Will you please turn to Habakkuk 3? We will read the first two verses.
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, set to Shigionoth.
O Lord, I have heard the report of Thee, and am afraid:
O Lord, revive Thy work in the midst of the years;
In the midst of the years make it known;
In wrath remember mercy.
Let us pray.
Lord, Thou art in Thy holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Thee. Lord, we are in Thy presence. We bow ourselves. In wrath remember mercy. This is our only plea. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, the brothers and sisters from various places met together last December. We waited together before the Lord, looking to Him to show us what He wanted to speak to us at this time. And thank God, He is so merciful. He revealed His mind to us at that time, and that is Habakkuk 3:2.
It is the prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, and that prayer becomes the theme of this conference:
O Lord, I have heard the report of Thee, and am afraid:
O Lord, revive Thy work in the midst of the years;
In the midst of the years make it known;
In wrath remember mercy.
Revive Thy work. We know that our God is always working. His Sabbath rest was broken after our forefathers sinned, and ever since, God has been working: working to restore, to recover, to accomplish that which He has ordained even before time.
We remember our Lord Jesus said in John 5:17:
My Father worketh even until now, and I work.
God always works. His work is toward the accomplishment of His eternal will. Sometimes it may appear to us that God’s work has slowed down, even to a full stop. Of course, to the eyes of faith, they can see that God really never ceases working. He is working and working.
But to most of us, it seems as if God has stopped working. We wonder what the reason behind it is. It can be because of the unfaithfulness of man, or it may be the resistance put up by His enemy.
We know that God always works on men, with men, and for men. So the unfaithfulness of God’s people may delay His work, even though we know it can never destroy God’s work.
From time to time, God, in His great mercy, works in spite of His people. And these are times of revival.
We also know that the enemy is trying very hard to frustrate God’s work, and sometimes he may be able to delay God’s work. You remember in the book of Daniel, in Daniel 10, Daniel fasted and prayed for three weeks.
After three weeks, the Lord appeared to him, and the Lord said to him, “On the very day that you began to pray, I was sent to you, Daniel; but the prince of Persia resisted for twenty-one days.” So we find that sometimes the enemy seems to be able to resist and delay God’s working. But we know that eventually, God always succeeds.
Dear brothers and sisters, we feel that we are in a time that needs reviving from above. We sense the need of a refreshing of our drooping spirit, a renewal of our relationship with our Lord and with one another, a recovery of the ground of truth that we have lost, and a quickening of the works of our hands. We deeply sense the need of such a reviving.
Because of this, we find God’s people trying to hold revival meetings, hearing stirring messages and emotional stories, hoping that we may be revived. It may seem that it works, but it works only for a short time, and then we have to come back and have another revival meeting.
Why? It is because we are so self-centered. We want to have our works revived, ourselves revived. But the prayer of Habakkuk the prophet is different. His prayer is not, “Revive my works.” His prayer is, “Revive Thy work.”
It is not so much our works being revived. What is important is God’s work being revived. So I feel our attention has to be changed. We have to look to the Lord that His work may be revived among us, that God may be stirred, as it were, into working.
If we expect God’s work to be revived, then, brothers and sisters, we cannot do anything. We cannot bring it to pass. All we can do is humble ourselves and look for His mercy.
God will revive a humble spirit and a contrite heart. That is the only condition in which He can work. So, brothers and sisters, as we meet together at this time, we are not trying to work up something. We want to humble ourselves before Him.
His mercy is our only plea, that it may please God to revive His work among His people. Brothers and sisters, only when God revives His work will the work of our hands also be revived.
I think especially of the prayer of Moses, the servant of God, in Psalm 90. It is the prayer of Moses, and I would read a part of it, beginning with Psalm 90:13.
Return, O Lord; how long?
And let it repent Thee concerning Thy servants.
Oh satisfy us in the morning with Thy lovingkindness,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us,
And the years wherein we have seen evil.
Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants,
And Thy glory upon their children.
And let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And establish Thou the work of our hands upon us;
Yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it.
We have to cry to the Lord, “Return, O Lord. Make us glad. Let Thy work appear; let Thy majesty be unto Thy sons, and Thy beauty be upon us.” So, dear brothers and sisters, as God in His mercy comes to us and reveals His beauty to us, then the work of our hands will be established.
We are in a time not very different from the time of the prophet Habakkuk. We do not know exactly when the prophet prophesied. There are different thoughts.
Some say that probably Habakkuk prophesied during the latter years of Manasseh. We know that Manasseh was a very evil king, and it was because of the sins of Manasseh that God was determined to destroy the nation of Judah. But in his later years, after he returned from captivity, he repented. Some say that perhaps Habakkuk prophesied during that time.
Others say that Habakkuk probably prophesied during the latter part of the reign of Josiah. We know King Josiah was a good king. He served the Lord with a perfect heart, like his father David. But even with the reform that he brought into the nation of Judah, he was not able to avert the judgment of God.
Some people say the prophet Habakkuk prophesied during the reign of Jehoiakim. We know it was in the time of Jehoiakim that the nation of Judah was taken into Babylonian captivity. So we do not know exactly the time that the prophet Habakkuk prophesied, probably around 638 to 586 BC.
But anyway, we find that even after the repentance of King Manasseh, and even with the reform brought in under King Josiah, the spiritual condition of Judah was not much changed.
When the prophet looked at the people, God gave him an eye that could see. And because he was able to see as God saw, he was deeply disturbed.
O Lord, how long shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear?
I cry out unto Thee of violence, and Thou wilt not save.
He looked at the people—his own people, God’s people—and he saw the reality of their spiritual state. So he cried out to God, and heaven seemed to be silent.
He asked God, why did He allow him to see violence, and yet do nothing to stop it? Why did God allow him to see iniquity all around, and do nothing? Why did God allow him to see strife and contention everywhere, and do nothing? Why was there lawlessness all around, no more justice, and God did nothing?
The prophet Habakkuk, seeing what God saw in His people, fully expected God to judge—to do something to correct the situation. Yet God seemed to do nothing. He was deeply, deeply disturbed.
Brothers and sisters, oftentimes we are in a situation where we see, and yet we do not see. How we need God’s eyesight. If we have God’s eyesight and really see what is going on among God’s people, our own people, and if we have God’s sense of justice and righteousness, we will stand on God’s side and say, “God, judge. Do not allow this to continue. Do something.”
And heaven seems silent. Brothers and sisters, it is better to see God judge than to see nothing happening. The prophet was deeply disturbed. He fully expected God to do something for His own name’s sake.
As he was crying unto the Lord, the Lord spoke to him. The Lord said, “I will do a work in your days—hard to believe. You will not believe it, but that is what I am going to do. I am going to judge My people with a people who are even more wicked than My people.”
God said He was going to raise up the Chaldeans, the Babylonians—a violent, greedy, wicked people—to punish God’s own people. Now, that was fully unexpected by the prophet Habakkuk.
He expected God to do something to judge the violence, the sins, and the wickedness among His own people. But he would never expect that God would use a more wicked people to judge His own people. He could not take it. So again, he cried to the Lord, “How can You do it?”
He went to the tower, to the watchtower, trying to see if God had something more to reveal. And there God gave him a vision.
In Habakkuk 2:2-4:
And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets,
That he may run that readeth it.
For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie:
Though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not delay.
Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him;
But the righteous shall live by his faith.
God said that indeed He would judge Judah with Babylon. Babylon was an instrument in God’s hand. But because he was used by God in subduing the nations, his soul became puffed up. He became proud of himself.
Because of this, God too would judge Babylon. But it was for another appointed time. It would come; it would not delay. But during that period, what could the prophet do? What could God’s people do? The righteous shall live by his faith.
So, brothers and sisters, here you find a reviving of faith. Only faith can look above and beyond the circumstances. Only faith can look into God and see what He is after. And only with that faith is one able to stand and be comforted.
Brothers and sisters, in a sense, our time is not very different from the time of Habakkuk. Thank God, we are God’s people, as the children of Israel were. And yet, if the Lord should look upon us today, what would He see?
You look at God’s people, and your heart is sick. There is not only apostasy prophesied at the end of days; we find there is a general falling away among God’s people. Our condition is not beautiful. We need faith.
Our time is not very different from the time that Ezra and Nehemiah lived. We know that the children of Israel, because of their sin, their idolatry, and their abominations in the eyes of the Lord, were taken into Babylonian captivity.
While they were in Babylonian captivity, in the beginning they hoped that it would not be long. As a matter of fact, false prophets came up and said that within two years those who were taken captive to Babylon would return.
If you read Jeremiah 28, you find that in the fourth year of King Zedekiah, a false prophet, Hananiah, prophesied and said that in two years those in Babylonian captivity would return. He even broke the wooden yoke that was upon the neck of Jeremiah.
But we find that they did not return. They were in Babylonian captivity for seventy years. They settled down there. They built their own houses. They had their own businesses, and they were prosperous.
They lost all hope of returning. They did not even hope to return. They were quite happy in a land of captivity. Then God, in His mercy, faithful to His covenant, stirred the heart of King Cyrus to give a decree that the children of Israel in captivity could go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the house of God.
We would think that the whole Jewish people in captivity would rise up and go back, but not so. They forgot the house of God. They did not hear the testimony of God. They lived for themselves. They were happy, comfortable, and prosperous.
So even when God opened the door for them to return, we know only a remnant returned. They returned under Zerubbabel and Joshua. About fifty thousand people returned out of the great multitude.
Then later on, under Ezra, about fifteen hundred people returned. Later on, under Nehemiah, there was another return. Those remnants returned, and they rebuilt the temple, the house of God. They beautified the temple, rebuilt the ruined wall, and restored peace.
My brothers and sisters, again you find only a remnant returned. The rest just stayed in the land of captivity. Out of a hopeless situation, God gives them hope—a reviving hope.
Then again, we find at the end of the first century, John the apostle was exiled on the island of Patmos. There he was given a vision of the seven churches in Asia, which tells us of the spiritual condition of the church at that time. And it was not a very beautiful picture either.
First love was lost. Separation from the world was lost. The teaching of man replaced the commandment of God. In name, living; in reality, dead. Neither hot nor cold. That was the situation at the end of the first century.
There needed to be a reviving of love, of first love toward God. Now, we know that all these are types. They are written for our admonition, for us who live at the end of the age. Are we not living at the end of the age? We are.
So these are types written for our admonition. In other words, God wants us to learn something there: to learn something from Habakkuk, to learn something from Ezra and Nehemiah, and to learn something from the apostle John at the end of the first century. And what is it that God wants us to learn?
As we look into our own condition, we who are living at the end of the age, what is our spiritual condition? We find that because of the increase of wickedness, the love of the many has grown cold. But in Matthew 24:13, we are told, “He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.”
You know, when you find everything is falling apart, when you find that situations seem unable to be corrected, you lose faith. You lose faith in God. You wonder whether God is able to do anything.
But the righteous shall live by his faith. This is the lesson you find in Habakkuk. Everything may be falling apart, but God remains the same. Our faith is anchored upon God, not upon anything else. We know that His will shall be done. All that He has determined to have, He will have.
So in our days, I think we need a real reviving of faith—a turning away from everything and just turning to the Lord, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
We not only lose faith in other people, and plenty; we even lose faith in ourselves, whether there is anything God can do. But thank God, we may be faithless; He is always faithful. He cannot deny Himself, and He will eventually accomplish all that He has ordained for His people.
Hope—is there any hope? The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:19:
If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable.
Are we hoping for something in this life? Then we are most miserable. But thank God, our hope is not in this life, but in the life to come. Our hope is in God.
In Hebrews 3:6, it says that if we hold fast the boldness and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end, then we are God’s house. So we look to the Lord that there will be a reviving of hope.
Not hope in ourselves—no hope. Nor hope in anybody else—no. Our only hope is in God, in Christ Jesus. Look up to Him.
The same thing is true with love. God is love. We can only find that in Him, that He may restore the first love among His people.
Now, why are faith, hope, and love so essential to the testimony of Jesus? Because the testimony of Jesus is not a set of doctrines. It is not a theological system. The testimony of Jesus is very living and real.
How can we bear the testimony of Jesus? In what way is the testimony of Jesus borne by His church? Not just by words. It has to be borne by a life—a life that shows that our Lord Jesus is living.
He is living today as He was two thousand years ago. And how can we testify to the world that the Lord is living unless we see Him, hear Him, touch Him, and experience Him? He is living in us, and out of us He lives.
Testimony is to be lived out, not to be talked about. In order to live out the testimony of Jesus, it has to be kept in faith, in hope, and in love. Faith, hope, and love are the three essentials of Christian living.
If we do not have faith, then our work is nothing. It is our work, not a work of faith. If we do not have love, our labor is vain because, again, we are struggling. It is not the outflow of Christ.
If we endure, it is by our own will and strength. It is not because of the hope that lies before us. And that gives the reality; that gives the testimony of Jesus.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we need to look to the Lord to revive His work—to revive faith in us, hope in us, and love in us. To put it very simply, it is all centered upon Him.
So may the Lord help us to look away from ourselves, from everything else, and just humble ourselves together before the Lord. Cry to Him and say, “Revive Thy work. Revive us in faith, in hope, and in love.” So may we have a little time of prayer.