In the third chapter of the Book of Habakkuk is the prayer of the prophet of God, 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 of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.” [Habakkuk 3:2]
This man Habakkuk stood between the two great judgments of God. He stood between the two dates of the destructions of Israel and of Judah. Israel was destroyed in 722 BC [2 Kings 17:7-24], Judah was destroyed in 587 BC [Jeremiah 39:1-10, 52:4-30; 2 Chronicles 36:17-21], and between those dates this prophet stood. One of the judgments of God had already fallen, and the other had been predicted. That is why he says, “O Lord, I have heard Thy speech, and was afraid” [Habakkuk 3:2].
In the midst of that intercession before God – and I sometimes think of ourselves standing in the same kind of a time and place that Habakkuk stood, between the judgment of God upon this world in 1939 and 1944, in our First World War, and the judgment of God that seemingly is coming upon this world in maybe its last great Armageddon – “O Lord, I have heard Thy speech, and was afraid” [Habakkuk 3:2]. It’s an unusual thing that he does.
He doesn’t turn to the military leaders and say, “We must teach war more intricately, and splendidly, and magnificently, and effectively.” Nor does he speak of gathering resources and stockpiling materials in order to face an awful and terrible enemy. Nor does he speak of building academies for the Air Force, and sending young men to the academies in naval warfare, nor to other academies in strategy, in logistics, and in military maneuvering. Nor does he speak of the great tremendous resources of the nation that can be drawn upon in an hour of awful and dire and tragic peril. But the prophet does an unusual thing. As he stands this side of the first great judgment of God and looks upon the prediction of the coming and last judgment of the Lord, he says, “I have heard Thy speech, and was afraid” [Habakkuk 3:2]. Then he turns to the one hope: “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]. For revival will save a nation.
