116. Becoming a Righteous Nation

Posted on Posted in Sermon Notes Tagged with , , , ,

Hymns: RHC 125 Jesus Is the Joy of Living 85 O Day of Rest and Gladness 119 Sweeter As the Years Go By

Isaiah 58

1 Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God. 3 Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. 4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? 6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? 8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rearward. 9 Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; 10 And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: 11 And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. 12 And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. 13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine ownwords: 14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Becoming a Righteous Nation 

OUTLINE

  • Impiety Rebuked (v1-2)
    • Impious Fasting Exemplified (v3-5)
  • Piety Restored (v6-7)
    • True Fasting (v6)
    • Leads to Truly Good Works (v7)
  • Piety’s Reward (v8)
    • Answer to Prayer (v9)
    • Living Honestly – Speech and Action (v10)
    • Giving Graciously (v11)
  • Piety’s Honour (v12, 14)
    • Keeping the Sabbath Holy (v13)

INTRODUCTION

The nation of Israel is special because God has chosen to put His Name there to be identified with the nation. There is only one nation on earth given this honour by the LORD. This is indeed a great honour.

This was what Moses said to Israel in before Israel entered the Promised Land – Deuteronomy 4:5-9 (KJV) Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. 6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. 7For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? 8 And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? 9 Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons;

When the people were gathered at the tower of Babel in rebellion against God, there is one line of people that did not participate in that rebellion. It was the line of Shem, the son of Noah after the flood to whom Abraham traced his ancestry.

Genesis 10:22 (KJV) The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.

Genesis 10:24 (KJV) And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber.

Genesis 10:25 (KJV) And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.

Genesis 11:18-26 (KJV) And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu: … 21 And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters. 22 And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor: … 24 And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah: … 26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Genesis 12:1-3 (KJV) Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

Genesis 21:1-3 (KJV) And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken. 2For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. 3 And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.

Genesis 25:21 (KJV) And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.

Genesis 25:23 (KJV) And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

Genesis 25:26 (KJV) And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.

Genesis 32:28 (KJV) And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

Out of the loins of Jacob will come the nation of Israel whom God has chosen to put His Name!

This is the only nation in the world whom God has chosen to make Himself known to them from which the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, will come.

Happily settled in the Promised Land in the time of Joshua, Israel turned from God during the period of the Judges and was established in the LORD during the reign of King David. During the reign of Solomon after the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, Solomon married foreign wives who brought idolatry into Israel. 

After Solomon’s death, the nation was divided into two – the Northern Ten Tribes and the Southern Kingdom of Two Tribes.

During the time of Isaiah the prophet, the Northern Ten Tribes would be destroyed by the Assyrians but God will deliver the Southern Kingdom under Hezekiah from the Assyrians.

However, there is a great decay that came after the reign of Hezekiah leading to their eventual destruction by the Babylonians.

In these interim times which is our text in Isaiah 58, the LORD through His prophet rebuked His people, calling them to come back to Him.

The plan of God is that Israel serve Him as a righteous nation – Proverbs 14:34 (KJV) Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.

A Righteous Nation: Was there ever such a nation? Can there be such a nation today? The O.T. testifies to the unique place of Israel as a theocracy (2 Chr. 17:2-6, 11-12; Jer. 18:7-10). Their kings were exalted or reproached as they led the nation in righteous or in the sinful ways of idolatry. Yet there was always only a remnant of the righteous at any given time. God would have saved Sodom if Abraham had found ten righteous in it, but Abraham never found how low God would have gone! He left off asking before God left off giving. We remember Elijah, and the seven thousand that bowed not to Baal, and Gideon’s three hundred, by whom God would save Israel! May we not speak of a righteous nation if there is a righteous remnant in it? There was only such a remnant in Britain/Singapore when politicians openly upheld God’s Laws in the Mother of Parliaments. There was only a remnant in many other countries whose Founding Fathers had strong Christian roots that made for righteousness. Is not God still calling out His remnant in every country, and He will continue to do so until the Last Trump. Instead of giving in to despair, let all who are on the Lord’s side be faithful in prayer and life, and be that faithful remnant that can make a nation righteous. “God is still on the throne, and He will remember His own!” He still calls all the shots. “God gives sleep to the bad that the good may be undisturbed.” The wicked have their day. 

A Reproached Nation: The Hebrew word reproach is the same word often translated loving kindness, but it has a very different sense here. Its basic meaning is goodness, hence nouns like mercy and kind. This other meaning is very rare. The verb is used in Pr. 25:10, put to shame, and the noun appears in only one other place (Lev. 20:17), translated a wicked thing. Mercy rejected becomes a wicked thing, a thing of shame. It suggests good gone bad. An evil has become a festering wound in the body politic. What was before an occasion of mercy and grace, has become a place where envy or reproach has taken control. As we witness the moral and spiritual decline of once great nations, is this not evidence of good gone bad? Nations that flourished under the good hand of God, forgot the Giver. They wanted more and more for less and less. The moral and spiritual standards were cast aside, and gradually rejected as a hindrance to progress. Greed and envy turned good into evil that has become a reproach. Edmund Burke, though not a Christian, remarked, “Whatever is morally wrong, cannot be politically right.” The righteous must repent of their lack of dedication. Remember, “God works in us and with us, not against us or without us” (John Owen). “Conformity to the world can be overcome by nothing but conformity to Christ” (Andrew Murray). [Denis Gibson]

  • Impiety Rebuked (v1-2)
    • Impious Fasting Exemplified (v3-4)

1 Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. 

The design of this chapter is to reprove the Jews for a vain dependence on the performance of the outward forms of worship. The nation is represented as diligent in the performance of the external rites of their religion, and as expecting to avert the divine judgments by the performance of those rites. 

They are represented as filled with amazement, that though they were thus diligent and faithful, they had no tokens of the divine approval, but were left as if forsaken by God. 

The main scope of the chapter is to state the reasons why their religious services met with no tokens of the divine acceptance, and the blessings which would follow the proper performance of their duties. [Barnes]

A direction to the prophet openly and boldly to reprove the sins of the nation (v1).

2 Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God. 3 Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. 

The fact that the Jewish people were regular and diligent in the observance of the external duties of religion, and that they expected the divine favour on the ground of those observances (v2-3).

The prophet states the reason why their excessive and punctual religious duties had not been accepted or followed with the divine favour and blessing.

They still continued their heavy exactions on others, and made everything tributary to their own pleasure (v3).

How can God not see their piety if they were truly pious? The Lord looks at the heart and is not mocked.

Head knowledge without heart knowledge is no knowledge – this is the plight of the scribes and Pharisees whom Jesus rebuked! Useless knowledge! A profitless external religion. Jesus called these hypocrites!

Matthew 6:16 (KJV) Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

Fasting is a valuable aspect of Christian living in forging a closer walk with God. It is the laying aside of the common necessity of food and drink for a short season for the purpose of spending more uninterrupted time of communion with God in prayer and study of His Word. There are divine blessings from fasting. Daniel fasted that he may obtain wisdom to understanding God’s will for His people, “And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes” (Dan 9:3). It is an earnest and sincere humbling of self to let God be pre-eminent in our hearts. However, we must not have the mistaken notion that we can become more spiritual by punishing our bodies through abstaining from food and drink. This religious exercise must not be used to judge whether a Christian is more spiritual. This is the third religious duty highlighted in Matthew 6 after works of charity and prayer. This third duty is often abused by the scribes and Pharisees.

The hypocrites fasted for the wrong reason of wanting to appear to be more religious than others! They would look sad and neglect their usual dressing to depict feelings that are not in their hearts. They are like the “professional” mourners that can be hired to give an appearance of great mourning. They do so to win the praise of men and not of God. It shows forth a very shallow and earth bound religiosity. Our Lord Jesus stresses emphatically that true spirituality must live in the heart. It cannot just take on an external form. Fasting is a personal matter between an individual and his Lord.

Matthew 6:18 (KJV) That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

The secret of true fasting is to fast secretly. It is not the act of fasting but the true spirit of fasting that our Lord wants to teach us. We must endeavour to correct the malady of our heart and establish them firmly on correct principles of piety that please God. Jesus teaches that fasting in secret is pleasing to the Father and He has promised to bestow blessings for such consecration.

Fasting in secret and not in ostentation will speed us along the path of true devotion. This is the life lived by faith and not by sight. We do not need the approval of man to authenticate our spiritual vitality. True spiritual vitality comes not from man but from God. Therefore, we are to keep, watch and guard our hearts with all diligence for out of it flows our woe or reward. Our Lord wants us to examine our hearts. We must realize how important it is to protect and to preserve the purity of our hearts from the pollutions of the depraved nature that still resides within us. The way we go about our religion will give away the true condition of our hearts. Fasting issuch an acid test.

Hear this testimony of a pious minister of God, “A day of fasting is of great assistance to the soul, for the better performing of holy duties, such as meditations, reading, and hearing the word, prayer, examining, judging, and reforming a person’s self; both because his spirits are better disposed, when he is fasting, to serious devotion; and the mind being so long taken wholly off from the thoughts, cares and pleasures of this life, he may be more intent and earnest in seeking of God.”

Fasting renews my peace with God. I thank Thee, Lord, for teaching me how to keep a fast that is acceptable to Thee.

4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.

They did it for strife and debate; with hoarse contentions and angry passions (v4).

This is a third characteristic of their manner of fasting, and a third reason why God did not regard and accept it. They were divided into parties and factions, and probably made their fastings an occasion of augmented contention and strife. 

5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?

It was with an affected and hypocritical seriousness and solemnity, not as a proper expression of a deep sense of sin 

  • Piety Restored (v6-7)
    • True Fasting (v6)
    • Leads to Truly Good Works (v7)

6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

The kind of fasting which God had chosen (v6-7). It was to loose the bands of wickedness, and undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free, and to aid the poor and needy.

Fasting is right and proper; but that which God approves will prompt to, and will be followed by, deeds of justice, kindness, charity. The prophet proceeds to specify very particularly what God required, and when the observance of seasons of fasting would be acceptable to him.

  • Piety’s Reward (v8)
    • Answer to Prayer (v9)
    • Living Honestly – Speech and Action (v10)
    • Giving Graciously (v11)

8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rearward. 

The consequence of this (v8-9). Their light would break forth as the morning, and the nation would prosper, and their prayers would be heard.

The idea here is, that if they were faithful in the discharge of their duty to God, He would bless them with abundant prosperity. 

The image is, that such prosperity would come on the people like the spreading light of the morning.

The special duty of removing the yoke of oppression, and of regarding the poor and the oppressed, and the consequences (v9-12).

9 Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; 

Then shalt thou call – The sense is, that if we go before God renouncing all our sins, and desirous of doing our duty, then we have a right to expect that He will hear us. 

But if we go indulging still in sin; if we are false and hollow and hypocritical in our worship; or if, while we keep up the regular forms of devotion, we are nevertheless guilty of oppression, cruelty, and dishonesty, we have no right to expect that he will hear us. [Barnes]

10 And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: 11 And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

The duty. God requires the yoke of oppression to he put away, and the oppressed and the poor to be regarded by his people (v9 and the last clause v10).

The consequences which would follow from this (v10-12). Their light would rise in obscurity, and their darkness would be as noonday; Yahweh would be their guide, and the waste places would be repaired, and the desolations cease.

  • Piety’s Honour (v12, 14)
    • Keeping the Sabbath Holy (v13)

12 And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. 

Their light would rise in obscurity, and their darkness would be as noonday; Yahweh would be their guide, and the waste places would be repaired, and the desolations cease.

The duty of keeping the Sabbath, and the consequences (v13-14).

13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: 14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

The duty (v13). They were to cease to do their own pleasure, and to call it holy, and to regard it with delight.

The consequences (v14). They would then find delight in the service of Yahweh; and they would ride upon the high places of the earth, and be abundantly blessed and prospered.

God claims the day as His, and as holy on that account. While all time is His, and while He requires all time to be profitably and usefully employed, He calls the Sabbath especially His own – a day which is to be observed with reference to Himself, and which is to be regarded as belonging to Him. To take the hours of that day, therefore, for our pleasure, or for work which is not necessary or merciful, is to rob God of that which He claims as His own.

We are not to do our own pleasure on that day. That is, we are not to pursue our ordinary plans of amusement; we are not to devote it to feasting, to riot, or to revelry. It is true that they who love the Sabbath as they should will find ‘pleasure’ in observing it, for they have happiness in the service of God. 

But the idea is, here, that we are to do the things which God requires, and to consult his will in the observance. It is remarkable that the thing here adverted to, is the very way in which the Sabbath is commonly violated. 

But it is a day of pastime and amusement; a day not merely of relaxation from toil, but also of relaxation from the restraints of temperance and virtue. And while the Sabbath is God’s great ordinance for perpetuating religion and virtue, it is also, by perversion, made Satan’s great ordinance for perpetuating.

It will be a pleasure to draw near to Him, and you shall no longer be left to barren ordinances and to unanswered prayers.

CONCLUSION

Here Israel is called to self-examination that they may glory the LORD in their piety. Amen.