Audio  God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm. … Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower…. These words were composed in the mid-1700s by the renowned hymnwriter William Cowper (pronounced, Cooper). Cowper wrestled his entire life with suffering, hardship, and crippling depression. But, once he became a follower of Jesus, though he still struggled greatly, he never lost his confidence in the sovereignty and goodness of God. He was able, with great spiritual insight, to see that the Lord’s hand had been at work in his most difficult days. But God, he learned, moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. Perhaps you have walked with the Lord long enough to learn this lesson as well. Sometimes things don’t turn out like we’d planned or hoped. Sometimes our prayers do not get answered in the way that we wanted. In some of these situations, the passage of time and personal growth in spiritual wisdom will convince us that it was the Lord who was at work in all these things, bringing about a result that was far better than what we had hoped. At other times, the temptation will be great to wonder if He really does hear us when we pray, if He really does work for good in our lives, if He really does care for us at all. Habakkuk the prophet was no stranger to these temptations and trials of mind and soul. If Charles Dickens were to write of Habakkuk’s day and age, he may say, “It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times.” The spiritual revival that had occurred in the reign of Josiah had ended with his death. Under his son Jehoiakim, the nation once again was plunged into idolatry, immorality, and injustice. The righteous had become an oppressed minority in the land, justice was perverted, and the Law of God was silenced. Habakkuk saw these things unfolding, and he cried out to God: “How long? Why?” He was unable to reconcile the evil which surrounded him with what he had come to believe about the nature of God. Worse, in response to his cries, there was only silence from heaven. Finally, as we come to verse 5, the silence of heaven is broken and God speaks. His answer is a message for the entire nation. God has not been blind and deaf, unconcerned and uninvolved after all. He perceives the peril of His people; He sympathizes with the suffering of the saints. He declares that He is at work in the midst of it, though He moves in a mysterious way. His answer here is both comforting and confounding.[1] It is a direct verbal announcement about what is soon to take place in the nation. Like Habakkuk, Christians in Americatoday are perplexed about the moral degradation, social injustice, and the oppression of the righteous which we see taking place. But unlike Habakkuk, we do not have a word from God telling us specifically what it is that He is up to in the midst of all this. Nonetheless, as we see how the prophet answers Habakkuk, we can make application to our own times, and draw certain conclusions about how it is that God may be moving in a mysterious way in our day and time as well.[2] So, with that in mind, let us dive into our text and explore how God moves in a mysterious way. I. God is always at work, even when we don’t notice (v5) Those of us who drive regularly along Gate City Boulevard here have become accustomed to seeing the signs every day which caution us with the message, “Men at Work.” When we look at the world around us, with all of its violence, terrorism, injustice, and evil, we need to see the world marked similarly with signs cautioning us of “Men at Work.” Because human nature has been warped and corrupted by sin since the fall of Adam, the world has been filled with destruction. These are the signs of “Men at Work,” exercising our dep