In the early 1820’s, John Keats, the English poet, went outside one evening for the specific purpose of sitting under a tree and listening to the song of a nightingale, the bird renowned for singing its song at night. Several hours later, one of his friends said that Keats returned home with scraps of paper in his hand; on them he had composed one of the most famous poems in history: “Ode To A Nightingale.” Keats was captivated with the nightingale; the bird that could sing Its song in the night. 

As we come to the end of this Book of Habakkuk this morning, I believe that the prophet Habakkuk himself is much like that nightingale. He lived in a land of darkness, and it was about to get much darker. And yet, he had a song that he could sing even in those dark days. The Book of Job speaks of “God my Maker, who gives songs in the night.” And if You are a follower of Jesus Christ today, then you can be like that nightingale as well. In the darkest hours of your life, you can still have a song to sing: “A Song In The Night.”

Before Thanksgiving I said l that the 5 “woes” in Chapter 2 were like a song composed of 5 verses, each with a “woe” of judgment on a different type of sin. Well Chapter 3 actually IS a song in Hebrew! It begins saying that it’s “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet” and then says “according to Shiggonoth” – “Shiggonoth” is the tune this “song” was sung to. Then in the last verse of chapter 3 it says, “for the choir director, on my stringed instruments.” So Habakkuk 3 is a song, written by Habakkuk, about what he and his nation of Israel were going through, and what he had learned from the Lord in this time. The Book of Habakkuk began with all of his questions and doubts — but it ends in a song of praise and faith, “a song in the night,” that we would do well to imitate:

I. The Song in the Night Is A Song of The God of Glory 

:2 says “Lord, I have heard the report about You and I fear.” 

Habakkuk says he has heard the report, or the word about what God is going to do, and he says, “I fear.” Now, it’s important for important for us to understand here that he was not just afraid about the coming invasion of the Babylonians on his country. He was saying, have seen a vision of the holy God who is bringing judgment, and I stand in awe of HIM! It’s not just the judgment, but GOD that he was awed by!

Then :3-15 describe the vision of the Lord that filled Habakkuk with such awe. We need let our spiritual imagination be captured by the picture of God that this passage portrays, because so many people today have a totally misguided picture of God. They don’t respect Him. People casually refer to God as “the Good Lord”, or “the Old Man Upstairs.” Many view Him as some kind of “heavenly Grandfather” who’s up there smiling and creaking on His rocking chair. I don’t know where they got that picture, but they didn’t get it from the Bible. Look at how the Bible describes God in Habakkuk 3:3-15… 

— it begins by attributing to Him two different names in :3. First, when it says, “God comes from Teman”, this is NOT the typical” Hebrew word for “God”, “Elohim.” This is the word “Eloah” — and it refers to the creator and judge of the whole earth. It is powerful description of God.

— Then :3 calls Him “the Holy One.” The Book of Revelation tells us that day and night in heaven, the angels do not cease to say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” They never cease proclaiming His holiness. We saw in Chapter 1 that the Bible says His “eyes are too pure to look with approval on sin.” He is the mighty God of the whole earth; and He is the holy God who can’t approve of sin. 

— Then second part :3-4 goes on to say, “His splendor covers the heavens, and the earth is full of is praise. His radiance is like the sunlight; He has rays flashing from His hand”! Our God is so glorious, that when Moses asked Him to see His glory, He said that “no man can see My glory and live.”  It would be like standing in the presence of the sun. “His radiance is like the sunlight”, it says here. If you were somehow transported so that you stood right before the sun, you would be instantly vaporized by its radiance and heat. And in the same way, you cannot stand in the presence of the holy, glorious God for one moment and live; you would be instantly consumed. As Hebrews says, “Our God is consuming fire.” He is glorious! 

— Verse :5 says, “Before Him goes pestilence, and plague comes after Him.” He sends these things as instruments of His judgment. Because He is a holy God, He must punish sin – and He does. :13 says the enemies of God are “laid open from thigh to neck”- that’s a picture of the devastating blow of judgment God will bring upon those who don’t repent. He is a God of wrath, who will judge sin! 

— this God is also awesome. :6 says the nations are “startled” when He looks at them. :7 says the tents of the enemies tremble and shake before Him. It says “the mountains are shattered” in His sight. :10 says the mountains saw Him and “quaked”! 

This is not a picture of some “old man upstairs”! I don’t know of any old men upstairs who look like this, do you?! God is powerful; He is majestic; He is awesome; He is glorious; He is holy; He is the God of the whole earth; He is also the God of wrath who is coming to deliver a massive and decisive blow to judge sin and unrighteousness. This God of glory and wrath is coming, Habakkuk says; He is coming! The old hymn would fit here in Habakkuk 3:

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible, swift sword. His truth is marching on. 

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave. He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave. This world shall be His footstool and the soul of wrong His slave; our God is marching on! Glory, glory, Hallelujah!”

That’s the song that Habakkuk was singing at the end of this book: it is a song of praise to God, recognizing His power and glory and might. And if we know Him rightly, that’s the kind of song that we will sing too: a song of the glory of God!

II. The Song in the Night Is A Song In Adverse Circumstances

:16 “I heard, and my inward parts trembled… because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us.” 

We see in :16 a FOUR-fold description of the anxiety Habakkuk felt at the judgment God showed him was coming on the land. He wrote: 1) my inward parts trembled; 2) my lips quivered; 3) decay enters my bones; 4) in my place I tremble. Every single part of his body was affected; every faculty he had was shaken by what he knew was going to happen. What was it that caused him such distress? 

With great privilege comes great responsibility. In Shakespeare’s Henry V, the king, who was up pacing nervously the whole night before the battle of Agincourt, looks at one of the peasants sleeping, and said that “Not all these (kings) laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, Who with a body filled and vacant mind, gets him to rest.” The peasants could rest; but Henry the king couldn’t sleep; he knew the horrific onslaught that was coming at sunlight. 

In that same way, Habakkuk, as a prophet, KNEW the judgment that was coming in his land. Perhaps there were those in Israel who could sleep easy that night, but Habakkuk could not. God showed him a vision of the destruction that was coming on his land, the viciousness of the invading Babylonians, whom Chapter 1 described as “fierce and impetuous”; “more eager than wolves to devour. ” God showed him what the land would look like after the Babylonians had finished with it. He described it in :17, “though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls …”. After the onslaught there would be nothing of value left in the land; nothing of all that people sing and rejoice over. Everything would be devastated: there would be no fruit, no vegetables, no flocks, no herds — his home country was about to become a wasteland. Habakkuk knew exactly what was coming, and it shook him to the core. He said in the second part of :16, “I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us.” There would be no earthly reason for songs to come from the land of Judah in the days that were to come. 

As we have talked about in previous weeks, OUR nation may look like that some day. Our country’s sins may be leading us too into a time of judgment. It could be that we too will wait quietly for “the day of distress” that comes upon our nation, just like Judah. The night may be coming to our land. And if so, if we are going to sing, it will be against all circumstances, because things will not be good here. 

But others of us might say, “Pastor, I don’t have to WAIT for a day of darkness to come; my life is like that right NOW!” Some of us have had news of illness, of death, of divorce, of disappointment, of unjust decisions, of financial reverses, of bad news that came on the phone or in the mail — you don’t have to wait for some day of darkness to come, that day has come upon you NOW! You have no earthly reason to sing now. Everything seems to be against you now! If you are going to have any song to sing, it is going to be against all of the circumstances NOW! But thank God, that is exactly what you can have. If you will look to the Lord, you can have a song to sing even in adverse circumstances. Like the nightingale, you can have a song that you can even sing in the darkness! How can you sing in the night? These verses go on to tell us… 

III. The Song In The Night Is A Song of Rejoicing in God 

Having listed all of the reasons why most people would not be happy because of the devastation of their land and the loss of all their possessions, Habakkuk makes perhaps the most important statement in this book in :18, “Yet I will exult in the Lord; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.”  That word “YET” is another one of those “little words that make a big difference”! 

— It’s like when Job in his trial said, “Though He slay me, YET I will trust Him’ 

— It’s like when David in agony cried in Psalm 22, “YET God is my King from of old”! 

— In the same way, Habakkuk says here: “YET I will exult in the Lord”! Despite all the circumstances he faced; despite everything that had happened and was going to happen, he says “YET I will exult … I will rejoice.” He had a song that he could sing in the night.

The key question is: HOW? How could he sing a “song in the night?” The answer is: because his joy was not in his circumstances, but in his GOD! Notice that THREE TIMES in :18-19 Habakkuk says that his joy was in the Lord: 

—: 18 “YET I WILL EXULT IN THE LORD” 

— “I will rejoice in the God of my salvation” 

— :19 “The Lord GOD is my strength… HE had made my feet like hinds’ feet.” And not only is this emphasized 3 times, but the word order in Hebrew puts the emphasis on the LORD as the source of his joy. In Hebrew it’s literally, “But IN THE LORD I will exult” — the word order emphasizes that it is IN THE LORD that he finds his song. Habakkuk lived during desperate times, but in God he had a joy that was greater than the circumstances he faced.

Psalm 4 talks about that. In a time when that Psalm says “Many are saying, ‘Who will show us any good?’” — in other words, nothing that people considered “good” was happening in their land. David said in :7, “You have put gladness in my heart, MORE than when their grain and new wine abound.” He’s saying, a lot of people have a kind of surface happiness when things are going well for them; when their “grain and new wine abound”. But David said, I have something better than that; he says, I have a gladness that’s greater than circumstances; “MORE than when their grain and new wine abound.” he had a gladness — a joy — that GOD had put in his heart! 

That’s what Habakkuk had too. He wasn’t going to find any pleasure or joy in his circumstances. His land was about to be judged; everything good in it, including his possessions and perhaps his own life, was about to be taken away. There would be no circumstantial “happiness” to be found in Judah. It was about to become a land of darkness. But like the nightingale; Habakkuk had a “song in the night”, and that song came from his relationship with God. 

If you & I are going to be able to sing in the dark days of our lives, we’ll have to find it where Habakkuk did: in the Lord. We need to learn to rejoice in God Himself, more than in temporal pleasures and pleasant circumstances, which we will not always have. The Lord must be our song in the night. How can we do that?

A. Make sure Jesus is your Lord & Savior. It’s significant that the Hebrew here for “God of my salvation” in :18 is “Elohe Yishi.” “Yishi” comes from the same root word as “Yeshua”, which means “salvation,” and which is where we get the name “Jesus”! Habakkuk rejoiced that God was the God of his salvation. God revealed that salvation to us in the New Testament when He sent Jesus. So for you to be able to sing a “song in the night” you must know Jesus as your Savior. This means that you have come to a time when you have confessed that you are a sinner, and you don’t deserve heaven, but you have trusted that God sent Jesus to die on the cross and pay for your sins, and now you know He has forgiven your sins, and sent His Spirit into your heart and saved you, and now you are following Him. This is the first and most vital step in having a “song in the night.” You must know, like Habakkuk, that God is the God of (your) salvation through having Jesus as your Lord & Savior.

B. Secondly, when you know Jesus is your Savior, then you can focus on the eternal blessings you have in Him. Habakkuk says he will rejoice “in the Lord”. No, there wasn’t much for him to rejoice in, in his earthly surroundings. But there WERE things he could rejoice in, in the Lord. And the same thing is true for you. If you are sure you know Jesus, then you can have “song in the night” by focusing on the things you have in Him, even in the midst of the most difficult circumstances, 

Samuel Rutherford, the Scottish Puritan pastor who lived in the 1600’s, wrote to one of his church members who had experienced a series of difficulties, and he reminded her to focus on what she had in heaven. He wrote: “This world never looked like a friend upon you, you owe it little love … this is not a field where your happiness groweth; it is up above… and before the Lamb… what you could never get here you shall find there.” (To Lady Kenmure, p. 53) Rutherford reminded Lady Kenmure, you have blessings waiting for you in heaven, that you will never find here on Earth. Rejoice in that!  

And if you know the Lord, you can do that same thing. Even in our worst days, we can rejoice and sing about the eternal blessings God has given us.  There are some days when we can sing, because we have a body that feels healthy, or we have slept peacefully in a nice home, or we have a great job, or family. It’s good to sing and praise God for His goodnesses in those days. Many of us have given thanks for these things this week.

But there are other days, aren’t there — days when we don’t feel well, and we didn’t get much sleep, and we don’t have the home and the job and the friends we’d like. But on those days we can still thank God for all the spiritual blessings He’s given us. Ephesians 1:3 says that God has blessed us with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” And then Ephesians 1 goes on to list many of those blessings in the next verses. It says: we have redemption through His blood, we have adoption as sons into His family; we have the knowledge of His will, we have His Holy Spirit in our hearts; we have an inheritance in heaven — all these spiritual blessings that can never be taken away. If you are a Christian, when your earthly circumstances are not good, you can still sing a “song in the night” when you focus on the blessings that you will have for all eternity, instead of what you DON’T have in your short stay here right now. 

C. Enjoy your personal relationship with Him. Habakkuk says, “I will rejoice IN THE LORD.” His joy was not just in the blessings he enjoyed from the Lord, it was especially in his relationship with God HIMSELF. We’ve talked before about how we aren’t just saved to “go to heaven”, but to have a personal relationship with God, to love Him, and worship Him. Habakkuk had this. He said he found his joy IN THE LORD HIMSELF — and that’s what we need to learn to do too. We need to learn to find pleasure in worshiping God; in singing to Him. Mankind has used music for a lot of things, but I believe God created it specifically for us to use to love and worship Him. We were designed to sing to Him. This is why music is so central to Christian worship. It’s what music was created for! And so in our darkest days, we need to learn to turn to God in song, and sing to Him. Literally sing songs to the Lord when you need to draw near to Him. 

And it is more than just “getting a song going” to cheer me up.  I read last week about sailors on a ship who, when they are cold, and tired, and the waves are threatening, sing to boost their spirits. But we have something more than that. Our songs as Christians are based on the reality of who God is, and He has done for us, and where we are really going, and the personal relationship we really have with Him. The reality of who God is to us, is our song in the night! 

I think it’s very interesting that Habakkuk was actually quoting Psalm 18 several times in his “song” here: 

— In :19 when he says “The Lord my God is my strength”, that’s from Psalm 18:1.

— When he talks about “hinds feet in high places” in that same verse, that’s from Psalm 18:33 

— When he calls Him “the God of my Salvation,” that comes from Psalm 18:46 

So Habakkuk was using the Psalms he’d learned in worship, to help him sing to the Lord during his difficult circumstances. 

We can use those same Psalms to draw near to God “in the night.” Read, memorize, and pray, Psalms, like Psalm 63, “O God, You are my God, I will seek You early; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh yearns for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” There is something powerful about using Psalms that will draw you closer to God than anything else.

We can also sing the hymns and spiritual songs we learn in worship. Carry these songs with you into the week, where they can become your “songs in the night.” Write down names of songs you enjoy in church; download them onto your phone, play them in your car, at home, wherever you are. Use songs to draw you close to God, and help you sing your “song in the night”! 

Years ago, Charles Spurgeon said: “Usually in the night of a Christian’s experience GOD IS HIS ONLY SONG … It is strange, that when God gives his children mercies, they generally set their hearts more on the mercies than on the Giver of them; but when the night comes, and He sweeps all the mercies away, then at once they say, ‘Now, my God, I have nothing to sing of but Thee; I must come to Thee, and to Thee only.” (“Songs in the Night” Sermons, Vol. 2. P. 170-171) 

Spurgeon summarizes the message of Habakkuk perfectly well right there: that’s the message of this whole book in a nutshell: when the darkness comes, GOD MUST BE YOUR SONG IN THE NIGHT

— when you’ve lost your health, then God must be your song; 

— when your heart is broken, God must be your song; 

— when you’ve lost a loved one, God must be your song 

— when friends and loved ones desert you, God must be your song; 

— when you’ve lost all your money, God must be your song 

— when the stock market crashes, then God must be your song 

—when your business has failed, God must be your song, 

— when your dream has been shattered, God must be your song 

—when your prayers are unanswered, God must be your song

— Yea, when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God must be Your song 

— when everything else in your life has failed, and you have no other hope and nothing else in this whole world to stand upon — then GOD MUST BE YOUR SONG

And if He truly is your God then HE WILL BE YOUR SONG in the night! I believe this a test for many of us: when you walk into the darkness, do you have a song in the night? If the Lord really is your God, you will. 

I love the quote from the old “Anne of Green Gables” series, when Anne has messed things up again, and she dramatically tells Marilla that she is in “the depths of despair, and Marilla says to her: “To despair is to turn your back on God.”

What do you do in your darkest hour? Do you despair? Do you turn your back on God? Or do you find out, that when all else fails, that He really is your God; your “Song In The Night”?

CONCLUSION:

The Book of Habakkuk ends with these words: “For the choir director, on my stringed instruments.” Someone might say, “Well, that is kind of an odd ending to the book: “for the choir director, on my stringed instruments”?! What kind of conclusion is that?” Well, in light of what we have seen today, I don’t think it’s an odd ending at all. Habakkuk knew from God that dark days were approaching; judgment was coming, and times were about to be lean, and even tragic. But despite all these circumstances, he said I have a God, and He will lift me up over these circumstances, and I will rejoice in Him. Even in the most heart-rending of hours, He will help me to sing. And then he finishes by saying: “For the choir director, on my stringed instruments”. 

In other words, was saying: “It’s getting dark outside. The night is coming. Now let’s go do what we’ve been talking about; let’s get out our harps and let’s begin to sing — our ‘Song in the Night’!” 

INVITATION:

— I hope you have been giving God thanks for every material blessing this week. That is what we should do; all our blessings are from Him.

— But also realize that we can’t take these blessings for granted; we may not always have them. What will you have if/and when these are taken away?  Do you have a real, personal relationship with God, and spiritual blessings that you can still thank God for? 

— Maybe you’re in a difficult time right now; as a Christian, if you can’t thank God for as many earthly blessings as you’d like, thank Him for the spiritual blessings: for salvation; for forgiveness; for heaven, for His Spirit in your heart, and on and on …

— Some of us as Christians need to be learning Psalms and spiritual songs; to equip ourselves now, so we’ll be able to sing “songs in the night” when difficult times come. 

— Then most importantly; do you have the personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, that will sustain you through any trial. If you don’t know you have that, you can today …