Feel the Weight: Isaiah 58 Revisited
Isaiah
58 – Feel the Weight

God’s
main complaint against Israel in Isaiah 58 is that they are fulfilling their
religious obligations, even delighting to draw near to God, for their own
selfish desires. This type of devotion leads only to oppression, sin, and
wickedness. This is similar to what Isaiah has already written in Isaiah
1:10-20. Israel fulfills the commands of God yet their heart is far from him.
They look and sound the part of a follower of God, but their actions in life
outside of ritual betray their true heart attitudes. Israel is serving God to
get ahead in life, not to revere God and join in his purposes in the world.
Instead, God calls for repentance in Isaiah 1:18 and a life that reflects its
confession through genuine care for others in Isaiah 58:6-7.
This
passage is so weighty because it calls us to care for others. All of us could
do more. No excuses. There is plenty of poverty, hunger, oppression, hurt, and disease
in our world to be relieved. At a practical level this passage asks believers:
If you confess to believe in God, why don’t you do more? We have to wrestle
with this question. It is not enough for us to enjoy Sunday morning worship,
eat a big lunch with friends, enjoy a Bible study, and give no thought to those
around us. As Isaiah 58:7 says ‘should we hide ourselves from our own flesh?’
In other words those people you see that are dying from hunger, poverty, and
oppression, they are human to and you should have compassion on them if you
claim to follow God.
Furthermore,
the very thing that many people in the church claim to hate is hypocrites. I
have seen more than one member of our church leave claiming they have seen hypocrisy
in the membership. These exiting members claim to have seen other members in
the church confess one thing and do another. Basically, God through Isaiah is
calling Israel hypocrites. They delight to draw near to God, they pretend to be
righteous, and ask for God’s righteous judgments, but they don’t practice
righteousness (Isaiah 58:2). God is saying through Isaiah, ‘Make your actions
match your confession!’ This passage asks the hard question: Are you the
hypocrite you hate? Does your life match your confession? If you love to sing
the praises of God on Sunday morning, do you love to do his work in the world
the rest of the week? If you claim to follow God your behavior should match
your confession.
Now
here is the rub. No one’s life will fully match their confession. That is what
is so important about the Gospel. If you claim to follow Christ then Jesus’
righteousness has become your own. Jesus came and lived the perfect life that we should have lived, Jesus
came and died the death we deserved, and now we get his righteousness in
exchange for our sin. Now here is the good news. If you have committed your
life to Christ, God sees you as perfectly righteous in Christ, which provides
the freedom to attempt to grow in righteous living. The point in the passage is
that there should be fruit that matches your confession. Devotion to God must
result in growing concern and compassion others. Has yours?
Secondly, this
passage deals with the question, ‘Why does God not take notice of my religious
actions? Why doesn’t God hear me? Why does he feel so distant though I feel
like I have tried to draw close? (Isaiah 58:3). And the answer is that we have
sought our own pleasure in worship and religious practices rather than God
(Isaiah 58:3, Isaiah 58:13). Now there is a little bit of a knife edge
in this passage also. Seeking the Lord is pleasurable, it is meant to be so, it
is good for us to seek the Lord. Take a look at the first question and answer
in the Westminster Shorter
Catechism: What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever.
We are meant to enjoy our pursuit of God. In fact the more we pursue God well the
more fulfilled and joyful we will be in life. David in Psalm 84:10 says, ‘Better
is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere, I would rather be a
doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.’ So
how do we put this together? Here is the Point: the pleasure of following God
must be matched with a life striving after righteousness and the obedience He
requires and desires. Seeking the Lord cannot just be an experience, but it
must lead to real change, real transformation in the way we do life with
everyone. This is where so many of the current worship movements around the
world go wrong. Following God is more than a fulfilling experience in worship,
that is part of it, but that has to result in life change; being conformed into
the image of Christ. In Isaiah 58 that means concern for the poor and honorable
Sabbath observance. If you are feeling distant from God, Isaiah maybe suggesting
you have been out for your own ends instead of God’s. Try putting your
confession into practice and see if the blessings God promises in Isaiah 58
come to fruition.
The blessings in
Isaiah 58:8-12 are wonderful. God promises to raise true worshippers out of
darkness into light. Their righteousness will shine forth in the world and
comparably God’s glory will follow them. God will guide true worshippers, and
satisfy their desires even in the desert. He will make them strong, and water
them like a garden until they spring forth water. He will rebuild ruins, and
provide future generations, and repair many things in our world. Notice all the
Exodus language in these promises. God promises to be near, powerful,
providing, and guiding similar to ways he has in the past if we will focus on
him and do his work for His sake and not our own. What we will find if we heed
the words of this passage is that as we loose our life we will really find it.
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