Let us pray. Lord Jesus Christ, we give you thanks for the promises of your word. We give you thanks that those who have come to terms with themselves and have seen themselves as they are, are the truly blessed for they have turned from themselves and they have embraced you, and you have removed their guilt and their sin. We celebrate your goodness and grace this morning and pray for your spirit's presence among us as we consider your word. Would you press it into our hearts and make us glad in our souls? We ask in your name, Amen. You may be seated. When I first became a Christian about 23 years ago, I was instructed, well, I think, to begin laboring to make the regimen of prayer a daily sort of a regimen. And the folks who nurtured me in those early days of my Christian faith told me that it would be a good idea for me to make a list, a list of people, a list of concerns and to keep a record through that list of God's answers to my prayers. Well, I took them pretty seriously and started making a list. And the list got longer and longer and longer and there were some answers, which came, but the longer I was a Christian, the longer that list got. I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but after a while, the list got sort of oppressively long. And all the time I'm making the list, which I'm really very desirous of praying through every day, and also reading books about people who have been models for prayer. And I remember reading about this fellow named praying hide. You ever heard of praying hide? Now, this fellow used to get up at three o'clock in the morning to pray through his prayer list every day. I tried that once. I just couldn't cut it. So I decided, well, I'm going to get rid of the one list, and I'm going to make five or six or seven lists. And I'll abbreviate them instead of praying through the whole thing every day. I'll cut it up, and I'll have a list for Monday and another for Tuesday and one for Wednesday. And maybe I can sleep in until 4 a.m. Well, I don't know if you've ever struggled with that sort of thing, but the list just keeps getting longer and longer. And it is a thrilling thing to be able to make notes in a journal or on a piece of paper or in some way of the things which God does in answering your prayers. But what I began to realize pretty early on was a couple of things. And actually, I didn't realize this. I had some folks who were compassionate and sensitive to my plight and dilemma, and they sort of led me along the way in this. They said, you know, you can pray throughout the course of the day. You don't just have to do it in the morning, and that's one matter that could be addressed. But the other matter is the matter of prioritizing in our praying. The business of establishing in our praying, those things which are in a certain sense more important than other things. Now, God is concerned for us, and in fact, delights when we unburden ourselves and make known to him all of our prayers and supplications. He takes delight in that, and that is a great thing for us to be able to do. But there is also this idea of prioritizing our praying. And as we come to Habakkuk's prayer, there is, it seems to me, in Habakkuk's prayer, some help in this business of prioritizing our praying or learning to pray. Now, you need to remember, of course, what Habakkuk's situation is, that he's terribly concerned about his people. He's terribly concerned about the deterioration, the erosion of religious fervor and fidelity in Israel. And that fact, the erosion of faithfulness to the God of the covenant in the midst of Israel, is eliciting a response from God, and there is the threat of judgment, and it is a judgment which does eventually occur. As the caldians who are prophesied as rushing across the terrain of the Middle East as this conquering horde do in fact come. They don't come in this moment, they don't come in this day, they don't come for a few more years, it appears, but they do come. And they come because of the deterioration of faithfulness to the Lord in the day. That seems to me to be the first little bit of instruction for us regarding how we order our prayer lives. You think about the model prayer, the prayer of Jesus, the Lord's prayer, which we pray so frequently in this church. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, but thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When Jesus instructed his disciples to pray, he instructed them to be concerned first and foremost with the name and glory of God and the purpose and plan of God in the midst of history. And he prayed, if we can extrapolate out from those statements which Jesus made, he prayed that the will of God, meaning the righteousness of God, the justice of God, the truth of God, the beauty and orderliness of God, being manifest in the midst of the people of God. That's what Habakkuk was so distressed about in his day. As he looked at the covenant people, he didn't see in their midst, evidence of the existence and character of Almighty God. It seems to me one thing we need to ask ourselves is we look around the church today, not to beat a dead horse, not in an excessive way to sound and note which other people are sounding, but simply to underscore what seems to be so very evident in our day. The same thing which was true in Habakkuk's day is in fact true in our own day, as we look at the church. Not only in this country, but in other places, but maybe particularly in this country for all of the interest which there is in religion and all of the surveys which tell us that people have been born again, we have to ask ourselves as we look at the church, is the righteousness, is the compassion, is the justice, is the fervency, is the commitment to truth which God loves to have be characteristic of his people, characteristic in our day. And if it isn't, did we conclude that it isn't? Are our hearts broken by that and do we order our prayers accordingly? If I've got fifteen minutes tomorrow about what am I going to be in prayer? If I have five minutes, if I'm rolling down the interstate from my home to my place of employment, with what will I occupy my mind? How will I fill that time? How will I order those moments? Will the first things on my lips reflect the concern for the name and glory of God and the demonstration of the character, the existence and character of God in the midst of his people? Will those things be on my lips? Again, this is not for a moment to suggest that those moment to moment, day to day, family concerns, concerns about a job, concerns about a friend, concerns about this or that are unimportant, they are important. And God cares about them very much but the question is priority, how do we order our praying and what is foremost in our minds if we're to listen to Jesus and be instructed by Habakkuk? It seems to me there is a need for us to get outside ourselves and occupy ourselves first with God and the things of his kingdom. It's a funny story told about Bill Moyers. I believe it's true. It's one of those stories that I've heard enough times to think that it's true even though I haven't seen it in a book or in a volume of sermon illustrations or anything like that. Bill Moyers was with Lyndon Johnson in his staff and at a cabinet meeting, the president asked Mr. Moyers if he would return thanks for a meal which they were going to share together. So Bill Moyers said gladly Mr. President and he bowed his head and began to pray but his praying was mumbling and the president couldn't hear him. And the president barked at Mr. Moyers and said Mr. Moyers speak up, I can't hear you. Mr. Moyers interrupted his prayer, lifted his head and looked at the president and said, I wasn't talking to you. Now that's gutsy. That's gutsy but you see what is reflected in that prayer and what is reflected in Moyers response to the president is a preoccupation with things other than his immediate environment. A preoccupation with the one whom he is addressing, God, and it seems to me as we look at Habakkuk and consider his prayer and consider how his attention is focused. You see the same thing, his priority in praying is God and the kingdom of God. Notice also in Habakkuk there is a proper humility in the presence of God. Oh Lord, I have heard your speech and I was afraid. I have heard your speech and I was afraid and when you read down in verse 16, Habakkuk records something similar when I heard my body trembled, my lips quivered at the voice. The voice rockeness entered my bones and I trembled in myself. See not only is he properly focused on God and the things of the kingdom of God but he remembers as well who he is. I mentioned you a couple of weeks ago this statement which Steve Brown has made. There are only three things you need to know in order to get along well in this life. God is God, you are not and sin confuses the first two. A Habakkuk is not confused at that point. He remembers who he is and so there is a proper humility manifest in Habakkuk as he orders his praying. You see this pattern reflected in scripture, you see it in the life of Job. As you read through the book of Job, there is a wonderful progression in that book where Job makes his complaint against God. Job has already been declared to be a righteous and holy man, a God-fearing man. That is the verdict of God about him. Job knowing great freedom in his covenant relationship with God feels that freedom to express himself and to ask God questions about why this terrible affliction has come upon him and why he has lost his sons and his daughters and all of his possessions and why his life has been turned absolutely upside down. At one point in their dialogue or at least in his monologue as he expresses himself to God, he cries out and asks in effect, oh Lord, can't we please sit down and talk about this together and can't we have an arbiter someone there who will act as a referee to adjudicate this dispute in order that we might be reconciled. He knows great freedom. He knows great liberty in speaking to God and that is the same freedom, the same liberty which covenant children always have. But as you follow the progression through the rest of the book of Job, you will know when you get into the later 30s and chapter 36 and 37, God finally responds, he finally speaks to Job and he speaks by asking Job a series of questions.
Job, where were you when the foundations of the earth were set, where were you when the stars were set in the heavens and ordered, and where were you when the great beasts, the great monsters of the sea were created, Leviathan when no fisherman can pull out of the ocean with a fish hook, where were you Job when the powers that sustain and support and uphold everything that is created. Existed, where were you Job and Job then recognizing who God is and who he is when he responds to God responds with repentance, behold I had heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you and I repent. And in fact, we can't. Everything that I've said, God is God. We are not. Sin confuses the first two. And in the back at you see, even as he orders his prayer properly, mixed into that, a proper reverence for God, a proper humility before God and in that humility, a willingness to receive from God. Whatever it is that God is pleased to dispose. So in the ordering of our praying, in the priorities of our praying, there is also needed this proper posture of humility before the Lord. But then I want you to notice in the third place that Habakkuk does have a great sense of expectation about God in his response to him. There is the expectation that he will act. And what Habakkuk does again is recount the past activity of God in delivering his people. This third verse makes reference to Teaman and to Mount Perim. Teaman was an area in Eden and Mount Perim a mountain in Eden. And what Habakkuk is recounting is the path of the Exodus. What he is recalling is the flame of fire, the pillar of fire that led the children of Israel by night and the cloud of smoke which led them by day which preceded before them and the presence of God, the theophanic and glorious presence of God in the midst of the cloud and the fire which illuminates everything in the path of the Israelites and which causes great dismay among the enemies of God. I don't know where Habakkuk is geographically, but in his mind he is standing upon a mountain, perhaps the mountain of Jerusalem and he is looking to the south and he is recounting the advance. Of the glory of God as God leads his redeemed people in their conquest of the promised land and he ties himself to those past events and has great conviction that the Lord will come and will do it again. Why do we remember Reformation Day? Why do we celebrate the lives of people who have gone before us? Those events and those people are reminders to us that God has manifested his glory in the past. He has demonstrated his power, he has transformed lives, he has worked to reform his church and he has worked in the past so to reform his church that the surrounding culture is impacted and transformed in some real measure by his work of reviving his people. I remember hearing a tape several years ago by Ravi Zacharias in which he talked about the first great awakening which swept England and Scotland and Wales and Ireland and that was in the 18th century, you'll remember the late 18th century. And if you remember from your history classes you'll remember that on the continent it was a time of tremendous political upheaval and unrest and there were revolutions which began in the latter part of the 18th century and stretched into the early part of the 19th century and time when people died and when there were wars and all of the consequences which come from that kind of conflict. But the historians look at England and Scotland and Wales and recognize that that same sort of foment and upheaval did not ask the question why and the answer to their question is to be found in the first great awakening, a movement of God's spirit, a demonstration of his ability to work yet again. And the estimations are that one person in eight in England, Scotland and Wales was affected by that great awakening, experienced some personal revival in his or her soul and gin houses were shut down all across London and individual lives and family lives were changed and little villages were transformed. And so significant and pervasive was the transformation by one life in eight being impacted that historians conclude that the revolutions which affected the continent were protected or England was protected from them by this mighty movement of God's spirit which occurred in the first great awakening. That's the judgment of historians and Habakkuk is tying himself to past acts of God in which God has done that sort of thing and has great confidence that he will do it yet again. We remember Martin Luther, we remember John Calvin, we remember St. Augustine, we remember the first great awakening and all of the people both named and not named who lived through those times, they are the cloud of witnesses surrounding us and we recognize in them that God can do it again. And he can do it in our day. So how do we order our lives? There is a proper humility, a proper humility which is characteristic of Habakkuk and by which we are to be instructed. There is a preoccupation with God and the things of his kingdom and there is an expectation and expectation, understanding that God will do what he wants and when he wants, but nevertheless an expectation. That God can do it yet again in our day, be encouraged by Habakkuk to order your thinking and to order your praying according to this pattern, that God might be pleased as he sees the earnest in treaties of his people to come and to revive his work in the midst of our days. Let us pray together. As gracious God, we give you thanks. We give you thanks for your great glory. We ask you that you would remind us of that glory that we might know our proper place before you. We ask you, O God, to give us grace and help and strength as we seek to order our praying that we might be preoccupied as was Habakkuk, as was the Lord Jesus, with your name and your glory and the things of your kingdom. And I pray, O Lord, that you would stir us up in our hearts, that we might be reminded of these mighty events which have occurred in the past and see in them demonstrations of your ability to revive your people and cause the gospel to impact nations. We need your spirit's work, O Lord, to help us, that we might have that kind of expectation and that kind of confidence. And we give you thanks, O God, for those who have gone before us, for men and women both named and unnamed, known and not known, who have lived faithfully, who have run with endurance, the race which you have set before them. May we be encouraged by them that it is possible to do it. And we give you thanks for those from our own number who are now assembled among that cloud of witnesses, who behold you as you are, who know you as you are, and who love you and see your grace in ways which we can only begin to imagine. We give you thanks for them, O Lord, and we give you thanks for the grace of Jesus Christ which made them what they are.