Faith's Answer To Divine Reproofs

By John Owen



Preached January 5, 1672.



"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. And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth 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." -- Hab. ii. 1-4.



I must look a little back into the first chapter. The title is, "The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see." The burden is a burdensome prophecy, that should lade and burden them that were concerned in it. It is the burden which Habakkuk did see. Habakkuk, I do judge, is a proper name, though there is some question, because of the composition; and it signifies the "wrestler" or "striver." It is apparent he was a very great wrestler with God, a great pleader with God; as any man may discern, if he will but read the first and third chapters, where there is as great a spiritual conflict and wrestling in them both as is in the whole book of God. He may be so called because he was an eminent wrestler with God in those days, as Jacob was. And it is such to whom God gives visions. God gives visions of judgment and of peace (for they are both here in a principal manner) to those that are great wrestlers with him. I will not insist upon this, though I could prove it, because I am not so absolutely certain that the word here is not merely a proper name.



The burden and vision he had was a grievous burden, a grievous vision, concerning the wasting of Jerusalem and of all the nations about by the Chaldeans. God doth frequently involve his church in common calamities; but he hath always a special design towards them in those common calamities. Alas! Nebuchadnezzar commanded the Chaldeans and the nations about; they saw no more in the wasting and destroying of Jerusalem titan in the wasting of Egypt and the countries about. God involves his church in general calamities with particular designs: for we know what particular design God had upon his people at that time; which, indeed, was the wheel within the wheel that caused the destruction of all the nations round about. Jerusalem was not destroyed because the nations were to be destroyed; but they were to be destroyed because Jerusalem was to be destroyed. And this was a great and dreadful period of time. God had set up his church, and had continued it now for four or five hundred years; but it had so many breaches, flaws, decays, that he saw there was no dealing with it, but to take the fabric down to the ground. It had been often repaired; in Josiah's and Hezekiah's times many reparations had been made of the fabric of the church. God saw it was grown so ruinous that it must be taken down to the ground; therefore he brought that universal devastation upon them by the Chaldeans, when their whole nation and church-state was ruined, and the people carried into captivity, and the temple burned with fire. I often compare it to God's dealing with the Christian church. When it had stood four or five hundred years after its erection, God saw it necessary to take it quite down; and turned in the Goths and Vandals, those barbarous nations, that ruined the church all the world over, the apostate church.


And God let the church of Judah lie but seventy years before he repaired it; but he let the Christian church lie in rubbish seven times seventy years, before there was any vigorous attempt for its reformation. I only observe, it was a great period of time when this prophet had his vision; which gives great weight unto it. And he describes the matter of his vision in verses 6-11: "For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand. And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every stronghold; for they shall heap dust, and take it.


Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god." Truly, a man would take it to be a description of another nation at this very day. And if I would insist thereon, I could show you how applicable the particulars are, in the hastiness, fury, pride, of that nation; in the multitude of their horsemen, and spoils, and captivities, and taking of forts; in their superstition and idolatry, imputing it to their gods, and standing upon their strength: but I will not do it.