Habakuk 3.2

Habakkuk 3.2
The Antecedents to Revival: Prayer

Read Habakkuk 3:2

[With scissors in hand] “All the men here need to be circumcised!”

[Awkward Pause] That was the message Joshua had to give to the men of Israel after they entered the Promised Land. The message I must preach is even more discomforting. “Everyone here must circumcise their hearts!” Let’s Pray…

For forty years the people of Israel wandered in the desert before they entered the land of milk and honey. While they wandered they lived on the manna that they Lord provided but when they entered the land of Canaan, they ate the produce of the land and the manna ceased to Fall. It’s a picture of Christian maturity moving from baby milk to hard meat.

Joshua 5:2 describes the day it happened. It says the Lord spoke to Joshua and told him to make flint knives and circumcise the men because the boys who had been born in the wilderness had not been circumcised. For anyone who has ever been in a position of leadership, especially spiritual leadership, you can imagine what might have gone through Joshua’s mind: “You want me to do what? Do you know what they’re going to do to me when I tell them what you want me to do?” (Think about what you wanted to me when you saw the scissors).
Can you imagine old Joshua calling the men together and telling them the news? “Hey guys, guess what these flint knives are for?”

Calling people to repent is painful; it’s spiritually violent! Nobody wants to be told they have offended God. It’s insulting. It’s rude. It’s as appalling as telling people they need to be circumcised. Jeremiah says,
“If you will return, O Israel,” says the LORD,
“Return to Me;
And if you will put away your abominations out of My sight,
Then you shall not be moved. ….
3For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem:
“Break up your fallow ground,
And do not sow among thorns.
4Circumcise yourselves to the LORD,
And take away the foreskins of your hearts,
You men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
Lest My fury come forth like fire,
And burn so that no one can quench it,
Because of the evil of your doings.” (Jer 4:1,3-4).

What amazes me is that the men were actually willing to submit to Joshua’s leadership and do as he told them. Leading people to repentance is awkward; it’s painful; it’s embarrassing; it’s humiliating. Everybody thinks, “what about you- are you free of sin?” Of course not- I preach this to myself first! But the work of the pastor is to call people to repentance. You see it in the preaching of the prophets. It often got them killed because people don’t like it- it makes them uncomfortable. Do you think very many people like Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah in their day?

It was the ministry of John the Baptist- he lost his head because he preached against Herod’s marriage to his sister-in-law. Look at how he preached to the religious leaders in Matthew’s gospel: he called them a brood of vipers and asked, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance… even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees….” (Mat 3:7-10).

Jesus also called people to repentance. His ministry began with a call to repentance in Mark 1:15, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” The gospel is a call to repentance.

Whenever God is about to move, He always begins by calling his people to repentance. In the past ten years we have seen devastating terrorist attacks, shocking natural disasters in form of cyclones, Tsunamis and Hurricanes producing unprecedented death and unleashing horrific acts of barbarism. And most recently we have seen the worst financial collapse on a global scale in history.

But I believe those are only warnings… shots across the bow in order to get our attention and bring our churches and cities and nations to repentance. I also believe that if we do not repent, there is something far worse on the horizon that will make all of the previous warnings combined look like good times in comparison.

And if God’s people harden their hearts and refuse to repent- we will not escape the coming judgment because judgment always begins in the house of God!

What would have happened to Israel had they refused to be circumcised? Many of us think, “well if had been there I wouldn’t have been like those rebellious Jews who refused to follow Moses even after they saw all the miracles, I’m too spiritual!” But in our day when your pastor calls you to repentance, do you get mad at him and harden your hearts?

Please don’t think that I am putting myself on the level of Joshua, I am not even worthy to tie the sandals of the guy who tied Joshua’s sandals. But this is not my message or my opinion- it’s God’s message! And I know it’s biblical because the Bible is a call to repentance from Genesis to Revelation and I cannot preach it without daily calling God’s people to repentance.

And let me just make this clarification, if you are not a Christian this morning, I am calling you to repentance too, but it’s a different type of repentance- for the most part it is a sin of ignorance that I am calling you to repent of- because until now you have largely been unaware of the fact that you are a sinner. And I don’t mean a sinner as someone who does bad things- I mean some who is bad! You were born with it; it’s made you a slave and blind. But Jesus can set you free and give you forgiveness and eternal life if you would just repent of being a sinner and believe the good news that Jesus died for sins and rose from the dead.

But to those of you who are believers, I am calling you to a different kind of repentance- not repentance for being sinners- because when you were born again, you ceased to be a sinner. But you still wrestle with doing sins. Every one of us does!
So when you repent, you are not repenting anew in order to regain salvation; rather, you are repenting because you have committed sins with knowledge (not with ignorance which would be more acceptable) and you have violated the expressed love of God.

“What kind of sins have I committed?” you might ask. “I go to church every Sunday, I read the Bible, I do good things, I don’t lie or steal or cheat.”

But your sins are far worse than that Christian. Your sins are sins of worshipping other God’s; sins of making graven images, sins of blaspheming the name of God; sins of trampling his Sabbath; sins of disobedience to your parents; sins of murder, adultery and stealing; sins of bearing false witness, and sins of coveting!

And as new covenant believers, this is far worse than the sins of the old covenant because all they had was a law written in stone, but you have the Law written on your hearts and still you disobey it. If it were not for the surpassing glory and grace of God so that all Christians can breathe a sigh of relief saying “there is no condemnation for me because I am in Christ Jesus” then we would be above all men most grieved. (Nevertheless, Some of you only think you are in Christ –but your works prove otherwise and your condemnation remains unless you truly repent.)

God wants to bring Christians along and to mould us and to make us into the image of his son transforming us from lesser glory to greater glory.

And the only way He can do that is to get us to let go of our sinful deeds and thoughts and words and that only happens when we recognize our behaviour as sinful and grieve over it and turn from it and mortify the deeds of the flesh.

But for some Christians whose conversion is dubious (because they have so hardened their hearts and become so calloused to the leading of the spirit and the word of God) even if Joshua were standing here this morning begging them to repent they would refuse to turn from their sin. And if that’s you I give you this warning from Hebrews 6:4-6,
4 For it is impossible [underline that word- it means that something cannot happen] for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 if they fall away, [this is the thing that is impossible] to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.

If you harden your hearts to God’s call to repentance, it may not be because you are willfully doing that, but because it is impossible for you to repent. And if that’s true, be very afraid, because you may be guilty of crucifying the Son of God and putting him to shame. Grieve!

There are hordes of souls languishing in hell this morning who shake their fists at God and continue in their hardness of hearts even though they spent their whole lives in the church. Some of them were deacons, worship leaders, elders and pastors. They knew all the hymns in the Hymnal by heart and sang them with such gusto- but they were whitewashed tombs.

May that never happen to anyone in this church! That’s why I’m begging you, don’t resist.

“But when have I sinned, I don’t have Idols, I haven’t trampled the Sabbath, I don’t covet, murder or steel” you may be thinking. No, you may not have carved an idol or murdered someone. But what about your heart? Jesus said to hate your brother is the same as murder. Anybody here hate their brother? I know I’m struggling with it.

The Law has not been repealed for believers because of the Gospel. According Romans 3:31, the Gospel establishes the Law. In fact, not only is the Law not annulled by the gospel, it is actually intensified. Because in the old covenant, it was fear of punishment that motivated people not to sin, but in the New Testament, the motive is love. Jesus said that the Ten Commandments were summed by love in Mark 12:30-31,
…you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mk 12:30-31).

Do you really love the Lord that way? Is your passion for the enjoyment of the glory of God your greatest passion this morning… greater than your passion for winning the Lottery… greater than your passion for politics… greater than you passion for your car... greater than your passion for your own comfort and happiness? God plays second fiddle to many foolish temporal things in the lives of Christians and when that’s true (which it is of everyone here today) then we have committed the sin of idolatry and blasphemy.
And what about the second command? Do you really love your neighbour as yourself? Do you work 40 hours a week to feed and to house your neighbour? Do you think about him or her every morning the way that you think about yourself every morning? To you choose rather to be wronged than to wrong others? And I’m not just talking about the nice guy with the same demographic profile as you with 2.5 kids, an SUV and vacations in Mexico next door neighbour; listen to how Jesus interpreted loving your neighbour,
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; (Mt 5:43-45).

If you have not loved your neighbour that way then you’re guilty of adultery, murder, theft, lying, and coveting!

Thank God for grace- that his mercies are made new every day or else God would have consumed us in His anger at sin if it were not for the cross. But is your heart grieved and broken over these sins or do you make light of them and excuse the thing that caused Jesus’ flesh to be torn from his back before he was nailed to the cross and bore the agony and humiliation that sin deserved? We are all guilty this morning church!
16 Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. 17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. 18 He administers justice (Dt 10:16-18).



Application:
I’m going to ask the church to stand this morning. If God has been speaking to you this morning and your heart has been grieved over your sinfulness, then I am going to open up this altar. If you grieved because you have elevated things and pleasures and people and self over God, then I want you to come to this altar in a heart that is broken over sins and open hands to receive mercy and a posture of humility with every though shaped by the majesty and holiness of God- that equals hope!

If you have failed to love your neighbour as yourself, if you have been unkind to your spouse, if you have been rude to a stranger, if you have hated your enemy and your heart is grieved over that, then I want you to come with a posture of hope.

Finally, for those who have heard the gospel for the first time this morning and want to make a public declaration of your repentance and faith, I am going to ask you to come forward too, this is the beginning of your new life.

And let your prayer to God be a prayer of repentance like the prayer of Habakkuk:

O LORD, I have heard Your speech and was afraid;
O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years!
In the midst of the years make it known;
In wrath remember mercy.