The Lord That We Pray To & the Lord That We Ask

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

Isaiah 65 · chapter mention

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

Isaiah 63 · chapter mention

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

Isaiah 63:7

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

Isaiah 65 · chapter mention

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.