Introduction
Have you ever been out looking at used cars? Most lots will do a pretty good job of cleaning the inside and outside of the car. There may even be a scent of a new car sprayed inside. The body is polished and the tires are coated in Armorall. Even the engine looks pristine – steam-cleaned so there isn't so much as a trace of grease.
But as we all know, the appearance of a car doesn't always tell the whole story. Often there are very attractive vehicles that have serious mechanical issues that are not readily seen by the naked eye. Often, deep within the engine lie parts that are not functioning as they ought to. And sometimes, even what appears to be running properly, to the untrained layman, might actually have serious issues that only an expert with the right instrument is able to find.
This, too, is the case of the human condition. From the outside, the things we do and say may appear to be right in line with what God desires. But too often, the driving force behind what is done is religious in nature rather than relational. It is duty rather than delight. And it is task-oriented rather than will-oriented – God's will that is.
The Symptoms (Isaiah 58)
1)Principle
Religious acts can never compensate for relational deficiencies.
2)Introduction
Have you ever felt guilty about not spending enough time with your children so you buy them something you know they will like to make up for it?
Or perhaps you haven't been communicating with your wife like you ought to so you get her some flowers, thinking that will mend any relational issues.
People often do the same types of things with God. Thinking they can make up for sin by doing “good” things. Moral things even. But there is no good thing that can remedy a broken relationship with God – none!
To think that religious practices can achieve a good standing before God is to import pagan practices of offering some sort of penance to a god of human making. A god who is nothing and can do nothing...except, make a person feel good about himself. And that is nothing but a false hope anyway.
I had the privilege of going down to a rescue mission in KC this past week. This is not something that I had planned, but opportunity came up by God's planning, and I am thankful. I stood before a group of men who had absolutely nothing in terms of worldly possessions. And yet, what they did possess, was the very same valuable part of humanity we all possess – the human soul. That eternal part of our design that God creates with each new person. That part of us that is broken and in need of regeneration so that we are able to relate to and fellowship with our Creator. The true Creator that does not demand that we clean up before we approach Him. But the God who provides everything we need to be clean in order that we might be equipped to do what He requires.
3)Israel's Rebellion and Sin
In verse 1, God tell Isaiah to shout aloud, raise your voice, and declare. He was not to hold back but was to let them have it.
And it was the rebellion and sin of the people that he was trying to get across to them. He wanted them to see and understand what the problem with their relationship to God really stemmed from.
Appearance of Piety
If you were to look at verses 2-3, you would think there was some real effort going on on the part of Israel.
After all, they are:
seeking God out day after day
eager to know His ways
ask for just decisions
eager for God to come near
they fast
and they humble themselves
There is a lot of appearance of good here. But there are these troubling words in God's statement that point out the subtle truth of what is going on.
Visibility of Sin
Some sins are quite evident to others around. When someone is caught embezzling people's investments, it make headlines and people point fingers. And this is certainly a wrong thing to do, embezzling that is.
But we often ignore the lack of integrity that subtly shows up in the way we approach God.
To:
seem eager to know His ways
act like we do what is right
seem eager for God to come near
to fast and humble ourselves but for self-centered motives
This is deceit. And it is an attempt to either feel better about myself or have others feel better about me or manipulate God into doing what I think He ought to be doing.
Can this please God? Not at all.
He never calls us to clean up our outsides in order to be rightly aligned with him. By necessity, He has to clean the inside in order for our outward works to even have value.
And these works can also be squandered when we begin to use them as an end in and of themselves. As if God was all about rules and not about a relationship with His people.
Example from my attitude on Saturday, writing a lecture. I had things to do that morning. There were errands to run. I mowed the lawn. I took a nap (due to lack of sleep the night before). I didn't get started on the lecture until around 2:00 or 2:30 in the afternoon. And I wanted to be done. Besides, I hadn't spent enough time this past week pouring over the text to even have a good idea of what I wanted to say. But I wanted to get it done so I wasn't working on it until o-dark-thirty.
I didn't finish Saturday. And I barely started. And I wound up with a bad attitude. I even became irritated later in the evening due to a culmination of events from the past several weeks. I was not a pleasant person.
The bottom line is, I sinned. And I had to spend some time with the Lord on Sunday morning and then later in the morning talking with my wife. I had some sin to confess. I had started doing what God had called me to do, but I was not doing it in the right sort of way. And by the end of the day I was “hitting” so to speak. I was not concerned with others' feelings. I was wrapped up in my own discomfort and had to learn and live out an illustration (so I might have something to write on Sunday).
Self-Centered (Isaiah 58:3b-5)
The only fast prescribed in the law was on the Day of Atonement. It was a day of humbling oneself before God. It was a time when God's righteousness and justice were contemplated as the sacrifices for atonement were made and God would forgive the people their sins.
But the irony is, these people were expecting God to bring justice and righteousness while they were acting anything but righteous and were withholding justice from their fellow man.
Isn't it true that sometimes the thing a person cries out for the loudest is actually one of the deficiencies he display in his own character?
We see it in our own children. We see it in people around us. But one of the hardest things is to see it in ourselves.
There was a lot of interpersonal conflict, which was actually a symptom of a much deeper issue.
Their motivation for fasting, seeking God, humbling, etc. was not out of a love and devotion for God but out of a selfish motive. Their wasn't a genuine sorrow for sin and a desire for restored fellowship, there was a desire for God's blessing in a material sense apart from what was really needed – a spiritual blessing of purification.
What about us in the West, are we any better? What about you and me?
It's easy to get into the mode where we are only going through the motions – checking off the boxes:
Read my Bible
Prayed
Went to Church
Gave a tithe
Sang in the choir
Taught a Sunday School class
Delivered meals to the home-bound
Etc.
All of which are good things, mind you.
But is the motive to give because I have been given or is it in order to get what I hope God has in store for me?
A relationship with God and a love for Him must be the starting point of any endeavor that He values. It can never stem from a desire to appear righteousness or compensate for past infractions.
4)The Greatest Commandment
Matthew 22:34-40
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Jesus was teaching that for God's people, God's will is the most important factor. What He desires for us is what matters. And when our love for God is such that we consider our lives as His – yielded to His will, then the things we do will reflect His love and concern for humanity.
Only when our hearts are right with him can we rightly see the needs of those around us. Only then is our focus off of ourselves and on those who were created in the image of God.
When God is central, He reveals the condition and plight of those around me and I am sensitive to the heart of God.
The Apostle John put it this way in 1 John 2:9-11:
9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
Often the Bible uses this idea of hatred and love to depict what we might not consider hatred and love. Jesus said that unless one hates his father and mother, he is not worthy of being called his disciple.
In 1 John, I believe the Apostle is getting at the fact that seeing a brother in need but not having compassion on him is tantamount to hating him. To not have love for someone, we might consider indifference. But indifference is hatred in the eyes of God.
Later in 1 John 3:15, he writes:
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
5)Conclusion
To show acts of kindness is in no way making one right with God.
But to not show acts of kindness and not be concerned about those around us is something to be concerned about. It reveals a selfish heart at best. And it should make me wonder about my view of the love of God.
What are you doing to meet the needs of those God has put in your path?
What do you need to do in order to discover the needs of those around you?
I wonder what would happen if you approached your pastor or priest and asked if there was any way you could get involved in a church ministry that reaches out to those in need.
Maybe to the home-bound. Maybe to a nursing home. Perhaps to the homeless. Or even to those who are not from the US but are here as students or foreign workers.
One of the dangers (I use that term cautiously here) in reaching out to those in need is the idea that physical needs are all that matter. The idea that the “gospel” is all about fixing life's hurts.
Any effort on our part to only meet the physical needs is an empty endeavor. Jesus never came to earth just to meet the physical needs of people. He showed his power over any physical need in order to show he had all authority. But He primarily came to free the captives and bring justice and righteousness.
He came to set the spiritually captive free and to be the mediator between God and man so that God's justice was met in him.
Our benevolence must be motivated by a love for God and a concern for the spiritual condition of the lost.
You may be great at reaching out to those who are down and out – that is great!
What are you doing to meet the spiritual needs of those who are captive to sin?
God doesn't need our good works even though He has good works for us to do.
What good things are you doing in an attempt to appease an angry God? Do you realize that is impossible?
Take a look at some of the blessings God promises to those who are in fellowship with Him and seeking to obey God's leading (58:6-end of the chapter)...
The Diagnosis and the Cure (Isaiah 59)
1)Principle
Sin is a barrier to fellowship with God.
God must intervene for the sinner to be saved.
2)Introduction
When someone is trying to please God by what they do, there is the idea that somehow I am earning the blessings of God. That if I do what He wants, even though we saw in chapter 58 that this is out of selfish ambition, He is somehow obligated to give me what I want.
Even a believer who harbors sin in his heart and tries to make up for that guilty conscience by doing penance – he will become frustrated in his attempt to relate to God.
His prayers may seem to hit the ceiling. There is no vibrancy in his relationship with God. There seems to be a dryness and stagnation and no real growing hunger and thirst for righteousness.
And so the tendency is to become discouraged with God and fault Him for the lack of intimacy. But in reality, it wasn't God that initiated the breach of fellowship, it is always the sinner's issue.
God never moves from His place of absolute righteousness.
3)The Diagnosis: Sin Separates
In chapter 53 of Isaiah, the servant bore our iniquities and our sins. It was because of us that he suffered and was afflicted.
Here, that same condition is mentioned as the reason for separation from God. Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Sin does separate man from God. In fact, we fall short of the glory of God because of it. It's not that God cannot hear, but as Isaiah put it, He will not hear due to sin.
And this is not because God doesn't care about the condition of man. But because He does care, He will not allow man to approach Him on his own terms.
This must have been shocking news to Israel, especially since they were the ones in a covenant relationship with God. But they had forsaken that covenant for the most part and all that was left was a “religious shell” – the trappings of what once constituted a way of restoring fellowship with the Holy God.
Their hearts were far from him.
Bloody Hands and Lying Lips (59:3)
I am not sure if verse 3 is literally talking about murder in the strictest sense. But it may be.
It could be talking about withholding justice such that someone becomes destitute and dies.
Or perhaps it was due to using the poor or needy as a scapegoat (if you will) in an effort to pin a crime on someone. And because they didn't have money, somehow we just need a suspect so why not him.
I am not sure.
Any way you slice it, they had blood on their hands in the sight of God.
And to hold out ones hands to God, a symbol of seeking God's blessing, was a hypocritical act. “Fill my hands with all the good things you have to offer LORD”. When all the while you are using those good things to fill your own stomach.
Similarly, to seek God in prayer with lips that lie and a wicked tongue – this just should not be. How can unclean mouths utter praises to God or bring petitions that reach the ears of the Almighty? This is not possible.
It's Your Actions Stupid (59:4-8)
How often do we judge right and wrong based upon outward appearances? Isn't that often the first thing that comes to mind?
We often consider sin to be the things that are actually the outworking of the corruption in the heart.
Jesus said, Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks (Luke 6:44-46):
44 Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. 45 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.
This is not to say that everything that appears to be good is in fact good – there may be an impure motive that nullifies any value an act might have.
But certainly, the corruption within is the greater issue. The fact that I don't murder, or commit adultery, or take the Lord's name in vain does not mean I am not a sinner and lawbreaker in the eyes of God.
What sin might you be allowing that is causing a barrier in your relationship with God?
What “good” things might you be doing as a coverup for the sin inside your heart?
The outside may look nice and clean, but inside there may be corruption, and without God's righteousness, that is what there is.
Worse than that...
4 No one calls for justice;
no one pleads his case with integrity.
They rely on empty arguments and speak lies;
they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.
5 They hatch the eggs of vipers
and spin a spider’s web.
Whoever eats their eggs will die,
and when one is broken, an adder is hatched.
6 Their cobwebs are useless for clothing;
they cannot cover themselves with what they make.
Their deeds are evil deeds,
and acts of violence are in their hands.
7 Their feet rush into sin;
they are swift to shed innocent blood.
Their thoughts are evil thoughts;
ruin and destruction mark their ways.
8 The way of peace they do not know;
there is no justice in their paths.
They have turned them into crooked roads;
no one who walks in them will know peace.
Like it or not, this is the predicament brought on by sin. And it is ugly. He even brings in spider and snakes, two things that are not too pleasing to encounter unexpectedly.
Especially if you are going to make an omelet and find out that there are adders inside. (Note: he is not talking about mathematicians here)
There is no redeeming qualities in anything here. There is no fruit that is worth anything and much of the fruit is actually toxic to oneself and to others.
4)Isaiah's Confession (Isaiah 59:9-15a)
No Justice, No Righteousness, No Light (9-11)
Being separated from God, these people could not expect to be acting justly in the way God required. Sinful man is too consumed with himself to be concerned with others.
NOTE: this is not to say that a judge who is not a Christian can't be just. He may well deny the existence of God and still act in accordance with the civil laws of the land.
Another note: light is often equated with truth in the Bible. This stumbling here and being in the darkness/shadows may well be conveying the idea of a lack of the light of truth because they have ignored it.
Against God But Impacts Others (12-15a)
Notice how the progression of Isaiah's confession in verse 12 starts with the offense being against God. And it is not a “mistake” but instead it is:
our offenses (12)
our sins (12)
our iniquities (12
rebellion (13)
treachery (13)
turning our backs (13)
oppression (13)
and lies (13)
And all of these things are against God and they are conceived in the heart.
There is no blame about my outward circumstances or any pointing of fingers at my upbringing. There is nobody saying that the devil made me do it or that I am a victim.
But this is a realistic view of the condition of the heart of man – the one culpable for his own sin. And in fact, born a sinner.
As a son of Adam, we are all sinners from birth.
Listen to what David says when he sinned by committing adultery with Bathsheba and then murdering her husband (Psalm 51:3-6):
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
In our day, it is in vogue to blame everything but ourselves for what we have become. And this pattern is even worming its way into the church.
But this is such an evil view of reality. It is a view that allows no true contrition because it says that my sin is not really my sin.
But until you and I come face to face with the reality of what we are before God, there is no hope of reconciliation.
How can I repent of a mistake I have made?
How can I repent of an ill I have committed when it is not my fault? If it is in fact my society's fault. If it was my parents fault. If it was my teacher. Or the crowd I hang out with...
It Hurts Others (14-15a)
Not only is sin against God, but it effects others.
It ultimately hurts those to whom the sinner comes in contact with. Those who I am responsible for.
When sin becomes so pervasive, people begin to call good evil and evil good. To the point that as verse 15a tells us,
Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes prey.
5)The Cure: God's Grace (59:15b-21)
This last section uses some language that might seem a bit odd to us, especially when we know from Scripture that God is omniscient – there is nothing that He is unaware of at all times (and in fact outside of time). Nothing comes as a surprise to Him.
He never wrings His hands in frustration because His plans don't work out and he must somehow go back to the drawing board.
He doesn't ever change in any way. He cannot change because change would indicate some deficiency in His being.
Here Isaiah uses anthropomorphic language to relate some things about God that would otherwise be hard to convey.
Anthropomorphic language means that he puts concepts about God into terms that are conceivable to those of us bound within this time-space continuum that we call the physical world.
And so when he says, in verse 15b, that God was displeased that there was no justice, we are not to think that this caught God off guard.
And when verse 16 says that He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; We are not to believe that there ever could have been one to intervene. Intervention presupposes that there is one who has the authority to intervene. But we know that all have sinned. There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that do good.
So God knew and foreknew that salvation could only come by His own mighty arm.
The arm of the Lord that was revealed back in chapter 53. The one that brought the servant to bear the sins and iniquities of His people.
16 He saw that there was no one,
he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;
so his own arm worked salvation for him,
and his own righteousness sustained him.
17 He put on righteousness as his breastplate,
and the helmet of salvation on his head;
he put on the garments of vengeance
and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.
Notice how this action of God had nothing to do with the people's worthiness to be saved. He did it despite our unworthiness.
It was by His own righteousness. When Jesus came, he came without a sin nature. He had no original sin passed on by Adam because he was conceived of a virgin through the work of the Holy Spirit.
And throughout his life, he lived in perfect righteousness. Unlike the first Adam who was righteous until his rebellion, the second Adam lived under the effects of sin but without any sin of his own.
The words in the 17th verse bring to mind the words of Paul from the book of Ephesians, in the 6th chapter:
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
This armor is not something that we possess in ourselves, it is His armor. We are to live in the reality of His righteousness. In his salvation, you and I have victory over the enemy and need not succumb to the devil's schemes.
He is the victor over sin. We as his people must stand, not in our strength, but in his strength.
Finally, the 20th verse talks about the Redeemer coming to Zion. He is coming to those who repent of their sins.
He has accomplished the work of salvation, but it is for those who repent. His grace offers the repentant heart the cure for our real problem, sin.
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