The Wonder of Habakkuk 1:8 - Overwhelmed adn Overrun

This is the Truth Network. Bible Wonders of Habakkuk. So amazingly fun. We are on the eighth verse, which those of you who have followed me any time know the eight are the miracle verses, the very spectacular verses, and this is in the first chapter of Habakkuk, and oh my goodness, is this a miracle and perhaps way over my pay grade?

And if you wonder why isn't Robbie coming out with a podcast every day? Well, these verses are challenging me and Habakkuk more than I've been challenged in a long time. There are so many key words and things that have got me digging around before I feel like I really have a sense of what God is teaching me with this, and so I prayerfully feel God leading me to do them when they're ready and not before. So we skipped a couple days here and there to get to this one. It's going to be worth it because it is the miracle verse of the first chapter. There is no doubt that it is, and we're going to see that in so many ways. That means it's the pet verse, and it reads in English, and again we're speaking of the Babylonians, those cloudbusters that we talked about have come in and they've been fierce and terrible and all these things, and now it says their horses are swifter than leopards and more fierce than the evening wolves, and their horsemen shall spread themselves and their horsemen shall come from far and they shall fly as the eagle that hasten to eat. And so you can see that here we have all these animals of the apocalypse, and throughout prophecy, I mean how many times do we hear about leopards in prophecy, and do we hear about eagles even in Matthew 24 right when Jesus said when you see you know the eagles around the corpse you know know that you know here we go, and so clearly what God is going to do with Babylon is going to give the Jews and all of us a picture of what is going to happen as God straightens out the earth once and for all, and so you know here God is going to talk about swift horses right, and if you don't see that I mean if you read Revelation you're going to see that, and interestingly he has horses and horsemen which it's a fascinating thing, and I never had to spend much time on that concept, but there are horses which are a psalmic, and I think it even speaks to, and it's wonderful to think about that Adam was said by the Jews to have x-ray vision, and in that he could see inside the animals to see the the way that God spoke them into existence, literally the Hebrew energies that's in the Hebrew letters, Adam could see that within the animals, and so when he named them he named them based on their identity, which makes sense because that fits the idea of Shem and the idea of name, and so spectacularly when you look at the horse it stands out as oh my goodness, because if you remember in the 119 Psalm that the the Islamic was the letter of support right, you know hold me up, and you know all that that concept is all throughout the psalmic, but it's also this unbelievable force to be reckoned with, you know depart from me you evil doers, and the last verse it says my flesh trembleth for fear of thee, in other words these horses are a force to be reckoned with, and God is going to reckon the Jews through this process of these of what will be unfortunately all sorts of of of sieges and battles and complete chaos that would ensue, but the picture here that we've got of of these horses, but the horseman is another whole thing right, and you might think about the horseman of the apocalypse, and and that horseman is starts with the letter pay, which again I think is like the face of God, and and and you know I was even thinking of of lots of things in revelation that that would be this picture of this another type of force to be reckoned with when God begins to express himself there's going to be a sword that comes out of his mouth of revelation, so again these horsemen are a picture of you know all this that is overwhelming, and so when we put this into perspective of what's going on is God is telling Habakkuk as we go back to verses to regard and wonder marvelously, and and honestly all the last two weeks I've been regarding and wondering marvelously at what a picture this is of something that was done in your life that you really I can't believe this is happening I just can't believe this is happening you know going back a couple of verses and then you're totally overwhelmed and this is a picture of obviously these wolves and these leopards and you know because it is as he describes the horses the wolves the leopards and then finally here comes his eagle and these eagles are going to be swooping down to give us this picture of meat and and you know it's interesting that it it points to again we and again we every time we take communion you know we eat of his flesh and we drink of his blood and and I know that's that that that is idea is very strange but yet that's clearly how we reflect on his death to to do that and and here we're talking about massive death and so I couldn't help but think this morning like what would it have been like to been a German soldier sitting on Normandy beach on D-Day to see these unbelievably because this is a picture of what it is it's like here comes this massive army arrayed against you spread out just like all these horsemen all these planes all these things that are fixed to take you on or what would it have been like to be a navy soldier on the Arizona that morning like what is happening here is this wave after wave of planes and and bombs and fire and and and just this totally overwhelming force that has come against you and and so you know when we look at that in our own lives what is God you know trying to teach us and so as I thought about this you know again he's saying he starts out the whole bit when God begins to speak in Habakkuk the first thing he says is behold ye among the heathen and the more I have considered that and and think about what this verse says today the more I think about how the Jews really almost consider they they say their neshama or their spirit is is special because they're Jewish and they have sensitivity that we the heathen don't have and they actually to an extent feel like that that we are lower beings than them that they have a special a special spiritual sense that we don't have they were born with it because they're Jews and so as God was looking at those hard hearts and those haughty eyes and and those things that they think that what they were supposed to do is they were supposed to go bring the light that they had been given they'd been given the word of God they were supposed to go take it to the nations instead they raise themselves up above the nations from a standpoint of this is what they think well I know I'm pointing fingers at the Jews but let me point those five back at me okay because I I constantly battle with this haughty idea that I'm in some way better than other people and so I'll just tell this story of when I was where God overwhelmed me like this okay like here came all and it was all very swift and and it was all coming after the meat and death and all these things it was all that and one little picture again it's very very very small compared to what we're talking about here but it's interesting how this works on all levels and I bet it works in your life so when I was the general manager at what the time was Bob Neal Chrysler Plymouth Jeep Eagle I had like 110 employees I thought I was really a big deal I really did I was fairly well off financially my career had blossomed everybody when I spoke everybody listened and so you know it was I I thought I was all that all that clearly not unlike the Jews you know a different species a little bit above everybody that that you know just haughty I mean there's no other way to look at it and so I began to get all these tumors in my body and all these these were welts were coming up in my skin and I went to see the dermatologist and they did a biopsy and the very next day after they did the biopsy they called me at work and and they said Mr. Dilmore we need you to come down here we need to speak with you about your biopsy and I said oh you don't understand I'm a busy man I don't have time you know that whole haughty thing it was going on I don't have time for this I said I'm a big boy tell me tell me what's going on and they said well Mr. Dilmore you have lymphoma well just to show you how haughty I was I didn't even know what lymphoma was I really really did not have any idea what it was so I was like well what's lymphoma and and they said well sir that's a cancer of the lymph system and I went oh I'll be right there in other words it was swifter than an eagle flying to the meat okay that came upon me it was like one moment I was good and I was haughty and I was all sorts of other things but the next moment behold ye among the heathen because now I you know I would find myself you know in that line of people to get chemotherapy or waiting on this you know in a hospital gown waiting on this x-ray or that x-ray and oh it came on me like horsemen and and it came on me like leopards and and fierce and all the stuff that would ensue but God was doing a miracle in my life right you see the eighth verse I mean I if it hadn't been for what he did my poor haughty spirit would have continued to grow but instead what did he call he called the clodbusters right to come in and break up my cloth now again he does different things in different people's lives for different reasons and I'm not pointing to anybody else's stuff but mine but clearly he knows how I struggle with a haughty spirit so this morning I actually as I was thinking about this I just started to pray God what you know help me that I don't get this haughty spirit and I was looking for haughty I wanted to look at it in Hebrew so I could get a view of it and get my heart right and he sent me to the 131st psalm which I never had realized how wonderful the 131st psalm is for this particular problem and it's a real short psalm so I'm going to read it to you and and here's the solution okay is to be born again okay it really is and so that we could say that Lord my heart is not haughty nor my eyes lofty neither do I exercise myself in great matters in things too high for me surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother my soul is even as a weaned child let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and forever in other words you know that is that and then interestingly when I came to work we did a devotion and then it was Oswald Chambers that for today talked about which is the 20th of January talked about that we need to be born again and that we need to be spiritually born whether we're to do something high and lofty today or if we're supposed to clean somebody's feet and I thought well okay boy God you have my attention and I need this miracle of thinking that in any way shape or form I'm better than anybody else oh Lord help me to see myself as a child to see myself as just a child that is completely dependent on you completely all this stuff is above my pay grade but I'm so thankful for the miracle so thankful the work that you're doing in my life and I thank you for listening and joining with me on this adventure