Rend The Heavens And Come Down 64

Last week’s bulletin announced that I would be preaching on today. That was my plan, but I changed my mind. The more I read Isaiah 66, the more I sensed the need to set the context for the prophesies of both -66. These two chapters contain the Lord’s response, His answers to what’s in chapter 64; the final prayer of Isaiah.

What is interesting about this prayer, is that it’s quite similar to what Jesus teaches us in Matthew 6, which we commonly call the Lord’s prayer. God is referred to as Father. There is a request for HIs name to be made known (hallowed). There is a plea for His kingdom to come and His will to be done in their lives. And at the very center, there is a confession of sin, and a prayer for deliverance from the evil power it’s held over the lives of His people.

And that is something so very easy to forget until it is too late. Sin, given an inch, will take a mile; and lay a life, a family, friendships, even a nation in ruin. This is a good passage to pay attention to as we begin a new year and new chapter of our lives. Here is how the prayer of opens.

Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down. That the mountains might quake at Your presence. 2 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! 3 When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence. 4 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. 5 You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways …

When was the last time you prayed, or heard someone pray, “Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down!” This is an impassioned version of, “Thy kingdom come,” or “Come, Lord Jesus.” “Rip open the curtains, come down and set everything wrong right. Don’t come quietly, but dramatically, so that mountains shake and people tremble.”

This is a not a prayer to soften hearts to receive the . It’s a prayer for God to crack the sky in two, reveal His awesome glory so that people will tremble. This is not a prayer for God to provide His people with daily bread, but with deliverance from captivity; to bring them home, to allow them to sing His praises in the land He gave them. It is a prayer for His deliverance to be spectacular so that His name will be hallowed, made known (64:2) to all the people of the earth just as it was when He sent the plagues on and said to Pharaoh in Exodus 9:16, “I have allowed you to remain, to show you My power and proclaim My name through all the earth.”

“Rend the heavens, and come down,” as You did in the past, “When You did awesome things we didn’t expect.” One of the reasons we read the Old and New Testaments, and that we gather together weekly to open the Scriptures is so that we will remember the awesome acts of God on behalf of His people. If you want an excellent summary of God’s miraculous deeds on behalf of , take a read through 105-107 this week.

The nature of God is that He delights to save, intervene, deliver those who wait on Him to act on their behalf and provide for their daily needs and their desperate ones. We’ve seen the phrase, “Wait on the Lord,” before. It’s an expression of trust with an expectant hope and a perseverance to look to the Lord for help and strength in the present. Here are the two examples from Isaiah that we read this last month.

*And I will wait for the Lord who is hiding His face from the house of ; I will even look eagerly for Him. :17 *Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. :31

Here are a few examples of how it occurs in the Psalms and Proverbs.

*Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Psalm 27:14 *Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret … because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. Psalm 37:7 *I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined to me and heard my cry. Psalm 40:1 *The Lord favors those who fear Him, those who wait for His lovingkindness. Psalm 147:11 *Do not say, “I will repay evil.” Wait for the Lord, and He will save you. Proverbs 20:22

Here are two final examples from the .

*For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; Philippians 3:20 *Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. Jude 1:21

In this context, those who wait on the Lord are those who rejoice in doing righteousness and remember God and His ways. Did you know that the apostle Paul quotes Isaiah 64:4? He is how he renders it in 1 Corinthians 2:9 “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man. All that God has prepared for those who love Him.” Those who wait on the Lord are referred to as those who love Him. We wait for those whom we love, look forward to the time we will see them, be with them, enjoy their presence. I hope we are all waiting eagerly for the Lord Jesus to return.

Speaking of love, that little expression, “Him who rejoices in doing righteousness,” reminds me of a similar phrase use in 1 Corinthians 13. “Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness.”

Two other things before we move on. 64:5 tells us God meets with those who wait for Him. When I think of God meeting with us, I think of Him listening to our prayers. When I think of the Lord meeting with people in the , I think of Moses at the burning bush, Isaiah falling before God’s throne in heaven, the Lord coming down at Sinai. When I think of the New Testament, I think of how approachable Jesus is with all who come to Him.

It is not a coincidence that this word, meet, is used in :6 and 53:12 to describe Christ. He met with us in our sin and intervened. He is approachable because He met us at our worst. He took our sins upon Himself. They were laid on Him. He met with them. He made intercession for us. He met with us as sinners and took our guilt upon Himself.

One last thing; this prayer actually began back in chapter 63. Let’s go there for a moment. Look down from heaven and see from Your holy and glorious habitation. Where are Your zeal and Your mighty deeds? The stirrings of Your heart and Your compassion are restrained toward me. 16 For You are our Father, though does not know us and Israel does not recognize us. You, O Lord, are our Father, Our Redeemer from old is Your name. 17 Why, O Lord, do You cause us to stray from Your ways and harden our heart from fearing You? Return for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of Your heritage. 18 Your holy people possessed Your sanctuary for a little while, our adversaries have trodden it down. 19 We have become like those over whom You have never ruled, like those who were not called by Your name.

If you have been following this study in Isaiah, you know this is a low point in Israel’s history. They’ve brought God’s judgment, His wrath upon themselves because they have gone after other gods, forsaken His covenant; that He would be their God and they would be His people, in a sense His priests, drawing the nations of the earth to worship Him.

Throughout their history their loyalty to the Lord ping-ponged all over the place, and as Solomon’s reign ended, idolatry crept back in. When he died, the nation split into two, one kingdom to the north with ten tribes and one to the south, with two. Idolatry ruins lives and it ruins nations. By Isaiah’s time, the wages of idolatry in Israel had come due.

Through His prophets, the Lord let the people know that was the instrument of His wrath against the northern kingdom. They would be conquered and carried off into exile, never to return. God also announced through Isaiah that the Babylonians would destroy , the temple; and take the people of the southern kingdom captive to .

“Your holy people possessed Your sanctuary for a little while. Our adversaries have trodden it down …” This prayer of Isaiah, and of the righteous remnant in Babylon, is a fitting way to end this prophecy. It is a prayer for God to come in a mighty way and deliver them, to set up His kingdom. And at it’s very core, it includes this confession of sin.

Behold, You were angry, for we sinned, we continued in them a long time. And shall we be saved? 6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean. And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. And all of us wither like a leaf. And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 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.

Confession of sin is a necessary element of prayer. That is why, “Forgive us our sins, our debts, as we forgive our debtors, those who have sinned against us,” is included in Jesus’ teaching us how to pray. FYI: Confession of wrongdoing is a necessary element in any relationship. And because it is so often ignored, marriages, friendships and business partnerships suffer and become severed.

The language of Leviticus is used here. Sin has made them unclean. Those who were unclean could not go near the sanctuary. They were restricted from fellowship with God with drawing near to Him, with giving worship to Him at the tabernacle. The apostle John knows this language and uses it in 1 John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But the level of their uncleanness, is that even their righteous acts are like filthy garments. What a fitting picture of sin. Only in this analogy, the filthiness is not like getting your jeans dirty from a pick-up football match in the mud. Nor is it like wiping your hands on rags after you’ve worked on a car and getting oil and grime all over them. Again, this is a Leviticus reference describing the unclean and repulsive nature of cloths used to catch various bodily discharges and thus to be thrown away. What is the point? Sin has not just gotten their feet dirty (to use Jesus’ analogy in John 13). It has polluted their lives.

“Our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” We call this taking ownership. Years ago, I heard a Christian man complain out about the hardships he was facing, but never once hearing him say that he was in any way accountable for them. Trust me, he was not Job. Those of us who knew what he was going through, knew what he had done to bring about the consequences of his troubles upon himself. Those who are praying this prayer in Babylon are sincerely admitting with sorrow, that their sins blew them out of their land and the city of Jerusalem onto Nebuchadnezzar’s turf.

How bad the condition of the nation? “No one calls on Your name … You’ve hidden Your face from us … delivered us into the power of our iniquities.” Ouch! They understand their lives are in crisis; that God has given them over to their sins. This is the time to pause and make application. It happened to God’s people in the Old Testament, it can happen to us as well. The church, or any individual Christian, is warned not to fall into the same temptations that the nation of Israel repeatedly plunged into. Look at 1 Corinthians 10.

6 Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.” 8 Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. 9 Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. 10 Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11 Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. 12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.

I hope we notice that grumbling made this list and is on par with idolatry. Give into any one of these sins and the others seem to tag along. Here is my take: The more we give into selfishness, the less we give into sacrificial love. The more we lean toward greed, the less we lean toward sharing. The more we think of ourselves, the less we think of others and how to serve them. The more we hold onto anger, the less we open our arms of forgiveness. The more we pursue pleasure, the less we will pursue wisdom.

Whether we like it or not, this world is filled with temptations that encourage us to walk away from the One who created us and loved us enough to send His Son to die for us. We live in a culture that fosters greed, wanting more than we have and feeling we deserve it. We live in an era that nurtures grumbling and discontentment over just about anything. We live in atmosphere that cultivates self-gratification and self-glory. These sins are quite contagious and Christians catch them all the time.

Rend the heavens is a good desire, but it must always be accompanied by humility and a contrite heart. P.S. Confessions do not need to be lengthy to be sincere … Think of the publican in the temple simply saying, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.” Here come the final lines of the prayer and the plea for the Lord to look to their plight.

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. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord, nor remember iniquity forever. Behold, look now, all of us are Your people. 10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness. has become a wilderness; Jerusalem a desolation. 11 Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised You, has been burned by fire; and all our precious things have become a ruin. 12 Will You restrain Yourself at these things, O Lord? Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?

Those who are praying know full well that they are the ones who have messed up their relationship with the Lord; that they are the ones who brought His wrath, and His silence upon the nation as a whole. We can sense desperation. “Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?”

Notice they call the Lord, “Our Father.” This is the cry of a child for their father to come and help (you have heard me say this many times, but here it comes again: A child should always be able to count on his/her dad). Father is a covenant word that reveals a loving relationship. This is an important doctrinal truth: God is our Father if Christ is our Savior.

Notice also that God is called our potter and as such we are His clay. Potter is the same word used in Genesis 2:7-8 when God formed man from the ground. It is used throughout Isaiah. Potter and clay makes me think of an old hymn. “Have Thine own way Lord. Have Thine own way. Thou art the Potter. I am the clay. Mold me and make me, after Thy will. While I am waiting, yielded and still.” It also makes me think of Mary’s response to the Lord’s news when as virgin she was told that she would conceive and bear a son by the Holy Spirit. Initially frightened and confused, her response to the Lord’s news is simply this. “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.”

We are the Lord’s clay. We are the work of His hands. And as such, we are not just to recognize His authority over our lives, but to humbly submit to His will; no matter the cost. “We are the clay and You our Potter.” implies, “Thy will be done.”

Still, there is a plea for God not to be angry beyond measure. Most of us do get angry beyond measure. God does not. His anger is not like ours. Our anger easily gives way to sinful passion (When I was a young boy, my mom would occasionally ask me if she needed to take me to the doctor to get a temper tantrum shot). God is always slow to anger, and His anger is always right, always righteous. And it is not just His anger that is righteous, but his disposition to forgive us is righteous as well.

So, they entreat God not to remember their iniquity forever. Again, as humans we may have issues forgetting how others have wronged us. Have you ever been on the receiving end of comment from someone that cuts you to the bone, because the person said they forgave you for what you did, but they bring it up and throw it in your face? The tells us when God forgives He sweeps our sins away, wipes our slate clean, casts our sins into the sea, throws them behind His back, removes them as far as the east is from the west, washes us clean, pays the debt; nails it to the cross of Christ Jesus; Colossians 2:14. The Lord knows everything about us, past, present and future, but when He forgives us it means He will not hold our sins against us or wave them in our face.

They go on to call out to the Lord to look upon them and what has transpired. It is a cry for the Lord be gracious to them. Because of their multiplied sins, His covenant blessings have been replaced by the curses foretold in Deuteronomy 28. The city of Jerusalem is a wilderness, a desert. It was meant to show the beauty of the Lord’s presence. It is a wreck.

What a sad time. Sin has caused the temple of Lord to become a wasteland. It’s been destroyed. His praises are not sounding forth from it. So, the people pray for God to forgive them, to look upon their plight, to act on their behalf, to be their Father, and to rend the heavens, come down, to release them from their bondage and restore His kingdom.

Isaiah knew, as did those who prayed this prayer in Babylon, that sin brings ruin into our personal lives, and into our congregations. Sinful thoughts and behavior profane the name of Christ instead of bringing Him praise. Too many lives that are meant to show the beauty of His redemption are being turned into a wasteland. Here is my point.

Rend the heavens is a prayer for our Lord to come, reveal His glory, set all the wrongs right, and free creation from slavery to sin. But as we pray, “Come Lord Jesus,” let’s do so with a contrite heart; confessing our sins and submitting ourselves to His will.

Isaiah 63 is the prayer. We’ll see how the Lord answers it over the next two weeks.

Cedar Valley is just a little church in average city in a big world. But there are two things that occur in this building that help keep us aware of what’s being prayed in Isaiah 64. No, we don’t recite the Lord’s prayer each Sunday, but we do take the Lord’s Supper when we meet to remind us of God’s forgiveness in Christ, and our need to examine our hearts before Him; 1 Corinthians 11:27-32.

Examining our hearts before the Lord is similar to proof reading our papers, emails, and texts. I had a college professor who used to mark my papers with big letters in red ink that said, “Proofread!” I think she would occasionally put a skull and crossbones next to it. We need to proofread or examine our hearts carefully, like in the Psalms, and ask the Lord to search us (Psalm 139:23-24), to let us know if there are things in our lives that offend Him. We need to ask for His forgiveness of hidden faults and pray that He would keep us from willful sins (Psalm 19:12-14).

Second, though it only happens once a year, we observe a weekend that is devoted to the 2nd Coming of Christ. We do this in part, so that we’ll remember that one day He will rend the heavens and come down. And when He does, the deliverance will be far greater than bringing His people home from captivity in Babylon. It will be to set all the redeemed in Christ, as well as creation itself, free from captivity and bondage to sin. That day is coming.

While we wait, let’s rejoice in doing righteousness, remember God’s ways, confess our sins to Him, and continue to pray in earnest, “Rend the heavens and come down.”