SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/23/2016
9:58 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
God Marched in Victory
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Habakkuk
3:8-15
Message of
the verses: “8 Did the LORD rage against the rivers, Or
was Your anger against the rivers, Or was Your wrath against the sea, That You
rode on Your horses, On Your chariots of salvation? 9 Your bow was made bare,
The rods of chastisement were sworn. Selah. You cleaved the earth with rivers. 10
The mountains saw You and quaked; The downpour of waters swept by. The deep
uttered forth its voice, It lifted high its hands. 11 Sun and moon stood in
their places; They went away at the light of Your arrows, At the radiance of
Your gleaming spear. 12 In indignation You marched through the earth; In anger
You trampled the nations. 13 You went forth for the salvation of Your people,
For the salvation of Your anointed. You struck the head of the house of the
evil To lay him open from thigh to neck. Selah. 14 You pierced with his own
spears The head of his throngs. They stormed in to scatter us; Their exultation
was like those Who devour the oppressed in secret. 15 You trampled on the sea
with Your horses, On the surge of many waters (NASB).”
“8 GOD, is it River you’re mad at? Angry at old
River? Were you raging at Sea when you rode horse and chariot through to
salvation? 9 You unfurled your bow and let loose a volley of arrows. You split
Earth with rivers. 10 Mountains saw what was coming. They twisted in pain.
Flood Waters poured in. Ocean roared and reared huge waves. 11 Sun and Moon
stopped in their tracks. Your flashing arrows stopped them, your
lightning-strike spears impaled them. 12 Angry, you stomped through Earth.
Furious, you crushed the godless nations. 13 You were out to save your people,
to save your specially chosen people. You beat the stuffing out of King Wicked,
Stripped him naked from head to toe, 14 Set his severed head on his own spear
and blew away his army. Scattered they were to the four winds—and ended up food
for the sharks! 15 You galloped through the Sea on your horses, racing on the
crest of the waves (Message).”
So we can try to get our arms wrapped around this
section Dr. Wiersbe writes “Habakkuk uses dynamic poetic imagery to describe
Israel’s march through the wilderness as they followed the Lord to the Promised
Land and then claimed their inheritance.”
In verse eight we see that Habakkuk is writing about the Jordan River
which was heaped up so Israel could cross over on dry ground, and then in that
later part of verse eight we see he writes about the Red Sea which did the same
thing 40 years before to allow Israel to cross it on dry ground and then
covered up the Egyptians and drowned all of them. In verse nine Habakkuk speaks of various
battles that Israel fought while on their way to the Promised Land. These battles were won by the Lord as He gave
Israel victory over different nations who fought against them.
Verse ten speaks of the battles that went on when
Israel was fighting against their enemies that were in the Promised Land, as
the Lord put fear into the hearts of those nations and gave victory to Israel
as He had promised. Dr. Wiersbe writes
more of what is seen in verse ten: “Verse
10 describes the victory of Deborah and Barak over Sisera (Jud. 4-5), when a sudden
rainstorm turned their battlefield into a swamp and left the enemy’s chariots
completely useless. In Habakkuk 3:11, we
have the famous miracle of Joshua when the day was prolonged so Joshua would
have more time for a total victory (Josh. 10:12-13). Leading His army, God marched through Canaan
like a farmer threshing grain, and His people claimed their inheritance (Hab.
3:12).”
In verses 13-15 there is much disagreement as to
what Habakkuk is writing about. Dr.
Wiersbe adds “This could be a picture of the nations’ deliverance from Egypt,
but if it is, Habakkuk should have mentioned it earlier. God’s ‘anointed’ would be the nation of
Israel, for they were a holy people to the Lord (Ex. 19:5-8). Perhaps the prophet is referring to the
various times God had to deliver His people, as recorded in the Book of Judges,
and the ‘anointed one’ would then be the judges He raised up and used to bring
deliverance (Jud. 2:10-19).”
There are other beliefs that people have for this
could be speaking of when the Lord delivers Israel out of the hands of the
Babylonians when they were held captive there, for the Lord brought the Medes
and the Persians to crush Babylon and then as Isaiah says raised up Cyrus to
allow Israel to return to the Promised Land.
When I was looking at what John Gill and other earlier Bible
commentators they mentioned that these verses had to do with the Messiah, so
perhaps this speaks of a far distance from when Habakkuk wrote to speak of the
end times, but as I said many people have different ideas as to what Habakkuk
is talking about. John MacArthur writes
the following from his Study Bible on verses 11-13: “The Lord will purge the proud and ungodly
from among them (Zec. 13:1-6), leaving a meek and humble people. Material prosperity and peace will accompany
them as well, allowing them to enjoy the rich blessings of God undisturbed (Joel
3:18-20; Micah 4:4).”
I will conclude this section with what Dr. Wiersbe
concludes in this section: “There is
substitute for good theology, whether in our sermons or in our songs. The shallowness of some contemporary sermons,
books, and songs may be the major contributing factor to the weakness of the
church and the increase in ‘religious entertainment’ in meetings where we ought
to be praising God. The thing that lifted
Habakkuk to the mountaintop was his understanding of the greatness of God. We need a return to the kind of worship that
focuses on the glory of God and seek to honor Him alone.”
I wish that I could have done better in looking at
these verses, and I hope that the Lord will use this SD to bring glory to His
Son. Now we have one more main section
in the book of Habakkuk with three more sub-sections in it and then we will
conclude this wonderful book.
2/23/2016 10:35 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment