ISAIAH 64:1-9 - What You Want Most For Christmas

Bethel Baptist Church

Advent 2023 • Sermon • Submitted 5 months ago • Presented 6 months ago • 42:04

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The greatest desire of the true Christian is to see the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ in His Second Coming

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Introduction

This is the time of year when it’s fun to ask kids, “What do you want for Christmas?” (In fact, for the kids using the kids’ bulletin today, go ahead and draw a picture of something that you are really hoping to get for Christmas!)

The great thing about asking a kid what they want for Christmas is that they have no qualms about telling you what they want! The older you get, the less forthright you are about expressing what you want for Christmas—you don’t want to seem materialistic, or you’ve come to the place in your life where the things you want aren’t found on an Amazon shopping list or in a catalog or on a store shelf. If someone were to ask you what you want for Christmas, you’re more likely to respond with something like “Peace on earth!” Not exactly something you can fit into a stocking or under a tree.

This Sunday marks the beginning of the season of Advent in the traditional church calendar. “Advent” means “coming”, or “arrival”, and it refers to our consideration of the arrival of Jesus Christ as a baby in Bethlehem. Advent is a time for us to reflect on the miracle of Jesus’ Incarnation and the work that He came to do to deliver His people from their sins.

And so every year as we draw our attention to what the Scriptures tell us about the First Advent of Christ in His Incarnation in Bethlehem, we are also drawn to meditate on what His First Advent reveals to us about His Second Advent. As we read in our worship earlier this morning from 1 Corinthians, Christians are to be “eagerly awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:7). What the Christian wants most eagerly, what we are waiting for most of all of anything in our lives is the return of Jesus Christ!

And so for our time together this morning on this first Sunday of Advent, I want to set before you from God’s Word here in Isaiah 64 is that

The Christian’s most earnest DESIRE is the glorious APPEARING of Christ’s RETURN.

More than anything else that can be wrapped up in paper and a bow, more than anything else that we can be waiting for on Christmas morning, what we want most of all in the whole world is to see Jesus come back again!

Our text this morning comes from one of the final chapters of the Book of Isaiah. These verses are simply bursting with anticipation and desire for the appearing of God in all of His glory and splendor:

Isaiah 64:1–2 (LSB)

Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, That the mountains might quake at Your presence— As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil— To make Your name known to Your adversaries, That the nations may tremble at Your presence!

Isaiah’s ministry as a prophet spanned some fifty years and the reigns of four different kings of the southern Kingdom of Judah - Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz and Hezekiah. Born and raised in Jerusalem, his prophecies were mostly directed at Jerusalem and the southern Kingdom of Judah. The first 39 chapters of his book are YHWH’s pronouncements of judgment on the nation for their rebellion against Him in their idolatries, and warnings of the terrible judgment to come as the Babylonian Empire would sweep down upon them and take them away.

Chapters 40-57 are Isaiah’s prophecies concerning the deliverance of God’s people from their punishment and captivity—through Cyrus king of Persia who would deliver them from Babylon, and also through a Suffering Servant who would deliver Israel from her spiritual captivity to her sins.

Then starting in Isaiah 58 through the end of the book, Isaiah prophesies about the glorious future of God’s redeemed people; the blessedness of the Kingdom of God in its fullness and God’s complete answer to all of His people’s prayers for deliverance and salvation.

And that is where our text fits in this morning—these verses are a prayer for God to make real and visible all of the promises of His coming to earth; that the whole world would see and acknowledge His presence in all of His righteousness and authority—that He would tear the heavens apart and come down once and for all and set everything right! Be honest, Christian—isn’t that what you really want for Christmas?

The Christian’s most earnest desire is the glorious appearing of Christ’s return, because His return will

I. Cause the DOWNFALL of His adversaries (Isaiah 64:1-4)

Look again at the first three verses of our text:

Isaiah 64:1–3 (LSB)

So much of Isaiah’s imagery here immediately draws us into recalling God’s coming down on the mountain of Sinai in Exodus:

Exodus 19:18 (LSB)

Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because Yahweh descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently.

When God descended on Mount Sinai, it was to deliver His Law to His people—to command them in how to live as a nation. And there is another element to Isaiah’s choice of metaphor here—earlier in Isaiah 2, “mountains” are used to represent kingdoms--

Isaiah 2:2 (LSB)

Now it will be that In the last days The mountain of the house of Yahweh Will be established as the head of the mountains, And will be lifted up above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it.

When Christ returns in His Second Advent, the glorious appearing of His return will cause the downfall of His adversaries

For the OBEDIENCE of the NATIONS (vv. 1-3)

Isaiah prays for the glorious appearing of God’s arrival on earth

Isaiah 64:2–3 (LSB)

...To make Your name known to Your adversaries, That the nations may tremble at Your presence! When You did awesome things for which we did not hope, You came down; the mountains quaked at Your presence.

Other Old Testament prophecies echo the same hope—that the arrival of God here on this earth will result in the obedience of the nations. As Jacob was blessing his children before his death, he spoke of the One Who would someday come from the tribe of Judah

Genesis 49:10 (LSB)

“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

Before Jesus ascended into Heaven at the end of His First Advent, He proclaimed that the nations were to be brought into obedience to everything He had commanded:

Matthew 28:19–20 (LSB)

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

And in Revelation 21, we see the obedience of all the nations in the New Jerusalem:

Revelation 21:24 (LSB)

And the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

What greater desire could you have in this world that hates and fears the Name of Jesus Christ, a world so terrified of His reign that they fight and attack and screech like wounded animals at any mention of His Word or His Law? He has begun the work of bringing all nations into obedience to Him through the proclamation of the Gospel, and the Day will come when that obedience will be complete at His return! Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

The Christian’s most earnest desire is for the glorious appearing of Christ’s return to cause the downfall of His adversaries for the obedience of the nations—and His return causes the downfall of those adversaries

For the RESCUE of the CAPTIVES (v. 4)

Look again at verse 4:

Isaiah 64:4 (LSB)

For from ancient times they have not heard or given ear, Nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.

The immediate context of Isaiah’s words here is of course the Babylonian captivity of the Jews—this heart-cry of a prayer for God to deliver His people from their bondage. And once again, Isaiah wants to put us in mind of the Exodus story, and the groaning of the sons of Israel in their captivity in Egypt:

Exodus 2:23–25 (LSB)

Now it happened in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the slavery, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their slavery rose up to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God saw the sons of Israel, and God knew them.

They waited on God, and He remembered them—He overthrew Pharoah and his hosts and brought His people out with His mighty right arm, acting on behalf of His people who had waited for Him to deliver them from their slavery.

In Isaiah 64:4 Isaiah is crying out for God to deliver His people from their Babylonian bondage. And in Jesus First Advent, He announces that He has come to do the same thing—He goes to the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth and reads from this same section of Isaiah (61:1) to make it plain that His coming to earth was to act in behalf of those who were groaning for deliverance:

Luke 4:17–19 (LSB)

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the scroll and found the place where it was written, “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”

Jesus came in His first advent to free His people from their bondage to sin and death, to open the eyes of their heart to see Him as their Savior, to deliver those oppressed by their sin and shame and guilt by taking their place on the Cross.

And on the Day when He returns in His Second Advent, He will fully and finally deliver His people from everything and everyone that oppresses them:

2 Thessalonians 1:6–8, 10 (LSB)

Since it is right for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give rest to you who are afflicted and to us as well at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, executing vengeance on those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus… when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed—for our witness to you was believed.

A Christian’s most earnest desire is for the glorious appearing of Christ’s return—His return will cause the downfall of His adversaries as He appears in the flaming fire of His righteousness and utter holiness.

But the Scriptures are clear that the utter righteousness and holiness of the appearance of the Son of God on that Day will not just cause the nations of the world to tremble and quake in fear—that same unfiltered and unmitigated holiness as it breaks forth on that Day will also

II. Uncover the DEPRAVITY of His people (Isaiah 64:5-7)

As Isaiah is pleading for the glorious appearing of God, you can sense in his words that he comes to the same realization that he did when he encountered God’s glorious presence in His throne room in Isaiah 6--

Isaiah 6:5 (LSB)

Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts.”

In verse 5 of Chapter 64, he writes:

Isaiah 64:5 (LSB)

You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, Who remembers You in Your ways.

And then--

-- Behold, You were angry; indeed we have sinned— We continued in them a long time—

And as the reality of their sinfulness dawns on him, the very possibility of their salvation seems doubtful:

And shall we be saved?

In his book on the Second Coming of Christ, John Piper tries to help us grasp what that Moment will be like when Christ’s return is revealed:

“The infinite canyon between His perfection and holiness mingled with His galactic power, on the one hand, and our ridiculously small weakness and moral evil and banal lives of trifling, on the other hand, will be overwhelmingly plain and terrifying… There will be nothing warm and cuddly about these hours. They will bring stark terror and reprisal for all who are outside of Christ. They will mark the end of all divine patience for those who did not embrace the Gospel.” (Piper, J. (2023). Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Second Coming of Christ. pp. 63-64)

When the perfection of holiness and righteousness of Christ is revealed at His Second Coming, beloved,

Your SINFULNESS will be MONSTROUS to you (vv. 6-7)

You will be struck as if for the first time over the filthiness of your sin:

Isaiah 64:6 (LSB)

For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;

You will be disgusted by the decay and rot of your sin:

And all of us wither like a leaf,

You will see how your perversions have taken you over:

And our iniquities, like the wind, carry us away.

You will realize how little you ever even cared about fighting sin:

Isaiah 64:7 (LSB)

There is no one who calls on Your name, Who awakens himself to take hold of You,

You will finally understand how perfectly just God would be to utterly ignore youI

For You have hidden Your face from us

You will look at your life and see how completely you have been enslaved by your sin, and how perfectly righteous God would have been to leave you there:

And have melted us into the hand of our iniquities.

But for you who have pled for grace from Christ for deliverance from your sin and sought salvation through His death, burial and resurrection—for you who have received by His grace the New Birth by His Spirit and regeneration to a life pleasing to Him,

God’s GRACE will be a MARVEL to you (v. 5; cp. 1 Peter 1:13)

In light of how monstrous and rotten and vile and comprehensive your sin has been against God, and the revelation on that Day of just how richly you deserve eternal damnation, as you cry out like Isaiah at His appearing, “Woe is me! Shall we be saved? Is it really possible in light of how holy He is and how wretched we are??”—at that same moment that you really see the depth of your depravity clearly for the first time, you will also see the height of God’s grace clearly for the first time!

As Peter would encourage his readers in his first epistle:

1 Peter 1:13 (LSB)

Therefore, having girded your minds for action, being sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

When He is revealed in all of His holiness and righteousness, what will overwhelm you at that point is not the hopelessness of your depravity but the sure and perfect hope you have in His grace to save you! Your salvation will be more marvelous to you in that moment than you have ever known before—it will be as if you just came to understand what God has done for you in Christ when He appears in all of His glory on that Day!

The most earnest desire of a Christian is for the glorious appearing of Christ’s return, because on that Day we will marvel at His grace properly for the first time—His return will cause the downfall of His adversaries, it will uncover the depravity of His people, and it will—most gloriously of all—finally and fully

III. Accomplish the DELIVERANCE of His children (Isaiah 64:8-9)

As Isaiah contemplates the sinfulness and wretchedness of the people that is revealed by the appearing of the holiness and righteousness of God, he appeals to His mercy in a way that is rarely seen in the Old Testament—he calls God their Father:

Isaiah 64:8 (LSB)

But now, O Yahweh, You are our Father...

And as their Father, Isaiah puts himself and his people completely at God’s mercy:

We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.

This is a metaphor Isaiah uses elsewhere in his book to affirm that God is the Creator, and as such He has the ultimate, unquestioned right to do with us as He pleases--

Isaiah 29:16 (LSB)

...Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay, That what is made would say to its maker, “He did not make me” Or what is formed say to him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?

Isaiah 45:9 (LSB)

“Woe to the one who contends with his Maker— An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’?

Our deliverance from sin, our salvation, doesn’t come from our ability to call out to God--

Isaiah 64:7 (LSB)

There is no one who calls on Your name, Who awakens himself to take hold of You...

Isaiah says here that God delivers His people from our depravity and the consequences of it

As we are REMADE by His HAND (v. 8; cp. Rom. 9:20-23)

The Apostle Paul quotes these very verses from Isaiah when he writes about God’s complete authority to do as He pleases in saving some and damning others:

Romans 9:20–23 (LSB)

On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? WILL THE THING MOLDED SAY TO THE MOLDER, “WHY DID YOU MAKE ME LIKE THIS”? Or does not the potter have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? And what if God, wanting to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath having been prepared for destruction, and in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory—

He is the One Who forms for salvation or destruction; He is the One who determines whether your life will glorify Him by making you an object of His grace, or whether your life will glorify Him by making you an object of His wrath. You are the work of His hand, for Him to do as He pleases—and His grace and mercy in saving you will be your greatest source of joy and wonder and thankfulness when you realize that He didn’t have to!

Isaiah confesses that God has the complete and unquestioned authority to do with us whatever He will—and in verse 9, he cries out for God to set aside His anger against His people’s iniquity:

Isaiah 64:9 (LSB)

Do not be angry beyond measure, O Yahweh, Nor remember iniquity forever;

And see why he pleads with YHWH to turn His wrath aside--

Behold, look now, all of us are Your people.

God accomplishes our deliverance

As we are INCLUDED in His PEOPLE (v. 9; cp. Eph. 2:17-19)

Throughout that second great division of the Book of Isaiah the work of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh is described as He gathers for Himself a people for God:

Isaiah 57:19 (LSB)

Creating the praise of the lips. Peace, peace to him who is far and to him who is near,” Says Yahweh, “and I will heal him.”

And in His First Advent, that Suffering Servant came to proclaim peace for His people:

Luke 2:14 (LSB)

“Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

You may not be able to fit “Peace on Earth” under a Christmas tree, but God fit it in a manger! Peace with God and peace between each other was purchased by the appearing of God the Son, born as a man in Bethlehem two thousand years ago:

Ephesians 2:17–19 (LSB)

AND HE CAME AND PREACHED THE GOOD NEWS OF PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,

In His first appearing, God the Son became like us—”not by His Divinity being turned into flesh, but by God’s taking humanity to Himself” (Athanasian Creed). And because He became like us, He made it possible for us to belong to Him.

Jesus Christ is the only way that God can become your Father:

John 14:6 (LSB)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.

Jesus Christ is the only One that can appease the anger of God on your behalf:

Romans 5:9 (LSB)

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

He is the only way that you can look ahead to His glorious Second Coming with joy for the grace that will be revealed to you on that Day:

1 Peter 1:13 (LSB)

Therefore, having girded your minds for action, being sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

How will He appear to you on that Day? Will His return be the moment when your deliverance is complete and your joy made full and your righteousness perfected when you see Him as He is?

Or will that Day be a day of downfall for you, a Day when your iniquities and sins and perversions will be uncovered with no grace to shield you? You will not be able to stand on that Day if you are outside of the people that He has gathered. You will not be able to answer for all that you have done, you will no longer be able to say, “Tomorrow I will repent”, because when that Day comes there will be no more tomorrows.

At His first coming, the Son of God came silently—born in a manger in a little town in Judea. When He returns, it will be with fire and vengeance on those who do not obey Him, on whom He will exact the penalty of eternal destruction away from His presence and away from His glorious might (2 Thess 1:8-9). At His first coming, King Herod trembled and lashed out to try to destroy Him, lest He take his governorship away. But when He returns on that Day, every kingdom and government will tremble and quake, and instead of lashing out, all of the princes and presidents and dictators and democracies will beg for the mountains to fall on them to hide them from His wrath (Rev. 6:16).

But you do not have to be numbered with them—you do not have to fear the unstoppable approach of that Day. He invites you to be numbered with His people today. Confess before Him your sin, that you are unclean before Him, that all of your attempts to be good enough for Him are about as clean and fresh as the floor of a meth-house bathroom, that if He does not save you your wickedness will carry you away to rot under His wrath for all eternity.

Cry out to Him for forgiveness based on the death of Jesus Christ, plead for His blood to shield you from the His righteous anger that you so richly deserve, place yourself into His hands to do with as He will for as many days as He gives you. Make this that day that prepares you for that Day—not a day of terror and fear and damnation, but a Day of rejoicing in the unspeakable grace purchased for you by your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Hebrews 13:20–21 (LSB)

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus, equip you in every good thing to do His will, by doing in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

What are you looking forward to about the Christmas holiday this year? How do we answer the question “What do you want for Christmas” differently as we get older? Why do you suppose that is?

Of the three things that these verses say will take place at Christ’s return, which of them are you most looking forward to? Are there any aspects of His return that seem daunting or frightening to you? Why or why not?

Read 1 Peter 1: 13 again. What does Peter say will be the greatest hope revealed to you when Christ returns? How does the assurance of God’s grace to you in Christ encourage you when you consider His appearing?

In what ways has Christ already accomplished the deliverance of His people? In what ways will you experience deliverance on the Day He returns? Spend time this week praising God for the hope that will be revealed to you on the Day that Christ returns!

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