Good evening, I'm looking at
Isaiah chapter 58 this evening, if you wanna turn there in your
Bibles. Isaiah chapter 58, verse one, we looked at last time.
The Lord in verse one says, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy
voice like a trumpet, loud and sharp and clear and show my people
their transgression and the house of Jacob, their sins. he's calling upon his spokesman
to show his people their sins and we see in the next couple
verses that it is not what we typically would consider bad
things that he's referring to here as sins look at these people
in verse two how he describes them yet they seek me daily and
delight to know my ways As a nation that did righteousness, he didn't
say they were a nation that did righteousness. They were like,
they had a form of godliness, Paul said, but denying the authority
thereof. And forsook not the ordinance
of their God. And they ask of me the ordinances
of justice. Paul said, I kept the law, the
letter of the law. The rich young ruler said, I've
kept these from my youth up. That was the attitude of these
people. And then he said this, they take delight in approaching
to God. Now, why would God tell his prophet
to tell these people how sinful they are? Why didn't he send
the prophet to the streets to preach to the harlots and the
other criminals? Well, it's very simple. This
is the message of all of the word of God. You remember in
the passage in Proverbs six, where the Bible tells us specifically
what God hates. Let me read it to you. Proverbs
6, 16. These six things doth the Lord
hate. Yea, seven are an abomination
unto him. And you're just waiting for him
to say a murderer or an adulterer or a thief or something horrible
like that. A proud look. A proud look, that's number one.
A lying tongue. He hates liars. And hands that
shed innocent blood. And by the way, a true lie is
when you lie on God. When mama says, did you eat one
of them cookies? And she sees the crumbs on your mouth and
you say, no mama, I didn't eat a cookie. That's a lie. But the
ultimate lie is when you claim to speak for God and don't say
what God said. And God despises that. And hands
that shed innocent blood, he hates murderers too. And heart
that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running
to mischief. A false witness that speaketh
lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. I want you to
notice quickly also, you know, religion loves to say, well,
God hates the sin, but loves the sinner. He didn't say he
hates discord. He said he hates he that soweth
discord. We're gonna have to reckon with
that now. We're gonna have to be honest to sinners. And God
said, if you don't warn them on their way to hell, then I'll
hold their blood accountable at your hand. Now, listen, God
hates liars and murderers, but they are not the first on the
list. And by the way, all of us are all of these things by
nature. We are everything that God hates by nature. That is,
as we're born into this world in our sinful flesh, apart from
Christ, without the grace of God, we are guilty of the whole
law. And you might take issue with
that. You're taking issue with God, not me. You might say, well,
Chris, I've never murdered anybody. The Lord Jesus Christ revealed
in Matthew chapter five, if you've ever been angry with somebody
without a perfectly righteous reason to be, you're a murderer. If you've ever looked at a woman
the way we do, the way everybody, every man does, you're an adulterer,
according to the Lord Jesus now. It's not a matter of just a letter
of the law and breaking it by outward deeds alone. The law
is spiritual. God looks on the heart. But number
one on God's list is a proud look, and that's what we have
in our text. Look at verse three. Wherefore have we fasted, say
they, and thou seest not? Why aren't we getting credit
for our religious goodness? Why aren't you bragging on us
instead of telling your prophet to point out our sins? Wherefore have we afflicted our
soul and thou takest no knowledge that doesn't gain any favor with
God. No it does not and they're not happy about it Behold, that's
why they hate the gospel so much Behold in the day of your fast
you find pleasure and exact all your labors Your religion is
what makes God sick Because you do what you do to glorify yourself
and not God. You do what you do to be seen,
for recognition, for favor with God. Again, read Isaiah chapter
one. God says to his people there,
you're dumber than oxen. That's what he said in verse
three. You read it and tell me if that's not what he said. He
said the ox knows some things and you don't. Even the ox knows
his master's crib. He knows who gave him a place
to sleep. And he called them a nation of
evildoers, a people laden with iniquity, verse four, that had
forsaken God and provoked him to anger. And God said in verse
nine of that chapter, Isaiah one, that the only difference
between Israel, who is a picture of his spiritual elect in the
scriptures, refer to what Paul said about that. They're not
all Israel, which are of Israel. The nation of Israel, God chose,
and that picture is his spiritual elect. But he said this in verse
9 of Isaiah 1, the only difference between Israel and Sodom and
Gomorrah was that the Lord had chosen a handful of the Israelites
in spite of their evil. He didn't say they were better
than Sodom and Gomorrah. He said the difference is I chose
some of you. There's a remnant according to the election of
grace. You don't believe in election? We're all goners if there's not. And as God elaborates on the
great iniquity of these people in that chapter, in chapter one
of Isaiah, beginning in verse 10, we find out what we find
out in our text tonight. That their problem is their religion.
Their evil is what they call their goodness. In verse 11,
he said, to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
unto me? Wait a minute, didn't God ordain
those sacrifices? Yes, he did. Saith the Lord,
I am full of the burnt offerings of rams. Didn't he say offer
burnt offerings unto me? All right, let's talk about that.
And the fat of fed beasts, I delight not in the blood of bullocks
or of lambs or of he goats. Paul said the blood of animals
can never take away sin. In the book of Hebrews, he said
that, only the blood of Christ. And so these offerings, these
sacrifices, if they're not offered by faith in Christ, then they're
nothing to God. They're abomination to God. They're
worse than nothing. By faith, Abel offered a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain. What did Abel offer that Cain
didn't? The blood of an innocent lamb. The Lord Jesus Christ,
he did that by faith in Christ. And that's why God had, he had
regard into Abel and his offering, and had not regard into Cain
and his offering. But the Lord said there, In verse
12 he said, when you come to appear before me who hath required
this at your hand to tread my courts? Didn't God say forsake
not the assembling of yourself together? Didn't he say gather
in public worship? But not you if you're coming
to just for show, not if you're coming just so you can put a
put a check by your name on the board. To please God, bring no
more vain oblations, incenses and abomination unto me. The
new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away
with. It is iniquity, even the solemn
meaning. Your new moons and your appointed
feasts, my soul hateth. God had ordained those days to
picture Christ, and they observed them to find favor with God in
their own doing. And he hated them doing it. They
are trouble unto me, I am weary to bear them, and when you spread
forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you, yea, when
you make many prayers, I will not hear. Boy, religion, I pick on religion
a lot, and it's not just to be contrary, but we need to know
the truth of God. They say God listens. He didn't
listen to them. God hears prayer, answers prayer. Not theirs he
didn't. You're gonna have to come to him by Christ. You're
gonna have to submit yourself to the authority and acknowledge
your wretchedness and own Christ as your only righteousness and
sin offering before God, or God's not gonna hear a word you say.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by me, the Lord Jesus Christ
said. That's in any sense, in prayer,
in worship, don't come to God apart from his son. He said,
I will not hear, your hands are full of blood. And they thought
they were being religious. They thought they were doing
God's will. Why did God condemn the offering of burnt offerings
and these other things? Didn't He ordain those? Even
prayer, He condemns it in their case. Why? How can that be a
bad thing? Because all that they did, all
of the things that God had ordained for His worship, All of it God
gave in order to exalt and reveal and point to his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. But they did them, they observed
them in order to establish their own righteousness before God.
When they offered the sacrifices that Paul said in Hebrews 10,
four can never take away sin. Paul in that chapter, Hebrews
10, shows also that Christ is the fulfillment of those sacrifices.
This is why John the Baptist pointed at Christ Jesus and said,
behold, there's God's lamb that takes away sin. Because no other
offering, they were all just pictures and types of him. They
all pointed, the law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. But these
religious Jews, when they offered sacrifices and did the other
things contained in the law and kept the days that God had ordained
and all, they didn't look to Christ by faith and exalt him.
They said, look at us keeping God's law. How can we do this
and you don't see it? How can we perform these things
and not get any credit for it? Instead of submitting to God's
righteousness, Paul said in Romans 10, three and four, They're going
about to establish their own righteousness and have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God. Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness to everyone that believes on him.
Now see that in the text, wherefore have we fasted and God didn't
see us? and give us the credit we deserve. Remember what the
Lord said of the Pharisees? They do what they do. He said
to his disciples, don't you pray like them? Don't you do anything
like them? They do what they do to be seen. That's what they're saying in
our text. Let me tell you something, sinner. You may or may not know
this, but when God sees you, all you want him to see is Christ.
You don't want him to see your works. All of our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags in the sight of God, Isaiah 64, 6. This was
the problem again, now we've quoted this so many times, Matthew
7, 22. The Lord Jesus said, many will say to me in that day, Lord,
Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? We preached and
we used your name all through it. And in thy name, we've cast
out devils. We did all kinds of little miracle.
We had healing services and nonsense like that. And we did in your
name, in your name done many wonderful works. Then will I
profess under them, Christ said. And he's not gonna say, no, you
didn't do those things. They did do those things. But what
he's gonna say is, I never knew you. Depart from me, you that
work iniquity. All of their righteousnesses,
all of their church going, all of their so-called worship. all
of their so-called gospel preaching. The Lord Jesus said, it's an
abomination unto me. Get away from me. What a warning
now. And we don't preach this just
to be controversial. The religion of our day is pharisaical. It uses the name of Jesus, but
you preach the Christ of the Bible and people don't want to
hear about him. But I tell you who does, his
people do. His people do. Now listen to me for a second
longer. Our Lord, after saying what he did there in Matthew
7, those that said, look what we've done, we've been preaching
in your name, we are the religious leaders, we're the Pharisees
and the scribes, and there's still Pharisees around today.
They don't call themselves that, but it's the same, the religious
leaders of our day, the ones that love to be recognized, the
ones that want you kissing their rings and, you know, They promote
themselves, that's what they do. They always have. They did
when our Lord walked this earth, they do now. But when our Lord had said that,
I'm gonna say to you in that day, depart from me, you workers
of iniquity. Then he went on in the rest of
that chapter, right after that, in the next passage, and told
the story of the man who built his house on the sand, and the
one who built his house on the rock. Do you see what he's teaching?
If you are building a righteousness before God, a hope, the foundation
of your relationship with God is yourself and what you have
done. I don't care how religious you are, then great will be the
fall of that house. Listen now, and here's why. For other foundation can no man
lay than that is laid. which is Jesus Christ. Christ is the rock. First Corinthians
3, 11. In other words, the difference
between vain, empty, self-righteous works, free will religion that
may seem wonderful to you, but is an abomination to God, and
true good works with which God is well pleased, the difference
is Christ. It's Christ. And only Him. Your behavior's not the difference.
Keeping the law avails nothing, Paul said. It avails nothing,
whether you be in accordance with the law or not. It doesn't
mean anything to God. It's Christ and His righteousness
that is our only hope before God. Nobody comes to the Father
but by Him. Does God take pleasure in our
worship? That we come here, why do we
come together? To worship God. to preach the
gospel, to preach in his name. Does he take delight in that?
I believe he does, but why is that? Is it because we're so
spiritual and holy and knowledgeable? Of course not. God forbid that
we ever think that way. Here's why. Listen, 2 Corinthians
2.14, now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph
in Christ. And what's he talking about?
He's talking about the worship, because listen to what he said. And maketh
manifest the savor of his knowledge, Christ's knowledge, by us in
every place, wherever we preach the gospel and his people gather
together to worship him in the preaching of the gospel. God
causes it to be a victory. He causes us to triumph in it.
It's a win. It's not an abomination to God.
And listen, here's why. Verse 15, for we are unto God
a sweet savor of Christ. God said from heaven, this is
my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. He's not well pleased
with anybody else but Christ and whoever's in him. We're a sweet saver unto God
of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish. To the
one, we are the saver of death unto death and to the other,
the saver of life unto life. You come to Christ, you'll have
life. You reject him and refuse him, you'll remain dead in your
trespasses and sins. And who is sufficient for these
things? Not me. Paul said in another
place, our sufficiency is of God. For we are not as many which
corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God,
in the sight of God, speak we in Christ. That's why. If our worship's gonna be well-pleasing
to God, that's gonna be why. Listen to me, all of you who
preach or listen to any preacher, Christ is all in the preaching
of the gospel and in the worship of God, he's all. Paul said,
we preach Christ and him crucified. The point of gospel preaching
is never to get you to do something for God. It's to proclaim to
sinners what God has done for sinners by the life and death
of his son. We preach because it is by these
means that God has promised to do something for sinners as it
pleases him. First Corinthians 121, for after
that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God,
it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. And it's in that same chapter
that Paul said in verse 23, two verses down, we preach Christ
crucified unto the Jews, a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness,
but unto them, which are called under those, which God calls
by his grace, both Jews and Greeks. It doesn't matter who they are,
where they're from. Christ is the power of God and the wisdom
of God. And notice in our text in Isaiah
in verse three that it says, you find pleasure in the day
of your feast, of your fast, the day of your fast. That's
what you find pleasure in, your fasting. In the day, in the religious
aspect of it. Not in God. You don't find pleasure
in the son of God. God is only pleased with his
son. What are you pleased with? Your religion, your church going,
your works? That's what it says there. The
word pleasure there is satisfaction. Those who are religious and self-righteous
are satisfied with their own works. Paul said in Philippians
3, I wouldn't have them. I wouldn't have my righteousness
before God, I need his. Those who have believed on Christ
call their works as Paul did in that chapter, Philippians
3, they call their own works and they're good ones. Read that
chapter, Philippians 3. The best that Paul did, his very
religion and his religious heritage and his law-keeping, he said
it's dumb. that I may win Christ and be
found in Him." We can ever, only, always, ever
be satisfied with Christ alone. The last phrase of verse three
there in Isaiah 58 says, you impose labors, or you push upon
people heavy labor. This is the yoke that Simon Peter
spoke of in Acts 15.10. Now, therefore, why tempt ye
God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear? Why do you put the bondage
and yoke of the law on people? You preach, well, you've got
to live the Christian life in order to go to heaven. That's
just preaching the bondage of the law. Why are you going to
put a yoke? Nobody can measure up to God. That's why we flee
to Christ as our righteousness. We can't, by the deeds of the
law, Romans chapter 3, shall no flesh be justified in the
sight of God. We're justified freely by God's
grace through the redemption that's in Christ, or we're not
justified. So why would you put that yoke
of bondage on us, Simon asked. And then he said this in the
next verse, but we believe that through the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, we shall be saved even as they. We believe that
we're not gonna be saved by measuring up to God's holy standard, by
doing the deeds of the law, by works. We're gonna be saved because
the Lord Jesus Christ just wanted to save us. That's what grace
means. By his grace, freely, by his
grace, through the redemption that's in his precious blood.
In verse four of our text, behold, you fast for strife and debate
to smite with the fist of wickedness. And you shall not fast as you
do this day to make your voice be heard on high. That's why
you do your religious activities, because you think God's going
to see you and hear you and be impressed by it. The point of
the religion of the self-righteous is not the good of others, but
to prove themselves right and better than others. They look
down on everybody else. They love to argue and strive.
And as it says to smite, many people use the word of God as
a club to beat people over the head with it. There's nothing
meaner than a self-righteous church going snake. And that's
exactly what our Lord called them. Eugeneration of vipers.
And all of it again, look at the last phrase. Instead of wanting
to hear from God, they want God to hear from them. They want
to be heard. They want God to see their works
and hear their words They call that the power of prayer, you
know, name it and claim it. Things like that. I command and
I rebuke and all that nonsense. You don't do anything. They use the name of Christ in
order to try to give credibility to their proud rantings. But
in the next verse, God says, do you really think I'm going
to hear you or see you and accept what you do? Is that, is this
what's acceptable to you? And when God spoke in Matthew
17, five on the Mount of Transfiguration, he said this, is my beloved son,
in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him." That's what we need
to do. We need to shut up and hear him. Instead of trying to make our
voice heard, or in other words, trying to impress God, we need
to hear from him. And what God says to sinners
to hear, when he says, hear my son, What is the message of the
Son? What is the message of God? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. In John
chapter 20 it says, the reason all of this is written is that
you might believe on the Son of God and that believing you
might have life through his name. This book is a hymn book. The Bible is a hymn, H-I-M book. It concerns The Lord Jesus Christ
all through when that Ethiopian eunuch was riding along and didn't
understand what he was reading in the word of God. The Lord
sent Philip to him and Philip jumped up in that chariot and
began at the same passage in Isaiah 53 where that man was
reading and preached unto him, Jesus. Paul described the gospel
this way in Romans 1.1, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ called
to be an apostle, separated into the gospel of God, the gospel,
the good news of God, the message of God, which he had promised
to for by his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his
son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of
David according to the flesh and declared to be the son of
God with power. So why are you preaching on sin?
Why are you preaching on how to act and what you need to do? We need to be declaring what
God has done, what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished. That's
the gospel. The good news is not what you
do. It's what he has done. When the Son of God himself taught
his disciples after his resurrection, it says in Luke 24, 25, then
he said unto them, O fools and slow of heart, to believe all
that the prophets have spoken. What did they say? Ought not
Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his
glory? And beginning at Moses and all
the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the
things concerning himself. The scriptures concern God's
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, all of them. In our text, it deals
with the only issue that matters. Coming to Christ is coming to
him as your only righteousness before God, to the abandonment
of all of your own works, religious or otherwise. It is coming to
Christ as our sin offering, because all of your works are sin and
mine, and there's none that doeth good. All have sinned and come
short of the glory of God, and even our very righteousnesses
are filthy rags in the sight of the holy God. The only way
we can stand before God accepted is to be, as Paul said in Ephesians
1, accepted in the beloved, to stand in Christ. Let me read
that passage in closing in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3. Blessed be
the God and Father. of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him, before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will. Remember that, leper? Lord, if
you will, you can make me clean. To the praise of the glory of
his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted. Salvation is not
you accepting Jesus. Salvation is him accepting you.
And there is only one place that a sinner can be accepted before
God, accepted in the beloved, in the Lord Jesus Christ, in
whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins, according to the riches of his grace. Amen. May God bless his word to our
hearts. Amen.