Isaiah 64

WEEK  13                                           Isaiah 64

SATURDAY  Reflections

Even as Isaiah calls out to God to come down and make things right, he realizes the problem of their sins. When confronted with their disobedience he asks the question, “How then can we be saved?” (verse 5, NIV).

 

The answer is found in verse 8, God is our Father and the potter (the one who fashions us). It is by calling on his mercy and submitting to his shaping that anyone can be saved.

 

Seeing the world from the author’s perspective it seems all is lost. The question is asked if they will be punished beyond measure (no hope of being saved) and this is how the chapter ends. This isn’t how the book ends, nor is it how life ends. There are times we may feel like Isaiah, that we are going to be utterly destroyed, yet hope is found in God.  

Isa 64:1-12
(1)  Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,
(2)  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!
(3)  When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.
(4)  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 hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
(5)  Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.
(6)  But 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.
(7)  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.
(8)  But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
(9)  Be not wroth very sore, O LORD, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.
(10)  Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
(11)  Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste.

(12)  Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O LORD? wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore?

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