Isaiah 58
When God Doesn’t Answer
Where’s the Results? Vs. 1-3a
Check Your Motives Vs. 3b-5
The Right Approach Vs. 6-7
Prayer the Breaks Through Vs. 8-14
Intro: Is anyone there?
Do you ever try to call anyone anymore?
I’ve given up trying to call people under the age of 60… they just don’t answer
What’s really funny is when you text someone and you can see they got your text and they tell you they didn’t see it
Read Isaiah 58:1-3
Transition:
There is a new day dawning in our country and in the church
With the affirmation by the Supreme Court of Obamacare and Gay Marriage all the rules have changed
The individual liberties afforded by the constitution are no longer there
What ever the government deems right for you is what will happen
I’m not going to be a doomsday person in this but the stakes to follow Christ just got higher
You could open the lompoc record one morning and see a picture of me being led away in handcuffs because I refused to officiate a gay marriage at this church
My religious beliefs don’t mean anything and can be illegal
Does that change how I’m going to live… no
But I think that God is bringing a winnowing fork to his church
And all of those people who are nominal Christians are going to fall away
It’s just going to be too risky to follow Christ
I believe God is seeking for those who are true to Him
No longer are we going to be able to go through the motions of being a Christian
Looking the part but living a different way isn’t going to fly
Interesting that Israel went thru the same thing
They were going thru the motions and using God for their own purposes
As time went along they were wondering where all the benefits were
Isaiah shows us this morning why God doesn't answer sometimes
Where’s the Results? Vs. 1-3a
Isaiah describes perfectly the believer who doesn’t understand why God doesn’t answer
Vs. 1 Lift Up Your Voice
God tells Isaiah to Cry aloud, lift your voice like a trumpet
This isn’t a normal prophecy, The message isn’t normal
God speaks loudly and directly. His people need to hear their transgression - but will they hear?
Sin has been a common issue thru the whole book, but this sin is masked as good
God is trying to get the attention of the religious people who are impressed with how they live
I can tell you that Scripture says over and over this is the hardest group top reach
They think they are better than everyone else so they are not open to conviction
Yet they are frustrated because they aren’t getting anywhere
Vs. 2 Delight to Know My Ways
First, God describes the appearance:
They seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways.
On the surface, it seemed that God’s people loved Him and were devoted to Him.
They had the reputation of a nation that did righteousness, and the looked like people who would take delight in approaching God.
They did everything right… or so it seems
Better yet these are consistent temple attenders who loved being taught the Word of God
They would be perceived as mature Christians in today’s society
Yet their faith was a facade
Vs. 3 Why aren’t we seeing Results?
So they go and ask Isaiah why nothing is happening when they do their religious rituals
“Why have we fasted . . . and You have not seen?”
With this spiritual veneer, they felt God was unfair to them.
“LORD, we have fasted, but You still don’t answer our prayer.
Don’t you know that we seek you daily, delight to know Your ways, do righteousness, and take delight in approaching You?
All these good deeds should afford us something right?
Yet You do not answer our prayers!”
What gives?
Why aren’t we seeing the results that we should be seeing?
Solomon has some sage advice
Prov 1:28-29 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. 29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
Isaiah backs it up further
Is 29:13 And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
We can’t give God lip service and expect Him to constantly answer and give us attention
Check Your Motives Vs. 3b-5
Why Doesn’t God answer? Check Your motives
Enough with the image; now God exposes the reality.
The reality was that His people didn’t fast with the right heart, and did it only as an empty ritual.
The reality was that even on a day when they fasted, they still exploited their employees.
God didn’t accept their fasting when it wasn’t connected with a sincere heart of obedience.
Israel was often guilty of empty fasting
Zech 7:5 “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?
vs. 3b Do You Seek your Own Pleasure?
What are some wrong motives for fasting
First we go through with the fasting but still seek our own pleasures
Fasting is supposed to be a time of self denial, a complete rejection of the flesh
The Israelites were fasting but still doing the things that
vs. 4 Are You Trying to Settle a Score?
The second wrong motive is that they were using fasting as a weapon
They fasted for needs, certainly; but selfish needs like “LORD, help me win this argument.”
“LORD, help me defeat this person.”
Though their prayer was accompanied with fasting, it was still a selfish, even wicked prayer - so God did not answer.
God won’t be manipulated
Growing up in Pentecostal churches I saw this time and time again
We go through great spiritual machinations to get God to do what we want
We quote all of David’s prayers in the Psalms
We even quote the KJV because it sounds holier” Lord, Smote them with Ye Fire that rains down from heaven.”
Interesting note about David is that he was chased for close to ten years before God answered his prayer
We need to make sure that our time of fasting is getting right with God
Asking him to convict us of our sin, not settle some score
vs. 5 Is It An Empty Routine?
The final wrong motive is that the fasting is just a empty routine
The purpose of their fasting was to glorify themselves, to make their voice heard on high.
God says, “No more. You will not fast as you do this day.”
The kind of fasting God rebukes here is a hollow, empty, show, without spiritual substance
This isn’t the kind of fast God has chosen.
Even though they do all the right things in fasting God does not even call this a fast.
The people of Isaiah’s day had the same problem as the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.
They trusted in empty ritual, apart from the spiritual reality.
Real fasting - fasting that is partnered with real repentance, and isn’t only about image - has great power before God
Matthew 17:20-21 So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. 21 However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
But God sees through the hypocrisy of empty religious ritual, including fasting.
In Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, He told how the self-righteous Pharisee made a special point to say, “I fast twice a week”
Luke 18:10-14 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ 13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Fasting is about humbling ourselves before God
When we do this God will hear our prayers
2 Chron 7:14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land
The Right Approach Vs. 6-7
So what is the right approach so that God will hear our prayers?
Vs.6 Stop Acting Wickedly
God tells His people, “If you want to fast the way that pleases Me, begin with getting right with your brothers and sisters. Stop oppressing others, and reach out to help others.”
First, they had to stop acting wickedly towards others
Getting right with God begins by stopping the evil we do towards others.
Vs. 7 Start Acting Lovingly
Then, they had to start acting lovingly towards others
Getting right with God continues by doing loving things for other people.
Most of us Americans today are “the haves,” both materially and spiritually.
All around us are “the have-nots,” both rich and poor.
Are you aware, for example, that 24,000 people die from hunger and hunger-related causes every day, most of them children?
Matt 25:35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.
And how many are slipping into eternity without Christ? God cares about that. He wants us to do something about it.
It gets us busy, doing what we can about poverty, illiteracy, slavery, abortion, political manipulation, people being treated like animals, people going to eternal Hell.
Breaking Through to the Blessings Vs. 8-14
Vs. 8 Like Light Breaking thru the Darkness
If God’s people would couple their fasting with lives of righteousness and love, then they would see their prayers answered.
They would have lives full of light, full of healing, full of righteousness, full of the glory of the LORD.
When they called out to God, then the LORD will answer.
Vs. 9 Call and He Will Answer
Again, the LORD gives them three things to stop doing.
They must stop oppressing others, treating them as animals bound with a yoke.
They must stop pointing . . . the finger at others, and see where they are to blame.
They must stop speaking wickedness.
These are sins of commission. They are sins that we go out and do against the LORD and against others. If we will walk right with God, we must stop and guard against sins of commission.
Vs. 10 Pour Yourself Out for the Hungry
Again, the LORD gives them two things to start doing.
They needed to minister to the hungry with more than food; they had to extend their soul to the hungry.
They had to look for the afflicted soul and seek to satisfy it.
Failing to do these are sins of omission.
They are things that we should have done, yet we have not.
If we will walk right with God, we must open our eyes and do what is our loving duty before Him.
Is 52:12 For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
Six Blessings of a Life Right w/ God (Vs. 10-12)
It is an enlightened life: (Vs.10) Your light shall down in the darkness.
It is a guided life: (11a) The LORD will guide you continually.
It is a satisfied life: (11b) And satisfy your soul in drought.
It is a fragrant life: (11c) Like a watered garden.
It is a sustained life: (11d) Like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
It is a productive, healing life: (12) You shall build up the old waste places.
Vs. 13-14 Honor the Lord
Closing:
