Questioning God in your difficult Times - Beacon Sunday Service: July 27, 2025

Hey, what a what a joy it is to be back. I would say that uh Audrey and I have many times said, what a warm church, what a great church to just have fellowship and to be with people. But today I I want to talk with you from an old testament book. Uh one that you don't get to very often, it's Habakkuk. Uh I don't know. Uh having a good friend is a friend who knows where to find Habakkuk in the old testament, you know. And let me let me even say it this way. Um, when I say Habakkuk, how many of you say Habakkuk? Anyone? Okay, we got a three of you. And the rest of you, Habakkuk, raise your hand if you're Habakkuk. And those who don't even know Habakkuk. There we go. We had some people with hands.

That's good. Because, you know, it's it's seldom talked about, and it's only three chapters long. And today, really, I want to talk to you about questioning God in your difficult times, because that's what's going on in the book of Habakkuk, where they begin to question God. And think of some people who question God. You know, Job and he loses everything, or David and the difficulties at times that he had in his life, or Jeremiah. Did you know that Jeremiah, I mean, he is a long Old Testament book, but Jeremiah at one point said, Lord, I'm done. I'm not preaching anymore about you. I'm every time I preach, people get upset. I'm not doing it anymore, Lord. And then he said, but I couldn't stop.

Your words were in my mouth, and I just couldn't keep quiet about it. Sometimes when we have difficulties, people, you know, question God. My son uh works at uh Beverly Hills Police Department. He's a sergeant there. This past week he was uh spending time with uh some of the other uh some of his team. And one of the team happens to be uh uh an agnostic or an atheist. He's not sure which, but he knows he doesn't believe in God. He grew up in church, then he went to uh San Luis Obispo and majored in science and turned away from the Lord. He's visiting we Doug's team was right there all together, and that particular guy said to my son, oh man, I got a I got a great score in my test this week. What an answer to prayer.

And my son says, What do you mean, what an answer to prayer? I mean, everybody else in the team knew that this guy wasn't a believer, and he says, What do you mean in answer to prayer? You don't believe in God. And he said, Well, yeah, I know. He said, I I really have a problem with why suffering takes place in this world. Why suffering at all? Why does God allow suffering? And my son's response right in front of all the other guys. He says, you know, I have a problem with that suffering too. I can't understand why God allowed Jesus to suffer and die for my sin. And the guy goes, I mean, the guy didn't know quite what to say because he's talking about him suffering, and Doug just turned it and reverse it and say, Look, I can't understand why God is so gracious to allow his son to suffer for me.

And just share the gospel right in front of all the guys right there. I want you to look at this guy. You know this guy. Raise your hand if you know this guy. Okay? A couple of you. Um let me, he's an author. You you probably have heard of his name. You've probably read some of his books. You might you might recognize him in his 1947 cover of Time magazine this way. The year before I was born, you know, 78 years ago. The guy's name, I mean, he was an Oxford grad. He's written Mere Christianity, Chronicles of Narnia. You probably heard that. But C.S. Lewis is his name. And many Christians across the board, you know, kind of look up that the C.S. Lewis with mere Christianity and that kind of stuff.

But you know, there was a time in his life when he questioned God too. Let me put it on the screen this way. In his journal, later published as a grief observed, he wrote words that may surprise those who admire his theological confidence. Here were the words. Where's God? Go to him when you your need is desperate, when all other help is vain. And what do you find? The door slammed in your face. Does that sound like somebody you know? Wait a minute. This guy, he was really good in that sense. But he was questioning at that point. Now, let me say it this way. Lewis wasn't questioning, uh, was questioning, not God's existence, but God's nearness and kindness in the face of unimaginable loss. He was broken, heartbroken.

His wife Joy was dying of cancer. He discovered that even in grief, even in questioning, God had not let him go. He was faithful in that sense, but he just out of his own heart at that point said, you know, I got I got the door slammed on my face. I lost the love of my life. She died of cancer. When you have difficult times, often what we do is turn and question God. Now, here's all the 39 books in the Old Testament. Okay? Here's where Habakkuk is found in the Old Testament. Okay? Fifth from the end. And all these little books at the end, you know, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, they're the ones that when pastors say, turn to Haggai, you go. If you're sitting beside somebody, you're not quite sure you want them to see that you're having a hard time finding it.

Go to Iwana. You know, if you go through the Iwana program, you'll know the book through the Bible really well. But this is where Habakkuk occurs. Why do we even study these Old Testament passages? Because the New Testament tells us to. And so in 1 Corinthians 10, 6, it says this. Now these things took place what? As examples for us. So that we will not desire evil things as they did. This is verse 6. When you go just a few verses later, same chapter, it says, these things happened to them again, as what? Examples. And they were written for our instruction. So what he's saying is this Habakkuk, that three little chapters, the problem book there, was written for your example and for your instruction.

He says it this way, when you think about prophets, a prophet usually, I'll say it and then you can read it here. A prophet usually speaks on behalf of God to people. Right? So look at it here. Habakkuk is different than most other prophets, because the other prophets spoke to people on behalf of God. It's what a prophet did. He would always say, thus saith the Lord. And it better happen. Because if it didn't happen, what would they do to him? Stone him to death. So nobody ever got up and said, Hey, God just gave me this message for you, and it doesn't happen. You're dead. But in this case, Habakkuk, we see the reverse. We see Habakkuk speaking to God on behalf of the people. What we see in the book is a dialogue with God where Habakkuk is wrestling with injustice and evil and suffering everywhere around him.

Again, the other prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, others, they're thus saith the Lord. This prophet is saying, God, I want to talk to you on behalf of these people, not to these people on behalf of you. I'm not going to say, thus saith the Lord. I'm saying, why did you say that, Lord? He's going to question God. And then in these difficult times. Here's a map of Israel. See the Mediterranean. See of Galilee in the north, the Jordan River running down towards the Dead Sea. Got it. At this time when Habakkuk is writing, let me give you some background here. There are 12 tribes of Israel. And they conquered, they went into the promised land in the book of Joshua, Joshua at the Battle of Jericho. And then they went in and they divided the land.

And twelve of these tribes got land. It went really well. But they said we want a king. God gave him a king. First king was Saul. He reigned for 40 years. He did not do well in the end. Then God raised up David. And David reigned 40 years. And when he died, his son took over. Because now we got a dynasty going here in this kingdom. And his son was Solomon. Saul reigned 40 years. David reigned 40 years. Solomon reigned 40 years. So yeah, you got a good track record going there. I did 33 years at the church I was at. I didn't even get the 40 years in. So it's 40, 40, 40. And then all of a sudden, Solomon's son is going to take over these 12 tribes. This nation called Israel. His name is Rehoboam.

Riahboam. You're not going to remember that. Maybe the easy way to start to think about it anyway is his name starts with an R, Rhia Boam. He was the right king to take over in the family of David, of which Jesus was going to ultimately be born. One family all the way down in this kingship. Okay? Riaboam. But here's what happened. Rehabilitation. He said to the younger, he said to the old people, what should I do? The old leaders, they said, Oh, here's what you need to do. You know, he's back on all the taxes and all the problems. You know, the and he went to the young guys, and the young guy said, Oh no, now's the time. Put the pedal to the middle. You give those taxes. You do great things.

And the people had a rebellion. Ten of the tribes said, ten of the 12 tribes said, we're not going to do this. Rehaboam was that king. The guy that went against him, his name was very similar to Rehaboam. Only his name was Jeroboam. So you got you got Rehoboam and Jeroboam and all the Boam boys, you know. You can't go, let's see, I gotta keep this track. So Rehoboam was the right king. But he didn't do so much right. He taxed the people and put the pressure on them. Jeroboam said, Hey, follow me. Ten of the tribes followed him. Ten of the 12. And so let me do one other thing here. Uh you can count the 12 tribes that are on the screen there. But one of those tribes was, I'm gonna highlight it here.

One of that, Manasseh. Manasseh was so large a tribe that they owned property both on the west of the Jordan River and on the east side of the Jordan River. Okay? Now, all these tribes, here's here's what happened during the rebellion. Ten in the north, count them Naptali, Ashar, Zebulun, Essachar, Issachar, that's four, Manasseh five, Ephraim six, Gad seven, Reuben eight, Dan. Oh, wait a minute. Here's what really happened. I said there were ten in the north and two in the south. But here's what happened. Simeon, I'm gonna uh here's this northern group together, and Simeon said, I'm gonna go with the north. But they didn't get any land. Their land was part of Judah in the south. But they went into the north, and so now you have ten tribes in the north and two tribes, Benjamin and Judah in the south.

This is at the time, this is at the time, just about the time when Habakkuk is going to be doing some preaching. And he's saying, Look, we got all sorts of problems going on here. Why? Why are you doing this to the nation? God, God? The northern group became known as Israel. They kept the name. The bottom group, Benjamin merged with Judah, and they kept the name Judah. And they were the southern kingdom. So now, listen to me carefully. You have a civil war going on in your hands. We've had that in the United States, haven't we? From the north and the south? Here, civil wars going on. The north and the south. Ten tribes in the north, two tribes in the south, and they're fighting. They have different kings.

Of all the kings in the north, here's how many good kings they had. Zero. And that's why they fell earlier, captive to another nation. In the south, there were only eight good kings. The rest of them were wicked as well. Now let me back out of this into a full-blown map. And see that little white area? That's the area we were just looking at. That's Israel. See how tiny Israel is? Israel is only about as big as Los Angeles County if it were that. It's only about 70 miles north to south, and about 45 miles east to west. You know, it's just a small little country. It's the biggest little country in the world, though, because everybody knows of Israel and what God is doing. So look at the bodies of water here.

Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf, Red Sea. I can't spend a lot of time here, but I will say this. See the Black Sea right there? The Black Sea is just below Ukraine. And it's the reason Russia is really fighting against the Ukrainians.

And right now, Ukraine. So they're fighting over that ability to have power and a good piece of property to get from the Black Sea out through that strait and into the Mediterranean and do their shipping of goods and stuff. Let me uh say here are the countries that were involved in this Old Testament passage. You know, you got Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia. Now, just so you know, let me superimpose what those countries are today. Turkey, Iraq, and Kuwait. So let me take those out for a second. And here's what's going on. Assyria got in power. And they came over and attacked the northern kingdom of Israel in 72. Took some people back, imported some people in, created all sorts of problems.

But Judah was still protected. They were down, they had some good kings and they were still south and had and had a little longer time. Then what happened is Babylon took over, captured Assyria, and then Babylon came and attacked the southern kingdom called Judah. Took Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, took Daniel, ended up in the lion's den there. That was all going on. And now let me say this. The book of Habakkuk was written just before that attack. What attack? Babylon coming over and attacking them. Got it? So let's go to the book. How long, Lord? This is this is the prophet speaking to God. Questioning God? You know, when's the last time? When's the last time you questioned God? Especially with these kind of words.

How long, Lord? Hey, I'm kind of tired here. How long, Lord, must I call for help? And what? You do not listen or cry out to you about violence and you do not save. Why do you force me to look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? What do you think God's response is going to be to? You know, somebody going, hey, I want to know what's going on here. Why do you do that? And God is looking at. If if if God were a human like me, he'd be scratching his head thinking, who do you think you are? You know? You're supposed to be my prophet. You're writing this book in the Bible. And you act like this, you sound like this. What's the main question here? Why? Why? You ever been in a position where you said, God, hey, why?

Why did this happen to Natalie? Why did this happen to, you know, whatever. Can I do this? How many, how many chapters are in Habakkuk? Three. Okay. In the past, what I've done it with our people up in Palmdale. Um, and I think we did it here when we look at James. We we took a word or a phrase that helps you remember what's in the book. For instance, the book of Romans, uh, it has 16 chapters, and so I'm looking for a phrase that has 16 letters that would summarize the book, and then I would take those letters and lay them on a side and try to have something about every chapter from that phrase. The phrase for Romans was justified by faith. 16 letters, and it summarizes the book. The just shall live by faith, justified by faith.

And then I laid him on the side like that, and then we made up several chapters. We did the same thing when James, when we were looking at that. Let me do it with Habakkuk care. Since it's only has three chapters, then the word that I'm gonna use is why. You saw it in the text, didn't you? Why? So let me just turn it on his side and let's say, what's chapter one all about in Habakkuk? Why is this happening to us? That's what's going on in chapter one. This prophet is just questioning God. Why that why is this going on? Why is that going on? Why when I call out, you don't answer. The second chapter, he's questioning God, and God says, Okay, I'm gonna use some people that aren't even saved to come after you.

They're gonna be the Babylonians, and they're gonna come over and attack you. The Babylonians were also known as the Chaldeans, and they were they were arrogant people at that point. We would even use the word, and I'll put it on the screen this way. We would even use the word haughty. If somebody is haughty, they're proud, these haughty Chaldeans used by God. They come over and they say, Hey, we're just gonna take everything. And you'll see it in the text in a moment. By the time you get to chapter three, Habakkuk is finally saying, Okay, God, okay, I I understand. You're in charge. And Habakkuk yields to God's sovereignty in chapter three. Okay? So that's what the book is about. Three chapters, three things.

Boom, boom, boom. And by the way, yielding to sovereignty, Pastor Peter's been preaching on the sovereignty of God. And so let me just look at this. Yielding to God's sovereignty. Here's what sovereignty is all about.

Not R-A-I-N, not rain water down, but rain. He's the king of your life. He's king of kings and Lord of lords. And the government shall be upon his shoulders. He is God, he is sovereign. He can do whatever he chooses. And my response ought to be, I'll say yes, Lord, yes, to your will and to your way. I'll say yes, Lord, yes. I will trust you and obey. When your spirit speaks to me, with my whole heart, I'll agree. And my answer will be, yes, Lord, yes. He's sovereign. Let him be in charge. So let's go to the text back to the text. How long, Lord, must I call and you do not listen? You do not save. Why do you force me to look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? The next verse says, this is why the law is ineffective, and justice never emerges, for the wicked restrict the righteous.

This is this is Habakkuk complaining to God.

What do you think God's response to Habakkuk is going to be? You have it in the text later on, but I'll drop here verse six. Look. His response now. He's answering Habakkuk. Look, I'm raising up the Chaldeans. That bitter, impetuous nation that marches across the earth and the earth's open spaces and seizes territories, not its own. When you're complaining to God, do you expect the last thing he's going to do is to tell you, I'm going to use some of these ungodly people to give you a really rough time, so you have to, you know, there their response? This is God's response to them. God responds to Habakkuk. And their response, what? Yeah, wait a minute. What? You're gonna use the Babylonians?

That wait a minute, they're they're ungodly. They worship false gods. Uh, you're gonna use them. You know, sometimes what God allows in our lives is sometimes he allows us to have leaders in our country. I'm not I'm not saying any specific times. I'm just gonna say this overall. Sometimes we live, our country turns away from God, and God in his sovereignty says, Okay, you want this person? Okay, I'll give you this person. And that person will do things against God's will, promote a homosexual marriage, get those laws passed, get those uh the abortions, things like that. There have been times where we get congressmen, congresswomen, other leaders. God says, okay, you don't want to do my will?

You want a question? I'll I'll let I'll let you see what it's like living that way under ungodly people. The nation that you know fears God, God blesses. In Chronicles, he talks about that as well. What? You're sending the godless Babylonians, those Chaldeans to conquer and destroy us? That's your answer. I why? Why? Why? I'm gonna send these people. Look, if somebody said, What did Pastor Madison talk about today? Putting it in just a sentence, here it is. In the midst of difficult times, most people, just like Habakkuk, respond by questioning God. Instead of, oh God, give me the grace to see what you're trying to do here. Oh God, let me glorify you in the midst of this difficult time. You lose a job.

Uh I alluded to Natalie, our granddaughter, who went through the ablation and and was 12 minutes without oxygen to her brain as a as a five-year-old. And they said she'd just be a body in the bed the rest of her life. She'd be blind, she couldn't talk, she couldn't walk. But our response has to be, you give and take away, you give and take away, and yet my heart will say, What? Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name. You know, we have a tendency though to complain. God, how'd you allow this to happen? But you know what God has used that in Natalie's life is to make us more people of prayer, more opportunities. I had a t-shirt on on Friday. Said pray for Natalie. I went into uh an in and Out burger.

I got to the front. The guy in the line that went into line behind me, and I'm with my son, and the guy at the cash register said, Oh, pray for Natalie. What's that? And it gave me an opportunity again to talk about God's graciousness. You know what's interesting today? Natalie, for the first 30 days after the procedure and when she lost oxygen to her brain, couldn't see. Today she has 2020 vision. Natalie couldn't talk. She didn't move her tongue for eight months. And had to be fed with a G tube. Today she can talk. Well, not as clearly as the rest of us. She can walk. Not as smoothly in the gate that we can walk. But God has taught us.

You know what's interesting about Natalie? She smiles all the time. She really doesn't complain. Haven, who's with us today, when Natalie came home from the hospital and couldn't talk for eight months, eight months before God loosened her tongue and she could eat again because you can't eat if you can't move your tongue. You can't swallow. And Natalie's uh Haven said to Natalie and to her parents, when's Natalie gonna talk to me again? You know, she couldn't didn't understand because Natalie was five at the time, and Haven was three, and she they'd played together, and it was really normal until she spent 107 days in the hospital. Look, in the midst of difficult times, what do we do? Question God.

How back the scripture gives us four responses that we're to have when we face difficult times. The first is this. We need to get an and we need to elevate our view of God. We think of God as just oh, he's good. Look at the text, Lord. Now this is Habakkuk III, okay? This is what after he's yielded to the Lord. What's his response? Lord, I've heard the report about you. Lord, I stand in awe of your deeds. You know, see the problem we have is we're not in awe. A W E of God. Being in awe of God takes my breath away. When you when you see something, then you go, you you you gasp. It takes your breath away. You're in awe. Wow. Oh, you know, we think, wow, we think, wow, that's an awesome car. Oh, that was that's an awesome house.

Man, oh did you see that play in that game? Man, it was awesome! The guy scored a touchdown. And I mean, when we talk about God, what do we say? Oh, he's good. You know, the football game is awesome, but God is good. What do we say? God is good all the time, all the time. God is good. He's much more than good, but the world kind of said, Oh yeah, God is good. You know, we got him down here on this level, and when when something happens bad in our lives, we go, what? What happened? What why did you do that? And I need to have an elevated view. I gotta, we have an awesome God who can do miraculous things, and sometimes he allows difficulty in my life, so I go back to his face and cry out for help.

So I repent of maybe a waywardness. He's allowing that pressure to give me endurance. That James 1 passage when difficulties enter your life, you don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends. A modern day translation of James 1. But we need to stand in awe. Look at it. The next verse. His splendor covers the heavens and the earth is full of his praise. His brilliance is like light rays. God is awesome. Look at his light flashing from his hand. You know, his powers hidden. Here's a picture of the aurora borealis. God's awesome. Just think how he. Here's another picture of it. I remember any of you have seen the Aurora Borealis in person. Oh, yeah, two. Because you have to be at a given height in our in our nation.

And I was a youth pastor in uh Illinois when I first got uh out of my graduate program. And so I'm there. Uh I was the youth pastor, and we had a camp in Wisconsin. And I ran the camp for four years and did the youth pastor and stuff. And when I saw that, I saw this, the Aurora Borealis. And it was the first time I'd ever seen it. And you know, nobody much talked about it because if you don't see it, you don't, you know, you don't necessarily look at pictures, and I'm seeing it across the lake. And as I watched the lake, Lake Michigan there, and I'm seeing this these light, this light just dancing, this color. I looked up and I said, Jesus, are you coming? You know, I mean, I really thought, man, this is you know, this is unusual.

Hallelujah. This is the Lord's return. I I wasn't uh I wasn't right. It was just God displaying his awesomeness. How about this picture? People always take pictures of what? The sunsets, they're beautiful. God just are just a sideshow. You know, God, this is nothing special to God. He just let me do this. How about this one? You'd think this was a painting. This is the painted canyon, it really exists. And it's just unbelievable that people can hike through there and get pictures of this. Or how about this one in Niagara Falls? Can you imagine what God reached down? He all he had. There are times in scripture, twice in scripture, it talks about the finger of God. One time he wrote the Ten Commandments, he did the finger of God.

One time when he when he uh the woman was caught in the act of adultery, and they wanted to stone her and he bent down on the ground and and wrote with his finger. I wonder if it goes back to the kind of the old testament, you know, and he's writing some, you know, a command, you know, that they understood. Can you imagine if God just took his finger, just his finger, and he made Niagara Falls, and no big deal for him, you know. Us, we see, wow, that's amazing. Because he can just speak and it happens. In Psalm 33, verse 6 the heavens were made by the word of the Lord and all the stars by the breath of his mouth. He just goes, and they're all the stars. He just speaks the word and it happens.

Or how about he goes two verses later? Let the whole earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. Why did we sing that this morning? I stand, I stand in awe of you. I said to Howard, hey, here's where we're going to the text. I have a song that just reminds us that we can stand. We can sing it, we can preach it, we can read it. Let's get in awe of God. For he spoke and it came into being. He commanded and it came into existence. That's exactly what uh Genesis 1 3 says. And then God said, Let there be light. There was. Boom. He just spoke, and it happens. Daniel 9, Daniel says, So I turned my attention to the Lord God to speak to him by prayer and petition with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.

I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed. Ah, Lord, the great and awe-inspiring God who keeps his gracious covenant. Danielson, wow, he's an awesome God. Let me give you one more from Luke chapter 5. When Jesus healed a man that couldn't walk, it says immediately he got up before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God. Then everyone was astonished, and they were giving glory to God. They were filled with what? Oh. You know what? They said, look, we've seen incredible things today. Oh, here's the question I have for you. When was the last time you were filled with awe about our God? Where he took your breath away. I can still hardly talk about my granddaughter without choking up.

When the cash register guy, Doug is standing here, the cash register guy, what's pray for Natalie about? And I started telling him I'm going, and I wanted to get out. She has 20-20 vision today. She can walk, she can talk. You know, I'm just in awe that God could take a person that's going to be a body in the bed for the rest of her life and begin to heal her. And 10,000 people are praying for her. And it leaves me in awe that God is still the same yesterday, today, and forever. Listen, difficult times, what do we do? We do the same thing Habakkuk did. We want to question God or the world. I hope we don't question God, but look, we need to have an elevated view of God. Let's see him as awesome.

Secondly, we need to enter into silence before the Lord. What did we sing this morning? We sang about, I'm not gonna say anything, I'm not gonna speak, you know, I'm gonna listen. Habakkuk says it this way, Habakkuk 2.20. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let the whole earth be silent in his presence. When's the last time you just said, okay, I'm gonna just be silent before God. I used to be a choir director when I was a student at MBI in Chicago, uh, and a choir director of a church. Um after the pastoral prayer, the choir would respond, the Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silent, let all the earth keep silent before him. They'd sing that same thing each week, just letting us know.

Hey, learn to be silent. We don't like silence. Listen, this is this is Habakkuk 220, but in Zephaniah 1:7 it says, be silent in the presence of the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is near. This is Zephaniah. These are the last five books, you know, as you get in the old testament, Habakkuk, and then Zephaniah, and then Zechariah later says, Let all humanity be silent before the Lord. We don't like silence. We the TV has to be going, you get in the car, the radio has to be going, or you know, something has to be going all the time. So, look. Look at it this way. God doesn't do this to us, but he should. At times he should go, zip it up. Or, you know, what do you do to people when they're they're talking too much, and you go, hey?

You know, button it up. Why? You have a hard time hearing God when you're doing all the speaking. Let me show you how difficult uh silence is. Okay. I put 15 seconds on the clock here. For 15 seconds, I'm not gonna say a word. You just sit there, see what being silence is like you don't like it. But what is God saying? There are times that you really want to understand what God is doing, then be silent before him and let him speak. Go to his word and let him speak. Look, Mr. Difficult Times, don't be like Habakkuk and question God.

But what are the responses we're to have? Well, let's get an elevated view of God today. Let's see him as awesome. Secondly, uh, let's enter into silence before the Lord. Thirdly, we need to examine our, and let me even change this to faith. We need to examine our faith in the Lord. You can say faithfulness to the Lord, but our faith in the Lord. Habakkuk is one of the most important books in the Old Testament that gets repeated in the New Testament. Here's the verse. Habakkuk 2:4. The righteous one will live by how? His faith. By faith. You know where that comes in in the New Testament. This is the verse that started the Protestant Reformation. This is the verse that Martin Luther said, you don't get saved by works.

You get saved by faith. And he was reading through Romans and in Romans 1:17. Here's what it says. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed. In what? That goes back to verse 16. In verse 16, I don't have it on the screen, but let me just quote it. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God into salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, everybody else. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed. For from faith to faith, just as it is written, written where? Habakkuk 2.4. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. Listen, why if I'm questioning God, what's that revealing about my faith? Something's going on.

This is Romans 1:17. He says it again in Galatians 3:11. Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by what? Faith.

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. What do I, what do I need to do? Instead of questioning God, why are you why are you doing this, God? I need to say, Lord, would you peel the scales from my eyes and let me see what you want to, what you're wanting to teach me here. Instead of me shaking my fist at you and questioning why, let me raise my hands and praise and say, You give and take away, you give and take away, yet my heart will say, Blessed be the name of the Lord. Just to praise him. See this picture? These are uh B-24 bombers, liberators. They were used in World War II. 1943. 25 of them left Libya to do a bombing expedition in Italy, in the harbor of uh Naples, Italy.

Let me give you the map. You can see the Mediterranean Sea here. Here was our military base in Libya. We don't have that base today. Libya's not, you know, the one that's saying, oh, yeah, the United States, that's great. But back then we had that military base, and we're gonna fly. Let me put a plane right there. We're gonna fly from that area up to Italy and to Naples, and they were gonna do a bombing expedition that's uh nearly uh between 250 and 400 miles, you know, depending on you know if you're gonna fly directly there and the the amount of gas you're gonna burn if you have a headwind or a tailwind or whatever. So they fly there, they do the bombing expedition. 25 of them. They turn around.

This was back in 1943, in April of 1943. They bombed that mission and they turn around. 24 of them made it back. Let me they turn around on that flight, 24 made it back to where the base was. One of them followed this route. You see the difference? Right here is our military base. But one of the planes just kept going.

Why? It was it was the plane, the plane was called the Lady Be Good. The Lady Be Good. And they tried to scour everywhere. You know, I mean, 25 of them came on their way back. And when this one got near the base, they had had a tailwind that was so strong that it was pushing them so quickly that the leadership was saying, Oh, we can't, we can't be there yet. You know, it's it's we need to keep going because it's been too soon. And they kept flying until they ran out of gas in the Libyan desert. The plane and some of its people were not found for 16 years. Here's the story behind it. Almost 16 years later, on November 9th, 1958, several British geologists were flying over the desolate sun-baked Libyan desert at approximately 400 miles south of Sulish.

They spotted an aircraft on the sand. A ground party that reached the site in March 1959, because they couldn't get there before then, discovered the plane to be the B24D, the Lady Be Good, had been found.

Askew. You want to know why? Because they did not have faith in their instruments. The instruments said they'd already gotten there. But the tailwind had confused them. And we're talking 1943. And what I'm saying to you is this.

Get an elevated view of God. He's awesome. He's not just a friend. We sing, oh, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. Look. People have dogs that are friends. We got God. You know, don't get dyslexic. You know, it's G-O-D, not D-O-G. Did you get that? What I just said. People get confused in the world. Elevate your view of God. Enter into silence before the Lord. Examine your faith of the Lord. Lastly, embrace the Lord in your dark moments. Where do I get that in the text? Let me even say it this way. It does not say that in Habakkuk, any place. So how do I get it there? The name Habakkuk comes from the Hebrew word that means to embrace or to hold tightly. What did God gave them a name?

Live up to your name, Habakkuk. Hold on tightly. Embrace.

I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. He didn't start out very well. But he ended really well. What I would say to you, let's finish well. Let's be able to say, Lord, I guess the question I have for you is will you reach the same conclusion that Habakkuk reached? He ended with, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. He shook his fist at him. But oh, wait, yet.

Let's pray together. Oh Heavenly Father, we give you these moments. We thank you that your word speaks to our hearts, and we want to even now say, when you give us difficult times, you are still the awesome God who chooses. Nothing gets to us without passing through your hands first. Thank you for your sovereignty. And we're praying now, Father, for this congregation and these people. While your heads are bowed, while your eyes are closed, can you say, Lord, I want to be able to end well. I want to be able to rejoice in you. For we pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.