“Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord: awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old,” “…Art Thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?” Isaiah 51:9,10
When the people of Israel came to the Red Sea, with Pharaoh’s army behind them, and the impassable sea before them, they were at a total standstill. From a human standpoint there was no human solution to the situation, certainly no one which they could have imagined. In speaking of an “awakening,” Isaiah uses this situation of Israel to illustrate that there came a moment in time when it was as if the Lord God awakened out of His sleep in order to bring to bear His power and might. HIs objective was certainly two-fold. First, it was to demonstrate to all, both Israelite and Egyptian, that He was and is God. And secondly, that His great purpose in intervening in the affairs of men was one of redemption, redeeming His people from the tyranny of sin, death, and Satan. Thus God moved in power to deliver His people then as an example of what was needed in the present day in Israel. The call, and prayer of Isaiah, being convinced that the God of the Red Sea was the same today, desiring and willing to redeem, to save, and the demonstrate to the world that He is God, is for Him to Awake, to move mightily on their behalf! The call, in the form of a prayer, is precise and powerful, and in one sense, the cry of a helpless person, and people, to a God who has awakened in the past in a most extraordinary way, to do it again. What is the prayer? “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord: awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old.” Why is it, and how is it, that a man, or a people, can appeal to the eternal God to do such a thing? What is the basis for believing that He will respond, and answer? The answer resides in a knowledge of God.
The Lord will later gives to Israel a command and promise that are remarkable. They can only come from a gracious and compassionate God. This is the God of Jonah, the one Jonah declared to be: “…gracious, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.” (Jonah 4:2) He is also the One who instructed Israel: “Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife.” (54:1) What is God saying here? Is it not that He delights to work, to save, to bless, to multiply, to show forth His goodness? And is He not communicating to Israel that He is willing and able to do so? This is why, in Isaiah’s prayer for God to awake, he says: “…put on strength, O arm of the Lord.” He speaks of His power and might being brought to bear upon the situaion, the people, the entire circumstance, regardless of the “impossibilities” at hand. God is seeking to draw out Israel to Himself and this in order that they should believe Him, follow Him, to know His salvation, His redemption, and this in fullest, abounding measure.
Where does the Awakening begin? It begins in aloneness with God in prayer, then among those of like mind who will pray through all manner of resistance. It is founded upon the true knowledge of God to whom they pray, believing the testimony in Scripture of His ways, His compassion, grace, and willingness to hear and answer the heart that truly seeks Him. In other words, it begins in believing prayer, persevering prayer, with eyes and hearts set wholly upon the grace and mercy of the faithful God.
Dear Father, Fill us with Thy perseverance in prayer. In Jesus’ name, Amen.