Isaiah 58-59, "True Religion"

This is the first Sunday of Advent. This year the last Sunday of Advent will fall on Christmas Day. This will be a test of the faithful. I say this tongue in cheek. Whether you attend church service or stay home an unwrap presents will determine how religious you are. Would you consider yourself a religious person?

In our tradition, people are fond of saying, Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship. And that’s true. We have a relationship with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that doesn’t consist in religious acts or rules.

But the Bible never says religion is wrong. It does say there is a difference between pure religion and false religion. Religion is any set of habitual practices that form you as a person. They can either form a self-righteous, pride-filled, unrighteous person or they can form a humble, loving person who rests in God and His righteousness.

Our passage today will show us that true religion is denying self, delighting in God, and living a redeemed life in the Spirit.

Religion as Denying Self

Isaiah 58:1 begins with a declaration of the sins of Israel. What was their sin? Verse 2 says they were seeking God. I hope that’s not a sin. But religious people miss the mark when they seek God to delight in knowledge, but not to delight in God. Isaiah says they read their Bibles every day, but they forsake what they hear if it doesn’t please them. Their knowledge doesn’t produce self-denying obedience.

False religion can use the same spiritual practices as true religion, but produce radically different results. The LORD uses the example of fasting in verse 3.

Fasting is a good spiritual practice. It is a practice of denying self. We abstain from satisfying our bodies with food so that we can be satisfied in God. You can use the time you would spend preparing, eating, and cleaning up your food to meditate on God’s word and pray or to serve others. Fasting can lead to purified affections and desires. It can lead to ordered thoughts in truth. And because fasting is a denial of self, fasting leads to humility.

But in the case of these religious people, externally their fasting looked very religious, bowing their heads and sitting on sackcloth and ashes. But inside, they were seeking their own pleasure, which led to the wrong result. In fact He says in verse 4 that their fasting leads to fighting. Why is that? If you’re like me, we get cranky when we’re hungry. Because their fasting was about pleasing themselves and oppressing others, they had turned humility into a religious achievement. This feeds pride.

The fruit of this religious pride is seen in chapter 59. There is a separation from God, darkness, and sin giving birth to more sin. The result is a society in which, as Isaiah 59:14-15 summarizes,

Isaiah 59:14–15 (ESV)

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away;

for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.

Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

That is false religion. Seeking knowledge, but never arriving at the truth because we seek knowledge for personal gain rather than acting in righteousness and doing justice.

What does true religion look like? It can still be fasting. But fasting that is self-denying. And fasting that is more than a one-day event.

The kind of fast that the LORD accepts is a transformed lifestyle that disadvantages yourself to advantage others. It is a life of love that does justice, loves mercy, and walks humbly with God. And not just as a religious achievement, but as a means to be satisfied in God.

When you read Isaiah 58:6-7, you see the dedication and long-term commitment God accepts as true fasting, true religion. Isaiah 58:6–7 (ESV)

“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?

Verse 6 has a two-fold process. One aspect is to “loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke.” This is could mean teaching people who have become enslaved to their sin to walk in the freedom of God’s righteousness. We all know people who can’t get out of their own way. They want a fruitful life, but their choices lead them into wasting their time, attention, energy, affections, and money on idols that won’t satisfy.

Teaching someone to overcome this cycle is not a one-time event or an easy three step process. It is walking with someone as they try and fail and try and fail and try again. It’s a relentless commitment to love, forgiveness, reminders, corrections, and encouragement to keep pursuing Jesus. And it comes at great personal cost.

But some yokes are not self-imposed. The second aspect of this process is “to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke”, as he says at the end of verse 6. We don’t just want to help people get out of their yoke. We want to break that yoke once and for all.

Some people are trapped because their lives are burdened by systemic injustice. Verse 9(b) connects taking away the yoke from your midst with “the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness”. This is collusion by one group of people to disadvantage or mistreat others.

To break this yoke requires advocacy for the disadvantaged and disenfranchised with people in power over some system created by corrupt ideology, or greed, prejudice, or racism. To set a mistreated person free requires dealing with the underlying injustice causing their oppression.

There are other ways to free the oppressed. Sometimes you provide a hand up with a resource you have that they need. Sometimes you teach them a new skill. But whether it’s advocacy or resources or teaching, this lifestyle, this fast God desires, comes at great personal cost.

The hope is that a corrupt, self-seeking culture, filled with false religion, can become a society built upon justice, righteousness, and truth. To illustrate this, Isaiah links the imagery garden with the city in verses 11 and 12. There is so much to say about this, but for now let’s say that if people are created by God in His image to be fruitful and satisfying like gardens, and cities are filled with people, then the New Jerusalem built up like a garden would be the perfect image of paradise.

Isaiah 58:11 (ESV)

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.

Isaiah 58:12 (ESV)

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.

When your religion is true religion, it’s ministry. And ministry always costs you something. In verses 7 and 10 it gets very practical. Share your food with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house, clothe the naked, don’t neglect your family. (I heard someone say we can step over the bodies of our family on our way out the door to do ministry.) Serving the Lord starts at home, and extends to all those in need.

You could paraphrase the first half of verse 10 something like, “give the needy what you would want for yourself”. But it literally says,

Isaiah 58:10 (ESV)

if you pour yourself (your soul) out for the hungry

and satisfy the desire (soul) of the afflicted,

If we are willing to consider others better than ourselves and satisfy their soul at cost to our own soul, Isaiah promises that

Isaiah 58:10–11 (ESV)

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 (soul) 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.

When you pour out your very soul to satisfy someone else, what keeps that from becoming a drain? The LORD himself will satisfy your soul. He is your strength. He will make you not just like a garden, but also like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. When we are satisfied in God, our lives become a source of life to others. This reminds me of something Jesus said,

John 7:37–39 (ESV)

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”

Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

When we grow in union with Jesus by faith, He is our source of soul-satisfying refreshment because His Spirit is in us. His Spirit flows out of us as a source of soul-satisfying refreshment to others. (Tell about member of our congregation who serves veterans and their families through the America Legion.)

If we are satisfied in God, we become satisfying to others. So how do we become more satisfied in God?

Religion as Sabbath

True religion is working for justice, walking in righteousness and living in truth. But true religion is also resting in God, finding our wholeness in God. The Bible calls this Sabbath. We take one day in seven to refresh ourselves in God and to remind ourselves that we don’t work to achieve God’s favor, or achieve a higher religious standing. Our work flows out of union with God.

When man and woman were first created in God’s image on the sixth, they were commanded to work, spreading the kingdom rule of God over the whole earth. After He finished His instructions, evening came and it was Sabbath. They all rested together. Man’s work flows out of His rest in God. You don’t work to earn your rest.

So, as the LORD says in Isaiah 58:13-14

Isaiah 58:13–14 (ESV)

“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.”

“As he shows, true Sabbath-keeping demands consecrating one’s timetable to God (cf. Exod. 16:22–30; Num. 15:32–36), but (see esp. 13–14) the Sabbath is also a test whether the heart delights in God.”

Motyer, Alec. Isaiah (p. 476). IVP. Kindle Edition.

True religion develops a heart that delights in God. Keeping the Sabbath is not a religious rule that is meant to make your life hard or spoil all your fun. Keeping the Sabbath is a religious practice that shapes your heart. Refresh yourself in God for one day as a way to remind yourself that your life comes from God, not from your striving.

But we live in a society like the one Isaiah was living in. No one rests.

Isaiah 59:14–15 (ESV)

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away;

for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.

Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

What are we to do? Look to Jesus.

Religion as Covenant

Isaiah 59:16–21 (ESV)

He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede;

then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him.

He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head;

he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

According to their deeds, so will he repay, wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render repayment.

So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun;

for he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of the Lord drives.

“And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the Lord.

“And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from this time forth and forevermore.”

When people have given up on justice, righteousness and truth. In other words, when people have given up on true religion, The LORD Himself will bring it to us. When there is no one to intercede for the oppressed, the LORD will bring salvation. He will repay the unjust. He will establish righteousness. And He will do this through a Redeemer.

This is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Advent is the season we celebrate God’s salvation by sending a Redeemer. God took on flesh and dwelt among us as our Redeemer. Then He surprised us. God poured out His vengeance for injustice and unrighteousness and lies on the Redeemer Jesus on the cross.

If you will repent and believe in Jesus Christ, this is the covenant God will make with you. He has raised Jesus our Redeemer from the grave, and He will grant you His Spirit and He will put His words in your mouth so that you can pass them on to your children and their children. And this is true religion: to pass on the faith of our Redeemer Jesus Christ to the coming generations.

One way we do this is the religious act of communion. In this one act, we deny our selves - there is nothing I have done to earn God’s favor, I receive it through Christ - we delight ourselves in God - we are partaking in a meal to be refreshed in the person and work of Jesus - and we renew ourselves to live a redeemed life in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Questions for Discussion

What are some routines you follow religiously and why do you do them?

How would you summarize the difference between false religion and true religion?

What are some ways fasting helps form our spiritual life in God?

What do we learn about God from this passage? Specifically, what do we learn from the fast He chooses?

What are some ways we work toward freeing the oppressed and breaking every yoke? How can we work together in that?

In what ways do you delight yourself in God? Are there some spiritual practices you use?