In the book of Isaiah, we see the purpose and function of chapter 58 is to reveal to us the true nature of fasting. While we are in a period of intercessory prayer, it is good for us to realize what God wants in order that we be effective. If we were to ask the brothers and sisters who furnish the bulwark of the shifts of intercession, what they want most of all, they would say, “To get the job done. To find the Lord. To break through for everyone who has a need.” Intercessory prayer just isn’t that delightful; we go without rest, breaking our time up into the discipline of hours of work. We find ourselves under constant pressure to meet the other demands on our lives because of the time given first of all to intercessory prayer. How can we be a little more effective?
This fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah is the classic chapter in the Bible on fasting. If any have been under some legalistic form of fasting, then there are points here that should be emphasized. Too many people say, “Oh boy, I’m getting too heavy; I guess I better go on a fast”; so to all appearances they are fasting for the Lord to meet them, but actually it’s merely a physical thing. Until fasting is coupled with prayer and spiritual objectives, it’s not going to be very effective.
The Holy Spirit is emphasizing this chapter, not to put you all on a forty-day fast, but because the motivations for fasting are the same as the motivations for intercessory prayer. If you want to be effective in your praying, you must understand what is taught in this chapter. In your mind, you may want to divide the chapter up: verses 1 through 5 deal with the fast that fails to achieve any results; verses 6 and 7 present the true fast that succeeds and gives the motivations behind it—the eight motives of true fasting; from the eighth verse on you have promises, some based upon true fasting, and others having other conditions (or “ifs,” as you find in reading).
Verses 8 through 12 bring promises which show this fast as the key of the restoration of the church. If you are interested and concerned about what you can attain in the restoration, how far you can go, what you can do, just look at the promises in verse 12: And those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets in which to dwell.
When spiritual Zion comes back, it will be based upon those whose motivations measure up to what God calls the true fast. It is a spiritual dedication.
Even if you don’t fast very much, this would teach you more about the right motives in your prayer.
Now let’s look at the fast that fails, verses 1 through 5: “Cry loudly, do not hold back; raise your voice like a trumpet, and declare to My people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sins” (it starts off with something of an indictment). “Yet they seek Me day by day, and delight to know My ways” (That doesn’t sound like they’re too far off, does it?); “as a nation that has done righteousness, and has not forsaken the ordinance of their God. They ask Me for just decisions, they delight in the nearness of God.” That sounds spiritual, doesn’t it? But notice verse three: “Why have we fasted and Thou dost not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and Thou dost not notice?”
Apparently, in spite of all the good that was in their heart—they were delighted in the ways of the Lord; they were seeking His face continually, day by day—they said, “Why do we fast, and there’s no action? Why isn’t it working for us? We really humble ourselves before God and we seek Him. Why isn’t it working?”
“Behold, on the day of your fast your find you 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. Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to humble himself? Is it for bowing one’s head like a reed, and for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed? Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord?”
Even back in the days of the law, God didn’t like the legalistic approach—that pharisaic thing, a sackcloth and ashes routine. There was something else that He wanted. Oh, how a person can go through the motions, and it can look so good. God said, “Is that the thing I’ve chosen? Do you think that’s what I want in your life? No, your motivation in fasting was one to just break through, to be a winner, to exact your own desire, to smite with the fist of wickedness.” In other words, “I want to prevail. I’m going to break through.”
We must be careful, or we can do the same thing in this walk. We can have our understanding of how it ought to be and what we want to see done, and just ruthlessly go on fasting and praying. But what are we doing? Are we going to twist God’s arm until He runs the show the way we think it ought to be done? There should be a great deal more waiting on the Lord before we are vindictive, before we are so absolutely positive of what God ought to do. There ought to be more basic revelation, for this walk must be released. There must not be that awful, icky sympathy bit, which will actually preserve and keep disorder in the church, but neither should there be that legalistic harshness which makes premature judgments against situations and against people. This must be very much led by the Lord.
Fasting and prayer is not a way for you to say, “God, jump off the throne, and let me sit there and tell you how to run it.” It must be an approach to God that opens the door and says, “Lord, I want Your absolute will, and I want a revelation of Your will for my life, what You really want for me.”
Now let’s find the fast that He has chosen: “Is this not the fast which I chose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked, to cover him; and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?” Isaiah 58:6, 7.
How does this relate to us? “To loosen the bonds of wickedness”—this is the ministry of deliverance; fasting to see the whole of God’s people loosed to move on in the Lord.
“To undo the bands of the yoke.” This is where circumstances, for instance, have prevented people from moving into a real clear exercise of the will of God. How many are chafing under restrictions and circumstances which long since should have disappeared, so the will of God could be more perfectly wrought in their lives?
“To let the oppressed go free,” That is so the man who is under oppression within the house of God will find that oppression broken for him.
Within the Body, men and women alike are living under oppression. There ought to be fasting: fasting that is focused on some of the good saints of God who really need a release. Where homes are divided, for example, there needs to be a release. There needs to be fasting until the whole Body takes one step after another forward.
We let problems dangle. We let things ride when there ought to be a conclusion; there ought to be some answer. The problems should be resolved. We should not go on and on until we are aware that a fantastic amount of the spiritual life, the energy in this walk, is being drained off in merely existing, and being able to persevere and stand before God and say, “Thank God! We got through another week. We didn’t do the will of God very much. We didn’t accomplish much, but thank God we’re still here. Praise the Lord, we’re in the walk.” That doesn’t seem quite like the answer.
There ought to be that which constantly has fasting for one purpose—that the whole general tone of the Body rise, until all of the individuals in it who are oppressed and caught have answers. There are young families that need answers and need them desperately. There are young ministries that desperately need answers; and there are oppressions that come. “… let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke”; this is the purpose of fasting.
This is a message concerning the family of God. We are going to have the same care one for another in the Body. We must be concerned. We do not have much time in this walk. We have had many good years, and we’ve persevered. We haven’t wasted a year; we’ve been pressing in the best we know how. But now we are at the point where we don’t have enough time left that we can afford to see any of the families or ministries still entangled in a yoke, a bondage, or an oppression, something that’s still tying them down.
I feel in my own life the desperation of this. “O God! We don’t have the time. Loose us! Loose us to do Your will.”
And the Lord says, “This is the fast which I have chosen for you. Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked, to cover him; and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?”
There is a deep mystical meaning to fasting. One could take each of these points and begin to apply them. “Is it a fast to show hospitality, to bring the homeless poor into the house?” Yes, that’s a fast. When you are not fasting, you are feeding yourself whatever you want to eat, taking care of your own comfort; but when you show hospitality, you immediately have to forget yourself and think of the comfort of the other individuals. You forfeit a great deal of privacy in bringing other people into the home situation. So in a sense, this is fasting. It is dealing your bread to the poor. It is bringing them into your home.
Everything that we do in this walk is related to the spiritual fast that God has chosen: “… and not to hide yourself from your own flesh.” We talk a great deal about this in another term—withdrawal. We speak of people withdrawing from each other within their own family. To a husband we say, “You’ve withdrawn from your wife,” or to the wife, “You’ve withdrawn from your husband.” And they immediately say, “Well, I’m trying not to do that.” We can’t hide ourselves from our own flesh and blood. Where God has made us one there must be that openness. None can withdraw. This is a very difficult thing, but that again is part of the fast.
“If I do that, I’ll be hurt.”
It’s better to be hurt than have walls up where you should not have walls.
“Oh, that fast is so morbid!”
Yes, but if you do it, look what will happen to you. The promises in verse 8 through 12 are so fantastic: “Then your light will break out like the dawn, and your recovery will speedily spring forth;” Recovery? Yes, for there is something wrong with everyone. There isn’t one of us who does not need this deliverance of the Lord. Consider the spiritual state of everyone of us in the Body: are we well and strong spiritually? or are we sick? We are sort of in between—we haven’t really recovered yet; we haven’t gained that place in God that He really wants us to have. “… Your recovery will speedily spring forth; and your righteousness will go before you; the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ ” That is the way it should be. If we want to break through in prayer, let’s go through our motives again. We are not very far from the right motivation, but wherever we need it, let’s correct it. Let’s gain the answer.
“If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger,” (that means accusations, doesn’t it?) “and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will become like midday. And the Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.” Ah, all of that! that continual flow of beautiful ministry! The Lord will do that for you! This is exactly what you’re after! This is the fast that the Lord blesses; He identifies Himself with it. Do you like the promises of full recovery, and the glory of the Lord bringing up the rear? When you call, the Lord will answer; every time you cry out He will say, “Here I am.” You can’t ask for bigger or better promises than these.
“If you remove the yoke from your midst …” Do you know what it means to remove the yoke from your midst? Remember what Jesus said in the New Testament about the Pharisees: “You lay a yoke upon the people which neither they, nor their fathers, nor you have been able to bear” (Acts 15:10). That legalistic attitude—that austere, harsh judgment which you make of other people—take it away! Remove the yoke, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness. Get off that little throne of yours. This is the household of God. You are not to judge anyone. If you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then the promises come to you.
There is one principle you must see. Always look for the underlying, guiding principle. This whole fast is one of an out-flow. It isn’t one in which you try to establish your place, or your thing. Rather, you’re really concerned about the release of God’s people. It is this unselfish out-flow which causes you to become like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. The important thing is to see what happens to you in the process—the light that rises upon you, the Lord continually guiding you, satisfying your desire in scorched places, and giving strength to your bones.
We are not blessed more because we still carry too much self-centeredness. When we become Christ-centered and Body-oriented, oriented in our whole lives to the ministry of the Body, when Christ is the center of our whole lives, then we ourselves seem to flourish. This is a great key.
“And those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets (or, the paths) in which to dwell.” The ways of God will be re-established for people to walk in. We are going to bring back to people the paths of God, so they can walk with Him.
We who are living in this generation are probably experiencing more of the restoration then any dozen generations before us. It is culminating so fast; yet, in spite of it coming forth, it does not seem to last or to stand in some areas. For instance, an old-order pastor is desperate and finally comes into the knowledge of the Holy Spirit. He speaks in tongues, and “Hallelujah, this is it!” But first he starts chartering his world tours and laying out his plans and his campaigns. He’s going to do his thing. He is saying in effect, “Thank you, God. Boy, I was about ready to fold up. I’m glad you gave me another shot in the arm. Now here I am, going on my career, finishing up this professional thing that I’m called to be.”
God blows on it. You say, “Oh, that’s terrible!” Not as terrible as in chapter 58 of Isaiah where God says, “Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to My people their transgressions, they seek Me day by day, and delight to know My ways,” but behind all of that appearance is a selfish motivation. This is exactly what is happening today.
There could be one group, including ourselves, that could come on the scene, absolutely dedicated to God’s will; absolutely dedicated to see the will of the Lord go forth, with complete unselfishness, complete dedication to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and to the divine order that He wants. They would set about following these eight objectives in verses 6 and 7—loosening the bonds of wickedness, undoing the bands of the yoke—not just working something as a gimmick to put them over, but something that is honest, sincere, genuine to the very heart. God would really bless it.
There must be eternal vigilance to search out motivations: “Lord, look what we did in Your name. We prophesied and did many mighty works.”
Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity; I never knew you (Matthew 7:22, 23).
It isn’t what you are doing, or even how you seem to be effective; it’s your motivation. You may seem to be successful, but that doesn’t mean you have made it. In your own opinion, maybe you have, but God who searches the heart looks to see if the motive is right.
The only thing that ever bothers me, which gives me moments in the night in which I am filled with fear, is that I could look at the things which yet have to be removed from our hearts for this walk to be pure. It frightens me. You say, “Well, it looks like everything’s going fine.” I know it does, and I have no reason to say it’s not; it’s just that I know God raised us up for something, and we must not fall short of the full measure of it. We cannot stop this pursuing after the will of God until He has gained the whole measure of what He is after in our lives; until we lay hold upon that for which we are laid hold upon.
This is not a message to make you heavy, but a message to make you look carefully by the Holy Spirit to the barometer. Just where are you? Just what are you measuring up to? You are not far off from what God wants. You are pretty close to it; but that’s not good enough.
“Lord, search our hearts even more. Bring us to this absolute dedication to what God is doing and saying in the earth.”
Stop trying to use God for your own ends. Stop that secret thing within your heart that says, “Well, if God does this and this for me, then I can go and do such-and-such.” Don’t use God. That will hold up the whole parade. Instead say, “Lord, do this for me, only for one reason—that You bring me to the place where I will be guided by You, led by the Spirit of the Lord like a true son of God, walking on into all that You have for me.”
Do you want to be one of those who restore the paths to dwell in? Do you want the real thing? Do you ever have this same thought: “What if we come so close and miss it?” Does that bother you at times? That’s what messages like this are for. Continually hold to the objective. Come to the realization that it is a total thing God is after—all of our heart, our soul, our mind, our strength; loving the Lord, serving Him, pressing in, in every way that we know how. Don’t go back to the fast that fails. Don’t go back to the appearance of the thing: bowing down one’s head like a reed, spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed.
You can go through certain things of austerity because you have refused to cope with the real deep motivations of your heart. You can look like a saint who has humbled himself right down in the dirt, but a lot of people in old order do that too. If you look carefully, you can see the hypocrisy and shallowness of it. Don’t do that. Don’t say, “Okay, I’ve got to try harder.” No, you’re not going to try harder; you’re going to open up for a deeper searching of your heart to see that it is really right, really upright before God. That’s the whole thing. Don’t just try to phony it through. Don’t think that you can put on something that will make it right. There is no sackcloth you can put on that can measure up to verses 6 and 7. It is only done way down in the motivation of your heart, honestly wanting the perfect will of God above everything else in the world.
Our desire is not selfish, but wholly focused upon the exaltation of the Lord in this hour. Let’s try for it. Let’s try for it deeply.
Do you have that hunger in your heart to see what God has begun in you and in this walk completed? Do you have this yearning, burning thing in your heart that says, “I cannot abide having even ninety percent of that which is right and ten percent of that which displeases God”?
We must be among those who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth—the hundred and forty-four thousand, virgins who have not defiled themselves, spiritually set upon God, with no other loves, no other desires drawing them away. We are going to be this people. By the grace of God we are going to walk before the Lord in this way.
Sometimes you wonder why you are held down and held down, pushed and pushed—because you have in your makings something that could be a Judas Iscariot, or a doubting Thomas, or a withdrawing spirit.
God will see that somehow we come to the purity of the fast. As high as these objectives are, the spiritual perfection of the Body, none need be lost. No matter who you are, or what your problems are, you need not fall short of walking in the perfection of this end-time company. The restoration can be completed within your life, as well as in the world. Regardless of your nature, you do not have to accept those problems or weaknesses or faults as being valid. You don’t have to accept them. You can seek the Lord. Wherever you’ve failed, time and time again, it can go. Whatever bitterness, or criticism, or judgment, or withdrawal, all of the things that are condemned in this chapter can be removed. They can go. The pointing of the finger, that critical spirit, all of it can be eliminated, and God can see to it that everyone makes it.
God is not crying for numbers now as much as He is crying for quality, and we are going to have it. Are we ready to go the whole route—not in distance, but in depth—all the way? God search our hearts. Let’s take another look at the stars and get our bearings; if the helm needs it, we will adjust it just a little bit because we want to be right on course the whole way.
We lift our hearts to You, Lord. O Master, it is not in heaviness, it is not without joy, it is with a deep awareness that we are making it, and thoroughly and completely we are going to make it. We didn’t realize or bargain for such a deep work in our hearts, but now we can’t turn back. We cannot be at rest in our spirit, Lord, until Thou hast wrought that within us which is to Thy glory and Thy praise.
By the body and the blood of the Lord when we take Communion, that which God has begun within us can be fed. It is a divine nature, clothed, something like a baby coming forth within us—a new nature. It is that sonship rising up to take over, and the old is disappearing. Thank you, Lord, for what You are working so deeply within us. Thy will be done. Amen.