Heard on High – Isaiah 58:1-9

Healthline.com notes that “Intermittent fasting (IF) is currently one of the world’s most popular health and fitness trends.  People are using it to lose weight, improve their health and simplify their lifestyles.  Many studies show that it can have powerful effects on your body and brain and may even help you live longer.  Common intermittent fasting methods involve daily 16-hour fasts or fasting for 24 hours, twice per week.”  Israel observed their own intermittent fasts as a nation, but the benefits they expected were quite different.

“Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins.  Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God.  ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?  Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’  Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers.  Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist.  Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high.  Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself?  Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?  Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?

“Is not this the fast that I choose:  to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?  Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.  Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’  (Isaiah 58:1-9a ESV)

Have you ever asked God why He isn’t answering your prayers?  Have you ever pointed out to Him all the ways in which you are performing for Him?  This is what Israel was doing and this was Yahweh’s answer to them.  The real “performance” is humility that leads to doing justice.  If you “fast” that way, your voice will be heard on high.

Discussion Questions

1. What do you like about fasting?
2. If you have fasted have you seen results from it, and if so, what kind of results?
3. Why wasn’t Israel receiving results from fasting?
4. Yahweh suggests three categories of true fast: 1) freeing the oppressed, 2) sharing our food and homes with the needy, and 3) clothing the needy.  Which of these speaks most to you?
5. For Israel, fasting in this way promised healing and protection from Yahweh.  Do you think that same promise avails for us today?
6. What prayer do you need the Lord to answer for you and say “Here I am”?