Beloved, at this time, we will hear the reading of God's holy word. Please turn with me to the Old Testament, to Habakkuk chapter 3, verses 16 to 19, the last few verses of Habakkuk chapter 3. The title of this message is The Trials of Faith. Let us now hear the reading of God's holy, inspired, and infallible word. Habakkuk chapter 3, verse 16. I heard, and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound. Decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to go on the heights. And now, beloved, we will turn to the back of the Blue Psalter Hymnal. At this time, we will read from the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 10. It is found on page 17 on the back of your Blue Psalter Hymnal. I will read the questions, and together we will say the answers. Lord's Day 10, question 27. What do you understand by the providence of God? Providence is the almighty and ever-present power of God By which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them, that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty, all things, in fact, come to us not by chance, but from his fatherly hand. Question 28. How does the knowledge of God's creation and providence help us? We can be patient when things go against us, thankful when things go well, and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that nothing will separate us from his love. All creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will, they can neither move nor be moved. Before we hear the message this evening, we will pray a prayer of illumination. We will pray for the help of the Holy Spirit to guide us and lead us and help us to understand as well as believe this portion of Scripture from Habakkuk chapter 3. Let us pray. Gracious Father, we thank you for your word. Your word is truth. And help us to live our lives in the light of that truth. And we do pray for the help of the Holy Spirit who guides us in truth, who helps us to understand the work and person of Christ. Help us at this time not only to understand but to believe about the words that we learn about this evening and apply them to our lives. We do pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you would give us the strength and help us to face the trials of life. And we ask this in your Son's precious name, in Jesus' name, amen. Brothers and sisters and friends, beloved, we know that in life, we are always faced with various kinds of trials. They come in so many different forms. Perhaps we think about the trials that we experience at work. Or perhaps how difficult it is to work with certain people or have certain co-workers to deal with day in and day out. Or perhaps work is going fine and there are no problems in that part of our lives. Perhaps our trials come at home in the difficulty and the challenge of raising our children in today's world. and with God's help, trying to help them understand God's word and help them live lives in light of God's word. Or perhaps we have challenges or trials in our marriage in which we are trying our best to love our spouse. And so we see that in life, we are inundated with different kinds of trials. And at times, it almost seems like we are able to resolve some problems, But then immediately afterwards, a new problem comes up. A new problem arises. And so there is a frustration at times because it seems as if life, as life goes on, as we progress, it just seems to be a never-ending story in which we are dealing with various kinds of challenges in our lives. And when that happens, what is our reaction when we are in a difficult circumstance, Whether it be at work, whether it be at home, or perhaps maybe even at church. Do we have that temptation to say, to blame someone and to say to someone, it's your fault? Do we have that temptation to want to put blame and put all the guilt at our neighbor's feet rather than accept our fault and our contribution to the problem? or perhaps were even tempted to claim God himself. Why are you doing this to me, Lord? Why am I going through this trial? Why have you put this difficulty, this challenge before me? It is too difficult for me to be able to handle. Beloved, there is a temptation to make some kind of protest either to our neighbor or maybe to God himself. During such moments, it is difficult to trust in the goodness of God in our lives. When things are going well, of course it is easy to rejoice in the Lord and rejoice in our relationship with God and his goodness to us. When there is enough money in the bank, when our children are obedient, when everything is going well at church, at work, with our health, our bodies are perfectly fine, how's life? Everything's fine. Everything is okay. But of course, in those times, it's easy to rejoice in God, to glorify God, to sing about God's goodness and sing his praises to everyone who's willing to hear us. But when things are not going well, is it still possible to rejoice in the Lord? When we're dealing with difficulties which are outside of our control, perhaps to us from our human perspective are insurmountable. Is it possible to rejoice in the Lord? That is the question. Beloved, in today's passage, we learn about the faith of a minor prophet of Habakkuk. And we learn how he reacted to his present and future trials. And how he dealt with difficult situations and difficult circumstances. And how he responded with faith. And in order to understand what the Lord has for us in these verses and this portion of scripture, we will go over and examine three points this evening. First, the trials of the present. Second, the trials of the future. And third, strength for the trials. So let us begin with the first point, trials of the present. Beloved, since we are looking and examining the very end of this book in order to appreciate its message and to be truly edified by what the Lord has for us in this passage, we have to spend a little bit of time at the beginning to talk about the organization of this book and how it is structured. You see, at the beginning of this book, Habakkuk is not rejoicing in the Lord and singing God's praises, Instead, at the beginning, he's protesting, he's complaining against God. And so we see that at the very beginning, for example, if we were to look at Habakkuk chapter 1, we notice that he is complaining to God about how God is governing the world and how God is watching over Judah, the southern kingdom. And one of the problems that Habakkuk has with the way that the Lord is ruling over God's people in Judah is the fact that at this time, Judah is guilty of vices, of sins, of transgressions, of iniquities, and of all kinds of things which are unbecoming of a worshiper of God. And so in Habakkuk's mind, he's thinking the Lord's people deserve discipline. They deserve to be chastened for the way that they are behaving. They are acting in a way which is unbecoming of a believer. How can the Lord who is just, how can the Lord who is holy allow violence to happen among his people without any chastening from himself? And so this is a complaint that Habakkuk is offering. How can the Lord be silent while his people are acting in a way that is so, so corrupt? And then, after Habakkuk offers his complaint, the Lord gives an answer. He says he will actually discipline his people for the way that they are behaving. And the way he's going to discipline them is that he's going to use Babylon to discipline God's people. And then the other portion of Habakkuk is Habakkuk offers another protest, another complaint. So you see there's almost a dialogue here in which Habakkuk is complaining, God is responding. Habakkuk is complaining and God responds again. So we see a dialogue between the Lord and his prophet. And so after the Lord gives his answer, then Habakkuk offers a second complaint, saying, Babylon, how is it that Babylon is going to be your instrument of justice? If we were to look up Babylon, Babylon is corrupt, it's wicked, evil empire, and this is going to be your instrument of justice? This cannot be, Lord. In fact, it seems that the cure is worse than the disease. And so once again, he offers a complaint and a protest to the Lord because what he is thinking of, the reason why he is so riled up, the reason why he is so upset is because in his mind, as a prophet, he has been defending God's holiness, God's justice before all of the watching world. And if he notices that God's actions do not reflect God's holiness and justice, There has to be something wrong. Something has to be done differently. This situation has to be rectified. So this is the reason for his righteous indignation. Because he's saying, Lord, I see these vices, these sins. How can you allow this to happen? Why are you silent? We need you to exercise your justice now. And so, the Lord in his patience and in his mercy, in his long-suffering with his prophet, he gives an answer. The Lord says that he will discipline Babylon. He will discipline Babylon. Those who are enemies of God's people will receive a punishment. And after Habakkuk hears this news, he is silent. His protest, stop. No more complaining. No more doubts. Now, he is convinced. And one of the things that we notice is that here we see that he offers a prayer to the Lord. And he also sees a divine vision. And when he has this divine vision of the Lord, it's a very interesting vision. He sees the Lord as a divine warrior who is coming, who is almost marching towards the promised land, that he is coming and that his presence, his justice, will bear upon those who are wicked, corrupt, and guilty of sin. And so here we see that God has his arrows of pestilence, arrows of plagues, arrows of punishment, as the divine warrior ready to aim at those who are guilty of sinning against God and God's people. And we see that as Habakkuk sees this amazing vision of God as a divine, mighty warrior approaching the promised land to bring about his justice, what is the reaction of Habakkuk as he sees this vision of God? Now we see how he reacted in our passage this evening in verse 16. This is his reaction to the divine vision. I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound, decay crept into my bones and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. So you see, you see this vision. And you see the reaction to this vision. He's overwhelmed by it. He is overwhelmed by the power, by the majesty, by the glory of God as warrior who is coming soon. And this is something in which he has a physical reaction in his body. His heart is pounding. And here we see that his lips are even unable to speak because he is left dumbfounded and silent. He is no longer protesting. In fact, he can't even talk because he's overwhelmed at God's answer to his protests. And that as well, even in his bones and his legs, they cannot support him. They cannot keep him up. He is unable to walk. He is unable to stand. He probably has to grip for something in order to be able to sustain himself. Such is the overwhelming vision of God's glory, of God's majesty, of God's power, of God's justice. And this is his reaction. And so we also see, beloved, that here, that he will wait patiently. Now he realizes that God is not silent. In fact, the opposite is true. The fact is, God will do things at his appointed time, not at Habakkuk's appointed time, because that is our sin as believers. I think most of us have this mentality where we want things done right away. We want things done immediately. I want it all, and I want it now. You know, we live in a fast food culture in which everything has to happen immediately, five minutes or less. So we have very little patience for people, whether in outside or even inside of the home, because we want things done at our time. And beloved, a sad reality is this attitude that we have, a lack of patience, is an attitude that we also have toward God. For example, sometimes we offer a prayer to the Lord and we want an immediate answer to our prayer. Lord, please answer my prayer at this moment. But you see, beloved, one of the things that we have to learn, just like this prophet who lived so many ages ago, is we have to learn the value of patience. And one of the things that he's learning here is that while he is looking at the decay, while he's looking at the corruption, and he's waiting on God to give an answer, he thinks the Lord is doing nothing. But the opposite is true. The Lord is working. He is constantly working. And he is constantly governing and active in the life of his people, in the life of his church, and in the life of the universe. God is very active in our lives and also in his life. But one of the things he learns is that he has to be patient because now he has total confidence that the day of calamity will come on the nation invading us. And of course, when we read the end of verse 16, that nation invading us is referring to Babylon and us is referring to Judah, which is the southern kingdom. And we realize that Babylon, too, will one day, or in the near future, experience the justice of God. And they will be punished for invading and for causing all of this pain and affliction upon God's people. And so you see, beloved, one of the things that we have to learn here is the virtue of patience. Another thing that we learn from this book, and beloved, it would be an injustice not to mention this verse, especially when we take a look at this book, but we are learning about a life of faith and how we respond to the trials of the present with faith. And one of the famous verses that we read in this book is, for example, if we look at Habakkuk 2, verse 4, we realize something else that is very, very important in the life of faith and very important as we deal and as we face the trials of the present and the trials of the future. Beloved, we read these famous words that is quoted several times in the New Testament. We will read the second portion. But the righteous will live by his faith. Beloved, just like our father Abraham, the father of the faith, the patriarch of believers, so Habakkuk, this minor prophet, lived a life of faith and lived a life by faith. And one of the things they believed in is they believed in the promises of God. We know if we look at the story in the life of Abraham that the Lord promised him so many things, so many great and wonderful things. But we know that in the life of the patriarch Abraham, he had to wait, wait many years until some of those promises were realized. And also, too, in the life of Habakkuk, he also had to wait for these promises of God to be realized. But one of the things that these two men had in common is that they put their faith, They put their confidence in the promises of God. And beloved, this is part of the way that we deal with the trials of the present. Placing our faith, our hope, our confidence in his promises to us, his beloved people. And now to the second point, the trials of the future. You see, one of the things that we realize here, beloved, is that Habakkuk was having quite an experience. On the one hand, we've already talked about the way that his people and the way God's people in Judah were acting corruptly. And then we learn about what Babylon is about to do to God's people. And now at this point, towards the end of the book, one of the things that he does is that he now focuses on how he will respond to the trials of the future. What if catastrophe is just around the corner? What if all these different things are about to happen to me? How am I going to deal with those things? How am I going to respond to a catastrophe or a disaster that's just waiting to happen? And so one of the things that we see here is that Habakkuk has been strengthened in his faith by the Lord, and he will deal with all of those future trials by faith and with faith. And so here we read, beloved, how he's going to deal with these trials. For example, in order to appreciate what we're about to read in chapter 3, verse 17, is that he uses a lot of agrarian and agricultural examples. And in order to appreciate the culture of this time, you have to realize that at this time, there were a lot of people who were planting and had crops and were growing various kinds of plants in order to sustain themselves, provide food for their families, as well as some sources of income, etc., etc. And one of the things that you have to appreciate about this is the fact that these kinds of trials are trials that a farmer would experience, trials that someone who works with the land, someone that works with the earth, this is the kinds of trials that they can relate to. If you speak to different kinds of people, they have different kinds of trials, different kinds of challenges in their lives. But for someone who is so accustomed and used to living in an agrarian farm society or community in which they deal with plants and fruits and vegetables and animals, for example, or goats or sheep or cows, etc., etc., if you speak with them and ask them the question, "What would you consider a hardship? What would you consider a challenge? What would you consider a trial?" It would be different than someone else, let's say, who is working in a different industry or had a different line of work. And so, as Habakkuk is saying these things, he's speaking to an agricultural community and speaking from their experience, taking examples from their world, things that they can relate to. For example, if you're trying to explain something to someone, the best way to do that sometimes is to understand their world, understand how they think, understand and take things from their experience and try to apply it in helping them understand a greater truth. So you relate something from their lives in order to understand something else. And here Habakkuk is trying to explain to those who are used to working with the land what trials they will be facing possibly and how they should respond to those trials. So here we read verse 17. Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen, and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. Beloved, just for a moment, just for the sake of understanding what's here, just imagine for a moment that we were a community of farmers. And so as this community, for example, perhaps some of us had fig trees, other people olives, other people grapes, and perhaps some worked with animals or perhaps a combination. And we know that there are times of the year which we get really excited about. We get excited over the harvest time. Oh, the harvest is coming soon. May the Lord bless our harvest and bless our plants and our trees and our animals so that it will be a fruitful year by God's grace. But what if it isn't? This would be devastating. What if we relied on our trees, on our plants, on our animals and one day we woke up and the fig trees did not bud and there was no olive crop and we no longer had our animals. Perhaps they died. This is devastating. And as soon as we see that, we know what that means. It means no food for our families. It means no source of income. It means we are left without these material possessions that we need in order to live. And at the same time, at that moment, we may think, Lord, I have nothing. I've lost everything. I feel totally helpless. But yet, Habakkuk does not say that, does he? He does not complain. Wouldn't it be tempting to offer a third protest? Wouldn't it be tempting for Habakkuk to say, Lord, I'm going to protest for a third time? But he does not do that. Yet, because the Lord has matured him and strengthened his faith and given him this vision of God as the divine warrior, this is his response if such a trial were to happen in the future. Verse 18, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. Beloved, if they were to take everything from you, if they were to take everything you owned, all the money in the bank, all of your livestock, all of your possessions, everything, if you were to lose everything, and I'm sure if some of us know people on the East Coast who've experienced the hurricane, perhaps we do know some people who have lost everything in a day. Beloved, the only comfort that we can give them is that the Lord will give them the strength to rebuild their lives. And here, this is what we rely on, that we always have the Lord, that we rejoice in the Lord, that we will be joyful in God my Savior. They may take these things from me. or in other people may do this harm to me. Or maybe God himself, according to his good pleasure, decides that I no longer need certain things. Yet, one thing I have as a great possession that no one can take away from me. I have my Savior. I have my salvation. No one can take that away. Beloved, maybe even today it could happen that we could lose everything. But one of the things that we will always have that no one can take away is that we have our Lord. We have our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, whom we belong to, body and soul, in this life and in the life to come. When we think about our Savior, because here he makes reference to it, we think about Christ. We think about his work of salvation and all the things that Christ has done for us. Think about this. Think about your other treasures, your spiritual treasures, your heavenly treasures. Think about the way that our Lord loved us so much that he died on the cross, that he experienced a life of suffering and that he experienced and tasted death itself, that bitter cup so that we can have the forgiveness of sins, that our Savior ascended from heavenly glory and the heavenly heights in order to humble himself and become a man, become a servant so that we can have life and the forgiveness of sins. Rejoice in that. Rejoice in the fact that you are clean, that your soul has been washed completely of all of your past, present, and future sins and that you are forgiven before the sight of God because you have been washed by the blood of the Lamb. And, beloved, that is not the only thing that you have. And that is not the only thing that Christ did. He also lived a perfect life for you. And by his perfect life, he gained for you righteousness, perfection, and gave you his holiness. So you see, when you understand the work of Christ, the work of your Savior, he not only washed you of your sins, he clothed you, He covered you with his righteousness, with his perfect life and his perfect merits. So before him, you are now forgiven and you are now righteous before God. Praise be the Lord. No one can take that away from you and rejoice in that. And rejoice in the fact that the Lord will give you strength. And this will be our third point, strength for the trials. Beloved, we know that as we continue on our pilgrim journey, we realize that as human beings, we find ourselves, if we are honest, weak and frail. For example, if we were to experience a difficulty, it might be our habit or perhaps our natural reaction or response to respond by complaining, protesting, just like Habakkuk, offering a protest to God, not just once, but twice, and maybe even tempted to do it a third time. And at those moments, we are overwhelmed at times, even as believers. And we realize that we are weak and frail and cannot rely on our own strength. We realize that we are just creatures. But praise be to God that we have our sovereign Lord who is our strength. Our strength will fail. We will not have the power, the ability to do the things that we need to do. But praise be to God that we do not rely on ourselves. We rely on the Lord. He is our strength and our song. And one of the interesting images that we read here is that he makes our feet like the feet of a deer. And he enables us to go on the heights. Now, I'm sure some of you may have the experience of hiking or you like being in the outdoors, maybe even rock climbing, and you like to be among the Lord's creation and see the marvels of all the mighty works of God's hands and how he made the mountains, the lakes, and the rivers, the trees, and the flowers, and the animals. It's overwhelming sometimes to see the beauty of what the Lord has made. And if we have ever had this experience of climbing onto the heights, perhaps even climbing a steep path, at times it's very difficult to do so. we're exhausted, we're tired, and it seems so steep and unsurmountable that it almost seems like an impossible task. How can we go and ascend the heights? And perhaps from the corner of our eye, we see a deer passing by. And as we're struggling, this deer easily goes here, goes there, ascends the heights without any difficulty. And at that moment, we say to ourselves, don't I wish I had the feet of a deer? And don't I wish I had that ability to ascend and go on the heights that easily? Beloved, we rely upon the Lord to enable us to do that, to overcome the challenges of life, to watch over us and grant us strength and give us that power and ability to do the things and face the challenges that we will face now and in the future. And one of the great hopes that we have in this life is that the Lord is with us. So when we do face trials right now and in the future, remember, beloved, who is our God? Who is our Lord? He is the mighty warrior. He is our awesome God who made all the heavens and the earth, who saved us by his precious Son, and who even now loves us and sustains us and gives us hope and gives us promises. And our response is to put our faith, our hope, our confidence in those promises of God. So, beloved, this is not only true for Habakkuk. Praise be to God. This is true for us, his dear children. We are his adopted children. And as a faithful heavenly father, He will care for all of our needs. Praise be to God. And all God's people said, Amen. Let us pray. Gracious Father, we thank you for your goodness and kindness to us. We thank you for all the ways in which you provide for us and give us all that we need. We pray, O Lord, that you would help us with our needs and be glorified in meeting our needs. Thank you for hearing us. For Jesus' sake, amen.