REFORMED WITNESS
Volume IX, December 2001, Number 12
Yet Will I Rejoice in God
By Rev. Carl Haak
A Reformed Witness Hour radio message
Also in this issue: A Song of Praise - by Rev. Carl Haak
Are you thankful to God always? Are you thankful at all times and in every situation of your life?
Our God commands us in Ephesians 5:20, "Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Are there, perhaps, times and situations in your life when thankfulness is not heard from you in the court of heaven? Is it, perhaps, that your thanksgiving is rooted only in things going your way? Or is your thanksgiving to God rooted in an overwhelming praise to the God of your salvation?
Can you be thankful in the darkest of days? Can you be thankful if the greatest personal horror would happen to you? Would you yet be able to say, "Yet will I rejoice in the Lord; I will joy in the God of my salvation"?
The Thanksgiving holiday is upon us, and the Thanksgiving holiday can be a very dangerous time, very dangerous because we must remember that Thanksgiving is not a day. Thanksgiving is the life to which we are called in Jesus Christ our Lord. If we say thanks only on Thanksgiving Day, if we put on a thankful appearance just for one day, and if that thanksgiving is not the reasonable sample of our whole lives, then we appear as hypocrites before God. If we have the notion in any form that the duty of thanks is done in one day, then we appear before God as Pharisees. If our thanksgiving is rooted only in God's gifts, in what He gives to us - the good things that He gives to us - and not in all things, and if our thanksgiving is not rooted in God Himself, then our thanksgiving is a shallow, superficial thanksgiving. It fades away. Worse, it is abominable before God.
A true expression of thanksgiving is found in the Old Testament prophecy of Habakkuk 3:17-19. Please open your Bible and read that passage.
Habakkuk's thanksgiving is an example of true thanksgiving, a thanksgiving which is our duty. Habakkuk's thanksgiving was not dependent on or conditioned by external things. It was rooted in God. It was rooted in experiencing the wonder of God's salvation.
Let us look for a few moments at this wonderful thanksgiving.
Habakkuk the prophet is confessing that his thanksgiving will not be infrequent. His thanksgiving will not be shallow, it will not be with starts and stops. It will not only be when things are agreeable. His thanksgiving will be rooted in a profound and personal experience of God's salvation and in the present assurance that God is his strength.
Habakkuk says these things and he promises that his praise and thanksgiving will be to God at all times out of his present situation in life, out of very real circumstances in his own life. These verses are really the climax of his faith. If you read this prophecy you will find out that he did not begin on this high spiritual level. Habakkuk lived at a time of horrible spiritual decline - most likely during the time of wicked king Manassah. He was a man greatly troubled by what was happening. He wanted to reconcile what he saw with what he believed. He saw that Judah was in a back-sliding condition. She had turned away from God. She had forgotten Him and given herself over to false gods and to evil pursuits. The picture was very terrible, as he presents it in the first chapter of his prophecy. He speaks of sin and violence and vice as being rampant among the people of God, while those who ruled over God's people were slack and indifferent. The law of God was not being applied. There was spiritual falling away and moral decline.
He goes on to tell us in the prophecy that he cried, he prayed, and God answered him in an altogether unexpected way. God says, "I have heard you Habakkuk. But this is what I am going to do. I am going to send evil upon this nation. I am going to send a nation (Babylon) to conquer the land and to punish them."
Then in chapter 2 God goes on to tell him how God's ways are always to be reconciled with His holiness and greatness. Now in chapter 3, Habakkuk is responding to all of this and he is beginning to look back upon the experience that he went through. He looks back upon the entire history of God's people, and he recalls the great things that God had done. God had dried up rivers and seas. He had destroyed horses and chariots. He had held the sun and moon still. He had wounded the head of the wicked. Habakkuk beholds the majesty of God in all of His works, especially that stupendous work in which all His power and wisdom are revealed - the salvation of His people.
So Habakkuk, now looking upon Jehovah the God of salvation, makes an amazing promise, a pledge. He says, "Although all around me may be turned into destruction and despair, yet I will rejoice in my God." We have here a man who wrestled with the ways of God, who asked the question: "How is it that God can be just and yet these things happen?" Here is a man who for a while said, "Nothing seems to make any sense to me." But now his head is clear. His head and his mind have been brought to look upon God in submission before God., and he sees the greatness of God. He is brought face-to-face with God. Then he looks at the past and the present in the light of the past and sees that God always saves His people in their distress. He always preserves the honor of His name.
So standing upon that plateau of faith, Habakkuk makes this bold promise: "I will praise Him, even though all the external supports are knocked away from me. Even if every visible prop holding me up, if every peg of the stool, is knocked away from under me, yet I will stand up and I will praise the Lord my God, and I will do that because I have seen my God. I have seen that His ways are always ways of holiness and faithfulness."
Now consider that: Habakkuk begins to consider the loss of all creature comforts. He considers what it would be if all the supports of his earthly life were taken away. He imagines one of the dreariest and blackest pictures a person could ever know. He speaks of course in terms of his day, and he uses language which is of the agriculture of his day. He says, "If the fig tree does not blossom..." We know that the fig tree was a staple. It made cakes and food. Much of their food was dependent on this fig tree. He says, "the labor of the olive shall fail." The olive tree was to them like butter is to us. It was very important - the olive oil. Then he says, "If the fields give no meat." He is referring to the corn, the wheat. If there is no harvest and nothing is brought into the bins; and "the flock is cut off from the fold." The sheep were also very important in that time in Israel. What if they would go out into the pastures and never return again, cut off from the fold? And what if there would be no herds in the stalls, that is, if the barn would stand empty and the livestock would be dead and gone? So in those words he is imagining economic ruin and disaster. He is speaking about circumstances leading to famine and hunger, crying, malnourished children. If we would put verse 17 into today's terms: Although there would be the collapse of the economy, panic in the banks, money devalued and worthless, jobs lost, grocery stores closed, all of our refrigerators empty, our pantries barren, savings, investments and property values lost, businesses eaten up and dissolved, left without a penny, possessions, cars and clothes gone, left simply with the clothes on our backs... yet, he says, "I will praise the LORD."
Now we can hardly imagine that. We can hardly imagine that, because we have so much. We have always had so much. But that is what he is saying: although my job would be gone, my income cut off, my investments liquidated, my ability to provide one mouthful of food dried up, and my health and my loved ones gone and deserted from me, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
Can you say that? That is true thanksgiving. How could Habakkuk say that? Was that a vain boast? You say, that is impossible. Nobody could do that. How could he be confident that he would indeed, no matter how bleak his condition, still praise God? The answer is this: it was because his thankfulness and praise to God was rooted in God's salvation and in God's strength. Those can never be removed. "Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength." The ground, the root, the deepest reason for his thanksgiving was in God, and in God's faithfulness. It was not in the things that God gave to him. Oh, he was thankful for those things, but his thankfulness did not end with, nor was it based in those things, but in the God who was the giver.
Are you thankful to God? Are you thankful to God as your Savior and your strength? Or are you merely thankful for what He gives you in this life? Do not misunderstand. Once again, we must be and we are thankful for His gifts which are so abundantly lavished upon us. All of it is given. All that we have today, not a thread of it is ours. For all of it we are to give him thanks, for He has placed it in our hands, and we are to use it all as His stewards. But our thanks, to be true and lasting and victorious, must go deeper. It must be rooted in the One who has given it to us. It must ultimately be a profound thanks for God's grace. I will rejoice in the LORD, in Jehovah. He is the inexhaustible source of all my joy. I rejoice because God is my Savior. God has saved me who did not deserve to be saved. God is rich in grace. Habakkuk was thankful for the grace of God - that God would save one so lowly as himself and bring him to the heights of salvation.
Not only was this the God who had saved him, but He was also the God who was his present strength. He says, "He is the God of my salvation and the God of my strength." He is the God of my salvation. He has delivered me from the greatest of all woes - my sin. He is the God of my salvation. He planned it. He accomplished it. He bestowed and gave it to me. He will preserve me in my salvation and protect that salvation for me. But this Lord is also my strength. That is, He is the one who has saved me and now empowers me by His Holy Spirit. This God who has saved me is not like some picture in an album put away in a drawer, pulled out occasionally for touching memories. He is the present explanation of my life. He upholds me. He is present in all of His power to bear me up in this life. When I fall He picks my up. He turns to me. When I am afraid He draws near to me. He is my faithful Savior.
It was out of a personal, true and amazing experience of salvation that Habakkuk was able to pledge that he would give God thanks always, no matter the external state. He knew that he belonged to the living God and that he therefore always had a reason to be thankful.
That is thanksgiving, and it is that thanksgiving which is independent of our external life. Our thanksgiving, then, must not owe its existence simply to the external blessings. But we too must contemplate the fact that one day we will lose all. We may place our dear ones in the grave. We may walk a dark valley of trial. We may be given severe afflictions, headaches, pains, diabetes. We may tremble in the night of personal despair and desperation, mental anguish and depression. But as long as God is our God, a relationship which depends upon Him and His faithfulness, we will still have a reason to praise Him, to rejoice, to joy in the God of our salvation and in the God of our strength.
So Habakkuk is exuberant, he is jubilant. He says that he shall praise God with an abandonment, he will rejoice! He shall be like the young calf or cow that is let out of the barn after the long winter. That calf will lift up its feet and run and kick its feet in joy. He shall walk, he says, upon the high places. The idea is a victory, rest, serene, above, victorious. He will possess a great spiritual joy.
Sometimes this great spiritual joy is reflected outwardly in song and smile and happiness. Sometimes this spiritual joy is seen in tears of sorrow. Nevertheless, this joy and this thankfulness are unquenchable. They are victorious because they are rooted in the God of our salvation.
Do you know this God? Do you know His salvation, freely given, of His grace alone? Is He your strength? Do you belong to Him? Then what situation is there in which you cannot praise Him? Even if your situation today be one of pain and trial, and the temptation would be great for you to murmur and complain, you have the greatest reason to praise Him, for He is the God of your salvation and your strength. You may say, "Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation."
Let us go back to where we started today. Are you thankful always? Are you thankful in all things? Do you possess an overwhelming praise to God your Savior? You see, thanksgiving is born in only one place: at the foot of the cross, where God by His grace shows you who you are: a fallen sinner, and He reveals His amazing love and grace in Christ Jesus, His faithfulness and His salvation.
Then you will be thankful, thankful at all times, thankful in every way. Then, no matter the condition of your outward life, knowing God as your Savior and strength, you too shall yet rejoice in the Lord your God and praise Him all your days.
May God bless this holy Word to our hearts.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank Thee that we may know that our salvation is of Thee. We thank Thee, heavenly Father, that we may know that Thou art faithful, that Thou art our strength and that, therefore, Thou wilt not remove Thy salvation from us. Teach us, then, in every way to be thankful to Thee, now and always, for Jesus' sake, Amen.
A Song of Praise
By Rev. Carl Haak
A Reformed Witness Hour radio message
As we look into the mirror of God's Word, the question we have to answer today is this: Is there in you and in me the desire to praise God? Does the heartfelt knowledge of God's goodness and wonderful works cause your heart to feel compelled to praise the living God?
The text we use is Psalm 107:8,15,21, and 31. It is the repeated refrain: "Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!"
Psalm 107 has four basic sections, each leading to that same verse or theme, four sections alike in that they picture someone who is in distress and who cries to the Lord out of that particular distress. In verses 4-9 we have the picture of a traveler lost in the desert. In verses 10-16 we have the picture of a prisoner in iron bondage. In verses 17-22 we have displayed to us men who are sick, and in verses 23-32 we have sailors who are tossed in the tempest of storm. Each one of these sections concludes with our text. It is like a piece of music with a certain theme, the conductor giving variations on that theme, only to come back to it again. So the psalmist gives four different variations, four different distressful situations, only to come back to that theme, to his purpose in the psalm: "Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!" The question we have to answer today is this: Can you say that verse? Do you feel compelled to thank and praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to you?
If you have your Bible opened to Psalm 107, observe with me in the opening verses (1-3) that the psalmist calls the church together. He calls a meeting, as it were a massed choir, of Christians of all ages and all places, and he exhorts: "O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever." Then he says that this must be done by all of God's people, regardless of their particular circumstances. "Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy; and gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south." Such is his cry. East, west, north, south - from every point of the compass, from different temperaments and experiences; he calls all of God's people to sing the same song: "O give thanks unto the LORD…" And with the repeated chorus: "Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!"
Now, as I said, the psalm is really divided into four sections or four different experiences out of which men come to a heartfelt desire to praise and to thank God. Those four experiences are: travelers lost in the desert, prisoners in bondage, sick men, and sailors in a storm. Although the experiences are particular and unique, yet really they are the same. When we view them superficially they seem to be different. Yet, fundamentally, they are identical. They are problems that men face through various outward circumstances, but they have a common root to them. That common root is sin. All four describe the hopeless case that a person finds himself in because of sin. And the cry of the child of God arises out of his own understanding and distress of sin.
Let us look briefly at those four cases.
There is first of all the case of a traveler wandering hopelessly in the wilderness (vv. 4-9). "They wandered in the wilderness," we read, "in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them." He is referring, perhaps, to Israel in the desert for forty years. He pictures those who are looking for a city to dwell in. They are lost and without water, parched and thirsty, seeking but not finding, withered and dried up within, lonely and solitary, looking for what will give them rest and sustenance. They cross desert lands. They are deluded by mirages. They are tired and hungry and thirsty, looking here and then there and still looking for that rest and peace and satisfaction.
This is to us a picture of the barrenness of sin, of a life without God, experiencing emptiness and searching for something that will satisfy. The reality of this life is that apart from God nothing satisfies, nothing lasts, nothing can give rest to one's soul. If there is no God, if one does not know the living and the true God as Father in Jesus Christ, then human life is empty. Finally one becomes cynical and gives up in despair.
Here the child of God is experiencing that emptiness of life under sin, sin as it takes us away from the experience of God's fellowship. So the psalmist could say in Psalm 63, "I long and thirst and nought can satisfy; I wander in a desert land where all the streams are dry." But then, in verse 7, we read, "And he (God) led them forth by the right way that they might go to a city of habitation." We could not find the way of ourselves. But it was grace which reached down to us and brought us to Christ, the stream of living water.
In verses 10-16 of Psalm 107 we have the second picture of a person in distress. Here the picture is of a prisoner in hopeless bondage. "Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron" (v. 10), again in verse 16, "Gates of brass, …and bars of iron..." surround them. Note the full force of the description, how securely these people are imprisoned. They are helpless. Why? "Because they rebelled against the words of God, ...therefore he brought down their heart with labour" (vv. 11, 12). What could more clearly show the tyranny of sin, the tyranny of evil thoughts, the tyranny of evil companions and of besetting vice? In our folly we think sin a plaything. But the Scriptures are faithful to us. They tell us that sin is really an iron bracelet, iron bars and brass gates. Can anyone deny the truth of the enslaving power of sin? Can you break off evil thoughts? Is it easy to part with evil company, evil habits, cruel tongue and hatred? Is it easy to be free from them? Is it easy to control your mind from evil imaginings, lusts, and envy? Is it easy to control the influence that others have upon you? Can you achieve freedom? Can you cast off the bars of sin apart from the grace of God? No! Absolutely impossible. The only deliverer is Jesus Christ and the grace of God.
As I said, this may appear at first different from a lost traveler in the wilderness. Now we have someone who is in helpless bondage. Yet it is the same. We have the barrenness that sin brings into our life, the emptiness. Now we have another aspect of sin: its power to enslave, something from which only God can deliver.
The third picture in the psalm is in verses 17-22. Here the picture is a little different again. It is a person lying on his bed, afflicted and so desperately ill that he abhors all manner of meat and he draws near to the gates of death.
Here is not a person who is wandering in the desert. Here is not a person whose main characteristic is bondage to sin. But here is someone who is pining away through sheer misery. He has built up his hopes, perhaps, but these hopes have failed him. Now disillusionment seizes him. He is filled with terrible disappointment. That is the main thing in his life. Nothing, he says, avails. He will not be comforted. He has lost interest in everything.
That is also the picture of sin. Sin will cast you down. If you do not submit to the will of God, if you continue on in a sinful way, then hopelessness and despair will plague you. After awhile we say, we cannot pull ourselves together. We have no energy for anything. We are surrounded by misery.
Again, the case is essentially the same. Whether one be in the emptiness of sin, or in the bondage of sin, or in the utter despair of sin, all of these are the ravages of sin. Again, it can only be dealt with by Jesus Christ.
The last picture, verses 23-31, is the picture of a ship tossed about helplessly by the waves. The sailors are in a state of desperation. We read, "They that go down to the sea in ships, ...he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof... Their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end." The picture is of a gale-force wind blowing over the ship, waves reaching up to the sky, the souls of the sailors melted because of their trouble - a picture of how terribly sin upsets and throws into confusion and turmoil all of our life, so that it is literally out of control! (Passions driving one up and down, resulting in a home of bickering and squabbling and jealousy.) They find themselves hopeless. Everything has failed. There is no place to look.
We have four different pictures of distress. Yet, the psalmist says, "I have learned to sing a song of praise," because the psalmist has experienced the deliverance of God. Whether it was in the way of experiencing the barrenness of sin, the bondage of sin, the misery or sin, or the utter confusion of sin, all of God's people have experienced the knowledge of their sin, have been brought to know the fundamental hopelessness and helplessness of self.
Is that true for you? Have you been brought to know that?
The children of God have been given to know the grace of God, the grace of God to bring them up out of their distress, out of their particular distress. Is that your experience? The exact aspect of the sin with which you struggle now is not as important as whether or not you have been brought to see the hopelessness and the helplessness of yourself under your sin, and the grace of God which brings us to cry unto the Lord. The Lord, in mercy hears and delivers us. He delivers us by the power of His word, by the power of His love.
So the psalmist and we respond in the chorus, "Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!" You see, the experience of salvation, the experience of redemption from sin, fills the heart with praise and thanksgiving to God. Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness! We have experienced that the Lord is good to us, and that goodness is experienced in gracious deliverance. There is God's goodness in His gracious deliverance from our sin. Do not ask, "What has the Lord done for me lately?" Do not ask that question! The child of God knows: He has delivered me from my sin.
We see then the folly of other remedies. So often, you know, we trust in ourselves or in other people. Then we are brought to the end of the road with ourselves and with all other human resources, and God turns us again unto Himself. We see that we are in His hands and that He alone has the power of deliverance. By the grace of God we cry to God. We plead for His mercy, and the wonder is that He hears! He stoops down and delivers. Instead of casting us into hell, He delivers of from our distress. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, for the wonder of His goodness. In spite of our sin and our arrogance and rebellion, Christ Jesus has been given to die for us. Salvation is entirely gracious. It was not owed to you. It was not because of anything that you did. It was not because you accepted Christ, or because you made yourself somehow an object of His love, or because you chose Him and then God chose you. That is nonsense. That is not the way it is. The truth is, we are filled with the misery of our sin. But God, God who is rich in mercy, when we were yet enemies, reconciled us to Himself by the death of His Son. Read Romans 5:6ff.
Who can but sing when they understand this? Who can but thank the Lord when they realize this? What theme must surge through our hearts but the theme of praise and thanksgiving all day long. We must sing praises to the Lord. This is the theme of those who are in heaven. They shout, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and blessing... Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever" (Rev. 5:12, 13). All day long they are before the throne and they praise and thank the Lord. Are you surprised? There can be but one song from the heart of those who have experienced the goodness of God, those who know the hopelessness and helplessness of their sin and the graciousness of God: "Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works unto the children of men."
His wonderful works. Oh, what a wonderful work it is, this work of God, this work of God's grace to deliver His children who are of themselves empty and imprisoned and desolate and out of control in their sin. Oh, what a wonderful work of God that He would lead us forth by the right way, that He would satisfy the longing soul, as the psalm says, that He would fill the hungry soul with goodness, that He would bring us out of darkness and the shadow of death, that He would break the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron, that He would send His Word and heal us and deliver us from our destruction, that He would make the storm calm so that the waves thereof are still. Oh, what a wondrous redemption!
God has delivered us. Regardless of the present state of his life, every child of God experiencing that grace of salvation has reason, compelling reason, constraining reason, to praise and thank the Lord.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, says the psalmist. There must be a full chorus. All of God's people, out of the experience of salvation by grace, are called to praise and to thank the Lord. There are none who are excluded. There is no silent member in God's chorus. There is no soloist (not just one who shouts forth in praise). You must not say, "Well, for me today it is only despair and I have nothing to thank God about." You must not say that.
Let all the people of God say so. Say what? That God is to be praised and God is to be thanked. Perhaps death surrounds your family at this time of the holiday. Perhaps problems and burdens come upon you in your own personal life. Perhaps there are sins, grievous sins, against which you struggle. You say, "How shall I sing?" Child of God, walking in humility before God, confessing your sins, to you the song of praise and thanksgiving belongs. It belongs to you today as much as to one who leaps in joy because God's way leads him in happiness. In the light of God's goodness and saving wonder, all the people of God must unite in praise and thanksgiving to God our Father.
You, as a father or a mother, as a wife or a husband; you as a boy or girl, a child, an adult, a single or a married person; whether you have many children or are childless; whether you are old or young - do you know His goodness? Do you know His wonderful works to the children of men? Then praise is your duty! Your blessed and enjoyable task is to praise and thank the Lord, to thank Him for peace and rest in Christ Jesus, to thank Him for a spiritual city to dwell in, to thank Him that the bondage of sin has been broken and He has created in you new and holy desires, to thank Him for the knowledge of all He has done, to thank Him that He directs by His sovereign will each and every event in your life to lead to final glory, and to thank Him for the glorious salvation that is in Christ Jesus.
We must praise and thank Him. Do you? Is there in you this grace of God, a compelling desire to praise and thank the Lord? Oh, I know that our sin and our dullness does so much to muffle this. But is it there? Oh, I must praise and thank the Lord for His goodness and wonderful work, whatever the circumstances and conditions of my life. I must do so because of redemption. Then my heart, when I look upon that gracious redemption, cannot be silent. I must return and glorify God.
Whosoever is wise will observe these things. They shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord. The angels understood it. The host of heaven understood it. Praise and thanksgiving is heard in God's courts day and night. Why should we be excluded now? Why should not we be silent who are the recipients of all of God's goodness and wonderful works? Must not we also join the chorus? Must we not also mingle our voices with those who sing the song of Moses and the Lamb?
Now thank we all our God!
Let us pray.
Father, we thank Thee for Thy word. Thou knowest, O Lord, that our hearts so often drag. Rather than praise we would murmur. Rather than thank we would complain. Lead us, O Lord, to see the lovingkindness in Christ Jesus our Lord, the wonderful works of our deliverance in order that we might be taught the song of praise and thanksgiving. Amen.
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