Contrast between true and false worship
58
📚“Shout aloud!Do not spare!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet,
and declare to my people
their transgression,
and to the house of Jacob their sins.
58:1 When God’s people sin God’s prophets in every era must boldly and openly point those sins out to them.⚜
2 📚Yet they seek me daily,
and delight to know my ways,
as if it were a nation
that acts in righteousness,
and has not forsaken the ordinance
of their God.
They ask me for just decisions.
They take delight in approaching God.
3 📚‘Why have we fasted’,
they say, ‘And you have
not seen it?
Why have we afflicted our soul,
and you have paid no attention?
Look,
on your day of fasting you find pleasure,
and exploit 📖 all your labourers.
58:2-3 See again what can go along with a life of sin and rebellion – much religious activity and prayer, inner deception, and a conviction that God is not treating them as fairly and graciously as they desire. Jer 17:9 gives the inner cause of such madness of men.⚜
4 📚Look,
you fast for strife and debate,
and to strike with the fist
of wickedness.
You do not fast as you do today
to make your voice heard on high.
5 📚Is this the kind of fast I have chosen?
Merely a day for a man
to afflict his soul?
Is it to bow down his head
like a bulrush,
and to spread sackcloth and
ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
and an acceptable day to the LORD?
6 📚“Is not this the fast
that I have chosen:
to loose the bands of wickedness,
to undo the heavy burdens,
and to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
7 📚Is it not to share your bread
with the hungry,
and to bring to your house the poor
who have been thrown out?
When you see the naked,
to cover him, and not to hide yourself
from those of your own flesh?
58:4-7 Their fasting was not from good motives, nor from an understanding of what God wanted. Fasting (and all religious activities) with them (and with a great many people since then) was only another means of gaining what they thought was merit and of displaying what they considered their own righteousness – Matt 6:16; Luke 18:10-12.⚜
58:6-7 God intended fasting to be associated with repentance, with a desire to live justly, with a determination to keep God’s instructions, especially as regards the poor and weak and helpless (Isa 1:17; Ezek 18:5-9; Matt 25:35-36). This is what God wants to see, not men boasting in their righteousness because they observe a day of fasting. If our religion is not compassionate, does not cause us to help others, it is a vain and useless thing (Jam 1:27).⚜
8 📚Then your light will break forth
like the dawn,
and your healing will spring
forth speedily,
and your righteousness will go
before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be
your rear guard.
9 📚Then you will call,
and the LORD will answer;
you will cry out,
and he will say,
‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke
from among you,
the pointing the finger,
and speaking evil,
10 📚And if you draw out your soul
to the hungry,
and satisfy the afflicted soul,
then your light will rise
in darkness,
and your dusk will be
like noonday,
11 📚And the LORD will guide
you continually,
and satisfy your soul in drought,
and make your bones fat;
and you will be like a watered garden,
and like a spring of water,
whose waters do not fail.
12 📚And from among you there will be
those who build up the old
waste places.
You will raise up the foundations
of many generations,
and you will be called,
‘The Repairer of the Breach’,
‘The Restorer of Streets to Dwell in’.
58:8-12 If Israel repented, sought God as they ought, and put into practice God’s word there would be marvelous results. Believers now also – in the measure they obey God’s Word – will enjoy the blessings listed in these verses: light, healing, righteousness marching before them, God’s glory guarding them, answered prayer, guidance, satisfaction, strength, fruitfulness, power to build and restore.⚜
13 📚“If you turn away your foot
from trampling on the Sabbath 📖,
from doing your pleasure
on my holy day,
and call the Sabbath a delight 📖,
the holy day of the LORD
honourable,
and will honour him,
not acting according to
your own ways,
or finding your own pleasure,
or speaking your own words,
14 📚Then you will delight yourself
in the LORD 📖;
and I will cause you to ride on the high places 📖
of the earth,
and feed you with the heritage 📖
of Jacob your father;
for the mouth of the LORD
has spoken it”.