Biblical prophets are not soothsayers who sit around divining the future and decrying our inevitable demise. True prophets are gifted with an intense sensitivity to the tone of the age and are called by God to alert those who are obvious to where their personal and national choices are taking them. The hope of a godly prophet is to convince the culture of its destructive direction and to persuade the people to reverse direction and return to God, a God of mercy and forgiveness, and thus avoid a calamitous destination.
With our own culture in such a chaotic time, it seems this might be a good time to reread the biblical books of prophecy and listen to the principles of wisdom and warning God gave those prophets in similar times.
In the time of Isaiah, as now, people wanted the blessings of God without living up to the conditions on which those blessings rested. Isaiah passionately believes he has this word from God: the trappings of religiosity are not what delights God, and they will not do! The form, the liturgy, is supposed to be a symbol of a real communication with God and a reckless abandonment to his purpose. Without the lived-out reality, the symbolic liturgy is empty, hypocritical, and obnoxious to God.
What follows, then, is a series of “if” clauses, conditions on which the benefits of a Godly life depend. Isaiah wants us to know that the joy and deep contentment, prosperity and growth, are all a reality, but are dependent our being truly God’s people in this world. In our present vernacular this is what Isaiah in chapter 58 says:
This is a message shouted over a megaphone to get your attention. You come to God and ask for His guidance and support. You tell Him how you’ve fasted, gone to growth groups, and attended church. “Haven’t you noticed, God, how religious we’ve been?” you say. Yet while you go without food, you do whatever you please, exploit your employees, bicker and fight with your associates, and take no long-term responsibility for the relationships in your life.
Do you think there is no correlation between the acts of worship and the life you lead? I’ll tell you what acts of worship get my attention:
to get involved and do something about the injustices done to those who have no clout in this world
to care when people are trapped and oppressed, abused and exploited
to open your home to hungry kids and share your resources with the needy
to do something about street people, the homeless, the unemployed, the destitute, and those left with no place to go
to care not just about those far away or those who are one step removed from you, but to take serious responsibility for your own family, immediate and extended, those long-term relationships that wear on you and never go away
If your devotions include these kinds of involvement, then I will break in on your life in amazing ways, the light of insight and inspiration will flood your days, and you yourself will begin to experience wholeness. Your integrity will speak for itself and precede you everywhere you go, and the very glory of the Lord will guard you from attacks behind your back.
If you refuse to “use” people, destroy others with malicious gossip, or tear them down with harsh judgments and criticism; if you will spend yourself to feed the hungry and risk your own security to challenge the oppressors of this world, then your light will rise in the darkness and shine like the sun at noon – and you won’t even realize how it’s happened. You will find descending on you a tremendous sense of confidence; you will know without striving to know that God is in charge, looking out for you all the time, and constantly “up to something” in the regularness of your days. Without seeking “results,” results will just come like plants “just happen” from seeds in a well-cared-for garden and like water “just happens” when you dig deep enough to hit a fresh water spring.
A lot of the damage that has been done to the trust and confidence outsiders have in “religious people” will be repaired by your straight living, honest dealings, and true no-strings-attached commitment. Many a disillusioned person will learn to believe again because of you. If you take seriously my ancient mandate to sanctify a special time solely for spiritual input; if you’ll guard a time to truly reverence and listen to Me – a day set aside every week – that doesn’t get nickeled and dimed away by your own interests and obligations, then you will find to your utter amazement an incredible sense of joy more satisfying by far than the synthetic “fun” people pursue so frantically.
Finally, you will find that you have, as God promised, “possessed the land” instead of the land possessing you, and you will indeed find it to be a “land flowing with milk and honey.” You shall suddenly realize, “I have come home, and I am contented in every way!”
There is no arguing with this. I said it, and I am God.
