Revival Sermon: Wrestling for the Power
A Sermon on Isaiah 63:15-19
Scripture
You Are Our Father
15¶Look down from heaven and see from Your holy and glorious lofty habitation;
Where are Your zeal and Your mighty deeds?
The stirrings of Your heart and Your compassion are restrained toward me.
16For You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us …
15¶ Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained? 16Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of …
Sermon Description
Has God turned His back on the church? Why does it seem that the people of God are powerless today? In this sermon on Isaiah 63:15–19 titled “Revival Sermon: Wrestling for the Power,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones expounds upon a prayer of Isaiah in which the prophet recognizes the character of God and reviews the history of His people. In the prayer is found hope for the people of Israel, but more importantly, the Christian finds hope for themselves. Dr. Lloyd-Jones covers the characteristics of Isaiah’s prayer to show what prayers should contain. He notes the prayer’s urgency, importunity, emotion, and pleading. Isaiah is wrestling with God in his prayer—pleading for the nation of Israel, deeply aware of their sins and yet boldly petitioning God to have mercy. Isaiah begins by worshiping God, and then he notes his subsisting relationship with God. He asks where God’s strength and mercy are to be found. Finally, he pleads with God to look again upon His people and have mercy on them. Dr. Lloyd-Jones takes time to carefully explain some difficult words of the prayer in which Isaiah asks why God has hardened their hearts.
Revival Sermons
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) was a Welsh evangelical minister who preached and taught in the Reformed tradition. His principal ministry was at Westminster Chapel, in central London, from 1939-1968, where he delivered multi-year expositions on books of the bible such as Romans, Ephesians and the Gospel of John. In addition to the MLJ Trust’s collection of 1,600 of these sermons in audio format, most of these great sermon series are available in book form (including a 14 volume collection of the Romans sermons), as are other series such as "Spiritual Depression", "Studies in the Sermon on the Mount" and "Great Biblical Doctrines". He is considered by many evangelical leaders today to be an authority on biblical truth and the sufficiency of Scripture.