SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/13/2013
10:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Hypocrites
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Isaiah
58:1-14
Message of the
verses: We begin the forth sub-point
in Dr. Wiersbe’s outline on his 12th chapter of his commentary on the
book of Isaiah, “Be Comforted.” We are
looking at different groups of people whom Isaiah has an indictment
against.
The Hypocrites (Isaiah 58:1-14): “1 "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. 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. They ask Me for just decisions, They delight in the nearness of God.
“3 ’Why have we fasted and You do not see? Why have we
humbled ourselves and You do
not notice?’ Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire, And drive
hard all your workers. 4 “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. 5
“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? 6 “Is this not the fast which I
choose, To loosen the bonds of wickedness, To undo the bands of the
yoke, And to let the oppressed go free And break every yoke? 7 “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?
“8 "Then your light will break out like the dawn, And
your recovery will speedily spring forth; And your righteousness will go before
you; The glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. 9 “Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
You will cry, and He will say, ’Here I am.’ If you remove the yoke from your
midst, The pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, 10 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. 11 “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. 12 “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.
“13 "If because of the Sabbath, you
turn your foot From doing your own pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath
a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, And honor it, desisting from
your own ways, From seeking your own pleasure And speaking your own word,
14 Then you will take delight in the LORD, And I will
make you ride on the heights of the earth; And I will feed you with the
heritage of Jacob your father, For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.’”
We are talking about hypocrites in this SD, and as I
searched the entire Bible for that word I only found two times that it is in
the Word of God from the NASB translation and both of them are found in the
Gospels, and both times it was the Lord Jesus Christ who used that word. “Mt 7:5
"You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then
you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. Lu 6:42
"Or how can you say to your brother, ’Brother, let me take out the
speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in
your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then
you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” Here is the meaning given from the Bible
dictionary that is on my Online Bible program:
“One who puts on a mask and feigns himself to be what he is not; a
dissembler in religion. Our Lord severely rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for
their hypocrisy #Mt 6:2,5,16 "The hypocrite’s hope shall perish" #Job
8:13 The Hebrew word here rendered "hypocrite" rather means the
"godless" or "profane," as it is rendered in #Jer 23:11
i.e., polluted with crimes.”
Now that we have an idea of what we are looking for in
this passage from Isaiah we can go forward and look at it in a little
detail. It seems to me that the way that
the people were living out their lives in this time when Isaiah wrote this section
of his book are very similar to the way that the Jewish people were living out
their lives when the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth, and I suppose that is why
He talks to them in the way that He did as seen in the two passages above. They were going to the temple and they were
fasting, but their hearts were far away from the Lord. It was the thing to do, but we know that the
Lord looks at our hearts to see what our true motives are when we worship Him,
and what He found in these people was not good.
The following verse from Micah tells us in a nutshell what the Lord
requires of us, and when we read it we will see that these people were not
following these words and actions: “Micah
6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love
kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?” Humility is what the Lord desires of us, to
walk in a humble way and not in a proud way, as these people did.
This section also speaks of fasting and we can see that
the peoples motives were wrong when they fasted and this is why the word
hypocrite is used to describe them. The
Jews were only required to fast once a year as seen in Leviticus 16:29-31, “29 "This
shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of
the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native,
or the alien who sojourns among you; 30
for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse
you; you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD. 31 “It is to be a Sabbath
of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls; it is a permanent
statute.” The passage speaks of the Day
of Atonement, which is called Yon Kipper if my memory serves me correct and I
also believe that it is the Jewish New Year.
Now we want to look at what the Lord Jesus has to say to the people of
His day about fasting which comes from His Sermon on the Mount: “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. 17 "But you, when
you fast, anoint your head and wash your face 18 so that your fasting will not be noticed by
men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done
in secret will reward you.” I personally
have fasted on two occasions, once for a week, having only water, and then another
time for 22 days having only one glass of tomato juice a day. The reason for the first fast was to get
direction from the Lord as to what I was to do after my retirement as I was
only 52 years old and wanted to do something with my life that would please the
Lord. My belief is that the Church today
does not fast like we should, for the Bible tells us “when you fast,” and this
to me assumes that we will fast. One of
the benefits of fasting is that it is good for the soul as well as the
body. Digesting food takes a lot of
energy and so when a person fasts the energy that was used to digest food will
be used to cleanse the body of all the things that it needs cleansing of. When a person fasts they have a sharper mind,
and this is very beneficial when it comes to spiritual things. We know that Jesus fasted at the beginning of
His ministry for forty days, and at the end of His fast the text states that He
became hungry. After three days of
fasting you are not hungry at all, and the next time you become hungry you need
to eat as the text says He became hungry.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “If in my religious duties I am doing
what pleases me, and if doing it does not make me a better person, then I am
wasting my time and my worship is only sin.
Fasting and fighting do not go together?
Yet how many families walk piously out of church at the close of a
Sunday worship service, get in the family car, and proceed to argue with each
other all the way home?
“True fasting will lead to humility before God and
ministry to others. We deprive ourselves
so that we might share with others and do so to the glory of God. If we fast in order to get something for
ourselves from God, instead of to become better people for the sake of others,
then we have missed the meaning of worship.
It delights the Lord when we delight in the Lord.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Delighting in the
Lord is something that, as a believer I desire to do. I know that there are times when I fail at
this, but then I must remember a quote that is in many of Dr. Wiersbe’s “Be
Books” which states “The successful Christian life is a series of New Beginnings.”
My Steps of Faith for Today: Make my worship before the Lord something that
will please Him.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Jericho” (Hebrews 11:30).
Today’s Bible
Question: “Who did God appoint to be the
leader of Israel after Moses?”
Answer in our next SD. 12/13/2013 11:54 AM
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