Alright brethren, let's turn
to Isaiah 58. Let's begin reading in verse
1. Cry aloud, spare not, lift up
thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression,
and the house of Jacob their sins. This is God's charge to
His preacher. He says, cry aloud. Don't mutter,
don't peep, don't try to mince your words and hide things. He says, spare not. Don't hold
back the truth. Don't say this of some and not
of others. He says, lift up your voice like a trumpet and show
my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their
sin. The world of man wants to know
how little religion he can have and still be saved. God's going
to show us in this chapter how much religion a man can have
and still be lost. It's not about the outward appearance
of things. There will be an outward appearance,
but the matter is the heart. The matter is the motive, what's
in the heart. Now, the transgression we're
going to see here concerns one ordinance. One ordinance. And
here's what I want us to get. True worship is to obey God's
ordinance from a new heart. To obey God's ordinance from
a new heart. And the ordinance is to rest
in Christ our Sabbath. That's the one ordinance. To
rest in Christ our Sabbath. Then, Everything we do in our
lives will be done for the honor and glory of our Redeemer from
a heart constrained by His love and His grace. It's His love
and grace that will bring us to rest in Christ our Sabbath.
And when He's done that and put a new heart in you, you'll do
things in this world. Not maybe, you will. for the
honor and glory of Christ. Your worship will be for His
honor, for His glory. Everything. Now, surely this
people He's talking about here when He says, show them out their
transgression and their sins. Surely this people were harlots
and publicans and drunkards and folks that never even graced
the temple door. Well, let's read verse 2. Here's
who they were. 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." The ordinance
of their God. Here's what they want instead.
They ask of me the ordinances of justice. They take delight
in approaching to God. They saw God daily, and they
delighted to hear of God's ways. They liked to hear the prophets
speak, and they appeared, if you looked at them, they appeared
like they were doing righteousness. and all their deeds among men,
but they have forsaken the ordinance of God." Now you notice there
that word the ordinance is singular. The ordinance. And then there's
another word there that says, but they ask of me the ordinances
of justice. You see, they were asking God
to teach them the ordinances of justice. That means they were
wanting to know what can we do that we might work the works
of God and work righteousness ourselves and make ourselves
accepted of God. That's what they wanted. But
they had forsaken the ordinance. And the ordinance they had forsaken
typified and pictured how that God has rested His justice is
satisfied, His righteousness is entered in, His laws established,
and how all His people rest in Him. That's the ordinance they
rejected. Now, the first thing we're going
to have to see is this ordinance was the Sabbath day. This is
the ordinance they had forsaken, the Sabbath day. And the Sabbath
day, under the old covenant, was given by God to typify, to
picture rest in the Lord Jesus Christ through faith in Him.
That's what the Sabbath day was given for. Notice in verse 13,
Isaiah 58, 13, God says, If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath,
Now that's what the whole chapter is about, this one ordinance,
the Sabbath day. He says, if you turn away your
foot from the Sabbath. He says, he's saying here, if
you cease trampling underfoot the Sabbath and everything it
typifies and pictures. That's what he's saying. See,
remember when the Lord Moses drew near to the burning bush.
And the Lord Jesus was speaking from the burning bush and He
said, Moses, take your shoes off your feet because this is
holy ground where you're walking. Well, why was that holy ground?
It was holy ground because a burning bush in which Christ is speaking
typifies that cross of Christ where that fiery judgment of
God is coming down upon that cross and Christ is declaring,
judgment is settled and it's satisfied. And he's saying, this
is a picture of what I'm going to do on that cross, so this
is holy ground right here. Well, the same goes for the Sabbath
day, because the Sabbath day shows Christ our eternal rest. He's saying, don't you dare trample
under your foot this holy day. You're disgracing everything
that this day typifies and this day pictures. Now, let's go to
Colossians 2 because we want to see this. I want you to understand,
believers in our day are not obligated to obey a Sabbath day,
to keep a Sabbath day. That's not so. In Colossians
2, Paul has been declaring how that Christ has fulfilled the
whole law. He's the fulfillment of everything
that was written in the law. He's the righteousness of the
law. He's the sacrifices of the law. He's everything that was
shown and declared in the Ten Commandments and in the ceremonial
law. Christ is the end of it. He's the fulfillment of it. And
then he says this, Colossians 2.16, Let no man therefore judge
you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or
of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which All of those things
were in the law, and all of those things were a shadow of things
to come. But the body is of Christ. You see that? You know, when
you have a tree and it casts a shadow, what comes first, the
shadow or the tree? The tree. Well, he's saying here,
Christ was before the law, and that law was just casting the
shadow of Christ, and foreshadowing Christ, that would be the end
of that shadow. And he's saying, so that was
a shadow. Now, we're not resting in a shadow.
We're not trying to sit down in a shadow. We're not trying
to find life in a shadow. Our life and our rest is Christ. He's what it pictured. Now, look
on down the page in Colossians 2, verse 20. He says, Wherefore,
if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, from
all those things he just talked about, why, as though living
in the world, are you subject to ordinances? Touch not, taste
not, handle not, which are all to perish with the using. When
you die, all those works are going to die too. But look at
this. After the commandments and doctrines
of men, that's what men teach you, which things have indeed
a show. And that's all it is, is putting
on a show. A show of wisdom in what? Will worship. Will worship. Free will, man-centered worship. That's all those things are for.
And that's all they do. in a false humility, that's what
humility means there, and neglecting of the body, abstaining and afflicting
the body and causing the body to hurt and all this, but they're
not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh. They don't do anything
to make you delight and rejoice in Christ and rest in Christ.
Those things are just a show. That's all they are. Now, the
law, consider that the law of the Sabbath day, all it did was
give physical rest for the body from physical works. That's all
it did. Christ gives spiritual rest for
the soul in Him. He said, and I have no doubt
He was talking about the Sabbath day along with all the law and
everything that men yoke and oppress folks with when He said,
Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. He said, take my yoke upon you. Take that yoke of man and their
doctrines and their yoking you with the law and oppression.
Take that yoke off and take my yoke upon you, Christ said. And
He says, for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest
for your souls. Rest for your souls. That's much
better than this physical rest. The Sabbath day gave rest on
one day. Christ gives rest every day for
all eternity. Look at Hebrews 4 and verse 9.
I just want this to be established first before we get into the
text or we're going to miss this. Hebrews 4 and verse 9. There
remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. Verse 10,
For he that's entered into Christ's rest, he also hath ceased from
his own works, just like God ceased from His. You remember
when God gave the Sabbath in the wilderness and He told them,
because on the seventh day all my works were finished and I
rested from all my works? We saw in creation how that pictured
God rested from all His works in Christ. Well, he says here,
when a believer is brought to Christ, he rests from all his
works just like God rested from all His works. When Christ had
by Himself purged our sins, you know what He did? He sat down.
He rested from His works and God rested in Him. He satisfied
in Him with His people and His people are satisfied and made
to delight in Christ and rest in Him. Under the law, those
rebels They hated it and they didn't delight in it. They found
no delight in it whatsoever in observing the Sabbath day. But
believers find rest and delight and rejoicing in Christ. You
see how much better the substance is than the shadow? It's much
better. So God condemned them for forsaking
this one ordinance which foreshadowed Christ our rest. That's what
this whole chapter we're going to see. That's what it's about.
Look at verse 13. He said, if you turn away your foot from
the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and
call the Sabbath a delight. And if you want to read this
truly, what he's saying here is, is if you truly saw in your
heart, from your heart, you truly saw Christ in this Sabbath day,
you'll be rejoicing in Him. Look here. He said, and then
you'll call it the holy of the Lord. That's who Christ is, honorable,
and shall honor 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 write
upon the high places of the earth, and I'll feed thee with the heritage
of Jacob thy father, the inheritance of Jacob thy father, Christ your
inheritance. For the mouth of the Lord has
spoken it. Now do you see here, I want you
to understand, we're talking about Christ the Sabbath. Under
the old covenant, though they had to obey, they were to obey
what God gave them in the law and to physically keep a Sabbath
day on Saturday. The true believer born of the
Spirit of God did so looking to Christ and seeing Christ in
it and rejoicing in Christ. Today, believers are not required
to do it because Christ has come, He's made an end of that old
covenant, we're under the new covenant, of grace, we're not
even obligated to keep a Sabbath day, physical Sabbath day, because
now we see what it all showed in greater clarity. We see that
Christ is our rest and we rest in Him. Remember Paul said bodily
exercise profits little. That's what he was talking about.
All this touch not, taste not, handle not, observance of this
and that, that's just going to profit a little, if any. But
what really profits you is godliness. That means a new heart, resting
in Christ. There's where in you're going
to profit. All right, now let's see their offense. Let's see
what the offense was. God calls it doing their own
pleasure. Surely they weren't even, way
God's speaking, they must have not even been observing this
day at all. Oh, far from it. Far from it. They were keeping
the day to a tee. And then some. Look at verse
3. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our
soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Now God is referring here, He's
putting these words into the mouth of His prophet. And He's
calling this what they were calling it in their heart. And He refers
to their observance of the Sabbath day as a fast and as afflicting
their soul. Now, perhaps they did fast. Maybe
they did. And perhaps they did afflict
themselves bodily in some way. That's very likely because men
today do the very same thing. But God didn't require that on
the Sabbath day. Now, most of your commentaries
you read, they're going to say, well, the only day that a fast
was required was the Day of Atonement and all that. God's not talking
about the Day of Atonement right here. He's talking about the
Sabbath day all the way through it. But what He's doing here
is He's showing us what was in their hearts. while they were
observing the Sabbath day. You see, in their hearts, while
they're looking to their obedience, their meticulous keeping of this
Sabbath day, they considered themselves to be doing a great
sacrificial and afflicting work for God. They were fasting and
afflicting their souls for God. Oh, God's going to be pleased
with everything we've done. God never required for them to
fast or afflict their souls on a Sabbath day, never once. But
they called it that. They called it a fast because
they were doing without what they really were hungering for
and had an appetite for in their heart. And they called it afflicting
their soul because it was just like being whipped with a whip
not to do what their heart really lusted after. that's so. So they complained after all
this work they'd done keeping this Sabbath so perfectly, they
complained that God didn't even take notice of them. Look at
verse 3. Wherefore have we fasted, say
they, and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our
soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Let me make a statement. I hope
everybody understands this. The man who is keeping God's
law with every fiber of his being outwardly, and doesn't have a
new heart, that's doing it strictly because his motive is the love
and grace of God, God don't even notice him. He does not even notice him.
A man that's doing it for reward, and doing it to make God obligated
to him, and doing it because he thinks by this God's going
to accept him, and he's going to be made righteous by his works
and his obedience, God does not even acknowledge him. Not even
acknowledge him. Listen to God's description of
their Sabbath observance. Here's what God said about it.
Verse 3. Verse 3, He said, Behold, in the day of your fast,
in the day of your Sabbath observance, and He's saying here, it's your
Sabbath observance, it's not mine. In the day of your Sabbath
observance, you find pleasure. That's what he accused him of
down there in verse 13. You're doing your pleasure on
my holy day. Now, he's using this word fast
sarcastically. You see that as we go, because
what he's saying to them is, and they may have been fasting
physically, they may have been doing without food physically,
but by keeping that Sabbath day, God says what's really happening
is you're eating it up. You're delighting in this. This
is pleasurable to you. You ever seen folks like this?
You see them in our day. They will keep either a Saturday,
which is that was the Sabbath day, or they'll keep a Sunday. I challenge you to find any place
in Scripture where God changed the Sabbath day to a Sunday.
You're not going to find it because He didn't. He did not but folks
will do the things that were required on the Sabbath day They
won't they won't go out to eat and they won't build a fire and
they won't they won't cook they won't do anything and they Afflict
themselves. They look so sad and so sorrowful.
They always want everybody to know how sad and afflicted and
sorrowful they are But inwardly they're so proud of that. They
just eating that that's a feast. They just delighting it just
delighting it He says there in verse 3, you exact all your labors. Isn't that something? Here's
a day that physically gave rest for everybody, for them and everybody
in their house. A day that was to picture the glorious rest
Christ gives His people. And they took this day of rest.
And in this day of rest, they kept count of all their works
and all their labors in this day of rest. Here's what they
did. They took out their little tally
sheet, mentally, whatever, and they said, well, God said cease
from all your works. Check. We've done that. We haven't
done any work today. And they missed the spiritual
picture altogether, that whenever we're brought to faith in Christ,
we rest from all those kinds of works, from all those works
of trying to make ourselves accepted of God, because we're accepted
and righteous in Christ the Redeemer. They took out their little tally
sheet and they said, God said don't gather any food, don't
kindle sticks for a fire to cook or do anything. Check. We've
done that. missed the spiritual picture
altogether that Christ is the bread from heaven that gives
us life and full provision so that we don't have to worry and
work and fret. He's going to provide everything
we need to come into God's presence all this full day of grace. He's
going to do that. They missed that completely.
They took out their little chalice sheet and they said, God said,
set all your servants free and make sure they can rest. Check,
we did that. And we went around and we looked
too, and if they weren't resting, and if they were killing the
fire, picking up a stick or anything like that, oh, we smote them,
and we whipped them, and we disciplined them, and we made them, now you
obey this law and you do exactly what this law says. And miss
the whole picture that that's exactly what Christ delivers
His people from. He takes that yoke of the law
off us, and gives us a heart of love and grace so that we
quit yoking and binding one another and we rest in Christ and we
trust Christ to do the discipline through the preaching of His
grace and His mercy. Missed it completely. This is
the heart of the will worker who observes the Sabbath day
because he thinks he's required to do so under the law. Because
he thinks it'll get him favored with God. But he's missed the
picture of the Old Testament Sabbath. He's missed the true
Sabbath, the true rest altogether. That Sabbath rest is Christ the
Lord. Ceasing from daily work, that
was their religious work whereby they expected to gain God's favor.
Isn't that something? That shows you something about
our depravity. A man will stop working and say, Lord, this work
ought to get me something. Isn't that foolishness? That's
us by nature. That's how upside down we are.
Alright, God declares the motive of their heart for observing
this Sabbath. Now here's the problem, it's the heart, verse
4. He says, Behold, you fast for... Now whatever comes after
this word for, that's the motive. That's the motive, and that's
what God's looking for, the motive. He says now, here's why you're
fasting. You do it, and remember that
word fasting, here's why you're observing your Sabbath day. You're
doing it for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of
wickedness. You shall not fast as you do
this day to make your voice to be heard on high." He says, you
fast for strife and debate. Your motive, he's saying, is
to strive and debate against other men using your works of
keeping this Sabbath day to condemn them. and exalt yourself over
them. That's why you're using, that's
why you're even doing this, God said. He said, you're doing it
to smite with the fist of wickedness. So when you catch a man that's
not obeying like you think he ought to obey, you yoke him and
bind him and smite him. And he says, and you're doing
all of it to make your voice to be heard on high. You're doing
it to try to make God hear you and listen to you and owe you
and give to you what you think God owes you for all your work.
I heard a man the other day who made this statement. Christ has
finished His work. He's done everything He's going
to do for a sinner. Now it's our time to do something
for Him. What does salvation is of the
Lord mean? What does that mean? What does
Christ is the Alpha and Omega mean? What does it mean that
He's the author and the finisher of faith? It means that the work
from beginning to the end is Christ's work. That's what it
means. And we don't have a work in it. If we touch it, we're
going to mess it up, just like they ruined and polluted the
Sabbath day. Alright, verse 5. The Lord says, Is this such a
fast that I've chosen? Is this the Sabbath day? Is this
why I gave the Sabbath day? Is it a day, just one day for
a man to afflict his soul? Is it so he can bow down his
head like a bulrush and spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
That was a signification of mourning and sorrow. He says, will you
call this a fast and acceptable day to the Lord? No, that's not
God's chosen Sabbath. That's man's Sabbath day. That's
his Sabbath day keeping. Because he don't really delight
in it. He don't really want to be doing it. He's just doing
it because he's trying to make God a debtor to him. No, that's
not. There's no delight in it. There's
no rejoicing in it. God wasn't in their hearts when
they were doing it. They weren't constrained by the
love of Christ. Christ had nothing to do with
it. It was for themselves. It was
a vain work of self-righteousness and self-sanctification. They
weren't resting in Christ at all. All right, third thing.
Now we're going to behold Christ, God's chosen Sabbath. This is
the Sabbath day, or this is the Sabbath that God has chosen.
The Sabbath God has chosen right here. This is what that day was
to picture and typify. Verse 6, is not this the fast
that I've chosen? This is the Sabbath I've chosen.
It's for Christ to come and set His people free from the slavery
of that legal bondage. Verse 6, God says the Sabbath
I've chosen came to loose the bands of wickedness and to undo
the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free and that
you break every yoke. The legalist makes chains of
slavery by making men obey days and laws of Moses, and he lays
heavy burdens and heavy works on a man. And Paul said, while
he's doing that, he himself has not ever kept the law either.
He's doing it so he can glory in your flesh. But Christ came. Christ came and set his people
free from that bondage. Christ came and by fulfilling
the law for his people, he loosed the captives. He came to set
us free from that bondage. Christ came and undid the heavy
burdens. He came and He let the oppressed
go free. He came and He broke every yoke
and He did it by fulfilling the law in the place of His people.
By going to the cross and being the substitute of His people,
He satisfied divine justice for His people and took all that
yoke and all that constraint of the law off His people. Look,
He did everything for His people we couldn't do. Verse 7, Is it
not to deal thy bread to the hungry? We were starved of all
life. Christ is the bread from heaven
who gave us life. Just go read John chapter 6 and
He'll tell you the meaning of the Sabbath day. I'm the true
bread from heaven, He said. I'm the manna that came down.
That's what was pictured in that. And so that's the time when God
gave the Sabbath. And He said, now, you go out
and you're going to find plenty on Friday. That's the day Christ
died. You're going to find plenty of
bread right there at the cross to justify you, make you righteous
and give you life so that when the new day comes, you can just
rest. You can just rest. Christ came
and He gave us this life. He's the bread from heaven. Look,
verse 7, "...and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to
your house." Christ has a house. It's God's house. It's the house
where the whole family in heaven and earth is named. And He came
to where we are who were cast out because we were cast out
of the garden in Adam. We were cast out of God's presence
in our sin. And more than likely, cast out
of the presence of the self-righteous Pharisees who thought they could
do no wrong. And we didn't do anything but wrong. But He came
to gather up those and bring them into His house. And that's
what He's done. Verse 7 says, When you see the
naked, let you cover him. Christ came to where we are and
stripped us of our fig leaves and made us to see our nakedness
and then covered us with His righteousness. That's what He
came to do. He's the Sabbath. Verse 7, that
thou hide not thyself from your own flesh. You remember the parable
of the Good Samaritan? If I hear one more moral lesson
taught by a false preacher out of that, I believe I'm going
to throw up. That wasn't given to give you a moral lesson and
teach you to be the good Samaritan. It was given, Christ gave it
to declare, He's the good Samaritan. But do you remember that? That
text right there, our text says that you hide not yourself from
your own flesh. Remember in that parable? The
law, the Levite came, the law came and it went over to the
other side of the street and that man in the ditch, he just
passed by and wouldn't even come near him. The priest came. He wouldn't come near that man.
He hid himself from him. He went on. That Levite and that
priest, Christ said that was a Jew in a ditch. And they hid
themselves from their own flesh. But the good Samaritan, you know
what he did? He didn't hide himself from the
man in the ditch. He came to him and revealed himself
to him. And put him on his own horse
and took him to an inn and gave the innkeeper two two tokens
and said, you keep him until I come back and get him. That's
Christ. That's what He did. And Christ
our Sabbath makes us repent from our legal vain self-righteousness
and from all that junk and He gives us health and He gives
us light and righteousness and protection and communion with
Him. Look here at verse 8. When He's done all that, He makes
you want to do those things that He's done for you. That's why
the Lord is saying here, if you do those things, that's a picture
of a man brought to faith in Christ. But look, here's what
He gives us when He's brought us to faith in Christ. Verse
8, Then shall thy light break forth as the morning. We have
Christ the light. He says, In your health shall
spring forth speedily. We have Christ for our health.
And thy righteousness shall go before thee. Christ is our righteousness. Has He not gone before us? He's
the forerunner that's entered in and sat down at the right
hand of God. Look, and the glory of the Lord shall be thy re-reward.
He'll be your rearward, coming up behind you and protecting
you from attack from the rear. He's our protection. Look, verse
9, Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer. Thou shalt
cry, and He shall say, Here I am. That is communion with God. That's what we have in Christ.
And all this is given when He grants us repentance from doing
this, from taking away from the midst of thee the yoke and the
putting forth of the finger and the speaking of vanity. That's
all that's involved in this thing of keeping a legal Sabbath. All
they do is they put a yoke on people and they point the finger
at folks and condemn and they speak vanity. That's all that's
involved in it. And He says, repent from that
and you'll have some life. And He gives it and He makes
you repent from it. Now look here, when He's made
us repent, this is what He does, verse 10. He makes you then draw
out your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul. Then
shall your light rise in obscurity, and your darkness be as the noonday.
And the Lord shall guide thee continually, satisfy thy soul
in drought, make fat thy bones. Thou shalt be like a watered
garden, like a spring of water whose waters fell not. They that
shall be of thee shall build the old waste places. Thou shalt
raise up the foundations of many generations. Thou shalt be called
the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.
We're going to look at all those things in more detail later.
But basically, here's what it means. And He's called you and
He's become your Sabbath rest. And He's brought you in to His
house and made you to support His gospel and the preaching
of His Word. That's when you start clothing
the needy, the naked through this Word we're preaching. And
physically, if they need it. It's when He makes you a repairer
of the breach. Because He shows you Christ who's
repaired the breach. And we set Him forth in the Gospel.
And He's the one that makes us to do all of these things right
here. Build the old waste places and
raise up the foundations. We're not doing any of that.
All we're doing is setting forth the truth of what He is and what
He's accomplished. And He's doing all these things
like He did it for us for those lost sheep that He's calling
out. This is what He said He'd do if we cease looking to ourselves
and trying to come to God by some obedience we've done. Isn't
that wonderful? That's God's chosen Sabbath. I'm going to rest in Him. I believe
I'll rest in Him. Amen.