Habakkuk 3:1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth.
2 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.
The Bible is the inspired Word of God. When we talk of the Bible, we talk of the King James Version for the English speaking world. We do not hold to the Ruckman position that the King James corrects the Greek. That is heresy. We believe that God directed certain men in the late 1500’s and early 1600’s to work at bringing the Bible into the common language of the people, which happens to be English. There are many languages in the world. There are people who do not understand the English language. For some, like many French speaking people, it is a matter of stubborn pride. They believe they have a superior language and they want everyone to learn their language.
The fact is that God is in charge, and He has determined that English is the common language of the world at this time. The Bible is a timeless book. Since the fall of man, man has not changed. He is born a lost sinner and the result of that is that he sins. Most people in any generation choose to defy God and they establish their own idea of right and wrong. That view is very contradictory and impossible to comply with. The leaders of the different generations have used various methods to try to enforce their false views.
The Old Testament focuses on the history of the nation of Israel. It brings other nations into view, but the nation of Israel is the focus of that time period. The New Testament also makes Israel a central point but Jesus Christ declared a new entity that would exist for a time. That new entity is the true, Bible-believing, local church.
In the Old Testament God raised up prophets to proclaim His Word. There were more false prophets who worked to defy God, than there were true prophets who would proclaim: “thus saith the LORD”. God allowed the false prophets to exist and often times to prosper. The nature of fallen man is that he lacks discernment and operates on feeling, to a great extent. A person’s pursuit of truth is often based on what sounds good to the person, rather than the facts of the Bible.
The book of Habakkuk is a relatively short book. It begins with Habakkuk, a true prophet of God, questioning God’s means of correcting His people, Judah. Habakkuk could not reconcile the use of a pagan nation, Babylon, as the means by which God would punish Judah.
God addressed this question in chapter 2. He showed that He does not need to consult with man. He showed that He sets up true prophets and they are answerable to Him. He listed key elements of the sins of Babylon and how those elements were also alive and well within Judah. Judah had been given the law, but chose to reject that in favour of secularism.
In chapter 3 Habakkuk was directed to respond with a different attitude toward God’s dealings. That is what happens when a true child of God listens to God. Every true child of God will need to be corrected by God. We are constantly in need of teaching and growing in the Lord.
We have stated before that we do not believe in the Catholic false doctrine of ‘replacement theology’. Replacement theology suggests that the “church” has replaced Israel. By “church” they speak of a universal entity that has many different and contradictory beliefs. The head of this “church” is primarily the pope, and he has many subordinates who are given much leeway in what they believe and teach.
Jesus Christ declared that He would build His church on Himself. That first church was located on earth at Jerusalem. That church was supposed to spread out and plant many churches. Those churches were not to be under the central church in Jerusalem. They were all to be independent local churches under the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ. The book of Acts shows us that the church at Jerusalem, was eventually replaced by the church in Antioch as the main sending church. There is no centralized headquarters for churches on this earth. Each true local church is supposed to build upon the true Word of God.
Over time, we have witnessed a great decline in the number of true local churches. There are still many churches, but most are fraudulent. Sadly, most religiously minded people lack discernment and due to their pride, they reject the truth and choose heresy as their truth. Their criteria for choosing a church is money and power among people.
I learned this week that President Trump has chosen Paula White-Cain as his top spiritual advisor. She is his “pastor”. Mr. Trump’s father was impressed by Norman Vincent Peale. That man was a prosperity preacher. He was a heretic. He was a lost man. Mr. Trump grew up under the influence of Mr. Peale and he liked what he was hearing. He is reported to have stated that when the service would come to an end, you would hate to leave because it was so good. Mrs. White-Cain is also a prosperity gospel preacher. She is also a heretic and a lost person. The Bible is very clear that women are not to usurp authority over the man. Women cannot be pastors and they cannot be evangelists. Her theology is also from the devil, not from God. There are many, many preachers who would agree with her theology, but they might not agree with her alignment with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump has two members of his cabinet that have East Indian ties. Both of them used their religious books as their authority in their ‘swearing-in’ ceremony. Mr. Trump has stated that he wants to bring the U.S. back to a unity under God. It is clear that his god is not the God of the Bible. God is using Mr. Trump for His purposes, just as He did Babylon back in the days of Habakkuk.
In the days of Habakkuk, God wanted the nations to be reminded that He was in charge. He wanted them to know that the direction that Judah had chosen was the wrong direction. He could not bless that rebellion. Judah refused to learn the important lessons that God was teaching. To this day, they have not learned them. During the time that Jesus Christ was on this earth, Judah/Israel as a nation, rejected Him as their Messiah, King, and Saviour. To this day, they are still in that state of rejection. The nation is no longer divided into two parts. It is now Israel once again, but it is fighting against the true God. The Tribulation time will be the time when their fight against God will end. At the end of the Tribulation time, the nation will see their sin as it truly is and they will repent and acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. They will realize they had rejected the seed of the woman prophesied in Genesis 3:15.
In the meantime, God is using other nations for His purposes as well. The U.S. is poised right now as a major brake against the rush to destruction. It is not that the president is a God-fearing man. It is that, as a wicked man, he is enacting some policies that will slow down the destructive designs of the previous administration and of our own country. We do not have a leader. We have a puppet. He has squandered the good-will of the U.S. to the point where there is a very strained relationship between Canada and the U.S. We do not know where this will lead in the short term. We know that the next presumed leader of this country is even more vile than the current one. He is not hiding his plans, but it does not seem to matter. The die is set and we are in for a rough ride.
We, those who are saved need to humble ourselves as Habakkuk did. We need to recognize that the LORD is in charge. We need to be willing to listen to Him and submit to His will. We need to repent of the sin of compromise that has dominated for so long, that most cannot even see it. Until we take the Word of God as our authority, we will not see the problem. If we cannot see the problem, we cannot address it. God is working. He is showing us all the absurdity of humanistic religion. He is still not willing that any should perish. It seems we are at a place now where the die is set for many to perish. The voice of truth is greatly diminished. There is not that hunger for truth that history records from past generations. There is what God warned of in the book of Daniel:
Daniel 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
There is much activity, but not much Truth. We need to get to the place where we can say with Habakkuk: “O LORD, I have heard thy speech and was afraid:”. Because Habakkuk actually heard the LORD, he would then ask for the LORD to revive HIS work in the midst of the years. HIS work is essential. We need a truly humble heart to be able to identify HIS work in the midst of all the religious noise of our time. Are we up to the task?
Pastor Bartel
