The Wonder of Habakkuk 3:7 Cover that dosen't tremble

This is the Truth Network. Bible Wonders of Habakkuk.

So fun. Today we get to dive into the Zion verse, and the Zion has much to do with remembrance. If you remember from the 119 Psalm and the verses in that section, you know, remember is a key part of that whole thing, and I think you'll see where that really, really, really comes into play in this particular verse. And so verse 7 reads in English, in the King James Version, I saw the tents of Kashan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

So kind of short and very, very, very sweet, in my opinion. And for those of us who were with us on the journey through the Song of Solomon, you may recall in the first verse, she was describing herself, I'm black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kadar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me because I'm black, right? And you might remember those verses, isn't that interesting, how same idea because the word kush or kushite had to do with the idea of blackness. And so it's fascinating to me the connection between these two verses in the Song of Solomon and here in Habakkuk, as this idea of a black tent, like the tents of Kadar, and then you've got the idea of curtains, and the curtains of Midian versus the curtains of Solomon, which I think you're going to see how that comes into play as we dig into these ideas as well. And so when you look in Exodus 13, God describes how you should, you know, build his tabernacle, which is in itself a tent, and I don't know if you've ever considered the fact that that tent was a cover, and then inside of it it had curtains, and you might even recall that the light, the menorah, was, you know, in the most holy place, excuse me, was in the holy place, while the holy of holies, right, the most holy place contained the ark.

And so those are separated by, you know, curtains as it were. And so it's interesting that here, you know, what I think as we're talking about, that Habakkuk is taking us to the larger story, and he's sharing something that's going to happen, well actually did happen in Egypt, and has happened here again after Babylon, and it's going to happen, in my opinion, happen as Romans invaded in 70 AD, and even as late as Adolf Hitler. In so many different ways we see this idea of the dark tent, you know, covering, and it looks like all is going to be lost, but then something happens, and God comes to the rescue as he did, and then all of a sudden these black tents are no longer going to serve for cover, because God's way more powerful than all that, and it's beautiful to think that these black tents are going to, you know, come under affliction, and the curtains of Midian are going to—so I think it would be helpful just to kind of go into where I think God is trying to explain this, and we look for cover for our souls constantly from the day that Adam and Eve sinned, and of course God made skins for us, and tents in a very big way are the tabernacle that where we, you know, seek shelter, and inside of our tents we seek even further shelter by the curtains, and so, you know, here we see that we try to make our own tents, and those tents are black, like the girl said in the Song of Solomon, you know, don't look upon me because I'm black, right, as the tents of Kadar. In other words, her outward appearance was black because of her chasing after the sun, so to speak, and of course Solomon talked much about chasing after the sun that would make her black, but then interestingly she also talks about as the curtains of Solomon, so she's gone from a black outer place to a black inner place, and so interestingly when you think about this idea of Kush as being a cover, you know, when we seek to hide, when we try to keep ourselves from the light, we don't want to get exposed, you know, that's a big way that we, you know, seek cover as we try to get into the dark, even Adam, you know, he just wanted to find a place to hide, he was trying to hide from, you know, God, that was the whole deal as we try to support our nakedness by just plain hiding, and that's the idea of the original blackness that we're talking about there, but then there's the deeper one, the one where I think is fascinating, the curtains, which indicates a deeper darkness of Solomon. Well, when you think about the Midian is kind of an interesting way for us to see that that word means to strive, and so how many people do you know that the way that they try to cover their nakedness is by striving, and they're always trying to make their own way, in other words, if I just had enough money, then I would be covered, if I just had the right car, I'd be covered, if I had the right house, I'd be covered, in other words, if there was anybody who strove to cover himself, it would be Solomon, right? He had 1000 wives, he had horses, he had all these different things, and so he was certainly, I mean, had curtains like Solomon, I mean, that's one way to interpret it from my perspective that, oh my goodness, what was gonna happen here, right, is that these tents, right, were gonna be under affliction and the curtains were gonna tremble because God was coming forth and he was gonna expose nakedness for real, but you needed his cover, in other words, God is telling us that all these false ways, all this idolatry, which is interestingly what Matthew Henry said this verse is about, all this idolatry is not going to stand, it is gonna get burned up in the fire, and if we seek to hide, we're missing out, and if we seek to cover ourselves, we're missing out because the righteous will live by faith, and this is the critical part of remembering, because if we think about when we just take communion, right, Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me, so if we'll remember Jesus, if we'll live by faith, right, that God is gonna cover our nakedness, we don't need to hide because God has his cover, the seventh anointing, which this is the seventh verse and it aligns with the idea of the Zion, the seventh anointing of the Holy Spirit is the delight in the fear of the Lord, now here comes something that just rocked my world when I saw it, is the word curtain has within it the word Yireh, which Yireh in Hebrew is the idea of the fear of the Lord, it's Yireh, and oh my goodness, well when you think about that when you are covered by the fear of the Lord, he's got you covered, right, and if you'll just remember that God has this covered, I mean you will just not have any concerns whatsoever when all this other stuff happens, but as we're talking about the larger story, which is what I believe Habakkuk is trying to take us into, he's sharing here that any false cover is going to shake, it's going to tremble, it's going to fall, it's going to be under affliction, so you might as well just get the right cover, which is the blood of Jesus, you see, like he said, when you take communion, when you take that bread and take it into your body, you're getting covered, your soul is being covered by his blood, and you no longer have to put up any false cover, because he totally has you covered. So yesterday morning we were, Tammy and I were leaving early, and we watched these people, they were striving on the highway, the people were passing and speeding, and all of them trying to get to work, and all this striving, and oh my goodness, it was really difficult to navigate, my wife was like, what is with all these people?

I said, well they think they're late to work, and that's really really important to them, or whatever the situation is, they feel like they got to be get it covered to the point that they'll take unbelievable risks with their car and hurting other people and whatever. The idea of striving is interestingly, you know, a soul tie of kinds, and that the good news is, whoa, if we would just stop and remember, just remember, God has you covered. A delight in the fear of the Lord, right? God has this handled, and there's no reason for the striving, and you can have what Solomon really meant to have, which is peace, right? And I hope that through listening and thinking about and remembering what God did for us, and we too can have that peace.