The words that form the title of this article are a petition from Habakkuk’s prayer (in chapter 3 of his prophecy). The people of Judah had sinned seriously, by going after false gods and committing idolatry. Their sin was to bring God’s wrath on them; in other words, He would punish them for their sins – His anger implies a settled purpose to punish.
We read that, in the wilderness, “the wrath of God came upon [the Children of Israel], and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel” (Ps 78:31), when they murmured about the absence of flesh from their diet, although God had given them an abundance of good food. Their sin aroused God’s anger, and His anger resulted in punishment.
Many centuries later, in Habakkuk’s time, God’s anger was to be revealed in an invasion of Judah by Babylonian armies (Babylon being the capital of Chaldea). God is just; so He must punish sin. In particular, He must punish the sins of Judah. But Habakkuk’s petition is that, when God would punish, He would also show Himself merciful and would forgive.
God did punish Judah, by the Chaldean armies, when they overran the country, took Jerusalem by force and destroyed the temple, thereby bringing the public means of grace in the country to an end. And He did show mercy by bringing the Jews back from captivity after 70 years, as prophesied by Jeremiah. Habakkuk’s prayer was answered, and we can be sure that other godly people prayed also for mercy to be extended to guilty Judah. Among these others was Daniel, who in confessing his sins and the sins of his people, pled, “O Lord, according to all Thy righteousness, I beseech Thee, let Thine anger and Thy fury be turned away from Thy city Jerusalem, Thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. . . . O my God, incline Thine ear, and hear; open Thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by Thy name: for we do not present our supplications before Thee for our righteousnesses, but for Thy great mercies” (Dan 9:16,18).
God did remember mercy; He brought many of the Jews back to their own
land, established them there, caused the temple to be rebuilt and had His worship set up there once more. That was what they did not deserve. But God is gracious; He does show mercy. So David sang, “He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities” (Ps 103:10). And others over the millennia since then – no doubt including Habakkuk and Daniel – have taken up these words and sung them heartily and thankfully before God, asking not only for personal blessings but also for mercy to be shown to the Church and to their nation.
Let us now focus on the United Kingdom and how it deserves God’s wrath for its many departures from Him, religiously and morally. (Readers in other countries may recognise similar trends in the part of the world where they live.) Church attendance has dropped drastically over the years. And in many cases, those who have stopped coming to church, and others who have come less and less frequently, have felt so much less an incentive to come when the note of authority is absent from the pulpit. The authority in a pulpit should come from what God has revealed, which is preserved for succeeding generations in the Bible. That authority has been lost as a large proportion of ministers have lost confidence in the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture and the accuracy of confessional documents, such as The Westminster Confession of Faith, which is firmly based on Scripture.
God has a message for this age, which is relevant to every generation. But how serious when that message is ignored, not only by the vast multitudes who make no profession of religion but by those who claim to be Christians! If people choose to go to a church where there is never any warning about sin and its consequences, and where the fact that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners is never mentioned, they are never likely to get any good for their souls, unless some portion of Scripture truth read in their hearing touches their hearts, being applied to them by the Holy Spirit.
An illustration of the extent to which the multitudes in Scotland have forsaken the church is a campaign by the authorities in the Church of Scotland to merge congregations and close the church buildings that become redundant as a result. And the extent to which some congregations have departed from any semblance of godly living is illustrated in a BBC news report on Bangor Cathedral, in Wales. A woman is quoted claiming that “the culture and attitude to alcohol” there “was ‘deeply unhealthy’, with some people getting ‘really catastrophically drunk’”. “Not necessarily all the time,” the informant went on, “but certainly there was a lot of alcohol around almost all the services or various events. It seemed to be any excuse to bring out the wine, any excuse to go to the pub.”
Partly a reflection of the weakness of the Church today is the level of crime:
in particular, the prevalence of murder and theft. Adultery too is so widespread that it is considered to be normal. And Sabbath-breaking in almost every part of the country is now assumed to be absolutely acceptable. Yet perhaps what is most dangerous for the UK is the readiness of the Westminster Parliament for at least the past 60 years, and also of the Scottish Parliament, to pass bills legalising sins that are completely contrary to the moral law as revealed from heaven. Most recently there were shocking decisions in connection with two bills, one of which would decriminalise abortion, so that the mother would be able to kill her own child at any stage before birth without legal consequences; the other would allow a doctor to prescribe medication to end the life of a terminally ill patient.1 Public opinion on such subjects may have changed, but the moral law has not changed; we read in Scripture: “Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: and shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” (Jer 5:9).
Habakkuk knew that the sins of his people deserved severe punishment and it came upon them. Yet he prayed, “In wrath remember mercy”. As a nation, we are already experiencing God’s wrath in many ways, when the Church is so weak and so much of it rejects the revelation given by the One whom it claims to worship. Further, the Holy Spirit is very much restrained in His work of grace. Crime and lawlessness of various kinds are other aspects of God’s judgement on the nation. But we cannot tell what further judgements may, because of God’s anger, be ahead of us.
Yet should we not follow Habakkuk to the throne of grace and use the words that he used? Ought we not to acknowledge God’s right to go further in bringing judgement upon the nation, and yet at the same time plead that He would show us mercy? But what, in particular, should we be asking for when we pray that God would show us mercy?
We should ask that the Word of God would be blessed wherever it is proclaimed, that it would also be applied powerfully to those that read it, that those who read sound literature would profit from doing so and that men would be sent out to preach the gospel. Paul asks, “How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?” (Rom 10:14,15). The call to the ministry is a divine work, and the application of the truth – whether heard or read – must be the result of the Holy Spirit bringing it to bear on the soul. Let us then particularly ask for an outpouring of the Spirit, as we come before the Most High to ask for mercy, when what we so much deserve is judgement. But He still assures us: “I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel [His Church], to do it for them” (Ezek 36:37).
1For further details, see the note on p 253.