.Isaiah 64 - Pray for Revival

Translation and Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS 13 July 2008, 4 July 2021

.Translation

1. Oh that you had ripped apart the heavens and come down;

from your face mountains would quake,

2. like fire kindles brushwood – fire boils water

to cause your adversaries to know your name,

from your face nations will tremble.

3. In your doing of fearsome things we did not anticipate, you came down,

from your face mountains quaked.

4. And from way-back-when, they have not heeded, they have not given ear, eye has not seen

a god besides you who acts on behalf of the one who waits for Him.

5. You interposed the One who is glad and does righteousness;

in Your ways they will remember You.

As for You, You were angry, because we sinned;

but in them¹ forever we will be saved.

6. Now we have become as unclean – all of us,

and all our righteousnesses are like deceitful witnesses,

and we fade like the leaf – all of us,

and our iniquity, like the wind, carries us away.

7. And there is no one calling in your name, stirring himself to get a strong grip in you,

for you have hidden your face from us,

and you have made us melt under the control of our sin.

8. But now, Yahweh, our father is you.

We are the clay, and you are our potter, and all of us are the work of your hand.

9. Do not be angry, Yahweh, over-much,

and do not forever remember iniquity,

so please look; all of us - we are your people.

10. Cities of your holiness have become wilderness.

Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.

11. The house of our holiness and of our beauty, where our fathers praised you, has become for the burning of fire, and all our valuables have gone to ruin.

12. Over these will you restrain yourself, Yahweh, keep silent, and afflict us over-much?

.Introduction

This chapter comes after over 60 chapters of Isaiah prophesying God’s coming judgment on the world and on Jerusalem in particular. So in chapters 63 and 64, Isaiah cries out to God in prayer for His chosen people, praying for revival. As Isaiah intercedes for his people, he brings to mind God’s power to intervene and save.

v.1a “Oh that you would rip apart the heavens and come down”

• Isaiah sees God as capable of breaking through at any time. While this may have been a figure of speech in Isaiah’s mouth, God literally did and will rend the heavens at the first and second comings of Jesus².

• Even in the O.T. times, God intervened in the earth:

v.1b mountains quake/shake/tremble³

• This is an allusion to Judges 5:5 (the only other place this word occurs), where it describes the earthquake when the law was given through Moses at Mt. Sinai.⁴

• When He showed up at Mt. Sinai, it was to express His law-covenant and to show the danger of breaking His law.

v.2a “as the kindling of fire upon brushwood – fire [that] boils water”

• This is referring to the wrath of God against sin: Deut. 32:22 “For a fire is kindled in my anger, and will burn unto the lowest hell, and consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.” (cf. Jer. 15:14, 17:4)

Why does God reveal His law and hold us accountable to it with judgment?

v. 2b. “to cause your name to be known to your enemies/adversaries”

• These enemies included Jews who were in rebellion to the LORD (Isa. 1:24),

• Also the Devil – spiritual enemies that comes in like a flood (Isa. 59:18-19),

• And the pagan nations that trod down God’s sanctuary (Isa. 63:18).

• The purpose is so that the world will know what God is like. Often when we pray, our prayers are just to prop up our idols of personal peace & prosperity. Biblical prayer for revival has a much wider perspective and includes the salvation of the nations!
  
  

v.2c “the nations tremble/quake from your face/presence”

• In 13:11b, God says, “I will finish off the arrogant proud, and humiliate the pompous pride of the ruthless… 13 I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will shake out of her place, at the wrath of Jehovah of hosts in the day of His fierce anger.”

In v. 3a “In your doing of awesome/fearsome things we did not anticipate/expect/look for”

• Isaiah remembers a previous time when God “came down” – perhaps he’s still thinking of the ways that God intervened with plagues and with the parting of the Red Sea to deliver Israel from Egypt, as this word “awesome/fearsome” is used in 2 Samuel 7:23 and Psalm 106:21-22.

v.4a “and from of old/ancient times/everlasting/the beginning/way-back-when they have not listened, they have not given ear, eye has not seen a God besides you”

• v.4 can be taken two ways:

1. Israel has not been listening or giving ear or seeing God because they are dead in their sins, and so they have not seen God step in to help them.

2. or Because there is no other God like Jehovah, God must come down – no one else can step in and save.

• These “days of old” – from way-back-when – are mentioned several times in chapter 63 to describe the time of Moses leading Israel out of Egypt, such as 63:12b “cleaving the waters away from their faces to make for Himself an everlasting name, 13. causing them to walk through the depths… 16b You, Jehovah are our father; from way-back-when your name has been our Redeemer!”

• The New Testament elaborates on this passage in Isaiah in 1 Cor. 2:7-9 “...we are uttering GOD'S wisdom which has been hidden in a mystery, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, [and] which none of the rulers of this age have known (for if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory,) but rather, just as it is written, ‘What eye did not see, and ear did not hear and [what] did not come upon the heart of mankind,’ what God prepared for those who love Him…” (NAW) There is a connection between God’s salvation of the Hebrews from Pharoah’s army and Jesus’ salvation of Christians from hell.

• Israel was worshipping other gods besides Yahweh (26:13), but the one true God has declared (45:5) “I am Yahweh, and there is not another; besides me there are no gods. I will help you, yet you will not know me… 20b The ones lifting up wood – their idol – and praying to a god that will not save, they did not know. 21. Make a declaration and make a case. Let them also take counsel together. Who caused this to be heard from before – from the past declared it? Was it not I, Yahweh? And there is not another god besides me, a God of righteousness and the One who causes to save. There is none besides me.”

v.4b It is this God who “acts for the one who waits for Him”

• Waiting is an acknowledgment that we are not in control. It is a form of faith in God.

• That’s why Isaiah said earlier, 8:17 “I will wait for Jehovah, who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look eagerly for Him.” and 30:18 “…happy are all who wait for Him.”

v.5a “You met the one who rejoices⁵ and who does righteousness”

• This word “meet/help” is the same word “interpose/intercede” that is used throughout Isaiah’s book to describe the intervention of Jesus Christ in salvation.

• 53:6 & 12 “All we like the flock have strayed, each has faced toward his own way. But Jehovah interposed/met in Him the iniquity of us all… He poured out His soul to the death and was num­bered with rebels. And He Himself carried the sin of many, and will intervene for the rebels.”

• Who is it that “rejoices and does righteousness”? 59:16 tells us “...there was no man... there was no intercessor, so His [the LORD’s] arm caused to save for Him, and His righteousness upheld Him.” There was “no man” except the Lord Jesus!

• The N.T. confirms this in Hebrews 12:2 “...Jesus, the chief leader and accomplisher of the faith, who, for the joy laid out before Him, persevered through crucifixion, having despised what is shameful, He has taken office at the right hand of the very throne of God!”

• The “one who rejoices and does righteousness” is Jesus, who met us/stepped into our place to save us.

• On the basis of Jesus’ work, they (plural as opposed to the singular “he” who “rejoices and does righteousness”) “they [who are saved] through His ways will remember” OR
  “while in God’s ways they will remember” – this is “the way of remembrance” spoken of in chapter 63:7ff “I will cause to remember the lovingkindnesses of Yahweh.”

• The need for salvation is presented by means of a contrast here in the second half of v. 5:

1. “As for you, you were angry because we sinned”

• We sin; God is angered. What can be done?

2. The last phrase of v. 5 is literally “in them forever and we will be saved”

• Some translations attach the phrase “in them forever/for a long time” to the verb “we sinned” to make “we continued in sin a long time.”

• The problem with that translation is that there is no plural noun for “sin” in the sentence to which “in them [plural]” can refer.

• The only plural noun to be found is in the first half of the sentence: “your ways.” So I agree with the NIV’s choice to render “God’s ways” as the antecedent of “in them,”

• although I disagree with their choice to make the last statement into a question, “How can we be saved?” There is nothing in the Hebrew or Greek text to indicate that this is a question. I conclude therefore that it is a statement, “In Your ways we will be saved.”

• Even though we have sinned and God’s anger was roused by that sin, so surely God raised up His righteous Son to meet us and stand in our place and suffer the wrath of God for us. So surely His children will remember Him and He will save us through His Son Jesus, who is “the Way the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6).

Why do we need Jesus to come? Because we are lost under the power of sin

• v.6a We are impure, unclean – all of us, due to breaking God’s rules. Even Isaiah, as good a man as he was, said in chapter 6, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips.”

  1. This uncleanness means that we have lost access to God,

     • just as ceremonially unclean people could not come into the temple in O.T. times.

     • Isaiah prophesied earlier that no unclean person will be found on the LORD’s way (52:1,11, 35:8, cf. Rev. 21:7ff).

     • And the Apostle Paul echoed that in his letter to the Romans, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
       
       

• The second phrase in v.6 is generally translated “all our righteousnesses are like a filthy rag/ unclean garment.”

  1. The Hebrew word “adim” can mean “witness in a courtroom” or it can mean “period of time.” Those who translate it “filthy/unclean” are interpreting it the second way, to mean a rag for soaking up the bleeding during a woman’s monthly “cycle.” (God could have said that the good things we do are like muddy boots, but certain boys I know wouldn’t find that to be objectionable at all. But girl blood? Ewww!) According to that interpretation, all our attempts to do good things are really gross in God’s eyes. And that is a fair interpretation.

• But the problem with that translation is that the word adim is not used in the sense of “period” anywhere else in the Bible. Everywhere else, the word means “witnesses.”

  1. Another thing to consider is that the primary meaning of the word translated “clothing/rags” is actually “deceit/treachery” (related to the concept of “clothing” in that deceit is a “cover-up,” just as clothes hide your skin).

  2. I believe that it might be more consistent to translate this phrase “deceit of witnesses” rather than “filthy rags.” This is the way I have chosen to translate it, giving the sense that all of us have become unclean and all of our self-righteous behaviors are like deceitful witnesses that tell us everything is O.K. when things really aren’t O.K.

  3. This would follow the sense of Isa. 57:11 “And whom did you dread and fear that you became deceptive and did not remember me? You did not lay it upon your heart... 12. I myself will relate your ‘righteousness,’ and your deeds – even they will not profit you. 13. ... But it’s the one who takes refuge in me who will possess the land, and it is he who will take over my holy mountain!”

  4. In the NT, the Apostle Paul also noted that all the things which make us look good are a slip­pery place to stand; the only safe place to stand is on Jesus Christ: Philippians 3:4b-9 “…if any­one else has another mind to have confidence in flesh I have more: Circumcised the eighth day of the offspring of Israel, a tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, according to (the) law, a Phar­isee… But whatever things were gain to me, these things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ… and reckoned (them as) dung, in order that I may gain Christ, and that I may be found (standing) in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is in the law, but (having) the (righteousness) through faith of Christ, the (righteousness) of God based on faith.”

• The end of verse 6 says that we’re like a dry leaf in the Fall, and that our iniquity, like the wind will carry us away. [ILLUSTRATE BY DROPPING REAL LEAF ON FLOOR]

  1. Come winter, that leaf has no control over where it will fall, the Kansas wind is going to blow it wherever the wind is going.

  2. And without the power of Christ, we will be controlled by our sin, flapping in the breeze which­ever way our lust is blowing.

  3. Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches… abide in me and you will bear much fruit” (John 15).

  4. Only when we are connected to the power of God through faith in Jesus can we be saved from withering up into ourselves and being carried off by our sin.

  5. If Jesus is not in control of your life, sin is in control – and you are not in control.

  6. The only way to get off the train headed for the cliff is for Jesus to rip open the heavens and take over control, and that’s what Isaiah is praying for.

v.7a “There is no one calling in your name, stirring himself to get a strong-grip in you”

• We cannot save ourselves. When Jesus is not in control of our lives and sin is blowing us around, we are like that dead leaf. We can’t get up and grab back hold of the tree that gives life to the leaf.

• People can walk by all day long and tell that leaf that it needs to wake up and grab back onto that tree But we are helpless to do anything about it in our own strength.

• That is why God must break through in His power if any salvation is going to happen.

v.7b “For you have hidden your face from us, and made us melt in the hand/ under the control of our sins”

• Isaiah puts all the blame on God for Israel’s apostacy! It’s like he said in 63:17 “Why do you cause us to stray from your ways, LORD? [Why] cause to harden our heart from the fear of you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your inheritance.”

• Isaiah recognizes that God is sovereign even over our sin. If someone’s heart it hard, it’s because God hardened it; if we don’t call upon the name of the Lord it’s because He has hidden his face from us.

• We also see this in Romans 1:24 “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness... 25 ...they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator… 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile passions... men... burned in their lust one toward another… working unseemliness, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was due.” There’s the New Testament picture of “melting in the hand of our sins.”

• That’s why God must break through. That’s why Isaiah begs God in this prayer to change His stance toward us rather than Isaiah merely starting a campaign to change people’s attitude toward God.

• That’s why Isaiah said in 8:17 “I will wait for Yahweh, who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look eagerly for Him.”

• Isaiah (and we) can pray and wait with confidence because we know that the nature of God is to save and because we have promises like 54:8 “‘With flood of wrath I caused my face to be hidden from you for a moment, but with everlasting lovingkindness I will have compassion on you,’ says Yahweh your Redeemer” (cf. 57:17).

• That’s why Isaiah can pray like he does in the following verses:

v.8a “But now, Yahweh, our father is you”

• Isaiah is the first and only OT writer to call God “our father” (cf. 63:15-16). This is a huge break from the identity of the Jews being rooted in Abraham, their human forefather. Isaiah is saying that union with God through faith is his defining identity! The “now” (which the NIV unfortunately omits) indicates a change to the N.T. where Jesus taught His disciples to pray to God as “our Father.”⁶

v.8b “we are the clay, and you are the potter, and we are the working of your hand – all of us”

• This new lump of clay is submitting⁷ to its maker. (Ps. 138:8)

v.9a And with this, Isaiah makes the big Request: “Do not be angry over much, Yahweh, and do not forever remember iniquity.”

• The Prophet Jeremiah also wrote of this in terms of a “New Covenant:” 14:10b “…they loved to wander; they have not refrained their feet: therefore Yahweh will not accept them; now he will remember their iniquity, and hold them accountable for their sins…” 31:33-34 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days [those days of exile in Babylon],” says Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: 34 … I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.”

v.9b “So please look; all of us are your people”

• God is not distracted and distant from what is going on; rather He is “looking” – watching the situation, and waiting for the right time to halt evil and spread His kingdom (63:15, 18:4).

• How can Isaiah be so bold as to command God the Father Almighty not to be angry, not to remember iniquity... and even to tell God where to look? This is based upon God’s covenant relationship with His people: “all of us are your people.”

• It is God’s nature to love His people, and He has promised to keep His eye on them⁸ and not punish them as their sins deserve (Psalm 103:5ff; Dan. 9:19ff). We can’t pray and expect these things for just anybody, but we can pray them for those who have entered into a covenant relationship with God and have been baptized. We can pray with confidence for the revival of the church and its members! (cf. James 5:13-20)

In vs. 10-11 Isaiah looks into the future destruction of Jerusalem and lists the losses for God and man, arguing in his prayer for revival that such losses would be too much:

• v.10 looks at the loss in terms of what God stood to lose:

• He loses His representation of holiness upon the earth by exercising anger against His people: “Your holy cities (or the cities of your holiness) and Zion have become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation”

• There are no more cities standing which represent your holiness, God. You won’t let that continue to be, will you? It is your nature to set apart people upon the earth for yourself and make them holy.

• When you look at the world around you and realize that the world is not seeing a good repre­sen­ta­tion of God’s holiness, let this move you to pray for God to come down and bring revival!

• God indeed would not leave that situation unremedied. He sent Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem, then He sent His Son to make a holy people called the church (1 Peter 2:5).

• After considering what God stood to lose in v.10, v.11 looks at the situation in terms of what Israel stood to lose:

  • “The house of our holiness and of our beauty where our fathers praised you has been for the burning of fire”

  • The loss of God’s special presence and the curse of being burnt was prophesied by Moses in
    Deuteronomy 29:22-27 “And the generation to come… and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of the land, and the sicknesses with which Yahweh makes it sick; and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and a burning. even all the nations shall say, ‘Why did Yahweh do this unto this land? what is the meaning of the heat of this great anger?’ Then men shall say, ‘Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and went and served other gods… therefore the anger of Jehovah was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curse that is written in this book.’”

  • This indeed came to pass, as 2 Chron. 36 records it: vs.16-19 “they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of Yahweh arose against his people, ‘till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary… And they burnt the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all its pleasant things.”

  • The precious/treasured/pleasant things mentioned at the end of v.11 are a synonym for the temple and its goods (cf. Joel 3:5, Ezek 24:16-25, Lam 1:10, 2:4).

  • Isaiah saw that Israel stood to lose the beauty and holiness and value provided by God. This moved him to pray as he did.

  • Do you ever look around at the Christians around you and cry out to God to preserve His beauty and holiness among such a dim bunch? Pray for God’s people! We need it!

Isaiah concludes in v.12 Over these things, will you restrain yourself, Yahweh, keep silent, and afflict us over-much?

• We already know God’s answer from Isa. 28:27-28 – NO! God will bring discipline, but it won’t be too much; He will be right there making sure it’s the right amount: “For is it not with a sharp-toothed instrument that dill is threshed, neither is a cart wheel rolled over cumin, rather with the stick dill is beaten out and cumin with the rod. It will be crushed for bread. He will thresh it, though not to be threshed for always, so the wheel of his threshing cart will clatter, but his horse will not crush it. This also comes from Yahweh of Hosts...”

• Another part of the answer comes from Isaiah 53: No, I will not afflict you over-much, I will instead afflict my Son Jesus in your place, “He was pierced from our rebellion – beaten from our iniquity. Chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes there is healing for us. All we like the flock have strayed, each has faced toward his own way. But Yahweh interposed in Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He Himself was afflicted …” (Isa. 53:5-7, NAW)

• 62:1-4 “For the sake of Zion [the church] I will not sit still, and for the sake of Jerusalem I will not rest, until her righteousness goes abroad like brightness and her salvation as a flame burns, and nations will see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you will be called a new name, as the mouth of Yahweh will brand it. You will be a crown of beauty in the hand of Yahweh and the diadem of the kingdom in the palm of your God…”

CONCLUSION:

God is near, waiting for your prayer, waiting to act for those who wait on Him, just waiting to rip apart the heavens again and come down as He has before. We desperately need Him because we are dead in sin – like the dead leaf, unable to help ourselves, we need Him because no one else can save us, He is our Father and our potter who brought us into being and shapes us into what we will be. Cry out to Him to come down and transform the ruins and desolation we see from sin. Pray like Isaiah prayed, but pray in Jesus’ name, and the Lord will come, He will not sit still; salvation will go forth like a wildfire!