Let me first mention the fact that our chapter discusses the spiritual discipline of “fasting.” But the material is somewhat lengthy and culminates in today’s verse anyway. The Jews had been fasting “for show,” it seems. Without any spiritual reality to buttress their actions. That’s called “hypocrisy.”

So the Lord calls them back to holy living, to obedience to the Word of God. And IF they properly respond … in a word “repent,” they would (a guarantee) experience “revival!”

Look what God promises: “And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” Isaiah 58:11

Wow!

God’s Guidance is wonderful, but “continual” Guidance, out-of-this-world! The verb “shall guide” means “to lead,” but also can mean “to govern.” Implying that if we commit to His Guidance … He expects us to follow, to yield to His Hand!

Notice here too He does NOT promise “drought” (a word meaning “scorched, dried”) would never come. But apparently it would be temporary! And that He, the Lord, would be “with” us through that hard time! And that He would “satisfy” us during the dearth! “Satisfy” (in Hebrew “saba”) means “to fill” to the limit.

The clause “make fat thy bones” suggests abundant “blessing,” even “prosperity” … through and through, “to one’s very bones!”

Then, in non-drought language for sure … God will make His obedient child “like a watered garden.” The adjective means “soaked!” And “garden” is derived from a verb meaning a “covered, surrounded, protected” place!

This is amazing, “under His Wings” (Psalm 91:1), “in His Garden,” even “on His Mind!”

But now the metaphors get even stronger!

Again our verse … “Thou shalt be … like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” Sounds a lot like Jesus’ Promise to the “woman at the well” in John 4 … “Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the Gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee LIVING WATER.” A whole well full of it!

When waters are said not to “fail,” the verb “kazab” means “to become empty,” or at times “to lie.”

The “Water” of the Word, maybe. Quoting the Apostle Paul’s term from Ephesians 5:26 … “The washing of water by the Word,” the Bible!

An inexhaustible Supply!

Or maybe here the water of the Holy Spirit is indicated. “He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of LIVING WATER. But this spake He of the Spirit.” John 7:38-39

What a litany of Promises today … from a single verse in Isaiah chapter 58, but Promises based on an obedient lifestyle!

“And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.”

A good verse to memorize!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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Notice Isaiah 58:1 with me today.

“Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” What a verse!

Two strong, imperative verbs front this divinely inspired Sentence. “Cry” translates “qara,” meaning “to loudly proclaim.” (It is used in one form or another 735 times in the Old Testament!)

The modifier “aloud” utilizes “garon” in Hebrew, “from the throat!” This is energetic (if not boisterous) preaching! Guttural!

“Spare (not)” employs the verb “chasak.” as in … “do not withhold a word!” Do not refrain! Do not forbear!

The “trumpet” again emphasizes a distinct (strongly audible) sound! In Hebrew “shofar” means a “horn,” as in a “ram’s horn.”

Listen to God’s Pathos here … “Show My people!” Though Israel has sinned egregiously … she is still God’s little Nation! He yet claims her as His very Own!

But … show them what?

Their “pasha,” their “transgression”(singular here). A word specifically meaning “rebellion.” Utter revolt against God!

Then “My people” (the phrase) is balanced (Hebrew parallelism) with the string “the house of Jacob.” (Obviously now combining the southern and northern Kingdoms once again!)

The last word in the verse is “sins” (but plural this time). It means “missing the mark, taking the wrong road.” It also means “to lose out on what was originally intended to be yours!” Sin always robs … and kills!

This verse constitutes God’s Call, Commission to His Spokesman in any dark day, any sinful time!

And it is our “charge” yet today, in this age of apostasy!

To every Preacher who studies these pages day by day, you dear men of God … I would suggest memorizing today’s Text. Use it as a “check and balance” system to gauge your ministry, your preaching.

“Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.”

Wow!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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Classic Isaiah!

“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” Isaiah 57: 15

Don’t you love God’s Self-Chosen names here?

“The High and Lofty One!”

“The Inhabiter of Eternity!”

“The Holy One!”

Wow!

Then God tells us where He lives … “I dwell in the high and holy place.” In Heaven? Or is He saying that he is omnipresent, everywhere? (“Dwell,” the verb here, translates “shakan” in Hebrew. Which means “to abide, to tabernacle, to reside.” But it also gives us the adjective “Shekinah,” as in God’s ineffable “Shekinah Glory!”)

Then … and this is astounding … God invites a certain type individual to dwell with Him!

“I (the Almighty) dwell … with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.” Not a proud men, or a vain woman!

“Contrite” literally means “crushed to dust!”

And “humble” is the “lowest of all.”

No doubt those whom Jesus termed “poor in spirit” in the Beatitudes! Or Paul the Apostle called “lowly.”

But if a Christian is THAT contrite or humble … will not he be “abused” by this old world-system in which we live? Stomped into the ground?

No, God will take care of him or her!

God will be his Defender, Protector!

God will “revive his spirit.”

God will “revive his heart.”

(Look at our Text verse again.)

Where “revive” means “to save, to quicken, to recover!”

Oh, what a Promise!

What an encouragement, what an insistence, that we be “contrite and humble!”

James 4:10 now comes to mind. “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”

Wow!

I feel like Isaiah 57:15 has today preached quite a sermon today … to me, if to no one else!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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Our Text today, with God being the Speaker … “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Isaiah 57:20-21

We have here a “word picture.”

The noun (substantive) “wicked” means “hostile to God,” rebelliously sinful! Or so says one of my lexicons.

And the Lord is here comparing that crowd to an ocean. A literal “sea,” in Hebrew this is spelled “yam,” meaning “to roar!”

But they are not like the placid sea, peaceful and serene.

They are “troubled,” a verb meaning “to drive out, to expel,” in fact it is translated “divorced” twice in the Old Testament.

They have no “rest,” not real rest. (Contrary to the fabricated image the world wishes us to see! On its billboards and advertisements and movies, all the media practically.)

They (the wicked) “cast up” something. Here is “garash” again (The same word rendered “troubled” earlier!) Spitting (vomiting) it out, filth!

As in “mire” and “dirt.” Where “mire” means mud. And “dirt” means something “sticky,” like wet clay perhaps. Things “foul,” worthy of being “trodden under foot!”

Does anyone reading here today feel a sense of gratefulness to the Lord? Because He has delivered us form such restlessness … and has graciously cleansed us from filthiness!

Then God concludes: “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Verse 21, “shalom,” carrying the idea of “completeness, soundness, welfare,” even “health.”

God has saved us “from” all this, folks!

Praise His Name today.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Yes, to those “right” with God … “I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.” Isaiah 57:19, still within the context of today’s discerning Text. (The polar opposite to the roaring sea!)

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Our chapter begins, its very first verse: “The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.” Isaiah 57:1

Several little “nuggets” of truth are buried therein, I’m sure. (In fact, Jesus believed and stated to His Father: “THY WORD IS TRUTH.” John 17:17)

Notice that the Land (of Judah) is losing her “godly people.” The “righteous” and the “merciful,” to use the words of our Text. But nobody cares!

Sodom lost too many “good” people, not having even fifty remaining! Or ten for that matter! And one day the Fire fell, the Judging Hand of God decimated the place!

I am thinking of America. We no doubt lose pure, holy people every single day. They are dying, going to Heaven! Are they being replaced by an equal number of younger Christians? I have my doubts!

Oh, how we should treasure those older, wise, born-again folks! (What “light” and “salt” they have been to our Country!)

Psalm 15:4 speaks of our solemn duty to “honor those who fear the Lord.”

Tell some senior saint this week how much they mean to you. What a blessing they have been! We should indeed mourn their homegoing. Maybe even for our own sake!

Then … let me point out one more principle our verse elucidates. One reason WHY God takes the righteous to Heaven. “That the righteous are taken away from the evil to come.” Isaiah 57:1b

God is sparing those good people from “evil” that’s on the way! Ever thought of it that way?

Death, for the Believer … as a blessing!

Death … as a deliverance!

I personally believe the Lord is coming to take away (to rapture) the entire (true) Church one of these days … “to deliver us from the evil to come!”

To spare us the Tribulation!

Revelation 3:10, written to the Church … “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep (‘tereo’ in Greek, meaning ‘to preserve, protect’) thee from the hour of temptation (tribulation), which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”

Wow!

One verse … two encouraging thoughts!

We thank Thee, Lord, for Thy Word.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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