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Articles 2014-2017
”But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
The prophet Habakkuk had heard from the Lord. God was in His holy temple, and all the earth including the prophet himself needed to be still before Him. Notice how he no longer questioned the Lord, but immediately humbled himself and began to pray and worship.
The truth is, our God knows exactly what He is doing, and His ways are perfect. We can face our future with the confidence that we are participating in a plan conceived in eternity and being established in our generation according to Heaven’s timing, wisdom, and power.
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, on Shigionoth.
In reply to the Lord’s reproof, Habakkuk began to pray. But notice the practical instruction at the end of this prophetic book. His response to God was to be presented – To the Chief Musician. With my stringed instruments (Habakkuk 3:19). The man of God began to sing his prayer as he played upon his stringed instruments. And someone more gifted than he at leading worship was to take the song and incorporate it into Judah’s ministry to the Lord. Intercessory worship (the act of ministering to the Lord while also bearing before Him the needs of others both individual and national that He has placed upon our hearts) was God’s strategy for His people as they faced a difficult future.[31]
O Lord, I have heard Your speech and was afraid; O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.
As the prophet began to sing his prayer, he cried out for God to mercifully arise and make His work known again among His people. “O Lord, revive Your work among us. It is not Your people who are the answer for what ails the earth. Rather, it is You; You are our salvation. It is not that we need some new strategy for bringing change among the nations. We stand in desperate need of You. You are our life, our strength, our song, and our righteousness. Where else can we go? You have the words of life.”
But the prophet was not asking to simply have more of God revealed among His people; he wanted to specifically see His work revived. What was that work and specifically how were His people to be involved with it? Many years later, in John’s gospel, Jesus gave clear insight. When the people asked to know how they could work the works of God, His response was both simple and yet profound. “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (John 6:29).
Here is where we stand in 2016 as we face a glorious and yet challenging future. The Lord had told the prophet that His people must live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4). They had to believe in Him. And since those days, the gospel has not somehow become more complicated. Our God does all things well, and He has all authority in heaven and on earth. Christ is now the ruler of the kings of the earth (Revelation 1:5). And we must believe in Him, in His wise administration of the nations. If we do not trust in Him, we will begin to think that the answers for what ails the earth lie in us and in our works for God. But His kingdom is not about people doing works for Him, but rather responding to Him as He arises to make himself known. Which is why God’s project is called the Kingdom of God and not the kingdom of the Church.
As the Lord revives His work in our nation, let us trust Him to arise and increasingly unveil His glory among us. And since He is the Author and the Finisher of faith, may He form in us an increased faith in response to Him. Such faith will grow as we hear Him, for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. “O Lord arise in and through the gospel, permeate the Good News with Your presence and power in its going forth. And may faith arise and increase in the hearers, both in the Church and in the streets.”
God comes from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran.
Selah.
His splendor covers the heavens, and the earth is full of His praise.
(Habakkuk 3:3 NASB)
Immediately, Habakkuk began to prophesy. His prayer had brought an immediate prophetic response from God. And the Lord wanted the people to immediately stop and pause for a moment after His first comment above. The word “Selah” had to do with pausing in the midst of worship, and the Lord had a specific reason for everyone to stop and meditate. At first glance, it seems like He was referring to Moses’ statement in Deuteronomy 33:2 concerning when God gave the Law. The Lord came from Sinai, and dawned on them from Seir; He shone forth from Mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints; from His right hand came a fiery law for them. Moses’ prophetic recounting pictured the giving of God’s fiery Law on Sinai as a dawning that arose over the region of Edom (or Seir) and Paran (located to the north of Sinai and near Edom).[32] As God arose upon Israel, His brilliance shone forth upon these two regions and reflected back upon His people as the dawning of a new day.
But Habakkuk specifically left out the reference to Sinai where the Law was given and referred only to Teman (located in Edom) and Paran. It is as if the prophet was saying that while there came a glory upon Israel through the Law and even a reflection of that glory upon other nations, in the future the Law itself would not be the source of the coming glory arising from Edom (i.e., the Gentile nations).[33]
In fact, Habakkuk prophetically saw God’s glory covering the heavens as well as praise arising to Him from all over the earth. But something would have to change first. While through the Law God had been able to take Israel a certain distance in His purpose, yet He intended to go further. To do so, He planned to reveal more of himself from Heaven. The greater revelation came when He who wrote the Law came down among His people and fulfilled it perfectly. In fact, He was the very glory revealed in the Law.[34] And since He was the perfect expression of what God had always been after among men, He through His obedience even unto death on the cross was found worthy to pour out His Spirit upon all nations.
It seemed that Habakkuk had foreseen a coming manifestation of God’s glory among the Gentile nations that would result in worldwide praise then arising unto Him.
His brightness was like the light; He had rays flashing from His hand, and there His power was hidden [or “veiled” ESV].
The coming glory upon the earth through Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension, and active pouring out of the Holy Spirit will ultimately be a much greater revelation among the nations than ever could be realized through the Law alone. As awesome as was the demonstration of God’s majesty when He delivered Israel from slavery (Moses likened it to a dawning) and established her in her promised land, much more will be the manifestation of His glory as the final day of the Lord approaches. For those with eyes to see, that day will not come as a thief (1 Thessalonians 5:4 - 6) but as a dawning. After all, the coming new creation is already here in some measure and is emerging in His people (2 Corinthians 5:17). And as breathtaking as Habakkuk’s description is of glory covered heavens, worldwide praise, and flashing rays of light from God’s hand, yet it is all made known as a veiled expression of His power. In other words, the prophet is not referring to the glorified Church at the coming of Christ, but of God’s work among His flesh and blood people leading up to that day.
And we must also remember that one of the ways God reveals His glory is through His judgments.
Before Him went pestilence, and fever (or “plague”) followed at His feet.
And He is the only One capable to evaluate and to measure accurately the world and all its systems. He has been doing so since He pronounced His judgment on Adam in Genesis.
He stood and surveyed the earth; He looked and startled the nations. Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered, the ancient hills collapsed. His ways are everlasting.
(Habakkuk 3:6, NAS)
How can perpetual or everlasting mountains be shattered? If they are a picture of nations and kingdoms (as the NAS suggests), then such mountains could symbolize for us those nations who arrogantly think that they and their ways should endure forever. However, just one look from the eyes of the One who has the right to measure and evaluate them is enough to send them fleeing. There is only one influence among the nations that can be defined as everlasting – His ways. Therefore, a people learning His ways will have a future, a destiny. Our God and His ways will outlast all the plans, strategies, and patriotic declarations of every nation that exalts itself before Him.
I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; the curtains of the land of Midian trembled.
Men would tremble before God as He arose in the earth, the fear of the Lord would again proliferate.
But the prophet had a question.
O Lord, were You displeased with the rivers, was Your anger against the rivers, was Your wrath against the sea, that You rode on Your horses, Your chariots of salvation? Your bow was made quite ready; oaths were sworn over Your arrows.
Selah
You divided the earth with rivers.
In the above verses, the prophet wanted to know if it was the creation itself that God was displeased with.
The mountains saw You and trembled; the overflowing of the water passed by. The deep uttered its voice, and lifted its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their habitation; at the light of Your arrows they went, at the shining of Your glittering spear. You marched through the land in indignation; You trampled the nations in anger.
Clearly, the Lord had shaken the whole creation as He arose to make himself known in His chariots of salvation while also trampling nations under His feet. But wait! There was more to this than simply God’s wrath upon the wicked.
You went forth for the salvation of Your people, for salvation with Your Anointed (Hebrew, MASHIYACH or Messiah). You struck the head from the house of the wicked, by laying bare from foundation to neck. Selah
“Lord, the whole point of Your arising among the nations was the salvation of Your people! As a matter of fact, You were at work in Your Anointed One, the Messiah of Israel. And You were so successful in Him, that You struck the head of the house of the wicked and exposed him to open shame from the very foundations of his being. You stripped our enemy of his weaponry and exposed him to all as the great liar that he is.”
You thrust through with his own arrows the head of his villages. They came out like a whirlwind to scatter me; their rejoicing was like feasting on the poor in secret. You walked through the sea with Your horses, through the heap of great waters.
“Oh Lord, though the enemy came out to attack Your prophetic voice, You led the way for us through the sea of deliverance. And that very sea became the exact place where our enemies were destroyed.”
But the prophet was deeply troubled. What he had heard concerned him deeply.
When I heard, my body trembled; my lips quivered at the voice; rottenness entered my bones; and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble. When he comes up to the people, he will invade them with his troops.
It sounds like Habakkuk had become fearful in the light of the coming Babylonian invasion. Yet when we read the final three verses of his book, we see the prophet fearlessly rejoicing in the light of what was coming on the land.
So consider the English Standard Version’s rendering of the above verse. It gives a slightly different perspective on the prophet’s words.
I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.
(Habakkuk 3:16 ESV)
According to this perspective, the prophet was not afraid for what was coming upon Judah, but for what was coming upon the Babylonian invaders.
So today, we must not fear the enemy or his plans. We must not cower before the darkness arising in our nation. Rather, we should receive from our God a growing fear for those who oppose Him because of Heaven’s righteous judgments building up over their heads. Instead of seeing those who promote wickedness as our enemies, let us see them with an increased compassion. Let us cry out to the Lord to have mercy on them – that He would send upon them a spirit of repentance, that they might begin to weep over their sins. Let us pray for God to release His grace of repentance upon our Congress, our White House, our Judiciary, and our educational institutions, as well as His Church.
No, Habakkuk was not wallowing in great fear of the coming invasion, he was rejoicing in the Lord God of heaven who was bringing His judgments to bear on His people.
Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls–yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
If because of the Babylonian invasion, the economy of the nation (both the agricultural and meat industries) were to collapse, yet the prophet would rejoice in the Lord.
The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer’s feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills.
In fact, the prophet would have the strength to walk in places of intimacy with God no matter what was going on in the nation. So also in our day, let us press in to know Him. Let us find the secret places of intimacy that He has designed to meet with us. Those who walk alone with God together with others who walk alone with Him will begin to see the integration of a corporate bridal people reflecting the glorious majesty of our God that our darkened world so desperately needs to see. And such a bridal people will experience a joy that sustains them with strength, though the conditions around them crumble.
To the Chief Musician. With my stringed instruments.
Donald Rumble – July 2016
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