Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2622
“I will stand my watch, and set myself on the tower, and will watch to see what He will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved. And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he may run that reads it For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.” Habakkuk 2:1-4.
I KNOW that, on Thursday nights, there is a large number of friends here who are engaged in the work of the Lord, and sometimes it is meet to address them, mainly, because, if the bread be put into the hands of the disciples, they will pass it on to the multitude. In the day of battle, if the command is given to the officers, they will repeat it to the various sections of the army, and so the whole mass shall be moved forward with one aim and objective. Habakkuk was, like ourselves, called of God to labor for the good of the people among whom he dwelt. He was one of the later Prophets who came to warn God’s ancient people before the Lord meted out their last terrible measure of chastisement. He saw, in vision, his country given up to the Chaldeans, and he pleaded with God about the matter. He had a burden on his heart which pressed very heavily upon him. He saw the nation crushed beneath the oppressors and he asked, “Why is this?” The Lord replied, “Because of the iniquity of the people.” Habakkuk understood that, but then it occurred to him that the Chaldeans, who were treading down the people, were themselves far greater sinners—that, certainly, in the matter of oppression and bloodthirstiness, they were a far more guilty people than those whom they came to punish! So he used this fact partly as an argument with God that He would withdraw the Chaldeans and overthrow them. And partly he set it before the Lord as a difficulty which troubled his mind. He said, “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity: why look You upon them that deal treacherously and hold Your tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?” Habakkuk was puzzled, as David had been before him, and as many a child of God has been since. He felt as if he could not do his work rightly, so, in his perplexity, he came to consult God concerning it. And having laid the case before the Lord, he made use of the memorable and instructive words which we are now to consider under the gracious guidance of the Holy Spirit.
I. So, first, dear Friends, we shall notice, in our text, THE ATTITUDE OF THE LORD’S SERVANT.
That is expressed in the one word, “watch.” When you are puzzled—when you are troubled, when you do not know what to do, then may God help you to say, “‘I will stand my watch, and set myself on the tower, and will watch to see what He will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.” Before we can do any real service for God, we must first of all receive our commission from Him. We cannot teach others aright unless we are, ourselves, taught of God—and His truest servants are those who continue waiting upon Him that they may receive from Him the words which afterwards they are to speak to the people in His name. Habakkuk is a model to us in this respect. Troubled in heart, he resolves to set himself to watch his God and to listen for the message he is afterwards to deliver.
We learn from him that the attitude of the Lord’s servant towards God is, first, an attentive attitude. “I will stand my watch, and set myself on the tower, and will watch to see what He will say unto me.” If we have a deaf ear towards our Lord, we must not marvel if He gives us, also, a dumb tongue. If we will not hear what God speaks, we may not expect to be able, ourselves, to speak in His name. Or, if we pour forth a flood of words, yet we may not expect that they will be such as He will approve and bless. O dear Friends, if we would work for God in the right spirit, we must begin as Jesus did, of whom it was written in prophecy long before He came to the earth, “The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakens morning by morning, He wakens My ears to hear as the learned. The Lord God has opened My ears and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.” In the fullness of time, Jesus came forth and taught to others what he had thus learned in secret, and, if we would teach others, we must first be taught by the Spirit of God.
How much more we might know if we were only willing to listen to the Lord’s messages! There is, in the Word of God, a voice which is often inaudible because we are so engrossed with other things. There is, also, the voice of the Christian ministry which oftentimes speaks to us, but it is like the cry of one in a wilderness—it is not heard by us. There is, too, a voice in God’s Providence. How much the Lord says to his flock by every stroke of his rod and by every blessing of His daily Providence! There is a voice from every grave—a message in every bereavement when friends are taken away. There are voices everywhere speaking to those whose ears are open. Above all, there is the blessed Spirit always waiting to communicate to us the things of God by that soft mysterious whisper which none know but those who are, themselves, spiritual—and which they know at once to be the very voice of God within their spirits. Brothers, we must be attentive! We must not allow a single sound from the Lord to escape us. Some men seem God must speak thunder and lightning before they will ever hear Him, but His true children sit at His feet that they may catch the slightest movement of His lips and not let a single syllable from the Lord fall to the ground. The attitude of the Christian worker must be one of attention.