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HABAKKUK 3:17, 18

Intro: It is easy to praise God when everything is going great. The text
       describes the conditions yet the prophet is jubilant. Either a nut
       or has learned a secret.

I. IT WAS NOT ALWAYS THIS WAY.
        A. Book opens with prophets complaint to God.
                1. 1:2, 3, 4.
                2. The whole scene is chaotic, anarchy, riots, the judges
                   are corrupted, the laws weakened; no justice.
                3. Worse of all God you are doing nothing about it.
                4. God answered the prophet that he was working but if He
                   told him what He was doing he wouldn't believe it.
                5. God then told him that He was going to use the
                   Chaldeans as an instrument of judgment.
                6. "They are worse than we are."
                7. 3:2 Lord things are a hopeless mess and I thought you
                   were doing nothing but you say you are working, I don't
                   understand your work but keep alive Thy work.
        B. What is the source of His confidence?
                1. Comparing the present in the light of their history and
                   the presence of God.
                2. He knew if everything were destroyed, God is able to
                   create that which is necessary to sustain life.
                        a. God is able to supply our needs from resources
                           of which we know nothing.
                                1. Wilderness, water, quail, manna.
                                2. Elijah, "Let me die and not live."
                                   Ravens.
                3. He knew that God could take a little and make it last.
                        a. Shoes in wilderness.
                        b. Meal in barrel and cruse of oil.
                4. God could actually sustain us without food.
                        a. Unbelief springs in your heart at this
                           suggestion, faith affirms it is true Moses and
                           Elijah.
                5. Though crops and everything else may fail God will not
                   fail.

II. LOOK AT THE JOY IN DESOLATION.
        A. His knowledge of God produced joy.
                1. "I will rejoice in the Lord."
                        a. Jump for joy.
                2. "I will joy in the God of my salvation."
                        a. Spin around.
                3. Do you know anything at all about that kind of joy in
                   desolation?
                4. Rejoicing is in God, not in circumstances, victory over
                   circumstances.

III. HOW DID HE COME FROM THE DEPTH OF CHAPTER 1 TO THE HEIGHTS OF
     CHAPTER 3?
        A. First there was doubt in which he was honest.
                1. Only the man of faith doubts.
                2. If you don not believe in God everything mechanical,
                   fixed, certain - 2+2=4 and you may as well be dead.
                3. He did not talk to others about this doubt.
        B. 2:1 -  I will get to the tower and wait and see.
                1. God came to the waiting prophet and gave him a secret.
                   "The just shall live by faith."

IV. HOW CAN WE RISE TO HEIGHTS OF TRIUMPH IN MIDST OF CHAOS TODAY?
        A. Know that Jesus Christ is working; keep eyes on Him.
        B. Trust Him even if we don't understand.

Our joy in proportion to trust - Our trust in proportion to knowledge.