Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 725
Delivered on Sunday Morning, December 16, 1866, by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
“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.” Habakkuk 3:2.
“O LORD, I have heard Your speech!” This is the language of reverent obedience and is a fit preface to a fervent prayer. If we are not willing to hear God’s voice, we cannot expect Him to hear our voice. It is an admirable preparation for prayer, first to hearken diligently to what God the Lord shall speak, and then to be obedient to His commands. He who would hear God speak needs not to wait long, for God speaks to men continually by the Scriptures, which are given to us by Inspiration. Alas that we should be so deaf to its teachings! This wonderful volume, so full of wisdom, is so little read that few of us could dare to gaze upon its pages and say, “O Lord, in this Book I have heard Your speech.”
The God of Heaven speaks to men by His Holy Spirit. He does this, at times, in those common operations of the Spirit upon the ungodly, which they, as did also their fathers, resist. The Spirit strives with men. He calls, and they refuse. He stretches out His hands, and they regard Him not. The unregenerate man is like the deaf adder that will not hear, charm we ever so wisely. Even when the Holy Spirit speaks to us, His people, we are not always willing and obedient. And though we have ears to hear we frequently quench the Spirit. We grieve Him. We neglect His monitions, and, if we do not despise His teachings, yet too often we forget them, and listen to the follies of earth instead of regarding the wisdom of the skies. I am afraid that in looking into our own hearts and studying them in connection with the operations of the Holy Spirit, not one of us could dare to say, without exception, “O Lord, I have heard Your speech.”
In the text before us we meet with a Prophet whose ears had been spiritually opened and who, therefore, heard the still, small voice of Jehovah where others perceived neither sound nor utterance. There are times even with us when, being under the influence of the Holy Spirit, we hold near communion with our God. Then are our hearts like wax to His seal, receiving the impression of the Divine Mind! Are you not conscious of having been in such a state? It must be so, dear Hearer, in a measure, with all the Lord’s servants! But especially must it be often so with those of us who are called to bear His messages to the people!
I have most solemnly sought to hear the speech of Jehovah in my own soul before I came into this pulpit, and pray that His Divine power may enable me to convey that speech to you. I have been afraid, this week, as I have heard the voice of God in this land. Trembling has taken hold upon me as Jehovah has spoken in thunderclaps and made the whole land to echo with His terrible accents! I may be to some of you as an interpreter, and you who are spiritual men, you will discern and judge whether I have heard the speech of God or not. If you shall find it to be God’s voice to you, I hope you will be led to the farther carrying out of the language of the text in that much-needed prayer, “O Lord, revive Your work.”
There are three things in the text—an alarming voice, an appropriate prayer, and a potent argument—“in wrath remember mercy.”
I. Hear, with solemn awe, THE ALARMING VOICE! The speech of God demands your humblest attention. We need not enter into particulars of the heavy tidings which came to the ear of Habakkuk when he set upon the tower and watched to see what the Lord would say to him.
Our business, this morning, is to tell you, in all solemnity, what the voice of God has been saying to us. In my lonely meditations I heard a voice, as of one that spoke in the name of the Lord. I bowed my head to receive the message, and the voice said, “Cry,” and when I said, “What shall I cry?” the answer came to me as to Isaiah of old, “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withers, the flower fades: because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass.”
Then I thought I saw before me a great meadow reaching far and wide, and it was like a rainbow for its many colors, for the flowers of summer were in their beauty. In the midst of it I marked a mower of dark and cruel aspect, who with a scythe most sharp and glittering, was clearing mighty stretches of the field at each sweep and laying the fair flowers in withering heaps. He advanced with huge strides of leagues at once, leaving desolation behind him, and I understood that the mower’s name was Death!
As I looked I was afraid for my house, and my children, for my kinsfolk and acquaintance, and for myself also—for the mower drew nearer and nearer—and as he came onward a voice was heard as of a trumpet, “Prepare to meet your God.” Moreover, as I mused on I heard a rumbling in the bowels of the earth, as though the Destroyer were traversing the dark pathways which the miner has dug, and doing his fearful work among the stones of darkness which are at the roots of the mountains. I wondered with sore amazement, and behold, there came up from the mouth of the pit a thundering cloud of vapor, of smoke and fire, and dust, and rushing whirlwind, which told to wailing women that they were widows and their children fatherless! And the Angel of Death again cried in my ears, “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withers, the flower fades: because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass.”