Habakkuk Chapter 3 verses 2 to 16

Sermon Notes: Habakkuk Chapter 3 verses 2 to 16

Back to the future – How to prepare your heart for the hard times to come.

Habakkuk NOW knows that the Babylonians are coming, these vicious, heartless, brutal people who will pillage, rob, steal, destroy everything and everyone in sight. They will carry back to Babylon men, women and young people who will never see their homes again. (Daniel and his friends were some of those abducted and forcibly marched off to Babylon)

Question: How does Habakkuk prepare His heart and prepare His nation for such impending disaster and tragedy that he knows is coming to His city, Jerusalem and to his people, the people of God?

Habakkuk prepares for the future by reciting God’s faithfulness in the past. Habakkuk recites God’s famous victories on behalf of His people in the past, and then with faith and confidence he declares to them in the present: that this same God will rescue His people and be their help in the presence.

In the present difficulties you may be facing and whatever challenges the future holds for you, remember this same God who came to your help in the past, will be faithful to you in the present moment.

What a faithful God we have, faithful in every way! That’s exactly what Habakkuk is saying here in Chapter 3 v1, God you’re famous, everyone knows what you’ve done for your people in the past. You awesome glorious salvation story of how you brought Your people out of slavery and suffering in Egypt. How you brought Your people through those 40 years in the wilderness and brought them victoriously into the Promised land, where You overcame all their enemies.

V3-16 is really Habakkuk reciting and recalling, celebrating these glorious, miraculous, delivering miracles of God, who is mighty to save His people. the God who came v3 to the help, the rescue, the salvation of His people Israel in times past.

‘You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides Him there is no other.’ This mighty God, who fights on behalf of His beloved people v13.

This God is the same God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The glorious story of Salvation is that God has not only come to rescue His people in the Old Testament, but we know that God sent His One, His only, His most beautiful Son Jesus to set us free from years in slavery to sin. By His glorious victory at the Cross and His mighty, miraculous resurrection from the dead, sets us gloriously free!

This same Jesus will come again to earth like a Warrior Prince to wrap up this world as we know it and bring all His enemies and ours under His rule and reign. But before that return, Jesus warns us that there are some very difficult, painful times ahead for us, Matthew Chapter 24 v7 to 14.

Question; What will sustain and strengthen Habakkuk and God’s people in his day as they face an uncertain and a fragile future?

Answer: This Vision of the greatness, the grandeur, the glory of God who fought for His people in the past and who will fight for His people against the Babylonians in the future v16.

That’s what we the Church desperately need today – we need to recapture a Vision of the grandeur, the glory, the greatness of our God and Saviour. The One who in His faithfulness and power, rescued, saved and delivered His people in the past, and who will rescue, save and deliver His people in the present and in the future.

So whatever the future holds for you. However difficult the future is for you. Whatever the battles you may have yet to face and to fight as you follow Jesus, just like Habakkuk remember this:

The God who is faithful and has kept you in the past, is keeping you in the present and will not fail you in the future.

Question: Will you trust Him whatever the future brings?