The 18th psalm, which is closely parallel, as I have remarked, with this one, gives a somewhat different and inferior version of that thought when it says, It is the Lord that girdeth me with strength.' But Habakkuk, though perhaps he could not have put into dogmatic shape all that he meant, had come farther than that with this: The Lord is my strength.' He not only gives, as one might put a coin into the hand of a beggar, while standing separate from him all the while, but He is my strength.'
And what does that mean? It is an anticipation of that most wonderful and highest of all the New Testament. truths which the Apostle declared when he said: I can do all things in Christ which strengtheneth me within.' It is the anticipation in experience--which always comes before dogmatic formulas that reduce experiences into articulate utterances, of what the Apostle recorded when he said that he had heard the voice that declared, My grace is sufficient for thee, and My strength is made perfect in weakness.'
Ah, brother! do not let us deprive ourselves of the lofty consolations and the mysterious influx of power which may be ours, if we will open our eyes to see, and our hearts to receive, what is really the central blessing of the Gospel, the communication through the same faith as Habakkuk exercised when he said, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation,' of an actual divine strength to dwell in and manifest itself majestically and triumphantly through, our weakness. The Lord is my strength,' and if we will rejoice in the Lord we shall find that Habakkuk's experience was lower than ours, inasmuch as he knew less of God than we do; and we shall be able to surpass his saying with the other one of the Prophet: The Lord is my strength and song; He also is become my salvation.' That is the first blessing that this ancient believer, out of the twilight of early revelation, felt as certain to come through communion with God.
