Prayer of Habakkuk (Hab. 3)

This sermon was preached on 3/1/2013

Habakkuk’s response to the answer that the Lord gave him in chapter 2 about his concerns over divine providence towards Judah was threefold: first, he prayed for spiritual recovery for his people; second, he described the awesomeness of the Lord’s presence; and third, he resolved to rejoice in the Lord whatever happens.

Prayer for spiritual recovery (v. 2)

Habakkuk knew he had to respond to what the Lord had told him about what was going to happen to Judah because of her sins. The cruel Babylonians were coming and when they arrived there would be complete devastation. Yet he confessed that their actions would be the Lord’s work. It would be the expected response of the covenant Lord to his unfaithful people. The Lord had intimated, when he initiated the covenant relationship, that he would do this if his people became unfaithful.

Habakkuk had heard the Lord’s voice and he felt compelled to pray. This is always the true response to having heard the Lord speak to us, whether we hear him in church or in our personal devotions. The immediate prayer does not have to be long, but it does have to be earnest. A failure to respond in this way reveals that we have not been listening to God. I cannot say how many times I have heard from a cassette or DVD or read in a book a very clear description of something that was wrong with me or with another situation. Yet strangely, actually bizarrely, my response did not include to pray, with the outcome that the diagnosis was not absorbed by me. It is probably easier to respond with prayer when in a church service. We regard it as rude when a person ignores what we say and does not respond. In the case of the Lord being ignored, it is not only rudeness, it is rebellion because his Word is never only given for information but also is given so that we will speak back to the Lord.

So this divine response caused Habakkuk to be afraid. He may have been afraid for personal reasons – after all, he did not know what would happen to himself when the Babylonians came. Or he may have been afraid of the consequences that the devastation would bring about and the huge restoration process that would be required once the period of the Lord’s judgement was over. The large the devastation and the longer it would last the greater would be the extent of recovery required. For example, we know that the Babylonians flattened the temple in Jerusalem and later books in the Bible detail the problems there were in rebuilding the temple (Haggai) and then in restoring divine worship (Malachi).

His prayer was for the Lord to show mercy in the midst of the years. This petition reveals Habakkuk’s love for his people. He confesses that they deserve God’s wrath, but he also implores God to show mercy. Of course, mercy does not merely mean that God will cease to show his wrath. It includes forgiveness and restoration to his service. 

When will this mercy be available? The answer is in the phrase ‘the midst of the years’. Calvin suggested that it described the period between the promise to Abraham and the first coming of Jesus – after all, if the Lord did not show mercy, none of Abraham’s seed would be preserved, and if that happened it would mean that the Saviour would be born. This idea suggests that it is appropriate to pray between two points, one that starts a period and one that closes it. If that suggestion is correct, then we can deduce that we can pray this prayer between the two points of Christ’s first and second comings. Nevertheless, the meaning may be a lot simpler. The prophet may merely be saying to God that in all that is going on in that period of time he should remember mercy.

We face a similar situation as Christ’s church today in Scotland. The contemporary equivalents of the Babylonians are already here and are engaged in the process of devastating God’s kingdom. They are not here because the church has been wonderful and needs to be distracted from its commitment to Christ’s cause. Instead they are here, we must admit, because the church has ceased to be what it should be – this decline began a long time ago. But there is little point in looking back and pointing fingers. Instead we have to respond as Habakkuk did.

The prophet responded with fear and with prayer for divine mercy. As with Habakkuk, none of us knows how the current situation will affect us personally. In periods of trouble, some believers are not affected adversely as far as their personal circumstances are concerned whereas others pay a heavy price. And we should be filled with apprehension at the amount of spiritual recovery that will be required. 

Many have said that what we need is not another revival but another Reformation. They may be right. Revivals occurred in what could be loosely called Christian communities where there was already an existing measure of understanding of the Bible’s message and where cold orthodoxy of doctrine marked the church. We no longer have many such communities. Instead we have Bible ignorance and not even cold orthodoxy in most of our communities. So we will need another decades-long Reformation should God here our prayers for recovery. 

In addition to such fear there must be longings for mercy. I suspect that is the big issue facing us today. How much do we really care? We can easily test our temperature by how often and how intensely we pray for the Lord to show mercy to our contemporaries. No doubt we have heard of John Knox’s urgent petition, ‘Lord, give me Scotland or I die!’ But it is not only the country that needs divine mercy, so does the professing church. And individual Christians also need reviving mercy. I read a sermon by Spurgeon on this text and he urged Christians to look at their conduct, their conversation and the degree of communion with Christ that they have, and he suspected that in each of these areas mercy was needed.

Recalling the Lord’s presence (3:3-16)

In these verses Habakkuk describes a theophany, a visit from God. The scene is what took place on Mount Sinai when God gave the law to his people. He was able to find his people in the desert (this is the significance of him being described as coming from Teman and Mount Paran (v. 3a) – Habakkuk is not suggesting that God lived in those places). It was an awesome occasion, likened to a sunrise, perhaps with lightning (vv. 3b-4). He was on a march against the foes of his people and his weapons were pestilence and plague against their enemies (v. 5), as the Egyptians had experienced. Such was his might, it moved the mountains and hills (v. 6) and even powerful tribes were afraid (v. 7). God came like a warrior (his chariot in verse 8 and his bow and arrows in verses 9 and 11). The effect on the natural creation was immense (the rivers and seas were in ferment in verse 8, the mountains, sea and heavenly bodies were affected). Yet his battle was not with the created order, but with those who opposed his people (vv. 12-15, perhaps descriptive of the Egyptian army being destroyed in the Red Sea and the occasion when the sun and moon stood still during Joshua’s campaign).

Why is Habakkuk rehearsing what happened to Israel at the beginning of their history? One answer is that he is reminding himself of what God could do. Another answer is that in prayer he is reminding the Lord of what he did on previous occasions when his people needed him. And he is praying that the Lord should come and deliver his people and destroy their enemies. In doing so he found confidence for the future because he knew he could ‘quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us’. The Babylonians would yet be dealt with by God in his time.

As he thought of the great deeds of the Lord in the past, Habakkuk was overwhelmed by the might of the Lord. He found himself like Isaiah when he saw the greatness of God (Isa. 6). The prophet was moved to the depth of his being as he contemplated what God had done and what God could do. Greatness made him shudder, even when it was the greatness of grace. 

The obvious lesson for us is to discover and memorise the details of the ways God has worked in the past. We have the records of such divine activities in the Bible and we also have them in the records of church history. Our fathers have told us of the great things God did in their times. When we read them and remember them, they become a great encouragement to our prayers.

Rejoicing in the LORD

Yet how should Habakkuk think as he anticipates the great judgement that is coming? We are probably astonished by what he says in verses 17-19. He begins by describing the worst possible situation in which the whole country is completely ruined (v. 17). Should it happen, he will still rejoice in the Lord. He is not saying that the crisis will happen, but he does say what he will do should it happen. Why will he rejoice in the Lord?

The first point we can notice is how different Habakkuk’s response is from the response of non-Christians when they face trouble. Often when a difficult situation looms, their response is stoical, and they grit their teeth and prepare to force themselves through the difficulty. Others engage in pretence and shut their eyes to the problem, hoping that it will have gone away when they open them. Why do they respond in these ways? Because they do not know God. Of course, Christians wonder if they too could respond the way Habakkuk did, so we need to ask why he did so.

First, Habakkuk will rejoice in the Lord because he is the Saviour of his people (v. 18). This divine role was made clear in what the Lord had done for Israel when he delivered them from Egypt. Yet the prophet makes it more personal by calling it ‘my salvation’. Even although the nation would be in trouble as far as its circumstances were concerned, Habakkuk would not lose the salvation he had received from the Lord. The prophet is telling us here that spiritual experiences are independent of circumstances. As far as society was concerned, the circumstances would remove all bases for joy because it was based on things. In contrast, losing temporal blessings does not mean we will lose spiritual blessings. The psalmist says that he had more joy than those who had a bountiful harvest and here the prophet says he will have spiritual joy even if there is no harvest. It is a question worth asking ourselves, ‘Is my happiness connected to what I have or to the God who has saved me?’

Second, Habakkuk will rejoice because the sovereign God will strengthen him for every situation (v. 19). The difficult time is coming but has not yet arrived. When the trouble comes, he knows that the Lord will strengthen him. The same power that brings the trouble can bring him joy. Earlier he had said that God’s great display of power at the Exodus had been only a hiding of his power. Its greatness served to hide that the Lord could have done far more. Often our problem is not the future, but our fear of the future. Well, Habakkuk gives us the remedy for that fear. The Lord’s strength will be there to give spiritual blessings to his people.

Third, Habakkuk knows that he will still be able to make great spiritual progress: ‘he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.’ He likens himself to a deer that walks sure-footedly along narrow paths on high hillsides which it can climb easily. Times of difficulty should be expectant times when we should anticipate the Lord showing his grace to those who need to walk carefully because of their situations. They will discover that the Lord has his own recompenses when his providence causes them to live in difficult times.