The Prophet's Prayer of Remembering and Rejoicing

Habakkuk 3:1-19 - Riley Boggs

At this point you probably know the story well, but in case… Habakkuk, a prophet in Israel, complains to God about the wickedness that is taking place in the Southern Kingdom of Israel, Judah, and how they are not following the ways of God. They are disregarding the law of God and are running head long into sin. Not only that, but they continue to prosper despite their direct obedience. So as a prophet who loves God and wants to see the nation of Israel be an obedient nation, he cries out to God and ask Him why He isn’t doing anything. He asks Him why He is being inactive in all of this, and wants to know how much longer the wicked in Judah will continue to prosper.

God answers Habakkuk’s complaint and tells him that he is raising up a nation, the Chaldeans, or Babylonians, to judge Israel. They are strong and violent nation, and they are going to come into Judah and do what must be done. They will bring about justice.

Habakkuk hears this and isn’t settled at all. He asks God how He, a Holy God, could use such a sinful people to do this. It seemed wrong, and Habakkuk thought there must be another way to do what must be done. Habakkuk doesn’t understand, but decides to trust God no matter what. He commits to not complaining anymore, but simply waiting for God to respond and trusting.

And so God does respond. God tells Habakkuk 2 different things. First, that He is going to spare the righteous remnant in Judah who live by faith. God tells Habakkuk, and those who will listen to Habakkuk, that if they want to live, they must live by faith. He tells them that the Babylonians are coming, and so they must believe the promise that God has made to them. 

The second thing God tells them is that He is going to judge the Babylonians for their wickedness. Though He is going to use them to judge Israel, they themselves will be judged. They won’t get away with all their wicked deeds, but instead God will destroy them in the end. And so God is not in any way culpable for the evil that the Babylonians will do, but at the same time He is going to use them for a time to accomplish His purposes.

That is what we read in the first 2 chapters, and now we are here in the third chapter. In this chapter we get Habakkuk’s final response. It isn’t a complaint, but a praise. It is a prayer that Habakkuk lifts up to God in response to what He has heard God say. There are a few different ways, I think, someone could approach this text and preach it faithfully. You could talk about the theology of prayer, of suffering, hope, faith, and many other things. For us, we are going to try and get a full sense of what is happening here and simply note 3 things that we can learn from this prayer. 

Each point will start with, “As people of faith, we must…” as you can see on the notes section of the bulletin. Each of these points can clearly be seen in the text and apply directly to your life today. We are going to look at this prophet’s prayer and get a picture what it looks like to live by faith, as God has called them, and us, to do. Also, I almost made the first line “As people of faith, especially during worrisome times and suffering, we must…” You can add that if you’d like, because I do think that each of these points are especially important in those times. But they are also just general ways that we live by faith.

As people of faith, we must…

1.) Run to God in prayer (vv.1)

You may be thinking, “verse 1 is just telling us what we are about to read, how can a point be made just from that." Well, consider the circumstances in which Habakkuk comes to the Lord in prayer. At the beginning of the chapter 2 when he committed himself to listening and not complaining anymore, that doesn’t mean his heart was settled on everything the Lord has said. It simply means that he was committed to going to trusting in the end. And so after God tells him to live by faith and promises to judge the Babylonians, he runs to Him in prayer. Not a prayer of complaining, but as we will see, a prayer of praise.

He runs to God in prayer for 2 different reasons. First, I think he is glad to hear what God has promised. He trusts God and His Word, so when he hears this plan more fully, he does what every believer ought to do at this time. They should pray a praise of praise. A prayer of thanksgiving. Habakkuk was demonstrating his trust in God by praising him after hearing His Word. Learning that God isn’t going to let the Babylonians off the hook and that God is going to spare the righteous in Israel led him to praise God in prayer.

The second reason I think Habakkuk runs to God in prayer, is to convince his heart of what he has just heard. This is why the context of his prayer matters so much. We know that he wasn’t entirely settled on the plan God had revealed at first, so it’s likely he isn’t completely there now, but yet he prays. Think of it like this. What do we often say when someone says something will happen that is unbelievable? “I’ll believe it when I see it”. That is fine and well with people, but with God that isn’t an option. We aren’t called to believe it when we see it, we are called to believe when we hear it. And so when God speaks, when we read His Words, as people of faith, we listen and believe. The issue, as everyone in this room knows, is that doubt exists in our minds and hearts. We can hear what God says and want to believe it, but have to convince our minds and hearts to follow suite. 

I think that is what Habakkuk is doing here in this prayer. He wasn’t settled with the plan as God revealed in the beginning, but he was settled with trusting God. And so now, he comes to God to confirm it in himself what he must believe, if he is to live by faith. He wants to be confident in what God’s plan for him is, so he knows it is time to spend time with the Father in prayer.

Now, I think what he prays further shows this is the reason he prayed, so let’s look at the prayer itself in verses 2-15.

As people of faith, we must…

2.) Recount all God has done (vv.2-15)

I taught this chapter once before in class on prayer. I think there is a lot we can learn about prayer in this text, but one of the things I pointed out was that this text specifically shows us that prayer impacts us in more ways than we might realize. When we go to God with our concerns and worries, He isn’t made aware of anything He doesn’t already know. We aren’t enlightening God on how we feel, what we need, or anything, like that. He knows us better than we know ourselves. 

So, if we aren’t informing Him of anything, why do we do it? One reason we bring our concerns to God in this way is because God uses our prayers to bring about His plan, so that you can see that He hears you and is working all things for your good. God answers your prayers according to His will, not because you have made him aware of something he needed to do, but because He wants you to see that He does hear you and is for you.

But the second reason, among others, for prayer that I think we see here, is that we pray to help our hearts and minds believe what we are saying. This is what I was getting at with Habakkuk convincing himself to believe what God has said more and more. In your own life, when God does something in your life that is hard for you to make sense of, you need to run to Him in prayer. Spend time with Him. And as you do, you will find yourself being able to rest in His plan more and more. He will use your prayers to help you believe what it is you are struggling to believe. Habakkuk may have been wrestling with all of this, but he was not going to let that keep him out of prayer. Instead, as a man who was committed to trusting and living by faith, he ran to God in prayer.

I think this is even more evident as we look at what he prays. He spends the majority of this prayer simply recounting all that God has done. He doesn’t recount things chronologically or really with any specific order, but it’s almost like he is just praying and thinking, and letting memories come to him. Let’s look at a few of the things Habakkuk recounts…

In verse 3-4 he thinks back to when God revealed Himself Mt. Sinai. Teman and Mount Paran are references to the area surrounding Mt. Sinai, so he is recalling the time when God, though veiled revealed himself on Earth. A time of glory.

In verse 5 he remembers when God delivered Israel out of the hands of Egypt. God used 10 plagues as the means to convince the hard-hearted Pharoah to let God’s people go, free from their oppressive hands. A time of deliverance.

In verse 6 he thinks about God as creator. How God brought all things into existence, from nothing, in whatever way He desired. A time of creation that shows the magnitude and eternality of God.

In verse 7, he remembers times when God judged other nations on behalf of Israel. 

In verses 8 through 15, he thinks of God’s sovereignty and power over all things. And He interweaves different examples of God displaying these attributes throughout Isael’s history.

Put simply, Habakkuk is growing his faith and trust in God by praying, and more specifically, by recounting all the things that God has done. And in verse 2, we see the desire of the prophet, the reason he is thinking through these things. He says, “O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.” In other words, he is asking God to do it all again. He has asking God to do the amazing work that He knows He can, and spare those who are living by faith from the Babylonians, as he has promised. And then he begins in on examples of God’s work and His character, both as an act of praise and as the means to convince himself to believe in Him even more.

And so for us, the application is one-to-one. It’s direct. When you begin to worry and fear, recount all that God has done. This can be examples in the Bible, stories you’ve heard from others, examples in your own life, and so on. Recount His promises to you and turn to the Scriptures that make those promises. Recount the characteristics of God; think of how He is Holy, Good, Sovereign, Just, Immovable, All-knowing, and so on. Reflect on what Habakkuk could not at this time, Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for you. Think through the Gospel.

I would encourage you sometime this week to set aside just 5 or 10 minutes to do this. Spend just a few minutes actively thinking about all that God has done and who He is. If you struggle to remember stuff at first, ask the Spirit to remind you, and He will. And as you remember certain things, it’ll help you remember even more. It is like a good spiraling affect. 

And also, if you struggle to see God at work in your life, or struggle to recount things God has done, or if you just want to be better at remembering all He has done, I encourage you to start a prayer journal. Simply write down your prayers and then revisit them ever so often, and if God answers that prayer, write when and how He did so. What you’ll begin to see is that God is doing far more in your life that you realized. And the next time fears and doubts arise, you will have the perfect place to go and recount all that God has done, so that you may able to, as a man or woman of faith, trust God all the more. 

As people of faith, we must…

3.) Rejoice in our God and trust Him in all things (v.16-19)

These are a powerful few verses. Think of yourself in the context of Habakkuk, knowing what all you have experienced with the wickedness in Judah, and all that you know is coming with the Babylonians, and listen to these verses.

What you have hear is a man who is scared, but who trust God. There is a commitment to trust, especially seen at the end of verse 16 when he says, “Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.” Habakkuk knows that scary times are coming, as we see in the first part of verse 16, but more than that, he is believing what God has just said He will do. He has promised to save a righteous remnant in Judah, and He has promised to bring judgment on the Babylonians at the right time. And so Habakkuk says, despite my fear, I will wait for that day, because I know it is coming.

Church, we have to do the same thing. At the end of the day, we have to make a commitment to trust God. We must seek for it to be our gut reaction, our first thing, to trust God. That’s what we should aim for, but it has to be, must be, our final stand. When it’s time to trust or not trust, we have got to trust. As people of faith, we have to trust God. This is what it means to be a people of faith. We don’t wait to see all the details of the plan before we trust. We trust because we know the planner, and we have faith in Him.

Listen to what Proverbs 3:1-8 says concerning our trust in him. “My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, 2 for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. 3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. 4 So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. 7 Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. 8 It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.”

Do you see that commitment to trust God here? And also a commitment to remembering all that God has done and said. That’s the kind of people we must be. We trust God, and we have every reason to trust Him. Patiently wait on all that God has promised, trust that He will do what He has said. He always has, and He always will. It is my prayer that I would trust God completely, that’s my prayer for you all, and that’s my prayer for this church. 

The second part of this text that is so beautiful is the rejoicing Habakkuk does, in a situation where rejoicing would seem impossible. When the fig tree doesn’t blossom, there’s no fruit on the vines, the olives don’t produce, the fields don’t yield food, the flock is cut off, and there are no herd in the stalls. Another way of saying this would be, when you have nothing. Habakkuk says, that even if he has nothing, he will rejoice. Why?

Look at verses 18-19. Because God has brought salvation, because He is Habakkuk’s strength, and because He is caring for him step by step. To the world, this is insane. How could a person with nothing have true joy? The thing that the world is missing, is God. There cause for rejoicing in all things and at all times, even when we have nothing, because God is worth rejoicing in. The God of the Universe, Creator of all things, has saved you and loved you. Think about this. If you are in Christ, if you have repented of your sins and placed your faith in Christ, the God of the Universe has set His love and affection on you. He sees you as righteous and He loves you with a never-ending love, not because of anything you have done or will do, but because of what Christ has done on your behalf. There is reason for rejoicing. Rejoicing in who he is, what He has done and is doing, and what He has promised.

Our rejoicing can’t be dependent on our prosperity, because our prosperity is finite. Nothing we have is eternal, except God. And He has promised to give us more than we could ever have here, in the new creation. But our rejoicing cannot wait until the new creation, it must start here.

My encouragement to you, is to rejoice like this prophet. Sing praises to God in tears in the midst of heartache, worry, doubt, financial struggle, physical ailments, and so many other things that come with a sinful world. In those times, that’s when you have to rejoice. We have to seal what we know and believe in our hearts. We have to, by our words, thoughts, and actions, rejoice in something that we are struggling to believe, so that we can believe it.

Consider this book as whole and what we are supposed to learn from it. Think about the complaint of Habakkuk and his struggle to have faith because of everything going on around him. What is it that gave him the faith to press on? It was his love of God, his commitment to listen and trust, and his choice to rejoice. That is what we need. 

We don’t need more things, we need a greater love of God. We need a strong commitment to listen to God’s Word and trust it. We need to rejoice in all things, at all times. When we do this, our faith will grow, and it will be strong enough to press on in the face of really hard things.

And, as you know, each week at Covenant, we partake in the Lord’s Supper so that we could be reminded. God knows we need reminding, that is why He gave of this.