Isiah 58:8-11
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear;
then 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 for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk,10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.11 The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
- Isiah 58 is broke up into three main parts:
- Religious rituals
- Prerequeisits for blessing
- God's Blessings
- Religous Rituals
- Isaiah 58:2-4
- For day after day they seek me out;they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. 4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.
- God Rebukes empty rituals
- Chapter 58 begins with God addressing people who are performing religious acts like fasting but are not following them up with compassion or justice.
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Fasting without compssion or justice is meaningless
God isn't impressed with fasting when people continue to oppress people, argue, and pursue selfish desires.
- They had a superficial worship
- Isaiah points out that the people were performing rituals with the wrong motivation, to please themselves, while continuing in wickedness.
- Prerequisites for Blessings
- The fast the God approves is on acompaanied by Love for Him and A genuine concern for others and those that are oppressed
- In Isaiah 58 the "fast" God chooses involves active acts of love and justice
- Isaiah wrote the following:
- Lossening the chains of injustice
- Freeing the oppressed
- Sharing food with the hungry
- Providing shelter for the homeless
- Clothing the naked
-God's FULL Blessing
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When we have true love for God and sincere concern for the welfare of others a channel is opened for God's full blessings to come into our lives
- Isaiah 58 teaches us that true worship isn't just about religous rituals, God desires actions like freeing the opressed, sharing with the hungry, and helping the poor rather than empty fasting and self-serving religous acts.