If you have your Bibles, turn
with me to Isaiah, the 58th chapter. Gonna look at verses one through
four tonight. The title of my message is Religion
Without Christ. Isaiah chapter 58, verses one
through four. Cry aloud, spare not. Lift up thy voice like a trumpet
and show my people their transgressions. in the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily, delight to know my ways, as a nation
that did righteousness and pursupt not the ordinance of their God.
They ask of me the ordinances of justice. They take delight
in approaching to God. Wherefore have we fasted, say
they? And thou seest not. Wherefore
have we afflicted our souls? and thou takest no knowledge.
Behold, in the day ye fast, ye find pleasure and exact all your
labors. Behold, ye fast for strife and
debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Ye shall
not fast as you do this day to make your voice to be heard on
high. Let us pray. Our Father, it is in the name
of Jesus Christ, the blessed name, The only name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved. The name who is king
and master of this world and this universe. The name that
doesn't match the fact of the sure salvation of his people
from their sins. That name to which every knee
shall bow and every tongue confess that he's lord to the glory of
the father of things in heaven and things in earth and things
under the earth. shall all glorify you by declaring him Lord. He
is indeed the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in that name and in that
authority we approach into your presence gladly, boldly, to make
our desires known. We pray for those who are sick
of our company, those who are traveling, those who away from
us for whatever reason, we ask, Lord, you'd be with them, watch
over them, bring them safely back to us. For those who are
sick, we pray your healing touch, your comforting hand. For Wayne
and Laverne and Henry and Robert, for the others who requested
prayer, Lord, we ask that you'd continue to be a close and present
comfort to them. For ourselves tonight as we've
gathered here, we pray that you would enable us to hear and to
receive that which you have for us. to take into account the
Word of God is the final say-so in all things, and it is that
which was here before us and will be here long after we're
gone. and will still stand for the glory that is belongs to
you alone and the salvation of your elect by the blood sacrifice
of Jesus Christ. Help us now to worship you as
we consider these things. Cause us in our hearts to be
warned, to be instructed, and to grow in the grace and knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in his precious name.
Amen. And on this passage of scripture,
our Lord confronts by his prophet Those who are professors yet
possess no real interest or spiritual interest in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, these people are outwardly as fine of folks as you would
ever run into on earth. They are moral. They are practicing
and observing the ordinances that God has set forth. They
are endeavoring to keep the law. and by all appearance seem to
be the true people of God. They claim to be. They claim
Jehovah is the one true God. But men look on the outward appearance,
but God looks on the heart, saith the scripture. Men can see actions
and often base their estimations on what they see, but men cannot
discern motive. God discerns the heart and the
motive behind what men do, and in this case, he even discloses
what lies beneath the visible machinations of religious piety,
the motives for their pious behavior. And the disclosure of their motives
is that their morality, their obedience, their law-keeping,
their prayers, their fasting, their pursuit of righteousness
is transgression and sin against God, plain and simple. Our Lord
says, show them their transgressions in the house of Jacob, their
sins. So whatever follows here, our
Lord categorizes as sin. Now the world wouldn't categorize
this as sin at all. The world would say, these are
the right living people and these are the people we ought to follow
as examples. But our Lord says, show my people their sin. Hey, sweetie. In verse one, the
Lord calls upon his prophet, his preacher, to cry aloud and
spare not. And that simply means don't worry
about hurting anybody's feelings by what you say. It also means
to cry from the throat or cry from deep down to make his voice
as a trumpet or a clarion call. This is done publicly, this is
done openly, and the people are confronted. He is to make his
voice known publicly, not in the inner chambers of secrecy
or in the comfortable couch of the counselor's office. He is
to loudly and overtly show the people their sin and the house
of Jacob their transgressions. Over the years I've heard many
revivalists have employed this first verse to wage war on all
kinds of sin. They stand in the pulpit and
get all red in the face and veins pop out on their neck and they
say, the Lord said, cry aloud and spare not. And then they
begin to jump on the alcoholics and the drug addicts and the
lascivious people and all manner of social evils and just rake
people over the coals. The problem with that is that
religious people are already generally against those things.
And such messages only serve to prop up their self-righteousness
because they're not guilty of those things. I could preach
that way and make all of you feel real good about yourself.
But that's not what he said. Show my people their sin. The
old story of the man who every time the preacher preached, he'd
stop me in the back of the church and say, boy, you really got
him today, preacher. You really got him today. One day that snowed
real bad, it was just him and the preacher showed up. And when
the preacher went ahead and preached, the preacher wondered if he was
going to say, you got him again today. And he said, well, preacher,
if you'd have been here, you'd have got him. You'd have got
him. However, the sin of the people,
and this is hard to understand, but this is must be applied because
our Lord applied it in the day that he lived, and so did all
the apostles that they wrote the epistles to the church. The
sin of the people is their religion, not their drinking and chewing
and messing around with folks who do. It's their religion,
and that's important to understand. The sin that the Lord requires
His prophet to show or disclose is that they're moral doings,
and they are moral. in the context of a religious
worship and duty is sin. Now these are not outwardly vile
people. He's not talking to a bunch of
rebels in the sense that we would consider rebels in the day in
which we live. Outwardly, they are straight as gun barrel, and
one fellow said, just as empty. Outwardly, their piety and rectitude
cannot be questioned. You cannot question how these
people live, because they live right. And they know it. But our Lord called them whited
sepulchers. but inward they were full of
dead men's bones. What our Lord says here, it is
not an acceptable thing in religious circles to run down another man's
religion. Our Lord doesn't say that, but
in today's way of thinking, it's not acceptable to run down another
person's religion. But it is precisely what the
prophet is called to do and what our Lord did over and over again
in his day on earth. You see, it is religion and morality
without Christ. And that's just cruelty. That's
the only way to put it. It's cruelty. Religion and morality
without Christ is sin. It is without Christ because
its design is to bring glory to men and not to the Lord Jesus
Christ. To recognize man's will and man's
doings and man's works, not God's will or his works. That's what
the design is. And our Lord said this is sin.
This is sin. Verse two begins with a list
of their sins. He says, yet they seek me daily,
delight to know my ways. Now you think, well, these don't
sound like sinful things. It sounds like good things. He
says, yet they seek me daily, a delight to know my ways as
a nation that did righteousness and for sitting out the ordinance
of their God. They ask of me the ordinance of justice. They
take delight in approaching unto God. Now, if you just take that
verse out of context, you could use it to encourage and motivate
people to religious activity. Because it certainly seems to
be good things. But our Lord starts it out with
the word yet. Now this signifies that though
what they do is sin and useless, they still practice their religion.
Yet they continue to do it. They practice it zealously. What
should precede these words and does thematically as the things
that follow are for appearance. They do it for appearance. They
do it for public perusal. They do it to be seen of men
and thus to garner irrefutable evidence that they are truly
children of God. For if a person is going to stand
before God on his merit, he has to invent some way to keep school. He has to invent some way and
have somebody to account that he's doing these things. Even
among themselves, they don't pat themselves on the back. They
do things so other people will pat them on the back. Must be
seen of men. They do what they do to be seen
of men. He said, they seek me daily. Yeah, they seek me daily. What does that mean? They are
constant in their attendance at temple and at synagogue and
at church. They delight to know my ways.
They cherish theological debate and gather teachers to themselves.
They read and know the Bible and seek to explain the intricacies
of providence to have people know that they understand what
God is doing. This is what they do. It's easier
for them to say, well, I know God is doing this and God is
doing that. God's working on this fellow.
God's leaving that fellow alone. You know, God's deserted this.
This is the language they use. They think they can look at what's
going on and come up with the truth about providence. The fact
is we don't understand providence at all. We are, for lack of a
better word, we're all victims of it, but we don't understand
it whatsoever because we don't know what one thing here will
do out there. We don't know how it works, but
these delight to know the ways. They want to tell everybody,
this is what God is doing in the world today. This is what
God wants for you. This is what God desires for
you. It's all up to you to get it
done, but this is what God wants for you. They are constant in
these things. They cherish theological debate.
They love it. They read and know the Bible.
Our Lord said to those kind of people, you do search the scriptures,
for in them you think you find eternal life, but they are they
which testify of me, and you will not come unto me that you
might have life. But they search the scriptures.
These are not people who discard the scriptures. They love the
Bible, but they love it for all the wrong reasons, and our Lord
is about to deal with that. The result of their activities
is that they are known as a nation that did righteousness. and forsook
not the ordinance of the Lord." You say, can't hold nothing against
them people. We've seen how they do. We see them every Sunday
going to church. We've seen how they live in this
world. They don't go to no bars and go on no movie shows and
they live uprightly. You got to say, I look on their
face all the time, but nonetheless, they're good people. This is
not questionable because their efforts were for the eyes of
men. They do it so men will say that. They ask for the ordinances
of justice, he said. This means they seek advice on
towing the line and dotting the I and crossing the T and doing
everything by the letter of the law. If they wonder about something
that might not be right, they ask folks to tell them. They want opinions. They want
people to show them the right way. So they ask for justice.
They ask for justice. They take delight in approaching
to God. These people cannot be questioned. Their delight is
based on the notion that their works assuredly make them welcome
in God's presence, but they nonetheless delight to know God. They are
like those of Matthew chapter seven, whose works cannot be
questioned. And our Lord did not question
their works. They said, Lord, Lord, didn't we preach in thy
name, prophesy in thy name? Didn't we cast out devils in
thy name? Didn't we do wonders in thy name? Didn't we do that?
And he didn't say, no, you didn't do it. He says, you did it in
the name of Christ. He said that. He said, but what
you did was iniquity in the name of Christ. How can that be iniquity,
to cast out devils? How can it be iniquity to do
great things for God? How can it be iniquity to prophesy
or preach in the name of Jesus Christ? How can it be iniquity?
It's iniquity, it's iniquity if it's done to draw attention
to yourselves. And the fact that they would
bring this up to Christ, meant that they had some kind of backup,
some kind of witness to what they had done. And the fact that
they would say it, they believed that this meant that Christ should
accept them on that basis. Didn't we, didn't we, didn't
we? And he simply said, depart from me, get away from me. You
workers of iniquity, you work iniquity in the name of Christ,
I never knew you. Now known are all his people
unto the Lord. In fact, known are all things.
And he foreknows his people, the ones he predestinates and
justifies and glorifies. But he said, I didn't foreknow
you. I never knew you. You're not mine. Why? Weren't they moral? Evidently
they were. Weren't they religious? Evidently
they were. Weren't they zealous? Surely,
I mean, they're so zealous they're willing to stand face to face
with Christ and confront him on the fact that he's about to
throw them into hell. They believe he didn't have a
right to do that because they had done these things. And he
said, I never knew you. Some of the saddest words in
all of scripture, to stand before God. Having done your best to
merit a righteousness before God, And have him say, I never
did you. Get away from me. Depart from
me. But that's who he's talking to
here. These are doing all these things. They seek him daily.
They deny to know his ways. They did it as a nation that
pursuit not the ordinance of the God. They ask for the ordinance
of justice. They take delight in approaching unto God. And
God said that's a big ball of sin. The whole thing is sin. The whole thing is transgression.
Tell them this is what their sin is. Tell them what this is
here. Verse three, our Lord begins
to expose the nature of their false profession. He says, this
is what you say. And it's kind of like what they
said in Matthew seven, didn't we? So this is what they say. Wherefore have we fasted, they
say, and thou seest not. So they were expecting as they're
fasting here, this fasting is just another word for denying
oneself. dying oneself, and the reason they did it, they denied
what they really wanted in order to get something out of it, evidently.
They thought if they did something, God should respond to that. Like
if you join together in your hands in prayer and form a prayer
chain and form a prayer telephone chain, God's got to listen. God's
got to listen to any of you. But people think that by getting
together and doing things together, joining together, they're just
going to get God's attention. God's attention is placed on
Jesus Christ. His eyes are upon Christ all
the time and those in Him. Wherefore have we fasted, say
they, and thou seest not. They say, wherefore have we afflicted
our soul, and thou takest no knowledge. You're not paying
attention to what we're doing, Lord. You say, this is sin, we've
done all this, and you say you're not paying attention to it, and
it don't mean anything to you? It doesn't. It doesn't. That's not to say you should
be immoral, or you should not seek to be a person who attends
to the things of God. You should be. But if you take
in account that it actually interprets into some kind of merit before
God, you've missed it all together. And you might end up saying,
well, I did all this, how come you didn't pay attention? That's
what he's saying. How come you didn't pay attention?
Behold, in the day you fast, you find pleasure. Now, something
wrong with that. You deny yourself and it pleases
you. and exact all your labors." He
said, not only that, you do this and in doing so you somehow make
it affect a difficulty in the life of others. You make it difficult
in the life of others. They believe that the Lord is
obligated somehow to take notice and account of their works. The
fast and the affliction of the soul are to them designated ways
of self-denial or sacrifice. Now self-denial, plays a big part in religion. Crow told me that one lady told
him that she plans on suffering. She likes
to suffer because that puts her in the right standing with God.
It doesn't. Self-inflicted suffering don't do anything for you. In
fact, the affliction of the soul and self-denial are actually
basically the same thing. You know what it is? True self-denial
is denying yourself. Not of things, denying yourself
in reference to the salvation of your soul. Men believe if
they suffer, somehow this puts them in a good standing with
God. Men believe if they don't go to movie shows or don't drink
beer or don't do this or don't do that, somehow that puts them
in a right standing with God. It doesn't. It doesn't. He said, this is your fast. This
is your fast. And you say, you haven't paid
attention, Lord. you haven't paid attention. They
suffer for the cause and yet they have not been delivered,
not realizing that their fasting and their affliction of the soul
is actually the source of their bondage. It's what brings them
into bondage. Self-imposed suffering means
nothing to God. A martyr who wants to be a martyr
is not a martyr. Not a martyr at all. They actually
find pleasure actually find pleasure in their suffering. Why? Because
it garners the praise and esteem and recognition of men. Of men. You can think of a lot
of different examples of people who gave up their riches and
went into a life of poverty and people say that's commendable. You know, that's commendable.
Surely that person is a person of God. Not so. Not so. A person of God is one whom God
has chosen and has saved through the merits of the Lord Jesus
Christ alone and has no confidence in their own flesh whatsoever. They exact their labors. What
does that mean? They do these things so they
can hold it over those who don't do these things. That's why they
do it. This means that they're hard
people. They're hard people. And you
know for a fact most of the time people who are zealously religious
are the saddest bunch of people in the
world. They're cruel, they're down in the mouth about everything,
nothing makes them happy, nothing gives them joy, no peace, they
just walk around mad. And most of the time they're
mad because God's people are free and they can't stand the
thought. They fear freedom more than a
child of God fears bondage. That's a fact. They exact all
their labors. They were cruel to their servants
and to those whom they deemed inferior to them. They had no
mercy, no grace, and no forgiveness. They were watchers of men to
see if any come up to their exalted standards. That's the life they
lead. That's the life they lived. And our Lord said they did it
all religiously, morally, uprightly, full of rectitude and piety,
and it was all just sin. And if it's sin, everything they
did is worthy of death. Because the wages of sin is death. And their motive and the reason
why they do what they do is exposed in verse 4. Behold you fast or
you deny yourself. You 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. It's
why they do it. He says you do it for strife. You do it so it'll cause a problem. You do it so you can get somebody
upset, so you can hold something over somebody. The reason they
do what they do is to keep things stirred up. We read in this last
chapter, in chapter 57, verse 20, but the wicked are like the
troubled sea. They're like the troubled, just
churning up all the time. When it cannot rest, there's
no rest for them. And whose waters cast up dirt
and mire." They're always calling up stuff. There is no peace,
saith God with the wicked. This is their life. There is
no peace. They're always casting up dirt
and mire, trying to get something on somebody. They take pleasure
in their misery. The visible, pious behavior is
designed to make people angry and cause division. They take
pleasure in their misery because it causes strife. You fast for
strife. Our Lord said, when you fast,
don't let anybody know that you fasted. Go into the closet and
fast. And make sure before you come
out, you wash your face, you comb your hair, and you don't
look like, and you come out with a big smile, a happy on your
face, so nobody will know you fasted. They say, we fast, he
doesn't pay attention. They got the reward, our Lord
said in Matthew chapter six. He says, you fight with the,
you smite with the fist of wickedness. This refers to their ease with
violent punishment. I think of the Puritans. The
Puritans. were tough on people. Boy, they
were tough. Later, when they were always
talking about drinking and chewing and messing around with folks
who do and people living a holy life and setting before the meritorious
righteous to justify themselves, they talked like that. Even though
they believed the grace of God, they didn't believe it all the
way because they believed that they had something to do with
their salvation. Many of the Puritans lashed Quakers
to a wagon tongue and pulled off their skin with hot pitchers.
This was in America, Massachusetts. They put a $2 bounty on a Rhode
Islander's tongue, which is still on the law books today. Of course,
they don't collect anymore, but they, why? Because the Rhode
Islanders got together and they saw that they were not under
the law, but under grace, and the Puritans could not have that.
So they actually put a two dollar bounty, and two dollars was right
much money back then. Two dollar bounty to cut their
tongue out so they wouldn't be able to talk no more. They smite with the fist of wickedness. Wickedness. They smite with the fist because
they believe themselves to be righteous judges and because
they have proven their unworthiness by their works, they alone have
a right to judge and execute judge's punishment. And they
believe that. They have a right to. They have a right to call
you on the carpet. They have a right to stir it
up. The motive for their fasting and affliction of the soul is
so that they make their voices to be heard. So they'll be heard. And they're gonna be quiet about
this. They're gonna be open. They're gonna be open. Our Lord
says it's unacceptable. And it moves him to nothing but
anger. Nothing but anger, it's unacceptable. Look at how our
Lord dealt with these same men. Centuries later, in the book
of Matthew, Matthew chapter 23, verse four
it says, for they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born. lay them on men's shoulders,
but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers."
That's pretty tough, isn't it? They burden your soul. They burden
you, but they won't help you. They won't help you. They push
you down. All their works they do to be seen of men. They make
broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their
garments. They love the uppermost rooms of the feasts and the chief
seats of the synagogues. They love the greetings in the
marketplace and to be called by men, Rabbi, Rabbi, teacher,
teacher. But be not Ye call Rabbi, for
one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. And call no man father upon the
earth, for one is your father, which is in heaven. Neither be
ye called masters, for one is your master, even Christ. But
he that is greatest among you, let him be your servant. And
whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that
shall humble himself shall be exalted. But woe unto you, scribes
and Pharisees and hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven
against men. You shut up the kingdom. You
stand at the gates. And men coming toward Christ,
you turn them away and say, no, you got to do this to be saved.
You got to do that to be saved. They put stumbling blocks in
front of men. For you neither go in yourselves, you're not
going in, but neither suffer them who are entering to go in.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, for you devour
widows' houses, and for pretense make a long prayer. Therefore
you shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes
and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you encompass sea and land
to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold
more the child of hell than before. Woe unto you, you blind guides,
which say, whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing,
but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is
a debtor. You fools and blind, for whether
is greater the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold. This
is their religion. And it's difficult. And this
world, which is a religious world, speaking to men whose natural
religion is believing that they can marry to righteousness before
God, the prophet is called upon, the preacher is called upon to
stand up, cry aloud, spare none, and tell them what it is. Tell
them that all their doings, all their morality, all their law-keeping,
all the things they do, the self-denial and such, is sin and transgression. But this is what our Lord says,
and this is so. And so I must cry aloud and so
must you, and spare not, and call it what it is. Father, bless
us to understanding, pray in Christ's name, amen.