Saturday, February 20, 2016

Introduction to Habakkuk 3:3-15


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/20/2016 8:32 PM

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  Introduction to Hab. 3:3-15

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Habakkuk 3:3-5

Message of the verses:  “3 God comes from Teman, And the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His splendor covers the heavens, And the earth is full of His praise. 4 His radiance is like the sunlight; He has rays flashing from His hand, And there is the hiding of His power. 5 Before Him goes pestilence, And plague comes after Him.”

I want to cover a couple of things before we begin our introduction.  First I want to do a very short review of what we looked at in the past three days from the first two verses in Habakkuk chapter three.  Our theme was prayers “Pray for the Word of God” was what we were looking at and so let us review the things Habakkuk prayed for.  First “Habakkuk prayed because he was overwhelmed by God’s splendor.  Next Habakkuk prayed because he wanted God’s work to succeed. Finally Habakkuk prayed because He wanted God to show mercy.”  (From Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary.)

Now in today’s SD we will be looking at the second of three main points from this final chapter of Habakkuk and I wish to quote from Dr. Wiersbe’s second main point which he entitled “Vision:  Ponder the Greatness of God” and this covers verses 3-15 of chapter three.  He writes:  “The Lord isn’t likely to give us today a vision such as Habakkuk saw, but because it’s recorded in the Word, we can ponder it and let the Spirit teach us from it.*  God reveals His greatness in creation, in Scripture, and in history, and if we have eyes to see, we can behold His glory.**” 

I want to quote a couple of endnotes that Dr. Wiersbe wrote to go along with this introduction message.  The first one comes from the statement ending in the first star symbol:  “Writing about his experience at the Transfiguration (2 Peter 1:15-21), the Apostle Peter points out that the written Word is superior to glorious experiences.  Only a few people can rapturous experiences, but any believer can ponder them in the Word with the Spirit’s help.  The people who had these great experiences have died, but the Word lives on.  The memories of experiences will fade, but the Word remains the same.  We now have a completed Bible, so the New Testaments sheds light on the experiences of people like Moses, David, and the prophets; and we can see things that perhaps they didn’t see.  So, instead of saying ‘I wish I could have that kind of experience,’ we should be asking, ‘Lord, what do You want to teach me from this experience?’”

Next and lastly we look at the endnote associated with the double star symbol:  “These might relations of God in history are called ‘theophanies,’ from two Greek words meaning ‘an appearance of a God.’  For other examples, see Psalms 18:68; and 77; and Exodus 15 and 19; and Deuteronomy 33.”  2/20/2016 8:54 PM

 

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