Sermon Bible Commentary
Habakkuk 2:3-4
A large space of the Church's history, and of every believer's experience, is occupied by waiting. The whole of the Old Testament was a waiting for one dispensation. The whole of the New is waiting for another. David speaks of his waiting for God more than twenty-five times. Isaiah is full of the same thought. And every child of God could have much to tell of it. The reason is evident. It exercises faith. It humbles the soul. It enhances the blessing. It glorifies God. Therefore God waits, and therefore we must tarry His leisure.
I. We understand by the word "vision" something which we do not yet fully see, but which God will show us. It is a familiar thought to us all to wait for the advent of Jesus Christ. The whole Church stands always in the attitude of expectation for the return of her Lord. But very few think of waiting for the advent of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes goes His advents are not one, but many. These comings are in very various degrees of power, and light, and influence. Observe St. Peter's remarkable expression: "When the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord."
II. Why does the vision tarry? I answer, partly, sovereignty; partly, your want of preparation; partly, discipline but all love. It tarries behind your blind, hasty, impetuous rush; but it does not tarry behind God's calm, wise, pre-ordaining counsel.
III. How shall we wait? Just as the Apostles did. In holy places and ancient ordinances; in unity among ourselves; loving and praying; grasping the promises with submitted will; in the joy of confidence, though the God of our future, though the future of our God, be hidden; in the simplicities of faith and with loving views of Jesus.
J. Vaughan, Sermons,9th series, p. 229.
I. We know that these words are spoken especially of the last coming of Christ; for St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, thus introduces this passage: "Ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." And then the Apostle proceeds to add, from the next verse of the prophet, "Now the just shall live by faith." The passage sets before us, in a lively and striking manner, our whole condition in this world as a waiting for a judgment of the great day, and the temper of mind with which we are to await it. Let us look upon it as a warning and invitation to us to set aside all disguises and deceits, and to look steadfastly in the face the great, real, and abiding Truth; even as they who wait for the dawning day, and because they can behold no streak of light, look again and again, and, on account of their own impatience, think that the sun is long in rising, while at the same time it is ever approaching and will burst forth in its own appointed time; and they will wonder that their short time of waiting could have appeared so long.
II. The vision will come in its appointed time, and will not tarry; and in the meanwhile "the soul of him that is puffed up is not upright." More prayer, more solitude, more looking into the account of our souls, more humiliation before God in these we are to grow daily, in order that we may be prepared for the vision of God.
And for this reason we have to cast aside everything that tends to deceive, and to lead us to form a wrong estimate of ourselves. When we look back in the truth of God, behind us we see the Cross of Christ, teaching us humiliation; and when we look forward before us we see the tribunal and judgment seat of Christ, teaching us humiliation. Whenever anyone is lifted up with pride, there is a want of faithfulness in him; and this the day of trial will show; that day of visitation which is the forerunner of the great day of God. Waiting with humility, waiting with patience, waiting for God this is the state of the Christian.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times" vol. x., p. 11.