God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. Extortion is unjust, adulterous, or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess.
Ooh, let's just roll out a red carpet for you. There are people like that. And it's nothing cute or funny, but this is Isaiah's, this is his target audience. Of course, again, we always clear it's not everybody that was in Isaiah's day.
It's enough of them to merit the prophet going on the warpath. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Isaiah.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Isaiah chapter 53 is where Pastor Rick will continue teaching today on this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. If I had the love for the Lord, then I'm going to do these other things. I would love for us to have things like that if God did it, not us. If God opened those doors, not against, you know, helping the poor, not at all. We'll come back to that because it's, again, it has become, leftists have muddied the waters, and they always do, and they've always been around, so we're not shocked by that.
We're just irritated. Going back to this, God was well aware of their hypocrisy, their confrontation, their exploitation, their violent nature when they couldn't get their way, as you know, the case, you know, why do you have to have a policeman at a voting booth? Because there are people that will do violence to get their will done. Anyway, back to this, he says here in verse 4, and to strike with the fist of wickedness. In the midst of their religious formalism, they were brutal.
Be it by tongue, be it by the evil eye, or be it by assault and battery, threatening you, then hitting you. And he continues here, to make your voice heard on high. You do all these things and you still think I'm supposed to hear you when you bring your sacrifices, when you play church with me. This brand of religion fails to reach God, that's what he is saying to them. If they wanted God to take notice as they complained he wasn't doing back in verse 3, and we're in verse 4, then they were going about it the wrong way. They'd have to have more than just this external approach to God. Hypocrisy's disingenuousness slams the doors of heaven shut, and he's not interested after that.
False religion, it tends to produce self-satisfaction, self-justification, self-righteousness, self-awareness. Before the iPhone and the iPad and all these other eye things came along there, it was already there. This has got to be the most narcissistic age in the history of creation. It is just incredible what we're seeing. Thank God it's not everybody, but some of you may not be catching it, and good, good for you.
You don't need a course in this. Well, this of course, false religion accounts for the other. Well, the legalist in Luke's gospel that Jesus pointed out in his parable is being judgmental and smug towards others, which they were.
That's why they were exploiting their laborers, this upper class or upper middle class, whoever they were. Luke's gospel chapter 18, the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. It's the language of that, because God's not listening. God, I thank you that I'm not like other men.
Extortion is unjust, adulterous, or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess.
Oh, well, let's just roll out a red carpet for you. There are people like that, and it's nothing cute or funny, but this is Isaiah's, this is his target audience. Of course, again, we always clear it's not everybody that was in Isaiah's day. It's enough of them to merit the prophet going on the warpath against them. And verse five, is it a fast that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast and acceptable day to Yahweh? So the prophet is appealing to them, and he's using a little satire, of course, and he's saying, what do you call this? Is this what God wants?
You really think it's what he does want, the things you're bringing to him, but he wants the heart. Well, so is this a fast that I've chosen? Where'd you get this from? It's a question that those who fall for heresy don't ask. Oh, you got to read this book.
Well, you better consider the source. Where does it come from? Well, it doesn't come from the throne of God. That's what the Lord is saying here.
God is saying to them, your brand of religion conveniently sidesteps the guilt of sinners, which God is always dealing with, because that's who we are. And the day that we're no longer sinners, the day God doesn't have to bring it up anymore. But your zip code will be different when that day comes. It won't be spelled out in numbers. It'll be spelled out in letters, and the letters will be heaven. So the only implied fast, because it doesn't come out and say you will fast on this day, but it is certainly implied with a strong enough hand that Isaiah links it to this day of atonement, that where God says, of all the feast days of the Jews, this is the one they were to afflict their souls.
And it was just one day. The rest of the feasts were more joyful. So God was saying, I don't want you to somber all the time, but you still got to deal with sin. And it is Leviticus 16, and Leviticus 16, 29, and 23, 27 is what Isaiah is referring to here. The only binding Old Testament law concerning fasting.
And the fasting was supposed to stir them to repentance, to reflection, to consider their ways before the Lord, to examine themselves, as Paul mentioned to the Corinthians, concerning personal sin. Not the other guy. Not this tax collector. Me. To afflict my soul, to face, face myself. It's not pleasant. I mean, it's very difficult to even listen to yourself on a recording. Do I sound like that?
I know you're worse. So, anyway, from a remorseful heart before the Lord, they would be received. That was the intention of the Levitical law concerning the Day of Atonement, to get it right. In New Testament times, fasting had become so well established in the Jewish religion and society that in Mark chapter 2, they challenged Jesus about it. How come John and the Pharisees, they fast, but your disciples don't fast?
To which he responded by reducing the fast and elevating himself. This is just remarkable. Well, they've gotten me. I mean, who could say that? Who could say, could you imagine going to a church and saying, why don't the people in this church ever fast?
Well, they've gotten me. I mean, that would be blasphemy. Unless you're the Son of God, and therefore God the Son.
And so, I love that, that, you know, they went over their heads, but it goes over our heads sometimes too, but not now. Fasting without a contrite heart is useless and it is offensive to God. And this is what they were doing. It says here in verse 5, is it to bow down his head like a bull rush? Where's the humility is the point? And you're fasting. Are you humble?
No, because you're exploiting people. What is the humility in that? And to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Are you kidding me? These external observances you think, ooh, look, he's wearing sackcloth.
Ooh, he's got ashes. It's not sincere. Is this your idea of pleasing me?
You think this covers the debt now, right? While you get up from whatever you've done and go off and continue to make others miserable. Would you call this a fast and acceptable day to the Lord? You call this worship? That's what the question is.
Did you think I wouldn't see through this? Here's an interesting thought. Amos comes a little bit before Isaiah. He's to the northern kingdom. Malachi comes long after Isaiah, and he's to Judah when they come back from captivity.
And both those prophets deal with this very thing, the false worship of the people, bringing in their sacrifices that are all lame and blind or unacceptable to God. But to Malachi, he says, try that with the governor. Go bring him your junk and see if he accepts it. But no, you're going to take it to God.
And you're not ashamed of this. You're looking for a blessing in return. Amos, he says, you know, I'm sick of you people complaining about, oh, the Sabbath, we can't make prophets because of the Sabbath.
Everything is closed. So the reality of sinful nature is just nothing new under the sun, and nor am I looking for anything new under the sun. It's just not going to come. It's when we get over the sun, be through the sun, that we'll have all new things. Behold, I make all things new. Verse 6, is this not a fast I have chosen to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, that you break and that you break every yoke. How about abstaining from misbehavior?
How about that for a fast? You want to abstain from something? How about abstain from sinning or treating others like this? This is what formed their pretense, their failure, their chosen failure, to not comply with the scripture. God wanted them to turn away from abusing others.
But why? We're enjoying it. It's really nice having slaves.
I mean, every time when the mow season comes, I wish I had servants because I would have them mow the lawn. So my point is, of course the flesh would love to relax, but the spirit not at the cost of others. So anyway, history has not lacked this. Had their fasting been built on the love of God as we covered from Deuteronomy, then they would not have been abusive.
And he's going to get to this at the end of this chapter. He said, if you just did it right, I could pour blessings out on you, but I can't. And the things you have now, they're not blessings.
Because you're successful, materialistically speaking, doesn't mean that it's going to go well for you. Exploiting others. You know, when you exploit others, you are evidencing no fear of God. Because there's no consequence.
I do whatever I want so I can treat you like dirt. Nobody's watching, worth worrying about. Well, you're wrong. And that was their problem. And this was after the days of Solomon, when Solomon wrote the Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Knowledge, but they didn't care about the Bible. It's an ongoing problem in Bible times and in all times.
People oppressed the weak. I like this in Luke's Gospel because they had the means to help without losing anything that they had, but they withheld it because they were greedy. We get a lot of that from other sections of Isaiah. Luke chapter 16 tells the story about the rich man.
I'll just read it. There was a certain rich man who was clothed in fine purple and linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, giving him opportunity to serve God. Giving the rich man an opportunity. Desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table.
Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. So he was a sad sack, you could say. In this country, there are the poor and there are the homeless, very much a product of corrupt and incompetent and Christless, progressive, leftist policies by those who are anti-Christ. This is not political. It is factual and it muddies up the waters and it makes it very difficult to be kind to those in need because there are programs in place, but there's so much corruption that you can end up enabling the corruption by trying to do good. Years ago, I worked in a very tough neighborhood in New York, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and it wasn't always a bad neighborhood, but it was then and it probably still is. But anyway, there was this overhead train, the elevated train system.
We work on the steel and we work in sections for maybe a week or two and then you move on and we circle back around. And that's part of the story. There was this one woman that would come around asking for money and those of us who lived within the five barrels and some of the other savvy ones, we knew better and said no. But there was one bleeding heart.
He was a good guy and he wanted to do right. He says to her, well, I'm not going to give you any money, but I'll take you to the grocery store and I'll buy you some groceries for your children in your home. So this went on for a while, I don't know, maybe once a week. And eventually, when we circled back around, one of the locals came up and said, you know, she was scamming you the whole time.
You'd buy her these groceries, she'd sell them at a discount to other people in the neighborhood, and then she'd take the money and buy her drugs. And you were enabling it. And he didn't say that part, but that was the gotcha part.
He knew it, everybody knew it. But this is what I mean. It's not so simple anymore. We're in a different time in history.
Man has built up evil momentum over the ages in civilization and it's just not so easy. And I'll return to that because I think Christians want to help those who genuinely have a need, but it's not easy to always identify them. There goes a food pantry, and there are those that benefit from food pantries when they're properly done.
Well, coming back to this in verse seven, is it not to share your bread with the hungry that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out when you see the naked, that you cover him and not hide yourself from your own flesh? Well, I was thinking the other day as I was watching the snow come down where I used to live up north, I was saying, how many times did I go out to help somebody get their car unstuck in the snow? It was all the time. You could hear them. You hear them racing in the air trying to get out of that and everybody would come out and help them. And it's always nice. They had to get to work.
I mean, what are they supposed to do? Anyway, we want to help people, but evidently from this verse seven, this condition was widespread, as I mentioned, probably under the reign of Manasseh who created these conditions through his iniquity, his evil. And many of the people just loved that.
Okay, good. We don't have a righteous king to hold us to the law. But here in verse seven, these people were more than poor.
They were destitute. And the prophet says, how do you just walk past destitute people that have, you know, even Jesus was selected. Remember he went to the pool of Siloam and he chose one guy and he healed him. There were a lot of other people there and he did not heal them.
So why is it a serpent harmless as a dove? It's a little tricky, but it's not so tricky when the Spirit leads you. And usually we know God puts somebody on our heart and they stay there. They sit right there till we act.
And if we don't, then we have a sense of guilt because somebody else comes along and does it. Man, I was supposed to do that. Well, verse eight, then your light shall break forth like the morning. Your healing shall spring forth speedily and your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of Yahweh shall be your rear guard. Verse nine, then you shall call on Yahweh and the Lord will answer.
Pardon me. Then you shall call and Yahweh will answer. You shall cry and he will say, here I am. If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and the speaking and speaking wickedness. These are the things they were doing.
And he's saying, clean up your act and I'll bless you. This is Old Testament though. The New Testament Church is a different assignment. This was the people of God.
This was their society. We on the other hand, as the Jews, again, I repeat this, the Jews were persecuted for not obeying God. Christians are persecuted for obeying God. We go into a society and we stick by our faith and the world persecutes us.
Well, in the Jewish society, when the Jews did not behave the way they were supposed to, God let the persecutions into their life. So it's kind of a different mission and we shouldn't lose sight of that. But there's righteousness is righteousness. That part doesn't change.
How we apply these things is modified somewhat. Verse 10, if you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness and your darkness shall be as noon day. So do your duty, John, his first letter, chapter three, whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him. How does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And again, this is not just go out and just start throwing money at problems, because as I pointed out from the anecdote that I shared, that coworker, he threw money at the problem and he ended up just sponsoring drugs. You know, it's just not that simple anymore.
Martha's food pantry is another one. You want to do good, but first things first, you want to change how people behave, you're going to have to change how they think about God. And even then, even then it's going to be a fight. Verse 11, Yahweh will guide you continually and satisfy your soul in drought and strengthen your bones. You shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. Verse 12, those from among you shall build the old waste places. You shall rise up the foundations of many generations and you shall be called the repairer of the breach and restorer of streets to dwell in. Well, looking for solutions amongst the problems in righteousness, but why repair the breach since it didn't hold the invaders off the first time?
Well, because a fresh start is not to be underrated. That was them. This is me now. I'm going to try. I'm not better than that.
I'm saying I'm better, but I'm not going to give up. I'm going to go at it with righteousness. I think when you can look for solutions to problems, it's so much better than just criticizing the problem or pointing the fingers as pointed out, pun intended. It's a joy to look for a solution and find it with lives, with people. They don't always make it easy, so again, the leading of the Lord. In pastoral ministry, it's a joy to give people a chance to serve. I know what it's like when you don't have a good church where you can serve, and I know what it's like to have a church where you can serve the Lord, and it's always puzzling how many people get a chance to serve, and I think it's not appreciated.
I think their attitude is I'm doing you a favor, which is not healthy and not true and not wise. Sitting under the word, again, back to Martha and Mary, when you're just serving in a church and you're not sitting under the word, you're going to be a problem. It's just a matter of time. If it's a Bible-teaching church, a Bible-serving church, it's just a matter of time before the criticism monster gets hold of you and you start causing trouble. Got to be able to sit under the word. I, as a pastor, have got to be able to study the word.
I can't just look for somebody else's notes and repeat them to you. I have got to spend time there, too. So the next time you say, boy, this service is going a little long, but remember, when I'm studying, it's like, boy, when is this chapter going to be over? And I've got another commentary I've got to start, too.
It's worth it. Verse 13, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, there it is, the Sabbath, they would turn from it to do their pleasure. This is what they were doing with everything, continuing from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight.
The holy day of Yahweh, honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words. So there's, again, their disingenuous faith, the scammers of God. They're trying to scam Him into blessing them, and He gets nothing in return from doing my pleasure on the holy day. Well, the Sabbath interfere with fun. Well, maybe that's you. Maybe you don't want to go to church because you got something else you'd rather do. Well, you know, that gets away from you very quickly, and it's harder to get back. You know, before, in the harder times of ministry, I took a year off from voracious reading, and I, you know, I'll never do that again.
I said, you know, that was just a big mistake. So just, you can't give the flesh an inch. He gets his nose in the tent, man.
You gotta, you're gonna have to struggle to get him out. Anyway, you call, and call the Sabbath a delight. It's what God wanted, and I already mentioned Amos and Malachi, who addressed this. Amos 8, 5, and Malachi 1, 13.
Worth reading just on that subject alone. Verse 14, then you shall delight yourself in Yahweh, and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, the mouth of the Lord has spoken. So God wanted to reconstruct his people so that his people could reconstruct people.
He wanted to fix things. Isaiah 1, verse 20, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. I'm gonna withdraw my blessings, you're gonna pay.
There's a devil that wants to devour you. I pray that I may know what God says, so that I can do what God wants. How would I know to do what God wants if I don't know what he says? And the only place he says it is his word. It is a very big deal. Let's pray. Our Father, your word, a lamp to our feet, a light to our path.
Nothing like it. Truly it is a gift, and may we avail ourselves of every inch of the scripture. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross Reference Radio. This is the radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.
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