And the Bible reads, cry loud, spare not, lift up thy voice
like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression
and the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways,
as the nation that did righteousness,
and forsook not the ordinance of their God.
They ask me the ordinances of justice.
They take delight in approaching to God.
Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seeest not.
Therefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takeest no knowledge, behold, in the day of
your fast ye find pleasure and exact all your labors. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate,
and to smite with the fist of wickedness, ye shall not fast as ye do this day,
to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen,
a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bull rush,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Thou callest this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord.
Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness,
to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppress go free, that ye break every yoke?
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house?
Will thou seeest the naked, that thou cover him, that thou hide not thyself from thy known flesh?
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thine health shall spring forth speedily and thy righteousness shall go for
Go before thee the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward
Then shall the call and the Lord shall answer I shall cry and he shall say here. I am
If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke,
the putting forth of the finger and speaking vanity.
And if thou draw thy soul to the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted soul, then
shall thy light rise in obscurity
and thy darkness be as the noon day.
And the Lord shall guide thee continually
and satisfy thy soul and drought and make fat thy bones.
Thou shalt be like a watered garden
and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.
And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places.
Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations, and thou shalt be called to repair
the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.
Thou turn away thy foot from sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call
the sabbath of delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shall honor him, not doing
thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, and shall thine
delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the
earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father, for the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it.
for preserving your words unto us, dear God.
We thank you for this wonderful church you've given us.
We thank you for our pastor, dear Lord.
Please bless him as he preaches your word.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. Okay, we're continuing this evening
with our Bible study on Isaiah chapter 58.
And tonight's theme is wrong and right ways to fast.
We're gonna talk about our favorite subject.
in the entire Bible, which is fasting, right?
You know, fasting obviously has caught a lot of momentum
within recent years, but more so for physical reasons, right?
Health reasons, whereas really fasting for spiritual reasons
isn't really popular amongst Christians.
And even when I was in a fundamental Baptist church,
old IFP church, you know, this wasn't necessarily something
that people would talk about a whole lot,
but we see it covered here in chapter 58,
And before I get into that, we're going to cover, first and foremost, the commission that God gives to Isaiah here.
He talks about the transgressions of Israel, and he commands Isaiah to preach against their sin.
He says in verse number one, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet.
It says, and show my people their transgression and the house of Jacob, their sin.
So the chapter starts off with the commission, the command, the mandate to preach against
the sins of Israel.
And of course, the specific sin that he's going to focus on is the fact that they're
fasting for all the wrong reasons and they're not fasting in a scriptural manner.
They're doing it to consume it upon their own lust.
We'll get into that in just a bit.
to call out the sin of Israel,
but he actually tells them how to do it as well.
You know, essentially saying that,
you know, what the message is,
is just as important as how you say it.
Because he says there in verse one,
cry aloud, spare not,
lift up thy voice like a trumpet.
And here we find certain elements
that hard preaching has to have.
Now when we think of hard preaching,
there's various ways we can describe it.
There's very elements that it has.
We can say, well, hard preaching is biblical preaching, right?
It's preaching that it has sound doctrine.
It's preaching that actually uses the Bible.
It's preaching that is very explicit,
meaning that it doesn't tiptoe around the tulips.
It doesn't beat around the bush.
They're not pussy footers who are delivering the message.
Hard preaching is very explicit.
It's very clear.
That's what it means.
And hard preaching also steps on your toes.
It's very offensive, right?
If we're guilty of a particular sin,
we're guilty of a transgression,
of a particular behavior,
you know, hard preaching hits home.
Whereas, soft preaching, you know, it just kind of tickles our ears.
It pleases the senses.
It doesn't really feed the spirit and it doesn't help you get right with God.
So this obviously, a lot of different ways we could describe hard preaching.
It has the content of the Bible.
It has, it's very sound, excuse me, it has sound doctrine.
It hits home.
It's very explicit.
Now I'm not saying that all preaching that's loud is hard preaching or biblical preaching
They're just preaching out there that has a high volume attached to it but they're not
really saying anything.
They're just kind of being loud, they're not really explicit, they're not really calling
out sins, they're not really naming the name so to speak.
But we for sure know that hard preaching, biblical preaching has a lot of volume and
the reason we know this is because the first thing that God tells Isaiah, he says, cry
aloud.
Right?
Now what does it mean to cry aloud?
describe crying as someone who's weeping, someone who's tearing.
But when the Bible talks about crying, it also refers to just yelling, right?
To cry out loud means to yell out loud, to yell very loudly.
So he's telling Isaiah, when you preach, make sure you scream loudly.
Now, why does he tell them to do that?
Why couldn't he have just told Isaiah,
hey, preach the truth, make sure that it has scripture,
make sure you call out the sin,
but you don't get all crazy about it, you know?
Keep your voice down.
You know, speak the truth and love,
as Minnie would say today, right?
Which they interpret that as like, say it nicely.
But you know, the reason he's telling them to yell,
scream and cry out loud is because it gets your attention.
And you know what?
And when you see a preacher get up and he's hanging from the chandeliers,
he's screaming his head off regarding a particular sin, fornication, adultery,
drunkenness, you know for a fact, okay, this man means business.
And obviously, this is a very serious subject
that he's talking about.
He's very angry about this subject.
And you know what?
The preacher's supposed to communicate emotion
through his preaching regarding how angry he is
regarding that sin, a false doctrine, or whatever it may be.
So, you know, if I were to come up here
and just talk about fornication,
and I say, hey, you shouldn't fornicate.
Fornication's bad.
You know, fornication is just very evil.
You know, what I'm saying is true.
Right, you know drunkenness is really bad. Why does a mock or strong drink is raging? Who serves to see if their eyes not wise
You'd be like you know amen
You know and if I were to say hey, you know adultery is wicked you deserve the death penalty you'd be like yeah
It's true
But if I got up here, and I said look wine is a mock or strong drink is raging
And who serve it is deceived their bias not wise and you're an idiot if you drink alcohol
You know that kind of gets your attention
because then you're like
Yeah, you know what?
I'm not gonna touch alcohol.
Because, you know, the volume of the preaching
makes an impact as well.
And volume isn't everything,
but when it's attached to the truth, biblical preaching,
when it's attached to sound doctrine,
it does get your attention.
So when you have a preacher in the Old Testament
going to the nation of Israel,
yelling at the top of his lungs
regarding the transgressions of Jacob,
you know, it's gonna get the attention of the crowd,
it's gonna get the attention of the people.
And this is why he says, cry out loud and he kind of re-emphasizes this by saying, lift up thy voice like a trumpet.
Because you think to yourself, well how loud?
Well, let's use the trumpet as an example.
Because he says, lift up your voice like a trumpet.
A trumpet is an instrument that's very loud.
You don't play a trumpet softly unless you're a conner who's able to do so.
You know, sometimes we have like an offertory that's being played,
and he's able to just hit those low notes and not be, you know, I don't know how he does it.
But in general, you know, you're supposed to be loud with the trumpet, right?
And in fact, the trumpet is typically used to sound the alarm.
to sound for war, right?
Sound for retreat.
It's supposed to get the attention of the army.
It's supposed to get the attention of the soldier.
It's supposed to wake people up.
And so he says there, when you preach,
scream, cry out loud, lift up your voice like a trumpet,
have some passion when you preach.
You know what?
I believe it's important for a preacher
to be sound in his doctrine.
to teach biblical doctrine, systematic doctrine,
nobody believes, teach the Bible, be apt to teach,
but I also believe a preacher should have some belly fire.
And in fact, I have the standard
that I will not send anybody out of our church
who does not preach hard and loud.
And I'm not just talking about sound preaching.
I'm not just talking about using scripture.
That's like baseline.
You better be passionate when you preach.
Because the type of preachers that we want to produce out of First Works Baptist Church is Hell, Fire, and Damnation preaching.
This Isaiah 58 verse 1 type preaching.
Not soft preaching. I don't want you to share with me.
You know, I don't want to Ted talk. I don't want you to share with me
There's a time and place for all of that but when it comes to calling out false doctrine false prophets and sin
You know, you better be angry about it. You better, you know get passionate about that
You better get zealous about those things you better cry out loud and lift up your voice like a trumpet
And so, you know, this is important. This is what the Bible tells us and you know
He's telling them to lift up his voice like a trumpet
You know it can be shockingly loud right, but he also says that you shouldn't spare
He says quiet loud and spare not now. What does it mean to not spare? Well, it basically means don't hold back
No reservations
So this is God's stamp of approval on preachers like me to say just let loose
Don't spare make sure you don't leave anything in the tank, right?
Preaching should be, hard preaching should be that RPE10.
Or it's just like to failure is what you need to preach to,
right?
And you know, I remember when we first started this church
and you know, I came from an old IFB church.
And so when we started this new IFB church,
you know, Pastor Anderson was just like,
I kind of asked, I was like,
can I just preach anything I want?
He's just like, just let loose.
Just preach anything.
And man, I dumped the truck on like everything
I've ever like wanted to just say, you know?
I think the first week more, you know,
the fag word was said more times than any other time,
you know, in my life or something,
because I'm just like letting loose.
I'm just preaching against everyone and everything.
And in fact, in the first year of my preaching,
I pretty much called out every local pastor
in our area and abroad.
And I called them out by name.
I made clips about them, you know,
about all different types of pastors and preachers
and, you know, people weren't getting thrown out
of their church because of it.
And, you know, it was great.
But, you know, but, you know what?
I believe God was pleased with that preaching though.
Because the preacher got up and said
what a lot of preachers didn't want to say.
and I didn't hold back, that's what it means, right?
You can't leave anything in the tank, have no reservations,
don't hold back, spare, not, the Bible says, okay?
And obviously this doesn't mean that all hard preaching
is loud, but hard preaching should have these elements
at one time or another.
And you know, there needs to be fluctuation when you preach.
This is not a preaching class,
but there needs to be fluctuation,
meaning that you just can't yell the entire time.
There needs to be hills and valleys
within the sermon itself,
and when it calls for it,
you need to be able to raise up your voice like a trumpet.
You can't be monotone when you preach.
Now look, there's great preachers out there
who are monotone and they have sound doctrine,
but at the end of the day,
this one, should I say, characteristic or attribute
of fundamental Baptist preaching
is that they preach loud and hard.
And I'm not just referring to new IP reaching,
I'm talking about
Old, just fundamental Baptist preaching, period.
And in fact, let me just say this.
There's old IFB preachers that can preach the pain
off the walls more than some of these new IFB
so-called preachers or new IFB preachers
that left the movement or whatever.
I'll just be honest with you.
I know some old IFB preachers that aren't necessarily
ass sounding their doctrine and they pray for Israel
or whatever and they're preachers or whatever,
but good night in the morning,
they can preach the pain off the walls.
And, you know, they help their people stay right with God
by preaching against sin.
And quite frankly, I like that.
You know, sometimes it could be a little too theatrical.
If you know what I mean.
If you've been in an old IFB church,
you know that for a fact,
they get a little too theatrical with their preaching.
But sometimes I feel like, you know,
we need some of that theatrics just a little bit.
We need to hear some people cry out loud and spare not
and, you know, couple that with sound doctrine.
And so I think that's great.
So what are we talking about here we're talking about the fact that before he even gets into the message God is telling Isaiah
This is how I want you to preach
This is what I want you to say, but I want you to preach in this manner
And you know what we can say that this is the commission that he's given to all preachers throughout all ages
And let me just say this is that
Another indication that you're listening to hard preaching according to Isaiah 58 is that the transgressions are being called out
The sins are being called out
Meaning that it's in your face and it's stepping on your toes. That's what hard preaching is
Okay, you're being told that you're wrong
You're being told to fear God
Right, you know false doctrine
Or preachers come out and say you don't have to fear God
Don't preach against sin and you don't have to say any of those things goes against the biblical model of preaching
And in fact, the example that we see of preachers doing that in the Bible are actually false prophets.
You know, the soft preaching, the light preaching, the preaching that says everything's going to be okay,
go and prosper Ahab, you're going to be able to overtake them,
get the illustration of the horns out, this is how you're going to do it.
The little Ted talks to come out,
actually come from the false prophets.
It's typically the men of God in the Bible
who have very negative messages in the Bible, right?
Because they're the ones who get up and say
what nobody else wants to say.
Micaiah is the one who says what nobody else wants to say.
Elijah is the one who gets up and says
what nobody wants to say.
And so, you know, these men are characterized
by hard preaching, Jeremiah, you know,
preachers like fire and like a hammer
that breaks the rock in pieces.
It's very distinctive from the rest of preaching.
And this is not just something
that is clearly seen in the Old Testament.
Even today in 2025, this is clearly seen, okay?
You know, you show me a church with purple lights,
smoke and mirrors,
and liberals, a singing, and CCM.
I'll show you a limp wrist that he feminine preacher
that doesn't lift up his voice like a trumpet
and doesn't call out the transgressions of the land.
You know, some people like that kind of preaching,
unfortunately, and the someone that I'm referring to
is just women, and men who are as women.
That's a fact, okay?
You go to these churches, let me just tell you,
the vast majority of the people in these churches
are women.
And if you find a dude in that church,
number one, he either hates being there,
but he's there because of his wife,
or the dude is just as soft as his wife, okay?
Because quite frankly, you know,
no red-blooded man who loves the word of God
can stand the kind of preaching.
They're not being inspired.
Nobody leaves that church service saying,
man, I want to be a preacher one day.
I want to be a hell-raising.
I want to be a limp-risted, effeminate.
You know, torn gene preacher one day with a glass pulpit.
No way, no one gets inspired to be that way.
You know, the reason God made the men of God
like John the Baptist, Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
do the things that he did is because, you know,
boys read that stuff and they're just like, man, that's cool.
Like I want to be a preacher like that.
It's inspiring.
And you know what?
I was inspired as a new Christian by heart preachers.
That got my attention you know I come from a different type of background
I don't come from a Christian background. I came from a you know a different type of neighborhood
So it says something when a preacher got up and just you know stared me dead in the eyes and was calling me out
That means something and
You know it got my attention and it got me right with God and helped me to stay right with God
and
You know what?
Communicating the fear when they communicated the fear of God to me it caused me to stay right with God and love the Lord that much
Don't buy into this nonsense and these lies that if you preach the fear of God you preach about the transgressions
You're gonna scare people away from God folks
It's the exact opposite you'll help people to stay right with God when you preach about the fear of God and the consequences of sin
You know and and here's the thing. Let's say if it was true
Let's say that preaching against the transgressions of the land preaching against the transgressions of the congregation would scare people away
Then so be it
Who cares you know if that's what God commissioned us to do that's what we got to do regardless of what the results are
You see a lot of this soft preaching
It has this agenda that it wants to create results of people staying in church
Whereas the preaching should create growth spiritual growth, right?
My agenda, my motive for preaching hard to you
is that I want you to grow in your Christian faith.
I don't want you to be destroyed by sin.
I want you to keep fearing God
because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
It's the beginning of knowledge
and because of that you depart from evil
and you will succeed and prosper because of it.
Boys, pay attention.
And so, you know, it's important for us to preach hard.
It's important for us to even build an appetite
for hard preaching.
And look, let me just say this,
once you listen to hard preaching
and you love the truth,
you cannot go back to the TED Talks.
I do not stand here at First Works Baptist Church
in fear that one day you'll go back to some liberal church
with limp wrist at preaching.
I don't fear that at all.
I don't.
I don't fear that you're gonna go back to tofu
after you've gotten ribeye.
It's not gonna happen.
It's just not gonna happen and you know what let's just say someone leaves our church because they don't agree with x y and z or whatever
They don't like whatever. You know if they leave our church, they're still gonna listen
It's true and you know what some of you started off hating this type of preaching
You know you would tune in you listen on YouTube and you realize who's this guy think he is I can't believe
This is the let me show you the progression. Okay, you listen to me. You're just like
Who does he think he is?
so stupid
unbelievable and
Then you'll watch it again
Let's see what he's saying this time
And then the next time you watch him. We're like, oh, there's a new clip
And then you watch it again, and you accidentally laugh and
Smile and you accidentally enjoy it
And then you're like, actually, I kind of like this.
But you know, you're so prideful and arrogant,
you're not willing to admit it.
So you watch for a while online, you know?
And then eventually, you muster up the courage
to actually come to a church that actually preaches that way.
Right?
And the reason I know this, because I've personally known
people who basically admitted that,
that they progressively just started,
because let me just explain something to you.
The new man delights in the law of the Lord.
And the new man loves hard preaching.
The flesh likes soft preaching because it's not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be
They like to hear that which pleases the senses, right? That's what the flesh likes
But you know a person who who is saved who has a spirit of God willing within them
Even if they verbally say they can't stand that kind of preaching inwardly they they do like it because they like the truth
And you know what this is this goes for the wives too
I guarantee you, there's wives in our church who, you know, did not start off liking this
kind of preaching.
It was offensive to them, and it is offensive.
Start preaching is offensive.
What do you expect?
It goes against the grain.
It goes against what you were taught, right?
But because it's so explicit and because we show the Bible, eventually you build an
appetite for it, okay?
And again, you know, there's churches out there that don't preach this way.
The reason people just go to those churches is not necessarily because of the preaching.
It's because what the church has to offer the youth.
Right?
It's because of the music.
It's because of the activities.
It's everything but the preaching.
Now we have all kinds of things that we offer here for families and stuff, but honestly
a lot of it is just second to the preaching.
Like a lot of us just to kind of supplement the community that we have here, right?
You know, we have a community here, but you know, and that's great
It's great to to provide stuff like that for families in our church
But what we get what we reel people in with is actually the preaching
And so what am I saying here? What I'm saying is that hard preaching changes lives?
If it were not true, then why did God tell Isaiah to start off this way?
He didn't tell them, hey, just kind of win them over first.
Just kind of start in Genesis.
He's like, no, just start preaching against their sin.
Yell about it, scream about it, don't spare.
Call them out for their transgressions.
Be explicit.
Let my people know about their sin.
Show my people their transgression in the house of Jacob their sin and you know
This is what we typically call hard preaching would say it's like face-ripping preaching, right?
I got my face ripped you guys ever heard that phrase before I used to hear this a lot back in the old IP is like man
I got a ripped face and you know, it's pretty like graphic illustration
You know what I mean?
Because when I was in an old IEP church,
if you really loved preaching,
you would sit in the front, right?
You'd just be right in the front.
All the young guys would be in the front.
And so you're basically placing yourself
in a very vulnerable position
because the preacher would be there
and he's always looking for an illustration.
And so the first guy, that's why Geo moved
to the back there, because he used to sit here
but he moved to the back,
because I would always call him out.
You know, Maury too, look how far Maury is batting out.
He's on the other side of that wall.
He used to sit like right here,
but he was just constantly the target.
I was just constantly breaking out, I'm just kidding.
You know, I would just call him out.
But I remember just, you know,
doing that back in the old IFP,
and we were like, man, that guy ripped my face off.
And you're just like, we're literally just talking
about how the faces are just completely cleaned off,
you know, through the preaching.
Basically saying like that preaching hurt.
That was hard preaching.
Now, we often associate hard preaching
with things that we are already against.
Preaching against fags, that's hard preaching.
Preaching against the Jews, that's hard preaching.
But here's the problem though, sometimes,
is that what about when I preach against your sin, though?
against you being effeminate, against you being effeminate,
against pants, against tattoos,
against this, that, and the other,
you know, against whatever, you know,
Taylor Swift, I don't know if you listen to Taylor Swift
or something, you know, against laziness,
against you not having a job,
against, you know, something that the church knows
that you're guilty of, collectively or something.
At that point, it's just like, well,
I don't really like that preaching.
Why it's hard preaching?
It's the truth.
That's what it's supposed to be we often like the preaching that preaches against others
But you know we need to like the preaching that preaches against us as well
I'm talking about that preaching that makes us blush
You know we start talking about gluttony
Right. Oh, we love the sermons against drunkenness. Well, what about your gluttony?
What about the fact that you're overweight?
What about the fact that you can't control your eating habits?
You know that's against the Bible too and then at that point is just like well, you know, you can hear a pin drop
There's no more amen's there.
And it's just like, well, I think you just gotta
speak the truth of love.
But that's what heart preaching is.
And I remember being under my father-in-law's preaching,
it was risky to sit in the front,
because him looking at you can spark an idea,
and he'd just start going off on that.
Right, and then you're just but you know it keeps you right with God though. Well, that doesn't sound very lovin
Well, you know what here. I am 18 years later
Serving God winning souls to Christ zealous about the things of God leading us to righteousness. What are you talking about?
You know this hyper grace nonsense is just that it's nonsense
It's a man's failed attempt to grow his church
And so he has to default to liberal preaching
In order to grow as church, but the church isn't growing still and here's the thing folks is that you know
We can do all these practical things to try to grow our church, which we do
But at the end of the day you can't compromise the message though and the message needs to remain biblical and needs to be
Remain sound and you know, yeah, I have the uncomfortable duty of having to preach about specific things in our church
You know, you enjoy it not necessarily
not necessarily
You know, sometimes people get that misconception
that they think, yeah, but you revelin' that,
you're just calling people out and calling sins out.
Not necessarily, you know, when I get up here,
I get up here burdened and I'm gonna have to call that out.
It's a burden, but I have to preach it in faith,
hoping that you'll just get right with God once I rip on it.
And you know what, I have to do that until I'm 90,
100 years old if God allows me to live that long.
And I'm gonna keep doing it.
You know, hopefully I'm up here and I'll just lie.
You gotta stop actin' like a little effeminate little faggot.
Cut your hair.
You look like a girl.
The Bible says, does not nature even teach you?
Pfft.
And you're just gonna be like, man, Pastor Mahia, he's about to like die.
But you know and at that point I'm not gonna be able to cry out loud because I might just croak at that moment
But the point that I'm making here is that that's how preaching is and again
This is not at the exclusion of sound doctrine because there's a lot of false prophets out there that preach heart
I mean the Pentecostals are filled with hard preachers, but none of them are saved
None of them are saved because they believe you can lose your salvation. They believe a false gospel
But hard preaching should have this element and in fact, you know when God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel
He tells Ezekiel, smite with thine hand and stamp with thy foot.
So he's like, hey, when you're preaching,
I want you to like slap your hand,
and just kind of lose yourself, you know, Eminem,
you know, kind of in the preaching.
Why? Because he's like, you need to be the illustration.
All right?
You need to make sure that you illustrate the anger of God.
You need to make sure you illustrate the compassion of God, but also the wrath of God the justice of God
You need to communicate that through the word of God if not people are not going to take you serious
And in fact, let me read to you from Ezekiel 11 6 11 it says does say the Lord God to Ezekiel
He says smite with thine hands stamp with thy foot and say alas for all the evil
Abominations of the house of Israel for they shall fall by the sword by the famine and by the pestilence
That's not a Sunday morning sermon for most he's just like you know
Smite with your hands stamp with your foot and let it people know that they're gonna die by the sword by famine and by disease
pestilence
But it's important you know the Bible tells us preach the word be instant in season out of season
Reprove rebuke exhort with all along suffering and doctrine
So obviously, we need to be balanced, right?
There needs to be preaching that does exhort, it can't just be condemning, it can't just
all be negative, there needs to be some positives, because there is positives in the Bible.
And that's why he says, make sure you reprove rebuke, but also exhort with all-long suffering
and doctrine.
Now, I feel like we often focus on the reproving and the rebuking part, but we often forget
the last part, which is to exhort, and here's the key, with all-long suffering and doctrine.
What does that mean?
It means, you know, rip face, but be patient with people though.
belong suffering with them.
Because not everyone's at the same spiritual level, right?
Some people are just new to the faith,
maybe they haven't read their Bible enough,
you know, they just got into church,
and so you gotta rip face, but be patient with them,
have long suffering towards them,
and also teach them doctrine,
meaning rip face about the sin,
but also teach the doctrine of why it's sin.
Explain to the people why it is,
considered a sin in the Bible,
why God condemns doing this particular activity
or whatever it may be.
And so specific sins should be called out.
And look, false prophets need to be called out.
Now, sometimes I don't mention a particular false prophet
only because of the fact that people just don't know
who that person is.
So it's almost like I could just call him Bill or something.
Oh, we got a Bill in our church.
I could call him, what's the name of someone
that does not attend our church?
Steven, Leroy, that's a good one.
You know, Leroy's a false pro, but you know,
sometimes, like on a Sunday morning or something,
it's almost not worth calling out specific names,
because then people are just like, who?
Mike Jones, who?
You know, he's just like, no one knows who that person is.
And so, you know, and I learned this actually last year,
when I was calling out a particular pastor,
And, you know, a member of our church came up to us and told me the funniest thing ever.
You know, and, you know, the member of our church came up to me and said,
yeah, my mom came up to me and said, who's Pastor McFlurry?
I mean, they couldn't even get the name right.
So, you know, our preach and then other people in our church are just kind of scratching their heads
like, I have no idea who these people are.
But obviously if it's something that's affecting our church if it's a false prophet that's widely known in Christianity
They need to be called out by name because of the fact that a lot of people know them
but if they're in Timbuktu and
You know some backwoods if there's some backwards preacher that no one knows about
Except for a select few or something. It's not really worth mentioning them. Okay
All right, let's move on here.
So, you know, he tells Isaiah, preach hard, rip face,
spare not, and this is the verse that I often quote
when people say like, why do you preach that way?
It's like, why Isaiah 58 verse one says to preach that way.
And, you know, you can say, well, that's Old Testament.
Yeah, but 2 Timothy chapter four, verse number two,
says to reprove him, rebuke, and rebuke carries with it
the connotation that you're essentially getting aggressive
with someone.
rebuke them, open rebuke is better than secret love, right?
It means to correct someone strongly.
You can't rebuke someone with a, you know,
with your voice decibels all low.
Hey, you're doing wrong.
No, no, no, don't do that.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
You know, we can't do that helicopter parenting
or, you know, in the church where it's just like,
no, no, no, you're gonna get a spanking now, you know?
You need to make sure that you preach hard, right?
And I'm talking to you preachers out there
who want to be a pastor.
You know, do not be a limp-ristened, weak,
effeminate preacher.
You need to make sure that you build
an internal conviction of hatred towards sin
and towards false doctrine,
and you'll internalize that stuff so it comes out.
You know, because here's the thing,
you can't really make it up.
The Bible says out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaketh.
And so, you know, your hatred for sin
will naturally come out if you do actually hate sin.
But I don't want to spend too much more time on that because that's just the first verse
Look at verse number two
He says yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinance of their
God they ask of me the ordinances of justice
They take delight in approaching to God
So you kind of wonder like well man this kind of seems out of the context because he's telling Isaiah to preach against their
Transgressions, but then in verse number two it almost sounds like they're living right
They're seeking God daily, they're delighting to know His ways, they are a nation of righteousness.
So what is going on here?
Because from the looks of it, they seem to be doing right.
They're living right, and it seems as though they're doing that which is pleasing in the
eyes of the Lord.
And so what's going on here?
Well, you know, think about the New Testament with the Pharisees, right?
Because the Pharisees were those who had an outward appearance of doing right, but inwardly they were full of dead men's bones
They were like like likened unto white at sepulchres, right?
And you know you think about the Pharisees they actually did quote-unquote a lot of good things
And in fact, in the rebuke of Jesus towards the Pharisees, in Matthew chapter 23, he tells
him, you pay tithing, mint, and rue, right?
And he talks about all the good things that they do, but they leave the others undone,
the other virtues of the law undone.
And he even tells them, these ought you to have done and not to leave the others undone.
So they're doing the right things at the exclusion of other weightier matters of the
law.
And so we can compare what Israel is doing here to that.
You know, they're doing these righteous things outwardly,
but quite frankly, when we actually dig a little deeper,
we see that they don't have the right motives.
They actually have a wicked heart.
They have unrighteous incentives and motives
for doing the things that they're doing.
Look at verse number three.
It says, wherefore have we fasted, say they, and see us not, and thou see us not.
Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou take us no knowledge?
Behold, in the day of your fast, ye find pleasure and exact all your labors.
Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness, ye shall
not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high."
So what is he saying here?
Well, you know, they're coming to God and they're like, how come God's not answering
our prayers?
We're seeking God. God's not seeing. We're afflicting our souls. He's referring to the fasting there and God's not taking knowledge
So it's just like we're living right, but God's not really taking account of what we're doing. Okay?
He says we're fasting. We're flicking our souls and so what is he referring to here?
Well, he's referring to the fact that you know, they're outwardly doing these things
but God's not listening to them because they have a wicked heart and in fact
The latter end of verse number three says behold in the day of your fast you find pleasure
Now what is fasting fasting is abstaining from pleasure?
For a spiritual reason right more specifically eating
you know when we fast we're supposed to abstain from a meal abstain from food and
Essentially utilize that time that we would be eating in order to pray or to read the word of God to find out wisdom things of that nature
Whereas they're fasting, but they're not really fasting because they're still seeking after other pleasures, so they're not really afflicting their souls.
So it's like the Pharisees there are essentially finding a loophole in the commandments of God, okay?
And he says there, and exact all your labors. What does that mean?
He's saying that while they're fasting, they're extorting their labors.
So they're doing wickedly. It's just like oh, they're participating in this really righteous act of fasting
But then they're also withholding their the earnings of their laborers. They're not paying their workers
Which is a wicked thing to do, right?
They're being hypocrites in other words and this is exactly what the Pharisees did
They would talk about the word of God. They would pray and fast all the while devour widows widows houses, right?
They would extort people, they were covetous men.
And so this outward righteous appearance
was essentially a smoke screen for how wicked
they actually were on the inside.
And he says in verse four,
Behold ye fast for strife and debate,
and to smite with the fist of wickedness,
ye shall not fast as ye do this day
to make your voice to be heard on high.
So they're fasting to receive things from the Lord,
but they're not getting it, why?
Well, go with him if you went to James chapter 4, go to James chapter 4, hold your place
there in Isaiah 58.
So again, they're not fasting for the right reasons.
He says you fast in the day of your fast, you find pleasure.
They were fasting for wicked devices.
In other words, they were withholding payment from their employees.
They're fasting for strife and debates.
You know they're fasting against their enemies so to speak not for righteous reasons, but rather to smite them with the fist of wickedness
Look at James chapter 4 and verse number 1 says from whence come wars and fightings among you come they not hence even of your own lust that
Worrying your members ye lust and have not ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain you fight in war
Yet you have not because he asked not
Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your lust
That's very basic what we see in Isaiah 58
And let me let me explain something to you some of the one of the reasons why people don't get their prayers answered
It's because they're asking for the wrong things or for the wrong reasons
They're asking for things so that they may consume it upon their own lust.
They're not asking for righteous reasons and that's the reason why people don't get their prayers answered.
Now obviously we could come up with a myriad of reasons why people don't get their prayers answered.
They're involved in sin. Maybe they're not even saved, you know?
But one of the reasons I believe people don't get their prayers answered is because they're not praying according to the will of God.
Lord, please help me to win the lottery, you know?
Help me to just get a million dollars. I'll give to May 11th offering if you do, you know
And then when it doesn't comes to how come God didn't answer that prayer?
Well because he doesn't want you to be a millionaire
Because you're trying to consume it upon your own less and quite frankly if God gave you that million you probably wouldn't give to the May 11th offering
You know you're asking a missy even consume it upon your less
Let me give you this extreme example. I saw this on social media the other day
And this guy, he uploaded this video,
I don't know who he is, he's some atheist or something now.
But he's just like, oh, I'm so done with Christianity.
And he's just like, I became a Christian.
I did a three to thrive.
He didn't say three to thrive,
but he went to all the services.
And he was just like, I serve God and all this stuff.
And what did I get for it?
Nothing.
I got the sickness, I didn't get the house that I want.
He started listing all these grievances
that he had towards God,
that he prayed for these things
and God didn't give it to him.
And he's like, so that's why I'm not for Christianity.
And you know, one thing I was thinking about is just like,
oh, one thing you forgot to ask for is salvation.
Because the guy's not even saved properly, you know,
especially if he's going to a posse that he's claiming
he's an atheist or whatever.
But you know, obviously that's an extreme example,
but you know, we could also apply that example
to ourselves because we want to make sure
that we don't have an unrealistic expectation
of serving God.
Well, if I keep coming to church, I know I'll get a wife
And that's why I keep coming to church because I want to get a wife. Yeah, but you might not get a wife though
You might be single from the rest of your life
You know it's just like you shouldn't you should not
You should not have on really you know, you'll get married don't you're not asking a miss
Dodge some bullets, you know
You need to make sure that you serve God
with the right intentions, right?
Not because you want to get something out of it,
and obviously we do get things out of it.
Get a lot out of the Christian life.
I mean, the Bible says that God loads us daily with benefits.
There's so many blessings that come with serving God,
obeying his word, having fellowship with believers,
benefiting from the preachers, so many things that we get,
but sometimes people can often put stipulations
and say, well, I'm gonna keep coming to church
unless I don't get this.
Then I'm gonna get out of the church.
Well, you know, you're asking a misdeed,
that you may consume it upon your lust.
Don't place conditions upon God what he needs to give you
if you wanna keep serving God or something like that.
That's not the way it works.
Just say, Lord, I'm gonna serve you
and I hope I get these things, but even if I don't,
then I'm gonna keep serving you.
You know, and going back to the preachers.
You know, if you wanna be a pastor,
your attitude shouldn't be,
well, I'm gonna keep coming to this church
unless pastor doesn't ordain me
I'm gonna find someone who does ordain me or something.
That's a wicked attitude to have.
That's a self-willed, wicked attitude to have.
Because here's the thing, people who are like that
wanna get ordained by any means necessary.
That's called a self-willed preacher, a self-willed person.
And I often use myself as an example
because I was in that situation
where I was stripped of all my duties
when I wanted to be a preacher years ago
and the position was given to someone else
and completely defrauded and wronged and all this stuff.
And it's just like, you have a decision like,
well, am I gonna keep serving God?
And it's just like, I am gonna keep serving God.
And when all the hopes of ever becoming a pastor
You know, I just kind of thought to myself, well, I guess I'm just going to serve the
Lord in obscurity somewhere or just, I guess I'll just never preach a sermon ever again.
I literally thought that I'm like, I'm walking home and I'm like, I guess I'll just never
preach a sermon ever again in my life.
I'm like, 10 years of training just down the drain right there, you know?
But then literally the next week I was preaching a sermon to a church and from then on out.
Right, so it's one of those things where you just got to you got to make sure that you don't well
You know I'll come to church and I'll keep serving God as long as you know
I get a job as
Long as I get the wife that I want as long as I get the husband that I want as long as I get the kind of life
That I want you know don't put those conditions upon God, okay?
And so, he says here, you know, you're fasting,
but you're doing it for all the,
and obviously the example in Isaiah 58,
it's extremely different, right?
This is dealing with the nation who, they're just wicked,
they are fasting for wicked reasons.
But the point that Isaiah is making here
is the fact that Israel had gone so far from God
that they were even doing religious practices
in order to get wicked results.
And you know, let's talk about fasting for a minute, okay?
Because it's not a subject that we typically talk about and you know people have various opinions about it
You know and and I know that coming from an old IP church, you know, they were into fasting for long periods of time
Like three four even you know like seven days or so for a particular need and I'm not necessarily against that
But I view fasting as an accessory discipline
Meaning that God doesn't command us to fast,
but it is an accessory that can help you in other ways.
And fasting, we often view it as a way to get answered to prayer,
but it's used for a variety of reasons in the Bible.
Sometimes people fasted unwillingly
because they were mourning and filled with grief.
You know what I mean?
If you've ever gone through a hard time,
you're not even thinking about food.
You think of David, for example, when his son was sick,
nine to death, he fasted.
Not because he's like carving out a window of time to fast.
It's because he's filled with grief that his child may die.
And so when you're going through a tumultuous tribulation,
a trial in your life, you just kind of naturally fast.
And I'm looking at a crowd right here.
This probably hasn't gone through a lot of tribulations.
I'm just kidding.
You just naturally don't want to eat, right?
You're not thinking about food.
But you know in general fasting is good if you if you couple it with prayer in my experience, okay?
And you know how many days I don't believe you you have to fast for a amount of days
Sometimes you could just do it for a meal
Okay, and you kind of set aside time to abstain from food,
abstain from that meal so you can read the word of God and pray.
And it's kind of like an indication to God, like I'm being serious about this particular need that I have.
Please answer that prayer.
And so I believe that that's what it is.
It's more of an accessory than anything else.
It's not commanded of God.
It's just something that's available to us if we need it for a specific...
Neither we have.
And you know, in the New Testament, in the Book of Acts,
we have men fasting in order to bring clarity
to the will of God, who to ordain and who to send out.
So sometimes, you know, they're thinking like,
who are we gonna send out as a missionary?
Who are we gonna ordain?
And they would be praying and fasting
in order to bring clarity to that.
So I do believe, like, if you ever find yourself
in a situation where you don't have a lot of clarity,
you're like, man, I don't know what to do
in this particular situation.
You know I counseled the pastor, but he's not he wasn't specific
You know, I have a difficult situation here. What should I do? You know, I think it's a good idea to fast
And pray now. Let me say this don't tell anybody that you're doing that though
Because the biblical instruction when it comes to fasting is that you should anoint your face
you know wash your face anoint your head and
not have a countenance of like
What's wrong nothing nothing I'm doing great, you know, I'm just
I don't want to say thought I want to say you know you just want to let everyone know that you're fasting because you want to
Let everyone know that your spiritual or something you need to make sure
You don't act like a Catholic and throw ashes on your forehead to let everyone know that you're fasting for Lent or something like that
Shouldn't even be observant Lent anyways stupid
It's a hyper spiritual activity where you put stinking dirt on your forehead to look like a complete idiot in front of everyone
You know, it's retarded, it's what it is.
And so, you know, it's so funny,
he's just like, oh, we're fasting,
let's put ashes on our forehead.
Matthew seven literally says,
wash your face when you fast.
So you appear not intimate to fast.
Catholics are like, oh, got it.
It's nonsense.
And so it's important for us to realize that
that if you want, maybe you're going through
a particular trial, you need clarity,
maybe it's a raise that you need,
maybe it's a health issue you need,
and you don't have any closure to it, right?
You don't have any clarity to a decision
whether you go right or left.
Maybe you need a fast for a meal and pray about it.
Often clarity comes because of that.
And one can argue, well, the clarity comes
because of the fact that you're clearing your system
from the food and so all the blood stays in your head and you've got more, yeah, probably.
But obviously there's a spiritual element to that that you're going without and you're
showing God, I'm going without this particular meal because this is important to me.
I need an answer to prayer in this regard.
Okay.
I look at verse number six.
He says, is not this the fast that I have chosen to lose the bands of wickedness, to
undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressor go free that you break every yoke?
So what is he saying?
You know, the purpose of fasting would be to lose the bands of wickedness.
You know, if you have, for example, a habit you're struggling with.
You just can't kick.
Well, some things go out, go not out,
but by prayer and fasting, right?
Maybe you need to fast about it.
And you're just like, man, I can't kick
this particular habit.
You know, I smoke cigarettes, or I'm a glutton.
You know, well, I guess fasting won't help
if you're a glutton or whatever.
That's what you're struggling with already.
But hey, maybe fasting a meal
and praying throughout that time will help.
You know, Lord help me with this, right?
And I can remember instances in my life,
early in my Christian life where I was struggling
with something and I feel like I couldn't kick
a particular habit, I fasted and I prayed
and I can tell you now,
because I already got the answer to prayer.
But you know, I fasted and I prayed about it
and it's just like, it's gonna help me with that.
You know that I was able to get a hold of that particular habit and so I believe this
is teaching us that that is a possibility.
You know to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens and to make important
decisions as I mentioned we see that in Acts chapter 13.
Look at verse 7.
and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house,
when thou seest the naked that thou cover him,
and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh.
So it seems to imply that fast things should also be done
in order to enable you to help someone else.
Maybe you're incapable financially, physically, to benefit others.
The Bible is saying here you can fast about it in order to help someone who is in need of a particular resource,
a particular need that they have.
You can fast in order to be an answer to prayer.
Because often we think of fasting as something to benefit us.
We don't really think about it as fasting to enable you to help someone else.
That's what the verse is implying here.
Look at verse eight, he says, then shall thy light break forth as the morning.
So the result of proper fasting according to the Bible is that God makes the way clear.
He says thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily,
and thy righteousness shall go before thee.
The glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.
Verse number nine says, then shall thou call, and the Lord shall answer, and thou shall
Here I am, if thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speak in vanity,
and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul,
then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day."
So what it seems to be saying here is that, you know, he's telling Israel,
You need to have righteous acts or righteous behavior
coupled with the right motives, right? You need to make sure that like if you're fasting, okay
make sure you're feeding the poor, make sure you're living righteously, make sure you're not a wicked person and
it sounds to me like God is interested in how you behave.
That you don't commit sin, you're not defrauding your brother, you're not defrauding your sister. He's very much concerned.
He doesn't have this attitude. Well, I've already paid for all your sins.
Therefore, just kind of live however you want.
Now he's saying, you know, if you want me to bless you,
you gotta change the way you act.
You gotta change your conduct,
you gotta change your conversation.
And make no mistake about it, friends.
You know, we could be right in here,
but God also commands us to have clean hands.
Clean heart as well as clean hands.
In other words, God wants us to serve him,
listen to me, holistically.
in mind, in our hearts and even in our actions.
If that was not the case,
then why does God talk about our conversation so much?
What is conversation?
It's referring to our conduct.
And he's telling them, look, I can bless you.
I can make your paths clear.
I can help you if you change the way you live.
He says verse 11 and the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul and draw and make fat thy bones and thou shall be
Like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not and
You know skip down to verse 13. So what is he saying? He's just giving all the results
The results of what takes place when we obey the Lord when we have the right modus, but also the right actions to go along with that
And, you know, I'm hammering this in, but this is important, though, because we don't
want to adopt this foolish ideology that, because we're saved, that automatically just
God is pleased with our lives from here on out.
Obviously, our souls are secure.
Our spirit is secure.
Yes, when it comes to salvation, God looks at us through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Absolutely.
Okay, so don't take this out of context.
But, folks, the Bible teaches progressive sanctification as well.
Not for salvation!
Or should I even say, not for the salvation of the soul, but rather for the daily salvation
of our flesh, so that we don't succumb to the consequences of sin, this side of eternity.
And this is not a new message, this is something that has been preached for hundreds of years
But even within recent times, fundamental baptists and churches have always preached something like this.
Making sure you live a holy and righteous life because if not, God can't destroy your life.
And here's the thing, I mention that in my gospel presentation all the time.
That's actually a part of my gospel presentation.
Yes.
And in fact, I would even say...
That mentioning that in my gospel presentation has almost been like a turning point where people finally understand
Salvation pretty clearly
Fact over the years, you know when I'll talk to people they're like, oh you're saying I can believe and just live however
I want and I'll often say yeah, but God will punish you this side of eternity though for that
He won't punish you in hell because you have salvation and they're like, oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. It just clicks to them
Right they understand like oh, okay, I get it God won't punish me in hell because I have eternal life
But that doesn't mean that God as my heavenly father won't punish me here on this earth for my actions
And they're like, okay. Yeah, that makes sense
Pretty much 99.9 percent of the time that's that's the response I get
They'll say yeah, that makes sense
Because the Bible doesn't make sense
It just doesn't make sense to people who are false prophets who want to twist the scriptures
You know and so it's important for us to understand that look
It sounds like Isaiah is preaching holiness here
Look at verse 13 if thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath of
Delight holy of the Lord honorable and shall honor him not doing thine own ways nor finding thine own pleasure
Nor speaking thine own words then shout out delight thyself in the Lord. What is he saying?
Well, obviously during this time they had to observe the Sabbath
And he's saying, look, if you actually observe the Sabbath,
meaning you keep my commandments,
not do your own thing, but you actually observe
the commandments of the Lord,
you know what the result of that is?
You're gonna delight yourself in the Lord.
Because folks, let me just remind you,
you will be at your happiest when you're actually
keeping God's commandments.
That's what God is saying.
You will delight yourself in the Lord
when you keep the commandments of God.
It is the most pleasurable thing.
To keep God's commandments because we know it pleases the Lord for us to do so and we live a happy life, you know
We are we are the most happy when we are living in obedience to God and his word
And you know what the Bible tells us the Bible tells us for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous
You know, if you find yourself like,
oh man, it's just so grievous to come to church.
It's so grievous to read my Bible.
It's so grievous.
Well, if you feel that way about the service of the Lord,
start doing it and your attitude's gonna change.
Like, it's just so grievous.
We'll do it and then it's not gonna be grievous.
It's grievous because you have that attitude towards it
and because you're not doing it.
And most people who complain about the commandments
of the Lord are those who aren't doing
the commandments of the Lord.
Most people who complain about going to church
are those who don't go to church.
You ever notice that?
Most people who complain about the commandments of God
are those who are disobeying the commandments of God.
It's those who are keeping the commandments of God
that are actually happy.
Oh, doing that doesn't make you happy.
What are you talking about?
I'm doing it and I'm happy.
Going to church doesn't make you happy.
It does for me.
I do it three times a week and I'm very happy.
Don't tell me how to feel.
You know, they try to impose that on you.
You're not really happy by doing all that,
keeping the commandments and all that legalism stuff
and, you know, doing the laws of God.
Yeah, yeah, happy is the man to do with them, absolutely.
I'm happy.
And you know what?
I look at a crowd on Sunday morning, Sunday night
and Thursday night of happy people.
And here's the thing, folks.
Look, no one in here is here on a Thursday night
because you feel like you're gonna go to hell if you don't.
Literally people like the Thursday night crowd, you know, it's somewhat the cream of the crop to a certain degree
Because they're trying to get more preaching in they're like here to study the Bible, right?
They're here because this is like I needed I needed another meal in spiritually speaking
But no one's here. It's just like well if I don't come I'm gonna just be chastised of God
Look folks if you don't go to church, you know because you're sick or something
It's not that God's gonna chastise you. You know where the chastisement comes is the alternative
to come into church.
When you start replacing church with other things,
it's like sinful things.
Because the own mission of doing the right things
often includes the commission of doing the wrong things.
You understand what I'm saying?
When you don't go to church, then what are you gonna do?
You're gonna end up doing something
you're not supposed to be doing.
Plain and simple.
And at the end of the day,
he that know what to do good
and do what they're not, to him it is sin.
I just have such a hard time delighting in the things of God.
I'll tell you why it's because you're not doing the things of God.
Because taste and see that the Lord is gracious.
When you actually obey the commandments of the Lord, you'll find out how cool it is
and how joyous it is to serve the Lord.
So what's the point?
The point this evening is fast for the right reasons, but do it the right way as well.
And this is clearly showing us that there's people
all around the world that fast for the wrong reasons.
I mean, we literally had, like, I don't know how many,
a month they do it, Lent, people are literally fasting.
They're not getting anything from it.
I think God's looking at it like, you know what,
there's so many people doing this,
I'm just gonna go ahead and answer their prayer.
No one's doing it, the guy's not, he's mocking that.
Millions and billions of people are observing Lent,
does nothing.
God doesn't care
You can put all the ashes on your forehead you want does not do anything at all
Why because they're doing it just like these guys for the wrong reasons and first of all, they're not even safe
Okay, but you know, there's probably some safe person out there who's just simping over Catholics
You know some trad some trad dude out there who just thinks he's just so manly for being a Catholic or whatever
for following a dude in a dress and
He's observing let does nothing for him
Absolutely nothing. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word.
Thank you for Isaiah 58. Help us, Lord, to have an appreciation for hard preaching.
Isaiah was a hard preacher. We know that for effect because he obeyed the Lord in Isaiah 58
by crying out loud, sparing not, lifting up his voice like a trumpet,
and calling out the transgressions.
And Lord, that's how we keep a church hot for you,
is by hard preaching.
And I pray, Lord, that you'd help us as your people to take the heart that which we heard tonight.
Help us as your people to apply the accessory discipline of fasting, Lord, when we are in need of it.
And I pray, Lord, that you'd help us to delight in the commandments of God as we do them.
And recognize the way we can delight in them is by actually keeping them.
And Lord, may you bless us as we go on our way. Give us a great weekend. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.