Hello, everybody. Let's turn
to Isaiah chapter 58. Isaiah 58. We are going to look at the first
seven verses. You might want to mark it with something because
I look at scriptures. and come back. I don't want you
to hear my words. I want you to see words out of scripture.
So Isaiah 58, we're gonna look at the first seven. The title
of the message is Spiritual Fasting That God Will Accept. We're gonna
cover verses one through five briefly, but the main text verses
six and seven. And there's not much direction
in scripture on fasting. Todd's mentioned that before.
They did it in the New Testament. but there's no direction really
on how to, or you know, there's just really no direction in scripture.
Don Fortner defined it as subjecting the desires of the body and the
needs of the body to the burden of the heart and the longings
of the spirit in prayer. Mainly, you're gonna abstain
from some food, some comfort, and seek the Lord in prayer.
Now, since there's no scriptural direction Believers are free
to fast or not Just there is one rule in scripture though.
Don't let anybody know you're doing it. It's between you and
your Lord So that's the only direction I could find in it
at all but Israel as usual had turned this into a an outward
religious show of the flesh, trying to impress everybody with
their fasting, with their laying on sackcloth, with their abusing
themselves and making themselves look really, you know, like I'm
really dedicating myself to the Lord outwardly, trying to impress
the Lord and men and everyone else. I don't, I mean, I know
they knew, and we know with scripture, but God looks on the heart. and
they're sitting there outwardly trying to impress him. And that's
me and you. I mean, that's us in the flesh.
We do that all the time, but Israel had fallen into that.
They were trying to impress him, but the Lord looks on the heart.
1 Samuel 16, verse seven, the Lord seeth not as man seeth,
for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh
on the heart. And even now, he's looking on
our hearts, and he knows whether we're just here to make a religious
appearance, go through the motions, or are we here with hearts that
wanna hear, that wanna worship him. So verse one, cry loud,
spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people
their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Cry
aloud means screaming to wake up people that have fallen asleep. There's nobody in here sleeping
yet. I'm hoping I don't have to scream, but I'm not much of
a screamer anyway, but that's what this is talking about. Israel
had fallen into this, had gotten so used to it, they were just
in sin and didn't realize it, and they need to be woken up.
And he says, cry aloud. We can become so numb to our
sin because we're so normalized to it, we're so used to it, it's
our nature. It's our sinful nature, and that's
why every time a preacher stands up here, you're going to hear
a lot about how sinful you are, because it's all through the
scripture, but because it's the truth, and because we fall asleep
to it a lot. We need woken up, and we ask
the Spirit of God to do that. And that word, show my people,
that means expose. expose, announce, and we do that
by just preaching the word. I'm not gonna sit up here, you
don't sit up here and berate people and tell them how awful
they are, that's not gonna do anything. You pull open the scripture,
you show them what God has said, and that's how you expose to
sin. And I'm gonna look at one verse,
two words, that's gonna tell us how sinful we are. Matthew
chapter seven, Todd looked at this, A couple weeks ago, it
caught my eye, and it's pretty simple, straightforward. Matthew chapter 7, and that's
verse 11. This is a sermon on the mount.
This is the Lord speaking. He's talking with his disciples.
Matthew 7, 11, if ye then being evil. right there talking to
his disciples they had left all followed him left family and
friends preaching the gospel and he calls them evil beings
because they were still sinners they were still in the flesh
just like me and you we're evil beings now outwardly we are to
be good and we should be good we should strive to be the best
we can to every person on the face of this earth but we are
not to use that good works to impress God, to impress men,
it's what we're to do. But like I said, you can be as
good as you can outwardly, which we should be, but God is looking
on the heart and he sees in here and he sees the pride and the
selfishness and the covetousness and the greed and the selfishness
that goes behind everything we do outwardly. And so we are evil
beings in his eyes because he's looking on the heart. So they
were going, let's go back to Isaiah 58. Like I said, we'll
be kind of coming back and forth here a little bit. Verse two. Yet, so they were fallen asleep
to sin, they were just going through the motions, but they
were still going through the motions here outwardly in verse
two. Yet they seek me daily and to like to know my ways as a
nation that did righteousness. Notice that word as, but not
really. and forsook not the ordinance
of their God, they ask of me the ordinances of justice, they
take delight in approaching to God. They were outwardly going
through the motions of religion, as we do a lot of. And I hate that we do that, but
this flesh is just so wanting to be noticed by everybody that
we will say, do anything we can to lift ourselves up in other
men's eyes and in our own hearts. And that's just not the way to
be. The flesh profits nothing in
salvation, nothing. Turn to Ezekiel 33, you got Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel 33, so Israel was just going through the motions
outwardly, not inward. Their heart was not in it. And
we got one verse here that kind of describes their condition
at this time and mine and yours in the flesh also. Ezekiel 33,
verse 31. And they come unto thee, his
people, as the people cometh. And they sit before thee, as
my people sit right there in the pews, and they hear thy words,
but they will not do them. For with their mouth they show
much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness." With
their mouth, with their actions outwardly show much love. Oh,
I love the gospel. and their heart is not in it. That was
their problem, that's our problem, and remember God's looking on
the heart. He's looking at the heart, at
the inward, the motive, the desire, the intentions. And I think Erin might have mentioned
that this I love you, those three words are very important or not
important if they're not backed up with the actions of love.
And Israel was just going through the motions, the outward motions
of fasting, afflicting themselves, trying to impress each other
in God. Their heart was not into it. Back to Isaiah, verse three. Like I said, we'll cover the
first five verses kind of quickly, and then we'll get to verses
six and seven. So verse three, so they were numb to their sin. They were going through the motions
outwardly of religion. And then they asked the Lord
this question. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou
seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our
soul, and thou takest no knowledge? They're asking the Lord, why
are we doing all that, why are we going through all this great
religious stuff and you're not paying any attention to us? Do
you not see what we're doing? They thought highly of their
outward religion, devotion and affliction, wondering why it
didn't impress God enough to give them their desire or deliver
them from their troubles. And I already mentioned this,
John 6, verse 63, the flesh profiteth nothing in spiritual matters
at all. Here should be our attitude on
these works that we perform So likewise ye, when you shall have
done all those things which are commanded you, say, we are unprofitable
servants. We have done that which is our
duty to do. Unprofitable, sinful, not acceptable
to God. Now it's profitable for men.
We should, like I said before, we are to be good and do good
to all men at all times as much as we can. Treat them like you'd
have them treat you. but unprofitable to bring that
before God, help that lady walk across the street, that's nice.
God, will you accept me? Don't do that. It's unprofitable. Now, a believer,
we are to be zealous and perform good works, right? Because Ephesians
2, verse 10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto
good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk
in them. There will be good works from
believers because God ordains that they're going to be there
and he works it in you. He works it in you to do these
good works. But these good works, giving, caring, sharing, loving,
helping, whatever you want to do, They're for the good of men
and to glorify our Lord. They are not to earn salvation
or impress him in any manner at all. But Israel had fallen
into that, and thinking outwardly, we were impressing the Lord. But the Lord replies, and he
says in the last part of verse three, behold, in the day of
your fast, ye find pleasure. and exact all your labors. Notice
he called it your fast, your finding pleasure. It's not my
fast, and I'm not finding pleasure, but you are. Anytime, well, let's go here. Let's look at verse four. Here's
what the issue with their fasting was. Behold, ye fast 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. Anytime outward religion becomes the main focus, contentions
and disputes are sure to follow. They were fastened, there was
strife, there was trouble, there was, why isn't the Lord helping
us? They were, anytime, like I said, outward motions
in religion becomes the main focus, and men get together to
try to work on, they're gonna come up with rules and laws and
stuff that just, How long do we fast? Where do we fast? What can I eat? Can I drink when
I fast? You're gonna come up with all
this stuff, none of it's in scripture, but you'll start imposing it
on everybody and everybody will start, let's have a meeting,
committee to form this meeting to see how we should fast and
all. It's not, you put men in charge of coming up with spiritual
guidance when it's not in scripture and you've got trouble. You've
got trouble. There should never be any issues
about fasting because no one should even know you're fasting.
At Toyota, I was back in robot repair taking a lunch break.
Four or five of us sit down at the table, pull out my bologna
sandwich and chips, which I took every day for lunch, with mustard. And that made it much better. There was a religious guy in
the group, and he come up and sat down at the table. plopped
his can of Gatorade down there and I said, oh man, what you
got for lunch? Oh, I'm not eating lunch today,
I'm fasting. I'm gonna drink my Gatorade though. He was right there just making
sure everybody knew how dedicated and religious he was. I'm fasting,
let's tell everybody. Scripture says, do not let anybody
know you're fasting. Matthew chapter six, let's look
at that. Matthew chapter six. And let's
go to verse 16. This is the Lord again in the
Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 6.16, Moreover, when
you fast, and there it is, you can fast or not fast, but be
not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure
their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. They would
take ashes and rub it over their faces and make it look black
and sad and like they were really, you know, starving to death.
Verily I say unto you, they have their reward, but thou, when
thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou
appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy father, which is
in secret. It's between you and him. And
thy father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. And
in this chapter, prayer, giving, and fasting is all between you
and the Lord. Keep it there. There's no need
to show, there's no need to go back into the, back then they
would go into the, drop their money in the treasury. The Pharisees
would get the coins and raise them up a couple of feet. So
it'd make a bunch of noise when it hit down in the treasury.
Look at how much I put in there. Did you hear that? That's people. We don't need to be like that,
but we are like that by nature. We can't get rid of this sinful
nature. We love to dress to impress men and thinking it's impressing
God, but it's not. So, the Lord, let's go back to
Isaiah 58. And verse five, so Israel was
asleep to their sins. The Lord, they were going through
the motions of fasting. The Lord tells them, it's not
a good fast. You are, oh, the fist of wickedness.
Let's talk about that a little bit in verse four there. That
fist of wickedness, I kind of looked that up a little bit.
It refers to the hard-hearted envy and pride of the ultra-religious
worshipers looking down on others. Beating them down, not with fleshly
fists, but with religious fists of a holier-than-thou attitude. That's what that fist of wickedness
is talking about right there. Looking down your nose, beating
people down. I'm holier, I'm better than you.
That holier-than-thou attitude. Now, these next two verses. Well,
let's see, verse five, I'm sorry. Now, here's the Lord's reply.
to the fast that he will accept. Is it such a fast that I have
chosen? He's asking him, do you really think I'm enjoying you
putting ashes on your face and you're sitting in a potato sack
naked and really rubbing around and just really hurting yourself?
Is that really, that's going to impress me? You're going to
stand on judgment day in heaven and bring that before me? No. Is it such a fast that I've chosen
a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head
as a bulrush and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will thou
call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord? No. Then he tells us what he will
accept. So these two verse, verse six
is mainly dealing with law-keeping works religion. Any
type of spiritual fasting related to law-keeping and works religion. So just like in physical fasting
where you're denying yourself the comforts of food or anything
that you do, this spiritual fasting is denying yourself any law-keeping, works, religion,
obedience, obeying, any type of self-righteous, fleshly, exalting
yourselves above other, deny the self-righteous flesh and
preach the liberty of Christ alone. That's what this fasting
is about. It's concerning the gospel. It's not concerning an
outward, physical fast. It's a heart fast. It's a spiritual
fast. And he breaks it up into four
kind of sections here in verse six. And we'll go over each one
here. So the Lord says, is not this
the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness. And now that's related to those
fists of wickedness that we talked about, that holier-than-thou
attitude that these people had. Talking about the religious leaders,
looking down on everybody and imposing their laws and traditions
on these believers. Let's look at a Romans 14 that's
going to shed a little light on this a little bit Romans 14 And verse 13 So we're talking
about fasting. We're going to deny something
And preach something else so Romans 14 verse 13 Let us not therefore judge one
another anymore, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling
block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. I know,
and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing
unclean of itself. But to him that esteemeth anything
to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved
with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably or in love. Destroy
not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. Let not then your
good be evil spoken of, for the kingdom of God is not meat and
drink. Don't impose that on your brothers
or sisters or anybody. Deny all of this outward food or anything that
you're looking at stopping from. Deny self any food or drink or
anything that would put a stumbling block in your brother and preach
Christ alone. Don't do that to your brother.
If someone doesn't think it's okay to drink beer, don't go
drinking a beer in front of them. Have some love for your brother
or sister. They don't do it, that's fine. We all have our
thing. It's an indifferent issue. Let's
not make it an issue. Let's take care of our brothers
and sisters. Undo, so loose the bands of weakness. We won't turn
back to Isaiah 58, but the next one was undo the heavy burdens.
Now undo doesn't mean not just to untie, it means to violently
shake and agitate. And it's hard to shake the law
keeping out of this flesh. It's so ingrained in us that
it never leaves us as long as we live in this sinful nature.
We are law keepers extraordinaire, but we shouldn't be that way.
Christ kept the law for us. It's fulfilled. We are completely
perfect in him. We don't have to impose all these
laws on others and on ourselves or anything. We are free in Christ.
Now look at Colossians chapter 2. Turn over, we've got Romans,
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and then Colossians chapter 2. Verse 8, beware lest any man
spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition
of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Beware of that. The Lord warns
us. Verse 16, let no man therefore
judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of a holy day or
the new moon or the Sabbath days. Don't let him tell you what to
eat, what to drink, where to go, what day to do this, where,
what. We're free in Christ. And right, those things, verse
17 tells us why. Those things are just a shadow
of things to come, but the body is of Christ. Now look at verse
20, wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments
of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject
to ordinances like touch not, taste not, handle not, which
all are to perish with the using. Anyone that abides by the touch
not, taste not, handle not outward religion are gonna perish and
go to hell. After the commandment and doctrines
of men, which things have indeed a show of wisdom and will worship
in humility." Oh, you look real good to everybody. And neglecting
of the body, but not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.
So, this spiritual fasting is abstaining from any man-made
traditions, ceremonial laws, anything like that. and rejoice
in the complete and finish salvation in Christ because we got that
one verse that we skipped over, verse 10, Colossians 2, verse
10, and ye are complete in him. There's nothing needed. You don't
have to keep this, go there, do this, say that, anything else.
You trust Christ, you are complete in him. We don't need these man-made
ceremonial traditions. Let's fast from them, let's get
rid of them. The next thing he told the Israelites that the
fasting that he would accept is let the oppressed go free.
Oppressed means broken under the weight of sin and Psalm 51
verse 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. a broken
and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Now,
how do we let these oppressed under sin go free? We preach
the gospel and Christ frees them through his gospel, through the
good news. Christ takes the sin to himself, takes personal possession
of it, found guilty of it by just God, nailed to a tree, suffers
eternal hell for that sin and puts it away forever, and we
are free. The oppressed go free. And we're gonna look at one verse
that talks about that. Galatians, chapter five. Galatians five, familiar verse. Verse one, Galatians five, verse
one, stand fast. Therefore, in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage. Christ has made us free from
the law and from sin, and Aaron mentioned that verse this morning,
2 Corinthians 5, 21, for he hath made him to be sin for us. He made him sin to make us free. And he took all of our sin and
gave us his righteousness and we're perfectly free and at liberty. And Todd has mentioned that somebody had said that Do what you want, how did that
go? Trust Christ and do what, trust Christ and do what you
want. There's the liberty in the gospel. What do I wanna do?
I wanna love him, serve him, follow him, love my brothers
and sisters. That's what we wanna do when
we're given this liberty. So abstain, so this fasting is
abstaining from the bondage of works religion and rejoicing
in the liberty of salvation in Christ alone. And the next one
he said, break every yoke. A yoke was that bar that they
put across a couple oxen at the front of the cart to keep them
in line, whip them, guide them, steer them, where to go, what
to do, just like the law does. That's all the law does. It's
a whip. It's a yoke. It's on our neck. It's getting us down.
It's called being under the whip of the law. Look at Matthew chapter
11. I love these three verses. These
are a great comfort when you're burdened under the
sin, which we all, I mean, it's just so, we're such sinful people. I just wish we weren't, but we
are. And the Lord gives us these three verses of rest that really
bless me, and I hope that they bless us all. Matthew 11, verse
28. Now we're talking, remember,
we're breaking every yoke. That's what this is concerning. Come
unto me. That's a command, that's not
an invitation. All ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. No more working, no more striving,
no more impressing. Simply rest in the finished work
of Christ alone. Verse 29, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me. And how are you gonna learn of
him? He has to teach you, and who teaches you? John 6, verse
45, it is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught
of God. Taught of God, not Todd, not
Brian, not taught of any preacher, God himself and the power of
his spirit. If he teaches you this, you will break these yokes,
you will not be under law keeping, and you will look to the liberty
we have in Christ. And I pray the Lord does that
for us. So the fast here is to abstain from any yoke of law
keeping, and rest in Christ our Sabbath. So that was verse six. Turn back to Isaiah 58. So that
was four conditions in the first part of the fast that the Lord
will choose and accept. And then verse seven deals more
with brothers and sisters helping each other. And it's more about
denying self and being merciful to your brother and sister. So
instead of denying food, let's deny self, deny flesh and be
for our brothers and sisters. Now there's four points again
in this verse. All right, let's read it first.
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry? and that they'll
bring the poor that are cast out to thy house. When thou seest
the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself
from thine own flesh." These four points deal with believers,
talking to believers, and how we're to treat each other, and
how to put others before self. We all have the three, our three
favorite people in this world. I mean, we all have the same
three favorite people, me, myself, and I. And let's try to deny
self a little more now and help each other and serve each other
and love each other and care for each other and pray for each
other. That's what this fasting is concerning. And the first
one he says is, deal thy bread to the hungry. Now, all these
are, of course, can be taken literally. Let's feed people
when they're hungry. Let's help the poor. Let's do what we can
to all this. But there's spiritual teaching
in all this. Matthew 5, verse 6, blessed are they which hunger
and thirst after righteousness. That's the hunger he's talking
about here. Now this bread is God's gospel, but it's also our
gospel. Apostle Paul said, but if our
gospel be hid, it's hid to them, they're lost. So he gave us his
son, he united us to him, he gave us a new heart, and we rejoice
in the bread of the gospel, the bread of Christ. And that hunger,
it's a need. of the new spirit, that new heart,
that sees we have no righteousness to offer God, and we need the
righteousness of Christ. So we're hungry for it. It's
a need, it's a hunger and a thirst. Look at John chapter six. John chapter six, verse 53. Here's the bread that satisfies
the hungry sinner. Then Jesus said unto them, verily,
verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I'll raise
him up to the last day. And we all know that's by faith.
This is not physically eating the body of Christ. This is spiritually
by faith trusting him. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father
hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me,
even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, not as your fathers did
eat manna and are dead. He that eateth of this bread
shall live forever. The bread of Christ, eternal
life. Let's preach Christ. So fast from preaching all this
empty bread works religion and preach Christ alone, the bread
of Christ. That's what that fasting is concerning. The next one, it was, did I skip
something here? Okay. Bring the poor that are
cast out to thy house. And once again, we had the hungry,
which is one of the beatitudes, right? The beatitude. The other
one was the poor in spirit, and here's the poor in spirit here.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. They're poor in righteousness.
They're bankrupt. We have nothing to offer God. We're poor in spirit. There's one verse I want to look
at concerning that. It's in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy
chapter 15, back towards the front of the Bible. Deuteronomy
15. And we're talking about feeding
the poor, sinners, poor sinners, needing the bread of Christ.
Deuteronomy 15, verse 11. For the poor shall never cease
out of the land, Therefore, I command thee, saying, thou shalt open
thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy
in thy land. Open your hand wide, preach the
gospel of the bread of Christ to these poor, hungry sinners.
That's what we're to do. So fast, abstain from these riches,
the false riches of self-righteousness. and feed the poor in spirit the
true righteousness of Christ's righteousness and the bread that's
in him. Now, when thou seest the naked,
the third point that he had in verse seven, when thou seest
the naked or the exposed, that thou cover him or conceal or
hide. Revelations chapter three. I know I'm turning, I told you. I just want you to see all this
in Scripture. You don't need to hear it from
my mouth, my opinions. I want you to see the Word of
God, Revelation 3. And we're talking about when
you see the naked, that you cover it, that you hide, that you conceal. Verse 15, Revelation 3, verse
15. I know thy works, and this is the Lord talking to the church
of Laodicean and to all of us. I know thy works, that thou art
neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot.
So then, because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will
spew thee, I will vomit you out of my mouth. That's pretty strong
language. Because thou sayest, I'm rich. and increased with goods and
have need of nothing. Look at all these good works
I got. I mean, I'm fasting, I'm preaching, I'm teaching Sunday
school. I mean, look, I don't need Christ. I'm going pretty
good right now. And we forget at the last part
of verse 17, and know us not that thou art wretched and miserable
and poor and blind and naked, you're exposed And 18, that word
council is not advice, it's determination. It's a determination. I determine
that you to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest
be rich and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed. Our Lord's determination is that
he would cover us in the fine linen of Christ's righteousness
and to cover us because we're naked and exposed to him, trying
to walk around our own self-righteous fasting and all these great outward
deeds that's not gonna do anything to impress the Lord. We are covered
in that fine linen. And look over in Revelation 19,
over just a couple pages. Now, how do we get this fine
linen? How are we covered with this? perfect robe of Christ's
righteousness. Verse 7, Revelation 19 verse
7. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give honor to him for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his
wife has made herself ready. She's put on her shoes, she's
got her good works, she's been fasting, she's been preaching,
she's making herself look, she's ready to go. No. Verse eight,
and to her was granted, given, graced, that she should be arrayed
in fine linen, clean and white. For the fine linen is the righteousness
of saints, the righteousness of Christ given to us. And that's
the fine linen, and that's what we're to cover the naked brother
or sister or anybody that's exposed with. abstain fast from hiding
in any works of self-righteousness and hide in our shelter, the
refuge of Christ. Perfect. His blood and his righteousness.
And the last part of that verse seven, he said, hide not thyself
from thine own flesh. And that word flesh is, is family. And that he's talking about a
spiritual family and every believer in this room is part of God's
family. And we are a family. I know we all have different
likes and dislikes physically and stuff, but we all have the
same love. He's given us that love and we
love our Savior and we love each other. We are a spiritual family
that should take care of each other and not hide ourselves
from one another. Come to worship services. Mainly
this is talking about assembling together in public worship. Hebrews
10 verse 25 says, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.
as a manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the
more is to see the day approaching. Galatians 6 verse 10, as ye have
therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men especially. unto them who are of the household
of faith, our spiritual family. We have the same Father. We've
got the same divine nature. And as Aaron said this morning,
we all have the same name, Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord, our righteousness.
We are all one in our Lord. So fast in this fasting is abstaining
from caring only for self. and share the good news of the
gospel with your brothers and sisters in Christ as we assemble
together publicly. I know I kind of covered, kind
of a little hit and miss there, but I want to, I think we can
sum it up like this. And I like to sum this up without
AI. Have any of y'all seen that on
TV yet? They got this big long report and they hit this AI and
it sums up and gives this night. You don't even have to do anything.
AI just does it all for you. And I'm sure we're gonna have
an AI Bible before long. I'm sure they're gonna do something
like that. It's getting ridiculous. But
anyway, I got a little course there. True spiritual fasting
that God will accept is abstaining and depriving yourself of outward
religious acts associated with works religion that our flesh
craves and loves to do, right? And trust and preach Christ alone
as all of our salvation. In other words, fast from all
this outward religion and worship him from the heart. It's a heart
matter. This fasting, Now, like I said,
you can fast physically, that's fine. Don't let anybody know.
But this spiritual fasting, we should all be doing all the time.
Abstaining from the works religion and looking to Christ alone.
In other words, fast for himself and feast on Christ. That's one
way I would put it. That's true spiritual fasting
that God will accept. And I'd like to finish up just
by reading the last part of Isaiah 58. Starting at verse 8. So remember,
Israel had tried to impress him with their physical fasting and
the Lord was not going to have any of that. And he told him
the fasting that I will accept. And then here's the result when
we are given the grace to truly spiritually fast and abstain
from works religion and trust Christ. Verse 8. Then shall thy
light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring
forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee. The glory
of the Lord shall be thy reward. Then shalt thou call, and the
Lord shall answer. Thou shalt cry, and he shall
say, here I am. If thou take away from the midst
of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking
vanity, And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry and satisfy
the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity and
thy darkness be as the noonday. And the Lord shall guide thee
continually and satisfy thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones. And thou shalt be like a water
garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not. I hope
the Lord blesses that to you. Thank you.