64 Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains might quake at your presence—
2 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!
3 When you did awesome things that we did not look for,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
4 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. – Isaiah 64:1-4
Behold Your God
As the last snow of the season (I hope) has given way to springs first flowers, life “returns” to Mid-Michigan. Brown lawns once again turn green. Winter’s frozen air is thawed by the songs of robins. The stingy oaks are finally dropping last years leaves to make room for this years. As we say hello to Spring and all of it’s promises, we end another year of many church ministries until Fall rolls around once again.
This past year I have been blessed to be a part of a Small Group ministry using a study guide entitled, Behold Your God by Pastor John Snyder. The study challenges us to “rethink God biblically” using a famous quote by A.W. Tozer as a springboard. The quote being, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
Obviously, what God thinks about us is more important than what we think about Him, but that is not the point here. Like Tozer before him, Pastor Snyder wants to challenge us to remove the idols from our minds. Those false impressions of the God of the Bible that we entertain because of ignorance or pride.
Behold Your God is a no-frills/no-nonsense Bible study. If you want to be entertained or are looking for a self-help guide this study is not for you. But if you want to put in a lot of work and be constantly challenged and convicted, look no further. Each week, you are reminded of the chasm between yourself and a perfect God. As Pastor Snyder likes to remind us, if we don’t understand the ugliness of sin and self, we’ll never truly understand the beauty of salvation.
Week after week you feel like you’re having a Job-like encounter with God, “I thought I knew you, but now that you have revealed yourself to me I see how wrong I was”. As paradoxical as it may sound, our clearest visions of God are preceded by times of humility when we can only fall on our faces before Him. Such humility is the soil for revival to take seed in.
Revival
As Christians, we often talk of two great hopes, revival and the return of Christ. Throughout Church history, many great Christians such as Tozer, Loyd-Jones, Spurgeon, and others have longed for and prayed for revival. Their love for Christ and their passion for His glory resulted in hours of fervent prayer before the God they worshiped and adored. With a healthy “discontentment” they were not spiritually satisfied. They tasted that the Lord was good (Psalm 34:8) and always wanted “more” of Him.
As he concludes his study, Pastor Snyder addresses revival. Defining it as a special nearness of God. Not a positional nearness but a relational one. A special sense of the presence of God that diminishes everyone and everything else, putting them in their proper perspective. A nearness that makes us question, how did I ever live without this?
Where are you at? What God do you worship? Is it truly the God of the Bible? How is your relationship with Him? Does it seem distant? Do you recognize the ugliness of depravity and the love of God that saved you from its consequences?
How is your prayer life? Are you praying for revival? If so, are you praying for God to do a work in the hearts of others or your own? Have you ever prayed along with Isaiah, that God might rend the heavens and come down?
Rend the Heavens
Isaiah’s prayer is one of passion and desperation. A believing remnant finds themselves in exile as a consequence of their sins of idolatry and wickedness. Now they are crying out to the God they have rejected to intervene on their behalf.
After reciting the mercy of the Lord, the prayer shifts to asking God to look down from heaven (Isaiah 63:15). But a mere look from Heaven will not suffice. God’s presence is desired, hence the request, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down.”
Remember Isaiah’s vision of God recorded in chapter 6? King Uzziah had died. There was grief and there was uncertainty. According to Second Chronicles, King Uzziah reigned for fifty-two years doing what was right in the sight of the Lord (although he did not end so well). Uzziah was a powerful king who was now gone. But God was still on His throne which is where Isaiah saw Him; “high and lifted up”.
When Isaiah saw the thrice Holy God, he was overwhelmed by his own uncleanness and that of his people. So much so that he thought he was ruined. How could he stand in the presence of such a Holy God?
Now this man who previously trembled in the presence of God is boldly praying for God to rend the heavens and come down. As frightful as His presence may be, it is not as frightful as His “absence”.
I realize that as a child of God, we are always in His presence and indwelt with His Spirit, but do we live in relational “nearness” to Him? Is intimate fellowship with the God of the Bible our greatest desire?
I believe the imagery of this prayer in Isaiah relates to us today. We are exiles surrounded by unclean people too often content with our lukewarm spiritual condition. We need revival. We need to experience a new level of “nearness”.
We need to cry out to God to rend the clouds of sin that hinder our intimacy with Him just as He tore the barrier of the Temple curtain. We need God to intervene in our lives as we work out our sanctification, purging our hearts and minds of the uncleanness Isiah was convicted of. We won’t pray this prayer if we don’t have a clear vision of ourselves and a clearer vision of our Savior.
God, “rend the heavens” and give us such a vision. Give us the hearts to desire such a prayer and the perseverance to pray it until it is granted or you take us home.
Thaw the winter of our hearts with Your nearness so we can live in perpetual Spring.
4 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.