Isaiah 58:1-14.  So far in this conclusion to the book we have seen God encourage people to live for him.  The reason to live for God is that because the end is coming.  So God made sure that all mankind knew that salvation was available, there is a way for each human being to have their relationship with God fixed (Isaiah 56:1-8).  But the other side of that coin is that some people will reject God’s offer of salvation, all of their false religious activity will not fix their relationship with God.  God repeatedly appeals to these people but they continuously reject Him.  For them there will be no peace nor rest in eternity (Isaiah 56:9-57:21).  In today’s reading God continues to challenge his people to return to him.  But it’s not just some fake  “Oh I love God” thing, He is challenging them to really live like they love him.

Remember that this book is written to a city under siege.  There is an old saying, “There are no atheists in foxholes.”  A foxhole is a little hole soldiers dig to hide in when they are shooting at and being shot at in a battle.  When death is right there in your face it’s hard not to be thinking about God and how to be right with him.  One way religious people try to show they are serious about god is by fasting, going without food or some other thing for a while.  Another way people try to show they are serious about god is by going to a place where their god is honored and doing things that honor that god.  That was what God was condemning in the chapter we just finished, people going up on hills or to other places where little shrines were to make offerings to false gods.  In this chapter he challenges them about fasting to try to please him and going to church to try to please him.

In verse 1 God tells Isaiah to go out and talk to the people, he actually tells the prophet to get pretty loud with them.  I get accused of yelling sometimes by my kids, I’m pretty loud.  And when I’m very concerned about something I get even louder, I yell.  Most of the people in my family don’t like it but it’s because I’m very worried about the thing I am talking to them about.  In this case the prophet is told to get loud about the fact that the people have been breaking God’s rules (transgressions) and missing the target God has for their lives (sinning).  Verse 2 tells us that the people of Israel are looking for answers from God and they expect to get them.  Why?  Because they think they have a good relationship with God so he must owe them the answers, and help.  They think they have done right and followed the rules.  In the beginning of verse three they even challenge God by telling Him they are so serious they have gone without food and have shown God respect.

God’s answer begins in the second half of verse 3.  They weren’t really looking for answers and help from God and they weren’t really being humble in their actions, their fast was sort of a pride thing.  They got what they really wanted (desired), to feel like they were so faithful.  On top of that the rest of their actions proved they weren’t really getting in closer to God.  They were treating employees badly, arguing, and fighting, and even hitting each other.  God then goes on to ask if they really think he wants them to roll around on the ground in a bunch of ashes wearing a rough icky sack for clothing.

As usual God doesn’t leave us guessing he gives us the answer, he wants us to know how to have a good relationship with him.  Verse 6 tells us that the right kind of fasting is to untie others.  What does that mean?  What does going without food have to do with taking the chains off of someone in a dungeon?  The answer gets even more confusing in verse 7 when he tells us that the right kind of fasting is to share our food with others and to open our homes to the homeless and to give clothes to the naked.  Again, what does that have to do with not eating?

First of all I think we need understand that God only commands fasting on one particular day in his instructions to the Israelites, sort of.  In Leviticus 16:29 the people of Israel were told to “humble” themselves on the Day of Atonement, a special day each year when the Israelites were to make an animal sacrifice as a way of reminding them of the cost or penalty of their disobedience.  The word “humble” means to afflict, the idea is suffering.  The word “humble” is often used together with “fast” so some scholar think that the people were supposed to fast on the Day of Atonement.  All of the times we see fasting in the Old Testament it is people trying to show how serious they are about God or trying to be serious while reaching out to God for answers or help.  Here in Isaiah we see God telling the people that if they are really serious about him it will show up in how they treat others not in how little they ate that day.  It reminds me of the answer Jesus gave to the religious leader who asked him what the greatest commandment in the Law of Moses was.  Jesus’ answered with the top two commandments.  Love God with all that you are and love others like you love yourself (Matthew 22:34-40).  Loving God shows up in how we treat others.

So what about the chains or ropes or whatever the people were tied up with?  The Bible teaches that we are in bondage (tied up) to our sinful nature.  In other words we are we are rebellious against God and can’t get away from it (Romans 7:14; Galatians 4:3).  Paul later tells us that Jesus is the way to get free from sin (Romans 7:24-8:2).  But people need to hear about Jesus (Romans 10:13-14), someone needs to tell them, we need to tell them, we need to untie them.  The way we really prove that we love God is by doing what makes him happy and that is telling people about Jesus.  A big part of telling the people about Jesus involves showing them how much God loves them.  We do this by sharing our food, our homes, and other things they might need, like cloths.  These sorts of actions will result in us being a light to a dark world helping them find the way back to God (Matthew 5:14).

On top of helping others find God we will also get answers for the rest of the things we are worried about in life.  God will take care of us, guide us, satisfy us, strengthen us, and make us like a garden.  In addition we will be a source of spiritual refreshment to others (the spring is probably a metaphor for helping others find the same kind of satisfaction in God that we will have).  The broken down city in the last verse is probably a metaphor (using one thing to describe another) for our broken relationship with God.  So people who love God by serving others will help others have their relationship with God fixed.

I think that fasting is mostly not supposed to be an action but the result of other actions.  We should not go around proving how much we can suffer for God, that is prideful, and pride is one of the things God was trying to deal with in the book of Isaiah.  The peoples pride and selfishness in Isaiah’s time caused many people to suffer.  And it was causing them to suffer to as God stopped helping them.  Here we see that real fasting is the result of serving others.  Sometimes when we are serving others we do miss a meal or two, or suffer in other ways.  So we are fasting, but we are too busy serving God to notice.  God wants us to focus on the needs of others not on what we are giving up along the way.  Lord help me be a servant.  Help me meet the needs of the poor.  Help me set people free from their sin.  Thank you for providing the key, Jesus.  Let it be all about you, never about me.  Then the fasts will become joy and gladness and cheerful feasting (Zechariah 8:19).  Thank you for the joy.