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⁴ Since ancient times no one has heard,
    no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
    who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
⁵ You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
    who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them,
    you were angry.
    How then can we be saved?
⁶ All of us have become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
    and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
⁷ No one calls on your name
    or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
    and have given us over to our sins.

The doctrine of ‘total depravity’ does not mean that every person is as bad as they possibly can be, but rather that sin has affected (infected) every part of the human personality. Warren Wiersbe comments that if ”our righteous acts are like filthy rags” in God’s sight, how must our unrighteous deeds look to Him? The truth is that even the best things we do are tainted by sin.

Isaiah, as we have seen, wonderfully describes the God ”who acts on behalf of those who wait for him” (4). He also shows that such a stance – this prayer posture – involves a lifestyle of holiness (5). It is not that we can earn answers to prayer by perfect living. If that were the case we’d all be snookered! But our overall commitment should be to living God’s way, with a desire for holiness, no matter how many times we may fail or fall. Wilful sin, which we refuse to evict because we enjoy its company far too much, can cause a blockage to our prayers (see Ps.66:18-20).

This was the sad case for Israel. Instead of pursuing the way of holiness, they were habitual sinners (5b). So much so that no-one stirred themselves to pray (7) to the prayer answering God (4,5a).

‘The people of God, in affliction, confess and bewail their sins, owning themselves unworthy of his mercy. Sin is that abominable thing which the Lord hates. Our deeds, whatever they may seem to be, if we think to merit by them at God’s hand, are as rags, and will not cover us; filthy rags, and will but defile us. Even our few good works in which there is real excellence, as fruits of the Spirit, are so defective and defiled as done by us, that they need to be washed in the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. It bodes ill when prayer is kept back. To pray, is by faith to take hold of the promises the Lord has made of his good-will to us, and to plead them; to take hold of him, earnestly begging him not to leave us; or soliciting his return…How few call upon the Lord with their whole hearts, or stir themselves to lay hold upon him! God may delay for a time to answer our prayers, but he will, in the end, answer those who call on his name and hope in his mercy.’ Matthew Henry.

Thought: Are there any sins of which I am aware that are holding me back from praying as I ought? What are they, and what will I do about them?

Since ancient times no one has heard,
    no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
    who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Many years ago I read a book about ‘the fruit of the Spirit.’ In a chapter about ‘patience’, the author pointed out that the Bible talks about waiting in two senses: we wait on the Lord in prayer; but we also wait for Him in patience. His timing is not ours. We may have to wait a long time for some answers, but God is never too late, and He is always worth the wait.

‘Never was a faithful prayer lost. Some prayers have a longer voyage than others, but then they return with their richer lading at last, so that the praying soul is a gainer by waiting for an answer.’ William Gurnall.

(With regard to the first part of the above verse in Isaiah, Derek Kidner observes that the New Testament points out how unimaginably these great works of God in Old Testament history would be transcended. See 1 Cor.2:9,10)

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
    that the mountains would tremble before you!
² As when fire sets twigs ablaze
    and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
    and cause the nations to quake before you!
³ For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
    you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

We are reminded today that our God is ”able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Eph.3:20). Isaiah is not asking God to do something He hasn’t done before. On the contrary, He appeals on the basis of the Lord’s ‘track-record.’ When did He do something like this before? Why, at the ‘exodus’ is the answer. Isaiah is saying, ‘You’ve done it before Lord; please do it again.’

Warren Wiersbe comments: ‘Demonstrations of divine power are easily found in history books but not readily found among God’s people today. Why? (‘With the Word’, p.491)

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
    that the mountains would tremble before you!
² As when fire sets twigs ablaze
    and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
    and cause the nations to quake before you!

Isaiah’s logic is simple and straightforward. When we see ”twigs ablaze” that is an effect, and there is a cause: ”fire”. Again, when we see the effect of water boiling, the cause is to be found in that same ”fire”. The prophet is praying for certain effects in the world: God’s Name made known to His enemies, the nations coming to fear Him, (even physical manifestations in the natural realm). The great cause will be God ‘coming down’ in power. He’s done it before; He can do it again. Let’s join Isaiah in his posture of prayer

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down…

…Oh, look upon us we pray,
    for we are all your people.
¹⁰ Your sacred cities have become a wasteland;
    even Zion is a wasteland, Jerusalem a desolation.
¹¹ Our holy and glorious temple, where our ancestors praised you,
    has been burned with fire,
    and all that we treasured lies in ruins.
¹² After all this, Lord, will you hold yourself back?

Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

The word ”Oh” is expressive of deep anguish. It is the cry of someone who is in profound pain. Isaiah grieved over the spiritual state of his people, and its terrible consequences.

I venture to suggest that we are seeing such a departure from God’s Word right now, in many parts of the church in the western world, that it should inject an ”Oh” into our prayers, if it hasn’t already.

Sometimes you don’t know what to say other than ”Oh God…Oh God…” The agony is so deep you don’t know how to fully articulate it. But God knows our hearts. He understands; and His pain is infinitely greater.

A reader response to recent article in ‘The Spectator’ included these words:

‘Guess what, a sin soaked society is not going to be impressed by a sin soaked Church. Dark is not challenged by dark but light – in other words when the Church stands up for its Biblical values and proclaims Jesus, then the world will listen. Otherwise, the Church just becomes a branch of the social services.’

Yes, there is much to make us feel aggrieved. But thank God we are not reduced to hand-wringing, for we have the gift of intercession.

”When all things seem against us,to drive us to despair,

we know one gate is open, one ear will hear our prayer.” (From the hymn: ‘Today thy mercy calls us’, by Oswald Allen).
    

Oh, that you would burst from the heavens and come down!
    How the mountains would quake in your presence! (NLT)

In this prayer Isaiah asks God to both ”Look down” (63:15) and ”come down” (64:1). It is a great prayer for God’s intervention, that He will do something to awaken the world to His reality.

Let’s join our prayers to his today:

”Revive thy work, O Lord,
thy mighty arm make bare;
speak with the voice that wakes the dead,
and make thy people hear.

Revive thy work, O Lord,
disturb this sleep of death;
quicken the smould’ring embers now
by thine almighty breath.

Revive thy work, O Lord,
create soul-thirst for thee;
and hung’ring for the Bread of Life
O may our spirits be.

Revive thy work, O Lord,
exalt thy precious name;
and, by the Holy Ghost, our love
for thee and thine inflame.

Revive thy work, O Lord,
give Pentecostal show’rs;
the glory shall be all thine own,
the blessing, Lord, be ours.” (Albert Midlane)

Oh, that you would burst from the heavens and come down!
    How the mountains would quake in your presence! (NLT)

Let’s remind ourselves that Isaiah’s prayer (one of the great intercessory prayers in the Bible) runs from 63:7-64:12. In a sermon on these two chapters, the Bible teacher David Pawson made the observation that this was Isaiah’s response to seeing the vision of Jesus coming as Judge in chapter 63:1-6. Judgment begins at the house of God, and he pleads for the salvation of God’s sinful people.

Barry Webb puts today’s verse in its context:

‘The intercessor is Isaiah himself. He stands in the prophetic tradition of intercessory prayer which goes right back to Moses. And like Jesus he prays with prophetic vision, not just for himself and his own generation, but for future generations as well. There is much to discourage him in the history of his people. They have always been marked by rebellion, harness of heart, wandering, and spiritual torpor (63:10,17;64:7). Their hold on the land God gave them has always been tenuous; their spiritual weakness has made them easy prey for their enemies (63:18; 64:10-11). And Isaiah sees little prospect of them changing in the future; their sinfulness is too ingrained. Hence the cry at the very centre of the prayer, Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down… (64:1). Intercession glorifies God because it is an expression of utter dependence upon him. It recognizes that we need to be delivered as much from ourselves as from our enemies, and that deliverance of this radical kind can be found only in God. It is his gift, not our achievement.’ ‘Isaiah’, p.241.

Lord, look down from heaven;
    look from your holy, glorious home, and see us.
Where is the passion and the might
    you used to show on our behalf?
    Where are your mercy and compassion now?
¹⁶ Surely you are still our Father!
    Even if Abraham and Jacob would disown us,
Lord, you would still be our Father.
    You are our Redeemer from ages past.
¹⁷ Lord, why have you allowed us to turn from your path?
    Why have you given us stubborn hearts so we no longer fear you?
Return and help us, for we are your servants,
    the tribes that are your special possession.
¹⁸ How briefly your holy people possessed your holy place,
    and now our enemies have destroyed it.
¹⁹ Sometimes it seems as though we never belonged to you,
    as though we had never been known as your people. (NLT).

Before moving on from this passage, I feel it necessary to comment on a potentially problematic couple of lines (highlighted in the first part of verse 17). Maybe it’s raised questions in your mind too. Because, taken at face value, it appears that Isaiah is sort of blaming God for Israel’s sin. But if we take the message of Isaiah as a whole, it is abundantly clear that God’s people are fully responsible and accountable for their sins. It is obvious that they need to repent, and return to the Lord. So, I take this more as Isaiah’s recognition of God’s absolute sovereignty over everything. It’s not about blaming God, but recognising that things could have been otherwise. So why weren’t they? This seems to be the perplexing question.

Tom Hale’s comments on this are worthy of reflection:

”Isaiah is almost ”blaming” God for the people’s sins. But God only hardens those who have first hardened themselves; God confirms people in their hardness. He ”gives them over” to their sins (Romans 1:24,26,28).” ‘Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.1069.

Lord, look down from heaven;
    look from your holy, glorious home, and see us.
Where is the passion and the might
    you used to show on our behalf?
    Where are your mercy and compassion now?
¹⁶ Surely you are still our Father!
    Even if Abraham and Jacob would disown us,
Lord, you would still be our Father.
    You are our Redeemer from ages past.
¹⁷ Lord, why have you allowed us to turn from your path?
    Why have you given us stubborn hearts so we no longer fear you?
Return and help us, for we are your servants,
    the tribes that are your special possession.
¹⁸ How briefly your holy people possessed your holy place,
    and now our enemies have destroyed it.
¹⁹ Sometimes it seems as though we never belonged to you,
    as though we had never been known as your people. (New Living Translation).

There is something plaintive in that nineteenth verse don’t you think? But note how Isaiah makes his appeal to the Lord on the basis of the special relationship which exists between God and His people (17b). It is also on the grounds of who He is (16), i.e. their ”Father” and ”Redeemer”.

‘Do they face the world as children without a father? These are the questions which generations of Israelites have asked, especially in times of crisis. But they are also Isaiah’s own questions. They trouble him too as he prays…They are the questions of prodigals come home, daring to hope that father – simply because that is who he is – will not turn them from his door

Isaiah has become so identified with those for whom he prays that, as far as his language is concerned, there is no difference between him and them. Their Father is his Father, their sins are his sins, and so are their doubts, perplexities and hard questions. By his praying he brings them to the Father when they are too weak or proud to come themselves. He acts as a true intercessor. It is likely that later generations of Israelites used this very prayer to lament the destruction of the temple and seek God’s forgiveness. If so, it did double duty; it lived on after Isaiah himself had died, and became the prayer of the very ones for whom he had interceded. It gave them voice in one of the darkest moments of their history.’ Barry Webb: ‘Isaiah’, pp.242/243.