Yes, Habakkuk resolves his questions, all of them, with a grand statement of faith!

Prayer for this man of God is no longer (if it had ever been) simply “getting” what one wants!

Or gleaning answers to current questions about God’s governing the world!

Now, for this man of God anyway, prayer has become “communion” with His Lord.

Habakkuk chapter 3 is our Text for this Friday in August, 2015.

The whole Unit (chapter 3) begins with a “superscript,” saying “a prayer of Habakkuk!”

A prayer, yet he asks for nothing!

Nothing personal anyway.

He acquiesces to God’s Will, realizing dark days are ahead for Judah. Backsliding Judah! “Lord (for Thy Nation), in Wrath remember Mercy,” he pleads.

Then … miraculously … God comes on the scene!

The teachers call it a “theophany,” an appearance of the Lord Himself!

Read some of it with me.

“God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.” Habakkuk 3:3-5

Then … “The mountains saw thee (God), and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear. Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed; thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck.” Habakkuk 3:10-13

This happens as the man prays, this grand vision of the Lord!

It may be a description of our Lord’s yet future but literal Return to earth!

How did Habakkuk respond?

At first … “When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself.” Habakkuk 3:16, the “fear” of the Lord, reverent respect!

Then … forgetting any previous “issues,” Habakkuk resolves:

No matter what, I shall trust the Lord!

If I know HIM … all else fades in comparison!

Thus the ultimate conclusion of a mature faith, a mature prayer life. “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.” The end of Habakkuk 3, verses 17-19.

Wow!

Prayer … as worship!

Prayer … as dedication to God!

Prayer … as determination!

Prayer … on its highest level!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Lord, so teach us to pray!

 

 

Habakkuk did not especially ask God for things!

Rather, for “understanding.”

For a better knowledge of God’s “Ways!”

For example, “Why does God allow evil to go unpunished?”

Or, “Why does God allow particularly vile nations to overrun and decimate other nations?”

Or, had he lived later, “Why Hitler?”

Job asked basically the same question.

As did one of the Psalmists, Asaph, in Psalm 73.

Jeremiah, too. With Jeremiah 12:1 being especially clear. “Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?”

Wow!

But, in Habakkuk’s case anyway, no answer was forthcoming!

So, and here’s part of the “beauty” of the Prophet’s faith … he just “waited” on God!

So much so that he painted for us this word picture, literal in meaning but proverbial in supplication. “I (Habakkuk) will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will WATCH TO SEE what He will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.”

I WILL TRUST.

I WILL WAIT.

I WILL BELIEVE.

I WILL LISTEN.

AND, EVEN IF REBUKED, I WILL STILL COMMUNE WITH MY LORD.

This is mature faith!

This is prayer wrestling with a spiritual problem … and in so doing meeting with a spiritual discovery!

He took his questions to the Lord … and got a number new insights about the Character of the Almighty!

Waiting on God!

This “watch,” this “tower” Habakkuk mentions is merely a place a soldier would mount and keep an eye on the horizon, every direction … on the job, looking for any “sign” of movement, good or bad!

Habakkuk, I’ll stay “on the job” for my Lord.

I will not go “absent-without-leave!”

I’ll wait Him out!

The Hebrew word for “tower” is used in the Bible elsewhere as “fortress!” It is spelled “matzsor” in Hebrew.

A “waiting place” … also a “strong, safe place!”

Waiting!

Yet leaning!

Read this with me. “They that WAIT upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31

Or: “Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes WAIT upon the LORD our God, until that he have mercy upon us.” Psalm 123:1

Daniel the Prophet believed: “Blessed is he that waiteth.” Daniel 12:12.

Isaiah preached: “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.” Isaiah 64:4

Habakkuk needed “light.” Did he know Psalm 130:6? “My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.”

Furthermore: “Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation.” David in Psalm 62:1, where “salvation” can mean “deliverance, help, welfare” too.

One of the key Hebrew verbs for “trust” is merely the word “to wait!”

The Old Testament concept for “hope” also involves expectantly “waiting” on God!

So … from Habakkuk who lived centuries before Chris, right down to the twenty-first century … to you and me. Are we willing “to wait” on the Lord.

To still keep believing.

Praying.

Trusting.

Expecting.

Leaning.

Not doubting.

Maybe even singing a bit!

With eyes wide open … knowing somehow, someway God is going to answer!

And if not … I still have been in the company of the Creator, the Redeemer, the Righteous God (the only True God) of the universe!

Paul may have said it best in Romans 8:25. “But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”

Dear friend reading here today …

Join Habakkuk on his watch, climb that tower with him.

Wait on the Lord!

By the way, two verses later, God did speak to His Prophet! “Wait for it (your answer). It will surely come. It will not tarry.” Habakkuk 2:3

What more could a believer ask?

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

 

I plan more than one day discussing the Prophet Habakkuk, as a man of prayer.

First of all, look with me at the opening of his little three-chapter Prophecy. “The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!” Habakkuk 1:1-2

See those words?

In spite of Habakkuk’s “crying” (praying) …

God, “THOU WILT NOT HEAR!”

Then, even more dramatically, “THOU WILT NOT SAVE!”

Wow!

And it’s true.

Habakkuk did not receive what might be called “traditional” answers to his prayers.

No extra years of life!

No deliverance from an enemy army! (In fact, one is one the way, the wicked Babylonians!)

Habakkuk, more than most characters of Scripture, had to learn to WAIT on God.

And even when the answer (sort of) to his prayers did come, they further frustrated him!

YET, AND THIS IS THE “POINT” OF TODAY’S LESSON … HABAKKUK STILL CONTINUED TO PRAY. TO PURSUE A DEEPENING RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD!

One writer whom I read (yesterday) concerning Habakkuk said this Prophet was a man of “mature prayer.”

Prayer that could wait!

Prayer that, if not answered, could still build faith!

Prayer that implants joy, because it brings you closer to God … yet not necessarily to the relief of your distresses. Still hurting or still perplexed … but KNOWING GOD more intimately!

Wow!

Someone studying here with us today, perhaps, is in this condition.

Your prayers have NOT been answered.

Your frustrations remain!

God has not, regarding your precise issue, saved!

I would encourage you do respond as did Habakkuk!

Keep trusting God.

Treasure prayer not just a “receiving” from the Almighty … but as a “knowing” the Almighty, in a much deeper and fuller way.

Patient prayer!

God-centered prayer!

Prayer as Fellowship with the One Who died to save our souls!

Prayer as (of all things) a faith builder!

Does this even make “sense?”

Yet it is the story of how Habakkuk’s prayer life began to develop.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

 

In his three great “episodes” of prayer, at least the three Scripture seems to emphasize, Hezekiah progresses marvelously, matures in his relationship with God.

At first (the Assyrian attack) he does not pray himself, but sends for Isaiah the Prophet to do so. To seek God’s deliverance for the nation. At the second event (the actual Assyrian occupation) Hezekiah does pray, passionately, in the Temple. “Spreading” the problem before the Lord! And then (at his sickness) the man prayed from the confines of his own home, the palace. And God heard and answered too!

That is maturing prayer. The King gets more and more personally involved in the intercession. He grows closer and closer to the Lord.

Then, the basis for the title to today’s Lesson, after God spared Hezekiah’s life, adding 15 years thereto … the King burst into praise!

Here are some excerpts from his prayer, his psalm!

It is recorded twice in Scripture, that important in the eyes of God, 2nd Kings 20 and Isaiah 38.

God told Isaiah the Prophet: “Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.” Isaiah 38:5

Then the King chimes, apparently knowing all had not been right with God: “Thou (Lord) hast cast all my sins behind thy back.” That sounds Pauline! Evangelical!

This too from Hezekiah’s lips: “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.” Isaiah 38:19, praising God and teaching the young folks!

Music too: “The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.” Isaiah 38:20

This too, in the “healing” process … “medicine” was used as well. As prescribed by Isaiah! “For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover.” Isaiah 38:21

Yet God, and God alone … is credited, thanked, honored for the wellness that came!

Take the pills.

Worship the Lord!

Hezekiah, so very “human.”

Yet a good King!

One who “grew” in his prayer life!

May we learn more and more ourselves … in the “school of prayer!”

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

 

 

Yes, one can trace Hezekiah’s progress in the life of prayer.

He’s the man who asked for, and received THINGS from the Lord!

And that’s the part of prayer that I’d like to de-emphasize really. Prayer is more, much more, than just getting from God! It is learning to praise God! To thank God! To confess sins! To gain wisdom and insight into Scripture! To overcome discouragement! To intercede for others whom you love! Honing one’s intimacy with God, too!

Nonetheless, Hezekiah (and you and me too) proves that God does give things … in answer to prayer.

By the way, our Lesson on Jabez illustrated this fact as well. And it is archived here on the Website. And God did promise us: “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty THINGS, which thou knowest not.” Jeremiah 33:3

Three times I see Hezekiah getting some thing from God!

Once his city was besieged by a foreign power. Assyria meant harm to Jerusalem. Hezekiah (the King) asked Isaiah (the Prophet) to pray. and … the enemy left town, detracted by troubles elsewhere! The thing was granted, safety!

Then later the army (the most powerful on earth) returned! With a vengeance. And with nearly 200,000 troops! Hezekiah prayed (this time without the mediator Isaiah) and God miraculously killed (by means of the Angel of the Lord) 185,000 attackers, as they slept! God granted a thing, an astounding thing! National well-being!

Then even later in life Hezekiah got sick. With a terminal illness. But he prayed again! And God heard and answered, adding 15 more years to the King’s longevity. A thing was again given, as sought … life itself, more time!

THINGS!

I need another lesson tomorrow to continue these thoughts … but I do want to quote our Lord Jesus here. “I say unto you, Whatsoever (THINGS INCLUDED) ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give IT you.” John 16:23

What do you need today?

Be careful. “Ye have not, because ye ask not.” True, James 4:2.

But also true, we must ask unselfishly! “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” Still James 4, verse 3 this time. “Amiss” here means (“kakos” in Greek) “good for nothing, wrong, improper.”

In fact I think … the “things” God gives us are merely ways to bring us closer to Him!

Keep praying!

Keep asking!

And you will keep receiving … things.

But also keep seeking a closer relationship with Jesus in the process.

Knowing Him … the greatest reward of prayer!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell