Habakkuk chapter 1, and we've been considering the first dialogue between Habakkuk and the Lord God in verses 1 through 12 in which Habakkuk raises a plea, the Lord answers, and Habakkuk responds. The response we're going to consider tonight in verse 12 also introduces his next plea to the Lord, but we'll focus on verse 12 as it relates to what has come before. We'll read beginning in verse 1 of chapter 1. Hear the word of God. The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received. How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you violence, but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me. There is strife and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted. Look at the nations and watch and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told. I'm raising up the Babylonians that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own. They are a feared and dreaded people. They are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong, their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture swooping to devour. They all come bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities. They build earthen ramps and capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on. Guilty men whose own strength is their God. O Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O Lord, you have appointed them to execute judgment. O rock, you have ordained them to punish. Here ends the reading of God's word. And as we've considered this text, we've considered it in the light of faith as we live in this world. And we've entitled it, Submitting by Faith in the Crucible of the World. And we've considered how Habakkuk's cry of how long in verse 2 did not arise from fear or uncertainty but rather from faith. For he was a prophet of God who had grown weary of warning unrepentant Judah and was calling upon the Lord to save his people. And it expressed his submission to God's promise that he would save his people through judgment. And that beginning with the household of God. Now this salvation through judgment had been promised after the fall. It was pictured in God's salvation of Israel by His judgment upon Egypt. And it was fulfilled by Jesus Christ on the cross. Yet it still awaits consummation on the final day when He returns in glory with final judgment and for which we too are to cry out, How long? We've considered the Lord's plan for His people. How He would overturn prideful Judah and bring upon them the unbelievable. How He warned them of coming judgment at the hands of His enemies, raising up Babylon as his instruments of judgment. And we saw how this plan for Judah pictured God's greater redemptive plan to use the enemies of God against his very own son, Jesus Christ, whom he sent to save his remnant. And we saw how this plan of salvation continues today by the continued engrafting of God's people from every tribe and people and tongue until he comes again to finally cast out all the wicked and bring in all the righteous in Christ. You see, Habakkuk had submitted by faith to God's promise. He had submitted to God's plan as unbelievable as it was. And now it goes on in verse 12 to submit by faith to God's person. And he does this by confessing his faith and proclaiming our assurance. Let's first consider After confessing his faith, he begins, O Lord, are you not from everlasting, my God, my Holy One? And he sets forth his confession in the form of a question. Are you not from everlasting? Now we must know he was not looking for an answer. Habakkuk was well rehearsed in the scriptures and he was proclaiming along with King David in Psalm 90 that, Lord, you have been our dwelling place through all generations. Before the mountains were born and you brought forth the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. But through this question we see the humanity of Habakkuk, a man like us who was feeling the weight of his situation. He was feeling the weight of the wickedness within Judah, within God's holy people. And he was feeling the weight of the coming conquest by Babylon. And as noted by Martin Luther, Habakkuk speaks with a question, not that he has any doubt on the subject, but that he shows his faith and shows us how faith is sustained in the midst of a trial. It appears weak, as if it did not believe, and would fall into despair on account of the great calamity that crushes it. Although faith stands firm, it speaks with a very different tone when in the midst of conflict. than when it does when victory is gained. Habakkuk's faith was sure, but it didn't feel so sure. And many of us have experienced times when our feelings of confidence are not as certain as the fact of God's grace shown to us in Jesus Christ. Some here are presently in the midst of a trial and are experiencing feelings of doubt or temptation that conflict with their confession of faith. It's one thing to pray that I will be done on earth as it is in heaven when life is easy. It's quite another to pray it when God's will includes disease or troubles or death. It's one thing to confess that the Lord watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven when things are going well. And it's quite another to confess this when not only is our hair falling out, but our body is falling apart and the circumstances we end seem to overwhelm us. And that's the posture with which Habakkuk brings his question. And that's why we can share his question. And as we consider his question, we need to see that the emphasis is on the word you. Are you not from everlasting? Now this is not clear in the NIV. which puts the question mark after the word everlasting. And it's helpful to follow other translations here that read in this way, and you might want to make a note in your margin. The question begins, Are you not from everlasting? O Lord, my God, my Holy One. Question mark. The U is put to the front as the emphasis, and the three names of God are clustered together and we'll consider in a moment. But this reading more clearly makes the contrast between Habakkuk's confession and the confession of the Babylonians. Whose own strength is their God, he says in verse 11. That's their confession. As Habakkuk described them in verse 16, which we'll be looking at in the future. He says, he, or Babylon, sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet. In other words, he worships his dragnet. He worships his own strength. And Habakkuk continues, For by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest foods. In other words, he credits his own strength for all that he has. And this contrast of where one sets their rest or their strength is a question which divides between all men and women. Either they worship the one true God who created them and sustains them, as we discussed even this morning. And this because they claim Him as their Redeemer through Jesus Christ, His Messiah, their Savior. Or they worship themselves. They believe the lie of Satan that they would be as gods. And even though this self-worship can take many forms and be directed at many different idols of men's imagination, It is as Jesus Christ declared, he who is not with me is against me. And because all false worship is essentially self-worship, it is by nature finite and transitory, like man himself. Like man whose days are like grass, who flourishes like a flower of the field, the wind blows over it and it is gone. And his place remembers it no more. That's the worship the Babylonians had. And in contrast to their self-worship of finite man, Habakkuk asks, Are you not from everlasting? Are you not from eternity? Speaking of God's being. For no matter how far back we look in human history, no matter how far back we can imagine, God was always before. He's eternal. But in another sense it could be, are you not from of old, from ancient times, speaking more to God's covenant relationship to His people? Are you not the God we have turned to from our Father's time? He calls out to God in this moment of crisis. And in like manner, when we face the difficulties of life, like Habakkuk, we ought to call to mind that God is eternal. That He is our provider. That He knows the end from the beginning. And we ought to remember His faithfulness to us and perhaps to our parents and grandparents and on before us. His faithfulness to His church of all generations. It is the ground upon which we may stand. And in His appeal to you, to God, He calls upon God with a threefold name. He says, the Lord, my God, my Holy One. Asking, in effect, are you the one true God, not from everlasting? He called upon Him as God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. God the Father who does not change. He called upon Him as Lord, as Yahweh, His proper name. Children, you all have a proper name. You may not hear it very often. You're given one when you're born. We learn James Paul's proper name tonight, James Paul Horton. But some of you may have a nickname or your parents may have a title, but those aren't proper names. And this is important that Habakkuk uses his address as God by his proper name here. When I was growing up, I was known as Steve. That was my nickname. When I finished college, I was called doctor. Now I'm called pastor. But none of these is my proper name. When I was younger and my loving mother wanted to discipline me, she would call me by my proper name. Stephen Gerard Donovan. And my wife, who's the closest person in this world to me, calls me by my proper name, Stephen. You see, giving someone your permission to use your proper name is a way to bring someone close to you. And God showed his proper name, revealed his proper name to his people because he wanted them close to him. And it is in this name that Habakkuk calls. It's the name that God revealed through Moses at the burning bush. I am that I am. Habakkuk also called upon him as the Holy One. The Holy One of Israel. Whose eyes are too pure to look on evil. Who cannot tolerate wrong, he says in verse 13. Who revealed himself to Moses as the Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious God. Yet, does not leave the guilty unpunished. The Holy One who redeemed Israel for holiness. Leviticus chapter 11. I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God. Therefore, be holy, because I am holy. God the Creator. God their covenant Lord, Yahweh. God their Holy One, who makes them holy. All these, the people of Judah, were denouncing and walking away from. Wickedness prevailed. their trust was in themselves, and they violated the covenant. And we can sense Habakkuk's broken heart as he raises this cry. But with regard to the Holy One, we have to look a little further in the Scripture. For the one true God, the Holy One of Israel, had yet to come in the flesh. The Son of God incarnate, Jesus Christ, is the Holy One of God, as you read throughout the New Testament. It is He who satisfies all God's holiness, sinless in His being, sinless in His living, who went to the cross to take the punishment of God against the sins of His people, and who went to the grave and was raised the third day, the Holy One of God who did not see decay, the Savior of His people. The author of their salvation made perfect through suffering, So that both the one who makes them holy makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family, Hebrews 2 tells us. Habakkuk, in praying to the Holy One of Israel, to Yahweh, was trusting in God's promise to bring his Holy One. And as we conclude our look at Habakkuk's confession, we must note well that his confession is not a detached and lifeless confession about God. Nor is it a generic confession like we hear today by so many people. I believe there's a God. Rather, he confessed His God. Are you not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? And he made this confession crying out to his God in the face of all the pressure, the crucible in which his people were found. When his faith felt weak. But he had faith. He had faith in the promised Messiah of the covenant God, a man himself who was counted among God's people. See, such a confession of faith is an intensely personal matter. I cannot confess it for you. And you cannot confess it for me. And yet when we confess the same faith in the same God through the same Lord, Jesus Christ, we confirm that we belong to Him not simply as individuals but as members of the body of Christ. And this is a confession that St. Augustine captures very beautifully. And listen carefully. This is a beautiful, short confession. And he refers to God as good. O good omnipotent, Who so cares for every one of us as if you cared for Him only. And likewise cares for all of us as if we were but one. The unity of the body of Christ. Because the individual people of God are one in the body of Christ, the church at all times and all places, when Habakkuk confessed his faith, he also made a proclamation of our assurance. We will not die, he says. We will not die. Now there is a Jewish scribal tradition that renders this verse, you will not die. As if Habakkuk were still talking about God. And it's preserved only in one English text, if you happen to have it, the New Revised Standard Version. And I would say we should disregard it as unfounded. All other major English translations, as the NIV rightly reads, we, with reference to God's people, we will not die. And this proclamation, as it stands, is more faithful to Habakkuk's prophetic office. Not only did he speak to God for the people when he confessed, are you not from everlasting? He also spoke to the people for God when he proclaimed, we will not die. He stood in the middle. Well, just who is the we that Habakkuk is speaking of? I've already suggested that the we here speaks of those who share the same faith and the same God through the same Savior. Therefore, Habakkuk did not speak for everyone in Judah. Neither did he speak for all men everywhere. Habakkuk spoke only for the righteous remnant hemmed in by the wicked that he spoke about in chapter 1, verse 3. Habakkuk spoke only for those who waited on his answer from God, chapter 2, verse 1. For as Paul the Apostle said in Romans 9, not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. It is not the natural children, but the children of promise who are Abraham's offspring. Therefore, Habakkuk spoke to not only the remnant who heard him in his original proclamation. But he spoke to all, including us and those who will come after us who share this same faith in this same God through the same Savior. We've marked James Paul tonight with the sign of baptism. We've entrusted him to the God of Habakkuk, to our God, and to his faithfulness. We're trusting our triune God to work in James by His Spirit so that He too will share our confession of faith. And He too will share our assurance of life. We will not die, the prophet says. We will not die. What does this mean? Well, we know it cannot mean that God's people will not have to face physical death. Until Christ returns, all men will die. It is the wages of sin. And sin entered the world through the one man, Adam, and death through sin. And in this way, death came to all men so that all men died because all men sinned. So we know it can't mean that. We can know that for the remnant who heard Habakkuk when he first proclaimed his assurance, there was great assurance. They would survive the Babylonian invasion and the exile. Not necessarily each and every one. But as a whole, God's remnant people would survive that judgment. And this understanding is supported by a contemporary of Habakkuk, the prophet Jeremiah, who told how the conquest of Jerusalem would divide the people. In chapter 21 of Jeremiah, he says, The Lord set before the people the way of life and the way of death. Whoever stays in the city will die. But whoever goes out and surrenders to the Babylonians will live. Those who trusted in their own strength and remained in the city to fight would die. And those who trusted in the strength of their Lord, their God, their Holy One, and obeyed would live. And then once Jerusalem fell, another division occurred. Again, on the basis of obedience. In Jeremiah 42, the Lord said, If you stay in this land, I will build you up. Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you now fear, for I am with you and will save you and deliver you from his hands. Those who trusted in the strength of God, their Holy One, who obeyed his word rather than their fear, would live. He goes on in chapter 42, if you say we will not stay in the land and so disobey the Lord your God, then hear the word of the Lord. All who are determined to go to Egypt to settle there will die. Those who trusted in the strength of another would die. Who disobeyed God's word and trusted in their own means would die. The people of God, this choice remains before us today. It's not Babylon. The choice before us today is life or death. And the way to life or death is still through obedience. Not obedience to the law, which does determine our steps for holiness, because none of us could meet that obedience. But rather, obedience to the gospel. Jesus Christ has come and fulfilled all obedience. And he's died in the place of his people. And those who will submit to the promise of the gospel submit in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, confessing that they have no strength in themselves, that they trust entirely in His strength to save them from the judgment that God is bringing. They will live. But those who hear the gospel and say, I'll go my own way. I'll trust in my own strength. Somehow, either there's no judgment coming or I'll beat it. they will die. We share the faith of Habakkuk. And because of this division, knowing that God's remnant people would obey and live, he could say in the last half of verse 12, O Lord, you have appointed them to execute judgment. O rock, you have ordained them to punish. The Lord, who King David called My Rock, his strength and his sustainer, was not only Israel's strength, he is the source of all strength, including the strength of Babylon. It was he, the rock of Israel, who had anointed or appointed Babylon, who had ordained them to execute judgment, to punish Judah. In other words, they were given the authority by God's power, not their own, by God's power, to judge and correct Judah, to discipline Judah, but not to destroy Judah. For the Lord had revealed through Malachi and his truth throughout Scripture, the Lord does not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. And as we know, the people of God did survive the exile and they came back to the land. But Habakkuk's proclamation, we will not die, has application for us today. You see, the judgment of Judah pointed ahead to the judgment on Christ. who deserved to live because of His perfect obedience, but who became sin for His people and died on our behalf so that we may have life in His name. The life He grants us is not physical, but spiritual. It's not physical and limited. It's spiritual and eternal. The life and the Spirit that overcomes the grave, that looks forward to being glorified, and having a resurrected body at the return of Christ. Therefore, we who share the faith of Habakkuk confess our faith in the Holy God, the Holy One of Israel, Jesus Christ, and we proclaim our assurance in Him when we say with the Apostle Paul from Galatians 2, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. And this personal assurance that we can have as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ is ours as members of the one, holy, universal, apostolic church because it is for her and us as her members that Christ came. Ephesians 5 teaches us that Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. You see, while the world stands, God will have a church in it. The church militant, yes, not triumphant yet. Sorely oppressed and divided by all that we can see, that is true, but alive in Christ for eternity. And until his return for us as his bride and members of her, he lives his life in us, in the crucible of this world with all his troubles, his toils and cares. You see, people of God, we are called by God's word this evening from this prophecy of Habakkuk in the face of what may seem to be overwhelming troubles in our world, in our church, in our family, to submit to Him. Each of us confessing His faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. And together proclaiming our assurance that in Him we will not die. That we rest in the strength of the Lord, our God, our Holy One, who has promised to save us in Christ through the coming judgment. And who has plans for us that work out for our good, even if we can't see it. And who is our God, and we are His people. By grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Fathers, we have been given a window, Lord, into your heart and into our situation by Your Word tonight, Lord. We know ourselves and our experience to be troubled at times. As Your plan unfolds around us for how we would live our lives in this world, sometimes we're overwhelmed. Sometimes we don't feel confident. Lord, help us to learn from Habakkuk the prophet to look to You and call upon you as the everlasting one. God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and Yahweh our Lord God, our covenant God, our Holy One of Israel, who came in the flesh, Jesus Christ the righteous, to save us from our sins. Help us, Lord, to stand fast on the facts of your redemption and be able to proclaim in the face of circumstances that in Christ we will not die. Hear our prayer, Lord, for His sake. Amen.