The Prayer of Habakkuk
Harry Foster
PRAYER is not the only thing, but it is paramount. When the Israelites emerged from Egypt to find themselves committed to a conflict, it may at first sight appear that Joshua was given the hard task as he led the fighting, while Moses himself chose a softer option by going up into the place of prayer. This was far from the case. Moses was the man who needed support in the well-nigh impossible task of keeping his hands aloft, while Joshua moved steadily into victory so long as those interceding arms were held up to heaven. At the end of that battle and with the assurance of Jehovah-nissi -- The Lord is my banner -- Joshua was informed that this divine warfare would continue "from generation to generation" (Exodus 17:16). Centuries later Habakkuk found himself committed to this spiritual conflict.
It seems that his rather unusual name was derived from an intensive form of a verb which means 'to embrace'. It has been variously explained as one who lovingly embraces God's purposes or alternatively as a man grappling with spiritual problems in the locking embrace of a wrestler. The very first verses clearly show us the prophet getting to grips with a major problem, so I rather favour the thought of wrestling, especially as this is the idea of prayer suggested by Ephesians 6:12. For Habakkuk's main business was prayer. His short book does not deal with the usual ministry of a prophet, namely of speaking to men on God's behalf, but rather depicts the activity of speaking to God on behalf of His people. This must always be a prophetic priority: "He is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee", God said at the beginning of things (Genesis 20:7). For Habakkuk praying was no easy task. He lived in a troubled world, as we do. It is not necessary for us to preoccupy ourselves with the historical allusions in the book, but at least we can readily identify with a man who is bewildered by current events, especially among God's people, and tempted to question the activities -- or perhaps the inactivity -- of his God. We take the chapters one by one.
It is not surprising that the man who so took God's interests to heart should be crying, "How long?" and be driven almost to desperation in his questioning, "Why ...?" On every hand he could see the enemies of the Church threatening to bring in defeat and destruction, and to him it looked as though the Lord would neither hear His servant nor deliver His people. This was not the petty questioning of a man over his personal problems, reasonable as that might be, but the vast question of God's interests in His redeemed people. Some of his words have an unhappy familiarity to us: 'spoiling', 'violence', 'strife', 'strife and contention', 'perverted judgment'. We feel so helpless. So did Habakkuk. But a man is never helpless when he has access to God.
From verse 5 to verse 11 we have God's immediate response to the prophet's agonised complaint. It gave little reassurance and certainly offered no explanation, its tenor being a warning that matters would get still worse. Things were going to happen which would be hard to believe. Not that they were or would ever be out of hand. Oh no! The startling and dreadful events would be God's work: "For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans ...". The praying man must never lose sight of the sovereignty of God. Nevertheless the prospect was daunting indeed; there was no swift or easy answer to Habakkuk's enquiry.
Why did the Lord so respond to His servant's prayer? None of us understands God's ways, but may I suggest that it was in accordance with that frequent way that He has of putting faith to severe tests. The spiritual infant gets quick answers to his prayers. He needs them. The more adult he becomes in his walk with God, the more likely is it that he will be faced by delays and enigmas. If this was so in the case of our prophet, then he emerged magnificently from this first test. Undeterred by what had been told him, he made further appeals to God, keeping well in view the One to whom his prayers were directed, the eternal and holy God whom His people know as the Rock (verse 12). If Habakkuk teaches us nothing more, he at least demonstrates that we must never give up, but go on praying. We note, however, that this further prayer only ends in a question mark (v.17).[76/77]
Having seemingly prayed himself to a standstill Habakkuk turned away from God to muse with himself: "I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon my tower, and will look forth to see what he will speak with me" (v.1). Perhaps we may rightly interpret these words to mean that he would stop speaking for the moment and listen to what God would say. He seems to have realised that such an activity would be fiercely contested so he would have to mount guard over this place of communion, making the place of prayer a veritable fortress and resisting every effort to make him quit it. Listening is always an important part of praying; like the telephone, prayer is not a Tannoy [(brand-name) audio] system for hailing God but a two-way instrument of communication; but if prayer is subjected to many pressures, perhaps quietly listening to God is even more contested.
How long he had to wait we do not know. In the narrative we get the impression that the divine response was immediate and this is not surprising, for often God's greatest difficulty is to get His people to be quiet before Him. God's words spoke of both vision and action: "Write ... read ... run ...". Far from being a waste of time to wait before God, this is the surest and quickest means of getting things done. The central chapter of this short prophecy provides the heart of Habakkuk's message. It has three main points, which I will take in reverse order.
i. God's Sovereignty
"But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him" (v.20). It is not much use praying if we are not wholly convinced of the absolute sovereignty of the God to whom we pray. God is quite unmoved by the strange things which may trouble us here on the earth. In fact this verse suggests to us that earth's events are really decided in the hidden realms of heaven.
The Lord did not reprove His servant for raising the many controversial points which he voiced in his prayer, but He quietened the prophet with the assurance that He knew all about them and was overruling in the violence and chaos of it all, insisting that it was due to Him, the Lord of hosts, that the nations of the earth were wearing themselves out "for vanity" (v.13). They did not realise their own futility, but it was to them, as much as to His own people, that He commanded: "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). But He says it to us also. As we say -- sometimes, I fear, rather glibly -- 'God is still on the throne'. Appearances may be all against this, so much so that to use the phrase could be superficial and even smug. It is easy for us to say or sing it while we are in some safe and comfortable circumstances, but might not be so easy if we were in the earth's trouble spots. But even if it would not be easy, it would still be true. He is far above all.
How can we be sure of this, for we are shut up to faith, never having seen that throne? Well, faith need not falter, since the Word of God makes His sovereignty very plain. It does so in actual words, with strong assurances from the God who cannot lie. But it also does so in historical examples, not least in the Gospels. There are very few matters which are stated four times over in all the Gospels, but it is not without significance that in each one of the four we are told how the Lord Jesus stilled the winds and the waves. This was clearly a notable miracle, and in some of the accounts we are informed that the Lord actually walked on those tempestuous waters before silencing them. Others may have done some of the miracles which He performed, but nobody else has ever or can ever display this complete mastery of the creation. It may not strike those unacquainted with animals that His entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was at all miraculous, but in fact the quiet acceptance of a rider by this unbroken donkey and its obedient progress through the midst of an enormous crowd-demonstration was a further and unique proof of the same mastery.
When the disciples appealed to Jesus to calm the storm, He did not commend their cry to Him but rather rebuked them for their lack of faith (Mark 4:40). Clearly then, and certainly later with the apostle Paul (Acts 27:25), the most important thing is to experience that inner peace which can trust Him in the fiercest storm:
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.
This is a challenge to us all. For the most part the problems of my readers will not be as sensational as what happened to the apostles, but they may be just as acute to us. In my secluded home [77/78] I hear not only of oppressed believers abroad but also of divided churches at home and grieve at the satanic inroads upon the unity and spirituality of God's true people. It would not be difficult to become as dejected and desperate as Habakkuk or to cry out, as he did, in puzzled dismay at the way in which the enemy seems to be catching God's people in his net and generally having all his own way (1:15). If Christ is really the Head of His Church and if it is the work of the Holy Spirit to administer His lordship, then how much longer do we have to wait to see these facts in full operation?
There can only be one answer to these questions and that is to keep on believing that the throne of the universe is occupied by our almighty Lord. What we must do is to wait and worship. And, of course, to go on praying.
ii. The Coming Glory
Though the vision linger, we must wait for it, for it will certainly come in God's own appointed time (v.3). When the writer to the Hebrews took up this verse, he focused the divine words of hope upon the person of the Coming Lord. "He who is coming will come, and will not delay" he wrote, adding his own comment that it will be "in just a very little while" (Hebrews 10:37). God may seem remote but He is working purposefully to a plan and that plan is one of universal glory: "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (v.14). When the Lord Jesus breaks through into this earthly scene it will be so wonderful that it will have been worth waiting for.
We must not be too surprised if the time is long. The Lord Jesus spoke in His parables of servants reasoning, "My lord delayeth his coming" (Matthew 24:48) and of the lord returning, "after a long time" (Matthew 25:19), while Peter explained that the delay is not due to any slackness on the part of the Lord but rather to His long suffering (2 Peter 3:9). In doing so he quoted from the Psalm of Moses and enjoined his readers not to forget that with the Lord "a thousand years are as one day". If that is the case, then perhaps we may suggest that it is not yet two days since the angels announced that "this same Jesus ... shall so come in like manner as you saw him going into heaven" (Acts 1:11).
Habakkuk began his prophecies with the question, "How long?" It is one which the Church has long been posing, and it seems that the "souls under the altar" re-echo that enquiry (Revelation 6:10-11). For us, as well as for them, John recorded the divine injunction to "wait a little longer", for the purposes of God must await His wise choice of "the hour and day and month and year" (Revelation 9:15). The purposes of God take their time, but we may be certain that they will be totally fulfilled. The Lord Jesus will come again. Of that we may be assured. If therefore the depressing circumstances of the present darkness oppress our spirits, we must mount to our watch-tower and look again at what God has to say in His Word of the coming Day of glory. The seas around us may seem rough now but the time will come when that glory will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Habakkuk had to face the growing darkness of the Captivity. In that testing time he was to be silenced by the conviction that the Lord was in His holy temple. The captivity came and was eventually followed by the glad day of release. When the captives were back in the land, another prophet was privileged to call all flesh to be silent, only this time he was able to declare that God was on the move: "Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord; for he is waked up out of his holy habitation" (Zechariah 2:13). Perhaps that return from the Captivity was a tiny foreshadowing of the great and final Restoration of all things. Who knows? It may be that we are about to witness the supreme moment when the Lord will rouse Himself from His holy dwelling and come back with power and great glory. In any case we are advised to silence all our doubts and questionings, for that Coming is as certain as the dawn.
iii. The Call for Faith
We have worked back from verse 20 and through verse 14 and now find ourselves at the beginning of this second chapter. Here we are told of the divine ruling that God's justified servants must go on living by faith: "The just shall live by his faith" (v.4). The alternative rendering, "... by his faithfulness" does not lessen the thrust of the command, for what is faith if it does not make the one who exercises it faithful? Or could it be that implicit in this sentence is a reference to the faithfulness of God: "The just [78/79] shall live by His faithfulness?" What, after all, is faith but total confidence in the faithfulness of God?
Nevertheless the New Testament makes it plain that the right translation is 'faith' and twice uses this sentence in connection with the initial act of faith by the believer. In fact the words, "The just shall live by faith" proved the foundational Scripture appealed to by Paul, and later by Luther and other reformers in their teaching concerning the justification of the sinner by faith alone. In Romans 1:17 the words are cited as forming the heart of the gospel message and in Galatians 3:11 as the complete repudiation of any idea of working for one's salvation. In both of these cases the emphasis is placed on the initial experience of salvation by which the repentant sinner is justified through the gospel.
There is a third occurrence which is more advanced; it is addressed to those who are already believers and is used to remind them that we are never to be static in our faith but must always remember that every phase of the Christian life demands active faith. From the beginning at conversion to the climax of glorification, the believer must keep on believing. There is no other way of enjoying spiritual vigour and victory than by an up-to-date exercise of active faith.
This quotation is found in Hebrews 10:38 and it was made to those who had a good record in the past but who were being subjected to new testings and so were in danger of losing heart and failing to hold on to the promises of God. The verse reads rather differently from our Old Testament version of Habakkuk, for it uses the Greek Version (as Hebrews often does) and instead of saying, "His soul is puffed up and is not upright in him", it reads, "If he shrink back, my soul has no pleasure in him". There is not a lot of difference. Questioning and reasoning produce a 'puffed up' soul; they also result in a shrinking back instead of pressing on. Such behaviour by those who have already tasted God's grace is obviously displeasing to Him. Habakkuk, then, and the Hebrew Christians, and we of the Twentieth Century must maintain our place with those who keep right on in faith and so bring pleasure to the heart of our God.
This third chapter is largely poetical, but it nevertheless has a very practical message for us. In it Habakkuk reports his own reaction to God's speaking and presents us with a challenge to our own response to God's Word. We have faced the problems of faith; we have been given the answer in terms of the divine sovereignty, the divine objective and the divine call. Can we match this Old Testament character in his triumphant victory of faith?
True to his name, he embraced the promises of God, but he did more than that for he also embraced the opportunities of the time in which he lived, a time which he described as "the midst of the years" (v.2). It may be that we have tended to skip over the books of the Minor Prophets, imagining that they have little relevance to our own times. That, of course, is quite untrue. In previous articles I have tried to show that Haggai and Zechariah are full of up-to-date helpfulness for the days in which we live. Now I hope that in Habakkuk we can find great gain in paying attention to his example.
It seems to me that in his reaction to God's speaking we may perceive how the true believer should look beyond immediate circumstances and keep his gaze on the unseen realities of heaven. In that way we not only serve God in our generation but find personal renewal and ascendancy. The people for whom the prophet prayed may not have known the reviving power of the Spirit but it is quite evident that in his own heart Habakkuk enjoyed an amazing revival. The chapter has a double message:
i. Faith expressed in prayer. Verse 2
The substance of his prayer forms the title of this article: "O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years". There must be wrath, but may there also be mercy. We are under no illusions as to our own unworthiness but we have immense expectation in the undeserved goodness of our gracious God. Habakkuk had been told that he must be prepared to wait. What should he do in this interim period, "the midst of the years"? How could he best wait? Surely by redoubled effort in prayer.
In verses 3 to 15 he sought to describe what he had heard of God's past activities in salvation and judgment, with the confession that this exercise left him with his heart panting and his limbs trembling. There was nothing slick or superficial in his plea for revival. It is an awesome matter to be found in the midst of a divine visitation. Yet he prayed that there might be one. [79/80] It is never enough to think only of the past and it is useless to try to get the Lord to put back His clock. The thrust of our praying must be that now, in our day, God will express Himself in terms of salvation and that the power hidden in His hand (v.4) might once more be released (v.13).
The man who prayed that God would renew His activities was no light-hearted optimist. His was not a request for exciting sensations but it was a humble plea that the holiness of God might be manifested, humbling all pride and enforcing His own rule. For all my Christian life I have heard God's people praying for revival and have added my Amens to their prayers. But how will they be answered? Will it be in local and temporary visitations by the Spirit of God, or will it be the final showdown of the Return of Christ? I do not know.
Nor do I think that Habakkuk had any clear idea of how and when God would work in answer to his prayer. He was prepared, if necessary, to face even darker days before the great dawn. One thing is clear, though, and that is that his recipe for unanswered prayer is simply to go on praying. He began with the complaint, "How long?" (1:2). God's reply seems to suggest that he would have to go on waiting still longer. Now, however, he had recovered his spiritual second wind and realised that the important thing was still to go on praying. In doing so he seems to have found that promised "peace that passes all understanding" -- "That I should rest in the day of trouble" (v.16). What is more, the revival began at once in his own heart. How else can we describe his over-flowing joy in the midst of surrounding calamities and his delighted report that he was enjoying mountain top experiences (vv.18-19)? His prophecy begins with a cry of anguish and ends with a dedication to the choirmaster and stringed instruments. Persistence in the place of prayer brings its own reward.
ii. Faith expressed in praise. Verses 17-19
I have said that Habakkuk did not know how his prayer for revival would be answered. It certainly seems, though, that he expected no sensational changing of the situation straight away, but rather braced himself for further times of testing. I am aware of the hopes of many that the Return of Christ will be preceded by out-poured blessings on a new scale. I will rejoice if their expectations are fulfilled. For me, however, the main stress of New Testament teaching on this subject seems to be on the increasing evil of the "perilous times" of the last days.
In any case, Habakkuk's closing verses are full of inspiration. "Let the worst happen" he sings, "let every kind of evil come upon us -- no blossom, no fruit, no meat, no herd ... yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." So the story which began with gloom ends with glory. It is possible to be gloomy and still pray, but it is quite impossible to remain gloomy when one is praising the Lord. If Habakkuk were asked what there was to be jubilant about, he could only answer that he rejoiced not in things but in the Lord Himself.
It must be noted, though, that this joyfulness was essentially personal; Habakkuk had no burden for himself but he still carried a heavy burden of concern for God's interests in the world and for the state of His people. Praise is most important, but it must never be superficial pretence that things are all right when they are not. So far as he personally was concerned, Habakkuk was able to report that divine strength made him light of foot and uplifted in spirit, but I imagine that even while he praised, he continued with his earnest appeal: "O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years". [80/ibc]
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