That’s Not Humility – part 1
Isaiah 58:1-14 (1-5)
September 15, 2024
This morning were reminded of a wonderful truth about our great God.
Isaiah 57:15 “For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.”
• Even if a man has offended God in every possible way…
• Even if he has continued in that sin stubbornly for some time…
• Even if he did it with absolutely no fear of God…
If that man will humble himself and return to God,
God will forgive him and heal him.
OUR GOD DELIGHTS IN THE HUMBLE.
That was true, is true, and will always be true.
And yet tonight we run into a disgruntled group of people
Who are doubting the truth of that statement.
For in verse 3 we read:
“Why have we fasted and You do not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and you do not notice?”
These are a congregation who thinks they are “the contrite and lowly”
Whom God promises to dwell with,
And yet God doesn’t seem to be noticing them at all.
And isn’t this just like humanity?
When we read a promise of God,
And then things don’t work as we expected,
We immediately assume that the problem is with God.
We immediately question the character of God, the love of God,
The faithfulness of God, the compassion of God, etc.
But we never seem to question the genuineness of our humility.
But that is the point of Isaiah 58.
HUMILITY IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK.
God’s answer to this disgruntled crowd
Who fancies themselves to have been so humble before Him is:
“That’s Not Humility”.
And what a valuable lesson this will be for us.
Let’s begin our look at it here tonight.
#1 GOD CALLS THE PROPHET
Isaiah 58:1-2
The opening of the chapter is one of intentional confrontation.
God not only dictates the message,
But God here even dictates the tone.
“Cry loudly, do not hold back; Raise your voice like a trumpet,”
Today it would be “Type that message in all caps!”
This is quite a shock to the system
To people today who think that Jesus was only mild and soft spoken
And that any instance of raising your voice is sinful.
God here tells Isaiah to get loud.
• He tells Isaiah to give it all he’s got.
• He tells Isaiah to ring like a trumpet in their ears.
THE POINT IS that there is nothing subtle about what God wants to say.
He wants everyone to hear it.
And what is this message that God wants so loudly proclaimed?
“And declare to My people their transgression And to the house of Jacob their sins.”
The message that God wants shouted over the loudspeaker
Is a message ABOUT SIN.
And you will notice that the message is spoken to
“My people” “and to the house of Jacob”
He is NOT asking Isaiah to walk through Israel
And scream about the sin of the Moabites or the Philistines.
He wants God to walk through Israel and yell about the sin of His people.
So much for Joel Olsteen’s preference to not talk about sin and to only talk about things that make people feel better and build people up.
God’s subject is SIN.
God’s tone is LOUD.
AND WHAT IS THIS SIN?
The beginning explanation is that of
A total CLUELESSNESS regarding their devotion to God.
THE FIRST THING God would have Isaiah announce is that
They are not as pleasing to God in their behavior as they would assume.
(2) “Yet they seek Me day by day and delight to know My ways, As a nation that has done righteousness And has not forsaken the ordinance of their God.”
The key word in those two lines is “AS”
“They seek Me…AS a nation that has done righteousness.”
God speaks of their pompous arrogance
With which they appear before Him.
They march right in here and approach Me with their requests
Like they haven’t just spent the entire week offending Me.
And then “They ask Me for just decisions, They delight in the nearness of God.”
I hope you are detecting the absolute disdain in God’s voice.
• They spenk all week living in utter rebellion against God, doing the very things which offend Him to the core.
• And then they walk into the temple like they’ve done nothing wrong and ask God for justice and just to be near Him.
IT’S ALL QUITE OFFENSIVE TO GOD!
Remember Isaiah 1?
Isaiah 1:12-14 “When you come to appear before Me, Who requires of you this trampling of My courts? “Bring your worthless offerings no longer, Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies— I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. “I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them.”
Remember Jeremiah 7?
Jermiah 7:9-11 “Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—that you may do all these abominations? “Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares the LORD.”
Remember Malachi 1?
Malachi 1:9-10 “But now will you not entreat God’s favor, that He may be gracious to us? With such an offering on your part, will He receive any of you kindly?” says the LORD of hosts. “Oh that there were one among you who would shut the gates, that you might not uselessly kindle fire on My altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the LORD of hosts, “nor will I accept an offering from you.”
It’s like the Pharisee in Luke 18 who went to the temple to pray:
Luke 18:11-12 “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’”
• He just knew that God was so pleased with him because of his service.
That is what God is talking about here.
God has announced that He dwells with the contrite and lowly.
God has announced that the humble are welcome to Him.
And these people quickly assumed that God was talking about them
And just pranced right into His presence
As though He would be glad to see them.
In reality He was infuriated that they would have such audacity to come into His temple and ask for justice.
• They are like Aaron’s sons with the gall to offer strange fire on the altar.
• They are like Uzza with the arrogance to reach out and touch God’s ark.
• They are like Saul with the brashness to offer his own sacrifice.
Who do they think they are?
It is clear that GOD IS NOT IMPRESSED
He wants Isaiah to loudly inform them of that reality.
This is a “Jesus clearing the temple” sermon.
Nothing Isaiah says here should be taken lightly.
This sermon is not a suggestion.
• God is intense.
• God is livid.
• God is jumping up and down, pounding the pulpit, and stomping His feet.
“Cry loudly, do not hold back; Raise your voice like a trumpet,”
You get in those people’s face and you give them a piece of My mind.
So just understand that as we get going.
Tone matters and God’s is heated.
God calls the prophet
#2 GOD CORRECTS THE PEOPLE
Isaiah 58:3-4
Why is God so intense?
Why is God so loud?
Because they have asked Him an absolutely offensive question.
He was angry at their sin.
They were totally oblivious to the fact.
They then walked into the temple expecting blessing.
God was actually quite merciful for not crushing them immediately.
He was actually quite restrained by simply remaining silent.
And then they had the audacity to ask this question:
(3) “Why have we fasted and You do not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?”
In a simple sense they approached God and asked,
“What’s the matter with You?”
Ever been in this situation in just a human relationship?
• You have offended someone greatly and didn’t even know it.
• They are seething mad and you are totally oblivious.
• Then you approach them, but they are cold toward you
• So you ask, “What’s your problem?”
And all at once they just unload on you!
Now you understand the force of Isaiah 28.
These people have determined that in some capacity God has failed to do that which He ought.
• “We fasted”
• “We humbled ourselves”
• “You do not notice”
That is to say, “You have not responded in the manner in which you are contractually bound to respond and we just thought we should point that out to you.”
It is no wonder Isaiah has been commissioned to answer them…LOUDLY.
But let’s further analyze their question to get to the heart of the problem.
As you can see the behavior in question is that they have “fasted”
Which they see as something God should respond to.
SO LET’S TALK ABOUT FASTING FOR A MOMENT.
Dictionary.com says fasting is defined as: “to abstain from all food.”
It is not something that is ever commanded in Scripture
But it is something that is practiced often.
• Jesus Himself fasted for 40 days while in the wilderness.
• The early church is found fasting as they sought God about who to send on mission.
I do think it is something that seems to get misunderstood
In religious circles today just as it clearly was here.
What becomes apparent to us here in verse 3 is that
These people clearly thought that their fasting
Merited a response from God.
“Why have we fasted and You do not see?”
It’s as though they viewed their fast as something
God was somehow legally bound to respond to.
It was a manipulative gimmick to strong-arm God into action.
And unfortunately much of the fasting I hear about today is exactly that.
• People seem to think that if they do without food that somehow God is now more obligated to respond.
• Sort of like Opie Taylor in the Andy Griffith Show holding his breath to force Andy to respond to his requests.
• But that is certainly not the fasting which Scripture mandates.
I’ve told you before but, “Fasting is any time that the spiritual becomes more important than the physical.”
It would be those times that you are so intent on seeking God;
So intent on finding His will
That it doesn’t make sense to stop and eat a hamburger.
We see this mentality in Jesus when He fasted.
Matthew 4:2 “And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.”
• I don’t know that we would say that Jesus was not hungry during those 40 days
• But the fact that Matthew says it was after that that He “became hungry”
• Does at least indicate that if He was hungry it wasn’t His priority.
In this light we see fasting then as a form of INTENSE SEEKING.
It is not a manipulative tactic
Whereby God is somehow forced to respond,
But it is a person who is seeking so intently
That perhaps God is motivated to respond.
What do we mean then?
If you go through the motion of the fast without the intent to seek God what are you actually accomplishing? NOTHING.
That is like a person who gets baptized but who has not truly trusted in Jesus; what is the water supposed to have done?
Or like a Jew who is circumcised outwardly, but not inwardly;
What good is that?
YOU GET THE POINT THEN.
These people are upset because they danced the dance,
But didn’t get the response.
One other thing we notice about their fast
Is that they obviously equated fasting
To somehow be the equivalent of humbling themselves.
That is made clear in the way they ask the questions:
“Why have we fasted and You do not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?”
So this is a people who in their minds
Wanted to demonstrate to God how humble they were
And the method they determined to use was to fast.
Perhaps they understood that God dwells with the humble.
Perhaps they understood that He is near to the contrite.
So they determined to fast in order to show God
Just how humble and contrite they are.
But again, in their minds, God messed up
Because He did not respond as they expected to their obvious humility.
What could possibly be the problem here?
How about:
Matthew 6:16 “Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.”
Could it be that their fasting was not humility,
But in all actuality only a religious show?
Apparently that is the case here too.
It’s like the old comedian who said,
“I received an award for being humble once, it was a humble button. But they took it away from me because I wore it.”
It’s really hard to demonstrate your humility
Through some sort of outward show,
But that is what they were doing.
Paul spoke of it too, to the Colossians:
Colossians 2:20-23 “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”
There the newly believing Colossians
Had been hood-winked by a band of grandiose religious pretenders.
These religiousites were fasting and flogging themselves and boasting about their angelic visions and such and they had totally convinced the Colossians that they were at some elite spiritual level that the Colossians had not reached.
Paul called it out as nonsense.
“These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom…but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”
That is to say, their religious actions are all show and no substance.
And there we understand the fast here in Isaiah 58 again.
Here we have a group of people
• Who decided not to eat to put their humility on full display
• And then sat back and waited for God to respond favorably.
• When He was not impressed and did not respond they were frustrated.
SO HERE GOD CORRECTS THEM
With regard to this humble demonstration they put on.
(3b-4) “Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire, And drive hard all your workers. Behold, you fast for contention and strife and to strike with a wicked fist. You do not fast like you do today to make your voice heard on high.”
First we pay special attention to the twice-stated “Behold”
There is the loud cry God spoke of.
God is here responding with an imperative.
God is firing back at their foolish accusation.
And God does so to challenge whether their fast was really a fast at all.
“Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire…”
A fast is when you gave up the desire of the flesh
In order to satisfy the desire of the Spirit.
Remember in the garden when Jesus asked the disciples to pray but they were sleepy?
Matthew 26:41 “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Jesus indicated that there are instances in life, (in fact there are many),
In which the Spirit and the flesh do not have the same desire.
A fast would be when we tell the flesh to do without
So that the Spirit may be satisfied.
The Spirit wanted to seek God, the flesh wanted to sleep, which one are you going to follow?
Well here we have a people who actually did without food
And thought they were demonstrating their humble search for God.
And God sees through their hypocritical display as if to say,
• “But did you really fast?”
• “Did you really starve the flesh?”
• “Did you really disappoint the flesh for the Spirit?”
And the answer is – NO!
What does He mean?
“on the day of your fast you find your desire”
Well how did they do that?
How did they do without and get what they wanted at the same time?
THE ANSWER: You “drive hard all your workers”
Now we learn something else about this fast of theirs.
Not only was it somehow linked to humility,
Their fast was also linked to their observance of the Sabbath.
This fast of theirs is coming into view.
• We have a people who desired to fast and demonstrate their humility to God
• The way they did that was by giving up working on the Sabbath
“Look God, we didn’t go to work today,
We fasted from our labors so that we might worship You.”
And they’re mad because God didn’t honor their sacrifice.
But God says, “What sacrifice?”
You skipped work sure enough, but you made your employees pick up the slack!
You “drive hard all your workers.”
You didn’t sacrifice at all, your expected quotas remained the same,
You just took the day off and made your employees do more work.
Am I supposed to be grateful for such a noble sacrifice on your part?
AND THAT’S NOT ALL
God goes on:
“Behold, you fast for contention and strife and to strike with a wicked fist.”
WHAT COULD THAT MEAN?
IT IS TRUE that they took the day off from their normal labors.
• No, they didn’t go to the field or to the vineyard.
• No, they didn’t go to the market or perform their normal labors.
They took a day off from the grind of physical activity.
But what did they use that day off for?
• Did they use it set their minds on God and to worship Him?
• Did they use it to focus on how God rested in His finished work and
someday we will rest in His work as well?
• Did they use to be grateful to God that they could rest their bodies while God
still promised to provide?
NO, NOTHING LIKE THAT!
They used this day off to do some plotting and scheming and planning
As to how they might further get ahead
And maybe even make ground on their competition.
They took the day off, but it wasn’t to focus on God
It was to focus on how to be more successful in the world.
So if we are understanding this humble fast a little better,
THIS IS WHAT IT WAS.
• They took off on Saturday,
• And told their employees to work longer and harder,
• While they went home and plotted how to gain ground on the competition and
become even more successful.
Then they tried to use it for “double credit”
And tell God that they fasted and He should bless them for it.
Like the Pharisee who gave money, but he did it for notoriety…
Like the Pharisee who prayed, but he did it publicly for fame…
Like the Pharisee who fasted, but he did it to be noticed…
And God says, “Was that really for Me?”
We see people do that today.
They make a big end of the year contribution to the church.
But they would do good to ask:
• Why was it given?
• Was it really a sacrifice or was it just to help on your taxes?
• Was it really for God?
• Which benefit were they after?
That is why God would not answer.
That is why God did not honor it.
That is why God did not bless it.
In fact God says,
“You do not fast like you do today to make your voice heard on high.”
That verse might read a little peculiar to you, but I can help you here.
There is no punctuation in the Hebrew to help us read it better.
But if you will put a couple of commas here,
You’ll understand God’s point just fine.
“You do not fast [comma] like you do today [comma] to make your voice heard on high.”
When you read it like that it is clear what God is saying.
If you are wanting My attention and My acknowledgement,
This type of fast won’t do it.
You can’t just go through some outward display with sinful motives
And expect Me to be fooled and honor you for it.
THAT IS NOT HUMILITY!
So now let me give you a principle of humility.
This is sort of a sub-point.
HUMILITY IS NOT CEREMONIAL
These people decided to humble themselves before God
And it was nothing but an outward display of a religious ritual.
• IT WAS NOT A SACRIFICE since their employees picked up the slack.
• IT WAS NOT A DESIRE OF THE HEART since their focus was on business.
• IT WAS NOT SPIRITUAL AT ALL, it was a calculated tactic meant to obtain God’s blessing while actually getting ahead in the world.
If anything we would say here that they were trying to deceive God
Into thinking that their worldliness was actually humility.
If you think you can go through some outward ceremonial ritual
And fool God about the desire of your heart you are gravely mistaken.
Joel 2:12-13 “Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning; And rend your heart and not your garments.” Now return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness And relenting of evil.”
Matthew 23:23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.”
The outside without the inside does not fool God.
If you skip work to attend church,
• But you did it to manipulate God into blessing your work
Are you really worshiping Him for the right reasons?
If you give money to God,
• But you only do it so that God will give you more money
Is that a proper motive?
James 4:2-4 “You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
If the motive is wrong can the action really be right?
TRUE HUMILITY IS NOT CEREMONIAL.
IN THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH
You had people who were participating in all sorts of community expected fasts.
They actually identified them as:
“The fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth months…” (Zech. 8:19)
• They fasted on the 10th month to commemorate the siege of Jerusalem.
• They fasted on the 4th month to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem.
• They fasted on the 5th month to commemorate the burning of the temple.
• They fasted on the 7th month to commemorate the murder of Gedaliah.
They were not commanded fasts, they were commemorative fasts.
Sort of like we might honor December 7th or September 11th
As we remember horrible tragedies in our past.
Well, in Zechariah
• The people were back in the land
• The temple was being rebuilt
• So the people wanted to know if they still had to keep that fast on the 5th month which remembered the burning of the temple?
Zechariah 7:2-3 “Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to seek the favor of the LORD, speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the LORD of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, “Shall I weep in the fifth month and abstain, as I have done these many years?”
THEY WERE CONFUSED
• FIRSTLY it seemed strange to fast and weep over the lost temple when the temple was rebuilt.
• SECONDLY it didn’t seem like God was honoring the fast and so they wondered if they should keep doing it.
Here was the answer God gave through Zechariah:
Zechariah 7:4-6 “Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, “Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted? ‘When you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves?”
What a question!
They asked God if they should keep doing it.
God asked them,
• “Why were you doing it at all?”
• Was it for Me?
• Or was it for you?
And believe me, God already knew the answer.
And that is the same point here.
You can’t manipulate God through outward ritual.
Humility is not ceremonial it is of the heart.
Now it is true that a truly contrite and humble heart
Might very well fast before God.
But to fast without the humility is an empty diet.
It’s like baptism without salvation.
It’s like giving without loving.
It’s like attendance without worship.
And do not expect God to be pleased.
So God calls the prophet
God corrects the people
#3 GOD CONFRONTS THE PEOPLE
Isaiah 57:5
So God corrected them
As to why they were wrong to assume their fast should have worked.
But now God goes on the offensive
To poke holes in their “so-called” humility.
“Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to humble himself?”
Wow! There’s a question for you.
You thought you were doing God some big favor
Because you took off of work to come to worship.
And God says, “You thought a day of humility (or a half-day of humility) was all it took to cause Me to be moved?”
Is God so starved for attention?
Is God so lonely
That if a person will just give up a few hours of their busy schedule
That He’ll just fall all over Himself and give them whatever they want?
Come on God I went to church, You owe it to me now to bless my labor!
I remember in high school when I was still unredeemed, but outwardly religious, I would go to church on Superbowl Sunday night because I wanted God to make sure the Cowboys won.
Somehow that doesn’t seem quite like humility or worship,
At least not of God.
Don’t you know that God was so grateful that someone like me
Would take time out of his busy schedule to attend Sunday night worship
That He would just give me whatever I wanted!
Do you see the blasphemy in that?
Or how about this one:
“Is it for bowing one’s head like a reed..?”
That’s just a courteous nod, sort of like you see in Asian cultures when they approach one another and sort of bow in respect.
And here is the person who wanted to show God how humble they were
So they laid down on the floor and then after a few seconds
Got right back up and said, “There, did that do it?”
And once again God must have been so impressed!
“Oh wow! They actually got on the floor!
Oh wow! They actually bowed their head!”
DADS…
When your daughter comes home and wants to go out with that local thug who is the known town playboy and every week can be seen with a different girl.
And she says, “But he loves me daddy, he told me how pretty he thought I was.”
And you say, “Oh wow! He must really love you to say something like that!”
You get the idea.
Or how about this one:
“Is it for…spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed?”
What does that mean?
It means they spread out the ashes and the put on the sackcloth.
(a picture of humility)
(Hence the old humility presentation of “sackcloth and ashes”
Where a person would mourn before God over their sin)
But this guy spread out the ashes, put on the sackcloth,
And then laid down and went to sleep.
Is that what repentance really looks like?
Is that what humility really looks like?
Do you get credit for praying all night
If you fell asleep while praying the night before?
It that real humility?
To which God asks one more question:
“Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the LORD?”
Perhaps your definition of fasting is wrong.
THAT IS NOT HUMILITY.
I know we’re out of time here tonight,
But I’ll go ahead give you the second principle here.
We saw a moment ago that humility is not ceremonial.
Well here’s your second principle:
HUMILITY IS NOT TEMPORARY
If your conviction to respond to God
And walk the aisle and all of that religious stuff
Doesn’t even make it to the parking lot then it wasn’t humility.
True humility lasts.
We’ll talk about this more next time.
