Our scripture lesson tonight comes from Isaiah chapter 58. Isaiah chapter 58. Hear now the word of our God. Cry it loud. Do not hold back. Lift up your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God. They ask of me righteous judgments. They delight to draw near to God. Why have we fasted and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it? Behold, in the day of your fast, you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I choose? to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call and the Lord 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 speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong. And you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. and your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable, if you honor it, not going your own ways or seeking your own pleasure or talking idly, then you shall take delight in the Lord. and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth. I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. This is the word of the Lord. Tonight, we're looking at the criticism that the Lord brings against the religious practices of the house of Jacob. And the special focus is on fasting and Sabbath keeping. Fasting and Sabbath-keeping were proper expressions of true piety, but only when used in faith and in obedience to God. Now, piety is a word that has fallen on hard times. If somebody calls you pious, that's probably not a compliment. It's often used as a sarcastic retort. It's often associated with a holier-than-thou attitude. And it's understandable why. Piety refers to religious practice. And there are many people who focus on the external aspects of religious practice, who may look good on the outside, but inside, as John referred to it, they're whitewashed tombs. They're filled with death. External religious practice can never be divorced from that which gives its life, namely the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Now, that doesn't mean that external religious practice is worthless. God's point to Israel in Isaiah 58 is that the external and the internal needs to be properly aligned, which will result in an external practice which is not merely pious. Because there are plenty of people who will do all these religious works, and this is what you see in Isaiah's day. They're doing their fasting properly, they're observing the Sabbath properly, or not. because what they're really doing is they're going through the external emotions of the external religious practice so that the other six days of the week they can go about doing all the things they want to do which creates this unjust society which Isaiah says is not what God is talking about. Last time we saw that chapter 56 opened with three declarations from Yahweh and then there was the word of the blind watchman and the word of the mockers and the word of the true prophet with three more statements from the Lord at the end of chapter 57 which means that chapter 58 gives the seventh word from the Lord the promise of the future inheritance to those who trust in the Lord for the mouth of the Lord has spoken at the end of chapter 58 And as we'll see next time, chapter 59 contains the eighth word of the Lord. So there's a way in which the seventh word from the Lord contains the promise of Sabbath rest. The eighth will contain the fulfillment of that promise, which we'll see next time is described in terms of the incarnation, the coming of the Lord, because there was no man to work his work for him. So tonight we're concluding our look at the eschatological Sabbath. and which will then wrap up with the fulfillment of the promise in chapter 59. Now in verse one we have this call to repentance. Cry aloud, do not hold back, lift up your voice like a trumpet, declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. The voice of the trumpet summons the people to come and hear what God is saying. And notice also that God addresses his people corporately. Now, undoubtedly, there were faithful Israelites who were not personally guilty of these sins. It's important to distinguish between individual sin and corporate sin, as well as individual judgment and corporate judgment. Now, I think sometimes we only think of this in terms of the final judgment. And yes, at the final judgment, you will be held accountable for what you have done in the body, which will include any participation you have in corporate sin, but God will hold you accountable for what you have done. But during your lifetime, you will oftentimes be judged according to the communal sins of your people. Think about it just in Jeremiah's day, in the destruction of Jerusalem. What happened to the faithful remnant? Were they spared? No. The destruction of Jerusalem happened to everybody. What happens in history comes, as you might say, common wrath and common grace. It happens to all alike. It didn't matter that Jeremiah was innocent. He still suffered the afflictions of losing everything and going into exile. And that's where, throughout history, corporate sin results in corporate judgment. It's easy to see the corporate sin of enslaving Africans, which there were people on four continents that took part in that, but that still, it's easy to see how that resulted in the catastrophic judgment of the Civil War. And there'd be some who suffered greatly in the Civil War who were like, but how did I participate in this? I had nothing to do with this. In the same way, in our own day, there are many corporate sins that plague our nation. abortion, racism, pornography, materialism, consumerism. If you think about it, these are sins that are very much things we'll be going through in the morning service as we go through the Ten Commandments. We'll be talking about these things. But the judgment that comes against corporate sin in the middle of history has corporate effects. Historians have often debated, okay, can you sort of do a one-to-one correlation? No. You can't try to sort of figure out, okay, what percentage of this sin contributes to that judgment? Don't go there. That's not worth it. But if there is corporate sin in a community, well, and there always is corporate sin in a community, then Those are the reasons why God brings judgment on them. Take a current example that most of us probably aren't all that connected to. Is Eastern California the worst region in California? Is that why they're burning to the ground right now in Eastern California, up in the Sierra Nevadas? No. Though you could make correlations between corporate sin and the judgment that comes upon them, If we are poor stewards of the land, if we misuse creation for our own selfish gain, well then the creation itself will come back to bite us. Because that's the way God made his world to work. But I bring this up because corporate and individual, singular and plural, will play a crucial role in our text tonight. Now the Hebrew reader would see it immediately because Hebrew has a plural and a singular you. But even the English reader will see it if you look carefully. And you probably even see it before I call your attention to it. But in verses two to four, God calls attention to the problem with Israel's fasting and prayer. They seek me daily. They delight to know my ways. This is sounding good. As if they were a nation that did righteousness. Wait a second, as if. The problem with Israel's practice of fasting and Sabbath keeping is that they have missed the connection between piety and ethics. And the connection is found in what is it that you really delight in? When you read verse two, you think everything's fine. They delight to know my ways. They delight to draw near to God. They're seeking the Lord. So where's the problem? Well, there's a problem here that has often afflicted the church. I wrote my dissertation on old school Presbyterianism from 1837 to 1861. I've read a lot about slavery written by slaveholders, as well as the arguments about how to go about ending slavery, the debates that continued all through those years. Isaiah's words applied to them as well, and I fear Isaiah's words apply well to us. They think that if you perform all the right religious acts, if you fast when you're supposed to, and you keep the Sabbath, you bring your sacrifices at all the right times, then God will bless you, right? Aren't you tempted to think the same thing? I remember the lady that came to me after I had preached a sermon on how just giving 10% isn't what God requires because it's far more complicated than that in Old Testament economics. And she came up to me afterwards and she was like, here, all these years, you've destroyed my life. All these years, I thought if I just gave 10%, God would be happy with me. I was like, wow, this betrays a real problem in the way you're thinking. You're thinking exactly like these Israelites who think that as long as I just do my little religious duty in these boxes, check, check, check, I'm good. You go to church, you give your 10%, you read your Bible, you pray every day, God will bless you, right? But the practice of piety, the first four commandments, cannot be divorced from ethics, the last six commandments. Loving God and loving neighbor must go together. And they ask, why have we fasted, verse three, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it? and God answers them. Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Righteousness, as God points out in the following verses, is all about taking away the yoke taking away corruption and wickedness, pouring out yourself for the hungry and satisfying the desire of the afflicted. We tend to think that obeying God means not doing the bad things. So we try not to get mad at people, we try not to lust, we try not to covet or gossip. The problem is, though sometimes when we read the Ten Commandments, we just read them as the negatives, but as we'll see as we go through the Ten Commandments in the morning service, every negative But obeying God includes the opposite positive. Obeying God is not just a negative thing. Obeying God means loving the Lord your God with all your heart and loving your neighbor as yourself. God's commands are all-encompassing. And they meet us not only in our individual private religious lives, but also in our corporate communal lives. If you believe that there is not a single square inch in all of creation then you must also say that the institutions and structures of society must practice righteousness corporately and not just individually. And so God says to them, is such the fast that I choose a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? Now it's worth pointing out that the only fast required in the Old Testament was the Day of Atonement. This was the only day that was sort of an annual, every Israelite has to do this. All Israel is to join together in a public and corporate fast once a year as an outward sign of repentance as all Israel confessed their sins as they're coming for the Day of Atonement when the sin of Israel would be dealt with and atoned for. But there were many other occasions of fasting. If you go through the Old Testament you find many of them which would come up more spontaneously as the occasions required. So for instance in Judges 20 we hear about the sin of Benjamin and God had not given the Benjamites into the hands of Israel for two days as they're trying to bring justice and so on the third day all Israel fasts and asks for God's blessing upon their armies in order to destroy sin and destroy Benjamin from their midst. In 1 Samuel 7, when Israel repents of its apostasy, they call for a day of prayer and fasting as they seek God's forgiveness. David fasts for Saul and Jonathan and all the house of Israel after they were slaughtered by the Philistines. And after David's sin with Bathsheba, when he realizes that his son is going to die, he fasts and prays for his son, asking that God would have mercy. And God says, no, your son's going to die. in first Kings 21. Ahab repents with prayer and fasting. Ahab, the most wicked king ever. And God hears his prayer. And that's one of those, the author of Kings even adds a little footnote saying, now Ahab was the most wicked king ever. Almost as though to say, can you believe this? God actually heard his prayer and forgave him? If God hears the prayer of Ahab and forgives him, you better believe God can forgive anyone. and so on and so forth. There are lots of examples of fasting throughout the Old Testament. So, the outward practice of fasting was to do precisely this, to deprive yourself of the ordinary comforts of life, abstaining from food, and yes, wearing sackcloth, basically it's an uncomfortable cloth, basically it's scratchy, itchy, and so all day, as you walk around in your sackcloth, you're feeling really uncomfortable, because you're depriving yourself of bodily comforts. Now, I should mention that throughout history the church has always made provision for people who can't go a whole day without eating. So for children, for the elderly, for those who cannot safely abstain entirely from food, eating the bare minimum in quality and quantity of food would be the point. So if you need to eat, just bread and water or vegetables and water for those on low-carb diets. And people would wear that sackcloth, and the point being to deprive yourself of worldly comforts in order to draw your heart and mind to God. But part of what Isaiah is pointing out here is that, as with all outward actions, there's a danger that if we think that fasting is merely a religious practice, detached from ethics, detached from a faith that works by love, then fasting quickly becomes hypocrisy. Because if you engage in all of these outward acts with your piety directed only to God, then it's not actually directed to God at all. Because if you actually loved God with your whole heart, you would love your neighbor as yourself. Because while you are fasting and praying and pleading with God, what are you fasting and praying and pleading with God for? For yourself? How dare you? Well, you are fasting, depriving yourself of worldly comforts. Your brother, who is made in the image of God, is hungry, naked, and alone. He doesn't even have those comforts to begin with. So as you're making this pious show of devotion to God, hey, there's a nice sarcastic use of pious for you, that's it, you're demonstrating that you don't love your neighbor. And so in response to Israel's fasts, God declares in verse 6, Is not this the fast that I choose? To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless poor into your house, when you see the naked, to cover him. And not to hide yourself from your own flesh. Outward conformity in religious practice means nothing by itself. Now, the structural parallel in verses five and six, is such the fast that I choose? Is not this the fast that I choose? God is clearly contrasting. Is it this or is it that? No, the fast that God has chosen is the fast that strives to create a just society. Verse 6 emphasizes the structural side, to loose the bonds of wickedness, undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke. Fasting, depriving yourself of the comforts of this life, cannot be divorced from paying attention to the fact that some folk don't have these comforts at all. And so verse 7 then turns more to the individual personal side. You must be personally active in this. To share your bread with the hungry. To bring the homeless poor into your house. To cover the naked. Not to hide from your own flesh. Because all people are made in the image of God. And so, humanity is all one flesh. The fast that God has chosen shatters our man-made barrier between religion and ethics. True fasting, true Sabbath keeping, these are not simply the practices of personal private religion. They are the corporate acts of the people of God. Now, how do we put this into practice? Many of you may recall that Last year, as moderator of the Great Lakes Presbytery, I called for a presbytery-wide day of prayer and fasting back at the beginning of the pandemic. Small start. This last month, Alan Strange told us that our sister denomination, the OPC, had a day of prayer and fasting for the national evils that we face. It may seem a little odd, in light of God's scathing rebuke of Israel for their false fasting, to call for a day of prayer and fasting. But notice the problem with Israel's fast is that they think that fasting will win them favor from God apart from doing righteousness. So it's true. Fasting without obedience is pointless. If you're not going to obey God, if you're not going to seek justice, then yeah, fasting is truly pointless. Because it's not truly God's face that we seek. How can we show the love and justice of God to those around us? Our days of prayer and fasting should not be a day of selfishness where we say, bless us, oh God, bless us, please. No, the fast that God calls for is a fast that prompts us to love and good deeds. And when we fast in a manner that is pleasing to God, when our piety is conjoined with righteous living, then, verse 8, shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord 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 speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noon day." When Isaiah speaks of righteousness, I've often commented that you oftentimes will see the words righteousness and justice juxtaposed together in the scriptures. And they're largely synonymous, but righteousness, when they're placed together, righteousness would have to do with how you structure your community and justice with the particular decisions that you make in rendering judgment. So that's a rough juxtaposition, but righteousness is how we structure our community. It can be as simple as how you organize your home life. or your business life, how you engage in the workplace, or your civic engagement as a citizen. It's something I've been reflecting on as I engage with the historic preservation community in South Bend. I'm very interested in how historic renovation can be joined together with affordable housing. There's not much going on in the way of building affordable housing these days. How can we actually use the existing housing stock in ways that will benefit those in need? Poor people, by definition, don't have connections. They're at the mercy of those in power. And very often, historic preservation has been the preserve of the powerful who use historic preservation in order to muscle out the poor. I would argue that's the wrong way to think about historic preservation. I love this passage because of the way in which it talks about preserving and renewing buildings and structures. Watch how this text works because this is where it's going. Christians should use their influence and connections for the benefit of those in need. Isaiah says, if you do justice and love mercy, then God will hear you when you pray and fast. The outward show of pious living will get you nowhere with God. There must be a heart that loves the living and true God and therefore manifests that love in the service of others. Now, this morning we saw the importance of giving rest to others as a central theme of what the Sabbath is all about. And in this seventh word, in this Sabbath word, God calls his people to give rest to others, to pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted. But notice what will happen then. The one who does this will restore Zion. Listen to how Isaiah says this. The Lord will guide you continually, verse 11, and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong. And you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. Now, by now, that your minds are going, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, because you'll be like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. What does that remind you of? Psalm 1, blessed is the man who walks, not the counsel of the wicked, the one who is the blessed man, the tree growing by streams of water. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in, By now the English reader should be getting really suspicious. Now the Hebrew reader saw this coming all the way back in verse 7. Because in verses 1 through 4, the U was plural. In verses 5 to 14, the U is singular. You plural have fasted in a way that is an abomination. But if U singular, will fast in a manner that is pleasing to me. If you will bring justice to the oppressed and pour out yourself for the hungry and afflicted, then you shall be this well-watered garden. The only way that rest will come to the people of God is if there is one who delights in doing God's will on the Sabbath." Now, what's striking here is that the Sabbath is not a fast day. In fact, it's forbidden to a Jew to fast on the Sabbath. This is a feast day. A fast day was a day of repentance, asking God for mercy. The Sabbath was a day of rejoicing in God's provision, both in creation and redemption. The seventh word of Isaiah 56-59 calls attention to the Sabbath day as the day of delight, a day of rejoicing in God's provision. But there's a measure of uncertainty here. There's the conditional in verse 13. you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable. If you honor it, not going your own ways or seeking your own pleasure or talking idly, then you shall take delight in the Lord. And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth. I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Isaiah probably did not use the singular here in order to say this is just about the Messiah. The distinction between the plural and the singular is probably distinguishing between the wicked and the righteous remnant. But there's no doubt in my mind that God inspired the singular you with Jesus in mind. Because it's only when Jesus observes the Sabbath in the way that God commanded that righteousness came to the people of God. Now, you can think as we saw this morning about how Jesus observed the Sabbath in his own life. Because Jesus' own Sabbath observance was holy. And the way that he gave rest to others, the way that he embodies Isaiah 58 when he says, take my yoke, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you. He's the one who breaks every yoke and gives us this light, easy yoke. But especially, This is referring to what Jesus did on his final Sabbath. That final Shabbat when he rested in the grave. Because Jesus went to the cross on the day of preparation for the Sabbath. He went to the cross on a Friday. And he called the Sabbath a delight. A day when he would say, not my will but yours be done. He spent that final Sabbath giving rest to his people even as he descended into hell and bore the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin. And on the first day of the new creation, he arose from the dead and God made him to ride on the heights of the earth. He exalted him to his right hand and gave him the heritage of his father Jacob. It's because Jesus is the one who fulfilled Isaiah 58 that this becomes possible for us. Remember, Isaiah's point has been, Israel hasn't changed much. And when we look at ourselves, we realize we're not really that different from our fathers. Our Sabbath keeping then is done in imitation of Christ. We must always keep in view the fact that Jesus is the one who fulfilled the fourth commandment. He is the one who brought this seventh word of Isaiah to fulfillment. And as we'll see next week, he does this by fulfilling the eighth word as well. So the fourth commandment has been, in that respect, transformed in Jesus Christ. We gather on the first day of the week in order to worship him and anticipate our eternal rest But Isaiah's way of describing this day as a day for God's words and works is important for us as well. Because what we should be doing in our Sabbath observance, whether, and this would be true on a fast day, but this is also true on our feast days, if when we're giving rest to others, we should be giving rest to them, yeah, every, I mean, we've gotten pretty good at getting together and spending Sunday afternoons well in our homes, but don't forget to keep your eyes open for those who are afflicted, who may or may not show up at church. I mean, sure, if they show up at church, that's the easy way. They show up at church and you bring them home and take care of them. But the other ones that you might encounter might be in your neighborhood might be somebody that you know through work or through school, somebody who is afflicted and in need of rest, in need of somebody to come alongside them and help them. Because the true piety of Christian Sabbath keeping is found in bringing the righteousness of the kingdom to bear in the way that in the same way that Jesus gave rest to those around him, that we are called to give rest to those around us. So let us pray and ask God for help. Oh Lord God, have mercy on us and help us because we see ourselves too clearly in Israel's failure to understand what you were calling for in fasting. Lord, we're not very good at fasting in the first place, but we need to learn what you teach us in fasting, in the way that you choose, that we might humble ourselves before you in order to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free. We thank you that you have done this in Jesus. We thank you that our Lord Jesus has brought righteousness in his own resurrection. And we thank you that he has brought us to yourself Help us, Lord, to live the way of our Lord Jesus, that we might be those who are conformed to the likeness of your Son, our Savior, that we might be a community where those who are beaten up and beaten down by the mess of our culture might find rest, might find a place of refuge in the cross of our Savior and in the shadow of his wings. Help us to be that place, to live as the people of Jesus, the community that follows in the path of the righteous one, that we might structure our community here at Michiana Covenant, and indeed, that we might endeavor to structure our communities throughout South Bend, throughout our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in every place you give us a voice. Lord, help us to speak and to act in such a way as to bring rest to those who are in Father, help us, because we are weak and frail, and we need your grace and your wisdom. And so we come to you in the name of your Son, and we ask that you would have mercy on all those who are afflicted, and that we pray for those who are ill and those who are enduring great trials, that you would strengthen them and have mercy upon them. We pray for those who are grieving the loss of loved ones, that you would grant to them your comfort and your peace. We pray for those who, who are laboring against COVID, trying to deal with this in the hospitals. We pray, Lord, that you would have mercy on our rulers, that you would give them wisdom in trying to lead us in this fractured time. We ask, Lord, that you would have mercy and help us to live out the justice of your kingdom, to live in the midst of this age, the way of our Savior, that we might show the watching world the righteousness of your laws and the beauty of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, because we pray in his name. Amen.