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What do the Old Testament prophets say about the poor and the needy? Are you eager for God? Are you eager to see Him at work in your own personal life and in the church your serve? I am very eager for God in my heart. I dream about God doing great things and about thousands turning to Christ. I long for the day when there will be mighty and incredible God orchestrated revival. I am so eager for God – somehow I am probably not as keen as putting in the time and devotion which God expects me to but I am still madly eager for God. I dream about Christians totally dedicated to the Lord – I dream about secular people come to Christ and living God’s way, basing their lives upon the Word of God, His standards and morals. I see God at work with multitudes coming under conviction of sin, repenting and turning to Christ. Do you dream like that? Do you? Are you eager for God? I am and the prophet Isaiah was certainly eager for God. We seem eager for God, but on our terms, not His. This was the case with the nation of Israel who seemed to be eager to seek and be obedient to him. 1. Being Eager for God leads to action Isaiah 58:1-8 "Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins. 2For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. 3"Why have we fasted,' they say, "and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?' "Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. 4Your fasting ends in quarrelling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. •
Israel felt they were eager for God
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. 2For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. Israel had all the appearances of doing the right thing and being eager for God. The Hebrew word here that is translated as ‘eager’ is ‘chaphets’ which at its root meaning is to incline or bend and can also be translated as to be pleased, to desire and to delight. Lord, I am bent towards you. We have a parrot at home named Coco who loves sunflower seeds but he also scatters his seeds and so outside his aviary, we had some sunflowers pop up unexpectedly and their huge heavy faces kept turning during the day to face the sun to soak it up. The sunflower’s face is bent and follows the sun all day. What a picture of eagerness and desire. Like the face of a sunflower bends itself and follows the sun all day, so Lord I too have my face bent towards you, watching you to see where you are at work,
2 following you, soaking up as much of the Son’s radiance as possible. I am eager for you, I desperately desire you and want to delight in You. Israel seemed to want to know God’s plans and ways and they also seemed to want God to come near. Yet God has declared them to be in Rebellion – why is this? They were eager and keen to have God’s favour and to please him, but on their terms, not on God’s. That is so like us. If you are here tonight it is because you have sacrificed something to be here. Your desire and eagerness for God is evident in your presence here and like Israel, you may feel to a certain extent that God owes you and should show up for you in some significant way. •
Israel was disappointed that God had not noticed their eagerness v3
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"Why have we fasted,' they say, "and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?' Lord this is all a bit unfair, I am serving you at cost to my family and business – I feel that I am close to being a fully devoted follower, yet You have not shown up in the way I had hoped You would. Lord, what is going on here? Why haven’t You seen my sacrifice, my financial sacrifice, my time sacrifice, my effort for you Lord – Lord, my face is bent towards you in so many ways and yet you have not seen it or noticed it. Why, Lord, are you rejecting my eagerness? Actually Lord, what is wrong, I don’t think you have been entirely fair, I fast, I pray, I give, I long for you and well, Lord You have not come through – why? That is exactly what Israel was saying to the Lord in v3 about their own eagerness for Him and His apparent lack of interest in their ways. God said through Isaiah the prophet that He knew about their eagerness and their apparent disappointment in the fact that He was not coming through for them. •
Israel needed to move beyond prayer and fasting to compassionate action if they were to see God doing a mighty work in their lives God wanted them to have a completely different attitude to the poor and needy before there would be a mighty revival. Isaiah 58:6-8 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 8Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. It’s frighteningly clear here. In order for us to have a goose bumps revival, that real intimate closeness with God, Isaiah 58:6 & 7 says there must first be the: • loosening the chains of injustice, • setting the oppressed free, • sharing your food with the hungry, • providing the poor wanderer with shelter and • clothing the naked
3 These are pretty clear conditions for a mighty revival but I am not sure that we believe they are necessary or that we are ready to face what this really means. We want revival without conditions. There are no options given us in Isaiah 58. We have to demonstrate practical compassionate action to the least, the lost and the last person on earth. I see a great evangelical divorce has occurred. It is the church’s mandate that we are to care for the poor and do something about poverty but we have transferred that to the government and said that poverty is the government’s problem. Rubbish, God has given the mandate of the poor to the church. Look again here at Isaiah 58:6, 7 If we are truly eager for God, there has to 5 issues at least we must focus on. It takes two different kind of people to do this. 2. Being eager for God means that we have the responsibility of breaking the yoke of poverty v6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? The first 2 issues deal with the need for people who focus on advocacy work, which is all about breaking the structural issues around poverty and stimulating the economy. •
Eager for God people need to defend the cause of the poor and needy
Wherever you have poverty, you have oppression, wherever you have oppression you have injustice. Poverty, injustice and oppression are a vicious circle. Somebody always oppresses poor people that is why Isaiah calls us to break the yoke of poverty. Break poverty, loose people held in captivity by it, loosen the chains of poverty around a person. You are called to do it – there is no escaping it. It is your Biblical responsibility. As we have sort to understand this Scripture we have developed Living Hope’s tagline – Bringing Hope, Breaking Despair. Proverbs 318 “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. 9 Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” This verse talks about defending the cause,- that is advocacy work on behalf of the voiceless. We have a responsibility to treat poor people with great dignity because they are created in the image of God. This is not some charity issue. This is a Biblical justice issue. From my wonderfully conservative background I was brought up to believe that people dealing with issues of injustice had lost their way spiritually and were in fact liberals because they had nothing else to preach on. As I have grown I see that God is on the side of the poor and the needy and we as His people are meant to help
4 break the yoke of injustice and loosen the chains that poverty that bind people. I had missed the teaching that God cares about the downtrodden. Over the years I have stumbled therefore on some stony roads which evangelicals have genuinely missed. If I were to ask you what how would you define what it means to know the Lord, then what would you answer? Think about it for a moment and answer it for yourself. What would your answer be? I always thought of knowing the Lord, only in terms of having Him living within you and then I read Jeremiah 2215 “Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. 16 He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the LORD. ‘Is that not what it means to know me?’ declares the Lord – to defend the cause of the poor and needy. Wow, do you get this Scripture – it is mind blowing? Now hear me, I am not for one second suggesting that one knows the Lord by doing deeds and that our salvation is a works based salvation. No, no we are saved by grace alone but somehow we miss what living that out means. We miss the way in which God thinks about us when He thinks about us knowing Him. Eager for God people need to defend the cause of the poor and needy – that is what God says but also •
Eager for God people need to stimulate the economy
As I look around the USA, you guys are teaming with people to do this – you have business minds, second to none on the earth. God has made you with great minds and incredible entrepreneurial skill. Your business abilities can be a mighty tool in the kingdom of God. God is looking for and calling for people exactly like you. God is calling an army of you from this country – it is today that God calls you and you to break the yoke of poverty, to loosen the chains of injustice, to set the oppressed free, to break the despair of the poor and needy. Look what you have in your hand says the Lord, my child I will use you and your business in ways you never believed possible, You will be part of bringing in a mighty revival as you stimulate the economy and create jobs for God. Wow – what a business – creating jobs for God, creating the platform to break the economic yoke of poverty. You are the one, yes you….. And in so doing you will be part of ushering in one of the greatest revivals of church history. For far too long we have sent out the missionary nurse or teacher or doctor. Now is the time to send out the missionary business person. And the amazing thing is that some can go and open factories in the poorest parts of the world and bring the gospel there and start a church in the factory and tell why they are there. Others can come to Africa and open a business or factory there for God and plant a church in that factory and still others of you can stay at home and set up businesses which will support other organizations starting up businesses and training people in order to break the yoke
5 of oppression and injustice of poverty. I have this dream of God’s people moving all over the place and creating massive livelihood creation. For some God may be calling you to give and not to go, but to give beyond just your tithe to your local church. Most of us believe that we have just enough to live on but probably for all of us here today, we have more than we need and for some, God is simply saying to you, give away radically, not just averagely. Be radical in your giving to the poor and the needy in a way which will see the gospel preached and poor people reached.
But not only are they breaking the yoke of poverty responsibilities in Isaiah 58, they are breaking the despair of hunger and nakedness responsibilities 3. Being eager for God means that we have the responsibility of breaking the despair of hunger and nakedness responsibilities v7 7
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? The other 3 issues which Isaiah names require a completely different person who God calls to serve Him in a different way. These are people who are high on care people. This is the person who can happily feed hungry people without asking them why they are hungry and clothe people who have very little in the way of clothes without making a judgment on whether they are responsible people or not. This is the person who can go and help people to have the dignity of having their own home or as this passage says, providing shelter. There are huge opportunities for you to go into the Homeless areas of your city. Listen don’t join someone else’s program for the poor and needy in your area. What outreach does your church have as part of it’s life and nature on terms of the poor and needy? There are massive opportunities around your local church. Open your eyes and see where the poor and needy are, where the refugees are, where the trailer park homes are, where the education and health care is hard to get. I tell you
6 as do that, you are going to know and experience God at work in a way that you have never personally experienced because you are moving onto His agenda and joining Him in what He is doing in His church. Remember what we saw last night that the church is God’s solution for society – so what are you doing besides having great club parties on Sunday mornings? ‘Church in the USA, rise up, now is the time. This is your day, this is your opportunity’ declares the Lord. ‘Care for the poor, the needy, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the homeless and I see what I will do for you and through you. My children, you call on me to bless you, I will, as you go and care for the hungry, the naked and the homeless. You will receive a blessing and a revival and My presence in a way that you have not seen before’ says the Lord. 4. Being eager for God means to stand in the gap of for the poor One of our favorite prayer meeting passages of Scripture is Ezekiel 22:30 – I have heard it quoted by the intercessors – Lord I will stand in the gap before you for my land. I have heard spine chilling sermons about the need for people to intercede and prayer to stand in the gap before the Lord. I have walked out of those messages feeling so guilty because my prayer life simply does not match up and I don’t intercede in the gap before the Lord. But hold on, wait a minute – is that what this Scripture is about? What is the context of this verse – we know we must always interpret a Scripture in its context, by what comes before and afterwards. So what is v29 all about then? Ezekiel 22:29-30 The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the alien, denying them justice. 30 “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. Standing in the gap is not then all about prayer and intercession – in fact it is all about people who will break the yoke of poverty and injustice. Oh no, surely pastor you missed something you say. You can't do this to my favorite Scripture about prayer. My friend you need to take that up with those who for years have mistaught this Scripture. This Scripture is so patently clear over the issues of injustice and poverty. God will destroy the land when we extort the poor and when we mistreat the alien. When there is injustice, God will destroy the land. The injustice issues in my country are awful and around the world they are horrendous. Here in the USA there is some terrible trafficking and poverty. God looks for people to stand in the gap and do something about it and He finds none, but maybe He is putting His finger on your life today. Stand in the gap, stand in the gaping hole of the poor and needy and do something about it. I found none declares the Lord. Is God going to find some in America? Is God going to find people right here from the most significant nation on earth and from one of the most powerful economic cities of the world or is he going to say - I looked for someone to stand in the gap but I found none in America. Be appalled oh heavens, none to stand in the gap in America.
7 No-one, no-one, no-one to intervene, no-one, no-one to intervene. God is appalled by the situation, utterly appalled Will you be that one to intervene? Will you stand in the gap right now? If you are eager for God you will stand. Lord, I bend my face and my knees towards you, I will stand in the gaping hole of injustice and poverty. Lord, from today onwards I will change my attitude to the poor and the needy but more Lord I will change my actions and my life and my money. I will stand in the gap Lord in the areas I have genuinely missed out upon. If that is you, please stand now. SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS 1. Our treatment of vulnerable people seems to be very much linked to our worship and honouring God in Isaiah 58:1–8. How does this challenge the way that you think of your treatment of the vulnerable people God has placed in your life and Community? 2. Throughout Scripture, care for the vulnerable and poor is placed in the care of God’s people, not in the hands of other institutions. What is the church’s responsibility to the poor and what does a poverty reaching church look like in our day? 3. Isaiah 58.6 says that God wants us ‘to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?’ Take some time to discuss what the yokes of poverty are that need to be broken – what makes them a yoke or a burden and how can they be broken? What practical things can be done to break the yoke of poverty? 4. Micah 6.6-8 similarly calls us to act justly – how as a church can we display and bring justice to a terribly unjust world? 5. Both Matthew 25 and Isaiah 58 link God’s judgment on us or blessings on us with our treatment of those around us – Read Isaiah 58:9-10. What does God’s linking of these two teach us about God’s heart towards the heart towards the vulnerable and how we react to them? 6. For reflection: Do you know the Lord in the way in which Jeremiah 22 15 talks about?