The link between Repentance and Faith: Meditations on Isaiah 58

The prophet Isaiah lives and writes at a peculiar time in the history of ancient Israel.  For all the various calamities that have divided the once united Kingdom under Saul, David, and Solomon, and the scourge of the Assyrians who carried away the 10 northern tribes, the southern kingdom was relatively at peace.  There had been a conversion back to God, which saved the southern kingdom from the same fate of the north, but that conversion did not last well in the following generations.  By the time Isaiah is given the Word of the Lord, the people have fallen back into idolatry, materialism, pride, and disdain for their neighbors in need.  As the people’s hearts turned away from God, their lack of faith was manifested in their lives and their actions—what was true in their inmost thoughts, bore physical fruit in their bodies.

In chapter 58, Isaiah sounds a warning that is found in other Biblical prophets, as well.  Though the people called out to God, had grand ceremonies, feasts, festivals, and even fastings and self-depravations, God was not responding to them.  Because the people’s hearts were still far from God and His Word, their idolatry and mistreatment of their neighbors continued without repentance, even as they sought to have fellowship with Him.  The people desired to keep both their sin, and their relationship to God.  Isaiah spoke to them in shocking words, that God had no regard for their prayers, their petitions, their feasts and their fasts, without their repentance from their wickedness.  Isaiah’s warning, is that it is impossible to have fellowship with God, while willfully repudiating His Word.  Of course, the people of Israel did not heed Isaiah’s warning, and they were invaded and enslaved by the Babylonians, until just a remnant remained.  A generation of abasement in slavery to another nation was what ensued from Israel’s unbelief and unrepentance, until by faith and repentance their nation was restored.

It strikes me how right King Solomon was, when he observed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that there is nothing new under the sun—what has been before, shall be again.  Many of us watched the Super Bowl last Sunday evening, and near the beginning of that secular festival, was a remembrance (actually, a re-reading on the air) of the US Declaration of Independence, with some popular personalities giving commentary on the values which shape our nation.  It is impossible to read that historic document, and avoid the numerous references to God, His judgment, His work in creation, and Him as the source of the freedoms and rights every American claims.  While the Founding Fathers were not of unanimous mind in matters of religion, they did range from staunch to vaguely Christian—and even those less shaped by Christian Orthodoxy, still respected the Creator’s Natural Law which protected the rights and freedoms of mankind.  They appealed to God in faith and repentance for the preservation of their cause, and God preserved them and this nation as a beacon of justice in the world.

Through its history of a mere two centuries, it has fought wars at home and abroad, commending its causes and very existence to the God who blessed it at the beginning.  Often in times of great conflict, the people would turn from their selfishness, and return to God in faith and repentance, even as they called upon God to save them from Fascists, Communists, and brutal dictators.  And with much blood spilt, and much sacrifice made, this nation once begun by the grace of God in faith and repentance, continued to shine forth upon the earth.

In our day, threats rise, too.  We are assailed by terrorists at home and abroad; foreign governments devise plans and strategies to imperil our economy and military; corrupt politicians and corporate leaders plunder the weak and helpless, while making themselves fat on their ill gotten gains; our government is for sale of influence by the bribery and extortion of lobbyists; we forget justice and mercy, seeking profit and plunder; we destabilize governments and pour our taxes into the sands of other nations, while our own people suffer in hunger and homelessness.

And to these threats, we often lift up our communal voices in National Days of Prayer, or ecumenical, polytheistic services meant to ask God (or various gods) for help.  Yet we ask, even as we disregard His Word.  We ask God for His protection, as we lay waste to countless millions of babies, snuffing out their lives for our own convenience.  We ask God for His blessing, as we bless sexual sin of every debauched stripe and kind.  We pray God for His help, as we destroy the Christian institutions that feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and shelter the orphan.  We beg God’s favor on our military, as we use those in command to persecute Christians, from soldiers to chaplains, catering to the atheist lobbyists in high places who drive unceasingly for a “freedom from religion.”  We pray for God to protect us and our liberties, as we use our freedom to choose evil rather than good, corrupt families, oppress the poor, and destroy His Church.

To us, in our social insanity, the words of Isaiah should ring a loud and ominous warning.  While we are not ancient Israel, and we do not live under the Mosaic covenant, the eternal truth of the vanity of calling upon God without repentance, still applies to us today.  For without faith there can be no repentance, and without repentance, there can be no saving faith.  Faith turns from the selfish and demonic ways of death, to the Word of the Author of Life.  And while it is true that no one can come to faith and repentance without the Spirit of God working through His preached Word, God’s Word continues to bear witness all around us.  God speaks to us through His Eternal Law, showing us what is good, and what is evil.  And God speaks to us through His Eternal Gospel, that His Son Jesus Christ has died for the sins of the whole world, so that all who turn to Him in faith and repentance may live forever, forgiven and free from the tyranny of death.

It is high time that we hear the Word of the Lord again, and stop resisting the Holy Spirit who works for our conversion.  The God who set us forth upon the world stage, is the same God who calls to us through His Son Jesus Christ, to repent of our evil, and cling to Him in faith.  This same God, who poured out His grace upon us at the beginning, stands by His eternal promise to pour out grace upon all who will repent and believe the Gospel.

Let the Church of Christ rise again in this age, and bear that same witness of the prophets of yore.  Let the Law be preached in all its severity, that the hard harts of the unrepentant may be broken and contrite.  Let the Gospel be preached in all its beauty, that the broken hearted may be healed, and raised up unto life everlasting.  As it goes with the people, so it goes with the nation:  he who repents and believes the Gospel shall live, while those who neither believe nor repent shall go unto everlasting destruction.  Nations, communities, families, and individuals rise and fall, but the Word of the Lord endures forever.  May we hear Him once again, believe, repent, and live.  Amen.