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November 24, 2019
Kenny Stokes (Downtown Campus) | Habakkuk 3:17-19
Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.
To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.—Habakkuk 3:17–19
Introduction
My name is Kenny Stokes and I am the Pastor for Church Planting.
Last summer, my wife, Kathy, and I were given the gift of a three-month pastoral sabbatical. This was my second sabbatical in my 31 years of pastoral ministry, 21 of which have been here at Bethlehem. We are very thankful for the gift it was for us to do some things that were important for our life together and to spend time with each other and with other family and friends. Just as my previous sabbatical seemed to have a biblical theme for reflection, so too did this one. This time, the theme was “Loss.” While several texts were helpful, the text that seemed most helpful was our text this morning.
Habakkuk 3 causes us to reflect on the all-too-common human experience of loss that runs like a thread through all of life: Loss sooner or later accompanies all of the good things of this earthly life. And, it is an experience that would lead us into despair without the steadfast love and eternal promises of God that are ours in the gospel.
But, you might ask, why is reflection on this text appropriate for Thanksgiving week? Isn’t Thanksgiving a time to be thankful for what you have? Not what you’ve lost?
I see at least two reasons to consider “loss” and this text at Thanksgiving time. First, because it puts all our gifts and blessings in the context of the gift of our greatest treasure, namely, Christ and all that God promises to be for us in the gospel. Second, because I believe this text gives rise to a higher level of thankfulness because it highlights the fact that our earthly blessings are gifts of God.
Aim
My aims are spiritual. Inward. My prayer is that God would use this text to increase your joy in the Lord and thankfulness to him—no matter your circumstances, plenty or want.
Prayer
Outline
Several years ago, I attended a Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF) Conference along with a large delegation from our church. The theme was “Loss.” Prior to the event I remember thinking, “Oh, the conference must be on grief, the experience we go through when someone we love is separated from us by death, divorce, or relational conflict.
But when I arrived, I was surprised. As expected, the conference was on grief, but what I didn’t expect was that the whole point of loss as the theme of the conference was to broaden our thinking and reflection to the myriad of the losses that inevitably and unavoidably make up the colorful fabric of our lives in this fallen world.
Think about it this way. If you love someone or something—sooner or later in this life you will experience loss.
Regarding this, Biblical Counselor Ed Welch says, “It seems like the definition of human beings is that we are known by what we love. And so as a result that makes loss a much more difficult issue, because life is just losing the things we love one after another, after another” (Ed Welch, CCEF 2014 Conference Promo Video).
David Powlison, one of the most helpful biblical counselors, who recently went to be with the Lord after a long battle with cancer, describes losses in this way:
What losses are, is a particular kind of hardship or pain. … If there is some good thing—something you really value, something that you love, something that you deeply enjoy—that is part of being alive and part of what is good and true and beautiful and makes life rich. And you find that that good thing proves to be fragile; it proves to be temporary, and then unrecoverable, and perhaps in certain kinds of losses, unreachable.
There are a number of variations that loss comes in …. Sometimes it’s some good thing that you once had, you deeply enjoyed, you treasured it, you valued it, but you have it no longer and you can never get it back. It is gone. And that hurts. That’s one kind of loss. And another kind of loss is that there is some good thing that you still have, it is still with you, you value it, you greatly value it, it is one of the delights of your life. And yet, you know that it is threatened, and fragile, and vulnerable to destruction. You know that at one point it will slip through your fingers and it will be no more. It will be gone. And that hurts. Another species of loss is some good thing that you wanted and you longed for and you hoped that you would have and enjoy, and you greatly valued it, but you’ll never have it. It never happened. The death of dreams or disappointed hopes—it never was. And that hurts also. The things that we count as losses that are significant are good things, they are lovely things, they are things, we value (David Powlison, Audio from CCEF 2014 Conference Session 1).
When you stop and think about it, everyone knows the experience of loss. Loss of something you had, or the loss of someone you love, or even loss of a dream. During my sabbatical, as I would talk to friends and family about my meditation on the losses of life, I was surprised to find that everyone with whom I spoke understood what I was talking about.
The experience of loss happens irrespective of age. Children, teenagers, twenty- somethings, middle-agers and the aged experience loss.
You know, don’t you, that with every change we experience loss. And Bethlehem’s Downtown Campus is full of change. Pastoral changes. Singles change. Couples and families change at every stage of life. Students come, and students go. And there are strategic changes as we have been talking about. Yet, even in the best changes, we can be left with a feeling of loss.
Loss is an inevitable part of life. As believers in the gospel of Christ, we need to be reminded that God our Savior will truly save us and will not leave us nor forsake us in any one of these losses—great or small.
Let’s get a general sense of the context of the whole book of Habakkuk. Here, in the severest of terms, we see the devastation of loss caused by God’s judgment on his people. And yet, the looming loss of all things is accompanied by the surest hope of salvation by faith.
Habakkuk lived at a time when the Babylonian empire was a rising international superpower, sometime between 605 and 600 BC. The spiritual revival that came during reign of the Godly King Josiah (Jeremiah 22:13–19, 26:20–23) had now been reversed under the reign of his son, Jehoiakim. Overall, God’s people in Judah were spiritually dead and morally depraved.
Habakkuk’s Cry: Why Don’t You Hear?
Turn to Habakkuk 1:2. From the midst of this spiritual collapse, Habakkuk cries out to the Lord for help: “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” (Habakkuk 1:2). In other words, he is saying, “Lord, God-less and wicked people are prospering and evil is on the rise. God, when will you hear our cries for help and answer?”
The Lord’s Answer: Just Watch
The Lord answers in verse Habakkuk 1:6–9,
“Behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans [i.e., the Babylonians], that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome…. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on. Their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand.”
In other words, God says, “I have heard. Just watch. I will send another nation, the extremely wicked Chaldeans, to attack and conquer Judah.” (That actually happened in 586 BC.)
Habakkuk’s Response: I Will Watch
I’m not so sure it’s the kind of help that Habakkuk expected. But nonetheless, Habakkuk replies, in Habakkuk 2:1, “I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.” In other words, Habakkuk says, “OK, Lord, I will wait and see.”
The Lord’s Reply: Trust me
And the Lord answers in Habakkuk 2:3–4 …
“For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.”
In other words, God says, “Although my judgment is coming on Judah by a proud wicked nation, there is a salvation for those who live by faith” (2:4).
Then in Habakkuk 2:6–20 God pronounces a series of woes upon the Chaldeans. After God raises up the Chaldeans to judge Judah, he will surely judge them for their wickedness. God will be glorified. As 2:14 says, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
Habakkuk’s Response: Lord, Glorify Your Name
In Habakkuk 3, Habakkuk replies with this prayer for God to be merciful in his judgment on his people and he asks that God would send spiritual revival. Reading from verse 2,
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.
Dropping down to verse 16 of Chapter 3, we get a glimpse of Habakkuk’s anxiety as he waits for this judgment the Lord has promised.
I hear, and my body trembles;
my lips quiver at the sound;
rottenness enters into my bones;
my legs tremble beneath me.
Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble
to come upon people who invade us.
Now we come to our text in Habakkuk 3:17–19, right at the end of the book.
What is striking here, is that Habakkuk 3:17 records a graduated inventory of losses soon to be experienced by Habakkuk as God brings his promised judgment on his people. Remember, Israel is an agrarian culture. Flourishing was experienced in direct connection with the land and livestock.
Verse 17 begins with a list of six conditional clauses, from the lesser to the greater. As judgment, God is telling Habakkuk that he will soon experience the loss of every good earthly thing that makes for human flourishing.
In summary, here is the list of losses. No figs. No grapes. No olives. No food from the fields. No animals for clothing, or meat, or farm work, or currency for trade. All told, nothing earthly to enjoy, nothing to support, nothing to comfort, nothing to sustain a normal life. Devastation.
In direct contrast to the darkness of this list of pervasive loss, Habakkuk’s song closes with the celebration of the one gift, the one bright treasure that cannot be lost, namely, our covenant relationship with the God in whom is our Salvation.
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.—Habakkuk 3:18
Question: What is the point? Habakkuk’s song of faith is a pointer to the gospel. Remember, “the just shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). The apostle Paul says it this way in Romans 3:22 when he says that there is a righteousness from God “through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”
For those who trust in God’s covenant faithfulness to his people, there is salvation in the midst of utter loss—even when that loss is due to God’s righteous judgment.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.—Romans 5:1
This is the good news, the gospel. All who trust in Christ are “justified,” that is, “counted as righteous” by God. So now, in Christ, as justified and forgiven sinners, we have peace with God and have been rescued from judgment and utter loss.
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.—Romans 5:9
When facing the certainty of the loss of all things even by the judgment of God, we who trust in Christ have the sure and certain hope of God’s grace of salvation from his judgment.
The rejoicing continues in Habakkuk 3:19,
God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.
Because God is my salvation, even in the midst of devastating losses, Habakkuk can say, “God, the Lord, is my strength.—He makes my feet as sure-footed, quick and steady as the deer climbing the precipice of the highest mountain top. Because God is my salvation, I will not be destroyed by the losses. I will not stumble to destruction but will climb to the heights of the mountains like a deer.”
Though we may lose everything earthly, we—with Habakkuk—may rejoice in God. Why? God is my salvation. He is our hope. Christ is our treasure. He is our strength. He will save us, and see us through as our God.
When you face the inevitability of the ultimate loss of all the things of this earth at our own death and after that face the judgment of God, rejoice in Christ. Remember, “The just will live by [his] faith” (Habakkuk 2:4).
Although we may lose all our comforts, earthly pleasures, food, clothing, and wealth, Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead according to the Scriptures to bring us to God. Our salvation is him.
Our hope of salvation in the face of the loss of everything due to God’s just judgment is God himself. We may lose everything else, but by the promise of the gospel we will never ever lose him. And even the loved ones we cannot hold on to—when they are in Christ—cannot ultimately be lost either.
Habakkuk experiences the covenant faithfulness of God to his people. Although he is about to experience devastating loss, in faith he says, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:18).
“I will never leave you, nor forsake you.”—Hebrews 13:5
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, [39] nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.—Romans 8:38
Habakkuk is physically shaking at the prospect of his soon coming losses. See 3:16.
I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound;
rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me.
People of faith don’t pretend or minimize the losses. The experience of loss itself is not unbelief or failure, but a testing of our faith (1 Peter 1:6–7). When we gather as the church, fellow believers, let’s be real with losses—and real with our rejoicing in the Lord. One of the worst ways we can pervert the life of faith is to deny our losses or sorrows. Stoicism is not Christianity. Christ wept at the death of Lazarus and revealed himself to be “the resurrection and the life” before raising him for the dead. May our life together be marked by Paul’s odd pairing of words, “Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).
Again, from David Powlison …
We have this choice—what is in fact the choice of choices. ... Whether we at the end ... are able to give voice to kind of an absolute honesty ... that somehow manages to wed genuine faith with honest experience. We are invited to an understanding of our lives that validates the struggle. It says the goal of Christian faith is not stoicism. It’s not taking an abstract truth and saying that we should therefore just kind of gird our loins, get perspective, don’t get so rattled by things, God is sovereign, everything is going to work out. But rather, God is sovereign and God have mercy upon me, and I am struggling. Hear my cry. I know that you love me. I need you. Help me. His sovereignty, his greatness, his goodness are not so high above that he is not untouched with the feeling of our infirmities. And he hears us. And cares.”
Habakkuk was a singing prophet. The book of Habakkuk is a song. And it is not only a song, but it is a song to be sung in corporate worship by these who believe. Look at the end of verse 19: “To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.”
We all know that song and sorrow go hand in hand. The blues. Songs of Lament.
Negro spirituals written during American slavery like “Give Me Jesus” are powerful reminders that even if we are stripped of all possessions, and freedom and dignity, there is an indescribable gift of Christ himself that cannot ever be taken away from us.
And when I am alone, Oh and when I am alone …
Give me Jesus.
Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. You can have all this world …. But give me Jesus.
In the summer of 2015, Alex, the youngest son of Pastor Chuck & Carol Steddom suddenly died while on a mission trip to Ireland. It was a great loss. And yet, at his funeral it was like we couldn’t wait to sing. And sing we did, through our tears, “It Is Well With My Soul.” Loud. Strong. Rejoicing. Resting in all that God promises to be for us in Christ.
When we gather with the people of God, we must sing. Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.
As believers, loss never gets the last word. Never. Remember, there is a day is coming when Christ will declare, “Behold I am making all things new.” And then there will be no loss. No tears. No death. No mourning. No crying. No pain. God will dwell with us and we will be his people, and God himself will be with us as our God forever and ever. And all our losses will be absorbed in all the fullness that God is and promises to be for us in Christ our Treasure forever.
God is the giver. He himself gives each one of us “life and breath and everything else” (Acts 17:25). James 1:17 puts it this way: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).
Question: What do we have that we have not received as a gift from God (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:7)? Nothing. And what do we have that we have any sovereign power over keeping? Nothing.
There is a connection between loss and thankfulness. When we realize that everything we have is a gift, and we really do not have ultimate power to keep anything, the reality of loss gives birth to profound thankfulness to God for every moment of enjoyment he gives us.