Isaiah 58:1-12

Isaiah 58:1. Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.

And what a strange thing this is, that there are some people who take delight in the ordinances of God, and yet they are living in the most shameful sin. I must confess this remains a mystery to me. But I hear of some who will attend prayer-meetings and seem to enjoy them who are to be found in the House of God whenever the doors are opened, and yet their characters will not bear the light. One would think that they would not wish to be told of their sins, and to come under a faithful ministry, and yet they do, and the more faithful that ministry is the more they seem to like it, and yet go on in their sins. Oh! what strange blindness is this which loves the light, and yet will not see by it men that take to themselves water and much soap and yet will not wash that heap up the bread about them as if they built a house with bread, and yet do not eat of it. Oh! infatuation most strange, to love the gospel apparently, and yet not to receive it into the heart so as to be changed by it. See how God talks to this religious people.

Isaiah 58:3. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.

They fasted, and then they said, «Why did not God accept our fasting?» Why, because they made their poor servants work up to the very last all that they could do. They never gave them any rest. They exacted all their labours, and they themselves, while they pretended to faint, were taking their pleasure,

Isaiah 58:4. Behold ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day to make your voice to be heard on high.

They were fond of getting into religious disputes; and when they had a fast day they fell to loggerheads about different doctrines, and they got angry with one another, till they began to smite with the fist of wickedness, and they thought that a day spent in that manner would be acceptable to God. What kind of a God would he be?

Isaiah 58:5. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness,

That is, if by any dishonesty you have got a man in your power, set him free if you have oppressed him, give him his rights. This is God's kind of fasting.

Isaiah 58:6. To undo the heavy burdens,

Not to exact from a man what you have no right to have, but what, perhaps, the law may allow you to get out of him. This is God's fasting «to undo the heavy burdens.»

Isaiah 58:6. And to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry,

It is God's kind of fasting to give what you would have eaten yourselves, to let other's feast. «To deal thy bread to the hungry.»

Isaiah 58:7. And that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him: and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

When you know that there are poor persons, perhaps of your own kith and kin and, in one respect, we are all of one flesh when we know that there are such, and yet refuse to help them, it is idle to talk about fasting. But if we would see to this, then comes this promise.

Isaiah 58:8. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy reward. Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger,

That is, the scorning the poor man.

Isaiah 58:9. And speaking vanity; And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day: And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones:

You see, by giving comes getting. According to the philosophy of God, it is by watering others that we get watered ourselves. God feeds the man that feeds others. He made fat the bones of the hungry. Now, God says he will make fat his bones. He satisfied the souls of those that were in drought as best he could, and now God will satisfy his soul in drought, and make him:

Isaiah 58:11. And thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

God help us to obey his precept that we may partake in his promise.

This exposition consisted of readings from Isaiah 58:1; Jeremiah 30:1.