I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the Old
Testament book of Isaiah. You can find our page, our
passage, which is Isaiah 63, beginning in verse 7 down
through the end of verse 64, chapter 64.
You can find that on page 622 in the red Bibles around you as
you're turning there. Can I just give you a snapshot
of the next few weeks and what we'll be doing next Sunday?
Pastor Steve will be covering Isaiah chapter 65, and then the
following Sunday, which is the 24th, I will be covering Isaiah
66, our last book. That'll be our first Sunday of
our summer schedule. I will have one combined worship
service at 10 AM and we'll finish our study of the book of
Isaiah on the 24th. Then for the rest of the summer,
we're going to work our way through the 10 commandments,
different commandment each Sunday that will take some time
to reflect on and see how it applies into our lives.
For today, we're looking at Isaiah chapter 63, picking up
where we left off last week. I'll begin reading in verse 7
all the way down through the end of chapter 64.
And if you were here last week, quite a contrast today with the
passage that we read last week, Isaiah 63.
Beginning in verse seven, I will recount the steadfast love of
the Lord, the praises of the Lord according to all that the
Lord has granted us, and the great goodness to the House of
Israel that He has granted them according to His compassion,
according to the abundance of His steadfast love.
For he said, surely they are my people, children, who will not
deal falsely. And he became their Saviour.
In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of the
Presence, The Angel of His Presence saved them and His
love, and in His pity He redeemed them.
He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old, but
they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit.
Therefore He turned to be their enemy, and Himself fought
against them. Then He remembered the days of
old, of Moses and His people. Where is He who brought them?
Up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock?
Where is He who put in the midst of them His Holy Spirit, Who
caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who
divided the waters before them to make for himself an
everlasting name? Who led them through the depths
like a horse in the desert they did not stumble.
Like livestock, they go down into the valley.
The Spirit of the Lord gave them rest.
So you led your people to make for yourself a glorious name.
Look down from heaven and see from your holy and beautiful
habitation. Where are your zeal and your
might? The stirring of your inner parts
and your compassion are held back from me.
For You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and
Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O Lord, are our Father.
Our Redeemer from of old is your name.
O Lord, why did you make us wander from your ways and harden
our heart so that we fear You not return?
For the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage,
Your holy people, held possession for a little while.
Our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.
We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like
those who are not called by Your name.
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the
mountains might quake at your presence, as when fire Kindles
brushwood and the fire causes water to boil.
To make Your name known to your adversaries, and that the
nations might tremble at your presence.
When you did awesome things that we did not look for.
You came down the mountains, quaked at your presence from of
old. No one has heard or perceived by
the ear. No eye has seen a God besides
you who acts for those who wait for Him.
You meet Him who joyfully works righteousness.
Those who remember you in your ways.
Behold, you were angry, and we sinned in our sins.
We have been a long time, and shall we be saved?
We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our
righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind take us
away. There is no one who calls upon
your name, who rouses himself to take hold of You, for You have
hidden your face from us and have made us melt in the hand of
our iniquities. But now, O Lord, you are our
Father, we are the clay, and You are our Potter.
We are all the work of your hand.
Be not so terribly angry, O Lord, and remember not iniquity
forever. Behold, please look, we are all
your people. Your whole holy cities have
become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house,
where our fathers praised you, has been burned by fire, and all
our pleasant places have become ruins.
Will you restrain yourself at these things?
O Lord? Will you keep silence and
afflict us so terribly? Let's pray together.
Father, we do thank you for this portion of Your word.
And we pray, as we do so often, that the Holy Spirit would be at
work in these very moments as we read your word, as we take some
moment, some some moments to meditate upon it, to consider
it, to ponder it, We pray that you prepare our hearts and minds
to receive it. And Father, we pray that through
the work of the Spirit, you would change us even in these
very moments. For we ask it in Jesus name,
Amen. Well, as history teaches us, the
plague, or what's called the Black Death impacted Europe in
the 14th and 15th and 16th centuries in dramatic ways.
It was devastating. It decimated the population.
People lived with incredible fear.
And in 1527, in the city of Wittenberg in Germany, the city
was overwhelmed with the disease.
People lived in fear. There were carts of dead bodies
that rolled through the city streets every day.
Family members buried family members, parents buried
children. And Christians wondered, where's
God? Where's God in all of this?
Has he forsaken us? Has he abandoned us?
That thought even came to the mind of a relatively young
pastor in Wittenberg, Martin Luther.
Luther and his wife, Catherine, had remained in the city to
minister to those who were sick and those in need.
They knew it could even cost their lives.
During that time, Luther was known to sit by himself in
silence for long periods of time, wrestling with despair,
spiritual darkness, and depression.
He wrote during that time that he felt that God was hidden,
that his promises felt distant, that his prayers were
unanswered. God seemed silent, and he
wondered, has he abandoned his people?
That was also the exact time that Luther wrote A mighty
fortress is our God, a mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark,
never failing. Now, he didn't write that him
after the plague was over. He wrote it in the midst of it,
in the midst of suffering and doubts and uncertainty.
And I think Isaiah understood something about this as well.
He prophesied too, and he watched Israel be taken away
into exile. He preached to Judah about the
judgment that was coming to them if they did not repent and turn
back to the Lord. He prophesied in great detail
about what they would experience in exile in Babylon.
Isaiah no doubt experienced loneliness and sadness and
alienation. And even as he was preaching
God's word to God's people, he had to wonder, where is God in
all of this? Certainly the people of God
wondered that as they sat in exile.
And so for the question, the question for us today is, how
should God's people respond in moments like that?
What are we supposed to remember about our God in moments about
that like that? How should we pray and talk to
God when we're experiencing and feeling those thoughts?
Isaiah 63 and 64 gives us the answer.
Let's look and see what we learn about the God that we pray to
and the prayers that we ask. And then we'll finish by asking,
So what? So first, the God we pray to
these verses that we've read, Isaiah 63, verse 7 through the
end of chapter 64. This is essentially a prayer
seemingly from Isaiah himself. And how does Isaiah start this
prayer? He starts by remembering the God
to whom he prays. Look at verse 7.
He speaks about the covenant love of God.
He begins remembering God's covenant love for His people.
Notice that the verse 7 begins and ends with the steadfast love
of the Lord. That's that little Hebrew word
hesed. It's a special.
It's an important word in the Bible.
It refers to God's faithful, permanent, and special love for
His people demonstrated in the covenant relationship with the
He established with them. And notice Isaiah remembers 3
specific things about God's steadfast covenant love here.
It's not just something that the Lord says, it's something that's
been displayed in action. It's according to all that He
has granted us. He says.
He says it's abundant and full of goodness according to the
abundance of his steadfast love, according to all that the Lord
has granted this great goodness. And notice it's a love that
comes from the very heart of God.
It's from his compassion. This is the first thing that
Isaiah reminds himself as he begins to pray.
He reminds himself of the covenant love of his God.
But as we come to verses 8:00 and 9:00, he also reminds
himself of the commitment that God made to His people.
The beginning of verse 8, the Lord identifies with His people.
They are His people. The middle of verse 8.
He hopes for the best for them. Surely they will not deal
falsely, He says. The end of verse 8.
The Lord commits Himself to be their Saviour, to be their
Redeemer. The beginning of verse 9, the
Lord feels their afflictions, He understands their sorrows, He
feels their hardships. The Angel of the presence of the
Lord is sent to save them. Middle of verse 9, out of His
love, out of his pity, He commits to redeem His people.
In the end of verse 9, He lifts them up, He carries them, He
bears their burden, and He does so without fail all the days of
old. He says as Isaiah begins his
prayer, he reminds himself about the God to whom he is praying,
the covenant love of God, God's commitment to his people, the
deep and rich commitment that the Lord has made to his people.
And then as we come to verses 10 through 14, we see he reminds
himself about the patience and the faithfulness of his God even
in the midst of the rebellion of the people, in response to God's
covenant love, in response to God's deep commitment to His
people, you would expect the people of God would respond by
praising and worshipping the Lord, by offering praises of
Thanksgiving to Him for His faithfulness and His goodness.
But what do we read as we come to the beginning of verse 10?
The people responded with rebellion, grieving the Lord.
So the Lord responded to the rebellion and disobedience with
a just judgment, becoming their enemy, it says.
But even then, as we come to the beginning of verse 11, we're
told the Lord was faithful to His covenant love and promises.
He remembered His acts of kindness and grace to His people
in the past. He remembered the greatest
salvific act that had ever had ever occurred up until that
time, the Exodus. He remembered, we're told, how
He had given the Holy Spirit to them.
He remembered how He divided the waters of the Red Sea and kept
His people safe. It was the arm of the Lord, the
mighty arm of the Lord, that saved his people.
Even in the midst of the people's rebellion, even in the
midst of their disobedient, the Lord was patient with His
people. He did not wipe them out.
He was faithful. He kept his covenant promises
and he was patient, demonstrating his covenant love
to them again and again. And then as we come to the end
of verse 14, we see that he did it all to make for himself a
glorious name. This is the God that Isaiah
remembers and reminds himself about.
He is the patient God. He is the faithful God.
He is the glorious God. This is the God to whom Isaiah
prayed. This is the God to whom we pray.
A God who pours out his steadfast, covenant love to us,
a God who makes a a rich and deep commitment to us, a God who
is everlastingly patient and unbreakably faithful to us.
So as Isaiah begins his prayer, he begins by reminding himself
about who God is. Who is this God to which he's
going to pray? As we move to verse 15 through
the end of chapter 64, Isaiah, we see Isaiah moves from
reminding himself about the God to whom he prays to petitions
and intercessions, right? Do you see what he's done?
There can be great confidence in lifting the needs and the wants
and the questions and even the doubts that Isaiah and God's
people have because this is who the God is that he's praying to.
He can be trusted. The first question that Isaiah
raises is in verses 15 and 16. Look down from heaven and see
from your holy and beautiful habitation.
Where are your zeal and your might?
The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held
back from me. You are our Father, though
Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us.
You, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old.
Is your name right? The sense of this cry that
Isaiah offers up to this God, that he has reminded himself who
it is. If the Lord is faithful and His
commitment and His covenant love to His people, then where is it?
He is the one whose holy and beautiful habitation is in
heaven itself. He is the one who has all zeal
and might. He is the sovereign creator of
the universe. But his heart, his compassion,
his love seemed to have been held back.
He says you are our Father, you are our Redeemer from of old.
That's your name. So where is your love God?
Second question gets asked in verses 17 to 19.
Oh Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden
our heart so that we fear you not return?
For the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage,
Your holy people, held possession for a little while.
Our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.
We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like
those who are not called by your name.
Lord, why are you absent? Why do you feel so distant?
You've been, you've made us to wander.
We, we had the the Promised land for a little while.
We communed with the Lord and his holy temple for a time.
But now our enemies have conquered us and our temple, our
sanctuary has been trampled down.
And now we feel like people over whom you have never ruled.
We feel like those who have never been called your people.
If this is the Lord who has made such a rich and deep commitment
to His people, where is He? And can we just say, too, that
as we read these verses, it can sound like Isaiah is blaming the
Lord for the rebellion of the people.
But that's not the sense of the Hebrew words here.
The sense is that the rebellion and the guilt of the people was
such that the Lord had to respond.
There was no option but to drive them away, that the human heart,
without the intervention of the Holy Spirit, hardens more and
more overtime. And eventually there comes a
time when the Lord turns us over to our sinful disobedience, and
at that point there is no human possibility of a solution.
Only the Lord can bring restoration.
Lord, why are you absent? Why do you feel distant?
Another question comes in verses one through 3 of chapter 64.
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down.
That the mountains might quake at your presence, as when fire
Kindles rushwood and the fire causes water to boil.
To make your name known to your adversaries, and that the
nations might tremble at your presence.
When you did awesome things that we did not look for, You came
down the mountains quaked at your presence.
Lord, why don't you act? Why don't you do something?
Isaiah cries out. Oh, that the Lord would just
rend the heavens and come down and fix things.
He is mighty. He is sovereign, He is in
control. Even the mountains quake at his
presence. He is the one who has done
awesome things in the past in the midst of his people.
If the Lord would just show up in His might, His presence could
make all things right. But the picture here is a of a
creation that is helpless, of the nations that are helpless.
But the Lord could make everything different.
He could make everything right. So why doesn't he?
Why doesn't God act? And then notice in verses four
and five, they ask another question.
Is it too late for them? From of old?
No one has heard or perceived by the ear.
No eye has seen a God besides you who acts for those who wait
for Him. You meet Him who joyfully works
righteousness. Those who remember you in your
ways. Behold, you were angry, and we
sinned in our sins. We have been a long time.
Shall we be saved? Is it too late for us?
No one has seen or heard or perceived any other God besides
the one true God. He alone is the God who acts for
those who wait for him. He responds to those who
joyfully obey Him, those who remember Him.
But Isaiah says, Is it too late for us because we sinned?
We've been in our sin a long time, and the Lord got angry and
brought discipline upon them. Can they still be saved?
Is it too late? What about repentance?
Doesn't the Lord respond to repentance?
That's what we get in verses 6:00 and 7:00.
We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our
righteousness, all our righteous deeds are like a polluted
garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our
iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to
take hold of you, for you have hidden your face from us and
have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.
But this is the language of repentance.
There is acknowledgement of sin. There is an acknowledgement that
even their righteous good deeds are like filthy, polluted
garments or rags. There's an acknowledgement that
they know that they're not clean.
They know that their iniquities cause them to fade away, that
they are blown away like a leaf by the wind.
And notice they feel like the Lord has turned and hidden his
face from them, and rightly so, because of their sin.
But what if they repent? That leads to the final
question, which is in verses 8 through 12.
But now, O Lord, you are our Father, We are the clay, and you
are our Potter. We are all the work of your
hand. Be not so terribly angry, O
Lord, and remember not iniquity forever.
Behold, please look, we are all your people.
Your holy cities have become a wilderness.
Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised you,
has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become
ruins. Will you restrain yourself at
these things? O Lord?
Will you keep silent and afflict us so terribly?
Will the unchanging Lord withhold his love of his people
cries out. Lord, you are our Father, You
are our great Potter. We are your children, we are
your clay, we are the works of your hand.
Don't be terribly angry with us. Don't remember our sins forever,
but look on us. Turn your face back to us.
We are your people. We have lost the promised land,
we have lost the city of Jerusalem holy.
Our holy and beautiful house, the temple has been burned to
the ground, and all of the things that we treasure so much
are in ruins. Lord, will you continue to
restrain yourself about these things?
Will you? Will you look on repentance
people, and stay silent? Well, you can continue to
afflict and discipline us forever.
And that's where Isaiah's prayer ends.
Kind of feels like we've been left hanging.
The answer to Isaiah's questions is what we get in Isaiah chapter
65 and 66. But spoiler alert, the answer is
that the Lord will indeed restore and reconcile with His
people. And how do we know that it's the
first? So what for today?
It's because the Lord's relationship with His people is
permanent. That's what Isaiah reminded
himself about at the beginning of his prayer.
The Lord is a Lord of steadfast love, of covenant love.
He's established a covenant with his people, and we know because
we have the rest of the Scriptures that He has secured
the covenant through the person and the work of the second
Person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ.
God has committed himself to be our God.
He has committed that we will be His people.
He has given us the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of the
inheritance that is being kept for us in heaven.
He has promised that He will be at work in our lives through the
Holy Spirit to conform us more and more to His Word.
He has promised that Jesus will return and when He does, all
things will be made right and whole.
He has promised that the day is coming when sin and pain and
anguish and even death itself will be done.
So, brothers and sisters in Christ, when there are times or
when there are seasons of life when it is hard to believe that
this could be true, you don't feel like it's true.
When God seems distant, when you're tempted to believe that
your relationship with God is not permanent.
We must come back to the Word of God is an arrant and
authoritative word. We trust what it says more than
how we feel. We put our hope in what God's
Word says rather than how we feel about how close the Lord is
in any given moment. His love for us, His commitment
to us, His patience and faithfulness to us is permanent.
It never changes. It's always true, it's always
the same, and we need to live our lives in light of that
truth. Secondly, why does the Lord not
do things differently? Right?
That's the question that's wrapped up in several of the
questions that Isaiah raises to the Lord.
Lord, if you would just rend the heavens and come down, then you
could make all things better. Why don't you just change what's
happening? Lord?
You're certainly capable of doing it.
And that question resonates with us too, doesn't it, Lord?
Why are you allowing such pain and suffering in my life?
Lord, why are you allowing such relational alienation to take
place in my family? Why are you allowing the people
that I love and care for go through such debilitating
spiritual doubt and depression? Why are you allowing me to
experience financial insecurity? Why are you allowing evil
dictators to rule and wars to continue and death of people and
the destruction of countries? Why are you allowing diseases to
bring great fear and death? Lord, why don't you rend the
heavens and come down and fix it, Fix this brokenness.
And like Isaiah and like God's people who have asked these
kinds of questions throughout history, we don't entirely get
an answer that satisfies us completely.
Because ultimately the answer is the point of the book of Job.
You are God, and I am not. The Lord tells us in His Word
that He has a purpose for all things.
The Lord tells us that He works all things according to His holy
and perfect will, and that He even works out all things for
the good of His people. But He doesn't give us the
details. He doesn't tell us how this
experience, or that experience that we question, is being used
for His good or for our glory. And so we're left with a choice.
Believe and trust in what the Lord has said, and have hope or
don't believe in what the Lord has said and live in despair.
Over and over again, especially in the Psalms, God's people cry
out their questions to the Lord over and over again.
The Lord says believe in me. Trust me, even if you don't get
clear, direct answers to your deepest questions, trust me that
I have a plan. I know what I'm doing and I'm
perfectly capable of accomplishing my purposes and
what I'm doing. I will will bring me glory, and
ultimately will be for your good.
Trust me. So what's your choice?
Lastly, there's instruction here for how we can pray.
We find a number of models in Scripture that help us to know
how to pray. This is one of those models,
perhaps even the most powerful one.
And again, how does Isaiah start?
He starts by focusing on the Lord, who he is, what he is
like, his character, his attributes.
He starts by reminding himself these truths about the Lord, His
steadfast love, his commitment to his people, his patience, his
faithfulness. He reminds himself of the
Exodus, when the Lord saved his people and redeemed his people,
when he cared for and protected them and provided everything
that he needed, they needed. It's important that we start
there because it gives us the confidence that we can bring our
needs and our desires, our questions and even our doubts
before God. If this is who the Lord is, if
this is what He has done for His people, then surely I can bring
my deepest questions, the cries of my heart, and not be afraid
or ashamed. Obviously, that's what Isaiah
did on behalf of God's people. Where is God's love?
Why does he seem so distant? Why doesn't he act?
Is it too late? Isaiah didn't pull back.
And we don't have to be afraid of doing so either.
We're told in the Scriptures that the Lord desires us to
bring our cares and our needs, even our questions and our
doubts to Him. And because Jesus completed his
work on the cross, and because we have the Holy Spirit dwelling
in us, we know that we can bring even our questions and doubts
before the throne of God's mercy with confidence, with humility,
No Fear, no shame. Let's pray together.