Alright brethren, let's turn
to Isaiah 63. Our subject is a prayer of faith. And this is the prayer of Isaiah
for God's presence. Let's begin reading in verse
15. Now this prayer goes all the
way to the end of chapter 64, but we're just going to take
the part that goes to the end of this chapter today. Verse
15. Look down from heaven and behold
from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory. Where is thy
zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels, and of Thy mercies
toward me. Are they restrained? Doubtless
Thou art our Father. Though Abraham be ignorant of
us, and Israel acknowledge us not, Thou, O Lord, art our Father,
our Redeemer. Thy name is from everlasting. O Lord, why hast Thou made us
to err from Thy ways? and hardened our heart from Thy
fear. Return for Thy servants' sake
the tribes of Thine inheritance. The people of Thy holiness have
possessed it but a little while. Our adversaries have trodden
down Thy sanctuary. We are Thine. Thou never bearest
rule over them, and they were not called by Thy name." Now
this was a very trying time to Isaiah. This was a time when Israel was
forsaken and it was a time that he was making great intercession
for himself and for God's elect in Israel. You know, if you could
go fast forward to the time after Christ was resurrected, this
could very well be Paul's prayer for the children of Israel. In
fact, the very next chapter is going to begin talking about
how God turned to the Gentiles. And so this could very well be
Paul's prayer for his kinsmen after the flesh. But this is
Isaiah praying. And I want us to look at this
personally. I want us to look at this as what a believer prays
whenever we are in the place where Isaiah is at. We can't see the Lord or hear
the Lord or we don't have any kind of evidence of the Lord
or anything. This is a prayer of faith. This
is a prayer of faith. Now where God's given faith more
than anything else, our preeminent need is God's presence. That's what we need. We need
God's presence. more than anything else. Now,
the first thing I want to show you here is that this is a prayer
of God-given faith. He begins here in verse 15, and
he says, Look down from heaven and behold from the habitation
of thy holiness and of thy glory. Now, only a chosen, redeemed,
regenerated child of God can pray the things that Isaiah just
prayed. Only a child of God given faith
by God can pray and acknowledge these things about God in truth. I'm talking about from a true
heart in truth. True faith acknowledges God our
Father and our Savior is far above us. The Lord, He said,
God's habitation is in heaven. He's the ruler of heaven and
earth. He created all things. His habitation
is in heaven. And he said here, God's habitation
is the habitation of His holiness. That's God's chief attribute
is His holiness. God is holy. God is holy. That's why we have to be made
perfection to be able to enter into God's presence because His
habitation is in holiness. And he says here, God's habitation
is the habitation of His glory. You and I can't approach unto
God in His glory unless we come in a mediator. Because His glory
is too bright for us. His glory shines with too much
brilliance for us to enter into His presence. God's in heaven. God's holy. God's full of glory. That's who He is. True faith
prays that. That's the only way a man could
pray that in honesty, is to have faith. To truly pray from the
heart of faith. And then look, true faith acknowledges
that God alone is able to save us. He says, look down, O Lord. He says, behold us, O Lord. That's His need. That's our chief
need, brethren, is for God to behold us. God to look down upon
us and behold us. We need that more than anything
else. And then look at this, faith
acknowledges our need for God's strength and for God's grace.
We need God's strength and God's grace. Verse 15, he says, Where
is thy zeal and thy strength? The sounding of thy bowels and
of thy mercies toward me, are they restrained? You know, without God's zeal
toward us, We have no zeal for God. Not a true zeal for God. Paul spoke of Israel and he said
they have a zeal of God. It's not according to knowledge.
It didn't come from God. Their zeal wasn't of God and
therefore their zeal was not knowledge. It wasn't in knowledge.
We need God's zeal to make us truly zealous. And look at this,
without God's strength, we don't have any strength. He pleaded
for strength. Where is your strength, Lord?
We don't have strength without God. Christ said, without me,
you can do nothing. And without Christ having compassion
toward us and showing us mercy, we are totally, thoroughly helpless
to help ourselves. We can't, without God's mercy,
we can't give ourselves life. We're just dead. That is that
pulpit right there. We can't give ourselves life.
We can't give ourselves faith. We can't give ourselves repentance.
We can't give ourselves righteousness. We can't give ourselves holiness.
We can't make ourselves complete to come into God's presence.
That's why it's so fearful to a believer when we don't have
God's zeal and God's strength and God's presence with us. Because we need Him. These things
are all who He is and what He is to His people. But remember,
you remember this morning, Joseph, his yearning was for Benjamin. But you remember what he did?
He withdrew and he went into his chamber so Benjamin and his
brethren couldn't see him, and there he wept for Benjamin. He
wept for him. He still had compassion for him.
He still was going to have mercy on him. His zeal was still towards
him. Nothing had changed in God whatsoever. The only thing that
changed was Benjamin couldn't see Him. And that's the only
thing that's changed here with Isaiah is Isaiah can't see the
Lord through faith. He just can't see Him. The Lord's
removed His presence from him. You know, when He does that to
us, the Lord's trying He's not trying. He's doing this. He never
tries to get his point across. If he's making a point to you,
he's going to get the point across. He's bringing you to his feet.
I was in a mall one day. I don't really like to go to
malls, but I was in this mall one day and I saw something that
was edifying, very fruitful. I was sitting there waiting on
Melinda and I saw this mother walking along the mall. And her
child kept running ahead of her. I could see them coming and she
would tell the child to get back. And the child would run out in
front of her. A little child. He'd run out
in front of her. So in a little while, she's walking
along and they kind of came past me and they're going along. Well,
he did it again. Took off out in front of her. And she just
stepped behind a column that was right there and hid. And
that little boy turned around and he couldn't see her anywhere.
And he went to crying and shouting and looking for his mama and
she just stayed hidden. And when she finally stepped
out from behind that column, that little boy ran up and wrapped
his arms around her leg and they walked off together. He didn't
move a step in front of her, he was right with her. That's
what the Lord's doing. That's what's happening right
here with Isaiah. That's what the Lord does to us. He'll make
it so you can't see His presence, know His presence, so that when
He makes Himself known, you just cling to Him. Just cling to Him.
So at all times and every prayer, this is our prayer, brethren.
Lord, look on us, behold us. We need your zeal. We need your
strength. We need your grace. We need your love. We need your
compassion. We need your presence. Alright,
now secondly, true faith trusts only in God's Word, in who God
is and what God has done for us. That's what true faith is
trusting in. Now watch this. He just said
he couldn't see God's presence. He didn't have God's presence.
God had removed himself from him. But then look at his next
word. Doubtless, That means, without
a doubt, Thou art our Father. Though Abraham be ignorant of
us, and Israel, that is, Jacob, acknowledge us not, Thou, O Lord,
art our Father, our Redeemer. Thy name is from everlasting. You see, when a believer is unable to detect God's presence,
You feel cold, your heart's cold, you don't have feelings that
are making you think God is present. There's nothing about your surroundings
that are making you think God is present. You don't see any
evidence in you that God is present, that God is your God. But here's
the thing, God's teaching us we're not to trust those things.
That's not what our trust is in. Our trust is in God. Our
trust is in His Word. Our faith is in His Word. God-given
faith rests only in who God is and what God's done for us. After
saying that, God, have you refrained Thyself from me? He turns right
around and He says, but without a doubt, God, O Lord, You are
our Father. You're our Father. You chose
us. You gave us life. You are our Father, Lord. Can
you believe that? And even when you don't have
any feelings or you don't have any kind of evidences in you,
and I pray you don't, because that is the worst thing to lead
you astray, to put faith in some kind of evidences in you or something
else around you. But when none of those things
are, and you feel empty, can you still say, according to God's
Word, Lord, You're our Father. You're our Father. That's faith. And He said this, Doubtless thou
art our Redeemer. All our hopes in the Lord. All
our hopes in the redemption that Christ accomplished for His people
on Calvary's cross. That's our hope. You redeemed
us, Lord. You didn't try. You did. You
redeemed us. You are our Redeemer. Look at
Romans 5, just a minute. Romans chapter 5. Did you have
any strength when Christ redeemed you? Did you have any feelings
that God's for you whenever Christ was redeeming you? Listen to
this. Verse 6, When we were yet without
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Now, can
you sit there and say, that's who I am. I'm without strength. I was without strength then when
He died. It wasn't my feelings that redeemed
me. It wasn't my evidences that redeemed me. It wasn't anything
around me, my circumstances in life that redeemed me. When I
was without strength, Christ redeemed me. He died for who? The ungodly. Can you say that's
me? I'm ungodly. Everything God is,
I'm not by nature. But yet, even when that was the
case, Christ died for the ungodly. And look here, look down at verse
8. God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. Can you say that? I was nothing
but a sinner when Christ died for me. In God's foreknowledge
of me, all He saw in me was a sinner. That's it. So, I didn't have
any part to play in redeeming me. He did it. He did it all. Well, much more then, being now
justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. The same One that redeemed me
when I was without strength is going to save me from wrath now.
He is doing it. For if when we were enemies we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Without a doubt,
Lord, You are our Redeemer. That's faith. Faith says, without
a doubt, Lord, Thy name is from everlasting. How is that assurance? Because faith rests in the name
of God. We're resting in the name of
God. That's who Christ is. He's God's name. Everything there
is to say about God, that's who Christ is. He's the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. God's showing us who He is in
Christ Jesus. And his name is everlasting.
Everything about God is everlasting. Everything. Listen, let me read
these scriptures to you. God told Abraham, I will establish
my covenant. I will do it, God said. I will
establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after
thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant. an everlasting covenant to be
a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." That's Christ speaking.
Christ is the mediator between God and men and He's talking
to a man there. That's Christ speaking and He's speaking to
Abraham. And He says, I will establish my covenant with you
and with your seed after you. And Paul told us in Galatians,
Abraham's true seed are all God's elect. It's those Christ redeemed.
It's those who are of faith. Whether they're Jew or Gentile,
that's who Christ is talking about. That's the seed. I'm going
to establish them and make with them an everlasting covenant. That's what we celebrate when
we take the wine. We're remembering how that Christ
said, this is my blood. This is the New Testament in
my blood. Now, His blood has eternal efficacy. It has everlasting effectualness. He will never go back on His
covenant promises to His people. God said all the promises of
God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus because He fulfilled everything. Thy kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom. That's what the psalmist said.
And thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. Isaiah said,
trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting
strength. The psalmist said, the Lord is
good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all
generations. Surely He shall not be moved
forever, the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. You see this? everlasting remembrance,
everlasting mercy, everlasting truth, everlasting kingdom, everlasting
dominion, everlasting strength. The eternal God is thy refuge
and underneath are the everlasting arms. So surely, he says, thy
name is everlasting. This is all our hope, brethren.
It's not in us, it's not in feelings, it's not in circumstances, in
the environment and all that. Our hope is Christ and Christ
alone. His Word. We take His Word and
we believe it. Somebody will take His Word and
they'll say, well, prove that to me. Faith is the evidence. Faith doesn't need proof. Faith is the evidence. Faith is the proof. When you
have faith, you believe God. You believe God. So then look
here thirdly, true faith praise, acknowledging our sin is all
our own. because of who God is, because
He's holy, because I need His strength, I need Him, I need
everything He is, because of His everlasting redemption, His
everlasting name, because He's my Father. I have to confess,
my sin is all my own. And God is absolutely sovereign
and He's the only one that can save me from my sin. This is
what true faith confesses when we're praying to God. He's absolutely
sovereign, so He's the only one that can keep me from, save me
from me, and yet my sin's all my own. Now look here at this
verse. Verse 17. O Lord, why hast Thou
made us to err from Thy ways and harden our heart from Thy
fear? Now, let me tell you what this
does not mean. Isaiah is not blaming God for
his sin. And he's not using God's sovereignty
as an excuse for his sin. I get so beside myself when I
hear people say, well, God is sovereign. If He didn't want
me doing this, I wouldn't be doing it. And it's just out and
out rebellion against God. We can't blame God's sovereignty
for our sin. Our sins are our own. So what's
he doing here? Well, Israel sinned and hardened
their own hearts. Everybody in Israel sinned and
hardened their own hearts. It's like all of us in this world
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And when God
gives you the gospel, like He gave them His oracles, God gives
it to you for you to pay attention to His Word, for you to come
hear His gospel and for you to give due diligence to what He's
declaring. And when a man won't do that,
he goes on in his sin and he hardens his heart and says, I'm
not going to have anything to do with God's Word. For that,
God will harden his heart and God will make it so that he can't
know God. Ever. You'll turn him over to
reprobation. But you understand, brethren,
that's always our fault. That's not God's fault. God does
not randomly send anybody to hell. He did choose a people
according to His grace, not based on anything in His people, solely
of His grace, not based on any merit in us. But God never says
anywhere in the Scriptures, I just randomly damn people. No. Why not? Because God's just.
God's just. That wouldn't be justice to just
randomly turn men over to reprobation without a cause in them. You
see, what I'm telling you is, salvation is always by God's
free grace. We do not earn salvation. But
if we perish and are damned for all eternity, we earn that outright,
brethren. The wages of sin is death. You see that? The wager. You
earn that. But heaven? We don't earn that. That's freely
given by God. Listen to this Scripture. 2 Thessalonians
2.11. Turn there with me. I want you
to see this. 2 Thessalonians 2.11. For this cause... Do you see
those words? for this cause. You see, there
was a cause. There was a reason for this.
For this cause, God shall send them strong delusion, that they
should believe a lie, that they all might be damned, who did
what? This is the cause. Who believed
not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. It's always
a cause when we perish in our sin. But the sin and hardness
of their hearts was their own. So Isaiah is acknowledging here,
my sin is my own. The hardness of heart is our
own, and that's all we're capable of if God takes His hand off
of us. Now let me show you that's what He said, because this prayer
goes on into Isaiah 64. Now look down at Isaiah 64 and
verse 6. We are all as an unclean thing,
and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And we all do
fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us
away. And there is none that calleth
upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee.
For thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because
of our iniquities. That's what he's saying up there
in our text. We've sinned, and God removed
His hand, His restraining hand, and when He did, And if God ever
does that, all we're capable of doing is sinning and going
away from God. That's it. I've given you the
illustration before. When you have a vehicle that's
out of line, the wheels aren't lined up, you know, and it's
pulling to the right. As long as your hand's on that
wheel, you keep that vehicle going straight down the pipe.
But you take your hand off of it and it's right in the ditch.
That's what you are and that's what I am. God's got His hand
on us. He'll keep us in Christ going
the way we should go. If He ever takes His hand off
of us, we're out of the way. We're out of the way. But if
He takes His hand off of us, it's going to be because we've
sinned. And He's showing us that without
Him, we can do nothing. You understand that? That's always
so. The psalmist put it this way. Let me give this to you. Oh,
let me not wander from Thy commandments. That's another way of what Isaiah
said. Lord, we need Your hand to keep
us from erring. We need Your hand on us to keep
us from wandering. Incline my heart unto Thy testimonies
and not to covetousness. That's what we need God to keep
His hand on us all the time. Alright, fourthly now, let's
look at this next thing. Now that's just what we pray
for. That's what the child of faith prays for. True faith cries
from a broken heart pleading for God to manifest His presence
again. Because that's the only way we're
going to be saved. Look at verse 17. Isaiah 63,
17. He says, O Lord, return for Thy
servant's sake the tribes of Thine inheritance. Return. That's His prayer. That's our
need for God to return. You know what He's praying for
here? He's praying for revival. Revive us, Lord. You know, that's
not something that you can just work up. That's not something
that, you know, when you get folks walking in an aisle, you
know, they're going to go down the aisle first so that you can
maybe get some other people to come down the aisle too. You
play certain kinds of music and you, you know, and you try to,
oh boy, we had a revival last night. No, you didn't. You worked
up people and got them emotional and got them to do something
that you got them to do. Revival is when God comes in And He does
the reviving. He does the quickening. And He
does the drawing. That's reviving. He says, return,
Lord. And He says here, do it for your
servant's sake. For your servant's sake. The
chief servant of God is Christ. He made Himself of no reputation
and took upon Him the form of a servant. Do it for His sake,
Lord. That's our prayer. You know what? Whatever God does for His people,
you know why He's doing it? For Christ's sake. That's why
He's doing it. He's not doing it for your sake
or my sake. He's doing it for Christ's sake. That's exactly why. Do
it for thine inheritance, Lord. You know that's what His people
are? We're His inheritance. All of God's people are His inheritance.
They're His reward. They're Christ's reward for His
obedience to God. They're His purchased possession.
They're His inheritance. And brethren, He's our inheritance. Do it for your inheritance, Lord.
Why? Why do we need Him to come and
do that? Because we cannot save ourselves. Do you get tired of
me telling you that? We can't. We can't. Stop. Stop. Whatever trouble
you're going through right now, if you're going through trouble,
just stop it right now. Stop it. Get yourself out of
it right now. Make it go away. Make it like
it never happened. Make your heart just happy and joyful and
free as it can be. You can't. You can't. Anymore than you can stop yourself
from getting a cold or making a cold go away. You can't. You
just got to ride it out. God can. Return, Lord, because
He can save us. Now look here. Here's the last
thing I want you to see. Faith beseeches God to save us for His holiness' sake. For His holiness' sake. Look
here, verse 18. He says, the people of thy holiness
have possessed it but a little while. Our adversaries have trodden
down thy sanctuary, thy holy place, We are thine, he said. Thou rule, you rule over us. You're our head, but thou never
bearest rule over our enemies. They were not called by thy name.
You see, thy holiness and thy sanctuary and thy rule and thy
name is at stake here, Lord, if I perish. Because that's what's
saving me. That's what's saving me. Thy
people. are the people of Thy holiness."
We're praying to God, beseeching God on this ground. Lord, You're the one who chose
us. You're the one who made us holy.
You separated us out. You put us in Christ. You perfected
forever them that are sanctified. You're the one who... We're the
people of Thy holiness. Surely, God, You're not going
to let us be carried back into the world and be united with
the world and be joined with the world again when You've done
this by Your holiness, Lord. You see, that's a petition God
will hear because it's His holiness. His holiness is at stake. You've
heard the saying before, if God loses one of His children, God
loses a lot more because His holiness is attached to saving
His people. It's His holiness. That's what
Moses prayed. We beseech the Lord based on
His holiness, Lord. And then look, beseech God for
the sake of His sanctuary. It's His sanctuary. It's Thy
sanctuary, Lord. We saw this the other night.
You're the temple of the Lord. His church that He's assembled,
that He's called out of this world, that He's united. I'm
talking about His true people that He's put together In a local
assembly, he said he is there in the midst of them. That's
his house. That's his holy sanctuary. And he says here, Lord, our adversaries
have trodden down thy sanctuary. You know, the Lord wouldn't hear
us if we're praying and saying, Lord, haven't I been holy enough,
Lord, that you would save me? Don't ever beseech the Lord based
on that. But beseech the Lord based on
His holiness. Don't ever come to the Lord and say, Lord, look
at this church I've built for you. Don't let my adversaries
try down what I've done and what I've built for you. No. Because
you haven't built anything and I haven't either. But we do pray,
Lord, this is Your sanctuary. It's Your sanctuary. That He
will hear. Look at this. We're Thine. We're Thine. We're Your people.
We're Thine. Christ came and when He laid
down His life, Ephesians 1 says, we have the earnest of the Spirit
until the redemption of the purchased possession. That purchased possession
means Christ paid a price. He paid His own blood and He
now possesses what He purchased. He purchased all His people. That's what redemption is, is
to redeem, to buy you, to purchase you. He purchased His people.
And He's going to come back and redeem us out of this world into
His holy presence. And so when you pray, don't pray,
Lord, You're mine, because you hadn't purchased Him. But Lord,
we're Thine. You purchased us. You bought
us. It's Your blood here that bought
us. And then look, for the sake of
His sovereign rule, He says, Thou never sparest rule over
our adversaries. Now He does rule over all and
He does rule over our adversaries, but He doesn't rule them as in
take up dominion in their hearts like He does His children. And
He does that for His children. His sovereign rule governs us
within and without. He says, I hedge about my people
and I protect my people. I put a wall around Jerusalem,
He said. And He's that wall. He's our
salvation. And so we pray to Him, Lord,
Your sovereign rule is at stake here. If You let somebody come
in and take one of Your children from You, they're going to say,
Lord, that You couldn't save us. Your hand wasn't mighty enough
to save us. You've never borne rule over
them. You've borne rule over us, Lord.
We're Your people. And look at this. And Your name. beseech Him based on His name.
They were not called by Thy name. Lord, You've given us Your name.
That's what He's done for His people. We bear His name. And
now, just like we bear His name, all of the rest of these things,
you know where they're all found? They're in Christ. We're the people of His holiness.
Why? Because God chose us and gave us to Christ. And Christ
came and redeemed us. And Christ came sent the Holy
Spirit and separated us out unto Him. It's all in Christ. And then He made His people His
holy sanctuary. He said we're built up for a
habitation of God. He built us up to habitate us,
to dwell in His people. And He says here now, this is
your sanctuary. All of these are in Christ. Christ
is, He's the one that bought us. We're redeemed by Him. Christ
is our head. It rules over us. We wear Christ's
name. So you know, these things are
the things that we're beseeching God for when we come to God in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, when we pray and you
hear me or the men say, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
or something to that effect, we're not just tagging that on
We're saying, Lord, save the people of Thy holiness. We're
saying, Lord, save Thy sanctuary. We're saying, Lord, we're Thine. We're saying, Lord, You bear
rule over us. We're saying, Lord, You're everything to us. And
we're saying that by saying in the name of the Lord Jesus. Because
all these things are in Christ. Let me show you that. Turn to
Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. The Holy Spirit moved Isaiah
to make this intercession on behalf of Israel. Now when you
see Isaiah making this intercession on behalf of Israel, now let
that take your thoughts to Christ who makes intercession for His
people. Look at this word right here, Romans 8, 27. He that searcheth
the hearts, That's our Lord Jesus. He that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit. The Spirit helps us to
pray. The Spirit makes intercession
for us with words that can't be uttered. And he that searcheth
the hearts knows the mind of the Spirit. They're one, Christ
and the Holy Spirit. Because Christ maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. Look at this, and
we know. because He's interceding for
us. We know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. Look down the page down there
at verse 34. Who is He that condemneth? It's
Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. And because that's the case,
now look at this next word. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword,
as it's written, for thy sake we're killed all the day long,
we're counted as sheep for the slaughter? No. In all these things,
we're more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God." And where is that? Where is the love of
God? It's in one place. The love of
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Brethren, I can tell
you this. This is a certainty. Every believer,
God shall save His people for the sake of Christ His Son. He shall do it. He has, He is,
and He shall. You can rest assured of that.
So when you feel like there's no feelings, the heart's empty,
and you're in a bad situation, and the trial is more than you
can overcome it. It's there and it's terrible.
What do you have? You have God's Word. You have
God's Word. Doubtless, Thou art our Father,
our Redeemer. Thy name's everlasting. And so
His salvation is everlasting. Remember that. Remember that.
That's the prayer of faith, brethren. We'll pick up and look at the
rest of that next time in the next chapter. All right. Let's
stand together. Brother Art, will you lead us
in a closing hymn? Art, if you will, you just dismiss
us when you get finished.