Probably the most joyful person I’ve ever met was a missionary in northeastern Madhya Pradesh, in India. He was 92 years old when I knew him, and he’d been working in India for 65 years. He and his wife had retired in their mid-60's and returned to the West, but after a year or so the Lord had called them to return to India and begin working in an area that was untouched with the gospel. So they went back and lived in a tent for the first two years then continued to live in a mud hut. His wife had died the year before I met him, and his intention was to stay in India until he died.
We worked with him for two weeks, and I was able to have breakfast with him each morning. The thing that struck me was that he seemed to be constantly aware of God’s presence. No matter what else was going on around him, he was filled with a deep, abiding sense of joy. He wept when he told us about his wife’s death, and he expressed grief at the condition of the church in the West. But underneath everything there was still a strong sense of assurance; when the cloud passed what he returned to was this deep rejoicing in the Lord. He wasn’t afraid to express sorrow, but His joy in God wasn’t shaken by the sorrow he experienced. In his book, Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan describes a place near the end of the journey called Beulah: “In this country the sun shineth night and day: wherefore this was beyond the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and also out of the reach of Giant Despair: neither could they from this placed so much as see Doubting Castle. Here they were within sight of the City they were going to: also here met them some of the inhabitants thereof; for in this land the shining ones commonly walked, because it was upon the borders of heaven” (p. 146). I believe that’s where this man was living when I knew him. He was upon the borders of heaven, living within sight of the Eternal City.
But he didn’t spend his whole life there. He’d been walking with God for a very long lifetime, laying aside his own desires and plans and submitting to God’s lordship. There was nothing contrived about his joyfulness; there was nothing superficial about him. The danger for us, in looking at someone like him, is to think that we can become like that immediately, without struggle or difficulty. We think, “I believe the same gospel he did; I should be like that.” So we determine that we’re going to rejoice all the time, and whenever something happens that threatens to overwhelm our superficial happiness, we push it under the surface. I’ve known Christians like this; they really wanted to rejoice in all things, but they seemed, in reality, to be depressed. The joy wasn’t real, and the sadness was.
I’m afraid some of our worship songs even encourage this sort of thing. In the early 18th century, Isaac Watts wrote a great hymn: “Alas! And did my Savior bleed?” Here are verses 3 & 4: “Well might the sun in darkness hide, and shut his glories in, when Christ, the mighty Maker died for man the creature’s sin. But drops of grief can ne’er repay the debt of love I owe; [he experiences grief when he looks at what our sin cost Jesus] here, Lord, I give myself away, ‘Tis all that I can do.” In the late 19th century, a man named Ralph Hudson added a refrain. Refrains were popular at that time, and maybe he thought the hymn wasn’t joyful enough. So he added this: “At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away, It was there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy all the day!” Is that true? Is it true that since you became a Christian you are now “happy all the day?”
Trying to rejoice in God without confronting reality leads to phoniness and superficiality. We can’t short-circuit the process. We don’t learn to find joy in the Lord by denying the reality of sorrow and grief. Habakkuk, in this chapter, comes to a strong affirmation of joy and strength in God, but he doesn’t begin there. He begins crying out for judgment, grieving over the wickedness of God’s people, then he wrestles with the problem of God’s justice. Then, having begun by speaking the truth in God’s presence, he’s finally able to come to a place where he finds joy and strength in God. This prayer in chapter 3 of Habakkuk is one of the greatest expressions of joy in the midst of difficult circumstances, but we need to remember that this doesn’t stand at the beginning of the book. This isn’t where we begin; this great hymn in chapter 3 only makes sense in the context of what has gone before. And, even as he’s expressing confidence in God in this chapter, he’s filled with dread at what is coming: “I hear, and I tremble within; my lips quiver at the sound. Rottenness enters into my bones, and my steps tremble beneath me” (v. 16a). He’s not just “happy all the day,” he’s finding joy and strength in the midst of real struggle and difficulty. The question for us is, “How does he get there?” How is he able to rejoice at this time?
The first thing to notice is that Habakkuk celebrates in prayer the great things God has done in the past. “I have heard all about you, Lord, and I am filled with awe by the amazing things you have done. In this time of our deep need, begin again to help us, as you did in years gone by. Show us your power to save us” (NLT). He remembers that God has done great things for His people in the past, then he celebrates some of those things in prayer. Verses 3-15 are a poetic rehearsal of some of the ways God has rescued His people, ending with this: “You marched across the land in awesome anger and trampled the nations in your fury. You went out to rescue your chosen people, to save your anointed ones. You crushed the heads of the wicked and laid bare their bones from head to toe. With their own weapons, you destroyed those who rushed out like a whirlwind, thinking Israel would be easy prey. You trampled the sea with your horses, and the mighty waters piled high” (NLT).
This is a common theme in the Psalms. In Psalm 18, for example, the psalmist celebrates God coming to his rescue, pulling him out of deep waters. Psalm 107 describes at some length how God’s people have gotten into trouble, often through their own sins, and yet when they’ve cried out to God for help, He’s been faithful in coming to their rescue. When we’re in trouble, we need to remember that our situation is not unique. God has dealt with people in trouble before. This situation is not beyond Him; it may be beyond us, but we’re not on our own. We saw in our last sermon that a false god will corrupt every area of our lives and will destroy us in the end. Idols are powerless. But the living God is able to rescue us; we have plenty of evidence for this both in Scripture and in the history of the Church. And the longer we go on with the Lord, the more evidence we have from our own experience.
So we stop ourselves and begin remembering the great things God has done in the past. We remember the Exodus, how God miraculously delivered His people from their slavery in Egypt. Then we remember how He brought them back to Israel after the Babylonian captivity. Then, several centuries later, when the Incarnate Word was put to death on a cross, God raised Him from the grave. We remind ourselves that God has exercised extraordinary power on behalf of His people. One reason we need to be reading Scripture regularly is to remind ourselves of these things. We’re forgetful, and we lose our sense of perspective. So we need to stir ourselves up by reading these things over and over throughout the course of our lives. Then we bring these things into God’s presence in prayer, and we cry out, “O God, you have done great things for your people in the past; we desperately need your help now. Come to our rescue!” And we look back over our own lives and see how God has been with us, and we bring those things into His presence in prayer, not because He’s forgotten, but because remembering in this way stirs our faith. That’s what Habakkuk is doing here; he’s remembering, in prayer, the great things God has done for His people in the past.
The second thing to notice is that there’s a change in the direction of Habakkuk‘s prayer. Although he began, in chapter one, crying out for judgment, he now begins crying out for mercy: “in wrath may you remember mercy.” He’s praying here for the very people he was praying against in chapter one. Habakkuk knows that God is a God of justice, who will exercise vengeance on those who persist in oppressing others. This God has created us in His own image, with an innate desire for justice. The problem is, what do we do with this sense of outrage that wells up within us? This outrage is, at least at the beginning, part of being creatures made in God’s image. Living in a society where people get away with bullying and oppressing others fills us with outrage; that’s what was happening to Habakkuk at the beginning of this book. But how do we put this together with the command to love our enemies, or with Jesus’ prayer “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing”? What do we do with our God-given emotional response to the evil things people do to one another? How do we let go of the rage that wells up within us?
I think we make a mistake when we jump too quickly to forgiveness and grace. We deny the reality of what we feel and try to push it under the surface. We pray for forgiveness for others, but inside we’re full of bitterness and resentment. It’s not that we’re faking it. We’re genuinely trying to pray in the way we think God wants us to, but we can’t get beyond our emotional response to the evil around us.
Praying like Habakkuk does in chapter one is a good first step. This kind of prayer helps us give voice to things we probably wouldn’t express otherwise, things we may not even want to face in ourselves. Rage is similar to grief. If we try to suppress it, it will reappear in some other form and will do much damage. It needs to be expressed and articulated. We need to recognize and take ownership for our rage, and then we need to yield it to God’s wisdom and providential care, saying to God “but you know best how to deal with this.” This kind of prayer gives us a way to express these powerful feelings, feelings which can turn into bitterness, or something worse, if we don’t deal with them. Walter Brueggemann talks about using the Psalms in this way: “The Psalms serve to legitimate and affirm these most intense elements of rage. In such speech, we discover that our words (and feelings) do not destroy the enemy, that is, they are not as dangerous as we thought. Nor do our words bring judgement from heaven on us.... Our feelings brought to speech are not as dangerous or as important as we imagined, as we wished, or as we feared. When they are unspoken, they loom too large, and we are condemned by them. When spoken, our intense thoughts and feelings are brought into a context in which they can be discerned differently” (Praying the Psalms, p. 59).
We often move too quickly to the point of forgiveness and grace without facing fully what is really in our hearts. When we do that, the result is less than what God is calling us to do. We need to admit the truth and then bring it before God in prayer. Praying like Habakkuk does, or like the psalmists do, helps us give expression to these things in God’s presence, where they can then be transformed. But until we’ve faced the truth, we’re not able to move ahead. We can’t forgive until we’ve faced the depth of our anger and hatred. God commands us to pray for our enemies, but to get there we first need to express, in His presence, our anger and desire for vengeance. It’s important that Habakkuk’s prayer for mercy, “in wrath remember mercy,” happens in chapter 3, not in chapter 1. He prays for God to show mercy, but that’s not where he begins.
The third thing is this: seeking God, turning to Him during a time of distress, brings Habakkuk to a place where he’s able to rejoice in the Lord. At the end of the prayer, even though he knows his whole world is going to fall apart, he finds joy and strength in the Lord. Listen to verses 17-19 in The Message: “Though the cherry trees don’t blossom and the strawberries don’t ripen, Though the apples are worm-eaten and the wheat fields stunted, Though the sheep pens are sheepless and the cattle barns empty, I’m singing joyful praise to God. I’m turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God. Counting on God’s Rule to prevail, I take heart and gain strength. I run like a deer. I feel like I’m king of the mountain!” The Babylonians are going to come and take them into captivity. Life as he’s known it is going to be turned upside down. The fabric of the society is going to be torn apart. And yet, he’s able, looking at what’s coming, to find joy and strength in God.
Does that mean that he never again experiences what he says in verse 16? “I trembled inside when I heard all this; my lips quivered with fear. My legs gave way beneath me, and I shook in terror.” In verses 17-19 has he crossed over a line, so that now everything is joy and gladness and now he is “happy all the day”? No. He continues to experience sorrow and grief, but underneath it all is the certainty that God will accomplish His purposes. Even in the midst of great sorrow, he knows that it is going to end. No doubt there are times when he sees this more clearly than at other times. But his perspective has been enlarged by seeking God and coming to Him with his struggles and questions.
Two things that he’s said earlier in the book have prepared the way for what he says in these closing verses. 1) “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (2:14). Habakkuk knows that day is coming, whatever happens in the meantime. He’s assured of a future that fills him with hope. Having remembered in prayer the great things God has done in the past, we need to go on to remember His promises for the future. Our present situation is temporary, and soon we’ll be in God’s presence, worshiping Him face to face in His eternal kingdom where there is no more sorrow or pain or separation from those we love. 2) “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him” (2:20). This God, who has come to the rescue of His people over and over again throughout history, and who has promised to fill the earth with the knowledge of His glory, is exalted in heaven and calls us to worship Him. He is still the same, yesterday, today and forever, and this God has promised to be with us always, to lead us to His eternal kingdom. We are weak, and we lose our perspective, but He is with us and will lead us till the end.
That’s why Paul is able to say, in Romans 5: “we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who he has given us.... Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ....” We don’t rejoice in the midst of sufferings because we’re masochists. We are able to rejoice because we have a certain hope for the future: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” We don’t always feel the power of that hope, but it’s true whether we feel its power or not. And, as we remember this over and over again throughout the course of our lives, it transforms our perspective. That’s why A.R. Fromman, the man I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, was so filled with joy. He’d been living in the light of these things all his life. He’d experienced sorrow and difficulty, but in the midst of it he’d experienced God’s grace carrying him through. He’d read about, then experienced, God’s deliverance in the past. He’d faced the truth about himself and about the world he was living in. And then, having faced the truth, he found that God is sufficient. It was a great thing to hear him affirming that so close to the end of his life.
We don’t need to pretend. We don’t need to fake it. God is enough. But we begin by facing the truth, crying out to Him and pouring out our deepest struggles. Then we remind ourselves, over and over again, about who He is and what He’s done for His people, and also for us, in the past. And as we do that, He gives us foretastes of heaven, glimpses into the kind of joy we will know when the earth is filled with the knowledge of His glory. That’s what happened to Habakkuk at the end of chapter 3. That’s why he was filled with joy in the midst of the certainty of destruction. And the more we live in the light of this hope, the more it will transform our perception. Even if we continue struggling and doubting all our lives, this is still true: “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” But since it is true, may God enable us to say, along with Habakkuk, “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength.”
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