This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 17, 1995.

We are reading once more this morning Habakkuk chapter 3, reading it from a different version than we did last week. This morning we will be reading it from the King James Version. Give your attention now to the reading of God’s Holy Word, Habakkuk chapter 3. A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, upon Shigiun. 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.

God came from Canaan, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. 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. He stood and measured the earth. He beheld and drove asunder the nations. and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow, his ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Pushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

Was the Lord displeased against the rivers? Was thine anger against the rivers? Was thy wrath against the sea that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation? Thy bow was made quite naked according to the oaths of the tribes, even by word. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.

The mountains saw thee, 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 the 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 thrash the heathen in anger. Thou wentest 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. Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages. They came out as a whirlwind to scatter me. Their rejoicing was to devour the poor secretly. Thou dost walk through the sea with thine horses through the heap of great waters. 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 when he cometh up unto the people. he will invade them with his troops. Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines. The labor of the olive shall fail, and the field 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 my kind feet, and he will make me to walk upon my high places. Then a verse from Galatians, chapter 2, verse 20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Pray together.

Lord, we would not be strangers to your word. And Lord, if we are confessing that we know your word this morning, help us in our listening that we might hear all that you have to say. But Lord, if we are indeed strangers to your word, may it be that this prayer of ours is prompted by your Spirit, that we would be strangers no more. But know your word, and know it well, even for the saving of our souls. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. Habakkuk, the prophet, clamors for our attention.

And he does so for two reasons. First, he is a man in whom there is affected not just a remarkable change, but secondly, a change, a transformation of ethical proportions. By this I mean that we see in a package both an amazing personal renewal and a transition, a transformation suggestive of the transition and change from one age to another, from one estate to another, one environment to another, one world to another. Because this is true, Habakkuk is a man in whom we see the pattern of personal renewal, as he moves from his former faith in chapter one, a faith which is crippled much too much by unrighteous whining, to a mature faith in chapter three, in which he, despite and beyond what he immediately sees, entrusts himself wholly to God and to his eternal faithfulness. but also Habakkuk is a man in whom we see the pattern of the history of salvation. As if in one man, we are witnessing something of the movement from the old era of faith and its inadequacies in the Old Testament to a new era of faith and its excellency in the new. Now, in considering this, you might well ask yourself, which has the priority? The personal renewal in Habakkuk himself, or the way in which he embodies the transition in the history of God’s comprehensive plan, the transition from Old Testament to New.

You might well think that the personal renewal has the edge, that it has the priority. This is, after all, what immediately grabs our attention, is it not? We are riveted by the stories of conversion. We are grabbed hold of by the stories of personal salvation. How we delight to hear about the transformation of an individual, someone who is moved from a life of drunkenness to a life of godly sobriety. How we rejoice to hear about someone who is given over to lasciviousness, moved by God’s grace to become a vessel of purity. So in asking the question, what has the priority, what has the edge, we are most likely to respond with, of course, the personal renewal of the man. For we all love and are drawn to stories about personal transformation. I remember as a child, the Old Testament story that fascinated me most.

It was not the story about Daniel and the lion’s death. It was not the story about David fighting Goliath. It wasn’t even the story about Samson pushing out the piers in the Temple of David. As much as I was fascinated by the pictorial representations of that event, Now, as fascinating as all of those stories and others were to me as a young boy, the story that mesmerized me was that of King Manasseh.

As some of you may recall, Manasseh was the son of King Hezekiah, and he has been called the most wicked king in the history of Judah, if not the most wicked man. that ever lived. But the verses that caught my eye at a very early age were these. 2 Chronicles 33 verses 10 through 13.

And the Lord spake to Manasseh and to his people that they would not hearken. Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his father, and prayed unto him. And God was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then the Master knew that the Lord, He was God.

To this day, it is difficult for me to read that account without being deeply moved by it. And which of us who love the Lord are not moved by the stories we hear even presently, of genuine conversion. Stories about people wonderfully transformed by God’s almighty mercy from lives of destructiveness, even self-destructiveness, lives of arrogance, hatred, deceit, lasciviousness, to lives of grace and glory, and that for the sake of God and for His kingdom. So yes, you and I quickly say, if for no other reason than the level of the spiritual amazement which these stories cause and the emotions that they draw from us, personal renewal has priority over the more general and seemingly less personal account of the change and transformation that occurs in the history of salvation. But you know, even though I am still deeply moved by that story about Manasseh’s conversion, I now see much more in that story than I did when I was a child.

And maybe as I read it, you picked it up too. Manasseh was a king who reigned a century before the Babylonian captivity, and yet he now, in his person, goes into that captivity before the people go into that captivity. He, in his person, serves as a prophecy to them. You must see in the man more than the man.

You must see the comprehensive sweep of the plan and purpose of God, the history of salvation. So it was that Manasseh went into that captivity as if before the people going in, they went in with him, and there he with them were humbled, and then they were restored by God’s graciousness to the kingdom. Manasseh’s personal renewal soars to greater renewal that God works in the life of his people and for their sake. In fact, we can say that the greater change for God’s people in the history of salvation has the priority over the individual transformation as important and as essential as that individual renewal is. Our personal renewal is but a participation in the greater renewal, and that’s what makes it secure.

And I might add, utterly different than the conversions that are reported in other religions. Now, nothing less than what I have been saying here is the case for New Testament believers. You will agree with me, I trust, that there is no more dramatic conversion in the New Testament than the conversion of the Apostle Paul.

But what do we find here? Does Paul place his own conversion center stage? Does it have first place in his own consciousness? Not that you can’t find him telling the story about his conversion. You find that in the Book of Acts. But when you turn to the epistles, what do you find? You find there the man subordinating his own personal transformation to the history-changing events of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Listen to the man, what he says once more, Galatians 2.20, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

And if that’s not enough for you, turn to Galatians 6.14, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross. of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. You see what the Apostle Paul is doing in these texts. There is an obvious and deliberate subordination by him of his own renewal to the epic, defining events of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He subordinates his own experience to the experience of Jesus. That’s what it means for him to live. That’s what it means for him to be in Christ. In fact, that is what it means for him to deny himself. that Christ might be all in all.

But getting back to Habakkuk, we have maintained all along in our study that we have here a wonderful account in this prophecy of personal transformation and renewal. As the prophet moves from his quantitative view of righteousness expressed in chapter 1, verse 13, and his attitudes about God’s injustice—not his justice, but his injustice in that first chapter—as he moves from that to the adoption of, the acceptance of, a qualitative view of righteousness, and to a position in which he is going to vindicate, justify God in praise-filled prayer, such as appears in chapter three. But we also have maintained that Habakkuk’s story anticipates the great day in which God’s glorious message of justification by faith will shine forth brightly in the radiancy of the gospel, in a day when the stuttering faith of the Old Testament is left behind, for the faith which in its coming makes all previous faith seem like it was no faith at all. the movement not just personally, but redemptively historically, from faith to faith. So we said at the outset of this message that Habakkuk is clamoring for our attention for two reasons.

But one is the matter of renewal, change, transformation as it affects the prophet and affects the history of salvation. The second is the thorough God-centeredness of the prophet in the resolution of the entirety of what he has to say. Now, if you scan that first chapter of Habakkuk, it will become evident to you, I believe, that there is the note of, the evidence of, a man-centeredness, particularly a self-centeredness, in what Habakkuk has to say. For instance, is it really, is it truly God’s honor that is foremost to the prophet, that motivates the prophet?

When he speaks as he does in verses two through four of that first chapter, is it genuinely God’s honor that is in view? Or is it that there is concern about possessions, there is concern about one’s viability in the land. And how can Habakkuk be sure? How can he be sure unless he is prepared to let all things go for the sake of God? And in verses 12 through 17 of that first chapter, Is God there seen for all that he should be seen to be? Is the prophet there concerned for God, for his honor, for his justice, for his person?

Or is he more concerned with his own assessment of relative righteousness in comparison with those who are around him, claiming as he does that yes, the Jews, inclusive of himself, are more righteous than the Babylonians who are going to invade the land.

But in chapter three, there is no question about the absolute supremacy of God in Habakkuk’s thinking and in his praise. Habakkuk finds himself at the opening of his prayer, verse 2, quaking before the prospect of God’s appearance. He is so utterly, thoroughly God-centered. He is nothing less, as the prayer progresses, he is nothing less than self-forgetful, self-denying, in light of the incomparable picture given him of the Lord, moving through the earth as a triumphant warrior, verses 3 through 15 of that third chapter. And in the end, verses 16 through 19, we find the prophet not simply malleable before God or in God’s hands, but totally content in his submissiveness since he knows that God is his only true and genuine reward. It is for God’s sake, in the end, that Habakkuk awaits, in faith, the God who shall prove to be to him his true and only satisfaction. Not the land, not what he has acquired, not his possessions, not the promise of longevity in it even, but the Lord himself. Here is Habakkuk’s satisfaction and delight as the prophecy concludes, and the center of his praise-filled prayer.

There is a marvelous illustration of this self-forgetfulness, for the sake of God and his kingdom, given us in the life of Josiah the king, the grandson, I might add, of Manasseh. You may recall that during Josiah’s reign, The Book of the Law was rediscovered in the Temple, if Helkiah put himself to refurbishing the Temple and repairing it in Josiah’s day, 2 Chronicles 34. But upon hearing the Law as it was read in his presence, Josiah trembled with great fear and sent forward from Huldah the prophetess as to what the Law might mean in its sanctions and pronouncements. Paul had then sent word back to Josiah, yes, peace for you, Josiah.

The Lord is pleased with you and with your repentance, but there shall be inevitable destruction upon the nation. But the amazing thing is what follows from that point. Josiah, upon hearing these words, then leads the nation in corporate repentance. But why? Why would you repent? You’re going to lose the land anyway. What good is your repentance? What do you hope to preserve? What do you hope to gain? Do you hope that even by this demonstration of piety you might be able to assert once more your own superior self-righteousness in comparison with others?

Absolutely not. The message is clear. The nation is lost. All your possessions are gone. Self-righteousness is vain and purposeless. The only reason to join in that corporate repentance led by Josiah is for the sake of God and God alone, because you love him and you want him. The land’s gone. The city’s destroyed. Will you obey for the sake of God alone? And just having the promise of God is not enough for you.

The Lord then, even from the beginning, and I will say from the garden of Eden itself, intends to become his people’s reward. And now, you see, Habakkuk must be taught that lesson. All God’s children must be taught that lesson, despite the loss of the family farm. despite the loss of the stocks and bonds portfolio, despite the loss of the dream house and the American dream, despite the feelings of the fig trees and the vines, the feeling of the produce in the field, the slaughter of the herbs.

Were you listening as we concluded Habakkuk’s prayer? Everything is gone. The lesson from Josiah then coincides with the message from Habakkuk, a message that is expertly and finely articulated in and by Jesus Christ, our Savior, whose God-centered life gains for him the true reward which he is delighted to share with you. The God-centeredness we observe in our Savior has been anticipated by Habakkuk. The complete satisfaction in and with God that we observe in Jesus Christ has been anticipated in Habakkuk. Don’t you, then, Habakkuk-like, find your rest and perfect satisfaction in Jesus Christ, whose personal renewal in his death and resurrection has meant the transition of the ages and the coming of a new world? a world in which you, by your personal renewal in faith, have been assured a share. Our God, we rejoice and rise with a message from your prophet Habakkuk, even as we live with him through his personal change, even as we are compelled to acknowledge that there is something even greater going on in him than that personal change.

And also, Father, as we are introduced by him into a wonderful God-centeredness, and that for your glory. That you might be the very center of our existence, Lord, in all of our conscious activities. That we might acknowledge you to be so. That we might be done with self-righteousness. That we might be done, O God, with comfortable comparisons with others, and even a tax upon your integrity and justice. that ours might be a vindication of our God. In praise build prayer. And we found it to be submissive, even as Christ is submissive, and also satisfied with you, as your Son is satisfied. We pray these things through Him, by the police here.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.