Dr. Rodney Plunket

Isaiah (Isa) 63:7-64:12 is one long poem, a lament poem.  That is, its primary purpose is to express mourning and grief.  In this case, the mourning and grief are due to the sufferings that are being experienced by the Jewish people immediately after their return from Babylon following several decades of exile.  The final four verses of this poem, Isa 64:9-12 clearly reveals the depth of this lament.  Please follow along as I read:

Is. 64:9           Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord,

                    and do not remember iniquity forever.

                    Now consider, we are all your people.

10           Your holy cities have become a wilderness,

                    Zion has become a wilderness,

                    Jerusalem a desolation.

11           Our holy and beautiful house,

                    where our ancestors praised you,

          has been burned by fire,

                    and all our pleasant places have become ruins.

12           After all this, will you restrain yourself, O Lord?

                    Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely?

We will be focusing exclusively on Isaiah 63:7-14 & 64:1-2.  We will be doing that because of time concerns and because of the special focus of our assembly this morning.  I think you will find the message of these verses somewhat surprising because they are not characterized by lament even though very much a part of this poignant lament psalm.

Now please follow along with me as I read Isa 63:7-9:

Is. 63:7           I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord,

                    the praiseworthy acts of the Lord,

          because of all that the Lord has done for us,

                    and the great favor to the house of Israel

          that he has shown them according to his mercy,

                    according to the abundance of his steadfast love.

8           For he said, “Surely they are my people,

                    children who will not deal falsely”;

          and he became their savior

9                 in all their distress.

          It was no messenger or angel

                    but his presence that saved them;

          in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;

                    he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

This poem does not start like a lament, does it?  It starts with praise.  It starts with a look at a time from Israel’s glorious past when God chose them to be God’s people, God’s children.  That choosing meant that God richly blessed the people.  When we are suffering hardship it is easy to assume that God is not the way we thought God was.  We can doubt God’s goodness.  We can doubt everything we have heard that God has done in the past.  This poem and many in the Old Testament like it make clear that the faithful ones of Israel knew better.  As one writer puts it,

“We are taught here, as elsewhere in Israel’s prayers overheard, that reversal of human fortune is not a matter of discovering we were wrong about God’s goodness and love, or that these characteristics were in shorter supply than we had reckoned, or that our experience of divine judgment meant a diminishment of how we might talk about God.  Whatever confusion or distress we may feel under the hand of God, God remains truly God and truly good.  We must interpret God’s absence as a request, a demand, that we come to terms with God as God is” (Christopher R. Seitz, New Interpreter’s Bible, 6:531).

In other words, negative experiences in life do not reveal that God is not as good as we thought; negative experiences in life reveal that there is more to learn about God and only suffering will open our eyes and hearts to learn it.  This poem teaches us that even in the worst of times we begin by praising God for past blessings.

Notice in v 9 the declaration that “It was no messenger or angel but [the Lord’s] presence that saved them . . .”  This is an allusion to Exodus 32-33 when the Israelites worshipped an idol at the bottom of Mount Sinai.  God became so angry with the people that God says, “I will send an angel before you, . . . ; but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people” (Ex 33:2-3).  Moses pleads with the Lord and God relents.  In Ex 33:14 God says, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”  This allusion to the time when Moses led Israel is especially important to note because it is not the only place in this poem where such an allusion is found.

Now please follow along as I read Isa 63:10:

Is. 63:10           But they rebelled

                    and grieved his holy spirit;

          therefore he became their enemy;

                    he himself fought against them.

Here we encounter another interesting feature of this lament poem.  It acknowledges early on that the suffering of the people was brought on because they rebelled against God.

Now look with me at Isaiah 63:11-14:

Is 63:11           Then they remembered the days of old,

                    of Moses his servant.

          Where is the one who brought them up out of the sea

                    with the shepherds of his flock?

          Where is the one who put within them

                    his holy spirit,

12           who caused his glorious arm

                    to march at the right hand of Moses,

          who divided the waters before them

                    to make for himself an everlasting name,

13              who led them through the depths?

          Like a horse in the desert,

                    they did not stumble.

14           Like cattle that go down into the valley,

                    the spirit of the LORD gave them rest.

          Thus you led your people,

                    to make for yourself a glorious name.

Here we find another reference to Moses and a longing for the kinds of things that God did for the people during Moses’ time.

Now we turn to Isaiah 64:1-3:

Is. 64:1           O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,

                    so that the mountains would 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,

                    so that the nations might tremble at your presence!

3           When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,

                    you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

Here is the final allusion to an event during the time of Moses.  This allusion is to the time when God came down onto Mount Sinai and addressed the people so powerfully that they were afraid.  This poem refers to that event and asks for God to do something like that for the Jews in a much later period of time.  This poem of lament asks for God to address the suffering of the people with an act so mighty “that the nations might tremble at your presence!”  Be aware of the fact that the phrase “the nations” is used in the Old Testament to refer to the nations that did not know or honor God.

Wednesday morning is “See You at the Pole” morning in many countries around the world.  “See You at the Pole” is the global event during which Christian students in universities, colleges, and schools gather at their flagpoles to pray for their schools.  They pray for all kinds of things relative to their schools, but Isa 62:1-2 are the theme verses for this year’s “See You at the Pole” event, so they will be praying for something radical to happen in their schools this year.  They will be praying for a revelation of God that is so powerful that people, especially unbelievers, will tremble and come to know the power of the living God.

We want to give them our full support.  I want all the young people who will be praying at their flagpoles on Wednesday morning to come to the front now.  I want all of our elders and their wives and the parents of these kids to come forward, to surround them, to lay your hands on them, and to prepare to join in a prayer for them.  Now I would like any others who want physically to show their support for these young people to come and join this prayer circle.  Now Rod Blackwood the chairman of our elders will to come to the microphone and lead us in a prayer for these young people.

Top | Sermons | Home