THIS IS REVIVAL
Dr. W. A. Criswell
Habakkuk 3:1-2
01-08-78
The message tonight is entitled: The
Urgency of the Hour or Our Greatest Need or This is Revival. It
is taken out of the Book of Habakkuk and the text is the first two verses of
the last, the third chapter. “A prayer
of Habakkuk, the prophet: O Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid. O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the
years. In the midst years make it
known. In wrath, remember mercy”
[Habakkuk 3:1,2].
Of what is the prophet afraid? When he
said, “O Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid?” He is referring to the
judgments of God upon Israel [Habakkuk
3:1,2]. And, as the author of Hebrews
avows, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”
[Hebrews 10:31].
He is referring to the destruction of
Israel, the Northern Kingdom Samaria in 722 B.C., by the Assyrians. And he is referring to the destruction of
Jerusalem and Judah by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. Habakkuk stood between the two. The first had already
happened. And he himself was the
emissary and the messenger of God to announce the second.
That is why he says: “O Lord, I have
heard thy speech and was afraid” [Habakkuk 3:2a]. The judgment of God that the Lord sent him to announce against
his own people and his own city. In the
first chapter he is speaking for the Lord who says:
Lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, the
Babylonians, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the
breadth of the land to possess of the dwelling places that are not theirs.
They are terrible and dreadful. Their judgment and their dignity shall
precede themselves.
Their horses are swifter than the
leopards or more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall
spread themselves, their horsemen shall come from far, they shall fly as a
eagle that hasteth to eat.
They shall all come up for violence:
their faces shall sup up as the east wind and they shall gather the captivity
as the sand.
And they shall scoff at the kings, and
the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every
stronghold. They shall heap dust and
take it [Habakkuk 1:5-10].
He himself was of the emissary and
ambassador of God to announce the coming destruction of Jerusalem and of
Judah. And that is why he says: “O Lord,
I have heard thy speech and was afraid” [Habakkuk 3:2a].
He asked a question of the Lord. When he was sent to announce that his own
people would be destroyed by Babylonia and carried into captivity. He asked a question: “Lord, how is it
however we may be evil and wicked, we are not more evil and wicked than they?
How is it, Lord, that you allow them to destroy us?” He says it like this in the thirteenth verse of the first
chapter: “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look upon
iniquity, wherever, lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously and holdest
thy tongue when the wicked devoureth a man that is more righteous than he?”
[Habakkuk 1:13]
“We may be vile and wicked, but they
are not righteous and why is it that you allow them to destroy us?” And the answer comes from God in the twelfth
verse: “O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou
hast established them for correction” [Habakkuk 1:12].
As Isaiah said it in Isaiah 10 and
verse 5: they “are the rod of mine anger and the staff of my indignation.” That
is the message of God to America today.
We cannot continue in drunkenness and debauchery and blasphemy and
desecration and not face the inevitable judgment of Almighty God. The Lord will raise up even these bitter and
atheistic and communist nations to chasten us.
As Isaiah says: they “are the rod of
his anger and the staff of his indignation” [Isaiah 10:5]. It is hard for us to realize that America
could be lost—that our nation could be destroyed—that we could be confronted by
implacable and ruthless enemies, but that is an imponderable in the hands of
Almighty God. Not the Navy, not the
Army, not the Marine, not the Air Force, but God. “O Lord, I have heard thy speech and was afraid” [Habakkuk
3:2a]. “It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God” [Hebrews 10:31].
Then the prophet gave himself to the
one recourse that is possible for us. He prayed. “O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years. In the midst years of the make it
known. In judgment and in wrath,
remember mercy” [Habakkuk 3:2b].
Revival will save a nation. It
saved Judah in the days of Hezekiah. It
saved England in the days of the Wesley’s.
Revival will save a city. It did Nineveh in the days of Jonah. It did Antioch in the days of John
Chrysostom. It did Florence, Italy in
the days of Savanarola. And revival
will save a home. It will save a
life. It did yesterday. It does today. It will forever. “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 it
known. In wrath, remember mercy”
[Habakkuk 3:2].
What is revival? Revival is a
Christian word. It is a family
word. The lost are not revived. They are dead in trespasses and in
sins. The lost need to be
resurrected. They need to be -- they
need to be born. They need life out of
death. It is the Christian people. It is the family of God that are to be
revived. Our love for God and our love
for the work of the Lord from a spark, fanned into a flaming fire.
What is revival? Revival is a church
word. It is an assembly word. As Peter writes in the fourth chapter of his
first epistle: “Judgment must begin in the house of God” [1 Peter 4:17]. The church can never give what it does not
possess. There must be here first the
presence of the Lord and all the joy and gladness that pertains to the
bountiful goodnesses of God. That is
revival.
What is revival? Revival is a normal
word. We are not straining after some
monstrous experience alien to the mind of God.
But we are turning our hearts upward and our hands upward to receive
from God’s gracious goodness all of the bountiful and heavenly blessings he has
for us who love him. It is a normal
word.
What would you think of a father whose
children were sick and in bed all year long.
And the father says, “But do not worry, let it be no concern or worry to
you. You see, next year, my children
will be up for another week.” What
would you think of a father who said that?
His children, down all the time and once a year, they were up for maybe
a week?
That monstrous designation is also
true of us. We are to be revived,
normally. We are to be up
normally. Our lives are to be overflowing
with joy and gladness and praise every day of the week. And the church is to be quickened with the
presence and the power and the spirit of God.
It is a normal word.
Well, how can we live up? Triumphantly? Blessedly? The life of a
revived soul? This is how. Revival comes first by confession and
contrition. “Oh, God, forgive me my
stubborn pride. God, forgive me my
sterile unfruitfulness. Forgive me my
lack of burden.”
Maybe praying because we cannot
pray. Crying because we cannot
cry. Weeping because we cannot
weep. Burdened because we are not
burdened. Full of concern and care
because we are indifferent. Bleeding,
crying hearts coming back to Calvary.
That is the beginning of real revival.
This is revival. The spirit of
agony in prayer and in intercession.
Praying first for ourselves, for the carnal nature drags us ever down
and down.
As Jacob at Peniel wrestling with the
angel all night long. Isaiah said:
“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save. Neither his ear heavy that he cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between
you and your God. And your sins have
hid his face from you that he will not hear” [Isaiah 59:1,2].
That is why in the old-time church, we
had the mourner’s bench. It is not easy
to forsake sin. It is not easy to deny
the flesh. It is not easy to live the
revived and victorious life. We must
pray before God, before whose eyes our very souls are open and naked. And we must pray a burden for the lost. It must be a care and a concern to us where
the people are saved or lost.
Paul begins the ninth chapter of his
Book of Romans with this word: “I have great continual heaviness and burden of
heart. For I could wish myself were
accursed from Christ for my brethren and my kinsman according to the flesh”
[Romans 9:3]. And he began the tenth
chapter with the same word: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for
my people is that they might be saved” [Romans 10:1].
It is not revival when we go through
the days of the week and never think of the lost who are all around us. And it is not revival when we come into the
assembly of the church of the living God and it is no burden to us whether the
people respond to the invitation to accept Christ or not. Revival is a burden for the lost that they
might be saved.
This is revival. A spirit of oneness, of unity, of
togetherness in the Lord. The great
Pentecostal chapter in Acts 2:1 begins like this: “And when the day of
Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” [There was] no charismatic spirit among
them, but all [were] given to one great dedication. That is the revival in the church. And that is a spirit that God uses to save, to find the lost.
I looked through a magazine one time
and followed through pictures. It was
one of the most effective stories and yet one of the saddest that I ever
saw. The first picture was of a vast,
vast wheat field in western Kansas. I
have seen fields just like that. From
horizon from horizon, just the fields of wheat, tall, waving stalks of grain as
far as the eye could see. That was the
first picture.
The second picture was of the distress
of a mother who was in a farm house in the middle of that vast wheat
field. She had a little, little boy and
he had somehow wandered away from that house into that field. She couldn’t find him. She called for her husband. They searched. They finally called for the neighbors. And they searched. One
went this way, one went that way, one another way and they searched through
that vast, illimitable field for that little boy and could not find him.
The next picture was all of the people
who heard of that little boy being lost, they joined hands, one, one, one, in a
great sweep and they said, “Let us go through that wheat field and comb it from
one side to the other until we find that little boy.” And the next little picture was of that long line of friends and
neighbors, joining hands, going through that vast wheat field finding the lad.
The last picture would break your
heart. It was one of the saddest I have
ever seen. It was a picture of the
father standing over the body of his little boy. They had finally found him,
but the lad was dead. And underneath,
the words of the father as he cried, “Oh God, that we had joined hands before.”
You couldn’t forget the thing like
that. There is in revival in the church
and in the hearts of the people, a true unity, intercession, spirit of seeking
and searching, always that seeking note.
That is revival. This is
revival, a hungering and a thirsting after God.
The first verse of the sixty-third
Psalm is this: “O God, thou art my God.
Early will I seek thee. My soul
thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth
for thee as in a dry and thirsty land.”
Psalm 42:1 begins like this: “As the heart panteth after the water brooks
so panteth my soul after thee, O God.”
There is a profound meaning in that to
us who have found the Lord. Have you
drunk of the water of this life and still thirst? Have you found the emptiness of the rewards of the world? Is
there still a longing in your heart for something more than the flesh and the
world could afford?
You will find it in God, not in the
world. Bobby Burns wrote it like this:
But pleasures are like poppies
spread,
You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed,
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white-melts for ever;
Or like the Borealis race,
That flit, ere you can point their place,
Or like the Rainbow’s lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm—
[Robert Burns, “Tam
o’Shanter”].
How empty and how fleeting are the pleasures and rewards of this
world. Thirsting in the world. The hymn writer said it:
If you are tired of the load of your
sin,
Let Jesus come into your heart;
If you desire a new life to begin,
Let Jesus come into your heart;
Just now, your doubtings give o’er;
Just now, reject him no more;
Just now, throw open the door;
Let Jesus come into your heart.
[Lelia N. Morris, “Let Jesus Come into
Your Heart”]
That is revival. This is
revival—the spirit of affirmation, of response and commitment. Like one of the men said to me in this very
auditorium, “Pastor, I have said no to God for the last time, I’m coming. I’m coming.
I’ve said no to God for the last time.
I’m coming. I’m coming.”
Do it, do it. Do it.
The spirit of rejection? No. The
spirit of unbelief? No. The spirit of
affirmation? Yes. The spirit of
answering God’s call? Yes. The spirit
of commitment? Yes. Lord, I am
coming.
I have decided to follow Jesus,
I have decided to follow Jesus,
I have decided to follow Jesus,
No turning back, No turning back.
Tho none go with me I still will
follow,
Tho none go with me I still will follow,
Tho none go with me I still will follow,
No turning back, No turning back.
The world behind me, the cross before
me,
The world behind me, the cross before me,
The world behind me, the cross before me,
No turning back, No turning back.
“I have decided to follow Jesus. . . .
No turning back.” That is revival.
I am resolved no longer to linger,
Charmed by the world’s delight;
Things that are higher, things that are nobler,
These have allured my sight.
I am resolved, and who will go with
me?
Leaving the paths of sin,
Taught by the Bible, lead by the spirit,
Thus, shall we enter in.
And that is our appeal to your heart
tonight.
