ISAIAH 64: 1-12
THE MADE RIGHTEOUS PLEA
[Exodus 19:16-19 / Mt 24:36-44 / 1Corinthians 2:9]
What do you do when the church sinks to the level of the world, leaving its high calling, quitting the path of being a separated people, and becoming just like those whom God does not know? After the entreaty to remember the pitiful spiritual condition of His people we now have an appeal for an overwhelming demonstration of God’s power. It comes as a prayer bursting up like a volcano through the hearts of gracious men who no longer could hold in the agonizing cry.
The prophet appeals so longingly to God because unless God does come down the people will not return. The people’s are so distance from God they will not return without God’s presence coming in power.
This prayer reveals the hope of the church and brings the solution for her many ailments. If His people will confess their sins and turn to Him, God would rescue them from their tragic condition. Yahweh works wonders for those who in righteousness wait for Him.
I. DEMONSTRATE YOUR POWERFUL PRESENCE, 1-3.
II. HONOR THE PLEA OF THE RIGHTEOUS, 4-5a.
III. CAPTIVES OF OUR SIN, 5b-7.
IV. RESCUE AND RESTORE US, 8-12.
Isaiah’s ardent plead for the manifested presence of God begins in verse 1. Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at Your presence—
"Rend the heavens! and come down!" Having already called on God to see how bad the situation is (63:15), the prophet now pleas for God to come down and shatter their serious situation. Tear apart whatever barrier is separating us from You! Come down and shake the mountains, the most solid foundations of the earth.
It’s as if Isaiah is asking, "Why have You let the situation get so desperate? Why have You not already intervened? Feel the heart cry of God’s prophet for God’s direct intervention in the affairs of man and church.
In verse 2 the prophet gives the manner and effect with which He wants the Lord to come down. As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil— To make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence!
God’s manifested presence is so intense that it is like a consuming fire that burns everything in its path. Make Your name known by making the mountains shake and the nations tremble, he advised the Lord. Reveal Your nature to the nations by the wonders of Your presence.
Throughout the Bible (Gen. 3:24; Ex. 3:1; Acts 2:3; Rev. 20:9) fire is closely associated with the presence of God. If God were to come among us and apply His fire to our unclean lips and hardened hearts as He had with Isaiah (6:1ff); the trash of our lives would be consumed in flames and the lukewarm water of our souls would burst into a rolling boil. The result would be that God’s adversaries, those who has trampled down His worship (63:18), would realize His name, who He truly is. Then they would tremble.
In verse 3 Isaiah relays to God that their plea is not beyond Him, that He has done it before when He was separating out a people for His own possession. When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence.
Isaiah wanted God to behave as He had in the past. Recalling God’s appearance at
Mt Sinai, (Ex.19:16-19) Isaiah longed for a repeat performance. When God met Moses there was lightening flashes, rolling thunder, bellowing smoke, and quaking earth. Such disintegrating events would get man’s attention.
If God were to met with us today, His glory and holiness would overwhelm us. That is the way it will happen when Christ Jesus comes again (Mt. 24:36-44).
[But God had already told Isaiah that He Would be doing something new; "Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them" (42:9). The something new was Jesus! God did indeed come down. But not in Isaiah’s lifetime. He came in the unassuming form of an infant.
Many of us can remember a situation when God acted in an amazing way and like Isaiah we want God to do the something again. But perhaps He has something else in mind. As you celebrate God’s humble descent to earth, be aware that He came to change our hearts, not just our circumstances. God’s answers to our prayers may exceed our expectations ]
II. HONOR THE PLEA OF THE RIGHTEOUS, 4-5a.
Verse 4 reveals that God’s past actions have taught that there is no God like Him. For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, Nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him. [For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him. KJV]
Isaiah wants us to think about what human experience can disclose to us about the only God who has revealed Himself to mankind. These experiences are evidences that God is ready to help. He is the only God who can be trusted. He is the only One who will act on behalf of those who wait for Him (40:31). He has everything in preparation before our needs begin. He has laid in supplies for all our wants. Before our prayers are presented, He has prepared His answers to them. Blessed be the name of our Lord who acts on behalf of those who wait upon Him!
Do you remember how Paul uses this passage? "But it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him (1Cor. 2:9). Why doesn’t God speak more to us about heaven? Because we couldn’t comprehend it. But God reveals heavenly concepts to us as we walk in His Spirit. The spiritual man is a privileged man.
If you’re living for your job, your bank account, your possessions; or even your family, you’ll miss out on the life God has for you both now and eternally. But if, like Isaiah and Paul, you set your heart on heaven, you’ll have an abundant life on earth thrown in!
If like Isaiah we would just say; "Lord we are looking and waiting for that which You have in store for us in heaven," you’ll not only end up there, but you’ll enjoy life as well. If you’re living for your job or your bank account or your possessions, you could miss both life in heaven and abundant life on earth and certainly will have less of both.
The first part of verse 5 indicates that our waiting is not passive but we are to act in righteousness You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways.
We are to be actively waiting on the Lord. We are to become a people of joy who involve our self in righteousness, in doing the right things. We are to remember the way of the Lord and all He has done for us. The way of the Lord is the way of integrity, honesty, faithfulness, simplicity, mercy, generosity, and self-denial. The person whose life does not live out these virtues may be waiting, but he or she is not waiting on the Lord.
What may the person who lives his or her life in this way expect? God will meet them. It conveys the thought of divine human interaction. [Oswalt, NIC Isaiah 40-66, 624].
Live according to the ways of God, joyfully doing righteousness, expectantly waiting upon Him, and sooner that you might think, you will be regularly meeting with the One who one day soon will meet us all.
III. CAPTIVES OF OUR SIN, 5b-7.
The second half of verse 5 moves from an appeal to a confession because Israel had not been waiting on the Lord. Thus they found themselves in a hopeless condition. Behold, You are angry, for we have sinned. We have continued in them a long time; and shall we be saved?
The remnant, those who are to gladly do right, who are to remember God’s ways, confess that God is rightfully angry with them. Israel and even the righteous remnant had chosen to sin. Their sin was against them (who gladly do right, who remember God’s ways). They had continued in their rebellious sin for decades and decades. Thus they acknowledge that they have no right to expect salvation or deliverance. God’s anger will culminate in their exile.
What is the condition of natural man before God? Verse six gives us the answer. For all of us have become like one who is unclean. And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment (rags). And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
It is not a flattering picture that the prophet draws. The people were religious carrying out religious acts, but in and of our natural selves we have nothing to offer God. If our best, our righteousness, is like filthy rags, like a women used during her menstrual period, fit only for the fire; What must our sin be like?
All of our charitable giving, do-gooding, and volunteering are filthy rags because God sees not only what we do, but the mixed motives behind our actions. Jesus sees right through the things that look so noble to others.
The thought continues that His people are like dead leaves because they have cut themselves off from the source of life. The remnant confessese their condition as, all of us are like the dried shriveled leaves on the trees; and just as the wind carries away the faded leaves of autumn, so our sins take us away from God like the blasting -disposing of chaff.
No one is good enough to be saved by their own goodness. Paul would later say, "There is no one who does good, no not one" (Romans 3:12). (Rom. 3:23). The only way we’re saved is by God reaching out to us. He calls us and we simply hear and responded. Remember Isaiah means "the Lord saves."
The evidence that their righteousness was external is shown in the prayerlessness of the people in verse 7. There is no one who calls on Your name, who arouses himself to take hold of You. For You have hidden Your face from us and have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.
The Lord urges prayer in times of affliction and distress (2 Chron. 7:14). But no one truly called on YAHWEH’s name (6th reference to) or tried to "lift himself up to grasp hold of You." Did you see this wonderful description of prayer? When a man rouses himself from sinful lethargy, and stirs himself up to take hold of God in prayer, he will become a prince prevailing with God. So we must shake ourselves out of our sinful lethargy and rouse ourselves to seek God.
In that day there was no one who truly sought God’s face and will in prayer. Understandably God had hidden His face, or withdrawn His presence, from His people. The problem is persistent sin and the people’s refusal to let God do any thing about it. The result was that the people experienced the consequences (power: hand of) for their sin.
No one recognized their desperate situation. Moreover, few cared. There was no intercessor (nor mediator) to stand between God and their sinfulness and therefore no intervention. If God does not help them, all is lost.
IV. RESCUE AND RESTORE US, 8-12.
The final part of this impassioned prayer by Isaiah and the righteous remnant is a confession of trust in the Lord. In verse 8 the remnant again addresses God as their Father (63:16) and as the Potter. But now, O Lord, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; and all of us are the work of Your hand.
With the transition but now (waw ´attâ) the remnant pleas to be like obedient children, as submissive to God’s hand as clay (29:16; 45:9) is to it molder.
God their Father, who brought them into being, was also their Potter, (lit.) the One who forms us (29:16; 45:9). And God would form them as a potter forms clay, if they would but surrender themselves in obedience to Him and His ways.
Jeremiah (18:6) and Paul would both use the analogy of clay to illustrate the sovereignty of God. God is the Master Potter. He has a plan to expertly craft us to be part of His glorious purpose. How can we trust He’ll do what’s best? By looking at His hands as He shapes us and at His feet as He turns the wheel-for in them we see the scars of the nails that pierced Him when He died for us.
"Now, O Lord, thou art our Father!" The cry is that though our sin cannot be denied, neither can our relationship with You. Adoption does not come to an end because of sin. Regeneration or sonship does not die out; it cannot die out. I am my earthly father’s son, and I always will be. If I am my heavenly Father’s son, I will never cease to be so. This truth must not be perverted into an argument for sinning; it ought rather to keep us from sinning, so that we do not grieve such wondrous love.
The prayer implores mercy and the mitigation of judgment in verse 9. Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord, nor remember iniquity forever. Behold, look now, all of us are Your people.
Based on the fact that the LORD was their Father the obedient and submissive remnant asks Him to withhold His anger and to look on them (63:15) as His own.
The remnant knows that they have gone too far from God and His plan for judgment to be suspended. Thus they ask it be lessened that they be not completely crushed. Although You cannot ignore our persistent sins don’t hold them against us continuously. The plead is based on the fact that they are not just any people but all of them are God’s people.
In verse10 the remnant reminds God that Israel’s cities including Jerusalem had been destroyed. Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
God is reminded that His holy cities (14:25; Ps. 78:54) are a desert. Zion, the spiritual center of His people, is also a waste land. God’s spiritual people are dried up and thus Jerusalem is desolate.
In verse 11 we learn the devastation will extend even to the burning of the temple. Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised You, has been burned by fire; and all our precious things have become a ruin.
Even more distressful is that "our holy and beautiful house," which is the temple in Jerusalem, is destroyed. It would be burned to the ground and the set apart things dedicated to the worship of God defiled. This ruined place was where God was praised.
God’s people would indeed return to their homeland, but they would find the wall, the city, and above all God’s house in great need of repair. God would answer this prayer of His people in His time and provide both the means and the will to rebuild that which was lost. Isn’t that always the way of our God?
In verse12 the peoples hopes and anxieties are summed up with two questions. Will You restrain Yourself at these things, O Lord? Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?
God again touches the prophet’s heart and he weeps and wails for the sorrows of his people. Then he turns his compassion into a quest for understanding. Yet the questions are also an entreaty urging God to do something about the situation. Break Your silence before it is too late (62:1; 65:6). Withdraw Your punishment from Your people.
Our only hope is that God will intervene in the hearts and lives of people, doing in them what they haven’t been able to do for themselves. Do not remain silent in the midst of our suffering.
CONCLUSION
Recalling God’s ways and that He acts on behalf of His repentant people, this remnant asks that God work on their behalf. First they confess their sin (5b), their spiritual uncleanness (6a), their weakness (6b, shriveled like a leaf), and lack of prayer (7). However, they would not blame God for their dreadful condition. They would have wasted away because of their sins, if God would not be faithful to His promises and saved them as He had so powerfully in the past.
Our God is the only God who has revealed Himself to His people (Isa. 64:4; 1 Cor. 2:10). He is the only God who acts on behalf of those who believe in Him and willingly do what is right.
In the next chapter God responds, and says, "I reveal Myself to those who did not ask for Me; I am found of them who did not seek Me." How much more quickly is He found by those who do seek Him! Truly, God does hear prayer; and He will hear prayer. Let us not cease to pray to Him as we look round on the sad state of the professing church in our age, and with Isaiah let us cry, "Will You restrain Yourself at these things, O Lord? Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?"
PRAYER: O Lord God do not wait for us to return to You. Meet us while we are a long way away. Comes to us the moment that we turn our hearts & feet towards Your throne. We are like the prodigal, a great way off, but see us, and have compassion upon us. Run to meet us we plea in Jesus’ name! In Your faithfulness, in Your love, in Yourself, in Your ways of mercy there is continuing salvation. In Your path is our salvation and safety.
