The Lord's Day Bible Message Outlines
May 10, 2009
Pastor Dana Johnson
"O LORD, revive Your work...."
-Habakkuk
3:2
O LORD, I have heard your speech
and was afraid;
O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years!
In the midst of the years make it known; In wrath remember
mercy.
1. The historical review:
a. Habakkuk was a prophet in
Judah, just prior to the Babylonian captivity.
b. Habakkuk was unique as a
prophet: he acts more like a mediator than a
messenger.
c. Habakkuk's original burden is
the wickedness among his own people.
Habakkuk 1:1-4 -
The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw. 2O
LORD, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear? Even
cry out to You, "Violence!" And You will not save.
3Why do You show me iniquity, And cause me to
see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me;
There is strife, and contention arises.
4Therefore the law is powerless, And justice
never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous;
Therefore perverse judgment proceeds.
d. The Lord answers that He is
raising up the Chaldeans to chastise His people.
Habakkuk 1:5-11 -
"Look among the nations and watch; be utterly astounded!
For I will work a work in your days which you would not
believe, though it were told you. 6For indeed
I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation
which marches through the breadth of the earth, to
possess dwelling places that are not theirs.
7They are terrible and dreadful; their
judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
8Their horses also are swifter than leopards,
and more fierce than evening wolves. Their chargers
charge ahead; their cavalry comes from afar; they fly as
the eagle that hastens to eat. 9They all come
for violence; their faces are set like the east wind.
They gather captives like sand. 10They scoff
at kings, and princes are scorned by them. They deride
every stronghold, for they heap up earthen mounds and
seize it. 11Then his mind changes, and he
transgresses; he commits offense, ascribing this power to
his god."
e. Habakkuk humbly asks God how He
can employ the Chaldeans when they were more wicked than
Judah.
Habakkuk 1:12-2:1
- Are You not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy
One? We shall not die. O LORD, You have appointed them
for judgment; O Rock, You have marked them for
correction. 13You are of purer eyes than to
behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness. Why do You
look on those who deal treacherously, and hold Your
tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous
than he? 14Why do You make men like fish of
the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler over
them? 15They take up all of them with a hook,
they catch them in their net, and gather them in their
dragnet. Therefore they rejoice and are glad.
16Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and
burn incense to their dragnet; because by them their
share is sumptuous and their food plentiful.
17Shall they therefore empty their net, and
continue to slay nations without pity? 2:1I
will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and
watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will
answer when I am corrected.
f. The Lord's answer: 1) in due
time He will judge Babylon; and 2) He will take care of
His people.
Habakkuk 2:2-20 -
Then the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision and
make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.
3For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though
it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it
will not tarry. 4Behold the proud, his soul is
not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.
5Indeed, because he transgresses by wine, he
is a proud man, and he does not stay at home. Because he
enlarges his desire as hell, and he is like death, and
cannot be satisfied, he gathers to himself all nations
and heaps up for himself all peoples. 6Will
not all these take up a proverb against him, and a
taunting riddle against him, and say, 'Woe to him who
increases what is not his; how long? and to him who loads
himself with many pledges'? 7Will not your
creditors rise up suddenly? Will they not awaken who
oppress you? And you will become their booty.
8Because you have plundered many nations, all
the remnant of the people shall plunder you, because of
men's blood and the violence of the land and the city,
and of all who dwell in it. 9Woe to him who
covets evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest
on high, that he may be delivered from the power of
disaster! 10You give shameful counsel to your
house, cutting off many peoples, and sin against your
soul. 11For the stone will cry out from the
wall, and the beam from the timbers will answer it.
12Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed,
who establishes a city by iniquity! 13Behold,
is it not of the LORD of hosts that the peoples labor to
feed the fire, and nations weary themselves in vain?
14For the earth will be filled With the
knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover
the sea. 15Woe to him who gives drink to his
neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him
drunk, that you may look on his nakedness!
16You are filled with shame instead of glory.
You also; drink! And be exposed as uncircumcised! The cup
of the Lord's right hand will be turned against you, and
utter shame will be on your glory. 17For the
violence done to Lebanon will cover you, and the plunder
of beasts which made them afraid, because of men's blood
and the violence of the land and the city, and of all who
dwell in it. 18What profit is the image, that
its maker should carve it, the molded image, a teacher of
lies, that the maker of its mold should trust in it, to
make mute idols? 19Woe to him who says to
wood, 'Awake!' To silent stone, 'Arise! It shall teach!'
Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet in it
there is no breath at all. 20But the LORD is
in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before
Him."
2. In response, Habakkuk
responds:
a. With fear.
Habakkuk 3:2a, 16
- O LORD, I have heard your speech and was afraid; O
LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years! In the
midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember
mercy. 16When I heard, my body trembled; my
lips quivered at the voice; rottenness entered my bones;
and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of
trouble. When he comes up to the people, he will invade
them with his troops.
b. With the confidence of
grace.
Habakkuk 2:4 -
"Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but
the just shall live by his faith.
3. Habakkuk prays an intercessory
prayer for the godly remnant "in the midst of the
days."
a. They must wait out the
long days of chastisement.
Habakkuk 2:2-3
-
Then the LORD
answered me and said: "Write the vision and make it plain
on tablets, that he may run who reads it. 3For
the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end
it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries,
wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not
tarry.
b. They will experience the trouble
associated with the chastisement and judgment.
Habakkuk 3:17 -
Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the
vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the
fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off
from the fold, and there be no herd in the
stalls.
4. In the dispensation of grace, God
has called out gentiles to join the Jewish remnant in
waiting for the end. How are you waiting?
5. In the waiting process Habakkuk
prays that God would revive His work:
a. We are reminded that it is
the Lord's work, not ours.
b. What is His work?
Universal - Calling out a
people for His name.
Local - Formulation of local churches.
Personal - Sanctification of the individual
believer.
c. The revival involves:
1) Faith for the wait.
Habakkuk 2:4 -
"Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but
the just shall live by his faith.
Habakkuk 3:19 - The LORD God is my strength; He will
make my feet like deer's feet, and He will make me
walk on my high hills.
2) Joy for the trouble.
Habakkuk
3:17-18 - Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor
fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive
may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the
flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no
herd in the stalls; 18yet I will rejoice in
the LORD, I will joy in the God of my
salvation.
(All
Scripture quoted is from the New King James
Version)
|
