THE HARD THING IN REVIVAL (HABAKKUK CHAPTERS 1 & 3: 17-19)

 

THE HARD THING IN REVIVAL

BIBLE PASSAGE: HABAKKUK chapter 1 & 3:17-19

Picture taken from Google

Lesson Prepared by: Krisha of Solomon’s Wisdom FB page

Lesson ideas taken from: mmbcbaptistlessons/PtrPhilipPointerSermon

 

APRIL 10, 2022

MEMORY VERSE

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.

HABAKKUK 3:2

 

INTRODUCTION:

Do we know what will happen in the next years of your life? Do we know what possible disaster may come that will hit you spiritually? No one knows except God. That’s why we need to be ready. We are not always spiritual in our journey that’s why we need revival. The very dangerous time is when we think we’re okay and then problems strike us and we’re not ready. Bible warns us, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” Therefore, don’t say, I don’t need revival. We need to keep on reading and hearing God’s word in order for us to be ready for this life, in our journey.

 

Do we have loved ones, friends or sisters or brothers in the Lord who were once serving in God’s ministry and now they have different priorities and seldom go to church? How sad to see the result of their waywardness? There is a brother in the Lord who became one of the workers of CBT but chose to leave the church and followed what he thought was better. I once asked this worker, “Why you don’t bring your kids to church?” and he just replied, “I want them to give them a lesson or grounded them for their disobedience.” This grounded situation took days, months and years and ask me where are they now? They are okay in terms of money, but their lifestyles are different- worldly lifestyles. I don’t want to jump into conclusions because we are all prone to spiritual coldness as the others. I say this to warn myself and some all of us here.

 

What if you want your family to go back in the ministry but they are stubborn? What will be your feeling if you keep on praying for them, but it takes days, months and years and they do the same and nothing change? You pray for solutions to make them revive in their spiritual coldness. This kind of feeling was the same feeling the minor prophet had experienced. His name is prophet Habakkuk; he is a minor prophet but gave an important-spiritual message. The prophet sees the sins of God’s people; his burden is seeing the people in strife, violence and contention. Let’s read chapter 1: 3-4.

³ Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention. ⁴ Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

In verses 2 says,  “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! ³ Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention.”

Habakkuk was pleading to God to send or do something to correct His people. He prayed earnestly because revival was desperately needed for God’s people. This burden of the prophet is not easy. Let’s study today the lesson titled, “THE HARD THING IN REVIVAL.”

 

LESSON OUTLINE:

1.  WHEN GOD’S SOLUTION IS HARD TO ACCEPT (HABAKKUK 1:6)

 

God answers his cry and in verse 6, God has a solution for the barrenness of the people’s spirituality. In verse 6 says,

“For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not their's.”

 

In the next verses from verse 7 – 11, God mentioned how wicked the Babylonians were. What’s the solution of God? In order to bring back the Israelites to God is to bring the Babylonians (Chaldeans) to the scene. God will let the Babylonians ransack Jerusalem, overthrow their government, burned the walls and the temple, and take the people as captives (1:6). Upon hearing God’s solution, Habakkuk isn’t in favor of the solution, and we can read that first in verses 12.

“Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction.”

 

In verses 13 -17 Habakkuk mentioned why God allowed the ungodly nation to punish his people (Read in Tagalog). Habakkuk had the problem with the solution because God’s solution does not fit into Habakkuk’s limited scope on to revive His people or bring back the people into holiness. What lesson we could get with the conversation between the prophet and God, the Father? Sometimes we pray for God to fix something in our family but we get discouraged and upset to God when the solution is hard to accept. His solution is not what we want Him to fix it. His solution is different from ours. For examples:

·       A mother wanted & prayed for her rebellious son to bring back in the church, but she doesn’t want him to get arrested and go to jail. What if God’s solution is to get him arrested in order for him to be humbled and he’ll bend his knees in prayer?

·        What if your son who was active and faithful in God’s ministry then suddenly, he stopped from doing his spiritual duties and now he has different priorities? Then God’s solution for him is to get a serious ill in order for him to acknowledge God and be revived.

·       Being a Christian, you chose the wrong relationship and fight for that relationship within your family. To bring you back to the right path, God’s solution is your partner would fall –out of love and he broke up with you.

 

Habakkuk and God had this conversation, “Lord why you use ungodly people to correct your people?” God uses godly, ungodly or everything to bring us back to His will. It’s possible that the prophet saw the hardness and hurt of the solution of God. God reminded Habakkuk to hold on. One reason God used Habakkuk for this kind of situation of the people of God is the meaning of his name; the name Habakkuk means “embrace.” God wants His people to embrace and hold on. They needed to have a positive disposition even there’s negative circumstances. Be positive still even in the midst of negative situations around you. Let’s put our attention not on the dark days but to the SOURCE of all things. Stop looking around and look up. With this, you’ll have a positive outlook on looking above- DIVINE SOURCE.

 

2.  WHEN WE DON’T ACKNOWLEDGE OUR PLIGHT (HABAKKUK 3:17-18)

¹⁷ Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: ¹⁸ Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

 

 

When you say plight, it means – a dangerous, difficult or otherwise unfortunate situation. The hard thing in revival is acknowledging your plight or difficult situation.

 

I was assigned before as one of the devotion teachers in young people and I asked each one this question, “What is your greatest fear?”  One of them answered, “My greatest fear is losing our family’s source of income.” That’s true losing the source of income is one of the hardest things. What if the basic needs are no longer supplied properly? What is God allowing to happen is the stuff that working on is not working anymore? What’s my point?

To explain let’s read verse 17,

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:

 

The fig tree is not blossomed, no fruit in the vines, olive failed, no meat in the fields, flock shall be cut off, and no herd in the stalls. In a moment our work is gone, no food on the table, no rice, no meat and everything. You would say, “I’m doing my best, I’m planting, I’m plowing and weeding but they aren’t working.

 

All these things happening to you but still don’t acknowledge God. Some of us go to church and always like everything is going well – act like everything is working. You act like everything is always well, wonderful and good but God won’t fix what you won’t face. I remember what teacher Liza said when our struggle was so hard, and we couldn’t sleep anymore. She said to me that we acted like we still okay. If you needed help admit it.  God will not help you through if you won’t be honest and have to admit that WHAT YOU DO IS NOT WORKING.  The first step to true deliverance and revival is ACCEPTANCE what is not working in your life. It’s not always the devil that’s stopped it from working; it’s not always the haters or the people around you and it’s not always your enemies that’s stopping from working; some stuff or things you do are not working because God is allowing the condition of your situation to be a sign of the condition of your soul. God wants you to see that what’s going around you is simply the result of what’s going on within you. The barrenness you see is the barrenness in you.

You’ll probably say, “I’m doing what I can to make things work to produce, to have some sense of success” but friends this lesson reminds us that it does not matter how good of a farmer you are if God doesn’t send rain, nothing will grow. You’re not where you are because you’re such a good farmer. If you got any produce in your life, yes, because God sends some rain on top of your field.

 

Acknowledge your plight because denial is not deliverance.  Pretending you’re not hurt doesn’t heal. Sometimes our barrenness is fixed by us. If problems arise within your family, at work and friends, we try to fix it and we think that our experiences, connection, education achievements are going to fix it, but these don’t work. The barrenness around you will be fixed if first the barrenness in you will fix by our God. The barrenness in us like seldom go to church, not reading our bibles, no prayer because of tiredness and no soul winning. Acknowledge your plight and bring it to the Lord. Ask God to revive you from your barrenness.

“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.” (Habakkuk 3:2)

Tagalog: “Yahweh, narinig ko ang ulat tungkol sa iyo, at ako’y nalipos ng paghanga sa iyong mga ginawa. Ulitin moa ng mga gawang ito sa panahong ito at magpakahayag kang muli ngayon. Ipadama mo ang iyong awa kahit sa panahon ng pagkapoot.”

 

CONCLUSION:

A father is teaching his son to tie his shoes then one day the son decided to run around the house, and he needed to wear his shoes. He tried to do it without his father. He started to untie the lace with the knot but the problem he can’t do it so he called his dad. His father came, knelt down and started working on the knot but his son was doing the knot too. The father is loosening the knot then the son tightening the knot at the same time. After couples of minutes the father took his hands off and stood up and let his son continue the work. The son looked up to his father and frustrated and said, “Daddy, I thought you would help me get the knot out?” But the father replied, “I will help you, but you have to take your hands off.”

 

Some of us looking at the barren field and we still trying to fix it ourselves and trying to be smart enough to fix it but we can’t. Let’s go back to verse 17 – imagine no food on the pantry

 

¹⁷ Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls

 

Fig tree shall not blossom, no fruit on the vine, the labor of the olive is going to fail, the fields yield no food – no wheat on the fields, the flock will be cut off from the fold and there’s no herd on the stalls and in verse 18 YET – it’s contrasting conjunction; it’s separates and connects at the same time. YET I WILL REJOICE IN THE LORD, I WILL HAVE JOY IN THE GOD OF MY SALVATION.

Our determination for dark days begins when we acknowledge our plight, but it continues when I affirm our praise. YET I WILL REJOICE – NOT I FEEL REJOICE.  Some of us only rejoice when we feel rejoice. We wait for the choir to sing; we wait for the background music to be played and waited for someone to encourage us before we rejoice. Even you don’t feel rejoice, you will rejoice because God’s character won’t change. You’re broke but you will rejoice. Don’t wait to blossom the fig tree before you affirm your praise.

 

¹⁹The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

 

A hind is a female deer, especially one of the red deer family (Google).

 

He maketh my feet like hinds' feet - So Habakkuk 3:19, "He will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places." The hind is the female deer, remarkable for fleetness or swiftness. The meaning here is, that God had made him alert or active, enabling him to pursue a flying enemy, or to escape from a swift-running foe. (barnernotes commentary)