January 9: A CRUCIAL DIFFERENCE

Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, And the house of Jacob their sins. 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 ordinance of justice; They take delight in approaching God. Isaiah 58:1-2

While maintaining a lifestyle of sin, many of God’s people are ‘going through the motions’ that make them appear to be pious. They (we) do such a thorough job of it that they (we) deceive even themselves (ourselves!). The language used here, Lift up your voice like a trumpet, alludes to the Feast of Trumpets, that intense, ten-day period leading up to the Day of Atonement. God’s faithful are being called upon to arouse their brethren (and themselves). We are to unite in the call to an awakening—many of us to a re-awakening of the reality that the actual Day of the Lord’s coming (symbolized by the Day of Atonement) is at hand. No mission takes precedence over this one!

God’s people today can benefit immensely by learning from history. Our opening passage references the ongoing transgression of God’s people along with the delight they have in approaching God. What gives? Isaiah continues: ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice?’ (v.3a)

The people were expecting affirmation from the Lord for their “piety.” They felt He should congratulate them for their religiosity. But they had it all backwards. The purpose of practicing self-denial on the Day of Atonement was to express loyalty and gratitude as the high priest went before God to cleanse the sanctuary from the record of confessed sins for which they had already been forgiven. Their actions should have been carried out as a way of expressing thankfulness for having been saved, and not to gain special divine approval for following a ritual.

Chapter 58 of Isaiah contains crucial lessons of discerning the difference between being merely religious and being a true follower of Christ. This discernment is needed on a daily basis. Before Jesus returns, He will have a people who have learned to follow Him in spirit and in truth. Isaiah is pointing to the need for full restoration of all of God’s truths in the lives of His people.

But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. John 4:23-24

See also: John 14:15-17; 16:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 John 3:24