July 9, 2025 • 33 mins
Title: The Fast That God Chooses: True Worship in Action Scripture Reference: Isaiah 58:6–12 Preacher: Rev. Chuck Rains Date: February 3, 1991
In this deeply convicting sermon, Rev. Chuck Rains unpacks Isaiah 58, challenging us to see “fasting” not as a mere religious ritual, but as a lifestyle of true worship. God’s chosen fast isn’t about abstaining from food—it’s about a life of justice, compassion, and sacrificial love.
Pastor Rains explores:
- What it means to break the yokes of oppression.
- How love is expressed through meeting the needs of others.
- Why our treatment of family reflects the authenticity of our faith.
- The personal cost and eternal rewards of living a life of true devotion.
Using stories from his childhood on the farm, Pastor Rains highlights how injustice within the family can wound deeply—and how healing comes through selfless giving and Christ-like love. If you’ve ever wondered what kind of worship pleases God, this episode offers clarity, conviction, and encouragement to walk in righteousness and love.
If you have any questions or comments you can send them to legacybiblepodcast@gmail.com
for information about the Fellowship Bible Church go to their website ar www.fbcjoliet.com
Thanks for listening and please subscribe.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Legacy Bible Podcast. My name is Marcus Onate and I will be bringing
(00:17):
to you more from the church tape archives. The church is called a fellowship on Bible
Church of Joliet, Illinois and we're bringing to you some more messages from the Word of God
from our tape archive. This one we're bringing today is from February 3rd 1991 and the title of it is
(00:45):
The Fast That God Chooses. Yeah, Fast That God Chooses. Sorry, I can't read my own writing.
All right, so it's from the Fellowship Bible Church, from the morning service, from February 3rd 1991
and it was preached by our pastor, the Reverend Chuck Reins. So let's get right into it. Take it away, Pastor.
(01:13):
As I have 58, I'd like to read it verse 6.
Is not this the fast that I have chosen
to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free
(01:39):
and that you break every yoke?
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house?
When thou seest the naked that thou cover in and thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh,
(02:04):
then shall 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 re-reward.
When thou shall call and the Lord shall answer,
(02:32):
thou shall cry and he shall say, Here I am.
God's fast. The Jews had their idea of what a fast should be.
Now in this context that we're looking at here, a fast is a special focused concentrated time of worship.
(03:02):
A special, not only a special day, but it could be an extended time. It could be several days.
A special time of emphasis on focusing on God, on worshiping God.
And as God had given special times for this focusing and worship to Israel,
(03:29):
each one that he gave to them had a special purpose, special design.
So the fast thing talked about here isn't maybe the fast that would go along with the
celebration of Passover or of first fruits or of unleavened bread or of Pentecost
(03:56):
or of trumpets or Vyom Kippur or tabernacles. It isn't that. This is a fast
that God looks to that would operate all the time.
Really you could think of it this way, true worship.
A fast focused time of worship.
(04:21):
So focused, so concentrated on God and on worshiping God that everything else is just set aside.
Everything except just focusing on him.
What kind of worship, what kind of true heart-centered devotion is God looking for?
(04:43):
This kind. That's what he says.
This kind, the kind that he tells us about, tells us what his idea is of what those things are
that should help the greatest value. When we worship him, do we look at life, do we look at the
(05:04):
things of this life as he does? Do we have the same values that he has? He contrasts a few
where to read the first five verses. You would see that really he kind of shames them for what they
thought worship should be. How they thought one would really fast.
(05:27):
I take you to verse six and on saying, no, this is the Lord's fast. What is it? Well,
in verse six, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed
go free, and that you break every yoke. When you look that over, just at verse,
(05:52):
that verse talks about the scene really is that people have come under an unrighteous burden
somewhere, a burden that they shouldn't have to bear, a burden heavy that's bringing them down,
(06:13):
but these are the bands of wickedness, a heavy burden that has brought them down. It's an evil
burden, not a godly burden. They need to have that free, you know, be free of that. They need to
have that broken. They need to have that taken away. Remember what the Lord says, take my yoke upon
(06:37):
you and learn of me for my yoke is easy. And my burden is late. You hook yourself up with me as an
ox. You get in the yoke with me. I'll be the lead ox, Jesus is saying. You see, the lead ox is the
ox that would really lean into the yoke and pull the cart or the plow or whatever he was pulling.
(07:06):
And the ox and teamed up with him, of course, would be doing his part, but he's just kind of lagging a
little bit. Do you ever carry a long item and have yourself positioned pretty close to the middle of
the item and the other fella at the far end? Two people carrying one item, but the more you move
(07:32):
back from one end toward the middle, the more of the burden you carry. You can get so far back
that you carry the whole burden. You get back all the way to the middle and lift up. You'll carry the
whole burden. When we're lagging with the Lord Jesus, I think he's very, very close to the middle.
(08:03):
And when he has us bear up, he supplies the strength to bear up. We don't even bear anything
apart from him. Really, we couldn't. But this is a burden that somebody has put on someone.
Maybe they put on themselves.
There is a burden of sin. But this seems to be a burden that the righteous could break from someone else.
(08:39):
Set them free. A slavery that shouldn't be slavery. It shouldn't be there.
And by the way, and you want to think of the nature of God, righteousness and love.
This emphasis would be on righteousness. This is to take care of doing things the right way.
Get rid of this offense. Get rid of this evil. Get rid of this burden that's been put on somebody.
(09:05):
Take care of that. Next verse, verse seven. This is really a love verse. See righteousness is in
six, but here's love. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry? See love, the key idea in love is
giving. Giving, deal thy bread to the hungry means recognize need in somebody and give what
you have to meet the need. Deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are
(09:32):
cast out to the house. See, use your house. Give, give. Take from what you have. Whether it's bread,
whether it's a house. When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him. You see? You take what you
have and you give to the need. You give. You give. And then this is interesting right at the end of
(09:55):
seven. And that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh. Well, when I looked at that thine own
flesh there, I guess reading this by itself, you would be tempted perhaps to think that this really
speaks of your body. But read it in the context there. Somebody comes along and they're hungry
(10:26):
and you give them bread. Somebody comes along and they don't have anywhere to stay. They're been cast
out. Nobody wants them and you bring them into your house. Somebody comes along and they have no
clothes. You give them clothes. Now what in the world? Why would the last phrase turn to yourself?
Well, I don't think it does. I think in context with several other verses in the scripture,
(10:50):
your own flesh is your own family, your own kind. Those that you are linked with in this life.
In fact, it's those that you have the closest link with. Who do you have an obligation to feed?
To house and to cover with clothing. Well, the Lord says anybody that comes along but
(11:13):
don't shut up your heart.
To those that you have a life relationship with.
Everywhere in the Word of God, God recognizes this. When we are in a family, when we're joined with
somebody, we take on special responsibilities for that relationship or in that relationship.
(11:45):
You can't say, well, I have this wife or I have this husband or I have these children or I have
this mother, I have this father, I have this aunt, I have this uncle, I have this cousin,
I have this grandmother, I have this grandfather and then have them have need.
(12:07):
And then for you to feel under any circumstances that you can be just before God and loving in the
sight of God by not helping that need get met. I read a verse this morning, 1 Timothy 5,
and if any man doesn't provide for his own, especially those of his own household,
(12:32):
he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.
God intended that we should be related to one another because it says in Genesis that he made
the male and female, male and female may be them. He intended that men and women by being of different
sex would have to come together to be one unit, one completed unit for fulfillment of their potential
(13:05):
in this life, physically and emotionally, to have that closest of kind of relationship
that's possible in this life as husband and wife and buy that to bring into this world a family.
And to bear a special relationship to that family, a special relationship of oversight and responsibility.
(13:30):
So God is saying, you want to understand true worship, true worship is this. You recognize
where there's injustice, you recognize where there's evil, where people are coming under burdens that
they have no business bearing and you break those. Another thing is you recognize need in other people
(13:52):
and you give yourself to meet that need. And the real test is not at the extreme of no relationship
but the real test is in the place of the closest relationship. Do you fulfill those special
responsibilities that you have because you're in a family? Are you truly given to these that
(14:17):
have to depend on you? I lived on a farm as a boy for several years and on our farm it just
couldn't have operated if everybody didn't do their part. You had to. I mean there was just
(14:38):
something to do every hour of the day and everybody was busy.
I've often maybe mentioned this. I don't want to mention things personal from my own life too often
but this is such a deep ingrained illustration of my own shallowness and self-centeredness of those
(15:01):
years that I have to use it. But because my mother and father were divorced and because of
that time I was living with my father and my sisters and we were living with my grandparents
and because in that kind of household situation we couldn't have just our own house they also had
their youngest daughter, my father's youngest sister living with them with my grandparents.
(15:29):
So here my grandparents were with their youngest daughter and my father was there with the three of
us. Children and children or child. She was a few years older than my sister my older sister
but still she was you'd have to say a child, teen years. You know what hurt me?
(15:53):
She got special treatment. That hurt me. She got some special things to eat that I couldn't have.
She got some special things to drink that I couldn't have.
I can still remember the Coca-Cola's you know. I could never have one but she could.
(16:19):
But one thing that hurt me daily was this she did not have to work in the fields.
I do not remember my aunt ever once feeding the chickens. I think she did but I don't remember it.
Okay I mean the picture I have in my mind as a kid this woman was absolutely the princess that slept on the pee.
(16:45):
20 mattresses between her and the pee and got up bruised but here's the image I have and I don't think this is accurate entirely and I love
her today and really she's born again today. She's sweet.
But I don't remember her feeding the chickens. I don't remember her feeding the dogs or the cats.
I don't remember her ever going to the fields. I think I remember her going and working a little bit in the garden behind the house.
(17:12):
I don't ever remember her doing the wash on Saturday. We had no electricity.
We had no natural gas. We had no telephone. It was hard to do the wash.
I don't remember her ever milking a cow. Ever feeding the horses or cattle.
I don't remember her taking any slop to the pigs.
Ever chopping cotton. Ever picking cotton. Ever picking strawberries.
(17:41):
I don't remember any cultivating of the fields or the weeds.
I don't remember the woman doing anything that would have put perspiration on anybody's brow or a blister on anybody's hand.
That is a little kid I thought.
How could she receive such special treatment?
(18:05):
This isn't fair. I've resented it deeply.
But because it was the way that it was, it was really nobody to tell that to or say that to.
I'm sure if I said it to my dad, I would have heard about it.
I would have felt about it.
I certainly wasn't going to go to my grandmother's grandfather. It was just what a child felt inside.
(18:30):
There just was not fair expression of love.
We need that in our families.
She needed to give also. She needed to learn to give to her family.
She needed to learn to give of herself in those relationships and she wasn't required to.
(18:57):
It hurt her.
I think that that's probably what kept her from ever coming to the Lord Jesus in those early years.
Thank God she did later.
She is a born-again and sweet Christian lady today.
God has given her lovely children.
One daughter and her husband that serve in the church down in Arkansas there,
(19:20):
they're lovely people. Thank God for them.
But I think that that kept her maybe in those years from understanding the love of God, the grace of God,
because she didn't have to give of herself.
We need to do that.
Results are here in verse 8.
(19:42):
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thine hells shall spring forth spiely.
I think the promise of God is this.
There's a witness.
There's a witness just by virtue of what's going on in your life.
You're going to have things going on that shine out.
Of course, God is light.
(20:03):
But God's working, God's presence, God's blessing, just that your life is in order.
It's like having pure speech.
Now other people have dirty minds and their speech has double connotations and yours doesn't.
And you walk in their presence and you speak with pure speech and they kind of try to put bad meanings on your speech.
But then they find out they can't because that's not how you think or speak.
(20:26):
And suddenly once they tune into that they see the light.
Your light shines.
Maybe you're kind when they wouldn't be kind.
When they tune into that the light shines.
You're generous and it's not for self-service.
And when they see that the light shines.
(20:49):
And when you speak of the Lord Jesus they know you speak out of sincerity.
And when you do that the light shines.
And the Lord says that's the way to live.
You live this way.
Walk in righteousness, walk in love and the light will shine.
And also the in hell shall spring forth speedily.
(21:16):
What is good for you?
Remember Romans 828?
All things work together for good to those that love the Lord.
Those are called according to His purpose.
That goodness is a promise.
That working out for good.
That's what this health is.
I don't think you can say that this guarantees that if you will,
(21:38):
by the Lord you won't get sick.
I don't think it's saying that.
I think it's your good.
That which is good for you.
God will speedily work for your good.
And your righteousness will go before you.
And that's true.
Your righteousness.
Your life.
(21:59):
God will bless you.
But that righteousness will be evident as a light again.
The glory of the Lord shall be thy re-reward.
Now if your light goes out in front of you and you wonder what's a re-reward.
You may have another translation.
It really is your rear guard.
It's a military term.
And it means the contingent of the troops behind a battalion or a company of armed men
(22:24):
that has the responsibility to watch the backside.
And if you make sure that the enemy doesn't come up from behind.
To ensure the safety of the troop by watching for the enemy from behind.
(22:46):
Safety from behind.
Look, if your light goes out this way in front of you and if the glory of the Lord goes out that way from you.
What he's really saying is wherever you go.
The light will go out before you and after you pass that way there will be a testimony of it behind you.
(23:13):
And your safety is in the hand of the Lord.
You're good.
What does he ask of you?
Tune in to him in righteousness and love.
Let that principle be what you understand to be true worship.
And test it by being sure you're especially tender and full full in your response to those that you have any relationship with.
(23:39):
He kind of gives you a song.
Oh, there's one more thing.
It's in verse 9.
Then thou shall call and the Lord shall answer.
Thou shall cry and he shall say, here I am.
Here's the promise.
You will have power in prayer.
(24:06):
You give your heart to the Lord to walk in righteousness and love and his ears open to you.
You see, there's no sin he has to deal with in you.
There's no broken fellowship.
And in loving you see, you're dependent on him anyway to provide through you because love is giving and giving.
(24:28):
You better not give ever from your resources because you'll quickly run out.
So if you give out from the resources you have in God, obviously as you cry out to him and say,
Lord, I need some help.
I need to have this or that to give out.
He hears and he answers.
That's always the promise and the word of God.
(24:49):
The way of prayer is open in this kind of life.
I think you have kind of a review of these things in the verses that follow.
So I'm going to read them.
If thou take away from the midst of the yoke, putting forth of the finger and speaking vanity,
(25:12):
if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry.
This is now we've left righteousness at the end of nine.
Now we're talking about love and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall the light,
thy light rise in obscurity.
That means in a dark place and thy darkness be as the noon day.
(25:33):
So you just have a review there of these truths.
There is the witness again.
And the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones,
and thou shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.
(25:56):
What is he saying?
You focus on me.
This is what I want.
I want you.
If I could have you, he says, just to walk in righteousness, if I could have you to be my vessel for loving,
this is what's going to happen to you.
(26:17):
You won't be drained and empty.
You won't be a martyr, you know, to yourself.
Actually, you're going to be very, very, very blessed.
You're going to be full, like a watered garden.
(26:39):
Your life is going to be rich and a delight.
Watch a little tape today of a ministry that is supporting native missionaries, really, in India.
And very brief little tape, but I enjoyed it.
And it told of how native missionaries are sent out by the hundreds living among their people,
(27:08):
bringing the simple gospel message.
And they had this one fellow giving his testimony, and he was saying how he had been beaten several times
by the people of the island where he was witnessing for Christ.
In fact, the missionary that was there before him was martyred, and it showed you the white cross on his grave.
And this man had come, feeling the Lord called him to that same island, and people would oftentimes take him and beat him,
(27:34):
and they were beating another companion of his, and some that he had led to the Lord.
And they were getting beat from time to time.
And he said, but we take joyously and count it as our privilege to suffer for Christ, and we keep preaching the gospel.
These people tell us to be quiet, and sometimes they come to us and say somebody is hired to kill you,
but we take it joyfully to preach the gospel.
(27:58):
Truthfully, most U.S. missionaries would want to go home after the second or third beating.
Or fourth or fifth at least, right?
Sure, they'd have the ticket money.
But I don't say all, and I don't mean to suggest that most of our missionaries even aren't committed into the Lord,
(28:29):
even in the time of trial.
And I don't mean all native missionaries would be as this man, but whether you're native, whether you're from a foreign soil,
you have to go as the Lord's missionary.
You have to go in this life, in this society.
You have to say, I want to speak for my Lord, I want to live for my Lord, no matter whether people make fun of me,
(28:51):
no matter whether they exclude me, shut me out, I want to live for him.
People need to hear the gospel.
There's not enough of that.
There's not enough commitment to the Lord.
Not enough willingness to be identified with him.
To speak for him and to pay the price.
It's just not enough willingness.
(29:13):
And God says, if you will, you'll be blessed for it.
Be like a watered garden.
And they that shall be of thee, that means I think your own household.
It means your own clan.
It means your own nation.
And I think it could mean the church.
They, this is verse 12, they that shall be of thee, shall build the old waste places,
(29:42):
thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations,
and thou shalt be called the repair of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwelling.
Now I know the first application in history, in this context of Isaiah, is to Israel,
but you see the principle?
(30:04):
It's not just for them.
Wouldn't that be great to be known?
Think this.
Wouldn't it be great to be known as the Christian that has the name, the repair of the breach?
Where things get broken down, where things get torn apart, and you're there, you start building up, building up, building up.
(30:28):
You're not a terror down, but you're a builder up.
And if things get holes in them, you know, if even the fellowship of God gets torn apart a bit,
you're there to build and to bring it together.
The repair of the breach.
When the wall has a place that's been knocked over, you go stand in the wall,
and you become part of the wall, the repair of the breach.
(30:51):
You stand in the broken place.
You give yourself, like the Lord gave himself.
Gungelblissia, he's committed, he has to do it, he wants to do it.
If we would be builders, givers, givers of ourselves.
(31:23):
Give him a chance to bless you that way.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, thank you.
You've given us families, you've given us homes, you've given us a church body.
Help us be a people that build, that repair, that encourage one another,
that step into the broken place, that give to the needy, that give out of the great resources that we have in Christ Jesus and glory,
(31:59):
those endless resources that meet all our needs.
Help us center our hearts' love on thee, in Jesus' name, amen.
Thank you Pastor Rains for a message from Isaiah 58, about a fast.
(32:24):
A fast that God chooses.
If you like that, come back next week.
We'll have some more from our tape archive.
I've been going through some of the ones that are coming up for the next, I don't know, five, six,
episodes different from 1991, so we're into 1991 now, and some of them sound pretty good.
(32:48):
So come on back, we'll be glad to have you.
And if you can, please subscribe, that would be a good thing, subscribe, or at least comment,
or the very minimum you could do, share it with somebody that you know.
But hey, listen to the Legacy Bible podcast, that would be a good thing also.
(33:11):
Okay, so I'll see you next week.
So make sure you read your Bible.
You pray, and you come back next week and listen to the Legacy Bible podcast.
All right, thanks for listening.
I'll see you next week, and have a great day.
Hello and welcome to the Legacy Bible Podcast. My name is Marcus Onate and I will be bringing
(00:17):
to you more from the church tape archives. The church is called a fellowship on Bible
Church of Joliet, Illinois and we're bringing to you some more messages from the Word of God
from our tape archive. This one we're bringing today is from February 3rd 1991 and the title of it is
(00:45):
The Fast That God Chooses. Yeah, Fast That God Chooses. Sorry, I can't read my own writing.
All right, so it's from the Fellowship Bible Church, from the morning service, from February 3rd 1991
and it was preached by our pastor, the Reverend Chuck Reins. So let's get right into it. Take it away, Pastor.
(01:13):
As I have 58, I'd like to read it verse 6.
Is not this the fast that I have chosen
to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free
(01:39):
and that you break every yoke?
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house?
When thou seest the naked that thou cover in and thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh,
(02:04):
then shall 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 re-reward.
When thou shall call and the Lord shall answer,
(02:32):
thou shall cry and he shall say, Here I am.
God's fast. The Jews had their idea of what a fast should be.
Now in this context that we're looking at here, a fast is a special focused concentrated time of worship.
(03:02):
A special, not only a special day, but it could be an extended time. It could be several days.
A special time of emphasis on focusing on God, on worshiping God.
And as God had given special times for this focusing and worship to Israel,
(03:29):
each one that he gave to them had a special purpose, special design.
So the fast thing talked about here isn't maybe the fast that would go along with the
celebration of Passover or of first fruits or of unleavened bread or of Pentecost
(03:56):
or of trumpets or Vyom Kippur or tabernacles. It isn't that. This is a fast
that God looks to that would operate all the time.
Really you could think of it this way, true worship.
A fast focused time of worship.
(04:21):
So focused, so concentrated on God and on worshiping God that everything else is just set aside.
Everything except just focusing on him.
What kind of worship, what kind of true heart-centered devotion is God looking for?
(04:43):
This kind. That's what he says.
This kind, the kind that he tells us about, tells us what his idea is of what those things are
that should help the greatest value. When we worship him, do we look at life, do we look at the
(05:04):
things of this life as he does? Do we have the same values that he has? He contrasts a few
where to read the first five verses. You would see that really he kind of shames them for what they
thought worship should be. How they thought one would really fast.
(05:27):
I take you to verse six and on saying, no, this is the Lord's fast. What is it? Well,
in verse six, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed
go free, and that you break every yoke. When you look that over, just at verse,
(05:52):
that verse talks about the scene really is that people have come under an unrighteous burden
somewhere, a burden that they shouldn't have to bear, a burden heavy that's bringing them down,
(06:13):
but these are the bands of wickedness, a heavy burden that has brought them down. It's an evil
burden, not a godly burden. They need to have that free, you know, be free of that. They need to
have that broken. They need to have that taken away. Remember what the Lord says, take my yoke upon
(06:37):
you and learn of me for my yoke is easy. And my burden is late. You hook yourself up with me as an
ox. You get in the yoke with me. I'll be the lead ox, Jesus is saying. You see, the lead ox is the
ox that would really lean into the yoke and pull the cart or the plow or whatever he was pulling.
(07:06):
And the ox and teamed up with him, of course, would be doing his part, but he's just kind of lagging a
little bit. Do you ever carry a long item and have yourself positioned pretty close to the middle of
the item and the other fella at the far end? Two people carrying one item, but the more you move
(07:32):
back from one end toward the middle, the more of the burden you carry. You can get so far back
that you carry the whole burden. You get back all the way to the middle and lift up. You'll carry the
whole burden. When we're lagging with the Lord Jesus, I think he's very, very close to the middle.
(08:03):
And when he has us bear up, he supplies the strength to bear up. We don't even bear anything
apart from him. Really, we couldn't. But this is a burden that somebody has put on someone.
Maybe they put on themselves.
There is a burden of sin. But this seems to be a burden that the righteous could break from someone else.
(08:39):
Set them free. A slavery that shouldn't be slavery. It shouldn't be there.
And by the way, and you want to think of the nature of God, righteousness and love.
This emphasis would be on righteousness. This is to take care of doing things the right way.
Get rid of this offense. Get rid of this evil. Get rid of this burden that's been put on somebody.
(09:05):
Take care of that. Next verse, verse seven. This is really a love verse. See righteousness is in
six, but here's love. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry? See love, the key idea in love is
giving. Giving, deal thy bread to the hungry means recognize need in somebody and give what
you have to meet the need. Deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are
(09:32):
cast out to the house. See, use your house. Give, give. Take from what you have. Whether it's bread,
whether it's a house. When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him. You see? You take what you
have and you give to the need. You give. You give. And then this is interesting right at the end of
(09:55):
seven. And that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh. Well, when I looked at that thine own
flesh there, I guess reading this by itself, you would be tempted perhaps to think that this really
speaks of your body. But read it in the context there. Somebody comes along and they're hungry
(10:26):
and you give them bread. Somebody comes along and they don't have anywhere to stay. They're been cast
out. Nobody wants them and you bring them into your house. Somebody comes along and they have no
clothes. You give them clothes. Now what in the world? Why would the last phrase turn to yourself?
Well, I don't think it does. I think in context with several other verses in the scripture,
(10:50):
your own flesh is your own family, your own kind. Those that you are linked with in this life.
In fact, it's those that you have the closest link with. Who do you have an obligation to feed?
To house and to cover with clothing. Well, the Lord says anybody that comes along but
(11:13):
don't shut up your heart.
To those that you have a life relationship with.
Everywhere in the Word of God, God recognizes this. When we are in a family, when we're joined with
somebody, we take on special responsibilities for that relationship or in that relationship.
(11:45):
You can't say, well, I have this wife or I have this husband or I have these children or I have
this mother, I have this father, I have this aunt, I have this uncle, I have this cousin,
I have this grandmother, I have this grandfather and then have them have need.
(12:07):
And then for you to feel under any circumstances that you can be just before God and loving in the
sight of God by not helping that need get met. I read a verse this morning, 1 Timothy 5,
and if any man doesn't provide for his own, especially those of his own household,
(12:32):
he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.
God intended that we should be related to one another because it says in Genesis that he made
the male and female, male and female may be them. He intended that men and women by being of different
sex would have to come together to be one unit, one completed unit for fulfillment of their potential
(13:05):
in this life, physically and emotionally, to have that closest of kind of relationship
that's possible in this life as husband and wife and buy that to bring into this world a family.
And to bear a special relationship to that family, a special relationship of oversight and responsibility.
(13:30):
So God is saying, you want to understand true worship, true worship is this. You recognize
where there's injustice, you recognize where there's evil, where people are coming under burdens that
they have no business bearing and you break those. Another thing is you recognize need in other people
(13:52):
and you give yourself to meet that need. And the real test is not at the extreme of no relationship
but the real test is in the place of the closest relationship. Do you fulfill those special
responsibilities that you have because you're in a family? Are you truly given to these that
(14:17):
have to depend on you? I lived on a farm as a boy for several years and on our farm it just
couldn't have operated if everybody didn't do their part. You had to. I mean there was just
(14:38):
something to do every hour of the day and everybody was busy.
I've often maybe mentioned this. I don't want to mention things personal from my own life too often
but this is such a deep ingrained illustration of my own shallowness and self-centeredness of those
(15:01):
years that I have to use it. But because my mother and father were divorced and because of
that time I was living with my father and my sisters and we were living with my grandparents
and because in that kind of household situation we couldn't have just our own house they also had
their youngest daughter, my father's youngest sister living with them with my grandparents.
(15:29):
So here my grandparents were with their youngest daughter and my father was there with the three of
us. Children and children or child. She was a few years older than my sister my older sister
but still she was you'd have to say a child, teen years. You know what hurt me?
(15:53):
She got special treatment. That hurt me. She got some special things to eat that I couldn't have.
She got some special things to drink that I couldn't have.
I can still remember the Coca-Cola's you know. I could never have one but she could.
(16:19):
But one thing that hurt me daily was this she did not have to work in the fields.
I do not remember my aunt ever once feeding the chickens. I think she did but I don't remember it.
Okay I mean the picture I have in my mind as a kid this woman was absolutely the princess that slept on the pee.
(16:45):
20 mattresses between her and the pee and got up bruised but here's the image I have and I don't think this is accurate entirely and I love
her today and really she's born again today. She's sweet.
But I don't remember her feeding the chickens. I don't remember her feeding the dogs or the cats.
I don't remember her ever going to the fields. I think I remember her going and working a little bit in the garden behind the house.
(17:12):
I don't ever remember her doing the wash on Saturday. We had no electricity.
We had no natural gas. We had no telephone. It was hard to do the wash.
I don't remember her ever milking a cow. Ever feeding the horses or cattle.
I don't remember her taking any slop to the pigs.
Ever chopping cotton. Ever picking cotton. Ever picking strawberries.
(17:41):
I don't remember any cultivating of the fields or the weeds.
I don't remember the woman doing anything that would have put perspiration on anybody's brow or a blister on anybody's hand.
That is a little kid I thought.
How could she receive such special treatment?
(18:05):
This isn't fair. I've resented it deeply.
But because it was the way that it was, it was really nobody to tell that to or say that to.
I'm sure if I said it to my dad, I would have heard about it.
I would have felt about it.
I certainly wasn't going to go to my grandmother's grandfather. It was just what a child felt inside.
(18:30):
There just was not fair expression of love.
We need that in our families.
She needed to give also. She needed to learn to give to her family.
She needed to learn to give of herself in those relationships and she wasn't required to.
(18:57):
It hurt her.
I think that that's probably what kept her from ever coming to the Lord Jesus in those early years.
Thank God she did later.
She is a born-again and sweet Christian lady today.
God has given her lovely children.
One daughter and her husband that serve in the church down in Arkansas there,
(19:20):
they're lovely people. Thank God for them.
But I think that that kept her maybe in those years from understanding the love of God, the grace of God,
because she didn't have to give of herself.
We need to do that.
Results are here in verse 8.
(19:42):
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thine hells shall spring forth spiely.
I think the promise of God is this.
There's a witness.
There's a witness just by virtue of what's going on in your life.
You're going to have things going on that shine out.
Of course, God is light.
(20:03):
But God's working, God's presence, God's blessing, just that your life is in order.
It's like having pure speech.
Now other people have dirty minds and their speech has double connotations and yours doesn't.
And you walk in their presence and you speak with pure speech and they kind of try to put bad meanings on your speech.
But then they find out they can't because that's not how you think or speak.
(20:26):
And suddenly once they tune into that they see the light.
Your light shines.
Maybe you're kind when they wouldn't be kind.
When they tune into that the light shines.
You're generous and it's not for self-service.
And when they see that the light shines.
(20:49):
And when you speak of the Lord Jesus they know you speak out of sincerity.
And when you do that the light shines.
And the Lord says that's the way to live.
You live this way.
Walk in righteousness, walk in love and the light will shine.
And also the in hell shall spring forth speedily.
(21:16):
What is good for you?
Remember Romans 828?
All things work together for good to those that love the Lord.
Those are called according to His purpose.
That goodness is a promise.
That working out for good.
That's what this health is.
I don't think you can say that this guarantees that if you will,
(21:38):
by the Lord you won't get sick.
I don't think it's saying that.
I think it's your good.
That which is good for you.
God will speedily work for your good.
And your righteousness will go before you.
And that's true.
Your righteousness.
Your life.
(21:59):
God will bless you.
But that righteousness will be evident as a light again.
The glory of the Lord shall be thy re-reward.
Now if your light goes out in front of you and you wonder what's a re-reward.
You may have another translation.
It really is your rear guard.
It's a military term.
And it means the contingent of the troops behind a battalion or a company of armed men
(22:24):
that has the responsibility to watch the backside.
And if you make sure that the enemy doesn't come up from behind.
To ensure the safety of the troop by watching for the enemy from behind.
(22:46):
Safety from behind.
Look, if your light goes out this way in front of you and if the glory of the Lord goes out that way from you.
What he's really saying is wherever you go.
The light will go out before you and after you pass that way there will be a testimony of it behind you.
(23:13):
And your safety is in the hand of the Lord.
You're good.
What does he ask of you?
Tune in to him in righteousness and love.
Let that principle be what you understand to be true worship.
And test it by being sure you're especially tender and full full in your response to those that you have any relationship with.
(23:39):
He kind of gives you a song.
Oh, there's one more thing.
It's in verse 9.
Then thou shall call and the Lord shall answer.
Thou shall cry and he shall say, here I am.
Here's the promise.
You will have power in prayer.
(24:06):
You give your heart to the Lord to walk in righteousness and love and his ears open to you.
You see, there's no sin he has to deal with in you.
There's no broken fellowship.
And in loving you see, you're dependent on him anyway to provide through you because love is giving and giving.
(24:28):
You better not give ever from your resources because you'll quickly run out.
So if you give out from the resources you have in God, obviously as you cry out to him and say,
Lord, I need some help.
I need to have this or that to give out.
He hears and he answers.
That's always the promise and the word of God.
(24:49):
The way of prayer is open in this kind of life.
I think you have kind of a review of these things in the verses that follow.
So I'm going to read them.
If thou take away from the midst of the yoke, putting forth of the finger and speaking vanity,
(25:12):
if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry.
This is now we've left righteousness at the end of nine.
Now we're talking about love and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall the light,
thy light rise in obscurity.
That means in a dark place and thy darkness be as the noon day.
(25:33):
So you just have a review there of these truths.
There is the witness again.
And the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones,
and thou shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.
(25:56):
What is he saying?
You focus on me.
This is what I want.
I want you.
If I could have you, he says, just to walk in righteousness, if I could have you to be my vessel for loving,
this is what's going to happen to you.
(26:17):
You won't be drained and empty.
You won't be a martyr, you know, to yourself.
Actually, you're going to be very, very, very blessed.
You're going to be full, like a watered garden.
(26:39):
Your life is going to be rich and a delight.
Watch a little tape today of a ministry that is supporting native missionaries, really, in India.
And very brief little tape, but I enjoyed it.
And it told of how native missionaries are sent out by the hundreds living among their people,
(27:08):
bringing the simple gospel message.
And they had this one fellow giving his testimony, and he was saying how he had been beaten several times
by the people of the island where he was witnessing for Christ.
In fact, the missionary that was there before him was martyred, and it showed you the white cross on his grave.
And this man had come, feeling the Lord called him to that same island, and people would oftentimes take him and beat him,
(27:34):
and they were beating another companion of his, and some that he had led to the Lord.
And they were getting beat from time to time.
And he said, but we take joyously and count it as our privilege to suffer for Christ, and we keep preaching the gospel.
These people tell us to be quiet, and sometimes they come to us and say somebody is hired to kill you,
but we take it joyfully to preach the gospel.
(27:58):
Truthfully, most U.S. missionaries would want to go home after the second or third beating.
Or fourth or fifth at least, right?
Sure, they'd have the ticket money.
But I don't say all, and I don't mean to suggest that most of our missionaries even aren't committed into the Lord,
(28:29):
even in the time of trial.
And I don't mean all native missionaries would be as this man, but whether you're native, whether you're from a foreign soil,
you have to go as the Lord's missionary.
You have to go in this life, in this society.
You have to say, I want to speak for my Lord, I want to live for my Lord, no matter whether people make fun of me,
(28:51):
no matter whether they exclude me, shut me out, I want to live for him.
People need to hear the gospel.
There's not enough of that.
There's not enough commitment to the Lord.
Not enough willingness to be identified with him.
To speak for him and to pay the price.
It's just not enough willingness.
(29:13):
And God says, if you will, you'll be blessed for it.
Be like a watered garden.
And they that shall be of thee, that means I think your own household.
It means your own clan.
It means your own nation.
And I think it could mean the church.
They, this is verse 12, they that shall be of thee, shall build the old waste places,
(29:42):
thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations,
and thou shalt be called the repair of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwelling.
Now I know the first application in history, in this context of Isaiah, is to Israel,
but you see the principle?
(30:04):
It's not just for them.
Wouldn't that be great to be known?
Think this.
Wouldn't it be great to be known as the Christian that has the name, the repair of the breach?
Where things get broken down, where things get torn apart, and you're there, you start building up, building up, building up.
(30:28):
You're not a terror down, but you're a builder up.
And if things get holes in them, you know, if even the fellowship of God gets torn apart a bit,
you're there to build and to bring it together.
The repair of the breach.
When the wall has a place that's been knocked over, you go stand in the wall,
and you become part of the wall, the repair of the breach.
(30:51):
You stand in the broken place.
You give yourself, like the Lord gave himself.
Gungelblissia, he's committed, he has to do it, he wants to do it.
If we would be builders, givers, givers of ourselves.
(31:23):
Give him a chance to bless you that way.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, thank you.
You've given us families, you've given us homes, you've given us a church body.
Help us be a people that build, that repair, that encourage one another,
that step into the broken place, that give to the needy, that give out of the great resources that we have in Christ Jesus and glory,
(31:59):
those endless resources that meet all our needs.
Help us center our hearts' love on thee, in Jesus' name, amen.
Thank you Pastor Rains for a message from Isaiah 58, about a fast.
(32:24):
A fast that God chooses.
If you like that, come back next week.
We'll have some more from our tape archive.
I've been going through some of the ones that are coming up for the next, I don't know, five, six,
episodes different from 1991, so we're into 1991 now, and some of them sound pretty good.
(32:48):
So come on back, we'll be glad to have you.
And if you can, please subscribe, that would be a good thing, subscribe, or at least comment,
or the very minimum you could do, share it with somebody that you know.
But hey, listen to the Legacy Bible podcast, that would be a good thing also.
(33:11):
Okay, so I'll see you next week.
So make sure you read your Bible.
You pray, and you come back next week and listen to the Legacy Bible podcast.
All right, thanks for listening.
I'll see you next week, and have a great day.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com