Now, upon this, we may again say, the present day may put us much in company with Habakkuk. The man of God looks round, and sees everything in Christendom to provoke the resentment of holiness, or to vex the righteous soul. But while he resents the thing, he would willingly plead for the people, like Habakkuk, and, like him again, turn to God, with his burdens and his expectations. But somewhat beyond our prophet, the believer now, from the fuller instructions of God, knows there will be “a revival,” and does not merely pray for it. He knows that the judgments which are coming, more solemn than that by the hand of the Chaldean, will only clear the earth of all that offends, take out of it all that are corrupting it, and thus lead to its redemption, and not to its destruction. And he knows that a brighter, richer condition will mark its end, than that which did its beginning—for “the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into, the glorious liberty of the children of God.” So that it will not be merely a revival of early days in the history of either Israel or the earth; but their latter end, like that of Job, will be more than their beginning.
And I would add a practical word upon the experience of Habakkuk, which is so blessed at the end. “I will rejoice in the Lord,” he says, “although the fig-trees shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines.”
To live happily in the love of God, through Jesus, is the glory He seeks at our hand—sinner, self-ruined, as we are. And to do this, like Habakkuk in spite of the contradiction of circumstances, makes this service and worship still more excellent—the fruit, as it surely is, of His grace and inworking power.
Man seeks to live pleasurably, but he has no care to live happily. He would live pleasurably, or in the sunshine of favoring, flattering circumstances; but to live happily, or in the favor of God, in the light of His countenance, the sense of His love, and the hope of His presence in glory, this is not what man cares about. And it is God’s work in the heart and conscience, when man is considering himself, and seeking to cease from living pleasurably, that he may live happily—find his life only in the greatest of all circumstances, that is, in his relation to God, having discovered, through grace, that that relationship is settled for him forever, in the precious reconciliation accomplished in the blood of Christ.