Profound thanksgiving, beloved!

The absolute antithesis of the thanksgiving of the world. The believer’s thanksgiving is profound. The world’s thanksgiving is superficial. These two stand opposed in every respect: the one of grace; the other of the flesh; the one lasting; the other fleeting as a shadow dependent upon the shining of the light; the one in God, the God of our salvation; the other in things, and no better than a swine’s whose trough is full.

You can find a superficial thanksgiving anywhere. In many churches and in many hearts, there is an abundance of superficial thanksgiving. Superficial thanksgiving for the abundance of earthly things—a joy in that earthly abundance and rejoicing because of that earthly abundance. Superficial thanksgiving leaps for joy at abundance and is thrown into disquiet and curses in time of lack. It is a thanksgiving that is rooted in an earthly mind that is of the earth. It is the thanksgiving of those whose god is their belly and who mind earthly things. You will see that on vivid display this year.

Superficial thanksgiving is also present with us. The thanksgiving of the natural man is only and can only be thanks of this kind. If he minds a god at all as he is stuffing his face with food, he gives a superficial prayer of thanks for the many things that he has and that he has gotten—thanks to his god—with his own ingenuity, intelligence, and hard labors. He rejoices that his god has smiled on him for the year, as is so evident to his carnal mind in the abundance that he possesses, having more than heart could wish. 

More common will be thanksgiving to the gods of fortune, mammon, markets, and economic improvement—the rank praise of his savvy, farsightedness, and skill. Regardless of form, it is superficial thanksgiving.

The proof? If you take away the abundance, the thanksgiving evaporates too. The rejoicing will be replaced by cursing when the abundance that came so quickly disappears as quickly.

The believer’s thanksgiving is antithetical.

Habakkuk was a prophet, but he was first of all a believer. He lived during a terrible time in the church. The church, as far as the outward and the majority were concerned, had long ago departed from God. It was a carnal and rotten church. The church was wrapped up in earthly success and the abundance of earthly things. In that church, for the sake of earthly success, there were also all kinds of oppression, and perhaps that oppression explains in some part Habakkuk’s lack.

He hears clearly the prophecy of God’s coming, bitter judgment in the Chaldeans and again in God’s overthrow of the Chaldeans. A tumultuous and unstable time. He speaks now as a believer—a believer in response to the word of his God. A resolve to give thanks, an expression of profound thanksgiving.

The rejoicing and leaping for joy of the believer here are part of our thanksgiving. When the prophet speaks of his joy and his rejoicing, he is speaking of thanksgiving. The entire life of the believer is thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is obedience to the law of God out of faith, and thanksgiving is chiefly prayer to God. So with a joyful and thankful heart, the believer prays to God to thank him for all things because he is the believer’s God. Our singing is also part of our thanksgiving—to sing from the heart and to rejoice before God. Especially is public worship part of our thanksgiving. Much of the superficiality that passes for thanksgiving is that it is completely unconnected with the public worship of God. Habakkuk’s words were intended to be part of the public worship of the nation of Israel because he wrote instructions to the chief singer and thus for the temple worship of God. We give thanks with God’s people in public worship, united in profound thanksgiving to God, singing and praying to him.

Rejoicing and leaping for joy characterize that thanksgiving.

A bitter man does not give thanks. He complains, howls, growls, and curses God, sometimes in his heart in the very public worship of God. But he does not give thanks. He is seething inside, sullen and rebellious.

The man who is joyful gives thanks. And importantly, his joy is a victory. He exults. He is upon high places. He is like a hind, free! Joyfulness is basically happiness and is connected with contentment. He is free in his contentment. Being content, he is joyful; and being joyful, he is content. Out of that freedom and joy, he gives thanks.

Yet!

Yet in the face of relentless, numbing, destructive calamity, he will rejoice and joy and give thanks.

You have to admit that the situation of the believer here in the passage is terrible. It is not profoundly joyful. It is profoundly terrible. In sharp contrast with his joy stands the reality of his earthly situation. Here we have the description of the complete devastation of the believer’s life. As far as this man’s earthly estate is concerned, there is hardly a worse one that can be conceived. There is here one calamity after another. That is the worst kind of calamity—one after the other in succession and without letup. When calamities come in succession, their force is magnified. Here is one calamity after another: first the figs, then the olives, then the fields, then the flocks, and then the herds. One devastating failure after another. One piece of bad news and then another. Every sphere of his life is affected. From figs to flocks, nothing of his earthly estate has been left untouched.

And as it were after much toil and perhaps some promise.

It is one thing if the failure comes from the beginning. But here the failure comes after much trouble and toil and after even some promise of hope. The labor of the olive deceives! The prophet is referring to his own labor in his olive trees and to the fact that the trees put forth their leaves and bloom. It appears that, although the figs and vines failed, at least there will be the olives. But, alas, the olives fail too; deceptively, they also fail, after much promise. There is nothing. And then the flocks and herds are gone. Probably, some stolen by a robber, more mauled by a wild beast, and the rest emaciated and dead or dying from lack of food or water. With them the last of the prophet’s hope is gone.

For the believer today also, there are many toils, shattered hopes, deceptive signs of turn-around, and great disappointments. First the weather was too warm, then it was too cold, then there was too much rain, and after that drought, and here a storm and hail and there thieves and robbers. Crushing disappointment on every front. His business failed. His truck is gone. His house is gone. His money is gone. His food is gone. At last only the large bills remain.

Your heart breaks for him because he is flesh and blood too. He eats bread and water like you. His muscles are weary with labor, his bones ache from struggle, and his hopes shatter too. You cannot come to him with the superficial word, “You had a bad year this year, but it will all even out in the end. You will have a better year next year.” You cannot come to him with the stoic indifference that riches and poverty are the same. You cannot exhort him any longer that he must pull himself together and pull through. He has nothing left. He is going to be hungry. His children cry too. No, your heart breaks for him, and with every piece of news you feel worse and worse for him.

Indeed, because he is a church man, when you hear of his latest loss, you go to see him and to bring him some comfort. As you approach his house and are mulling over what to say to him, you stop, and your ears tune into the lusty voice reverberating through the house and spilling out of the window. He is singing! You come to him, and he stops singing and thanks you for coming. What was he singing? Something like this: “God is King forever: let the nations tremble…” and, “Merciful as mighty, He delights in justice…” and, “He forgave their sins, although they felt His chast’ning rod”! You are about to speak, and he interrupts you and tells you that he rejoices in God as the God of his salvation. He praises and gives thanks. He does not merely endure his calamity; he does not merely undergo his affliction; but he rejoices. 

That is profound thanksgiving!

His song, understand, is not of the abundance, or even the adequacy, of earthly things. The object of his rejoicing is not and clearly cannot be earthly things because he has nothing left. He has lost all.

Yet!

Yet he rejoices.

It is one thing to give thanks for prosperity. That kind of thanksgiving is commonplace. It is by nature in our hearts too. It is the thanksgiving of the natural man. With his mouth stuffed and his round belly full, he can muster enough strength to mumble some thanks for good things. The natural man is like a pig that snorts and grunts because his trough is full. That is a kind of beastly thanksgiving, and it is not thanksgiving at all. The joy of that thanksgiving is beastly too. The moment there is adversity and his trough is empty, the natural man bellows and howls.

Neither is the believer’s song without mention of earthly things. It is not that he fails to give thanks for earthly things. He gives thanks for them. He confesses that he does. He says, “Although the fig tree shall not blossom.” In that he implies that if the fig tree did blossom, he would still rejoice with the same rejoicing, but his rejoicing is not changed because the fig tree does not blossom. That is because this profound thanksgiving does not have earthly things as its object.

Neither is his song merely a mournful and woe-filled song of self-pity or a litany of his devastating losses. He obviously feels keenly the losses. He can tell you his losses. He does so in the text. He tells you that his figs are gone, his wine is gone, his oil is gone, his flocks are gone, and his herds are gone. He tells you, but that is not what he sings.

He rejoices in the midst of his losses!

We are not there very often. In principle we are there. This is the profound thanksgiving of a believer. This is always his thanksgiving from his new heart. But we are not on this mountain of faith very often. That is because we do not live in the presence of God as we should. The believer’s song, his profound song of thanksgiving, is of God and his salvation. The believer rejoices in the midst of this trouble because he rejoices in Jehovah and glories in the God of his salvation.

His joy is not dependent on earthly things or the abundance of earthly things, but upon God. His thanksgiving is not dependent on earthly things or their abundance, but upon God’s salvation.

As superficial thanksgiving has as its object earthly things, so profound thanksgiving has God as its object.

The prophet here lives in the presence of God and sees in the coming of all these things nothing but God. God takes up all his vision.

The prophet sees a sovereign Lord, the i am that i am, who does not change, who made all things, and who upholds and governs all things by his sovereign power. The prophet sees in his entire calamity nothing but the work of the sovereign Lord. The Lord who is absolute ruler over all, who decreed all things, and who decreed all these things. The Lord who likewise upholds all things, who governs all things, and who upholds the believer and governs all these things for the believer.

He does not see a storm come and destroy his crops, but he sees God behind it. He does not see a cloud of locusts come and eat his fields, but he sees God’s hand. He does not see his sheep cut off, but he sees God’s work. Jehovah gave, and Jehovah takes away, and blessed be the name of Jehovah! He sees God come from Teman and the Holy One from Mount Paran, his glory covering the heaven and his chariots pulled by mighty beasts charging over land and sea.

Yet if that is all that he would see, then he must tremble and quake, and rottenness would enter his bones because he is a sinner before that God, unthankful and unrighteous and far more attached to his olive trees, vines, sheep, and oxen than to his God. He knows that very often deep down he loved those things far more than he loved God. He knows better than anyone that he was not always so profoundly thankful, that often he was earthly-minded and minded earthly things and that his thanksgiving was superficial. And before the coming of the righteous God, he must be undone.

But that is not all he sees. He sees in the coming of that God the coming of Jehovah, the unchangeable God of the covenant promises, whose mercies fail not and whose compassions know no bound. He sees not just God but the God of his salvation. Who is merciful as mighty! The God who in wrath remembers mercy, who has given commandment to save his servants, and who has decreed their salvation from eternity in his unfailing and unchanging love for them.

The God of his salvation who is revealed in Jesus Christ. He saved the believer from his sin, from its guilt and from its dominion, and set him in the fellowship of his covenant of grace. God released him from the bondage to sin, Satan, and earthly-mindedness. The God who comes in all these calamities is the same God who commended his love to us in Christ and who, if he gave us Christ, will also with him freely give us all things. He sees the God who in his sovereignty turns every evil to the profit of his people; otherwise, he will avert it from them. He sees that God comes in all the calamities and in all the troubles and is with him in the midst of them, so that he rests in the day of trouble.

He sees the God of his salvation, who in those calamities is neither vengeful toward him, nor has designed them for his destruction, but has decreed them for his salvation, so that also in calamities God is gracious toward him and wills his salvation through them. That way is the profound way of the grace of God that saves his people. That grace produces such profound thanksgiving and a deep sorrow for all our superficial thanksgiving.

Then the believer rests in the day of trouble. No, no, he does more than that! Because God, the God of his salvation, is with him, he rejoices and leaps for joy.

Where does this profound thanksgiving come from? 

Its source is God himself. In God, by a true faith, is the thanksgiving of the believer. He says that: in Jehovah and in the God of my salvation. That is a true faith. True faith joins us to Jesus Christ. As superficial thanksgiving comes from an earthly mind, profound thanksgiving comes from the believing, regenerated heart and thus from God himself. Thus from God in Jesus Christ, the believer receives strength to rejoice in every situation with profound thanksgiving.

Such a man is free. He is free from bondage to sin and the worship of earthly things. He is free from the superficial and damning thanksgiving of the world. He is free from the bondage of having his joy tied to earthly things. He is free as a deer upon the mountains, so his feet walk in the high places. With that kind of thanksgiving, resting in this God and giving thanks in all things, he is really in heaven already.