October 14, 2000 -- AM
MERCY IN THE MIDDLE OF MISERY
Habakkuk 3:1-16
INTRODUCTION:
Our God is a great God, and greatly to be praised. A finite mind could no more comprehend His glory that one can compress the ocean into a bucket. All eternity will be spent learning more and more about how great, how good, and how glorious God is. Dwight Pentecost (97-98) #8-11
An old authority assures us that "the Jews fancy, concerning the cloud that conducted Israel through the wilderness, that it did not only show them the way, but also leveled it; that it did not only lead them in the way which they must go, but also fit the way for them to go upon it; that it cleared all the mountains and smoothed all the rocks; that it cleared all the bushes and removed all the pitfalls."
What is probably a mere legend as to the type is abundantly true of the providence of God, which it so accurately represents. Our gracious God not only leads us in the way of mercy, but he prepares our path before us, providing for all our wants even before they occur. -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Quotable Spurgeon, (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, Inc, 1990)
PROPOSITION: ONE WHO KNOWS WHERE TO LOOK DISCOVERS MERCY.
Here are three places to look for mercy.
I. Mercy in Appeal (Habakkuk 3:1-2)
A. DURING SHAKY TIMES MERCY CAN BE FOUND IN PRAYER. The words "O LORD" refer to Jehovah, the self-existent one. He is not the phony idol that can do nothing. God can do something. Habakkuk heard the speech of the LORD. He heard, understood, and believed what God was saying. Therefore, Habakkuk was afraid. In wrath ... remember mercy. There are two parts to this prayer. The wrath of God would decimate the sinful nation of Judah. The nation would be injured to the point of death, but the prayer is for revival. In the middle of your wrath Lord -- that is, the middle of the years of destruction -- remember mercy. There is mercy in petitioning God for revival. We need the mercy of God to recover, restructure, resume, go forward, or grow. Our stability is connected to God’s mercy. Our progress is an act of God’s mercy (relief from consequences). Thank God for mercy!
B. "Oh LORD, revive your work in the midst (mix) of the years." This is my prayer too! Revival of the Lord’s work is a great need. We need a sense of the Lord reviving His work in and through us. Help us O God! Help us remember that it is Your work. For it to be revived we must relinquish any hold of our own or any claim we have on it.
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C. "Men are never nearer heaven, nearer God, never more God-like, never in deeper and truer partnership with Jesus Christ, than when praying." -- E. M. Bounds. See also Psalm 16: 11.
During the early days of the Civil War a Union soldier was arrested on charges of desertion. Unable to prove his innocence, he was condemned and sentenced to die a deserter’s death. His appeal found its way to the desk of Abraham Lincoln. The president felt mercy for the soldier and signed a pardon. The soldier returned to service, fought the entirety of the war, and was killed in the last battle. Found within his breast pocket was the signed letter of the president. Close to the heart of the soldier were his leader’s words of pardon. He found courage in grace. I wonder how many thousands more have found courage in the emblazoned cross of their King. 1041 Sermon Illustrations, Ideas and Expositions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1953), p. 244.
II. Mercy in Authority (Habakkuk 3:3-5)
A. DURING DARK MOMENTS, MERCY CAN BE FOUND IN THE POWER OF GOD. The Lord is awesome and takes away the breath of one who really examines Him. His glory covered the heavens. Wow! What a picture. As expansive as all the heavens are, God’s glory can be seen across it all! It is greater than it all. How little we understand of the greatness of God. God has brightness. It is like light, but not the same. The merciful God is powerful and bright. He is dangerous if he wants or needs to be. The "brightness" suggests glory and majesty.
B. How can His power be hidden? God’s glory was hidden in Mt Paran. The Lord came from there according to Habakkuk. This district, through which the children of Israel wandered, lay three days’ march from Sinai #Nu 10:12,33. From Kadesh, in this wilderness, spies (q.v.) were sent to spy the land #Nu 13:3,26. Here, long afterwards, David found refuge from Saul #1Sa 25:1,4. In each case the majesty of God was hidden. How can it be hidden unless God wills that it be concealed? God’s power is removed from notice by His desire to have it unnoticed, or by man’s distraction with other things. Much about God’s power and majesty can be hidden by attention focused elsewhere. Consider the following illustration. The light of the entire sun can be blocked from view if one holds a coin close enough to his eye. In a similar way, focusing one’s attention intensely on something such as money (or a false god or control) can prevent one from noticing the power of God.
C. When the infidel Robert G. Ingersoll was delivering his lectures against Christ and the Bible, his oratorical ability usually assured him of a large crowd. One night after an inflammatory speech in which he severely attacked man’s faith in the Savior, he dramatically took out his watch and said, "I’ll give God a chance to prove that He exists and is almighty. I challenge Him to strike me dead within 5 minutes!" First there was silence, then people became uneasy. Some left the hall, unable to take the nervous strain of the occasion, and one woman fainted. At the end of the allocated time, the atheist exclaimed derisively, "See! There is no God. I am still very much alive!"
After the lecture a young fellow said to a Christian lady, "Well, Ingersoll certainly proved something tonight!" Her reply was memorable. "Yes, he did," she said. "He demonstrated that even the most defiant sinner cannot exhaust the patience of the Lord in just 5 minutes!" Another man added, " As I was coming downtown today, a belligerent little fellow came running out of an alley, daring me to hit him. Do you suppose I actually struck him, just because he challenged me to do so? In the same way, our Lord will not strike everyone dead who defies Him. We should be thankful that in this age He is still operating in grace and desires to show His love rather than His wrath." (Romans 9:22). It is not obligatory for a strongman to destroy an ant even though the insect demands it.
III. Mercy in Assessment (Habakkuk 3:6-13)
A. DURING POINTS OF UNCERTAINTY, MERCY CAN BE FOUND IN GOD’S MEASUREMENT. God distinguishes between His people and the lost. God outlasts all the prevailing earthly landmarks. He measures because He is the standard and the judge. He makes mountains tremble, the sun and the moon halt, all for the salvation of His people. To deliver His people He strikes the head from the house of the wicked. As He measures matters, His comparison between His people and anything else places a very high value on His people.
B. When God stares He is capable of revealing all. Habakkuk 3: 6 -- He stood and measured the earth. God assessed the earth. He looked it over as would an inspector. His standing cannot be ignored. Not one inch of all the earth, not one person in any corner escapes His infinite notice. When He measures, He uses His standards. They are the ones that matter. He assesses all things as they are. He is full of truth. Consider the eternal gaze of God. When He stares, His gaze penetrates to the innermost soul. Think of how Peter felt when his eyes met those of Christ on the cross. The eternal gaze revealed to Peter his previously unnoticed weakness in betraying the Lord. No wonder the nations are startled at his stare. No wonder the mountains are scattered and the perpetual hills bow. As permanent as they seem, mountains and hills (and certainly nations, powerful though they may be) are all temporary and may last only as long as God wills. Earthly fixtures shift and change, but God’s ways are everlasting. The powerful forces of nature yield to the will of their maker.
C. God attacks enemies. This past tense description of the Lord marching through the nations in the indignation and anger sounds prophetic. Is this a future reference viewed with a prophetic certainty so that it is reported as past? When the Lord moves, there is certainty whether His will has occurred yet or not. Marching is a deliberate act. It refers to moving intensely and forcefully through an area. The traveling of the nations is an act of anger. What caused this anger? Perhaps the gentile nations attacking the people of God. Verse 13 seems to verify this. The reason for God’s movement in verse 12 is the need to deliver His people in verse 13. He went because His people needed salvation. The tones in this section of the poetic prayer seem very prophetic. There appears to be a shift in the attention. The reference to salvation "with your Anointed" hints at the Savior and marks this as a Mesianic passage. "Striking the head from the house of the wicked" most likely refers to the defeat of Satan. This language alludes to Genesis 3: 15. God used the enemy’s own devices to defeat him. When the enemy attacked God’s beloved, He responded and attacked the enemy. This verse could report the view of the Messiah at the time of attack on the cross. The distance God goes and the obstacles He encounters for His people are all but meaningless to Him (except for His care for us), though they should increase our appreciation. The body trembles at the recognition of God’s wrath... even on the enemy. The voice of God can make the body tremble when it is really heard and understood. I have seen lips quiver at the confrontation by opposition that produces respect from oppressor.
CONCLUSION:
(1) How did rottenness enter the bones of Habakkuk? Inwardly he trembled. He was preparing ahead of time for the tough time coming. In this preparation, he drew close to God and prayed for His mercy (verse 4). He also allowed himself to dwell on the magnitude of what was going to occur. By doing this he was making it more likely that he could view the proceedings calmly when they occurred. He could be around when they happened or he could be in God’s presence. Either way he could be calm. I need this kind of peace developed from prayers for mercy. There are tough Sundays in ministry of any kind. These tough days are tough on me. I need God’s mercy to revive me/us in the middle of those times. This is available to me in prayer and peaceful reliance on His promises. He gives mercy in the middle of the trials. Trouble comes. I need to listen and get my trembling out of the way ahead of time so I can rest in the day of trouble.
(2) I recently read a story by a woman who said that as a girl she was poor. She said, "I grew up in a cold water flat, but I married a man who had money. And he took me up to a place where I had flowers, and I had gardens, and I had grass. It was wonderful. And we had children.
"Then suddenly I became physically sick. I went to the hospital, and the doctors ran all sorts of tests. One night the doctor came into my room, and with a long look on his face, said, ’I’m sorry to tell you this. Your liver has stopped working.’
"I said, ’Doctor, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you telling me that I am dying?’ And he said, ’I, I can’t tell you any more than that. Your liver has stopped working. We’ve done everything we can to start it.’ And he walked out.
"I knew I was dying. I was so weak, I had to feel my way along the corridor down to the chapel of the hospital. I wanted to tell God off. I wanted to tell God, ’You are a shyster! You’ve been passing yourself off as a loving God for two thousand years, but every time anyone begins to get happy you pull the rug out from under them.’ I wanted this to be a face-to-face telling off of God.
"And just as I got into the center aisle of the chapel, I tripped, I swooned, I fainted. And I looked up, and there stenciled along the step into the sanctuary, where the altar is, I saw these words: LORD, BE MERCIFUL TO ME A SINNER. I know God spoke to me that night. I know he did."
She didn’t say how God communicated this to her, but what God said was, "You know what this is all about. It’s about the moment of surrender; it’s about bringing you to that moment when you will surrender everything to me. These doctors, they do the best they can. but they only treat. I’m the only one who can cure you."
And she said, "There with my head down on my folded arms in the center of the chapel, repeating, ’Lord, be merciful to me a sinner,’ I surrendered to God. I found my way back to my hospital bed, weak as I was.
"The next morning, after the doctor ran the blood tests and the urinalysis and so forth, he said, ’Your liver has started working again. We don’t know why. We don’t know why it stopped, and we don’t know why it started up again.’ And I said in my heart, But I know. Oh but I know. God has brought me to the brink of disaster, just to get me to turn my life over to him." -- John Powell, "Prayer as Surrender," Preaching Today, Tape No. 108.
