from Doug Perry - (www.FellowshipoftheMartyrs.com) - download printable PDF file here
God does not change. What irritated Him then, still irritates Him now. What pleased and honored Him then, still pleases and honors Him now. These If/Then statements are guarantees! IF you do these things, then He WILL do what He said He would do – sooner or later, one way or the other. He reserves the right to manifest it in whatever way He wants, but He WILL do it.
It's equational. Like math. Just insert the quantity.
IF you do Behavior X THEN Consequence Y will result. Quantity N is the only variable.
BX(N) = CY(N)
Positive Behavior = Positive Consequence OR Negative Behavior = Negative Consequence
Get it? Doesn't even require faith. It's just a guarantee from God. Now, it may not manifest like you expect or when you expect, but it WILL happen because God's promises are good. He is faithful and just.
Isaiah 58
1 "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins."
I think He's serious about this. I guess we're supposed to point out the problem as loudly as possible. This is my personal attempt to fulfill this command.
2 "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: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God."
So, it's not for lack of praying or evidently a desire to know what God wants. They are a whole nation that is praying and seems eager. Is it possible that our churches in America seem eager but they're off track? Could it be?
3 "'Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?'"
They don't seem to be getting through. God doesn't seem to be answering them very much or at all. They are praying every day, they are even fasting – and yet it doesn't seem like they are satisfied with God's response to them.
“Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. 4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high."
Here we get God's response to them. They are fasting, but they're exploiting people – like volunteers in the churches? Or illegal alien workers? Or sweatshop workers and child and prison labor in other countries so we can buy stuff cheap at Walmart? Could be. Oh, yeah, and we're fasting, but it always ends in quarreling and strife and striking each other. Could that be like church splits and power struggles and denomational divisions? Could that be like dividing the Body of Christ up into tiny little pieces because we don't want to play nice with others? Yeah, that could be it. Maybe we're ignoring the starving Brethren in other countries so we can have our fancy new building? That would do it. Evidently fasting and praying like we've been doing and still being selfish stinkers just isn't getting our prayers through to God. Evidently He's not paying too much attention to our petitions when we aren't acting like Jesus.
5 "Is it such a fast that I have 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? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?"
So, thankfully, here we get to hear Him tell us what He wanted all along. Now all we have to do is implement it and we'll be fine. He didn't want a show. He didn't want sackcloth and ashes when our hearts were really unrepentant and it was just for effect. If we're quarreling and striking each other, how much fear of the Lord do we really have? How seriously should He take our fast?
6 “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?"
OK, we need to loose the chains of injustice, untie the yokes, set the oppressed free and break every yoke. What's that mean? Well, there are three dimensions – Body, Soul and Spirit. We need to settle issues of physical injustice and fight for those who are oppressed (like the child and prison laborers and sweat shops) and we need to set them free and then we need to break the yokes so they can't be applied to anyone else. For the Soul we need to break the chains that continue to bind people to legalism and the doctrinal laws of Man, we need to untie them from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil so they can go eat from the Tree of Life. Then we need to break the yoke permanently so they won't get trapped again. This is primarily in the area of the mind – of teaching and training and discipleship. For the Spirit, we need to identify spiritual oppressions that have trespassed into the lives of Christians, we need to release them from those yokes, set them free, teach them to walk it out and keep the yoke broken. This means deliverance from demonic strongholds, addictions, lusts, fears, abuses and others. The more we do this, on all three levels, the more we fulfill this instruction of the Lord. If we leave out one of the three, we are not in full compliance.
7 "Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou 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?"
Again, three levels. We need to feed and shelter and clothe and care for our own. For the Soul, we need to share the true meat of the Gospel of Life, give them to eat and to drink, we need to cover them and clothe them in protective armor and the white robes that are their birthright. We need to especially minister to the brethren in need. (Romans 12). In the Spirit, we need to feed them from what we have. We need to pour ourselves out and sacrificially offer anything we have in the Spirit from the abounding riches of our inheritance to meet the needs of those who are poor in spirit. We especially need to make sure that we have bandaged, healed and empowered the saints in need. He promises that if you sacrifice for His Kingdom, He will replace it abundantly in this life and in the next. If you give sacrificially, that's so much like Jesus, He will always give you more. So long as you pour yourself out, He'll keep filling you and giving you a bigger cup of Jesus.
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. 9 Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am."
So here we see the first of the consequences. IF you do those behaviors in verses 6 and 7, THEN your light will break forth like the dawn and YOUR OWN healing will quickly appear, your righteousness will go before you (because you're obeying God) and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard AND when you call He will answer and say, “Here am I.” Now that's cool! At the beginning of the chapter, they are complaining because they don't seem to be getting through to the throne. Now He says that if you'll just do this stuff, He will ALWAYS answer you and be present. How about that? And all we had to do was stop making it about ourselves and care for other people. Who knew?
“If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;"
Yeah, boy, that'd be nice, wouldn't it? So, we have to lift the yokes of oppression (Body, Soul, and Spirit). Presumably we have to do it to ourselves as well, because there's no way to stop the pointing finger and malicious talk as long we still have things oppressing us. (And we wouldn't be pointing fingers and talking maliciously UNLESS we had things oppressing us, so don't think you don't. Things like jealousy, control, envy, pride, fear, bitterness – they're all strongholds of the enemy.) You can be sure that our light WILL NOT arise so long as we're pointing fingers and talking maliciously about each other! Why don't more miracles happen in America? Maybe because we're the most finger-pointing, malicious-talking branch of the church on the planet. Could be. Why should God show up and be our rear guard and answer our call given what stinkers we are?
10 "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 noon day:"
What do you think “spend yourselves” means? That seems like it means “all the way spent.” Seems practically sacrificial! Probably substantially more than the 2% that Americans average in giving to church and charity. Not to mention that less than 5% of the income of the churches is spent on the hungry and needy. The vast majority of the money is spent on ourselves, our own programs and buildings and staffs. Anyway, so IF we spend ourselves – really spend ourselves – on the hungry (Body, Soul and Spirit) and meet the needs of the oppressed (Body, Soul and Spirit), THEN our light will rise in the darkness and our night will be like noonday. That's how bright we will be! Even in the middle of the night it will be like noonday. Even in the midst of gross darkness (like America), the shadows will flee from the glory of God shining through us and reflecting off of us. And all we had to do was stop making it about ourselves. Wow. It's all so simple – how did we squirrel it up this badly?
Actually this is a compound formula – “IF and IF/THEN and THEN” but the formula works the same.
11 "And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not."
This is a continuation of the THEN/THEN. He promises to guide your steps (Prov. 3:5-6). He promises to satisfy your needs and to make you strong. He promises to bring fruit to your garden. That means water and that means light will come to grow our harvest. He says rivers of living water will flow up from inside us and will never be quenched – even though we're in a sun-scorched land.
12 "And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in."
More positive consequences from careful devotion and obedience. We get to rebuild on the ancient foundations – which is Jesus. We get to stand in the gap and rebuild the ancient walls – the defenses and protections to the people inside (which are currently clearing not working). And we get to restore streets with dwellings. People will come home and be safe. People will flourish inside the walls and be protected again. Note that this is about a city. He wants us rebuilding and restoring the walls of protection around our cities.
13 “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:"
That means resting when He tells us to rest. It also means that we honor the Sabbath (and Jesus, who is our Sabbath Rest) by NOT going our own way and obeying Him implicitly. We bring all these blessings on us by NOT doing as we please and speaking idle words. What are idle words? For sure that malicious talk stuff from v.9, but also ANYTHING that comes out of our mouth that JESUS didn't put there.
14 "Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
AMEN!!