Asking God to Tear Up the Skies

We can’t do this.  We cannot defend ourselves let alone our God against the wickedness around us.  Evil has risen up everywhere.  Injustice rises in the false guise of justice. Satan is on the attack. The freedoms of God’s people are taken away daily. In various corners of the world, believers are martyred daily and no one even seems to think it is worthy of mention.

It might seem like it is a believer’s take on modern headlines, but this describes the circumstances that surrounded the Jews for which Isaiah 64 was intended—captive, their city desolate, their Temple destroyed, no one to help, and no potential rescuer on the horizon.

The Longing of God’s People

Oh, that You would rend the heavens!

That You would come down!

That the mountains might shake at Your presence—

As fire burns brushwood, as fire causes water to boil—

To make Your name known to Your adversaries,

That the nations may tremble at Your presence! (Isaiah 64:1-2)

The prayer of God’s people in Isaiah 64:1 is that He would tear up the skies and make the mountains flow down in heat and fire. The longing is that God would make Himself known in a terrifying and unmistakable way to a wicked world.  Have you ever wanted God to do that?

Only God can reveal Himself in this way.  We can declare Him all day long, but no one will hear us.  We are just people.  It hurts our souls to see Him mocked and cursed, denied and denigrated. At some point, our own well-being matters little in the face of our passion for His glory to shine.  He must do this Himself.  We pray that He will, but there is a problem with this prayer.

The Elephant in the Room

You are indeed angry, for we have sinned—

In these ways we continue; and we need to be saved.

But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;

We all fade as a leaf,  and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

And there is no one who calls on Your name,  who stirs himself up to take hold of You;

For You have hidden Your face from us, and have consumed us because of our iniquities. (Isaiah 64:5b-7)

The problem is our sin—the sin of God’s people.  The way God most often reveals Himself is in the miraculous rescue of those who are called by His name—think the Israelites in Egypt.  It doesn’t work very well for God to rescue wicked and unrepentant believers in order to reveal Himself to the world.  Our own sin would mar the view of His glory. How can we ask God to miraculously deliver us while we wallow in selfishness, worldliness, greed, and sin?  At the time we need Him most, we have abandoned obedient living while claiming false liberty. While we continue in wickedness we rob ourselves of the blessing of being rescued as God’s message to the lost.  That is why it is foolish to pray for God’s healing on a nation while God’s people continue in sin.  Revivals must precede Awakenings.  Humbling ourselves and praying comes before the healing of the land (2 Chronicles 7:14).

So what do we do?

Repent! We need to get our eyes off of the misery around us and like the repentant exilic Jews see our own wickedness.  Be God’s children again (Isaiah 64:8).  Appeal to Him as humble and repentant children.  Become clay, surrendered and moldable in the Father’s Hand. Only then can we ask for God to rescue His people.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me, and know my anxieties;

And see if there is any wicked way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24) 

So, while your sadness, anger, or frustration rises as you read tomorrow’s headlines, stop a moment and consider the state of your own soul.  Are your heart and public testimony such that in rescuing you God would clearly bring glory to Himself?