If Only You Would…

“Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence— 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! When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence… Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins. Will you restrain yourself at these things, O Lord? Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly?” (Isaiah‬ ‭64‬:‭1‬-‭3‬, ‭11‬-‭12‬ ‭ESV‬‬)

If only you would… Is it regret? Is it hope? Is it longing? Perhaps it is all those things and more. I’ve had similar feelings. If only you would have done what I asked… regret. If only you would let me help… hope. If only you would come close… longing. In this instance, it is a plea for God to tear open the heavens and come down to His people. That’s a bold and an extremely dangerous request to make of God. It probably does and should include all of those emotions; a longing that becomes hope that includes some regret. Why? Because when God comes down the mountains quake at His presence and His enemies become brushwood set on fire by His vengeful presence.

I think people often want God to respond in their circumstances. But I don’t think they really want God’s response as much as they want God to do their bidding. Our culture often asks, if God is real then why doesn’t He do something? It implies that God isn’t active in our world, right now. I believe He is active, but we’re just blind to His presence and actions. He’s at work, but we don’t like what He’s doing. But like Isaiah, I too want more of God. I long for His powerful presence that would cause the mountains to quake and nations to tremble. There is hope in my prayer and a sense of longing. But when God shows up will we have a sense of regret?

When God shows up the mountains will quake and nations will tremble at His presence. When God shows up, like the brushwood catching fire and the water boiling, our world will not go untouched by His power, holiness and, yes, even His holy and righteous vengeance. When God shows up, we will not go untouched by His presence, either. But I think that’s often what we want… we want just enough of God to make us feel good about ourselves. Consider the words of Wilbur Rees:

Three Dollars Worth of God

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep,
but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk
or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man
or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth.
I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.

— Wilbur Rees

Isaiah uses fire as being illustrative of God’s presence. You can’t have fire without being impacted by its presence. Fire consumes the brushwood and boils the water and God’s presence will have similar results in our lives. If all we want is enough of God to make us feel better or comfortable, we’re in for a rude awakening. God’s word, power and presence always, ALWAYS achieves the purpose for which it has been sent out. When Mary Magdalene encountered Jesus, she was changed. When Matthew encountered Jesus, he was changed. When Zacchaeus encountered Jesus, he was changed. When the Samaritan woman encountered Jesus at the well, she was changed.

Notice, Isaiah says that God does the unexpected (v. 3). Awesome works that we did not expect. When the Israelites stood on the shores of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army behind them and God’s presence protecting them, He didn’t do what was expected. Nobody expected the waters of the Red Sea to part and for God to tell them to step down into that frightening and vulnerable position of trust. But a god who does what we want and what we expect is not a god worthy of being trusted and followed. And that’s precisely where Isaiah takes us next…

“From ancient times no one has heard, no one has listened, no eye has seen any God except You, who acts on behalf of the one who waits for Him.” This just reiterates the fact that our God is the only God who is capable of responding to our needs. He is the only God who can improve the human condition. The rest are idols who must be carried around by their worshipers or on the backs of pack animals (see Is. 46:1-2, 46:5-7, 57:13). 

But there is a conditional clause in that verse, “the one who waits for Him.” This is directly related to the concept of faith. We wait on God to act on our behalf because we trust Him and have faith in His saving power and grace. God acts on behalf of those who have faith in Him and who wait upon Him to act on their behalf in accordance with His will and purpose. It goes on, “You welcome the one who joyfully does what is right; they remember you in Your ways.” That is the essence of faith, the one who joyfully seeks to do what is right in God’s sight. People of faith find joy in obedience to God’s ways and obedience to God’s ways produces joy in people of faith.

The Apostle John puts it this way: “This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” yet doesn’t keep His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God is perfected. This is how we know we are in Him: The one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked.” (1 John‬ ‭2‬:‭3‬-‭6‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

But the recipe for revival is not just knowing what God is capable of doing and desiring for Him to act, it includes the need for humble repentance. Isaiah continues, “But we have sinned, and You were angry. How can we be saved if we remain in our sins?” There’s the issue, how can we be saved if we remain in our sins? How can we come into the presence of God if our sins remain? Sin is antithetical to God and abhorrent to Him. If our sins remain, we cannot expect God to allow us in His presence and to abide with Him. You cannot walk with God and in His ways and remain in your sin (see 1 Jn. 2 passage above).

This goes back to our previous consideration of being changed by God’s presence. When He comes, things change. When He comes into our lives, we change. The fire sets the kindling ablaze and boils the water and God’s power and presence will attack our sin. Cling to your sin and be destroyed along with it or repent and turn from it and allow God to destroy it through the power of His fiery Spirit and wash you clean by the blood of the Lamb.

Isaiah uses several analogies to illustrate our sin problem: leprosy, a garment bloodied by menstrual discharge, a withered leaf, and a whirlwind. An analogy gives us glimpses of insight into the nature of the thing we’re considering. In this case, it is the sin that separates and alienates us from our God and His presence. The first two items, the leprous sores and menstrual garment make us unclean before our holy God. Leprosy comes from outside us, is highly infectious and spread from person to person but easily prevented with appropriate caution and cleansing. The uncleanliness of the menstrual garment is non infectious, comes from within, is a natural part of our humanity but still makes us unclean before our holy God. We must deal with both the external sin that infects us and the internal sin that plagues us.

The next two analogies deal with sin’s effects upon us. Like a leaf that withers, disconnects from and falls off the tree, sin causes our lives to wither, disconnect from our life source and fall away from God. Next, the wind comes, blows through our lives and the leaves are carried away. In similar fashion, our sin separates us from the one who gives life and the wind carries us far away from Him. We often fail to see the effects sin has on our lives before it’s too late. It infects us from the outside or wells up within us from our broken desires and causes our lives to wither and separate from the One who gives life, then it carries us far away from Him.

The very next verse describes the outcome of this alienation from God: “No one calls on Your name, striving to take hold of You. For You have hidden Your face from us and made us melt because of our iniquity.” Like the withered leaf, our separation from God has a profound effect. We begin to lose all desire for God. We stop calling on His Name and striving to take hold of Him. To call on His name is to desire what He desires, to long for His will to be our reality. To strive to take hold of Him is to want God more and more, to love Him above anything else in life. When we lose any desire for God then we stop seeking Him, striving to take hold of Him. Hiding His face is to not know us intimately, in a personal way.

When we reach that stage of separation from God, we need to be reminded of WHO He is and WHOSE we are. Isaiah reminds us, “Yet LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter; we all are the work of Your hands.” He is our Father, we know Him by name. He is our Creator and we are the work of His hands. When we get those two things correct, who He is and whose we are, then our lives begin to line up better. That is the root cause of our problems. We often get that relationship backwards, we become the author or our story, the creator of our life and the focus of our existence. God gets relegated to a supporting role or simply excluded, all together.

In fact, that is exactly how our world would describe God. Not as the divine Creator and LORD of all but as a figment of our imagination and a product of our own creation. They have reversed the roles, we become the creator and He is created out of our desires and is to do our bidding. No wonder our lives are like withered leaves, blown into a pile by the wind, decaying and becoming mulch for the next generation. We are no longer connected to the Tree of Life but are consumed by our broken wants, desires and our need to be the focus of life’s attention. To restore life, we must remember WHO He is and WHOSE we are. He’s the potter, we are the clay. He’s the Creator and we are His creation. He is our Father and we are His children. Get those roles reversed and everything breaks down and falls apart.

Where does that leave us? Praying that our LORD will not be angry with us forever. Pleading with Him to pardon our iniquity and not hold it against us forever. We are a wilderness, our lives are a land of desolation. Please don’t leave us like this, our lives lying before the world in ruins. Revival begins with brokenness, humble contrition and honest confession. Scripture is crystal clear in this respect. Pride precedes our fall and humility accompanies our salvation. We will NEVER know God’s strength until we admit our inherent weakness. We will never experience God’s peace and wholeness until we confess our miserable brokenness. We can never know His redemptive salvation until we confess our deep and total sinfulness. We can never revel in His glory until we are repelled by our own disgusting filthiness and sin.

Isaiah leaves us with a question, “LORD, after all this, will You restrain Yourself? Will You keep silent and afflict severely?” If you truly seek revival and restoration with God, then those things I mention above are absolutely essential. We must start with an acute awareness of God and our deep, deep need for His presence in our lives. We must long for Him more than we long for anything else in life. We must seek Him with all that is within us. As Isaiah says, “If only You would tear the heavens open and come down, so that mountains would quake at Your presence – like fire to kindling which causes water to boil – make Your name known to Your enemies, so that nations will tremble at Your presence!” 

Holy God, we need Your powerful presence to ignite the fire within us and causing our spirits to respond to the boundless energy of Your Spirit inside us. May Your name and Your Word be boldly proclaimed in the presence of Your enemies so that they tremble at Your approach. Show them your might and your awesome works like you’ve done in the past, in ways they could never expect – like an empty tomb, abundant life and Holy Spirit power. We were living unclean, polluted lives but You have cleansed and restored us. Now, help us demonstrate Your power and Your presence in us through obedience to Your commands, through love for You and love for others, and with the grace you’ve shown to us. God we need a revival, but that revival comes only when You descend and revive Your life within us.

Righteous LORD, may we be honest with you about filth of our sin and the selfishness of our hearts. Help us to see how sin and our rebellion towards You and against Your will kills us and destroys our true freedom, the freedom to be who and what You created us to be. You are our Father, we are your children. You are the potter, we are the clay. You are the Creator, we are the work of Your hands. Help us to clearly see how we’ve reversed those roles as we try to make You do our will instead of us doing Your will.

Gracious Father, open our eyes to the eternal loss we suffer when we cling to our sin and distance ourselves from You and the cleansing fire of Your Holy Spirit. Don’t hold back, pour Yourself out on us. Don’t keep silent, proclaim Your judgment and vengeance on Your enemies, our selfish desires, broken passions and errant logic. Make us tremble with Your presence but bold enough to step out in faith onto the path You’ve opened through the waters that block obedience to Your will. Let us marvel at Your might, tremble at Your presence and walk confidently into obedient faith.

LORD, we need a revival… We NEED You!