Today’s meditation will be on Isaiah 58.
The Lord is speaking to the prophet and says to him,
“Cry aloud! Spare not! Lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgressions and the house of Jacob their sins.
“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.”[1]
So here we see the Lord explaining that the people of God are delighting in making a show of seeking God. It’s a big show that they are putting on, but their hearts are really not in following Him. Like Jesus is quoted as saying,
“Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”[2]
Back in Isaiah 58 we see the Lord expressing the response of the people.
“Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and Thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and Thou takest no knowledge?”[3]
But the Lord responds,
“Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. 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.
“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?”[4]
I remember going to a big fancy church in the Bermudas where my son had died. At the end of the service the pastor reminded the parisheners that the following week they were going to be fasting and praying for the situation of the young people in the church. Of course, that’s always a noble goal to pray for our young people as they pass through the troubled waters of adolesence and young adulthood. The pastor was reminding everyone, these big over weight African Caribian women, of the next week’s fast. He was telling them, “We’re not going to eat, we’re just going to have juices because we’re going to really seek the Lord.” And the woman moaned.
But the Lord says here, that instead of our fasting, that only enhances our self-righteousness, so that at the end of the week we can feel so good with ourselves because we’ve done some fasting. That instead of that, there is a fast that He has chosen. There is something that He wants us to do. He explains,
“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?
“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?”[5]
In other words, the Lord is saying that we even should help our own family. Maybe someone in our family needs our help, but we don’t want to help them, because we have hardened our heart against them. They are our own family and we know their sins, and short-comings, and undeservingness. But the Lord says we need to loosen the bands that the wicked have placed on the poor and needy. We need to let the oppressed go free. We need to deal our bread to the hungry, and bring the poor that are cast out into better living conditions. And finally we shouldn’t turn our backs away from our own family. If we do these things the Lord tells us what’s going to happen? He says,
“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 reward.”[6]
Are you sick and need healing? Start helping other people. Start opening up the windows of your life on others. Do you want healing? Do you want God to hear your prayers? Then follow the advice the Lord gives in His response to the self-righteous religionists complaining at God for not answering their fasting and praying. If you follow the Lord’s advice and start helping others, He Himself is going to be your reward and your face in going to shine because the Lord is going to be with you. Then it won’t even matter if your healed or not because you’ll have found the true meaning of life, the Lord Himself. But besides knowing the Lord, He promises,
“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;
“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 noon day:
“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.
“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.
“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:
“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.”[7]
So there we have a beautiful chapter from the book of Isaiah explaining how God will answer our prayers. God Himself gives the conditions we need to fulfill if we really want Him to answer our prayers. It’s not the fast of denying ourselves food and drink that the Lord wants, where we just feel so righteous about what we’ve done and therefore feel God has to answer our prayer because of our self-righteous fasting, something that we’ve done and therefore God deserves to answer.
Yes, there is something we can do to have our prayers answered, and that’s to open up our lives upon others and help others. That is where God promises to hear our prayers. When we get busy helping the oppressed, and feeding the poor and taking care of those in need, even those in our own family, then, that’s what God’s going to bless.
However, in the New Testament, Paul reminds us that we can even do those good things, like giving to help the poor and helping others, in the spirit of self-righteousness, and not in the spirit of love. If we do our good works of helping other self-righteously, Paul informs us that it is nothing. He says,
“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing.”[8]
That’s because God is love and if we don’t have love, we don’t have God. Like the Apostle John has written,
“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”[9]
So, if you want healing, if you want answers to prayer, get busy helping others, because when you do, you are putting yourself in the position for God to answer your prayers. God will bless you as you help others. You take care of those that God brings across your path and He promises to take care of you. His presence will be with you and will satisfy you, greater than any thing this world could offer. Try His formular. You’ll get answers to prayer and find happiness and fulfillment of heart, mind and body.
Notes:
[1] Isaiah 58:1-2
[2] Matthew 15:7-9
[3] Isaiah 58:3a
[4] Isaiah 58:3b-5
[5] Isaiah 58:6-7
[6] Isaiah 58:8
[7] Isaiah 58:9-14
[8] 1 Corinthians 13:3
[9] 1 John 4:8
