In our flesh, it’s easy to grow discouraged, and even question God, when hard times come. This was the Prophet Habakkuk’s initial response when he learned of the painful judgment God was about to inflict on the wicked land of Judah. Yet as Habakkuk got right with God, he broke into a hymn of joyful praise (Hab. 3:17-19). It’s this theme that Brian Borgman will bring home—when the blessings dry up, we’re to keep on singing and rejoicing. 

This conference has been a brand new experience for me. Although it's not my first time here, it is the first time that I ever preached a sermon wearing Scott Brown's clothes. My clothes were in Charlotte, and Scott wasn't too keen on me preaching in cargo pants and a thermal t-shirt. So, but anyway, It is a delight to be with you, and I'm going to ask if you'll take your Bibles and turn to the book of Habakkuk, chapter 3. Is there a big clock I'm supposed to look at?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that is big, isn't it? Wow. All right, well, we better hurry up then. So back at chapter 3, starting at verse 16, this is the reading of God's holy word.

I heard and my inward parts trembled at the sound, my lips quivered, decay enters my bones and in my place I tremble because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olives should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength. He has made my feet like hind's feet and makes me walk on my high places for the choir director on my stringed instruments." Well, simply because we're in a building where there's going to be preaching doesn't mean that we're going to automatically benefit from that preaching, so let's pray and ask for God's help.

Father, Your Word is a mighty Word, and we pray that right now by the power of Your Holy Spirit, You would use it for the good of Your people. Pray for the one who preaches. May He preach with the power that You supply and give us all ears to hear, Father. Father, we know that we've heard several sermons over this weekend, and Father, we pray that Your Word would not return to you void. Accomplish Your holy purposes today.

For Jesus' glory, amen." So exile is actually the final covenant curse. Under the Old Covenant, if the people would not obey, if they would not be faithful, then they would not only fail to experience the blessings of the covenant, but they would also experience the curses of the covenant. And the ultimate curse of the covenant is exile. That's the pinnacle curse. And so just as Adam was exiled from the Garden of Eden away from the presence of the Lord, so Israel would be exiled and scattered as an act of divine judgment.

The place of exile is of course a dangerous place. But the church, the church is not in exile because of the curse. Because Jesus Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. As people that are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and whose sins have been washed away through His blood, there is no curse for us." And yet, the church is identified in the New Testament as an exiled people. Peter actually opens up his epistle with addressing the church as the elect of God, exiles who are scattered.

And so the church, as we've been hearing for this entire weekend, we are in Babylon, we are in that place of exile, and we're in exile simply for the fact that we're not home yet. And so the people of God need to remember, we need to realize that exile, living in Babylon, is in fact dangerous. So yes, on the one hand we build, we dwell, we plant, but on the other hand we realize that being in Exile means that we are in a hostile environment, one which may become dark, filled with trials and disappointments and troubles and sorrow. And so, thanks be to God, exile is not our permanent status, and exile is not our permanent residence. But make no mistake about it, the place of exile, living in Babylon, is in fact the place where trials and suffering take place.

Living in Babylon, living in that, as it were, that tension between the already and the not yet, this is the time where we frequently will pass through this life through a veil of tears. Exile is the place where the what-ifs, which we often fear, frequently happen. And so the book of Habakkuk was written prior to the Babylonian invasion, prior to therefore the exile, and it is a book that is, first of all, it's a dialogue between God and the prophet. It's a book of complaint. It's a book of lament.

It's a book of prayer. It's a book of vision. It's a book that has this glorious psalm of confidence at the end to help God's people prepare for exile. And so the book of Habakkuk actually teaches us how God uses the wicked for his sovereign purposes. It also teaches God's people how to prepare for the dark times of exile.

An excellent article by Vanitha Reisner called What If the Worst Happens, She writes this, she says, I've spent a lifetime considering the what ifs. Those questions have a way of unsettling me, destroying my peace, leaving me insecure. I wondered if my health spirals downward and I end up in an institution, will God be enough? If my children rebel and never walk closely with the Lord, will God be enough? If I never remarry and never feel loved again, will God be enough?

If my ministry doesn't flourish and I never see fruit from it, will God be enough? If my suffering continues and I never see the purpose in it. Will God be enough? I want to say that those questions are the questions of an exile. And I want to ask not only in the midst of exile when the darkness comes will God be enough, but I want to ask us today when the darkness comes, when the trials settle in, when they're suffering, when there's sorrow, can there still be joy in our hearts even though our hearts are breaking?

Can we actually, as a people in exile, joyfully worship Christ in the darkness of our trials and suffering? And if the answer is yes, I want to ask what does that look like, and then more importantly, I want to ask what does that sound like? And so that turns us to Habakkuk chapter 3. Habakkuk was written during a time of national upheaval, political corruption, injustice, and the impending doom of the Babylonian invasion. You could say in the time of Habakkuk, it's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

And as the prophet contemplates what's on the horizon for God's people. Verse 16 is actually a summation in this prayer. I heard and my inward parts trembled. At the sound, my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones and in my place I tremble because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us." This by the way has been part of Habakkuk's problem is that he knows the Chaldeans are coming.

God Himself said He's raised up the Chaldeans to bring a punishment upon the people of Israel, and yet He is perplexed because the Chaldeans are far worse than we are. And so God, how in the world can you do something like that? God explains that to him in a sense in the book of Habakkuk, and so here as he comes to this conclusion, he is shaken by what he knows is about to come. He's overwhelmed by what he knows is about to come. He's overwhelmed by what he knows is about to come.

In a sense, as he looks on the horizon, let me just put it like this. He's not looking at build, dwell, plant. He's looking at the great what-if is about to happen and how in the world are we going to make it. For Habakkuk, the For Habakkuk, the shadows were falling fast, and it was about to be very dark. I, like many of you, I was glad in November that things didn't go differently.

But brothers and sisters, let us not make any mistake, okay, whatever good things may be happening, whatever bad things were held back, okay, We've not entered into the golden age. We still, as the people of God, are exiles, and the people of God are still going to be persecuted, and the people of God will still have to endure trials and the people of God will still be outcasts. And until a day comes, now I'm amillennial so I'm not postmillennial so I don't take this wrong, but until the day comes where everybody loves Jesus, the church is going to be persecuted. And so here's the prophet, and the prospect of impending doom and impending pain doesn't blind him to the reality of all realities. The impending darkness doesn't roll in and destroy his faith because what we have after those first two painful chapters of Habakkuk is we have a prayer that Habakkuk writes, and as he gets down to the section that we've read, he actually… He explodes with a sense of confidence in God.

Now this is how he puts it. Verse 17, though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olives should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stall." Now, one of the things that you have to remember as you read the prophets is that the prophets have a covenantal background to where their ministry is based on the Mosaic covenant blessings and curses that we see in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. And so the promise of blessing typically has the trajectory of salvation, restoration, and then the curses have, of course, the trajectory of judgment, as Jason was talking about earlier. And so here, Habakkuk actually talks about this time where the fig and the vine are going to fail, the field and the flock are going to fail. Well, fig and vine, field and flock are the covenant signs of God's blessing and prosperity.

So Deuteronomy 8, 7 through 10, for instance, says, for the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs flowing out in the valleys and the hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper, and you shall eat and be full and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given to you. And so those are the covenant blessings. Habakkuk is looking forward to a time when he knows those covenant blessings, in fact, are going to dry up. The olives, the food, the flock, the cattle, the fields are yielding no food so that the agricultural blessings are dried up. There aren't going to be any sheep in the pen, no cattle in the stalls, and by the way all of these things represent not just covenant blessing but the luxuries of life and then also the necessities of life.

You have olive oil, wine, those are the luxuries of life, the necessities of life, bread, milk, meat, and so both luxuries and necessities will fail. And so here's Habakkuk and he looks forward to a time where the very basics of life will dry up. And there's a sense in which his anxiety over this goes from a what if to an even if. And here's the glorious thing. He says even if those things happen, even if all of the covenant blessings of God dry up, even if, even if my 401k goes into the tank, even if all of my investments disappear, even if all of the things in life that I have loved and cherished, even if all those things go away, I will exalt in the Lord.

I will rejoice in the Lord." And so, Habakkuk, what is Habakkuk doing? He is preparing himself for the times of darkness that are going to come and he determines ahead of time before the trials get there that when they come this is going to be his posture. By the way, you cannot expect to have strong faith and be jubilant in God in the midst of suffering if you're not prepared for it. It doesn't just happen automatically. And so here what Habakkuk says is I will exalt, literally it goes like this, even though these things fail, yet I in Yahweh will exalt, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation." Exalt is the idea.

It's a great word. We actually heard the kids sing about it. It means to be jubilant. To rejoice is actually the idea of a shout in exultation. And so frequently these two words are used together in the Old Testament to describe an emotion of joy which finds expression in singing and even shouting.

And so the prophet Zechariah will say in Zechariah 3, 14, sing aloud, oh daughter Zion, shout, oh Israel, be glad and rejoice with all your heart. What an amazing thing. Even though all of the covenant blessings dry up, Habakkuk says, I'm determined to have a vigorous, enthusiastic, loud expression of joy in the Lord. By the way, there's nothing about these words that express a stiff upper lip of praise. There's nothing in these words that express a stoic expression of praise.

These words are earnest, they're emotive, and there's nothing quiet about them, and it reminds us of a truth in the Bible that we see repeatedly, and that is joy is not inconsistent when the darkness of suffering and sorrow comes. In fact, there are times when the darkness and the sorrow comes that we find a joy in the Lord that we didn't even know that we had. And so the Apostle Paul could say, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Now, where is this exultation and rejoicing targeted? It is in Yahweh, the God of my salvation.

And so, here's Habakkuk who says, even though all of this stuff, even if it's all taken away, what I'm going to do is I will exalt in and rejoice in Yahweh, that is my covenant Lord, who is in fact the God of my salvation. Oh my goodness, how important is this? My covenant Lord, that's who I'm going to rejoice in, that's who I'm going to exalt. That same covenant Lord who entered into the covenant bond of the new covenant through the blood of his own son. That is my God.

He is more committed to me through the blood and righteousness of his Son than I could ever imagine. It is on the basis of that covenant bond that as my covenant Lord that I know that He will never leave me, He will never forsake me, He promises to be with me, and then gloriously, He is in fact the God of my salvation. Here's something that we need to remember as those who live in exile, and that is it's God in Christ who is our salvation. Now, I know that you all know this, but conservativism is not our salvation. Family values are not our salvation.

Membership in a Bible believing church is not your salvation. Homeschooling is not your salvation, nor is it the salvation of your children. A full quiver is not your salvation. And so here we are, reformed theology is not your salvation. The Baptist confession of faith of 1689, the second London confession, is not your salvation.

But neither is the Belgic confession. These things are, these things as good as they are, they're not our salvation. Why do we have to even say that? I will tell you why we have to say that. Because there is a temptation when living in Babylon, the temptation is to think that being countercultural will be our salvation, and being countercultural is not our salvation.

Our salvation is God Himself. Our Salvation is the God who loved us and sent His Son into this world to die for us, to bear our sins, to live a life we could have never lived. Our salvation is the great exchange. My sins put on Christ. Christ's righteousness put on me.

That and that alone is my salvation. Now will that lead me to live a life that is countercultural? And the answer is yes, but I live that life as a countercultural person simply because of what God has done in my heart. I can't be conformed to this world. I can't be squeezed into its mold.

Why? Because I've been shown the mercies of God. And if I've been shown the mercies of God, I'm going to make decisions in my life. But here's the thing, do not take soul comfort in the things that should do that make you different. You take soul comfort in one and one only, and that is Jesus Christ in him crucified.

So, Habakkuk goes on, so I will exult, I'll rejoice in Yahweh, covenant Lord, the God of my salvation. And then, then Habakkuk says, the sovereign Lord Yahweh, my Lord Elohim, Adonai is my strength. So, so what Habakkuk does is he kind of compiles up the names of God and we see that Habakkuk is actually doing something that's so vital for us and that is when we hear the names of God what are we hearing? We're hearing the character of God, the attributes of God, the names of God reveal who God is and what he is like. And so Habakkuk is piling up those names.

And I still remember it was a summer day in Southern California at Biola University, sitting on the lawn in front of the music hall, and I was reading one of the assigned books, The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer. And here's what grabbed me that day. What comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. The Bible is full of those kinds of exhortations.

Psalm 9 10, those who know thy name, that is who you are, what you are like, those who know thy name will put their trust in thee. In other words, our faith is commensurate with our knowledge of God. The more we know who He is, the more we know what He is like, the deeper our faith. The psalmist David says, I've set the Lord always before me, and because He's at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. And so as you focus on God and you set God before you, who He is, what He is like, There is a strength that comes from that.

There is a sense in which that gives you a stability unlike anything else in this life. Psalm 28, 7, The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusts in Him, and I'm helped. Therefore my heart exalts, and with my song I shall thank Him." Proverbs 18 10, the name of the Lord, that is the character of God, the attributes of God, the name of the Lord is a strong tower, and the righteous run into it, and they are safe. You know, one thing that is never, ever, ever a waste of your time is getting to know God better. It is that knowledge of God.

Daniel 11, 32, those who know their God will be strong and do great exploits. One of the best things you can do for your kids is to be a husband and a father or a wife and a mother who actually knows his God, her God, and that knowledge of God becomes a refuge for your children until they know that God personally. So in the darkness, you've got to look, and you've got to look up, and you'll see a God who is enough. Not just a God who's strong, not just a God who's sovereign, not just a God who is omnipotent. All of those things are gloriously true, but also a God who is faithful, also a God who loves you, also a God who draws near you, also a God who promises to be with you and never leave you nor forsake you." Now there's something about the next part of this text that I am especially endeared to.

He's made my feet like hind's feet, and he makes me walk on high places. New English translation says, he gives me the agility of a deer. He enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain. Now I live in Nevada. We have mule deer, and they're way bigger than the deer you have out here.

Your deer are like dogs with horns, all right? Mule deer are majestic beasts, and I love to eat them. But notice, But notice, this is a promise. He will make me as sure-footed as a deer. I've seen driving down Highway 395, I've seen a deer come down a steep incline that comes right up to the highway, coming down at full speed and on a dime turn around and go back up as easily as he came down.

When God is our joy and our strength, He enables us to navigate through the trials and the darkness, and He gives us by His grace and spirit a spiritual agility and sure-footedness that we do not have just on our own. So when God is our joy and our strength, we rely on Him, and what does He do? He actually makes us tread upon the heights. And so, is it possible in the midst of living in Babylon, living in that place of exile which is hostile and dangerous, is it possible to actually live a life where you are experiencing the nearness of God and the goodness of God in a way that you're getting through the difficulties of life, and the answer to that is yes and amen. And here's the glorious thing that we need to keep in mind.

If your heart's focus is, whom have I in heaven but thee? And besides thee I desire nothing upon the earth, and though my heart and flesh may fail, God is the strength of my heart and my inheritance forever." And then he says, and the nearness of my God is my good. And so the place of exile is dangerous. It's often dark. Thinking about build, dwell, plant, What happens when the building might fall?

What happens when the dwelling is filled with pain? What happens when the plants die? God is still enough. Rejoice in Him, exalt in Him. And so what does this exalting and rejoicing look like?

Well, notice this is absolutely amazing. The very last line, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says this, for the choir director on my stringed instruments. For the choir director, you mean the Holy Spirit inspired that? Yes, the Holy Spirit inspired that. And here's the interesting thing is that this song, this prayer, is actually designed to be used in worship for the people of God.

It is to be sung. So, rejoicing in God, exalting in God, even when everything's falling apart, not only looks like something, but it sounds like something. Martin Luther gives his testimony like this he says music is a fair and lovely gift of God which has often awakened me and moved me to the joy of preaching. Music drives away the devil and makes people happy. Next, after theology I give to music the highest place and greatest honor.

I would not change what little I know of music for something great. Experience proves that next to the Word of God only music deserves to be extolled as the mistress and governess of the feelings of the human heart. We know that to the devil's Music is distasteful and insufferable. My heart bubbles up and overflows in response to music, which has so often refreshed me and delivered me from dire plagues." Do you know why we're commanded to sing and not just get a hymnal and just read the words together? Because God designed music and singing to move the heart with the truth that was being sung.

By the way, the same answer goes for preaching. Why preach? Why not just read our Bibles corporately? Well here's the answer. In preaching, there is a tendency for God the Spirit to use the preaching of the truth to move the heart.

You understand that God is interested in moving your heart. And so we're called to sing, we're called to preach. Jonathan Edwards, the duty of singing praises to God seems to be appointed wholly, so Edwards says this is the only reason we sing, to excite and express religious affections. No other reason can be assigned why we should express ourselves to God in verse rather than in prose and do it with music, but only that such is our nature and frame that these things have a tendency to move the affections. Time would fail me if I told you how many times God used a song, a hymn, to rescue my faltering soul.

Ariel and I got married very, very young. One day, I was still in college. She was working. One day she comes home. I get home.

She goes, I have something to tell you. I said, I have something to tell you. She goes, you go first. No, you go first. So I finally went first and I said I lost my job at Michelin.

So we worked for a temp agency, made seven bucks an hour, and I'll tell you what, in 1987 that was good. I said, what do you have to tell me? I lost my job too, and I lost our insurance benefits. Okay? The next day we get a call from the guy who owned the house, who let us live there actually for free.

It was sort of a parsonage, and he calls me and he says, you guys gotta be out in 30 days. So then the next day, I come home, and Ariel has a card for me. And I know, I know this, this, this is not good. She gives me this card, I open the card and I read it and I look at her, I said, what is this, what is this about? She goes with this glow on her face, read it again.

I read it again. I said, are you saying that? And all of a sudden I felt young men, when your wife gives you that notification, she's pregnant, do not do this. I fell back up against the wall, slid down to the floor, put my head in my hands, and I said, what are we going to do? That was not the best way to say, honey, I'm so excited.

And I looked at her, I said, I don't have a job, you don't have a job, we don't have a house, we don't have insurance. And she looks at me and she says, God will take care of us. So the next day I went to school, we had to go to chapel, I think it was three times a week and walked into the chapel and in the chapel it was all dark, some of you will think this was corny, but God used it. The gymnasium was dark and there was a light on a cross in the middle, and as you walked in, you got a piece of yarn. And so we're standing there, nobody knows what's going on, and the president of the university stands up, he says, some of you have walked in with really heavy burdens today.

And I'm thinking, you don't even know the half of it. And he says, what I want you to do is I want you to take that piece of yarn and for every burden you came in here with, tie a knot." Well, I'm like tying the knot so fast. I had this little ball, and the guy next to me is like, I've got a chemistry test. No, that's really not a trial. And so, then he said this.

He says, you take the symbol of those burdens and you lay them at the foot of the cross. Well, I'm knocking people over on the way to the cross. I want to get up there, get rid of these burdens, and I went back to my seat and guess what we did? We sang, Great is Thy Faithfulness, O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with thee." And I'd sung that song hundreds of times, but I will tell you that on that day I sang it for the first time, and God used the singing of his praise, declaring his faithfulness to rescue my faltering faith. And so then I went home and Ariel had a great job and I had a great job and we had great insurance and we had a better house.

Now actually none of that happened. None of it. We were still broke. We were still unemployed. We were still homeless.

And thanks be to God, we had a little girl whose the absolute yesterday was her birthday. God will deliver His people through song. And so what does it look like when the darkness comes, when the clouds come in? What does it look like when sorrow and sadness seem to consume us? Well, for the people of God living in exile, you can afford to say, even though all of this stuff goes away, I still have God.

And if God is everything, even though everything else is taken away, I still have everything because I have God. And what does it look like? What does it sound like? It looks like God's people, singing His praise, worshiping in the midst of the darkness. And so, brothers and sisters, when the darkness of exile seems really dark, worship.

Worship the living God because He is enough. Let's pray. Father, we pray right now that those who, Lord, don't necessarily feel the joy and happiness of life, we pray that you would rescue them today in a way that just shows that you're enough. And I pray that you put a song of joy in their hearts, a song of praise to our God, because of all that you've done for us in Jesus Christ. Amen.