Spiritual Stability, Part 3: Humility and Faith (Philippians 4:5–6a) John MacArthur

Those of you who have been with us over the last  number of weeks know that we are considering the   theme of spiritual stability, and we are  looking at the text of Philippians chapter   4 where the apostle Paul gives us the principles  that create or generate a spiritually stable life.   You know, this entire society in which we live  struggles with the matter of stability. It ought   to be obvious to all of us that we live in a  very unstable world, and we are in the midst   of very unstable people. Our world is filled  with anxiety. It is filled with an inability   of folks to cope with circumstances in life.  There are a myriad of solutions but not many   that work or any that work, apparently, as the  society continues to escalate in its instability. Sad to say, our particular culture  and maybe even sadder to say,   the church itself continues to direct people  in the wrong direction to find the solutions   to their anxieties and their instabilities. We  have bought into the psychological lies that   indicate that man can solve his problems  through certain psychological principles,   certain introspective self-adjustments, and  those have proven not only to be unsuccessful  

but to be diversionary so that people pursuing  the wrong thing and the wrong area come up   with the wrong answer, and not only that but  they then, therefore, miss the right answer.   The legacy of philosophy and psychology  to this particular day and age has been   to sell a whole generation snake oil, which  doesn’t do anything that it promises to do. This was pointed out rather forcefully to me by  an interview that I read with Dr. Robert Coles,   C-O-L-E-S. Dr. Robert Coles is a social  psychiatrist. He is perhaps as esteemed as any man   in our country in terms of his area of psychiatry.  He is an M.D., he is a research psychiatrist for   Harvard University, he is professor of psychiatry  and medical humanities at Harvard Medical School.   He has written 36 books. He has authored 600  journal articles of one kind or another, and in   1973, he received the Pulitzer Prize. He is a very  decorated, esteemed, and respected psychiatrist.

This interview points up the futility of his  own area. While understanding superficially   some things about Christianity, he will not call  himself a Christian, does not believe he is a   Christian, and makes that clear in another part of  the article. But his answers are very interesting.   They asked him why he was not a surgeon. His  answer, “I’m sloppy, not a great quality for   a surgeon.” He said, “When you get a combination  of a befuddled slob who doesn’t have the necessary   toughness and is a little mixed up himself, you’ve  got a psychiatrist.” A befuddled, mixed-up slob   with no toughness is a psychiatrist. The question  is: A mixed-up psychiatrist? Coles: “Of course.” Question: Is it futile, then, to search for  ultimate answers in psychiatry or psychology?   Coles: “The futility is in searching for ultimate  answers in the entire secular culture. Psychology   happens to be a temporary secular religion. How  long will it last? Fifty years. Secular religions   come and go. Today it’s psychology, tomorrow  it will be weight reduction or cholesterol or   getting to the moon or Mars. Who knows what our  culture will be preoccupied with next? But none  

of this is going to give us answers to the moral,  spiritual questions that we ultimately hunger   for. Psychology isn’t equipped to answer those  questions. Psychology gives us some information   about the mind but the mind is not the soul.”  Question: Psychology, then, can help a person’s   mental health? Coles: “We shouldn’t even use words  like mental health. The question is not: What is   mental health? Or: Do you have mental health?  The question is: What do you do with your life?” Question: But even ministers today are  becoming psychologists. Coles: “That is   paganism.” Question: Pastoral counseling is the  term for it. Coles: “It’s paganism. My mother was   dying here in Massachusetts General Hospital. A  minister came to see her. He wanted to negotiate   her through the stages of dying. She wanted  him to pray for her. She knew she was dying.   He wanted to talk about anger and denial,  but she wasn’t angry and she wasn’t denying,   she just wanted him to pray for her.” Question:  Is this all part of the same syndrome and we all   want to worship the expert? Coles: “The secular  expert. Who are these secular experts anyway? What   do psychologists and psychiatrists know about  the Christian life? What can they tell us?”

Quite an interesting response, isn’t it? You get  the feeling he’s been dropping his bucket in a   dry well and he’s come to that conclusion. Where  do you go to find stability in life? Where do you   go to learn to cope? Where do you go to learn  to deal with anxiety? Where do you go to deal   with circumstances that you find debilitating  you and pressuring you? Where do you go to get   your life really stabilized? You hear people all  the time say, “Well, I’ve just got to get my own   life together.” We are literally living in a  sea of people who are emotionally unstable. Let’s look at a biblical illustration of  stability, Psalm 1. This was one of the   first Psalms I ever memorized as a child. It  is the foundation song of the psalter. It is   the foundation Psalm, and it speaks directly  to this issue of stability. It says in verse 1:   “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the  counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of   sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.  But his delight is in the law of the Lord,   and in His law he meditates day and night. And  he will be like a tree, firmly planted by streams  

of water which yields its fruit in its season and  its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does,   he prospers.” Now, that is the kind of life  that most people would really like to live.   They would like to be firmly planted in a place  that flourishes with all the delights of life.   They would like to produce significant fruit. They  would like not to dry up and wither away but to   flourish throughout their lives and whatever they  do, to prosper. I mean that is the scenario that   anybody could paint for his own life. That’s the  stable life. That’s the spiritually stable person. Look at the contrast, verse 4. The wicked are  not so. They’re not firmly planted. They are   not benefiting from life. They’re not producing  fruit. They are withering, and what they do does   not prosper. They’re not like that. But rather,  “They are like chaff which the wind drives away.”   And anybody in an agrarian culture who knows  anything about chaff knows it is absolutely   worthless. And what is the psalmist saying here?  This is remarkable. He is saying there is a man  

whose life is deeply rooted and firmly planted,  who sucks up the pure water of life, a man who is   productive, a man whose life is sustained in its  flourishing capability, and a man who does things   that really count and prosper. And then there  is a man who’s just like chaff, just blowing   around without purpose, without value, shapeless,  worthless, rootless, unstable, good for nothing. Now, which would you rather be? The first one  is the one who walks with God. The second one is   the wicked man who rejects God. Would you notice  that the key to the first life is found in verse   2? “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in  His law he meditates day and night.” Two things   contribute to a stable life: delighting in the  Lord – that’s having a living relationship with   the Lord – and then meditating in His Word so  that life is viewed from a divine perspective.   On the other hand, you have the  shifting, blowing, useless, worthless,   flotsam and jetsam, the chaff of this world,  headed for judgment. I don’t know about you,  

but I’d rather be that productive, stable  life, and that is offered every Christian.   That is God’s desire in salvation, is  to root you and to make you productive.   It’s a marvelous description of the godly, of  what God wants you to be: spiritually stable. Now, we’re learning how to be spiritually stable  here in Philippians 4, so let’s turn back to it.   Would you notice Philippians 4 verse 1 and  let me briefly review. In Philippians 4:1,   the key statement is: Stand firm in the  Lord. That means be spiritually stable,   don’t be like those who are tossed to and fro  and carried about by every wind of doctrine.   Don’t be like the man in James who is unstable  in all his ways, wavering like the sea. Be firm,   be strong, be stable in the Lord. We ought  to be the very demonstration of spiritual   stability. But how? That’s the little word “so”  – thus or in this way stand firm in the Lord,   here’s how, I’m going to tell you how.  Here’s what it requires to be stable.

Now, what we already learned, I briefly review.  Point number one: Spiritual stability demands   cultivating peace in the fellowship of love.  Spiritual stability demands cultivating peace   in the fellowship of love, and we noted that in  verses 2 and 3. Two women, Euodia and Syntyche,   were causing discord in the church. Paul  exhorts them to harmony in the Lord, verse   2. Then he asks Syzygus – which is the proper  name, translated “true comrade” – he asks Syzygus   to help those women who have been a help to him  and among others been a part of his ministry,   and what he’s saying here is, “Look, if you’re  going to experience firmness and stability,   you’ve got to be in a stable environment  that is not being ripped by conflict.” We pointed out a couple of weeks ago that where  you have a church environment that is in conflict,   you will not only have an unstable environment  but you will have unstable individuals who will   literally be affected by that instability. But  where you have harmony and unity and love and   peace in the environment of the church, it  becomes the strength to the individual and   so they experience personal stability. Harmony  in the church is a great stabilizer. The unity   of believers stabilizes the individual. So  if I want to experience spiritual stability,   then I want to be a peacemaker. I want  to demonstrate love. I want to eliminate  

discord. I want to do all I can to cultivate  peace, to cultivate harmony, to cultivate   unity in the fellowship of love so that I become  a strengthening, stabilizing influence so that the   environment begins to produce a stabilizing bond  among Christians who can stabilize one another. The second thing we talked about, the second  principle, if we are to be firm in the Lord,   is not only to cultivate peace in the fellowship  of love but secondly to maintain a spirit of joy.   Verse 4: “Rejoice in the Lord always;  again I will say rejoice.” This, too,   is directly related to spiritual stability,  cultivating an attitude of joy, maintaining   a spirit of joy, incessant joy, independent  joy in the sense that it doesn’t depend upon   circumstances. Please notice “rejoice in the  Lord,” not in your circumstances. You can’t   always rejoice in your circumstances,  but you can always rejoice in the Lord,   in your privileged union with Him, that’s the  idea. That’s a joy no circumstance can touch.   So to be spiritually stable requires maintaining  the habit of constantly expressing joyful wonder   when contemplating an eternal, unchanging,  enriching relationship with God through the   living Lord Jesus Christ. Great truth. As  long as I contemplate the Lord and what   He’s done for me and is doing for me and has  planned to do for me, I find my joy there.

By the way, that is a command. It is no less  a sin not to rejoice then not to repent or   not to do anything else God commands you to do.  We rejoice in the Lord. You remember in Luke 24   the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus met  with them, talked with them out of the Scriptures,   describing the things about Himself. Finally they  came into the house and in the breaking of bread,   He revealed Himself to them, and it says  their hearts burned within them. What is that?   That’s the burning heart that is the result of  a relationship with the living Lord. It was in   the joy of His presence that they experienced  the burning heart. Stable people are people   who bring peace to situations, who create in the  fellowship of love a unity, who are a stabilizing   influence in discord, and the spiritually  stable are those who in the ebb and flow   and rise and fall of circumstances in life always  maintain joy. Joy is at the heart of stability.

Let’s go to the third principle. Spiritual  stability also requires learning to accept   less than you might think you’re due. Learning  to accept less than you might think you are   due. Verse 5: “Let your forbearing spirit  be known to all men.” Now, that’s a very,   very important statement and a very important  element in this matter of spiritual stability.   It is really speaking about contentment.  It could read, “Let your contentment be   known to all men.” In fact, I suppose  that for every translation of this text,   there is probably a different word used  here because this is one of those almost   untranslatable Greek terms – epieiks. It’s  practically untranslatable if you’re talking   about translating it one word for one word. It  means more than any one English word can capture.

If you’ve studied it long enough, you get the  feeling of what this word means. For example,   it has the sense of sweet reasonableness, that  you are responsive to an appeal, that there’s   a gentleness about you when someone asks you  something, you’re sweetly reasonable about it.   It also could be translated big-heartedness.  Not only are you sweetly reasonable but it   goes beyond that, you are very generous. It could  be translated good will. Since you only wish good   or will good on others, you tend to almost bend  beyond what would be expected to grant them good. Some have suggested it could be translated  friendliness. That seems a little bit thin   when compared to the others. Some have chosen the  word “magnanimity,” let your magnanimity be known   to all men. In other words, your over-generosity.  Some have suggested it means charity toward faults   of others. Some have said mercy toward failures of  others. Some have said the best word is leniency.   Some have said it should be indulgence.  Let your indulgence be known to all men,   not your personal indulgence in sin but  your ability to indulge all of the failures   of others and not be personally offended or  unkind or bitter, retaliatory, or vengeful.  

It is a kind of patience which is able to submit  to injustice, disgrace, mistreatment without   hatred, without malice, without retaliation,  without bitterness, without vengeance. Now, if you add all that up – at the risk  of standing against a lot of better Bible   scholars than myself in the translation  process – I would suggest the best word I   can think of is graciousness. Graciousness.  Let your graciousness be known to all men.   Certainly in sweet reasonableness, there  is grace. Certainly in big-heartedness,   there is grace. Certainly in good will,  there is grace. Certainly in forbearing,   there is grace. Certainly in friendliness,  magnanimity, charity, mercy, leniency, indulgence,   you’re demonstrating graciousness, and that  word probably in a Christian sense embodies it. But there’s another element to it that we have to  go into to understand it. It is the graciousness   of humility, which basically says you may have  offended me, you may have mistreated me, you may   have misjudged me, worse than that you may have  misrepresented me, you may have maltreated me,   you may have not given me what I deserve,  you may have given me what I do not deserve,   you may have ruined my reputation with some, you  may have acted in hostility against me unjustly,   I may be the recipient of your inequity,  injustice, and mistreatment, but I humbly  

and graciously accept it. That’s what it  means, and again, isn’t that exactly what   the grace of God is like? You may have hated Me.  You may have been My enemies, God could say. You   may have shaken your fist in My face. You may  have blasphemed Me. You may have mistreated Me,   misjudged Me, you may have done all of that,  and I still reach out to you in love. Boy,   when you have that kind of an attitude, you’re a  stable person. Spiritual stability belongs to the   humbly gracious – let’s use that phrase. Let  your humble graciousness be known to all men. You don’t demand your rights. You get into that  kind of mentality, and you will become an unstable   person. The philosophical mindset of our day  behind, say, the contemporary psychology that’s   infiltrated not only our country but the church,  the philosophical mindset is primarily the mindset   of existentialism, and existentialism basically  says, bottom line, every man has a right to do   whatever feels good. That’s existentialism.  By the way, existentialism is a reaction to   humanism. Humanism made man a machine. Humanism  says we’re nothing but biological machines and we  

really don’t have choice and we really don’t  have solutions to problems, we just function   like an animal and really a reaction to the  humanistic, that’s a materialistic humanism.   Materialism says man is a machine. In reaction to  materialistic humanism came existentialism, which   says I don’t buy that, man, I’ve got dignity,  I’m somebody, and so existentialism says you   are somebody and you ought to feel good about who  you are and you ought to do whatever feels good. And so we talk about human dignity as a reaction  to materialistic humanism, and we talk about   the fact that man ought to be whatever he  wants to be and do whatever he wants to do,   and whatever feels good, you ought to do it. And  therefore, what you get is massive self-centered   pride and ego. With everyone wanting to react  to materialistic humanism philosophically,   even if they don’t see it as that, and be  someone and be who they are and that’s who   I am and I have a right to what feels good  to me, that’s what existentialism says,   that’s the only value in existentialism is  do what feels good, and the only rule is if   what feels good to you hurts me, you can’t do it.  But if it doesn’t hurt me, what’s the difference?

That’s why you have homosexuals saying, “Why  is homosexuality against the law? It doesn’t   hurt anybody.” See, that’s existentialism.  That’s philosophical existentialism. If it   doesn’t hurt anybody, what’s the difference?  If it feels good to me and doesn’t hurt you,   then forget it. Well, AIDS has shot  that argument down. Could end up   destroying a whole generation of people.  Sin always eventually hurts somebody else. But when you have a world of basically pragmatic  existentialists like we do, and that’s the kind   of world we live in, absolutely the kind of  world we live in, what does Burger King say?   Have it your way. I’ll tell you what, I’ve  been to Burger King a lot of times. I have   never yet had it my way. You know what my way is?  I get the hamburger, I don’t pay, that’s my way.   They’re not giving it to me my way, I pay every  time, that’s their way, not my way. The bottom   line: existentialism doesn’t work. It doesn’t even  work at Burger King, let alone in philosophy. But   that’s what’s the mindset of our day. You’ve got  to feel good about yourself, elevate yourself,   love yourself, develop yourself, and that kind of  thinking is in the church to an incredible degree.

I was listening to a tape today of a friend, Dr.  Paul Brownback, and in this tape he was saying –   I hate to say this, but he said, “I believe this  is true, that if you and I went into a Christian   bookstore” – Christian bookstore – “and we pulled  off the Christian books that are being written   today and took highlight pens and I highlighted  everything that came out of Carl Rogers’ self-love   theory and you highlighted everything in those  books that came out of the teaching of Paul,   I would run out of highlighters before you  would.” That’s how insidious this is and   how far into the church it’s come, the cult of  self-love, which means whatever feels good to me,   whatever satisfies me, whatever builds me up,  whatever gets me over my inferiority complex,   whatever gives me a better self-image, whatever  gives me better self-esteem, that’s what I do.   On the other hand, what Paul says is be humble,  gracious, don’t demand anything, give charity   to those who are committing crimes against you,  give mercy toward the failures of others, you’ll   be a stable person. You see, you cultivate all  that self stuff and you don’t create stability;   you give them a never-ending trail to greater  and greater instability and unfulfillment.   Tragic. We are to be characterized  by the right virtues.

Spiritual stability comes when I have no  demands for myself. Then if I get something,   fine. If I don’t, fine. If I’m treated a certain  way, fine. If I’m treated this way, fine. Doesn’t   really matter to me – I’m not concerned about me.  That’s what makes Paul say – and he’s the living   illustration of all of this as we shall see in  the next session – “In whatsoever state I am,   therewith to be” – what? – “absolutely content.”  Why? Because Paul’s not the issue. I’m not   an issue so I can have a forbearing spirit. I  can have a gracious, big-hearted, magnanimous,   humble, charitable spirit. That’s stability. Boy,  you can’t get knocked off your pins. Some people   live and die in that revolving door of listening  to what everybody says about him and taking in   personally every single thing that ever happens  in their life and filtering it through their   little ego process, and if its wounded them in any  way, they’re in immediate instability, anxiety.

You can’t be knocked off balance by inequity,  injustice, unfair treatment, lies, humiliation   if you’re not the issue – if you’re not the issue.  That’s humility, humble graciousness. So spiritual   stability belongs to those who cultivate peace in  the fellowship of love, those who maintain joy,   and those who do not demand what they  might be due but are graciously humble. Let me reduce those to three virtues: love, joy,  humility. Let’s look at one more, number four, and   this is at the heart of everything. Verse 5, back  to it again, let’s put verse 5 and 6 together:   “The Lord is near; be anxious for nothing,” stop  there. Boy, in those two sentences there is so   much to say. That’s our fourth point – here it  comes. Spiritual stability requires resting on   a confident faith in the Lord. Spiritual stability  requires resting on a confident faith in the Lord,   and I’ll say it again – I’ve said it before –  your view of God is what stabilizes you. This   is crucial. Look at verse 5. “The Lord is  near.” That’s a great statement. The term   “near” – eggus – can mean near in space or near  in time, just like the word “near” can be near   in space or time. I could say that pew is near,  that’s near in space. I could say Monday is near,  

that’s near in time. Same “near,” just used  in different terms. It can be a spatial word,   it can be a time word, a chronological  word. We have to decide which in this text. The Lord is near. What do you mean, He’s near in  time? You mean soon He’s coming? Soon He will be   here? Are you talking about the Rapture? Are  you talking about Christ’s return? Well, that   certainly could have been in his mind, after all  chapter 3 verse 20: “Our citizenship is in heaven   from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the  Lord Jesus Christ.” Certainly the Lord was near   in terms of time. I mean there was going to be a  return of Christ sometime soon – soon, obviously,   was a relative term. We still say His coming  is soon, relative to the history of this world   and to eternity. So it could be that he’s got the  Rapture in mind. The Lord is near; stop worrying. Well, maybe it’s used in the sense the  Lord is near in time because you’re   going to die pretty soon. Well, that’s  a possibility, that he is saying, “Well,   you’re going to die soon anyway, so the  Lord’s going to be around to take you home.   He’ll come and take you to be where He is and  you’ll meet Him face to face and all of that.   So since you’re going to see Him soon  and He’s very near, don’t be anxious.” Now, I don’t want to say that those two thoughts  are not in the mind of the apostle Paul or the   Holy Spirit because they may well have been a  part of what he was saying here. But it seems to   me that the real strength of this exhortation  is that the Lord is near in terms of space,  

if we can use that concept. It’s not so  much that He’s near in terms of His coming,   in the sense that He’s near in terms of  His immediate presence, that He’s there,   He’s encompassing you – personal presence.  That’s what the Psalmist meant in Psalm   119:151 when he said, “Thou art near, O  Lord.” “Thou art near, O Lord,” You’re here,   You’re near. The Lord who will come, the Lord  who will meet us in death, is now near. Don’t   you live your life in that confidence? Don’t  you live your life in the confidence that   even when you think a thought, He’s near enough  to read it? When you whisper a prayer, He’s near   enough to hear it? When you need His strength  and His power, He’s near enough to provide it? In fact, is He not living in you, providing the  very spiritual life which is your life? It is   the life of God in your soul? We are dependent  on that, and I think that’s what he’s saying.   The Lord is near, so don’t be anxious, so don’t  be unstable, so don’t be wavering, so don’t be   collapsing, having a breakdown, paranoid,  or whatever. Understand the Lord is near.

Now, we have to understand not only that the  Lord is near but we have to understand who   this Lord is who is near. And now we get to  the crux of the issue because your view of   God will control your conduct. Can I give you an  illustration? Let’s go back to 1 Samuel chapter   21. First Samuel chapter 21 verse 10. David is  running from Saul. He’s really in no-man’s land,   right? If he’s going to get away from  Saul, he’s got to get out of the area,   so he runs to the next region, which is Philistia,  and he winds up in Gath, and he goes to Achish,   the king of Gath, and so I guess in a sense he  was looking for some kind of asylum from Saul.   But the servants of Achish said to him, to the  king, “Is this not David, the king of the land?   Did they not sing of this one as they danced  saying, Saul has slain his thousands and David   his ten thousands? And David took these words to  heart and greatly feared Achish, king of Gath.” David’s running for asylum, exile in a sense,  protection. The servants of Achish run in, they   say, “Hey, you don’t want this guy around here.  If you think Saul is a formidable foe, the song   goes Saul has slain his thousands and David his  ten thousands. This guy is a warrior. This is the  

rightful ruler, and he’s even greater than Saul.”  And so they tell the king this. Well, David finds   out that they told him that, and now he panics,  assuming now he’s right there in the environs of   the king who can kill him on the spot, and in his  panic he has to come up with a ploy to get out of   there. “So he disguised his sanity before them and  acted insanely in their hands.” David decided to   act like a total maniac. “He scribbled all over  the doors of the gates.” I mean this is the king,   this is David, scribbling on the gate, “and let  his saliva drool all through his beard” – like a   mad man. And, of course, that was a desecration  of the symbol of your maleness, the beard. Why did he do this? Why? I’ll tell you why he did  this. He got unstabilized. He was so fearful that   he was taking things into his own hands, and  Achish’ response – the thing worked. Achish   says to his servants, “Behold, you see the man  behaving as a madman. Why do you bring him to   me? Do I lack madmen?” I love that. “Do I need  another one? I’ve got you, right? I don’t need   another one. Don’t bring me another one. Get him  out of here. I don’t need some guy scribbling on   the gates and drooling all over the place.  Get him out. I don’t want him in my house.”

So David’s little ploy works. So he’s off  the hook. So he’s still got to run from Saul.   Where does he go? Chapter 22: “He departed from  there, escaped to the cave of Adullam,” you know,   panting in the cave. “It worked, it worked.”  He sits in the cave and starts to think about   what a jerk he had just been. Do you think God  could have delivered him from Achish? Did he   think God could have delivered him from Achish?  Theologically? Yes. Practically? Panic set in.   It was in the middle of that that he,  apparently, from historical notation,   wrote Psalm 57 and he starts to put  his theology back together. He says,   “Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me. My  soul takes refuge in You. In the shadow of Your   wings I will take refuge until destruction  passes by. I will cry to God Most High,   to God who accomplishes all things for  me, He will send from heaven and save me.” And he goes through this tremendous  statement about the power of God.   “My heart is steadfast” – verse 7 – “O  God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing,   yes I will sing praises. Awake harp and lyre, I’ll  awaken the dawn, I’ll give thanks.” He launches   off with this great stuff about God. Well, if  he’d have remembered that up there in Gath,   he wouldn’t have acted like such a jerk. He  wouldn’t have embarrassed himself and been such  

a reproach to God as if the God of David couldn’t  deliver him from that little man named Achish. But that’s the way we live our life so  often. Our theology works on Sunday,   but when we hit the wall on Monday through  Friday and we get some trauma in our life,   then we start, you know, drooling in  our beards, metaphorically speaking.   We lose our self-control. We flip out. And it’s  a lack of confidence in God. You see, if I have   a confident trust that the Lord is near, what am  I worried about? What am I worried about? Well, it   doesn’t matter to me what men say against me. It  doesn’t matter how I’m treated. The Lord is near   and the Lord knows the truth about everything, and  the Lord is the ultimate equalizer. All things are   equitable in His hands for everyone else and me,  and this is the source of my security, trust in   the presence of my God. If I understand who my God  is and that He is near, that’s all I need to know.

Let me give you another illustration. Turn to  Habakkuk and if that – if you don’t know where   it is, look in the index. Habakkuk – Habakkuk was  an interesting prophet in Judah, and he had an   interesting problem, and this will speak volumes  to us about our own problems. Habakkuk – in verse   2 – cries out to God, this little prophecy  is very important. “How long, O Lord,   will I call for help?” “Lord, I’ve been calling  for help for a long time.” This is a prophet who’s   doing more praying than prophesying. “God, what  are You doing? Look at Your people, they’re a mess   and You’re not listening, You won’t hear. I told  You about violence and You won’t save. Why do You   make me look on this iniquity? Why do You make me  look on this wickedness? Why do You make me look   at the destruction and the violence in Judah? The  strife, the contention, the ignoring of Your law,   the terrible miscarriage of justice, wicked  surrounding the righteous people, justice being   perverted, why, God, are You tolerating this?  This is – remember us? – Judah, Your people.   Why don’t You bring revival? Why don’t You cause  repentance? Why don’t You turn this thing around?” So God answers him. Verse 5: “Look among the  nations, observe, be astonished, wonder,” which is  

an old way of saying, “I’m going to blow your mind  with what you’re going to hear, you aren’t even   going to believe this. I’m going to do something  in your days that you wouldn’t believe if you were   told.” Apparently that’s why He hadn’t told him  up to now; he wouldn’t have believed it anyway. “I am raising up the Chaldeans, that fierce  and impetuous people who marched throughout   the earth to seize dwelling places which  are not theirs, they are dreaded and feared,   their justice and authority originate with  themselves, they have no law but themselves.   Their horses are swifter than leopards,” and this,  by the way, is poetry and this entire book was   meant to be played on a stringed instrument and  sung. That’s why it has these poetic hyperboles.   “The horses are swifter than leopards  and keener than wolves in the evening,   their horsemen come galloping, their horsemen  come from afar, they fly like an eagle swooping   down to devour. All of them come for violence.  Their horde of faces moves forward. They collect   captives like sand. They mock at kings, and  rulers are a laughing matter to them. They   laugh at every fortress and heap up rubble to  capture it. Then they will sweep through like   the wind and pass on but they will be held  guilty, they whose strength is their god.” Here is an utter pagan nation who believe only in  their own might, and they’re a law unto themselves   and they sweep in to – He says, “They’re going to  come and just wipe you out.” Now he’s got problem   number two. Problem number one: Why doesn’t God  bring revival? Problem number two: How can God use   a worse nation to punish Judah? “How can You take  the Chaldeans, they’re worse? And how can they be  

Your instrument against Your covenant people? None  of this makes sense. You’re a holy God, You ought   to revive Your people. You’re a covenant God, You  keep Your covenant. You’re a just God, You don’t   have a worse people punish a better people.  Doesn’t make sense, I don’t understand this.” Heavens are silent, no answer. “How am  I going to deal with this?” You say,   “Was he seriously traumatized?” Yeah, seriously  traumatized. How seriously? Chapter 3 verse 16:   “My inward parts trembled, at the sound  my lips quivered, decay enters my bones,   and in my place I tremble because I must wait  quietly for the day of distress, for the people   to arise who will invade us.” This guy should  be hospitalized. He’s shaken on the inside,   all his organs are going up and down, his stomach  is in knots, his whole inside is – his heart is   beating irregularly or uncommonly. His lips  are shaking and quivering. His bones ache   through his whole body and he’s shaking from  head to foot. This guy is really traumatized.

Now, what’s he going to do? Let’s  go back to chapter 1. Here stands   a totally distressed prophet in a state  of panic, not over an imaginary problem,   not an imaginary problem like “I don’t like the  way I look.” No, no, no. “I just can’t cope with   life, I’m overweight.” No, no, no. He’s talking  about the wiping out of his nation. This is a   real problem, not “I’m not understood at  work.” No, no, no. This is a real problem,   major problem. “What am I going to do? I’m  shaking all over. I can’t deal with it.” Here’s what he does. He starts to remind  himself about his God who is near, and you   want to know – look at verse 12. And it’s in  the form of questions. He’s asking questions   of himself. This is a catechetical exercise.  He’s going to develop a catechism of theology   proper and try to respond to himself so he  can get back on the rock. And so he starts   to talk about God. He says – verse 12 – “Art  Thou not from everlasting?” “God, aren’t You   eternal?” “You are” is implied. “You are, You’re  eternal, which means You’re before history,   You’re after history, You’re above  history, You’re outside of history,   You’re independent of time, You’re independent  of history. You reign in eternal timelessness.  

You’re bigger than this little deal. You’re way  beyond this little thing. There is a massive   eternal plan that is way bigger than what I’m  seeing here. I feel better already. Somehow   this fits the eternal perspective, even though  I don’t understand how You can do it this way.” And then he says this: “O Lord,” he uses Yahweh,  my God, O Lord my God, Yahweh, that means “I am,”   the eternal “I am,” the uncaused cause of all  causes and effects. “You are the eternal ‘is.’   No beginning, no end. You are self-existent,”  that’s what he’s saying. “God, You are eternal,   above, beyond, outside of time and history,  and You are self-existing.” In other words,   “You are uninfluenced.” Did you know that? Did  you know that God by nature is uninfluenced? He   is uncreated. He is unperturbed. He is the God  who exists in perfect unperturbed tranquility,   uninfluenced by anything or anyone.  “You’re self-existent so You’re not   falling under the spell of someone  who is giving You bad information.” Then he says this: “My Holy  One” – “You’re also holy;  

that means You don’t make a mistake. You’re  too perfect to make a mistake. In fact,   You’re also so holy You have to deal with  sin.” Down in verse 13: “Your eyes are too   pure to approve evil and You can’t look on  wickedness with favor. So this has got to   fit Your holiness. I know, You’re punishing  us because of our sin, and if I follow that,   You’ll punish them because of their sin, too. God,  You’re eternal. God, You’re self-existent. God,   You’re holy.” And then he says, “We will not  die. God, You’re faithful.” He’s reminding   himself that God made a covenant, we won’t die,  we can’t die. God had a covenant. God is true.   God can’t lie. Then he says, “Thou, O Lord, hast  appointed them to judge.” “You’re almighty. You’re   using them for Your own purpose. You’re sovereign.  You’re in control. You’re never a victim.” You see what he’s doing here? “God, You’re  eternal. God, You’re self-existent. God,   You’re holy. God, You’re faithful. God, You’re  almighty. Everything I know about You tells me   to quit worrying about this problem even though  I don’t understand it. I don’t have to understand   it. In the first place, my mind is too small to  understand it. What egotism that I should be even   trying to understand it.” So Habakkuk is starting  to feel better. Just saying that made him feel a   lot better – a lot better. Chapter 2 verse 4, he  puts it in to a principle. The end of verse 4,  

“The righteous will live by his” – what? –  “faith.” There’s that wonderful statement,   “The just shall live by faith,” that Paul uses.  He’s starting to sound – “I’m just going to have   to trust God for this one. I’m just going to  have to believe even though I don’t understand.” Go to chapter 3 verse 17, see how strong his  faith was. Chapter 3 verse 17: “Well,” he says,   “I’m going to trust God even though I’m shaking.  I’m going to trust my glorious, self-existent,   eternal, sovereign, holy, almighty, faithful  God.” So – verse 17: “Though the fig tree   should not blossom” – not likely, fig trees  blossomed, that was normal – “and there be   no fruit on the vines” – not likely, that was  normal, lots of fruit, lots of vines – “and   though the yield of the olive should fail”  – boy, that would really have been abnormal. Do you know those little statues they carve  in Bethlehem that we get when we travel over   there? They have to cure the wood 400  years before they can carve them cause   they’re so full of oil. We saw olive trees  in the garden over there that they told us   were little seedlings when Jesus walked  the earth. Those things last a long time.

He’s saying, “Look, if all the normal things of  life you always count on all of a sudden stop   and the fields produce no food and the flock is  cut off from the fold and there is no cattle in   the stalls” – what’s the next verse say? – “yet  I will exalt in the Lord, I will rejoice in the   God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength  and He has made my feet like the feet of mountain   goats and He makes me walk on my high places.”  Whew – boy, that’s confidence. He said, “I don’t   care if the whole world goes wacky, I don’t care  if everything I always depend on falls apart,   if everything is reversed, if everything you  can always count on you can’t count on anymore,   if all of nature is skewed completely out of its  normal course, I will still rejoice in the Lord,   I will still put my hope in God, and God will  give me the ability like a mountain goat to   walk upon the precipices along the cliffs of life  confidently” is what he’s saying. That’s a stable   man. That is a stable man, and his stability was  directly related to his assessment of his God.

Now, let me tell you something, folks. The  Lord is near and this is the Lord who is near,   the capable God of the Scripture, and if you will  delight yourself in Him and if you will meditate   on His law day and night, on His Word day and  night, you will then know the God that He is,   and you will know how He acts, and that  will be the source of your own confidence. Now, what is the result of knowing the Lord  is near? “Be anxious for” – what? – “nothing.”   What am I going to be worrying about?  Something God can’t handle? Wait a minute,   that’s blasphemy. If you fret, worry, are in  trauma, are unstable, if you launch off into   everything from anorexia to schizophrenia and  all kinds of things, you are really saying,   “I can’t cope with life. I can’t handle  life.” And if you – whatever mechanism you   use to manifest that inability, the real  demonstration – and I want to say this   with love and graciousness – the real underlying  demonstration is you really don’t trust whom? God.

That’s a form of blasphemy. Two ways. One,  if you imagine that God can’t help you,   then you have created a god other than  the true God, and that’s blasphemy.   You have created a god who is not God. Two, if  you believe that God could help you but won’t,   that’s blasphemy, too, because you’re questioning  not His character but His integrity and His Word.   So the key to a stable, firmly planted life –  back to Psalm 1 – is to be delighting in the   Lord – I delight in who He is – and meditating on  His law, I become very familiar with how He acts.   And as I understand who He is and how He acts,  I can look at my life and say, “That’s the one   who’s near, this is who He is, this is how He  acts; I’m not going to worry.” And again I go   back to what I said: The great weakness of the  Christian church today is a lack of understanding   about who God is and how God acts. They do  not understand the majesty of His wonderful   attributes, and that is why we have such wholesale  instability. Because we do not know God, we do not   trust God to act consistently with His revealed  character and His revealed history of acts.

So what do we do? In the church, we’ve got  all these unstable people with all their   problems. Instead of giving them God and  His character and His attributes and the   history of how He functions and how He acts  and the amazing integrity of all of His acts,   we try to give clever human  solutions to the instability,   which in the long run projects that instability  into a way of life and gives no solution at all. In the last generation, A. W. Pink in his book  Gleanings in the Godhead wrote, “The God of this   century no more resembles the sovereign of  holy writ than does the dim flickering of a   candle resemble the glory of the mid-day sun. The  God who is talked about in the average pulpit,   spoken of in the ordinary Sunday school  class, and mentioned in so much of the   religious literature of the day and preached  in most of the so-called Bible conferences,   is a figment of human imagination and invention  of maudlin sentimentality,” end quote.

We aren’t even giving people a knowledge of  the true God in His character and His works.   As a result, there is a tremendous lack of  confidence in Him. No wonder people have guilt,   fear, and anxiety, have an inadequate knowledge  of God and an inadequate trust in God – both are   blasphemous. If you imagine God to be other than  He is, that’s an idol, that’s blasphemy. If you   imagine God to do other than what is consistent  with His own character and promise to His people,   that, too, is blasphemy; it questions His  integrity. And instead of teaching God and   getting people into the Word of God, most churches  are trying to patch up the unstable by giving them   human solutions and worst of all, psychology, of  which even psychologists say it has no answers. There’s only one resting place for the soul and  that’s in God. We stand fast in the Lord. We   stand firm in the Lord, back to verse 1 where he  said that. Martin Luther said to Erasmus, “Your   thoughts of God are too human.” And Paul here is  saying what the poet wrote. “I cannot know why   suddenly the storm should rage so fiercely round  me in its wrath, but this I know – God watches all   my path.” And as a result, be anxious for nothing.  Be anxious for nothing. Stop worrying. Don’t get   knocked over by trials and temptations and the  fact that your little world isn’t absolutely  

perfectly the way you wish it was. That’s a  form of unconscious blasphemy. Don’t worry. Can I close with this text? Matthew 6. By the  way, this teaching of Paul is consistent with   the teaching of Jesus, so let’s see what our Lord  said. Matthew 6:25: “For this reason I say to you,   do not be anxious for your life as to what you  shall eat, or what you shall drink, nor for your   body as to what you shall put on.” Don’t worry  about that. You say, “We don’t worry about that,   no, we’re a long way from that kind of  culture. They were worrying about where   am I going to get something to eat? Where am I  going to get something to drink? And where am   I going to get something to keep warm?” We don’t  think of – the only time we think about eating,   we’re worried about eating too much. Our society  is worried about drinking too much. The only thing   we have to worry about with clothes is not will  we have some, but which ones do we choose to wear? But they had real, basic problems. We’ve got  people today who get all kinds of apoplexy   in our world where they have all of that stuff.  They’re not even struggling with anxieties over   real needs, they’re only perceived and imaginary  peer pressures. They aren’t even real needs. Those   people had real needs, food and drink and  clothing, and Jesus says, “Hey, look at the   birds of the air, they don’t sow, neither do they  reap, nor gather into barns. I mean they don’t   work to provide for themselves. Your Father  feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?”

Then in verse 28, He says, “You worried about  your clothing? Why don’t you look at the lilies   of the field? They don’t toil and they don’t spin,  but even Solomon in all his glory didn’t clothe   himself like one of these.” And then in verse  30, the sum of it all: “If God is so concerned   with the plants of the field which are alive  today and tomorrow are thrown into the furnace,   will He not much more do so for you who will live  forever, O men of little faith?” Your problem   is you’re anxious because you don’t believe God.  That’s the bottom line. So don’t be anxious then,   verse 31. Don’t say, “What do we eat? What do  we drink?” You know – that kind of fretting,   that’s behind so many contemporary phobias  and anxieties. That’s what the pagans seek. “But Your heavenly Father knows you need all  these things. Just seek His kingdom and His   righteousness and all these things shall be added  to you. Do not be anxious for tomorrow; tomorrow   will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble  of its own.” Now, boy, that is a great point.   Look, you’ve got enough trouble, why add anxiety  to the trouble? Now, you’ve got double trouble.   Then you’ve got to go to the counselor – you’ve  got triple trouble and it’s going to cost you 75   bucks a week. Look, just take the trouble, will  you, and leave it at that? And trust your God.

How can I be stable? Love, seeking peace  and harmony in the fellowship of love;   joy, cultivating a joy that I have  that is deeper than my circumstances   that’s in my relationship with the living  Christ, and then not only the graciousness   but the graciousness of humility that demands  nothing, accepts anything, commits it to God,   and then that great confident trust in the Lord  that knows that He’s got it all under control.   That’s how to have a stable life, and there’s  more when we come back to our text. Let’s pray. Our Father, we do thank You for such a  clear passage to put us back on course   that we might be stable. Help us to know  that our stability comes from You. We don’t   want to be the product of a confused  culture. We don’t want to get diverted   down tracks that don’t lead to stability  but just lead to increasing instability.   We want to be where You want us to be. We want to  be delighting in You, and we want to be meditating   day and night in Your Word, and we want to be  every bit the biblical Spirit-filled Christian   that You want us to be who can be stability to  those around us, who can be firmly planted like   a tree by the streams of waters, flourishing  with fruitfulness, prospering, not withering  

in the midst of a world of chaff, blowing in  every direction. Make us stable, Lord, not for   stability’s sake but that being firmly planted, we  may bear fruit to Your glory in Jesus’ name. Amen. You've been listening to John MacArthur,  Bible teacher with Grace to You. For free   access to all of John's lessons and a listing  of Study Bibles and books available for sale,   visit Grace to You's website at gty.org.  John MacArthur and Grace to You reserve   all copyright protection under applicable  law. Our copyright policy is available at   gty.org and it includes instructions for and  limitations on duplicating this digital file.