wrath he remembers mercy, that he's abundant in mercy, and slow to anger, and full of kindness and compassion, he's hanging on to the attributes of God, the covenant promises of God, and the revelation of God's purposes to bring salvation. And notice how specific this is. For the sake of his people, by the agency of the Anointed One, the Messiah, for the purpose of, verse 13, striking the head of the house of the wicked. Which brings us back to Genesis 3.15 and all the way to the end, to Colossians chapter 2. We're at the cross. Christ triumphed both in His work of propitiation, which was what? To be the wrath bearer as He was the sin bearer, and rescue His people, and put to open shame all of His enemies, to bind the strong man, cast Satan from heaven, and one day ultimately destroy His kingdom. This is what Habakkuk is actually seeing in his vision. This is what he was to write down for Judah and for us. Listen carefully. As a divinely given pledge of present and future realities, inscripturated promise, that this would really happen, that the fires of judgment emanated from a moving, holy, resplendent God would burn up everything in His path, and it will. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. in which the heavens will pass away with great noise, the elements will melt with fervent heat, both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up." 2 Peter 3. We will feel those realities and we feel them to a tiny degree right now. Who knows? This week is going to be more or less. Again, providence. You need to be sensitive to it. Bring the Word to interpret it and understand it. Humble ourselves unto the mighty hand of God. And again, I would plead with you, repent of all sin. But remember that there's a purpose in it all. One people gathered from every nation, tribe and tongue. And like as most as Moses saw the burning bush, he marveled, he turned aside to see this site. What is this that a bush burns and is not consumed, that there will be a special people Saved by God, brought through the fires of affliction and saved on the other side. Now, here's one more question, how to pull everything together. I want you to think of some words. One of the most profound words ever spoken. Perhaps by anyone who has ever lived. By someone. who when he considered the wrath of God, his body trembled. His lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness entered his bones, and he trembled in himself as in the garden he sweat as it were great drops of blood. And when the sun saw the vision of the Father's coming wrath and the fires of holiness." What did he pray? He prayed, oh my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And here's the marvel. The anointed one that Habakkuk speaks about quenches it completely. For our sins on the tree pays the entirety of the price, the eternal, consuming, furious, fiery, omnipotent indignation of God against sin. And he drinks the cup to the last drop. And on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? God in wrath remembered mercy. And He made provision for our salvation and revival. You know, I hear that on the news in the last two days that hydrochloroquine and a Z-Pak might be the cure for the coronavirus. Maybe it is. Maybe this one. Maybe God in His mercy has given us a cure and in a few weeks we'll all go on like nothing happened. Maybe not. But if you understand Habakkuk, his prayer for revival and for mercy, understand that he understood that the answer to the problems was the saving mercy of God. Nothing else. Nothing else. that Christ, the Anointed One, would be the only cure, that the only hope would be that God in wrath would remember mercy, and we in the New Covenant know that He has. Now, one more lesson. Lord, I have heard Your speech and I was afraid. O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years. We need to pray, plead with God in these days. especially, not just for our individual salvation, but that God would revive His church and His people. We are being pressed and reminded in the smallest of ways how much we need the Lord, or that we all would repent and that God would visit our land with reviving mercy, that He, in wrath, would remember mercy. Let's pray. Lord our God, we remember that you have shown us your love in this, that you gave us your son to be the propitiation for our sins, and that in wrath you have remembered mercy by for our sins visiting on another the anointed Messiah, Your Son, whom You love. Your Son in whom You always were, You are, and always will be well pleased. Your beloved Son. Lord, in Him You have provided for us the way of escape from Your wrath. Lord, as we see You in Your holiness marching across the ages and across the nations, doing what You will, give us grace to bow to Your sovereignty. Give us a sense of Your holiness, even as Habakkuk did long ago, that we would tremble before You. Lord, give us a sense also of Your mercy, that we would be so overwhelmed by it, that in all of this, You remember Your people for salvation, for goodness, for everlasting life, that you promised to destroy all our enemies, our greatest enemy, Satan, and the whole kingdom of darkness through the work of your anointed, that we would go from here humbled, repentant, and glad. Lord, for you have made us glad, now and forever, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Let's sing together. We turn to turn to hymnal 67, take this psalm on our lips. Not unto us, O Lord of heaven, let's stand. Not unto us, O Lord of heaven, not unto you, we glorify. ♪ Love and truth you do fulfill ♪ ♪ The counsels of your sovereign will ♪ ♪ O nature, tell your heart to know ♪ ♪ That you'll bring the good of God along ♪ ♪ There is no trust in God alone ♪ ♪ The Lord is gracious and kind, I know ♪ you. Those willing to all who live confess, You and your children we will bless. This we will vow to watch each day, Praise ye the Lord, His praise to obey.