Isaiah 58

Isaiah 58:1-11

1“Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast.

Shout aloud! Don’t be timid.

Tell my people Israel of their sins!

2Yet they act so pious!

They come to the Temple every day

and seem delighted to learn all about me.

They act like a righteous nation

that would never abandon the laws of its God.

They ask me to take action on their behalf,

pretending they want to be near me.

3‘We have fasted before you!’ they say.

‘Why aren’t you impressed?

We have been very hard on ourselves,

and you don’t even notice it!’

“I will tell you why!” I respond.

“It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves.

Even while you fast,

you keep oppressing your workers.

4What good is fasting

when you keep on fighting and quarreling?

This kind of fasting

will never get you anywhere with me.

5You humble yourselves

by going through the motions of penance,

bowing your heads

like reeds bending in the wind.

You dress in burlap

and cover yourselves with ashes.

Is this what you call fasting?

Do you really think this will please the LORD?

6“No, this is the kind of fasting I want:

Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;

lighten the burden of those who work for you.

Let the oppressed go free,

and remove the chains that bind people.

7Share your food with the hungry,

and give shelter to the homeless.

Give clothes to those who need them,

and do not hide from relatives who need your help.

8“Then your salvation will come like the dawn,

and your wounds will quickly heal.

Your godliness will lead you forward,

and the glory of the LORD will protect you from behind.

9Then when you call, the LORD will answer.

‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.

“Remove the heavy yoke of oppression.

Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors!

10Feed the hungry,

and help those in trouble.

Then your light will shine out from the darkness,

and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.

11The LORD will guide you continually,

giving you water when you are dry

and restoring your strength.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

like an ever-flowing spring.

"It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves, This kind of fasting will never get you anywhere with me."

In these words, we see how God has seen through their religious behaviors and has called them out for it. I cried when I read this because God's heart is on display for us to see and it is beautiful.

Below I have inserted the 7th chapter of Zechariah and in this chapter which was written 200 years after Isaiah, God is referencing the message He gave to the earlier prophets which was Isaiah. We have an opportunity to see that God's request is still active and has not changed one bit. Now understand that Zachariah was written shortly after the nation had spent 70 years in exile in Babylon for not obeying the Lord. So he references the fasting again in verse 5 as He did in Isaiah and He called them out for doing it selfishly.   

Zechariah Chapter 7

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev. 2The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek, together with their men, to entreat the Lord 3by asking the priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, “Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”

4Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: 5“Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? 6And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? 7Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?’ ”

8And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: 9“This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’

11“But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. 12They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry.

13“ ‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord Almighty. 14‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land they left behind them was so desolate that no one traveled through it. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’ ”

If we can learn from these two chapters, written hundreds of years apart, it is this. God hates when we put on a show. The show is religion. We slap on our Sunday best and drag ourselves into church with a fake smile and a fake handshake. We stand in worship and raise our hands because we want others to see us being Holy. We bring our Bibles and walk around with them like they're trophies. We pretend to like others in the parking lot but as soon as the show is over, the act is dropped and we treat our waitresses like dirt and leave a small tip. We pass by the man with the buggy, clearly homeless, and never even look his way let alone help him. We talk about God, guns and religion and how we hate those in the White House yet never greave for them or pray for them to know God. We are proud and pompous, void of His life and love. We quote, we judge, we gossip and spread false rumors. We hate our jobs, our boss, our lives, our wives and our husbands. We look like a fraud to the eyes of the world.

Where is the compassion for people?

God stands at the door and is ready to judge this nation as He did back then. He has weighed the hearts of His people and have found them lacking and just as the nation of Israel was taken away to exile, so will the church. It's already begun, for the first time the majority of households in America are not claiming to be Christians. The nation is in an uproar calling Christians the enemy. They will be targeted even more as the enemy will take away those that are not truly God's children. Those that have stood in church for selfish motives will leave and will become enemies. They will expose the hypocrisy and call out their falsehood. Christians will rise against Christians as they try and defend their so called Holiness yet all the while they are false as well. The church as we have known it in America is doomed to fail.

However, just like the Lord had a remnant in the time of Elijah, there will be a remnant that comes out of the church. They will be the ones who never bowed their knee to religion and selfish motives. They will be the ones who God will use to lead the nations back to Him. They will be His people and His chosen ones who sacrificed their flesh upon the altar of God. They will be the ones who have a heart for God.

God loves those that love Him. As we draw close to Him, don't do it for selfish reasons. Don't pray for your day to go better or for someone else to change. Be the change. The world is in desperate need of a people who shine with the radiance of Moses. The world needs the love of God and those who let God live in them, they will provide the world with that love. 

Oh God of my soul, let your light shine in me. Let it root out any selfish motive I may have and any religious tendencies left in me. Lord, may you live freely in me to project your love through me as a lighthouse guides those lost at sea. If you see a root in me that needs removed, let me know Lord so I can present it to you for removal. Let me not fall prey to selfish ambitions but let me be as humble as you oh Lord. 

You are a blessing to me God. I could have been left to my selfish ways, yet you pursued me with your everlasting love. You cleaned me and made me new. You set my feet on solid ground. You groomed me and made me beautiful in your site. You showed me your love and you crushed the serpents head in me. Thank you God for your continued grace and love. May those that read this also pursue you for selfless reasons. May they lay on the altar of sacrifice and let your fire consume all that is not of you. May they come to you Lord and let you dwell in them for your Glory and your Mighty name so the nations will come to know you. May they shine in the darkness in the days ahead. May they never lose sight of you Lord. 

To God be the Glory, Always and Forever!