Like Jonah in this one respect, Habakkuk rejoices in the
Lord's salvation prior to actually seeing it with his eyes. That which he describes in verses 2-16 have
not yet been done. He, however, knows
that the Lord loves His people with an everlasting love, even in their waywardness. His complaints in the first chapter were
because he was agreeing with the Lord concerning the sin of the nation, his
desire was for righteousness and knew that the only way to get there was by
judgment. Now that judgment has been executed
he, like the Lord, turns towards restoration.
The Lord has not stopped loving His people, He cannot do that and be
true to the everlasting covenant He has made with them. The prophet's trust is in the covenant and
the one who is true to His word concerning His people. He knows the character of the Lord, He is
faithful to His promises and He will act on behalf of His people. No matter what comes, He will rejoice in the
Lord.
Jesus tells us that if our brother sins we are to rebuke
him. That is a hard word yet we are our
brother's keeper. When was the last time
anyone spoke to you about sin in your life?
It is important that we not allow hypocrisy in our midst, that we
maintain the integrity of the community of faith. The disciples want Jesus to increase their
faith but they have all the faith they need, it simply needs to be exercised
and if they will do so, they will find that it will grow. Faith that has not been tested, planted in the
ground and nurtured in trials, is not mature faith. Faith required Peter to get out of the boat,
it required him to speak to the man at the Beautiful Gate in Acts 4 and command
him to walk, it required him to go to his own death believing that it was not
final. Faith must be exercised if it is
to increase.
James knows that the greatest enemy we have is within us,
our tongue. It is the cause of many of the
problems of mankind and in the church. In
America in World War II there was a saying, "Loose lips sink
ships." That saying was that if you
knew something of ship movements, whether you heard it from your husband or son
serving onboard, speaking it publicly might endanger the mission. You never knew how far your information might
be spread and it finally get into enemy hands.
We are to guard our lips from speaking evil of one another, both in the church
and of others in general. If we rebuked
other Christians for spreading gossip we might not have time to do much else,
and I am as guilty as anyone.
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