Habakkuk 3:1-7
A PRAYER OF PRAISE
[Psalm 77]
Habakkuk is a beautiful gem of a book written by a prophet who started out wrestling with God and ended up worshiping Him. The distressed prophet who complained over the unchecked sin of his country in the first part of chapter one, was amazed at God’s disclosure that He had already prepared an instrument to judge Judah, namely, Babylon. Habakkuk was shocked. He expressed his dilemma to God and waited for an answer. That answer came in chapter two in the form of a dirge, or taunt-song, that Habakkuk was instructed to record. Learning of God’s just plan to destroy Babylon, Habakkuk bowed in humble adoration. A majestic prayer and hymn of praise followed in chapter three.
His prayer in chapter 3, one of the grandest in the Bible, is a pinnacle of praise. It is the mountain top destination of a journey that began in the valley of distress and doubt of chapter one. Let’s look this morning at the first part of the Prayer of Praise to God for His power and involvement in the world.
I. PRAYER FOR REVIVAL AND MERCY, 1-2.
II. PRAISE FOR GOD’S SPLENDOR AND MAJESTY, 3-7.
If you would have what God alone can give, we must pray. If you would have revival in God’s house, His people must pray. Habakkuk records a prayer song of praise for God’s people to sing (see the last statement of chapter 3). As verse 1 states, the song is, “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth.”
The revelation of God to Habakkuk has changed him. His circumstances had not changed, but he had changed. He is now walking by faith instead of by sight. He is living by God’s promises, not by human reasonings. Originally he was concerned with iniquity and injustice as it affected his personal world and his nation. Then he was concerned with violence and injustice within the whole world and how God dealt with the world. Now that he has encounter the Lord in a fuller, deeper way, he is concerned about and focused on God and His majestic glory. So he humbly lays bare his heart and begins this new section of the oracle with the words, “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet.” He had come to understand that His God’s ways were beyond Him but through faith and meditation they are glorious to Him. He now stands again simply as Habakkuk the prophet.
Habakkuk records this prayer of praise as a hymn that can be used in public worship. The word Shigionoth is obscure [from šagah, to stumble or go astray]. Scholars think it most probably is a liturgical or worship term or a plea for guidance. Habakkuk was no passive spectator of the sad spiritual decline of Judah nor was he a passive recipient of the coming judgment. These disclosures of God stirred him deeply and caused him to pray, just as they should all of us.
The profound burden of the prophet’s heart is expressed in verse 2. “LORD, I have heard the report about Thee and I fear. O LORD, revive Thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make it known, in wrath remember mercy.”
Habakkuk had heard God’s purposes to discipline Judah and then destroy Babylon. The report filled him with fear or apprehension. Fear or reverence is his personal reaction to the power and sovereignty of God. God’s answer was beyond simple human understanding and God’s sovereignty is an awesome reality. The disturbed prophet finds his outlet for his burden in prayer which begins with two petitions. He prayed for a fresh manifestation of God’s power (revival of deeds) and a full measure of pardon (mercy). Both God’s deeds and mercy were requested. These are the only petitions in the entire prayer.
His first request is for the renewal or revival of God’s working in the world and in individual lives. Revival always begins with God. The need to renew (hiyâh) the impact of God’s previous workings. [The anchor-point of Israel’s faith and hope–the Exodus experience implies that redemption and sanctification were facing extinction]. The twice repeated phrase in the midst of the years states that God’s life changing intervention was needed right now.
Israel needed God to make known, to make alive, by experiential proofs, by the reenactments of His deeds of power and Habakkuk pleaded that God would do it immediately. The prophet wanted God to manifest His grace upon Israel. When Habakkuk prayed for God’s work to come alive, he was also praying that his own faith might grow.
If there is going to be revival their must be a stirring of our hearts by God over what is not happening in the Church and what is happening in the world.
When British evangelist Gipsy Smith was asked how to start a revival, he said, “Go home, lock yourself in your room, kneel down in the middle of your floor. Draw a chalk mark all around yourself and ask God to start the revival inside that chalk mark. When He has answered your prayer, the revival will be on.”
Smith’s reply makes an important point. Even though we should pray for revival in our churches, we need not wait for a spectacular working of God’s Spirit in others to experience His power in our own lives. In fact, the Lord is ready right now to bless us personally if we will meet His conditions.
HOW TO HAVE A REVIVAL
Are you a believer whose heart has grown cold? Have you become indifferent to the Lord? Have the things of earth and the pleasures of this life taken priority over the spiritual and eternal values? If so, I encourage you to take these steps: (1) Acknowledge your need. (2) Confess your sins to the Lord. (3) Spend time daily in God’s Word listening to God (4) Talk to your heavenly Father in prayer. (5) Determine to say no to every temptation of the world, the flesh, and the devil. (6)Then say yes to God, His will and His way. The Holy Spirit who dwells within you is more powerful than Satan (1 John 4:4).
So, rather than sitting back and waiting for some great moving of God’s Spirit in the lives of other believers, let’s individually meet the conditions for spiritual power, victory, and joy in our own lives. That’s how we can have a revival! Remember, You cannot kindle a fire in another’s heart until it is burning in your own.
The prophet’s second request evolved out of the first. God was going to judge Israel because of the presence of sin. This disciplining was going to be a difficult experience. The prophet realized that Judah deserved to be chastened, and that God’s discipline would work our for their good. His intercession is that God’s heart of love would reveal itself in mercy. Habakkuk did not ask to escape the needed chastising or wrath (rogez) but pleads for God to remember mercy when He judges. The greatest mercy we can receive from God is the sending of revival.
God’s wrath is the inevitable outcome for those who break covenant with Him, but His constant and consistent disposition is mercy toward those who walk in His will and way. Disobedience, injustice, violence and innocent blood shed called for His wrath but Habakkuk calls on God to remember and exhibit the merciful side of His character as well. A renewed desire to acknowledge and follow God allows the flood gates of His mercy to open. Our hope and the hope of the church is that God will be merciful.
“If, like Habakkuk, you ever become discouraged about the condition of the church, the state of the world, or your own spiritual life, take time to pray and seek God’s mercy. Charles Spurgeon said, “Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the kingdom.” The greatest need today is for intercessors. “And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor” (Isa. 59:16).” (Wiersbe; Be Amazed, 130).
II. A PRAISE FOR GOD’S SPLENDOR AND MAJESTY, 3-7.
Habakkuk’s telephone-like conversation with God in chapter 1 became more like a closed-circuit television hookup in chapter 2. As the prophet began to pray for revival he was ushered into the very presence of the Creator with whom he had spoken so boldly from a distance. The prophet knelt to speak in the presence of the Sovereign Lord (Job 42:5).
Verse 3 declares that the visible power of God is manifested on earth.“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 sees God coming down again as He did for His people at Mount Sinai. He came down to liberate His covenant people (Deut. 33:2). Teman was a desert oasis in southern Palestine (Edom) but it might also represent the entire region south of the Dead Sea. "Seir," used by Moses, was a poetic name for the mountainous region referred to as Teman.
Mt. Paran also lies in southern Palestine (Edom), between the Sinai Peninsula to the south and Kadesh Barnea to the north, another mountainous area. It was in this area that God’s formation of Israel began in earnest after the exodus. There He performed many wonders as He led, protected, judged and shaped His people through the wilderness journey to the Promised Land and on into its conquest.
God’s use of the forces of nature are remembered as acts of a mighty warrior going before His people. God comes down and His splendor or the light of His glory (hod) covers (kissah) the heavens. God’s splendor permeates the heavens and expresses in them and by them His majesty. (Selah).
God’s shimmering glory not only filled the heavens but His praise filled the earth. The power of His work and character filled up the earth. His praise will be manifested in His creation at this appearing. Selah, pause and meditate on it! One day He will display His splendor and fill the earth with His praise (2:14).
Verse three deals with the extent of God’s coming and verses 4-6 point out some of the effects. Verse 4 illustrates the coming of God’s brilliant splendor as seen in the light of the sun at sunrise. “His radiance is like the sunlight; He has rays flashing from His hand, and there is the hiding of His power.”
All creation reflects God’s splendor and His radiance or brilliance is manifested as light. The Lord is perceived as illuminating the world, with the rays of sunlight. The rays (lit. twin-horns-forked lightening) are flashes of light and power emanating from His presence. The hand is repeatedly used as a symbol of the Lord’s power (e.g. Ex. 13:14, 16, 14:5, Deut. 2:24; 4:34).
Just as the rays of light streak across the morning sky so rays flash from God’s hand. And there in the brightness is the hiding of His power. The splendor actually conceals the glorious invisible God. Our God is a God that hides (habah) His power. It is easy to forget that the sun that showers light and warmth upon the earth is a ball of fire that could consume our globe in a moment should we come in contact. The revelation of God is always restrained lest it consume His beholders.
The unseen God also has hidden powers at His disposal. Verse 5, “Before Him goes plague, and pestilence comes after Him.”
God is fully capable of exercising His cleansing power. Habakkuk saw that as God moved across the land, plagues preceded Him and pestilence, literally burning heat or bolts of fire, lay in His wake. Plagues and pestilence are attributed to divine agency as part of judgment. At His will God can strike down His enemies with plagues like He did with the 10 plagues of Egypt or with pestilence. The pestilence may refer to some disease accompanied with burning fever or it could mean fire bolts coming down out of the sky. According to Revelation 6 plagues and visitations will precede the visible coming of the Lord to earth. His grace and glory are coupled with His might and judgment.
God can manifest His power by simply standing still as verse 6 indicates. The “He stood and surveyed the earth; He looked and trembled the nations. Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered, the ancient hills sank down, His ways are everlasting.”
Habakkuk’s vision of God coming down and moving across the land reach a climax. God stood still as sovereign and surveyed the earth as if to measure it for His actions. His very presence caused the earth to shake as it is convulsed by earthquakes and volcanic upheavals. Furthermore by a mere glance at the nations He causes them to tremble (nâtar - lit. leap in terror). This shaking of all things is further described as the perpetual mountains and the eternal hills the most solid, permanent and grandest fixtures of the globe, crumbling into dust. They are frail and temporary before the Ancient of Days before whose presence they shatter and bow down. Although they appear old and permanent, in truth God alone is eternal and His ways are everlasting. The creation itself knows who is its master.
In verse 7 the distress of the peoples of earth is brought into focus. “I saw the tents of Cushan under distress, the tent curtains of the land of Midian were trembling.”
The nations are now illustrated by Cushan and Midian. These nations would have been the first to experience God’s coming to visit His people (north from Teman and Mt. Paran). The tents speaks of their nomadic existence. These peoples are under distress because they were worshiping idols, God’s of their own making, instead of the Creator-warrior of Israel. Even those most able to exist outside of the ways of the earth will be distressed and quake at the Lord’s Coming.
CONCLUSION
Habakkuk’s request for revival is a great petition to put before God, and it is certainly one we need to place before the Lord. We need God to reveal His mighty acts in the earth again. Maybe we will not cry out for revival because of the barrenness of our soul and our religion does not reveal its need until our situation, like Israel’s, is revealed as critical with the hand of God’s judgment closing in on our nation. May we learn a lesson from history and seek God’s reviving now in the midst of this year.
Will you come & pray for revival as God extends this time of invitation. The altar is open; come & seek God’s face. The burden for revival must begin in prayer.
