*Scripture: Isaiah 63:15—65:5 (NKJV)* 63:15 Look down from heaven, and see from Your habitation, holy and glorious. Where are Your zeal and Your strength, the yearning of Your heart and Your mercies toward me? Are they restrained? 16 Doubtless You are our Father, though Abraham was ignorant of us, and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O LORD, are our Father; Our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name. 17 O LORD, why have You made us stray from Your ways, and hardened our heart from Your fear? Return for Your servants' sake, the tribes of Your inheritance. 18 Your holy people have possessed it but a little while; Our adversaries have trodden down Your sanctuary. 19 We have become like those of old, over whom You never ruled, those who were never called by Your name.
64:1 Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down! That the mountains might shake at Your presence—2 as fire burns brushwood, as fire causes water to boil—to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence! 3 When You did awesome things for which we did not look, You came down, the mountains shook at Your presence. 4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who waits for Him. 5 You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways. You are indeed angry, for we have sinned—in these ways we continue; And we need to be saved. 6 But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. 7 And there is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us, and have consumed us because of our iniquities. 8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand. 9 Do not be furious, O LORD, nor remember iniquity forever; Indeed, please look—we all are Your people! 10 Your holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. 11 Our holy and beautiful temple, where our fathers praised You, is burned up with fire; And all our pleasant things are laid waste. 12 Will You restrain Yourself because of these things, O LORD? Will You hold Your peace, and afflict us very severely? 65:1 "I was sought by those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me. I said, 'Here I am, here I am,' to a nation that was not called by My name. 2 I have stretched out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, according to their own thoughts; 3 A people who provoke Me to anger continually to My face; Who sacrifice in gardens, and burn incense on altars of brick; 4 Who sit among the graves, and spend the night in the tombs; Who eat swine's flesh, and the broth of abominable things is in their vessels; 5 Who say, 'Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am holier than you!' These are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all the day." *Devotion* Isaiah prays the prayer that all those who are trapped in the darkness of sin and dwell in the shadow of death desire to pray to the Triune God. It is a prayer requesting salvation from all the hardship and persecution that comes about from sin. St. Augustine once asked the question, "Is not sin, also a punishment for sin?" That is, the consequences of sin are a punishment for sin. Even if there are no outward punishments for our sin—disdain from our neighbors, loss of material things, imprisonment, and the like—there is always internal punishments from sin. There is the guilt, shame and despair that are a result of the realization of the horribleness of our sinful thoughts, words and deeds. Our Lord, in time, exiled Judah to Babylon and destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, the place that was the embodiment of the Lord's presence among His people. All this was on account of their sinfulness and unfaithfulness to the Lord God. When we sin the same thing happens to our soul. We are, in a sense, exiled from God's presence and our soul, which is the Temple of the Holy Ghost, is destroyed so that we are left with nothing but guilt and shame. It is here that we cry out like the prophet Isaiah, that our Lord would "rend the heavens" and "come down" to fix the mess that we made through our sin. Our Lord Jesus Christ answered that prayer when He was incarnated into our flesh, fulfilled the Law perfectly for us, and suffered and died on the holy Cross so that we might receive forgiveness from our sins.
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