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“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.
¹² Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

¹³ “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
    and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
    and the Lord’s holy day honourable,
and if you honour it by not going your own way
    and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
¹⁴ then you will find your joy in the Lord,
    and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land
    and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Who would not want the promises of verses 10b to 12 to apply to themselves? But as we read today’s passage, and chapter 58 as a whole, we can see that they are conditional. (Look at the repetition of ”then” in vv.10b/14a).

‘The best way to test the genuineness of our religious faith is to examine the way we treat other human beings in need. That also happens to be the way God tests the genuineness of of our faith!’ Tom Hale: ‘Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.1063.

‘The orthodox faith was popular in Judah at that time, and people enjoyed learning the Word and even participating in fasts (vv.2-3). But when the services were over, the worshipers went back to exploiting people and pleasing themselves.

What a difference it makes when we repent and return to the Lord (vv.8-12)! We have light instead of darkness, healing instead of disease, righteousness instead of defilement, glory instead of disgrace; and life becomes a watered garden, not a dismal swamp.’ Warren Wiersbe: ‘With the Word’, p.488.

PRAYER: In your mercy, Lord, please grant that my life becomes so well-watered that it is a place of beauty and fragrance, refreshing and rest and healing for others.

“This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    to break the chains of injustice,
    get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
    free the oppressed,
    cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
    sharing your food with the hungry,
    inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
    putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
    being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
    and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
    The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
    You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’ (The Message).

Would you like to know a key to being heard in prayer? It concerns how we treat people. It’s not that we can earn answers to prayer, but we need to understand that unrepented sin can form a blockage.

”If I had cherished sin in my heart,
    the Lord would not have listened…” (Ps.66:18).

When we boil it all down, I believe discipleship is about loving God and loving people: loving God first and foremost, but this overflows into a life of love for all people – including our own families. (We don’t have to travel far to run into people!).

Somebody said the secret of joy is:

Jesus first

Others next

Yourself last.

How is this life of service to others a ”kind of fast”? Well, whenever we put others before ourselves, is it not a form of self-denial? Going without food for a time in order to pray is one expression of denying self; serving people is another form.

”Then when you pray, God will answer.    You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’ ‘

“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 quarrelling 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.
⁵ Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
    only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
    and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

In 1977, Arthur Wallis’s outstanding book, ‘God’s chosen fast’, was published. There weren’t many Christian books around on the subject up to that point. However, since then we have witnessed a plethora. In the church at large there has grown to be a renewed interest in fasting, and a new commitment to practice this ancient spiritual discipline.

But, as today’s reading shows, if our fasting is just ritualistic without having repentance at its heart, it is of no value. We cannot expect God to hear us when in our day to day lives we mistreat people. Prayer is more than a posture. It is about our hearts. It involves our lives.

Jesus clearly saw fasting as a key element of Christian discipleship, but He warned that there is a wrong way to engage in it:

” “When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matt.6:16-18).

We can’t expect to be heard if we are mistreating our ‘neighbours’: people made in the image of God.

Also, we can’t expect to be heard if we’re showing off: parading our spirituality.

By all means let us fast, bearing in mind the great encouragement to do so (Mt.6:17,18). But also, let’s remember the various Biblical warnings about false fasting.

‘When you strive to be a spiritual person, you fight the constant battle of ”ritual versus reality.” it is much easier to go through external activities of religion than it is to love God from your heart and let that love touch the lives of others.’ Warren Wiersbe: ‘With the Word’, p.488.

‘Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
    Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
    and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
² 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.

Here was the problem. This is why there was the need for straight talking. Here were a people who looked good on the outside. They seemed to be spiritually hungry. They looked like godly people. They were very good at the externals and rituals of religious profession. But God knew the truth about them.

‘The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’ (1 Samuel 16:7a).

It’s been said that ‘character is what you are in the dark’ – where the lights are off and no one else can see.

PRAYER: Lord make my heart to be one that pleases you. Remove all hypocrisy from me. Cause me to be real.

‘Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
    Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
    and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.

Genuine prophets are not popular. At least, not all the time. They tell it like it is (from God). In our sinfulness, we don’t necessarily want to hear.

As I read chapter 58 this morning, I couldn’t get further than the first verse. It hit me in this way: there are times you just have to give it straight. You won’t help people by being any other way. They need to know their disease before they will be ready to consider any remedy.

Of course we need to be sensitive, and led by the Holy Spirit in all our relationships and speech. I don’t believe in being ‘John Bull’ blunt and rude for the sake of it. But there does come a time when we must not ”hold back”.

It is, nevertheless, possible to be clear while also being gentle and kind.

PRAYER: Lord may we be led by you in all things. Give us the courage to say what needs to be said, and may we know the right time to say it and speak in the right manner. May our speech always be full of grace, seasoned with salt

I have seen their ways, but I will heal them;
    I will guide them and restore comfort to Israel’s mourners,
¹⁹     creating praise on their lips.
Peace, peace, to those far and near,’
    says the Lord. ‘And I will heal them.’
²⁰ But the wicked are like the tossing sea,
    which cannot rest,
    whose waves cast up mire and mud.
²¹ ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’

In the New Testament, Paul takes up these words in which God is speaking, and He applies them to Jesus:

” He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” (Eph.2:17,18).

Jesus ”came” in and through His church to those ”far away” (the Gentiles), and to those who were ”near” (the Jews) and He ”preached peace” to them: the possibility of ”access to the Father”, and mended relationships with each other.

If you look back in that chapter to verse 14, you see that Jesus ”himself” is the peace He proclaims. Only in Him can sinful people know reconciliation with God, and divided people be drawn into harmonious relationships with one another.

But what will you do with Jesus? He comes to you and preaches peace, but you (we) can reject His preaching.

¹⁶ I will not accuse them for ever,
    nor will I always be angry,
for then they would faint away because of me –
    the very people I have created.
¹⁷ I was enraged by their sinful greed;
    I punished them, and hid my face in anger,
    yet they kept on in their wilful ways.
¹⁸ I have seen their ways, but I will heal them;
    I will guide them and restore comfort to Israel’s mourners,
¹⁹     creating praise on their lips.
Peace, peace, to those far and near,’
    says the Lord. ‘And I will heal them.’
²⁰ But the wicked are like the tossing sea,
    which cannot rest,
    whose waves cast up mire and mud.
²¹ ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’

As the passage flows on, we can see that the ”contrite” experience ‘healing’. In other words, they come to know peace, forgiveness, a restored relationship with God. They are reconciled to Him. They have a near relationship with Him. Their standing before God changes (16-19). But this will not be the case for those who persist in unrepentance (20). There will be ”no peace” for them.

I believe I had heard the expression, ‘no peace for the wicked’ quite often, as a child, before coming to realise that it is in the Bible! But it is; and it is important to see its context. Anyone who truly repents can know peace with God, and the peace of God. But this is not so for those who persist in their godless ways.

There are stark alternatives here.

‘One can choose either the ”peace” of verse 19 or the ”no peace” of verse 21; the choice is up to us.’ Tom Hale: ‘Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.1062.

And it will be said:

‘Build up, build up, prepare the road!
    Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.’
¹⁵ For this is what the high and exalted One says –
    he who lives for ever, whose name is holy:
‘I live in a high and holy place,
    but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
    and to revive the heart of the contrite.
¹⁶ I will not accuse them for ever,
    nor will I always be angry,
for then they would faint away because of me –
    the very people I have created.

In theological terms we affirm that God is both ‘transcendent’ and ‘immanent’. These are complementary truths, and need to be held together, although in tension. In His ‘transcendence’ the Lord is far above us; far, far removed from us. In His ‘immanence’ He is close to us. He is nearer than our nearest and dearest. He is everywhere present at the same time.

In these verses it is those who are ”contrite and lowly in spirit” who are addressed. They are the ones who will experience a road being prepared for them, and obstacles being removed out of the way (14); they are the very people who will experience God’s mercy (16).

Jesus taught:

”Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

All these descriptions are true of the ”contrite”.

Tom Hale says: ‘The contrite are those who are repentant, who mourn for their sins (Matthew 5:4); they are the mourners mentioned in verse 19,” ‘Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.1062.

PRAYER: Lord God, please work in my heart so that it is soft, and malleable and shaped by you. May my heart be pleasing to you. I long to know your nearness. Help me Lord, I pray.

‘Whom have you so dreaded and feared
    that you have not been true to me,
and have neither remembered me
    nor taken this to heart?
Is it not because I have long been silent
    that you do not fear me?
¹² I will expose your righteousness and your works,
    and they will not benefit you.
¹³ When you cry out for help,
    let your collection of idols save you!
The wind will carry all of them off,
    a mere breath will blow them away.
But whoever takes refuge in me
    will inherit the land
    and possess my holy mountain.’

It has been said that verses 3-13 have a contemporary feel. They are, we might say, ‘a distant mirror’, reflecting our own times. What is particularly disturbing, and possibly highly relevant, is the fact that the people had no fear of God because He had withheld His judgment. They feared men, but not the Lord.

If divine judgment is delayed, we must not be deluded into thinking that it will never happen.

”The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9).

God, in His mercy, regularly gives people time to get right with Him. But we must not allow God’s ‘longsuffering’ to cause us to think all will be well. When the time of judgment comes, those who trust in their idols will find no help there (13a). Only those whose faith is in God will have a secure place in His Kingdom (13b).

These remain the clear alternatives and we must choose: dead gods or the living God.