Dear Friends,
Whatever this new year brings us, we may rest perfectly assured that it brings us but nearer to God. As Paul writes to the Roman believers of his day, “Now is our salvation nearer than when we (first) believed.” And as we so often sing at the conclusion of the Lord's Supper: -
“Feast after feast thus comes and passes by,
Yet, passing points to the glad feast above.”
This year will run its course (if God permit) until the years have all run their course, and the Lord appears from heaven to receive the remnant of His Church at last and bring them into the fulness of the deliverance that he has accomplished for them. Our salvation is nearer than when we first believed; each passing feast does point to the glad feast above; and each passing year does bring us nearer to our God. But as we weigh up and receive such an indisputable fact, we may reflect on what any intervening years between now and the Lord's coming for His people may hold out for them in the way of spiritual life and spiritual well-being.
It was a question like this that confronted the prophet Habakkuk so many years ago, as he knelt down before the throne of God's grace to weigh up the spiritual prospects of the nation of Israel now about to be carried away captive into the city of Babylon for a period of something like seventy long years. Habakkuk has settled in his mind, of course, that the nation of Israel is receiving every just recompense for its sins before its God. He is also quite settled in his mind that the Lord his God is dealing in absolute righteousness and justice with that nation. And he is further persuaded that the Lord's hand will eventually “reverse” this state of things that is coming to pass, and that the nation of Israel will once again be returned to the land of Judah, and be the people that God has called them to be – worshipping Him in His temple day and night. In other words, the “captivity” won't last for ever; the years will run their course, and God will deliver the nation out of all its bondage.
But although Habakkuk, no doubt, rejoices in that future coming day, he nevertheless has a great concern in his heart and soul for the intervening days – and weeks, and months, and years – that his people will have to spend in that city of Babylon; and so, there comes his famous and heartfelt cry in the 2nd verse of the 3rd chapter of his prophesy: “O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known.” You see what Habakkuk is driving at there, of course? “Yes,” he is saying before the Lord his God, “Lord, I know and believe all that you are speaking to me; and I know and believe that this state of affairs won't last for ever – that there is a day of reversings coming; and when the years of captivity have run their course Thou wilt surely deliver Thy people from all their afflictions. “But Lord,” he is saying, “What about the midst of the years? What about the years in between until that great and final deliverance?” And so, the prayer of his heart spills out of his heart via his mouth into the ear of his Almighty God: “Revive thy work in the midst of the years in the midst of the years make known.” “Don't only favour us with that final great deliverance, O Lord, but favour us with Thy reviving graces – even during those dreadful days of our captivity – until that final great deliverance really and fully comes to pass for us.”
And so, as we come face-to-face with yet another year that brings us face-to-face with yet another reminder that all the years of God's purposes will one day be fully realised and the Lord will come to deliver His people for evermore, we may well diligently enquire concerning those intervening years of the dear church's captivity in the Babylon of this world, and learn to cry out like the prophet Habakkuk, “O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known.” It is, surely seldom wrong to ask the Lord to look upon us in blessing; and it is, surely, not out of place to consider such a subject for a few lines at the commencement of this new year. For, of course, here is the point: the Church of the Lord so often knows the experience of “a captivity within her captivity.” In other words, as she must live out her existence in this world until her Lord shall come and finally deliver her, there are also times when that same Lord's hand is heavy upon her in chastisement and correction so that He leads her away into a spiritual and moral captivity until she learns something of the kind of lessons that a book like Habakkuk sets before her, and learns to cry out in the words of the prophet of so long ago. For one of the first things that a call for deliverance from spiritual bondage and barrenness entails is an acknowledgement that it is the very hand of God himself that has sent us into captivity on account of our sins and our transgressions against Him.
You see, Habakkuk's prayer for reviving in the midst of the years doesn't actually begin on that note, or with those words we have quoted from his book. Oh, no; Habakkuk's prayer for reviving begins on an entirely different note altogether. Listen to how he bends the knee before the Lord's throne of grace: - “A Prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth,” it says, “O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years” etc. What is Habakkuk the prophet saying before the Lord, my friends? Habakkuk the prophet is simply saying before the Lord that he believes what God has said. God has just, in fact, said that He is going to judge His people Israel by permitting them to be led away captive at the hand of that Chaldean host. And as far as Habakkuk is concerned, if God has said that He is going to judge this people of Israel, then judge them he most certainly is. And the prophet need not take all these adverse events that are coming upon this backslidden nation at this time and interpret them in any other way, but the hand of his Almighty God is upon them. “O Lord, I have heard thy voice.”
Now, that's very important, surely? If Habakkuk had turned to the Lord and said, “No Lord, I just can't bring myself to believe that you would permit these things in your beloved Israel, and what we are seeing and witnessing has something to do with luck, or ill-fortune, or a bad chain of events that just happen to be abroad for us today;” my friends, if Habakkuk had prayed like that, then what right would he have had to pray in the first place, and what effectualness would that prayer ever have had before the face of his God in heaven above? And we may learn it well: one of the first things that we need to do is to come to an honest and clear assessment of just what is taking place in the church and in the world in these days in which we live, and then, from that honest assessment (by the grace and enabling of our God) begin our long trek back, seeking the Lord's hand to come mercifully upon us in the midst of such years as these. And where do we come to a right assessment of our present state? Only in the Word of God alone. That's the whole burden of Habakkuk's words - “O Lord, I have heard thy speech.” And it points us to the clear essentiality of the preaching of the whole Word of God in our present day. Habakkuk is not arriving at this conclusion by his own notions and man-made theologies, but by the Word of the living God resounding and ringing in his heart and ears. And if we but weighed up the behaviour of the professing churches of Christ over the past century in the whole light of the whole word of God, we would clearly see that God's hand has now fallen heavily upon us in these days. Having sown the wind, we are now reaping the harvest of the whirlwind. And one of the great pre-requisites for calling on the Lord for reviving grace and preserving grace in our day, is to clearly and honestly come to terms with the fact that the Lord is clearly justified in having a terrible controversy with those who have taken on His name to be called the churches of the living God.
Needless to say, of course, this is not an easy thing to come to terms with. You see even how poor old Habakkuk felt within his heart and mind as soon as he believingly laid hold on the truth that God was surely at work in a terrible fashion in that land of Israel? “O Lord,” he says, “I have heard thy speech, and was afraid.” So be it, my friends! And there is nothing that makes our hearts tremble more than the realisation that God can and God does judge His very own people at times. So the tendency among both preachers and hearers alike to lock such doctrine and truths away in some convenient theological cupboard. Yet, you see, until these truths are released, and served and swallowed down – no-matter how unpalatable they might be – we are never even getting to the first steps of calling upon the Lord our God to revive His work in the midst of the years.
You'll find that principle at work in the midst of of the years. You'll find that principle in Paul's second Epistle to the Corinthians where he reminds them of the unpalatable truths of chastisement and correction that he brought before them in his first epistle, but what great and glorious results the embracing and believing of those truths have meant to them. “For, behold,” he says, “this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort.” And the results of that? “What carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal,” and so forth. And such was the process with Habakkuk: - first, he honestly realises that they are such years as they are; second, he assesses aright by believing the words of the lord how such years have come about; and third, although the realisation takes its toll upon his poor old heart and mind, he receives the realisation, and so, cries out to the Lord in the only way that he knows how - “O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years.” And need we make mention of Habakkuk's follow-up to his request? As he prefaces his prayer for revivings with an acknowledgement that it is God's hand that has brought them to their present state on account of their sin, so he concludes his prayer for reviving by acknowledging that it must also be God's hand alone that will deliver them out of their present and future state on account of His mercy: - “O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.” Habakkuk sums up that prayer exactly right: “Lord,” he is saying, “whilst thou art exercising thy just prerogative in judgement, grant that it might please thee to also exercise thy gracious prerogative in mercy.” Note that there is not one word about Israel's merit; that Habakkuk doesn't ask that the work might be done on the grounds of his prayer; it is God's free, unmerited favour alone that will grant an answer to that prayer if answer there is going to be. Even the actual word of the prayer itself sets that truth clearly before us: - “O Lord,” says Habakkuk, “revive Thy work in the midst of the years ...” He looks to God that God might remember and not forsake the works of His own hands. May we learn to bear that in mind also. As one has said, “O Lord, look upon the wounds of Thy hands, and forsake not the works of Thy hands.” and as another has put it, “Into His hands let us commend our spirits, sure that even though the works of our hands have made void the works of His hands, yet His hands will again make perfect all that our hands have unmade.”
We know not what the morrow may bring forth, nor, indeed, how many years there are, if any, until our Lord will finally come. But on account of that very fact are we not under continuous obligation and restraint to call upon our God, “O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy”?
May the Lord be with us all and all His people throughout the earth during the permitted days of this new year.