In Wrath Remember Mercy

You have been wondering why we called this series Streams in the Desert.

Well, the first reason we called it Streams in the Desert is because spiritually the people were in a desert.

And maybe you've been waiting for the stream.

Well, the stream comes here in the third chapter.

We begin to see its meandering path in our text this morning.

For Habakkuk seeks to rise above his circumstances.

My dear friend Dave Horvath used to ask someone how they were.

And they would say, Well, under the circumstances, have you ever said that before?

Well, under the present circumstances, and he would always incredulously say to them, And what are you doing under those?

We are not under our circumstances, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

And Habakkuk gets that view of God, the coming king, the God of this great character that we've so briefly looked at this morning in this third chapter, the prophet, and his prayer upon Shigynauth, this reeling song, this song of great emotional intensity, as he writes about the condition of the people and the heart of God.

Very rare in this portion of scripture to have a prophet singing and preaching in song, but he does just that.

And I want us to read that second verse together.

Habakkuk chapter three and verse number two, O Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid.

O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known, in wrath, remember mercy.

Can we all read that verse together?

Habakkuk chapter three and verse number two.

Ready to begin?

O Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid.

O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known.

In wrath, remember mercy.

Mercy drop round us our falling.

But for the showers we plead.

Where are the showers of blessing?

And where will they fall?

Habakkuk here prays that God might send a revival in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years that he would make himself known, and even in wrath that God would remember mercy.

Revival.

Revival is a new beginning of obedience to God, as I said a few weeks ago.

Revival is the church falling in love with Jesus all over again.

Biblical revival is not primarily about God getting God to do something new.

The very nature of the word revive.

Someone said you cannot have revival until you have vital.

You must be born again.

It is God renewing, replenishing, recultivating the things that were alive and yet have laid dormant or dead in our lives.

Oh Lord, he says, revive thy work in the midst of the years.

Revive your people in the midst of the years.

And even at the end of the verse, he says, in wrath, remember mercy.

Notice the phrase in verse number two, revive thy work.

We're going to look at a few words here in our text this evening.

Notice what is God's work?

Revive thy work in the midst of the years.

In the midst of the years make known what is God's work.

Now, before we can pray for revival, we have to understand what it is we are asking God to revive.

I've often felt as an American, I said that this morning, I am an American, I could be nothing else.

Many times we in America have prayed for revival, and if we're not careful, I think we pray for revival based upon the situation of our national politics.

When the other party that we don't align with is in power, we pray for revival.

When murmurings of economic collapse come to our country, we begin to pray for revival.

But what if revival had nothing to do with national resurgence?

What if revival had nothing to do with economic success?

What if revival ensured some of those things?

Would we pray for God to touch his people?

He isn't praying, Lord, make us more successful.

And now he knows that the Babylonians are coming and the hoof beating of the Babylonian army cannot be allayed by God.

He knows that this war that is coming cannot be avoided.

He knows that this snorting, howling, sucking up energy of the Babylonian Empire cannot be in any way relieved.

He prays that God would revive his work in the midst of the years, and even so doing in wrath, he would remember mercy.

He's praying, God, revive your work.

What is the work he's talking about?

Well, notice, first of all, a few things we noticed in this third chapter.

God's work is to reveal his glory.

That's verse 3.

God came from Temon and the Holy One from Mount Perin, Selah.

His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.

And his brightness was as the light, and he had horns coming out of his hand, and there was the hiding of his power.

God's work begins with God Himself.

Revival is not us sending up a present to God.

Revival is not about what we can stir up down here and send as an offering to heaven.

Revival is God sending to earth what we need from God Himself.

It is God manifesting his very glory in our presence.

Now I must be honest, there are good days and bad days, great Sundays and bad Sundays, and there's days that we show up and say, God, where are you?

And there are some Sundays where we have to say, Lord, if you don't lay off a little bit, we're going to burst with excitement for who you are as you manifest yourself in our presence.

Someone said, Man, last Sunday, I don't know.

I don't know what was going on.

And then someone said, Wow, this morning, God, he met with his people.

Isn't it wonderful when God meets with his people?

And he manifests his glory.

And he does that when we get our eyes off of ourselves.

Van Sabner used to say, some people come to church to eye the clothes and some to close the eyes.

He then said, Too many church services start at 11 sharp and end at 12 dull.

We don't need what men can do.

We've had sure enough of that.

We need what God can do and what only God can do.

Years ago, I was writing for a Christian periodical and they were talking about smoke machines.

Lots of churches use smoke machines in our world today.

Matter of fact, of all industries in America that support the smoke machine industry, or what we what we might call big smoke, big smoke, churches are the larger, largest consumer of smoke machines.

And I was reading this article about churches using smoke machines, and one worship leader said, well, we have to use smoke machines because when God's presence filled the Holy of Holies, God manifested himself with smoke.

And I thought to myself, how indict it is that we have to synthesize and simulate that which was manifested when God truly met with his people.

Revive thy work in the midst of the years, not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name.

Get great glory.

Revival is not man becoming the center of attention.

It is about God becoming the center of our focus once again.

It's the great, great Welsh revival, turn of the 20th century.

When God sent a great revival to the nation of Wales, there were lots of tributaries to that revival.

Some had said that that revival began when a little girl in a Sunday school class was asked to recite something by her teacher, and that little girl made this statement I love the Lord Jesus with all of my heart.

And it started a great revival.

The interesting thing about the Welsh Revival is it was not the work of Spurgeon or F.

B.

Meyer or any great preacher.

It was an unknown man named Evan Roberts that God touched.

And the great men of that day came to that small place where God had met with his people.

Revive thy work, God, get our focus off of ourselves.

Shift our focus from ourselves, and Lord help us to catch a glimpse of your glory.

Number two, God's work is to judge sin.

That's verses 5 through 12 we'll look at in just a moment.

Abakac says in verse 5, before him went the pestilence and burning coals went forth at his feet.

You know, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Remember what Jesus said to Jerusalem?

Remember what he said to Beth Seda?

That if the works that God had done in Sodom had been done in Beth Seda and Nazareth and Jerusalem and all places around the Holy Land, that Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented if they would have had the light that the cities of Jesus' time had.

It was Anne Graham Lotts after 9-11 that said, if God doesn't judge America because of our sin, he'll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah someday.

Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, judge sin.

He remembers how God acted throughout Israel's history.

God is holy, holy, holy, righteous, and opposed to wickedness.

Where God is working, sin is exposed.

When God turns the light on, he reveals that which is hidden from view.

When we went to start a church in New Smyrna, we were renting a facility.

We came into that church.

They had two members and about 10 people.

I wish you could have seen those bathrooms.

I wish you could have seen that sanctuary, cobwebs over every hemrack and every footer of the pews and in the windows.

And I mean, not to be crude, but everything was just awful.

And Marie and I got in there with a group of people that had a heart to serve and began stewarding what we believe belonged to God.

It was the light that exposed that which had been ignored for so many years.

Oh God, revive thy work in the midst of the year.

Search me, O God, or said, and O my heart.

Search me, O God.

Know my thoughts today.

Try me, O Savior.

Know the thoughts I pray.

See if there be some wicked way in me.

Not my brother, not my sister.

It's not the person at the end of the pew I'm worried about, O Lord.

It's the person that I'm going to look at in the mirror at this tomorrow morning.

That's who I'm praying for.

God, clean up my front porch in my life.

What is God's work?

Number three, God's work is to redeem his people.

Verse 13, thou winst forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed.

Thou woundest the head out of the house of the wicked by discovering the foundation unto the neck.

Twice in this passage he speaks of the Lord as the Savior, the salvation of his people.

He does it again in verse 18, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

He's saying, Oh God, restore your people, save them and deliver your people.

And then notice number four, his work is to accomplish his purposes.

You see, revival begins when we stop asking God to bless our work.

We start asking God to revive his work.

Revive thy work in the midst of the years.

In the midst of the years make known.

There was a man we were renting from, pastoring those two people.

I I knew, I knew that there was sin in his life.

Others had seen of the sin in his life.

And we had a year lease, we were renting that facility, and God was building a church.

And he said to me one day, about seven months in, he said, Where do you want to start a church?

I said, I want to start a church right here.

No, no, no.

Where are you starting a church?

I said, we already started one.

It's right here.

He says, Well, you probably can't, you probably can't keep staying around here.

And I said, sir.

I said, can I ask you a question?

I said, whose responsibility is it to reach this community with the gospel?

And you know what he said to me?

I don't know.

That's not my problem.

You know, you know, you know how he thought about that property?

He thought it was his work.

It wasn't his work.

Someone told me on the back of that property there was a full-size basketball court.

I didn't see one.

They said, no, no, no, behind the church, there's a basketball court back there.

I said, well, we're gonna find it.

So we met down there with some flat-nosed shovels and we started digging, and we hit asphalt.

And for three or four hours we began digging that basketball court from the ruins of Samsula, Florida.

I remember taking that shovel.

I felt like a I felt like a pioneer, you know.

And I remembered saying to those people, those precious people, this building is not ours.

This property is not his.

This property is God's.

And if we will steward that property, I believe God will allow us to steward it in a greater way for his glory.

Listen, this is not our church.

This is not my church.

This is not even our church.

This is his church.

This is his work.

Oh, revive thy work in the midst of the years, Habakkuk said.

In the midst of the years make known.

And would you be so kind in a spatial reality to manifest yourself on this property once again for the glory of God?

Oh, God, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known.

You know what young men get tired of hearing saying, Well, what God used to do.

Well, I'm glad God did it, but I have a desire in my heart to say, Oh, God, do it again in my generation.

Oh, God, do it again.

Second question, what would revival look like?

What would revival look like?

One of our little young men plays football.

He's seven years old and plays football.

I don't know how those little guys run around so fast with all that armor on them, but they do.

And they collide and bounce back up.

And we told Trey that we were gonna watch a game.

So Marie and I drove down to Fort Myers and such a beautiful day yesterday.

What a beautiful morning yesterday.

And uh it was a had an oak canopy on the sidelines overlooking the stadium seats, and so we were cool and enjoying this game.

But it wasn't just Trey we were watching.

God was replaying a cinema of memories in our heart yesterday.

Because we had little girls cheering on the sideline not too many years ago, and and a little boy with all that armor on him and out there on the field, and and God took us back in time.

Those are the good old days.

Would we recognize revival if God sent it to us?

There's two types of people.

There's two types of people that see nothing positive, and some people who look around and say, wow, look at what God is doing.

What would revival look like?

What does Sabak say?

First of all, he says that revival produces a renewed fear of God.

Verse 2, we talked about that about uh a bit this morning.

Oh Lord, I've heard thy speech and was afraid.

The word carries the idea of reverence, of awe, of holy fear.

Revival doesn't make us casual about God.

Revival restores our awe of a great God.

Notice number two, revival produces the remembrance of God's works.

Look at verse 2 again.

Oh Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known in wrath, remember mercy.

Habakkuk remembers what God has done.

When revival comes, God's people begin looking backward.

Not merely to reminisce, but to remember God's faithfulness.

How many of you can look back over your life and say, wow, God has been faithful?

It's awesome not just to worship, but to watch people worshiping.

God gave me a little more clarity of mind this morning, not just to think about chords and words, but people.

We serve a faithful God.

Revival number three produces repentance over sin.

Repentance over sin.

Not your sin, his sin, her sin.

No, no, no.

If we'd start looking more in the mirror, we'd stop looking less at others in a microscope.

It's me, O Lord.

Standing in the knee of prayer.

Revival produces dependence on God.

Verse 16.

When I heard my belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice, rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself that I might rest in the day of trouble.

Then he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.

What's Habakkuk saying here?

He's realizing he cannot fix the situation.

We can't fix it.

We had some folks over to the house today, and they're from the Boston area, and one from the area of Salem, Massachusetts.

We were there a few months ago.

If you've been to New England, you'll understand what I'm about to say.

New England is the seedbed of American religion.

It's the land of cotton mather.

Roger Williams.

Jonathan Edwards.

Adna Iram Judson.

David Brainerd.

I encourage you to get on a plane and drive into the city of Salem, Massachusetts.

It's a dark place.

Witchcraft and transgenderism create a deadly brew of ungodly anti-Christian sentiment.

The place where it all started.

It's a place so far from God.

When I was in Salem, you know what I thought to myself?

I can't imagine rearing children here.

I can't fix that problem.

But God can.

And fly a white flag of surrender to God.

We need God's help.

It's amazing people with the less than 15% approval rate are so arrogant and presumptuous on the people that they are called to serve.

We need God.

When in the state of Virginia we're arguing about abortion at 38 and 39 weeks, we need revival.

Revival produces joy that transcends our circumstances.

Isn't that what he said in verse 17 as we looked at this morning?

Though we are empty, we can be full of God.

No grain, no olives, no fruit, no fig.

But verse 18 says, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

Everything can go wrong, but yet we will rejoice in God.

Look at verse 2 again.

O Lord, I've heard thy speech and was afraid.

O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years.

In the midst of the years, make known, in wrath, remember mercy.

And I just want you to sit with that thought for a moment.

In wrath, remember mercy.

And for just a moment, just a moment, I want you to think about yourself.

Habakkuk has every reason, like all the other prophets of the Old Testament, to write harshly about the sins of the nation.

It was their sin that brought this upon themselves.

But he doesn't do that in this prophecy.

He doesn't call Judah to the carpet, so to speak.

He doesn't speak against their transgressions.

There's this part of the prophet that owns it himself.

Can I ask you a question?

If God brought judgment on America, would we feel the consequences of that?

Yes or no?

Yeah, we would.

When God was going to judge the children of Israel in Exodus chapter 33, they had sinned.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

Moses was in the mountain with God.

What had he done wrong?

He was receiving the commandments written by the finger of God.

It was the people.

It was Aaron.

It was the people stripping naked, taking jewelry, casting it into the fire, forging a golden calf.

It was not Moses.

It was the people.

It was Aaron's faulty, frail, feeble leadership.

That's the problem.

Moses didn't take it that way.

Moses made a personal, full-throated confession of the sin in his own life.

And then he says to God, I want you to forgive their transgression, but if not, and there's a big dash in your Bible, blot my name out of your book.

Paul says, My heart's desire and prayer to Israel for Israel is that they might be saved.

Paul wished himself accursed if his people could be saved.

I gotta tell you, when I was rolling through Salem, I'm not sure I felt that way.

When I drive through parts of Orlando or Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, I'm not sure I felt that way.

But there's everything godly about us saying if revival comes, we cannot confess the sins of others.

But we can ourselves be thoroughly right with God.

That's revival.

It was R.A.

Tory that said for revival to come, draw a three-foot circle around yourself.

Can you do that with your imagination?

Draw a three-foot circle around yourself.

And ask the Holy Spirit to investigate everything inside the circle.

And throw out of that circle everything that's not honoring to God.

And consecrate everything that remains.

That's revival.

In the midst of the years, make known in wrath.

Remember mercy.

Now here's what's really cool, and then we'll close.

Go back to the first chapter.

We didn't make much of this as we were surveying the book.

Habakkuk praised two types of prayers.

He first of all prays a prayer of interrogation.

And simply that means he asked God some questions.

That's what the book is about.

Look again in verse 2 of chapter 1.

O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear, even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save?

What's he doing?

He's contending with God.

He's asking God questions.

It's an interrogatory prayer.

Have you ever asked God a question in prayer?

Jesus did.

Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Interrogatory prayer.

He simply asked God a series of questions.

But here in chapter 3, he switches from interrogation to intercession.

O Lord, I've heard thy speech and was afraid.

O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years, make known in wrath, remember mercy.

He's praying for the people.

The people aren't praying for themselves.

They have no concern for God, but the prophet does.

And he prays.

In wrath, remember mercy.

Aren't you glad that our Lord is slow to wrath and plenteous in mercy?

The Lord is not slack.

Forgive me for not thinking thoroughly enough of that word.

Habakkuk uses it, I believe, in the first chapter.

Slack, it means powerless.

The Lord is not powerless as sun men count powerlessness.

He is long suffering.

The word means long-nosed in the Old Testament.

God is long-nosed.

It's the point at which the blood of anger, visible manifestation of anger, He's long-nosed, he's long-fused.

In wrath, remember mercy.

God, just give us one more chance, just one more opportunity.

To sin revival.

God put something on my heart this week.

We're near the first of October.

Today is the 27th.

Thursday, I believe, is October 1st.

Am I correct on that?

I'm calling our church for the month of October.

At 8 o'clock or noon or 5 o'clock to pray.

I'll have a schedule on Wednesday.

I love the thought of all of us gathering together corporately to pray.

I'll have a sign-up sheet on Wednesday.

I can encourage you to take breakfast on a particular day to fast and pray.

For someone to skip lunch on one of those days to pray.

A dinner on one of those days, or a whole day to pray.

I'm asking God to send revival to his work.

That in the midst of the years he would make himself known.

That in wrath he would remember mercy.

And I hope you'll join me in that.

I want to see what only God can do.

We work so hard.

But you know what?

All we can do is what we can do.

But when we pray, we can see God do what only He can do.

And how many of us are tired of seeing what only we can do?

And we want to touch the hem of the garment of what Jesus can do.

This is the heart of our church.

And I encourage you to join with me to pray what Habakkuk prayed, that in the midst of these years, he would make himself known.

That in wrath, despite of all of our sin, he'd remember mercy.

May we pray together.

How many of you really believe in your heart you'd like to see God do something that only God could do?

And you really mean that.

Not just to vote, but just to mean it.

Truly, truly mean it.

I want to see what only God can do.

I will tell you this.

That which we blame on flesh and blood, sometimes each other is nothing more than an attack in a spiritual sense from the powers of darkness.

And I know this.

I know where God does his work, Satan aggressively opposes the work of God.

And beloved, I want to tell you, I've come to firmly believe that we've ticked off the powers of darkness.

And I'm praying and reminded to pray, maybe as never before, just how much I need God and how much me we need the power of God to do the work of God in this place.

Will you join me in prayer?

I'd like just to make this house a house of prayer as we leave tonight and just say, Oh God, we give ourselves afresh and new to you.

This is thy work, and in the midst of the years, touch it with your power, with your spirit.

Help me draw that three-foot circle around my feet and consecrate myself.

Help me, Lord, not to be the person I want others to be.

Or not to be the person I want others to be.

Help me, Lord, to be the person you saved me to be.

Help me to fix my eyes on your glory and to see you do what only you can do.

May we pray.

Our Father, we thank you for this day and thank you for the privilege of serving you.

Lord, help us to remember that when we press on, we press up against the devil.

And as we seek to do a work for your glory, we know though sorrows befall us and Satan opposed, God will lead his dear children along.

And we know that we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

And Lord, we know that years before us, you did a great, great work in this place.

And we're reminded of those who did a great work in this place.

But oh God, we have sinned.

And maybe it's sin in our own personal lives that keeps us back from your best for us.

Lord, help us to get right with you, to move forward by faith.

Oh God, give us a generation of people who will trust the promises of God and believe in the power of God.

And seek to do the work of God in this generation.

Thank you, Lord, for so many who are serving and laboring and praying and striving and encouraging and witnessing and discipling.

God, we're so grateful for all that you're doing.

But Lord, we want to see a manifestation of your glory and your presence in this place.

And as Habakkuk prayed, not about his enemies, not about the Chaldeans.

Lord, we look to you, the author, you're the finisher of our faith.

We trust you to do great things.

We praise you for the great things that you're doing.

And we ask you to bless us and help us this week as we leave this place.

Help us to be true followers of Christ.

Help us to represent Christ well.

Carry gospel tracts with us.

To go out and invite others so that they might hear the gospel, that they might be saved.

We praise you.

We thank you for your goodness.

We ask you to go with us from this place.

And we ask in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said Amen.

Let's stand together.