Ron Dunn Podcast - A Faith For All Seasons Part 3

Episode Date: June 23, 2021

Thank you, Alice. If I could sing like that, I think I would. But I have really enjoyed hearing her sing and appreciate it very much. 12.15. Well, I'm hungry. I'll have to wait. I want you to open your Bibles. By now you ought to know where it is, to the book of Habakkuk. Or as someone from another part of the world corrected me, Habakkuk. But if I ever go there, I'll use that pronunciation. But right now I'm going to say Habakkuk, the book of Habakkuk. We're going to read at the beginning just two verses in the second chapter, verses 14 and 20. Actually, the first two chapters of Habakkuk are a dialogue between the prophet and God. The third chapter is really a psalm, a song, a prayer. It is the response of Habakkuk after he has seen something, after he has realized something. But here in the second

chapter, we're still in that dialogue between God and Habakkuk. And after God speaks to Habakkuk in verse 4 and gives him the promise that the just shall live by faith, then comes a five-fold woe upon the Chaldeans. Now, God uses woes very sparingly, and he discriminates about using those woes. And we see those in the Bible, but we do not attach to them perhaps the same heavy meaning that the biblical readers would. To have a woe pronounced upon you means that you are really in trouble. And here God pronounces five woes upon the Chaldeans.

And woe be the Chaldeans because they have been woed five times. And what God is simply doing is he is piling up. He is just piling up against these Chaldeans all of the judgment. And he goes into great detail. He could have just simply said, Chaldeans, all of the judgment, and he goes into great detail. He could have just simply said, Chaldea will be destroyed. The Chaldeans will be wiped off. But he goes into every detail, every sin. In other words, he's trying to overwhelm us with the strictness and the exactness of God's judgment, because in a sense, Habakk exactness of God's judgment. Because in a sense, Habakkuk has challenged God's judgment

in allowing the Chaldeans to do what they're doing. And so God is making sure that Habakkuk knows the Chaldeans will be punished. And so there are five woes, beginning with verse 6 all the way through verse 19. And in the midst of that woe comes verse 14. And at the end of those woes comes verse 20. And these are the turning points. Verse 14, For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

But the Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him. One of the first things that I learned in school and seminary, especially in theology classes and preaching classes, was this, that you never took a text out of its context, that you always had to interpret a text in the light of its not only immediate context, but its broader context of the whole Bible. And I remember hearing years ago, there's no telling who first said this, but that a text without a context is a pretext. And many times we evangelicals are given to using proof texts, and we are very convinced by them. We can jerk out a verse here

and a verse there and a verse here and a verse there and just quote them without any relationship to what they really mean in the context and prove all manner of things. As a matter of fact, most false teaching or most false emphasis or most of the excess in evangelical churches is a result of the proof text method and i guess the classic one is of of opening the bible and finding where the bible says judas went out and hanged himself and then finding another one that says go thou and do likewise and that's the classic thing you you must interpret every verse in the light of its context but that is not only true of sermons it's not only true of studying scripture it is also true of life i am convinced that one of the greatest mistakes that we make, not talking just about Christians,

but I'm talking about philosophers, historians, politicians, everybody, writers of books. I think the greatest mistake that we often make is we interpret the text of an event without the light of its context. God is the context of everything that happens. God is the context of all our life. And if I try to take one event, whether it be good or whether it be bad, whether it's a blessing or whether it is a curse, but I try to take one single episode, one single event in my life, and I try to establish a philosophy of life upon that,

I try to establish some sense on that, and it just doesn't seem to fit into what happened yesterday and what's going to happen tomorrow, then that's going to lead me into this despair and frustration and confusion, and life to me is going to be a meaningless bunch of threads. You cannot isolate one event in your life and understand it. As a matter of fact, you cannot even isolate one life in all of history and understand it. Everything has to be interpreted in the light of eternity, and every event has to be interpreted in the light of God, or it will not make sense. It will not make sense otherwise. I was reading this morning

out of one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, where Paul says several times, we faint not. He's going through some difficult times, but he says he does not, still doesn't faint. He doesn't lose heart. I think that's what so many of us do. We lose heart. Someone asked me some time ago, do I ever get to the place where I think that life is not worth living? And I thought about that for a moment. I said, No, I don't believe that I've ever come to the place where I thought life was not worth living. I believe life is worth living. But I have come to the place where I thought I was too weary to live it. It was not the worthiness of life that bothered me, it was the weariness of life that bothered me.

Growing faint, losing heart. Life is difficult. It is. And most people don't realize that. And there's a tendency to lose heart. But here is the amazing thing. Paul says we're we're going through all kinds of suffering and going through all kinds of of opposition to the gospel but we

faint not and in verse 16 he says for which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light affliction which is but for a moment which is just but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal. And the writer of Hebrews says that Moses was able to turn his back on all the treasures and pleasures of Egypt. Why? Because he saw him who is invisible. He saw something else.

Paul says, we look not at things that are temporal. We look not at things that are physical. We don't concentrate on our suffering. We do not concentrate on our hardships. We don't go around telling about how bad we have it and, oh, poor us because we don't have this and we don't have this. And I gave up a fortune to become a preacher, and God is so lucky to have me.

I could have been a Hollywood star or a millionaire executive today, but I did a favor for God, and I've given everything up. Paul says we don't talk like that he says for our affliction is just but for a moment and uh we don't concentrate on things that are physical on things that are visible why because they're just temporary we concentrate on the things that are invisible those things that are unseen because they are eternal. You see, we just have it the opposite. We think that reality is in what you can see and touch and taste and hear and handle.

But reality is in what you cannot touch and what you cannot see. The physical, the objective is temporary it is the invisible that which is of god the spiritual which is eternal and so this is why i say that you cannot you cannot interpret your life without interpreting in the light of the context of god and that's what habakkuk is doing so here is a man who is trying to build a foundation upon which he can lay a faith of certainty. And we're just retracing his steps. We're going to take about three, I think, this morning. Three giant steps. We've already seen that the first step was that he had to face up to his problems with God. You have to deal with those and acknowledge that there are some problems. And then last night we talked about that we have to put ourselves in a position

whereby we can hear God. If we're ever going to have that kind of faith imparted to us, that kind of certainty, we're going to have to stop our complaining and our charging God and put ourselves above all that and wait and see what he has to say to us. And God has said that. Now, immediately upon telling Habakkuk that the just shall live by faith, he launches into this tirade against the Chaldeans. And we're not going to take the time to read all those verses, but he comes to the, uh, perhaps the first part of that in verse 14. And he is saying in verse 13,

behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labor in the very fire and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity. What God is saying is that these Chaldeans are working themselves to death. They're trying so much to consume the land. They're trying so much to wipe the land free of any sign of God or God's people. They're trying so much to burn it off that they're just going to wear themselves out. And it's of God that they do it god is making it making certain that in their efforts to destroy they are destroying themselves why because he says for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the lord as the waters cover the sea the next step god says in building a faith that is upon a foundation of certainty is you have to you have to rely upon count upon remember the promises of God what God has promised he says right now the

Chaldeans are covering the earth everywhere you go there's a Chaldean here a Chaldean there a Chaldean everywhere a Chaldean we're surrounded by Chaldeans. And so it looks hopeless. God comes back and he says, but I want you to know that they're expending their own life energy. They're burning themselves out. I have seen to it that in the very work they're doing, they're going to work themselves to death

for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of his glory as the waters that cover the sea. Now, there's something I think that we need to notice here there is a similar quotation of this over in isaiah chapter 11 verse 9 and here he's talking about the messiah messiahic kingdom in its perfect state and in verse 9 he says they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the lord as the waters cover the sea now do you notice there is one

very vital difference in those two quotations isaiah 11 9 talking about the Messianic kingdom, says, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters that cover the sea. Habakkuk's statement is this, For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Habakkuk does not say that the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Habakkuk does not say that the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. He says the earth shall be filled of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord and literally translated it goes like this, the earth shall be acknowledging the glory of the Lord. Isaiah is talking about when Jesus Christ comes.

He's talking about that future state. He's talking about God's kingdom in its perfect state. Habakkuk is talking about judgment. Habakkuk is talking about judgment. There is coming a day when the earth will do what? They will not know the Lord. He's not saying at this point everybody's going to know the Lord. He says they are going to acknowledge the glory of the Lord.

The glory of the Lord is his majesty, his power. It is how much he weighs. Originally that word glory had to do with weight, W-E-I-G-H-T, how much a person weighed. And God weighs a great deal. His glory, His majesty, His anger, His wrath, all of it wrapped up in that. And what Habakkuk is saying is one of these days the earth will be acknowledging the glory of the Lord. They'll have no choice because it will sweep over them as the waters sweep over the sea. I think what God is trying to say to Habakkuk and what he's trying

to say to me is this. He said, you leave it to me, you leave it to me, I'll see that justice is done. You leave it to me, I'll see that vindication is made. It's often stated in the Bible that God does not want us doing his fighting for him. Have you ever noticed that? He says, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. When you and I take vengeance upon somebody, when we try to get even with somebody, we're robbing God of that which belongs to him. He says, vengeance is mine.

I will repay, saith the Lord. Remember when they crossed and came to the Red Sea and suddenly they woke up one morning and the Egyptians were after them. And God told Moses to take the people and go on across the Red Sea. And he says, For I will fight these Egyptians

and these Egyptians that you see today you will see forever. He saved the people out of Egypt to spend their time fighting Egyptians. He saved them that they might go forward and possess the land. He says, you leave the Egyptians to me. I'll take care of the Egyptians. Habakkuk is more concerned about the Chaldeans. He ought to be more concerned about the judgment of God. I think it's a beautiful picture of this in the Gospel of Mark and also in Matthew when Jesus is asleep on the ship.

I made reference to it the other night. And a great storm comes and these disciples are terrified, fearing for their lives. And they come and they shake the Lord and they wake him up and they say, I care us not that we perish. And he arose. One account says this. He said to them, O ye of little faith,

why are ye so fearful? Then he said to the waves, Be still. I think the order there is of some significance. Jesus rebuked the disciples before he rebuked the angry waves. I think, in a sense, we might say what Jesus was saying is, Fellas, you better worry more about your faithlessness than the storm. The storm is not your greatest danger.

These waves, raging waves, they're not your greatest danger. Your lack of faith, your faithlessness, that's your greatest danger. I'm going to take care of that first, and then I'll deal with the storm. I think sometimes we fail to get these things into perspective. I think sometimes we're afraid of economic disaster. No, what we ought to be afraid of is the fact that we won't trust God during that. You say, well, I'm afraid

I'll fall ill. That's not the greatest thing to fear. The greatest thing to fear is that when that happens you're not going to be able to trust God, believe God. Somebody says you don't have enough faith to be healed. Oh no, I don't have enough faith to stay sick if that's what God wants me to do.

You should be worrying about the wrong things. Priority is our ability to trust God and leave the situation to Him. Let Him go, as we said last night. And so we need to rest and rely upon the promise of god you don't have to worry about your enemies god will see to it that they're well taken care of you don't have to vindicate yourself god will see to it that you are vindicated you don't have to prove yourself god will see to it that you're proven that's why i love to read the stories of mary in the bible

you know mary and martha did you Have you ever thought about this? Mary is always having to defend. Jesus is always having to defend Mary. Every time she's always having to defend her. They were eating in the house after Lazarus had been raised. And Mary left the kitchen and went in and sat at the feet of Jesus. And Martha came in and said, Lord, I want you to tell my sister to get back here in the kitchen and help me. It's not right that she should leave me all the work to do in the kitchen and be out here listening to you. And Jesus said, Oh, Martha, Martha, Martha, Martha, Martha, Martha. You're troubled with too many things.

You're encumbered with too many urgencies and not enough needs. Mary had chosen that good part, and it shall not be taken from her. And then when she announced the feet of Jesus, you remember, breaks the alabaster box, and everybody starts criticizing her. Judas leading the way, couldn't this have been used to feed the poor?

Some people that always think anything you spend on Jesus is a waste, you know. And Jesus came to her defense, and he said, let her alone. Let her alone. There is that running through the Bible that God has it appointed in his time. Don't worry about it. Vance Havner is a very dear person to my wife and I. He is 84 years of age. I first heard him in 1953 or 1952. Of all the other preachers I have heard and known, no other man has ever

touched me like his preaching. I don't know what it is about it, but there is an affinity between his spirit and my spirit, and I can just listen to him and be broken in heart and spirit. In 1973, his wife Sarah died, and we talked about it. He's written a book about it, The Why I Walked Through the Valley, and he said that when Sarah, in her last day, she couldn't speak.

All she could do was she would just write little notes to him. He said one day, the last day, he was sitting by her bed and she pointed to the pad and he put it in her hand and she took the pencil and she wrote and then she died and he said he picked up that note and it had the one word on it until until

but she wasn't able to finish it he said but i think what she was going to say, if she'd had time, was, Until we stand before the throne. Until. Until. I think a person has to come to the place where there is an until in his life. I have no idea what he meant last night. I don't want to know because I like my interpretation better. But when I sat down and Jamil got up to lead the choir, he said, one of these days. I don't have any idea what he meant by that.

But I'll just put my own interpretation to it. I think all of us can say, boy, one of these days. One of these days. I love that Kipling poem. He said, When the last picture has been painted and all the tubes are twisted and dried, when all our oldest color has faded and the youngest critic has died,

we shall lay down in faith, we shall need it, we shall rest for a neon or two until the master of all good workmen puts us to work anew. Those that were saved, he said happy, but I've changedew. Those that were saved, he said, happy, but I've changed it. Those that were saved shall be happy,

and they shall sit in a golden chair, and they shall splash at a tin-lead canvas with brushes of comet's hair. And they shall have real saints to draw from, Magdalene, Peter, and Paul, and they shall work for an age at a setting and never be tired at all. And only the master shall praise us, and only the master shall blame, for no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for an age at a setting and never be tired at all. And only the master shall praise us and only the master shall blame.

For no one shall work for money and no one shall work for fame. But each in his own separate star, just for the joy of doing it, shall draw the things as he sees it, for the God of things as they are. One day, until. And this is what God is trying to say to Habakkuk in the midst of all of this. One of these days, the earth shall acknowledge the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And then the next thing he says is, if we're going to have the kind of faith that gives to us a foundation of certainty, there's something else I need to recognize, and that is just where God is.

A realization of his position in the earth. Verse 20 is an abrupt verse, it seems to me. The mood suddenly changes with verse 20. The viewpoint changes. Up until then, it's all been about the Chaldeans and their punishment. And then, quite abruptly, as though Habakkuk or God had just thought of it or there seems to be no transition, just all of a sudden,

as quick as judgment, as quick as judgment, verse 20 appears, but the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him let all the earth literally hush before him it's the idea of hush in the midst of all the gore in the midst of all the violence in the midst of all the gore, in the midst of all the violence, in the midst of all of the injustice, in the midst of all of the sinfulness, suddenly comes this refrain, but the Lord is in his holy

temple. You need to remember that. The Lord still reigns. The Lord is still in his temple, and it is a holy temple. Let the earth keep silent hush before him now i've gone into many churches and i've seen this carved engraved somewhere the lord is in his holy temple let all the earth keep silent as though when we come into the place of worship, we are to hush. But I really don't think that's what Habakkuk is talking about here. I don't think he's talking about worship here primarily, even though that might be part of it. But I think primarily we must remember he's talking about judgment. He's talking about judgment.

The Lord is in his holy temple for what? Judgment. Let all the earth hush up. Chapter 3, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world found guilty before him. In other words, the Lord is in his holy temple. Let everybody hush. No more excuses.

No more pleas. no more bargaining no more claims no more arrogance hush the Lord is in his holy temple he is there in absolute authority and sovereignty and majesty. And that's the last word that is spoken before chapter 3. And chapter 3 is simply a hymn of praise based upon what Habakkuk has just been told. Once he recognizes God's promise that one of these days the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of his glory. And that the Lord is right now at this very moment in his holy temple. Reigning and judging. His whole viewpoint changes.

His whole viewpoint changes. And there's just one other thing that i want to mention in chapter three we are going to come back more than likely to the to his prayer in the first few words but in chapter three starting with verse three habakkuk begins a rehearsal a reminiscence of the power of God. He says, God came from Teman and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens and the earth was full of his praise and his brightness was as the light.

He had horns coming out of his hand and there was the hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet. He stood and measured the earth, and beheld and drove asunder the nations, and the everlasting mountains were scattered. The perpetual hills did bow. His ways are everlasting.

Now all he's doing is talking about the power, the awesome powerness of God. The horns, the symbol of power, the is talking about the power, the awesome power of God. The horns, the symbol of power, the walking through, the measuring, the burning coals, God walking in blistering judgment, the power of God. But this is what I want us to close with this morning. Then in verse 16, when I heard, when I heard all this, my belly, my innermost being, right down in the heart, in the gut of my living, my belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness, wasting, entered into my bones. What he's saying is I just inwardly

collapsed. There is, I can't tell you the name of that little creature, but there is a little creature that swims around in some little springs and ponds. And you'll sometimes see a frog sitting on the bank right there on the edge of the water. And as you sit there watching that frog, all of a sudden the frog begins to shrink. He begins to deflate, literally. And all of a sudden, after a moment, nothing left but the skin. There is a little creature,

swimming creature, that feeds like that. He comes up to the frog, unnoticed, unknown, and with a needle-like tongue pierces that frog, immediately paralyzing him and pouring out liquid

that turns everything on the inside of that frog to liquid. And he just sucks that frogs insides out through that. And all that is left, yucky isn't it? I didn't realize how bad this would sound when I got into it. And all that is left is just the skin of that frog. Isn't that amazing? I thought of that when I read Habakkuk's description of himself.

When I heard, what did he hear? I heard that God went forth for the salvation of his people and that he struck down the enemies. When I heard all of this, my belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice, rottenness wasting away entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself. And then notice, all of this was that I might rest in the day of trouble. When he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops. To me, that may well be one of the most beautiful verses to me in all of Habakkuk. Because, he said, on the one minute, God has shown me his awesome, terrible power,

his awesome, terrible holiness. And it is of my opinion that today, in contemporary Christianity, we fall far short of seeing that. What we need, it seems to me, is a new revelation of the awesome holiness of God. For when men see Him, that is sufficient, and see Him in His holiness, we're far too irreverent, we're far too flippant, we're far too unconscious of how holy He is,

a holiness that burns the ground as it walks. A holiness that is so holy that when men touch the ark, just trying to save it from falling on the ground, they're struck dead because of God's holiness. And Habakkuk says, I saw all that holiness, and suddenly my belly began to churn, and my lips began to to quiver and my bones began to waste away inside and just turn to dust and I trembled. But then he immediately says that I may rest in the day of trouble. You know that's what I want to do. I want to be able to rest in the day of trouble. That, to me, is the greatest testimony of all. For you see, it's easy to rest in the day of peace. It's hard for me

to sleep if there's anything moving around. I don't know how to move around. We have a leaky faucet in our shower, and every night I get in bed and I have to get up and go close the bathroom door. I can't sleep as long as somebody in the next room is playing TV, and I can hear it. I can only rest when everything's peaceful and quiet. And I know people, I know people who can lay down in the middle of a highway accident

and go to sleep. I know folks, it just aggravates me to no end. I take these transatlantic flights, I can't sleep, I can't sleep. Doctor gives me something to help me sleep, I can't sleep. And the fellow right over here, before you ever get off the ground, he's down to sleep. Doesn't wake up until we land. I wish I could do that. Anybody can sleep

in the day of peace. And any Christian can walk with praise and rejoicing whenever things roll in his way. But what about resting in the day of trouble? That's what we want, isn't it? Isn't that what we're after anyway? Because we're going to have trouble, there are going to be trouble. These are troublesome times in which we live, and there will be. There always have been, there always will be. One of the things that I noticed

as I was studying Habakkuk is that there's really nothing new. It reads almost like a newspaper. You thought we were the first generation to have trouble with enemies. No, it's always been that way. It's always been that way. And the only explanation for it,

there is none unless you count on God, unless you see God as the context. And so, finally, he says you're able to rest in his power. Rest in his power. Rest in his plan. And to me that is not the highest point of faith. We're going to come to the highest point of faith in one more session. But this ought to do us for now.

Just to be able to rest in the day of trouble. and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church. If you would like to listen to additional Ron Dunn messages, visit sherwoodbaptist.net slash bookstore and search Ron Dunn. For more Ron Dunn materials, including sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from a study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.