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, January 22, 1995.

We are reading this morning from the book of Acts. We are in chapter 3 and beginning with verse 1. This is Acts chapter 3 verse 1. Give your attention now to the reading of God’s holy and infallible word. Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the ninth at the hour of prayer being the ninth hour.

And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple. Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asks an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us. And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.

And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at Or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his son Jesus, whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But he denied the Holy One and the just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses.

And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know. Yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Now, brethren, I know that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted. Let your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

And he shall son Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers of prophets, Shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me?

Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people. Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in my seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you, first God, having raised up your son Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.” Then Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 1, the burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see.

Pray with me now. Our gracious and eternal God, you who by your word made the world, who made the heavens and the earth, you who by your word sustain us, now Lord, feed us with your word. that we might be proved as your people, as we give attention to the things that you say, in order that we might live to your glory. This for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Habakkuk is a prophet. He is the Lord’s spokesman. He is the mouthpiece of God. He is that prophet whose message came to Judah and Jerusalem in the early 600s before Christ, very near to that time in which the nation of Judah and the royal city Jerusalem would be destroyed. But where does Habakkuk fit in the overall development of the history of the prophets in Israel? And where does Habakkuk fit in the overall development of God’s plan of salvation? As we saw last week, Present-day liberal critical theory has its own version of the history of the prophets in Israel. We understand now that that liberal critical theory sees the history of the prophets in a thoroughly naturalistic way.

So say the liberals, all primitive cultures had their eccentric, ecstatic clairvoyance. All primitive cultures had their wild, mad men who claimed to have access to God or to the gods. And Israel was no exception. Therefore, according to the liberals, the prophets of Israel are to be understood as those who had their roots in the corollary, corresponding cultures in the world round about. The prophets of Israel then had their roots with individuals and groups that were set apart by their bizarre and even irrational experiences. The prophets then, according to the liberals, were originally religious visionaries, not far removed from conjurers, mediums, soothsayers, even those who entered into religious mystery by way of drug intoxication. The liberals contend that we have evidences of this in the Bible itself.

They turn to Numbers chapter 11, for instance, and the story of Moses there, and his cry to God for help. In response to that cry, God sends his spirit upon seventy in the camp, and these seventy are thought to have then succumbed to bizarre and irrational experiences like the madmen of other cultures. to this story can be added that of Saul, the king. You might recall he was numbered among the prophets on a couple of occasions. Most outstandingly, 1 Samuel 19, when we are told that Saul entered the company of the prophets, took off all his clothes, and laid down naked all night. Actions that are indeed bizarre and apparently irrational.

So the liberals have contended for the truth of their position on the back of texts like these, suggesting that the prophets of Israel were no different than the prophets of any other culture or nation. But being the champions of evolution that they are, the liberals have gone on, suggesting to us that the institution of the prophets from these early primitive excesses, moved then and developed in such a way so as to become the center of what was most sophisticated, sublime, and admirable in Israelite religion. From the most ridiculous to the most sublime. in a process that was naturally evolutionary, as the religious consciousness within Israel developed, and developed specifically amongst the prophets. Israel’s prophet guild took a giant step forward then, suggest the liberal critics. When the prophets of Israel moved beyond the bizarre extremes and excesses of the previous era, but also when they left behind the severe nationalism that was attended to their office and their ministry.

Think of Elijah and Elisha in this regard. Elijah is separated from the prophets of Baal. He’s not one drawing blood with knives, slashing at his own wrist. as were the prophets of Baal, Elijah has moved beyond the excesses of primitivism. But that doesn’t mean that Elijah is out of the woods, no, for he is part of this overall evolutionary process by which the religious consciousness of Israel is developing. Elijah, along with Elisha, was champion of a localized regional deity whose existence was tied to the future of the nation. So even though Elijah had moved beyond the excesses, he, in his theology and in his doctrine, was very much tied to the future of Israel as a nation. Thus, for Elijah and Elisha, for Israel to cease as a nation would mean that Jehovah himself would cease.

It was prophets like Hosea and Amos, however, a century later, who began to preach a new message. So, say the critics, these had achieved a superior ethical sensitivity. Hosea and Amos intuited in Jehovah a similar ethical interest to their own. And this ethical interest in Jehovah set him as much apart from Israel itself as the prophets themselves were set apart from the common people.

This meant, then, that Jehovah could be preserved even though the nation was lost. This meant, then, that Jehovah was not, then, tied to the nation and its destiny any longer. He transcended the nation, and he transcended the nation specifically in his moral purity, that standing over against the nation’s moral perversity. But going one step further, these later prophets then were those who were declaring to the people that Jehovah through and because of his moral excellence, was capable of destroying Israel in the interests of his moral excellence. For the prophets then of the mid-eighth century before Christ, prophets like Hosea and Amos, the nation of Israel had to be sacrificed even in order to save Jehovah. the God who embodied the Prophet’s own ethical ideals. But the step from this ethical crest to a monotheistic peak was then a most natural step indeed.

Once Jehovah was separated from Israel and his ethical character was established, It became increasingly clear from the eighth century B.C. to the time of the Babylonian exile that Jehovah, the God of Israel, was superior to all other gods. He had now, through the prophets, gained his independence from Israel, but in his new status, this Jehovah God of Israel was now understood to be, by the prophets, as the God of all nations. Not only was he ethically superior to all other gods, he then was the only god possessing divine substance. He alone was God over the nations.

According to the liberal critics, this is the development of the religious vision that took hold of the prophets and progressed through the history of the Old Testament. Now, the liberals are not blind to the casualties of this whole process, for this religious vision was not well received by the general population in Israel, nor especially by the religious leaders. The religious leaders, for instance the priests, put their emphasis upon ritual, not upon word. They put their emphasis upon ritual and ceremonial cleanliness, an emphasis that concentrated upon ethnic and racial purity, the separateness of the Jewish people ritually from all others. There was not then in the priest’s message that which would comport to the prophet’s message.

The Prophet’s message had to do with the universal ethical righteousness found in God, but also in those who would follow God. By this route, then, we are told, by the liberals, the Prophets themselves have been salvaged for us and are worthy of our applause. They have rendered marvelous service to humanity. because they have perfected the notion of ethical monotheism, which has had such a great history throughout the course of this world. We can applaud the prophets because, in some sense, they have proved to be modern theologians. In fact, we can applaud them because we find in them the same ethical interests that we discern within ourselves.

After all, we all know, do we not, that ethical goodness is the be-all and end-all of religion. Is it? Is it even the starting place? The modern critic then congratulates himself, not just applauds the prophets. He congratulates himself because he is able to discern now that the prophets are actually supportive of his own position.

After all, biblical religion is pure ethicism. Biblical religion is, first of all and foremostly, about behavior. In fact, the congratulations that’s being passed around now is even more amazing, because the ethical superior that marks out the prophets and we, liberal critics, marks out Jesus Christ as well. which means the heart and soul of all true religion, especially biblical religion, from beginning to end, Old and New Testament, is the exaltation of the ethical ideals that we find in the prophets, in Jesus, and in ourselves.

But don’t be deceived now. The evolutionary process did not end with Jesus. Nor did it end with the prophets of the Old Testament. As there has been progress, evolutionary progress, in religious consciousness, from Elijah to Amos, and then from Amos to Jeremiah, and then from Jeremiah to Jesus, there certainly has been evolutionary progress from Jesus to ourselves.

So what might we say? It’s not just a matter of us applauding the prophets and Jesus, recognizing in them something that comports with ourselves. We are actually in a superior position to the prophets and to Jesus, and that necessarily because of the force and the inevitability of evolution. The liberals believe it, whether they say it or not.

They are better than Jesus. You see, the prophets and Jesus were a little too hyper in their ethical vision. They were still a bit too primitive in their notions about God. Certain things had come to them, and they were not able to divest themselves of those primitive aspects of their own belief.

For instance, the prophets and Jesus actually believed in a system of rewards and punishments. The prophets and Jesus believed in retribution and in divine vengeance. There were also those mythological and supernatural matters that expressed themselves in the language of the prophets and Jesus. But Jesus, with the prophets, expected supernatural intervention by God in the course of the affairs of this world. In fact, Jesus said that he was the embodiment of such an intrusion of God into the course of this world. The prophets and Jesus believed in the miracles that were attendant to the appearance of the kingdom of God. The prophets and Jesus had a longing for a new world, beyond this one, beyond the destruction of this world. They had a longing for life in glory and fellowship with God in a real place, a spiritual place to be sure, but a real place.

But we all know, do we not, that that is just a bunch of nonsense. There is no divine judgment. There is no retribution. There is no true intervention by God in the course of this world or intrusion into the course of history of this creation. There is no such thing as a miracle. This world will not end by the coming of God. It may through ecological crisis, it may through nuclear disaster, but it is not going to end by the intervention and the intrusion of God upon this created order. Such language is wholly mythological and must be dismissed.

So we know, do we not? because the liberals have told us that such talk is nonsense, and we pride ourselves that we have progressed to a place in which we are religiously superior to the prophets and to Jesus. Even though the foolishness of the liberals should be obvious to all of us, That is not to say that there isn’t a progression in the history of the prophets whom God gave to his people. Surely we affirm that, even as the institution of the prophets peaks in the great prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Our repudiation of, our contempt for, the liberal position does not mean that we lack an understanding of the progression of that prophetic office in the history of salvation. To begin with, the office of the prophet is not rooted in the religious swoons of eccentric ecstatic clairvoyance.

Rather, it is rooted in God himself. God is his own prophet. He plays prophet to himself, even from the beginning. His word in creation is in fact predictive, but it is also powerful, carrying within itself vital productivity. God spoke, and it was so. God’s prophet-like speech in creation conveys blessing and by inference intimates judgment. And in one text, as the creation story comes to a conclusion, E. J. Young has pointed out the declarative force of what is said by Moses in Genesis 2, verse A verse that speaks about God having completed all of the works of His hands. But it is not just the completeness of those works that is in view in that verse, according to Dr. Young. He contends that what is in view is the declaration that all of those works were completed. Thus, God performing prophetic ministry on that first Sabbath of the creation, and I might add, thus preaching the first Sabbath day sermon. declaring all of his works done.

Who is the first preacher for the people of God? God Himself. Who is the first prophet for the people of God? God Himself. Now man takes up a prophet’s task derivative of God. Abel, for instance, is called a prophet. He is called a prophet by Jesus in Luke 11, verses 50 and 51, obviously referring to the fact that Abel had preached, proclaimed, the person and work of God to his brother Cain, in whom was hid a murderous heart. Enoch, the man of God, we are told, walked with God. Noah is similarly described. These two men, Enoch and Noah, are prophets of God, so understood throughout the history of Revelation. Abraham is called a prophet, chapter 20, verse 7 in Genesis. This prophethood is derived from God, dependent upon God Himself. All these men speak for God. They are God’s mouthpiece, finding the paradigm for their service in God Himself.

The unbelieving world, the seed of the serpent, though having common ancestry, humanly speaking, not only generates its own corrupt religion, but it generates its own perverse imitation of God and His prophetic role. So where do the madmen come from? Where do the eccentric ecstatics come from? They don’t come from God, they come from the perversion of true religion and apostasy.

I might just add that God’s language at creation, he being the first prophet, was intelligible. It wasn’t ecstatic gibberish. He then, from the unbelieving world, a descendant from the seed of the serpent, lacking divine discourse in exchange with the true God, manufactured contact, invented contact for themselves with what other worlds they might imagine and the supposed deities that might reign there. It is against this background of apostasy and religious degeneracy that true religion in Scripture presents itself, and that contrary to what the liberal asserts. Initially we have these figures, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, but then in concentrated form the prophetic office settles upon Moses.

He becomes a paradigm in the history of Israel for the prophets of God. However, the institution and office of prophet will enter a new era, even beyond Moses, and that’s when the kingdom begins to take shape in the history of Israel in the days of Samuel. This is obvious from the movement of the Old Testament story itself, but it is also obvious through Peter the Apostle, who in Acts 3 verse 24 makes Samuel the watershed figure in the history of Old Testament prophetism. Peter says in that text, all the prophets have spoken from Samuel and his successors onward, announcing the days of the Messianic Kingdom. Samuel is the watershed figure. But the prophetic ministry in Israel inaugurated in Samuel itself divides into two parts, into two sections.

The first part moves from Samuel to the time of the writing prophets, who appear in the mid-eighth century, that is, the time of Hosea and Amos. This first part, from Samuel to the writing prophets, in which their ministers Samuel, Nathan, Elijah, Elisha, and others, operates as something of a reconstruction for the life of Israel. Here is true biblical reconstructionism. The first part of this history, from Samuel to the writing prophets, finds the prophets in it operating something as reconstructionists within the life of Israel.

They call these prophets, call for the repentance and conversion of the people in the hopes of a brighter future, which is still very much tied up to their hopes of preservation in the land in which they live. The future is still something of a fog to them, and they do not quite grasp just how much the future which they speak of will swallow up what is presently before them. But then comes the second part of this epoch, from the writing prophets on.

It is also filled with the message of repentance and conversion. But now coming to the fore in prophets like Isaiah and Micah, Jeremiah and Habakkuk, is the message that what is needed is not mere repair or reconstruction of the old, not the mere refurbishing of the Mosaic theocracy or the Davidic monarchy, but the arrival of something completely new altogether, the dawning of the transcendent eternal kingdom of God. The prophet’s call for repentance and conversion, therefore, in this latter period, is not for the purpose of preserving the people’s place in the earth, even if that place be Jerusalem, the city in Judah. Instead, it is for the purpose of preparing God’s true people for the glory of God’s perpetual, permanent presence in the heavenly abode in Zion above. is a moving, compact testimony to the truth of this very point. In his prophecy, which emphasizes so much faith, faith has its focus in more than a confidence with respect to the immediate situation. That I’ll come through this ordeal, I will survive it.

Rather, faith, according to Habakkuk, looks beyond and grasps hold of the climactic purpose of God in the quiet confidence that then waits upon the Lord. Increasingly, God’s prophets, including Habakkuk, serve as those who in this life refuse to count their lives dear because they know that their lives are secure in a world that is beyond this one. they live from God, whom they have been privileged to behold, knowing that they and all of God’s children shall be brought at last to behold that very God permanently.” Of course, this progression for prophetic ministry This proper biblical evolution for prophetic ministry peaks in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose coming means the arrival of all that the biblical prophets, from Abel to Habakkuk, longed to see. And now, those things that they longed to see, you are privileged to behold in your faith.

Don’t let them go. For by letting them go, you see, there will be even more confirmation of the prophet’s message with regard to you. That the judgments, yes, that divine retribution of which the prophets and Jesus spoke will come upon you. You will be undone and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

What a glorious history, oh God, is ours in what the scriptures tell us. And, Lord, in affirming the truthfulness of what is read there, we are not blind to the progression that moves towards culmination in Christ, the great prophet. And we would hear him, believe him, lest in the end we be overtaken. and undone.

Now God make of this congregation. A congregation that believes the prophets. Rests in the promises of the Lord. Returns from idols. That awaits the appearance of Jesus Christ in the clouds of glory. And may this oh God. Control us. in our thoughts, words and actions. We pray it for Jesus’ sake.

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.