Lord may graciously help me I
would turn your prayerful attention to the prophecy of Isaiah and
chapter 64 and reading the first verse. Isaiah chapter 64 and
verse 1. Oh that thou wouldest rend the
heavens that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might
flow down at thy presence. Isaiah 64 and verse 1. We have in this prophecy of Isaiah
the words of the church and its concern for spiritual blessing
and the desire really that the Lord would shine in their hearts. This is what they wanted, the
prosperity of God. If you read through this 64th
of Isaiah, there's a real concern. If you look at the end of it,
the holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem
a desolation, our holy and our beautiful house, where our Father's
praise is burned with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid
waste. So there's all the worship was at such a low ebb. there was a concern that the
Lord would appear. And this text really was, or
the thought of a pastor gave out a hymn at the prayer meeting,
399, amidst the 10,000 anxious cares, the world and Satan's
deep laid snares, this my incessant cry shall be, Jesus, Reveal thyself
to me. A personal nature, a need of
the blessing of God to us personally. And this prayer in Isaiah 64
is the cry of a true child of God, desiring that God would
appear. that God would do that which
they cannot do for themselves. You see we've just come through
that time of the year where we remember the death and the resurrection
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the resurrection power
was so great and yet you see it came into the hearts of the
disciples at different times. They didn't all receive the blessings
of the resurrection at the same time and indeed Jesus had risen
from the dead and initially none of them had laid hold of that
fact. But one by one that fact was
applied in the hearts of the disciples and in the hearts of
each true believer. God comes and makes the truth
of the resurrection a reality to each individual. You see it's
redemption accomplished at Calvary but needs to be applied by the
Spirit. to each individual believer,
but not just once, it's again and again you see. In the hymn
that we've just sung, you see, John Newton, you see, he had
in his heart, he wanted a fresh, surely a fresh view and a fresh
application of the precious blood of Christ. A fresh realization
of the power of God in his soul. He'd seen it before. He wrote
some lovely hymns. But you see, the children of
God get to some low places when they see the stench of sin in
themselves. You see, they need a fresh application
of the Gospel. And here we have, O that thou
wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down, that
the mountains might flow down. at thy presence. We spoke this
morning at the Sunday School of the immovableness, naturally
speaking, of mountains. They're stubborn things. They
stay there for generations, for centuries. They look pretty much
the same. They're very solid, very immovable
things, the most immovable things probably that we know on this
earth. And yet here you see It talks
about those immovable things being moved by God. The immovable things, the most
immovable things. Not just a house being demolished,
we see that happening quite regularly. But a mountain being removed,
we don't see that regularly. Yes, you might say, well, perhaps
in our lifetime we've witnessed some mountains appearing with
volcanoes. but a mountain disappearing. I've not known that, I don't
think, in my lifetime. Oh that thou wouldst rend the
heavens, that thou wouldst come down, that the mountains might
flow down. You see there's a melting, there's
this immovable object and many of us In holidays recently, I've
been climbing some of these mountains. They're hard. They're hard stone. You don't talk about one of those
mountains flowing. They're hard. They're stubborn.
They're not movable. And yet here you see in the presence
of God, that which is immovable and unable to flow can flow down
at the presence of God. And so let us think firstly in
our circumstances. You see we each have an individual
pathway. We each have difficulties that
come into our pathways and they appear sometimes as mountains
that we don't know how to get around them. They seem as if
we can never move them. But you see Here in Isaiah it
says, O that thou wouldest rend the heavens. It looks to God
that is able to take the most stubborn, the most immovable
object that we know on this earth and say that it can flow down
at the presence of God. And we need that, you see, in
our hearts. Our hearts. Personally, we have unbelief. We've sung of that in the hymn
that we've just sung. The unbelief that's there by
nature. The stubbornness. The sin that
does so easily beset us. You see, oh that thou wouldest
rend the heavens. That thou wouldest come down.
The mountains. Those immovable objects. might
flow down at thy presence. This is a great need, you see,
that we need in our providential circumstances. We come into places,
mountains, difficulties. We don't know how to get round
them. They seem as if they will never move. But you see, we have a God that
is able to look at mountains and to challenge them. And you
see that's the challenge that we read in Zechariah. In Zechariah
you see there were so many obstacles into rebuilding the temple after
they came back from the captivity. And they'd started, they'd done
it for some years. They started and then for 15
years the work lay dormant. It seemed that there was too
many problems. There was these edicts trying
to stop them and they were successful and the work stopped for 15 years. But then Haggai and Zechariah
were raised up of God to prophesy that the work would go forwards. but it would go forwards, not
on the people power, but on God's power and God's spirit, overcoming
those enormous problems. So if you look in Zechariah 4,
you see there was an angel talking with Zechariah. Then he answered
and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto
Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might. We might think if you wanted
to smash up a mountain you'd need a great powerful machine that would smash and
try and ruin it. But you see this is not how these
mountains are going to come down. It's not by might nor by power
but by my spirit. This is going to be God's work
and God's going to do it. And you see in verse 7 there's
a challenge. It says, Who art thou, O great
mountain? It's a challenge. You find the
biggest mountain in your pathway. And God says, Who art thou, O
great mountain? Before Zerubbabel, that was the
governor that was going to be used of God to lead the Israelites
to rebuild, before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain. So you see, God is able to make
those great mountains into a plain. God is able to do these things
and from time to time the Lord's people witness it. And you see,
we know that it happened in the life of Israel, how the impossible
things happened. If you look in Psalm 114, we
have a picture of some of the wonderful
things and of course in Sunday School this morning the subject
was Moses and his deliverance of Israel out of Egypt and how
God was going to do wonderful mighty acts to demonstrate to
Pharaoh. Pharaoh said, who is the Lord
that I should obey him? Well, God showed who the Lord
was and that Pharaoh would obey him. You see, this is the power
of our God. Oh, that thou wouldest rend the
heavens and come down. Jesus, reveal thyself to us.
You see, we're in and of ourselves, we're poor, we're weak, we're
unable to stand against all the troubles that come against us.
But, you see, prayer is a wonderful thing. And there's prayer here
in Isaiah's prophecy. Prayer to God. Oh, that thou
wouldest rend the heavens thou wouldst come down, that the mountains
might flow down at thy presence. It's a wonderful thing, isn't
it? You'd say, if anybody else said it, you'd say, what sort
of a challenge is that? You'd say, you're very arrogant
to say a thing like that. But this is God. This is God
that is able to make the mountains to flow down at his presence. Well, in our circumstances, in
our relationship with others, in our families, those mountains,
those things that seem impossible. And the prayer is, our prayer
is, Jesus, reveal thyself to me. Show thyself with thy power. You see, this is to show the
power of God. You see that in verse 2 of Isaiah
64. As when the melting fire burneth,
the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known
to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence. You see there's a desire that
God would be exhorted, that the nations may tremble
at thy presence. We live in a world which despises
God, despises his power, thinks that they can rip up his word,
thinks that they can despise his commandments, thinks they
can rewrite the definition of marriage, they can rewrite the
definition that God has made male and female from the beginning.
They can smash all those things up, but God is God. And God will
not be fooled and mocked. God is on the throne and we lose
sight of it at times. It seems that these mountains
are too huge. The onslaught of the agreement
of the whole of the world seeming to get behind these evil thoughts
and that they will sweep across and everybody's got to embrace
them. But they haven't. Oh, that there would is rend.
the heavens that thou wouldest come down that the mountains
the immovable objects the things that you say but this is this
is massive this is sweeping across the world with all its ferocity
and hatred against the word of God and against his power but
the cry of the church is oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens
that means just like the if you think of the the curtain of the
temple was rent on that time at Calvary, when there was a
way made into the holiest. It's like the Lord would come
down from heaven and visit his people, and visit them and be
with them in their presence, with his sensible presence, and
demonstrate to the world around us that there is a God, and that
he is on the throne, and that we're not made by millions of
years and evolution. but that he is truly God. As when the melting fire burned. If you think of that, you think
of a mountain like those that we've been climbing in the Lake
District, some of us. How would you get a mountain
like that to flow down? Well, you see, you'd need to
make all the rock molten. And then, of course, when the
rock turned into a liquid, then it would flow down. And you see, God, the wrath of God, will make
the mountains to flow down. We do know that there is a time
coming when Peter tells us the elements shall melt with fervent
heat. I spoke to the Sunday School
this morning showing that the mountains, though they seem so
immovable, the security of God's people is much, much more secure. than the mountains in the Lake
District. Much more secure. They will pass
away. They shall pass away. Everything
here below is passing away. But my love to my people will
never pass away. It's a wonderful comfort to the
people of God to lay hold on something that is far more substantial
than the most substantial thing that we know in our country,
in our world. Oh, that thou wouldest rend the
heavens. Thou wouldst come down that the
mountains might flow down at thy presence. To make thy name
known to thine adversaries. We want
the Lord to appear, to demonstrate the truth of himself, that we
don't come from millions of years, that God is God, that he is eternal,
and that we may stand upon these truths of God. And though the
world mock us, and though the world laugh at us, though the
world say it's unscientific, we may say The Word of God says
so, and that Word of God will stand when all the science and
the best wisdom of this world will be shown to be utter folly. You see, this is the God we serve.
We serve a great God, a God that is mighty. You see in verse 3 of chapter
64 it says, When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for,
thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.
For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor
perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside
thee what he has prepared for him that waiteth for him. There's an idea here that we
have no idea. of what God is able to do and
to bless those who put their trust in him. See, there's an
encouragement here. There's an encouragement. Then it says in verse 5, Thou
meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those
that remember thee in thy ways. But then it comes on to another
aspect and I think it's important. You see, another aspect of the
troubles that Israel was in A lot of it was to do with their sin.
They had rejected God. It stems from Solomon. Solomon
worshipping other gods because his wives did. And they pulled
his heart away. And eventually they went into
captivity for it as a people of Israel. It was the ruin of
them. And yet you see there was sin in it. But here you see there's
the idea of God coming back to God. You see it says that later on
in the chapter, but now O Lord, that's verse 8, thou art our
father, we are the clay and thou our potter, and we are all the
work of thine hands. The idea here that God is in
control, but you see there's repentance here. And we need
that, you see, if the troubles that we're in in our churches
and the loneness of the churches, we can't just say, well, this
is just, this is God's purpose and not take any of the responsibility
of our ungodliness and our sin and our departures from God.
And you see, in Isaiah, it picks this up in verse six, but we
are all as an unclean thing. And all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. There's an acknowledgement that
God is holy and we're unholy. How can this ever then be? It's
not as if we're righteous ourselves and we're beautiful in and of
ourselves. No, we're filthy in and of ourselves. All our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. And we do fade as a leaf, and
our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Well, you'd
say, it's hopeless then, isn't it? You're in a bad state, and
you're sinful. Oh, that thou wouldest rend the
heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might
flow down at thy presence. You see, the people of God have
a realization that they have a great God that is able to do
great things and though they have this great sin laid at their
door, that they're guilty of, that they have departed from
the living God and they're to blame for a lot of the troubles
that they're in, yet they're to go back to God, they're to
return, they're not to give up you see. You see Satan is quite
happy for you in one sense to think and to get you to think
that you're altogether an unclean and that all our righteousness
is as filthy rags, he's happy for you to think that, provided
you also think, in a despairing way, that there's
no hope for you. Then he's happy with you to think
like that. But you see, the gospel is this, is to realise our uncleanness,
but to go back to the God that made us, the God who is our Father,
and plead with him that he would deal graciously with us. You
see, that was so much what we read with Zerubbabel. Not by might, nor by power, but
by my spirit, said the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great
mountain? Who is it? What mountain is facing
you in your pathway, in your circumstances, in your walk of
God, in the church of God, as a nation? all these different
aspects, we can take this at any level. I don't know which
one is particularly greatest on your mind at this time, or
perhaps all of them are. Who art thou, O Great Mountain?
This is God speaking, challenging this Great Mountain and saying,
yes, you've got great mountains, yes, you've got great sin, yes,
you've got great problems, but I came to save unto the uttermost. all that come unto God by Him.
He's come to save unto the uttermost. He comes to save us from our
extremities. Who art thou, O great mountain?
Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain. It's the absolute
opposite, isn't it? A mountain is when it goes so
high and it's not level at all. A plain is when it's all flat. Complete opposite. And you see
God is able to take those mountains, I will make all my mountains
a way, a way for us to walk, a way to follow him. But notice
what the result will be. And he shall bring forth the
headstone thereof with shoutings crying grace. Grace unto it. There was not to be the praise
of men here. This was not to be for the Israelites to pat
one another on the back and to say what a wonderful job they'd
made of rebuilding the temple. The crown, you see, was to be
on God's head. And he shall bring forth the
headstone thereof. The finishing piece, the most
important stone, with shoutings, crying grace, grace unto it. You see, Israel was discouraged. They'd
started to build these foundations and then the enemies had come
and written letters against them and they caused the work to stop
and the people concluded that they would build their own houses
and be happy in their own houses and the house of God would lay
waste and they seemed to almost get to a situation where they
were content with that situation. But you see God had other purposes. And it says, you see, the hands
of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, his hands also
shall finish it. 15 years separation between the,
a gap of 15 years, he also shall finish it. And thou shalt know
that the Lord of hosts has sent me unto you. For who hath despised
the day of small things? You might say, well, unless I
have something great, Here it says, who has despised the day
of small things? For they shall rejoice and shall
see the plummet. Plummet is that straight line
that they use to show that something's vertical. In the hand of Zerubbabel. So the idea is to realise that
God is building, and God is building us to be a temple unto our God. and that God is working and though
it seems that the enemies were laughing at us, though they're
saying that if a fox came he would knock over the wall, if
there was this idea of ridiculing the people of God, yet you see
God is building a building which shall stand when all the buildings
of this world are flattened. All the building projects, you
think of all the building projects that are going on in England
at the moment. You go around London, you go around these big
cities, you see loads of building projects. They're all going to
be flattened before the word of God and before his kingdom
and before his church is being built. They shall stand, but
these other buildings will all come to nothing. You see we have,
this is why we need to stop as it were one day in seven and
consider, we get taken up with the big buildings, we get taken
up with the philosophy of the world, we get taken up with the
thinking of this world. Oh that thou wouldest rend the
heavens, thou wouldest come down, the mountains might flow down
at thy presence. We need the Lord to have mercy
upon us. We need the Lord to do us good. We see so many things that ought
not so to be. We see so many things that are
so sad. And what do we do? What can we
do? We can come back to a prayer
hearing and a prayer answering God. And this is our encouragement,
you see. that we go back to this one who
is able to do great things. You see, this prophecy was written,
of course, before the Lord Jesus had come. He had not yet come.
Isaiah was written some 700 years before the coming of Christ.
So perhaps there was something of a looking for the coming of
the Lord Jesus at Bethlehem. in this idea of that the Lord
would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might
flow down at his presence. But I'm sure there is also here,
if we look in Titus. Let me just pick that up. In Titus, we read this, chapter
two, verse 13, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious
appearing of the great God and our savior, Jesus Christ. You
see, there's an idea that there should be an expectation in the
church of God for God's second coming, for the second coming
of the Lord. You see, if we think of this,
in Peter's epistle it tells us, in Peter's epistle, second epistle,
chapter three and verse 10, but the day of the Lord will come
as a thief in the night, in which the heavens, that is the skies,
shall pass away with a great noise. And the elements shall
melt with fervent heat. Those mountains that we've been
climbing, some of us, they're going to melt with fervent heat. Then they're going to flow down.
Then there won't be these mountains anymore. There'll be plains.
They'll be flattened. They're going to melt with fervent
heat. And the earth also, and the works
therein, all the building projects, all the great things that are
being done here below, all their works and their end shall be
burnt up. This is the second coming of
Christ. We don't know when it's going
to be. We're not told, but we are told to be ready, to be a
people that are looking for that blessed hope and the glorious
appearing of the great God. In verse 11 of 2 Peter 3, seeing
then that all these things shall be dissolved. The mountains,
the physical mountains that we have today are not here forever. We're told that in the Bible.
They are, they will, they shall pass away. Seeing then that all
these things shall be dissolved. When you dissolve something,
you dissolve some sugar in some water, it seems to disappear.
It's just you can't see it there anymore. What manner of persons
ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and
hasting unto the coming of the day of God, when the heavens,
being on fire, shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat? So you see, there's a reference
here, I believe, to the second coming of Christ, when indeed
every mountain shall pass away. Every hill should be gone, but
my loving kindness, the loving kindness of God to his church,
shall never pass away. You see, in verse four, of Isaiah
64, we have this word, for since the beginning of the world men
have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither have the
eyes seen, O God, beside thee what he has prepared for him
that waited for him. This is actually repeated in
the New Testament by Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 9. In 1
Corinthians 2 verse 9 we have a repeat of those words. But as it is written, I hath
not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of
man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. You see, love to God. is absolutely
essential. And we've sung in that hymn a
questioning in our hearts because we don't always love him as we
would. We find in our hearts things
that ought not so to be and there's a question then, why are we so
loveless at times? Why are we so unbelieving? We
have these exceeding great and precious promises and yet we
sometimes, we're weak in faith. But you see, Surely the prayer
of John Newton in 283, and the prayer of our text, O that thou
wouldst rend the heavens, thou wouldst come down the mountains
of sin, the mountains of unbelief, the mountains of impossibility,
the mountains that separate between us and our God, might flow down
at thy presence. And of course, ultimately, it was Calvary. that made the mountain of our
sin to pass away. What Christ accomplished at Calvary,
he took the entire sin of the church and bore it away so that
indeed this mountain could honestly, justly be taken away. Otherwise the justice of God
would be sidestepped if God didn't make a way for that sin to be
dealt with. But you see, we come back to
God, O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, thou wouldest come
down. I don't know in what sphere you're
particularly in this morning, but surely it has such a vast
spectrum of application in the life and the experience of the
Church of God, in everything they come into, everything that
they're involved with, They come into problems, they come into
difficulties, they come into impossibilities. In their opinion,
mountains are pretty stubborn obstacles. They don't come and
go. But God has said, you see, who art thou, O great mountain? Who is it? You see, he questions it. He's
able to take away, you see. that mountain and when we see
our sin and we see the separation it brings and we see the unhappiness
it brings and the evil that it brings and evil leads to more
evil, we saw that in David's life, it started with adultery
but it soon went on to lying, it soon went on to murder and
then it went on and affected the rest of his family, sin had
ruined him. Although thy house be not so
with God. Yet hath he made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things and sure, and this is all my
salvation and all my desire. You see, the Lord had come down
and he had made the mountains of David's sin flow down at the
presence of God. And God is able to do that, you
see, in the hearts and lives of the Lord's people. Isn't there
an encouragement here? You see, at the end of This chapter
is such a prayer of the church that the Lord would appear. In
the last verse, in verse 12 of Isaiah 64, will thou refrain
thyself of these things, O Lord? Will thou hold thy peace and
afflict us very sore? Isaiah is not complaining that
in a sense the affliction is wrong. He acknowledges that they're
sinful, but he's pleading to do it for his own namesake, for
his own namesake, to have mercy upon his people. And that's why
he pleads, but now, O Lord, thou art our father. We are the clay,
and thou our potter, and we are all the work of thine hand. Be
not wroth, very sore. O Lord, remember, neither remember
forever, remember iniquity forever, Behold, see, we have beseeched
thee, we are all thy people, pleading with God that God would
appear, that God would bless, that God would bless our churches,
God would bless us in our personal walk with God, that we may grow
in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, that God would help us in our personal difficulties,
in our families, in our work, in our relationships with others,
that the Lord would take those mountains and that we may be
able to give a testimony, come and hear what God has done for
me, how God has moved those mountains and made them a plain. He does
it for his people. He did it for Israel. He did
it for the Red Sea. The Red Sea was totally flattened
or totally made dry land so that the Israel could go by. Let me
just finish by reading Psalm 114. This is showing the power
of God. Psalm 114, when Israel went out
of Egypt, the house of Jacob, from a people of a strange language,
Judah was his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. The sea saw it
and fled. Jordan was driven back. The mountains
skipped like rams and the little hills like lambs. I think this
is referring to Sinai was all on a smoke and it was shaking.
God was showing his power. What Alitheo see that thou fleddest? Thou Jordan that was driven back? Who art thou o'er that great
mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain. Tremble thou earth, this is verse
7, tremble thou earth at the presence of the Lord, at the
presence of the God of Jacob, which turneth the rock into standing
water. That will flow, won't it? That
will flatten Helvelin. When it turns the rocks into
water, they'll flow down like a river. Which turn the rock
into standing water and the flint into fountains of water. This
is the Lord's doing. This is marvellous in our eyes.
This is the God we serve. And may we be given grace to
lay hold upon this God, to plead with him. Oh, that thou wouldest
rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down. The mountains might
flow down at thy presence. Amen.