Copyright Mike Sullivan, 2018.
This study is part of a ten-week teaching series on Isaiah given at Xenos Christian Fellowship in 2017 and 2018.
We're nearing the end of Isaiah now, and it's been a while since we've said much about Isaiah himself.
Isaiah had an amazing career. He served as God's spokesman to Judah [map] for 60 years. He saw times of revival, like the one that broke out during the reign of King Hezekiah. But now, nearing the end of his life, the people of Israel were quickly drifting away from their God.
Manasseh became king of Judah, and…
2 Chronicles 33:2 He did what was evil in the LORD's sight... 3 He rebuilt the pagan shrines... 4 He built pagan altars in the Temple of the LORD... 6 Manasseh also sacrificed his own sons in the fire in the valley of Ben-Hinnom. He practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft, and he consulted with mediums and psychics. He did much that was evil in the LORD's sight... 9 But Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem to do even more evil than the pagan nations...
What a train wreck! How did spiritual life in Judah become this bad? How did the people of Judah lose their way? We learn more about what happened in Isaiah 58.
What went wrong?
58:1 "Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.
God says the people are in rebellion, but they seem eager to know God's ways, to do what is right, and to draw near to him. So, what is the problem? Actually, there are at least three problems. The first is in 58:3…
58:3 'Why have we fasted,' they say [to God], 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?'
The people of Judah were fastingi and humbling themselves, and they expected God to notice and do something good for them in return. What do you call this? Obligating God—showing devotion to get God to do what you want.
If you wake up one morning and your kids bring you coffee and volunteer to do dishes for a week, what does it mean? They want to upgrade their cell phone! The people of Judah were taking a similar approach to God. They assumed by going without food for a period of time they would impress God. And when it didn't work, they complained, "we fasted, but you haven't noticed!!"
If you've ever really wanted something, like a certain job, or a relationship, or relief from a difficult situation, and were frustrated with God for failing to deliver, then you know how the people of Judah felt.
So, obligating God, this is the first problem with the people of Judah. The second is in the next few verses…
58:3b "Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. 4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?"
God is not impressed with their fasting, at all, and quickly zeroes in on a second problem causing Judah to go astray: compartmentalization. Compartmentalization is obeying God only during certain times or in certain parts of your life.
Notice the emphasis on the word "day."
"Only a day for a man to humble himself?"
"A day acceptable to God?"
The Jews had fast days. These special days were a regular part of their life. And during their fasts, they made a show of humbling themselves before God. But should we only be humble for a day? What about the rest of the week?!
That's where hypocrisy comes in, a third problem. Hypocrisy is showing outward devotion while completely ignoring what matters to God.
We've probably all met Christians who live for God on Sundays but live for self the rest of the week. The wealthy landowners of Judah took that to the next level. They managed to exploit the poor on the very same day they fasted (58:3b)!
These people had heard Isaiah preach against oppression. They knew it was wrong to exploit the poor. But there was money to be made, so they did it anyhow.
Did they felt a twinge of guilt about oppressing their workers? Who knows? Here is what we do know: they tried to cover their offenses with an outward show of devotion. They fasted, they bowed their heads, they put on sackcloth and ashes to show sorrow for their sin. They did these external things to get that I'm-OK-with-God feeling: "There's no oppression of laborers to see here, God. Look, we're wearing itchy sackcloth. Watch us bow our head and fast. Look at how humble we are!"
The temptation to operate this way with God is strong: do a few good deeds here, make a donation there, and hope he doesn't notice that we've utterly disobeyed him in other areas. But does it work?
A while back, I pulled out a slice of bread that was completely covered with mold [pic]. I spread a thick layer of peanut butter over it and it looked better, so I ate it. Makes you sick to your stomach, right? God has a similar revulsion to hypocrisy. Earlier in the book he says...
Isaiah 29:13 "These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote."
Summary
How was it, exactly, that the people of Judah drifted so far away from God? It happened because of these problems: obligating God, compartmentalization, and hypocrisy. Each was a telling symptom of a deeper, older, more tenacious problem: religion.
If you study the history of Christianity, you'll see a continual drift toward religion. Let's take prayer as an example.
Prayer has always been an important part of the life of a Christian. It provides a way to draw near to God, to intercede—to ask God to help others, and to thank him for everything he has done for us.
But soon after the time of Christ, certain prayers came to be seen as having their own special power, and Christians began to recite them. A classic example of this is the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..." Because Jesus prayed this prayer, some assumed repeating it verbatim would have a special impact on God.
Over time, reciting this prayer and other standardized prayers was seen as "what spiritual people do," and as an effective way to get God to do something.
Thus the activity, praying to God, becomes a goal in and of itself, and the original purpose of the activity, a heartfelt way to connect with God, is lost. This is how people drift away from God.
Jesus knew this was a potential problem, so before he gave his disciples his "Our Father" prayer as a pattern to follow, he warned them:
Matthew 6:7 "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.
Despite Jesus' clear warning, his prayer still went on to become the most meaninglessly-repeated prayer of all time!
The fact that Jesus' prayer was reduced to an empty outward form doesn't just show the power of our tendency toward religion. It's a tragedy—God's people reduce what is meant to be a rich personal way to connect with him down to an impersonal mantra. Prayers once directed toward God in essence become a prayer to self, a ritual designed to make God do what we want.
Now before we get too self-righteous toward someone who recites the Lord's Prayer over and over again, we should recognize that a similar drift toward religion can happen in any part of the Christian life that involves concrete activity.
In our church, we love to come together to study the Bible. Someone spending time with us for a while would quickly notice that people who are perceived to be spiritual attend quite a few Bible studies. That's something we value.
Is it possible that someone here might participate in one of our Bible studies not to learn about God and serve others, but because they want to be seen as spiritual by other people? Or because they think gathering together with other Christians somehow makes God more likely to answer their prayers? That would be a religious approach to God. Has that ever happened here? Sure it has!
We can approach any activity in the Christian life in a religious way—whether it is meeting with someone to learn the Bible, or group prayer, or giving to the food pantry, having a "quiet time" every day—you name it. In most cases, the problem isn't with the activity itself, but rather that we're relating to it in the wrong way. Instead of seeing what we are doing as God's provision for our growth, or as an opportunity to serve, or as a way to draw near to God, we're simply trying to keep up appearances or to obligate God to do something for us.
In this passage, God makes it clear to the people of Judah, and to us, that he utterly rejects religion. This isn't the kind of relationship he wants to have with us. This isn't what it means to know him.
What does God want?
What does God want instead of religion and its attendant symptoms of obligating God, compartmentalization, and hypocrisy?
58:6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
God has a completely different kind of fast in mind. Instead of going without food, he'd rather see the people of Judah take a break from mistreating the poor: Quit enslaving the laborers in your fields. Pay them a fair wage. Give the poor justice in the courts instead of bribing the judge. Loose the chains of injustice. Set people free.
So what kind of fast? Not a fast to obligate God to do what they want, but a fast where they do what God wants.
Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.
That's what God wants, but the people of Judah were doing just the opposite.
"You want to be heard by me?" God says. "How about making what I value a priority?"
If you could boil down what God wants from us into a single word it is love. God wants us to love and care for the people around us. And when we do that, there are several benefits
58:8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. 9a Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
There are so many benefits of doing what God wants...
"your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear"
Here's something I've seen time and time again: When we step out to serve—perhaps by serving the poor as Isaiah describes here or by helping someone grow and know God better—what do we find? God uses us to bring help and healing and growth to others, but we are the ones who change the most!
The word "healing" here carries the idea of new flesh over and old wound. As we move out to love people, we ourselves begin to experience healing from past damage. As we care for the people God cares about, we experience tremendous growth and change in our own lives.
"your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard"
Have you ever worked with a Christian who is vocal about his faith, but who is lazy and uncooperative? It makes God look bad. The opposite is being described here: when someone prioritizes what God values and serves and loves others, their actions call attention to how good God is, and God winds up being held in high regard. In other words, God is glorified.
I have a friend who grew up in a small town in New England. She is a Christian now, but growing up, she wasn't because she didn't know many Christians and had limited exposure to church. One Christian she did know was a nurse in the local hospital who went above and beyond for her patients. She comforted families in the hospital, visited patients at home after they were discharged, attended funerals and was generally there for people in times of crisis. Christianity was unpopular, but this nurse's promises to pray for people were sincerely appreciated. My friend told me, "everyone knew this nurse was a Christian, but it was hard to dismiss her faith because so many people had benefited from her love. Everyone in town knew she was a treasure. We all knew it." Years later when my friend was in her mid-forties trying to decide whether or not to become a Christian, the example of this nurse helped her decide to follow Christ.
People like that nurse lead with a righteousness God empowers them to have, and God's glory follows. Others see that God is good through their righteous actions, and God is glorified. What an awesome outcome!
And just in case those benefits are not enough to entice you, here are a few more...
58:9b "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. 11 The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
This is speaking to something that many of us have experienced. You would think that exerting effort to serve others would be draining and exhausting, and you know… it often is! But Isaiah says people who are committed to serving others will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring. In other words, as they serve others, they will experience renewed strength and energy from God. As they meet the needs of other people, their own needs will be met.
Ask some folks who have been on a short-term trip to Haiti to offer free dental work, or people who have teamed up to serve addicts in our Hope ministry, or someone who is leading a home church. Is caring for people exhausting? Definitely! But it is also fortifying for your soul. We experience a net energy gain when we serve others because God supplies us with his life and power to give away to others. This is how we are designed to operate—receiving God's love and giving it away.
Here's one last benefit:
59:12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
The next time you are at a party and someone asks you what you do, you could try out one of these titles: "I'm the Repairer of Broken Walls," or "I'm the Restorer of Streets with Dwellings."
Isaiah uses these titles to make his people aware of a tangible opportunity to see their nation restored. If they would just cooperate with God, the land would be renewed. Whole communities could change. And for us reading this today, he's reminding us that when we purpose to carry out God's will, we can make a real difference in someone else's life.
I am following God today thanks, in part, to a year of focused investment that I received from an older Christian. We studied the book of 1 Corinthians together. He asked me questions and learned about my past. He showed me God's alternative to my destructive ways of thinking and cast vision for how God could use me to serve others. Our time together set my life on a different trajectory.
Summarize the benefits of pursuing what God wants…
Healing and growth in our own lives, helping people see how good God is, renewed strength, impact on others—that's what God wants for us and it is way better than religion!!
Avoiding the trap of religion
If the benefits of doing what God wants sound appealing, you may still be cautious. Some people are so turned off by past religious experiences—by the hypocrisy they saw, by people living double lives—that they want nothing to do with religion.
If that describes you, you may be surprised to hear that God shares your aversion to religion and wants to steer you clear of it. In chapter 57, he explains how.
First, he says something hard to hear…
Isaiah 57:12 I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not benefit you.
God knows about the good things you have done. But if you are relying on those to tip the scales in your favor, they won't benefit you. Your righteousness may be relatively better than someone else's, but that's not the comparison that matters. Isaiah says compared to God's perfect character, "our righteous deeds are nothing but filthy rags… our sins," he says, "sweep us away…" (Is. 64:6).
Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
God is clearly committed to his own perfect moral standards. And he won't water down those perfect standards by approving sinful decisions made by you, me or anyone else. But incredibly, as exalted as he is, God is willing to be near us. There is just one condition: contrition. "I am high and holy," he says, "but I will be with him who is contrite and lowly of spirit."
During the first round of the 2018 NCAA basketball tournament, #1 seed Virginia faced off against #16 UBMC. If you aren't familiar with UBMC, the initials stand for University of Maryland (Baltimore County). Two minutes after tip-off, CBS sports analyst Seth Davis tweeted, "Virginia. Sharpie." By that, Davis meant, "mark it down, Virginia will win." But Virginia wound up losing, by 20 points! So, what do you do if you are Seth Davis and you have to appear on the postgame show? You show contrition. He apologized to UBMC and their fans and admitted he was wrong!
We're in a similar situation. We can't conceal our sin. It is there. But God can work with contrition. Contrition is when you tell God, "I know there are problems, sins, in my life that I can't just sweep aside. They are there and I can't deny it. I feel real regret about what I've done and agree with you that I was wrong."
Contrition, an honest accounting of your sin, is the first step away from religion. God says there is hope for someone who is contrite.
Right before he died, John Newton, the former slave trader turned preacher said this:
"Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior."
You have to embrace both truths to avoid religion. You have to tell God, "I am culpable for real sin against you, and I am grateful you are willing to save me."
If you hate religion, you have that in common with God. He hates it, too. He isn't interested in your outward shows of devotion. He loves you and just wants to see contrition, real humility about your sin—you admitting you have a problem and calling out to him for forgiveness. It's as simple as that. That's how you avoid the trap of religion and actually come to know God.
For the person who knows God
Religion is a tragedy, especially when God's people drift into it. Every so often in the media we hear that yet another Christian leader has fallen into some heinous affair that has gone on for years. What happened? Usually we see the signs of religion—compartmentalization, hypocrisy, outward shows of devotion. Somewhere along the way following God became a routine, knowing God was replaced with outward forms. And eventually all that mattered was keeping up appearances. The rest was death. That is how the people of Judah gradually became callous to the needs of the poor. That is how Christians often drift away from God today.
Has religion led you away from God? If so, what can be done?
58:13 "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, 14 then you will find your joy in the LORD…
To keep God's people from slipping back into superficial religion, Isaiah urges them to keep the Sabbath! At first this sounds like another religious hoop to jump through, but it wasn't.
The Sabbath was a weekly day of rest. There were no elaborate rituals connected to it. Once a week, on the Sabbath day, God commanded the Jews…
...to rest knowing that God would provide for them,
...to humble themselves and admit their dependence on God,
...to remember all that God had done.
Think of this rhythm of life: during the week God's people served him and attended to what he wanted, like being just and caring for the poor. But on the Sabbath day he commanded them: "drop everything, rest, enjoy me." Week in and week out they were to serve and rest, serve and rest, like inhaling and exhaling.
Every week when your car is low on gas, you are forced to fill up. This routine is a regular reminder that without fuel, your car can go nowhere! In a similar way, God instituted the Sabbath as a weekly reminder that serving him requires resting in him.
Today we no longer keep a weekly Sabbath. Referring to holy days on the Jewish calendar, including the Sabbath, Paul says...
Colossians 2:17 For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality.
Instead of resting on the Sabbath, today we rest in Christ. We go to him to refuel. Jesus explained it like this…
John 7:37 …Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. [Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 55] 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive...
Jesus promises if we come to him we will experience streams of water flowing from within us. Not literal water of course, but God's life and power surging through us.
How is that possible? If you know Christ, Jesus says you have the Holy Spirit living in you, God present inside you. And that totally changes how you go about doing what God wants.
Maybe you've heard that following God is about obeying a list of rules. It's not. There are things God wants you to do for him. Things that are hard, challenging, rewarding. But if your plan is to just do them, good luck with that. That's religion.
Christians don't just obey Christ, they rest in him. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ provides us with the guidance, the power, and even the inclination we need to follow him.
Even as we are working for God, we should be resting in Christ continually. Like inhaling and exhaling. We come before him in prayer, with the Bible open, looking for direction, and through his Spirit he guides us and empowers us to serve others. Like Paul says…
Colossians 1:29 "…I labor, striving according to his power, which mightily works within me."
When we lose sight of this, when we fail to rest in Christ, we revert back to religion. That's not what God wants.
Two things to remember
If you are hearing this and realize, "everything I've been doing as a Christian has been superficial religion," you may have a strong urge to just drop everything you're doing.
Maybe you are saying to yourself, "This has all been for show! I'm just going through the motions. I'm not trying to draw near to God. I'm just doing what people tell me to do." If that accurately describes your Christian life, that is a problem. But before you drop everything, here are two things to remember:
First, Christianity isn't about jumping through a bunch of hoops, it's about knowing Jesus, having a relationship with him. If you realize you've lost track of that, good! That can be fixed. Don't waste time blaming someone. Just take a long walk with God and tell him "I want a restored, personal, intimate friendship with you." Tell him, "I've been focused on getting you to give me what I want, but what I really need is you." Go to Christ.
Second, what you do as a Christian should be founded on Scripture. If you're doing what you're doing as a Christian simply because people around you do it, you are vulnerable to deception. What if everyone around you drifts away from God? That's what happened in Judah—the whole country lost it. If our church drifted into superficial religion, would you object, or go right along with everyone else?
Your best protection against religion isn't dropping everything you are doing. It's going back to Scripture to remember why you do what you do. Religion will always have man as its primary audience. You need to look to the word of God for direction. If you do, you'll find what we emphasize around here—praying, learning the word, serving, being with believers—these activities do contribute to our health and growth as a Christian and they are repeatedly endorsed in Scripture. When that ceases to be true, it'll be on you to notice and to do something different.
i Motyer says the only fast commanded in the Law happened during the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:26-32). He points out this day is called a "holy convocation," a time of self-abasement free of work. From this he assumes fasting was involved. But the word "convocation" (Hebrew: miqra) just means summoning or assembly. In my own study I found no command to fast in the Pentateuch. Ezra proclaimed a fast (Ezra 8:21) and so did Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20:3). Esther established fasting in association with Purim (Esther 9:29-31). But is this God's endorsement, or just an explanation of how the festival of Purim came to be? The only commands to fast I saw were in Joel 2, vs. 11 and 15, but these read like a concession to how the Jews normally expressed contrition. A similar command is given in a mocking tone in Joel 1:14. In Zechariah 8:19, God says the fasts of the 4th, 5th, 7th and 10th month "will become joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah." But this is still short of a command.
When people in the Bible fast, it is often associated with sorrow over sin (1 Samuel 7:6; Daniel 9:3–4; Jonah 3:5–8), showing humility (Ezra 8:21), or seeking to know the will of God (Acts 14:23). Jesus fasted at times (Matthew 4:2) and assumed others did (Matthew 6:16-18), but his disciples were also known for not fasting (Matthew 9:14). Some kinds of demons required fasting to cast out (Mark 2:18), and Jesus said his people would fast after he was gone (Mark 2:20). Fasting was a badge of spiritual honor among the Pharisees (Luke 18:12). The early Christians fasted (Acts 13:2, 3) before the Holy Spirit set aside Paul and Barnabas to be itinerant church planters. And Paul and Barnabas fasted before selecting elders to lead local churches (Acts 14:23). Fasting is described but not prescribed in the New Testament.