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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.

Then they remembered those days of old
    when Moses led his people out of Egypt.
They cried out, “Where is the one who brought Israel through the sea,
    with Moses as their shepherd?
Where is the one who sent his Holy Spirit
    to be among his people?
¹² Where is the one whose power was displayed
    when Moses lifted up his hand—
the one who divided the sea before them,
    making himself famous forever?
¹³ Where is the one who led them through the bottom of the sea?
    They were like fine stallions
    racing through the desert, never stumbling.
¹⁴ As with cattle going down into a peaceful valley,
    the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest.
You led your people, Lord,
    and gained a magnificent reputation.”

Again and again the Old Testament writers seem to look back to the Exodus as the great demonstration of God’s power. ‘Do it again Lord’ is, in essence, their repeated prayer.

I was thinking that in our prayers for ‘revival’ we are doing the same. In particular we look back to God’s great acts as revealed in Sacred history, and we plead with Him to do again what He has done before, i.e. show His power and glorify His own Name (14b). We are also greatly encouraged in our praying by stories of awakenings in more recent centuries.

One other thing to highlight here is the interplay between what God did and what Moses did. Moses was fully involved, but ultimately it was all God’s work, and to God be all the glory! What a privilege to be workers together with God

”What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labour.  For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” (1 Cor.3:5-9)

Prayer: Lord God, Hallowed be your Name. Glorify your Name in all the earth. As the song says, ”Restore, O Lord, the honour of your Name. In works of Sovereign power come shake the earth again. And in our time revive the church that bears your Name.

But they rebelled against him
    and grieved his Holy Spirit.
So he became their enemy
    and fought against them.

It needs to be understood in the first place that these words are about Israel and their Old Testament pilgrimage. But we cannot therefore sigh with relief and think they have no relevance to today. Nations now must not think they can rebel against God without there being consequences. In the prophetic literature there are oracles spoken about, to, and against nations other than Israel. Yes the ancient people of God have a unique relationship with Him and are uniquely accountable. But there is not a country, a land, a people on earth who are not accountable to Almighty God.

I am also reminded of a much-loved Christian friend saying to me, ‘I don’t want to be proud because the Lord says that He ”opposes the proud”, and He makes a formidable opponent! Yes, even believers should ‘fear’ the Lord and know that He can, and He does, chasten and discipline His own.

‘God’s gracious and powerful deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage established a father-child relationship between him and them, and through the whole wilderness experience he cherished them as his children. He felt their distress, saved them from the perils of the way, lifted them up and carried them when they were weak, and rightly expected that they would return his love by being true to him. But sadly it was not so. They rebelled against him, and grieved his Holy Spirit (10a). So in order to preserve his holiness, the father had to become an enemy and judge those he loved (10b). The days of old were days of immense grace on the LORD’s part, and immense ingratitude on the part of his people. They were days of unrequited love.’ Barry Webb: ‘Isaiah’, p.242.

I will tell of the Lord’s unfailing love.
    I will praise the Lord for all he has done.
I will rejoice in his great goodness to Israel,
    which he has granted according to his mercy and love.
⁸ He said, “They are my very own people.
    Surely they will not betray me again.”
    And he became their Savior.
⁹ In all their suffering he also suffered,
    and he personally rescued them.
In his love and mercy he redeemed them.
    He lifted them up and carried them
    through all the years.
¹⁰ But they rebelled against him
    and grieved his Holy Spirit.
So he became their enemy
    and fought against them. (New Living Translation).

Just to put 63:7-64:12 into context, we need to see that it is a prayer. ‘And what a prayer!’ writes Barry Webb. He continues: ‘There are many fine intercessory prayers in Scripture: Abraham’s intercession for Sodom, Moses’ intercession for Israel after the incident of the golden calves, the great prayers of Ezra and Daniel, and the greatest of all, of course, our Lord’s high-priestly prayer in which he interceded for us all. The present prayer is less well known, but has the stamp of greatness on it.’ ‘Isaiah’, p.241.

Reading verses 7-10 in the NLT this morning, I was again struck by the thought in verse 9: ”…he personally rescued them”. This came off the back of hearing, on the Radio 3 breakfast programme, a lovely rendition of the Fanny Crosby hymn, ‘Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine’, played on the piano by a jazz musician. For Christians, these words in Isaiah foreshadow the incarnation in which, as Charles Wesley put it, our God was ‘contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man.’ As a Christmas carol says, ‘He came down to earth from heaven, who is Lord and God of all’.

I was sat next to an elderly gentleman in church last Sunday evening. The closing hymn was announced as ‘Blessed Assurance’. ‘None better!’ I heard my old friend say.

‘None better.’

We have been ”personally rescued”.

He said, ‘Surely they are my people,
    children who will be true to me’;
    and so he became their Saviour.
⁹ In all their distress he too was distressed,
    and the angel of his presence saved them.

What encouraging words!

Perhaps we don’t understand why we (or other believers, for that matter) go through the things we do. But in all our suffering the Lord does not stand aloof. He is not looking on remotely from some safe, sheltered space. Rather, He is always with us in our trials.

God’s personal involvement is also intimated in the alternative rendering of verse 8b/9a:

”…and so He became their Saviour ⁹ in their distress. / It was no envoy or angel / but his own presence that saved them.”

‘…thus far he sympathizes with them, that he takes what injury is done to them as done to himself and will reckon for it accordingly. Their cries move him (Exod 3 7), and he appears for them as vigorously as if he were pained in their pain. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? This is matter of great comfort to God’s people in their affliction that God is so far from afflicting willingly (Lam 3 33) that, if they humble themselves under his hand, he is afflicted in their affliction, as the tender parents are in the severe operations which the case of a sick child calls for.’ Matthew Henry.