Beware therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you: 'Behold, you despisers, marvel and perish! For I work a work in your days, a work which you will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you.' "
Acts 13:40-41
Lest we forget the context of this verse, Paul is preaching a sermon while on his first missionary journey. In verse 41, he quotes from the Greek text of Habakkuk 1:5 in which God instructs the prophet Habakkuk that even if God told Habakkuk what He was up to, Habakkuk wouldn’t believe it!
What was God referring to when He spoke to Habakkuk? The prophet was lamenting to God about how evil Judah had become and that God wasn’t doing anything about it. God’s reply was, “I am doing something about it and if I told you what I was going to do, you wouldn’t believe it!”
God was preparing to use the incredibly godless and wicked Babylonians as His rod of discipline on Judah by turning His people over to them. And sure enough, Habakkuk couldn’t believe it! “But they are worse than we are!” Habakkuk protested.
Lesson number one: One of God’s frequent means of judging a people is to turn them over to their enemies—even though the enemies are no more godly, and often less godly than those who, through them, God is judging! How many times have the God-fearing in America lamented over how evil our nation has become! We may not like God’s reply. He may choose to turn us over to our enemies. Those enemies may be foreign powers, or they may be destructive powers from within our own nation. That God uses the ungodly as a means by which He judges a people should not surprise us.
The good news is that God may also graciously visit this nation with a spiritual revival—which I believe is the only way to avert the judgement of God this nation deserves. No politicians, political party, laws, or courts can save our wicked nation. Only the grace of God can save the United States from the judgement we have heaped up for ourselves with immorality and murder of children in the womb which our nation has celebrated.
Please! Pray for revival—not only in our nation, but in our lives and in our homes.