Good Morning! - 2010.07.09- Isaiah 64:7 - None Stirreth Up Himself -

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. (Isaiah 64:7)

Isaiah writes as though this had already happened. But it will be a hundred years before it takes place. None of God’s people are praying or stirring up themselves to pray. People do not pray when they walk the road of sin and rebellion. Pity the individual—pity the nation that ceases to pray. Sooner or later the hand of God will arrive to deal with it. In our borrowed picture of the burning of Jerusalem we see what God is going to do to them and He did just that. America is in a state of strutting and denying God just like Israel did.

Isaac Watts' hymn says: “Is this vile world a friend to grace to help me on to God?” (Am I A Soldier of the Cross?) Living without praying is like trying to live without breathing. “Sin will take you further than you meant to stray; it will keep you longer than you meant to stay; it will cost you more than you meant to pay” (Anon.)

Isaiah continues: 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. Be not wroth very sore, O LORD, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.

Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste. (Isaiah 64:8-11)

These are God’s people. They are not naked savages without a book from God or without preachers or without longstanding traditions toward God. They are being warned a hundred years ahead of time.

Isaiah 64:7

And there is none that calleth upon thy name - The nation is corrupt and degenerate. None worship God in sincerity.

That stirreth up himself. It takes some effort to awaken ourselves from deep sleep. Such is the state of an individual or a church or a nation that is overcome with slumber. It is not convenient to give ourselves to prayer. We must be entertained. Prayer is work. If it were not so, more people would engage in prayer. We love to hear sermons on prayer and to hear stories of answered prayer but it is like watching TV. A drowsy man should not go to sleep on a railroad track.

To take hold of thee. To know that God is there is not the same thing as taking hold of Him. It means to exert a strong grip. We had rather have a family fight than to stop and humble ourselves before God. We had rather fight a big war than to repent as a nation. It is possible to pray ourselves out of many bad situations that we are not willing to go to the trouble to pray about. I know about that first-hand.

For thou hast hid thy face - Thou bast withdrawn thy favor from us, as a people, on account of our sins.

And hast consumed us. This means to melt or flow down. It is used of an army that appears to melt down or become dissolved because of fear and terror. This term is used to described one of the effects of the wrath of God, that his enemies vanish away, or are dissolved before him.

Because of our iniquities. Our iniquities have not merely drawn the hand of God but our iniquities themselves have been the instrument by which we have been judged and destroyed by God. All God has to do to bring down a nation is to take His protective hand from it and it will self-destruct.