CAN YOU TRUST GOD?

Habakkuk 2:2-5

INTRODUCTION:

“But you promised!”  Aren’t those words that conjure up memories?

Children love to use these words.

§         “No, I’m sorry son, something has come up and I can’t take you fishing after all.”  “But you promised!”

§         “No, you didn’t clean your room so you cannot use the car this weekend.”  “But you promised!”

Parents can feel trapped by these words.

§         “I’m sorry, honey but mommy is exhausted and has a lot of work to do so let’s not read before you go to bed tonight.”  “But you promised!”

§         “I don’t think we can afford to go to Disney World this year for our vacation so I made us a reservation in…Olney”  “But you promised!”

Haven’t we all wanted to use those same words sometimes?

§         “But you said if we voted in a statewide lottery, we’d secure the funding for quality education for the children of our state.  You promised!”

§         “No new taxes.  You promised!”

George Jelinek was a newly-elected member of the Kansas House of Representatives.  During his campaign for office, Jelinek had distributed handbills, which promised: “I will work for you.”  Jelinek reports, “One farmer told me he voted for me and now he needed some help putting up alfalfa.”  Since politicians are known as people of their word, Jelinek helped him with his hay but he decided, “I’m going to have to watch what I say in the future.”

Has anyone important to you ever made a promise and then failed to keep it?  I suspect that the degree of hurt may be directly proportional to how important that person is to you.  If the person isn’t very important, a broken promise doesn’t hurt very much.  But if the person is a very significant person in your life, a broken promise can hurt a great deal. 

Parents, spouses, our children, best friends…if they break a promise to us, it is a big deal.

Have you ever felt as if God had broken His promise to you?  Have your experiences left you wondering if you can trust Him?  That is what Habakkuk wondered.  He had felt as if God had made a promise and then had broken it.  Well, not so much a promise as a covenant.  God had made a covenant with the Israelites that, out of all the peoples of the earth, they would be blessed.  To Habakkuk, it felt as if God had broken His word.  In the first chapter of his book, you can almost hear Habakkuk say, “But God!  You promised!!”

You can almost see him, with arms folded as he says to God:

I will stand at my watch

and station myself on the ramparts;

I will look to see what he will say to me,

and what answer I am to give to this complaint.  (Habakkuk 2:1)

The title for this morning’s message is “Can You Trust God?”  And I know what you are thinking: “Of course you can trust God.  Or, at least, you are going to tell us, ‘You can trust God.’  After all, you are a preacher and we are in church; what else would you say?”

But for a moment, let’s take off our stained glass lenses and be honest about what we see.  Sometimes, have you not, like Habakkuk, wondered if you can really trust God?  Sometimes does it not seem as if He has broken His promise, gone back on His word or violated His covenant?

The little book of Habakkuk addresses this issue for us.  Hear these words from chapter 2, following right on from Habakkuk’s challenge to God.

 ^2 Then the Lord replied:

“Write down the revelation

and make it plain on tablets

so that a herald may run with it.

^3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;

it speaks of the end

and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it; it will

certainly come and will not delay.

^4 “See, he is puffed up;

his desires are not upright—

but the righteous will live by his faith —

^5 indeed, wine betrays him;

he is arrogant and never at rest.

Because he is as greedy as the grave

and like death is never satisfied,

he gathers to himself all the nations

and takes captive all the peoples.             (Habakkuk 2:2-5)

Within this text are the keys to answering our question: Can we trust God?  Know these truths.  You can trust God because:

I.                    GOD’S ANSWERS WILL COME  (“Though it [the revelation] linger, wait for it; it will certainly come.”)

When some crisis or tragedy comes into our lives, a natural human response is to ask, “Why?”  I suspect the reason we ask, “Why?” is so we can frame the experience, understand it, make sense of it.  We have a need to do that partly because we hope to be able to avoid a repeat of the unpleasantness. 

But at another level, I suspect we need to be able to make sense of our tragedies because we have a need to know that ours is an ordered world.  We really need for gravity to be a law and not merely a possibility.  We need predictability; we need consistency; we need certainty.  Life in a disordered world creates insecurity, uncertainty and anxiety.

That is the reason that children need consistent parenting. 

§         When a child acts out one day and the parents laugh at him and the next day, he does the same thing and gets punished for it, he will likely grow up to be insecure and lacking in self-confidence: he doesn’t know where the boundaries are.

§         When a child sees his parents doing things they have told him are wrong, he will grow up with behavior problems: he does not know what is expected of him.

§         When a child hears his parents threaten divorce every time they disagree he will grow up to be insecure: he does not know what (or whom) he can count on.

But it is not just kids: we all hunger for consistency, predictability, reliability and order.  From Habakkuk’s point of view, it appeared as if God was random in His administration of justice.  It was the genius physicist, Albert Einstein, who coined the phrase, “God does not play dice.”  Einstein believed in order in the creation. 

Scripture reveals the Lord as a God of order.  Jesus reveals the Lord as a God of order.  Nature reveals the Lord as a God of order.  Einstein was right: God does not play dice so there is always a “why” to every “what”.

God does not play dice but He does not always tip His hand.  There is always a “why” but we do not always know it.  And, my friend, that is where the matter of faith comes in.  Faith is not simply believing that there is a God; scripture says that even the demons believe and, as a result, tremble.  No, faith is not merely believing that there is a God, faith is trusting the God in whom you believe.

Weary saint, burdened brother, grief-stricken sister, heartbroken child of God, trust the Lord.  He has a reason for His ways and He will reveal it.

II.                  GOD’S ANSWERS WILL COME IN GOD’S TIME (“For the revelation awaits an appointed time.”)

God’s answers will come…and they will come in God’s own time.  Unfortunately, God’s timetable is not always the same as our timetable so we can find ourselves growing impatient as we wait for the solutions to our quest for order and reason in that which He has either caused or permitted.

God does not always reveal to us why He does what He does at the time He is doing it.  But God reassures Habakkuk that one grand day his questions will be answered.  God’s assurance to Habakkuk in verse 3 is:

^3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;

it speaks of the end

and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it; it will

certainly come and will not delay.

Isn’t waiting difficult?  We all hate to wait.  That is a universal human trait.  We hate to wait in line.  We hate to wait for our name to be called at the doctor’s office.  We hate to wait for what we’ve ordered to be delivered.  We hate to wait for the pot to boil, for the seed in the soil and the reward for our toil.  And of all the things for which I hate to wait, I especially hate to wait for fast food.  I hate to go through the drive-up window, have them take my money and then tell me it is going to be a few minutes so, “will you please pull up to the line and wait?”  I hate to wait…that’s why I opted for fast food instead of real food!

We all hate to wait.  The only people I know with lots of “patients” are doctors.  But more than anything else, don’t we hate to wait for God’s answers to our prayers…including our pleas to know why He’s doing what He’s doing?

May I please share with you some verse that Ira Stanphill wrote in one of his great gospel songs?

Tho' shadows deepen, and my heart bleeds,
I will not question the way He leads;
This side of Heaven we know in part,
I will not question a broken heart.

I'll trust His leading, He'll never fail,
Thru darkest tunnels or misty vales.
Obey his bidding and faithful be,
Tho' only one step ahead I see.

I'll hide my heartache behind a smile
And wait for reasons 'til after while.
And tho' He try me, I know I'll find
That all my burdens are silver lined.

Chorus
We'll talk it over in the bye and bye.
We'll talk it over, my Lord and I.
I'll ask the reasons - He'll tell me why,
When we talk it over in the bye and bye.

III.                GOD’S ANSWERS WILL COME IN GOD’S TIME AND THEY WILL BE FINAL  (“it speaks of the end and will not prove false.”)   

So much of the time when we think we are waiting for God’s answer, if we would be honest with ourselves, we are really waiting to get our way.  For many of us, our questions are not so much the query of the sincere seeker as they are the challenge of the spoiled brat.  I’ve been behind them at the checkout counter.  They are asking questions but they are not requesting answers, they are demanding their way. 

Something I don’t think I’ve ever heard from a loud child in a checkout line: “Oh.  Thanks for taking the time to explain that to me, Mom.  Now I understand why I can’t have Jolly Ranchers at this time.”   

Typically, what we witness in the checkout line is the child trying to wear down his parent with shouts and shrieks until the parent gives in and does what the kid demanded just to shut him up.

Entirely too often, I hear the same in the prayers of some Christians.  We say we are trying to know God’s mind when, in fact, we are trying to change God’s mind.  So we bombard heaven hoping to wear Him down until we get our way.  We do not trust God enough to pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  We pray “My will be done on earth. You can have Your way in heaven.”

God’s word to Habakkuk was that God’s answer will come in God’s time and when it does, it will be true.  God’s answer will not prove false but it will be final.  It will be final in the sense that it will be settled, finished and conclusive. 

But God’s answers are also final in the sense that they will speak of the end.  That is what God told Habakkuk.  God’s assurance to Habakkuk in verse 3 is: ^3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.

We are so focused on the here and now that we often don’t think of the long-term implications of our prayers.  We pray for every sick person to be healed without thinking that, if our every prayer were answered, saints would never get to go home to their Father.  And if we could conjure up cures with every prayer, many people would never prepare for eternity because they know they’d never have to meet their Maker.

God told Habakkuk that He was not fixated on the immediate; He was concerned about the ultimate.  The revelation waits the appointed time; it speaks of the end.  It is not false but it is final – in every sense of the word.   

CONCLUSION:      

Despite appearances to the contrary, God has not forgotten His promises, has not broken His Word, has not violated His oath.

Mrs. Civilla Martin tells of a visit in 1904 to a bedridden Christian friend.  Mrs. Martin asked the woman if she ever got discouraged because of her physical condition.  Her friend responded quickly: “Mrs. Martin, how can I be discouraged when my heavenly Father watches over each little sparrow and I know He loves and cares for me.”  Within just a few minutes Mrs. Martin had written the words to a song, which has since been a source of much encouragement to many of God’s people.

Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,

Why should my heart be lonely and long for Heav’n and home

When Jesus is my portion? My constant Friend is He:

His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;

His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

Dear brother or sister in Christ, I want you to be assured that you can trust God.  He cares for sparrows so I know He cares for you.  He has not forgotten you and He is not ignoring your prayers.  His answers will come in His own time and when they do, they will be both ultimate and incomparable.  YOU CAN TRUST HIM.

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