By Ronald W. Kirk
I suppose that Isaiah 58 is not a Bible passage on everyone’s lips, but it is a powerful and instructive one.
Partly out of inspiration from this passage and after a lifetime of application to its message, I wrote a little book called Thy Will Be Done: When All Nations Call God Blessed (Matthew 6:10 and Psalm 72:17) from Nordskog Publishing. It seeks to show how Biblical thinking ought to and can affect every aspect of life for the Gospel, the answer to Jesus’ prayer.
How do God’s people become God’s kings and priest in the earth, the establishers of prosperous, free and just society?
Let’s start with Verse One. Here, God compels Isaiah to speak to Israel! He says:
Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
Okay, Lord. You have our attention…
Then God commends Israel for their desire to please Him:
Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and did not forsake the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me the ordinances of justice; They take delight in approaching God (v. 2*).
However, Israel complains that God does not honor their religious efforts:
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice?’“ (v. 3).
God answers that their problem is not a lack of religious zeal, but where their hearts are and how they act on their zeal:
In fact, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, And exploit all your laborers. Indeed you fast for strife and debate, And to strike with the fist of wickedness. You will not fast as you do this day, To make your voice heard on high. Is it a fast that I have chosen, A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, And to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast, And an acceptable day to the LORD? (vv. 4-5).
Do you, Israel, think your God enjoys your begrudging and crotchety self-affliction? Do you think you can earn God’s favor with human religion?
Instead God prescribes “pure and undefiled religion” (James 1:27):
“Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh? (vv. 6-7).
Hmm. God’s way seems to require serving others. The Two Commandments say love God; love man! This includes personal, familial, and civil love and justice, loosing the bonds of wickedness and freeing those under oppression. God requires the establishment of liberty and its protection with just laws. The prophet Micah puts it this way:
He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)
When we finally start thinking with God, instead of the way that seems right in our own eyes, then God will bring about amazing things. From Isaiah 58 again:
Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’“If you take away the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, If you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall be as the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail (vv. 8-11).
Great and bountiful blessings come with obedience by faith. When we no longer presume upon God neglecting His own very Word about what is a godly expression of life, then He will honor our lives and work.
For Pete’s sake, we spend years and years in education preparing to earn a living and make a career. How much more ought we to invest in learning God’s mind about work and play, about the arts and sciences, about civil justice and liberty. When we finally understand God’s ways and wisdom, and make the effort by faith, however clumsy and inept at first, He will bring the increase! And:
Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In. [13] “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, From doing your pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the LORD honorable, And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, Nor finding your own pleasure, Nor speaking your own words, [14] Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken” (vv. 12-14).
God will make us His people leaders of men, the head and not the tail. Paul the Apostle told the Corinthian church that God is ready to punish all disobedience—that is remove the effects of evil men—when the church’s obedience is fulfilled (2 Corinthians 10:4-60.
This then is the premise of Thy Will Be Done. Jesus prayed, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven to purpose. Learn how to think Biblically about every imaginable subject upon a concise few and systematic Biblical principles.
Read it! Learn! Enjoy! Let it change your life!
*All Scripture quotes from The New King James Version, Thomas Nelson © 1982.
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