Keys for a Successful Family Life - Part 8 — Don Courville

Habakkuk’s Watchtower and the Life of Faith

Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 1, 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, 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.

Let's pray. Now Father, in these final minutes now, I think you have been more than gracious to use such a weak, poor instrument as myself. And one more time I plead for the mercy of God and the anointing of the Holy Spirit and the blessing of God upon our meeting, our minds to understand, our ears to hear, our eyes to see, our hearts to just love you.

And for any that might not know Christ, for the Holy Spirit to work and draw them with your loving power to yourself, that they would repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that they might be saved.

Our wonderful Savior, you came, you were born, you lived, you died on the cross for our sins, you were buried, and you rose again the third day. All of that for us. Now as we close up, Lord, may we be blessed one more time with your word and teach us about going to the tower in Jesus' name.

Going to the Tower: Habakkuk’s Questions and God’s Answer

The title of this message is Going to the Tower. You can sit down if you want to, stand if you want to, I don't care. Going to the Tower, it's not original. I listened to a preacher friend who's from Rochester, New York one time preach this, and so it's not original, but it fits in really good for what I'm going to share with you.

The background of this, Habakkuk has, as most prophets, a hard occupation. It's not easy, sort of like being a wife and a mother. Some things are hard, but his name means embracer, maybe even wrastler.

And God is fixing to turn the Chaldeans loose on the Hebrews, and Habakkuk's not excited about that, and he's going to talk to God. He has some questions, actually, if you go back to chapter 1 and verse 3.

He said, Why dost thou show me iniquity and cause me to behold grievance? For spoiling and violence are before me, and there that rise up, raise up strife and contention. He had all these bad things going around him.

They didn't like the prophet, and they were ungodly people, and in idolatry and everything. It's just a hard job, and then God comes along and says he's going to turn the Chaldeans loose on them. And so he asked another question there, and he just kept asking God questions, and three he said, Why?

And he just wanted to know why God's going to do this, because God told him these Chaldeans are terrible. And six, he said, he'd raised up the Chaldeans. And seven, he said, they are terrible and dreadful.

Their judgment and their dignity, they shall proceed themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. And nine, they shall come for all for violence. They're just really bad, and Habakkuk answers back to God, and he said, Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord?

And verse 12, Mine holy one, we shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment. O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. Thirteen, thou art of purer eyes than to be whole evil, and cast not look on iniquity.

Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he. And so he's really not understanding the ways of God here.

And so here's what he decides to do. In verse 1, he said, I'm going to stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower. He's going to go to the tower, and he will watch to see what he will say, what God's going to say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

And then the Lord answered him. In verse 2, of chapter 2, and here's what God said. Write the vision, 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. Many times there were double things in the area of prophecy. A present thing, then also a future prophecy of things. So we won't get into the future prophecy, because we want to learn a practical thing to take home with us after all this stuff that we've heard this weekend.

The Just Shall Live by Faith

In verse 4, we read the last thing God said is that the just shall live by his faith. The just shall live. This is quoted four times in the New Testament. It's quoted in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, three times maybe, that the just shall live by faith.

And Romans, the justification by faith, we're taught there who is justified by faith is to live by faith. We got all kinds of principles from this. Now, in verse 2, he talks about vision. What is vision?

We need to have vision. We're going to talk about that a little bit, and actually this may be the thing I'm going to be challenging. To go to the vision, and go to the tower, and meet with God, and see.

You see, our vision determines our destiny. It determines our goals. It determines our priorities. It determines actually eternity. If we see Jesus as our Savior, it determines the direction that we go in life.

So you need to see. And if you can't see, and you're blind physically, whatever, don't drive. You know, we need to see. It's very important, even with our spirit. And God will give you wisdom in certain situations.

False Hope and True Faith in Christ

I heard a story, I read a story, I actually got it, and somehow or another I picked it up, and it's even covered with the plastic, about Finney. He was in one of the meetings and preaching, and he heard about a lady that was very faithful, and going to the Baptist Church there in town, and known for her confidence in her own piety, her own godliness.

But she's failing, and she's fixing to die. And Finney went to visit her, because he found out about her. And so he had a long conversation with her, and asked her of her confidence. And she told her, she told him that she'd had a dream in which she, when she was a little girl, which made her think that her sins were all forgiven.

Because of this dream, she thought her sins were all forgiven. And then she had settled upon that. That was her salvation, in that dream. Well, Finney tried to explain to her that, no, she had to come to faith in Christ for sins to be forgiven.

She'd never done that. And so he tried to dissuade her of her false hope, and it wasn't going too good. She got upset with him, and said it wasn't nice for him to be doing this to a dying lady, and that he was cruel to tell her, and tried to take her her hope away from her, and all these kind of things.

Distressed her, and just couldn't get it done. A little bit after that, she died. But just before she died, and the story went like this, that was related. She died not long afterwards, but her it, her death, in thinking of it, has often reminded me of Dr. Nelson's book called, The Cause and Cure of Infidelity.

When this woman came to be actually dying, her eyes were open, and before she left the world, she seemed to have such a glimpse of the character of God, and of what heaven was, and of the holiness required to dwell there, that she shrieked with agony, and exclaimed that she was going to hell, and Finney says, in this state, he was informed that she died.

It's a serious thing to reject a gift that's offered to you by God of eternal life. Once God offers the gift, you know, if he offers the gift, somebody offers you a gift, if you don't take it, what have you done?

You've refused it, you know. And so let's look at some things here, and see, and closing up, if we can learn some things about going to the tower. God will give you wisdom on how to work with people. There was an old Scottish pastor, one time, there was one place he'd go off once a year, it'd take him about a couple days to get up there, and there was an inn he would stop in, and spend the night on the way to Scotland.

Beautiful place, and it's there, what, in 08, and didn't get, go it everywhere, but we had a conference there, an amazing conference. But, so he stopped at this inn, and there was a bright lassie there, bubbling around, and serving the tables, and so he, he asked her about her soul, and she wasn't saved, and she wasn't interested, she didn't want to, she was doing fine, and whatever, and then, and so as he left, he said, well, let me challenge you to do this, would you pray, would you please pray every day, that God would show you yourself, and she said, sure, I'll pray that, and so the next year, he came back to the inn, he stayed there, and there is this lassie, not bouncing around, and not bubbly, and everything, but very sad, and very dejected, and very down, and so he asked her what was going on.

Well, God had showed her herself, and it wasn't so good-looking, and so he tried to lead her to the Lord, and she didn't want Christ, and so he said, just before he left, okay, well, this time, would you pray every day for God to show you Jesus?

She said, okay, I'll do that, and so the next year, he comes back, and she prayed every day, and he came back, and she's just all bubbly again, and bouncing around, and so happy, and joyful. What happened?

Well, God showed me Jesus Christ. He's my Savior. I accepted him. I'm saved. Sometimes, you need to see yourself before you really see Jesus, and that's hard to get people to see themselves, and face up to the fact that they are a sinner, and the wages of sin is death, so vision is seeing.

Nine Practices for Going to the Tower

God can give you vision for whatever you need, and it's also seeing what God wants to done. He wants to see what God wants you to do. I'm going to cover about nine areas, and hopefully go through these quickly.

We're going to talk about standing, and watching. Standing is being still. Watching is the term, actually, for guarding, and we're going to talk about sitting, getting yourself stationed in place, and upon the tower is it could be an enclosure, or whatever.

It could be a prison, and whatever. When we went to a place here a few weeks ago, we went to the tower. We went down to the lake, to the house, and then watching. You will watch. He will watch. That is expecting to look out for what's going to do, to see, and that's perception, to see what he's going to learn, and what he will say, and that is going to he's going to receive what God is going to give to him, and then the eighth thing is unto me, and what I shall answer.

That means, so what's he going to turn back? How is he going to respond to God, and then the ninth thing is when I am reproved, and so verse 1, what I shall answer when I am reproved. That's to be corrected.

Okay, God's answer to him was to write the vision, make it plain upon tablets, that he may run, and then that read it then. All right, let's just jump into this. Before we do, I want to ask you a question.

What is your vision? What has God showed you? Live by faith. What is your vision for your children, and you'd say, well, my vision is that I make this through here and be sane. I don't go crazy, you know.

Raising these little guys, they can stretch you. We have them come over to our house every week. Now, I'm getting old. I'm 70 years old, and the noise sometimes, my wife says, you better go hide. You know, get on your nerves and things they do, but they're fun.

They're fun. We're on a 20-acre farm, and we're trying to find another place to live because our house is pretty bad shape there, but it drives you. It consumes you. Whatever your vision, when after Paul met Jesus on the dimension, he was a driven man before, but now he's driven by another power, and that is the Lord.

Somebody saw, Sammy Tippett got this. He's evangelist, goes to Africa, sees great things happen, but this came from somebody else. I can't remember what it is, but a doctor friend of mine in Louisiana sent this to me, and I said, wow, that is powerful, because sometimes we can just sort of, our vision can sort of get blurry, you know, just like you get cataracts.

You get very, I got got them coming in both eyes. Listened to a preacher years ago. I heard him up in Vancouver when I was in a conference back in 2010, and I identified with what he said. He said we sort of, we get older, we just sort of die piece by piece.

You're older, you got that. The eyes get dimmed, and knees don't work, and feet hurt, and teeth fall out, and all this stuff. So he said, if you have more memories than vision, then you're writing your final chapter.

He who walks with God, walks with God alone, and we're going to have to keep walking with vision. We're going to have to keep walking by faith. Whatever we do, we got to keep looking ahead and believe in God to do things.

Otherwise, we're on our last chapter. Vision is the art or the power of sensing with eyes, or anticipating that which will come. It's a mental sight. It's a dream. It's a revelation. It's something that we, God gets us that we see.

A Vision for Ministry and God’s Calling

When I first went to my first church in Wyoming in 1975, just 29 years old, we had a little three-month-old baby that we took out there, and I went into town. There wasn't a preacher in town, just the devil in me.

It's all right. We know where we're at, but the enemy got busy and got the priest back in there. They had a church, and that guy was an amazing guy. He'd spent years in North Carolina, and he'd show me hate letters from the bishop.

I listened to him preach a funeral message one time. For two hours, he sounded like a Baptist preacher, chewing these people out, just chewing them out, amen, amen. I don't know if he's really saved, but the higher-ups hated him.

He put up a chicken coop out inside of his brand-new $70 ,000 home. He said, this thing's a shame. That was back, what, 40-something years ago. It'd be a $200 ,000 or $300 ,000 home now. When I went there, God gave me a vision for Wyoming, to reach Wyoming for Christ.

I didn't do it, but I did, I believe, see God do some things in our area. He had warfare all the time. It was just really great. I shared some things with you, but it's a mental side of what God wants.

Let me give you these nine tidbits of wisdom from the old embracer, Habakkuk. He loved God. He embraced God. God, it's just not good down here, and now you're fixing to turn these Chaldeans loose. We need to have a talk.

I know we're not really, we're really bad. There's strife and all this stuff, and they don't like me, but the Chaldeans are terrible people, and that's what God does when he's disciplined. So, standing.

You think about that. Moses, he stood there at the burning bush. I don't know if it was a mountain, but after that, he stood on Mount Sinai, and he stood on Mount Nebo, and he finally ended up and stood on the Mount Transfiguration.

He was a mountain climber. He walked with God, and a man with a vision of God is not devoted to a cause. He's devoted to God. So many are devoted to their doctrine, their cause, their church, or whatever this, but a man with a vision is going to be devoted to God, and also, I got four things to share.

Two, he's not easily deterred, because he's standing on the rock. He's seen what God said. You see what God said. You see what God wants you to do, and then, two, he lives by the inspiration of his vision, because the Spirit of God has spoke to him from the Word.

He's heard God. He got a message or whatever, and he's going to move on it, and the fourth thing, he's going to be just like us. Some of the things he's not going to understand what God is doing. The old embracer didn't understand why God would take these terrible, horrible Chaldeans and turn them loose.

They were awful, awful people, but he's going to stand, and God says, go to the tower. Go to the tower. When you go to the tower, he says, you write. You write the vision. You make it plain up on tables that he may run that readeth it.

Watching, Waiting, and Standing Firm

So what God wants you to do sometimes is go to the tower. You go to that tower, and then, he said, watching. The second thing out of these nine things is you go to the tower, and you watch. Oswald Chambers said, if we have the inspiration of other visions of God, beware of the danger of relaxing spiritually.

When God gives you a vision, we got to watch that we don't relax. David relaxed too much, and there was one young prophet one time to go do a chore, deliver a message. He did, and then the old prophet diverted him, and he got ate up by a lion.

Wow. Just amazing things, not to get diverted. Isaiah talked in Isaiah 22, 1 through 6, the valley of vision. And so, go to the tower. You stand there, and you watch, and you see what God is going to speak to you, and then there's sitting.

You go to the tower, and it's sitting. It's just going to sit there and be still. Chambers said, if we are born again, we all have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. We have visions of what's wrong and right, but many times we won't take time to be still before God.

So, we need to go to the tower and sit there with Him, and be surrendered to Him. Don't waste your sorrows sulking about this and that. Just go to the tower and meet with God. The Christian life is a warfare.

I remember one time there were battles, and the Lord had said, the scripture's there. You should not fight in this battle. Also, the scripture says the battle is the Lord's. So, don't waste your sorrows, your trials, and your broken dreams, and just stay in contact with God.

Prayer as Spiritual Warfare

Go to the tower. Go to the tower. Those Moravians, they're really inspiring, aren't they? There was one story about them. They were on a ship, and the ship, they were going to St. Thomas to preach, and they were on their way from London, and they were on the ship Britannica, and they're on the way, and then some pirates come.

These terrible pirates, and they come in there, and they come up, and they're going to take over this ship, because that's, and so they come up beside there, and they're going to throw their grappling hooks over there, and just before they did, God threw a gust of wind and blew them back.

They didn't hit, and then they tried again, and every time there'd be this amazing gust of wind to blow them back, and their hooks couldn't hit, and they try again, and they couldn't do it. Then finally, okay, the captain said, well, get the cannons, blow them to pieces, and so they shot at them, and the wind blew them back, and all their cannonballs dropped short, and they had all the smoke, and they had to shoot again, and they kept getting blown back, and they kept, they shoot, and they couldn't see all the smoke and everything, and pretty soon the smoke cleared, and the Britannica was way down the road, or the sea.

They were traveling on. What happened? All those Moravians went to the tower. They were down in the hole praying, go to the tower, go to the tower, but that's not the end of the story. Five years later, these Moravian missionaries were on that island.

They'd been preaching, and they were in, I think, a restaurant or something like that. Maybe you heard this story, and a man came in there asking for them, and he found them, and he stood there, and he had these questions for them.

He said, first answer me one question. Are you the men who came to this island five years ago in the English ship Britannica? They said, we are, and then he said, and were you attacked upon the sea by pirates?

They said, yes, and he said, I am the captain of that pirate ship, and what I experienced there was so unusual and staggering. I figured out that God must have been doing that, and after that, I gave my life to Christ.

I got saved. Go to the tower. You don't understand, we don't understand what kind of side benefits there may be. Go into the tower, and sit there before God, and let him fight the battles up there on the deck, and so that's the third one.

We go sitting, and so we have these visions. God can get you out. Look, there's Paul and Silas. They're in the jail, in the prison, and what do they do? They turn that place into a tower, a tower of prayer and praise, pray themselves out.

All kinds of things happen. Go to the tower. It's just, it's amazing, and the devil wants to get you sidestepped, but you know, there's all kinds of places that can be your towers. The fourth thing, he said, upon the tower, he said, you go to the tower, that's the place.

Drawing Near to God Amid Opposition

Go back to that again. Verse one, he said, I will stand upon my watch, and will 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 of course, the Lord said, write the vision, make it plain upon the tables.

God will give you vision. He'll show you what he wants you to see, but you got to go to the tower, and you got to be there, but let me tell you something. The greater the work that God's going to do to you through you, the greater the opposition there's going to be.

Just think, don't think you're going to walk into something and do some great thing of God, and the devil's going to say, oh, just come on in. I've been waiting for you to do this, and no, he's going to oppose you all the way.

And so, go to your tower. Upon the tower, that's the place. James said, draw night to God, and he will draw night to you. Go to the tower. Again, Oswald Chambers said, when God gives a vision to a saint, he puts him, as it were, in the shadow of his hand, and the saint's duty is to be still and listen.

So go to the tower. I think we're too prone to just sort of worry and fret about these things, instead of just going and getting with God till we get the victory. So when God gives a vision, and darkness follows way, and God will make you in accordance with the vision.

There was a man that went to the Lai Tzu tribe in southwest China. I think it was Hudson Taylor told him he would have to go forward on his knees into that area. Here's something he wrote, and I read years ago something on his biography or something.

I should do it again. But here's what he wrote. He was a pioneer missionary to the Lai Tzu tribe, southwest China, with the China Inland Mission, and he experienced intense wrestlings with the powers of darkness.

And just, he said, before the strong man is finally forced to yield up his prey, and here's an account of how bad it got with him. He said, strange, and this was recorded by Ms. Taylor, Ms. Howard Taylor, in Beyond Behind the Ranges.

Maybe you read that book. And he said, strange uncertainty began to shadow his inward life. All he had believed and rejoiced in became unreal, and even his prayers seemed to mock him as the answers faded into nothing.

These demonic powers just pounding on him and attacking him. And here's the lessons from this. Satan's tactics seem to be as follows. He will first of all oppose our breaking through to the place of a real living faith.

So we go to the tower, and we break through till we got faith. By all means, and then he says, the devil, the enemy detests the prayer of faith. So you go to the tower, and you go to the battle against whatever God's got you to fight.

Here's why the enemy detests the prayer of faith, because he says it's an authoritative notice to quit to the enemy. That we're going to break through. We're going to the tower, and we're going to get the victory.

We're not going to give up until we've got the victory, so you might as well leave. And he's not going to like it, but he was defeated at Calvary. Praise the Lord. And so it's a notice to quit when you go to the tower, and you're fighting that battle, for a lost loved one needs to be saved, or an issue of whatever God gives you.

And so he said, we often have to strive and wrestle in prayer before we attain this quite restful faith. And until we break right through and join hands with God, we have not attained to real faith at all.

However, once we attain to a real faith, all the forces of hell are impotent to annul it. The real battle begins when the prayer has been offered, and we go to the tower. So go to the tower, and you get there with God.

Listening for God’s Word and Waiting on His Strength

There's a place near to the heart of God. It's your tower. You know, when Taylor went to England for five years, that was his tower, and he worked it out. He walked it out. He prayed it out until God gave him China.

And God gave him the missionaries, and God gave him the vision to do it by faith. Walk away from this mission agency that wants to bind you with their rules and their regulations, and walk with God. Go to the tower, though, and he'll meet you.

Joseph's tower started with the pit. Seventeen years there. Five, listening. Listening. He said, I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me. And so you've got to listen.

Isaiah 54 and 5 says, The Lord God had given me the tongue of the learned, that I might know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakened morning by morning. He wakened my ear to hear his learned, and I was not rebellious.

He didn't turn back. It's actually a prophecy about Christ. But he goes to the tower, and morning by morning, he waits to hear what God has to say to him. Sometimes we just live in defeat because we won't take time to go there and get with God and listen to God.

And Terry, the man or woman who will wait on the Lord, will see the vision and mount up. He'll mount up with wings as eagles. Hath thou not heard? Have you known that the Lord, the everlasting God, Isaiah said, He doesn't get weary.

He doesn't get tired. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. You've been fainting?

I shared that verse for 10 years on a radio broadcast in Joplin, Missouri. You ever heard of that place? It about got wiped off the map. I couldn't even find my account. I couldn't even locate the note in the neighborhood where he was.

It was so wiped off the mount. He had a new building. It's just nothing was there. But God did something in those 10 years. And because when I went there, I'd gone through Revival. And I went there and I had a vision from God to reach pastors.

And I told you about that. It was a low aim, 50. Now I don't know how many. It's probably bunches and bunches, maybe several hundred. But it started there. So you get with God. Just learn to see. You know, Moses endured because he had a vision from God.

I mean to stay with all of these crybabies for all these years and take them out in the desert. You got to let it all the unbelievers die off for 40 years. Then you go into the promised land. Then he lost it and blew it, you know.

Here now you rebels. You know why it was so serious that God wouldn't let him in? Because the first time he was supposed to smite the rock and the water came out, speaking of the crucifixion of Christ.

And I believe when he struck the rock the second time, that opened up for the doctrine of the re-crucifixion of Christ, which is done by the Catholic Church several thousand times a day. He was supposed to speak to the rock.

Christ is only crucified once. After that, then he is spoken to. And he blew the type. It was a serious, serious offense. So God couldn't let him in. So we have to watch our temper because we are human.

Hearing God’s Direction and Helping Others

And then after listening to the Lord, and by the way, it sometimes can be crucial for the life of others, for us to listen. Years ago there was a man by the name of John, John Barry. He was a poor man.

He lived up in the mountains of, I think it was Oregon or Washington, Washington Mountain. And he made coal. He made charcoal. He was a poor man or whatever. And one winter he didn't get down to get his groceries in time because he was sick and he didn't have enough food.

And about December he's running out of food. And because they only started off the winter about a bushel of potatoes and had some salt and different things like that. But it was 1874. And it was a bad winter, a lot of snow and drifts like that.

There's no way they could get down off the mountain to go get some food. And his family consisted of him and his wife. And so they said, let's go to the tower. So they went to praying. And they prayed.

And they were praying that God would help them. Meanwhile, down in the valley, down below, there was a fairly wealthy farmer. And he went to bed one night. And all of a sudden he thought he heard somebody say, send food to John.

And the story's a little bit humorous because then he told his wife, did you hear that? And you know, wife, he'd wake her up. No, you're just hearing things. Go back to sleep. You know, so he went back to sleep.

A few minutes later, he pops up. Send food to John. Wakes her up. Do you hear that? No, I didn't hear anything. You know, maybe he ate something wrong or whatever. Yeah, go back to sleep. And so the next time he goes back to sleep and he hears this in his spirit, send food to John.

And here's how the story goes. At that point, he's seeing and sensing that maybe she, he said, wife, do you, do we know anybody named John? You know, and she said, well, there's an old guy up in the mountain that does it.

Oh yeah, I know, I know him. John Barry. Wife, I wonder if he, if God's saying he needs some food. Send food to John. And so they went on back to sleep. Next morning, they woke up really early, went to his son.

I think his son's 19 years old. He said, you feed the horses real good and then get them hooked up to the sleigh. We're going to get all the food we can in the baskets and we're going to go up on the mountain.

They started off at five and it took them, I think it over five hours to get up there through the snow drifts and everything. And they got up there and he went to the door and before he knocked, he heard they were in there at the tower praying for God to send them some food.

Here's your prayer. They're going to the tower. So it works together. When you go to the tower, you're going to hook together to help somebody else out. And so listening, that was listening. Then the next one is write the vision.

Writing and Obeying the Heavenly Vision

Go to the tower and then you write down what God is saying to you. You need, should take notes unless you got a good memory, but take notes. Let's see if there's anything in here. Writing helps the memory.

I wrote out the memory of what God wants. Oswald Chambers said the memory of what God wants. Even John, when God called him, God said, write, write the vision. Write it. Where would we be if it was just passed down?

But it's given to us. Boy, praise the Lord for the Word of God. And so here is the old embracer and God is speaking to him about vision. Another thing I was going through, what did Oswald Chambers say about vision?