The offence of merely external religiousness.
"And [yet] me they consult daily, and to know my ways they desire: as a nation that hath done righteousness, and hath not forsaken the Law of God, they ask of me judgments of righteousness'' (Cheyne). "The words point, to the incongruous union, possible in the reign of Manasseh, but hardly possible after the exile, of the formal recognition of Jehovah with an apostate life. Every phrase rings in the tone of an incisive irony, describing each element of a true devotion which the people did not possess" (Dean Plumptre). External worship is insufficient, a change of heart is needed; God asks what we have, and what we can do, only because through these things hearts can find expression.
I. CEREMONIES AND SYMBOLS ARE GOOD. Within due limits. We cannot conceive the sort of religion that may suit angels or pure spirits. Perhaps it has no ritual. But our religion must be that of spirits working through human bodies, and therefore it must have form. For man God instituted or recognized sacrifices. For some men he appointed Judaism. Heart-feeling may be strengthened by expression, but capacity of feeling may be exhausted by expression. There is a measure of truth in the saying that, for many persons, religions truth needs to be set in the picture-teaching of ceremonial. They are not wise who refuse to see value in organization and ordinances.
II. OBEDIENCE AND HEART-SERVICE ARE BETTER. Because the thing expressed must be better than the expression. Ceremony can have no moral value apart from the heart and the will (see Psalms 40:6-8; Psalms 51:16, Psalms 51:17; Proverbs 15:8; Isaiah 1:11, Isaiah 1:12-16;Isaiah 66:3; Jeremiah 7:22, Jeremiah 7:23; Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:21-24; Micah 6:6-8). We should not be able to conceive of God as a moral Being, if we were not sure that he puts obedience first; a father does; a king even does.
III. TRUE HEARTS ENDEAVOUR WISELY TO BLEND BOTH. They find out the practical value of well-ordered and well-kept religious habits. Three things occupy serious attention.
1. How to get good religious habits formed.
2. How to keep the forms instinct with life.
3. How to keep the forms within wise limitations.
Every man finds out that the "seen" is constantly endeavouring so to satisfy him that he shall cease to care for the "unseen."
IV. IF WE CANNOT HAVE BOTH, WE MUST SACRIFICE THE FORM, NOT THE SPIRIT. There are times when it seems as if one must be sacrificed. The tone of an age may give extraordinary force to ceremonial; e.g. an age of decayed religion, such as the time of Christ; an aesthetic age such as ours is. Now it has become our duty to limit ceremonial to the efficient expression of spiritual life and feeling.—R.T.
Selfishness spoiling religious habits.
"Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure." That is, you make your religion a mode of pleasing yourselves. You really enjoy your fastings. Two points may be illustrated and enforced. As introductory, it may be shown that externalism is the special temptation of a people who have been cured of idolatry. Pharisaic formalism is the evil that threatens a nation that rebounds from the notion of many gods to the idea of one, spiritual God. "Self" becomes, in a subtle way, the idol of men's worship.
I. SELF-PLEASING IS AN END GAINED IN RELIGIOUS DUTIES. Those who give themselves heartily to the religious life do come positively to enjoy it. It is the Divine reward of their devotion that they find personal pleasure in their pious works and ways. What strikes us as a most marked contrast between the older and the new religious life is this—our fathers found their pleasure in their religion, while we find our pleasure in anything and everything but our religion. The irksomeness of religious services and religious works is the sure sign that we have little or no pleasure in these things. God does not give us this reward because our hearts and energies are not in such things. A kind of force and fear holds us to a round of engagement; relics of old association and of an old sense of duty, keep us to formal acts of worship; but when the heart is gone out of religious service joy goes too. The lost sense of pleasure is not the worst thing' in our spiritual condition, but it may be one of the signs of the worst. Self-pleasure is God's reward—is one of the proper ends of the pious life.
II. SELF-PLEASING MUST NOT BE THE END SOUGHT IN RELIGIOUS DUTIES. We need not dwell on the case of the hypocrite, who purposely seeks ends of his own in making his show of piety. It is more searching to deal with the case of the self-deceived, who mistakes the idea of religion, and thinks himself to be serving God when he is only gratifying himself; and with the case of those who act from divided motives, and are always in danger of making self-pleasing the ruling one. God is to be honoured, obeyed, and served for his own sake alone, no matter what a man may get or lose by his service. It is the sternest reproach of some professed followers of God, that "they feared Jehovah, but served their own gods;" it would adapt the expression to modern mistakes if we read it, "They feared the Lord, but lived for ends of self-pleasing." It may be shown that the teachings concerning the heaven which is to be obtained through a religious life are too often presented as an encouragement to self-pleasing. Illustrate by the calamity that befell Pliable, in 'Pilgrim's Progress,' who was going on pilgrimage for the sake of what he himself would get by it.—R.T.
God's idea of fasting.
It should be noticed, as giving special point to this reference to fasting, that, besides the regular fasts of the Jewish religion, there were, during the Captivity in Babylon, special fasts appointed as days of repentance and prayer for Israel. God complains that these fasts did not say to him exactly what those who fasted intended them to say, because he looked at the whole conduct of the men to see if it was in harmony with the fasting. The important principle is here illustrated that, if a man be right with God, he will be right also with his fellow-men. If a man does not forgive his brother his trespasses, he cannot be in such a state of mind as makes it any use to him for God to forgive his trespasses. If a man is harsh, exacting, violent, in his dealings with his fellow-creatures, God will take no notice of his sad countenance, fasting, and fine pretences of penitence. God is never deceived by the excellent appearance of our Sunday ways. He judges us by the records of all the week.
I. GOD'S IDEA OF FASTING IS NOT A FINE OUTWARD SHOW OF HUMILIATION. (Isaiah 58:5.) Bowed head. Starved body. Sackcloth dress. Ashes for a seat. That rooks fine, and men may be deceived by it, but not God. Compare our Lord's teaching in the sermon on the mount. "Be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast." "The prophet finds fault with the fasting of the Jews in two respects.
1. Because they did not combine fasting with works of righteousness.
2. Because they held the bodily exercise to be the chief thing." Outward appearances may speak for us to God, only we must take care that they have something sincere and true and worthy to say to him, from our hearts. "Rend your hearts, and not your garments;" "The Lord searcheth the heart."
II. GOD'S IDEA OF FASTING IS SELF-RESTRAINT IN ORDER TO GAIN HIGHER EFFICIENCY FOR SERVICE. And such fasting needs to make no show. The man who fasts in this sense may "anoint his head, wash his face," and look cheerful. The best signs of fasting are the good works which we can accomplish, which we gain power, through our self-restraints, to accomplish—loosing bands, freeing the oppressed, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, blessing all. Fasting, in the sense of a refusal of all food, belongs to ceremonial religion and had its origin in Eastern lands. Fasting in its most spiritual form, as personal self-restraint, will-mastery over habits and preferences, must ever be binding upon all Christians. As explained by an apostle, it is "knowing how to possess the vessel of the body in sanctification and honour."—R.T.