And Then There Was Silence · Read

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And Then There Was Silence

Written Sermon · Ophel

In This Sermon

Habakkuk 2:20 | Habakkuk 1–3

“But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.”

There are times when silence says more than words ever could. I do not mean the silence of emptiness, as though there were nothing left to say. I do not mean the silence of uncertainty, as though no answer could be found. And I certainly do not mean some mystical silence in which we empty our minds and turn inward to discover truth within ourselves. The silence of Habakkuk 2:20 is altogether different. It is the silence that falls upon the creature when he becomes conscious again of the Creator. It is the silence of a man who has spoken, questioned, wrestled, watched, and listened—and then finds himself standing before the God who has been there all along.

Habakkuk knew something about noise. His little book does not begin with a quiet prophet sitting peacefully before God. It begins with a burden: “The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see” (Habakkuk 1:1). Almost immediately that burden becomes a cry: “O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!” (Habakkuk 1:2). Habakkuk looks around him and sees a world that does not seem to agree with what he knows about God. Violence surrounds him. Iniquity flourishes. Strife and contention are everywhere. Judgment is perverted. The law appears powerless. The prophet cannot understand why the holy God whom he knows seems to be doing nothing about what he sees.

Listen carefully to his words in verse 3: “Why dost thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance?” Habakkuk is beholding grievance. What he sees is real. God never rebukes him for imagining the wickedness around him. The violence is real. The injustice is real. The lawlessness is real. But something has begun happening inside the prophet. What fills his vision has begun pressing upon his heart.

That is where Habakkuk begins. But it is not where Habakkuk ends. By the final chapter, this same man can look upon a fig tree that does not blossom, vines without fruit, fields without meat, flocks cut off from the fold, and empty stalls and declare, “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:18). What happened to this man? His circumstances had not become lighter. His God had become weightier. God had not changed; the prophet was coming to acknowledge His greatness more fully. That is the road I want us to walk through Habakkuk.

I. WHEN WHAT WE SEE BEGINS TO GOVERN THE HEART

There is something deeply instructive about Habakkuk’s first complaint. He is not troubled because he has ceased believing in God. In a real sense, his trouble comes because he does believe in God. He knows something of God’s holiness and righteousness, and what he sees around him seems impossible to reconcile with the God he knows. He cries, “Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth” (Habakkuk 1:4).

There is a danger here that reaches far beyond Habakkuk’s circumstances. We can see something accurately and yet allow what we see to occupy a place in the heart that belongs only to God. The problem is not always that the burden is imaginary. Sometimes it is painfully real. A child may truly be wandering. A body may truly be failing. A marriage may truly be hurting. A prayer may truly remain unanswered. A culture may truly be departing farther from God. There are things that ought to grieve the heart of a godly person.

But there is a difference between seeing the burden and allowing the burden to become the lens through which we see God. That is where noise becomes dangerous.

Noise is not merely sound. Noise can be anything that presses so continually upon the heart that it begins governing our perception of reality. It may be entertainment or distraction, but it can also be grief, fear, disappointment, unanswered questions, financial pressure, concern for our children, or anxiety about tomorrow. Jesus warned of this when He spoke of “the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches” entering in and choking the Word (Mark 4:19). The cares may be real, but they can press so continually upon the heart that they begin to govern how we see everything else—including God.

And then God answers Habakkuk: “Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you” (Habakkuk 1:5). Do not pass too quickly over that first word. Behold. Habakkuk has essentially said, “God, look at what I am seeing.” In effect, God responds, “Habakkuk, look at what I am doing.” The prophet sees Judah. God sees the nations. The prophet sees apparent inactivity. God says, “I will work a work.” Habakkuk sees only what is immediately before him, but God is governing what Habakkuk cannot see.

That is often where God begins His work in us. Before He changes what surrounds us, He changes where we are looking. The psalmist says, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” But then his gaze rises higher still: “My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1–2). The answer is not merely to look away from trouble. The answer is to look unto the Lord Himself. Something may be near enough to fill your vision without being great enough to govern your heart.

There is a throne above what you see.

II. WHEN WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT GOD MUST GOVERN WHAT WE SEE

God's answer does not immediately comfort Habakkuk. In fact, it creates a greater difficulty. God tells the prophet that He is raising up the Chaldeans. Habakkuk has asked God to deal with Judah's wickedness, and God announces that He will use a nation even more violent than Judah as His instrument of judgment. But before we listen to Habakkuk's second question, notice something God has already told us about the Chaldeans. After describing their terrible advance, God says in verse 11: “Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god.”

God says, “I raise up the Chaldeans” (1:6). But when the Chaldeans succeed, they do not look upward and acknowledge the LORD who raised them. They attribute their power to their own god. That is the blindness of Babylon. They possess power under the sovereign hand of God while giving the glory for that power to another. And before we move too quickly past Babylon, there is something here that ought to search those of us who belong to the Lord. We would never bow before the gods of Babylon, but we can still receive something from the hand of God and gradually begin attributing its success to the instrument He used. That can happen even in the work of God.

God may allow a man to preach and people respond, and before long the man begins thinking there must be something in his preaching. God may bless a church, and we begin speaking of our methods, our programs, our leadership, or what we have learned to do correctly. God may use something we have written, something we have built, or some ability He has given us, and almost imperceptibly we begin looking at the net instead of the God who filled it.

Paul would allow no such thinking concerning his own ministry. When the Corinthians began attaching themselves to Paul and Apollos, he asked: “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?” (1 Corinthians 3:5). Then he says: “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” (1 Corinthians 3:6). Paul planted. Apollos watered. Those things mattered. God really used them. But neither Paul nor Apollos could give life. “God gave the increase.” Paul presses the point further: “So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:7). The servants are real instruments, but the power to give spiritual life belongs to God.

And therefore Paul says elsewhere in the same letter: “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31). There is a warning here for every servant of God. The danger is not only that we might openly deny God. The danger is that we might acknowledge God with our lips while quietly beginning to admire the net. We can begin to trust the gift He gave us. The experience He allowed us to gain. The ministry He permitted us to build. The method He seemed pleased to use. The sermon that seemed particularly effective.

And before long, the instrument begins receiving in our hearts something that belongs to God alone. The answer is not to pretend the instrument does not matter. Paul really planted. Apollos really watered. The answer is to remember continually who gave the increase. If God chooses to use something in our hands, then the glory belongs to the One who put it there. The LORD declares, “I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images” (Isaiah 42:8). We dare not claim for ourselves the praise that belongs to Him.

“He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” And now listen carefully to how Habakkuk answers in verse 12: “Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction.” Before Habakkuk speaks about Babylon, he speaks about God. Before Habakkuk says another word about the Chaldeans, he speaks back to God what he knows about God. Thou art from everlasting. Thou art LORD. Thou art my God. Thou art mine Holy One.

And then Habakkuk says something Babylon itself does not understand: “Thou hast ordained them for judgment… thou hast established them for correction.” Babylon says, Our god gave us this power. Habakkuk says, LORD, Thou hast established them. Habakkuk understands something about the Chaldeans that the Chaldeans do not understand about themselves. They are not sovereign. Their gods have not made them great. They have not risen beyond the government of God. The LORD has raised them up, and the LORD has established them for His purpose. The hand being used does not receive the glory that belongs to the Hand that is using it.

God's sovereignty does not make Babylon's cruelty righteous. The LORD can use an evil nation to accomplish judgment without approving its evil, and chapter 2 will announce His judgment upon that very nation. The instrument remains accountable to the One who rules it. But that truth creates Habakkuk's difficulty. Verse 13: “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity…” Habakkuk knows that God is sovereign. Habakkuk also knows that God is holy. And now he places what he knows about God beside what he knows about Babylon: “wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?”

This is not unbelief dismissing God's character. This is faith struggling to understand God's ways because it believes God's character. Habakkuk is saying, in effect, “LORD, I know who Thou art. Thou art everlasting. Thou art holy. Thou art sovereign. Thou hast established these Chaldeans. But now I look at what they are, and I do not understand how what Thou art doing fits with who Thou art.” Then, in verses 14–17, Habakkuk describes the Chaldeans. He pictures mankind as helpless fish: “And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?” (Habakkuk 1:14).

Then Babylon comes with its hook and its net: “They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag…” (1:15). Nation after nation is swept into the Chaldean net. And then verse 16 reveals the heart of Babylon: “Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.” Do you see what has happened? Verse 11 told us that Babylon attributes its power to its god. Now verse 16 shows Babylon virtually worshipping the very instruments of its success.

They sacrifice to the net. They burn incense to the drag. They look at their victories, their military strength, their prosperity, their ability to conquer nations, and they give glory to the means by which they have prospered. But they cannot see the reality above them: God said, “I raise up the Chaldeans.” The very nation God is using refuses to recognize the God who raised it up. And Habakkuk cannot reconcile it. So he ends the chapter with a question: “Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?” (1:17).

“LORD, will this simply continue? Will they go on conquering? Will they go on worshipping their own strength? Will they go on slaughtering nations without end?” Habakkuk does not have the answer. But notice what has already begun changing in him. At the beginning of the chapter, Habakkuk looked at his circumstances and asked what they meant about God. Now he begins with God and asks what God's character means for his circumstances. That is a significant movement. He still does not understand. He still has questions. But he has begun in the right place.

He begins with what he knows about God. There will be seasons when we cannot reconcile everything we see with everything we know. We may not understand why God allowed something. We may not understand why He withheld something. We may not understand why He chose a particular means or why His answer looks so different from what we expected. Faith does not require us to pretend those tensions do not exist. Faith says: “I do not understand what Thou art doing, but I know who Thou art.” And once Habakkuk has spoken what he knows about God, described what he sees in Babylon, and laid the tension honestly before the LORD, he does something profoundly important.

He stops talking. And that brings us directly to Habakkuk 2:1: “I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me…”

III. WHEN A MAN TAKES HIS PLACE BEFORE GOD

Habakkuk 2:1 is one of the great turning points of the book: “I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.” Habakkuk has cried. He has questioned. He has reasoned. Now he takes his place before God and watches to see what God will say. There is humility in that posture. He has spoken. Now he must hear. This is what I mean when I speak about silence before God. Biblical silence is not emptying the mind. It is not trying to discover some divine voice hidden within ourselves. It is not silence as a spiritual achievement. Biblical silence is the posture of a creature who recognizes that the Creator has spoken and that His Word must have the final word.

Samuel learned that posture as a boy: “Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth” (1 Samuel 3:9). Ecclesiastes says, “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear… Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:1–2). There it is again. God is God. We are not. Therefore we hear. And God answers Habakkuk: “Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it” (Habakkuk 2:2). God gives him something firm enough to write, something certain enough to hold fast, something trustworthy enough to live by.

The LORD continues, “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” (Habakkuk 2:3). God's apparent delay is not the failure of His promise. Habakkuk must attend to what God has said while God brings His purpose to pass in His appointed time.

Then comes the great declaration: “Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). Two souls stand before us. One is lifted up in itself. The other lives by faith. One rests upon itself. The other rests upon God. And notice that God does not say, “The just shall understand everything.” He says: “The just shall live by his faith.” Habakkuk must keep living while God’s purpose unfolds. He must keep walking while there are unanswered questions. He must trust the character of God when he cannot trace the hand of God.

That is not passive resignation. That is faith. “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). The quiet life before God is therefore not an escape from ordinary faithfulness. It is the place from which ordinary faithfulness flows. We come before God. We hear His Word. His truth takes hold of the heart. And then we rise and walk differently because we have been with Him. When God’s voice begins to govern us more than our fears, when the greatness of God takes its rightful place in the heart, the path begins to change.

IV. WHEN GOD EXPOSES WHAT ONLY APPEARED GREAT

The remainder of Habakkuk 2 is filled with woes. God begins exposing everything men have treated as substantial and permanent. Wealth acquired through covetousness will not endure. Houses built through injustice will not endure. Violence will not endure. Human glory will not endure. Empire will not endure. Babylon looks enormous from where Habakkuk stands. But then the horizon suddenly opens: “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). Babylon is not where history is going. The glory of God is.

What looks permanent to Habakkuk is temporary before God. What seems to dominate the horizon will one day be gone. But the knowledge of the glory of the LORD will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. That changes the scale of everything. And finally God exposes idolatry. “What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it…?” (Habakkuk 2:18). Then verse 19 says, “Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach!” A man stands before something he made with his own hands and asks it to speak.

But there is no breath in it. There is no life in it. There is no word from it. The idol is silent because it cannot speak. And then comes verse 20: “But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.” Do you see the contrast? The idol is silent because it has nothing to say. Man becomes silent because the living God has spoken. This is not the silence of an absent God. It is the silence produced by the presence of God. Babylon is not ultimate. Judah is not ultimate. Violence is not ultimate. Habakkuk’s questions are not ultimate.

“But the LORD is in his holy temple.” Those words put every other reality in its proper place. The circumstances remain serious, but they no longer stand above the Word of the living God.

V. WHEN HEARING GOD CHANGES THE HEART

Chapter 3 opens very differently from chapter 1. Habakkuk says: “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 known; in wrath remember mercy” (Habakkuk 3:2). Notice what has happened. In chapter 1 Habakkuk cries. In chapter 2 he takes his place to watch and hear. Now in chapter 3: “I have heard.” And what he has heard has affected his heart. He prays, “O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years.”

Habakkuk is no longer merely asking God to make life comfortable again. His concern has moved toward God’s work. He has heard God speak, and now he wants God to accomplish what God has purposed. In its setting, “revive thy work” asks the LORD to bring His work into living expression in the midst of those years. The prayer that follows remembers His mighty acts of judgment and salvation. Habakkuk does not ask God to forget His holiness; he pleads, “in wrath remember mercy.”

There is a beautiful resonance with the prayer of Psalm 85:6: “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” Habakkuk asks God to revive His work; Psalm 85 asks Him to revive His people. Those requests must not be treated as identical. Yet Psalm 85 helps us see something that will eventually appear in Habakkuk himself. Where does revival lead? “That thy people may rejoice in thee.” Not merely that the church becomes busier. Not merely that attendance increases. Not merely that emotions become stronger. Not merely that religious activity multiplies.

“That thy people may rejoice in thee.” And that is exactly where Habakkuk eventually arrives. He remembers the works of God. He rehearses the greatness of God. He trembles before God. By verse 16 he can say, “When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice.” This is not a man who has ceased feeling the seriousness of what is coming. Faith has not made him emotionally numb. He trembles, yet he trusts. And finally he reaches Habakkuk 3:17–18: “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”

Habakkuk does not say he will rejoice because he has received assurance that next year’s crop will be better. He does not rejoice because Babylon has disappeared. He does not rejoice because every question has finally been answered. He says: “I will rejoice in the LORD.” Everything upon which earthly security might rest has been named and stripped away, and Habakkuk discovers that after everything else is gone, God remains. The field may be empty. The stalls may be empty. The questions may remain. But God has not changed. And Habakkuk says, “The LORD God is my strength” (Habakkuk 3:19).

At the beginning of the book, what Habakkuk sees nearly overwhelms him. At the end, the LORD Himself is his strength. That is not merely changed circumstances. That is a changed heart. And perhaps this is revival at its deepest level: not merely renewed enthusiasm about the things of God, but the heart being brought back to God Himself.

VI. WHEN THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH LEADS US TO CHRIST

Habakkuk has shown us a man living by faith while the purposes of God unfold. But the words God gave him in chapter 2 take us farther than the prophet's immediate struggle. The Holy Ghost carries that very declaration into the New Testament and places it in the full light of the gospel. We do not have to leave Habakkuk behind to come to Christ. We follow the words God has already spoken: “the just shall live by his faith.”

Paul writes, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:16–17). What Habakkuk sets before us in the contrast between the proud soul and the believing soul, Romans takes up in declaring how sinners may stand righteous before God. Salvation is found in the gospel of Christ and received by faith. The sinner has no righteousness of his own upon which to rest.

Galatians makes that point unmistakable: “But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith” (Galatians 3:11). God's law exposes our guilt; our obedience cannot undo the sins we have already committed. Before we ask how God can deal with the wickedness of Babylon, we must face the wickedness in our own hearts. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We have withheld from God the love, obedience, and glory that belong to Him. We are guilty before a holy God, and we cannot justify ourselves by becoming more religious.

That brings Habakkuk's struggle with divine holiness into a deeply personal place. If God is too holy to approve evil, how can He receive us? He cannot save us by pretending our sin does not matter. He cannot become less righteous in order to call us righteous. The answer is found in the Son whom He gave. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became man. He lived without sin. Scripture says that He “did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). The righteousness we have failed to render, He perfectly fulfilled.

Then the sinless Saviour willingly took the place of guilty sinners upon the cross. Peter writes, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Christ's death was not merely an example of courage or love. He bore our sins. He shed His blood. Galatians, in the same chapter that quotes Habakkuk, declares, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). The judgment our sin deserved was borne by the One who had no sin of His own.

And His death was followed by His burial and His bodily resurrection. Paul declares the gospel he received: “how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). We are not being asked to place our hope in a dead teacher. The crucified Saviour lives. His work is sufficient, His promise is true, and He is able to save those who come to God by Him.

Here the holiness and grace of God meet without either being diminished. Romans speaks of sinners “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24), and then declares God's purpose: “that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). God remains just when He justifies the believer because Christ has dealt with sin. Our acceptance rests upon His finished work, not upon the strength of our feelings, the depth of our quietness, or the quality of our religious performance.

The sinner receives this salvation by grace through faith. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). The apostolic message calls for “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). Repentance is no payment we offer God, and faith is no achievement by which we earn His favour. We turn to God from our sin and self-reliance, taking His side against our sin and resting in Jesus Christ alone to save us.

Baptism cannot justify you. Church membership cannot justify you. Morality and Christian upbringing cannot justify you. Walking an aisle cannot justify you, and confidence in having repeated a prayer cannot justify you. A sinner may call upon the Lord in prayer, but the words of the prayer are not the Saviour. Christ is. Have you come to Him? Are you trusting His death and resurrection, or are you resting upon something you have done? The gospel does not tell you to make yourself worthy and then come. It calls you to come as a guilty sinner to the sufficient Saviour.

And now we must distinguish salvation from the life of discipleship that follows it. We are not saved by managing our burdens well. We are not justified because we have learned to be quiet, to endure suffering, or to obey consistently. We are justified by faith in Christ. The believer's daily obedience is the fruit of salvation, never the price of it. The same passage that excludes works as the ground of salvation says that we are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Ephesians 2:10). Grace brings us to Christ, and grace teaches us to walk with Him.

That is why Hebrews can take up Habakkuk's words as an exhortation to endurance. “For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise” (Hebrews 10:36). Then comes the assurance, “For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Hebrews 10:37), followed by the searching declaration, “Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him” (Hebrews 10:38). Hebrews will not allow us to treat faith as an empty profession. It calls us to continue trusting the Lord, and speaks of those “that believe to the saving of the soul” (Hebrews 10:39).

Romans opens before us the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. Galatians excludes justification by the law and points us to Christ bearing the curse. Hebrews calls God's people to endure in faith until the coming One comes. Through all three, Habakkuk's declaration continues to speak. The sinner must rest in Christ for justification, and the justified believer must go on living by faith. We do not graduate from dependence upon Him.

Hear, then, the opening words of Hebrews: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2). The God who answered Habakkuk has spoken by His Son. We come before Him with more than an explanation of providence. We come knowing the crucified and risen Christ. When we cannot understand what the Lord permits, the cross assures us that His holiness and His love are both true. We have reason to hear Him, to trust Him, and to follow Him.

VII. WHEN FAITH BECOMES THE WALK OF EVERY DAY

Return with me to the last words of Habakkuk's song: “The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places” (Habakkuk 3:19). The prophet who began by beholding grievance now speaks of walking by the strength God supplies. He has heard the LORD, and what he has heard has changed the governing centre of his heart. The difficult ground has not ceased to be difficult. The Lord makes His servant able to walk upon it.

We can trace that movement in the text itself. In chapter 1 God says, “Behold.” In chapter 2 the prophet takes his place to receive God's answer, and in chapter 3 he says, “I have heard thy speech.” At the end he says, “he will make me to walk.” Behold, hear, walk: these are not a technique for escaping trouble. They describe the response of a man who has been brought before the living God. He attends to what God reveals, receives what God says, and lives in dependence upon Him.

Now let the Word search us. What occupies your thoughts when everything else becomes quiet? What fear is beginning to tell you what God must be like? What disappointment has become the measure of His faithfulness? Perhaps you are carrying concern for a child, a failing body, a troubled home, or a future you cannot see. Those burdens are real. Habakkuk does not teach us to deny them. He teaches us to bring them honestly before the Lord and then to receive the Lord's answer as the truth by which we interpret them.

Some of us have filled every available moment with another voice. We move from one screen to another, one opinion to another, one alarm to another, and wonder why our hearts remain unsettled. Others live in outward quiet while inwardly rehearsing the same fear without rest. Turning off a device may make room for attention, but silence by itself cannot renew the soul. We need the God who has spoken. Open His Word. Read with a willingness to be corrected. Bring your questions to Him without making your understanding the condition of your obedience.

For one believer, walking by faith will mean telling the truth when concealment seems safer. For another, it will mean asking forgiveness, keeping a promise, serving someone who cannot repay, or continuing in an unnoticed responsibility. For the weary parent, it may mean another faithful conversation and another prayer. For the suffering saint, it may mean receiving help without shame and entrusting the coming day to the Lord. These acts do not purchase God's acceptance. They grow out of the acceptance already given in Christ. “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

And for those who labour in the work of the Lord, remember Babylon's net. Do not let usefulness become an occasion for self-worship. Thank God for the gift, cultivate it faithfully, and use it diligently; then give Him the glory. If He grants visible fruit, receive it with gratitude. If He appoints a season in which the fruit is hidden, continue in obedience. Our confidence cannot rise and fall with admiration, numbers, or the apparent success of a method. Paul planted and Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. The servant's task is faithfulness; the servant's boast is the Lord.

We may pray for renewed spiritual life among God's people, and we should. But let that prayer reach deeper than renewed activity or excitement. Psalm 85 asks that God's people might rejoice in Him, and Habakkuk reaches precisely that confession: “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD.” We need hearts that confess sin, receive the truth, love Christ, and obey Him. Colossians speaks of “Christ, who is our life” (Colossians 3:4). We do not need to place something beside Him to make spiritual life possible. We need to return in dependence and affection to the One in whom our life is found.

Perhaps you have been saying, “If this changes, then I will have peace.” Habakkuk's song searches that condition. The field matters, hunger hurts, loss is real, and yet the Lord remains faithful when the field is empty. We may ask Him for relief, and we may weep before Him while it is withheld. Faith does not forbid either. But we may also say with the prophet, “The LORD God is my strength.” Our grief need not have the final word about our God.

CONCLUSION

Come back with me one final time to Habakkuk 2. The prophet has cried, and God has answered. The proud have been exposed. Covetousness, violence, and idolatry have come under His judgment. Immediately before our text stands a man addressing something that cannot answer him: “Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach!” (Habakkuk 2:19). Babylon has attributed its power to its god, sacrificed to its net, and burned incense to its drag. But the idol cannot speak. There is no breath in it.

Then comes the word that sets every rival claim in its proper place: “But the LORD.” Babylon may boast, but the LORD. Habakkuk may question, but the LORD. The field may be empty, but the LORD. The world may be loud, but the LORD is in His holy temple. He has not ceased to reign. He has not become less holy or less faithful. The apparent strength of Babylon has never put the throne of God in danger.

Nor has God left us without His Word. He has spoken by His Son. The One who died for sinners has risen from the dead, and the call of the gospel comes to you today. If you have never trusted Christ, do not mistake a quiet moment for salvation. Come to Him in repentance and faith. The law speaks “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19). Lay aside your excuses and your confidence in yourself. Rest in the Saviour who alone can justify the guilty.

And if you belong to Christ, bring your burden before Him again. Perhaps something has happened that you cannot reconcile with what you know about God. Perhaps your fig tree is not blossoming and your field looks empty. God does not ask you to pretend otherwise. He calls you to hear what He has said and to trust the One who has spoken. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), take the next step He has made plain. You may not know what tomorrow holds, but you know the Lord to whom you belong.

The idol is silent because it cannot speak. We become silent because God has spoken. This is reverence before the living God: the heart brought to acknowledge before whom it stands, ready to receive His Word and obey it. The questions may remain. The fig tree may still be bare. The circumstances may still speak, but they no longer have to govern the heart. God has become weightier than the noise.

And then there was silence.

“But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.”

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