Year 3, Day 42: Isaiah 58

The Bold Proclamation

As I often do, I pause at the first verse of this chapter.  “Cry aloud.  Do Not Hold Back.”  Gulp.  This message is going out to the heralds.  God wants the heralds – the proclamation experts of the society – to not hold back as they declare the sinfulness of the people.  Let your voice be like a trumpet.  {Just for the record, the trumpet is not a quiet instrument in the orchestra.}  Who are His heralds?  Priests?  Pastors?  Sunday School teachers?  Council members?  Anyone who reads God’s Word?  Anyone who claims to be in a personal relationship with God through the grace which comes to us by blood of Jesus Christ?  Yeah.  That’s right.  The heralds are you and me.  Cry out, people.  C’mon.  Don’t hold back.

The Bad And The Ugly

The next four verses in Isaiah 58 tell us quite plainly what the people are doing wrong:

• Verse 2 – from an outward appearance, they look as though they are seeking the Lord.  They sound like a nation that is righteous and doesn’t forsake the judgments of God.  But it is all a façade.
• Verse 3 – Yet, the people complain that they’ve gone through all the work of fasting and sacrifice and God doesn’t see it.  They believe that they’ve humbled themselves and God seems not to care.  However, God’s opinion is that when they fast they only do it in a way that pleases themselves.  While they try to appear as righteous, they are still oppressing the people around them.
• Verse 4 – Their fasts are done just to be able to prove who is better or more righteous.  Their fasting leads not to spirituality but to human argumentation.  Going through righteous motion in an unrighteous manner will do nothing with respect to God desiring to hear their voice.
• Verse 5 – God asks the people if He really wants them to “fast” for only a day.  Does He only desire the appearance of righteousness as they spread out sackcloth and ashes underneath them to look like they are in mourning?

Here’s what I’ve gleaned from those first five verses.  God doesn’t want a show.  God doesn’t want us to do something short-term.  He doesn’t want us to fast for a day and then go back to our old way of life.  He doesn’t want us to mimic true faith.  He doesn’t want our motions.

Rather, God wants our hearts.  {Oh, how I love letting scripture interpret scripture.  Stop, right now, and flip to the book of Joel.  Read Joel 2:13 – especially the first third of the verse.}  God wants us to rend our hearts.  He doesn’t want meaningless action.  If God wanted meaningless action He would have created automatons with no free will!  The very reason God created us with free will is because He desires meaningful action.  He wants us to rend our hearts.  He wants our practice to become who we really are inside.  He wants us to fast and sacrifice because it is who we are, not because we think we have to do so in order to appease Him.  God wants us, not our resentful capitulation!

So as long as we’re talking about what God really wants, let’s move on into verse 6 and the verses that follow.  God really desires that we free people from their bondage.  {Caring for orphans and widows, anyone?}  He wants us to resist wickedness.  He wants us to share with the hungry.  He wants us to clothe the naked and cover them in their time of need.  He wants us to bring the homeless into our lives.  {Huh.  Jesus must have read these words prior to preaching to His disciples in Matthew 25:31-46.  LOL.  I love when the Old and the New Testaments come together so neatly!}

I’m going to be cliché.  But does anyone really hear God in this passage?  Isaiah is telling us that God wants people who can talk the talk AND walk the walk.  God is looking for true faith, not some lip service with no action behind it.

The Good

It is then that we hit the beautiful words of Isaiah 58:8 and following.  Then shall our light and healing break forth.  Then shall our righteousness go before us and then we shall know what it is to have the Lord as our rear guard.  Then we shall call out to the Lord and He shall answer.

If we would just take away our oppressive human yoke and free people from bondage we would know the grace of God. If we would pour ourselves into the care of the orphans and the widows we would know true love and true blessing.  Then the Lord will guide us continually.  Then our darkest moments in life will still seem like the brightness of noonday.  Then we shall be rebuilt.  Then we will be known as a people who restore and rebuild and repair.

Wow.  What an absolutely incredible chapter.  I am absolutely charged with excitement having read these words.  I want to live the words that conclude this chapter.  I want to bear God’s love to the orphans and the widows.  I want to be known as “God’s repairer of the breech.”  Don’t you?

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